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It was the way he'd taken her that morning, the way he'd almost taken her last night... and yet, this would be different. For all the swiftness of their desire, all the raw, primal urgency, Alex felt a sweetness to it now. It made her tremble. She'd wanted Travis to teach her what a woman could feel, but she felt more, in his arms. She felt—she felt...
He put her from him so abruptly that she almost fell. Her eyes flew open. She looked at him through the mist of her tears and saw a face that might have been chiseled from granite.
"You see, Princess? You were wrong. Truth is, I could still be of some service to you, if I wanted." He smiled coldly. "You think about that tonight, Ms. Thorpe, after you and your `dinner date' come back here for a round of fun and games. Think about it, and about me, while you're in bed and he's—"
Her fist whirred through the air, connected cleanly with his jaw. Travis was caught off guard. His head jerked back and a spot of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. Alex gasped for breath as she watched him put his finger to the cut.
"Get out," she whispered hoarsely. "Do you hear me? Get out! Get—"
She looked around wildly, grabbed the only thing near at hand and hurled it at his head but her aim with the lamp wasn't as good as with her fist. It hit the wall and shattered into a score of pieces.
Travis laughed and strolled way. "Have a pleasant evening, Ms. Thorpe," he said, and slammed the door after him.
"Bastard," Alex yelled, "you no good bastard!"
She spun around, grabbed her robe and put it on. Who did he think he was? Did he really imagine he could treat her this way and get away with it?
She needed—what? A drink. She never drank, she hated the taste of whiskey but by God, a drink was what she needed now, to get the taste of Travis Baron out of her mouth. And then she'd shower.
No. No, first she'd rid the room of any trace of the most despicable man she'd ever known.
She marched to the bed, stripped off the sheets and pillowcases and carried them to the marble fireplace on the other side of the bedroom. She wouldn't sully the hamper with them, or even the washer.
Grimly, she dumped the stuff on the grate and opened the flue.
"Goodbye, Mr. Baron," she said, as she struck a match.
And goodbye to whatever insanity had possessed her to have wanted him in the first place.
The pale blue linens went up in a satisfying blaze. Within minutes, nothing remained but ashes. Alex sat back on her heels. Fire was cleansing. Wasn't that what people said?
Well, she thought, as she closed the fire screen and got to her feet, she felt cleansed.
She stripped off her robe, kicked it into a corner and went into the bathroom.
The only true words Travis had spoken were the ones about her being an adult. She was an adult, free to do what she chose, even if what she chose was stupid. She'd done something she'd always regret but there wasn't much sense in brooding over it. Besides, in today's world, having sex with a man you never intended to see again wasn't exactly a crime.
Alex doubled over and clutched the rim of the sink.
What was the sense in pretending? She'd never forgive herself for today. Never. Not for sleeping with Travis, although that was bad enough. What she'd never forgive herself for was still wanting him, at the end. Even after she'd had time to come to her senses, even after the terrible things he'd said, she'd wanted him. If he'd carried her to the bed. she'd have gone willingly. She'd have trembled in his arms again, cried out his name again, done all those things again...
Alex moaned and jammed her fist against her mouth.
Getting Travis Baron out of her bed had turned out to be easy. Getting him out of her head, it seemed, was going to be just a little more difficult.
Halfway along the road that led down through Eagle Canyon, Travis snarled an obscenity, downshifted so abruptly that the gears protested and pulled the Porsche onto the dirt shoulder.
"Dammit to hell," he growled, and slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel.
He'd managed to look nonchalant when he'd strolled out of Alex's bedroom but the truth was, his gut was churning the way it had before his first bull ride, twenty years ago. He knew he had to calm down. The road was narrow and curving, with enough blind spots to make even him wary, and he'd been storming along it at a speed he didn't even want to think about. There was no sense in killing himself or, worse still, some other poor soul just because he was so angry at Alex that he could hardly think straight.
One of them was crazy, and it sure wasn't him.
Travis snorted. Who was he kidding? She was nuts, yeah, but so was he. And he didn't like the feeling, not one bit.
A while ago, she'd been like a wildcat in his arms. He'd never known anything like it and the immodest truth was that he was a man who'd known a lot of hot, wild women. But there'd been more to this woman than heat. Her hesitancy, her shy yet eager reactions to everything he'd done and said, had been different from anything he'd ever experienced.
