Outlaw Carson (9 page)

What was he doing up there in his room?
Starting a religious fast? She looked out the window at her
detached garage. An evening breeze fanned the pine trees, sending
waves of golden pollen dancing through the sunset like handfuls of
glitter.

Figuring she might as well give in sooner
rather than later, she pushed away from the table and let herself
out the back door. The man had to eat, and they had work to do.

Her palms were sweating as she climbed the
outside stairs to the second-floor apartment. Her pulse quickened
as she faced the door. She lifted her hand to knock, then
hesitated.

Maybe she imagined hearing the word “enter”,
but after a moment she slipped out of the fading light and into the
warm dark room.

Her eyes adjusted slowly; her heart didn’t
adjust at all. He sat opposite the door on a softly worn sheepskin,
naked except for a pair of black shorts. Perspiration glistened on
his forehead and closed eyelids. Dampness graced the curved muscles
in his arms, the breadth of his chest, and the long length of his
legs. The soles of his bare feet rested upturned on his inner
thighs.

The quiet, peaceful beauty of him took her
breath away, and it was long seconds before she remembered to
exhale. She shouldn’t have come, but neither could she force
herself to leave.

The breeze blew in through an open window
and lightly tousled the loose, shorter hair framing his face. The
strands spread like a feather across his cheekbone, drawing her
gaze back to his face. His eyes were now open, but no less blind
than they had been before.

She automatically took a step back, then
stopped, held in place by her own overreacting instincts. He didn’t
want her to leave. Or did he? She wasn’t sure . . . of
anything.

She shifted her gaze away, lightening the
spell but not breaking it. Wiping her palms on the front of her
jeans, she looked around his room, for he’d definitely made it his
own. The trunks and bed filled most of the floor space, and a
hundred other objects covered them. Brass bells, a Tibetan prayer
wheel, rugs and tapestries, a copper bowl, a pottery dish filled
with turquoise nuggets, another of tourmaline. An eerily familiar
gold mask, a chunk of rock crystal bigger than both of her fists.
The treasure trove of an adventurer with eclectic tastes.

Scattered among the antiquities were signs
of modern man: his razor and toothbrushes, a backpack-size butane
stove, a sack of tea, and a typewriter.

She glanced at him, found his eyes closed
again, and took the steps necessary to bring her to one of the
trunks. The piece of paper in the typewriter was blank. She made a
soft sound of relief; she didn’t really want to be a snoop. She
took another light step, then another, easing deeper into the
private sanctuary he’d made of her extra room. She sifted her
fingers through the semi-precious stones. She touched his prayer
wheel, then kept herself from doing the same to the worn jeans and
black tunic thrown over one of the trunks. Her hand trailed over
the gold mask, and the sense of familiarity returned stronger than
before. The gilded bridge of a straight nose, the warm metallic of
sculpted cheekbones and the curve of a mouth she knew better than
she should. Her fingers paused and her lips parted softly on a gasp
of recognition . . .
Kautilya
. His name echoed in her mind
and found an answer in the air.

Kreestine
.

She whirled around, her heart pounding, the
mask clasped in her hands. She tried to run, but it was too late
for running. Her feet froze to the floor, numbed by the weight of
his ancient gaze. She’d been wrong to come, and given another
chance, she would have let him go hungry for the night.

Kit wasn’t in the mood for second chances.
Hours of meditation had done little to lessen his anger or increase
his understanding of the other feelings she’d given him. A month
from home hadn’t changed him as much as two days in her company. He
wanted her, had planned from their first kiss to have her, but he
hadn’t expected to lose himself in the bargain. He hadn’t expected
changes wrought by desire. He’d never felt changes before.

What was it about her? She was beautiful,
yes, but many women were beautiful, and she seemed unaware of the
fact. She’d done none of the subtle flirting he’d encountered with
other women who wanted him. Yet he’d felt the sensual curiosity in
her hidden glances. Her clothes were plain, unsuitable in color and
style to enhance her appeal. A deliberate choice on her part, he
was sure, and that had only increased his fascination—until he’d
listened to John Garraty and determined the cause.

She had a quick, bright mind, so unlike the
steady deepness of the monks and Sang Phala, so much broader than
the other women he’d met, except for Lois. But his relationship
with Lois was business and hard, without the softness he’d felt
from the first moment with Kristine. Her vulnerabilities, which she
tried so valiantly to conceal, attracted him as much as her
strengths. Maybe more so.

He’d discovered all of this in his time
alone and still had no peace.

Why have you come to me?

Kristine heard the question clearly, more
clearly than if he’d spoken aloud, and in a sudden flash of
enlightenment she understood the true depth of his power, of his
energy. She stumbled backward, coming up against the trunk. She’d
read volumes of theory and hearsay, from Polo to Maraini, about the
metaphysical mysteries of Tibetan Lamaism, and if he levitated she
was going to run like hell, whether her feet refused to move or
not.

“Impossible for one with my limited
knowledge and commitment. Kreestine.” he assured her in his deep,
soft voice. “You have no reason to fear.”

“D-don’t do that,” she stammered, giving
them both enough credit to know something had happened, something
very unusual.

“I can do nothing you do not allow. You are
very . . . open.” He spoke the last word in an intimate, husky
whisper, loading it with meaning beyond the obvious. “You called my
name, and I answered, nothing more.”

She believed him. She always believed him,
but her pulse didn’t slow down. In fact, when he rose from the
floor with his particularly fluid grace and walked toward her, it
picked up a good bit.

“Why have you come to me?” he asked again,
moving ever closer, narrowing the space between them. He filled her
vision with his smoothly muscled chest and arms. Gold bracelets
glinted, picking up the last stray beams of sunlight, contrasting
with the dark satin of his skin and the soft pelt of hair tracing a
path to his shorts.

“Your dinner was getting cold,” she said,
giving in to an undeniable need for rock-solid reality. Her mind,
though, was still racing around the startling realization of his
invasion into her thoughts. Just how many years had he spent in
that monastery? she wondered.

“Too many.” He took another silent step, his
gaze never leaving hers. “Why have you come to me?”

“Stop it!” she exclaimed more angry than
afraid. She had enough problems keeping everything in her mind
straight without him adding to the chaos. But he kept gliding
closer, and the question in his eyes demanded an answer. “We need
to work,” she said. “We’ve already lost most of the day.” Her voice
grew ever softer, her words ever slower, and she felt the padlock
of his trunk press against the back of her thigh.

“No more then, as you wish.” He touched her
face with both hands and brushed her hair behind her ears. She
hadn’t twisted the black mane into a tight knot. A pleased, yet
half sly smile curved his mouth, and her heart sank along with her
last ounce of anger, chased by the darkness of his eyes into
oblivion.

The muscles in his arms flexed as he cupped
her face in his palms. He was going to kiss her, and she hadn’t
come for his kiss. Or had she?

The question proved moot. She didn’t run
when he grazed her cheek with his mouth. Instead, her eyes drifted
closed and her knees weakened. She didn’t run when his caress
roamed down the side of her nose to her mouth. Her lips parted,
waiting for his kiss, and she wondered at the magic of his
touch.

His heat enveloped her in a cocoon of
masculine scents, tantalizing her with a promise he didn’t fulfill.
His mouth hovered above hers, and he touched her only with the
softness of his breath and the palpable desire she sensed flowing
off him and into her.

The wait was maddening. Her body pleaded
with her to move, to close the spare inch separating them. She
licked her lips and felt the barest touch of his mouth on the tip
of her tongue, the almost imperceptible tightening of his hands on
her face. He was that close, holding her but not taking her, and
she was unraveling inside, her breath coming, harder and
faster.

Her hands wrapped tighter around the mask,
and all the while she knew it was him she longed to hold; to feel
the breadth of his shoulders beneath her palms, to tangle her
fingers in the soft luxury of his hair and feel the cord of auburn
silk sliding down the back of his neck. He wasn’t an outlaw, he was
an enchanter. No pious monk, but a shaman skilled in the arts of
seduction. Without even a kiss he had her aroused, panting, melting
inside.

His hands tunneled into her hair, drawing
her closer until his mouth touched hers, and his words whispered
against her lips. “Will you sleep in my bed tonight,
Kreestine?”

With her eyes closed she couldn’t see his
smile, but she felt it in all its barbaric arrogance. He was
playing with her. He had no intention of kissing her. He only
wanted to see how far she’d go.

Even after discerning the nature of his
game, she found herself hard-pressed to move away. If she gave into
her every raging impulse and kissed him, he’d have his answer, and
she knew she couldn’t carry through to the end. He was so close, so
mesmerizingly close. All she wanted was a kiss, one kiss like the
one he’d given her on the deck, a kiss she couldn’t pay for in the
currency he requested. Was one kiss too much to ask for?

“Not too much,
bahini
, too little.”
he murmured, his mouth teasing hers.

Her eyes opened slowly and she angled her
head back. “You said . . . you said you wouldn’t.”

“I didn’t.”

“Then how?”

His lips brushed hers lightly, barely, not
nearly enough. “My heart is open, too, Kreestine, and it hears
yours on every beat.”

Now was the time to run, she thought, before
she fell completely under his sensual spell and made a total fool
out of herself. No one did it better than she in these situations.
She found strength in her memories of awkwardness and John’s neatly
summed-up farewell speech. Kit’s kiss for her lovemaking? Not even
a third world barbarian would find much pleasure in such a poor
bargain.

Moving sideways, she slipped free of his
hands. Easily, because he let her go, and with difficulty, because
the backs of her fingers brushed against his taut abdomen. She
lingered there for a fraction of a second, feeling the soft hair
that swirled in a glorious path around his navel before plunging
beneath the running shorts.

Kit let her go, but not easily. The longing
and denial he sensed in her made emotional mud of her thoughts, and
without his touch, her willingness, or the grace of his meditative
state, he found it impossible to see further. He rarely wished he’d
stayed longer under the tutelage of Sang Phala, but then he’d never
felt jealousy before.

She paced across the room, halting in front
of his bed. For a moment he was tempted to nudge her forward, to
walk up behind her and caress the womanly curves of her hips and
urge her, with his thoughts and his hands, onto his bed. But such a
breach of faith was beyond his conscience. The arts of persuasion
were not for such as this.

He reached for his jeans instead and tugged
them on, ignoring their unaccustomed tightness. This too shall
pass, he thought, grinning wryly at himself. But it was a pained
smile at best.

The sound of his zipper, hushed and grating,
sent a shiver down Kristine’s spine and a flood of warmth through
her body. She unconsciously raised the gold mask and fanned
herself, forcing her gaze to remain locked on his bed. Another bad
choice, she immediately realized. She’d given him sheets, a couple
of quilts, and some pillows, but it was his additions that
bewitched her with forbidden fantasies.

An uneven spread of sewn-together
sheepskins, the wool lush and buttery looking, lay across the
bottom of the bed, primitive and sensual. She knew it would smell
of him. Without any effort on her part she imagined him lying
there, his dark skin contrasting with the pale wool, his muscles
flexing as he arranged himself for comfort and love, his braid
falling over his shoulder as he reached for one of his elaborately
stitched tapestry pillows and laid it beneath her head, his mouth
lowering to hers as he covered her body with his.

The fanning mask picked up in speed, and
still she felt herself melting in places John had once told her
were drier than the Sahara in summer. He spoke from experience,
having been to North Africa in July, and she’d believed him all
these years—until she looked at Kit Carson’s bed.

She heard him slip into his black tunic, and
she swore she could hear every single button slide through his
calloused fingers. She was on emotional overload, super sensitized,
and he hadn’t even kissed her.

The jangling of his bracelets increased, and
she knew he was rolling his sleeves, exposing those vein-tracked
forearms. How had she gotten herself into such a mess? And how did
she get back out? Just say good-bye and dart out the door?

No, that wouldn’t do. She needed to rectify
the situation, get them back on a professional level. She turned,
but any intelligent thought she might have pulled together faded
away. He was wrapping his heavy leather belt around his hips, and
her gaze was captured by the intimate movements of his hands.