Reunited (15 page)

Keely refused to get out of the car, stubbornly staring straight ahead, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Rafe circled to her side, opened the door, then dragged her out. "Come with me. I have something to show you." She trudged along beside him, eyeing the dark woods on either side of the path and struggling through deep snow.

"Where are we going now? Are you going to tie me to a tree so I can't escape?"

He stopped and considered her suggestion with a dramatic pause. "Not a bad idea. But the wolves and grizzlys would get you within the hour. I have a much better way to keep you here." They walked up the snow-covered path to a small shack with a crescent moon cut in the door. "This is the outhouse." Rafe pulled open the door. "And these are my car keys," he added, dangling them in front of her nose. "If you have any notion of driving yourself out of here, let me assure you, that's not going to happen." With precise aim, he tossed the keys through the hole and listened as they landed ten feet below with a slight jangle. "We leave when I say we leave."

Keely's eyes went wide. "How are we going to get out of here?" She took a step over to the hole and peered down into the darkness. Rafe handed her the flashlight and she shined it downward until she was convinced that the keys were irretrievable. "You're crazy," she murmured. "You throw away the phone, you throw away the keys. What if there's an emergency?"

Rafe snatched the flashlight from her hands. "There's always smoke signals." He started back down the path and was pleased when Keely followed close at his heels, obviously afraid of the wolves and the grizzlys, animals that hadn't been seen in this area of Vermont for years.

As he'd requested, the cabin had been stocked with firewood and a fire blazed in the large fieldstone fireplace. Though he had the luxury of electricity and running water inside the cabin, he hadn't gotten around to putting in a septic system. For a single guy, the outhouse hadn't posed a major problem, but Keely, his first female guest at Aspen Lake, might feel differently.

"Go ahead," he said. "Look around. The kitchen is back there. There are two bedrooms." He pointed to the doors on either side of the fireplace. "Take your pick."

Rafe sat down on the sofa in front of the fire and warmed his feet as he watched Keely wander through the cabin. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, trying to fight off a yawn. All he needed was just a few moments of silence and he'd be all right. But the sound of the backdoor opening brought him to his feet.

She was already out the door by the time he reached the kitchen. Rafe sprinted out into the darkness, slipping on the snow-covered steps and bumping down the last two on his ass. He stood up and tried to regain his balance, but twisted his ankle in the process, going down hard for a second time and hitting his head on the railing for the steps.

"Sonofabitch!" he shouted as he struggled to his feet, his voice echoing in the silent woods. He tested the ankle and decided it wasn't broken. But there was no way he'd catch Keely now. Rafe cursed himself for even letting her out of his sight. With the cold and the snow and the dark, she was sure to lose herself in the woods. And when she was found frozen to death tomorrow morning, he'd be to blame.

Rafe felt something warm on his forehead and he reached up and came away with damp fingertips. By the light from the open door, he saw blood. "Sonofabitch!" he repeated. He sat down on the step and pressed his palm to the cut on his forehead.

"Are you all right?"

The voice came from behind a nearby tree. "Keely?"

"Well, are you?"

"No," Rafe lied. "I think I broke my ankle. And I have a bad cut on my head. I'm bleeding, for chrissakes."

The light from a flashlight flickered against the snow and, a few seconds later, Keely appeared. She observed him for a long moment, then cursed softly. "I shouldn't be helping you," she muttered as she wrapped Rafe's arm around her shoulders and helped him to his feet.

He faked a serious limp until the moment they got back into the house. Before she could figure out what was happening, he grabbed the flashlight from her, removed the batteries and slipped them into his pocket. Then, he pulled her along to the fireplace.

"Your ankle isn't broken," Keely cried.

"Do you have any idea how long you would have lasted in the woods? That was a damn stupid thing to do. You would have been dead by morning." Rafe found a handkerchief in his pocket, then sat down on the sofa and dabbed at his forehead, which had already stopped bleeding.

Keely stood off to the side, watching him warily, waiting for her next chance to make a run for it.

"Take off your clothes," Rafe ordered.

Her eyes went wide. "What?"

"You heard me. Take off your clothes. And your boots."

"If you think we're having sex, you are sadly mistaken. If you're horny, you can go...fuck a tree!"

With a low curse, Rafe strode over to her, picked her up and set her on top of the coffee table. He bent down and unzipped her boots, then tugged them off her feet. Without a word, he carried them over to the fireplace and tossed them into the crackling blaze.

Keely cried out and scrambled to the fire, but the flames licked around the black leather, too hot for her to mount a rescue effort. "Those were my favorite pair of boots. I spent a week's salary on them."

"I'll buy you a new pair. Hell, I'll buy you ten pairs. But for now, you're not going to need them. It will be harder for you to escape without shoes, don't you think?"

Keely balled up her fist and hit his shoulder as hard as she could. But he seemed unfazed by the pain.

"Now your clothes."

"No, I'm not letting you burn my clothes!"

Rafe leveled his gaze on her. "Take your clothes off now, or I'll do the job for you."

She sent him a withering glare. But Rafe would not be deterred. He wasn't going to take the chance of her making another escape attempt and killing herself in the process. He tried to grab her sweater, but Keely held out her hand. She jumped down from the coffee table, then slowly wandered over to his stereo system. After picking through a stack of CDs, she chose one and popped it into the player. A bluesy guitar solo drifted out of the speakers.

As she stepped back up on the coffee table, Rafe wasn't sure what she was up to. Then she started moving to the music, swaying sinuously and doing her very best imitation of a stripper. "You wanted me to take off my clothes?" She slipped out of her jacket and threw it at him, hitting him square in the face. Rafe held his breath as the jacket dropped to the floor, unable to drag his gaze away.

Piece by piece, she removed her clothes, first tugging her sweater over her head, then shimmying out of her jeans. She dangled both items in front of his face before dropping them at his feet and continuing her dance. Rafe felt himself growing aroused--against his will. She'd wrested control of the situation from him in just a few seconds, proving that when it came to desire, she always held the winning hand.

The gold necklace she always wore dangled between her breasts in a tempting way, drawing attention to what he couldn't see. She reached behind her back for the clasp of her bra, but Rafe wasn't about to let her go so far. In one quick move, he grabbed her hand, then pulled her down onto the sofa. Stretching out on top of her, he trapped her body. Keely wiggled against him, trying to get free, but Rafe wasn't about to let her go. "I think that's enough of that," he murmured, pinning her hands above her head.

"You asked for it," Keely accused, still twisting against him. She arched her hips into his, rubbing up against the erection that had grown the moment she started her little striptease. "And I'd say you enjoyed it."

"And what do you enjoy, Keely?" He dipped his head to her breast and covered her nipple with his mouth, wetting the thin satin fabric of her bra. Then he pulled back and blew on the spot until her nipple peaked against the cold. "Do you enjoy that?"

She continued to twist against him, but Rafe noticed a marked decrease in her effort. "Let me go," she demanded.

Rafe caught both her wrists in one hand, then ran his hand along the length of her body. When he reached her panties, he delved beneath the scrap of satin and lace and touched the damp crease between her legs. "What about this?" he asked, drawing his finger against her again, probing deeper. Keely drew a ragged breath, then sighed softly.

"Tell me you want that," Rafe said. "Tell me you want me to make you come."

She turned her face away, refusing to answer him, but when he touched her again, she arched up against his hand. Rafe released his grip on her hands at the same time he began a gentle assault on her moist core. He watched her face as he touched her, watched the expression of intense concentration and pure pleasure as he brought her closer and closer.

When she stiffened and held her breath, Rafe slowed his seduction, wanting to draw her orgasm out, make it more powerful. And then she moaned his name once and collapsed into spasms of pleasure, her breath coming in deep gasps, her body trembling in response.

Rafe brought her down slowly, his hand wet with her desire. Again, she turned her face into his chest, refusing to look at him. Though he'd wanted to prove a point, Rafe suddenly regretted his choice of methods. He pushed back until he could look down into her face. And when he did, his heart twisted. A tear trickled down Keely's cheek and came to rest near her ear.

He rolled off of her and stood beside the sofa, suddenly realizing the impact of what he'd done. "Keely, I--"

"Don't say anything." She struggled to climb off the sofa, then bent to pick up her clothes from the floor. "I'm going to bed. You might want to think about sleeping with one eye open at all times, because the first chance I get, I'm out of here."

Rafe winced when the bedroom door slammed. He flopped back down on the sofa and covered his eyes with his arm. He knew what he'd done to her, humiliating her by turning her own desire against her. But when it came to Keely Quinn, he couldn't seem to think straight. His emotions always took control, overriding his logic and common sense.

She was right. He had kidnapped her and there was every chance a case against him would hold up in court. But he just needed the time to make her understand his side of the story, to make her see how much he...needed her.

"Oh, hell," he murmured. He might as well admit the truth because it was right in front of his eyes. He hadn't brought her here to convince her of anything. He'd brought her here because he was afraid to let her go, afraid that he'd never see her again. He'd fallen in love with Keely Quinn. And there wasn't anything he could do about it.

K
EELY SNUGGLED
beneath the thick down comforter, pulling it up to cover her cold nose. The morning light filtered through pretty country-style curtains and she tried to guess what time it was.

She'd tossed and turned restlessly for most of the night, listening to the wind rattle the windows. After exhaustion finally overwhelmed the chaos in her head, she drifted off, but her sleep was plagued with fitful dreams. She should hate Rafe for what he'd done to her, but, in truth, she'd taken every ounce of pleasure he'd given her and savored it. True and uninhibited passion had always been elusive in her previous relationships with men. But with Rafe, all it took was one caress to break down her inhibitions. Goodbye, Catholic schoolgirl. Hello, nymphomaniac.

Even now, after all she knew about his plans to destroy her family, she still couldn't control her desire for him. It was like a drug, insidious and addictive, destroying her self-control. Keely was certain if she looked for a lifetime, there would never be another man like him, a man who could make her ache with desire just by looking at him. Instead, she'd be left to compare each man who stumbled into her future with Rafe Kendrick and what they'd shared in the past.

A soft knock sounded at her bedroom door and Keely sat up, clutching the comforter to her nearly naked body. "I'm awake," she called out.

Rafe slowly pushed the door open, then stepped inside. He held out a pair of oversize boots as if they were a peace offering. "I thought you might want to use the outhouse," he said. "I shoveled a path."

Keely nodded. "Thank you. Are you going to accompany me or can I go on my own?"

"You can go on your own," Rafe said. "And I've filled the bathtub for you. It's in the kitchen when you're ready." He turned and walked out the door.

Keely jumped out of bed and quickly pulled on her clothes, then slipped her bare feet into the warmly lined boots. She clomped out into the living room and found her jacket, then hurried outside.

The snow that had begun on their arrival had continued through the night and the windblown drifts blocked the driveway and nearly buried one side of Rafe's car. Fat flakes still fell, so thick that she could barely see the outhouse or the end of the drive. She dismissed an impulse to run up to the road and flag down a passing car. Rafe would see her from the cabin window long before a car came by.

When she reached the outhouse, she slowly opened the door, checking for wild animals before she stepped inside. The keys were still at the bottom of the hole and she wondered how difficult it might be to fish them out. If she was successful, she could hop into his car and drive away right now.

But even if she could find a stick or something long enough to use, the task would take time and a strong stomach. And Rafe would come looking for her after she was gone for more than a few minutes. And with the drifts as high as they were, she'd probably get stuck before she even reached the road. Maybe she ought to resign herself to listening to his story. Once she did, he'd take her home and that would be the end of it.

"The end of it," Keely murmured.

Is that what she really wanted? To walk away from Rafe Kendrick and never see him again? She had to make a choice. Once her father and brothers made the connection between their troubles and Rafe's manipulation, they'd hate him forever. And Rafe already hated the Quinns. No doubt, she'd be caught in the middle of a terrible tug-of-war if she didn't make a decision. But then that was assuming she had a future with Rafe. She'd be better off putting her money on a future with the Quinns.