Honor Bound(68)

"Not in the sense you mean, but at that point in time, if anything could have overpowered me, it would have been a beautiful woman. You totally disarmed me. Why do you think I picked up that knife?"

"Did you think I was beautiful?" She glanced at him through a screen of demure lashes.

"Fishing?"

"Yes, husband. I'll never get tired of the compliments you continually shower on me." Her sarcasm was softened with a smile.

He had the grace to smile back. "I do think you're beautiful. But do you want to know what I thought when I first saw you?"

"Yes. What did you think?"

"Damn it all."

"What?"

"That's what I thought. Damn it all. Why did you have to be gorgeous and have the body and face of an angel? I wanted to curse you to perdition for looking the way you did. If you had been a man I would have clipped you on the chin and fled. Or if Miss Aislinn Andrews had been ugly, I would have tied her up, eaten her bread and sausage, drunk her milk, possibly stolen her car, and then hightailed it out of there."

"You did all that … but you spent the night, too."

He slanted a look down at her. "Even when I knew that multiplied my chances of getting caught."

"Why, Lucas?" Her fingers strummed his hard, flat stomach.

"Because I wanted to sleep with you."

She sucked in a short little breath. "Oh."

"But all the time I was wanting you, I hated myself for wanting you."

"Scruples?"

He laughed robustly. Aislinn loved the deep, rich sound still new to her ears. "Hardly. I've never had many scruples when it came to women."

"That's odd."

"Why?"

"After what happened to Alice."

He frowned. "I made sure I never got a woman pregnant." She gazed up at him inquiringly, and he gave her a rueful smile. "Except once."

They kissed.

"That time I wasn't thinking about anything but this." He touched her lower body, letting his fingers luxuriate in the soft, tawny hair. "I never took advantage of any woman. Until you. You were the exception to every rule I'd ever imposed on myself."

"It seems that way. I'm very glad. But why did you hate yourself for wanting me?"

"I didn't want to feel such desperate desire for any woman, much less an Anglo."

She looked pleased. "That's what you were feeling, a 'desperate desire'?"

"Yes," he admitted in a hoarse voice.

"The whole time we were together?"

He nodded seriously.

"And all that about my being your insurance policy?"

"Was my flimsy rationalization. Crazy as it was, I wanted to keep you with me. I felt guilty about disrupting your life and dragging you into that mess, but…" He gave a helpless shrug. "I couldn't bring myself to let you go even though all along I was so afraid you'd get hurt." He laid his hand on her throat and rubbed the soft skin. "I guess you got hurt anyway, didn't you?"

"I don't think so."

"Is that true, Aislinn?"

"That's true."

"God, I don't know why you haven't murdered me in my sleep."

She smiled down at him. "Because I was counting on that desperate desire still being there."

"It is. More desperate than ever." He wound her hair around his hand and, holding her head stilt for his fervent kiss, rolled her to her back.

After a lengthy kiss that left her breathless, she said, "We could have been doing this for weeks if you weren't so damned stubborn. You never give an inch, do you?"

He grinned lecherously. "Right now I know of several inches I could give you."

She pulled his hair by way of punishment for his ribaldry, but then she giggled. "I can't believe you actually made a joke."

"I can be extremely funny."

"With everyone but me. With me you're hardheaded and unbending. You can't be humorous because you're too busy being defensive about what happened that morning at Alice's house." He tensed up and started to move away, but she locked her arms across the small of his back. "You stay right where you are, Lucas Greywolf."

"I shamed myself."

"You needed me." The very softness with which she said it arrested his defensive reaction. "Needing someone is nothing to be ashamed of. Why is it so difficult for you to admit that you need another person occasionally, Lucas? None of us is entirely self-sufficient." Her finger touched his lips lovingly. "I liked being needed by you that morning. I wasn't offended by what you did. I was only sorry you didn't let me participate more."

She raised her head off the pillow and kissed him. At first he was resistant, but as her mouth continued to move over his, he began to thaw. When her head reclined on the pillow again, he followed it down and showed her just how much he needed her.

Later her hands glided down his sweat-dampened back, past his waist to his buttocks. "Do you hear something?"

"Yes," he mumbled into her neck. "My heart. It's still pounding."

She smiled against his shoulder, biting it softly, loving even the slightest trace of vulnerability he demonstrated. "Mine is pounding, too. But I was referring to something else."