Man of Ice (12 page)

He’d progressed from the bed to the desk in his study and he’d taken Barrie in there with him to discuss the tract of land Leslie Holton had agreed to sell him.

She stared at the contract on the desk, which had arrived by special courier that morning. “She wasn’t that eager to sell at first. How did you change her mind?” she asked with barely contained irritation.

He leaned back in his chair, his forehead still purplish from its impact with the steering wheel, marred by the thin line of stitches that puckered the tanned flesh.

“How do you think I convinced her?” he taunted.

She didn’t say a word. But her face spoke silently.

He smiled cynically. “And that’s a false conclusion if I ever saw one,” he mused. “I can’t do that with anyone except you, Barrie.”

She flushed a little. “You don’t know that.”

“Don’t I?” His pale eyes slid down her body which was in a loose knit shirt and jeans, and lingered on the thrust of her high breasts. “Then let’s say that I’m not interested in finding out if I can want anyone else.”

“You’d been drinking,” she reminded him.

“So I had.” He stood up. “And you think it was the whiskey?”

She shrugged. “It might have been.”

He moved away from the desk, glanced at her thoughtfully for a moment, and then on an impulse, went to close and lock the office door. “Let’s see,” he murmured deeply, and moved toward her.

She jumped behind a wing chair and gripped it for dear life. Her eyes were wide, wild. “No!”

He paused, searching her white face. “Calm down. I’m not going to force you.”

She didn’t let go of the chair. Her eyes were steady on him, like a hunted animal’s.

He put his hands into his pockets and watched her quietly. “This isn’t going to get us anywhere,” he remarked.

She cleared her throat. “Good.”

“Barrie, it’s been five years,” he said irritably. After the closeness they’d shared while he was in the hospital, now they seemed to be back on the old footing again. “I’ve been half a man for so long that it’s a revelation to have discovered that I’m still capable of functioning with a woman. I only want to know that it wasn’t a fluke, a minute out of time. I want to…make sure.”

Her big eyes searched his. “I’m afraid of you like that.”

“You weren’t just after you had the nightmare,” he reminded her. “You weren’t the next morning. In fact, you weren’t in the hospital when I let you bathe me.”

Her hands released the back of the chair. Her short nails had left fine marks in the soft leather. She stared at them. “You weren’t…aroused when you pulled back the sheet,” she faltered.

“That’s what bothers me most, that it didn’t last until you tried to bathe me,” he said heavily. “Maybe it was just a flash in the pan, the whole thing,” he said with black humor. “But either way, I want to know. I
have
to know.”

There was something in the way he looked that made Barrie feel guilty. Her own fear seemed a poor thing in comparison with the doubt in his hard face. It was devastating for a man to lose his virility. Could she really blame him for wanting to test it, to know for sure if he’d regained what he’d lost?

Slowly, hesitantly, she stepped away from the chair and let her hands fall to her sides. After all, she’d seen him totally nude, she’d felt his body against hers when it was aroused, and she hadn’t succumbed to hysteria. Besides, she loved him. He was here with her, alive and vital. Her mind wouldn’t let go of the picture it held—Dawson in the overturned car, his face covered with blood. She looked at him with her heart in her eyes.

His eyes traced her face in its frame of long, wavy dark hair to her soft, parted lips. His hands were still in his pockets, and he didn’t move, despite the fact that her expression made him feel violent. She looked as if she cared.

“Are you just going to stand there?” she asked after a minute.

He searched her eyes. “Yes.”

She didn’t understand for a moment, and then he smiled faintly, and she realized what he wanted. “Oh,” she said. “You want me to…kiss you.”

He nodded. He still didn’t move.

His lack of action made her less insecure. She moved toward him, went close, so that she could feel the heat from his tall, powerful body, so that she could smell the clean scents of soap and cologne that always clung to him. He’d shaved. There was no rasp of beard where she reached up and hesitantly touched his cheek. Involuntarily her fingers slid down to his long, firm lower lip and traced it.

His breath drew in sharply. She felt him tense, but his hands stayed in his pockets.

Curious, she let her fingers become still on his face. There was something in his eyes, something dark and intense. She searched them for a long moment, but she couldn’t read the expression.

At least, she didn’t understand until she took an involuntary step closer and felt his body against hers.

“No fluke,” he said through his teeth. His voice sounded odd. “Now I don’t want to frighten you,” he continued shortly, “so if you’re getting cold feet, this is your last chance to move away.”

She wasn’t sure if she meant to hesitate, but she did. His hands came out of his pockets and slid to cradle her by the hips. He pulled her, very gently, against him, and then moved her slowly against the raw thrust of his body, shivering.

It wasn’t so frightening that way. She was fascinated by what she saw.

“Yes,” he said through his teeth. “You recognize vulnerability, don’t you?” he asked impatiently, hating the helpless desire he felt even while he thanked God for the ability to feel it. “My legs are shaking. Can you feel them?” He drew her a little closer, to make sure that she could. “I’m swelling. You can feel that, too, can’t you?”

It was embarrassing to hear him telling her such intimate things, especially in that angry tone. She flushed, but when she tried to drop her eyes, he caught her chin and made her look at him.

“Stop cringing. I’m not a monster,” he said roughly. “I lost control with you at the worst possible time, and I hurt you. I won’t hurt you again.”

She swallowed. The feel of his body in such close contact made her nervous, but it also excited her to feel him wanting her. She grew dizzy with confused sensations. She shifted, uneasy yet exhilarated at the same time.

He drew in a sharp breath and groaned, and then he laughed. “God, that feels good!” He bit off the words. He actually shivered. His eyes met hers and he moved her against him in the same exotic little motion she’d made without thinking. His teeth ground together and the laughter came again. “I’d forgotten what it felt like to be a man.”

His pleasure affected her in the oddest way. She buried her face in his chest, half afraid, half excited. She shivered, too, as his arms enfolded her.

“So you feel it, too, do you?” he asked at her ear. His hands tightened on her hips and he repeated the rough, deft motion and heard her cry out. “Do you like being helpless?” he asked, and his head bent. “Do you like wanting me and feeling powerless to draw away?”

She could hear the resentment, mingled with heated desire, in his deep voice. She opened her mouth to respond and his lips moved over it, opening to fit the shape of it before they settled with a rough, hungry, demanding pressure that made her stiffen with unexpected pleasure.

Pictures of tidal waves flew through his mind as he groaned and forced her body into even more intimacy with his. He wanted her. God, he wanted her. It was a fever that burned so high and bright that he couldn’t hide his need. It grew and swelled, the pressure hard against her soft stomach. He could feel her embarrassment as she tried to move her hips away from his, but he wouldn’t permit it. He couldn’t. He needed her softness against the flare of his masculinity.

He needed her.

His arm forced her closer as his mouth deepened the slow kiss into stark intimacy. She felt the slow, soft penetration of his tongue, the hard caress of his lips, the aching deep groan that shuddered out of his chest.

Her arms were under his and around him. She could feel the heat from the hard muscles under her hands. She could feel his belt digging into her midriff. His powerful legs were trembling as he moved her against him and he groaned again, in anguish.

While he kissed her, his hands went deftly under the knit top to the front catch of her lacy bra, quickly loosening the catch before she could protest. His hands slowly took the weight of her bare breasts, caressing their hard tips, while the kiss went on and on. He felt her body tremble again and heard her soft cry go into his mouth. He couldn’t stop. It was just like France, just like that night in her room. Some part of him stood away and saw his own helpless headlong rush into seduction, but he was too far gone to fight it now. He hadn’t been a man for years. Now he was in the grip of the most desperate arousal he’d ever felt and he had to satisfy it. He wanted her, needed her, had to have her.

He was practiced, an expert in this most basic of arts. She was, for all her fears, still a novice who’d never known pleasure. He was going to give her that. He was going to make her want the satisfaction his body demanded.

Slowly he began to to slide the fabric of her blouse from her body while his mouth bit at hers in the kind of kisses that were a blatant prelude to intimacy. They threw her off balance so that she made no protest when he removed the top and bra and dropped them onto the carpet. His hands caressed her soft, bare breasts and he drew away a breath so that he could watch them under the tender mastery of his hands.

“They’re beautiful,” he whispered tenderly, aware at some level of her dazed, wide-eyed stare. His hands caught her waist and he lifted her to his mouth. He traced the hard tips with soft wonder, savoring their taste with lips that cherished her. “You taste of rose petals and perfume,” he breathed, nipping her tenderly.

She made a sound that brought his head up. He looked into her eyes, seeing the excitement, the shock of wonder in them. No, she couldn’t stop him now. He recognized that blank, set expression on her face. She was in the throes of passion. There was no way she could draw back now, even if she’d wanted to.

Confident, he let her slide down his body and he moved back a step. She didn’t try to cover her breasts. After a minute he caught the hem of his own knit shirt and pulled it over his head, tossing it onto the floor with her things.

His chest was sexy, she thought through a haze of pleasure, staring at it, bronzed and muscular with a thick curling mat of hair just a few shades darker than the hair on his head. Without volition, she moved forward and leaned into him, closing her eyes with a shaky sigh as she felt his bare chest against her breasts.

His big hands flattened just under her shoulder blades and drew her closer in erotic little motions that made her shiver.

She felt the heavy, hard beat of his heart under her ear. She traced the nipple beside her mouth and felt him tauten. Then he groaned and his mouth slid down and found hers. He lifted her clear off the floor and stood holding her, kissing her, in the middle of the sunlit room. For an instant he looked up and glared around the room. There was only the sofa or the desk or the carpet. He groaned.

He had no more time for decisions. Shaking with the terrible need to have her, he couldn’t risk having her come back to her senses before…

He laid her down on the carpet in front of the picture window that overlooked the lawn half a story below. Her body, there in the light, had the shimmer of a pearl. He knelt beside her and slowly, tenderly, stripped the clothing from her body, leaving it bare and trembling, all the while tracing her softness with his lips, with his hands, in skilled caresses that made it impossible for her to draw back.

He removed his own clothes then, still a little uncertain that his body was going to cooperate with him despite its tense need. So many years, so much pain, so much hunger. He looked at her and felt his whole body clench as he stood above her, shivering a little in the fullness of his arousal.

She looked at him with faint fear in a single moment of sanity. It hadn’t been this intimate before. In the darkness, she’d had hardly a glimpse of him. Now, standing over her that way, she saw the magnitude of his arousal and flushed.

“I’ll be careful,” he said quietly.

He eased down beside her, restraining his own desire. He smoothed the hair back from her flushed face and bent to kiss her with aching tenderness, stemming the rush of words that rose to her lips. She wanted to tell him that she was unprotected, to ask him if he was going to take precautions. But his mouth settled hard on her breast and she arched, shivering with hot pleasure, and her last grasp on reason fell away.

The slow, easy movements of his hands and mouth relaxed her. She lay watching him touch her, hearing the deep tenderness of his voice as he whispered to her. The words became indistinguishable as he touched her more intimately. Her body lifted, shivered, opened to him. Her eyes, wide with awe, sought his as the pleasure built to some unexpected plateau and trembled there on the edge of ecstasy as he moved over her at last and his body began, very slowly, to join itself to hers.

She stiffened at first, because it was suddenly difficult, and her eyes flew open, panicked.

He paused, breathing heavily, and bent to kiss her wild eyes closed. He couldn’t lose control, he told himself. Not this time. He had to fight his own desperate hunger for her sake. “I won’t hurt you,” he whispered roughly. His hand caressed over her flat stomach, lightly tracing, soothing. “I won’t hurt you, baby. Try to relax for me.”

Her eyes opened again, hesitant and uncertain. “You’re…so…so…!” she blustered, swallowing. “What if I can’t…?”

He groaned, because he was losing control, losing it all over again when he’d sworn he wouldn’t, that he could contain the raging desire she kindled. But he couldn’t. The feel of her body cost him his restraint.

He moved helplessly against her. “You did before,” he said. “God, Barrie, don’t tense like that!” he whispered urgently. “Oh, baby, I can’t stop…!” His hand suddenly slid between them and he began to touch her expertly, feeling her body respond immediately, uncoiling, lifting helplessly. “Yes!” he groaned. “Yes, yes…!” He shuddered and suddenly his tongue was in her mouth probing, like his body, teasing, penetrating…!