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Everything tightened to control the needs that churned inside him. He moved his hands up the sides of her rib cage, intending to unlink the fingers clasped around his neck, but they stopped when his thumbs encountered the underswell of her breas
ts. He went still for an instant, his teeth gritted against the groan rising in his throat.
But the tempting softness of her lips pulled at him. Dipping his head, he drove his mouth against them. His intention was twofold—to satisfy the rawness of his hungers and to frighten her with the brutality of them. She stiffened under the roughness of his assault, then came back at him with equal fierceness.
A breath away from losing the last vestige of control, he ripped his mouth from hers and pushed her at arm’s length. Slower to recover, she stared at him with wide, wondering eyes.
“That’s the way it can be, isn’t it?” She breathed in amazement.
His fingers itched to grab her—whether to shake some sense into her or drag her back to him, he didn’t know. The uncertainty stopped him.
“Give me the damned key.” Seizing her wrist, he took the key from her unresisting fingers, conscious of the trembling in his hands.
He shoved the key in the lock, gave it a savage turn, heard the snick of the bolt’s release and pushed the door inward, then stepped back. Without a word, she walked past him into the darkened room, leaving the door open and the key in the lock. A light from the street filtered through the edges of the closed drapes, giving him glimpses of her silhouette. He stood in the hallway, watching as she walked to the bed and curled her hand around an iron post.
In his mind, he saw her lying beside him in that bed, the light from the windows playing dimly over her naked body, the blackness of her hair fanned over the pillow in an ebony tangle. He imagined her writhing against the building pressure caused by the caressing stroke of his hands.
To dispel the image and the inherent intimacy of a darkened bedroom, he stepped forward and flipped the wall switch by the door. Light pooled beneath the fringed Victorian lamp on the nightstand. Its diffuse glow spilled through the shade and spread onto the bed in mute invitation.
Cursing under his breath, he pivoted from the sight and jerked the key from the lock. “You left the key in the door.”
When he took a step to drop the key on the bedside table, she turned and came toward him, her blouse unbuttoned fully two-thirds of the way down. The muscles in his chest and throat constricted, closing off his breathing as he stared at the lacy white fabric stretched tautly over her breasts.
Woodenly he lifted his hand to give her the key. But she ignored it and reached past him, giving the door a decisive push. It swung shut with a dull thud and a click of the latch. She turned back to him and slid her hands up the front of his shirt to his shoulders, her blouse gaping open a little more.
“I want you to stay.” She tilted her head back, black hair swinging to hang down her back.
His hands came up, but they stopped short of touching her and, instead, held the air inches from her body. He dragged his gaze from her breasts up to her face. It lingered fractionally on her lips, still slightly swollen from his previous rough kiss, then traveled up to her eyes. He saw the desire in them—and the faint shadowing of grief that lurked at the edges. It didn’t take a great deal of intelligence to figure out that she was using him as a stand-in, a substitute for the man who had died.
“This isn’t a good idea,” he told her, his voice rumbling the warning.
“Why? Because I suggested it?” Her gaze traveled over his face, exploring the angular line of his jaw, his high, hard cheekbones, and the slant of his forehead. His hat sat low on it. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those men who doesn’t like it when a girl makes the first move?”
Reaching up, she swept his hat off and gave it a toss, then ran her fingers through his coarse black hair, combing away the flatness from the hat and studying the wayward strands that curled onto his forehead.
“Because you aren’t thinking clearly,” he said with a terseness. “You’ve had too much to drink tonight.”
Cat paused to consider that. “Maybe I have,” she admitted. “Lord knows, I’ve never been this brazen before. Maybe the alcohol has washed away my good sense. But I don’t recall appointing you to be my conscience.”
“Stop kidding yourself.” A thread of anger ran through his voice. “It isn’t me you want.”
A knifing pain twisted through her at his words. Cat fought it off with a defiant toss of her head. “Isn’t it?” she challenged him.
Since entering the hotel room, she had avoided his gaze. His height, his build, the darkness of his hair—they reminded her of Repp. But she couldn’t maintain the pretense when she looked into his gray eyes. Yet that didn’t stop the little thrill from tingling through her at the dark light smoldering in them.
“Tonight, you made me feel things I didn’t think I would feel again. Want things I didn’t think I’d ever want. For the first time in months, I feel alive. If that’s wrong…” She paused, her voice catching on a tiny sob. Anger was her only defense against the pain. “Why do you men have to be so damned noble? I hate this stupid code of honor that demands certain women be treated differently. Who asked you to do that? It sure as hell wasn’t a woman.”
In all the anger, he saw the emptiness that ached to be filled. It was something he understood, something he felt himself. His hands settled on her, and he lowered his head to brush his mouth across her lips, tasting her tremulous sigh.
“You’d better know that I don’t have any protection with me,” he warned in a thick murmur.
“I don’t care,” she whispered back. “All my life I’ve been protected. Someone else has always decided what’s best for me. But not anymore. Not tonight. Tonight I just want you to love me.”
It was a request all too easy to fulfill; he’d been loving her in his mind nearly all night. Discarding reason and caution, he gathered her to him as his mouth came back to devour her lips, swallowing her groan that echoed his own hunger.
She was filled with the taste of him. It turned her greedy and demanding, determined to satisfy this raw ache that seemed only to intensify. She strained even closer, trying to absorb him into her. His arms tightened around her like twin bands of steel binding her to him.
A moment later a hand tugged at the back of her blouse, pulling the material free from her jeans, then slipped under it to spread across her back. She breathed in sharply as little shudders traveled through her. His hand followed the curve of her spine, then glided to the front and cupped a lace-covered breast. Her flesh seemed to swell under his hand.
