Iris Johansen (17 page)

He reached out and carefully took her other hand in his and pushed up the loose satin sleeve to reveal the livid brand. “Nice try,” he said tautly, staring at the already darkening flesh with compulsive fascination.
“But you’ll carry those marks for days. I’ve been in enough barroom brawls to know that.”

She didn’t try to remove her hand from his, but her other hand continued its soothing stroking motion in the silky darkness of his hair. “Then you must know these look much worse then they are,” she replied quietly. “I bruise very easily.”

“I think you’re lying to me,” he said gruffly, his thumb rubbing the marks with infinite gentleness, as if trying to erase the discoloration. “I don’t imagine you’ll try removing the thorn from this particular lion’s paw again anytime soon.” He suddenly raised her wrist and passionately pressed his lips to it. “God, I’m sorry.” His voice was husky. He pulled her swiftly into the circle of his arms and buried his face in her breast like a repentant little boy. “I must have gone a little crazy. I won’t do it again. I promise.”

“I know you won’t,” Janna said gently, holding his head to her softness with a fierce possessiveness she’d never known before. “I know it won’t happen again.”

“You smell so sweet,” he whispered, his arms tightening around her. “The scent of you makes me dizzy.”

“It’s probably exhaustion causing that effect,” Janna said lightly, over the lump in her throat. “I doubt if lavender bath salts could prove quite so potent.”

“Is that what it is?” he asked absently, rubbing his cheek in sensual contentment against the satin material of her negligee. “It does smell a little like flowers. But there’s something else that’s just you. It’s sweet clover and fresh sea breeze and warm, fragrant woman.” He hugged her closer still. “I like it.”

Janna was breathless from more than the tightness of his embrace. The warmth of his lips through the thin satin was causing her heart to accelerate in quantum leaps. She’d made an amazingly simple transition from moving empathy to a hot, aching
desire to take as well as give a more physical comfort. She made an involuntary motion of withdrawal as she realized that Rafe’s virile masculinity was making her forget the original reason she’d come to him.

“No,” he said thickly, his arms defeating the movement at its inception. “Don’t leave me. I’m not going to hurt you again. I just want you close to me.”

He pulled her down into his lap and pressed her head into the hollow of his shoulder. The oxford cloth of his shirt, crisp and warm from his body heat, was against her cheek, and she could discern the shadowy darkness of the thick wiry hair of his chest beneath its pristine whiteness. “This isn’t right,” she protested faintly. “You should go to bed and rest.”

“Well, part of your plan has appeal,” Rafe said softly, his lips brushing her temple gently. “But I don’t think I can wait for even that formality.”

Cradling her in his arms, his hands were deft as he swiftly loosened her braid, running his fingers through the tresses until they were falling in unruly, shimmering profusion about her shoulders. His hands wound passionately in her hair as he tilted her head to look into her eyes. “I want you,” he said thickly. “Will you let me make love to you, Janna?”

Her lashes lowered to veil her eyes. “I thought you’d made it clear I was to have no choice on that score,” she answered. “If I remember, you were quite adamant about your rights and privileges for the next few weeks.”

He flinched, and his hands tightened painfully in her hair. “Do you think I wanted to threaten you like that?” he asked. “You left me no option.”

“Yet tonight you’re giving me one,” she pointed out. “Have you had second thoughts?”

He scowled darkly. “Damn it, do you have to be so blasted analytic? Can’t you just say yes or no?” Then, as she didn’t answer, he sighed resignedly. “No, I haven’t changed my mind,” he growled. “If I’ve learned
anything in these past few days, it’s that if you’re a thorn in my flesh, it’s a thorn I can’t do without. I’ll keep you any way I can.” His eyes were moody, and his manner a little awkward. “I won’t lie to you, Janna. I’ll probably use every ploy and subterfuge I can think of to make sure you stay with me, but tonight I want you to come to me willingly.” He picked up her wrist and once again pressed his lips to the bruised flesh. “I won’t use force or coercion on you.” His lips twisted wryly. “You have no idea just how heroic a sacrifice that entails.”

“If I choose, you’ll let me get up and walk out that door?” Janna asked, not looking at him.

His body stiffened. “I will,” he said slowly.

She straightened slowly, so that she was upright in his lap. His hands fell reluctantly away from her hair, and she smoothed it composedly before she stood up and moved a few paces away. She turned to face him. “But I don’t want to walk out that door,” Janna said, smiling serenely. “I want you to make love to me. You’re a very exciting lover, Rafe. If you’re so determined in your course of action, why shouldn’t I enjoy its more pleasant aspects?” Her lips quirked. “Besides, it may be the only way I can get you to go to bed.”

“Bed, hell,” Santine growled. He was on his feet in seconds and across the yard or so separating them. “I’ve been on the verge of raping you since I looked up and saw you shimmering in the lamplight like a sexy ghost.” Then she was in his arms and he was covering her face and throat with quick, scorching kisses. “Since this seems to be my only talent that appeals to you, I’ll be damned if I’ll wait any longer to demonstrate it.” Despite the roughness of his words, his large hands were exquisitely gentle as they traveled up to cup the fullness of her breasts. “We made out pretty well in a hayloft. That couch should be sheer luxury in comparison.” He nodded toward the conversation area on the far side of the
room, and his lips brushed hers in a kiss of lingering sweetness. “I promise you won’t be uncomfortable. I want to show you I’m not always a rough, undisciplined bastard,” he muttered. “I want to be gentle with you, sweetheart.”

And he
was
gentle as he picked her up and carried her to the wide russet morocco leather couch before the fireplace. He was even more gentle as he lay her on its cushioned softness, sat down beside her, and slowly unbuttoned the satin negligee. His expression was intent and beautifully sensual as he carefully opened the honey-colored folds and gazed down at her with an intense hunger that caused a tingle of electricity to shoot through her. His large, blunt hands were gentle, too, as they moved over her sleek midriff in a caress all the more erotic for its teasing lightness. And when his raven-dark head bent, his tongue brushing one aroused nipple with warm, soft slowness, that, too, was done with infinite gentleness.

The only element lacking in gentleness was the flickering violence in the depths of Rafe’s eyes and the charged tension of the powerful muscles of his body as he fought for the restraint he’d promised her. Somehow, the knowledge of that passionate, leashed violence gave the slow softness of his caresses a dark, hot sensuality that was almost unbearably exciting.

He straightened slowly, and drew a deep, ragged breath, his hands quickly unbuttoning his white shirt, while his gaze remained on Janna’s dreamy, languid face. “God, it seems like weeks instead of days since I’ve seen you like this,” he said huskily as he slipped out of the shirt and threw it carelessly on the red and cream of the Persian carpet. The rest of his clothes swiftly followed. “Do you know how you look with the firelight playing over that lovely naked body? You’re all flame and dusky rose and sweet, deep shadows.”

“You’re beautiful, too,” Janna said dreamily, reaching out with both hands to touch the thick dark mat of hair on his chest. At his snort of disbelief she protested sincerely. “You
are
beautiful. Oh, perhaps you’re not a classical Adonis or a Robert Redford, but there’s more to beauty than that. Your body is truly magnificent, and your face …” She hesitated, trying to put into words the force and fascination of that rough, almost brutally powerful countenance. “It has expressions and strength and—”

She broke off as he leaned forward to press a swift, hard kiss on her lips. “Will you please be still and let me love you?” he said hoarsely as his hands slowly closed on her breasts, his thumbs moving in an abrasive stroking motion across her nipples and sending a streak of fire through her. “I’m holding on to my self-control by the skin of my teeth at the moment.” His hands moved down to rub the softness of her belly, and his warm, intent gaze followed the motion of his hands with narrowed eyes. His voice was deep and smoky as he continued, almost to himself, “You know, you were right. I am rather like an animal, but not the ones you compared me to.”

“What?” Janna asked dazedly. The molten languid heat building in her loins was being stoked with every lazy motion of his hands. “You know that I was joking.”

“Perhaps you hit closer to the truth than you knew,” he said softly, his hands parting her legs to stroke the inside of her thighs with a light, tantalizing brush of his fingertips that caused her to inhale sharply. “I’ve always been proud of my strength and invulnerability. I was king of the forest, indomitable and unattainable.” He was stroking at the very heart of her now, and she heard his words through a heated haze. “Do you know the story of the unicorn and the maiden?” He didn’t wait for an answer, which was fortunate, for she couldn’t have replied
anyway. “The unicorn was a mythical animal who had that same strength and indomitability, yet the hunters who pursued him for his golden horn found he had one fatal weakness. They had only to set a young virgin in a forest clearing and the unicorn would be drawn to her as if by magic, and would kneel and place his head in her lap.” He lifted his eyes to meet her own with an intensity that pierced the sensual haze that he was creating with the magic movement of his hands. “Then the hunters could fall upon him and bind him with their golden ropes and use him as they would. The legend never says what happened to the maiden. Presumably she strolled away as cool and uncaring as before she enticed him into her spell.” His smile was bittersweet and caused a queer ache to tighten her throat. “Do you recognize the parallels, lovely maiden?”

Without taking his eyes from her face, he deliberately lowered his head and placed it on the softness of her belly, the thick, anthracite darkness of his crisp hair nestling back and forth upon her satin smoothness like the sensual creature of his story. “Will you take your unicorn home, or turn him over to the hunters and walk away, Janna?”

For a moment she couldn’t answer. Her doe-brown eyes were shining with unshed tears, and she experienced an almost primitive desire to clutch that dark head to her with a passionate fierceness. It was the most poignant emotional moment she had ever known, and suddenly she couldn’t bear it. She had to break that fragile intensity or she felt she would shatter herself, like a piece of fine Venetian crystal.

Her hand reached down and caressed the hard contours of his cheek. “Your parallels aren’t exactly precise,” she said huskily. “It’s you who are binding me with the ropes of gold. I’m not a virgin.” Her eyes twinkled. “And I have no intention of letting the hunters have your horn. I have use for it myself.”

For an instant there was a flicker of disappointment
in the depths of his eyes. Then he again gave her that peculiarly bittersweet smile. “And so do I, sweetheart,” he said lightly, and he came over her, with surprising grace for such a massive man. “How stupid of me to forget the order of our priorities. I’ll try not to be so tritely sentimental again.”

“Rafe …” Janna protested, biting her lip. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know exactly what you meant,” Rafe said, his lips curving in a mocking smile, as he came between her parted thighs in a surging motion that took away her breath and split the universe into a million shimmering suns. “I won’t disappoint you, Janna. I’ll give you what you want from me.”

He was true to his word. Yet when the final climactic explosion came and they were clinging desperately to each other, their hearts thundering with the physical response as violent as the emotional one that had gone before, his sandpaper-velvet voice was a somber murmur in her ear.

“Poor unicorn …”

“Who the hell is Jody?” Rafe asked grimly, dark eyes blazing, as he strode into the library and slammed the door behind him.

Janna looked up, startled, as she replaced the telephone receiver and sat up straight in the massive desk chair. “I didn’t know you were there, Rafe,” she said quietly.

“Obviously,” Rafe said caustically. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have heard you crooning so confidentially to another man.”

Janna leaned back in the chair and regarded him wearily. She wasn’t up to facing this at the moment. As always, she felt drained after talking to Jody, and she was more upset than usual, after the report he’d given her. “Jody Forrester,” she replied, gazing blindly down at the green blotter on the desk before her. “He manages the farm for my grandmother.”

“The scrap of conversation I overheard hardly sounded very businesslike,” Rafe said tightly. “I’d say you know each other very well.”

She couldn’t remember what she’d said to Jody. It couldn’t have been very intimate; she’d been too upset. But it wouldn’t take much to set off Rafe’s burning jealousy. He’d been completely unreasonable in the two weeks since that night in the study. “We’re very good friends,” she agreed cautiously. “We grew up together and attended the same university.”

“Very good friends.” He spoke between clenched
teeth. He was striding toward her with the menacing grace of a stalking panther. “You told him you’d talk to him again tomorrow. I should have guessed even the most devoted granddaughter would hardly find it necessary to call her relative long distance every three days unless there was another attraction.” He had reached her chair and, grasping her by the shoulders, he jerked her to her feet. “Now it appears you plan on having your little chats daily.”

“You don’t understand,” she faltered, her eyes brimming with tears. “It’s nothing like you’re imagining. Jody is—”

“I don’t want to hear anything more about your Jody,” he interrupted harshly. “And I don’t want you hearing from him either. The phone calls with him have to stop.”