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“Yes, yes, you are. Please, Cooper, stop this. You don’t know—”
“What I’m saying? Yes, I do. I know exactly what I’m saying.” He looked directly into her eyes. “I could kiss your nipples for a week and never get tired of doing it.”
The whiskey huskiness of his voice barely made the words audible, but Rusty heard them. They intoxicated her. She swayed unsteadily under their impact. She whimpered and shut her eyes in the hopes of blocking out the outrageous words and the mental pictures they inspired.
His tongue moving over her flesh, soft and wet, tender and ardent, rough and exciting.
Her eyes popped open and she glared at him defensively. “Don’t you dare speak to me like that.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like it.”
He gave her a smug and skeptical smile. “You don’t like me telling you how I’ve wanted to put my hands all over you? How I’ve fantasized about your thighs being opened for me? How I’ve lain in that damn bed night after night listening to your breathing and wanting to be so deep inside you that—”
“Stop it!” Rusty leaped from her chair and pushed past him, trying to make good an escape out the door of the cabin. She would survive the bitter cold far better than she would his heat.
Cooper was too quick for her. She never reached the door. Before she’d taken two steps, he had her locked in an inescapable embrace. He arched her back as he bent over her. His breath struck her fearful features hotly.
“If it was my destiny to be stranded in this godforsaken place, why did it have to be with a woman who looked like you? Huh?” He shook her slightly as though expecting a logical explanation. “Why’d you have to be so damn beautiful? Sexy? Have a mouth designed for loving a man?”
Rusty tried to wiggle free. “I don’t want this. Let me go.”
“Why couldn’t I be trapped here with someone ugly and sweet? Somebody I could have in bed and not live to regret it. Somebody who would be grateful for my attention. Not a shallow little tart who gets off by driving men crazy. Not a socialite. Not you.”
“I’m warning you, Cooper.” Gritting her teeth, she struggled against him.
“Somebody far less attractive, but useful. A woman who could cook.” He smiled nastily. “I’ll bet you cook all right. In bed. That’s where you cook. I’ll bet that’s where you serve up your best dishes.”
He slid his hands over her buttocks and brought her up hard against himself, thrusting his hips forward and making contact with her lower body.
“Does it give you a thrill, knowing you do that to me?”
It gave her a thrill, but not the kind of which he spoke. This intimacy with his hardness stole her breath. She grabbed his shoulders for support. Her eyes clashed with his. For seconds, they held there.
Then Rusty broke their stare and shoved him away. She despised him for putting her through this. But she was also ashamed of her own, involuntary reaction to everything he’d said. It had been fleeting, but for a moment there, her choice could have gone either way.
“Keep away from me,” she said in a voice that trembled with purpose. “I mean it. If you don’t, I’ll turn that knife you gave me on you. Do you hear me? Don’t lay a hand on me again.” She strode past him and threw herself face down on her bed, using the coarse sheet to cool her fevered cheeks.
Cooper was left standing in the center of the room. He raised both hands and plowed them through his long hair, painfully raking it back off his face. Then he slunk back to his chair in front of the fireplace and picked up the jug and his tin cup.
When Rusty dared to glance at him, he was still sitting there morosely sipping the whiskey.
She panicked the following morning when she saw that his bed hadn’t been slept in. Had he wandered out during the night? Had something terrible happened to him? Throwing off the covers—she didn’t remember pulling them up over herself last night—she raced across the floor and flung open the door.
She slumped against the jamb in relief when she saw Cooper. He was splitting logs. The sky was clear. The sun was shining. What had been icicles hanging from the eaves the day before were now incessant drips. The temperature was comparatively mild. Cooper wasn’t even wearing his coat. His shirttail was hanging out loose, and when he turned around Rusty saw that his shirt was unbuttoned.
He spotted her, but said nothing as he tossed several of the split logs onto the mounting pile near the edge of the porch. His face had a greenish cast and there were dark crescents beneath his bloodshot eyes.
Rusty stepped back inside, but left the door open to let in fresh air. It was still cold, but the sunshine had a cleansing effect. It seemed to dispel the hostility lurking in the shadows of the cabin.
Hastily Rusty rinsed her face and brushed her hair. The fire in the stove had gone out completely. By now she was skilled at adding kindling and starting a new one. In minutes she had one burning hot enough to boil the coffee.
For a change, she opened a canned ham and fried slices of it in a skillet. The aroma of cooking pork made her mouth water; she hoped it would tantalize Cooper’s appetite, too. Instead of oatmeal, she cooked rice. She would have traded her virtue for a stick of margarine. Fortunately she didn’t have an opportunity to barter it, so she settled for drizzling the ham drippings over the rice, which miraculously came out just right.
Splurging, she opened a can of peaches, put them in a bowl, and set them on the table with the rest of the food. She could no longer hear the crunching sound of splitting logs, so she assumed Cooper would be in shortly.
She was right. He came in moments later. His gait was considerably more awkward than usual. While he was washing his hands at the sink, Rusty took two aspirin tablets from the first-aid kit and laid them on his plate.
