Eyes of the Cat (27 page)

Kissing her like his life’s blood depended upon it, he grabbed her about the waist and began to lift her hips to meet his. She clutched at his shoulders and raised herself the last few necessary inches before letting hot instinct guide her downward.

The shield of her virginity brought the action to a sudden halt. And jarred Alan back into some semblance of reason.

“Tabitha—no—wait—not like this—not your first time,” he groaned, painfully breaking off the kiss. “It isn’t right… Please, dear, not…not now… Tonight… I want to be able to make love to you properly,” he begged, trying to push away from her.

Nearly drowning in her own desire, she dragged him back.
Properly?
Who the hell worried about
proper
at a time like this?

“Shut up, you idiot!” she gasped, and drove herself hard down.

The contact jolted through them both, like a high voltage shock, almost throwing her off him. His arms tightened convulsively, holding her close while they waited a ragged moment for the smoke to clear.

Such an ecstatically sweet burning…

Tabitha clung to him like the sea hugs the shore. The sudden stab had been more like the answer to an undreamed of prayer than actual pain.

And the movement, when it started, was like the dance of life itself. Like the spinning of the world on its axis, gaining power with every turn. It filled her like a sunrise, all rose and crimson and golden glow.

Alan filled her.
He was a blinding light blazing within and all around her, she thought dizzily, right before the world spun crazily out of control, and they collapsed together in a panting heap on the floor.

…Ever so gradually, her heart rate calmed, and the spiraling room slowed back into focus. As the mist receded from her eyes, the first thing she saw was Alan’s hypnotically handsome face looming over her, an expression in his gaze like he’d just unraveled all the mysteries of creation, and was both reverently awed and deeply satisfied by what he’d discovered.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his husky voice barely more than a whisper.

Staring up at him with eyes gone enormous, and unable to trust her own voice at all, Tabitha slowly shook her head. Then nodded it. Then shook it again. Then gave a half nod. Then…

The fact of the matter was she didn’t know if she was all right or not. At that instant, she was still trying to figure out
who
she was, and what the words “all right” meant.

Seeing the unveiled confusion in her green saucers, a genuine concern yanked down the veil in his eyes. She was lying propped against him, and with a low curse, Alan’s arms tightened around her.

“I hurt you, didn’t I? I must have,” he said almost harshly. “Tabitha, I am so sorry. I never planned for it to happen this way. I wish you had let me stop. I could have made this so much easier for you in bed, with time to—”

At the word “bed” Tabitha’s mind clicked into startled awareness.
Why hadn’t they used the bed?
She wondered and remembered all in the same horrified second.

“Dear God— Rosa!” she gasped, cutting Alan off and bowling him backward as she scrambled out of his arms. Snatching the remains of her dressing gown off the floor, she fought her way into it and flew across the room.

And breathed a grateful sigh of relief. Rosa was still sound asleep. She was unscathed by the…the…by what had… Suddenly, it was almost impossible to swallow or draw air into her constricted lungs.

Merciful heavens—what have I done?
She shuddered spastically. Or, rather—that frightful question once more—what had she been
made
to do?

As if it really makes the slightest difference, she decided wretchedly, turning as sea green as the tattered robe she was huddled in. The damage had been done. Irrevocably. And however it happened,
he
was definitely the one who instigated it, her mind raged. Her eyes slanted to the tall, muscular figure approaching her.

“Tabitha, I’m sorry,” Alan said softly. “I shouldn’t have let things get so far out of hand. But ’tis all right, dear. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

Make it up to me…
Her eyes went from saucers to dinner plates.
Make it up to me?
If that meant what she thought it meant…

“Don’t touch me!” She ducked past him and darted to the opposite end of the room as he reached for her.

“Tabitha—”

“I’m serious. Don’t touch me, don’t look at me, don’t even
breathe
on me.” She halted him in his tracks with a dagger glare. “If you ever again even
think
of laying a finger on me, you’re a dead man,” she ground out. “I swear it. Touch me one more time, and I will kill you. If it takes my last breath to do it, I will see you eviscerated. And
don’t
tell me I don’t mean it!”

“I’d not dream of it. I can see you’re quite serious,” Alan said in the same tone he had used on tiny Rosa. Raising his hands palms up and out, he began a cautious, step by step, journey toward her. “But you’re also a wee bit hysterical, dear. ’Tis understandable, mind you. You’re a high-strung lass to begin with and—”

“You’re damn straight I’m hysterical!” Tabitha grabbed an earthenware water jug off a nearby table. “But I still know
exactly
what I’m talking about. And I am telling you that this farce is finished. It’s
over
. You’ve gotten what you wanted from me. You’ve had your fun now. So leave me be! And who the hell are you calling
high-strung
?”

“My apologies. ’Twas a stupid thing to say.”

The jug went barreling straight for his head.

He caught it on the fly, setting it on the dresser he was passing by without spilling a drop or missing a step, his face a smooth mask of carefully controlled emotion.

“But as for the rest of it, dear… Didn’t you get what you wanted, too?” One hand caught her wrist, neater than he’d caught the jug, as she tried to flee past him. The other hand clapped over her mouth. “Don’t scream. Or I’ll be forced to silence you with a kiss,” he warned softly. And instantly had to shift his grip to her waist as her knees caved out from under her. “Don’t faint either—unless you want me to explore some creative ways of reviving you.”

“Any other
instructions
?” she blistered out the second she felt past the danger of swallowing her tongue.

“Yes. I want you to answer my question.” Lifting her off her feet, he moved toward the burgundy armchair.

“Put me down!”

He obliged by putting her into the chair—after putting himself in it first.

“I said, put me
down.
”

“You are down,” Alan pointed out, settling her more firmly onto his lap as she tried to shove free. “Tabitha, I am tired. I don’t feel like standing any longer. And I definitely don’t feel like chasing you all over the room. Now,
sit still
. If you don’t stop behaving like a child, I may start treating you like one and tan that charming backside of yours rosy red. Do you hear me, lassie?”

It would have been impossible not to with his lips grazing her ear. Locked immobile in that maddening embrace and all but choking on her own rage, Tabitha clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut against the frustrated sobs threatening to spill forth. Neither action helped.

Feeling her trembling in his arms like a miniature earthquake, and having his shoulder spattered by hot, salty drops, Alan’s hold tightened into the Rock of Gibraltar.

“My apologies, again.” He sighed. “You go ahead and cry if you want to. ’Tis a natural enough reaction for a lass who’s just lost her maidenhead. But the rough part is over, dear. It only hurts the first time. I can promise you nothing but pleasure from now on.”

That helped even less.

Suddenly feeling like a waterfall, and infuriated by her own lack of control, Tabitha was swamped by several drenching moments of gut-wrenching sobs.
I’m doomed.
This torment was never going to end, was it? It was only getting worse. He was going to keep her here until there was nothing left of herself that she could recognize—until she was sucked dry as an old eggshell. And he didn’t even seem to realize what he was doing. He used ridiculous, mundane terms like
pleasure
, as though that’s all the experience meant to him. And he was an absolute moron if he thought she was crying over a brief flash of pain that she’d scarcely noticed. Who noticed a simple sting when your entire being was going up in flames?

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, or you wouldn’t say such asinine things,” she choked out toward the end of the tears, and felt her spine stiffen as Alan had the cheek to actually chuckle.

“I know a good deal more than you seem to realize,” his musical purr played over her. “Thank you for answering my question, though.”

“What question?” She sniffled irritably, trying to wrestle an arm free in order to wipe her face on her sleeve. Not an especially ladylike maneuver, but more gentile than a runny nose.

“Here.” Loosening his hold long enough to fish a handkerchief out of his trousers’ pocket, he offered it to her.

Tabitha grabbed both it and the opportunity to scramble to her feet, as he replied, “You’ve just assured me that you wanted what happened as much as I—”

“I didn’t!” she said, halted in her flight by his words as much as the hand that closed over hers.
I think I wanted it more
, the back of her mind groaned, while at the same instant, the front portion insisted aloud, “I keep telling you, I’ve never wanted any of this!”

“You could have fooled me on that a short time ago. I’m the one who tried to stop it. Remember?” he asked, deliberately bringing her hand to his lips and planting a warm kiss in the center of her palm.

She jerked as though burnt. “You didn’t try very hard, did you?”

He hauled her back onto his lap.

“Listen, lassie, I am not going to sit here arguing something we both know is a lie.”

“It’s the
truth
.” God, how she wanted, once and for all, to have everything out in the open, regardless of the consequences. “You know it is! I don’t want any part of this miserable charade. I never have. It’s all
your
doing. You’ve been making me act like…like I w-want…want these th-things,” she stammered, forcing herself to meet his gaze without flinching. “You’ve been
hypnotizing
me.”

For a suffocating moment, Alan’s expression looked as if it had been carved from wood. Then, with devilish slowness, the wood cracked into a grin that sucked the breath clean out of her.

“I didn’t think you’d noticed.”

The breath rushed back in—along with a renewed flood of fears. “Then you…you
admit
it?”

“Aye. ’Tis what the old Highlanders would call the
Come Hither
. Shall I tell you a secret, though?” he whispered wickedly, cupping her face between his hands. “My
come hither
only works on you.”

“Wh-what…” She went rigid as fear swung into complete exasperation. “Oh! How can you joke about it?”

“’Tis no joke. I’m telling you the truth.” His hands gripped her face a little tighter. “And I’ll tell you something else, too. You’ve the
come hither
in your own eyes. But yours only works on me. We’ve been hypnotizing each other, dear.”

If there was a “come hither” in Tabitha’s eyes, it instantly flipped into a freezing
go-to-the-dickens
.

“That is the most preposterous thing I have ever heard.” Twisting free, she tried to lunge off his lap.

His hands slipped to her waist, holding her square. “Not a bit of it. ’Tis quite logical, really.”

“So was the theory that the world was flat. Let me go.”

“Tabitha, you know what I’m trying to explain. And somewhere in that thick, bonny head of yours, you know I’m right. You’re not fighting me, dear. You’re fighting yourself. The sooner you admit it, the happier you’ll be.”

“Let. Me. Go!”

The iron grip relaxed and Alan’s arms dropped to his sides. “All right. You’re obviously in no mood to be reasonable, and I’m too weary to argue further. Go on, lass, get up if ’twill make you easier.”

It won’t, she thought darkly. But it was a start. Scrambling to her feet before he could change his mind, she retreated several rapid steps out of range and stood trembling and glaring at him, like a dynamite blast waiting to go off.

“Now then… Let me go.”

Alan’s hands and eyes went pleading upward. “Is she daft?” he asked the ceiling. But when the rafters couldn’t provide an answer, his gaze leveled back on Tabitha. “Look where you’re standing, dear. I
have
let you go.”

“Not far enough. I mean, let me go away from here.
All
the way. Let me wake up from this nightmare.” She clenched her hands in an unsuccessful attempt to keep her voice steady as his eyes raked over her. “Please, Alan—I can’t take anymore. I need out of this Bedlam. I need to go back to my own life.
Please
, let me go.”

His golden gaze crystallized into a hard glow.

“Never. And that’s the end of it. This is just foolish stubbornness, and I’ll hear no more. Do you understand me?” he said, the beginnings of exasperation roughening his voice. “And stop looking like a frightened child. It’s starting to grate on my nerves. You’re not Little Red Riding Hood, and I’m not the Big Bad Wolf. If I thought you were truly serious, I’d put you on the next train east—regardless of what it cost me. I’m not one to force my attentions on a woman who doesn’t want them. But that’s not the case here, because you
do
want them. You’ve proved that too well, too many times now, for either of us to doubt it. The fact of the matter is this, dear… There’s only one real reason why you’re still here. And it’s the same reason why you’ll stay.” He suddenly leaned forward, riveting her where she stood with an iron stare. “You
don’t
want to leave.”