hypnotic.
"I said that we'd go together," he told her. He swept her up, cocooned
in a tangle of sheet and quilt. He held her tightly against his body and
started for the door. Her arms wound around his neck. She stared at the
planes of his face and felt as if the soft magic of the moonbeams had
wrapped around her. She should have been screaming, protesting, bringing
down the house.
But she was not. Her fingers grazed his nape, and she felt absurdly
comfortable in his arms. He was dragging her out to the hay, she
thought, and she did not care.
Nor was there anything secretive or furtive about his action. He moved
with long strides and went down the stairway with little effort to be
quiet. He opened the front door, bracing her weight with one arm, then
let it close behind him. He stood on the porch and looked out into the
night. Then he stared at her, and she knew that she was smiling.
"Where am I heading?"
"I don't know."
"Where do the hands sleep?"
"In the bunkhouse, by the far barn."
"Then I want the first barn?" he demanded softly. She couldn't answer
him.
She wasn't sure what the question was. All she could think was that he
meant her to sleep in the hay.
She wasn't sure what else he meant for her to do there, but though she
was in his arms now, and though he carried her with a certain force, she
suddenly knew that what happened would be her choice. Still, he had
caught hold of something deep within her, and she wasn't angry.
She smiled again as she looked at him and told him primly, "You, sir,
are completely audacious." "Maybe," he said, and smiled in return. Then
it seemed they were locked there in the night, their eyes touching, and
something else touching maybe, with the tenderness of the laughter they
shared. Then the laughter faded.
He pulled her more tightly against him, higher within his arms. And as
she watched him, fascinated, in the glow of the moonbeams, his lips
parted upon hers, and the world seemed to explode as his kiss entered
into her.
Darkness swirled around her, and sensation took flight. She had to get
away from him. and quickly.
No. she had to stay. She was where she wanted to be. Exactly where she
wanted to be.
Chapter Eight.
He carried her, in the moonlit night, to the barn. He entered it and
laid her, in her cocoon of covers, in the rear of the building, where
soft alfalfa lay freed from its bales, ready to be tossed to the horses.
The smell of the hay was sweet, almost intoxicating.
He lay down beside her and brought the back of his hand against her
cheek, touching the length of it, as if he studied just her cheek and
found the form and texture both beautiful and fascinating. Then his
finger roamed over the damp fullness of her lip. He watched the movement
as he touched her, then his eyes met hers. She could still feel, in her
memo~j, in the pulse that seemed to beat throughout her, the touch of
his lips against hers. And yet when he kissed her again, though the feel
was poignant, she knew that he would move away when he did.
He lay back against the hay, staring at the rafters and the ceiling.
He groaned softly, then rolled suddenly, violently, to face her again.
He didn't touch her, but leaned on an elbow to stare at her
reproachfully.
"You couldn't have just arranged a room, for me, huh?"
"You couldn't have just stuck around for a while, huh?" ahe retorted.
He was ruining it, dissolving the moonbeams, destroying the moment she
had imagined and waited for.
He rolled on his back again.
"Go to your room," he told her.
"I had no right to drag you out here."
Tess leaped to her feet, her cheeks flaming, her body and soul in
torment.
She stared at him furiously.
"You have no right to do what you're doing now! To ruin everything!"
"To ruin everything?" He scowled.
"Tess! I'm trying damned hard to do the decent thing!" And she would
never know what an effort it was taking. He felt on fire, as if he
burned in a thousand hells. It had been all right before he touched her,
before he felt her lips parting beneath his.
Before he sensed her innocence and the sweet wildness beneath it, the
passion, the sensuality that simmered and swept beneath it all, that
promised heaven. She was different. He wasn't sure if he dared take her
all the way, because he knew it would mean fragile ties that might bind
him forever. He couldn't find a simple fascination in her beauty; it
would be more, and though he couldn't begin to define it, it was there.
He already slept with dreams of her haunting his mind; he never forgot
for a moment the way she had looked upon the rock, as naked as Eve, as
tempting as original sin.
"Tess, don't you see? I'm trying to let you go!" She paused, and it
seemed that she waited upon her toes, as if she would go or stay
according to the way the breeze came.
There was a curiously soft smile on her face, almost wistful, a look he
had seldom seen.
"What if I don't want to be let go?" she asked him very quietly, with a
breathless, melodic whisper. He wasn't sure he had really heard the
words.
Real or not, they ignited embers within him. He came to his feet and
looked at her across the small, shadowed distance that separated them.
He could almost reach out and touch her. If he did, he would be lost. If
he put his hands upon her now, he would never let her go.
"You have to make up your mind." He almost growled the words.
"No strings, no promises, no guarantees. You should run. You should run
from me just as fast as one of those thoroughbreds of yours."
"Why?"
She didn't move; she hadn't taken a step. There was a note of amusement
and challenge in her voice. Her chin was raised high; her eyes were
brilliant, nearly coal-black in the shadows. He forced himself to walk
around her, but that was a mistake. The moon was filtering through the
windows, and the light played havoc with the flannel gown she wore.
Light touched fabric, molded it, saw through it. He felt again the
softness of the woman he had held, and his hands itched to touch her
again. A hunger took root inside him, one that made him long to caress
and taste and know.
"Why?" He repeated her question.
The reasons were swiftly leaving his mind. If she was willing, he was
more than anxious to drown in the sweet depths of her fascinating
waters. He clenched his fingers and kept moving casually.
"Because we're in a barn, because I've the distinct feeling you don't
know what you're doing, because you're young and because you're probably
the type of woman who ought to fall in love, deeply in love, with the
right man, and have a band of gold, and all the rest. Because I'm the
hardened refuse of an ill-fated war, and though I don't mind a fight, I
wouldn't be looking for more than a lover."
She smiled.
"Lieutenant, what makes you think I'd be looking for anything more than
a lover?"
He almost groaned aloud. If she didn't leave soon. "Tess, I don't think
you know" -- "I'm twenty-four, Lieutenant. And just as much the refuse
of an ill-fated war as you are. That war taught me a great deal. You
can't always wait to seize what you want. Life is too short, too quickly
severed."
She was smiling still, and there was something poignant about her words
that caught hold of his heart. He had never seen her more beautiful,
more feminine, more arresting. Her eyes were wide; her smile was gentle;
her still form was compelling in the flannel that was draped over her