Wild Midnight (17 page)

“I’ve got to get on over to Beau’s,” D’Arcy said. “I’ve got to see if he’s going to take my head off again about spending the night. And if I don’t hurry, I won’t get a scrap of supper. Eulie will put everything away or Beau will eat it.”
 

“D’Arcy,” Rachel began, “I want to thank you for a wonderful time in Charleston.”
 

“Then come back,” the other woman said shortly. “God knows I need some company, even if you don’t.”
 

Before Rachel could say anything D’Arcy had put the big limousine into reverse and shot recklessly out of the yard and into the road. The tires made a groaning sound as she cut a sharp turn and disappeared into the night.
 

Rachel sighed. The visit to Charleston
had
been wonderful—she wasn’t just being polite. But she was finding that her new friend’s quicksilver moods could range from distracted effervescence to something so unhappy it was desperate. Unless Rachel was very much mistaken, D’Arcy got more unhappy in proportion to how close they came to Draytonville.
 

Rachel crossed the yard carrying her suitcase, glad that D’Arcy had reminded her to leave on her kitchen light; it was better than coming home to a dark house. But inside, the front room smelled dank after so much rain. And the bedroom, on the shaded cold north side of the house, wouldn’t be much better, she thought disconsolately. What she needed was a cup of hot tea.
 

She dragged the suitcase to the bedroom door, turned the knob, threw the door open and stepped inside, reaching for the wall switch.
 

Her hand never reached it. Instead an iron grip took her wrist and a voice in her ear growled, “Where in the hell have you been?”
 

She knew that voice instantly, even in pitch darkness. It was Beau Tillson.
 

“What are you doing?” Rachel shrieked. It was pure instinct to lash out at him. She flailed with her free hand, making contact with his warm, rock-hard chest, covered with the cotton fabric of his shirt. “I can’t even see you!”
 

“But I can see you.” The low growl was right in her face. “Where the hell have you been?” She felt him grope across the top of her head, fingers finding the long braid of her hair coiled there. “Were you off somewhere with a man?”
 

Rachel went rigid. Outrage quickly replaced shock, but she was still shaking. Her hand had inadvertently brushed his hard cheekbone, and the sudden memory of smooth skin and his handsome face unnerved her.
 

She had vowed never again to let him touch her after what had happened, nor even speak to him if she could avoid it. And certainly never to let him provoke her into shamefully losing her temper. And now this—waiting for her, pouncing on her in the dark of her own bedroom! She strained for the light switch, her arm reaching out into blackness.
 

“Why are you standing in the dark?” she cried. “Oh, very funny, aren’t you?”
 

“Leave the light alone,” he warned her, his voice a soft rasp. “Where were you all this damned time?”
 

In the shadowed blackness the muscles of his long thighs and the bones of his narrow hips pressed against her; the virile warmth of his lean body was as startlingly clear in her mind as though he were visible.
More
, Rachel thought with a panicky gulp: the nerve endings of her suddenly sensitized skin were supplying pictures of a sensuous, powerful male animal with hard crystal eyes that could see her while she couldn’t see him.
 

“Leave me alone,” she blurted. “Turn on the light!”
 

“No. I want it dark.” As she stood trembling he pulled her braid loose and raked his fingers through her hair, causing it to shower down over her shoulders. “It’s been four damned days—I’ve been sitting here every night waiting for you, thinking about you lying in your boyfriend’s arms someplace”—his voice dropped—”enjoying it while he made love to you. Where did you go?”
 

“I haven’t got a—it’s none of your business!” she cried. It took every ounce of control she possessed not to struggle as his fingers stroked her loosened hair. “You have no right to say such a stupid thing.” She tried to jerk her head away. “Leave me alone! Let me turn on the light!”
 

She sensed that he bent his head to her, and heard him inhale softly. “I remember the smell of you, just like soap and flowers,” he muttered. The note of rough yearning in his voice took her unaware. She felt him lift a handful of her hair and bury his face in it. “Ah, damn, Rachel, I haven’t been able to think of anything else. It’s been driving me crazy.”
 

She fought the sudden rush of feeling that assailed her in the darkness. What was she going to do with him? Why did he have to say these things when he didn’t mean them? Why was it necessary to trick her, humble her like this when he’d already had his revenge?
 

Her eyes, adjusting to the absence of any light except a faint glow from the bedroom window, could make him out as a dark shape towering over her. She was almost fearfully attuned to the sound of his slow breathing, the soft stroke of his hands in her hair, the warmth of his powerful big body, which soaked through the front of her clothes. He was a stranger, and yet familiar. She couldn’t quite see that hard, sculpted face below a tangle of thick gold-streaked hair, or the faint gleam of his eyes. But she remembered his nakedness, his skin like raw silk and his potent masculinity. It was all she could do to keep from touching him.
 

There was nothing simple or uncomplicated about this man. He was so clever, so handsome, so experienced with women, so sure of his sexual magic. She felt a surge of righteous indignation. But what a juvenile trick—to wait in the dark for her like this and frighten her half to death!
 

“You’re pulling my hair,” she cried. “Stop it! Leave me alone!”
 

“I’m sorry.” His tone was unexpectedly contrite. His free hand lifted the unraveled mass of her hair and held it away from the back of her neck, but he did not let her go. “Just take it easy. I had to come back. I don’t know what the hell you did to me, but I want more.” His voice dropped to a seductive huskiness. “And I know you want it too.”
 

“Stop it!” She tried to pry his big body away from her and couldn’t. “What are you doing inside my house? Why are you—how did you get here?” She was thinking of D’Arcy and how at that moment she was on her way to Belle Haven.
 

“I came through the woods.” The touch of hard fingers had dropped from her hair to work at the buttons on the front of her shirtwaist dress. When it came open his hand quickly inserted itself into the deep pressing fullness of the cleft of her breasts.
 

“But that’s miles!” She shuddered, unable to fight her own quick response to what he was doing. At the same time she felt his mouth tracing the side of her cheek, the line of her chin, wanting her to turn her face up to him.
 

Perhaps it was his hand moving against her bared skin with such soft assurance. Or the realization that he’d come across the night-blackened countryside like a predator, stalking her, that restored her sanity. She squirmed in his grip. He was dangerous and cruel—how could she have forgotten so quickly?
 

“Stop it!” She batted at him without thinking. “You have a woman at your house for this sort of thing!” she cried wildly.
 

She heard him laugh. “What sort of thing? If you mean Darla Jean, I kicked her out. She was just hanging around anyway. It was over a long time ago.”
 

Even writhing against him, Rachel could not dislodge his hand; it clasped her breast and stroked possessively, his thumb coaxing the hard point of her nipple.
 

She was struggling now in earnest, terrified of her own quivering expectation of his mouth against her skin, of his tongue lavishing her, burning her, making her want more. She gritted her teeth as the tips of her breasts involuntarily contracted into tight aching buds, shooting arrows of excited painfulness deep between her thighs. “Let me go, I don’t want you to touch me! You’re crude, disgusting!”
 

“God, yes,” he agreed huskily. “Always have been.”
 

The pressure of his hard jeans-clad thigh against her knee and hip steadied her as her spine arched, thrusting her against him. In a moment he would put his mouth on her. Her taut breasts thrust out, wanting him, aching for him.
 

He drew in a sharp breath. “Ah, baby, how can you fight this when everything I do to you makes that lovely body want me like hell? Like this. And this.” His hands were shaking as he pulled the still-clasped brassiere hurriedly down under her breasts. Her flesh was hard and swollen, upthrust against the maddening strokes of his circling touch. “Rachel, give me your beautiful softness and your lovely fire that wants me—wants me so much,” he murmured, his mouth finding her lips.
 

She drowned in that sudden dark seizure of his kiss, the slow, savoring possession that stroked and caressed her with all the desire of his words. Her head spinning as the sensuous magic tried to drag her deeper into his spell, she squirmed against him with the last of her resistance. He finally let her drag her mouth away, the harsh rasp of his released breath loud in the dark.
 

“Listen to me—will you hold still a minute?” There was impatience in his voice. His thighs and legs encased in rough denim clamped her legs and body hard against him, wanting her to feel his rigid arousal. “I ought to be sorry this happened, but how can I? You wanted me, you went to bed with me of your own free will, you can’t deny that. You can’t deny anything because I had you and you were a redheaded hellcat, bucking under me, climbing all over me and going crazy, you loved it so much.” When she made a small wordless sound of protest he went on. “And I had you again after that, I made love to you a third time until all you could do was lie there and moan for me.”
 

“Don’t,” she cried.
 

“Don’t tell me don’t—I had you, woman. I enjoyed the hell out of you until you couldn’t move. And still you wanted me. After something like that do you expect me to leave you alone?” Raw desire darkened his husky voice. “Look, let me make love to you.” When she jerked against him he growled, “One more time. If it’s bad—if it was all a big damned illusion—I swear I’ll leave you alone.”
 

She heard his words dimly. She couldn’t allow him to do this, to invade her house like a burglar, to lie in wait for her in the dark and remind her of things she wanted to forget! Why, when she was near him, did everything dissolve into a sort of madness? “I’ll call D’Arcy!” An empty threat, but it was the only thing she could think of; D’Arcy had already left.
 

She felt him go still. “D’Arcy? Is that where you’ve been? In Charleston with D’Arcy?”
 

“Get out of my house!” she burst out. “Don’t you know this is ... this is attacking me? You could be arrested for this!” Shaking, she tried to gather her wits, to appeal to any sense of reasonableness in him. “Think what you’re doing! You ... you can’t be totally crazy!”
 

He didn’t release her. His hand tightly held her wrist at her shoulder, his body cradling her against his thighs. There was no sound but his quick, even breathing.
 

“Crazy as a bat,” she heard him murmur. “I thought you knew.” He paused. “But it doesn’t keep me from making love to you.”
 

A faint cool touch of air seemed to play over Rachel’s disordered dress, open in front; over her exposed breasts, over the tingling nerve points of her lips that had felt his kiss, over her face and her throat, where a pulse hammered wildly. She was still clothed but she had never felt so naked, or so vulnerable.
 

“Now listen.” That was her voice trying to be sensible. Trying to deny the closeness of him, which trapped her and filled her mind. Rachel closed her eyes. If she could just shut him out.
 

“I don’t know what you are trying to do to me.” Her voice sounded thin to her ears, strangely confused. “I am not going to sign any papers. I won’t let you humiliate me. I won’t let you trick me again!”
 

“Oh, hell. I’m not asking you to sign any papers,” he said in a fierce tone. “Forget that.” He was moving now, lean muscled body and arms twined around her, forcing her toward the bed. “I can make you want me, honey, you know that.” He stumbled against the suitcase she’d dropped, and she heard him swear softly. “I want to get you out of your clothes. I don’t want to be rough and tear them, but I can’t wait any longer.”
 

She tried to control her wild trembling as she fell against the bed. She struggled up again quickly and he pushed her down. “I have to talk to you!” she cried. “We can discuss things calmly. If you will only turn on the light—”
 

“We can talk later.” When she tried to slide her feet over the edge of the bed he flung them back. “Stay there. I don’t want to have to chase you, I’m not in the mood.”
 

Rachel sprawled back on the bed, hearing the rustling sound of his clothes being pulled off and thrown to the four corners of the bedroom. Then the bed creaked with his weight as he sat down to pull off his boots. She heard the bump of one hitting the floor.