Kiss an Angel (41 page)

"Take off your clothes first," he said. "And give me that scarf."

Her hands trembled as she unwrapped the antique gold scarf from her waist and handed it over to him. She removed her earrings, then kicked off her sandals.

With one smooth motion, she drew her tank top over her head and revealed her breasts. The catch on her skirt gave way beneath her fingers, and the fragile silk slid down over her hips. She stepped out of it and stood naked before her husband.

He ran one hand over her body, shoulder to breast, ribs to thigh, as if he were marking his property. The gesture sent liquid heat rushing through her, inflaming her until she could barely stand. Satisfied, he drew the gold scarf through his hand and let the fringe trickle slowly between his fingers.

There was an air of erotic menace in the gesture, and she couldn't take her eyes from the glimmering fabric. What was he going to do with it?

She caught her breath in a hiss as he looped it around her neck so that the sides fell over her breasts. Clasping the fringed ends in his hands, he slowly pulled, first one side, than the other. Back and forth. The metallic gold threads woven through the silk abraded her nipples like the lightest scrape of a fingernail.

Sensation, warm and thick, spread through her belly.

His eyes darkened to the color of old brandy. "Who do you belong to?"

"You," she whispered.

He nodded. "Just so you understand."

She finished undressing him. When he was naked, she slid her palms over his thighs, feeling the hard textures of skin and muscle. He was magnificently aroused. Her breasts felt heavy, and she wanted to

go further, but she surrendered to the grip of the fantasy.

"What do you want from me now?" she asked.

His jaw was clenched, and he made an inarticulate sound deep in his throat as he pressed down on her shoulders. "This."

Her heart swelled. She followed his silent command and loved him as she wanted to. Time lost meaning. Despite her posture of submission, she had never felt more powerful. His voiceless sounds of pleasure fueled her excitement, while his hands, tangled in her hair, told her without words of his need.

She felt the rigid tension of his muscles beneath her palms and the sheen of sweat that formed on his

skin. Without warning, he pulled her to her feet and drew her down on the bed.

He reared back just enough to look into her eyes. ''Perform well, and I'll let you service me again."

Oh, my.
He must have felt her shiver because his eyes narrowed with satisfaction. She parted her legs.

"Not so fast." He captured her eurlobe in his teeth and gave it a gentle nip.

"First I need to punish you."

"Punish me?" She stiffened, thinking of the whips stored under the bed, just beneath their hips.

"You excited me but you didn't finish what you started."

"That's because you—"

"Enough." Once again, he reared back and regarded her with all the lofty arrogance of his Romanov heritage.

She felt herself relax. He would never hurt her.

"When I want your opinion, woman, I'll ask for it. Until then, you'd be wise to hold your tongue. My Cossacks have been a long time without a woman."

She gave him a squinty-eyed look that told him he was pushing it.

One corner of his mouth quivered, but he didn't smile. Instead, he dipped his head and brushed his lips across the inside of her thigh. "There's only one fit punishment for a slave who can't stay silent. A

vicious tongue-lashing."

The ceiling spun as he delivered on his threat and transported her into a realm of hot delight and ancient ecstasy. His body grew slick with perspiration and the muscles of his shoulders bunched beneath her hands, but still he wouldn't stop. Only when she begged him did he finally force the sweet entry she needed so desperately.

He drove deep and true, and all the mischief faded from his eyes. "I want to love you now," he whispered.

Her eyes stung with tears as he spoke the words she'd been longing to hear. She clung to his body, and they fell into a rhythm as timeless as the beat of their hearts. They moved as one, and she felt his love filling her, suffusing her, spilling into her very soul.

They swirled together, man and woman, earth and sky, all the elements of creation converging in a perfect melding.

When it was over, she felt a joy she'd never before experienced and a certainty that everything was going to be all right between them.
I want to love you,
he'd said. Not,
I want to make love to you,
but
I want to love you.
And he had. He couldn't have loved her more completely if he'd spoken the words a hundred times.

She gazed across the pillow at him. He lay facing her, his eyes half-lidded, slumberous. Reaching over, she caressed his cheekbone, and he turned his head to press his lips against her palm.

She rubbed her thumb along his jawbone, enjoying the slight abrasion against her skin. "Thank you."

"I'm the one who should thank you."

"I hope that means you're not going to give me to your Cossacks?"

"I wouldn't share you with anybody."

The erotic game they'd been playing had made her forget the promise she'd made to tell him about the baby. Now.

"You haven't said anything about the divorce for a while."

He immediately grew wary and rolled to his back. "It hasn't been on my mind."

She was disheartened by his withdrawal, but she'd known this would be difficult, and she continued to press him as gently as she could. "I'm glad. It's not a good thing to think about."

He gazed over at her, his eyes deeply troubled. "I know what you want me to say, but I can't do it yet. Just give me a little more time, will you?"

With her heart in her throat, she nodded.

He looked as skittish as a wild animal brought too close to civilization. "Let's just take it day by day for now."

She understood that the worst thing she could do was make him feel trapped, and the fact that he wasn't still insisting their marriage would be over in two more months gave her the confidence to wait just a little longer. "Of course we can."

He drew himself up and leaned into the pillows propped against the headboard.

"You know you're the best thing that's ever happened to me, don't you?"

"I certainly do."

He chuckled, and the tension seemed to leave him. She rolled onto her stomach, propped herself on her elbows, and stirred his chest hair with her fingertips."Wasn't Catherine the Great a Romanov?"

"Yes."

"I read that she had a lusty nature."

"She had a long string of lovers."

"And a lot of power." She leaned forward and nipped his pectoral muscle with her teeth. He jumped,

so she nipped him again.

"Ouch!" He caught her chin and tilted it. "Exactly what's going on in that devious little brain of yours?"

''I was just imagining all those strong men forced to bow down to Catherine the Great."

"Uh huh."

"Forced to serve her. To submit to her."

"Uh-oh."

She brushed her lips across his. "It's your turn to be the slave, big guy."

For a moment he looked startled, and then he gave a sigh that came all the way from his toes. "I think I just died and went to heaven."

21

Alex had been impossible all week. Ever since they'd gone out to dinner and then returned to play their erotic games, he'd been looking for excuses to pick an argument with her, and now he scowled at her as he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm.

"Couldn't you have put some gas in the truck when you went into town for groceries?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't notice it was empty."

"You never notice," he said belligerently. "Do you think it runs on air?"

She gritted her teeth. It was as if she'd gotten too close to him that night and he needed to distance her. So far she'd managed to dodge all the grenades he kept lobbing at her, but it was growing increasingly difficult to keep her temper in check. Now she had to force herself to speak in a reasonable tone of voice. "I didn't know you wanted me to do it. You've always kept the truck gassed."

"Yeah, well in case you haven't noticed, I've been kind of busy lately. We've had sick horses, a fire in

the cook tent, and now I've got a blackmailing health inspector threatening to slap us with a batch of safety violations we don't deserve."

"I know you've been under a lot of pressure. If you'd said something, I would have been happy to get gas."

"Yeah, right. How many times have you ever worked a pump?"

She mentally counted to five. "None. But I can learn."

"Don't bother." He stalked away.

She couldn't hold her tongue a moment longer. Splaying one hand on her hip, she called out, "You

have a nice day, too!"

He stopped in his tracks, then turned to give her one of his blackest stares.

"Don't push me."

She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped the toe of her sneaker in the dirt. Just because he was

on the run from a tumult of feelings he didn't know how to cope with didn't mean he could keep taking his frustration out on her. For days now she'd been trying to be patient, but enough was enough.

He set his jaw and stomped toward her.

She dug in her heels, refusing to budge.

He came to a stop directly in front of her, deliberately using his size to intimidate her.

She was forced to admit he did it very well.

"Do you have a problem with something?" he barked out.

This whole argument was ridiculous, and a streak of mischief made her smile.

"If anybody ever tells you that you're beautiful when you're angry, they're lying."

His face flushed, and for a moment, she thought he was going to explode.

Instead, he lifted her by the elbows and pressed her against the floss wagon.

Then he kissed her until she was breathless.

When he finally set her back on her feet, he looked even more foul-tempered than he had before their kiss. "I'm sorry!" he shouted.

As an apology, it wasn't impressive, and as he stomped away, he looked more like a rampaging tiger than a repentant husband. Although she knew he was suffering, she had just about lost patience. Why did he have to make everything so hard for them? Why couldn't he simply accept the fact that he loved her?

She remembered the vulnerability she'd seen in his eyes that night when he'd asked her to give him a little more time, and she suspected he was afraid to give a name to what he felt for her. The conflict between his emotions and what he believed he knew about himself was ripping him apart.

That's what she'd been telling herself, anyway, because the alternative—that he might not love her at all—didn't bear thinking about, especially since she still hadn't told him about the baby.

She had all sorts of excuses for her cowardice. When things had been going well between them, she hadn't wanted to risk spoiling their harmony, and now that everything was falling apart, she'd lost her nerve.

But it was cowardice, nonetheless, and she forced herself to face the truth.

Trouble needed to be confronted, but instead, she kept running from it. It had been nearly a month since she'd taken the pregnancy test. She estimated she was about two and a half months pregnant, but she hadn't gone to a doctor because she didn't want to risk Alex finding out about it. The fact that she was taking excellent care of herself was no excuse for not getting started on proper medical care, especially since she needed to make certain the baby hadn't been harmed by the birth control pills she'd been taking before she'd discovered they hadn't done their job and she was pregnant.

She stuck her fingers in the pockets of her jeans and made up her mind. There wouldn't be any more postponements. He was impossible to live with right now, anyway, so what difference did it make? By the time they went to bed tonight, she would have told him. It had taken two people to make this baby, and it was time both of them lived up to their responsibilities.

As soon as the afternoon performance was over, she went to find him, but the truck was gone. She grew increasingly nervous. After putting this off for so long, now all she wanted to do was have it over with.

Her next chance should have been at dinner, but Alex's troubles with the local health inspector kept him away until it was time for the evening performance.

Now, as she approached the back door to wait for their act to begin, she saw him standing off to the side with Misha, who was loosely tied to a stake. One of his whips was coiled around his shoulder with the butt hanging free across his chest. The breeze rumpled his dark hair, and the fading evening light cast deep shadows across his profile.

No one approached him. It was as if he'd drawn an invisible circle around himself and the gelding, a circle that shut out everyone in the world, including her. Especially her. The red sequins in his sash glittered as he ran his hand over the horse's flanks, and her frustration with him grew. Why did he have to be so pigheaded?

As the audience inside erupted in laughter over the antics of the clowns, she approached him. Misha snorted and tossed his head. She eyed the horse apprehensively. No matter how many times she did this act, she'd never get used to any part of it, including that terrifying moment when Alex pulled her up on

the saddle in front of him.

She stopped well short of the horse. "Do you think you could get someone to cover for you after the show? We need to talk."

He kept his back to her as he adjusted the cinch on the saddle. "It'll have to wait. I have too much to do."

She'd reached the limits of her patience. If they didn't start discussing their problems, they'd never be

able to have the kind of marriage both of them needed. ' 'Whatever you have to do can wait."

The full sleeves of his white shirt billowed as he whipped around. "Look, Daisy, if this is about the gas,

I said I was sorry. I know I haven't been the easiest person to get along with lately, but it's been a rough week."