An Act of Love (12 page)

"We'll see," Luke replied. He strolled over to her, pulled
the towel from her clenched fingers and picked her up.

As he tossed her onto the bed he yanked the string of the
bedside lamp to turn it off, then lay down beside her and pinned her
down. "You don't seem to be fighting me anymore," he murmured, nuzzling
Randy's neck.

Randy was glad that the light was out so he couldn't see
her face turn red. The weight of his leg across her thighs and the feel
of his mouth nipping at her ear lobe were enough to make her forget her
efforts at escape. "It's called passive resistance," she lied,
wondering how she could possibly not respond when even a hand
accidentally brushed across her breast had the power to scorch her down
to her toes.

Luke proceeded to explore every inch of her body, his
touch both deft and gentle. He began by running his fingers lightly
over her breasts and she was powerless to keep the nipples from
hardening with pleasure. She choked back a moan as he massaged each one
in turn with his thumb and index finger, but her enjoyment must have
been perfectly obvious to him. For a moment his mouth stroked her lips,
rubbing softly back and forth, but when she kept her mouth tightly
closed he simply returned to her ear, his tongue tracing the intricate
curves outside and the sensitive area within.

In the meantime his hands went on with their exploration,
fondling the soft curve of her stomach, caressing the bones of her hips
and brushing up and down her thighs. Periodically he would return to
tease her mouth with his lips, as if he knew perfectly well that sooner
or later she would welcome his kiss.

Randy didn't suppose that she was fooling him. She was
trying not to move but her body insisted on arching hungrily and her
heart beat wildly. Her skin was covered with a thin film of
perspiration by now. At one point Luke picked up her wrist, stroked the
back of her hand and then placed his thumb over her pulse. "Is it
getting any more tolerable yet?" he murmured.

"No," she lied, the word sounding admirably forceful
considering the fact that she felt as though she were lying in the
middle of a raging fire.

"I'll have to try harder, then," he said. His hand began
to caress her intimately, stroking and arousing until she couldn't
think straight. And this time when his mouth returned to toy with her
lips she parted them to invite his kiss. His tongue skillfully probed
her mouth even as his fingers gently probed her body. With a moan of
surrender Randy's arms went around Luke's waist and she kissed him
back, her tongue tasting and exploring in response to his.

Luke turned her onto her side, one hand splayed firmly
against her lower back to hold her close against his hardened length,
and continued to kiss her. The feel of his body destroyed her little
remaining control. She clutched him almost frantically, her nails
digging into his skin, and eagerly followed the dominating thrusts of
his body. When he pushed her onto her back again and gently eased
himself on top of her, she murmured his name and sought his lips.

A hard leg slid between her thighs, parting them, and Luke
whispered into her ear, "Should we finish what we started?"

Randy wanted nothing more.
"Yes—Luke…" she moaned softly, seeking his mouth
again.

"You're sure?"

How could he even ask? "Yes—please…"
she whispered.

"Good." The word was clipped and self-satisfied. The next
moment Luke was pulling away, rolling off and sitting on the edge of
the bed. He stretched and yawned, saying to a stunned Randy, "You're
right, Linda. It's been a long day and my company bores you. So go to
bed."

"You—you can't really want me to go," Randy
protested. She'd felt the hunger in him, perhaps not as great as her
own, but urgent nonetheless. "You still want me. Don't tell me you
don't."

"Physically, yes," Luke admitted coldly. "But emotionally,
never. Why should I bother with a tramp like you? Get out of here."

A chill ran through Randy's body and she shivered
convulsively. Without another word she got up from the bed, walked out
of the room and returned to her own room, closing her door gently
behind her. Although rationally she understood that Luke's contempt was
reserved for Linda, emotionally she felt horribly rejected. Still
naked, huddled under the covers, she shut her eyes tightly and refused
to let herself cry. Deep inside she felt that she'd acted like the
tramp Luke had labeled her. She'd wanted him and there was no use
pretending that she hadn't; she'd knelt in front of that fire, well
aware that her actions would provoke him.

By now Randy had a pounding, one-sided headache and a bad
case of self-flagellation. Why did she want to go to bed with men who
didn't love her?

When she heard Luke's door open she went rigid with alarm,
but he passed by her room and continued out of the cabin. Alone now,
she started to cry. A slightly ridiculous adventure was becoming
increasingly traumatic for her. If venturing into the virgin forest of
Maine hadn't been virtual suicide, she would even have tried to walk
her way out.

Despite his highly charged emotional state, Luke Griffin
was not so totally irrational that he couldn't recognize that he'd been
acting like a bloody maniac for the last two days. If he'd behaved
anything like this in the office Bill Dunne would have handed him a
oneway ticket back to California and breathed a sigh of relief. Who but
a dyed-in-the-wool masochist, for example, would throw a passionate,
desirable woman out of bed, and all for the sake of proving a point?

So she'd teased him earlier in the day and aroused his
temper… so he was angry over her affair with Tom and baffled
by a lifestyle that exceeded liberation by a substantial
degree… so he'd pompously threatened to leave her aching for
him and would have looked like a fool if he hadn't carried out the
threat. Did any of that compensate for the fact that
he
was one big frustrated ache by now?

Luke zipped up his jacket and headed for his plane,
lighting a cigarette as he walked. He smoked very little, but another
few days in Maine and he'd be going through a pack a day. Admit you've
wanted her almost from the beginning, he told himself—and
maybe even since the first time you laid eyes on a ten-year-old
photograph of her. You could have talked to her in Cambridge but you
didn't. Instead you came up with this half-witted scheme to haul her
off to Maine.

He'd told himself that he'd wanted to make her forget Tom.
He'd figured that the right combination of bullying and charm would
accomplish that. A woman like Linda Franck, he reasoned, equated
gentleness and concern with weakness. First he had to make it clear
that he was the boss, and then he could concentrate on seducing her.
He'd expected more of a fight about the cooking and the wood and had
purposely provoked her about carrying the latter, but he hadn't
expected her to stand there with her arms crossed, calmly and firmly
standing up to him. She'd looked so desirable that he'd wanted to pull
her down to the ground and make love to her on the spot.

All in all, he thought as he swung himself into the
pilot's seat, it just didn't add up. He'd expected her to be
hard-boiled and instead she showed flashes of vulnerability. He'd felt
like a complete heel when she'd staggered in before dinner, looking
like a half-drowned rat. He'd expected her to be spoiled and instead
she was cooperative. She was a quick, interested listener who had him
telling her the story of his life without his intending to, and fresh
and eager in bed rather than jaded, as he'd expected. If he hadn't
known better he might even have believed that he'd kidnapped the wrong
sister.

But that, of course, was impossible. To believe she was
Miranda would have been to believe an incredibly convoluted series of
explanations. But even more than that, the one thing company gossip had
told him about Miranda Dunne was that she'd never had a lover and, in
fact, was rather young for her age. The woman he'd held and caressed
was a confident seductress who had wanted him and shown it.

So where did that leave him? He was infatuated with a
woman he couldn't really respect and half-crazy to make love to a woman
he could never cherish. After spending a restless night on Friday he'd
been downright grumpy the next morning, but he had the feeling that
after tonight he'd be totally impossible. He was tempted to go back
inside and make love to her, but he knew that she wouldn't let him near
her until he apologized. And he wasn't about to do that.

If there had been any way to avoid getting out of bed on
Sunday morning Randy would have taken advantage of it. Though her
headache was a bit better and her energy level was higher, her opinion
of herself was just about the same and her embarrassment had increased.
The only new emotion she felt was a healthy anger with Luke Griffin.
She didn't really care
what
he thought of Linda
Franck—a gentleman didn't call a woman names and then
sadistically leave her hanging. But then, she admitted to herself,
given Luke's background there was no reason to expect him to behave
like a gentleman.

She'd lain in bed for what seemed like hours waiting for
him to come in and order her to make him breakfast when it finally
occurred to her that the cabin was strangely quiet. Footsteps, doors
slamming, running water, Luke stoking the fire—all of these
familiar sounds were absent. Shivering, she pulled on a robe and peeked
out the door, but saw only a dying fire. The living room was almost as
cold as her bedroom.

Panic rose in her throat, sending her dashing into Luke's
room. His suitcase was sitting reassuringly on the dresser and he'd
left a pair of running shoes on the floor near the foot of his bed. The
irony of her feelings quickly struck her—she didn't want to
face him but the thought that he might have abandoned her had terrified
her. Shaking her head, she went into the living room and stoked the
fire, adding two more logs.

Randy wasn't particularly hungry, but knew that some toast
and tea would probably settle her stomach, which felt a little queasy.
A couple of aspirin tablets might even deal with the headache. As she
approached the kitchen area she noticed a note held to the refrigerator
by means of a magnet shaped like an ice cream cone.

Judging from the scrawled handwriting, Luke Griffin had
either repeatedly flunked penmanship or else had left the cabin rather
hurriedly. Randy took it off and stared at it, trying to decipher the
words.

"Gone for a ride," it read. "Back in a few hours. L. P.S.
Removed all the knives from the cabin just in case. Figure if you used
one on me it would be justifiable homicide."

There was no way Randy could stay angry with a man who
left her a note like that. In two brief sentences he'd managed to
convey not only regret, but also the notion that he'd acted like a
total cad. While the note didn't alter Randy's opinion of her own
behavior it somehow made her feel better. And a check of the drawers
revealed that he hadn't taken the knives at all.

She picked up a magazine after she finished eating, but
six-month-old accounts of football games and golf tournaments failed to
hold her interest. She supposed that she was just too restless to read
and thought about taking a walk instead, but yesterday's battle with
the woods had left her less than eager for a rematch. That left the
floor. At least, she decided, it would keep her busy.

An hour and a half later she was beginning to wonder if
cleaning the floor wasn't a way of punishing herself for her sins of
the night before. The combination cleaner/wax that she'd found under
the sink had a chemical odor thinly disguised by lemon that made her
stomach rebel still further. Crawling around on hands and knees with a
bunch of rags wasn't the wisest activity in the world when one was
tired to begin with, and moving around bulky furniture and heavy rugs
was a job for either a two-hundred-pound man or an Amazon, but not for
Randy Dunne.

She only finished because there wasn't that much of the
floor left to do, but paid a heavy price for her compulsiveness. By the
time she went into the bedroom to lie down her head was throbbing all
over again and her nausea was even worse. The wax she'd applied was the
type that had to be buffed, but she certainly couldn't do that now.

It was obvious, however, that she'd have plenty of time to
do it later. If Luke hadn't taken her home this morning, he clearly
meant to keep her at least another night. Lying on the bed, Randy tried
to figure out just why he was delaying. Did he want to keep her away
from Tom? Teach her some kind of lesson? Take her to bed despite the
rejection of last night?

At least, she thought with a grimace, she didn't have to
worry about being tempted by the third possibility. Her headache and
upset stomach had been joined by a strange kind of dizziness, making
her feel about as sick as she'd ever felt in her life. She wished she
could fall asleep—it would provide escape from the pain.

It was the unusual noise that woke Randy up, a soft,
rhythmic sound that she eventually identified as cloth rubbing against
wood—Luke buffing the floor. She automatically started to sit
up, but a wave of nausea hit her with such force that she had to lie
back down again. She waited for it to ease, then gingerly tried again.
This time she succeeded, propping herself against a pillow, not knowing
what to do and consequently doing nothing.

The obvious course of action was to talk to Luke about her
symptoms. After all, he
did
have some medical
experience. Randy remembered how he'd bandaged her thumb, then later,
in the woods, helped her when she'd become breathless and dizzy.
Someone else's suffering seemed to bring out the best in him, which
made the thought of approaching him less embarrassing.