Renegade (7 page)

“I do not!” he bit off.

“Then, shouldn't we go upstairs?” she prompted. “I haven't checked door to door, of course, but I'm sure my neighbors are easily shocked.”

He met her level stare and tried to weigh the consequences logically. But his mind wasn't cooperating. His body was making it impossible to think at all. Just the sight of her in
that white gown, with her bodice plunging and hinting at the beautiful curves underneath made him ache. It had been a long time. Too long. He was ripe for a reckless night in bed. But not with an abused woman who was barely one step removed from virginity.

“Last chance,” she said breathlessly, her nails biting into her evening bag as she fought inherent shyness to make the outrageous offer.

He sighed angrily. “Listen…”

She held up a hand. “You're just bristling with excuses,” she gleaned. “I'm sorry, but it's no use. You don't want to. Okay. I understand. Thanks for dinner and the ballet. I know it didn't look like it, but I really did enjoy them.”

She opened the door and got out, smiling forcefully. “Are you going to be around tomorrow? It's Christmas Eve.”

He frowned. “I don't know.”

“If you are, I'm having turkey and dressing and all the trimmings,” she said.

He was confused and upset. He'd never been in a situation where he was so torn between two alternatives. He'd never wanted a woman so badly, either. But he thought her outlook was overly optimistic. She'd never really dealt with her past.

“Have you even had therapy?” he asked abruptly.

“You think I need therapy because I offered you sex?” she exclaimed.

“Hell!” he burst out. “Can't you be serious for a minute?”

“I've spent my whole adult life being serious, and it's getting me nowhere.”

“You need counseling,” he insisted.

She glared at him. “I don't need counseling. All I need is…well, never mind what I need. You're not interested.”

“You haven't faced your past,” he said flatly.

“Oh, yes, I have. Despite what you think, I can live with my past. Can you?”

She turned and started up the steps. She was angry, but her body was still throbbing like a wound. She couldn't quite control that, or her unsatisfied desire. He thought she couldn't function as a woman. She knew she could, with him, at least. But if he wouldn't believe her, there was little hope in showing him.

She paused as she unlocked her front door to look back at him. He was still sitting in the car, scowling, with both windows up and the moon roof closed. The car was still running, too.

She waved and went inside. It was the hardest thing she'd done in years. She knew she might never see him again. The funny thing was that she'd been telling the truth. Her body was throbbing with desire. She wanted him so much that she was almost shaking with it. Any other man would have had her in the bedroom before she could get the whole invitation out. And she had to run across a man who was too concerned with her hang-ups to accept a blatant offering!

C
ASH WATCHED HER GO
in the door with his heart in his throat. That beautiful, desirable woman wanted him. But she was inside, and he was sitting out here in the cold with the engine running. And why? Because he was afraid that once wouldn't be enough. He was afraid that he'd finally met the one woman he couldn't walk away from, and he didn't want to take the chance that love making would lead to obsession. He'd already had a taste of what passed for love in a woman's mind. It had destroyed his life.

But Tippy wasn't just any woman. She had a past of her own to live with. She understood him, perhaps better than anyone else alive. He remembered Christabel Gaines listening to him, sympathizing with him. He'd gotten drunk on her caring kindness. But it hadn't been love, not on her part. It had been friendship. It wasn't like that with Tippy. She aroused a rage
of passion in his body, in his mind, in his heart. He wanted to know how it would be to have her. He ached to know.

While he was trying to convince himself that he should pull the car out into the street and go away, his body was turning off the ignition and opening the door. He was rigid with desire, so tormented that he couldn't think past relief. All his arguments were being consumed in a veritable maelstrom of aroused passion.

He rang the bell without giving himself the opportunity to run for it.

There was an answering buzz. The door was unlocked. He went through it and up the stairs, his heart pounding madly with every quick step. He wouldn't think about tomorrow. Not until he had to.

She was waiting for him at the door when he reached it. She'd taken off the coat, but she was still wearing the shoulderless white velvet dress. Her glorious red-gold hair was around her shoulders, falling in soft waves on her creamy skin. She was breathing quickly, despite the faint trace of fear in her soft eyes that she couldn't contain. Her skin looked like silk.

He moved into the apartment and closed the door. On an afterthought, he reached behind him blindly and threw the lock.

She backed away from him. At first, he thought she was changing her mind. But she was moving toward the bedroom. He followed her slowly, his face giving away his hunger for her.

He followed her into the room and closed that door, locking it, too. He stood and looked at her, vaguely aware of the neat coverlet of the double bed behind her and the closed windows and curtains that flanked it.

She swallowed hard. “The…light,” she faltered, flush
ing, because it was a little embarrassing, despite her bravado earlier.

His eyes narrowed. “Do you want it out?”

She nodded.

“There's something you have to know, before this starts. I don't have anything to use.”

Her eyes sought his. “I don't care.”

His heart jumped wildly. He thought of Jessamina, Christabel's little girl. He thought of a child. Tippy wasn't refusing him because he hadn't anything to prevent a child. She loved children. He permitted himself to think, for an instant, of a little girl with red hair and green eyes, and his heart began to race.

“We're both insane,” he choked.

She nodded slowly, her lips parted huskily. “Turn out the light. Please.”

It was the last thing she said.

 

H
E FOUND HER IN THE
semidarkness with his hands, and then with his mouth. She melted into him. She felt the zipper in the back of her dress being slowly lowered, and then she felt his hands on her bare skin. She gasped at the incredible sensation it produced.

“Yes,” he murmured at her ear. “You feel it, too, don't you? It's like electricity when I touch you. I've never touched skin like yours. It feels like flower petals, warmed by the sun,” he whispered huskily. His hands smoothed up her back and then down again, slowly taking the dress and half-slip and panty hose with them. “You aren't wearing much under this,” he whispered amusedly.

Her breath was coming in jerks. The touch of his hands made her knees go weak. “You can't wear much under a dress like this,” she confessed.

His mouth was working its way down her body, along with his hands. She felt it on her breasts and she shivered.

He paused, his mouth hovering just over a taut nipple. “Frightened?” he whispered softly.

“No!” She jumped when she felt his warm lips open and pull at the nipple. Her hands caught in his thick, dark hair and she moaned.

He laughed gently. “You like that? And we've barely begun.”

She didn't understand. Not then. But as he found more and more of her with his mouth, and then with his hands, and the passion began to burn high and bright, the words slowly made sense.

He had all the time in the world. He didn't rush. He lingered over every satin-smooth part of her, exploring, teasing, testing, while she alternately moaned and wept at the rush of sensation that made her boneless and famished. She ached for him. Her body was his. She belonged to him. Every brush of his mouth on forbidden places, every slow movement of his hands was pulsing ecstasy.

He felt her move against him and he smiled at her soft belly, enjoying her responses, her soft cries of pleasure, enjoying the sensation of oneness that it gave him to feel her nudity against his.

She jerked when she felt him against her, but he soothed her and comforted her, his mouth teasing gently at her lips while he moved slowly into intimacy between her long, trembling legs.

“Remember what I asked you?” He eased his mouth between her full lips as he began to penetrate her tenderly. “I asked if you wanted to feel me inside you.” He caught his breath harshly. “You do, don't you?” he bit off. His eyes
closed. “I want to feel you, too, as close to me…as I can get you!”

“Cash…!” she exclaimed, shivering, and her hands tightened on his muscular upper arms. “You're so big…!”

“Shh,” he whispered into her mouth. “We're going to fit together like two spoons, despite what you're thinking. It isn't going to be stark or violent. I know too much to rush my fences. I won't hurt you, baby. Relax. That's it. Just relax. I'm driving. You're riding. Okay?”

She laughed huskily at the images that flooded her mind. Then he moved slowly, sensuously, and she felt his tender, soft invasion. She started to stiffen, but it wasn't hurting. It wasn't violent. It wasn't even…urgent. It was… Her eyes closed and she began to moan softly as the long, slow movements provoked nerve endings she didn't even know she had into pleasure.

His hands were under her now, one at her neck, the other under her slender hips, lifting her gently into the motion of his body. “That's it,” he whispered huskily. “Making love is like singing the blues. The slower it is, the better it is.”

He nibbled her upper lip softly while he moved on her, lazily, tenderly. With every soft motion, she felt him deeper in her body, the shocked pulse of pleasure beginning to grow and flare up inside her as her body stretched to accommodate him. She gasped at the heat and power of him.

“I…feel you,” she whispered, clinging closer.

“I feel you, too. Silky skin, soft breasts, sweet mouth…I can't get…close enough, Tippy!”

She felt the same way. Her breath whimpered his name out as the sensations grew more violently pleasurable. She shivered with ecstasy every time he moved. It was incredible!

His mouth covered hers as the movements increased in depth and power. She shivered. It was…beautiful! She could
feel him inside her. She was expanding. He was…potent. She'd never dreamed…!

Her mouth opened under his as her body opened for him. She felt him fill her. She could barely contain him. Stars were flashing behind her closed eyelids as the pleasure became a flame. It was burning her, pulsing, rising, exploding in every cell of her body. She sobbed, her arms frantic as they reached around him. Her legs curled over his powerful thighs, feeling the muscles as he increased the power and rhythm of his slow invasion.

“I…never…knew!” she cried rhythmically. “Please. Please don't stop, don't stop, don't…stop!”

His mouth moved against her throat hungrily. “I can make it even better. Slide your legs inside mine,” he bit off breathlessly. “Hurry, baby!”

She didn't understand, until she followed the urgent command. And then her body began to burst with unexpected pleasure. She continued to sob helplessly, her teeth suddenly biting into Cash's muscular shoulder, her body in an arch of pleasure that was surely enough to break bones…

Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard his voice at her ear, husky and hoarse and fierce, whispering, “Give me a baby, Tippy…!”

She shot off into the sun, shattering with ecstasy, a tiny helpless scream of pleasure ripping from her throat as she went unconscious for a space of seconds. When she regained her ability to think, she heard him groan at her ear and she felt the harsh, helpless shudder of his powerful body above her as he found his own fulfillment. It never seemed to end. She held him, comforted him, while he convulsed in her arms. She kissed him tenderly, her heart full, her body full, belonging as she'd never belonged to anyone in her life.

He collapsed on her finally, his heartbeat shaking her damp body in the darkness. She clung to him with her eyes closed.
Don't let it end, she whispered silently. Don't let it end. Don't let it end….

She didn't realize that she was whispering it to him, or that the sound of her husky voice pleading for his body had caused a sudden, impossible arousal.

She'd heard girlfriends talk. She knew that a man's body wasn't capable of what his was already doing. She opened her mouth to tell him, but he was moving on her again. This time, he wasn't slow, or hesitant, or tender.

His hand caught in her hair and his mouth crushed down over hers. His hips pushed down against hers insistently, with a quick, sharp pressure that lifted her sensitized body into sudden, agonizing fulfillment.

She cried out helplessly into his devouring mouth, her legs gripping his hips, her arms holding him furiously against her. He felt her instant satisfaction, but his own came more slowly. He hated her for what was happening to him. He couldn't stop. He couldn't hold back. He was desperate to taste that unbridled ecstasy he'd just had with her. He had to have it again. He had to!

His body riveted hers while his mouth grew even more invasive, more insistent on her mouth. It was taking so long…!

“Slow…down,” she whispered into his mouth, her voice tender, breathless. “Slow down. It's all right. It's all right!”

“Damn you…!” he bit off, his voice throbbing with the desire he couldn't hide.

“It's all right,” she whispered again. “I want you, too. I want you so much, so badly. Don't rush. Don't resent what you feel. Slow down, Cash. I'll do anything for you. Anything! Tell me what you want.”

The ardent little speech made the sense of helplessness go away. He felt more in control. The pace of his lovemaking slowed into tenderness.

“Tell me what to do,” she whispered again at his ear, clinging to him. “You can have…anything you want!”

His mouth covered her eyes, her cheekbones, her nose. His breath shook with every kiss. “I've never had it like this,” he said harshly.

Her fingers traced his mouth, his chin, his strong neck. “I never knew it could feel like this,” she whispered. “I thought it always hurt….”

“Doesn't it?” he murmured at her breasts. “It hurts…so good!”

“Yes!”

He rolled over, holding her above him while his hands guided her hips. He could hardly see her face, but he could feel her faint embarrassment. “Move up a little. That's it…!”

She obeyed him, feeling his body grow even more potent. She groaned.

“What's wrong?” he asked quickly.

“I don't know…anything!” she ground out. “I watch movies, I read books, but I don't know how…!”

“I'll teach you what you need to know,” he said huskily, pulling her down to him. “You're perfect just as you are,” he added as his mouth found her lips. “The most perfect lover… I've ever had!”

That reminded her that she wasn't the first of them, and she started to speak, but he rolled over again, pinning her, and the pleasure exploded in little bursts. She gasped.

“It's been years,” he ground out at her breasts. “And even the best…was nothing compared to this!”

She caught her breath. He meant it. She could tell.

“I want a child,” he whispered helplessly as his body moved into total possession. “Oh, God, Tippy…I want a…child!”

She went under like a drowning swimmer. She heard him whispering urgently as the pleasure began to seep into her, her
body following him mindlessly as he positioned her, taught her how to touch him, how to take him. It was the most beautiful few minutes of her entire life. Right up until the last helpless little shudder of fulfillment, she never thought she could live through it…

 

T
IPPY WAS VAGUELY AWARE
that he was dressing. She heard the movement of clothing on skin. She blinked. It wasn't morning. She looked at the clock. It had big numbers so that she could see it without her glasses. It was four in the morning.

“You're leaving?” she asked blankly.

He didn't answer. He finished dressing and sat down in the armchair beside the bed to put on his shoes.

“But…it isn't even dawn,” she persisted.

He still didn't answer her.

She heard him stand up. The bedroom door opened, letting in light from the living room that they hadn't stopped to turn off when they first came home. He turned and looked at her in the light, at her creamy skin over the blue and pink floral sheet she held to her breasts. She looked…loved.

His face was hard, devoid of feeling.

“Can't you say something?” she asked, insecure and trying to hide it.