To Love a Man (14 page)

“Don’t move!” she warned, although he had given no indication that he planned to. Indeed, he looked as though he was prepared to stay where he was all day.

The pistol quivered in her grip. Biting her lip, Lisa steadied it. Already her arms were beginning to ache a little from holding it out so stiffly in front of her.

“Well, are you going to shoot me or not?” Sam demanded.

Lisa stiffened her arms again, pointing the mouth of the pistol squarely at his mid-section.

“Yes,” she said positively. In truth, she was growing more reluctant to pull the trigger with each passing second. He deserved it, despicable creature that he was, but . . .

“It will make a hell of a mess, you know,” he said unhelpfully. “That’s a Colt .45, and at this range it will make a hole in my guts the size of a basketball. Might even split me clean in two.”

Lisa felt her stomach begin to churn at this unlooked-for bit of information. She could just picture the grisly scene. . . . Blood would fly everywhere; Sam’s body would be torn in half. . . . Her hands began to shake; the mouth of the pistol dipped. Hastily she jerked it up again, glaring aggressively at Sam.

“Go on, pull the trigger,” he encouraged. The corners of his mouth were beginning to quirk suspiciously.

Lisa stiffened. If he dared to laugh at her, she
would
shoot him!

“You deserve it,” she muttered angrily. She already knew that she wasn’t going to be able to do it. Just the thought of that tall, strong body lying broken and bleeding on the ground, the life blown from it by her hand, was enough to make her sick. But Sam had no way of knowing that. . . .

“But you can’t do it, can you?” he answered dryly. “Honey, you couldn’t even shoot a tree. You’re not going to shoot me—and we both know it.”

“Shut up!” she nearly shouted. What he had said was all too true, but if she was going to maintain her advantage, she had to convince him otherwise.

“If you move one step, I’ll blow your balls off,” she said clearly. To her astonished rage, he laughed out loud.

“That’s one thing I admire about you.” He was openly grinning. Lisa felt her rage rising, along with a murderous urge to wipe that smirk from his face. “Your ladylike language under the most trying of circumstances. Bryn Mawr can be proud of you.”

“Say one more word and I really will shoot you.” She was glowering at him, angry color high in her cheeks. She
should
shoot him, for what he had done to her. It had been the most humiliating experience of her life, his brutal taking of her body without regard for her wishes. She should teach him a lesson . . . but she couldn’t. Not this way. Besides, what would become of her if he died? At the thought, she almost stamped her foot in sheer frustration.

“No, you won’t. And we both know it, don’t we, Lisa?” He began to walk toward her, his movements slow and easy.

Lisa tightened her grip on the gun frantically. She wouldn’t surrender so easily. . . .

“Stay back!” she warned in a high, shaking voice. The pistol wobbled in her hold. Desperately she snapped it up, pointing it at him. To her fury, Sam kept coming.

“Give me the pistol, Lisa,” he cajoled, his hand held out to receive it.

Lisa saw that he wasn’t going to stop. She glared at him with impotent fury for a moment. He was so damned cock-sure that she wouldn’t shoot, that she would just meekly hand over the pistol. . . . For a moment Lisa seriously considered pulling the trigger, and to hell with the consequences. Then, with a sound midway between a sob and a growl, she hurled the pistol at him.

Sam caught it easily in one hand. Lisa ground her teeth as she watched him pluck it out of the air as casually as if it were a baseball. At the very least she had hoped to leave him with a large bruise by which to remember this encounter.

He stopped, balancing the pistol in his hand. Lisa glared at him. He was close—close enough that he could reach out and grab her if he liked. Well, she wasn’t afraid of him, and she wasn’t moving an inch. Let him take whatever revenge he chose.

“Next time you hold a pistol on a man,” he drawled infuriatingly, “make sure the safety’s off. The effect is infinitely more threatening.”

Grinning, he flicked the safety switch from off to on and back again. Lisa could have screamed with pure rage. No wonder he had been so casually confident!

“Now,” he began. His words were interrupted by the unmistakable rattle of an approaching jeep. Instantly Sam stiffened; the teasing expression fled from his face, to be replaced by cold concentration. Lisa was frightened. Seen like this, she believed that he could kill. . . .

“Someone’s coming,” he said unnecessarily. “Get back over in those trees and stay out of sight.”

Even as he spoke, he was checking the chamber of the pistol. What he saw there appeared to satisfy him, because he clicked the compartment closed again, and, with a quick glance at Lisa to make sure that she was obeying him, he sprinted toward the jeep.

Lisa was already running for the trees, pausing only to scoop up those of her clothes that she could find. Panting, her heart beating like a hunted rabbit’s, she reached the safety of the trees and cowered in their concealing shadow. Looking back at Sam, she saw that he was leaning over the jeep’s side to pull a businesslike rifle from the rear seat. With his other hand he scooped up a belt stuffed with ammunition, slinging it over his shoulder. Quickly he checked the mechanisms of the rifle, then headed away from the jeep, moving fast.

Horrible memories of the night she had met him flickered through Lisa’s brain like flashes from a movie. She was so frightened that her knees were shaking. If the approaching vehicle did indeed contain enemy soldiers, what would she and Sam do? They would both be killed. . . . Dazed, her eyes sought Sam again. He had dropped to one knee some little distance from the jeep; the rifle was held to his shoulder, its mouth pointed steadily in the direction of the sound that was growing ever closer. He was squinting purposefully down the long barrel; beside him on the ground, within easy reach, lay the pistol.

Just looking at him helped to steady Lisa’s crumbling nerves. He was a cruel, calculating bastard, and she despised him, but she knew that he would protect her with his life if necessary. He himself had admitted that he felt responsible for her, and he was not a man to shirk his responsibilities at any cost. Even dressed as he was, in nothing but an ammunition belt, he looked tough and hard and capable of fighting off an army single-handedly if the need arose. Suddenly Lisa felt immeasurably calmer. As much as she hated to admit it, she knew she was in good hands.

Lisa made a quick inventory of the clothes she held in one hand. Whatever happened, she would be better prepared to face it fully dressed, she thought. Her panties were missing; they must still be out there in the field. She stepped into her shorts, tying the rope belt into a satisfyingly secure knot. Then she slid her feet into her sneakers and knelt to tie the laces. Dressed, she felt better. Sam might be unconcerned with his own nudity, but she was not.

She pressed herself against the thick trunk of the very tree she had been attempting to assassinate earlier, and peered apprehensively around it. She could see Sam where he knelt, rocklike, his body almost hidden by the tall grass. Whoever was approaching wouldn’t see him until they were almost upon him, and maybe not even then. If they spotted anything it would be Sam’s jeep, and they would probably go over to investigate, giving Sam a chance to take them totally by surprise.

As the jeep, for that was what it was, roared into view, Sam’s muscles tensed. Lisa could see them bulge against the brown satin of his skin. . . . For just a moment his hands tightened on the upraised rifle, and she thought that he looked ready to fire on the instant. But then, as the jeep came closer, he laid the rifle down on the ground beside the pistol and stood up. When the jeep rattled to a halt beside him, he had put on his shorts and was very calmly stepping into his pants.

Two men were in the jeep, and Lisa felt a wave of relief as she recognized them as being from the camp. They were both grinning broadly at Sam as he zipped up his pants.

“Well, I see we didn’t have any reason to be worried about you,” one of them remarked jovially to Sam. Lisa vaguely remembered that Sam had introduced him to her simply as Frank.

“No, you didn’t,” Sam responded, his tone dry. “As you see, I’m alive and well.”

“Yeah.” Frank was grinning; from the knowing tone of his voice, he had a very shrewd idea about what had taken place in the field just prior to his arrival. Lisa, staying out of sight among the trees because she was too embarrassed to come out, felt her cheeks burning. She clapped her hands to them, hoping to dull their hectic color before anyone could see it.

Over by the jeep, Sam finished buckling his belt, picked up his shoulder holster, and strapped it on. Then he shrugged into his shirt.

“Hey, you forgot something!” Frank clambered from the jeep, walking over to a spot some little distance away from Sam and scooping something out of the tall grass. He was chuckling audibly, and Lisa had no trouble discerning the twitting note in his voice. An instant later, she saw its cause: as he held out the object he had retrieved, Lisa was horrified to recognize her own silky, peach-colored underpants dangling from his stubby fingers.

“Very funny.” Sam took the undergarment from his henchman without any sign of embarrassment. Lisa, if she hadn’t been feeling so thoroughly mortified, would have reluctantly had to admire his aplomb. As it was, all she could do was squirm with humiliation as he casually tucked her panties into his pocket.

“Now that you’ve assured yourselves that I’m not in any mortal danger, why don’t you take off?” Sam made it clear that it was an order, not a request. “I think you’ve embarrassed the lady enough.”

“Some lady!” The other man in the jeep spoke for the first time. Sam turned a suddenly furious frown on the man as he grinned at his own wit. Abashed, the man muttered something that sounded like an apology. Frank, meanwhile, had climbed back into the jeep.

“See you later,” he said to Sam, turning the key in the ignition. Sam nodded curtly in answer as the engine roared to life, and then the jeep was bumping away from him, headed back in the direction of the camp.

After it was out of sight, Sam strolled toward the trees where Lisa still hid. She watched him approach, wishing that the ground would open up and swallow her.

“You can come out now,” he called dryly. Reluctantly, feeling a fool, Lisa stepped out into the sunshine. Sam surveyed her silently for a moment, then reached into his pants pocket.

“Here,” he said, holding her panties out to her. Lisa felt as if her face were on fire. Knowing she must be turning beet red, she accepted the garment from him with a muttered word of thanks. He eyed her sardonically.

“Come on, let’s go,” he said, turning in the direction of the jeep. “And don’t look so embarrassed. What you heard was just sour grapes. Every man jack of them would murder his grandmother to be in my place.”

Speechless, Lisa followed him over to the jeep and obediently climbed inside. As they drove back to camp, she pondered this man who was stranger, enemy, and lover all at the same time. He had been brutal earlier in word and deed. When he had so ruthlessly taken her body she had wanted to kill him. Yet, when they had first made love out there in the grass, he had taught her body a lesson in passion that it had never thought to learn; and, later, he had been kind to try to alleviate her embarrassment.

When they reached the camp, he stopped the jeep and turned to her.

“Go on back to the tent,” he said, his hands resting lightly on the top of the steering wheel as he regarded her broodingly. “I have some things to do. I’ll see you later.”

Lisa got out without argument. No sooner had her feet hit the ground than the jeep drove off.

After that, their relationship underwent a drastic change. Sam, disdaining her marksmanship and not being able to spare anyone to stay with her, started taking her with him whenever possible. Lisa was instructed to stay with the jeep, and this she obediently did. Sometimes she would take a blanket and curl up on the rear seat while he and his men did whatever they had come to do. She had learned better than to ask questions, and in truth she no longer cared. She only wished that they would finish the job in a hurry so that she could go home again.

Lisa no longer melted with passion at Sam’s slightest touch. His crude words about her qualities as a “lay” had effectively stiffened her resistance. This rankled every time she thought of it; so did the knowing grins on the faces of the men as she accompanied Sam nearly everywhere he went. Perversely, now that she was determined to resist his lovemaking, he took her body every chance he got: at least once a day, sometimes more. If she feigned sleep when they were out late, he disregarded her pretended drowsiness, scooping her out of the rear seat and carrying her inside to his cot, where he would make passionate love to her until the walls of her self-control crumbled. Or sometimes, during the afternoon, he would take her wherever they happened to be. Once he even returned to the jeep while his men were out doing whatever it was they did in the jungle, climbed into the backseat of the jeep with her, and pulled her onto his lap. He proceeded to kiss her until she was limp and pliant in his arms, then took her with her straddling his lap as he sat upright on the car seat. At first Lisa had been terrified that someone would come and catch them in
flagrante delicto,
as it were. But by the time Sam was finished with her, she wouldn’t have cared if they had had a whole football stadium full of spectators.

Each time he took her, Lisa vowed that it would be the last. And each time she fought him until his rough caresses drove her beyond all reason. Then she went wild in his arms. Lisa found these episodes humiliating in the extreme, but Sam seemed to thrive on them. At any rate, his lovemaking showed no signs of diminishing.

Like the male chauvinist pig Lisa called him, now that she was in truth his “woman” Sam expected her to act like it. He would fling torn garments into her lap and expect her to mend them as she waited for him in the jeep. Back at the camp, she had the honor of making up his cot as well as her own. Doubtless he would have expected her to cook for him if he had had any confidence in the meals she continued to prepare for herself; as it was, after one hard glance at one of her more fanciful concoctions, he preferred to stick with Riley’s efforts, apparently with the conviction that the devil he knew was better than the one he didn’t. Lisa’s temper simmered at his casual assumption that she would perform her “womanly” functions, but he had not pushed her to the point of an explosion—yet.