Nightway (29 page)

“Hawk—” Lanna wanted to explain.

“Sit over there in that lawn chair.” With a nod of his head, he indicated the chaise longue near the house wall while he tightened the knot of her sash. He had switched off all emotion. “When Chad shows up, tell him you dozed off in the chair.”

“But you—”

“He’ll never see me,” he assured her dryly and moved silently away, keeping to the shadows of the house and melting away into the darkness.

The sound of a door opening and closing, and Chad calling her name, prodded Lanna into action. Her bare feet made no sound on the stone floor as she hurried to the lounge chair. She had barely sat down when the veranda door from her bedroom opened.

“Lanna?” Blinded by the brightness of the interior lights, Chad didn’t immediately see her sitting in the shadows.

“Yes. I’m over here.” She swung her feet to the floor as if she was just rising, and she lifted a hand to smooth her mussed hair. “Did you call me a minute ago? I guess I dozed off.” She used the lie Hawk had provided.

“We wondered where you had disappeared to.” He was at her side in an instant. “Carol stopped by your room to be sure you were all right before she went to bed. But you weren’t there. And you didn’t answer when she called. I guess we panicked. What are you doing out here? I thought you were going to ’fall into bed.’” He grinned.

“I came out for some fresh air. It’s a beautiful night.” A trace of defiance crept into her voice.

Chad glanced into the night, catching the shimmer of
stars beyond the veranda roof. “It is lovely. I hadn’t realized it.” He took her hand and folded it warmly between both of his. “Would you like to take a walk?”

“No.” She refused his invitation with a quick shake of her head and self-consciously pulled her hand free. “I am tired,” Lanna insisted. “Besides, I don’t have any shoes on. If you don’t mind”—she straightened from the chair; it wasn’t difficult to feign tiredness—“I’m going to call it a night. And this time, I’m going to bed.”

He moved to block her way. “Don’t go wandering off like that anymore, Lanna, not without letting someone know.”

She didn’t like his tone of voice or his possessive attitude. “Chad, I just stepped outside my bedroom door. I’m certainly not going to ask anyone’s permission to do that.”

“Of course not. It’s just that … well, I was worried about you,” he appeased.

“What could possibly happen to me out here?” Lanna frowned. “You make it sound as if I’m in some kind of danger.” She released a short, incredulous laugh and walked around him. “Good night, Chad.”

He half-turned to watch her. “Have a good night, Lanna.”

As she turned to close the veranda door, her gaze strayed beyond Chad, unconsciously searching the shadows. She let a faint smile touch her lips when her gaze returned to Chad, then closed the door and pulled the drapes to shut out the night. When she glanced at the bed, she touched her mouth with her fingertips, still feeling Hawk’s kiss imprinted on it.

Sighing, Lanna crossed to the bed and untied the sash of her robe. A pair of silk and lace long pajamas was laid across the foot of the double bed, which looked big and empty tonight. Lanna shook her head to rid her mind of the thought that followed.

Behind her, there was a faint click. She turned to see the drapes billowing out from the veranda door. Hadn’t it latched when she closed it? She took a step toward the door, pulling the front of her robe shut.

Hawk slipped silently through the opening of the drapes. He had taken off his hat and was holding it at his side. Pausing inside the door, he made a leisurely study of her from head to toe.

“You can tell me to leave.” An eyebrow was raised in silent inquiry.

Lanna moved forward. “Hawk, out there … I didn’t want you to stay because I didn’t want anything to happen to you. The way Chad feels about you … I didn’t want to be the cause of a confrontation between the two of you.” She stopped while several feet were still separating them. “Why did you come back?”

“Because I want you. And I believe you want me.” He started toward her.

For Lanna, it wasn’t that simple. “I don’t know if I want it this way. I’ve had all I want of sneaking around—little hole-in-the-corner affairs.” She pivoted away, her fingers tightened on the satin front of her robe. “I don’t like sneaking around behind people’s backs.”

“I don’t know.” His hat sailed past her onto the bed as his hands closed around the curve of her shoulders. He stepped closer, fitting his length to hers, and pressed himself firmly against her derrirre. Bending his head, Hawk pressed his cheek along the side of her hair to murmur, “I like it behind your back.”

Contact with the hard male shape of him set her a tremble with all the raw desires he’d aroused before. Still, she whispered, “You don’t understand.”

Hawk turned her around and threaded his hands through her hair to tip her head back. Lanna grasped his forearms, hanging on because her knees were so weak. She gazed into his bronze face, stamped with wild nobility and the proud arrogance of centuries of supremacy. The blue-black hair was springy and thick, curling over the collar of his shirt. But it was his eyes that enthralled Lanna more than his virile looks, eyes the color of the darkest sapphires, with their keen intelligence and flash of calculated recklessness.

“You think too much, Lanna,” Hawk stated. “Just feel.”

The pressure of his hands pulled her onto her toes to meet his descending mouth. The hard kiss took away her breath and her will to resist. She clung to him, her lips parting under the probing insistence of his tongue. It didn’t matter that he was drawing away her strength, because she remembered from the last time that his hands, his arms, his body would give it all back later on.

Then Hawk was untangling his mouth from her lips and letting her down until the heels of her bare feet
touched the floor. His arms shrugged out of the hold of her hands. Dazed, Lanna didn’t protest until Hawk started to walk away from her.

“Where are you going?”

He sent her a brief look over his shoulder, but didn’t stop. “To lock the door and turn off the lights. We don’t want anyone wondering why you’re still up and deciding to check on you.”

The click of the bolt sliding into place sounded loud in the room. It was followed by a softer click that threw the room into total darkness. With the drapes drawn, no light entered the windows and Lanna couldn’t see in the inky blackness. There was a rustle of clothing, but she couldn’t tell where it came from. Disoriented by the sudden darkness, she stayed rooted in the place Hawk had left her, not certain which way to move.

There was no more rustle of clothing and her heart hammered loudly in her chest. A thin thread of panic ran through her. “Hawk?” she whispered, then jumped when his hand touched her arm.

“I’m here,” he said.

“I couldn’t see,” she whispered and turned toward his voice, reaching out for him blindly in the dark.

Her hand made contact with the naked wall of hard flesh. A tiny moan of delight trembled from her throat as she swayed toward him. The sure, firm touch of his hands checked the movement, then moved to slip the loose robe off her shoulders and down her arms. Lanna let it fall to the floor, caring only about the shadowy male outline of the man standing in front of her.

An arm circled her waist, smooth and muscled. Then Hawk was lifting her up and cradling her in his arms, her hip pressed against the flat muscles of his bare stomach. Lanna curved a hand around his neck for balance, letting her fingers slide into the thickness of his black hair. In the darkness, she could barely make out
the angles of his profile, but his rugged image was vivid in her mind. The rounded curve of her breast rubbed against his sinewy chest as he carried her unerringly to the bed. He laid her atop the covers and followed her down, stretching his length beside hers.

A bare leg was hooked across hers, as if he needed to pin her down. His mouth opened on her lips in a hungry kiss, raking his teeth over their soft, generous curves. The ravaging kiss fanned hot flames around her. Like a moth, Lanna had to get closer to the fire. Her hands slid around to the corded muscles of his back, trying to press him closer without success. Yet she was shattered by the sheer pleasure of having him beside her.

But the pleasure had only begun, as she discovered under the wayward caress of his hand. He cupped her breast, taking it in his palm and exploring its peak with his thumb, circling it until the nipple was hard and erect. While it was still aroused, his mouth trailed down her neck to the hollow of her throat, then finally to the rosy point. A stifled moan of searing delight whispered from her lips as Hawk rolled his tongue around it and nibbled at it gently with his teeth.

Sensation after sensation washed over her. While his mouth intimately investigated the perfection of her breasts, his hand continued its roaming. It wandered over her quivering stomach, paused to examine her navel, and teased her arching hips. These tormenting caresses brought her to an ardent, feverish pitch. Her lips scattered helpless kisses over his shoulder, her nails digging into the rippling muscles of his back in wild frustration.

She moved against him, straining for closer contact, her body recognizing him as the perfect lover. Driven mindless by this hard tension gnawing within her, she was clinging to him. Her face moved over his skin, so
scented of the male and so solid. His hand returned to cup her chin and quiet her restless movements so his lips could claim her mouth again. Kissing her senseless, he wedged his knee between her legs and offered the throbbing lower half of her body partial satisfaction, swallowing her moans of wild need.

Lanna thought she was going to die with wanting before he finally shifted his weight onto her, spreading her legs as he pinned her to the covers with his heaviness. Relief cried through her nerves at his thrusting entrance, but it didn’t last. She was swept into a tumultuous storm of sexual radiance and charged with a desire wilder than any she’d ever known. The fury of it grew and grew, lifting her higher and higher until she broke through the storm clouds and was bathed in the hot brilliance of the sun.

Male hands that had so expertly guided her hips now relaxed their biting grip on her cheeks and moved to the mattress on either side of her head, relieving her limp body of part of his crushing weight. When Hawk’s mouth moved gently over her throbbing lips, Lanna could taste the salty beads of perspiration that had gathered on his upper lip and chin. Her hands could feel the faint tremors going through him, aftershocks of the shuddering climax.

His lips brushed along the curve of her cheek. “It was like this before. Do you remember?” His voice was husky, and rawly disturbed, like his deep, quivering breaths.

“It seemed more like a dream,” Lanna admitted with soft regret. “Only it wasn’t a dream.”

“No. Not even a peyote dream.” His lips curved in a quiet smile against her skin.

Using his arms to lever his chest off her, Hawk eased himself from between her legs and shifted to lie beside her. Lanna rolled onto her side to face him and reached
out to trace the contours of his face with her fingertips. There was a silent claim of possession in the way his hand moved to rest on her hip bone and maintain the physical contact between them. She let her hand move to the taut column of his neck, and sensuous black hair curled over her fingers in the back.

“Your hair needs to be cut.” It was a somewhat absurd observation, but Lanna couldn’t express the awed wonder she was feeling.

“It keeps the sun off my neck,” he replied.

He slid an arm around her shoulder to nestle her to his side. When Lanna tried to bend her right leg to rest it on his knees, a sore muscle made a searing protest.

“Mmm.” The faint sound of pain escaped as she involuntarily winced.

“Did I hurt you.” There was a frown in his voice.

“No.” Lanna managed to maneuver into the position she wanted, then explained when her head was resting in the crook of his shoulder: “I went riding today, and it’s been a while.”

“Now you are sore.” Hawk laughed silently against her hair. “What you need is a good rubdown.”

“Unfortunately, the only masseuse I know is in Phoenix—a therapist at a local hospital, not at one of the massage parlors,” she added.

“Do you have any lotion in the bathroom?”

“Yes. Why?” Puzzled, she tipped her head back, trying to see his face in the dark.

Hawk shifted her out of his arms and Lanna felt the mattress spring back when he swung out of the bed. “I’ve rubbed down many a sore horse in my time without any complaints. I think I can take care of a long-legged filly like you.”

Raising herself up on her elbows, Lanna watched his shadowy figure move across the dark interior toward the bathroom. She heard the door open. A second
later, there was the click of the switch and the sudden illumination that sent a rectangular patch of light streaming into the bedroom. She had to briefly shield her eyes from the brilliance, then heard the muted clink of bottles.

Hawk didn’t turn out the light when he left the room, giving Lanna a glimpse of his nude form before the light was behind him to send him into shadow. What she saw made her hold her breath. Long and lean, his body was all hard, copper-toned flesh, excitingly male. She hadn’t completely recovered when he stopped beside the bed.

“We’d better pull the covers down or we’ll get this oil all over the spread. That might take some explaining,” he reminded her.

Lanna sat up to roll the covers down to the foot of the bed, then shifted to the middle of the mattress and lay down. The patch of light from the bathroom came over his shoulder to illuminate her. She felt his eyes wandering over her and was a little shocked by her complete lack of shyness.

“Roll over on your stomach,” Hawk instructed.

“Why?” she protested, because she wouldn’t be able to look at him if she was on her stomach.

“It’s usually the posterior that’s sore from riding,” Hawk mocked. Pink-cheeked, Lanna rolled onto her stomach, pillowing her face on her hands. Self-conscious and a little nervous in this position, she still attempted to relax, but her muscles tensed when the mattress dipped under Hawk’s weight.