Hard to Handle (7 page)

Jenny shivered with reaction, barely able to breathe. She got up and her eyes went helplessly to his back. Well, he’d made his lack of interest clear enough. Maybe her body would eventually give up, she thought with hysterical humor. Despite her beauty, he simply did not want her. It was the most humiliating lesson of her life.

She looked away, gathering her savaged pride. “I’m supposed to be working,” she said in a thready whisper.

“The sun’s getting high,” he said without looking at her. “Get your samples and then we’ll find something to eat.”

She felt totally drained. She picked up her hat with a shaken sigh and retrieved the backpack with her tools. She didn’t even remember dropping it, she’d been so hungry for the touch of him.

His dark face gave nothing away as he glanced once at her and turned away. “Where do you want to look? And for what?” he asked curtly. “Gold? Is that why this operation is so secretive?”

She glanced up at him, twisting her contour map in her hands. “I know what you must be thinking,” she said. She could still taste him on her mouth and it made her giddy. “Gold and Indians don’t mix. White man’s greed for it has cost the Native Americans most of their land.”

“There was a flurry here a year or two ago when someone found a very small vein of gold,” he said. “There were amateur prospectors everywhere, upsetting the habitat, invading private property, some of them even came on the reservation to dig without bothering to ask permission. The Bureau of Indian Affairs takes a very negative view of that kind of thing, and so does the tribal government.”

“I don’t doubt it. But gold isn’t what I’m after right now. I’m looking for a quartz vein, actually.”

“Quartz?” He glared at her. “Quartz is a worthless mineral.”

“Perhaps, but it can lead to something that isn’t. I’m looking for molybdenite ore.”

He frowned. “What?”

“Molybdenum is a silver-white metallic chemical element, one of the more valuable alloying agents. It’s used to strengthen steel,
which makes it of strategic worth. Like oil, it’s a rather boom-or-bust substance, because its value fluctuates according to demand. Back in 1982, weak market conditions led to the closure of most primary molybdenum mines. Now there’s a new use for it, so it’s back in demand again. The United States produces sixty-two percent of all the world’s moly, and that’s why we’ve got competition for new discoveries.”

“So you’re looking for molybdenum,” he murmured, trying to follow the technical explanation.

“I’m looking for its source ore, molybdenite, a sulfide mineral. It looks very much like graphite, but its specific gravity and perfect cleavage differentiate it from that. It’s found primarily in acid igneous rocks such as granite in contact metamorphic deposits, and in high-temperature quartz veins. That’s why I’m looking for quartz veins.” She smiled at his confusion. “Don’t look so irritated, Mr. Hunter. I couldn’t fieldstrip an Uzi or set up surveillance equipment, either. If what I’m doing is Greek to you, what you do is another language to me, too.”

That eased his bruised pride a little. He turned away. “Then we’d better get going. This area looks promising, you said?”

“Yes. The lay of the land and the mineral outcroppings I’ve found so far look very promising here.”

“Moly. You say it’s used to strengthen steel,” he said, watching her.

She nodded. “A very profitable mineral to mine, too. There’s already a deposit of it here in southern Arizona, another one in Colorado.”

“But if you found gold instead, you’d put a real feather in your cap, wouldn’t you?” he persisted, his eyes narrow and watchful.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” She threw up her hands, her blue eyes blazing with hurt and anger. “You just love to think the worst of
me, don’t you? If I find gold, I’ll take out ads in all the national tabloids and give interviews and send millions of people out here to harass the locals…!”

Involuntarily he put his thumb over her lips, stilling the words. “All right,” he said quietly. “My mistake,” he said, and his eyes fell to her mouth. His thumb moved caressingly over it, and his body began to tense. Her lips trembled under his touch. She was so vulnerable, and he hated hurting her. He wanted her, too, but it was simply impossible.

She couldn’t bear to give herself away again. She drew back from him, still wounded from his earlier harsh rejection. “I’ll just take some samples here,” she said in a subdued tone, and without looking at him. “And get a few instrument readings.”

He didn’t say another word. But he was more watchful than ever for the rest of the day. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her, and the more he looked, the more he wanted her. He almost groaned out loud when she stretched and he could see the sweet curves of her breasts outlined against the thin fabric of her blouse. She wouldn’t deny him, and knowing it made the desire even greater. He had to get a grip on himself!

He prowled around his surveillance equipment, trying to get his mind off Jennifer’s gorgeous body. When he couldn’t prowl anymore, after dark, he stretched out on his sleeping bag and read by the light of the Coleman lantern while Jennifer rummaged in her suitcase.

Jenny was fascinated when she saw his books, the text indecipherable to her, despite her cursory knowledge of Spanish and French and a few words of Sioux.

“It loses something in the translation,” he remarked when he noticed her interest. “I prefer the original language. This is Greek,”
he added, smiling faintly at her blush when she’d told him that what she was doing must seem like Greek to him.

She recovered quickly, though. “How did you learn Greek?”

“Overseas. I was CIA, didn’t anyone tell you?”

She nodded, her eyes openly curious. “About that. And that you were in the special forces, and briefly a mercenary. You’ve done a lot of dangerous things, haven’t you?”

“A few,” he said, refusing to elaborate on it.

She gave up and busied herself getting a clean T-shirt and bra out of her suitcase. “It’s dark. Do you think it would be all right if I bathed off a little of this dust? Are we safe here?”

“If you’ve got skinny-dipping in mind, I wouldn’t advise it,” he began.

“No, just my face and arms,” she replied.

“Go to it. It’s relatively protected here, and I’ve got sharp ears.”

“Okay.” She wanted some verbal reassurance that he wouldn’t look, but he’d been withdrawn since they came back to camp. Probably she left him so cold that he wouldn’t buy a ticket to see her totally nude. She felt terribly demoralized. Ironic, that men usually went crazy to have her, and Hunter wouldn’t have her with cream and sugar.

The light from the smokeless campfire gave her enough to see by. She pulled off her khaki blouse and, glancing behind at the half-closed tent flap, her bra. The cool water felt like heaven on her hot skin. She sponged herself off, thinking that Indian women must have bathed like this a century before, in this clean, cool glade with the sounds of crickets in the brush and the distant howl of coyotes or wolves and the faint swish of the trees when the wind blew.

Hunter tried to read his book, but the thought of Jennifer out
there alone was too disturbing, especially after the chopper that had come so close. He didn’t want to spy on her, but he justified his flash of conscience by telling himself that he’d been assigned to protect her.

He opened the tent flap and moved outside, silhouetted by the smokeless campfire that was still burning under a pot of brewing coffee. Its dark, rich aroma filled his nostrils as he moved closer to the stream under the dark shadows of the trees.

Jennifer had her blouse and her bra off. He could see her smooth, silky back in the firelight, see the white lines where she’d sunbathed and the sun hadn’t been able to reach. Odd that she didn’t sunbathe nude, with a body like that, he thought stiffly.

He couldn’t help looking. She half turned, her arms uplifted as she dashed water on her breasts, and his breath caught in his throat. They were full. Very full and very firm, and tip-tilted. Her nipples were hard from the cold water, dusky against the white streaks that cut across where her bra would have been. His body tautened and he felt himself beginning to tense with desire. He’d dreamed of seeing her this way, but the reality was devastating.

Jennifer, unaware of his scrutiny, finished her half bath and stretched, her body sensuously arched because the air was just cool enough to be delicious on her bare skin, and there was faint light from the nearly full moon. She sighed, brushing her long blond hair away from her freshly scrubbed face. The action lifted her breasts and they were high and firm and softly glowing in the light from the campfire.

Hunter heard himself speaking, when he’d never meant to betray his presence. “In the old days, the penalty for an Apache warrior who spied on a woman at her bath was death. The risk seems worth it to me right now, Jennifer. I’ve never seen anything quite so beautiful.”

His voice had startled her. She whirled from the big rock she was sitting on, her body poised for flight, so shocked by his eyes and nearness that she hadn’t the presence of mind to cover her breasts.

He was looking at them, too, with blatant appreciation, without even trying to hide that he was studying her. “Your breasts are lovely,” he said quietly, his voice a whisper of deep tenderness in the night. “Much fuller than I thought. Pink and mauve, like clouds on the horizon just at dawn when the sun touches them.”

Poetry, she thought dizzily. He was wooing her with words and she wanted his eyes so badly that she couldn’t even do the decent thing and pretend to hide herself. All day she’d felt him watching her. If only he felt as she did, shared the fiery attraction that made her too weak to deny him now. She stood, proud in her seminudity, letting him look, feeding on his eyes. If that wasn’t desire in his face now, she thought, awed, then she couldn’t recognize it at all. He wanted her! The knowledge took away her reserve, her inhibitions. She walked toward him, her heart in her eyes.

His jaw tensed. He watched her come toward him and he ground his teeth together in one last effort at sanity. Her lips were parted, her eyes soft and hungry, her breasts rising and falling jerkily with her unsteady breathing.

She stopped just in front of him, her cheeks faintly ruddy with embarrassment and excitement. She couldn’t have imagined doing this, but it seemed the most natural thing in the world. She looked up at him, meeting his dark, fierce gaze, trembling a little, because he looked capable of anything at that moment. For all her loving bravado, she was innocent and he wasn’t. The complications of her actions could be extreme.

His chin lifted as he watched her, his gaze a conqueror’s, his face
rigid. “You’re asking for something you may not be able to handle,” he said quietly. It was a warning.

She swallowed. “Would you…hurt me?” she whispered.

He nodded slowly. “Very probably,” he said, letting his dark eyes fall to the perfect symmetry of her breasts. “I’ve gone a long time without a woman and I’m not particularly gentle even when I haven’t. You don’t have a lot of experience with men.” His eyes shot back up, catching her surprise. “That surprises you? Didn’t you know that sophistication is hard to fake?” He smiled gently. “You’re blushing. You had to fight not to cover yourself when I looked at you. You’re still fighting your primary instinct, which is to turn and run away before I give you what you think you want.”

“What I think I want?” she asked in a shaky whisper.

He reached out and the backs of his fingers brushed very lightly over one taut nipple in a blatant, deliberate caress.

She gasped and jerked away, and his eyes reflected the smile on his firm lips.

“You see?” he asked softly. “You’d give yourself to me, with a little coaxing. But not in cold blood. You aren’t used to this kind of intimacy with a man.”

She did follow her instincts then, and folded her arms over her breasts, shivering as she lowered her eyes to his shirt.

“Twenty-seven. And so inhibited.” He sighed heavily. “What happened, Jenny? Was the first time so traumatic that you didn’t have the nerve to try again?”

“You don’t have the right to ask me questions like that….”

He caught her by the shoulders. “You offered yourself to me,” he said curtly. “That gives me the right. Was the first time difficult?”

She couldn’t tell him that there hadn’t been a first time. That
was just too humiliating. “Difficult enough,” she said unsteadily. “Please…I’m sorry. I’d like to go in, now.”

It was what he’d guessed. She was probably afraid of being with a man intimately because some man had hurt her. It irritated him to think of someone hurting her. He wouldn’t have. His hands stilled on her upper arms, feeling the silky warmth of them. He hesitated. He wanted her like hell, but his mind was in control—just barely.

With a rough sigh, he picked her up suddenly and carried her slowly back into the tent, his eyes holding hers. He laid her down gently on her sleeping bag and sat beside her, frowning at the way she crossed her arms over her breasts.

“Don’t,” he said softly, and moved her arms back to her sides. “Don’t cover yourself. Let me look at you. God knows, that’s all I can do now.”

“You said you didn’t want me….” she whispered.

He sighed heavily, his expression sterner than ever, his dark eyes intent on hers. “Yes, I said it. My God, don’t you have instincts about men? Don’t you know…” He stopped, suddenly aware of the unblinking fascination of her eyes on his face.

Her blond hair was spread around her flushed face in glorious disarray, her small waist and flat stomach faintly visible where her shorts were a little large in the waistline. But he didn’t touch her, yet. Only his eyes did, very slowly, very thoroughly, and she trembled all over from just that.

“You’re helpless when I look at you,” he said quietly. “When I touch you. Is there anything you’d deny me?”

She shook her head slowly, beyond denial. Her body trembled. “But you don’t want to make love to me, do you?” she whispered.

“I can’t,” he said evasively. It wouldn’t do to let her know how
badly he did want her. His hand went out and she shivered with anticipation, but it was her hair he touched and nothing else, smoothing it away from her face. “I’m not prepared.”