The Heart Breaker (20 page)

When it was over, he held her shaking body while the heated tremors faded. His quick, hard breathing feathered her face as he willed his pulse to slow.

He was stunned by the primordial possessiveness that had overcome him, by the very rawness of his male hunger. He couldn’t understand his restless, aching need to possess her. The pleasure he’d had with Heather had been shattering, totally wiping out the memories that usually plagued him during sex.

He raised his head. She was limp and trembling, her eyes dark and dazed with remembered passion, her pale cheeks framed in a wild tangle of glorious silver-gold hair. His heart twisted in his chest.

Sloan stirred, easing the crush of his weight off her.

“Don’t leave me—” Her whisper of alarm was a plea as her fingers tightened on his bare shoulder.

“I’m not leaving.” Shifting his body, he drew the rumpled covers up over them both and settled her against him. “I should check on Janna and close up the house for the night, but that can wait.”

Relief flooding her, Heather burrowed into the heat and strength of him. He hadn’t left her this time. He’d remained with her, holding her tight against his warmth, his muscle-corded arms wrapped around her, his lean, sinewy hands absently stroking her naked skin.

It was not that Sloan truly cared about her, she knew that well enough, despite his present tender regard. But she would take what comfort he would give her. She sighed, feeling his heart beat strongly against her breast. She wanted him to go on holding
her like this forever. She wanted to feel this close, this safe, always.

Sloan lay beside her, his thoughts in turmoil, his passion spent. He knew he should return to his own bed. It wasn’t wise to stay—not when they were both so vulnerable. But he couldn’t walk away. He wasn’t strong enough.

He’d considered himself invincible, yet he couldn’t steel his heart against the insidious desire to keep Heather close and just hold her.

He breathed her in, savoring the sweet warm fragrance of her skin. The taste of her clung to his mouth, and he pressed his lips against the silk of her hair.

He closed his eyes, remembering the recent moments of raw torment and searing pleasure. He had been wild to have her, but the duchess had been just as wild for him. He was still stunned by the contrast of her cool, elegant image and the moaning, writhing woman in his arms. She was so astonishingly sensual, she had the power to shatter his hard-won control.

He was crazy to have let himself go so far, yet his relief to find her unhurt had affected his judgment disastrously. He’d needed to reassure himself that she was really okay … And then he’d wound up savaging her with his temper again.

“Heather?” His voice was a hoarse murmur. “If I was angry at you tonight, if I went over the line … it’s because I was afraid.”

“Afraid?”

He turned his head slowly on the pillow to look at her, his unreadable eyes sliding over her face. “I’ve already lost one wife. I was afraid I would find you …” He didn’t finish.

Dead, was what he meant, she realized. He was thinking of Doe. She could see the bleak sorrow in
his eyes. A new coldness crept through her body.

She didn’t want the tragedy of the past to intrude on the peace of the moment, yet it was the first part of his inner self Sloan had shared with her willingly. The vulnerability he’d revealed to her was all the more shattering, because she knew how rare it was.

“You weren’t to blame for her death, Sloan,” she whispered.

At her murmur, the fingers stroking her arm suddenly went still. He was silent for so long, she thought he wasn’t going to answer.

“I was to blame,” he said, his tone devoid of emotion.

“No, you can’t condemn yourself for what happened.”

“You weren’t there. You don’t know.”

“Tell me about it,” she urged.

His gaze turned distant. He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to remember that day. Doe’s pain, his rage, his despair. He couldn’t save her… Guilt rose in his throat, almost choking him. “She died in my arms. Christ, there was so much blood…”

His voice had dropped to a husk of a whisper, but Heather heard the raw pain at its depths.

“The buckskin coat,” she said quietly, suddenly making the connection. “The one I tried to wash. You were upset at me for touching it.”

He heaved a shuddering breath before he nodded. “Doe was wearing it that day. I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. I didn’t want to forget.”

He had saved the bloodstained coat like some grisly trophy—or worse, a reminder of his guilt. She stared into his eyes, absorbing his pain. Her throat hurt with the need to cry. “You must have loved her very much.”

“Yes, I loved her,” he said hoarsely. “So much I ached with it. She was … She was like the sun, warm and nurturing. She was my life.” There was a pause. “I died that day, along with her.”

“No,” Heather replied urgently, “you didn’t die. You lived to care for your daughter.”

The words reached inside him and cradled a part of him he didn’t want anyone near. Sloan winced, wanting to curse Heather and her damned interference. She didn’t understand the bleakness of his soul, the great gaping hole where his heart should have been.

Then he made the mistake of looking into her eyes. It was like stripping his soul bare. He saw quiet compassion there, and sheltering, tender solace. A solace he didn’t want, couldn’t accept. He gathered his shattered defenses around him like armor, drawing into himself. He turned his face away to stare up at the ceiling.

In the silence Heather felt his withdrawal like an icy wind. Once again Sloan was the remote, cold stranger, though he held her against his warm, naked body.

Tears stung her eyes at the loss. Gazing at his chiseled profile, she wondered what it was like to love someone that much, so much that death meant the death of one’s own heart.

Instinctively her hand reached up, her fingers touching his lean cheek, but Sloan might have been a marble statue for all the warmth or emotion he showed.

She closed her eyes against the longing that welled up in her. She couldn’t ease his torment or heal the deep sorrow that tortured him, heart and soul. Perhaps Sloan was right. He had been mortally wounded that day, just as surely as if his enemies had plunged a knife into his chest.

Her own heart constricting with pain and regret, Heather swallowed the ache that rose in her throat. She was mistaken. Sloan’s heart was not made of ice. The reality was far worse. His heart belonged to his late wife.

She had a dead woman for a rival.

H
e stayed with her the entire night, holding her, warming her, comforting her with his strength when she needed so badly to have his arms around her. He left before dawn, telling her to sleep a while longer.

Already missing him, Heather lay there in the early-morning darkness, remembering.

She had tried to imagine what Sloan’s lovemaking would be like, with heat and need and hunger. But never had she envisioned the sensual power of his burning lips and magical hands and lithe body. His lovemaking was as intense and elemental as he was, like getting caught up in a storm. Yet for all the violence and power of their coupling, there had been a gentleness as well.

She should be grateful for that small victory. Sloan McCord was a hard man, brooding and remote and untouchable. A man who gave no hint of feeling anything for her beyond resentment and raw, male lust. Yet for a brief moment last night, she had broken through his granite shell.

He had wanted her, she was certain of it. The memory of how he had looked in the throes of passion, his hair damp with sweat, his eyes burning in
his taut face, gave her reason to hope. The intimacy between them had been sexual, true, but it was still intimacy of a sort. Sloan had allowed her closer than he’d ever done in the past.

As Heather rose to wash and dress, her heart was lighter than at any time since her marriage. The weather matched her mood. The spring sun came out, bright and benevolent, warming the land and melting all traces of snow by noon. It was as if the late-winter storm had never blown through, endangering her life and her tenuous relationship with her husband.

She tackled her chores with renewed energy, wondering if Sloan would return home early, and if so, whether there would be a repeat of last night’s passion. As the day wore on, needles of anticipation and excitement pricked her nerve endings.

Sloan, however, was determined to delay the moment of his return as long as possible, at least until he got himself under control. After paying a visit to his brother and his new niece, he rode the range for hours, rounding up strays and moving one of his larger herds to lower pastures—all the while cursing for letting himself desire his new bride.

At the same time another part of his mind rationally argued with his tangled emotions. He had no reason to flay himself with guilt. Hell, Heather was his wife. He had the right to take her body if he wanted.

The trouble was, he was becoming obsessed with her. He couldn’t get enough of her, of the powerful, addictive pleasure that being inside her brought. His simple male hunger had become a restless, aching need—hurting and painful.

Denying himself wasn’t working, Sloan realized grimly. Maybe if he changed tactics, he could get Heather out of his blood. If he had her body over
and over again, then maybe he could rid himself of these explosions of passion and craving and relief that were driving him crazy.

That would be the extent of their relationship. Carnal gratification. There would be no pretense of love or affection between them. Love wouldn’t enter into it. He wanted her body, not her heart. All he wanted was to get the ache in his groin taken care of.

And as long as he held himself remote—no emotion, just uncomplicated lust—then he could take what he wanted. He wouldn’t let himself drown in her. Yet he would offer her wild, hot, mindnumbing sex in return.

The duchess wouldn’t like being used that way, he suspected, but he wouldn’t give her reason to complain. He would have his fill of her, until the blazing heat in his body was sated. He would have her whenever and however he wanted. But he’d make damn certain she enjoyed it.

Anticipation and arousal riding him hard, he returned home in the mood to wrestle grizzlies. Heather was at work fixing Janna’s supper, but looked up as Sloan entered the kitchen. His hat was pulled down low over his eyes when his gaze locked with hers.

An invisible skein of lightning wrapped around them, catching them fast.

The spell was broken when Janna threw her spoon on the floor in a rare fit of impatience.

“I didn’t expect you so early,” Heather murmured, trying to quell her rapid pulse.

With a shrug, Sloan rescued his daughter’s spoon and picked her up in his arms.

“Are you hungry?” Heather asked him.

“I could eat,” he prevaricated.

He took Janna with him when he went to wash up for supper, while Heather finished cooking. When they returned, Sloan’s tawny hair was still damp, with curling tendrils falling over his ears and shirt collar, making him look younger, less forbidding. The angles and planes of his face, however, were set in their usual rigid lines. Any tenderness or regard she’d evoked in him had gone the way of the storm, Heather suspected.

And despite the presence of his daughter, there was a new tension in the air, along with a sense of heightened danger. Sloan’s brooding sensuality was as potent as a bonfire. When she moved close enough to serve his supper, she could feel the heat emanating from his body, smell the warm musky male scent of his skin.

It was all Heather could do to take her place at the table and act normally, as if her heart was not racing a mile a minute.

“You haven’t yet asked how Caitlin fared last night,” she managed to remark. “You have a new niece.”

“I know. I rode over at first light. Cat and the baby are doing fine,” Sloan answered at her inquiring look. “I gave Jake hell for letting you go out in the storm.”

“He wasn’t to blame, I was. I didn’t think it necessary to have an escort.”

Sloan sent her a hard look that clearly conveyed what he thought of such foolishness. Heather fell silent and applied herself to her supper, barely tasting what she ate.

“Leave the dishes,” he murmured when she started to clear the table.

She felt her heart skip a beat. He was watching her. His gaze dropped to her breasts. His eyes were so intense, so hot, she felt their invading heat burn
right through to bare flesh underneath.

They ascended the stairs and put Janna to bed together. When the young child’s eyelids grew heavy, Sloan turned down the lamp wick to a low glow.

Moments later Heather felt a shock of pleasure when his arms slid around her from behind. Her back arched involuntarily when his lean hands moved to cup her full breasts—those knowledgeable hands that knew a woman’s body so well. When his lips brushed the side of her throat, she felt the familiar treacherous warmth filling her.

“Let’s go to bed.”

His voice was husky and low as he turned her around. His blue eyes were narrowed in a look of sexual intent as old as time. Her breath caught in her throat. She hadn’t thought much beyond the simple, burning need to be close to him.