She did want him so, she acknowledged to herself, swallowing thickly. How could she deny it if he tried to force the confession from her with these tactics?
“You look very good lying across my bed, your dark hair on my quilt,” he said quietly. “I want you so badly, my little Leya, and I know you want me. I saw it in your eyes that first night in Oregon.”
He shifted slightly, raising himself far enough to finish peeling off the shirt and hurling it to the floor. Then he reached down and slipped off his shoes, still anchoring her carefully.
One of Leya’s evening sandals had already fallen silently to the floor beside the bed. Court pushed the other one off her foot and then stretched out along her length again.
“Court, please don’t do this,” Leya began, uttering each word with great care. She knew she was trembling now, and she also knew the reaction wasn’t one of fear or anger.
He held her wrists in one hand above her head, letting his fingertips trail sensuously down the length of her throat.
“And tonight,” he muttered, “you will play your games with no one else. I told you once in Oregon that I will be a very possessive lover, my sweet Leya. I meant it. I’m going to make sure that you know the limits of the golden chains…”
“Chains work both ways,” she whispered, her nails curving into her palms. Instinctively, she lowered her lashes, watching his face through them. “The one who attaches a chain must continue to hold on to the other end. He is as much a prisoner as the one he would control.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Court growled, eyes blazing with a lambent flame. And then he was burying his lips in the scented place behind her ear.
Leya shivered again uncontrollably, and he abruptly released her hands, sensing her body’s incipient capitulation with masculine certainty. Leya knew she was succumbing to the sensual power of the moment, knew she wanted him, perhaps even loved him. How did a woman resist the man she wanted when he let her know the full extent of his need as Court did now? How did a woman resist the man she was coming to love?
“Leya, Leya! Please don’t deny me tonight,” he begged. “Can’t you see how I need you!”
She felt the passion in him as it mingled with her own, drawing them together in an elemental way that was nearly irresistible. It had been building throughout the evening, she knew, from the moment she had walked out of her bath to find him waiting for her.
He shifted, pulling her tightly against him so that he could find the zipper of her dress. She turned her face into his warm skin, inhaling the intoxicating maleness of him as he slipped the gown down over her shoulders. He lowered it slowly, tantalizingly, his lips following the receding barrier as sand birds follow the ebbing wave.
Tonight he did not tease her and tempt her with the seductive method he had used that last night in Oregon. Tonight Court set the pace, as if he wanted there to be no doubt this time about how it would end and no doubt about which of them was in final control.
“Oh, Court!” she breathed as his hand found her unprotected breast. She had worn no bra beneath the red-and-gold dress and he groaned softly as he claimed the treasure he sought. Her skin tingled as his fingers prompted forth the nipple, bringing it to a peak of hard desire that seemed to feed his own need.
“You could so easily drive a man over the edge, little Leya,” he muttered as his lips burned a string of kisses up the curve of her throat. “All this passion combined with that damned independence! Harlow was a cretin to let you slip away from him. But I can’t complain about his stupidity,” he grated roughly. “It made things so much easier for me!”
“Easier!” she exclaimed huskily. “What do you mean? What would you have done if I had belonged to Alex by now?”
“Taken you away from him!” he declared savagely, and then his mouth closed hotly over hers, forcing apart her lips. His tongue swept inside just as his fingers tightened ever so slightly on the sensitive nipple. The combined attack sent a shiver roaring along Leya’s spine, and she arched instinctively.
“But you would never have belonged to Alex,” he rasped against her mouth a moment later as he broke the contact reluctantly. “You’re much too smart for him. It would have been funny watching you handle him tonight if it hadn’t been so infuriating watching you let him kiss you! I should punish you for that piece of impudence,” he concluded on a thick groan as he lowered his mouth again.
Leya knew a surge of feminine triumph as she realized Court was far past the point of being able to punish her tonight. He was thoroughly caught up in the emotional turmoil seething around them, and the knowledge thrilled her. Deliberately, she allowed her fingers to wander down the line of his ribs to the hard waist.
He drew in his breath sharply when she unclasped his belt buckle and toyed with the opening of his slacks.
“Little wanton,” he whispered on a husky note of laughter. “I knew you were a born tease the first day I met you! There’s only one way to handle a tease.” He pulled the dress lower, sliding it down over her hips and off completely.
“How do you handle a tease?” she challenged deep in her throat, loving the feel of his hands as he stripped off her pantyhose and left her in only the red lace bikini briefs.
“Make sure she plays the game out to the very end, of course. She’ll learn her lesson!” He nipped her shoulder, letting her feel the edge of his teeth in a sharp caress that made her gasp.
Instantly, her trembling fingers clutched the skin of his hips, pushing aside the unbuckled slacks. Then she slid her palms up the sleek back, pausing to probe and explore as she headed for the fine hair at the back of his neck.
He moved, settling himself on his side and using his strong hands to tug her against him, letting her feel the rising need and the pounding of his heart.
“You’re mine, Leya,” he almost snarled as his fingers curved around her hips, dragging her against him. His lips haunted the region of her breast in deeper, more demanding kisses. “Admit it!” he commanded, and then his mouth fastened on her nipple. A second later she felt his tongue begin a delicate pattern and finally his teeth.
“Oh!” she moaned, her body enjoying the deliciously ravaging caresses beyond anything it had known in the past. “Oh, my God! Court! I want you so much!” The words were torn from her on a breathless cry as she wrapped her arms around his neck and clung.
‘Enough to admit you belong to me?” he charged, his heavy thigh trapping her twisting, writhing legs. “Enough to admit that from now on no other man has a claim on you?”
She heard the passionate demand in his words and wondered at it.
“Answer me, Leya!” he gritted, pushing her onto her back and lowering himself roughly between her legs. She felt the harshness of his slacks against the smoothness of her inner thighs and opened her eyes to find the melting gold and brown flaming over her face.
“I want you, Court,” she whispered, her fingers gliding through the curling hair of his chest. “You are right about that,” she confessed softly. “I’ve wanted you from the beginning.”
It felt good to admit that much, she realized. It freed her somehow, made it possible to sink more deeply into the quicksand that was dragging at her, inviting her, overwhelming her…
“That’s a start,” he grated with a measure of satisfaction and relief in his voice as he slid passionately down her body, raining kisses over her breasts and on the soft skin of her gently curving stomach. “It’s a beginning, at least.”
Her hands locked in the thickness of his hair as he sank his teeth ever so carefully into the vulnerable flesh of her thigh.
Leya moaned and his hands held her still when she would have writhed against him.
“A start, Court?” she gasped. “What else would you have of me?”
“Everything!”
He began working his way back up her body. She could feel the rough texture of his slacks between her naked legs, knew the strength of his need as he arched himself intimately against her.
/> “Everything, my darling Leya,” he continued more gently, curling a tongue around a taut nipple and cupping the breast with soft possession. “And I’ll have it before this night is done. I must have it!”
She shuddered at the force of his demand and wondered if she would be able to resist. Already she was unbelievably caught up in the maelstrom of his lovemaking. How much would she surrender before morning?
The power in him flowed over her, summoning forth a response Leya had never dreamed she was capable of generating. Her nails raking across his shoulders in small violent attacks seemed to excite him further.
His fingers feathered the inside of her thigh, the softness of her stomach, and the sensitive skin of her breast and throat. He touched her everywhere, as if he couldn’t get enough of the feel of her.
At last, with impatient, wrenching movements, he stripped off the remainder of his clothes, lowering himself quickly back down beside her and pulling her into his arms.
“My God, Leya, I dreamed about this last night after I’d taken you home, do you know that?” he gritted, running exploring hands down to the ultra-sensitive area at the base of her spine. “I could see you here beside me, telling me that you wanted me, that you weren’t going to punish me any longer for what had happened in Oregon…”
His fingers dug gently, intoxicatingly into the resilient flesh of her buttocks, and Leya gasped, her own hands gliding up his smoothly muscled chest. She bent her head, kissing the male nipples with a sensuous abandon.
“Oh, Court,” she breathed again and again, wonder and chaotic emotion in her words as she contemplated what was happening.
“It’s all right,” he soothed passionately, stroking her back and pulling her ever closer. His mouth was hovering in her hair and he kissed the top of her ear. “Tonight we start over, just as we agreed at the party. You won’t regret it, Leya, I swear. This was meant to be. You’ve already admitted you want me. The rest will be easy…”
“Will it, Court?” she whispered, the words almost blocked in her throat.
“The only thing standing in our way was your need to avenge yourself; to get even for the way I had deceived you in Oregon. You did that tonight. I can’t blame you, I’ve told you that. Hell, I would have done the same. We’re a lot alike, you and I.”
“You think you understand me so well,” she murmured into the skin of his shoulder.
“Yes,” he agreed unhesitatingly, twisting his legs around her restless limbs and preparing to push her gently onto her back. “And very soon I will understand you even better. I will know exactly what drives you wild in my arms and what it takes to make you curl against me like a kitten. I will hear you tell me exactly how much you want me…”
“I want you.”
“And need me…”
“I need you.”
“And trust me…”
Leya went very still in his arms. He felt it instantly and she lifted her lashes to find him staring down at her flushed features.
“Leya?” he growled almost harshly.
“What, Court?”
“Tell me you trust me. Admit that, just as you admitted that you wanted me and needed me!”
She felt the compelling urgency in him and blinked, confused. “Is it so important?”
“Yes, damn it! Tell me!”
She licked suddenly dry lips, aware of the violent tension in him and uncertain how to deal with it. “I want you, Court. Let that be enough for tonight.”
“No, it’s not enough!” he rasped, lifting his hands to tighten them fiercely around her shoulders. “I want to know everything!”
“Court!” His name was a helpless cry torn from her lips.
“Leya, please! This isn’t a game!”
She was shaken by the intensity in every taut line of his face, unnerved by the tightness in him.
“I know it’s not a game,” she breathed. “That’s why I can’t give you what you ask. Let it be, Court. I want you, I’ve given you that much of a victory. Take it and have done!”
“You haven’t forgiven me for what happened in Oregon, have you?” he snarled. “You aren’t satisfied with your revenge.”
“I’m not plotting revenge, Court,” she gasped. “Not anymore. If I were, I wouldn’t be here beside you, telling you that I want you and need you…”
“Leya, don’t do this to me! To both of us!”
She was shocked at the words, and the knowledge that he was genuinely serious about his demand was almost therapeutic in its effect on her will. It was a therapy she could have done without, she thought sadly.
“Is that all you can think of, even now? Winning completely? Can’t you take the compromise I’m offering? What’s so important about having my trust? Or do you need that to assure yourself you’ve conquered the challenge completely?”
“Leya, you don’t understand! I have to know you trust me. If you can’t say the words, then I’ll know you haven’t yet satisfied your need for revenge. It’s not a question of conquering a challenge, damn it. Can’t you get that through your head? I know you needed to punish me, but you’ve done that. You can’t keep doing it!”
“I’m not punishing you!” she hissed, beginning to push against his hard body. “You’re asking more than I can give. Stop insisting on total victory, damn it. I thought that, if nothing else, we could at least go to bed together as equals, both of us admitting that we wanted each other. But you can’t even compromise that much, can you? You can think only in terms of…of defeating me completely!”
With a final exclamation of male outrage, he gathered her flailing hands tightly in his fist and pushed her flat onto the bed. His eyes raked her softly gleaming body, lingering hungrily over the wantonly vulnerable curves.
“Look at me,” he growled violently as she lay stretched out helplessly beneath him. “Look at me and try to guess just what a man could do to a soft little thing like you if he wanted to defeat you completely!”
He saw the hint of uncertain, bright-eyed fear coloring the silver green of her gaze and smiled savagely. “That’s right, little shrew. A man who was intent on ‘total victory,’ as you call it, would have a very clearcut option open to him at this point, wouldn’t he? Do you even realize just how helpless you are right now?”
He grasped the sable braid and pulled it significantly across her exposed throat. Leya trembled.
“Court! You wouldn’t. You wouldn’t rape me,” she managed painfully, lying very still as her active imagination filled in the details. To be taken in rage and violence! The thought sickened her, repelled her, frightened her on the most primitive of levels.
“No,” he agreed furiously, “I wouldn’t. And something tells me that of the two of us, I’m the bigger fool!”
He wrenched himself away from her, his feet hitting the carpeted floor beside the bed with a thud. With swift, forceful motions, he threw on his clothes and tossed hers across her sprawled body.
“Get dressed,” he grated. “I’m taking you home.”
She watched him walk out of the room, trembling so badly she could hardly pick up her garments.
She found him pacing the floor in front of the fireplace when she finally emerged a few minutes later, some of her dignity and spirit mercifully restored along with her clothes. He looked up at once and halted, eyes shimmering with an enigmatic expression.
“I’ll have to give you credit, Leya,” he drawled as his gaze swept her from head to foot. “You have an instinct for good weapons.”
“What are you talking about?” she muttered, coming forward slowly, warily.
“I expected to be punished for what happened in Oregon. It was inevitable you’d want revenge. I accepted that, thought I could deal with it and then put it all behind us. I talked myself into thinking I had convinced you that tonight’s scene with Harlow constituted sufficient vengeance. But—”
“Will you stop talking like that?” she broke in angrily, her hand moving in a gesture of denial. “I’m not plotting revenge!??
?
“No, I suppose you aren’t. It came instinctively, didn’t it? You seized the one weapon against which I don’t have a defense. You’ve denied me your trust. How the hell am I supposed to fight that, Leya? How do I convince you you’ve punished me enough? How do I win back your trust, for God’s sake?”
She stared at him in silence, aware of the ragged frustration in his words. He was absolutely right. Unwittingly, she had found a way to deny him his final victory.
“I don’t know, Court,” she whispered. “I don’t know.”
Eight
Revenge, Leya thought grimly the next morning as she dragged herself out of bed after an almost sleepless night. Was that what she was seeking by denying Court her trust? Was she doing it deliberately?
No, she told herself as she showered and dressed in a white skirt and multistriped blouse. It was nothing as simple and straightforward as that, regardless of what he thought. She had none of the satisfaction she’d had when she’d gotten even with Alex. There was none of the bubbling, cheerful amusement at seeing a foe vanquished. All she felt was depressed and unhappy. There was a strong wish that things could have been different between herself and Court; that things could have gone on the way they had started in Oregon.
But Oregon was behind her and reality was back. Leya clipped on turquoise earrings that matched one of the stripes in the blouse and headed downstairs to breakfast. There had been something very final about the way Court had driven her home in silence last night and left her at the door. Had he finally accepted the impossibility of continuing any relationship?
The renovated downtown mall area of Santa Rosa slumbered peacefully, waiting for the shopping day to begin as Leya parked her small, sassy little car in front of Brandon Books. As early as she was, it looked as if Cynthia was ahead of her. She glimpsed a figure moving about in the back of the shop as she slipped her key into the door.
“Hi, Cynthia,” she called, shutting the door behind her. “It’s only me, Leya.”