Delilah's Weakness (14 page)

What now, indeed? She didn’t feel cold anymore, but she  couldn’t stop shaking. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t, absolutely
couldn’t,
relax. She could only hold herself rigid while wave after wave of shivers coursed through her body.

As if in answer to Luke’s question, number 907 lurched to her feet, and a moment later Delilah and Luke heard the soft, sticky sounds of mothering. Delilah sighed, and managed a low, unsteady laugh. "Nothing," she murmured.

"Nothing?"

"Right this minute. We’ll let her get acquainted with the lambs, so she’ll know they’re hers. Then, when we pick them up and carry them to the barn, she’ll follow."

"So for now we just sit here and wait?"

"Uh–huh."

"‘Lilah," he whispered, touching the outer rim of her ear with his lips, "You’re cold."

"N–no. I’m n–not. Really. I—"

"Then why are you still shaking?"

"I don’t…know. Reaction, I guess."

Luke’s voice was gruff. "I know, I know." He shifted his arms to hold her even more tightly. She felt the roughness of his jaw against the side of her neck, just below her ear, and a violent tremor rocketed through her.

"Come on, babe," he said, laughing a little. "Relax, now." The movement of his lips felt like kisses on the sensitive shell of her ear.

"I’m trying," she said in a very small voice, and closed her eyes. Seconds ticked away. She could feel his heart beating against her back.

"I don’t believe it," Luke said suddenly in a voice taut with amazement. "Are they trying to stand up already?"

Delilah opened her eyes and laughed, relieved at the diversion. "Yeah," she breathed, lifting a hand to wipe at her cheeks. "Aren’t they something?"

"They sure are. And you know what else?" His voice had a certain focused intensity that puzzled her. She half–turned in his arms, lifting her face to look for his in the cold starry darkness.

Luke’s hand framed her face, his thumb touching one cheekbone, his fingertips the other. Very slowly he traced the line of her jaw, clear down to her chin. "So are you." And then he kissed her.

I
t was what
she’d wanted, what she’d been wanting all afternoon, ever since he’d kissed her in the barn.

That wasn’t something she knew with conscious thought, but with something far more primitive and uncontrollable. Something that exulted in wild triumph as Luke’s mouth closed over hers. Something that exploded in her belly with a dizzying lurch. As her head fell back in full surrender, she made a small, desperate sound and clutched at the arm that lay across her ribs.

Luke made a sound, too, deep–throated and hungry. His mouth shifted. Hers opened, accepting a deeper joining. His hand was warm on her throat. It moved slowly downward, and, finding nothing to impede it, slipped inside the lacy top of her chemise. Her breasts were full and tight with yearning. His hand brushed across one taut nipple, then gently, oh, so gently, cupped the other breast, cradling it tenderly, as if he knew just how terribly it ached.

But while Luke’s hand was gentle, his mouth was not. What she had willingly surrendered he plundered without mercy, his tongue driving deep and with an evocative rhythm that left her incapable of thought and bereft of will.

Her body was on fire. She didn’t feel the cold anymore, or the rough ground. Forgotten were the two tiny miracles struggling to find their own spindly legs and take their first tottering steps. She’d never been kissed like this before. It was mastery. Dominance. Sexual possession, pure and simple. It probed deep into her core and found all her hidden pockets of desire and released them to build pressures in her that terrified her.

She began to struggle, not of her own volition, but in a panic born of an instinct for self–preservation. Luke released her mouth, but didn’t move his hand. Beneath it her chest heaved, each breath a stabbing, searing pain.

"Please…" she whispered. "Don’t."

He lowered his head and touched his lips to her throat, then opened his mouth and sought the hollow at its base with his tongue. Delilah arched and moaned softly. Luke lifted his head just long enough to murmur, "Why not?"

"Because—" she said with a croak, and couldn’t go on. He was interfering with her voice box, her breathing. She managed to free a hand from the flight jacket and insert it between his mouth and her neck. He laughed and kissed her palm, then straightened, holding her captive, cradled in his arms. She looked up at him, a dark shape against stars, and whispered, "I don’t know you."

"‘Lilah." His voice had that mesmerizing hum. "You’ve seen me asleep—unconscious. You’ve put stitches in me, nursed me, undressed me, washed my clothes. We’ve eaten breakfast together, worked together, laughed and quarreled together. I’ve driven your truck, hung up your underwear—
Hush––"
he held her more tightly when she tried to pull away "—and kissed you. More than once. And," he added in a low, intimate growl, "we both enjoyed it a lot. If we knew each other any better—"

"Two days," Delilah croaked. "It’s been two days."

Luke exploded. "What’s time got to do with it? ‘Lilah, we never were strangers."

The words rang in the night air. She struggled to a sitting position, and he let her go.

So he had felt it, too, that instant intimacy she found so disconcerting. Why was it so difficult to deal with? Why was she fighting him so hard when every nerve and cell in her body was responding to him as if tuned to his wavelength? It couldn’t be fear of rejection, an old, old goblin of hers. He was pursuing her. It shouldn’t be that she was afraid of getting hurt. She didn’t want anything permanent or encumbering anyway. Did she?

She was a grown woman and he was devastatingly attractive. Simply a matter of sex. Why was she so afraid?

"‘Lilah," he said with quiet frustration, "what do you want me to do? Call you up and ask for a date?" He waited a moment, then gave an exasperated laugh. "You don’t even have a phone. You want to go to a movie? Make out in the back seat of the car?" Another pause, and then a clicking sound as he snapped his fingers. "Damn. I forgot, you don’t have a back seat."

She shook her head, and then, afraid he wouldn’t be able to see the motion, made a muffled sound of denial. "That’s not what I mean."

"‘Lilah," he persisted gently, "I don’t know whether it was fate or accident that landed me in your pasture—"

"I don’t believe in fate. "

"Accident, then. Accidents happen. Should we ignore what’s happening, just because we didn’t plan it? We’re not kids, either of us. Do we really have to play the games kids play?"

"I never liked games," she murmured, lifting her chin slightly.

"Well, then? If I know what I want, and you—"

"But I don’t. I don’t know what I want."

He was silent for a moment, and in the cold darkness Delilah started to shiver again. One of the newborn lambs began to bump its nose along her back, searching for nourishment. She steered it back toward its mother and sniffled loudly.

"Okay," Luke said softly. "Fair enough. I’ll wait until you do know."

The misguided lamb was back, persistently bumping her elbow, her ribs. "Dummy," she muttered, and gathered the sopping–wet baby into her arms. Over its head she glared at the dark shape that was Luke MacGregor and blurted out the question that had been there all along, in the back of her mind. "Why?"

She waited breathlessly for his answer, for something glib, flattering, wooing, winning. But instead there was a moment’s hesitation and then rueful laughter.

"Damned if I know," he said finally. She heard a whispery sound, as if he were rubbing his hands over his beard stubble. "Except that…" The laughter in his voice was now almost tender. "Except that you are one hell of a lady. You mystify me, Delilah Beaumont. You infuriate me. You fascinate me…excite me—Shall I go on?"

"No," she muttered. She felt inexplicably weak, and scared. "Just…please, help me get the lambs to the barn."

"Anything you say, boss," Luke said with soft intensity. "If there’s anything you need, I’ll be here. Because I intend to stick around until you wake up and realize what it is you really want."

** ** **

After talking with Pete that night, Luke sat in his plane, staring into the darkness.

Why? Delilah had asked him.

That was a question only she would ask. She was one of a kind, and not his kind. She wasn’t even his type. He liked his women long, blond, and uncomplicated, sunny golden girls with laughter in their eyes and awareness in the way they moved.

This one was small, dark, intense, and most of the time she acted about as sexy as Sitting Bull. And she fascinated him…and more. He couldn’t believe how much he wanted her. Was she beautiful? Funny, he didn’t even know anymore. All he saw when he looked at her now was…Delilah.

The truth of it was, he wanted her, and what she looked like didn’t have much to do with it.

She wasn’t what he’d expected. This whole thing wasn’t going the way he’d expected. It had never been a complicated thing before—wanting a woman—but this wanting had strings tied all over it, like a cat’s cradle, and he couldn’t tell what they were connected to or where they might lead.

He felt a flash of fear, impossible to pinpoint, like distant lightning, the same flicker he’d felt when he’d made the decision to put his plane down in her pasture. Once again he was afraid something was happening to him that he wasn’t going to be able to control.

** ** **

Delilah stirred, burrowing deeper under the Navajo rug she was using as a blanket. Bacon again? she wondered dimly. The smell was much stronger this time.

Something warm and coffee–scented brushed her cheek, then touched the tip of her nose—a silken promise. She opened her eyes to a landscape confusingly populated with odd fuzzy shapes in yellows and browns.

A voice drawled, "‘Mornin’, sunshine."

The landscape swam into focus, becoming browned sausage links and slabs of French toast on a plate. Across it a pair of eyes stared into hers; eyes the color of fresh–brewed coffee. They had the same stimulating effect as a cup of coffee—Delilah’s heart and nervous system shifted instantaneously into high gear. She gave an interrogative chirp, then cleared her throat and said incredulously, "Breakfast? In bed?"

Luke was sitting beside her on the bed. He balanced the plate on her stomach and looked around. "That was the idea, but I think it’s colder in this room than it is in the barn."

His eyes came back to her just as she was thinking,
Dear Lord, he’s beautiful.
She’d forgotten last night in the darkness  how beautiful he was. She coughed and eased one arm out from under the rug to poke cautiously at the glistening amber puddle in the middle of the French toast.

"Do you always sleep with all your clothes on?" he asked, frowning.

Delilah transferred the exploratory finger to her mouth. "Real maple syrup," she said, and sighed, closing her eyes.
Why, Luke? Why are you doing this to me?

"Here, try a fork." Luke’s voice had a smile in it, as his fingers gently closed around her wrist. In the midst of licking syrup from her lips she opened her eyes and caught him watching the movement of her tongue with a look that could only be described as hungry. Last night came back on a tidal wave of sensual memory. Her lips, tingling with cooling moisture,  felt swollen and exposed.

Luke seemed different this morning. There were lines around his mouth she hadn’t noticed before, and the skin under his eyes looked fragile and bruised, as if he hadn’t been sleeping well. It was more than that, though. It was something in his eyes, the way he looked at her. Something she’d missed last night in the dark. He wasn’t frowning, not exactly. It was more a kind of intensity that hadn’t been there yesterday, even when he’d kissed her in the barn. Before last night, when he’d kissed her she’d had the impression he was playing a game, one he’d played many times before and was very, very good at. One he enjoyed, but didn’t take very seriously. Somehow she knew if he kissed her now it wouldn’t be a game.

He didn’t kiss her. She wondered whether the queer little lurch in her stomach was relief or disappointment. Instead he held both her hands and said, "Up," and pulled until she was sitting upright in bed, with the plate teetering precariously on her knees. That brought her so close to him, she could feel the heat radiating from his body. Her bedroom didn’t seem cold at all to her, and she noticed Luke hadn’t mentioned it again, either.

They both realized he was still holding her hands. She moved to reclaim them, but he changed his grip, turned her hands palm up, and began stroking his thumbs across her palms.

Unexpectedly he murmured, "How do they stay so soft?" and turned his own hands up so she could see the blisters and calluses. "The work you do."

His hands…
He’d ruined them, building her a sheep run, and she had laughed.

She made a soft, unconscious sound of sympathy and covered his ravaged hands with her own. Their roughness pricked at her skin and sent jagged currents into her arms. She couldn’t seem to break the contact, though he wasn’t holding her.

"Um…it’s the sheep," she said huskily.

"The sheep?"

"Didn’t you know? Working with sheep keeps your hands soft."

"How does working with sheep keep your hands soft?" He was smiling again, his eyes crinkly and indulgent. Yesterday his attitude would have set off temper flares, but now all she could do was say with a croak, "Lanolin."

"Lanolin?" He was lightly stroking her forearms, nudging the sleeves of her sweat shirt upward, out of the way. The roughness of his hands continued to send out advance patrols that made sneak attacks on her nerves.

"Didn’t you know?" she asked, her voice rushed and breathy. "Lanolin comes from sheep’s wool."

"Fascinating…." His tone made it clear he wasn’t paying much attention to her words.

His hands had reached her elbows. Her own hands were resting on the insides of his forearms, just below the elbows. He felt warm, and smooth, and firm.

"Of course," she said, giving her head a desperate shake, "it doesn’t work for anything but hands—" His thumbs were gently massaging the inner bend of her elbows.