Reckless Passion (7 page)

Dara
would have cried out with the ecstasy of it, but there was no chance. He dominated her awareness on every level, pulling her into the rhythmic surge of his body as if he would meld every inch of her with him.

Dara's
fleeting moment of sanity vanished once more under the passionate onslaught. She couldn't think of the future when he held her like this, touched her like this,
mastered
her body with his own.

Deliriously she gave herself up to the thrilling wonder of the man to whom she had wanted to belong from the instant her eyes had met his. This was what she had been searching for all her life. This was the joy and exquisite excitement that had been missing from her short, ill-fated marriage.

Almost incredulously she felt her body responding in a way it had never responded before. Something tight and coiling was fighting to free itself deep in her loins.

Her hands slid down the violently arching male back, digging into the muscular flesh of Yale's buttocks and thighs.

"My God, woman!
What are you doing to
me!
"

She reveled in the evidence of his unleashed need and sensuality, delighted in the now ungoverned response of his body to hers. His strength and power seemed to master her softness at the same time that they surrendered to it.

"I never knew..." she tried to say, "I never realized..." The words wouldn't come. How could she try to describe the indescribable?

Her teeth sank into his shoulder and her legs tightened violently around his rough thighs as the coiling passion in her lower body threatened to burst forth.

"Yale? Yale!" It was a plea. For what, she didn't know.

"Let
yourself
go, my darling," he whispered
ur-gendy
. "I'll take care of you. Just let go...."

Unable and unwilling to resist the demand in him,
Dara
gasped, reacting unbelievably to an unexpectedly swift and erotic movement of his lean frame. It seemed to send her over the brink of a heretofore unseen cliff and she plunged into the chasm below, free-falling toward a velvet green earth, Yale's name on her lips.

As if he had only been waiting for the turbulent shudder which suddenly racked
Dara
as she lay beneath him, Yale cried out harshly. She felt the primitive convulsion take him completely in its power, giving him to her in an astonishing and fundamental way.

Willingly, joyously,
Dara
accepted the
gift,
clinging and clinging as together they plunged into the soft valley below. He was with her in that moment, sharing the ultimate sensation which can be created between a man and a woman, and for
Dara
, that was all that counted. The future must be dealt with later.

Four

Languidly
Dara
attempted to move her foot, found it rapped beneath a heavy male leg and finally emerged completely from the sensual lethargy in which she had been drifting.

Her
fingertips brushed a masculine chest and her soft gray-green eyes fluttered open to find a lazy pair of hazel ones watching her.

For
an instant of silent communication, neither said anything, the recent memories mirrored in their eyes.

"I
thought you were never going to wake up, sleepyhead,"
Yale
finally murmured, his voice a deep dragon's purr in his chest.
"It
's been daylight for nearly an hour."

"You
're in a hurry to go someplace?"
Dara
drawled, her mouth curving lovingly.

"Well,
it did occur to me that there might be more interesting places to spend the weekend than this truck-stop motel!"

With a sexy, inviting grin, Yale rolled onto his back and reached out to haul her across his chest. It was as she came free of the sheet that
Dara
realized the green dress was no longer around.

The color rose in her cheeks as her breasts were crushed softly against him. She saw his eyes follow the outline of her, a look of satiated pleasure in the hazel depths.

"You drove me wild last night," he rumbled, raking his fingers through the tangled wings of her deep russet hair. "You're a dangerous lady,
Dara
Bancroft.
Very dangerous."

She smiled delightedly, toying with the curling hair beneath her hand as she met his gaze. She was in love! She could hardly believe it. How could it have happened like this after all these years?

"I plead innocent," she whispered laughingly. "You're the one who carried me off into the night. If we'd done things my way we would have danced a few dances at that nice nightclub I took you to and then gone home very properly to our own beds!"

"Never!" he vowed fervently. "I wanted you from the moment I met you. Whatever happened last night, we would never have awakened alone."

"Hah! I don't think you wanted me all that badly at first. As I recall, you were rather annoyed with me at times!" Deliberately she made a joke of it, wishing he could have used the word she wanted to use. He must feel something more than desire for her after what they had shared. How could a man make love like that and not be at least a little
in
love?

"Being annoyed with you didn't change my desire to take you to bed." He chuckled, framing her face with his hands.
Dara
felt the strength in the gentle grip and shivered with pleasure. "I don't think anything could change that!"

"No?" she dared lightly, eyes warm with her love and laughter and the freshness of what she had discovered.

"No," he agreed solemnly. "Rest assured, my sweet. The account is yours."

Dara
blinked, certain she had heard wrong.

"What?" Firmly she kept her smile in place. He was making a joke.

"My stock account," Yale explained easily, laughing at her incomprehension. "It's yours. I'm entirely satisfied with the transaction. At the moment, in fact, I wouldn't care if you lost all my money in the commodities market! As long as you're wilting to stand as collateral, naturally."

"Stop teasing me like that, Yale," she ordered carefully, some of the laughter fading from her eyes. "I'm not in the mood for that sort of joke. Not right now."

"What joke?" he demanded, shaking his head ruefully. "It's yours, honey, me and the account. I'm content with the deal and as far as I'm concerned it's all signed, sealed and delivered. I'll let you have the details you'll need to transfer it from my broker in L.A. on Monday. But right now we've got today and Sunday ahead of us to, uh, finalize the terms of our working relationship. What do you say we—"

"You're not joking, are you?"
Dara
pushed herself a few inches away from his chest, gray-green eyes widening as she stared down into his fiercely etched face as if she hadn't fully seen it until that moment.

"I never joke about money. Accountants rarely do!" he informed her loftily, eyes narrowing a fraction as he studied her tautening expression.

"Oh, my God!" she breathed as the full horror of the situation washed over her. He wasn't teasing her! He really believed she had slept with him in order to convince him to give her his account!

"What's the matter with you,
litile
tabby cat?" he rasped soothingly, stroking a rough fingertip down her cheek and into the curve of her shoulder. "I had the impression you were quite satisfied with last night's deal, too! In fact, I'd be willing to bet from the startled look on your face at one point that you hadn't known just how much pleasure you could find in your own body!"

"How dare you look so smug and self-
satisfied!
Who the hell do you think you are?" The words were tight, tense,
barely
audible.

Slowly at first the anger kindled. Fed by her own humiliation, it leaped to life, shattering
Dara's
conception of herself as a mild, easygoing person with an even temper. After thirty years, she was finally discovering the full significance of the red in her hair.

"
Dara
!"
The command was given as if she were a fractious child. "Calm down...!"

"Calm down!" she blazed, pulling free of his hand
and fumbling her way off the bed to stand beside it, glowering down at the man she had fallen in love with during the course of one wild night.

"Calm down! Don't you dare tell me to calm
down!
'

Yanking a sheet off the bed and leaving Yale's sprawling form nude in the morning light, she wrapped herself in some semblance of dignity. The gray-green eyes were almost completely emerald now and the sun seeping in through the crack in the curtains danced in the
halfhidden
fire of her hair.

"You are a bastard, Yale Ransom!" she proclaimed as if pronouncing a curse. "And I am a fool! I freely admit that! God only knows where I got the idea we could...could mean something important to each other. Believe it or not, I'm usually a better judge of men than this! I haven't made a mistake of this magnitude since I thought the man I was marrying was in love with me!'

"
Dara
, stop it! You're behaving like a shrew. It doesn't suit you, little tabby cat. Come back to bed and let me show you...." Yale stretched out a hand, groping for her wrist.

"Don't you dare touch me, you arrogant, lying,
impostor!"
She moved back out of reach.

"Impostor!"
For some reason he seized on that, mouth hardening ominously as he slowly sat up.

"Yes! Impostor! Cheat! Opportunist! The language isn't rich enough to supply all the words I need to describe you!" she gritted furiously. "Oh, I knew you were something other than what you were pretending to be last night. I knew you'd been a lot of other
things besides an accountant, but I never guessed you were the kind of man who would use a woman and then pay her off by handing over money or...or your stock-market account!"

"Shut up and listen to me, you little wildcat," he grated, getting slowly to his feet. The hazel gaze flickered as she automatically backed out of reach.

"Don't get the idea I'm a bigger fool than I've already shown myself to be!"
Dara
cried, her chin lifting defiantly. “Listening to you was what got me into this mess! I don't intend to listen to you again! Ever! I try to learn from my mistakes, Yale Ransom. And you can rest assured you've just taught me one hell of a lesson! Even I can't quite believe how I could have made such an idiot of myself!"

"Good God! You're really intent on playing the woman scorned this morning, aren't you? But I haven't scorned you, honey.
Just the opposite!"

"You've treated me like a...a commodity you could buy or sell,"
Dara
hissed. "Last night you felt like buying it. Who knows? Tomorrow you might feel like selling it! What will you do then? Try to find another female broker who seems willing to pay the price? Let me give you a word of advice. Find someplace besides a dingy truck-stop motel to 'finalize' the deal. And the next morning, refrain from talking about the bargain itself until after breakfast.
Much more civilized!"

"The choice of surroundings was yours!" Yale suddenly snapped
,
his fists planted on his hips. He stood in front of her, uncompromisingly naked and
intimidatingly
male. The deep amber hair was ruffled in a rakish, dangerous-looking style and the hazel eyes gleamed with determination. The Southern accent had lost most of its polish.

"There certainly isn't much to your gentlemanly veneer now, is there?"
Dara
taunted, her rage threatening to overwhelm her. "I even get the blame for choosing a cheap, one-night-stand sort of motel! Well, I suppose that's the proper setting, after all. A one-night stand is certainly all this affair is ever going to amount to!"

"The hell it is! I've got news for you,
Dara
Bancroft! You handed yourself over to me, lock, stock and barrel, last night. It's too late now to back out!"

"Don't be so anxious to conclude the bargain," she warned scathingly. "If I ever get my hands on your account I'd pump every last dime into surefire losers! I'd take great pleasure in ruining you! You're damned right I'm feeling like a woman scorned, and just remember hell hath no fury like one! Give me a chance and I'll pay you back a hundredfold for what you did to me last night!"

"Your warning is duly noted," he drawled, stalking forward with slow, deliberate strides.

"Don't come any closer," she ordered
seethingly
, holding the sheet in place as she backed away. "I mean it, Yale! I don't want you touching me. Not ever!"

"But I'm going to touch you," he promised with silky menace.
"Often and in the most delightful places.
You belong to me now, temper and all. Like I said, I'm satisfied with the transaction, and I'll make sure you are, too...."

Dara
came up against the wall, her eyes blazing as she realized she was trapped. "You really can't get it through that thick head of yours that I didn't go to bed with you in order to get your
account,
can you? Well, try writing it on the blackboard a few hundred times. Because I didn't! I don't want your account! I never cared one way or the other about it!"

"Too bad, because you're stuck with it," he gritted, his fingers curling over her bare shoulders. He pulled her away from the wall, close to his naked strength. "And believe
me,
I'll take every dollar you lose out of your soft hide." His mouth curled devilishly. "But I will also be very generous with my thanks for every dollar you make, too!"

"Take your hands off me!'

"I can't," he confessed almost ruefully. "I only have to look at you, and I want to touch you. Stop fighting me, honey. You know as well as I do that what we found together last night was very, very good. I'll admit we rushed into things, but—"

"We
rushed into things!" she yelped, incensed at the blithe accusation.
"
I had nothing to do with it! You're the one who hitched a ride for us to the middle of nowhere! You're the one who got us one room in a sleazy motel when I told you to get two! You're the one who assumed that just because we were forced to share a bed, I would let you make love to me! You're the one who seduced me while I was asleep, long after I'd made it clear I had no intention of going that far! You took advantage of me! And you ignored me at the last moment when I finally realized what was happening and told you to stop!"

"Of course I ignored you," he murmured, bending his head to brush his mouth affectionately across her forehead and then the tip of her nose. "You'd really have been angry at me this morning if I hadn't!"

"You're despicable!" She brought up a hand, wedging it against his chest and trying to shove him away. It was like pushing the Rock of Gibraltar.