Love Game (14 page)

W
HY HAD SHE AGREED
to this—this crazy bedroom game?
Was it because after tonight there would be only one remaining and she wanted to sow as many wild oats as she could before living out the rest of her straight-and-narrow days? Or was it because she’d developed a taste for adventure, the arousing hint of the forbidden in a dangerous liaison?

He hadn’t touched
her once since picking her up and already she was aroused. It was as though the absence of his touch made her want him that much more.

Perhaps that’s why she had agreed to the fantasy he had requested—a fantasy that smacked of the forbidden. Yes, danger was in the air, invading her senses with the visceral thrill of a risk. Odd that she was a little scared but felt a sense of security, too. Maybe it was because of the password.

Roses.
Chris’s trust in him was ample to believe he would stop if she said, “Roses.”
Why hadn’t she cried “Roses” in her living room last night, or screamed it at the top of her lungs later, in her bedroom?
No matter that his lovemaking had been so tender it had bordered on sweet, why hadn’t she called him off when reality had been ten times more dangerous than this exotic fantasy?

She squinted to better see the dark rider, all shadows and shifting movement in the unlit suite. Only they weren’t in their motel room, either.

“Tell me where
we are,” he softly commanded, his voice holding a note of some secret mystery. And much of it was a mystery, their given roles to unfold as they went. All that was certain was the simple muslin blouse and long, full skirt he had brought for her to wear, a complement to the fantasy setting and century they were to pretend they were in, and an oil lamp, the only prop. As for the other item—she suddenly found it difficult to talk.

“Tell me where we are,” he repeated. There was a hypnotic quality to his whisper. “In what time are we living?”

“It…it’s the late 1800s.”

“Yes. Now I want you to describe our surroundings.”

“We’re in a stable, near the Mexican border.” When he remained silent, she took it as her cue to draw the setting in their minds. “It’s a large, fine stable filled with riding gear, sacks of oats, a long row of stalls. A few are empty but most are housing purebred horses. Arabians, I think.”

“Arabians, yes. Most are quiet now, since it’s dark. A few are moving about, a little disturbed by our presence, but their movements are muffled by the hay under their hooves. Fresh bales are stacked near us. Can you smell them?”

She sniffed and imagined she could, that and more. “I smell clean straw. And leather. A storm is brewing and the air, it’s heavy with the earthy scents around us.”

“Earthy,” he murmured. A match flared and illuminated his shadowed face as he held it to a cigar. Their eyes met and what she saw in his was both compelling and ominous. He shook out the match, cloaking them once more in darkness except for the glowing red tip that caught and held her gaze. She wasn’t sure if it reminded her more of a warm, glowing coal or a single, glittering serpent’s eye.

“Do you mind the cheroot?”

“No, I don’t mind. The smoke, it’s…faintly sweet.”

“And so is your cologne. Tell me what else you smell.”

“You. Even from
here, I can pick up traces of sweat and leather—”
and lust
“—and rain. You’ve just ridden in after an extended time away.”

“Nearly a year. Such a long time to travel abroad and leave my ranchero in the care of an elderly father and a foreman. Your older brother,
bambina.
The two of you were orphans and my family took both of you in as children. Now, tell me why I was gone. I’ll hear it from the young woman who was the reason I left.”

“You left because—because you no longer thought of me as a sister, not since that night you found me at the lake, naked in the water.” Lucia shivered. Yes, Lucia was her name. And she was eighteen now, nearly an old maid by current standards.

“You were angry with me,” she went on. “I remember you throwing my clothes at me, saying, ‘Put them on, Lucia. What were you thinking, coming here alone after dark? A stranger could have found you, done something terrible to you. Put on your things, damn it, and don’t ever let me find you like this again.’ I remember you turning your back but stealing several glances while I dressed. I was shaking. But it wasn’t from the night air on my wet clothes.”

“Then what was it?” he asked in a silky whisper.

“You seemed like a stranger. A stranger who had found me and wanted to do something unspeakable to me.”

“Most unspeakable, Lucia,” he assured her. His draw on
the cheroot, a brightening red circle, seemed to concur with his carnal desires. “You were only sixteen and there I was, a man of twenty who had knowledge of harlots and brothels. The acts I suddenly wanted to commit with you, no proper woman would do. And you were not only proper, you were like my kin. But after that moment, I never thought of you as a sister again. You were the water nymph in my dreams and I damned you each time I woke up with my sheets soaking wet. Finally, I couldn’t bear to see you and not touch you.”

She laughed softly, accusingly. “And so you did touch me. You gave me my first kiss. In the glade beside the lake, it became our meeting place. You fondled me there. And it was there that I offered you my virginity.”

A moment passed before he said, “But I refused.”

Why?
she wondered. But then the answer came; she knew it because she knew him. Honorable though he was, he was equally selfish in his need for absolute possession.

“Yes,” she agreed. “You refused. You said it was your fault things had gotten out of hand and it was for the best that you leave. I begged you not to go but you did.”

“If only you’d been a woman who knew her own heart, I would have stayed.” The regret in his voice gave way to a startling anger. “Did you actually think I didn’t notice how you flirted with the shopkeeper when I took you to town?” he snarled. “And those boys at the church social, the barn-raising dance, God, what that did to me. You were trying out your feminine wiles and the hell if I was about to risk getting you with child when you were still such a child yourself. So, tell me, who have I come home to?”

In her uncertain silence, he snuffed out the cigar with an agitated grind. “I’m waiting, Lucia. Tell me if I’ve come home to a fickle girl…or a woman who had the sense to wait for a man who would gladly give his life to protect her.”

Of course she would have waited for a man as mature and fine as he, she started to say. But something held her tongue. Resentment, she realized. Resentment of the desertion that in her innocence she was responsible for. And he was a lusty man; had surely kept intimate company with other women while she cried herself to sleep at night, lit candles and said prayers for his safe and speedy return.

Oh, yes, she
resented this man for awakening her desires, then leaving, forcing her to realize that the suitors who had come to call were callow boys, their kisses chaste and passionless.

“Wait for you?” she taunted him. “Why would I waste my time waiting for an arrogant old man—or should I say, stud? You do smell a bit like one, sniffing the tail of a mare who finds you not the least bit appealing. Perhaps if you took a bath I could tell the difference between you and these horses in their stalls. But you’d best be quick about it. A lover awaits and I’m already late for our rendezvous.”

“Who is he?” His demand was so sharp, so harsh, she jumped. But he couldn’t see the apprehension sure to be etched in her face, nor sense the delight she took in his jealous response. Toying with him, she said nothing.

“Answer me, damn it!” The sound of a match struck roughly against a boot’s sole gave way to the rattle of a glass chimney. Moments later he was bathed in lantern light. His countenance could have been that of a demon risen from hell, the blue-white light flickering over him, flames from the nether world he’d sprung from to exact a frightful vengeance.

Indeed, she felt the tug of fear. Danger was near.
He
was the danger. Tearing off the white riding shirt he wore, the expanse of his chest terse and awesome, he bore down on her, raw virility personified. His paces, measured and slow, the crunch of hay, the nicker of horses filled her ears.

She told herself to run, quickly, to hide herself in the night from this familiar stranger in black breeches and high leather boots. But she couldn’t move, couldn’t force her gaze from him.

Or the riding crop he tapped into his open palm. She’d never seen one quite like it—thin leather strips, perhaps a foot in length, dangling from the tip, both exotic and menacing. Two halting steps back she took, and he advanced at a leisurely stride that was somehow more threatening than if he’d lunged. His was the walk of a man who was confident in his just retribution. And her inescapable fate.

Whatever it might be,
she knew in her heart he would never truly hurt her, his jealous rage no match for the tender emotions he bore her. And so, she tilted her chin up, faced him with the arrogance of his most prized and spirited steed. The one only he could ride. Bareback. For not even he could break it of its unwillingness to accept a bit or a saddle.

The tips of his boots nipped her bare toes. Glowering down at her, he growled, “What man has claimed what was, and is, rightfully mine?”

“Ask me no secrets and I’ll tell you no lies.” Her eyes slitted catlike and she licked her lips—only for them to part in a startled O at the crack of the tassels whipping the air. The slow shake of his head, the light tap of the crop against her thigh, gave her to feel she was in the presence of a strict taskmaster who regretted his wayward charge was in dire need of a lesson to remember.

“You have been a very bad girl, Lucia. But fortunately for you, I am a fair man. I’ll forgo the punishment you’ve earned on two conditions. First, I want to hear you say that you love me and will never betray me again. And then, I’ll have your confession. Five words—’I was a bad girl.’ All or nothing, you know that’s my way. It’s your choice,
bambina.
”

His stern whisper carried over the air. How far was she willing to go to mend the damage done before they did more? That was the real question, and one she couldn’t possibly answer to his satisfaction. Or hers. Compassion for them both competed with an urge to rebuke him for putting her in such an impossible position.

No, she would not
tell him what he wanted to hear. Even if it might hold some truth, putting aside the past wasn’t that easy. And besides, if she obeyed, he would become the man she knew and she rather liked this dominating side of him.

“No, I won’t say it.”

A poignant disappointment flickered in his gaze before he swiftly disguised it with a look of stoic resignation. With a heavy sigh, a weary shake of his head, he stroked the dangling leather over her breasts.

Her nipples beaded and her pulse tripped madly at the certainty of his purpose as quietly he said, “Very well, then, prepare for a punishment as naughty as yourself. Bend over.”

She did not cower or cringe, but defied him with challenge clearly etched in her face, posture and voice.

“Make me.” She laughed seductively.

“Ah, Lucia, when will you learn? That just earned you a worse spanking.” He grabbed for her and she slapped at him. But now it was he who laughed. A foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier, he was smug in his superior strength. He captured her hands easily, bound both wrists with a single huge fist, the other holding the crop which he brought down smartly on her thigh when she aimed a knee between his legs.

“I said, bend over.” The whip brushed her neck and he twined hard fingers in her hair. His tug of it was amazingly tender, yet firm and brooking no contention.

Her head pulled back, his breath was on her, smelling of smoke and lust, and mingling with her own halting gasps.

“Mind me and I’ll take that into consideration. I can be
generous.” He rubbed her hip with the source of his generosity and she felt a scintillating sensation spread through her womb, expanding and making her greedy for the fulfillment of his threat.

But suddenly he let go, allowing her to fight him again if she so chose. He would like that, she knew; a struggle would amuse him, further distend his already rampant arousal.

It was a subtle retaliation, and she was sure he wouldn’t forgive it easily, to acquiesce rather than scratch and bite as he so dearly loved her to do. Her senses pitched to their keenest measure, she could almost taste the pithy sob of defeat when she succumbed to the sweet lash of his whip.

“I am not a bad girl,” she sniffed, coy in her disdain. “I’m a good girl, and you’re a terrible man to spank me when I am so well behaved. Obedient I will be, but no matter how hard the strike of your rod, never will I give in to you.”

His mocking chuckle naysayed her vow, as did the teasing whisper of the leather on her backside once she’d turned. Heart beating fast and furious, she heard the sound of his belt hit the hay-strewn floor, the thud of heavy boots discarded, the shift of his movements as he rid himself of the riding breeches. And then she felt the grip of his hands on her skirt, pulling it over her head, taking the muslin blouse along with it, and tossing them the way of his things.

“Widen your stance,” he whispered. Though her legs had begun to shake, she did, and felt his knees nuzzle the backs of hers. Guided by the gentle pressure of his hand, she lowered her head and was rewarded with his approving murmur, a word of coaxing instruction. “Bend your legs…that’s good. Your palms, cup your knees with them.” His body heat lapped achingly near and a fine quiver of anticipation took hold. “Are your eyes closed?”

“Yes.”

“Open them. Look
on the floor and see what you find while I give you what you’ve asked for. By lesson’s end, you might even discover your heart. You’ve wounded mine, you know. It’s lying there at your feet.”

She fixed her gaze on their silhouettes illuminated by the lantern and was held in thrall by the play of shadow and light. His palm slid over and down her belly, then lower to sweep once, twice, light finger-licks that knew just how to stir and make her need.