Once A Wolf (27 page)

seeking out the warm, pulsing core of her womanhood as he longed to do, invading her

defenses with a cunning even he could not match.

The water became her lover. She sighed and yielded, eyes closed in voluptuous carnality.

Tomás was down the slope and beside the pool in an instant. He Changed and stood before her,

naked and aroused and reckless with desire.

She opened her eyes, and then her arms.

In a final moment of sanity, Tomás looked for Esperanza. She had fled. He and Rowena were

alone.

Her slender body was warm and weightless when he took her in his arms. He captured her

mouth with a throaty laugh of triumph and a sense of complete unreality.

Surely this was a dream. Surely his Lady of Fire would vanish in a puff of smoke if he dared to

blink.

Inexperienced as she was, she answered his kiss in such a way that he couldn't mistake it for

anything resembling a dream. She had learned very quickly from that one encounter in the

Indian cave. She curled about him, her waterlogged skirt like a mermaid's tail meant to entangle

him and drag him into her watery bower.

After the first kiss he held her away to gaze on what he had won with such unforeseen ease.

Her face, beaded with tiny droplets, was unearthly in its beauty. Unbound hair drifted on the

surface of the water like a flaxen halo. The white column of her neck arched smoothly from the

scooped neck of the blouse that slid from her shoulders and revealed her breasts more

enticingly than any nakedness. Darker nipples puckered under wet cotton, inviting his closer

inspection.

He bent to touch the tip of her right nipple, molding the fabric with his tongue. She gave an

almost soundless gasp. It was the sweetest encouragement he knew. Her breasts seemed made

for his mouth, like the tenderest of oranges. He cradled her in the water and suckled gently.

Her eyes were wide, but she didn't seem to see him. Her hands reached blindly and caught in

his hair. He tasted water flavored by her desire, moved his hands lower to find the fastening of

her skirt. His fingers were unusually clumsy. Impatiently he pushed the billowing cloth away

from her legs and above her waist.

Softly, softly, he warned himself. This was not something to be rushed. If she thought the water

a satisfying lover, he had much to teach her.

Smooth as water itself, his fingers slid along the insides of her thighs. It was like stroking wet

velvet. Even when he reached his goal, she did not flinch. Nor did she speak. Only her breath

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sighed out as he touched her tender petals. They, too, were wet, but not only with the moisture

of the stream.

She was ready for him as she had never been before. He should have known that words were

not the way to win her. Not for her the romantic songs, teasing innuendo, and practiced

seduction that sufficed for other women. She tried to shield herself with words, true enough,

but that was because she knew where she was most vulnerable.

She wanted to be taken. She wanted to be forced to admit the wildness within herself, to be

shown by one who understood and accepted and embraced that very wildness. Fear and

misplaced propriety would always hold her back… until the right man set her free with decisive

action.

He was that man. She, too, must have always known. Some wondrous conjunction of time and

place and fortune had finally allowed her to admit it. He did not dare delay longer, neither for

her pleasure or his.

Quickly he set her upright, positioning her thighs to either side of his hips and supporting her

bottom with a steadying hand. He reminded himself that she was a virgin. She must be. No

other could touch her, possess her like this.

He pulled her head down to his shoulder and smoothed back her hair. "Don't be afraid, mi

flama. You won't regret this. When I am done, you'll never go back to what you were. You'll be

free…"

He readied himself for the thrust. Her hand wedged between them and felt for him as if she

were eager to guide his entry.

"Yes," he murmured, closing his eyes.

"No!"

Her choked voice gave him scant warning before she pushed him away. Sensitive flesh

protested the rejection most emphatically. He flailed backward and lost his balance. Water

closed over his head. A froth of bubbles marked Rowena's swift retreat across the pool. He

broke the surface, whipping sodden hair from his eyes.

Rowena was scrambling up on a rock, dragging the hem of the skirt from the water in a vain

effort to cover herself. She no longer bore any resemblance whatsoever to a nubile and

uninhibited river goddess. Her teeth chattered and her face was tight with distress.

"What did you do?" she demanded in a harsh whisper.

He ducked under again and shook himself vigorously before he trusted himself to answer.

"What did I do?" Nothing,

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his body shouted. He crouched waist-deep in the water. "I was doing exactly what you invited

me to do."

"What? How dare you! I—" She sat down in a puddle of bunched skirts. "I came here… with

Esperanza. We were only—" Her hand brushed her cheek, her throat, her breast. "Where is

she?"

Oh, no. He wouldn't let her dodge the subject so easily. "She left us alone. Don't you remember

what happened, or is it too inconvenient?"

"We were bathing. You interrupted—"

"I don't think so, dulzura. You were enjoying yourself, but you were happy enough to see me."

She stared at him as if she'd just noticed his nakedness. Hot color rose in a tide that stained her

skin from breast to hairline. "Are you implying that I—asked you to come into the pool… like

that?"

"Not in words. No words were needed." He cast her a mocking smile. "Is that your excuse for

offering yourself to a man and then refusing him so rudely? Because you did not say, "Come,

Tomás, and take me?" "

In the usual course of events, she would have angrily refuted anything he claimed, gathered up

her dignity, and marched off to lick her wounds. This time she surprised him. "Is that… what you

think I intended?"

"Didn't you?"

She bit down hard on her lower lip. "It wasn't me." She looked at him with pleading in her eyes,

more humble than he'd ever seen her. "You must believe that it wasn't me. I am not the kind of

woman who would…" She stammered and swallowed. "I am truly sorry if I misled you."

His anger melted. She blamed herself, not him—and yet she remained safely locked within her

own comfortable deception. To remain there she'd sacrifice everything, even her own pride.

He could be merciless, if he chose. He could push and push at her until she broke down. He

hadn't been wrong; she wanted to be taken. She begged to be convinced, seized, mastered, so

she could be absolved of guilt for the hungers she found so disgraceful.

"When I found you here," he said, "you were already dreaming of my touch."

"That is… not true."

"You're a poor liar, Rowena. You dreamed of my touch, as you've dreamed of it since the day I

took you from Cole."

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"Please." She averted her face. "Don't."

"You're no more a coward than a liar." He waded closer, rising from the water. "Look at me.

Look at me, and tell me that you took no enjoyment in my caresses. Tell me that you were

possessed by some spirit that robbed you of will and forced you to endure so great an affront.

Tell me, and I'll never touch you again."

The world itself seem to hang breathless upon her answer. The canyon wren ceased its song,

and even the sound of rushing water fell to a murmur.

She looked at him as he demanded. Her brown eyes swirled with tiny golden sparks, set alight

by her inner battle.

"Very well," she said. "I will tell you the truth, Tomás Alejandro Randall. You are very good at

what you do. You could charm a snake from its nest, and I have no doubt that you could seduce

any woman you choose." Her hands twisted into a knot in her lap. "I am no exception. You

have… affected me. You have caused me to forget myself and lose sight of my strongest beliefs.

You have made me ashamed."

He felt as though she'd calmly reached out and struck him across the face. "That is not what I—

"

"The flaw is in me. It is the part that wants to become a beast and run at your side."

The dull resignation of her tone robbed his victory of any satisfaction. He reached out to her,

and she made no move to pull away.

"Yes, Tomás, you could have me," she said. "You could make me betray Cole and myself. I might

even enjoy it." She looked down at his hand on her arm. " But it's only the beast you will win.

There is a part of me you can't touch—the part that is human."

He curled his fingers around her wrist. "Rowena," he said thickly.

"You needn't worry," she said. "You don't care about anything but this." She grasped his hand

and placed it on her breast. "Once you have this, the rest scarcely matters, does it? You'll have

no reason to make me stay."

He felt her nipple harden under his palm. "Ah. You'll sacrifice your virginity in exchange for your

release?"

"Why not? Will you agree to such a bargain?"

She wasn't serious. Her words came of anger and bitterness, and a desire to hurt. Surely she

didn't think she could wound him merely by suggesting she would give herself for freedom from

captivity, but not for pleasure—that she'd give him the shell of her beauty and not what lay

beneath.

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"That is not the sole reason I brought you here," he said, snatching his hand away. "MacLean

must pay far more than the loss of your maidenhood. I'm afraid I can't accept your bargain."

"Then I am at your mercy." She lifted her chin and held his gaze with brittle dignity. "Do what

you will."

Even if he'd gone womanless for five years he wouldn't have been tempted now. He made for

the opposite side of the pool and pulled himself up on the rocks. He shook himself again, from

head to toe.

"Your mistake," he said, "is to believe that you know my will—or your own. You separate the

human from the wolf as if they are two different things. I look forward to the time when you

realize they are not." He smiled, showing all his teeth. "I'll come to you again, Rowena, sooner

than you think. But it will only be because you beg me to take you."

"We have a saying in England: 'Not for all the tea in China.' "

His heart lifted at the return of her stubborn spirit. "And we have one here: 'De lo contado

come el lobo—The wolf eats from what is told.' You would say, 'Don't count your chickens

before they are hatched.' "

"Are you reduced to eating chickens, Don Tomás?"

"I prefer a spicier dish." He licked his lips. "One more piece of advice, dulzura. You'd be wise to

stay in the water. 'Donde lumbre ha habido, rescoldo queda.' Where there's been fire, embers

remain."

It was over at last.

Felícita knelt behind a rock at the top of the rocky slope, pressing her hands to her chest. The

brown wolf scrambled up from the stream and ran past her without stopping, but she made

herself as small as she could until he was long gone from sight.

Even after Rowena gathered up her things and left, it was many minutes before Felícita found

the energy to walk again. Her head still hummed like a hive full of bees. Not only her head, but

her heart and every part of her body. She'd been caught at the leading edge of a storm, helpless

amid the seething emotions of the two who had come together at the pool.

She still did not understand everything that had happened. One moment she had been happier

than she could remember, playing in the water with her friend at her side, and the next she was

watching the great brown wolf become the man who'd saved her life.

It was not that which shocked her. If Tomás was a brujo, he was not bad. She had already

guessed that he was no ordinary man, as the lady was no ordinary woman. And they had saved

her life.

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But when he came to the pool, he chased away the fragile contentment she and Rowena had

found. Felícita no longer existed, for all the world converged on the two who looked at each

other across the water.

All the world became what they felt for each other.

Felícita picked her way down to the poolside to retrieve the skirt Rowena had folded and left on

the rock. The place was safe now; raw emotion no longer vibrated in the stones at her feet or

filled the water with heat that did not burn. She could almost put from her mind the sight of

Rowena's face when Tomás began to touch her.

The sight, but not the passion. Felícita could run away from what she did not wish to see, when