Desert Rogue (14 page)

“Don't flatter yourself,” Victoria intoned crisply. Her haughty, disinterested demeanor gave lie to the little thrills that mysteriously prickled along the surface of her skin at the possibilities Jed's mocking words invoked.

“You misjudge me, Vicky,” Jed said, his voice a shade huskier than normal as the petite blonde's nakedness began to drive him to madness he was finding hard to contain. Slowly, he turned to his saddlebag. Extracting a
gallabiya
from the supplies obtained from the foreman of the quarries, he returned to the water's edge.

“What I was thinking is that you might want a change of clothing,” he said, dropping the garment beside the pool. “That is, unless you had something else in mind.”

In order to maintain his self-control in the face of her appealing blush, his sharp gaze moved reluctantly from Victoria to the harem outfit she had discarded on the bank. Drawn to it like iron filings to a magnet, Jed picked up the ornate bodice that still bore her scent. Allowing his fingers to run slowly across the rich fabric, he spoke with a hoarseness he hoped Victoria didn't notice. “To tell you the truth, though, Vicky, I surely wouldn't mind if you wanted to slip this on again.”

“I can't believe what a scoundrel you are,” Victoria said after a moment's silence, almost mesmerized by the manner in which Jed's long, sure fingers had stroked the jeweled vest. “Hayden would never take advantage of a lady like this.”

“From what I've seen of Hayden, he wouldn't know what to do with a woman if she lay down naked beside him. But that's your problem, not mine,” Jed replied coolly. He'd been enjoying this little set-to until that damnable Englishman's name had come up.

His irreverence vanished, Jed was becoming exceedingly serious as his eyes settled once more on Victoria Shaw. To his discomfort, she appeared to be every bit as delectable as he had imagined. It was a monumental waste of such loveliness to be destined for a man of Reed's ilk, a notion that ate at Jed until he remembered Victoria's argumentative nature and sharp tongue. She would undoubtedly run the man ragged. For some reason, the thought brightened Jed's outlook considerably.

“Don't be too much longer,” he said with a wry smile, “or I may decide to join you.” With that, he turned on his heel and left.

The moment Jed's straight, muscular form began to disappear over the crest of the sand, Victoria scrambled to the bank and grabbed the
gallabiya
he had left her. She wanted to take no chances on being in the water should he take it into his thick skull to turn around and come back. While he had been standing on the bank, she had felt trapped, completely at his mercy. Although something told her Jed Kincaid would never force her to lie with him, his being so near while she hadn't a stitch on had proved a singularly disturbing experience, one she didn't dare repeat.

Frantically grabbing at the hem of the
gallabiya,
she didn't see Jed grimace and give in to temptation, glancing back over his shoulder before completely vanishing from view. Nor did she hear his sharply indrawn breath as his captive gaze slid slowly over her feminine curves.

“Kincaid!” Ali reproved.

“I told her I was coming, didn't I?” Jed asked after releasing his breath in a rush. “Besides, she was in the water. There wasn't much to see.”

“Until you turned around, I warrant,” Ali replied, his voice rife with condemnation. “What about your mother's struggle to turn you into a gentleman?”

“I guess her lessons didn't stick much, after all,” Jed commented wryly. Still reeling from the vision of Victoria after she emerged from the pool, all wet and sleek, her ivory skin glistening, he was in no mood for a lecture. He hadn't liked the way his throat had constricted at the sight of her, and he tried to dismiss the manner in which his blood had begun to sing in his veins. Nor did he want to acknowledge what an error it had been to think that Victoria Shaw's lush little body would not live up to his expectations.

It would appear that instead of extinguishing his smoldering masculine urges, glimpsing Vicky had started his fires going, and thoughts of her belonging to Hayden Reed no longer seemed a matter for levity. In fact, the flames licking at his self-control made him long to find a physical outlet of any sort for the emotional frustration he felt.

“I've finished, if you'd like to return to camp,” he heard Victoria say as she came around the side of the sandy embankment.

Though she pretended to be calm and acted as if his outrageous conduct was nothing more than she expected, Jed swore it was not just sunburn that tinged her delicate cheekbones when her eyes chanced to meet his.

“Have a nice bath?” he asked, wanting her to remember, as he did, the physical tension that had hung in the air between them at the waters of the oasis. Offhand as he tried to sound, Jed found his voice was still tight in his throat at the memory of seeing Vicky under the desert's sun as natural as the day she had been born.

“Yes, no thanks to you,” Victoria replied scathingly. “Every time I think that you can behave no worse than you already have, you manage to prove me wrong. Not that I didn't appreciate him before, but having met you, I thank God for allowing me to have ever found a man as fine as Hayden.”

“Hayden, Hayden, Hayden!” Jed exploded, storming to Victoria's side and towering over her, his eyes sparking flame. The force of his emotions startled even him. But once begun, his outburst had to run its course. “If I have to hear that jackass's name one more time, Vicky, I swear you'll be sorry.”

“Oh, really? And just what do you intend to do?” Victoria inquired disdainfully, knowing with a woman's instinct that as wild as Jed Kincaid might be, he would never physically hurt her.

“I'm warning you, woman, keep it up and you'll find out. I won't be responsible for my actions,” Jed promised ominously.

“I refuse to be threatened by you, Jed Kincaid,” Victoria scoffed. “Why, Hayden would never treat a lady so. Hayden—”

“That's it!” Jed growled. With the ferocity of a springing wolf, he pulled Victoria to his chest so roughly that she began to doubt her assessment of him. Frightened, she wondered just where this snarling male's rage would take him, when quite unexpectedly, his mouth descended upon hers, hard and demanding.

Not only had he touched her, he had done so unwashed and unshaven. The sheer masculine force of him took Victoria by surprise. He was fierce and primitive in the way his mouth laid claim to hers. It was most ungentlemanly. It was totally...wonderful. In Jed Kincaid's embrace, Victoria forgot the desert, Ali and even Hayden. But most amazing of all was the manner in which she forgot herself, submitting to Jed's punishing kiss and then relishing it, exalting in it, shamelessly abandoning herself to the continued pressure of his mouth.

She could not deny that the streak of brutish masculinity she had claimed to find repulsive now had her enslaved to the will of the reckless American she had once considered her inferior. What a perfect idiot she had been, Victoria conceded as a delicious sensation began to engulf her. Jed Kincaid, unpolished as he appeared, was superior to any man she had ever known.

Pressing her soft, feminine form against his hardened, masculine one, she moaned softly, impatient to see what would occur next. But of all the things she had anticipated, she never imagined being abruptly released. Suddenly, Victoria found herself standing alone, while the man who had set her senses aquiver stepped back, angrily muttering words she couldn't decipher.

Feeling more vulnerable than she ever had, even during those despairing hours in the slave pens, Victoria wanted to pluck at Jed's sleeve, to beg him to tell her what she had done wrong. Apparently he hadn't found much to enjoy in the response she had given him. For the first time since he had come swaggering into her life, Victoria found herself without a sharp-tongued comment. Lowering her eyes to erase the sight of Jed's glowering, she turned and walked back to camp, staring blindly out over the waves of sand.

Jed watched Victoria go. Unconsciously, he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, his stance rigid. He hadn't liked that kiss—not one bit. It certainly wasn't what he had expected.

Victoria Shaw was no ice queen. Her skin had been hot and moist, the response she had left lingering on his lips seared his mouth still. She had quivered beneath his touch, sending sparks of hungry sensation coursing through his own body.

“You should not have done that,” Ali commented reprovingly from where he rested in the desert's deepening purple shadows.

“You're damn right I shouldn't have,” Jed concurred. But his reasons for agreeing with the Egyptian had nothing to do with morality and everything to do with the fire burning in his loins, a conflagration that threatened to devour him and any shreds of common sense and decency he had left.

What had driven him to give in to impulse and take Victoria Shaw in his arms? The lines of her perfect body emerging from the water of the oasis sprang readily to mind, until he hurriedly banished them, once more blaming his weakness, though with less conviction than before, on not having had a woman in quite some time.

It
couldn't
have been that he was susceptible to Victoria Shaw, he argued silently with that part of him that demanded he take her in his arms again. He had been able to walk away from her bathing site without touching her, after all.

No, he had merely thought to silence her, to show her once and for all who the trail boss was, to demonstrate that fine manners and manicured hands had nothing to do with a man's worth. But without even trying, she had taught him something, as well. He had learned no matter what reason it was that had driven him to kiss her, Vicky was a beautiful, desirable woman. And with that admission came an unwelcome realization. He wanted her. He wanted her badly.

Snorting in self-derision and silently swearing that he was nothing if not loco, Jed left Ali where he was and walked the short distance to the campsite. Stalking over to his saddlebag, he extracted a fresh
gallabiya.
Perhaps the cool waters of the oasis would extinguish the fire that still burned in his blood, singeing his heart each time it beat.

“You'll want to go sit with Ali,” Jed all but snarled, fixing Victoria with an intense stare that made them both uneasy.

“I'm content here,” she mumbled, hardly daring to move.

Damn it, did she have to look at him with eyes as velvety as a doe's? He never had gotten over his aversion to training his rifle on a doe, hunting them only when no other food was available. Well, it was an undeniable fact that he was starving now, though in quite a different fashion, and Victoria was the only quarry around. He had to send her scampering on her way before his ravenous appetite got the better of him.

“You might be happy sitting there now, but how will you feel while I get ready for my swim?” Jed asked, shedding his already opened shirt and moving his hands to the buttons of his trousers.

“Oh!” Victoria exclaimed, her eyes widening with understanding. Scrambling to her feet, she darted past Jed, a deep crimson staining her already sun-reddened skin.

Jed would have laughed aloud at Vicky's haste if her departure hadn't made him feel more miserable. He groaned, removed his remaining clothing and plunged into the small pool as if it were the only thing in the world that could grant him salvation.

But refreshing as the water was, it brought him no relief from his burning arousal. Was this what hell was like? Jed wondered abjectly when his traitorous imagination conjured up visions of what it would be like to share this pool with Vicky.

In desperation, he resorted to sternly reminding himself of what it was he detested about women like the decorous Miss Shaw. How could one kiss have caused him to forget, even for a moment, that Vicky was spoiled, pampered and demanding?

Suits and ties, fancy parties and fancier manners, these were the things a woman like Victoria would expect. There would have to be commitment, stability and some mundane job with a chance of advancement. Once all of these things crowded into a man's life, there was no room for impulsiveness and adventure. Jed scrubbed his skin so briskly it began to sting. Hadn't he learned that lesson after his mother had remarried and she had introduced him, along with his brothers, into polite society? He had walked away from that sort of life before. He wasn't going to embrace it now. It was a foolish man who placed his head in a noose he had already escaped.

Still, with the right man and the right loving, Vicky might not be such a shrew, he mused, until he caught himself and inwardly cringed. He had to be plumb crazy for such an idea to pop into his head. Victoria Shaw and Hayden Reed deserved each other and that was that. As for him, commitment wasn't a word in his vocabulary. He was a free man, with no obligations beyond the irregular missives he sent to his mother in San Francisco.

Horrified by the direction in which his thoughts had turned, Jed climbed out of the pool and stood on the sandbank. He was undeniably tense as the water clinging to him rapidly evaporated in the dry desert air. It was as if he were preparing to escape, to make a desperate bid for freedom by outrunning the nameless demon ready to pounce on him the moment he let down his guard.

There were no two ways about it. Jed grimaced, pulling on his
gallabiya.
Vicky might have the face of an angel, but she was one dangerous female.

Unconsciously crooking his forefinger, Jed ran it around the inside of the
gallabiya
's neckline, as if he could feel the noose tightening. Vigilance, he swore, that would be his byword until he could turn the disconcerting Englishwoman over to Reed.

Still, now that the moment had come to bring the others back into camp, Jed Kincaid discovered himself hesitating. For the first time in memory, he was at a loss as to how to handle a woman. Part of him yearned for Vicky's company, but that side of him ruled by self-preservation balked at being anywhere in her vicinity.