His Wicked Dream (Velvet Lies, Book 2) (16 page)

The intoxication of lilies, lavender, and cherry pie was almost his undoing.

"I'm not afraid of you, Michael."

"You should be, Eden," he said huskily. "Very, very afraid."

She swallowed, her eyes as dewy as meadows. They reminded him poignantly of the butterfly field from his dreams.

"Why?" she whispered again.

It was more than he could bear, her refusal to concede. That she would stand before him, rejecting what he knew to be absolute—that he was detestable because he had failed Gabriel—unleashed a raw, manic frenzy inside him. How dare she be so blind? So naive? He needed her to run from him as he would have run from himself. He needed her to acknowledge his utter contemptibility. And he knew of only one way to make her see the light.

He locked his arm beneath her buttocks and dragged her forward for his kiss.

The breath slammed out of Eden as her breasts collided with linen-swathed musculature; her pulse pounded as relentless fingers gripped the base of her skull. She barely had time to gasp, to think, before Michael's tongue thrust past her lips, a velvet rapier intent on bringing her to her knees. Sandalwood soap and rain-scented hair flooded her senses. His thighs branded her hips; his palm burned its imprint through her silk stockings. She trembled, shock giving way to unease.

She tried to shove him back, to wedge a hand between them.

Then he moaned.

Tortured rather than threatening, the sound wracked her with confusion. It seemed to well up from some dark, tumultuous vault, a Pandora's box of denial and need. The healer in her recognized the pain; the woman in her heard the desire. Stunned by the proof of such raw emotion, she sagged, her chest sinking against his wildly beating heart.

"Eden," he breathed, freeing the fingers he'd tangled in her hair. He cupped her cheek, and his lips moved seductively now, nuzzling, sipping, caressing. Her mouth trembled open, tasting the heady tang of man. Somehow, the fist that had been so intent on pushing him away clutched a handful of his shirt. He rewarded her submission.

Feather-light touches lured her hips forward until they, too, sank in intimate surrender. His arousal should have frightened her; she should have come to her senses, cried out for release. But the intoxication of his lips, the bonfire that spread from her belly to her limbs, numbed her virginal unease. He wrapped his spell around her, fanning the heat that sizzled between them until she dared to slide her fingers through his hair. Until she fit her length more snugly to his. And when she dared to push her tongue into his mouth, a guttural sound ripped from his throat.

God help you, Eden. I want you.

In that moment, Michael was lost. He couldn't help himself. He drove her spine into the wall, and she squirmed, her nipples hardening like pebbles against his chest. He reveled in the way she clutched his shoulders, in the way she gasped his name. He'd wanted to prove he was a bastard, and so he had, but he hadn't expected her to respond like a prairie fire in the wind. He hadn't expected the pretty little maid to explode into the siren from his dreams.

That she was yet an innocent, he had no doubt, for her caress was a tentative one, sliding along his spine, hovering uncertainly above his buttocks. But the fact that this blushing woman-child would stroke him below the belt fanned his fever to a maddening pitch. To hell with the fantasy, he wanted Eden.
Eden.
And nothing less than this paradise-in-the-flesh would do.

He swung her toward the settee, his mouth feasting greedily on hers. He was intent on filling his lap with her, on gripping those coltish hips between his thighs and liberating those straining nipples from their buttons and whalebone. Had he been given five minutes more, just five minutes come hell or high water, he would have had her stripped to her stockings and writhing in wanton delight. Unfortunately, God chose that moment to answer his prayer.

"Michael," Sera called, "for heaven's sake, didn't you hear the doorbell ringing loud enough to wake the—"

Her voice trailed to a gasp. Michael spun, his face burning hotter than his loins. There on the threshold stood his bug-eyed sister with a rain-drenched, but equally slack-jawed Jamie Harragan.

Abruptly, Michael released Eden. She staggered, and he had to grab her again so she wouldn't topple over the arm of the couch. Sera's grin broadened. Michael ground his teeth. In that moment, he didn't know whom he'd like to kick harder, his sister or himself.

"Jamie, what's wrong?" he demanded, turning his back on his rumpled guest. He was annoyed to find his breathing so ragged.

The boy looked past him, blinked suspiciously at Eden, then said, "I didn't know she was here."

"Yes, yes," Michael said crossly, "Eden's here. What's wrong?"

"I declare, Michael." Sera snickered. "There's no cause for you to take your embarrassment out on—"

"Is it private, Jamie?" he interrupted, tossing his sister a daggerlike glance. "Man business?"

The boy nodded hurriedly.

"Very well. I'll get my valise."

"Man business indeed," Sera taunted as he swept past her.

He wanted to wring her neck. But he wanted to flee the scene of his crime even more.

He grabbed his coat and doctor's bag and let Jamie hurry him out the front door. Thunder rumbled, drowning out the anxious child's prattle of dogs and coons and bunnies. Jamie caught his hand, dragging him down the porch steps, and Michael followed automatically, his thoughts—and his eyes—straying to the parlor window and the blaze of lamplight that left nothing to the imagination of passersby. A sheepish, grinning Eden was being embraced by a laughing Sera. His sister's glee was punctuated by animated gestures that only added to Michael's humiliation.

Wedding-bell chasers. Damn them both.
Despite all Eden's protestations to the contrary, she'd plotted to titillate him. She'd plotted it, and he'd fallen for it, even though he'd
known
what she was scheming. He'd walked into that room with his eyes wide open—and his pecker at full mast.

He cursed himself for his stupidity. For his lust. What game would the conniving little chit play if she found out he was dying? How fast would Eden run from his embrace if she knew she'd be saddled with an invalid husband whose only inheritance was a wayward sister and a mortgage?

Michael scowled, battling the crush of loneliness. Of despair.

It would be easy to play her game. Too damned easy.

But even Eden Mallory didn't deserve that.

* * *

Grimacing at the sunbeams bouncing so cheerfully off the mirror, Eden sat before the vanity in her aunt's guest room and gazed in resignation at the hollows ringing her eyes. She hadn't slept well the night before. Sera's squeals of triumph had echoed too loudly through her dreams:

"I knew he liked you. I just knew it!"

Michael liked her, all right. But Eden wasn't sure that was a good thing. How could she possibly tell Sera that the brother she so admired didn't hug... well... chastely? That the preacher's boy whom she thought preferred cherry pies to carnal pleasures kissed like white lightning, not melted butter?

"I'm cold. I'm callous. And I have no intention of changing."

Honestly. Could any man have sputtered a more bald-faced lie?

Eden raised wistful fingers, cupping her cheek. She wished she could recreate the branding sensation, the uncompromising possession of his hands on her skin. Even if she could have convinced herself that Michael didn't feel one solitary spark of emotion, she'd be in the minority. Sera didn't think he was callous. Aunt Claudia didn't think he was cold. And Bonnie clearly thought he was the hottest prospect in town. So why did Michael purport such rubbish? To drive away marriage-minded women who annoyed him?

She raised her chin. As much as it hurt, she supposed Michael now placed her in the bell-chasing category. Never mind that he'd kissed
her
until she saw stars, not the other way around.

She bit her lip, partly to coax some color into her face, partly to distract herself from unmaidenly frustration. Michael wanted her to avoid him, and he'd been willing to play the cad to drive his point home. But why? Why would he go to such lengths to repel a woman who, frankly, had never even considered him a prospect until his kiss?

His kiss.

She sighed, propping her chin in her hand. All her life, she'd longed to be kissed that way, not shyly or piously, but hungrily, wildly, passionately. In her most romantic fantasies, she'd yearned for a man who would make her heart pound and her knees quake. A man who could kindle her senses and ignite her soul. A man who was giving enough, strong enough,
spirited
enough to love.

And Michael was such a man.

Only, Michael didn't want her. At least, not in the marriage sense.

This realization proved more depressing than Eden had thought possible. Why wasn't she someone Michael could love? Other men found her pretty. They seemed to enjoy talking with her, walking with her, holding her hand. She wasn't a prude, not after twelve years of traveling in a medicine show. She'd had to touch men to heal them.

Once, she'd actually thought she was in love. She'd impetuously confided her longings to Talking Raven. The Cherokee had never told her she was sinful or shameless to desire a man. She'd simply hitched the horses and driven Eden to the ranch house of her suitor—whose pregnant wife and two young children had curiously greeted them at the door.

Talking Raven had proven that day that not all men were as committed to their lovers as Papa had been to her. Eden had cried for weeks to realize how Paul had humbugged her. Still, in her stoic way, Talking Raven had averted what might have been the greatest mistake of Eden's life. And Eden had never again considered becoming some man's mistress.

Not that Michael is ever likely to propose such a thing. Not to his landlord's niece and his sister's friend.

In resignation, Eden pinned up her riot of curls and pinched some color into her cheeks. In an hour or two, Claudia or no Claudia, the people of Blue Thunder would expect the trading post to be open. And that meant that Eden would have to risk another morning encounter with Michael across the back fence.

Her heart beat wildly at the thought.

Would he really rise this early? He hadn't come home for hours last night. She hadn't meant to spy on him, but sometime around 3 a.m., after she realized sleep was futile, she'd huddled in the darkness on her window seat, watching the rain roll down the glass. That was when a lamp flared in a second-story window of the Jones house. She'd held her breath, watching Michael pace like a caged tiger. He'd shrugged out of his sopping coat, tugged off his cravat and the black silk vest plastered to his powerful chest. He'd tossed everything in a heap on a chair.

Then, just as he'd been reaching for the buttons of his shirt—that nigh transparent swatch of dampness that clung so enviably to his belted ribs—his head had jerked up. A slick, wet strand of hair had spilled across one eye; still, she'd felt the full intensity of his gaze, like blue cinders, burning through the night. He'd stared directly at her hiding place.

What had clued him to his voyeur? She couldn't say. She'd been certain he couldn't see her. Nevertheless, while she'd sat there blushing, her private parts growing moist with the siren call in her blood, he'd stalked to the shutter, yanked on the cords, and... well, left her prey to an imagination that had only made the ache worse.

Really, what was the matter with her? Before she'd met Michael Jones, she'd viewed half-dressed men with the professional eye of a healer. Now a certain set of taut buttocks and brawny shoulders made her salivate—for all the good it would do her. Aside from sexual attraction and their mutual love of Sera, what did she and Michael share in common?

Secrets,
came the unbidden response
.
Scandal and failure
.

Even if Michael wanted to be her suitor, how could she let him without lying about her past? A university-educated physician was likely to become the ringleader of any new vigilante group that formed to keep her too terrified to sell Papa's tonic.

A high-pitched yowl shattered her musings.

Eden winced. "For heaven's sake, Stazzie, what is it now?"

A sequence of clattering, followed by a particularly virulent curse, answered.

Eden frowned. Had Aunt Claudia come home early?

Visions of smoking shotguns and dead cats dancing in her brain, Eden gathered up her skirts and raced down the staircase, only to slide to a halt when she reached the splash of sunlight on the kitchen's threshold. The back door had been thrown wide. Copper pots and pans littered the floor; so did dozens of forks and spoons. The linen on the dining table was smeared with dripping, red goo. Squatting in a puddle of that goo, and covered quite liberally with it, was the very last person she'd expected to see.

"Stay back, cat, y'hear me?" Collie snarled. "Stay back, or I'll cut yer dang tail off!" He brandished his bowie knife while scooping cherries, dust, and God only knew what else off the floor into the toppled pie tin at his feet.

Stazzie, meanwhile, crouched an arm's length away, her ears flattened, her tail lashing, and her eyes narrowed to topaz slits. They gleamed in striking contrast to the pink pie filling on her whiskers.