“I’ll remember that. I’ll go back now.” She started to turn around and was stopped by his hand on her arm.
“No, we might as well go a little farther now that we’re here. What did you want to see?” He was smiling down at her with surprising gentleness. “It’s a very small town, and it won’t take long. This particular side of Hell’s Bluff is practically deserted anyway.”
“Why?” She gazed around with interest. The wooden sidewalk on which they were standing was a good foot off the hard-packed dirt of the street. Over the sidewalk was a wooden awning that would shelter pedestrians from rain and snow. The shops and restaurants they had passed were locked and dark, and she wondered about that. “Chester said you had restored the entire town,” she said.
“I did, but these stores aren’t necessary to the actual running of the mine, so I’ve never staffed them. When the ore runs out, we’ll probably open the town up as a tourist attraction, and then this area will be in full operation.”
“Is the ore about to run out?”
He shrugged. “Not for years. This is a very rich deposit, but you always have to be ready for the next step.”
She studied him in the moonlight. “But I don’t think that’s why you had the town restored. I believe you would have done it anyway.”
“Maybe I would have at that. I feel more comfortable in surroundings like these. Boom towns are here today and gone tomorrow.” He paused. “Like me, Sierra.”
She ran her tongue over her lower lip. “That sounds remarkably like a warning. You seem to be handing out quite a few of those these days. I can’t imagine why. I’m perfectly able to take care of myself.”
“I’m glad one of us is confident. I’ve had a few misgivings about my own ability to handle the situation.” He smiled faintly. “You have a very odd effect upon me, Sierra Smith.”
“I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” she said hurriedly. “This is your home and I’d never want to—”
His fingers covered her lips, stopping the flow of words. “Hush,” he said gently. “I know that. You’re falling all over yourself to keep from causing any trouble.”
His fingertips were tracing her soft lips, and she could feel a throbbing sensitivity wherever he touched her. He must be able to feel that throbbing beneath his fingers, she thought. It was vibrating through her entire body, making her tremble helplessly. “I don’t think you should be doing this.”
“I don’t either. I shouldn’t have touched you. I wasn’t going to do that. I knew—” He broke off. “Oh, Lord, come here.”
She was in his arms and his mouth was covering hers with a hard passion. He stole her breath and ignited a raging fire between her thighs. His tongue slipped between her parted lips and caressed hers. An undeniable yearning built inside her, and it was impossible not to return his hot kiss with equal passion.
She made a sound deep in her throat and arched up against him as if he had pulled a string connected to every muscle in her body. He was trembling against her, his chest rising and falling rapidly with the force of his breathing. He lifted his head slightly, but his tongue still moved against her lips between his whispered words.
“I’ve wanted to do this every minute for the last three days. I’ve wanted my tongue on you, and my hands …” His hands slipped down to cup the curve of her bottom. “And my …”
With a sudden forceful movement he lifted her and held her against the cradle of his hips. She gasped as she felt the hardness of his arousal through the flimsy barriers of cloth that separated them.
“Here too,” he said thickly. “I need all of you. I need to come into you and—” He stopped and drew a deep breath. “I can’t even talk, dammit. But I can show you.”
He pulled her into the dark alcove of a shop entry and pressed her against the wall. He flipped open her coat with swift rough hands and pulled the T-shirt out of her jeans. “I want to see you,” he said jerkily. “Not that I can see much in these shadows.” He was impatiently pushing up the T-shirt. “Is it all right?”
“Yes.” She wanted to see him too. He was so beautiful. She wished she could see his eyes as he was looking at her.
He was loosening her bra, and then his hands were on her breasts, enveloping their smallness in his palms. The feel of his hard calloused hands on her bare skin sent a shocking, burning sensation through her. She gave a broken little cry and surged toward him.
“It’s not enough,” he muttered. “I can’t see you.” His hands were squeezing and caressing with a rhythm that caused her breath to catch in her throat. “I want you to be open to me. I want …” The rest of his sentence was lost as his mouth enveloped one aching, swollen breast.
His tongue flicked the sensitive nipple and she had to grit her teeth to keep from crying out. His hand moved down between her thighs and began rubbing against her with slow, lazy strokes while his lips suckled with increasing force. The denim of her jeans might just as well have not been there. She felt as if he were stroking her naked flesh, and her legs became so weak, she had to lean back against the wall for support. She gasped for breath. The tugging at her nipple was causing her stomach to knot painfully, and his hand …
“You like that?” he asked, lifting his head. He caressed her breast with his free hand and chuckled huskily. “Yes, I can see you do.” His hand between her thighs suddenly closed and tightened. She gasped and a shudder ran through her. “And you like that too. It’s going to be a joy finding all the things that pleasure you, Sierra.” His hands were leaving her. He adjusted her bra and pulled down her shirt. “And I’m going to enjoy every minute of it.” He pulled her out onto the sidewalk.
The moonlight was dawn-bright in comparison to the alcove’s deep shadows. York looked down at Sierra and saw she was gazing up at him. Her dark eyes were shining with an eagerness and a breathless joy, and his heart turned over as tenderness returned tenfold. He felt it flow over him, sparking a foreign aching deep within. “Don’t do this to me,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t want to feel like this.”
“Like what?” She scarcely realized what she had said. He was looking down at her with those deep blue eyes that held beauty and kindness and—
“As if I’ve come loose from my moorings and drifted out to sea.” He touched her cheek gently, and a glowing warmth drifted through her. “Every time I look at you, I get a little closer to the point of no return.”
“I thought that was airplanes, not ships,” she said breathlessly. “You’re getting your metaphors mixed.” His fingers were burning against her cheek, and her heart was beating so crazily, she was sure he could hear it. It was she who was lost in the sea of emotion. He must have experienced at least a facsimile of this turbulence before. “Not that it matters.”
“No, not that it matters,” he agreed. His fingers moved to her kiss-swollen lips and pressed softly against them. “This is the only thing that matters. Let’s go back to the house, Sierra.”
“Yes.” She was vaguely aware he was turning, his hand on her waist gently propelling her the short block back to the house. His fingers ran from her elbow down to her hand and caught it in a warm strong grasp. She felt a tiny thrill as her hand curled instinctively around his. “All this feels so …” Her voice trailed off. They had reached the front porch, and the garish red light was casting a rosy glow over the beautiful tautness of York’s cheekbones. He was going to make love to her. The knowledge sent a wild excitement through every vein. She could see the burning intensity in his eyes. He wanted her. This wonderful, kind, beautiful man wanted her. “We’re going to go to bed together,” she said. It was a statement not a question.
“If I can hold on that long. If we don’t hurry, we may not leave this porch.”
“I’m not very experienced,” she said gravely. “I think you should know that. But I’ll try very hard, and that will count for something, won’t it?”
Why did everything she say invoke this terrible tenderness that made his eyes sting and his throat tighten he
lplessly? he wondered. “That will count for a hell of a lot.” He drew her into his arms and pressed her close. She was so delicate. He felt he could break her with just the pressure of his hands. The tenderness was still there, but his body was hardening, readying. The muscles of his stomach tightened with the same hunger he had known only a few minutes before. “You always try hard, don’t you? You give everything that’s in you.”
His lips were just above hers, and he could see their trembling vulnerability. York had a sudden desire to crush, to bruise, to tear at that vulnerability. The thought sent a chilling shock through him. What the hell was wrong with him? The impulse had been as savagely primitive as his other reactions toward Sierra. He had never wanted to be rough with any woman. Why did Sierra have this effect on him? he asked himself.
Because he didn’t want her to remain vulnerable.
The answer exploded inside him. He wanted to destroy that part of her so he could take and still be free to walk away. Good Lord, what kind of monster was he?
“What’s wrong?” she asked, seeing the different expressions chase across his face. “Did I say something wrong?”
He pushed her away with scarcely contained violence. “You sure as hell did. You said yes, dammit. Don’t you have any sense of self-preservation? I told you an affair with me wouldn’t be safe for you.”
Her bewilderment turned to pain. “You don’t want me anymore?” She drew a shaky breath and lifted her chin. “I understand. It was an impulse, right? You mustn’t think you have to pretend—”
“Pretend! Lord, don’t you have ears? I want you so much, I’m aching for it. I want you so much, I can’t be in the same room with you without wanting to reach out and grab.” He drew a rasping breath and his eyes blazed down at her. “You’re making my life miserable as hell. I wish to God you’d never come to this town.”
She backed away from him, her face white and stricken. “I’m sorry.” Oh, Lord, she thought. She was stammering a little. She mustn’t do that. It was this damn pain. She tried to make her voice firm. “I know I’ve been a burden to you in all sorts of ways. I didn’t mean to be—” Her voice broke and she had to stop.
“Damn.” York’s voice was harsh with remorse. He saw her pained expression, highlighted by the glare of the red lantern. He stepped forward impulsively. “Sierra, I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t touch me.” She backed away from him. “I know you didn’t want to hurt me. You don’t have to tell me that. For heaven’s sake, don’t pity me.”
She jerked open the door and ran inside. Her eyes were so blinded by tears that she almost collided with Deuce as she tore up the stairs toward the haven of her room. She muttered something she hoped was an apology as she took the steps two at a time.
“Sierra!” York called after her. “I didn’t want—”
She didn’t stop. She couldn’t bear to face him right now. Not until the first agony of the pain of rejection was over. She’d be all right then. She’d faced rejection before. But York’s rejection hurt so much worse than the others. She slammed her bedroom door behind her.
Deuce flinched at the sound. “Perhaps I should have been the one to go after her,” he said to York. “You don’t seem to be handling Sierra with your usual finesse.”
York laughed harshly. “That’s certainly putting it conservatively. There’s nothing in the least usual about my relationship with Sierra. I can’t seem to open my mouth without hurting her.”
Deuce gazed at him steadily. “Better a little pain now than a basketful later. Get rid of her, York. You’re going to hurt her badly, and you’re not hard enough to do that without hurting yourself too.”
York was well aware of that. When he’d seen the torment on Sierra’s face, he had felt her pain as if it were his own. He had wanted to take her in his arms and hold and rock her as if she were a hurt child. But she wasn’t a child, and if she stayed here he was going to be the one who hurt her. He didn’t want to do that.
“You’re right,” he said wearily as he shrugged out of his coat. “She can’t stay here any longer. I’ll have to work something out, and heaven only knows what that will be. I can’t send her away without someone to look after her.” He tossed his coat in the direction of the cushioned bench against the wall and turned toward the library. “I have a few phone calls to make. Why don’t you get that bottle of Napoleon brandy you won from the owner of that silver mine in Ixtapa? I’m going to need something very smooth, potent, and alcoholic to wash this particular experience away.”
“Okay, if you think it will help.”
York had a very good idea that it wouldn’t help at all, but he’d try anything to forget Sierra’s eyes filled with bewilderment and pain. “Just bring it, will you?”
“How is she?” York asked Deuce the next evening. He glanced up the stairs and tried to keep the tenseness out of his voice. “Did she eat anything today? She didn’t come down to breakfast this morning.”
Deuce shrugged. “She ate a little lunch. As for her mental State, it’s not all that good. I don’t know what you said to her last night, but it took all the juice out of her. She’s been floating around here all day as lackluster as a ghost, except for that walk she took into town this afternoon. Are you going to try to talk to her? I believe an apology must definitely be in order,” he added pointedly.
“Get off my back, Deuce.” York rubbed his neck wearily. “I know the effect she must have had on you today. I’d probably be ready to bust a few faces myself if I’d had to see her hurting, but I’m not up to any needling at the moment.”
“But you didn’t have to see her,” Deuce said dryly. “You ran off to the office and left it to me. I didn’t like that, York. If you’re going to scatter carnage, you should be there to tidy up later.”
Carnage. The word made York flinch. It reminded him too vividly of Sierra’s expression under the glare of those red porch lights. “That’s what I’m trying to do,” he said. “Just hold the fort for another few hours while I bring in reinforcements.”
“Reinforcements?”
York looked at his watch. “I’m going to the heliport right now to pick up Rafe and Burke.”
“So those were the calls you made last night. You must be in dire straits if you sent out an S.O.S. I’ve never known you to ask them for help before,” he said thoughtfully.
“Only because they lavished so much help on me when I was a kid that I nearly smothered in it,” York said with a touch of grimness. “I swore a long time ago no one was ever going to fight my battles again.”
Deuce stared speculatively at York. “Until now.”
“Until now.” York turned away with an abrupt, almost savage, movement. “Keep a watch over her until I get back. With any luck that responsibility won’t be ours after tomorrow.”
“I’ll do that.” Deuce paused. “You know, I think I’m going to miss this particular responsibility. Sierra has a way of growing on you.”
“I will too.” York kept his face averted as he opened the front door. He could feel the loneliness already, and she hadn’t even left Hell’s Bluff yet, he thought. This morning at breakfast he’d had the first inkling of how much she had insinuated her way into his life in the past few weeks. It had seemed wrong to sit there without her across from him with her sudden glowing smile and dark eyes … His hand tightened on the doorknob as he remembered how her eyes had looked last night. “Do me a favor, Deuce? Get someone to change those red light bulbs on the porch to white before I get back. I’m tired of that red glow.”
“Really? I thought the concept amused you.”
He saw again Sierra’s thin face illuminated by the harsh scarlet, her lips trembling with pain.
“It doesn’t amuse me any longer. I’m sick to death of it. Have the bulbs changed.” He slammed the door behind him.
The sun was going down behind the mountains as Rafe’s helicopter, with the official Shamrock logo on its side, descended to the concrete Tarmac. Rafe had scarcely time to jum
p from the craft and start toward where York was standing beside the Jeep when Burke’s identical helicopter began to descend.
Rafe halted and waited for Burke to join him, then they walked together toward York. York could hear Burke’s deep murmur and Rafe’s easy laugh. It was all so familiar, he felt as if he were a boy again on Killara. How many times had he watched a much younger Burke and Rafe join in the warm camraderie he had envied with everything in him? For a moment he felt again the sharp, aching pain of isolation, then it was gone. What stupid tricks memory played, he thought.
He stepped forward and was immediately enfolded in the bond of love and togetherness. It had always been there waiting for him. All he’d ever had to do was step forward. It had taken him a hell of a long time to learn that.
“This had better be damn important, brother mine,” Burke said. “I had to drop a very delicate transaction to answer this particular mayday.”
“Another merger?” York asked idly as he shook hands.
Burke’s smile was almost grim. “In a manner of speaking.”
“What do we need with another merger?” Rafe asked. He stepped into the back of the Jeep and stretched his long legs out as far as the shallow confines would permit. “I would think the only company we haven’t merged with or taken over is IBM.”
“No, that’s next month,” Burke said, deadpan. “Providing I can fit it into my schedule.” He climbed into the front passenger seat. “Don’t worry, neither one of you are going to be bothered with the details of this merger. It’s strictly private stock, and I intend to keep it that way.”
“For which York and I will breathe a profound sigh of relief,” Rafe drawled. “You may enjoy these convoluted maneuvers, but we’d rather just get on with day-to-day earthy practicalities.” He frowned as a thought struck him. “You’re not supposed to be taking on any new projects right now, Burke. You’ve worn yourself to a frazzle lately trying to run the corporation and fight that shyster in court.”