Honor Bound(15)

Aislinn got out on her side and stretched her cramped muscles. "Are we under some kind of deadline?"

"Yes. We're under a deadline." His grim tone advised her to hold her peace and not pursue the subject. After a while, he shook his head and heaved a sigh of resignation. "As long as we're stuck here, we might just as well make use of the time and get some sleep. Get in the back seat."

"I'm not sleepy," she said sullenly.

"Get in the back seat anyway."

His voice rolled over the desert like ominous, distant thunder. Aislinn gave him a murderous look, but she obeyed him. Leaving all the car doors open save one in the back seat, he got in behind her. Settling himself into the corner against the door, he spread his thighs wide and, before she knew what he was going to do, pulled her between them.

"Let me go," she demanded, outraged. She squirmed against him, but since that only served to better acquaint her bottom with the fly of his jeans, she stopped.

"I'm going to sleep. And so are you." He situated her back against his chest and wrapped his arms around her. They felt like bands of steel crisscrossing just beneath her breasts. It was an extremely unnerving position, though not painful. Not even uncomfortable, if she would let herself relax against him. Which she wouldn't.

"I can't go roaming off in the desert, Greywolf. Let me go."

"Not a chance. Unless you'd rather be tied to the steering wheel."

"Where would I go if I escaped?"

"If I've learned one thing about you, it is that you are a resourceful lady."

"We're in the middle of nowhere. It's dark."

"There's a moon."

Yes, she had noticed. And there were stars, the likes of which she'd never seen. They were huge and bright and close, not city stars at all. At any other time, she could have admired this night, savored it, let its magnificence embrace her, and enjoyed her smallness when compared to it.

But she wanted nothing about this night to be beautiful. She wanted to remember only the horror of it later. "I'd be a fool to strike out on my own, even if I knew where I was and could get away from you."

"Which I'm making certain you won't do. Now, for your own good, be still."

The tenseness underlying his warning alerted her to other things as well. Like the tremors vibrating through the arms that supported her breasts. Like the pressure at the small of her back. She swallowed, denying to herself what that could mean.

"Please don't do this." She was willing to swallow her pride and plead with him, because she didn't think she could stand to be this close to him all through the night. Not because she disliked it so much, but because she didn't dislike it nearly enough. "Let me go."

"No."

Knowing that it was useless, she stopped trying to change his mind. But she refused to relax. Her back was as stiff as a board against his chest. Before long her neck began to ache from the tension of maintaining the small distance between them. Not until she thought he was asleep, did she let her head fall back onto his shoulder.

"You're very stubborn, Aislinn Andrews."

Aislinn closed her eyes and gnashed her teeth, knowing that he'd been privy to her stubbornness and her final surrender. He'd probably waited her out deliberately. "If you'd loosen your arms I could breathe easier."

"Or reach for the knife." They lay in silence, then he said, "You are one of few."

"Few what?"

"Women that I've spent more than one night with."

"Don't expect me to be flattered."

"I don't. I'm sure an Anglo virgin like you can't imagine anything worse than having an Indian between her lily white thighs."

"You're unspeakably vulgar. And I'm not a virgin."

"Have you been married?"

"No."

"Then you lived with a man?"

"No."

"Affairs?"

"None of your business."

She would rather die than have him know that there had been only one. Hardly worth mentioning. It had been a terribly disappointing experience that she had engaged in mainly to satisfy her curiosity.

Between her and the man, there had been only mild affection, little communication, no warmth or closeness, nor even much passion. Afterward, she had been disillusioned and disappointed and imagined that her partner had been as well.

She had never risked that kind of awkward encounter again and recently had begun to think that she simply wasn't sexually inclined. The men she went out with tried, but none stirred even enough interest for her to pursue the relationship beyond dinner dates and an occasional good-night kiss.

Rather than talk about her love life, or lack thereof, she asked him, "What about you? How many affairs of the heart have you had?"

But either he had dropped off to sleep or he ignored her. In any event, no answer was forthcoming.

* * *

She snuggled closer to the warmth.

A soft growl, like the purr of a great cat, echoed through the waking chambers of her mind. She stirred and when her brain began to piece together the information her senses were sending she came suddenly awake and her eyes popped open.

"Oh my God," she cried.

"No, that's my line," he groaned.