Mallory Rush - [Outlawsand Heroes 02] (5 page)

Her lips seemed to beg for a kiss and Noble traced the full sweep of her bottom lip. It quivered softly beneath the pad of his thumb as she whispered, "For the moment why don't we dally together over a bowl of chicken soup?"

Chapter 3

"Your offer of soup is most kind," he replied in a low, roughened voice Lori likened to raw silk. "However, I find that my appetite requires more tempting fare."

Lori was at once enchanted by his quaint, eloquent way of speaking and slightly unnerved by the smoldering glint in his eyes. They were an unusual, riveting shade of gray, reminding her of gunmetal. His unwavering gaze seemed to pin her in place beside the claw-footed tub at the same time it lured her to lean closer and press her palm to his chest.

His heart beat in a steady rhythm, assuring her that he was unbelievably, miraculously alive. She assured herself further that the crisis was truly over by giving in to the temptation of tentatively exploring his chest. Beneath the dense mat of dark hair, his skin was warm, his muscles taut and firm. Without her conscious consent her fingertips wandered, lightly touched the tip of a dark brown nipple.

One side of his mouth crooked up in a devilishly sexy half smile. Definitely alive. Lori's heart caught and so did her breath. The sound of her pulse swelled in her ears. It mingled with the thickening silence, carried on sultry tendrils of steam.

She tried for a hospitable tone, but her voice emerged throaty and carried an undercurrent of innuendo. "If you're not in the mood for soup, what sounds good to you?"

"Your voice sounds lovely. And strangely familiar." Lines of concentration creased his prominent brow, which glistened, droplets trickling from his dark brown hair. "I'm sure that I'd remember had we met before. And yet, it seems like I know you. Such a mystery, is it not?"

As with his previous questions, she was carefully ambiguous in her reply. "Not such a mystery, really. I talked to you a lot while you were... unconscious." Her deepest, darkest confessions coming back to her, she laughed, embarrassed, and ducked her head.

Only to take in the flat plane of his abdomen. Unable to stop herself, she glanced lower and saw that he was partially aroused. Not fully resuscitated yet, but showing impressive signs of life. She jerked up her gaze.

And encountered his amused, intimate regard.

Lori was suddenly uncomfortable—with their compromising positions; with the atmosphere, charged with expectation. But most of all with her awareness of him as a man whose nearness was awakening something inside her, a miracle in itself. The persona he projected was so strong and compelling she could hardly think past the clamoring impulses she had thought buried with Mick. Now they were coming back to life with a desperate vengeance, resurrected by the man she had labored, prayed, to save.

It had been so long, how good it was to feel the tug of desire again. At the moment she didn't even care if it sprang from the ordeal they'd shared, the bond she'd forged with him during the nights she'd watched over him, pouring out her heart for hours on end.

"When you talked to me," he said into the lengthening silence, "did you tell me secrets?"

"Let's just say that you were such a good listener, I did a lot of gut spilling." Lori could feel her cheeks flush. "Pretty messy. Hopefully you won't remember anything I said."

"Hopefully, I will." His smile deepened. "But have no fear, your secrets are safe with me. Just as you've proved that mine are with you. A rare and promising beginning to our relationship, don't you agree?"

Their relationship, she knew, was infinitely more complex and far reaching than he could possibly grasp. How in the world she could prepare him for the reality of his situation, she had no idea. As for how he would take it, his reaction could range from shock to disbelief to rage—maybe all three.

The longer she could avoid the inevitable, the better off he'd be. After the physical trauma he'd suffered, the last thing he needed was for her to heap on distress or confusion by asking him about the secrets he himself had spoken of. Whatever they were, they couldn't be half as horrible as discovering that all his friends and family were long gone.

Lori hurt for him already. He would need a friend, a good one, to get through what lay ahead. And she was it.

"My name's Lori," she said, extending her hand.

He brushed a kiss to her knuckles. "I'm charmed."

Deciding that she'd better get this lady-killer out of the tub and into some clothes before she said or did something she'd be sorry for later, she tried to pull back her hand. He tightened his hold and stroked a finger over her wrist.

"Forget the soup. I'll go see what's in the—"
fridge.
Catching herself, she quickly amended, "pantry. While I do that you can dry off. Think you can manage by yourself?"

"Perhaps." He returned her hand to his chest and lifted an eyebrow, suggestively. "Perhaps not."

The thought of running a towel over those tough, lean muscles of his stirred her, made her ache in hidden places of both heart and heat. She was experiencing a sweet revival, and though good sense warned her not to, Lori offered hopefully, "I'll be glad to help."

"How accommodating you are, my dear." He wrapped the endearment around his tongue in an easy, intimate way that rendered her spellbound as he led her palm to his shoulder and slid his own to her waist. "I'll accept your offer of help. But first, a request."

Anything, she wanted to say. Lori was drowning in his slitted gaze and getting dangerously close to making a request of her own—
kiss me
—when he cinched his hold.

"And just what might your request be?" she whispered.

"I wish for you to come join me." He hauled her over, and she fell in with a splash and a gasp.

He cupped her behind and pushed up so that her breasts bobbed against his chest. Water streaming down her face, she sputtered, "What—what do you think you're doing?"

"Thinking is the business of philosophers. Doing is the business between us." He hiked up her full denim skirt while his mouth seemed to be in more places at once than was humanly possible.

Biting her chin, sipping at her neck, tonguing her earlobe, he whispered hotly, "as you can see, my strength is fast returning. And none too soon. You are without doubt, the most delectable morsel of femininity to grace my company and straddle my hips in what seems forever. But alas, our time is short. Please, allow me to show my gratitude for your many kindnesses before I take my leave."

Lori wasn't sure whether to slap his face or beg him to be more than generous in his show of mind-reeling, pulse-pounding thanks. She commanded herself to think, to get this crazy situation under control while she still could.

"If—if you really want to show your gratitude..."
More, please more.
Her starved senses clamored for attention. So did her professional concerns. How could she be sure that he was entirely stable? What if his heart, his respiration, couldn't handle the excitement her own body was hard-pressed to handle itself?

"You need only tell me what it is you wish for, and I'll grant your slightest whim," he assured her in a rich, gravelly voice. "But while you consider your desires, you won't mind if I indulge one of my own, will you?"

Did he mean to ravish her? Her heart thumping like mad, Lori was terribly afraid that he would—only when he fingered her wet bangs, she was jolted by a distinct disappointment that ravishment was apparently not to be her fate.

"I'm quite taken with your hair," he explained. "Fascinated, really. How you've cut it—I've never seen anything quite so striking. And the color is lovely. Yes, very lovely... as are you."

For a moment she could only stare at him, her mind whirling on tiptoes of delight, her body tingling from the unexpected tenderness of his touch.

"I'm glad you like it," she said softly.
Soft.
He made her feel soft inside and feminine all over.

"Oh, but I do. Almost as much as I like the feel of you under my hands, the sound of those catching little breaths I hear. In truth, I like everything about you. Never has a woman so completely engaged my attention. Alas, I could very easily be smitten with you."

"You're dangerous," she whispered, certain of that even if she was no longer certain of anything else.

"Indeed," he agreed, playing with the ends of her hair. "But you needn't fear me, though there are others who should."

A sudden darkness lurked in his hooded gaze. What she glimpsed was brutal, merciless, cold. Lori shivered. It was a lethal, stalking kind of danger that went far beyond the sensual danger he posed to a woman as vulnerable as she.
Who was he?
Part of her was desperate to find out; part of her prayed she would never know.

"You're so still, so quiet," he said, his gaze mellowing on her. "What are you thinking?"

"It's strange, but I get the feeling... well, almost like you're two different people in one."

"But of course I am." He frowned. "I assumed that Attu told you."

"Your—your friend didn't really tell me anything. I only knew you were in need of help and you're lucky—"

"Lucky Luke," he interjected, chuckling. "Such a lackluster name, don't you think?"

"It's okay." Images of cards and drawn guns came at her.

"So, Attu failed to mention my real name?" At her nod, he bowed toward her—which put his lips a whisper from hers and caused his hips to rise slightly. She stifled a gasp, and then a moan, when he nuzzled into the juncture of her thighs. What had been only half-alive was fully alive now.

He murmured a sigh of satisfaction, then said with a gallant air, "allow me to introduce myself. Noble Zhivago, barrister."

Zhivago, that was Russian, wasn't it? And yet his accent pegged him as a proper Brit. While she found herself puzzling his nationality Lori was struck by the absurd politeness of their exchange in an anything but polite position.

"You're a lawyer?" she asked, unable to subdue a grin.

"It seems you find my occupation amusing," he noted with such seriousness that she couldn't hold back her laughter. "I fail to understand the cause for your humor, but whatever it is, I'm glad of it. You have a truly delightful laugh. I can only hope you indulge the sound often... Lori."

His words touched her, deeply, and she quickly sobered. But a warm, happy feeling remained as she confessed, "actually, I don't laugh, really laugh, very often. At least I haven't in recent years. Noble." She liked the way his name tasted, how the resonance of it lingered on her tongue. "Noble," she said again. "A wonderful name. It suits you."

"Thank you. I'm sure my parents would be pleased to think they had chosen well." That frightening something she'd glimpsed earlier flashed without warning in his eyes. Then, like quicksilver, it was gone, replaced by a silvery gleam as he urged her deeper into the saddle of his thighs.

"Now tell me what you found to be of such amusement," he murmured. "Perhaps I shall laugh with you, then. I fear that my laughter, like yours, comes far too rarely."

"I—uh, I don't think it would be so funny now," Lori swallowed, her throat gone dry. "In fact, I think it would be a good idea if we got out of the tub. The water's starting to cool off."

"The water does grow tepid. My desire for you, however, is quite another matter." His soft bite of her bottom lip coincided with his smooth glide of her hand between them. Down and down he led her, unresisting, touching the taut muscles of his chest, the sweeping width of hair that slid ever downward, thinning, then thickening in an altogether too male area of his body.

There, he paused and let go of her hand. He cupped her where no man had touched her since Mick had died. This,
this
was life, what she felt unfurling inside her. And how hungry she was for it, to feel the rapture again, to know she was a woman with needs and wants and dreams.

She seemed to be in a dream, touching and being touched by a dark stranger who whispered, "How long has it been since a man cared more about your pleasure than his?"

"A very long time. So long that I'd forgotten how beautiful something like this could be." She stared at him, her heart in her eyes, and felt the threat of tears behind them. "I don't know you, not really, but I do know you must be a very rare man. You have to be to make me feel the way I do now. Special and pretty, inside and out."