To Desire a Wilde (10 page)

S
hilah killed the engine on his truck and sat behind the steering wheel, contemplating his next move.

Or better yet, why the hell he was here. His glance fell to the time on his dash…almost midnight, outside Ellie Crandall's parents' home. He turned and glanced at his passenger seat.

Like some lovesick calf, he sat staring at the flowers, afraid to go and knock on her door before turning away and running a hand through his hair.

Yeah, he knew the flowers were clichéd as hell. But, after driving around downtown Lander for over an hour, knowing he should just go home and call it a night, every time he made the turn down the road that would lead out of town, he found himself turning right back and making the circuit around the small downtown area again.

If he had any damn sense he'd be at a motel somewhere, holed up with the willing redhead from the club, losing himself inside her warm, willing body to ease the painful throb of his cock.

The need that was growing to the point that he thought he'd lose his mind if he didn't assuage the ache soon, waking up every morning fisting his cock, images of Ellie burning in his mind.

Only to face the woman responsible for putting him in his current state, forced to pretend that what they'd shared hadn't happened. That it didn't mean a damn thing to him.

If he had any sense, he'd be right in the middle of plunging inside the woman…Jenny, Janie…hell, he hadn't even remembered her name. But, names weren't important. The only thing that was important was hearing her softness as her moans and sighs of delight bounced off the walls, as he lost himself inside her body, forcing any lingering thoughts…wants or desires for Ellie from his mind.

But, he'd been denied even that solace.

As soon as he'd ushered the woman out of the club, the wind had stirred, blowing her cloying perfume across his nose, and he'd paused, glancing down at the woman, whose arm was wrapped around his waist like a cobra.

The memory of an earthy yet wildly feminine scent had chosen that moment to assault his mind, drawing a deep breath from him.

He'd stopped, his arm draped loosely around the woman's shoulders, and inhaled as though to recapture the scent.

What he should have been doing, what he could
have been doing was a far cry from what had happened instead.

He'd cursed and the woman…Jenny, Janie…had looked up at him, a question in her light blue eyes.

No matter how badly he wanted…needed sex, his body on fire, his need running high, it wasn't an anonymous woman he wanted; a stranger to spend the night with.

His longing had nothing to do with easing the painful throb of his cock with the simple act of sex.

The need he had was for one woman and one woman alone.

Despite the hot promise in her eyes of what was to come, or the way her ample curves pressed into his side, he'd mumbled an excuse and without a word turned and strode toward his car.

The only woman he wanted was Ellie and no other would do.

Whatever was between him and Ellie wasn't going to go away anytime soon. And if he wanted any kind of return of his sanity, he had to do something about it. Now.

The last week had proven that. If anything, it was only getting stronger. He'd tried, tried like hell to do the noble thing, give her some space and let her come to the same realization. But, after a week of torture, he couldn't take it anymore.

He was claiming her.

He didn't know what would happen with them, but he wanted to give them a chance, and if he left it up to her neither one of them would ever know if what they had was real.

He turned, lifted the flowers from the seat and strode toward her door.

 

Ellie groaned out loud, dragged out of a deep sleep by an insistent pounding.

She hissed, clutching the sides of her head with her hands, trying to block out the pounding to know avail.

She opened one eye and glanced down, barely lifting her head.

She was lying on the sofa, the empty bottle lying next to her, on the floor.

“Innocent, my foot,” she mumbled, groaning as she plopped back down on the sofa.

Her last memory had been of leaving the shower and going to bed.

Despite how tired she was, sleep had eluded her, and with a sigh she'd risen from bed and wearily stomped down the stairs to the main floor.

She'd gone into the kitchen, rummaging through first the pantry and then the refrigerator looking for something, anything, that would help her go to sleep.

She never had been much for using drugs, even the more innocent variety bought over the counter. She steered away from them, despite the occasional bouts of insomnia she'd suffered, dating back to her teen years. But the sleeplessness had never been so bad that a little herbal tea hadn't been able to cure it.

Her mother had always made sure to keep plenty of herbal tea available, then and now, just in case. She'd sighed in relief when she'd found a carton, soon groaning when it was empty.

Just about ready to don her sneakers and head out to the Quick Mart near her parents' house, she spied a six-pack of mixed cocktails, tucked away on a back shelf.

With a shrug of her shoulders, she'd tugged a single bottle from the pack, thinking that right about then, she'd do anything to quell the mental gymnastics she'd been having, as thoughts of Shilah had been playing hell with her ability to go to sleep.

 

The pounding stopped momentarily and she sighed in relief only to groan as it returned, this time so loud she felt as though her head was about to crack open.

Her eyes flew open. The pounding she heard was not coming from the little sadistic man inside her head, but from the front door.

With a loud moan she pushed herself away from the sofa. She kept her head steady against the slight throbbing that was competing with a vengeance with the pounding that was coming from the front door.

“I'm coming, I'm coming! Hold on,” she grumbled, frowning as she glanced toward the cable box on top of the television, the glowing numbers indicating the lateness of the hour.

At nearly midnight, Ellie wondered who was banging on the door as if they'd lost their mind, hoping against hope that it wasn't some type of emergency from one of her father's clients that would require her attention.

Swiftly pulling her hair from the ragged ponytail she'd secured it with earlier, she jogged toward the front door. “I'm sorry it took so long, I was—”

Not thinking, she opened the door without benefit of peeking through the hole to see who her midnight caller was, something she immediately wanted to slap herself silly for after swinging the door open.

Her sentence trailed off when her glance came into
contact with the one man she hadn't expected to see on her doorstep.

Not to mention the huge bouquet of flowers he held in his hand.

The scowl on his face was in direct contrast with the look of…uncertainty, hesitancy in his dark eyes.

“I, uh, got these for you.”

Ellie looked from Shilah to the flowers wrapped in green tissue that he held tightly in his hand. It was so corny, so clichéd that she should have closed the door in his face and walked away.

She glanced at the flowers, an artful arrangement of pink mini-carnations mixed with pink roses. Both her favorite flowers.

She should close the door, but she didn't. Her eyes went to his.

The hesitant look in his beautiful eyes, coupled with the contrasting feelings she'd been teeter-tottering with the entire week, playing hell with her ability to concentrate, were her undoing.

“Thank you,” she said, the words in no way expressing how she felt, yet all she could manage to say.

Instead of saying anything more for fear she'd embarrass herself, she instead buried her face inside the fragrant bouquet again, taking a deep appreciative breath as the soft petals tickled her nose.

“I hoped you'd like them,” he said, and her eyes went to his, to see him staring at her with an intensity that shook her.

“Please…let me come in, Ellie.”

Ellie gave in to the inevitable, nodded her head shortly and opened the door wider, allowing him to enter.

The light that entered his eyes was hot, intense, searing. Ellie felt her heart strum in both anticipation and fear and wondered if how she felt was anything like what Little Red must have felt when she walked into the wolf's den.

H
e trailed her to the kitchen. No sooner had she opened a cabinet drawer, than he spoke.

“I haven't been able to get you…us, what we did, out of my mind, Ellie. No matter how hard I try. No matter what limitations you put on us.”

Ellie became still, briefly, before she continued searching for a vase.

She barely refrained from spinning around to challenge him.

But, after all the mental gymnastics she'd been going through over the last few days, torn between giving in to what his eyes promised he wanted from her, as well as memories of their lovemaking, she'd been barely keeping it together. In doing so she had kept her distance from him, forcing him to do the same.

“And I don't think you have, either,” he said, quietly.

Her hands held a fine tremor as she flipped on the faucet and began to fill the vase, without responding to him.

The tension mounted in the semidark room as the silence grew. When she'd brought him into the house, she hadn't bothered turning on any additional lights, her intending for his stay to be short.

But now, the low lights from the single lamp in the living room and the light above the stove lent an intimacy to the room she didn't want or need. His mere presence alone was enough to play havoc with her mind and libido.

Ellie knew that she could give in to what was growing between them. She could give in to the promises he'd given her when they'd made love, a promise to fulfill every fantasy she'd ever created about them.

Give in to the heat that had been growing between them since she'd returned, so intense it was now a living breathing entity of its own.

It didn't matter if anyone was around them, whenever they were near each other, made the slightest brush of contact either physically or just with their eyes, everything else faded away and it was only the two of them.

Yes, he was right. Something had to give.

But the other end of that was what would happen to her, when it was over.

The flowers in her hand forgotten, she turned to face him. “Limitations? What limitations have I forced on you, Shilah?”

He shoved away from the wall where he'd been leaning, making his way toward her, running his eyes over her.

He was staring at her as though he read her every thought. As though he knew her every secret desire.

Unable to turn away she helplessly watched his approach.

She forced herself to move, turning back around to finish placing the flowers in the vase. “I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't placed any limitations on us…on you, any more so than what should be there.”

He stopped and, although she couldn't see him, Ellie could
feel
him, the warmth from his body reaching out to enfold her in its embrace.

She inhaled, deeply. His unique masculine scent overpowered the scent of the flowers, hitting her at once, and she closed her eyes, feeling her nipples pearl behind her gown in reaction to his nearness.

He hadn't even touched her, yet her body betrayed her, tingling head to toe.

She felt his hand on her shoulder, the warmth seeping through the thin cotton of her gown, and bit her bottom lip.

“What is it that scares you, Ellie?”

She was silent, trying to figure out in her mind what…how to answer a question that she didn't know the answer to. He'd asked her that question before. Just as she hadn't known the answer then, neither did she now.

To deny that she was afraid…well, that was no longer an option. Not only did he know her too well, she couldn't give voice to the lie even to herself.

She felt him move closer, crowding her space, until her legs bumped up against the counter.

“What would happen if you just gave in, Ellie?” The forbidden words were whispered against her temple and Ellie felt her heart pound against her chest in a slow, hard beat, each one she heard…felt, throbbing.

“Shilah, if I did…what if—” she stopped, swallowed and felt him step impossibly closer, until she felt the coarse material of his jeans brush against the backs of her legs.

He turned her around to face him.

His nearness blocked out sound, sight, smell…until it was only him that she saw, everything in the room, everything she'd ever felt it seemed before she'd met him, before this moment, faded away as though it had never been.

She closed her eyes.

“Trust me,” he said, and lowered his mouth, his lips brushing against hers in a soft, seesawing motion. She felt the response of the small touch shoot through her body like fire.

He licked the corner of her lip.

Ellie's nipples constricted against the thin gown she wore, painfully.

“Trust me, Ellie. Like you always have.”

She placed a hand against his chest and forced him to move away, so that she could see his face. Dark eyes stared down at her, searching hers.

“I've never done this—” She stopped, gestured with one hand in a sweeping motion. “Before.”

Shilah frowned, “And by this you mean…” He allowed the sentence to dangle.

“This type of relationship. One where I don't know what's going to happen. Don't really know the boundaries,” she finished lamely.

“Do we have to know what's going to happen? Does everything in your life have to go according to your clipboard?” he asked, and she caught the teasing glint in his dark eyes.

She shook her head. “No, but I like to know what I'm getting into before I jump into the fire,” she murmured.

“I'll be there to catch you, before you get burned, Ellie.”

Ellie was afraid it was too late for that. He'd burned her with his touch, seared and branded her the first moment their mouths had met.

 

Long minutes and several drugging kisses later, Ellie broke away from him, her breathing heavy.

“Baby, what's wrong?” he asked, hearing the tremble in his own voice.

He was on fire with need for her. He pulled her close and bent as though to bring their mouths back into contact.

She'd asked what he wanted from her. His hand came up to frame her face, his thumbs caressing her cheeks, running over her face, down the length of her neck. He spanned the hollow of her throat, feeling her heartbeat jump against his fingers.

The move he knew, boldly possessive.

Staking his claim.

Ellie placed her hand on his chest, shoving at him, yet with not as much strength as before.

Their eyes locked in a heated battle of wills, even as desire and lust—and something more, something he willed her to see—were a hazy cloud engulfing them.

“Not…not here.” The words seemed torn from her. “Not at my parents' house,” she finished, and relief flooded him.

Despite the painful throb of his erection, he ruthlessly shoved down the need to pick her up, carry her to the nearest soft spot and make love to her until neither
one of them could think straight, until she could voice no more objections to him as she lay spent and sated beneath him.

He drew in a shaky breath and nodded his head, his eyes searching hers.

“Then come home with me, Ellie. Come home with me and make love to me.”