Rogue Stallion (7 page)

“No, I don’t mean physically. I mean…” She searched for words. “Sterling, I can’t play games. I’m much too intense. It would be better if we were just friends.”

He tilted her chin up and held her eyes. “Think about what you’re saying,” he said gently. “I know about your past. I know that you’ve been assaulted, that you don’t date anyone. I even know that you’re half-afraid of me. Considering all that, do you think I’m the sort of man who would tease you?”

She looked perplexed. Her hand had moved somehow into the opening where the buttons were unfastened. She felt the curly tangle of thick chest hair over warm, hard muscle. It was difficult to concentrate when all she wanted to do was touch him, test his maleness.

“Well, no,” she confessed.

“I don’t play games with women,” he said flatly. “I’m straightforward. Sometimes too much so. I
want you, but I’d never force you or put you in a position where you couldn’t say no.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Or don’t you realize that I’ve been in that position myself?”

Her brows jerked together as she tried to puzzle out what he was saying.

“When one of my foster mothers got drunk enough,” he said slowly, bitterly, “anything male would do. She tried to seduce me one night.”

Her heart ached for him. What a distasteful, sickening experience it would have been for a young boy. “Oh, Sterling!” she said sadly.

The distaste dominated his expression. “I knocked her out of the bed and left the house. The next morning, we had it out. I told her exactly what would happen if she ever tried it again. I was almost as big then as I am now, you see. She couldn’t force me.” His hands let her go and he moved away.

She’d come across the same situation so many times, with so many families. It was amazing how many children suffered such traumas and never told, because of the shock and shame.

She moved closer to him, but she didn’t touch him. She knew very well that abused children had real problems about being touched by other people sometimes—especially when something reminded them of the episodes—unless it was through their own choice. The scars were long lasting.

“You never told anyone,” she guessed.

He wouldn’t look at her. “No.”

“Not even your caseworker?”

He shrugged. “He was the sort who wouldn’t have believed me. And I had too much pride to beg for credibility.”

She mourned the help he could have gotten from someone with a little more compassion.

“I’ve never told anyone,” he continued, glancing down at her. “Amazing that I could tell you.”

“Not really,” she said, smiling. “I think you could tell me anything.”

His face tautened. It was true. He would never balk at divulging his darkest secrets to this woman, because she had an open, loving heart. She wouldn’t ridicule or judge, and she wouldn’t repeat anything he said.

“I think I must have that sort of face,” she continued, tongue-in-cheek, “because total strangers come up and talk to me about the most shocking things. I actually had a man ask me what to do about impotence.”

He chuckled, his bad memories temporarily driven away. “And what did you tell him?”

“That a doctor would be a more sensible choice for asking advice,” she returned. Her eyes searched his dark, hard face. “Sex was really hard for you the first time, wasn’t it?” she asked bluntly.

Again his face tautened. “Yes.”

She glanced away, folding her arms over her
breasts. “I wasn’t a child when I had my bad experience, but it made the thought of intimacy frightening to me. I’m realistic enough to know that it would be different with someone I cared about, but all I can see is the way he was. He reminded me of an animal.”

“Do I?”

She turned quickly. “Don’t be absurd!”

One eyebrow quirked. “Well, that’s something.”

She went back to him, looking up solemnly into his face. “I find
you
very disturbing,” she confessed. “Physically, I mean. I guess that’s why I shy away from you sometimes.”

He traced her smooth cheek with a steely forefinger. “I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone as honest as you.”

“I hate lies. Don’t you?”

“I hear enough of them. Nobody I’ve ever arrested has been guilty. It was a frame-up, or they didn’t mean to, or somebody talked them into it.”

“I know what you mean.”

The exploring finger reached her mouth and traced its soft bow shape gently. His jaw tightened. She could hear the heavy breath that passed through his nostrils as his eyes began to darken and narrow.

“Why don’t you unfasten my shirt and put your hands on me?” he asked huskily.

Her face colored vividly. “I don’t know if that would be a good idea.”

“It’s the best one I’ve had tonight,” he assured her. “No games. Honest. I want to make love to you a little, that’s all. I won’t let it get too far.”

She put her hands against his shirtfront, torn between what she wanted to do and what was sensible.

“It’s hard for me, with women,” he said roughly. “Does that reassure you any?”

She smiled gently. “Will it make you angry if I confess that it does?”

He bent and his smiling mouth brushed against hers. “Probably. Open your mouth.”

She obeyed him like a sleepwalker, but he soon brought every single nerve she had singing to life. Her hands slid under the shirt and over the thick tangle of hair that covered him, past male nipples that hardened at her touch. He moaned softly and pulled her closer. She sighed into his mouth as he deepened the kiss and made her knees go weak with the passion he kindled in her slender body.

“It isn’t enough,” he said in a strained tone. He bent and lifted her, his gaze reassuring as she opened startled eyes. “I want to lie down with you,” he whispered as he carried her to the sofa. “I have to get closer, Jessie. Closer than this.”

“It’s dangerous,” she managed through swollen lips.

“Life is dangerous.” He put her down on the sofa, full length, and stretched out alongside her. “I won’t
hurt you. I swear to God, I won’t. All it will take is one word, when you want me to stop.”

His mouth traced hers. “And what…if I can’t say it?” she whispered brokenly.

“I’ll say it for you….”

He kissed her until she trembled, but even then he didn’t touch her intimately or attempt to carry their lovemaking to greater depths. He lifted his head and looked down at her with tenderness and bridled passion. With her long hair loose around her face and her lips swollen from his kisses, her dark eyes wide and soft and dazed, he thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful in all his life.

“Are you stopping?” she whispered unsteadily.

“I think I should,” he mused, managing to project a self-assurance he didn’t really feel. His lower body ached.

“But we haven’t done anything except kiss each other….” She stopped abruptly when she realized what she was saying.

He chuckled wickedly. “Jessie, if I push up that sweatshirt, we’re both going to be in trouble. Because, frankly, it shows that you aren’t wearing anything under it.”

She followed his interested gaze and saw two hard peaks outlined vividly against the soft material. Scarlet faced, she got to her feet. “Well!”

He sat back on the sofa, watching her with smug, delighted eyes. She aroused an odd protectiveness in
him that he’d never felt with another woman. She was unique in his shattered life. He wanted her, but it went far beyond desire.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said gently. “I didn’t say it with any cruel intent. It delights me that you can want me, Jessie.” He hesitated. “It delights me that I can want you. I wasn’t sure…”

She searched his hard face. “Yes?” she prompted gently.

He got up and went to her slowly, secrets in his eyes.

She pushed back the glorious cloud of her hair and then reached up to touch his sculptured cheek. “Tell me,” she coaxed.

He brought her hand to his lips. “I exaggerated when I told you there had been a parade of women through my bed,” he said quietly.

Her eyes were solemn, steady, questioning.

His shoulders moved restlessly. He looked tormented. He tried to tell her, but the words wouldn’t come.

Her fingers traced his hard mouth. “It’s all right.” She pulled his head down and kissed his eyes closed. He shivered. “My dear,” she whispered. Her mouth traced his and softly kissed his lips, feeling them open and press down, responding with a sudden feverish need. He pulled her close and increased the pressure, groaning as she gave in to him without a single protest.

He let her go slowly, his tall, fit body taut with desire and need as he looked down at her hungrily.

“I’ve never been with anyone like you,” he said flatly. “Because of the way I grew up, I always equated sex with a certain kind of woman,” he said huskily. “So that’s where I went, when I had to have it.” He sighed heavily. “Not that I was ever careless, Jessie.”

She bit her lip, trying not to remember Bess’s taunt.

“What is it?” he asked suspiciously.

“I can’t tell you. You’ll get conceited.”

His eyebrows arched. He cocked his head. “Come on.”

“A girl I know made the comment that she thought you’d be absolute heaven to make love with, and that she’d bet you were always prepared.”

He chuckled softly. “Did she? Who?”

“I’ll never tell!”

He pursed his lips, amused. “As it happens, she was right.” He bent and brushed her mouth with his. “On both counts,” he whispered and nipped her lower lip.

She smiled under his lips. “I know. About the first count, anyway.”

“You can take my word for the other. How about supper tomorrow night?”

She stared at him blankly. “What?”

“I want to take you out on a date,” he explained. “One of those things where a man and woman spend time together, and at the end of the evening, do what we’ve already done.”

“Oh.”

His eyebrow lifted as he fastened his shirt. “Well?”

Her face lit up. “I’d love to!”

He smiled. “So would I. Thanks for supper.” He moved to the door and glanced back. She was ruffled and flustered. He liked knowing that he’d made her that way. “I’ll send the mechanic over first thing in the morning to see about that fan belt. And I’ll come and drive you to work.”

“You don’t have to,” she declared breathlessly.

“I want to.” The way he said it projected other images, exciting ones. She laughed inanely, captivated by the look on his dark face.

“I’d better go,” he murmured dryly. “Good night, Jessie.”

“Good night.”

He closed the door gently behind him. “Lock it!” he added from outside.

She rushed forward and threw the lock into place. A minute later she heard deep laughter and the sound of his booted feet going down the steps.

T
he restaurant was crowded, and heads turned from all directions when Jessica, in a neat-fitting burgundy dress with her hair loose around her shoulders, walked in with McCallum, who was wearing slacks and a sports coat.

“I told you people would notice that we’re together,” she said under her breath as they were seated.

“I didn’t mind the last time, and I don’t mind now,” he murmured, smiling. “Do you?”

She smiled back. “Not at all.”

The waitress brought menus, poured water into glasses and went away to give them time to decide what to order.

“Why…Miss Larson!”

Jessica looked up. Bess, one of her caseworkers, and a good-looking young man who worked in the bank had paused by their table.

“Hello, Bess,” Jessica said, smiling. “How are you?”

“Fine! Don’t you look nice? Hi, McCallum,” she added, letting her blue eyes sweep over him in pure flirtation. “You look nice, too!”

“Thanks.”

“Bess, the waitress is gesturing to us,” the young man prompted. He was giving McCallum a nervous look. Probably it was the fact that McCallum was in law enforcement that disturbed him. Lawmen were set apart from the rest of the world, Jessica had discovered over the years. But it could have been the way Bess was looking at the older man. Jessica had to admit that McCallum was sensuous and handsome enough to fit any woman’s dream. Compared to him, Bess’s date seemed very young, and he was undoubtedly jealous.

“Oh, sure, Steve. Good to see you both!” she said breezily, leading him away.

“She thinks you’re a hunk,” Jessica said without thinking, then bit her lip.

His eyebrows lifted. “So?” Now he knew who’d made the comment she’d related at her cabin.

“She’s very young, of course,” she added mischievously.

“No, she isn’t,” he countered. “In fact, she’s only a year younger than you. Nice figure, too.”

Jessica fought down an unfamiliar twinge of
jealousy. She fumbled with her silverware. Nobody disturbed her like McCallum did.

He reached across the table and caught her hand in his, sending thrills of pleasure up her arm that made her heart race. “I didn’t mean it like that. Jessie, if I were interested in your co-worker, why would I spend half my free time thinking about you?”

She smiled at him, thrown off balance by the look in his dark eyes. “Do you?” she asked. Her hand slipped and almost overturned her water glass. He righted it quickly, smiling patiently at her clumsiness. It wasn’t like her to do such things.

“Hold tight, and I’ll protect you from overturning things,” he said, clasping her cold fingers in his. “We’ll muddle through together. In my own way, I’ve got as many hang-ups and inhibitions as you have. But if we try, we can sort it out.”

“Sort what out?” she echoed curiously.

He frowned. “Do you think I make a habit of taking women out? I’m thirty-five years old, and since I’ve been back here, I’ve lived like a hermit. I’m hungry for a woman….”

This time the glass went over. He called the waitress, who managed to clear away the water with no effort at all. She smiled indulgently at an embarrassed Jessica, who was abjectly apologetic.

She took their order and left. Across the restaurant, Bess was giggling. Jessica looked at Sterling McCallum and knew in that moment that she loved
him. She also knew that she could never marry him. He might not realize it now, but he’d want children one day. He was the sort of man who needed children to love and take care of. He’d make a good husband. Of course, marriage was obviously the last thing on his mind at the moment.

“Good God, woman,” he muttered, shaking his head with indulgent amusement. “Will you just let me finish a sentence before you react like that? I don’t have plans to ravish you. Okay? Now, move that glass aside before we have another mishap.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just all thumbs.”

“And I keep putting my foot in my mouth,” he said ruefully. “What I was going to say, before the great water glass flood,” he added with a grin at her flush, “was that it’s time I started going out more. I like you. We’ll keep it low-key.”

She looked at the big, lean hand holding hers so gently. Her fingers moved over the back of it, tracing, savoring its strength and masculinity. “I like your hands,” she said absently. “They’re very sensitive, for such masculine ones.” She thought about how they might feel on bare, soft skin and her lips parted as she exhaled with unexpected force.

His thumb eased into the damp palm of her hand and began to caress it, making her heart race all over again. “Yours are beautiful,” he said, and the memory of how her hands felt on his chest was still in his gaze when he looked up.

She was holding her breath. She looked into his eyes, and neither of them smiled. It was like lightning striking. She could see what he was thinking. It was all there in his dark gaze—the need and the hunger and the ardent passion he felt for her.

“Uh, excuse me?”

They both looked up blankly as the waitress, smiling wryly, waited for them to move their hands so she could put the plates down.

“Sorry,” Sterling mumbled.

The waitress didn’t say a word, but her expression spoke volumes.

“I think we’re becoming obvious,” he remarked to Jessica as he picked up his fork, trying not to look around at the interested glances they were getting from Bess and Steve.

“Yes.” She sounded pained, and looked even more uncomfortable.

“Jessie?”

“Hmm?” She looked up.

He leaned forward. “I’m dying of frustrated passion here. Eat fast, could you?”

She burst out laughing. It broke the tension and got them through the rest of the meal.

But once he paid the check and they went out to the parking lot and got into the Bronco, he didn’t take her straight home. He drove a little way past the cabin and pulled down a long, dark trail into the woods.

He locked his door, unfastened his seat belt and
then reached across her wordlessly to lock her own door and release her seat belt, as well.

His eyes in the darkness held a faint glitter. She could feel the quick, harsh rush of his breath on her forehead. She didn’t protest. Her arms reached around his neck as he pulled her across his lap. When his mouth lowered, hers was ready, waiting.

They melted together, so hungry for each other that nothing else seemed to matter.

She’d never experienced kisses that weren’t complete in themselves. He made her want more, much more. Every soft stroke of his hands against her back was arousing, even through the layers of fabric. The brush of his lips on hers didn’t satisfy, it taunted and teased. He nibbled at the outside curves of her mouth with brief little touches that made her heart run wild. She clung to him, hoping that he might deepen the kiss on his own account, but he seemed to be waiting.

She reached up, finally, driven to the outskirts of desperation by the teasing that went on and on until she was taut as drawn rope with unsatisfied needs.

“Please!” she whispered brokenly, trying to pull his head down.

“It isn’t enough, is it?” he asked calmly. “I hoped it might not be. Open your mouth, Jessica,” he whispered against her lips as he shifted her even closer to his broad, warm chest. “And I’ll show you just how hungry a kiss can make you feel.”

It was devastating. She felt her breath become
suspended, like her mind, as his lips fitted themselves to hers and began to move in slow, teasing touches that quickly grew harder and rougher and deeper. By the time his tongue probed at her lips, they opened eagerly for him. When his tongue went deep into her mouth, she arched up against him and groaned out loud.

Her response kindled a growing hunger in him. It had been a long time for him, and the helpless twisting motions of her breasts against him made him want to rip open her dress and take them in his hands and his mouth.

Without thinking of consequences, he made her open her mouth even farther under the crush of his, and his lean hand dropped to her bodice, teasing her breasts through the cloth until he felt the nipples become hard. Only then did he smooth the firm warmth of one and begin to caress it with his fingertips. When he caught the nipple deliberately in his thumb and forefinger, she cried out. He lifted his head to see why. As he’d suspected, it wasn’t out of fear or pain.

She lay there, just watching him as he caressed her. He increased the gentle pressure of his fingers and she gasped as she looked into his eyes. A slow flush spread over her high cheekbones in the dimly lit interior.

He didn’t say a word. He simply sat there, holding her and looking down into her shadowed
eyes. It was hard to breathe. Her body was soft in his arms and that pretty burgundy dress had buttons down the front. His eyes went past the hand that now lay possessively on her breast and he calculated how easy it would be to open the buttons and bare her breasts to his hungry mouth. But she was trembling, and his body was getting quickly out of control. Besides that, it was too soon for that sort of intimacy. He had to give her time to get used to the idea before he tried to further their relationship. It was important not to frighten her so that she backed away from him.

He moved his hand up and pushed back her disheveled hair with a soft smile. “Sorry,” he murmured dryly. “I guess I let it go a little too far.”

“It was my fault, too. You’re…you’re very potent,” she said after a minute, feeling the swelling of her mouth from his hard kisses and the tingling of her breast where his hand had toyed with it. She still couldn’t imagine that she’d really let him do that. But, oddly, she didn’t feel embarrassed about it. It seemed somehow proper for McCallum to touch her like that, as if she belonged to him already.

He grinned at her expression. “You’re potent yourself. And that being the case, I think I’d better get you home.”

She fingered his collar. “Okay.” Her hands traced down to his tie and the top button of his shirt.

“No,” he said gently, staying her fingers. “I like
having you touch me there too much,” he murmured dryly. “Let’s not tempt fate twice in one night.”

She was a little disappointed, even though she knew he was right. It
was
too soon. But her eyes mirrored more than one emotion.

He watched those expressions chase across her face, his eyes tender, full of secrets. “How did you get under my skin?” he wondered absently.

She glowed with pleasure. “Have I?”

“Right down to the bone, when I wasn’t looking. I don’t know if I like it.” He studied her for a long moment. “Trust comes hard to me. Don’t ever lie to me, Jessica,” he said unexpectedly. “I can forgive anything except that. I’ve been sold out once too often in the past. The scars go deep and they came from painful lessons. I can’t bear lies.”

She thought about being barren, and wondered if this would be the right time to tell him. But it wasn’t a lie, was it? It was a secret, one she would get around to, if it ever became necessary to tell him. But right now they were just dating, just friends. She was overreacting. She smiled. “Okay. I promise that I’ll never deliberately lie to you.” That got her around the difficult hurdle of her condition. She wasn’t lying. She just wasn’t confessing. It was middle ground, and not really dishonest. Of course it wasn’t.

He let go of her hand and started the vehicle, turning on the lights. He glanced sideways at her as he pulled the Bronco out into the road and drove back
to her cabin. She might be afraid, but there was desire in her, as well. She wanted him. He had to keep that in mind and not give up hope.

He stopped at her front steps. “I want to take you out from time to time,” he said firmly. “We can go out to eat—as my budget allows,” he added with a grin, “and to movies. And I’d like to take you fishing and deer tracking with me this fall.”

“Oh, I’d enjoy that.” She looked surprised and delighted. The radiance of her face made her so stunning that he lost his train of thought for a minute.

He frowned. “Just don’t go shopping for wedding bands and putting announcements in the local paper,” he said firmly. He held up a hand when she started, flustered, to protest. “There’s no use arguing about it, my mind’s made up. I do know that you make wonderful homemade bread, and that’s a point in your favor, but you mustn’t rush me.”

Her eyes brightened with wicked pleasure. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said, entering into the spirit of the thing. “I never try to rush men into marriage.”

He chuckled. “Okay. Now you stick to that. I don’t like most people,” he mused. “But I like you.”

“I like you, too.”

“In between hero-worshipping me,” he added outrageously.

She looked him over with a long sigh. “Can I help it if you’re the stuff dreams are made of?”

“Pull the other one. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“That reminds me, there’s a young man in juvenile detention that I’d like you to talk to for me,” she said. “He’s on a rocky path. Maybe you can turn him around.”

He rolled his eyes upward. “Not again!”

“You know you don’t mind,” she chided. “I’ll phone you from the office tomorrow.”

“All right.” He watched her get out of the Bronco. “Lock your doors.”

His concern made her tingle. She grinned at him over her shoulder. “I always do. Thanks for supper.”

“I enjoyed it.”

“So did I.” She wanted to, but she didn’t look back as she unlocked the door. She was inside before she heard him drive off. She was sure that her feet didn’t touch the floor for the rest of the night. And her dreams were sweet.

In the days and weeks that followed, Jessica and McCallum saw a lot of one another. He kissed her, but it was always absently, tenderly. He’d drawn back from the intensity of the kisses they’d shared the first night he took her out. Now, they talked about things. They discovered much that they had in common, and life took on a new beauty for Jessica.

Just when she thought things couldn’t get any better, she walked into the Hip Hop Café and came face-to-face with a nightmare—Sam Jackson.

The sandy-haired man turned and looked at her with cold, contemptuous eyes. He was the brother of the man who’d attacked her and who had later been killed. He was shorter and stockier, but the heavy facial features and small eyes were much the same.