feet hit solid ground.
“If you get a chance, maybe you can bring Sadie to visit Fred this weekend. He'll be lonely without the kids around.”
“All right.”
She was halfway across the yard, and he was still a foot away. If it hadn't seemed so paranoid, she would have said he was stalking her. “The bush is doing well.” She ran her fingers over it as she passed.
“But you really need to feed this lawn. I could recommend a simple and inexpensive program.”
His lips curved slightly, but his eyes stayed on hers. “You do that.” “Well, I...it's getting late. Aunt Coco –”
“Knows you're a big girl.” He took her arm to hold her still. “You're not going anywhere tonight, Suzanna.”
Perhaps if she'd been wiser or more experienced, she would have gauged his mood before he touched her. There was no mistaking it now, not when his fingers had closed over her with taut possession, not when his needs, and his intention of satisfying them, were so clear in those deep gray eyes.
She wished she could have been so certain of her own mood and her own needs.
“Holt, I told you I needed time.”
“Time's up,” he said simply, with an underlying edge that had her pulse jerking.
“This isn't something I intend to take casually.”
Heat flashed into his eyes. From miles away came the violent rumble of thunder. “There's nothing casual about it. We both know that.”
She did know it, and the knowledge was terrifying. “I think –” He swore and swept her into his arms. “You think too much.”
The moment the shock wore off she began to struggle. By then he had already carried her onto the back porch. “Holt. I won't be pressured.” The screen door slammed behind them. Didn't he know she was afraid? That she was so afraid if she took this step he would find her dull, shrug her off and leave her shattered? “I'm not going to be rushed into this.”
“If you had your way, it would take another fifteen years.” He kicked open the door to the bedroom then dropped her onto the bed. It wasn't what he had planned, but he was too knotted up with terror and longings to struggle with soft words.
She was off the bed in a shot to stand beside it, slim and straight as an arrow. The lowering light, already gathering gloom, crept through the window at her back. “If you think you can cart me in here and throw me on the bed –”
“That's exactly what I've done.” His eyes stayed hard on hers as he pulled his shirt over his head, “I'm tired of waiting, Suzanna, and I'm damn tired of wanting you. We're going to do this my way.”
It had been like this for her before, she thought as her heart sank to her stomach like a stone. Only then it had been Bax, ordering her into bed, peeling off his clothes before he climbed on top of her to take his marital rights, quick and hard and without affection. And after, there would come his derision and disgust for her.
“Your way's hardly new,” she said tightly. “And it doesn't interest me. I'm not obligated to go to bed with you, Holt. To let you demand and take and tell me I'm not good enough to satisfy. I'm not going to be used again, by anyone.”
He caught her arms before she could storm from the room, dragged her struggling and swearing against him to crush his heated mouth to hers. The force of it sent her reeling. She would have stumbled away if his arms hadn't banded her so tightly.
Over the fear and the anger her own needs swelled. She wanted to scream at him for pulling them from her, for leaving her raw and naked and defenseless. But she could only hold on.
He yanked her away, arm's length, his breath already ragged and shallow. Her eyes were dark as midnight and held as many secrets. He would uncover them, that he promised himself. One by one he would learn them all. And tonight, he would begin.
“No one is going to be used here, and I'm only going to take what you give.” His tensed fingers flexed on her arms. “Look at me, Suzanna. Look at me and tell me you don't want me, and I'll let you go.”
Her lips parted on a shaky breath. She loved him, and she was no longer a girl who could hold love to herself like a comforting pillow in the night. If she was not as strong as she hoped and able to hold her heart and body separate, then she had no choice but to unite them. If that heart was broken, she would survive.
Hadn't she promised them both there would be no regrets?
She lifted a hand to his gently though she expected no gentleness in return. The choice was one she made freely.
“I can't tell you I don't want you. There's no need to wait any longer.”
Chapter Eight
If his nerves hadn't been so tangled, if the need hadn't been so acute, he might have been able to show her tenderness. If his blood hadn't been so hot, desire so greedy, he would have tried to give her some romance. But he was certain if he didn't possess now, possess quickly, he would shatter into hundreds of jagged shards of desperation.
So his mouth was fevered with impatience, his hands rough with urgency. At the first potent taste he understood she was already his. But it wasn't enough. Maybe it could never be enough.
She didn't tremble or hesitate. The vulnerability was cloaked inside a generosity that urged him to take his fill. As her hands roamed restlessly over his back he felt only her hunger, and none of her doubt.
He pushed the cap from her hair, then yanked the band from it so that his hands could take fistfuls of honey – colored silk. And the hands that gripped were unsteady, even as his mouth ruthlessly devoured hers.
She opened for him, releasing a soft and sultry moan of pleasure as his tongue plunged to duel with hers. He wanted so badly, and that want vibrating from him aroused her own. She had risen on her toes, unaware that she was fighting to meet him flare for flare. Her body was quaking with passions long sap – pressed.
And there was fear in that, fear in not knowing what would become of her if she lost that last toehold on control. She had to show him that she could give pleasure, make him enjoy and continue to want. If she fumbled now, lessened her grip on proving herself a woman, might he not find her less than his fantasy?
Yet she had never been wanted like this. Not like this with the violence of desire pulsing in the air so that every breath was like breathing temptation. She strained against him, hoping what she had to give would be enough while her system jolted along the battering tide of sensations.
His mouth raced over her face, down her throat where his teeth and the rough stubble of beard scraped. And his hands – Lord, his hands were fast and lethal.
She had to keep her head, but her knees were watery and her mind was spinning from the onslaught. Desperately she dug her nails into his back as she struggled away from the edge and tried to remember what a man would like.
She was quivering like a plucked bow, so tensed and wired he thought she might snap in two in his hands. She was holding back. The knowledge that she could do so when he was half – crazed brought on a kind of virulent fury. He tore the blouse aside as he pushed her onto the bed.
“Damn you, I want it all.” Breath heaving, he encircled her wrists and dragged her arms over her head. “I'll have it all.” When his mouth swooped down to capture hers, her hands strained under his grip, her pulse jittering in quick, rabbit jumps under his fingers.
His body was like a furnace, hot damp flesh fusing with hers in a way that made her shudder from the sheer wonder of it. Like iron, his fingers clamped hers still while his free hand raked over her in a merciless assault She could feel the anger, taste the frustrated and furious desire. Desperate, she tried to pull in a breath to beg him to wait, to give her a moment, but all she could manage were jagged moans.
The wind kicked the curtains aside, letting dusk pour through. The first drops of rain hit the roof, sounding to her sensitized ears like gunshots that echoed the war he was waging on her. Again thunder rumbled, closer now, warning of a reckless power.
