Rexanne Becnel (20 page)

Lacie could not have been more outdone. Who did he think he was, ordering her around! Taking over as if this were his home!

But it
was
his home. She knew it, and he knew it. Lacie shivered as she stared into the gloomy hall, still unlit with either candles or lamps. It
was
his home, but as far as the rest of the world knew, it was legally hers. Besides, that wasn’t the question. Whether the house was his or hers, he had no right to enter her room and sift through her clothes. Did he think she had left some incriminating bit of evidence against her claim lying around?

Angrily, she started into the hall, lifting her sodden skirts high before her. But although she tried to inch around the magnificent old Tabriz silk rug, her ruined skirts left a soaking trail. She was at the bottom of the stairs peering doubtfully at the beautiful red wool runner that lined it when Dillon appeared up above.

“I found a lavender dress. And of course, all the necessary undergarments.” He raised a hand filled with delicate white cotton garments as he descended the stairs, looking for all the world like some hero bearing the spoils of war. “Here.” He offered them to her. “Did I forget anything?”

Lacie was too horrified—and too furious—to respond. Her face was scarlet with humiliation as she grabbed her personal items. But when she turned to flee, the clean pair of pantalets was stretched between their hands, dangling horrible in plain view. In mortification she yanked at them, only to hear a telling rip as the fragile fabric gave.

“Slow down, sweetheart,” he murmured softly as he caught the ruined garment in his large hand. “Why don’t you just let me help you—”

“No!” Lacie cried, pulling abruptly away from him. “Don’t you dare touch my pantalets!”

At her scandalized expression, Dillon began to laugh. “I only meant to carry your clothes for you. But instead—instead I think I’ll just carry you.”

So saying, and without any warning, he abruptly picked her up.

“Oh!” she gasped. “Put me down at once! Let me go, I say!”

“In good time,” he answered in a low, mocking tone. Then he moved across the hall and out the door, carrying her as if she were no heavier than a kitten—and leaving a trail of his wet boot prints and a swish of dripping skirts.

Lacie was lying as still as stone in his arms by the time he stopped before the bath house. It had suddenly occurred to her that everyone else was gone—Ada and Mrs. Gunter and Leland. Even that other man, that Neal Camden. She and Dillon were alone in the house and that knowledge caused her heart to race in the most unseemly manner. She was terrified, she told herself, terrified to think what such a scoundrel as he might do under the circumstances. But there was a part of her that trembled with anticipation. Even now, wet and bedraggled as they both were, his body was warm against hers. His arms were strong, and he smelled faintly of smoke and rain and horses.

In frustration she bit dawn on her lower lip, determined to kill such terrible traitorous thoughts. Yet when Dillon set her on her feet before the bathhouse door, the loss of his warm touch left her chilled and feeling vaguely empty. In the deep shadows of the porch they stared at one another. Tall and dark, he loomed just before her saying nothing, only watching her with that familiar hooded gaze.

“I—ahh…I’ll be quite brief so that you…” She faltered as unwelcome memories of their other encounter in the bath house besieged her. He had been so threatening that night, so powerful and domineering. She cleared her throat. “I’ll be quite brief so that you can also clean yourself up.”

Still staring up at him, Lacie reached back with one hand and groped for the doorknob. Then Dillon reached around her and grasped the knob just when she found it. For an eternity he gazed down at her, his hand warm around hers, his body mere inches from her own. Then with an excruciating slowness he bent down to kiss her.

It was the most exquisite of tortures. There was an aching sweetness about the way their lips clung, something tentative and yet very, very right. But beneath that tender touch of his lips to hers, there was a ground-swell of other emotions. Tenderness would quickly give way to unreasonable desire. And Lacie knew that what Dillon wanted—what she too wanted in some awful, primitive way—could never, ever be right.

“Please, don’t,” she murmured, turning her face away.

“Don’t what?” he answered, his breath a warm whisper in her ear. “Don’t think about how good you feel in my arms? Don’t dream about your sweet kisses?”

“No, no!” Lacie cried in true distress as an incredible warmth welled up from her belly. She tried to twist away from him, but Dillon pulled her hand from the doorknob. Then, with his arm about her waist, he steadily drew her to him. By the time she was pressed intimately against him, she was trembling like a leaf in the wind.

“Lacie, Lacie,” he murmured as his hand gently swept her wet hair back from her cheek. “How you have tormented me.” Then his lips met hers once more, and her protests died unsaid. It was like being touched by fire. Burned. Consumed. Beneath the seductive move of Dillon’s mouth on hers, Lacie could do little more than gasp for breath. His tongue traced the edge of her mouth and she seemed to melt inside. Then it slid between her parted lips and a new inferno flared.

Lacie could not fight the onslaught of feelings that overwhelmed her. Every portion of her body seemed to respond to Dillon’s passionate kiss. Where his chest pressed hard against her, she became softer and more malleable. When his tongue licked and probed, teasing her own to meet him partway, she could not hold back.

Then when their tongues did meet, the lightning seemed nothing compared with the flame that leaped between them. He was fire to her ice. Steel to her velvet. Lacie’s free hand went up to circle his neck as she opened fully to his kiss. The clothes he’d brought down to her were lost somewhere, fallen and forgotten. Nothing else mattered but this intense longing that gripped her. Dillon had inspired it. Now only he seemed able to slake it.

“My sweet Lacie. My sweet, sweet girl. God, How I have wanted you!”

Lacie heard his words, and she thrilled to what he said. Yet still she tried to ignore the reality they brought with them. He wanted her. He wanted her! And she wanted him. Wasn’t that good enough?

Yet she knew it was not enough.

“This is wrong,” she whispered against his seeking lips even as she felt herself succumbing to the passion he had aroused in her.

“Nothing this good can be wrong,” he answered as he moved his kisses down to her neck in the most sensuous manner. Lacie was faint with desire, aching for more of this madness as the buttons of her blouse gave way to his persistence. She could not rightfully say how they came undone. She only knew that somehow, in the midst of this haze of exquisite passion, he had unfastened them. Now her shoulders and chest were exposed as was the unadorned front of her white muslin chemise. Then he kissed the creamy flesh at the upper swell of her breast.

“Such beautiful, soft skin.” He smiled at her with eyes smoky and alive with warmth. “I’ve wanted to touch you like this since that night I interrupted your bath. Did you know that, Lacie? Have you known all along how much I’ve wanted you?”

Then without warning he lifted her up, wet clinging skirts and all, and started for the front door.

“What are you doing? Where are we going?” she asked in confusion. Her senses were still spinning, and she could do little more than cling to his neck as he shouldered the screen door open, then crossed the hall to the stairs.

“I’m taking you upstairs—where I should have taken you long ago.”

As he mounted the stairs, two at a time, Lacie stared at him in a dawning comprehension. Although she longed for him with an intensity that was truly frightening, she nevertheless knew that in the morning she would regret such a surrender.

“Wait, Dillon. Oh, please wait. We mustn’t do this. It’s not right—”

“Ah, but it is right. I can’t think of anything more right than you and me together. I want it, and so do you.”

Up the wide stairs he went, giving her no more than a glimpse behind them of the red carpet, marked now with a dark wet trail. Then they were at the entrance to her suite of rooms—Frederick’s suite—and panic set in.

“No. No!” She squirmed within his possessive embrace to no avail. Her hand caught on the carved doorframe as he deftly kicked the paneled door open. “We shouldn’t do this, Dillon. We shouldn’t!”

“We should, and we will.” he vowed hoarsely. Then he looked down at her pale face and seemed to recognize her panic.

“Lacie,” he murmured. He lightly put her on her feet but kept her still within his arms. “It’s the right time for us, sweetheart. There’s no going back.”

She shook her head stubbornly. It was not right, she told herself. It could not be more wrong.

Yet the touch of his hands…the feel of his strong body pressed against hers…There was a rightness there that she recognized innately. Something drew her to him powerfully. Despite all the reasons that such feelings between them were impossible—and that such an act was unthinkable!—she nonetheless desired it with a fierceness she could scarcely comprehend. When he maneuvered them into the room, she did not protest. When he closed the door behind them, she voiced none of her fears. She only pulled away from his embrace and moved hesitantly into the room.

The high-ceilinged sitting room was dim, for the meager afternoon light was further restricted by the deeply covered gallery. The sound of the steady drizzle seemed to muffle everything else, and Lacie felt as if they had somehow stepped into a place quite apart from the rest of the world. Then she felt Dillon’s hands on her shoulders and his warm breath against her cold skin as he came up behind her.

He did not speak but his hands were more than eloquent as he deftly untied her skirt and then, when it fell in a sodden heap on the floor, circled her waist with his arms and drew her back against him.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she murmured even as a thrill of desire surged up from her belly.

“You want me here,” he countered.

“But we’re not married.”

“No.” He turned her around to face him, then smoothly drew her blouse off her shoulders and down her arms.

No. He didn’t deny that they weren’t married. Nor did he suggest that they could be, Lacie thought hollowly. But then, she’d known all along that marriage would never be a part of his plans. Still, the pain of his rejection struck cruelly at her vulnerable heart.

One last time she tried to pull away, averting her eyes to hide her feelings from him. But Dillon would have none of it. He only gripped her more firmly, then tilted her face up to his.

“It’s too late for objections, Lacie. You knew it would come to this. You knew when you lied to me about Frederick. You knew when you refused my offer that first night.” His eyes were dark as he stared at her and she was unable to tear her gaze away. But it was not anger that drove him, and even as she stared up at him, his eyes grew warmer and his voice became lower. “You’ve known it every time we’ve touched.”

Then she had no further chance to protest. Like a man unable to hold back even one more moment, Dillon took her lips in a violent kiss. It was harsh and forceful. It was passionate and thrilling. It was at once both demanding and beguiling, and it touched the most primitive part of her.

In helpless abandon she melted against him, somehow triumphant in spite of his domination. Perhaps even because of it. As Dillon’s mouth moved sensuously against hers, as his tongue seduced hers and lured her into complete acceptance of him, Lacie gloried in every portion of her feminine being. His kiss—indeed, his embrace—was one of pure possession. She was his now, in every way imaginable. She could not protest because he would not allow it. And yet her very submission seemed to empower her with a new strength, a power she’d never suspected she might have.

Recklessly she clung to Dillon, drawing him to her, accepting his kiss and returning it with impetuous passion. This could not be her, one remnant thought whispered. Yet it was her. For once it was truly her, she realized. Not Miss Lacie, the teacher. Or even just Lacie, the good little girl. And it certainly was not Lacie Kimbell, the woman who had been living such a terrible lie these last weeks. It was another her, buried, yet nonetheless real. She could not help but rejoice in the knowledge.

Dillon’s movements were brusque and swift, yet he was not rough with her. In one motion he drew her to the wide méridienne lounge. Then he eased her down upon its velvet surface, his lips still linked passionately to hers.

Lacie was unmindful of her wet hair tangled beneath her. Nor was she even aware of her scanty attire as Dillon’s weight pressed her back into the rich burgundy velvet. She only knew that she wanted him in some primal way, and that no one before—or after—could ever affect her so.

Her arms were wrapped tightly about his neck and shoulders. His thigh rested between her legs and a new warmth was building deep inside her. She wanted to get closer even as she feared she never, ever could get close enough. When Dillon pulled away, then propped himself on one arm above her, she moaned softly in dismay.

“My God. My God, Lacie,” he murmured hoarsely as his eyes roamed her flushed features. For once her eyes did not fall away from his direct gaze and for an endless moment they stared at each other. Then his hand smoothed down her cheek to her neck, and then slowly, slowly down her chest to cup her breast.

In an instant every part of her tightened in anticipation. It was as if by his merest touch he commanded all her emotions, and her breath came quicker and quicker.

His hand was warm and gentle around her sensitive breast as he stared into her eyes. Then his thumb moved lightly across her aching nipple, and she closed her eyes against the exquisite pleasure.

“Dillon…” Her cry came weak and helpless as his thumb continued its sensuous torture.

“Finally I see you stripped of all pretense,” he whispered huskily. “Finally you’re being honest with me.”

Then he pulled his hand away and Lacie groaned with the loss. But it was not his intent to leave her for long. With an economy of movement he stripped off his ruined shirt, removed his boots, then peeled down his trousers.