As he and Daisy made their way to the trailer, he was so glad she was alive and unhurt that he didn’t much mind anything she said. She stumbled, and he realized he was walking too fast. He was always doing that to her. Dragging her along. Pushing her. Making her stumble. What if she’d been hurt today? What if Sinjun had killed her?
He felt a crushing panic as his mind played out gruesome images of Sinjun’s claws ripping into her small, slender body. If anything had happened to her, he would never have forgiven himself. She was too important to him. Too necessary.
Her fragrance drifted up at him, sweet and spicy, with a hint of something else, maybe the scent of goodness. How had she managed to work her way under his skin in such a short time? She wasn’t his type of woman at all, but she’d made him feel emotions he’d never imagined, even as she turned the rules of logic upside down so that black became white and order became chaos. There was nothing rational about her. She made pets out of tigers and recoiled in fear from a small dog. She’d taught him how to laugh. She’d also done something no one else had been able to accomplish since he was a very young child. She had shattered his rigid self-control, and maybe that was why he was beginning to hurt so much.
An image flickered through his mind, at first elusive, but gradually growing clearer. He remembered frigid winter days when he’d been outside too long and come in to thaw. He remembered the pain in his frozen hands as warmth returned to them. The pain of the thaw. Was that what was happening to him? Was he feeling the pain of thawing emotions?
Daisy looked back at the reporters. “They’re going to think I’m rude, Alex. I shouldn’t have left so abruptly.”
“I don’t give a damn what they think.”
“That’s because you have high self-esteem. I, on the other hand, have low—”
“Don’t start.”
Tater, tethered near their trailer, bleated as he saw Daisy. “I have to tell him good night.”
His arms felt empty as she disengaged herself and went over to Tater where she pressed her cheek to his head. He wrapped her up in his trunk, and Alex had to fight the urge to pull her away before the baby elephant crushed her from an excess of feeling. A cat. Maybe he could buy her some kind of house cat. Declawed so she wouldn’t get scratched.
The idea didn’t ease his mind. Knowing Daisy, she was probably afraid of house cats, too.
She finally left Tater behind to followed him into the trailer where she began to take off her costume only to sink down on the end of the bed. “Go ahead and yell at me. I know you’ve been wanting to all day.”
Alex had never seen her look so forlorn. Why did she always have to think the worst of him? Even as his heart urged him to go easy, his mind told him he had to rip right into her and give her a lecture she’d never forget. The circus was full of dangers, and he would do anything to keep her safe.
As he gathered his thoughts, she gazed up at him, and all the troubles of the world were reflected in the violet depths of her eyes. “I couldn’t let you kill him, Alex. I couldn’t.”
His good intentions dissolved. “I know.” He sat next to her on the bed, picking the hay out of her hair and speaking with difficulty. “What you did today was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“And the stupidest. Go ahead and say it.”
“That, too.” He reached out with his index finger and pushed an inky curl back from her cheek. As he gazed into her upturned face, he couldn’t remember ever having seen anything that moved him so deeply. “When I first met you, all I could see was a spoiled little rich girl, silly and pampered, too beautiful for her own good.”
Predictably, she began to shake her head. “I’m not beautiful. My mother—”
“I know. Your mother was a knockout, and you’re paper bag ugly.” He smiled. “Sorry to upset all those cherished illusions of yours, but I don’t see it your way.”
“That’s because you didn’t know her.”
She spoke with such seriousness that he had to suppress another of those urges to laugh that seemed to come over him whenever they were together. “Could your mother have led tiger back into its cage?”
“Maybe not that, but she was very good with men. They’d do anything for her.”
“This man will do anything for you.”
Her eyes grew wider, and he wanted to snatch back his words because they revealed too much. He’d vowed to protect her from her own romantic dreams, but he’d just let her see how much he cared. Knowing Daisy, with her old-fashioned views about marriage, she’d imagine his caring to be love and start building pipe dreams in her head about their future, pipe dreams his own twisted emotional makeup wouldn’t let him fulfill. The only way he could protect her was to let her see what a mean son of a bitch she’d linked herself up with.
But it was so hard. Of all the cruel tricks fate had played on him, the cruelest of all was joining him to this fragile decent woman with the beautiful eyes and too-generous heart. Caring wasn’t enough for her. She needed to be surrounded by real love. She needed children and a good husband—one of those big-hearted guys who marched in Labor Day parades and went to church on Sunday and would love her to distraction.
Something painful twisted inside him as he thought of her married to someone else, but he forced it away. No matter what he had to do, he was going to protect her.
“Do you mean it, Alex? Would you really do anything for me?”
Despite all his good intentions, he nodded like a fool.
“Then sit very still and let me make love to you.”
His groin tightened into a hard, throbbing ache, and he wanted her so much he couldn’t breathe. At the very last instant, just before his hunger to possess her overpowered him, her mouth curved in a smile so soft and sweet he felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut.
She wasn’t holding anything back. Not one thing. She was offering herself to him without reservations: heart, body, and soul. How could anyone be so self-destructive? He pulled himself back together. If she wasn’t going to guard herself, he’d do the job for her.
“Sex has to be something more than just bodies,” he said harshly. “That’s what you told me. You told me it had to be sacred, but it can’t be that way with us. There’s no love. Don’t ever forget that. There’s just sex.”
To his utter astonishment, she gave him a tender smile that seemed faintly tinged with pity. “You foolish man. Of course there’s love. Don’t you know? I love you.”
He felt as if he’d been sucker-punched.
She had the audacity to laugh. “I do love you, Alex, and there’s no need to get all stiff and starchy like that. I know I told you I wouldn’t, but I can’t help it. I’ve been hiding from the truth, but today Sinjun showed me how I feel.”
Despite all his warnings and threats, all the cautions and caveats he’d thrown at her, she’d decided she was in love with him. And it was his fault. He should have kept more distance between them. Why had he walked on the beach with her? Why had he spilled his guts? And most damning of all, why hadn’t he kept her out of his bed? Now he had to convince her that what she regarded as love was simply a reflection of her romantic view of life, and that wasn’t going to be easy.
Before he could point out her mistake, she settled her mouth over his. His brain short-circuited. He wanted her. He had to have her.
She ran the tip of her tongue over his lips, then gently probed. He caught her head in his hands and sank his fingers in her soft hair. She became pliable in his arms, offering herself to him and giving everything.
She made a soft, mewing sound. Vulnerable. Needy. The sound threaded into his dulled consciousness and brought him back to reality. He had to remind her how it was between them. For her sake, he had to get tough. Better to deal out a small hurt now than a devastating one later.
He pulled abruptly away from her. With one hand, he pushed her back on the bed, and with the other, he covered the bulge in his jeans. “A good fuck is better than love any day.”
He
inwardly winced at the expression of shock that swept over her flushed face. He knew his wife, and he braced himself for what would come next. She was going to jump right up off the bed and blister his ears with a lecture on vulgarity.
But she didn’t do it. Instead, her shock faded into the same pitying look he’d noted earlier.
“I knew you’d be difficult about this. You’re so predictable.”
Predictable? Was that how she saw him? Damn it, he was trying to save her, and all she could do was mock him! Well, he’d show her.
He forced his mouth into an ugly sneer. “Get out of that costume. I’m in the mood for some rough stuff, and I don’t want to tear it.”
“Rough stuff?
“That’s what I said, babe. Now take off your clothes.”
17
Daisy gulped. “You want me to take off my clothes?”
She knew she sounded like an idiot, but Alex had surprised her. Exactly what did he mean by ‘rough stuff’? Her eyes flew across the trailer toward a whip he’d left coiled over the arm of the couch. She’d scared him to death when she’d told him she loved him, but she hadn’t quite expected this. Still, he was so skittish on the subject that she should have known he’d overreact.
“Stop stalling.” He stripped off his T-shirt. His jeans rode low on his hips, making him look grim and dangerous as he stood before her bare-chested, with that straight line of dark hair bisecting his flat stomach and pointing the way to danger with all the subtlety of a flashing neon arrow.
“When you say, rough stuff . . .”
“I mean that it’s time for some variety.”
“To be honest, I don’t feel as if I’ve mastered all the basics yet.”
“I thought you said you loved me, Daisy. How about proving it?”
He was definitely provoking her, and she mentally counted to ten.
“I’m not a hearts and flowers type of guy. You know that. I like sex. I like it often, and I like it wild.”
Good grief! She really had scared him. She nibbled on her bottom lip. Despite what she’d said earlier, Alex wasn’t all that predictable, so she needed to be careful. On the other hand, Tater and his cronies had taught her one basic rule when dealing with large beasts. If she backed down, she was bound to get swatted.
“Very well,” she said. “What do you want me to do?”
“I ready told you. Get naked.”
“I said I was going to make love to you, not the other way around.”
“Maybe I don’t want to make love. Maybe I just want to fuck.”
That rat! He was deliberately goading her, and she had to bite her tongue to keep herself from falling into his clutches. If she lost her temper, she’d be giving him the upper hand, and that was exactly what he wanted. Somehow she had to stand up to him, and she had to do it on her terms. She loved him too much to let him bully her like this.
She considered her options, then rose from the bed to undress. He said nothing; he merely watched her. She kicked off her shoes and slipped out of her costume, but when she got down to her bra and panties, she found herself reluctant to go any further. He was powerfully aroused, a fact the fit of those jeans made evident, and his mood was so dangerous that she wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Maybe distraction would be a good option. That way she could buy herself a little time.
So much had happened since her interview with her father that she hadn’t had a chance to talk with Alex about his astonishing claims, if she brought the subject up now, she might be able to throw him off guard. A discussion about his family history could also defuse his unpredictable mood.
“Dad told me your father was a Romanov.”
“Take off my jeans.”
“And not just any Romanov. He said your father was the grandson of Czar Nicholas II.”
“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
He regarded her with such arrogance that it wasn’t at all difficult to imagine him sitting on the throne of Catherine the Great and ordering some recalcitrant Petroff female to throw herself into the Volga.
“He says you’re the heir to the Russian crown.”
“Be quiet and do what I told you.”
She repressed a sigh. Lord, he was being difficult. Apparently there was nothing like a declaration of love to make this Russian go on the attack. She found it difficult to meet his gaze with any measure of dignity when she was clad only in her underwear and he looked so alarmingly potent, but she did her best. This clearly wasn’t the time to pry loose any of the answers she craved.
He sneered at her. “When you take off my jeans, do it on your knees.”
Insufferable jerk!
His lips thinned. “Now.”
She took three deep breaths. She’d never imagined he’d go this squirrelly on her. It was amazing what fear could do to a man. And now he intended to push her until she threw her declaration of love back in his face. How many tigers did she have to tame in one day?
As she studied the arrogant narrowing of his eyes, the insolent flare of his nostrils, she felt an unexpected rush of tenderness. Her poor darling. He was dealing with his fear in the only way he knew how, and castigating him for it would only make him more defensive. Oh, Alex, what did your uncle’s whip do to you?
She gazed into his eyes and slowly lowered herself to her knees. Threads of sensation uncoiled inside her as she saw how aroused he was. Even his fear hadn’t been able to destroy that.
His fists clenched at his sides. “Damn it! Where’s your pride?”
She sat back on her heels and gazed up at his face, harsh and uncompromising, with those Russian cheekbones casting deep shadows and pale lines of strain bracketing his mouth. “Pride? It’s in my heart, of course.”
“You’re letting me demean you!”
She smiled. “You can’t do that. I can only demean myself. And I’m on my knees to undress you because it excites me.”
A treacherous silence stretched between them. He looked so tortured that she couldn’t bear it. She came up on her knees and pressed her lips to his hard belly, just above the waistband of his jeans. As she nibbled there, she tugged on the snap till it gave way beneath her fingers. Then she struggled to lower the zipper.
His skin broke out in gooseflesh, and his voice sounded ragged. “I don’t understand you at all.”
“I think you do. It’s yourself you don’t understand.”
He grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her to her feet. His eyes were so dark and unhappy she couldn’t bear it. “What am I going to do with you?” he said.
“Maybe love me back?”
His breath left his body in a smothered rush of sound, and his mouth covered hers. She felt his desperation and was powerless to help him. The kiss claimed them both. Like a whirlwind, it swept them into its power.
She didn’t know whether they undressed themselves or each other, but they were soon lying naked on the bed. Sensation, warm and thick, spread outward from her belly. His mouth was on her shoulder, her breasts, brushing the crests. He kissed her belly. She opened her legs for him and let him raise her knees.
“I’m going to touch you everywhere,” he murmured against the soft skin of her inner thigh.
And he did. Oh, he did.
He couldn’t love her with his heart, but he could love her with his body, and he did it with an unbridled generosity that filled her with emotion. She took what he was able to give and, at the same time, she loved him back, using her hands and her breasts, the graze of her skin, the warmth of her mouth.
When he finally buried himself deep within her, she wrapped her legs around his and clung fast.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes.”
The barriers between them disappeared, and as they climbed together, she began to talk.
“Oh, yes. Like that. I love . . . Yes. Deep. Oh, yes. Just that . . .”
She crooned to him from passion and from instinct, if she stopped talking, he’d try to forget who she was and turn her into an anonymous femal
e body. She couldn’t bear that. She was Daisy. She was his wife.
And so she talked, held tight, and raced with him into that place of oneness.
Finally, all the darkness gave way to light.
“It was sacred.”
“It wasn’t sacred, Daisy. It was sex.”
“Let’s do it again.”
“I’m going seventy miles an hour, we didn’t have more than three hours of sleep last night, and we’re already late getting into Allentown.”
“Stuffed shirt.”
“Who are you calling a stuffed shirt?”
“You.”
He glanced over at her, a devilish spark in his eyes. “I dare you to say that when you’re naked.”
“I’m not getting naked till you admit it was sacred.”
“How about if I admit it was special? Because it was definitely special.”
She gave him a smug look and let it go at that. Last night had been more than special, and both of them knew it. She’d felt it in the urgency of their lovemaking and the way they’d held on to each other afterward. When they’d looked into each other’s eyes, nothing was hidden, nothing held back.
This morning, she’d expected him to be up to his old tricks again, acting surly and impossible, doing everything he could to distance himself. But to her surprise, he’d been funny and tender instead. It was as if he’d given up the struggle. With every beat of her romantic’s heart, she wanted to believe he’d fallen in love with her, but she knew it wouldn’t be that easy. For now she’d be grateful that he’d lowered his guard.
Rain began to splatter the truck’s dusty windshield with great amoeba-shaped drops. It was a chilly, dreary morning, and according to the forecast, it would only get worse. He looked over at her, and she had the feeling he’d read her mind.
“I can’t resist you,” he said quietly. “You know that, don’t you? And I’m tired of pretending I can.” His expression grew more troubled. “But I don’t love you, Daisy, and you can’t begin to know how sorry I am about that because if I could chose anyone in this world to love, it’d be you.”