Warrior in Her Bed (5 page)

She felt on firmer ground playing with words rather than emotions—or physical responses that left her all a jumble—either of which could land her in a world of trouble. Annie reminded herself that she could ill afford any more trouble at this juncture in her life. Turning more serious, she pondered her choice of words.

“Strange how that expression was historically used to describe your race when tomorrow I'll be the one who looks like a lobster. I suspect you'll just be enjoying a deeper tan.”

“Oh, we get burned plenty. It's just not as visible as yours. Personally, I've always been wary of skin-deep expressions,” Johnny admitted. “They only serve to categorize people too easily and inflame feelings of hatred. I've seen battles start over nothing more than angry words tossed back and forth over
lines drawn in the sand. And I've witnessed firsthand the carnage they bring about.”

Annie shuddered. Recalling the gang wars that besieged her old school, she hastened to assure him, “Myself, I'm more into peace pipes than pipe bombs.”

“‘Make love, not war,' huh?” Johnny quipped, reciting a popular mantra of the sixties.

The breath caught in Annie's throat as their eyes locked and held for a long, tense moment. That such an innocent expression had the power to conjure up wanton images and alter the very molecules separating the two of them was beyond rational explanation. As the seconds lengthened and Johnny made no attempt to look away, Annie focused her resources on squeezing the air out of her lung and trying to make her mouth form any kind of recognizable syllables.

“Uh-huh” was the best she could manage.

It came out in a breathless murmur that did nothing to dissipate the sexual tension vibrating between them. Having promised both herself and Johnny that she would remain a neutral observer during her limited tenure here, Annie knew what she was feeling was as far from impartial as one could get. As clear as her mind was about the dubious advisability of becoming involved with her boss and his hot-blooded extended family, her body stubbornly refused to heed the warning sirens going off in her head. Logic was of no use whatsoever when the man standing next to her was capable of invading all of her senses at once.

“Take me home,” she told him simply enough. Annie wondered what the implications of that statement would prove to be if she were to allow the provocative beat of the drums in the background to
push the already-overheated blood coursing through her veins beyond the boiling point.

The smoldering gaze Johnny leveled at her melted any remaining resistance to which Annie might yet be clinging. She felt her knees turn to jelly as a slow, sexy smile slashed across Johnny's features. Sculpted in granite, his face shimmered with the sheen of perspiration brought on by the physical demands of dancing that the announcer had labeled Indian aerobics. The look in Johnny's eyes left no doubt that he was entertaining the same illicit thoughts that were running through her own mind.

“Gladly.”

A
nnie hadn't felt so nervous in the company of the opposite sex since her first date way back in high school. Many years had passed since then, but she could still remember how very uncomfortable she had felt when her young swain had reached across the seat of his father's sedan to take her hand into his. She had been disgusted by the fact that his hand was slick with nervous perspiration. Not that her hand had been much drier, if memory served her right.

Sitting in silence opposite Johnny as they drove out of town, Annie recalled the anticipation of her very first kiss as being nothing short of agony. Stories perpetuated by her more experienced girlfriends had not prepared Annie for the enormous sense of disappointment she felt when that long-awaited kiss fell so terribly short of her girlish expectations. With
vivid clarity Annie remembered how chapped the young fellow's lips had been, how objectionable his attempt to thrust his tongue into her mouth and how embarrassed she had been by his clumsy efforts to unsnap her bra. She had bolted from that car as fast as she could, racing to the sanctuary of her bedroom where she was free to spend her tears as she saw fit.

Calling to mind that ill-fated date did little to settle Annie's nerves today. True, she wasn't sixteen any more than Johnny Lonebear was some pimply faced adolescent intent on carrying tales back to the locker room come Monday morning. No doubt, the sexual energy sizzling between the two of them was indisputably of a far more adult nature than any relationship Annie had ever experienced. Whatever it was about this man that made her limbs grow so heavy and warm with wanting him was by no means forced. Rather, it was as natural as a river drawn to a waterfall.

Niagara Falls to be more precise.

Was it possible to swim against a current so strong as the one pulling her toward destiny without getting bruised and battered—or worse yet totally destroyed—in the process?

A hard bump in the road sent more than just Annie's thoughts flying in all directions. One hand landed on the front window and the other high upon Johnny's leg where Annie braced herself for a protracted moment before realizing just what she was doing. This instant of awareness occurred only when the muscles of his thigh bunched beneath her touch. Her cheeks grew warm as she stole a surreptitious glance at his lap.

“I'm sorry,” she apologized, quickly averting her eyes before he noticed the direction they had taken.

But it was too late for that. The spark of pure devilment that flashed in Johnny's eyes let Annie know he hadn't missed a thing.

“You're welcome to keep your hands all over me. I don't mind a bit,” he joked with measured indifference.

At a loss for a clever quip, Annie's only response was to remove her hand from Johnny's thigh, reach for her seat belt and belatedly strap herself in. Having never been particularly adept at flirting, she was especially leery of engaging in such behavior when she suspected that the flirtee in question was not one to encourage teasing of a sexual nature unless it was actually going somewhere. Worrying her lower lip between her teeth in a nervous habit that she carried from childhood, she took a stab at polite conversation as a way of regaining her composure and setting their relationship back on a platonic level. Johnny's terse responses hardly promoted her cause, however, and before long she fell to furtively studying his profile.

He looked like a fallen angel, she decided. His mysterious eyes and the cut of his angular features gave him a dangerous look that defied any woman to dare to tame his wild heart and bring out his good side. Lost thus in introspection, Annie was surprised how quickly they reached Jewell's house. Without further ado, Johnny parked the vehicle, opened her door for her, and insisted on escorting her to the front stoop.

Despite the fact that her date had acted in none other than a gentlemanly way toward her, all the way home Annie had secretly entertained daydreams
about this man pulling over to the side of the road and having his way with her. Since it was simple fantasy and nothing more, she allowed her alter ego to succumb with minimal resistance. Nonetheless, her imagination had made her jumpy.

Not to mention hot and damp all over.

Something told Annie that Johnny Lonebear was not the kind of man who would be satisfied with a chaste peck on the cheek before the door was shut in his face. It was the same something that made her suspect that asking him into her home for a social drink would be nothing short of inviting trouble right into her life, and more specifically her bedroom.

Clearly amused by her fumbling attempts to unlock the front door, Johnny couldn't refrain from remarking, “I suppose you'd better ask me in. Just in case you need help ejecting that roving band of drunk Indians who got lost on the way to the powwow and are looking to ravage a white woman.”

Stung by the assumption that her precautions in locking the front door stemmed from anything other than the common sense gleaned from living in the city, Annie considered his reverse discrimination completely unjustified. She gave him a sidelong glance. She hadn't yet made up her mind whether or not to invite him in, and Annie seldom let herself be goaded into anything.

“There's a leap of logic for you. Following that line of thought, I suppose my not asking you in would verify your sister's opinion of me as a bigot,” she asserted, not bothering to hide the disdain in her voice. Giving up on the blasted key altogether in frustration, Annie brandished it like a weapon in his face.

Johnny held his hands up in surrender.

“Whatever you say,” he replied with a lopsided smile that made Annie's heart list a little to one side in her chest.

Johnny regretted putting that wary look back in Annie's eyes with his teasing. It was all he could do to refrain from pointing out that if she was unable to deal with such innocent banter there was very little point in her attempting to teach native children much of anything. A keen sense of humor had all but replaced the bow and arrow for his people. Those among their ranks incapable of laughing at themselves were likely to succumb to the despair that led far too many young people on reservations all across America to suicide or a slow death through alcohol or drug abuse.

Taking the key out of her hand, Johnny inserted it into a lock that was stiff from lack of use. He couldn't help draw a grim comparison to himself. Blaming his self-imposed celibacy for the completely undisciplined manner in which his body was reacting, he considered the wisdom of engaging in a simple roll in the hay with the fair-haired creature who had him so hot and bothered. As much as he wanted to believe the consummation of his desire would put an end to his longing once and for all, he had his doubts about whether a sexual dalliance with Annie Wainwright could possibly be that simple.

The door swung open to reveal a tidy abode that bespoke little about its present occupant. Johnny could see Jewell's hand upon everything and precious little of Annie's that met the eye.

“Would you like to come in for a drink?” she asked in a tone too hesitant for Johnny's liking.

“Aren't you afraid I'll turn into the stereotypical drunk Indian that you have your door locked against?” he asked with a sneer.

“I'm not afraid of any stereotype,” Annie replied coldly. “Except the one in which I'm cast as a racist by whatever I do or don't say. Just in case you're unaware of the fact, I'm getting damn sick and tired of your unwarranted prickly attitude.”

Coming from such a refined lady, the use of the mild expletive stunned Johnny. A lesser man might have used the rebuke as an excuse not to ever step over her threshold again. But Johnny Lonebear wasn't one to back away from the truth when he was standing eyeball to eyeball with it. He didn't need Sigmund Freud to tell him that he was unduly defensive and, as such, often tried beating others to the punch. In this particular case he regretted his rudeness but still couldn't keep from wondering if this seemingly gentle woman wasn't secretly harboring a little prejudice that she didn't want to admit to herself. Despite the enthusiastic welcome she had received from his friends at the powwow, Ester's comment about “do-gooders” inadvertently doing more harm than good reverberated through Johnny's mind, reminding him not to let down his guard until he had a chance to get to know her better.

“Fair enough,” he said, following her inside as if nothing negative had passed between them. “I'll have a Jack and cola if you've got it.”

Annie's bright smile negated the need to turn on any lights. “I'll have to check to see what I've got,” she said, realizing she had yet to acquaint herself with Jewell's liquor cabinet.

While she poked around in the kitchen, Johnny
took the opportunity to seek out clues that would give him a better insight into who Annie Wainwright really was. A stack of catalogues and design books of stained-glass patterns were neatly piled up beside the couch. A portfolio of her work lay on the coffee table. Johnny picked it up and perused it. All in all he was impressed, but still no closer to understanding her as anything more than a member of his highly respected staff.

A set of framed pictures prominently displayed atop a china hutch was more promising. A family photograph in which a younger Annie smiled at the camera illustrated a striking similarity among family members. Both a brother and a sister shared her light complexion and fair hair. All of them had inherited their mother's vibrant blue eyes. To a boy who had lost both of his parents in a drunk driving accident when he was barely eight years old, the picture represented that which Johnny could never have: the stability of a whole and complete family and a middle-class background.

Johnny set the photograph down and picked up the smaller one next to it. The portrait was encased in an expensive oval frame made of inlaid silver. It was of an infant. Although the baby was certainly beautiful enough to fit into the smiling Anglo family in the larger frame, its complexion was a shade too dark for Johnny to believe the infant was a blood relative. Maybe one of Annie's siblings married outside their race to produce this angelic-looking child, and in the process created an aunt who was truly colorblind. Maybe the infant had been adopted.

And maybe it was none of his business, Johnny told himself as Annie stepped back into the living
room carrying a drink in each hand. The look upon her face when she saw what he held in his hand compelled him to immediately put the picture back where he had found it. For the life of him, she looked as if she had just caught him playing with a sacred object.

Or disturbing the dead.

Annie clenched the drinks in her hands so tightly that Johnny thought she might actually break the glass. Although he gave her a searching look as he attempted to pry the beverages from her, she refused to acknowledge his curiosity. Instead she merely loosened her white-knuckled grip on his drink, handed it to him and gestured for him to sit down on the couch. Johnny reached out to encircle her wrist with his free hand. Their gazes collided and held for a look before a gentle tug pulled Annie into the seat next to him.

The two measly plastic trays of ice in her freezer didn't stand a chance of cooling things off between them, Annie realized watching the cubes in her drink melt. One big gulp of her drink convinced her that she hadn't made it nearly strong enough. The mere proximity of the man sitting beside her made her feel nervous. And feverish all over. There was little hope that scintillating conversation would be of much use in this situation. Try as she might, Annie couldn't think of a single thing to say, and Johnny didn't seem much inclined to polite chitchat. As usual he took a far more direct route.

“Where exactly do you think this is going to lead?”

The question took Annie aback. Not simply because it was the same question that she had been
asking herself ever since she had agreed to go out with him, but rather because the answer that immediately popped into her head was so utterly shocking.

In my bed!

Setting her drink down next to his on the coffee table with a shaky hand, she admitted honestly enough, “As a matter of fact I don't know.”

“Well, I do, my little wind dancer,” Johnny said, wrapping a tendril of her blond hair around his index finger and drawing it sensuously across his own lips. “And I'm not at all sure you're ready to go there.”

Annie felt the air catch in her throat. Hypnotized by eyes that invited her to look into the unexplored universe of this man's soul, she felt inexorably compelled to follow his lead. Tentatively she reached out to touch his hair. It felt as thick and soft as black velvet. Trailing her nails along the exposed nape of his neck, she made Johnny groan softly. The sound stirred the blood coursing through her own veins in hot, intemperate spurts.

She wet her lips with her tongue. Unmistakable yearning flashed in Johnny's eyes as he abandoned the single tendril that he held. Firmly but gently he grabbed an entire handful of golden hair. Annie heard herself whimper as he tilted her head back. It was not a sound of pain but rather one of longing emanating from a secret place deep inside her that she kept from even herself. Never before had Annie felt such a needy ache.

“You're wrong about that,” she assured him in a throaty whisper.

Instantly Johnny loosened his hold on the golden mane threaded between his fingers, and Annie realized that he had misunderstood her.

“I'm as ready as I've ever been or will be,” she clarified for the record.

To Annie's surprise instead of sounding like a frightened spinster, she heard the voice of a woman who knew exactly what she wanted and wasn't afraid to ask for it.

It was all the encouragement Johnny needed. His mouth found the vulnerable angle of her neck and caressed it so tenderly that Annie thought she would have to beg him to stop.

Goose bumps betrayed flesh that was all too willing to submit to this man's will. Her own ill-fated past left Annie unprepared for the feelings welling up inside her. Suddenly the world simply ceased to exist outside her skin, as a wanton, wonderful creature of the senses triumphed over the analytic part of her brain, who so convincingly warned others to stop and think before making any life-altering decisions.