Warrior's Embrace (23 page)

o0o

Elizabeth left work earlier than usual. Her
exit raised a few eyebrows, especially Gladys’s.

“I can’t believe it,” Gladys said. “The woman
who spends most of her waking moments at the bank is leaving at a
reasonable hour. Is the world coming to a end?”

“If it does, Gladys, I’m sure you’ll be the
first to know.”

Gladys laughed as she grabbed her own purse
and started for the door. “Look, Elizabeth, there’s no need to be
embarrassed about leaving work on time. After all, you’re too young
to be tied down here when you should be out partying with some
handsome stud.”

A vision of Black Hawk came into Elizabeth’s
mind. With her hand on the door, she hesitated. It was all the
encouragement Gladys needed.

“Aha. You’ve got a boyfriend. I knew it all
along. A beautiful woman like you. Who is it? Anybody we know?”

Elizabeth pulled herself together. “You’re
wrong, Gladys. My social life is still boring.”

“Oh, shoot.” Gladys looked so disappointed,
Elizabeth decided to be generous and gracious, characteristics she
was afraid she had neglected for years.

“Cheer up, Gladys. Perhaps I’ll take you up
on your invitation to meet one of the many men in your life.”

“When?”

Once more she thought of Black Hawk lying in
her bed with his knife slid under his pillow. “Perhaps in a couple
of weeks... when I get up enough courage.” She wasn’t being honest,
of course. She had never been lacking in courage. She was afraid of
no man. The only thing she had lacked was the willpower to
resist.

o0o

Elizabeth didn’t see Black Hawk when she got
home. Her house was as quiet as it had always been, and seemed just
as empty. For a moment she panicked.

“Oh, no,” she whispered. “He’s gone.”

“Your beauty makes this house come alive,
Elizabeth.”

She whirled toward the sound of his voice. He
was leaning against her refrigerator, his knife tucked into his
jeans, his naked chest lacerated with wounds.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“I didn’t sneak. I walked quietly.”

“Well, then, don’t walk quietly.”

“It’s the Chickasaw way.”

She had felt edgy all day. Seeing him, she
felt testy as well. Her life had been safe and sensible until he
drifted into her cellar, and now nothing made any sense.

Her high heels tapped out an angry rhythm as
she marched toward the refrigerator door and flung it open. His
expression never changed: He looked as aloof as the finest bronze
statue on a museum shelf.

“While you’re in my house, you’ll do things
my way,” she said.

Black Hawk said nothing.
Don’t do this to
me,
she wanted to yell, though he was doing nothing except
standing there.

Slowly she turned her head to look at him.
That was her first mistake.

“You aren’t handling this well,
Elizabeth.”

“Stop it, Hawk.” She slammed the refrigerator
shut. “I know what I’m doing.”

“You called me Hawk.” His eyes were very
dark.

“It was a slip of the tongue.”

“Only my lovers call me Hawk.” His hands
moved into her hair, loosening the pins and casting them onto the
kitchen floor. The heavy mass fell down around her shoulders, and
he tangled his hands in it.

Her breathing came in short bursts. Neither
of them spoke. It was almost as if they had given up their wills
and fate had taken over. Hawk’s eyes were predatory as he lowered
his head toward hers.

“Hawk,” she whispered.

“You want me.”

“No.”

“I want you.”

His arms tightened as he backed her against
the kitchen counter.

“Someone could come.”

“The blinds are closed, and I saw you lock
the door.”

He slid her jacket off, and she heard it land
on the kitchen floor. Bending low, he pressed his lips against her
throat.

His tongue sent shivers skittering along her
skin. Unconsciously she reached for him, splaying her fingers along
the back of his neck and pressing his head closer.

His mouth captured hers, and she was
lost.

Without regard to his injuries or his
responsibilities or his situation, he took his time with her,
sliding his mouth over hers until he felt her response. It wasn’t
long in coming, and he was amazed at the intensity. He had been
right: Elizabeth McCade was a woman of fire.

He lifted her onto the cabinet and slid his
hand under her skirt, his mouth never leaving hers. Her outward
garments were a modern-day suit of armor, but underneath she was
dressed to please.

“You can tell me no, Elizabeth.”

“I know that.”

He slid his knife out of his belt so it
wouldn’t bite into her skin, then pressed closer so he was fitted
perfectly between her knees.

Silk whispered as he undid her buttons.

She was swaying on the cabinet, making a soft
murmuring sound, like night wind singing through the forest. He
felt primitive and powerful with her, invincible.

She was beautiful beyond what he’d imagined,
and he caressed her with gentleness and wonder, as if she were
precious and breakable. He hadn’t expected to feel this way. He
inhaled deeply, then began a slow, deliberate seduction.

Elizabeth was with him all the way, the heat
spreading, building until Hawk felt as if he held the burning sun
in his arms.

Suddenly she pushed against his
shoulders.

“Elizabeth?” He lifted his head and looked at
her. Her face was flushed with desire, but her eyes were wild with
unnamed fears.

“Hawk.” She grabbed his shoulders, swaying a
moment. Then a new determination came into her face, and she dug
her fingers into his flesh. “We can’t do this.”

“Why not, Elizabeth?” His own breathing was
ragged, and his heart was pumping so hard, he felt as if he had run
cross-country.

Elizabeth fumbled with her clothing. He
reached out and helped her.

“Why not?” he asked once more, gentler this
time.

“Because...” She bent over her buttons, and
her hair swung down and obscured her face.

Still pressed against her, he waited. He
could feel the trembling in her body.

“Are you afraid of me, Elizabeth?” She said
nothing, and he reached out and touched her cheek. “There’s no need
to be afraid. I would never hurt you.”

“It’s not that.” She lifted her face, and he
saw that it was drained of color. “I’m not afraid of you; I’m
afraid of myself.”

“Why? I’m not asking for anything beyond the
moment.”

“This has to do with more than sexual
appetites.”

She made a move, and he lifted her off the
counter. He didn’t release her immediately, but gripped her
shoulders and scrutinized her face.

“Tell me,” he said.

“No. I can’t. It’s private.”

“What are your secrets, Elizabeth? What
demons haunt you?”

She pulled free and bent over to pick up her
jacket. Her expression was guarded as she slid her arms into the
jacket and buttoned it securely at her waist. Her hands trembled as
she swept her hair off her neck in an attempt to restore it to its
prim knot. But she had no hairpins. They were scattered on the
floor.

Hawk picked them up, one by one. Silently he
handed them to her.

Equally silent, she took the pins and jammed
them into her hair. Her color returned, and her trembling
ceased.

“I will not be touched again,” she said.

“I won’t touch you again... until you ask me
to.”

“I’ll never ask.”

He smiled at her and retrieved his knife from
the kitchen counter. Tucking it into his belt, he faced her.

“We are alike, Elizabeth. You will ask.” He
left her quickly, never looking back.

He heard her leave the kitchen, heard her
footsteps on the stairs, heard her bedroom door slam. His flesh
wounds ached and smarted, but not nearly as much as the wound to
his spirit. It wasn’t a sense of rejection that pained him; it was
a sense that he had somehow failed Elizabeth, that he had been the
source of great anxiety to her.

Black Hawk stood in the hallway, pondering
her behavior and his own. What were her secrets to him? There was
no answer to his question, only the overwhelming feeling that he
had to know.

o0o

Upstairs in her bedroom, Elizabeth sat at her
desk staring at her diary, which lay open to an entry dated four
years ago.

“Dr. Laton—Mark—is a professor and I am a
student. Long-standing tradition and school policy both state that
we can’t be together.”

Elizabeth propped her head on her hands and
stared into space. They had been together—many times. Mark had
pursued her until she gave in. He had been her teacher, her mentor,
her idol. He had been older and wiser, and she had been young and
naive.

She glanced down at the diary once more and
continued to read. “Mark took me to the Celestial Hideaway two
counties away. We sat at a table in the corner and gazed at each
other across the red-checkered cloth. ‘I want to make love to you,
Elizabeth,’ he said in that deep voice of his. My protests were
weak and he knew it. That very night I allowed him to carry me back
to his office in the English building where he proved himself as
good a teacher of love as he is of Chaucer.”

Logic told her that she wasn’t the first
student who had fallen prey to a forbidden seduction, but that
didn’t change how she felt. Gullible. Foolish. Ashamed. Her
reckless involvement with Mark had cost her the scholarship she’d
worked so hard to earn. And though Aunt Kathleen said differently,
Elizabeth knew she was disappointed that her brother’s only child
had not lived up to everybody’s expectations. Furthermore,
Elizabeth had lost respect for herself, a deadly thing for an
ambitious young woman who had planned to set the world on fire.

Elizabeth flung the diary across the
room.

“Elizabeth?” Hawk tapped at her door. “Are
you all right?”

“Go away. I don’t want to see you.”

The door opened, and he walked in with a tray
loaded with food and brightened by red-checkered napkins and a
lighted candle, reminders of her past.

“Thank you for preparing my dinner. That was
thoughtful of you.”

“I made enough for two.”

In her current state, she didn’t want to see
him. She didn’t want to sit at a table with him. She didn’t even
want to be in the same room as him. But she wasn’t about to admit
it. Surely she could handle sharing one meal.

She took the tray and glanced around her
room. The bedside table would do; she could pull up two chairs. But
she wasn’t about to be trapped with Hawk in her bedroom for the
next thirty minutes.

“Well eat downstairs.”

They made their way downstairs side by side,
saying nothing. When they reached her dining room, she blew out the
candle and tucked the red-checkered napkins into a drawer of her
antique sideboard, replacing them with white linen. Hawk noticed,
but she didn’t care. She was not going to offer any explanations or
any apologies.

He pulled out her chair, and she thanked him.
All very polite and proper. It amused her to think that they were
the same two people who had almost made love on the kitchen counter
only an hour earlier.

She expected the meal to be a strained
affair, but Hawk surprised her. He was at ease and full of great
charm, speaking on a variety of subjects that caught her
interest—literature, entertainment, and especially politics as it
affected the world they lived in.

They agreed on much and argued about little.
It seemed their only bone of contention was the unspoken
one—passion and how to handle it.

“You have a chess set,” he said near the end
of their meal.

“Yes.” She smiled. “Given your habit of
snooping, I suppose you can tell me everything I have in this
house.”

“It’s called scouting, not snooping.”

She liked his sense of humor. In fact, there
were a lot of things she was learning to like about Black
Hawk—aside from the obvious.

“Shall we play a game?”

“What?” she asked, temporarily distracted by
her thoughts.

“Chess, Elizabeth.”

He had a big, free laugh. Suddenly she was
furious at Mark Laton, furious that he had taken away her ability
to be totally relaxed with men such as Black Hawk. She was so tired
of constantly being on guard.

“Certainly. I’ll play a game with you.” She
got up from the table. “I trust you’ll be a worthy opponent.”

“I’m lethal.”

She already knew how lethal he could be.
Together they stacked the dishes, then went into her den. It was
cozy, with comfortable stuffed chairs, colorful rugs, and lots of
lamps.

“Do you always keep your curtains drawn,
Elizabeth?” Hawk asked as he set up the board on the game
table.

“Why do you ask?”

“If anyone should come unexpectedly, would
they notice anything different about your house?”

“No. I like privacy. And don’t worry. No one
will come.”

They set up their pieces and started the
game. Both played with great skill, but Hawk quickly won the first
game.

“You’re an aggressive player,” Elizabeth
said. “Do you always go on the attack?”

“Always. I’m a warrior.”

“In real life as well as in games, if all the
stories I read about you are correct.”

“They’re correct in that assessment. Although
a few of my exploits have been exaggerated.”

The story of your holding the mayor’s roast
pig hostage while a hundred and fifty guests starved?”

“True.” He laughed.

“I don’t remember what that was all
about.”

“He refused to consider or even discuss a
proposal that would require recycling. I think we should be
caretakers of the world we live in and not destroyers of it.”

“And what about the tale of your riding into
the boardroom of the city planning commission on your horse?”