She feared he could.
She shouted, but the same breeze that blew his hair away from his face blew her voice into nothingness. He put his hands on the wheels. She screamed and waved her arms. He gave himself a push. She sprinted down the hill. His chair careened forward. Leaning into it, he concentrated, controlling his downhill ride as if it were a sport and he the master. Panting, Sylvan dashed to intercept him. Clumps of grass flew back under the force of his wheels as he neared the drop-off. He shouted his determination, and the sound moved her to a greater effort. She sprang at him just as he realized she was there. He jerked himself sideways; she hit the chair with all the force of her body. He flew out of his seat, and they hit the ground hard.
Everything stopped.
All sound—the creak of the wheelchair, the pounding of her feet, his laughter, her panting, the whistle of the wind—stopped. His reckless plummet, her mad dash, ended with the taste of grass and the slap of dirt. Opening her eyes, she saw a blur of green and brown under her cheek. Beneath her, she felt the rise of Rand’s chest beneath his white shirt as he tried to get air. Was he hurt? Had she injured him in her rush to save him?
She pushed herself up by her hands, but something slammed her back onto his body.
His arm. It cut across her back like a steel blade. “Damn you, Sylvan Miles.” His voice rasped with agony and fury. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
“Yes.” She tried to crawl forward, but he wouldn’t let her. Then she tried to crawl backward, and that he permitted. She moved until they were face-to-face. Fury narrowed his eyes, and he pressed his lips into a thin line as she reiterated, “Yes. I know what I’ve done. I’ve saved a good man’s life.”
“Not a good man’s life. My life.”
She hated it, that he should so doubt his own value, and she blurted, “You’re not doing it.”
His chest began to rise and fall with large breaths beneath her. “Doing what?”
“Assaulting those women.”
The pupils of his eyes widened, swallowing the blue of his iris. His hand slid around to her throat and he circled it with his fingers. “How could I assault any woman from a wheelchair?”
She swallowed and felt the pressure of his grip, but it was too late to back down now. “You’re walking in your sleep.”
Anguish, horror, and fury followed in quick succession on his face. “Who told you that?”
“No one. I realized it by myself.”
“Did you see me?”
“No, but I saw the dirt in your bed.”
The hand at her throat shook. “And how many people did you tell?”
She almost answered, then rage gusted through her. “What kind of woman do you think I am?”
“Just like every other woman in the world.” He caught her jaw in his grip. “Loose-lipped and fast-tongued.”
Pointing toward the edge of the cliff, she said, “I just saved your miserable life.”
“For what?” He pulled his hand away as if he couldn’t stand to touch her. “To have me committed to Bedlam?”
“No! Because you’re not crazy, just…” She didn’t know just what he was. She didn’t understand what was happening to him, but she’d never met anyone so sane. She thought that somehow, his nocturnal wanderings were part of his healing, but how could she say so with any assurance? She, who was so ignorant that men had died under her care.
Rapidly, she said, “I don’t know why or how you’re walking at night, but I know you didn’t attack those women.”
“Why do you know that?” he asked scornfully.
“Because I want to do this.” Driven to desperation, she mashed her mouth on his briefly, then lifted her head. “Would I kiss you if I feared you would hurt me? Would I make myself vulnerable to you?”
Impatiently, he caught the back of her neck. “Perhaps you’re as crazy as I am.”
“Perhaps I am, but it was midnight when I saw the ghost walk.”
“What?” His fingers spasmed.
She winced and he let her go as if she burned him. “On the first night I was here, I saw the ghost. Remember? But it wasn’t a ghost, it was you, I know that now. You were in the halls, and I saw you. God, I’ll never forget.” Closing her eyes, she raised the vision in her mind. “You wore a white gown—your nightgown. The man who attacked Pert was dressed in black.”
“How do you know that?” he demanded.
Her eyes popped open. “She told us that day at the mill.”
He hesitated as if tempted to believe, then shook his head. “That scarcely proves my innocence.”
“Did you wake with dirt on your feet the next morning?”
“No, but my legs ached as they always do when I walk.” He shifted again as if he were uncomfortable, but when she tried to remove herself from on top of him, he stopped her.
So he wanted to keep her perched over him. Loosening his grip on life had not been easy for Rand Malkin, and she vowed to place it in his grasp once more. “You walked, but you never left the house.”
“How do you know that?” He sneered, but clearly, hope began to stir in him.
“Because Pert said it wasn’t yet fully dark when she was attacked.” He would have objected, but she leaned forward and pressed her finger to his lips. “And that evening, you will recall, you summoned me to remove a splinter from your hand. It was almost eleven o’clock before I left you that night, and I saw you walking in the hall as the clock struck twelve.” He frowned, thinking, calculating, and she insisted, “I was with you until the darkness was full, and when I saw you again, you had had no time to go out, assault a woman, and return.”
Beneath her, he began to tremble. He didn’t yet believe it, but she could see he wanted to. Clearly, she said, “Someone had seen you, realized your vulnerability, and for some reason sought to convince you you’re both insane and brutal. But it’s not you who’s insane and brutal. It was never you.” Clasping her hand to his shoulders, she pleaded with him. “Oh, please, can’t you believe? For if you were to throw yourself off a cliff—”
“If I were to throw myself off a cliff, I would never be able to give you the reward you so richly deserve.”
She leaned back with a sigh. “You do believe.”
His grin was barbaric. “I do.” If he could, she knew, he would run and jump and shout his jubilation. Instead he was earthbound, and restlessly he sought another way to celebrate. His hands roamed her arms, her back, then cupped her face. Firmly he brought her back to him and kissed her, first on each cheek, then on the nose, then on the lips. “You’ve saved my life,” he whispered. “Now I’m yours forever.”
She chuckled, weak and too relieved for words, and he took advantage of her frailty. With murmurs and urgings, he coaxed her to open her lips to him, and when she did his tongue created sensations made of texture and taste. Outside her, the ocean swept the world with its currents. Inside her, Rand swept her responses with his expertise. She breathed with him, moaned with him, ached with him. How could he do so much with a touch? How could she feel so much and want more?
Perhaps she shouldn’t want, but a tide of thankfulness rose inexorably in her. He was safe. She had done that. She had saved a life—his life. She had proved herself worthy of love, and she wanted to share her exultation with someone. With Rand.
Then something slithered around her neck. Cool morning air slipped in close, and when she sat up, she realized why. The neck of her dress gaped and one shoulder peeked out. He’d unhooked her while he kissed, and she grabbed at the material.
He watched her with eyes that shone with admiration. “Just let me see.”
Nervously, she licked her lips.
“If you’re really not afraid of me, let me see.”
She recognized his stratagem. He was using her compassion to manipulate her, to whip up the fire within him. But his self-destructive flame had been swallowed by passion’s conflagration, and passion was for those who survived.
She had dreamed of this. Perha
ps she would never have allowed herself the pleasure if not for the circumstances, but now, one by one, with fingers that fumbled, she slid her sleeves over her arms.
His gaze lingered on her breasts, still hidden by a sheer cotton chemise. Slowly, very slowly, he reached out with his fingers. She had the chance to retreat. Indeed, a lingering sense of modesty urged her to. But some of his misery had been replaced with anticipation, so she let him pet the highest point. “Immodest women wear no chemise,” he said.
“I shall make a note of that.” She watched as he traced the dark circle of her aureole. Immodest surely must describe her, for as the sun came up, she sat in the middle of a glen and let a man touch her, and she enjoyed it. He urged her back down on top of him and she resisted—not because she feared him, but because she wanted him to stroke her some more. Then he lifted his head and caught her still-covered nipple into his mouth. He sucked, drawing all the stiffness, all the restraint, all the propriety from her and leaving only a wild tumble of sensation. Pleasure sped from that one tiny point to her curling toes, to the tips of her fingers, to a place deep inside her.
She collapsed on top of him, sure that this assuredly must promote her from immodest to wanton.
“Let me see,” he urged again.
She complied quickly, lowering her chemise to her waist. She didn’t want him to change his mind, but from the glow on his face, she suspected he had no such intention.
Hoarsely, he said, “I wondered what they would look like. I’ve peeked from the top and maneuvered you so the sun shone on those fine thin dresses you wear and the wind pressed the cloth against every ripple, but nothing could prepare me for this.” Cupping them, he murmured, “Beautiful.” Pulling her back to his mouth, he suckled on one, and sensation washed over her. Little moans escaped her, when she shivered, and he chuckled. “And tasty.”
She suffered a pang of chagrin.
“What?” he asked.
“Are you laughing at me?”
“Am I laughing at you?” He chuckled again but with less humor this time. “I’m flat on my back, clad in yesterday’s garb, incapable of moving, relying on an exquisite girl to ravish me, for I can’t seduce her. I can’t hold her, sweep her along with my passion, give her the benefit of my years of practice—practice for just this moment, may I add. Am I laughing at you?” He shook his head. “No, I’m waiting for you to dance away, sniggering at the man who dared dream of loving you.”
Tears sprang to her eyes at his vulnerability. “We’re a pair, aren’t we?”
The rage of their passion faded, replaced by tenderness. The caress of his arms across her bare back made her twist and sigh.
“Even if you dance away,” he whispered, “I will still be grateful. You’ve given me hope and a chance to start anew.” The caress of his hands strengthened, and he shifted her until she matched him chest and hip. “But if you stay, little elf, I’ll show you magic of my own.”
The sun cast his face in rugged peaks and valleys, and she daringly touched the hollow of his cheek with one finger. “If you want me, I’ll stay.”
He rewarded her with a smile of considerable charm. “A touch from your finger means more to me than all the rapture the world has to offer.”
“Then why are your hands sliding under my skirt?”
“I want to give you just as much rapture.”
She recognized balderdash when she heard it. “Someone warned me about men like you.”
“Your mother?”
“No.” She moved under his urging until her knees wrapped around his hips. “Hibbert.”
He chuckled. Then she adjusted herself, and he groaned. “God rest Hibbert, he kept you safe for me.” He rubbed her back until the position seemed less awkward and she relaxed.
Then he tried to push her to sit up, and she buried her head in his shoulder. “It’s not very elegant, is it?”
Beneath her, she felt him struggle against his laughter, and she turned her head and stared indignantly.
“It? Are we going to call it, ‘it’?”
“What else would you suggest?”
“How about—” She covered his mouth with her hand, but he bit her palm lightly. “That’s not what I was going to say,” he reproved. “If you know that word, you’ve associated with too many soldiers. I was going to call it ‘a delight fit for the gods.’ Or perhaps, ‘the most magnificent experience of my life.’”
She couldn’t help but ask suspiciously, “When did you learn to be charming?”
“Long before I learned to be surly.” He traced the curve of her lips with his fingertip. “As for elegance—it’s not. It’s sweaty and noisy and I’ll make it so good for you, you won’t care. Sit up, darling, and feel me against you.”
Walking her hands down his chest toward his stomach, she did as he instructed. He was there, full, hard, extended, under her pelvis. She pressed herself to him, and he closed his eyes as if he were in pain. “Am I hurting you?” She tried to lift off.
Grabbing her, he held her in place. “Exquisite agony.” The dark ruffles of his eyelashes rested against his cheeks, incongruously feminine on the starkly masculine face.
Sylvan wanted him always to look this way—wanting yet satisfied, desperate yet contented. Nature herself incited Sylvan to bravery. Seabirds rose from their nests and called encouragement, demonstrating promiscuity in their freewheeling flight. The scent of damp grass and fertile earth rose, a gift to the sun as it touched them.
She touched Rand all along his length, warming him as if she were the sun. His eyes sprang open and he stared at her, then he said, “You puzzle me. You’re all bold, then all shy. But here.” He shifted her up. “Let me solve the puzzle.”
His fingers found the slit in her drawers and he touched her until she squealed and jumped back.
He caught her swiftly. “Don’t you know how this works?” he asked.
“Yes.” She did. She just hadn’t expected it to be so… intimate. She knew where to find paradise, but it was discerning to realize he knew, also. And so expeditiously. Were all women built in a similar manner?
He answered the question before she could ask it. “Not all women are so sensitive—or so bashful.” His forehead wrinkled as he thought. “Perhaps it would be better if I just looked first.”
“No!” Looked? “Never.”
He meditated more. “Would you be more comfortable if I tasted you first?”
“No!”
“I tasted your breasts, and you liked it.”
“It’s not the same.” She struggled to explain, but his slight smile blocked her. “You’re teasing me.”
“Try me and see.”
He’d do it, too. He might find her discomfiture amusing, but she didn’t have a doubt that this wicked man would love to look, taste, and touch in any manner and for as long as he could. And she’d enjoy it, too, because he promised she would.
He pouted, trying to look like an injured boy while his body proclaimed him the rogue stallion. “Let me touch you,” he coaxed.
When presented with the alternatives, she nodded.
She’d given permission, and his impertinent fingers took full advantage. “I like this,” he said. “We’ll have to come here often and—”
“No, we won’t.”
“I’ll convince you.”
He sounded very sure of himself, and she supposed he was correct. Right now, he could convince her of anything, and without saying a word. He dabbed at her delicately. Smidgens of enchantment, strokes of genius. Everything throbbed with the rhythm of her heart, and what had started as too much soon became not enough.
She must appear positively lustful, with her chemise and bodice bunched at her waist and her skirt pulled up to meet them, and her drawers pulled open while she straddled a man. A man with one arm bent under his head. A man who looked young, delighted, relaxed.
That was worth the sacrifice…if she could call it a sacrifice.
His fingers searched and pressed, and a moan whi
spered out of her.
He chuckled. “That sound means I’m doing it right. That means you like this. You do like this. Don’t you?”
If what he said was true, he already knew the answer, but he asked again.
“Don’t you?”
What difference would the word make?
“Don’t you?”
His hand dropped away, and she said, “Yes!”
“I wouldn’t want it said I forced you.”
The movements of his fingers ravished her beyond caring. Her nipples tightened, her fingers and toes clenched, she tossed her head back and looked at the sky. She’d never come so close to flying.
“A little more, dear. A little higher.” His every guidance had steered her along the path to paradise.
“Relax. Give yourself up to it.”
The wind blew across her skin, the sun caressed her with its brightest morning rays, and she concentrated on getting higher, relaxing, giving herself up to it—whatever it was.
Then it caught her in a spasm, lifted her, proved Rand’s skill while pushing her to new limits. She hung onto him as if he could keep her on the ground when in fact he pushed her ever upward.
She loved it. She reveled in it. She wanted more and more, seeking it with greed and appetite, and he used his skill to give her all she demanded, and more.
Then it faded. Slowly, the pulsation eased, and she again became aware of the sun, the sea, the air….
Taking a breath—surely her first breath since Rand had kissed her breasts—she tried to remember her customary demeanor. For some reason, she longed to look normal, as if she found ecstasy every day.
Rand wanted none of that. He reached for her, murmuring, “Come here.” Catching her arms, he brought her back down to him, pressing her head onto his chest. She could hear his heart thundering, although she couldn’t comprehend why. He hadn’t experienced what she had. Yet he smirked and she wanted to ask him, as soon as she got her voice back, why he acted so satisfied.
But the screech of a raucous bird interrupted her before she could speak, and Rand said, “Damn!” He roughly tumbled her off of him on the far side, and when she tried to crane her neck to see around him he said, “Get down!”