Lucky's Lady (13 page)

Hugging herself, she looked at a painting of a storm building over the swamp. An angry sky churned in a turmoil of gray, green, and yellow above the stillness of the bayou. Tears rose in her eyes.

He had told her more than once he didn't want her prying into his life. He was nothing more than her unwilling guide and unwilling host. But she had pushed and prodded, excusing her behavior as professional curiosity, telling herself she had a right to know just how dangerous he really was, and in doing so she had violated the most basic human right—the right to inner privacy.

She turned to leave and jumped back, sucking in a startled breath as her heart vaulted into her throat. Lucky stood at the open door, staring at her. He was perfectly still, but there was a terrible sense of raw tension vibrating in the air around him. His eyes flashed like lightning warning of a coming storm.

“I'm sorry,” Serena whispered. She realized dimly that she was trembling. “I shouldn't have come in here.”

“No, you shouldn't have,” he said, his voice low and thrumming with fury.

He stared at her, struggling to hold himself from flying into a rage. What he did in this room he did for himself. This had been his solace, his salvation when he came back from Central America. He spent hours in this room, healing, focusing on his canvases to keep his mind together and to vent what was trying to tear him apart. These paintings were his most private feelings, the pain he couldn't escape, the fear he wouldn't acknowledge. Having someone see them was like stripping his soul bare and putting it on public display. It was unthinkable. And now it was inescapable.

“I didn't mean to pry,” Serena said stupidly.

“Of course you did,” Lucky snapped. He strode into the room and began throwing cloths over the paintings, his movements jerky with anger. “That's what shrinks do best, isn't it? Dig into people's heads, dig out their secrets.”

“I was only trying to see if you were doing something illegal. I have a right to know who I'm staying with,” she said, the words sounding self-righteous and foolish even to her.

He wheeled around suddenly and grabbed her by the arms, jerking her up against him, bending over her so that she had to arch her back to look up at him. “You don't have any rights out here,” he growled. “You don't belong here. This isn't polite society, Shelby. There are no rules except my rules.”

“Serena.” Her name trembled on her lips. She stared up at him, at the wild look in his eyes, genuinely afraid of him for the first time.
I'm over the edge. . . . Folks say he's half-crazy
. . . . “I'm Serena, Lucky,” she said softly, her heart pounding as she watched him struggle to pull himself back from that edge.

Lucky blinked at her, his mind sliding back from the darkness and chilling as he realized what she had said. He straightened and let go of her abruptly. She stumbled against the easel, setting the canvas on it rocking.

“I know who you are,” he said bitterly. Plowing his hands through his hair, he began to pace the width of the room like a caged tiger, his head down, eyes burning bright with fury and pain and fear.

“Damn you. Damn you,” he muttered as the breath soughed in and out of his lungs in gusts. So much had been taken from him—his youth, his innocence. It seemed all he had left was his pride and his privacy, and the woman standing there staring at him with doe eyes full of fear was stripping him of both. He didn't want her interference. He didn't want the reminder of his past she brought him. He didn't want the fire she set in his blood. Damn her,
damn her!

Serena reached out to steady the easel, steadying herself at the same time. She watched Lucky pace, watched the storm of emotions raging inside him and witnessed the awesome battle to contain those emotions within him. As she watched, her fear receded and was replaced by something stronger—the need to reach out to him.

“Lucky, I didn't mean any harm,” she said softly. “I'm very sorry. Really, I am.”

He stopped abruptly and looked at her sideways, his eyes as bright and hot as molten gold. A savage smile cut across his dark face. “You're sorry. You invade my life, invade my privacy, drag me into your battles, and all you have to say is that you're sorry. Use me to your own end and excuse it all with an apology. Very civilized. Very proper.
Dieu
, isn't that just like the Sheridan girls?”

The words rang in his ears like the clashing din of cymbals. If he could have reached out and grabbed them back, he would have, but they hung there. Serena met his gaze, her face filled with dawning awareness and questions.

“How well do you know Shelby?” she asked carefully, not wanting to hear the answer.

“Well enough to know better than to let her twin take me for the same ride.”

Serena was unprepared for the stab of jealousy that pierced her at the thought of Shelby and Lucky together. It didn't seem possible. She didn't want to believe it, but she didn't have much choice.

“I'm not Shelby,” she said, drawing her armor of cool poise around herself. “I'm nothing like Shelby. I'm sorry if she hurt you, but I won't pay for her sins, Lucky.”

“Forget it,” he muttered. “It was a lifetime ago.”

He could see she had more questions, but before she could voice them, he jerked his head around and resumed his pacing, dismissing the subject as if it hadn't been the one pivotal event that had changed his life's course.

“What did you think you would find up here,
ma petite?
Contraband? Guns? Drugs?”

“You let me think you were a poacher,” Serena said evenly. “Why, Lucky? Why let me think you're something bad when you're not?”

To keep you away. To keep from getting hurt
. He pressed the heels of his hands to his temples as if to hold the thoughts in as they swelled and throbbed behind his eyes. When he started toward her, he roared, an animal cry of impotent rage and guilt and fury. Serena jumped, but held her ground, waiting for an answer. Lucky lunged at her, pulling himself up just a hairbreadth in front of her.

“You look at me and see something bad. That's because I am,” he insisted.

“I've seen what you wanted me to see, not who you really are.”

“
Mais non, chère
,” he said bitterly. “You've seen all there is.”

“That's a lie. What about this?” Serena raised a hand toward the half-finished canvas on the easel. “You wouldn't have let me see this. There's nothing bad here. Your paintings are beautiful and touching, Lucky. Why wouldn't you let me see them? Do they show too much?”

Snarling an oath, he pushed past her, grabbed the canvas off the easel, and hurled it across the room like a giant Frisbee. It hit the leg of the workbench with a loud crack, the stretcher snapping in two along one side of the canvas, ruining it.

“Cloth and pigment,” Lucky spat out. “That's all it is. I do it to pass the time. Don't read anything into it, Dr. Sheridan,” he warned, leaning over her again. “Don't look for symbolism or metaphors. Rest assured, the only way I want to touch you is with my hands,” he said, pulling her against him with barely leashed violence.

“This is how I want to touch you,
chère
,” he whispered savagely, sweeping his hands over her hair, down her back to her hips. His fingers pressed into her flesh, stroking roughly, caressing without tenderness. “This is the only way I want to touch you.” He brought one hand up to cup her breast through the sheer fabric of her blouse. “This is all I have to give you, all I'll let you take.”

He lowered his mouth the rest of the way and kissed her hard.

She should have pushed him away. Common sense told Serena to push him away. Common sense told her that poacher or artist, Lucky Doucet was a man with problems, a man who wouldn't share himself. He'd given her fair warning on that score. All he wanted was this, the physical, the sexual. He wanted desire and nothing more. Even that need he gave in to grudgingly, angrily. He wanted her, but he didn't like it. She wanted him and it confounded her. She was too smart a woman to fall into the trap of wanting a man who would never give of himself. She was too slick and polished to want a barbarian, too in need of control to surrender it utterly.

She should have pushed him away. But she didn't. Couldn't. She wanted his touch, his kiss. He had awakened an instinct in her that had lain dormant even through marriage. Now it roared with life, with hunger. It frightened her and thrilled her, and she surrendered without a fight because no matter how wrong her common sense told her it was, the woman in her said it was right.

The woman in her, who had never known true passion, yearned for it now, with this man, this warrior with the soul of an artist. She had held herself in check with the idea he was a criminal, but he wasn't a criminal. He was a man with hidden fears. He was a man who covered his tenderness, his inner loneliness, his goodness with a mask of toughness and danger, a man who needed love but would never reach out to take it.

Serena didn't push him away. She melted against him.

Lucky groaned helplessly as her mouth softened beneath his. He hadn't meant this to happen. He had meant to push her away, to frighten her, to repel her, to chase her so far away she wouldn't want to come within an emotional mile of him. But the instant her resistance melted, so did his anger. Need swept over him like a tidal wave. He needed to touch her, to taste her, to hold her. He wanted to lose himself in her. It was madness, he knew, but such sweet madness he couldn't resist.

He raised his head a scant inch and looked into her eyes. What he saw was a mirror of his own bewilderment, need, and wariness of that need.

“I want you,” he murmured, untangling the overwhelming knot of emotions to the root of the problem. “I want you, Serena.”

“I know.”

Her words were little more than shadows of sound passing between her lips, lips that were swollen from his kiss. Her braid had come loose and her hair fell around her shoulders in disarray, a shaft of light from the window above turning it the color of spun gold. She was temptation personified, a temptation Lucky had no intention of resisting.

“I stopped last night,” he reminded her. “I'm not stopping this time,
chère
.”

Serena could feel him, hard and urgent against her belly, and she knew he meant what he said. A primitive thrill shot through her at the thought that he meant to claim her as males had claimed their mates from the dawn of time. He lowered his mouth to hers again, sipping, tasting, testing her. Serena framed his face with her hands and pressed her lips more solidly against his, letting him know she had no intention of stopping him.

She met the thrust of his tongue eagerly as reason and logic shut down and instinct took control. He filled her mouth with the taste of him, surrounded her body with his heat and raw power. She slid her arms around his neck and gasped as her breasts flattened against the wall of his chest.

Lucky pulled her lower body tight against his with one hand and slid his other hand between them, seeking and finding the open throat of her blouse. He needed to touch her skin, needed to see her. The top button gave way as he curled his fingers into the fabric and pulled downward. One by one the buttons surrendered, falling to the floor.

He trailed his kiss down her jaw to her throat, stripping the blouse from her shoulders and discarding it. His thumbs hooked under the straps of her bra and he drew them down off her shoulders, peeled the cups away to reveal her breasts to his touch, his gaze, the hunger of his kiss.

Serena cried out as he took one turgid peak into his mouth and sucked strongly. She tangled her fingers in the black silk of his hair and pressed him closer as heat swept through her.

Together they sank to their knees on the rumpled canvas dropcloth. Serena leaned back, arching into the heat of Lucky's mouth. It was exquisite—the pull of his lips, the rasp of his tongue, the feel of his hand kneading her other breast. Her own hands moved restlessly over his broad shoulders, gathering the fabric of his T-shirt into her fists.

He pulled away and tore the garment off, flinging it aside, never taking his eyes from hers. His gaze was searing, hot, wild with desire. It took her breath away to look at him, at the intensity of his face and the perfection of his body. His body was a living sculpture of muscle. He looked to Serena like the consummate male animal, hungry and untamed, intent on one purpose.

She made a sound of surprise when he snatched her into his arms again, then moaned at the contact. They met flesh to flesh, soft white skin to hard, tanned muscle, woman to man. She trembled at the power of just touching him, and excitement swirled through her at the thought of being possessed by him.

He kissed her roughly, wildly, his arms banding her to him, his hands sweeping down her back, pressing her hard against his arousal, then finding their way around to the button of her shorts. The baggy khaki shorts fell to pool around her knees. She gasped into his mouth as he caught his fingertips in the waistband of her panties and jerked the scrap of silk and lace from her hips, tearing it free.

He whispered to her as he smoothed one hand over her bare hip and the delicious roundness of her buttock, kneading, squeezing, lifting her. While the fingers of his other hand slid into the nest of dark blond curls at the juncture of her thighs, seeking the heat and silken softness that lay beyond, he murmured against the shell of her ear—words of sex, words of praise, words in a language she didn't understand.

Serena tried to catch her breath to whisper his name, but couldn't. He stroked her intimately, knowingly, wringing another gasp from her as he slid a finger into her heat to test her readiness. Her hips moved against the pressure of his hand, inviting him, begging him silently.

Lucky raised his head and looked down at her. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted. Her back arched as she moved against him, thrusting her full breasts upward. With her hair tumbling around her shoulders she looked like a wanton angel. There was no sign of her infuriatingly cool control. There was no hint of polished sophistication. She was a woman who wanted a man, wanted
him
, and her body was making no secret of the fact. She moved against his hand, caught up in sensation, the soft petals of her feminine cleft dewy and warm.