Virgin Seduction

to feel alarmed until he saw that the kitchen door was wide open, too.

Calling Leila's name, he went into the kitchen. His heart was already beginning to pound. He was so intent on looking for her that he almost stepped in the mess on the floor before he saw it. 'What the hell-?' he muttered. Quickly skirting the disaster, he stuck his head into the hallway, calling more urgently now. And he was halfway up the stairs when the significance of the open door and thrown-back gate finally penetrated the alarm-clamor in his brain. Then he knew exactly where he'd find her.

Leila was in the center aisle of the stable. She was brushing the foal, Sari, while Suki, her mother, watched with anxiously pricked ears from a nearby stall. Leila was singing in Arabic as she usually did when she worked with horses, not in her usual soothing croon but in short, breathless whimpers that were not soothing to anyone. Least of all Leila.

When she heard the scrape of footsteps on concrete, she did not want to look. She wanted to go on calmly brushing Sari as though she had not a care in the world, but how could she, when every beat of her heart felt like a blow that rocked her whole body, when her hands could not hold the brush steady, but instead jerked and shook as if she had a violent chill.

Then, of course, she must turn to look. And she did not even think how melodramatic it looked-Cade, drenched and wild-eyed with his hair all on end, framed in the stable entrance while lightning flickered and flashed behind him like a scene from a horror movie. She was utterly lost in the storm of her own emotions. And what a bewildering mix of emotions! Relief, and longing…overwhelming love and unreasoning fury.

'Leila?' He came rapidly toward her, and his voice was hoarse with concern. 'Hey, are you okay? What are you doing out here?'

'Your dinner is ruined.' It seemed to Leila that her voice came from somewhere outside her own head. Half- forgotten in her nerveless hand, the brush traced an erratic zigzag across the foal's mottled charcoal back. 'There was thunder…I dropped it on the floor.'

'Yeah, I saw.' He touched her arm gently, a tentative turning pressure. 'Hey, look-it's okay. It doesn't mat-'

She whirled on him like a dervish. ' Where…were…you?' Her fists thumped against his chest, her eyes spurted fire and tears together. 'You said…you would be home early. And I waited and waited…and then it got dark…' The pressure of pent-up emotions had finally blown, and she could not have stopped herself if she'd tried. 'And I thought…I did not know where you were!' She wasn't aware, nor did she care what she looked or sounded like, or whether she was acting like the classic shrewish wife. 'And I thought…I thought… that you were…'

'I'm sorry-the traffic was…the rain…there were accidents.' Cade mumbled, dazed. His brain was reeling. All he could think was that this felt a lot to him like the moment out there in the live oak grove when his horse had abruptly gone one way and he another. His emotions and desires were all of a sudden galloping off in unexpected directions, beyond his ability to control.

After a brief struggle he gave up trying. He got his arms around Leila's quaking body and caught her hard against him. Wrapped his hand in the humid tangle of her hair to hold her still, and kissed her.

What came next was a conflagration. It exploded upon them so unexpectedly and burned so voraciously it gave him no time to think at all.

When he first kissed her, Leila gasped in surprised outrage, then struggled against him-for all of two seconds- and the next thing he knew they were panting and whimpering and tearing off each other's clothes. He dimly remembered backing her into an empty stall…the deep cushioning straw coming up to meet him and his body already half-entwined with hers.

With almost a week's worth of pent-up desire clawing at his insides and fogging his brain, it didn't even occur to Cade that he might have pushed into her too abruptly, or too soon. Nor to Leila, either, not then. She gave a sharp cry, but it was of passion, not pain, and her body arched against him, not away. Her body was hot…so hot, feverish in his arms, and she wrapped herself around him like that all-over glove he remembered. And it felt good… so good to be inside her…as if, after a long and perilous journey, he'd finally found his way home.

A fierce, exultant joy invaded him as she met his thrusts with tiny passion-cries…when she gasped out his name as he released the flood of his passion into her. When she writhed and clung to him as he kept thrusting, until only moments later he felt her come apart…her body go light, limp and pulsing in his arms.

Exhilarated, happier than he could ever remember being in his life, quaking with it, wanting to share his shaky, wondering laughter with Leila's, Cade slipped sideways enough so he could touch her face. His joy turned to despair. Laughter hardened inside him and became instead a throbbing lump in his belly.

She was crying. Not the half sobbing, half laughing overflow of emotions that had bewildered and dismayed her so when he'd made love to her the first time-that he'd understood. This was different. This was misery. Grief-stricken, heartbroken despair.

'Sweetheart, what is it?' His voice was rasping and raw. 'Did I hurt you? I'm sorry-'

She shook her head wildly, and because there was no one else from whom to seek comfort, turned her face to his chest.

But what could he say to comfort her, when he didn't begin to understand the reason for her tears? So he said nothing at all, while his mind battered helplessly against the bars of his ignorance. Until, with a glimmering of hope, he thought of something that might, just possibly, make her feel better.

'Hey,' he murmured to her still-quaking silence, gazing down through a fog of mystified tenderness at the damp tendrils of hair draped across her ear. 'I didn't have a chance to tell you. Guess who called today?'

After only the briefest of pauses he gave her the answer. 'Elena. And Hassan. They're back from their honeymoon. Just got back a couple days ago.'

She pulled away from him just enough so she could look at him. 'Really?' She sniffed. One long hand came, furtive and embarrassed, to wipe at her tears. 'They are here? In Texas?'

Cade nodded. 'Yep. They're going to be at Elena's ranch this weekend. How'd you like to pay 'em a visit?' His throat ached as he smiled.

She gave a little gasp and sat up, both her tears and her nakedness forgotten. 'A visit? Elena has a ranch? I did not know. Is it very far? Will we fly?'

'A little one…and not far at all, just outside of Evangeline. An hour's drive from here. How's tomorrow sound?'

'Tomorrow? Oh, yes-oh, Cade…' She kissed him, and her face, still wet with tears and alight with happiness, was like the sun coming out after a rainstorm.

Cade's heart was in dark despair. Just as when she'd kissed him after he'd given her the foal for her bride gift, his thoughts now were bleak. It's gratitude. She's only happy because I've given her something she wants. And it's not me.

Elena came out to greet them, waving from the wide front porch of a house that, although it was made of white painted wood rather than brownish stone, reminded Leila of Cade's ranch house where she had been so briefly and blissfully happy. Reminded her of it so much, she had to swallow hard and blink away tears.

Cade had barely parked the SUV before Leila was out of the car and running up the graveled path. She met Elena on the steps. 'Oh, I am so glad to see you,' she breathed impulsively as she returned the other woman's hug. And now she did lose control of a few tears. Elena seemed very like a sister to her now, which made her miss her own sisters all the more.

She drew back, though, when she saw Hassan's tall form, standing just behind Elena. She did not know how to greet this relaxed and smiling man who seemed so different from her so-arrogant older brother, who had always lorded it over her and tried to intimidate her with his piercing black eyes. 'Hello, Hassan,' she said formally, and was even more bemused when he stepped forward and caught her up in a hug as warm as his wife's had been, and laughed and called her 'Little sister.' In Arabic. Hassan almost never spoke in Arabic!

Then Elena was hooking an arm around hers and saying in a happy rush, in her Texas way, 'We're just so glad you guys came-we're barely unpacked ourselves, but we just decided to say the heck with it and come out here for a few days. We'll have some lunch in a little bit, but right now, I just can't wait to show you around.'