Lord of Lightning (18 page)

Her fingertips seemed to create sparks as she touched him. She traced the lightning bolts, mesmerized, and then, unable to stop herself, she let her fingers drift along his hipbone and down the muscled length of his thigh.

The constriction in her belly cinched tighter as she realized where her imagination was taking her,
where her hands were taking her.
A strange liquid heaviness invaded her loins and rippled down her legs. It was a beautiful, weakening feeling. The inside of her thighs began to ache softly as though she’d strained muscles there.

It hit her then. The realizations came at her one by one, like the buffeting force of ocean waves.

She wanted to make love with him.

Now ...

Here ...

She wanted to be transported ... taken.

No! That was impossible. He was injured.

But she did. She wanted to make love. Here. In all the thrilling, strange darkness that surrounded them. Now. She wanted the wildness, the loneliness locked inside him. She wanted the fiery rage, the shadowy pain, she wanted it all.

“Stephen, I—”

Stephen lay unmoving as her fingers jerked to a halt. He’d been aware for several seconds of the rising tension in her touch, the rigidity in her movements. In the quiet of his mind, he understood her conflict. She was confused and frightened by what was happening to her, and in her panic, she wanted desperately to believe that it was some supernatural force driving her. But it wasn’t the stones’ power that frightened Lise Anderson. It was her own. She was in need. Her body was speaking its will, but she had denied her natural urges for so long, they’d become the enemy.

“Touch me, Lise ...”

A sweet, hurt sound came out of her, and her fingers began to move jerkily. The universe had a rhythm that played itself out in anyone who would listen, anyone who could hear it. That rhythm was beating in her now, but she was resisting its call.

Sweet resistance. He could feel the beginnings of it in his own body too. Deep muscles were stirring, and his limbs felt weighted. There was a languid density in his tissues that came of gathering blood and rising body heat. His physical being was urging him not to resist.

It was a battle he couldn’t win. And yet, like her, he didn’t want to give himself over to it. He didn’t want to lose his will to the tyranny of desire. It was beautiful and terrifying, that primal call to power. There was a searing tenderness at the center of his being, and with every trembling stroke of her fingers, she sent a laser of energy to that tender, bruised place.

The rhythm was calling him too.

The hard ache of mating was in him.

T
HE LIGHT GLOWING OFF
Lise’s fingertips illuminated the corded muscle of Stephen’s thigh and turned his body hair to rippling silver. Though she could sense the steely tension mounting inside him, she wasn’t consciously aware of the changes taking place in his body. She was too much in awe of her own trembling responses.

“Put the stones aside, Lise,” he said. “Set them on the dresser and come here.”

His voice came as a shock to her senses. Its hoarseness spoke of male need. Its low jolt of command compelled her to do as he asked.

It wasn’t a question of resisting him. She couldn’t have even if she’d wanted to. The attraction was fundamental. She was a flower bending to light, air rushing into a vacuum.

She deposited the stones on the dresser top and turned back to him, her hands still alive with vibrant energy. A cool glow spilled from the dresser top, cloaking her in blue mists.

“Finish it, Lise,” he said huskily. “Finish the healing—
with your hands.”

Fear and excitement mingled in the pit of Lise’s stomach. The heady mix flashed through her, stealing her breath and her strength. She hardly knew what she was doing as she walked to the bed and sat next to him. Her hands moved automatically to the power of his chest. Brawn, she thought absently, following the whorls of silver that defined his pectorals. Wasn’t that what they called the dense, striated muscle she was touching?

The silver drifted toward his groin, and as she followed its path over his abdomen, she was aware of bruises and tender knots beneath her fingers. The hellishness of his injuries abraded her skin, reminding her of the beating he’d taken.

And then she touched something familiar, the jagged lightning streaks that were burned into his hipbone. She closed her eyes as her fingers connected next with the bedspread. That was as far as she could go. He was aroused!

“Take it off, Lise. Remove the blanket.”

Her head snapped up in surprise. “I
can’t,”
she said. “I’ve never—”

The room’s blue glow turned him into something harsh and desolate, something to be feared. The feral hunger was in his eyes, the wild, terrifying beauty she’d seen before. She knew who he was. And why she was frightened. He was the man who had ravished her senses in the supply room, the man who’d blindfolded and abducted her.

“Take the blanket off me,” he said.

She shook her head, but the tumult inside her bled all the strength out of her refusal. His need to control was far more powerful than hers to resist. For the first time she began to believe that whatever was driving him might not be human. Fear clutched at her throat, and deep inside, she felt an explosion of wild, anguished excitement.

“Do it, Lise—”

“
No—”

“You want to, dammit. Do it.”

“You don’t know what I want!”

But he did. They both knew what she wanted.

Her hands shook uncontrollably as she lifted the chenille material and threw it aside. She drew in a sharp breath as she witnessed the graphic evidence of his arousal. Needles of heat pierced her throat and jawline, turning her skin scarlet. And yet, despite her body’s profound agitation, or perhaps because of it, her reaction was anger. In that moment, the rigid male flesh seemed to symbolize everything that was prideful and arrogant and domineering about the masculine sex.
Everything she had fought to escape.

A soft cry of indignation flared through her. “Why are you making me do this?” she said, turning to him.

He raised himself up, caught her by the wrist and pulled her to him. “Why are you pretending you don’t
want
this?”

Tears burned her eyes and choked her throat. “How am I supposed to know what I want? I’ve never done any of this before!”

“Then it’s time, dammit. It’s time you did it
all.”

She pulled away from him, stung and breathless. “And I suppose I should do it all with you? Is that what you had in mind?”

“That’s exactly what I had in mind.” His eyes grazed her body, lingering on her breasts with a long, slow burn. “Are you going to take your clothes off, Lise? Or am I?”

“You’re outrageous—”

He caught hold of her wrist again, and she twisted away, whirling off the bed. Anger lent her grace of movement. She was fluid, a red streak of fury as she reached the dresser and gripped it to calm herself. Blue light glowed over her, its effect strangely soothing as she drew in a deep, shaking breath. It was several moments before she could collect herself enough to speak.

“My father was a domineering bastard,” she said at last, her back to Stephen. “He made my mother’s life hell, and he would have destroyed mine too—” She broke off with a strangled sound and turned “—but I wouldn’t let him do that to me. And I won’t let you either.”

He stared at her for a long time, but his gaze had turned inward, burning with an emotion that frightened Lise as much as the hunger had. It was anger and self-loathing. “No, don’t let me do that to you, Lise,” he said, sinking back to the bed. “Don’t let me near you.”

Lise was held by a dawning awareness as she observed him. The ravages of his body were nothing compared to the devastation inside. When he lashed out at her, when he was cruel, it was himself he wanted to hurt. He’d never forgiven himself for the death of his wife and child. He’d sought out the harshest possible isolation, shut out life and love, everything that might have consoled him. But that wasn’t punishment enough, she realized, horrified. Even if he didn’t yet recognize it himself, he was bent on something darker, on the ultimate punishment, on some kind of self-destruction.

She had no idea how she knew such a thing. She even prayed that she was wrong, but the intuition was strong. Somewhere inside the man who enchanted children with his magic and repaired little girls’ dolls there was a destructive force.

If it had been dormant in him before, it was alive now. It had opened a black pit of raging helplessness inside him. And unless something held back the darkness, it would consume him.

Unless
she
held back the darkness.

She walked to the bed and stood before him, her legs nearly giving way as she began to unbutton her blouse. She was offering herself to him, and they both knew it. It was the ultimate sacrifice for a woman with her store of self-pride and fanatical need for independence.

Her fingers felt icy and stiff as she tried to undo the first button. She was terrified that he might reject her. In his state of mine, Stephen Gage was quite capable of that final, crushing humiliation. But she had to take that chance.

“Shall I do this myself?” she said. “Or will you do it for me?” Emotion warred inside her—fear and anger, concern and compassion—all battling for control. Her eyes were drawn to him, to his desolation, to his nakedness as she freed the first button—and another impulse crept into her awareness. The stirrings of physical need. Desire. She hated herself for the inclination, but it was undeniable. She was as painfully drawn to him, as physically attracted now as the first day she’d met him.

His eyes clouded with pain as he watched her trembling attempt to save him. “For Heaven’s sake, Lise ... don’t waste yourself this way.”

“Waste myself?” Her voice was soft with surprise. “I’ve waited twenty-seven years for this moment, Stephen Gage. I think that’s enough time wasted, don’t you?”

For the first time in her life, Lise was glad that her breasts were full and generously made, that her body was rich with life, warm and soft. It would comfort him. It would bring him pleasure. She was glad for the gift of being a woman.

“I want to make love,” she said, blushing delicately as her eyes drifted to his lower torso. “I want to do it
all.”

He exhaled as though in despair, but she saw the sparks leap in his smoldering blue eyes. She could almost see fire breathe from his nostrils.

“I’m not sure I can manage it
all,”
he said savagely. “In my present condition.”

“We’ll work something out.”

Despite her apparent nonchalance, the undressing was a slow and torturous affair for Lise. She had never undressed for a man. She had never done any of the things most women her age took for granted, and that damning knowledge made her awkward and clumsy.

“Come
here,”
he said as she fumbled with the last few buttons on her blouse.

She sat beside him, a shiver rippling through her at the first touch of his hands. Though his fingers were tellingly rigid, he took his time finishing the unbuttoning ritual, and then he let her blouse hang open for a moment before he drew it off her shoulders. His eyes were slow and appreciative, blazingly blue as he lifted the front clasp of her bra. A grimace of a smile crossed his lips, and then with a flick of his thumb and forefinger, he released the catch.

His breath went ragged as the silky material sprang back and her breasts fell free.

Lise felt something give way deep inside her. Somewhere in the reaches of her belly, a trapdoor dropped open and dumped her bodily into sweet oblivion. She drew in a breath, frantic to regain some control, but it was the useless, reckless grasp of a falling woman. The air spun out of her lungs in a pleading sigh.

He opened his hand to cup her and breathed a single raw word. “I didn’t know a woman could be this soft and beautiful.”

“
I didn’t know a woman could be this aroused,” she whispered plaintively.

He met her eyes and claimed her breast with his long, burning fingers. “Do you know what you’re doing, Miss Anderson?” His voice dropped to a harsh, thrilling whisper. “You’re making me hot. I don’t know if that’s what you had in mind ... but that
is
what you’re doing.”

Now Lise was
sure
she would never be able to breathe normally again. Sparks showered her insides as though he’d touched her with lightning. She felt melting heat, shocked excitement.

Even more astonishing were the shameless reactions of her virginal body. Her breasts strained for harder handling, and her private parts were clutchingly tight, shockingly damp. He was eating her alive with his eyes, but she wanted more than his hungry stare. She wanted his mouth and his hands and the hardened male pride that sprang from between his thighs.

“Making you ... hot?” She could hardly breathe out the last word, and then she colored wildly under his hard stare. “Well... if that wasn’t what I had in mind before ... I think it probably is ... now.”

He didn’t even give her time to take off her skirt.

“Leave it on,” he said, pulling her to him. He began to draw the cotton material up as their mouths connected. The kiss was hard and sweet and full of his angry need. Lise was lost in it until he finally released her. She drew back, aware of the naked sensation of her breasts against his chest.
Brawn,
she thought again, feeling the hard crush of his muscles and the downy softness of his chest hair.

Her most acute awareness, however, was of her skirt bunched up around her hips, and his hand on her bare thigh.

“Come here,” he said, swinging her around until she lay alongside him. He cupped her face, his fingers taut against soft flesh. Frustration was high in his eyes. Passion. Need.
Brutal need.

“I’m trying like hell not to ravish you,” he said, catching her under the arms and lifting her to him. “But if I’m winning the battle, I’m losing the war.” With amazing strength, he held her above him as their lips touched and her breasts melted against his chest. The kiss was sweet and hot, but Lise ached for deeper contact. Her nipples pulled painfully as a low surge of need swept through her.