If You Loved Me (17 page)

I was too scared to follow you into the wilderness eighteen years ago.

"Is it an animal?" she whispered.

He turned his head and saw the shape of her face. Not the color, just clean lines and shadows. Her hair was caught back from her face. He could see the sweep of it and the angle of her jaw.

"Probably raccoons. They'll be down by the water."

He reached his hand to touch her face, stopped himself in time, but couldn't get rid of the memory of how she'd felt in his arms only hours ago. As a girl, she'd been all coltish sensuality, but earlier tonight it was a woman he'd held in his arms, lush curves and quick sensual breath. He'd kissed her and felt her hunger meet his, setting off a raging need that still pulsed hard in his body.

Had he imagined her response, creating passion and need because he wanted it that way, because it was too long since he'd been to town, too long since he'd been with a woman?

"Can we see them?"

He jerked at her voice.

"What? What did you say?"
Jesus, man, get hold of yourself!

Why the hell had he suggested she sleep in the tent? The plane would be better, separated by the seats. But he'd seen her rub her leg so often through the day, had noticed her placing it carefully at lunch when they walked. She hadn't complained. He couldn't remember her ever complaining about her leg, figured she wouldn't no matter how much it throbbed. She'd always been so damned determined not to be held back by anything, especially her weak leg.

Whatever else had changed about her, her stubbornness remained intact.

He heard her sleeping bag rustle, knew she was facing him and imagined he could feel her breath on his cheek.

"I've seen raccoons in the city," she said. "Near the hospital at night sometimes I get a glimpse of one. If I went outside, do you think I'd be able to see them, or would they run?"

Outside would be better than here with the knowledge that he'd told her to take her clothes off. He could see a pile of clothes at the foot of her sleeping bag, so she wasn't wearing much. Although she was probably scared and vulnerable and worried sick about Chris, and he was worried, too, because he knew just how easy it was to die out here, that didn't seem to stop his wanting her.

She needed comfort, not sex.

"Gray?"

"Yeah." He shoved aside the sleeping bag and reached for his jeans. He had to get out of here.

He had his jeans in his hand and the tent zipper open when he made the mistake of turning to look at her in the moonlight.

If he bent down, if he touched her face...

"Come outside," he said gruffly, "but be quiet."

He stood outside the tent to pull on his jeans, his hands were shaking as he zipped them. It would be a miracle if he got through tonight without touching her again.

He should have taken her back to the house for the night, should have headed home earlier, before the storm started. Separate rooms would have put a wall between them.

He damned well needed walls. Earlier, she'd been wildfire in his arms only moments after she told him she'd promised herself to another man. Nothing much had changed, he told himself brutally. Emma Garrett was the same woman who'd once been Emma Jennings, who had professed undying love to Gray MacKenzie, then given herself to his best friend the instant his back was turned!

She came out of the tent wearing jeans and the fleecy sweatshirt she'd worn earlier. She looked very young in the moonlight, her hair tied back with a scarf, her fists clenched at her sides.

He held out his hand.

She hesitated, then put her hand into his. Her fingers felt cool and very, very smooth. When they curled around his, he felt their strength and realized she would need strong hands and a very precise strength to use her fingers and the tools of a surgeon to repair broken bodies.

He led her to the broadest log, walking ahead of her, stepping to the next log only when he spotted solid footing for her. As he stepped down onto the gravel beach, moonbeams streaked raggedly across the bay to the shore. The wind hadn't shifted directly into this inlet yet, so he knew the southerly hadn't finished its blow.

When a black silhouette moved just at the water's edge, Gray murmured in Emma's ear. "There he is." He reached across her shoulder to point, felt her hair brush his naked arm as she turned her head. The night air moved on his chest without chilling him—no shirt, and he was burning inside like a furnace. Man heat, hunger driven.

He would simply have to starve it.

Down at the water's edge, the coon stretched one paw into the water.

Emma's voice was a throaty whisper on the night air.

"What's it doing?"

Gray bent close to murmur an answer and his nostrils caught the scent of the perfume she must have put on yesterday morning.

"Eating," he growled softly.

"Eating?" she echoed.

He told himself not to touch her shoulder, even as his fingers closed on the curve where her upper arm began. He slipped his arm around her and felt her tremble. She stood tall, but he knew how she would feel if he drew her back against his chest. He knew, too, that it would be a mistake.

He pulled her back until the solid warmth of her back pressed through her sweatshirt into his chest. A ripple went through her and it ceased to matter that this was insanity. He needed to feel her, closer.

Whatever the price of this mistake, he would pay.

His hand found the softness of her midriff through the sweatshirt and his arm tightened, increasing the pressure. She tensed and he held his breath, bracing for the shaft of pain that would come when she broke free.

The breath went out of her with a soft sound and he knew she wasn't going to push him away. He wrapped his other arm around her, drew her more tightly into his chest and met the roundness of her buttocks against his thighs with a hard shudder of arousal. He had to fight to stop himself from pulling her around to face him, from tearing her clothes away and plunging himself into her heat.

Slowly, his pulse slowed to a hard hammering and he became aware of the individual sensations that were Emma, silk in his arms, soft and strong. He spread his fingers and felt the ridge of her waistband through the fleecy sweatshirt. He breathed her scent in, felt the tickle of her hair between his face and her throat. He buried his face in it, and with his mouth he sought the scarf she'd used to tie it back.

When he pulled with his teeth, the wind caught the scarf and took it away. He stood there in the moonlight with her softness in his arms, her hair blowing all around them. If he moved his hands up a few inches, he would have the soft abundance of her breasts in his palms. He closed his eyes and let himself drown in her breath, in the feel of her body pressing against his hands with each ragged pulse.

He didn't give a damn what was in her dreams. Right here, right now, she was his. Nothing else mattered.

He slipped his hands down to the hem of her shirt. He held his breath, felt her gasp as he found the silky warmth of her naked flesh underneath. His hands sought and captured the warmth of her breasts.

"Emma," he groaned, "so incredibly soft..."

The peaks of her breasts grew hard against his palms. He bent his mouth and buried his lips against her throat.

His name trembled on her lips, pulsing and breathless. He caught her erect nipples gently with thumbs and forefingers, and when she groaned, he felt an answering shudder deep inside his body.

She caught his hands with hers through the sweatshirt. Slowly she turned to face him, gasping as his fingers slid away from her breasts. Her face was white under the moon. He reached out and closed his fingers over the hem of her shirt and slowly lifted the fabric with both hands.

She lifted her arms as he stripped away the barrier. For a moment she was imprisoned, the shirt covering her face and raised arms. The blood of some barbarian ancestor throbbed in his veins, urging him to take her naked breast, to feel her writhing, willingly trapped against him, her naked torso glistening and white.

He tossed the shirt aside, eyes locked on the woman. Her breasts had always seemed too heavy for her slight body to carry, lush and inviting. When he cupped them, a shudder tore through her.

"This is wrong," she whispered.

He stared at her body, saw her breasts swell with each gulp of air as if she needed to wrest oxygen from the night.

"Do you want me to stop?" The question sent pain throbbing through his loins.

She moaned, and then her head went back in surrender or invitation, and he bent to take the tip of her breast in his mouth... remembered the first time he'd ever done that and how her body had convulsed in his arms.

She moaned and he drew her deeper inside, gently stroked the swollen peak with slow motions of his tongue. She whimpered and twisted and her hands clenched into his hair, cradling his head. The wildness flowed from his mouth into her and back into his loins.

He imprisoned her slender body with his hands on either side of her rib cage. She was small in his hands, her breasts spilling over. He slid his hands slowly over her flesh and tasted her.

Wild and silken sounds in his ears. Her sounds.

"Tell me what you want," he growled against her flesh. She answered not words, but a wild moan of response as he drew her nipple deeply into his mouth. She tasted of honey and sensual woman, of dreams and paradise.

His body clenched, pushing against her, and her legs parted to cradle him.

"Tell me," he demanded.

Her dark eyelashes shadowed her cheeks. Her mouth parted, her breath short and filled with soft sounds from her throat as he moved against her.

"You," she breathed. "Inside me."

The words throbbed in his body as he slid his hands under her buttocks, drawing her close, hard, feeling himself swell close to explosion as she writhed against him, telling him her frustration at the barriers with formless, carnal sounds.

He found the tab of her zipper and slid it down, slipped hungry hands inside her jeans and found the hot flesh under her panties. She gasped and entangled him between the need to caress her to madness and the hunger to uncover the last of her flesh. Then she was naked and trembling and he held her against him and lost himself in the soft groans and her wild rhythm.

"Gray," she gasped as her body pressed even more closely against his.

He swept her up into his arms. Her mouth came to his, hungry and hot. Naked, his woman, she curled against him, solid and fragile, unquestioning as he stepped up onto the logs and strode back to the tent.

He didn't remember getting to the tent, just the warm curves of her body as he laid her down inside and lowered himself to join her. Shadows now, the harsh sound of two lovers breathing. He tangled one hand in the golden mystery of her hair. Her lips parted, swollen and hungry for him. He traced her shape with his hands as his mouth found hers.

"We can't," she breathed.

"We are." He slid a caress along the warm silk of her thigh, felt her leg lift to his touch, knew victory when her body moved against his hungrily. Then her voice turned high and desperate as he found the moist center of her.

"Oh, God, Gray... please—now!"

He was entangled in the trap of her breathing, in the heat and passion rising to join with him. He moved away and she cried out. It was a sweet torture they both needed as he slid his fingertips along the trembling column of her throat.

"Tell me now," he whispered harshly as he traced feather touches over her breasts. "Tell me we can't. Tell me to stop."

His fingertips caressed the slope of her hip, sensing her need, welcoming the shudder that tore through her. As he traced her inner thigh, a moan tore from deep in her throat.

Oh, God! He'd dreamed her, had awakened hungry and hard, but the girl in his dreams had been an immature passion, her sensuality passive. He hadn't imagined this Emma, hungry and wild in his arms, crying his name as she touched him with soft hot need until he would die to possess her.

He bent over her and licked her breast slowly, torturing himself as hunger throbbed. In a moment it would rage free and he would possess her completely, but first he would take her as close to madness as he could, savoring the painful pleasure of her moans and her lover's whispers.

She was his and her body moved to tell him so. He curved his palm and traced the slight roundness of her abdomen and ached to feel her naked against him and filled with his child. Emma... he stroked and she moaned, her need shafting deep into his own pulsing body. He knew she ached as he did.

A surge of victory told him that in this moment she would give him anything he asked. If he demanded it, she would deny Alex, would deny she had ever wanted Paul Garrett. With passion trembling in her voice, she would vow Gray MacKenzie was the only man who would ever stir her to need.

He leaned over her in the filtered moonlight. His hand moved from her belly, and his fingers tangled in the curly temptation of the hair at the juncture of her thighs.

"You said we can't," he whispered, his breathing harsh. "Say it again now."

As he demanded her response, he tormented himself with the need to know she was as powerless as he to stop this tide of need.

She whispered, "I need you," and moved under his hand, restless and hungry.

His fingers curved again into her moistness. He groaned as he felt her pulsing, aching for him. He would have her now and she would be only his.

"Gray." She drew in a breath that sounded like tears. "Tonight... if we make love tonight, there could be a child."

He felt her heat in his hands, her passion, her body trembling with desire.

A child. Emma's child, and his.

"It's the right time," she whispered. "I could conceive."

His world tilted and he felt the shiver that went through the woman in his arms.

"You're not on the pill?"

"No."

He pulled away from her, his body throbbing with her touch. She lay very still, making no move to cover herself.

Emma carrying his child. The vision haunted him.