The Tiger's Lady (30 page)

She shifted restlessly atop him, seeking—she knew not what. A moan tumbled from her lips. A moment later she felt him smile.

Suddenly she realized that her fingers were kneading his shoulders and her thighs were arching hungrily, cupped to his hardness.

Flame streaked her face.

With a wild sob, she rolled onto the sand and stumbled to her feet. “No—” Her fingers locked and then twisted back and forth. “What sort of creature have I become?”

And then she was running blindly along the beach, away from the dark, knowing force of Pagan’s gaze, away from the telltale tingle at her breast and thigh.

Hating the shameful knowledge of her own desire.

“Stop,
Angrezi!”
She heard him mutter a curse. “You can’t—”

She paid no attention. How
could
she have responded so completely?

Her eyes blurred with tears, she stumbled down to a large boulder near the water’s edge and ducked behind it. Her fingers pried at the buttons of her dress. Stripped down to her feather-light chemise, she attacked her voluminous petticoats and then kicked free of them.

She couldn’t remove the chemise, of course. But the drawers?

Deftly she rolled up the lace-trimmed legs until they fell just above her slim knees.

Then she darted toward the water, fine spray shooting across her face, bracing and fresh.

Already she could feel the kiss of the cool, satin waves, the soft, lapping currents. If only it would help wash away her body’s shameful betrayal.

A wave drove forward, breaking over her feet. Paradise, she thought, inching deeper, feeling the jungle’s choking heat melt away.

As the wave crested, she felt cool rivulets of sand sucked between her toes. Her eyes closed in sheer ecstasy.

To be cool after such endless heat…

She took another step and felt the cool waters rise to her hips. A sigh slid from deep in her throat.

She must have died and this was heaven. She moved out deeper.

“Stop,
Angrezi!
No farther!” It was a hoarse shout, a sound that had absolutely no place in her heavenly world.

She decided to ignore it. The fool was probably just vexed that she hadn’t stripped down to nothing, as he’d hoped.

“Cinnamon, wait!”

With a wicked smile she strode deeper, then sank down to her chin.

An instant later she jerked upright with a sharp yelp, pain shredding her back. The salt in the water.

How could she have forgotten?

With every second the agony grew, pouring into her wounds like acid. She swayed dizzily, engulfed in waves of pain.

Dimly she heard Pagan’s raw curse, followed by the muffled drum of his booted feet over the sand. “I told you to stop, damn it! Are you incurably stubborn, woman?” Strong, fingers wrenched at her chemise.

She flinched and barely kept from crying out. “S-stop!”

“This will have to go,” Pagan said grimly. “It’s soaked with salt.”

She shuddered, unable to bear the searing pain at her back. She tried to bite back a moan. “M-make it stop, Pagan.”

Grimly, the Englishman tugged off her fine chemise and then attacked the damp bandages beneath. At least the salt would clean the wounds, he told himself. But he knew the pain must be terrible beyond imagining. “Steady. I’ll have these things off in a second.” Pagan cursed himself for not recognizing the danger sooner. “Raise your arms,” he ordered, sweeping her wild golden tresses over her shoulder.

She did as he ordered, clutching her chest and struggling to ignore the searing agony at her back. Despite all her efforts, another choked whimper broke free of her locked lips.

“Go on and cry,
Angrezi,”
Pagan said grimly. “You don’t have to prove anything to me. Those cuts must hurt like bloody hell.”

At his raw words of sympathy, so gruff, so totally unexpected, tears sprang to her eyes. She caught her lip, trying to fight down a sob.

“Stubborn still? Hold on, then. It will be over soon.” Fighting to ignore the exquisite curve of her breasts and the tangle of tawny hair visible through her dampened pantalets, Pagan pulled off his shirt and swept away the beads of saltwater trickling over her back. He would have liked to do more, but he feared the cloth would contaminate the lacerated skin.

Why hadn’t he thought to bring bandages? he asked himself irritably. Then he remembered the clean shirt in his leather satchel. Cursing, he ran back up the slope, jerked the shirt free, and carried it back down the beach.

With exquisite care he feathered gentle strokes over her naked, bloodied skin, whisking away the last beading moisture. Her shoulders were rigid beneath his fingers.

He had done all he could, though by the stiffness of her neck and shoulders he could tell it was far from enough. “Any better, Cinnamon?”

Her breath escaped in a raw sigh. “A g-great deal, thank you. But I th-think I would like to go back now.”

The defeat in that ragged voice made Pagan curse silently. He draped his shirt carefully around her bare shoulders. It had been such a small pleasure she’d wanted, but instead he’d brought her only more pain.

Something told Pagan this wasn’t the last time he would bring her pain.

In taut silence he pulled the shirt together over her chest, then began to slide the top button home.

He felt as much as heard the muffled, wracking sob that shook her body. “Don’t, Cinnamon. Don’t hold it back. It will kill you that way.” Pagan’s hands gripped her shoulders. He spoke from long and bitter experience, an experience that had nearly crippled him.

It was not something he wanted to see her share.

She swayed and then somehow she was in his arms, her face buried in his chest, her arms locked about his waist.

His jaw clenched as he slipped his fingers deep into her hair and slanted her close against him, muttering low, inchoate words of solace and support. But her tears kept coming, hot and silent, until he had the feeling she was crying for something else, not just the pain in her back.

And with every rasp of her budded nipples on his chest, every soft surge of her thighs, fiery talons of sensation ripped through him. He gritted his teeth, fighting down a savage hunger.

So now you return the favor, temptress. Now you teach me the taste of my own passion, the throb of my own torment.

Jo hoga, so hoga.

Kismet.

And yet Pagan dimly realized that in spite of his agonizing unfulfillment, he wouldn’t have changed places for anything at that moment, not with her proud breasts chafing his hungry skin, not with her slender thighs locked against his.

Though his body was on fire with need, he would have had it no other way. And if he were to die, then this was surely the way he wanted to do it.

Her nails dug into his back. She trembled, and the movement brought her sweet, warm lips to his neck.

Pagan groaned inwardly, his agony increased tenfold.

Think of something else, fool! Think of anything but how perfect she feels and how you’d like to hold her this way forever.

He caught back a jerky breath as her soft belly pillowed the rock-hard muscle at his groin.

Agony, every velvet inch of her. And though he shivered with his own need, Pagan wouldn’t have let her go for any amount of money.

At his jerky movement she loosened her convulsive grip on his back. Her head slanted upward. “Pagan? What’s wrong? Have I—did I—hurt you?”

Ah, Cinnamon, if only you knew! And how I wish you’d hurt me more, skin to naked skin, while I turn you inside out with need, until you’re love-slick and hungry for my joining. Until we’re both consumed, burned to incandescent embers, our bodies reduced to no more than fine, drifting ash.

Maybe then I could forget…

Smothering a curse, the Englishman fought down scorching waves of desire, careful to keep all evidence of the struggle from his lean features.

“Hurt? It’s nothing I won’t survive,
Angrezi,
though your nails are remarkably sharp.” Quickly he shoved her arms into his clean shirt and jammed the buttons home. He put her away from him then, though it was the hardest thing he’d ever done. Muddled still, he turned and raked long fingers through his unruly hair, scowling at the beach. “Hellfire! Where have I put that cursed rifle?”

But it was not the rifle he saw, nor even the white sand beneath his feet. Instead he saw the dazed look in her eyes, the faint flush of desire that had swept across her neck and shoulders and left her trembling.

Whatever she might have been before her injury, she was no hardened seductress now, Pagan thought grimly.

Now she was only a stubborn and thoroughly breathtaking innocent awakening to her first taste of desire.

And how he wanted to be the one to teach her all the rest.

But at that moment something else caught Pagan’s attention, a noise barely audible above the rhythmic crash of the surf and the wind’s raw sigh.

Too late Pagan recognized the sound.

It was the furtive hiss of feet on sand, and it warned him that they were no longer alone.

There were three of them, all big and brawny and cool.

Professionals,
Pagan thought, watching them fan out in a wide triangle on the beach.

And like a complete and utter fool, he was caught helpless without his rifle. His gaze narrowed, darting to right and left as he calculated the chances for outrunning them.

But the odds were nil. Not with the woman involved. He might dodge the three with only a scratch or two, but
she
would never make it.

“F-friends of yours?” It was the merest unsteady whisper.

“I only wish,” Pagan said quietly. Suddenly his eyes narrowed. He made out the rifle’s dark length exactly where he had dropped it, back in the shadow of the boulder.

Fortunately, the men on the beach hadn’t seen it yet. “Listen, Cinnamon, things may become rather heated shortly. If they take me, you must—”

Suddenly Pagan caught himself up short. What was he worrying about
her
for? These were Ruxley’s men. And that meant that she was in no danger.

Only
he
was.

But the fear in her wide eyes told Pagan that his companion hadn’t realized that yet. And maybe he could turn that fact to his advantage.

“Don’t turn around,” he ordered quietly. “When I tell you to, start moving toward that boulder.” As he spoke, he quickly freed the two buttons at her chest and pulled the shirt open to reveal a wide expanse of creamy skin.

The little touches were going to be very important.

“W-what are you doing?”

“Just adding a bit more authenticity,
Angrezi.
No—don’t look at them. I’m trying to buy us a little more time, you see.” He cupped her back and then wrenched her body to his in an elaborate display of aroused male possession.

But his next whispered words pounded out in chill contrast to his heated movements. “Do you know how to use a rifle, Cinnamon?” Even as he spoke, his hands dug into her curving bottom. Anchoring her to his thighs, he mimicked the heated thrusts of passion.

“Rifle? I—no, I don’t think so,” she gasped in bewilderment.

Who could blame her? Pagan thought, cursing Ruxley once again for dragging a female into their struggle.

In the end it mattered little whether she knew how to use a rifle or not, he decided. The mere sight of a woman aiming a gun was enough to send the bravest man lurching to his knees in fright. Pagan’s head dropped and he brought his mouth to her throat in what appeared to be a savage kiss. “Just ease off the safety catch,” he whispered roughly. “Then aim at the rangy one in the center. He has the look of being the leader. And for bloody sake don’t actually
fire
the damned thing. I want someone left to give me a few answers this time.”

This
time
? The woman in his arms blinked, foundering in heated currents of sensation, struggling to understand what Pagan was planning.

Behind her the unsmiling trio fanned across the beach.

“Now try to look angry. In fact, I’m going to make it easy for you,” Pagan added grimly. “In a few moments I’ll say some pretty harsh things, Cinnamon. When I do, I want you to stalk over toward that gun, glaring at me with all the fury you can muster.” His lips quirked in a dark smile. “The way you look at me most of the time, as a matter of fact. Ready?”

Her tawny brows knitted. “I suppose so, but—”

“Save the questions,
Angrezi
.” A moment later he stiffened and shoved her away from him, so roughly that she stumbled. It was what they would be expecting.

His face tightened in a mask of fury. “Who do you think you’re fooling, trollop? Is that your idea of passion?” He studied her in disgust, his voice rising clearly. “By heaven, I’ve had better sluts in Colombo for three rupees. No, you’ll have to come up with far better than that before I’ll—”

Suddenly he turned. He frowned, as if noticing the three silent intruders for the first time.

He cursed long and fluently. “So that’s what the bitch was doing here on the beach. I should have known.” His dark gaze narrowed, taking on a dangerous glint. “That spells Ruxley. Only
he
would send a woman to do a man’s job.”