The fantasy was becoming merged and absorbed in their own hunger for each other and she found that was even more exciting. “Roman, I don’t think I can stand here any longer.”
“Then sit.” She was suddenly on his lap straddling him, his bold arousal cradled against her. “Take me. Pleasure me. Slowly.”
She sagged against him, her breasts were lifting and falling with every breath. “It’s too … much.”
He misunderstood. His heavy lids lifted and she experienced a shock of sensation—desire as stark and primitive as the fantasy he had created for her. “No, you’ll find it just enough,” he said thickly. “Remember? You took me very well the last time. We fit. Bodies, minds, hearts. Come.” His hands were cupping her, inching her slowly forward, filling her. His gaze was on the leaping pulse in the hollow of her throat and his nostrils were flaring. “You belong to me. You’ll always belong to me. You want me here inside you, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
He brought her a little farther. Heat. An iron brand of possession. “Anytime I want you, you’ll come. You’ll give me your lips and your tongue and your breasts. You’ll let me pull you down like this and come into you.” He suddenly jerked her forward.
She gasped and clutched desperately at his shoulders. Unbearable fullness, total absorption. She clenched helplessly in an agony of satisfaction that was only a prelude of what was to come.
“Promise me.”
She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t even think. She moved yearningly against him.
He was still holding her in that unbelievable captivity of intimacy. “Promise me.”
“I promise.” Her words were almost inaudible, forced from a throat too tight to speak.
“Good.” There was a note of savage satisfaction in the word. “And I’ll promise I’ll always give you this.” He fell back on the bed, taking her with him. He exploded, plunging, driving in a mindless rhythm of primitive desire.
She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t move, she could only take and try to retain some semblance of sanity in the whirling passion enveloping them both. Then sanity was gone, and she didn’t miss it. There was only Roman and possession and a splendor of togetherness. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders as she tried to stifle the moan welling in her throat.
“You want me.” His eyes were blazing down at her in fierce triumph. “And that’s no lie, is it?”
Lie? What was he saying? Nothing could be more basic or beautifully honest than this.
“Is it?” he demanded.
“I don’t know what …” Then she couldn’t speak as she was swept away on a final whirlwind of sensation that caused her to cry out in a stunning release of rapture.
She was vaguely aware that Roman was moving, accelerating, then she felt the convulsive shudder that shook him. He collapsed against her with a groan of total satiation. His broad chest was heaving and she could feel the trembling that shook his big body. “Roman.” Her breath was coming in little gasps as she looked down at his head buried on her breast. “I don’t understand. Why?”
“I don’t understand either. But I don’t think we’ll play this fantasy again. I’ll never be sure who is the slave. I feel enchained.”
So did she. Bound and possessed and … uneasy. “I don’t think there was any question who was dominating whom.”
“No?” He moved off her. “That’s because you couldn’t see beyond the fantasy.”
“I think I did see something else.” She sat up and brushed a strand of hair from her face. “And I’m not sure I liked it.”
“The fantasy?” He shrugged. “We’ll find something else you like. I thought you were enjoying it.”
“I was enjoying it. How could I help it? You’re a fantastic lover. But you seduced me, and I don’t like that one bit. I want to come to you freely and of my own will.” She frowned. “And there was something else about you I didn’t like—a darkness.”
He smiled faintly. “I’m quite harmless and not at all kinky.”
“I’m not so sure.” She slid from the bed and began to gather her clothes from the floor. “You told me once you weren’t a hard man, but that you often wished you could be.” She straightened and looked him directly in the eye. “Well, I think you may be going to get your wish. I could feel the hardness in you tonight and I didn’t like it.”
“I thought you liked it very much. Put those clothes down and come back to bed and I’ll try again.”
“You know I didn’t mean—” She drew a deep shaky breath. “I can’t even talk to you. You’ve built a wall closing me out.” She began to dress hurriedly. “Well, I’ve never been able to stand walls. If I can’t break them down or go around them, then I usually set off and go somewhere else.”
“No!” He was suddenly off the bed, standing, facing her. “I’m not going to let you leave me.”
“I don’t want to leave you.” She could feel the tears stinging her eyes. “All I want to do is love you, but I can’t stand this. Oh, hell!” She grabbed up her tennis shoes and ran from the bedroom.
“Manda, dammit, come back here.”
“Not now.” She was at the front door looking back to where he stood in the doorway separating the bedroom from the living room. “I refuse to let you tear me apart. Love isn’t supposed to hurt like this.”
“Is the great adventure turning sour? Love isn’t always excitement and fields of pretty flowers. It can be pain and endurance and compromises. I’m not a knight in shining armor and you’re not—” He stopped and then said wearily, “I don’t know what you are, but I do know you’re mine. In sickness and health, in light and in darkness.”
The cynicism in his expression cut her to the quick. “I don’t deserve this. Why are you …” She opened the door. “Good-bye, Roman.”
“There’s no use running away. I’ll just come after you.”
“No, don’t come after me.” The tears were running down her cheeks as she looked back at him. “I don’t want to see you for a while. I can’t afford to be this upset right now. I have work to do.”
The door slammed shut behind her.
Roman stared at it blankly for a moment, before he slowly turned away. He felt as if his emotions had been first shredded and then burned. Tears. Manda. He had hurt Manda. Why did he feel so guilty? She had hurt him, too, and he was still hurting. Yet he couldn’t stand the thought of Manda unhappy. And what if he were wrong? What if Manda were as bewildered as she seemed? What if she …
All these what-ifs were not solving the problem or doing him any good. The bottom line was that Manda may have betrayed him and it still made no difference in the way he felt about her. She was still warm-hearted, full of love and zest for living. Perhaps she didn’t realize how he would view a breach of trust of this nature. He could be patient; he could subdue his own pain. He had known it wouldn’t be easy when he had acknowledged to himself he loved Manda Delaney, and yet he’d almost blown apart at the first challenge that love had presented to him.
He strode into the bathroom. He would shower, dress, and follow her. Lord knows, it might be only the first of many times when he would have to follow his quicksilver Manda. He might as well become accustomed to it.
The tears were running down Manda’s cheeks and she tried to suppress her sobs as she ran toward the glow of the campfire in the distance.
Hard. He was so damn hard, ripping the fabric of the lovely dreams that had surrounded her. She didn’t love him. She wouldn’t love him any longer. As soon as she found the opal, she would go away and never see him again.
A blinding pain rocketed through her at the thought. Never see Roman again? Never see him smile or listen to his deep voice or have him touch her with desire and love? And there had been love tonight. A dark and tormented love, but love nevertheless. And pain. She had been conscious of Roman’s pain even through the wall of cynicism he had built between them. Well, his pain was no business of hers. Why should she be the whipping boy for his moodiness? She suddenly s
topped in her tracks. What was she thinking? If you loved someone, wasn’t his pain your own? Oh, Lord, maybe Roman was right about her not knowing what love was all about. But if she didn’t know about love, why did she hurt so much?
She could see Jacto lying on the tarp in the lean- to and hurriedly wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. There was no use in letting Jacto see how upset she was. Not that he wouldn’t guess anyway. Jacto knew her too well for her to fool him for long. Perhaps she wouldn’t have to worry about deceiving him. He was very still He must be asleep.
She felt a tiny shiver of apprehension run down her spine. Something was wrong. Jacto was too still, and he never slept in the lean-to. He always liked to be where he could look up at the stars. “Jacto.” She began running toward the lean-to, panic rising within her every second. “Jacto!”
Blood. A thin stream of blood was seeping through the blue and white bandanna Jacto had tied around his grizzled gray head. It was her own blue and white bandanna. Her knapsack was open and the contents rifled as if Jacto had been searching blindly for something to staunch the blood before he fell unconscious.
She dropped to her knees beside him, waves of sickness washing over her. “Oh, no, Jacto,” she whispered. Had he fallen and hit his head or … What the hell difference did it make how it had happened? Jacto was hurt, maybe even dying. She had to do something.
She gently untied the bandanna from around his head. The flow of blood from the wound on the side of his head was very slow, not spurting. That was good, wasn’t it? Or maybe it wasn’t. She just didn’t know. Her hands were shaking so badly she spilled half the water in the canteen before she managed to dampen the bandanna with the cold water it contained. She gently cleansed the blood from the wound. It wasn’t as deep as she had feared, and the cold water was having the desired effect of staunching the flow of blood. Yet he was still unconscious and his breathing was shallow.
“Don’t die, Jacto. Please, don’t die. Just hold on, dammit.” He probably had a concussion, but that didn’t mean he was going to die. Lots of people lived with a concussion. She had to have help. He might need X-rays and blood transfusions and …
“I am sorry I took your bandanna, I could not reach my own knapsack.” Jacto’s voice was thin and reedy. “Naturally I will replace it.”
Jacto’s eyes were open! The wild surge of relief that spiraled through Manda made her dizzy. “Thank God. You’re going to be all right. Lord, you scared me. What happened?” She frowned. “No, don’t answer that. You probably shouldn’t be talking. Close your eyes again.”
Jacto’s lips curved in a faint smile. “I do not wish to close my eyes. I am well now and in a little while I will be much better. There is no need for you to be frightened. I will not leave you yet.”
Yet. Manda felt a pang of fear. She didn’t want to think of him leaving her. She smiled shakily. “You’d better not. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
His dark eyes were suddenly weary. “You will do what we all do. Go on. But not yet, not yet.”
“Since you’re going to be stubborn, you might as well tell me what happened. Did you fall?”
“No. I went back to the billabong and when I was coming back—” He shrugged and then flinched from the pain the movement caused. “Our intruder is back. I thought he had given up when he failed to return after that first night.”
“Someone struck you? Did you see who it was?”
“No, he must have been waiting among the ghost gum trees. I heard a rustle and then I felt the pain.” He grimaced. “Much pain. I awoke later and came back here. It took great … effort.”
“And then passed out again. You could have been killed. Why would anyone do that?”
“To remove me from the path,” Jacto said simply. “I would have seen anyone who tried to go down into the shaft. The person who attacked me clearly wanted to see what you are doing down there.”
“Violence. I never dreamed there might be any danger when I asked you to come with me. I feel so guilty.” She ran her fingers distractedly through her hair. “Dammit, we may not even find anything. You could have lost your life over a heap of rubble and some bloody drawings of wombats and kangaroos.”
“I thought the drawings were of birds.”
“That was the other tunnel. This one has only marsupials,” she said absently, her gaze still fixed worriedly on his face. “What difference does it make? I risked your life and—”
“You did not risk it. I guide my own life.”
“Well, you can guide it right out of Deadman’s Ridge. I’m not going to take the chance of having you hurt again.”
“But you will stay.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Beggars can’t be choosers. Time’s running out and this is the only shot I have at getting the money I need.”
“But that is not all.” His gaze was shrewd. “You still feel the opal is there.”
She nodded. “You’d think I’d give up, wouldn’t you? But I have the strongest feeling I’m right about the Black Flame being down there. Ever since I found the bird drawings, it’s as if Charlie has been down there with me, helping me.” She smiled. “I sound as if I’m the one who had the knock on the head.”
“Perhaps your ancestor is guiding you. If so, you’d be very foolish to give up the search. We will stay.”
“I will stay. You will go.”
“I will think about what you say.”
“Jacto, I’m not going to let you—”
“What the hell’s going on here?” Roman’s voice cut through her sentence. “Has there been an accident?” He was standing by the lean-to staring down at Jacto and the bloody bandanna in Manda’s hands. “Why the devil didn’t you come and get me, Manda?” He dropped to his knees beside Jacto. “What can I do?”
Manda experienced a sudden glow of warmth. Roman was here. She wasn’t alone with her fear and guilt any longer. He would help Jacto. “Roman, it’s terrible, Jacto has—”
“Had an accident,” Jacto finished for her, his gaze fixed meaningfully on Manda’s face. “But I am better now. I will sleep and wake and sleep again. Then I will be entirely well.”
“I could get a doctor from Coober Pedy,” Roman said. “Or we could take you to the clinic there.”
“No.” Jacto didn’t look at him. “I am better off here.”
“Jacto, perhaps having the doctor would be wise,” Manda said gently. “Let Roman bring him here.”
He smiled. “I have not lived all these years to let a doctor tell me how I am or what I am to do.” He closed his eyes. “I guide my own life. I will sleep now. Go away.”
“Jacto …” Manda gazed at him with helpless exasperation. His face was perfectly serene and his lids remained stubbornly closed. He had made up his mind and there would be no moving him. She sighed. “Okay, you obstinate old man, but you’d better get well soon. Do you hear me?”
His lids didn’t open, but the corners of his lips curled in the faintest of smiles. “I hear you, Manda.”
“Come on, Roman.” She rose to her feet and stepped outside the lean-to. “Let him sleep.”
“You’re sure about the doctor?” Roman asked as he joined her by the fire. “He’s an old man.”
“No, I’m not sure,” she said wearily. “I’m not sure about anything. Suddenly everything is falling apart around me. Why do bad things have to happen to people like Jacto? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“No.” Roman’s expression was very gentle. “I can’t answer that, Manda. Bad things sometimes do happen and we just have to accept them and go on.”
“That’s what Jacto said.” She gazed blindly into the heart of the flames. “He said someday he wouldn’t be here for me and I would have to go on too. I’m not good at accepting things like this. I never realized it before, but I’ve always run away from unpleasant surroundings. I could always imagine something beautiful on the horizon, so I didn’t see why I should linger where there was anything threa
tening or ugly. But I guess we can’t do that forever. Oh, but I wish we could,” she said, her voice and expression passionately wistful. “I wish we could see nothing but beauty and have kindness everywhere.”
“I know you do.” Roman was filled with empathy. Her nemesis was closing in and there was nothing he could do but stand by and wait and try to make the adjustment easier for her. “You’re tired. You’d better get some sleep. I’ll watch over Jacto.” His lips twisted. “If he’ll let me. I don’t think he approves of me. He wouldn’t even look at me when I was in the lean-to.”
“That’s right, he didn’t. Strange.” Manda rubbed the back of her neck to relieve the tension. “Maybe I will take a nap. Wake me—” She stopped. What was she thinking? There was danger here. What if the person who assaulted Jacto came back? She might not be able to persuade Jacto to leave, but she couldn’t risk anything happening to Roman. “No, I’ll watch over Jacto. He’s my friend. You go back to your trailer.”
“And you’re my friend,” Roman said quietly. “I won’t leave you.”
She felt a warm golden unfolding within her. Violence and sadness existed, but so did caring and beauty and love. Perhaps the balance wasn’t so lopsided after all. She shook her head. “Please. I want you to leave. I’ll be fine.”
He frowned. “Look, Manda, I know you’re upset, but we’ll both have to forget what happened tonight at the trailer. Don’t shut me out when you need me.”
She looked at him in surprise. Since she had left him she had faced the possibility of death or serious injury to one she loved. In comparison, their disagreement now seemed trifling. He had come to her and given her support when she needed him, and that was all that was important. Yet if she were to send him away out of danger, it might be better if he wasn’t aware of her change of attitude. He mustn’t come here, and she would never feel safe in leaving Jacto alone to go to Roman. It would probably be best if he still believed there was an estrangement. She swiftly lowered her gaze to the fire. “It will be difficult to forget. I’m going to need some time. I don’t think we should see each other for a while.”