Stormy Challenge (3 page)

"I told Keith I'd take the contract with me and make up my mind while I was away,"

she explained, aware that she was tapping one foot gently under the table. She had the impression Court was about to condemn her for failing to go through with the meeting, and Leya didn't appreciate the prospect of criticism from him.

"I can see you think you know what I'm going to say next," he teased. "But you're wrong."

"Am I?"

"Yes. I'm not going to tell you that you should have stayed and had the meeting with Tremayne."

"Why not?" she demanded dryly, positive that was what he was thinking.

"Because I'm too happy to have you sitting across from me tonight," he retorted smoothly. "I'm very glad you're here and not back in Santa Rosa!"

Instantly, Leya relaxed, her lips curving warmly and the silvery green glance softening. "So am I," she agreed gently.

"And I wouldn't have wanted to forgo this encounter for all the semiconductors in California," he finished, voice thickening with male anticipation, an ancient, primitive anticipation that had the power to send answering shivers of alarm and excitement through her.

"Thank you," she whispered, trying to sound only as" if she were responding to a polite compliment.

"You're welcome," he growled in soft laughter. "Are you ready to come up to my room now?"

Some of the silver in Leya's eyes coalesced into a harder substance, even while her heart picked up a beat. "Your subtlety is slipping again."

He smiled with only a touch of the predator. In fact, an onlooker would need to be quite alert to notice the implication of the flashing teeth because the heat in the golden eyes was so overpowering. "You have to come up to my room," he said patiently.

"Why?" she demanded starkly.

"Because the contract is there. I left it on the table by the window."

"I'll get it in the morning," she evaded, acutely aware of the fencing match in which she was engaged. The contract was nothing more than a polite excuse for the war of wills.

"I don't want to be responsible for it overnight," Court insisted. "It represents your brother's whole future."

"You could bring it downstairs now," Leya suggested huskily, her eyes never leaving his.

"I'll compromise and bring it to your room," he announced with a totally false magnanimity that amused Leya in spite of the intriguing danger of the situation.

"Do you ever give up?" she whispered curiously.

"No." It was a simple statement of fact and she believed him. Unconsciously, Leya ran the tip of her tongue over her lower lip, tension heightening all her senses. He waited.

"You can't come to my room. Not tonight," she finally told him quietly, her eyes meeting his in a direct, honest look.

"And you won't come to mine," he confirmed.

"I... I can't..."

"You mean you're afraid," he corrected softly.

She drew a long, steadying breath. "Perhaps." She didn't try to deny the accusation and saw him nod in satisfaction.

"I'll settle for that tonight."

"What?" she almost yelped, suddenly outraged. "You
want
me to be afraid of you?"

The sexual tension seeped out of her body to be replaced by affronted feminine anger. The green glance hardened and she watched him through suddenly narrowed lids.

"With a woman like you, I think it might be a necessary first step." Court returned her annoyed expression with one of glittering male certainty. "It ensures that I have your full attention!"

Ley a stared at him, trying to decide whether to laugh or to kick him. The humorous side of her nature, nearly always in the ascendency anyway, won. She grinned recklessly.

"Are you sure you'd know what to do with my full attention once you had it?

Remember, you don't approve of bossy women!"

"I am nothing if not resourceful," he assured her, rising to his feet in a smooth, coordinated movement that appealed to her notions of masculine grace. He smiled deliberately, invitingly, reaching down to take her hand and tug her gently up beside him. "And I'm perfectly willing to let you try managing me."

"Because you don't think I can do it?"

"Why don't you try it and find out for yourself how much you can get away with?"

he retorted easily, leading her out of the lounge and into the main lobby of the inn.

"What would happen to your poor masculine ego if I were successful?" Leya taunted, pleasantly aware of his fingers entwined with hers as he led her through the lobby and on toward the darkened, glass-walled room which overlooked the pounding surf. The emerald dress swirled around her ankles as she moved.

"It would probably be shredded," he sighed in mock despair, guiding her through the empty, shadowy room to stand before one of its huge floor-to-ceiling windows.

Below them, the wind-tossed waves crashed hugely on the rocky beach, driven by the first gales of an incoming storm. What little moonlight there was illuminated the scene in a mysterious, enchanting way. As always, Leya felt herself responding to the power of the landscape.

She felt Court's hand tighten abruptly on her fingers and knew instinctively that he was equally affected by the sensual impact of the scene. She was overwhelmingly aware that the teasing, baiting, inviting approach he had been exercising all evening had given way to something much more elemental and far more dangerous.

She also knew with intuitive self-honesty that the real danger lay in her own reactions to this man who had moved from stranger to confidant in only a couple of days.

Now he was pressing his status to that of lover, and Leya told herself she must be cautious.

"We seem to have the place to ourselves. And if we sit down over there in that alcove, no one coming in will even see us. Come here, Leya," Court commanded in a low. deepening tone that pulled at her.

A moment later, Leya found herself sinking quite naturally across his knees, her head against his wide shoulder. The silver in her eyes turned to rich platinum just before his mouth covered her own.

Leya's first reaction to the touch of Court's lips was that his kiss wasn't exactly what she had subconsciously expected. There was nothing tentative or uncertain about the caress and his arms held her securely enough, but there was some quality in the way his mouth played on hers that didn't fit her preconceptions. A provoking delicacy she hadn't anticipated.

Intrigued and curious with a deeply feminine curiosity, Leya wound her arms lightly around his neck, her fingertips toying with the oddly attractive gold and brown of his hair. She knew a genuine pleasure in the feel of the crisp stuff and gave a small, soundless sigh. The overall effect of the tiny escaping breath was to part her lips slightly, invitingly.

But Court made no move to take advantage of the little surrender. Instead, he continued lightly, almost

teasingly to sample first the comers of her mouth and then the fullness of her lower lip. As Leya began wondering at the restraint and lack of explosion in his passion, he lifted his mouth from hers and began a fragile trail of exploration along her cheek to the edge of her lowered lashes.

Just as his lips dropped the smallest of kisses on her sensitive eyelid, his hand, which had been lying along her waist, moved. It slid upward to rest a fraction of an inch below the curve of her breast. There was a sense of impending intimacy in the touch that made Leya's pulse race.

"Oh, Court," she breathed, every nerve in her body tightening itself into a high-strung tension that was as exciting as it was uncomfortable. She felt she ought to be pushing his hand away, refusing him too many liberties, but she couldn't do that because he hadn't yet taken those liberties. So far, the depth of the intimacy was only implied.

"You look very lovely in emerald green," he offered in the softest of whispers, and the hand that had been waiting under her breast shifted once again. Leya waited for it to close possessively over the small, full curve of the green bodice, knowing she should resist when it did so. For a brief instant, she would know the feel of his hand and something in her wanted that.

But his fingers did not move to explore her breast as she had expected. Instead, he picked up the long, thick braid of sable-brown hair and toyed with it. Slowly, he lifted the length of it and drew it around her exposed, vulnerable throat, raising his head to drink in the picture she made.

"I think I know why cavemen were fond of dragging their women home by the hair.

Something rather primitively sensual about the notion." The gold in Court's eyes flowed into the shadowy brown, melting it, turning it to molten amber.

Leya watched him from beneath her lashes, fiercely aware of the rope of hair around her throat. "No," she managed in faint amusement. "The ones who got dragged home by their hair were the ones who couldn't think for themselves."

"And you're much too smart to wind up in that category?" he murmured, tightening the braid ever so slightly.

"Yes." It was the simple truth.

"It isn't merely a question of intelligence, Leya," he grated, lowering his head once again to graze upon her parted lips.

"No?" she countered with amused scorn. She felt his mouth nibbling gently on hers and wanted to grab him and hold him still so that she could learn the full impact of his kiss. Her fingers tightened in the hair at the back of his head as if she would follow through with the impulse. This teasing, tantalizing string of caresses she was receiving was not enough . . .

"No." Court smiled. She could feel the smile against her mouth and wanted to use her teeth very carefully, warningly on his lower lip. But she didn't quite dare. "No,"

he muttered again on her mouth, "it's not just a matter of intelligence. There are some women, perhaps only one in a lifetime, that a man wants to be very sure of. One he would like to chain with golden bonds. . . !"

Leya shivered and knew he felt it. "Do you want to put golden chains on me, Court?" Her words were barely audible as she sensed the quickening of her breath and knew his fingers had released the braid to stray to her throat.

"Yes!"

There was unexpected passion in the single word, but it was not echoed in his caress, and Leya stirred restlessly against him, beginning to seek a closer touch, more of his warmth.

"I think," she murmured daringly, uncertain of her motives but knowing she wanted to provoke him a bit further, "that you have the makings of a rather possessive man."

His fingers stroked the base of her throat, drifting downward in lazy threat, and Leya shifted without conscious volition, turning into the caress, like a small cat.

"I am a very possessive man," he stated quietly. "And I will be a very possessive lover."

"When you find a woman who will let you put a chain on her?" Leya smiled in mocking challenge, watching him through slitted lashes.

"I don't plan to ask her permission," he drawled. "The chain will be in place soon enough, whether she likes it or not."

"Because you're so much smarter than she is?"

"Because I'm so much stronger and more ruthless than she is," he corrected at once.

"And I've learned how to set priorities."

"You must feed that ego of yours several pounds of raw meat a day. It certainly isn't undernourished!"

Leya's eyes gleamed as she met his openly examining gaze. With her hands, she traced a path through his hair to his temples, where only the faintest hint of gray could be seen in full light. It wasn't detectable at all in the shadows tonight.

"Neither is yours," he retorted with a small grin. "You're very sure of yourself, aren't you, Leya Brandon?"

"Does that bother you?"

"Do I look bothered?" he growled, swooping gently to touch his tongue to the tip of her ear.

"No," she admitted ruefully, her eyes closing in response to his tiny caress.

"That's because I know what I'm doing, little Leya."

"And what exactly are you doing, Court?"

"Baiting my trap," he explained at once. The fingers he was using to trace patterns on her throat hovered at the green gem now.

"Are you going to explain that?" she demanded, wondering if he would touch her more intimately in a few seconds. He was so close and his hand was warm and inviting ...

"No," he murmured cheerfully, "I'm not. There will be time enough later."

"A man of instant decision," she taunted, turning her cheek toward his questing, sampling mouth. It was all becoming too much, she thought in gathering frustration.

She wanted him to touch her, try to take her by storm. She would have to halt him eventually, of course, but in that moment she longed to know the range and depth of his passion and desire. The urge to find out if he really wanted her and wasn't simply playing with her was overwhelming. What was it about this man that affected her so fiercely? She couldn't remember knowing such a physical impatience in herself before in her life. Not even when she had thought herself so much in love with Alex.

"A man who knows what he wants," Court rasped in soft agreement with her teasing assessment.

But if he truly wanted her, why wasn't he pushing and taking and demanding with his hands and his lips? Leya wondered distractedly. There had been nothing timid about his approach earlier in the evening! But, then, there was nothing particularly timid about him now, she acknowledged uncomfortably. It was this waiting, teasing, tantalizing quality in him that was frustrating. Frustrating and intriguing, she realized vaguely, her fingers sliding to the muscles of his shoulders and beginning a gentle, kneading massage.

Frustrating, intriguing, and . . . Suddenly, Leya smiled inwardly. And safe. That was the missing explanation. For all his dangerous words, he was letting her know with his body that she was safe with him. Or at least as safe as she wanted to be.

With a sigh of satisfaction at having solved the puzzle, Leya relaxed against Court's chest, deepening her own kisses as she framed his rugged face between her palms.

Her self-confidence flowed serenely through her blood even as she deliberately assumed the aggressive role. The excitement was like a fire in the pit of her stomach as she kissed Court full on the mouth, probing into his warmth with the tip of her tongue. She wanted his response, needed it...