Stormy Challenge

  Even as she glanced in his direction, the golden-brown eyes swung abruptly and pinned her from across the room. Leya was very conscious of the attentive dark-haired man leaning over her, trapping her in the corner of the room, and of the grim narrowing of Court’s eyes before he turned his attention back to Keith. Leya sighed. She would have a bit of explaining to do. Well, he couldn’t expect her to attend a party and not mingle with a few guests, she thought righteously, beginning to edge out of the corner.

  “Don’t leave, green eyes. I haven’t even gotten around to telling you my name,” the man hovering over her complained softly, coaxingly. “And you haven’t told me yours, either. Your brother forgot to mention that, too.”

  “My name is Leya,” she told him idly, her eyes still on the door. “And I’m afraid I really must—”

  “Hey, something wrong, Leya? Do you know the guy who just came in?”

  “I know him. Look, if you’ll excuse me—”

  “My name,” he said very distinctly, “is Alan. Alan West. Now about my expertise at indoor sports…”

  Leya knew Court was starting toward her, pushing his way across the room. She couldn’t see him now as the crowd came between them but she could feel the waves of his approach as surely as if they were made of water. They lapped against her skin in increasing frequency and power. She knew she had to get away from Alan West.

  But even as she tried to dodge politely aside, Alan’s hand fell protestingly on her shoulder. It did so just as Court emerged beside them.

  “Good evening, Leya.” His voice was a dark and unbelievably soft menace. “Say goodnight. We’re leaving.” His eyes went to the hand on her shoulder, and Leya stared at him unhappily.

  Alan, sensing the suddenly thick atmosphere, took one look at the strained faces of the other two and removed his hand with a small exclamation of apology.

  “Sorry,” he murmured laconically to Court. “Didn’t realize she was private property.”

  “She’s having a little trouble understanding that herself, apparently,” Court shot back coolly, grasping Leya’s wrist and starting back toward the door.

  “Take your hands off me!” Leya hissed waspishly as she was dragged forcefully through the crowd. “There’s nothing for you to be upset about! I was merely chatting with Alan—”

  “Flirting is the word,” he growled stonily. “Did you bring a coat?”

  “No.”

  “Good, then we don’t need to delay any longer.”

  “My brother—”

  “—Won’t miss us.”

  “Court, I won’t be dragged out of another party like this!”

  “So sue me!”

  “Damn it, Court—”

  “What the hell did you think you were doing in that corner, anyway? Making comparisons? Or did you want to see what I’d do when I saw you? You once said something about being interested in genuine male jealousy, didn’t you?”

  “That’s ridiculous!” she grated, a little frightened now.

  “I agree. But since you’re so interested, I’ll be happy to show you what it’s like to be standing under a ton of bricks when they come tumbling down!”

  He turned at the door, his hands tunneling under the cascade of her hair to circle her neck. The tortoiseshell eyes were blazing. “I won’t have it, Leya. Do you understand me? I won’t let you drag anyone else between us. There’s only you and me, and I’m not going to let you muddy the waters. Eventually, we’re going to settle—”

  His words cut off as he drew in his breath with sudden sharpness. Leya realized with a pang of panic that the movement of his hands had brushed back the fall of dark hair, revealing the emerald earrings. She stiffened, able to think only that the moment wasn’t turning out as she had planned. She was helpless to deny the significance of the jewelry.

  “Leya!”

  Court’s voice was a hoarse growl in his throat. His fingers moved urgently on the nape of her neck. “Leya, my sweet shrew, why didn’t you show me right away? My God! You’re determined to drive me insane first, aren’t you?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, dragging her close and covering her mouth in a rough possession that made her gasp. Then he held her a few inches away, his face intent, his expression urgent and demanding.

  “Tell me, Leya. Tell me what it is you’re going to ask of me. I gave you the right to ask anything, remember? Anything!”

  Leya met his flaming gaze and gathered all her courage in the palm of her hand.

  “I’m…I’m asking for marriage, Court,” she breathed.

  For a split second, he looked absolutely stunned. It must be her imagination, she thought wildly as the expression vanished in the next instant. He started to say something, and then Keith’s voice was behind them, cheerfully interrupting.

  “Hey, you two! This is a proper executive party! None of that around here!”

  “This is a special occasion, Keith,” Court whispered huskily as his eyes roamed with golden heat over Leya’s revealing face. “Your sister just got herself engaged. To me.”

  Keith took the news much more in stride than Leya did.

  “Well, congratulations, sister! Of course, I can’t pretend to be astounded. I was pretty certain that was the way it would end. After all…”

  “Later, Keith,” Court murmured thickly, gathering a trembling Leya close against him. “We were just leaving. I’m sure you’ll understand.”

  “So soon?” Keith grinned, smiling into his sister’s bemused eyes. “But it’s such fun seeing Leya struck dumb!”

  “Treasure the memory,” Court advised. “I’m sure it won’t happen often. Now, if you’ll excuse us?”

  Leya realized abruptly she wasn’t the only one who was trembling. She could feel the fine tremor in Court’s hand as he guided her purposefully through the door. As she pulled her chaotic thoughts back into focus, she was at last aware that the moment had shaken him as much as it had her.

  “If you must, you must,” Keith was saying philosophically. “I’ll see you both later.” He smiled directly at Court. “Take care of her, Tremayne. She’s the only sister I’ve got.”

  “You have my word on it,” Court vowed with deep assurance, his eyes still on Leya’s face. “I’ll take excellent care of her.”

  A second later, they were alone on the steps. Wordlessly, Court hurried his silent captive down the short path and across the street to where his car was parked. He tucked her gently inside, then slid in beside her, turning to pull her close in the cold darkness.

  “Let’s go someplace very private and celebrate our engagement,” he whispered as she buried her face against his chest. His hands stroked through the thick hair, pausing to touch the emeralds in her ears as if he couldn’t quite believe they were there. “My God, Leya, you don’t know what you’ve done to me tonight!”

  “Did you…did you mean it, Court?” she said in a muffled voice, thrilling to the heat and strength of him as he held her close. “Are you really willing to marry me?”

  “I said you could ask anything you wished of me, didn’t I?”

  She swallowed, not certain she should pursue that. “Are you still angry about Alan West?”

  He sighed. “I can hardly blame the man for getting you off to himself. It’s what I want to do every time I see you.”

  “You’re being awfully noble about it!”

  “Aren’t I, though? Come home with me, Leya, and let me make love to you the way I’ve been aching to do since we first met!” he pleaded roughly, his lips in her hair and his hands moving tantalizingly along her back. “I want you so much, my little shrew!”

  “Am I really a shrew, Court?” she asked, her body already responding to the need she could feel emanating from him.

  “You can be anything you want to be,” he told her magnanimously, “as long as you wear those emeralds in your ears!”

  She could practically taste the lazy male triumph in him. Leya had told him everything he wanted to know by wearing the earring
s. But all she knew about his side of things was that he wanted her. Wanted her badly enough to marry her.

  Well, it would have to be enough, she told herself stoutly. She trusted him. Completely. He would not talk of marriage unless he was fully prepared to commit himself. Love would come in time, she vowed with the full depths of her willpower. She would make it happen!

  “Where are we going?” she asked as he firmly disentangled himself and turned the key in the ignition.

  “I told you. Someplace where we can celebrate our engagement!” His gaze glittered through the surrounding darkness, reaching out to touch her in an almost physical way. Leya shivered in reaction, aware of the weakness assailing her limbs.

  “My house?” she managed after a few minutes as she recognized the route.

  “It’s that stairway,” he grinned, much pleased with himself. “So romantic.”

  “Court!” She flushed, the laughter somehow seeming appropriate mixed with the passion. It seemed right.

  But she found little else to say as he parked the car in her drive, helped her out, and took the key from her hand. A moment later, she stepped through the door and turned to find him closing it behind them with a final-sounding clunk.

  They stared at each other in silence, drinking in the need and desire that was fully mirrored in each other’s eyes. The tension wafted around them, coiling tighter and tighter as the curious silence continued.

  It was Leya who made the first tiny move to break it. Wide-eyed, she put her fingertips on the slubbed silk of his tie. An instant later, she was in his arms.

  “Leya, my darling Leya! I’ve wanted you so badly!”

  She speared her fingers through the brown and gold of his hair, luxuriating in the thickness of it as he crushed her close. His arms were under her hair, which swung loosely down her back, and she could sense the rising desire in his hard frame.

  The essence of him filled her nostrils, tempted and warmed her on a primitive, very fundamental level. Once again, she touched the knot of his tie and slowly began undoing it.

  “You used to talk in terms of golden chains,” she reminded him throatily, her lips parting sensually as she worked gently on the tie.

  “One of us will be on a chain by morning,” he grated. “I’m no longer sure yet who will be chaining whom!”

  “Does it matter?” she teased, pulling wantonly at the end of the tie and slipping it from around his neck.

  “I’m past caring at the moment,” he confided.

  He bent, sweeping her into his arms, his eyes going to the swing of her hair as she was lifted high against his chest. And then he was striding toward the stairs, taking them steadily, purposefully.

  As he climbed, Leya toyed with the buttons of his shirt, her eyes full of dreams and unspoken love. At the top of the stairs, Court turned toward her room and a moment later she was dumped lightly onto the bed.

  “This is the way it should have been that night up in Oregon,” he rasped, as he came down beside her, his solid weight sending waves of shimmering excitement throughout her body.

  Her lashes drooped mysteriously, moving against her cheekbones with a pagan, inviting flutter that was as instinctive as it was unconscious.

  “Tell me, Leya,” he begged, his lips hovering over hers. She could feel the barely restrained desire in him and wondered at it. “It should be easy to give me the words now. Tell me there will be no more revenge!”

  “I trust you, Court,” she admitted, knowing what he wanted to hear and knowing, too, that she could tell him nothing less than the truth now. “It was myself I wasn’t trusting. I didn’t want to acknowledge I was so weak where you’re concerned…”

  “Damn it, Leya,” he gritted. “If you’re going to tell me that what you feel toward me is the same weakness you felt for Alex Harlow…”

  “No!” she interrupted gently, her eyes shining. “That’s not it at all, Court. Alex used me. I could never have forgiven that in a million years. But I believe now that your deception was only another Court Tremayne attempt to short-circuit the usual methods and get to the heart of the matter. I believe you’re telling me the truth when you say you wanted me from the beginning.”

  “I did, I do! God, how I’ve wanted you!”

  He was raining short, feathery kisses on her temple, her eyelids, and the emeralds in her ears. “I must have you tonight. I can’t wait any longer!”

  “Yes, Court,” she whispered softly, lovingly as her hands slid beneath his shirt and began to knead the hard flesh she found there.

  She felt his fingers on her zipper and then the emerald-green dress was tugged off with a swift, impatient movement. The coolness of the room touched her skin briefly as Court levered himself up to skim off his shirt and slacks. Unself-consciously naked beside her, he began removing the rest of her few garments more slowly, lingering to touch his lips to each new area exposed.

  She trembled as he slid his fingers under the elastic edge of her brightly colored briefs, but it wasn’t from the coolness of the room, it was from the rising heat in her loins. He felt her reaction and leaned over to first kiss and then gently nip her shoulder. A moment later, he had slid the briefs down to her ankles and she was as nude as he.

  “I’m going to make love to you tonight until you can no longer even remember my stupid deception in Oregon,” he swore. “Until you can’t think of anything else except our future!”

  She shivered at the urgency in his words and in his body. She wanted to tell him it was unnecessary to atone for the past, but knew it would have to be done with her physical response, not words. Now, finally, was not the time for words.

  His hardness impinged on her softness as he pressed himself against her hips. He was seeking to be enveloped by her in the way men have always sought with the women they needed.

  “Oh, Court!”

  Her head twisted on the quilt as she pulled him closer. Her toes clenched and unclenched against the soft material beneath her feet.

  He gave an inarticulate groan as his hand sought the dampening, fiery heart of her desire, testing and probing. His touch made her gasp and one knee lifted in an agony of physical suspense.

  “Leya, my wonderful Leya,” he husked against her breast as first his lips and then his teeth circled each nipple.

  Leya could say nothing more for a moment, reveling in the voluptuousness of the experience. Court’s flame-igniting mouth traced delicate patterns on the hardened peaks of her breasts for a short time longer and then plunged to the soft alley between them. His fingers were arousing her to unbelievable heights, causing her hips to arch upward against his hand in delirious abandon.

  “I want you, sweetheart,” he gasped, his legs moving against hers, probing between her knees until she welcomed him.

  “Ah!”

  Her cry was soft, pleading, seductive. As if goaded by it and the small, quick breaths which betrayed her heightened desire, Court lifted himself, looming over her briefly before settling into the warm place he had made between her legs.

  His body surged against hers, yet he held off from the final culmination of the embrace.

  Instead, he used the intimate position to arouse her still further with threatening, teasing, unbearably exciting little movements that nearly drove her wild.

  “Please, Court!” she begged, twisting to sink her nails into the hard muscles of his buttocks in an attempt to draw him closer and closer. His legs were tantalizingly rough against the smoothness of her inner thighs.

  As if he was finding the softness of her as entrancing as she found his own hardness, Court reached down to stroke her from thigh to knee.

  “Like silk,” he blazed. “Hot silk.”

  Her nails in his hips dug deeper as he found the pulse in her throat with his lips but still he refrained from taking her completely. She delighted in the groan of response her small punishment brought forth from deep in his chest.

  “Do you think you can control me in this because you know how much I want you?” he r
asped.

  She opened her eyes to find his half-laughing, half-challenging, wholly inflamed gaze eating her.

  “Show me how much you want me!” she commanded softly, her lashes lowering in heavy, feminine invitation.

  Without warning, his fingers closed around the curve of her hip and she felt his nails lightly scoring the soft skin there.

  “Oh!”

  The cry was a small shriek of pain and pleasure as the exciting, erotic caress electrified her. With all her strength, she moved against him, feeling the crispness of his hair against her breasts. Her fingers raked the length of his ribs, pleading, cajoling, commanding.

  “Leya! My maddening, passionate, irresistible Leya!”

  He buried his mouth in the softness of her throat. Simultaneously, he gently seized her wrists, anchoring them on either side of her shoulders. Then, with the power and mastery that seemed an intrinsic part of him, he used his strength to hold her arching body still for a crucial instant.

  “Court!”

  His name was a broken sob of passion and need torn from her parted lips as he asserted himself against her and, at the same instant, surrendered to her.

  There was a sharp sound of raw demand from him as he surged into a driving rhythm that carried her along in the way that a storm over the sea sweeps across the waves. All of Leya’s senses were alive in that timeless moment.

  As the storm they had created raged, Leya’s hands scored the skin of Court’s back in passionate intensity. It was an intensity she knew she would never feel with any other man, and it communicated itself to him. Her nails slid lower, digging into the strong thighs above her own and the tiny, sharp caresses she inflicted seemed to push him beyond all control. His mouth closed hotly on hers as if seeking to swallow the faint, choked moans that issued from far back in her throat.

  Leya clung to him, having no other alternative but to let herself be absorbed by the intense claim he was making on her body. She felt him push to the depths of her femininity, taking everything as if he had a right to her. A right that didn’t hinge on the trappings of engagements or wedding licenses but was somehow far more fundamental and savage.