without hesitation, ending it with a smack. 'Where on earth did you get such an attitude about women?' she asked when their lips parted. 'I'm surprised at how liberal you are. It's because of someone in your past, isn't it. Did you mother teach you to be so open-minded, or was it some other woman?'
He hesitated, his gaze almost predatory as he looked for something in her face. Whatever it was, he didn't seem to find it. 'Maybe I'll tell you someday.' The combination of his careless tone and piercing eyes made her uneasy.
'You could tell me now if you wanted. You can trust me with anything. Everything.'
'Just like you trust me, hmmn?'
Addie's smile faded as she heard the light, jeering lash in his voice. 'What do you mean? I do trust you. '
He didn't answer for a second. Then to her relief, he changed with bewildering swiftness, picking up the guitar and strumming in an exaggerated cowboy style that made her laugh. The twangy tune reminded Addie of the western pictures she had seen at the movie house, pictures that had featured slickly handsome cowboys in ten-gallon hats.
'What are you playing? It sounds familiar.'
'Something we sing on the trail.'
The tune was 'My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.' As she recognized it, she fixed him with an accusatory look. 'I know that, and it isn't a cowboy song at all.'
'Yes it is.'
'It's a song for sailors. I even know the words,' she said, and demonstrated a line or two in a tuneless voice that made him wince: ''… bring back, bring back my Bonnie to me, to me-' '
'That's the part when we sing 'Roll on little doggies, roll on.''
'Couldn't you have bothered to make up your own song instead of stealing one?'
'It wasn't stolen, just improved. Texas-style.' He was so unrepentant that Addie giggled.
'You're shameless. And you need reforming.' She smoothed her palm over his shoulder and glanced in the direction of the main house. 'But I guess it'll have to wait. I have to leave, slicker.'
The mischief left his eyes, and he put the guitar aside. His hand came to rest at her waist, staying her attempt to get up. She almost jumped at the unexpected tightness of his grip. 'Why did you call me that?''
'Slicker? Why, it's just an expression.' It had been a casual endearment she'd used for Bernie and some of the veterans at the hospital. 'I've said it to you before and you never-'
'Where the hell did you get it from?' There were things about her, odd expressions included, that struck him wrong. He didn't like the inner awareness that she guarded part of herself from him, even now when she was in his arms. Sometimes he could sense the edge of fear in her, but it was impossible to know who or what she was afraid of. Was it him?
'I h-heard it in Virginia,' she stuttered, damning herself for being a clumsy liar. 'I won't call you that anymore if you don't like it.'
'I don't.'
She looked at him, confused by the faint sneer that had touched his lips. 'I'm sorry,' she muttered and made a move to leave. He jerked her back down on the step, his arm hooked around her waist. Their eyes met in an electrically charged glance. Addie was aware of his tension but couldn't understand it. 'What's the matter?'
He looked exasperated enough to shake her. Wrapping his hand behind her neck, he forced her head back with a hard kiss. Addie wriggled in protest at his roughness, bracing her arms against him and trying to push him away. His chest was as hard as a brick wall, defeating her efforts to dislodge him. The strong hand gripping the back of her neck rendered her helpless, and Ben tightened his hold on her until she submitted with a small, angry sound. The kiss amounted to nothing more than a contest of physical strength. There was no use in fighting him.
His tongue demanded access to the inside of her mouth, and Addie clenched her hands into fists, her body rigid in his arms. Brutal, arrogant creatures-men thought force was the way to solve every thing and how
'What are you trying to do?' Addie asked coldly, touching her tongue to her puffy lips in cautious exploration. 'You… you… ' She tried to think of a word Russell would have. used. '… son-of-a-bitch! You hurt me.'
He showed not one bit of regret for the pain he'd caused her. 'Then we're even.'
'The hell we are! What have I said or done to hurt you?'
'It's what you haven't said, Addie. It's what you haven't done.' And before she had any time to mull that over, he kissed her again. Bristling, she reached up and tangled her fingers in the hair at the back of his head, pulling hard until he stopped. 'Damn you,' he muttered, his eyes blazing. 'I didn't want to love you. I knew you'd drive me crazy. Try to keep me at a distance. I'll be damned if I'll let you. I'll hammer away until I get inside you, and hang on no matter how hard you try to shake me off.'
Heedless of her clutch on his hair, he slammed his mouth on hers, and this time Addie couldn't fight off the heat that raced through her body. She released her grip on his hair, her hands fluttering down to his shoulders. It was impossible to ignore the warmth of his steel-muscled body, the unsteady pounding of his heart. Her arms slid around his neck, and her breasts thrust against his chest. She matched her softness to his roughness, offered freely what he sought to take, met his violence with surrender. Silently her body communicated what she hadn't been able to say out loud.
Their bodies burned underneath their clothes, hungry to be free of all that separated them. Ben's violence disappeared, and in its stead grew the sweet ache of desire. Intoxicated with a potent mixture of lust and love, he tried to fill himself with the taste and feel of her. His tongue plunged deep in a frenzy of hunger, and she moaned as she writhed against him.
They sought to be closer, but he encountered the hard ridges of corset stays as he searched for the shape of her. Her skirts were a mass of petticoats and protective layers of cloth. The only thing accessible to him was her mouth, and he devoured her wildly, kissing, kissing. Panting as if he had run for miles, Ben ran a shaking hand over her hair, remembering how it had trailed over his body last night. He was starving for the feel of her naked and unbound beneath him.
The impulse to take down the tight braids pinned to her head was too powerful to resist. Although he knew it would anger her, he found the end of a hairpin with his thumb and forefinger and pulled it out. Immediately Addie gasped and wrenched away from him as a lock of hair fell to her shoulder.
'Give that back to me,' she snapped, flustered as she held her hand out for the pin. 'What are they going to think if I walk in the front door with my hair falling… Give it back!'
He was tempted to refuse. Let her walk in like this. Let them see her all flushed and disheveled, and everyone would know for certain how things stood between the two of them. But Addie's imperious little hand was shoved further into his face, demanding the return of what he'd stolen, and despite the urgings of the demon riding on his shoulder, he placed the hairpin in her palm. She accepted it without a word of thanks, winding up her hair and fastening it securely in back of her head. Her breath came gustily between her lips, proof of the turmoil he'd caused within her.
'I didn't do anything to provoke that… that display. If you're going to behave like that, then stay away from me until you can find some self-control!' She shot up and went down the two steps to the ground. This time he didn't prevent her, merely watched her with brooding eyes. 'You're perfectly capable of being a gentleman when it suits you, and from now on I demand-'
'You want me to be a gentleman? That's a far cry from what you wanted last night. Or is your demand only good up until bedtime?'
'Ohhh!' She was too incensed to answer. Turning on her heel, she left to go back to the house, muttering curses against him and men in general.
