Florida Knight (35 page)

Michael crossed to the dresser, kicked off his sneakers, swiftly piled his clothes on top of hers. Turning, he surveyed the lump in the bed that was Kate. “I wasn’t planning on oiling the bedspread,” he announced in as neutral a tone as he could manage.

No reaction. Not one of those gorgeous muscles, obscured by bedcovers, moved.

He opened the drawer of the bedside table. From next to a box of condoms he took out the small glass bottle of oil, uncapped it, took a sniff. His head snapped back. Strong stuff. But it had a strong opponent. Michael feared much more than herbal magic was needed to turn his Lady Knight into an eager lover. For a moment, a brief one, he wondered if he was up to the task. An over-the-hill trooper, now mostly tied to a desk. A sometime lover who took his women where he found them, when it was convenient. A man who seldom looked back, stubbornly refusing to see anything in his future but his job. What the hell did he know about making love to a woman as traumatized as Kate Knight?

Michael’s lips tilted upward on a very private thought. At this point she sure as hell would be mad at him if he didn’t!

He eased himself onto the bed, leaned over and waved the bottle of oil under Kate’s nose. Automatically, she sniffed, then stifled a cough. “It’s all roses!” she sputtered. “I thought Diane said it had patchouli and . . . what else?”

“Yin and yang,” Michael supplied helpfully.

“Ylang-ylang,” Kate corrected. “And . . . musk, that’s it,” she added with satisfaction. “So why do I just smell roses, roses, and more roses?”

“The others make the roses smell stronger?” Michael suggested, not intending to be profound.

“Could be,” Kate conceded. “Ylang-ylang and musk are aphrodisiacs . . .” She broke off abruptly, suddenly recalling where she was, where this conversation was leading. An icy wave,
cold as the
Arctic
, rolled over her. Her stomach heaved. For a moment she thought she might have to sprint for the bathroom. “Are you going to use it,” she demanded, “or are we going to talk about it all night?”

Michael stared at the small bottle of oil, shook his head. It just wasn’t going to work. He should have known better. But grabbing her up and kissing her silly wasn’t going to work either. Not with Kate. She seemed to be as adept at deflating his ego as she was with his sex. He must be some kind of a masochist to keep on trying.

“Uh, Kate? I’m going to have to pull back the covers.” Her only reply was to turn over on her stomach, one arm at her side, one tucked under her forehead. Cautiously, almost inch by inch, Michael hauled the bedspread and top sheet all the way down past her toes. She never moved.
Stoic
was the word that came to mind. But there was no faulting the lithe beauty of the five-feet-ten inches of woman laid out before him. And he planned to touch every last inch.

Michael poured a little of the oil onto his hand, rubbed his palms together. Warmth surged through his hands like a summer sun rising over a frozen landscape. If there was magic at work here, he could only hope it gifted him with skill and patience along with the infusion of warmth. His knowledge of massage was confined to the time his grandfather, the
Golden
Beach
chief of police, had sent an eager twenty-year-old to check out a local massage parlor. He’d also been allowed to sit in a patrol car and watch when the place was raided a week later. Perhaps not the best training for love and romance . . .

Ah well, here goes nothing.

He parted her hair, carefully laying the long blond strands to either side of her head. He began his journey into the unknown in traditional places—Kate’s shoulders, the back of her neck. The scent of roses drifted around them, far beyond anything to be expected from a few drops of oil. She was stiff, of course, muscles knotted against his invasion, but Michael kept at it, smiling in triumph when he occasionally surprised an appreciative murmur from her tightly closed lips.

By the time he had worked his way down to her lower spine, Michael began to feel the transformation under his fingertips. Inch by hard-won inch, the fight was draining out of his warrior princess. Or at least he hoped so.

As his strong fingers caressed the sensitive area just above the end of her spine, Kate gave up her last twinge of guilt over indulging in something so pleasurable it must be some kind of sin. Burrowing her face farther into the pillow, she squeezed her eyes shut and gave herself up to whatever sorcery Michael was weaving. That he cared enough to do this for her, that he could tame his own desire long enough to give her this gift was a miracle in itself. It was what made him Michael Turco and not Taggart Parrish.

Kate gasped as his firm hands traveled down, kneading her buttocks as thoroughly as he had her back. Tension zinged back, butterflies doing somersaults in her stomach. Her hand struggled to find his wrist.

“Easy, easy,” Michael whispered, bending forward to kiss the back of her neck. “I’m planning to do all of you, so get used to it.”

All?
“Michael, I don’t think—”

“That’s right, don’t think.”

“Michael!”

“Lie still and take it, Lady Knight. Figure this is your reward for a battle well fought.”

As Michael paused to rub more oil into his palms, Kate accepted that this was a battle she wanted to lose. With roses, patchouli, ylang-ylang and musk wafting around her, she allowed herself to melt into a softened stick of butter, unresistant to the hands that touched her thighs, the backs of her legs, her toes . . .

She smiled into the pillow, answering Michael’s chuckle as his fingers grated on grains of sand lingering between her toes. Having someone to laugh with . . . things didn’t get much better than this.

Suddenly, his lips were against her ear. “Now the other side,” he whispered.

Another kind of fear overwhelmed her. Her figure was so much like a boy’s. To display herself so openly . . .  He was going to be so disappointed.

“Need help?” Michael inquired. Amused, a bit breathless.

What did he think he was going to see? Kate groaned. Some sex goddess?
Stupid! He’s seen you in next to nothing. T-shirt, nightshirt, soaking wet. The man’s got eyes. Of course he doesn’t think you’re a latter-day Marilyn Monroe.

Gritting her teeth, Kate attempted to turn over, swiftly discovering she was so boneless Michael had to give her a hand.
There, damn it, that’s all of me. All there is, all there ever will be. You can stop staring now!

Michael looked into the defiant green eyes below him and let a broad grin spread over his harsh features. The silly woman thought he wouldn’t like her. He almost wished it were true. His sex had re-awakened to the point where it was giving him fits. Demanding he make an end to all the damned preliminaries. But he’d vowed to do this right, and that was exactly what he was going to do. If she was ready for what his body so badly wanted, she wouldn’t be looking at him through pools of green wide enough to rival the ocean.

Pouring a drop of oil on his finger, Michael touched it to her throat, a teasing, anticipatory smile dancing over his face. Fear, dark and raw, overwhelmed the green eyes. Kate struggled to rise.

Michael drew back, palms flat in the air, silently cursing himself for a fool.
Jesus! What had been done to her? Had she been choked?

He fisted his hands, held them close together eighteen inches from her face. “Look at these, Kate,” Michael commanded. “Take a good look. Remember what I told you last weekend. These fists will never hurt you.” He grabbed her hand, placed it on the part of him that throbbed to be inside her. “Nor will this,” he vowed. “Now look at my face and believe what I say.”

Wordlessly, Kate obeyed. Michael’s stern features had lost every glint of humor. The fires of passion were damped. He was a man who needed an answer. “Do you believe me? Come on, Kate, I need to know.”

She considered the depths of the dark eyes so intent and serious above her. She wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t already known the truth of what he was saying. Yet her fear was so great, had been with her so long. How could she know what he would do when she made him really angry?

This was Michael. The only man for whom she had felt desire in more years than she cared to remember. He was solid, a rock she could use to climb up out of the abyss. Kate’s fingers touched his wrists, moved softly toward the clenched fists that opened to receive her. Hands locked together, Kate drew his fingers down, lifting her chin to offer him the full expanse of her neck. Michael’s thumbs hovered over the points where he could as easily kill her as make love to her. She withdrew her hands, laying her arms out to her sides. Completely vulnerable.

Michael had no illusions. Kate hadn’t given in. She offered a challenge, a gauntlet thrown down, raising the battle to a new level. Very carefully, he fanned the oil from under her chin, up to her ears, softly teasing his way around the lobes. Then down and around, until both strong hands were fitted around her neck. She stared at him unblinkingly. And smiled. Michael caught his breath, nearly knocked the oil over in a scramble to get some more.

When his fingertips teased her nipples, then ever-so-gently spread the languorous aroma of roses over the modest mounds of her breasts, Kate felt a hot flush start at her toes and proceed upward until her cheeks waved a red flag even in the dim light of the bedroom. Even worse, she heard Michael’s chuckle. “It’s not funny!” she protested.

“Oh, yes, it is. You’re such a hard little nut, but you blush like a schoolgirl.”

“I’m not little!” Kate could have bitten her tongue off. Of course she was little. That’s what this was all about. She was little exactly where she didn’t want to be little.

Michael had sense enough to keep his mouth shut. Bending down, he placed a soft kiss on each taut nipple. “M-m
-mm, tastes good,” he murmured.

“It’s the roses.”

“Uh-uh. It’s essence of Kate.”

Kate twitched as his fingers moved lower, dipping into her belly button, palming her blessedly flat stomach, tracing the crevices at the top of her thighs, the angled lines that led, straight as arrows, to the most private part of her. She should be participating. Her mind knew it, but her body overruled. It was miracle enough that she could lie like a lump and let him touch her. But for how much longer? The magic of the oil, the wonder of his touch, seemed to fade in the glare of the red flags set off by his approach to
what she had kept private for so long.

Michael outfoxed her, skipping to her feet and ankles, wending a slow journey up her legs. By the time the sensuous movement of his fingers and palms reached her inner thighs, Kate was ready to scream. Her mind whirled, fleeting delight replaced by panic. The specter of rough sex, of tolerating it—worse yet, of fighting back, being ruthlessly overpowered—hovered around her. For a blinding moment she heard the roar of Tag’s voice, felt the burst of pain as his fist crashed into her face. “I can’t!” she gasped. “Michael, I can’t!” In one lithe movement Kate slid into fetal position, head bent, arms hugging her knees.

Of course he walked out on her. Stalking out of the bedroom, out of her life.

This was Michael who would never force her. Michael who had done everything right . . . until she had
appeared to
play the ultimate tease. When, at the eleventh hour, she panicked
and his anger
exploded.
But n
ot into words, not into blows. He’d simply sprung up from the bed and left the
room.

Dear God, what happens now?

A glimmer of reason returned. Michael was naked. He couldn’t have gone far.

She was a Florida Knight; this, the final round of the tournament. One they were both going to win. Kate stepped down onto the thick plush carpeting, started for the door. She stopped, turned back to the bedtable, smiling softly as she covered her hands with the scented oil. An aphrodisiac, that’s what Diane had said. Well, it was time to prove it was true.

She found him standing at the kitchen sink, head bent, shoulders hunched, his hands gripping the ceramic tile. Strands of black hair drooped limply over his forehead, dripping water into the sink.

“Get your clothes on, I’ll take you home,” Michael barked without turning around.

One step at a time, Kate told herself.
I broke it, I have to fix it. Love, like war, has its own unique code of honor.

She moved in behind him, trailed her oil-scented hands up from the small of his back to his shoulders. He might as well have been the Rock of Gibralter, cold hard granite sculpted in human form. She transferred her attentions to the area just above his tailbone and thought she felt a tiny twitch. She pressed her lips to the spot she’d just so lovingly oiled, then traced her tongue up his spine, pausing for a light nip where his flesh burgeoned into muscles as she approached his shoulders. This time she could almost swear she heard a swiftly stifled groan. Raising on tiptoes, Kate kissed the back of his neck, nuzzled her way around to his ears, her hands braced on his broad shoulders.

“I smell like a damn rose,” Michael growled.

“It’s supposed to be an aphrodisiac,” Kate taunted. “Give in, Turco. Don’t be so stubborn.”

“
Me?
” Michael’s head shot up, his arms flexed against the edge of the sink. He swung round to face her,. “I’ve given all I’m damn well going to give, Kate. I’m sick of playing games. Either—”