Tyler was holding on to her control with every last ragged shred of her pride, and the strain was obvious in her thin voice. “There’s nothing to talk about, Kane.” She lifted her chin and managed a bright smile. “You’ve made your choice, and that’s fine. Sorry you have to be penned up here with me, but—”
“What?” He stared down at her, frowning. For an instant he had no idea what she was talking about, but then it hit him. Struggling with his own worry about how to handle her fear, he hadn’t stopped to consider that she might view his careful distance as a rejection. But she obviously had, and he realized now that he couldn’t have picked a worse time to draw back no matter what his reasons were.
She had told him about being raped, about a boyfriend who had considered her “damaged goods,” and Kane had withdrawn from her physically. God, he should have held her then, comforted her the way he’d wanted to.
“I don’t blame you,” she said in a light tone that didn’t hide the stark control. “Really. I—”
“Hell,” Kane growled, and abruptly slid his hands down her back to her hips. He yanked her against him, widening his legs and holding her against him so she could feel the hard ridge of desire. “Does that feel like I don’t want you anymore?” he demanded roughly, ignoring the hands that were braced against his chest. “You’ve been driving me crazy since the day we met, and nothing’s changed that.”
Tyler caught her breath as he moved against her and heat bloomed deep inside her. She was staring up at him, at the vibrant green fire in his eyes, and the fierce need she saw there made her body tremble with desire and relief. But even then, she was fighting the feelings, holding her upper body away from him and struggling to control the wild sensations inside her.
She opened her mouth to voice a desperate protest, but Kane’s head bent and his lips covered hers. And this time he took her mouth, possessed it with deliberation, his tongue invading with an utter certainty of her response. She couldn’t smother the moan as pleasure jolted through her, or prevent her hands from sliding up to grip his shoulders convulsively.
The protest was still there, in her mind, but the response of her body to him was overwhelming and she was helpless against it. When he finally lifted his head, she was trembling, shaken, her breath coming swiftly.
Kane drew a deep breath, and for an instant held her even more tightly against him. Then he drew away and guided her to sink down on the mattress. He saw her eyes widen, but he made no effort to press her back onto the sleeping bag, to continue what he’d started. Instead he sat down and leaned back against the bulkhead, saying nothing until his own breathing steadied and he could speak in a careful, even voice.
“You have to face it, Tyler.”
She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, staring at him. She felt baffled and uneasy. “Face what?”
“Your fear.”
Her chin lifted. “I told you before—I’m not afraid of you! I hate that, I hate being afraid—”
“I know.” His voice remained steady. “That’s why you can’t admit it to yourself. It’s the one fear you’ve never been able to fight. Even to face.”
Only vaguely conscious of a flicker of panic, she snapped, “It isn’t fear. I just don’t trust you, that’s all.”
“You do trust me, Ty, when it counts. When it matters. You’ve slept in my arms, trusting as a child, and unconscious certainty is the deepest kind. All the tricks in the past, they were part of a game we both played, and that didn’t matter.”
“Kane—”
He went on inexorably. “Then we crossed that line you were talking about, and the games were over. I’d gotten too close, and it was too late for you to run. You found out you couldn’t control your need for me, and it scared the hell out of you. So you decided that you didn’t trust me, and didn’t want an enemy in your bed. A defense, Ty. A mental defense against something you couldn’t physically control.”
“I was telling the truth!” she cried.
“You tricked yourself,” he said flatly. “Don’t you see? It isn’t mistrust. It’s what happened to you ten years ago. Your body’s forgotten the pain, but your mind hasn’t. And you can’t make the choice you need to make—until you face the reality that you’re terrified of sex.”
Tyler felt as if he’d hit her. She drew in a breath sharply, staring at him. “No. No, you said that wasn’t it. You said the way I—the way I responded to you meant that wasn’t it.”
“I was wrong.” His voice had softened. “The body heals and forgets pain, but the mind never does, Ty. It never forgets pain or fear unless it’s taught to.” He sighed roughly. “Honey, you’ve taught your mind to fight everything else that bastard left you with. You’ve learned to defend yourself, to face danger coolly, to overcome all the fears—except one.”
“It was an act of violence.” She was very cold, and her voice shook. “Not sex. I know the difference.”
“How can you?”
The soft question was stark in the quiet of the cabin, and the motion of the ship was slight. There was no excuse she could grasp now, no distraction to avoid facing this—truth. She sat stiffly, her eyes burning with the tears that had never been shed, and his low voice was shattering the last, deepest defense, the one she hadn’t even been consciously aware of.
“Ten years, Tyler. You’re a beautiful, desirable woman, and in ten years you’ve never let a man close enough to touch you.”
“You,” she whispered.
“I was an enemy, not a man.” His lips quirked in an odd smile. “I was . . . safe.”
To label Kane “safe” was the most absurd thing she’d ever heard, but Tyler understood what he meant. All the violently negative emotions he’d stirred in her had blinded her to the reality that he stirred positive ones inside her, as well. Until it was too late. Until the needs of her body and her emotional confusion had made escape impossible.
And now . . .
Kane hesitated, hurt by the frozen whiteness of her face, the blank desolation in her eyes. Primitive terrors were the most deeply buried, corroding fears of all, and after ten years Tyler was confronting the worst, most primal fear a woman could ever face. She had been so young, so vulnerable in her shyly awakening womanhood, and an act of violence had changed her life forever.
She stirred suddenly, her face still frozen, and began very methodically removing the rubber-soled shoes she’d bought in Santa Marta. In a queerly conversational tone, she said, “I think I’ll go to bed.” She tossed the shoes aside, her eyes flickering around the tiny cabin as if she were looking at it for the first time. “It’s going to storm again anyway. Get off my sleeping bag, will you, please? I want to—”
Kane reached out and grasped her shoulders, making her look at him. “Tyler . . .” he said gently.
She stared at him, and her shoulders moved under his hands as her steady breathing became ragged. The blind look in her eyes became something else as they filled with tears, and when the tears spilled, her frozen mask shattered.
“He hurt me.” Her voice was little more than a whisper, but it held both the uncomprehending anguish of a child and the dreadful agony of a woman. “He hurt me . . .”
Kane pulled her into his arms and held her cradled across his lap. He stroked her soft hair and murmured a wordless comfort, even though she couldn’t have heard him over the raw sobs jerking her body. The sounds seemed to claw their way out of her like something alive and vicious, muffled against his chest, and she clutched his shirt as if that were her only lifeline.
When she was finally drained and limp, he found his handkerchief and gently raised her chin. She was silent as he dried the last of her tears, her eyes fixed on his face with some emotion he couldn’t read lurking in the amber depths.
“Why did you do that?” she whispered huskily. He had dried her tears, she thought vaguely. She had sworn no one else would ever do that for her, but he had.
“What?” He smiled a little.
She drew a shaky
breath. “Make me . . . face that.”
He was silent for a moment, still holding her across his lap and fighting a growing consciousness of her soft weight. Then, a bit roughly, he said, “You were cheating both of us, Ty. Running instead of fighting.” One big, warm hand surrounded her face, and he held her eyes intently with his own. “And it’s my fight, too. I earned the right.”
Something inside her acknowledged that, accepted it. They had fought so often and in so many ways, sparring, snapping, mocking, competing with each other; together they had fought outside threats, back-to-back and side-by-side. They had fought fairly and with trickery, loudly and in silence. They had fought, finally, to this point. All the years of therapy and counsel had failed to uncover her deepest fear, yet Kane had fought his way past all the barriers she had desperately flung up, and had found it.
She swallowed hard. “I—I don’t know if I can.”
He stroked her cheek gently. “You can. The only question is if you trust me enough. I won’t hurt you, Tyler. But you have to trust me not to.”
She managed a shaky laugh. “I think this is where I came in.”
He smiled, but his eyes remained intent. “No. This is different.”
She knew that, and if she hadn’t the look on his face would have told her. He wanted her, but he was waiting, leaving the choice up to her. Very deliberately, he was putting control of the situation in her hands, asking for her trust but not demanding it. And it was the basic kind of trust between a man and a woman, the kind that was all that really counted in the end.
Her enemy . . . Suddenly, as if it had always been there, she made the distinction. She had never trusted Kane as a rival, and possibly never would, but she trusted him as a man. Trusted him enough to put her life in his hands on more than one occasion, enough to sleep in his arms without a qualm. She trusted him enough to tell him what she had never told a man before, to share her pain and shed tears no one else had ever seen. But she didn’t know if that trust was strong enough or deep enough to conquer a primitive fear.
“Tyler?”
She wondered, vaguely, if there had ever been a choice to make. It wasn’t logical or rational or reasonable. It probably wasn’t even sane. But for the first time in her life she wanted a man, and that desire was the only possible means of fighting her fear.
“I want you,” she whispered.
His eyes darkened in an instant response, and the hard arm under her shoulders raised her until he could kiss her. His mouth was warm, the small possession of his tongue slow and gentle. He seemed totally absorbed in kissing her, taking his time, exploring her mouth while his fingers stroked her cheek lightly.
Tyler felt her body heat and begin to tremble, and there was no fear in her mind, just a vague uneasiness. There was no threat, not now, just slow waves of pleasure. Tentatively her tongue touched his, her mouth opening wider for him, and the heat built inside her. She felt him lift her, still kissing her, and her arms went around his neck as he eased her back onto their bed.
She drew a shuddering breath when he finally lifted his head, her eyes flickering open dazedly as she looked at him. He was lying beside her, raised on an elbow, flaming eyes fixed on her face. His other arm lay heavily across her middle for a moment and then shifted as he slowly began unbuttoning her shirt.
A flare of panic made her gasp. “Kane—”
“Shh.” He kissed her again, deeply, and again until pleasure drowned the panic. Her shirt was opened, and when he raised her gently she helped him by automatically pulling her arms out of the sleeves. He unfastened her bra as he eased her back down, slipping it off and tossing it aside before she could react.
He had been concentrating fiercely on moving slowly, but when the scrap of lace covering her breasts was gone it was all he could do to hang on to his resolve. She was beautiful, just as he’d known she would be, and the sight of her round, firm breasts, the coral nipples tight and hard sent a shaft of pure flame through him. He bent his head and drew one hard bud into his mouth while his hand moved to surround the other breast, his thumb rasping gently over the nipple beneath it.
Tyler gasped again, this time wordlessly, as her body arched in a helpless response. The burning pleasure was instant, spreading outward in ripples of sensation that stole her breath and clouded her mind. All her consciousness seemed focused only on what he was doing to her. The erotic suction of his mouth was a caress like nothing she’d ever known before, and her body responded to it with a wildness she couldn’t begin to control. She was on fire and couldn’t be still, her head moving restlessly, her legs shifting, pressing together in a mindless attempt to ease the throbbing ache that kept getting worse, stronger, until she thought she’d go mad with the awful tension.
She was so wrapped up in the sensations, so totally involved in her awakened body, that it seemed perfectly natural to lift her hips when he unfastened her jeans and pulled them and her panties off. But her eyes opened wide suddenly, and an inarticulate cry of alarm escaped her when his warm, heavy hand began to ease her legs apart.
“Easy, baby,” Kane murmured huskily. He shifted his hand to her quivering stomach and rubbed gently while his mouth caressed her breasts, and gradually he felt the stiffness ebb. His hand slid lower, settling over the soft red-gold curls, then remained there, unmoving, waiting.
Tyler’s frightened memories of cruel hands and brutal force faded, even as the burning need of her body intensified wildly. He was so close . . . so close . . . Instinct demanded that she open herself to him, and with a shudder her body obeyed as her legs parted. She felt a burst of raw pleasure as he stroked her gently, and a moan jerked from her throat. The inferno inside her burned out of control and she couldn’t be still, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything except give in to the blind, primitive drive toward release.
It seemed to last an eternity, tension spiraling until she could hardly bear it, and then her senses shattered, her body shaking and throbbing violently in a powerful wave of ecstasy.
Tyler was hardly aware of the gasping sobs that escaped her as she lay trembling in the stunned aftermath of that explosion. Her eyes opened slowly, finding Kane as he rapidly stripped off his clothes and tossed them aside, and her breath caught when he returned to her. She hadn’t expected—somehow she hadn’t known he would be so beautiful. But not all the beauty of rippling muscles and easy grace could hide the raw power of his big body, the male strength she could never match.
“I won’t hurt you, Ty.” His voice was low and a little rough, but the hands stroking her body were gentle, and despite the burning hunger in his eyes he was clearly in control.
“I know.” She heard herself whisper that, and didn’t question the truth of it. Still, she struggled to overcome the panic when he widened her legs gently and eased between them, when his big body rose above her. Helpless . . . God, there was no other position that left a woman so utterly vulnerable, pinned in place by a strength she couldn’t fight.
Kane braced himself away from her, responding to the fear in her eyes even though his need for her was tearing him apart. His entire body ached, rigid with the effort of control, and her body was ready for him, moist and warm, waiting to accept what her mind feared. She was unconsciously holding him off, her hands trembling against his chest while her breasts rose and fell with the jerky gasps of panic.
He lowered his head and kissed her deeply again and again, murmuring, “It’s all right, baby . . . it’s all right.” Carefully, he eased into her, giving her time to accept him, watching her face as her body’s willingness and his own care fought against her fear. Her eyes were wide, but the fixed look slowly disappeared as her body accepted him without pain. Desire was stirring again in the amber depths, and her hands stopped holding him away as they slid up to his neck.
“Kane,” she murmured, as if assuring herself that it was him, that she had nothing to be afraid of.
He murmured her name in return, assuring her that she was no nameless victim but a woman desired
. Slowly he let her feel more of his weight, but braced himself on his elbows. She responded by lifting her hips slightly, tentatively, her eyes drifting half shut as the mat of hair on his chest rasped her sensitive breasts and her body accepted him completely. Her breathing was steadier now, deep and slow.
The silky heat of her was tight around him, and Kane gritted his teeth as a hoarse groan rumbled in his throat. His control was threadbare, and only the fierce need to make certain of her pleasure allowed him to move slowly and cautiously. He fixed all his will on arousing her to the peak she had reached only once before, kissing her, stroking her body as he thrust gently.
And the intense satisfaction he felt as she came alive beneath him made the strain worthwhile. Her soft little cries and throaty moans deepened his own taut pleasure, holding him on the ragged edge of exploding until purely sensual shivers like nothing he’d ever felt before feathered along his spine.
He was deep inside her when the hot inner contractions of her pleasure caught him wildly, and he heard her wordless whimper even as a rasping groan tore free of him and his own tension snapped with a fury that shuddered through him.
When he could think again, Kane didn’t want to leave her, but he knew he was heavy and wasn’t about to risk a return of her instinctive panic. He raised himself slightly to look down at her, then gently kissed the lips that were curved in a wondering, bemused smile. Her eyes were closed, her face softly flushed. Her eyes opened slowly to gaze up at him, and glowing in the amber like something trapped in resin for eons was the sensual exhaustion of female satisfaction.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, his own eyes gleaming with the dual pleasure of an equally satisfied male body and a somewhat arrogant male mind.
Sleepy humor widened her smile as she saw and recognized that look for what it was, and a ghost of a laugh escaped her. “If you start crowing,” she murmured in a warning tone, “I’m going to start carrying my knife again.”
He couldn’t help but grin down at her. “A gentleman never crows,” he told her, wounded.