Once A Wolf (40 page)

mind with the alluring image of the Lady of Fire.

But it was no image. His Lady of Fire was here—awake and alive and real.

And she wanted him. At last, consciously and deliberately, she wanted him.

He trapped her face between his hands and kissed her.

She did not draw back, or quiver in outrage and denial. For an instant she was still, and then her

arms locked about his neck and her lips opened beneath his. He felt the reckless strength of her

fingers working in his hair, the drumming of her heartbeat under the full firmness of her

breasts. And above all, he felt the ardent burning of her need.

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Her need. His. There was no difference. The virginal Lady Rowena was swallowed up by it,

leaving the hungry, feral creature who kissed him like a wanton. His wanton, his woman, his

mate. He'd waited all his life for this surrender.

But she was far from submissive. Her fingertips trailed from his hair to his neck, touched the

hollow of his throat where the pulse beat so fast, and began to push the coat from his

shoulders. His amazement was lost in triumphant exultation. He shrugged from the coat and let

it fall to the ground. He felt the trembling in her hands as she worked at the buttons of his

waistcoat.

Trembling, but not from fear or modesty. She was beyond those barriers now, as he was

beyond the questions and doubts of mere moments ago. He finished unfastening the waistcoat,

and then it joined the coat at his feet.

He kissed Rowena again, more deeply. Her mouth welcomed the thrust of his tongue. His

practiced fingers made short work of the buttons of her simple bodice, revealing the thin fabric

of her chemise. No corset lay beneath. The blush of her nipples made small, bold peaks against

the pale cloth.

He'd caressed her breasts before, at the pool. Then she had been in a waking dream, only half

aware of what he did. Her desire for him now was a thousand times more arousing. This time

he'd be neither subtle nor gentle. She didn't want him to be. He pulled the chemise over her

head, bent her back in his arms, and took her nipple into his mouth.

The sounds she made were not gasps or cries but something in between. She arched up

eagerly, offering still more of herself to his lips and tongue. The unique scent of her skin

mingled with a richer perfume. He licked every curve of one breast and then the other, suckled

until her nipples were the lush pink of roses and as hard and aching as his manhood.

Driven as much by her desire as his own, he removed her chemise and kissed her slender throat

and her ears and her shoulders. He eased her down to the earth, spreading his coat to shield

the tenderness of her body. The grass was their only bed, the desert plain their vast

bedchamber, the emerging stars their candlelight.

She lay gazing up at him, fire dancing in her eyes and spread about her face in an aura of pale

golden hair. Through his hunger he was vaguely aware that she was no longer fierce or

seductive but fully awake to everything he did, watching with an odd inner stillness. She called

him to account with that look, and he felt the weight of obligation settle about his neck like a

yoke.

He broke it with a thought and claimed her lips in a rough kiss, seizing the hem of her skirt. She

moved to let him pull it up above her hips. To feel her naked beneath him was what he'd

wanted from the beginning, but there was a still greater urgency. He parted her thighs and

unfastened his trousers as if life itself depended upon their joining.

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And it did. This was life, holding Rowena in his arms. Today he had stood in the middle of the

street and openly courted death rather than face a future he'd never believed could exist.

What had Sim told him that day in the cañon? "How many times have I kept you from dying

when you were bent on it?" Kate had said something similar in New York, about his wanting to

die.

He hadn't believed it then. He loved life too much, life and adventure and the satisfaction of

thwarting the MacLeans. But Sim had been right. Just as he'd been right about the danger of

Lady Rowena Forster.

Rowena, who'd made him see himself clearly for the first time: not a charming rogue who so

easily captured the loyalty of the common people, the fear of his enemies, and the hearts of

adoring women, but a man who neglected the welfare of those he pretended to help, who

sought oblivion and his own destruction behind a mask of cheerful indifference.

She had stolen his self-deception like a skilled thief, but she could give it back for a few precious

hours. This was the moment, the only one that mattered. When he buried himself in her hot,

yielding flesh, Cole MacLean, Sim Kavanagh, memory, hatred, duty, revenge—all would cease to

have meaning.

He did not need to touch her to know she was ready for him. The scent of her arousal worked

like a drug on his senses. He slid his hands along the insides of her thighs, urging them apart.

She made no resistance. He positioned himself above her, resting his weight on his arms. Her

body's heat and wetness summoned him to enter with a siren's silent call. He hesitated, and

she reached up to him with strong, slender hands that demanded the ultimate worship of his

body.

He covered her mouth with his as they celebrated the most ancient rite of all.

Seventeen

The world exploded in a shower of pleasure and pain, awe and terror.

Rowena could make no sound as Tomás plunged deep inside her, his manhood pushing into the

very core of her body. The brief pain vanished, replaced by something she could not have

imagined possible within the strictures of her carefully planned life.

Ecstasy. A word she hadn't known the meaning of until now. A word far too tame and insipid

for the miracle of the gift Tomás gave her with his body, the gift she at last dared to receive

with all the desire of her heart. She arched her back to take him deeper still, claiming him even

as he marked her as his.

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This is what it is like, the lost part of her mind observed. This is what you feared. Then all such

thought was drowned by the waves of still greater pleasure that swept through her as Tomás

began to move.

She could not have described the myriad sensations he created within her. Explanation was

impossible. Her body quivered and pulsed with every rhythmic thrust. She clutched at Tomás's

shirt and gripped his hips with her legs, exulting in his potent masculinity, reveling in her own

female power.

If there was an inner voice that reviled her for what she'd become, she could no longer hear it.

Tomás's hungry possession inflamed her. His mouth was on her neck, her shoulder, her breasts,

driving her to higher and higher peaks of delight. The sensuous smell of their joined bodies

made her dizzy. She wanted to return pleasure for pleasure, but she could feel herself

beginning to slide toward some inevitable ending. Excitement peaked at the place where their

bodies joined—cast her up like fire from a surging volcano—sent her spinning in space where

the colors had intoxicating scents and celestial music flowed over her body.

It all came crashing together in a rapturous burst of sheer joy. She cried out. Through a haze of

stunned amazement, she saw Tomás fling back his head and answer with a cry of his own. He

moved within her again—once, twice, three times—and then his body stiffened. She felt the

rush of his seed. And then she lay still beneath him, dazed by the wonder of it, as he kissed her

forehead and cheek and hair.

"Rowena," he said. "Rowena, mi amor."

My love.

Her flesh still throbbed where he rested within her, but her mind would not listen to the flawed

and deceptive communication of mere speech. More than her body had been aroused.

The wolf was here. She had been released, wild and hungry, and she was not ready to be put

back in her cage. Lady Rowena Forster had nothing to say about it.

Nor did Tomás. Tomás Alejandro Randall, El Lobo, had dominated her with his body and taken

her to a place of miracles where the outside world ceased to exist. Now it was her turn.

Rowena-the-wolf laughed. She pushed herself up on her arms and kissed Tomás on the mouth,

using her tongue as he'd used his.

He reared back, separating from her. "Rowena—"

She followed him, laying her hands flat on his chest. His shirt was in the way, so she removed it,

tearing at his collar. At the last minute he preserved the shirt by undoing the final few buttons.

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Then his bare chest was under her palms, lightly dusted with dark hair, beautifully muscled and

sleek. She'd seen him thus before, but only through the eyes of fear. Now she was touching him

because she wanted to touch, wanted to feel, wanted to know.

His body was alien to her still. Alien and fascinating. She traced the line of his collarbone and

then down the center of his chest. He shuddered, but his face was rapt.

She brushed her lips against the firm skin of his chest. His hair, rich with masculine scent, tickled

her nose. She found his nipple and touched it with the tip of her tongue.

His hands shot out to grip her arms. "Rowena!" He sounded almost shocked. She wanted to

shock him still more. She pushed his arms away and teased his nipples as he'd done with hers.

Then she carried him to the ground with her weight, stretched out upon his body. His manhood

stirred against her stomach.

She kissed him, lacing her fingers in the curls of his hair. The angry jubilation that had filled her

on their escape from Las Vegas returned in all its force. He was hers. He thought he could

command her, humiliate her, tease her again and again? He was wrong. She was his equal in

every way. His superior. She could make him feel what she felt.

She pinned him to the ground and kissed the strong planes of his face, brow and cheekbone

and jaw. When he tried to raise his hands to embrace her, she trapped them with hers. Copying

what he had done, she licked the vulnerable pulse point of his throat and the hard curve of his

shoulder. He breathed in and out roughly, fingers working in the grass beneath him.

" Rowena—"

Rowena was not there. She silenced him with another kiss and moved her legs to straddle him.

She explored his body with hungry wonder, chest and ribs and flat belly. How perfect he was.

Nearly flawless. The ideal mate. Hers.

But she had not seen all of him. She must; the wolf demanded it. She reached for his trousers

and struggled to remove them. Tomás's hands covered hers and finished the job with practiced

ease.

How many women had he lain with? How many? She growled in her throat and pushed him

down again. There would be no other females from this moment on. He must know it.

She slid back to study the part of him that had given her so much gratification. It was strangely

fascinating, so alien from what she knew. Brief glances on previous occasions didn't do it

justice.

Without hesitation she reached for him. Her fingers touched the firm length and closed about

it. Tomás jerked under her and gave a soft oath. Carefully she ran her fingertips up and down,

watching his face.

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Wanton, Lady Rowena cried. Shame, oh shame!

The wolf felt no shame, did not understand its meaning. She knew mingled triumph and joy at

her mate's astonished pleasure. He wasn't laughing now, and his eyes were dark with passion.

Passion. At last she knew what it was. It was more than lust or physical hunger. The act that

joined their bodies wasn't a thing to be endured for the sake of children, or performed with

remorse and dread out of a sense of duty. It was a precious gift, a binding, a sealing of

unspoken vows. Rowena-the-wolf had made that vow when she lay in the grass with El Lobo,

and she did not regret it.

Once more she straddled his hips, fining herself to him. He circled her waist with his hands as

she claimed him with her body. She led the way, moving slowly at first, steadied by Tomás's

hold, guided by his touch on her buttocks.

At this moment she was master, but the triumph of conquest gave way to the pure exaltation of

complete wholeness. She saw Tomás's pleasure and knew it for her own. The barriers made by

nature, of form and shape and gender, melted away. Tomás-wolf and Rowena-wolf became

one as their joined bodies carried them over the crest of completion and into a world of jubilant

union.

It took nearly an hour for the happiness to fade. The wolf remained strong in Rowena's mind