Two Alone (14 page)

"Oh, God." She covered her face with her hands.

"Shh
,
shh. They can't get to them because I covered the graves with rocks. They'll eventually go away. Hush, now, and go to sleep."

He'd been so miserable with his own problem that he'd paid scant attention to the barking of the pack that lurked in the woods surrounding the cabin. But he could see that Rusty's fear was genuine. She clasped his hand and drew it up under her chin as a child might hold his teddy bear
t
o help ward off the terrors of a recen
t
nightmare.

"I hate this place," she whispered.

"
I
know."

"I've tried to be brave." "You have been."

She shook her head adamantly. "No, I'm a coward. My father saw it. He was the one who suggested that I re
t
urn home ahead of schedule."

"Lots of people can't stand seeing animals killed."

"I broke down and cried today in front of you. You've known all along that I'm useless. I'm no good at this. And I don't want to be good at it." Her voice was defiant, incongruous with the tears that washed her cheeks. "You think I'm a terrible person."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do."

"No, honest."

"Then why did you accuse m
e
of enticing those men?"

"
I was angry.
"

"Why?"

Because you entice m
e
, too, and I don't want to be enticed. He didn't tell her that. Instead he muttered, "Never mind."

"
I
want to go home. Where everything is sale and warm and
clean."

He could argue that the streets of Los Angeles couldn't always been considered safe, but knew that now wasn't the time for leasing—even gentle teasing.

It went against his grain to compliment her, but he felt she'd earned it. "You've done exceptionally well."

She lifted watery eyes to his. "No, I haven't."

"Far better than I ever expected."

"Really?" she asked hopefully.

The breathlessness of her voice and the feminine appeal on her face was almost too much for him. "Really. Now, ignore the wolves and go back to sleep." He pulled his hand from her grasp and turned away. Before he could move, however, another wolf howled. She cried out and reached for him again, throwing herself against him when he turned back to her.

"I don't care if
I
am a coward. Hold me. Cooper. Please hold me."

R
e
flexiv
e
ly his arms went around her. Like that other time he had held her while she wept, he felt the same sense of helplessness steal over him. It was lunacy to hold her for any reason, but it would be abominably cruel to turn away. So even though it was as much agony as ecstasy, he drew her close and buried his lips in her wealth of hair.

As he spoke them, his words were sincere. He was sorry this had happened to her. He wished they would be rescued. He wanted her to be returned safely home. He was sorry she was frightened. If there was something he could do to get them ou
t
of their predicament, he would.

"You've done ever
yth
ing possible. But just hold me a minute longer," she begged.

"I will."

He continued to hold her. His arms remained around her. Bin he didn't move his hands. He didn't trust himself to rub them over her back and stop with
t
hat. He wanted to touch her all over. He wanted to knead her breasts and investigate the warm, soft place between her thighs. Desire made him shiver.

"You're freezing." Rusty ran her hands over the goosef
l
esh on his upper arms.

"
I’
m
f
ine
.
"

"Get under the covers."

"No."

"Don't be silly. You'll catch a cold.
W
hat's the big deal? We've slept together for the past three nights. Come on." She pulled back the covers.

"Uh-uh. I'm going back to my own bed."

"You said you'd hold me. Please. Just until I fall asleep."

"But. I'm—"

"Please, Cooper."

He swore, but slid beneath the covers with her. She cuddled against him, nuzzling her face against the fuzzy security of his chest. Her body became pliant against his. He gritted his teeth.

Seconds after she had relaxed against him, she pushed herself
away.
"Oh!" she exclaimed softly. "I forgot that you were—"

"Naked. That's right. But it's too late now, baby."

Seven

M
asculine urges governed him now. His mouth moved over hers in a deep, long, questing kiss while his body settled heavily against hers. Angling his head first to one side, then the other, he made heated love
t
o her mouth with his greedy tongue.

Shock was Rusty's initial reaction. His wonderful nakedness was a stunning surprise. Then, before she could recover from that, she was swept up into his tempestuous kiss.

Her next reaction was spontaneous longing. It surged up through her middle, overwhelming her heart and mind, obliterating all else but the man who was ravishing her mouth so expertly. Her arms encircled his neck and drew him closer. Re
fle
xively she arched against him, bringing her body in contact with his hard, rigid flesh.

Groaning in near pain, he buried his face in her neck. "God, it's so full it's about
t
o burst."

"What do you want, Cooper?"

He laughed harshly. "That's obvious, isn't it?"

"I know; but, what do you want me to do?"

"Either touch me all over or don't touch m
e
at all." His breath struck her face in hot, rapid gusts. "But whatever you
d
ecide, decide now."

Rusty hesitated only half a heartbeat before she ran the fingers of one hand up through his hair and settled them against his scalp. She used the other to comb through the crisp hair on his
c
hest, massaging the muscles that had beguiled her.

Their lips met in another rapacious kiss. He ran his tongue over her lower lip, then drew it between his lips and sucked it lightly.

T
he sheer sexuality of it electrified her. He took her moaning whimper as encouragement and
began kissing his way down her t
hroat and chest. He wasn't a man to ask permission. Boldly he lowered his hand to her breast, cupped it, and pushed it up.

"I've been going out of my mind wanting you," he rasped. "I thought I'd go insane before I touched you, tasted you."

He opened his mouth over the smooth flesh that swelled above her tank top. He kissed it fervently, applying enough
suc
tion to draw it up against his teeth. He tickled it with his
ton
gue at the same time he unhurriedly whisked his thumb back and forth across her nipple. When it began to respond and
gre
w hard, he accelerated that fanning caress until Rusty was almost delirious.

"Stop, Cooper," she gasped. "I can't breathe."

"
I
don't want you to be able to breathe."

He lowered his head and, through the cloth of her tank top,

he
flic
ked his tongue against her raised nipple, playfully nudging
it. Rusty's heels ground into the bed beneath her and her back came off" it. But even that revealing response didn't satisfy him.

"Say you want me," he said in a low, vibrating voice.

"Yes, I want you. Yes, yes."

Driven by a wild, uncontrollable hunger, heedless of the consequences, she pushed him back and became
t
he aggressor. Her lips moved down his throat and over his ches
t
and s
t
omach, striking as randomly as raindrops on parched ear
t
h. Each time her mouth touched his hair-smattered skin, she whispered his name. It became like a prayer, growing in fervency with each kiss,

"You're beautiful, beautiful," she whispered over his navel. Then, moving her head lower and rubbing her cheek in the hair that grew dense and dark, she said with a sigh, "Cooper."

The passion she'd unleashed stunned him. He tilted his head up and gazed down at her. Her hair was sweeping across his belly, Her breath was disturbing his body hair. The love words she was chanting had more ero
t
ic rhythm than
any he'd ever heard. Her lips..
.God, her lips...were leaving dewy patches on his skin.

Her head moving over him
was the most erotic, most beaut
iful sight he'd ever seen. And it scared the hell out of him.
He
pushed her away from him and rolled off the bed. Standing
at
the side of it, he trembled visibly, swearing beneath his breath.

Hard, passionate, mindless coupling he could handle, but
not
this. Not
t
his. He didn't want any real yearning and feeling and emotion to be involved, thank you. He'd done every sensual
thing
that was physically possible to do with a woman. But no woman had ever expressed such honest longing. What Rusty had done suggested an intimacy between them that went beyond the physical
.

He didn't need that. No romance. No love. No thanks.

He was temporarily responsible for Rusty Carlson's
s
urvival, but he damned sure wasn't going to assume responsibility for her emotional stability. If she wanted to mate, fine, but he didn't want her fooling herself into thinking that it meant something more than physical gratification. She could do whatever she wanted to with his body. He would permit, even welcome her, to indulge her most carnal desires. But that's where it stopped. No one was allowed to trespass on his emotions.

Rusty stared up at him, bewildered and hurt. "What's wrong?"
Self
-conscious now, she raised the sheet up to her chin.

"Nothing."

He crossed the room and to
ssed another log on the fire. It
sent up a shower of sparks that threw a brief, but bright, glow into the room. In that light, she saw that he was s
ti
ll fully aroused.

He saw that her eyes were inquiring and disillusioned. "Go to sleep," he said crossly. "The wolves are gone. Besides, I told
you
they can't hurt you. Now stop being a crybaby and don't bother me again."

Returning to his own bed, he pulled the covers up around his
ears.
In seconds he was drenched with sweat. Damn her. His body was still on fire.

Damn her, why had she responded that way? So honestly. With no coyness. No affectat
ion. Her mouth had been so rec
eptive. Her kisses so generous. Her breasts so soft and her nipples so hard.

H
e clenched his teeth against the memories. Was he a fool? A
damn
fool for not taking what she had offered so unconditionally?

But that was the hitch. It wa
sn't unconditional. Otherwise he
’d
be lying between her silky thighs now instead of in a pool
of his own sweat. That dazed expression on her face had
told
him that it meant more to her than simple rutting. She was reading things into it that he would never be able to deliver.

Oh, he could imbed himself deeply into that sweet feminine body and succeed in pleasing both of them physically. But he couldn't
feel,
and that's what she wanted. Maybe even what she deserved. He didn't have it to give. His heart was the Sahara of emotional wastelands.

No, better to hurt her now and get it over with. Better to be a bastard now than to take advantage of the situation. He didn't engage in long-term affairs. Certainly not in anything more. A relationship between them could go nowhere once they were rescued.

Until then, he'd live. Contrary to popular myth, a man couldn't die from being perpetually hard. It wouldn't be comfortable, but he'd live.

The following morning, Rusty's eyes were so swollen from crying that she could barely open them. With an effort, she pried them apart and noticed that the cabin's other bed was empty. The covers had already been neatly smoothed into place.

Good. He wouldn't notice her puffy eyes until she had had a chance to bathe them in cold water. The weakness she'd exhibited last night made her furious with herself Unreasonably,
t
he crying wolves had frightened her. They personified all the threats surrounding her
and made the precariousness of her situation very real.