And she could too easily fall in love with him.
She forced herself to feel nothing, to allow the bitterness of the last years to invade her, so that his searing warmth could not touch her. When he rose above her, she met his steely gaze and spoke to him in a quiet, toneless voice.
"Who was she? Your wife?"
She might have struck him. All the heat left him. It was as if he turned to ice. He stared at her, his jaw constricted, his features as harsh as a desert. He rolled away from her and sat on the side of the bed. His fingers threaded through his hair, and he pressed his hand against his temple as if he were trying to soothe some awful pain.
"Go to sleep," he told her. "And stay off the hard stuff from now on."
Kristin cast her arm over her eyes. "Your rules," she murmured.
"I don't like this kind of a fight, Kristin," he said dully, "but…"
"But?"
"You start it, and I'll end it. Every time."
She felt his weight lift from the bed, and she started to shiver. Suddenly she was warmed. He had laid a blanket over her, and he was close by her again.
"Go to sleep," he said softly, his voice almost tender again.
Almost.
He got up and walked away. She heard the door close quietly, and to her great dismay she closed her eyes and started to cry as she hadn't done since they had come to tell her that Adam was dead.
CHAPTER SIX
It was the liquor, Kristin thought. Lying in the darkness, feeling miserable, she put her arm over her eyes and felt her head spin, and she wondered what had made her drink so much so fast. She was humiliated, but it was her own fault, and she was in no mood to do anything about it, except to suffer in silence.
And, in a way, she wasn't sorry. She could dimly hear the sounds of dinner, and she wondered if Samson and Delilah had sat down to eat. Cole Slater was an unusual man. A very unusual man.
The darkness closed in and whirled around her. She knew she ought to be sorry she had let the liquor ignite her temper, but instead she was glad of it. She didn't feel the awful pain for once. She didn't remember what it had been like to see Pa die, to see Matthew turn his back on his own people and ride away with the Union forces.
She didn't even quite remember what it was like to be with Cole Slater. To be so nervous that she lost all the wisdom her harsh life had taught her. To be afraid in a way, and yet to want something, some intangible thing, so badly.
Curiously — bless the liquor — she felt at peace.
She closed her eyes, and she must have dozed. Then she must have awakened, or else she was dreaming, because when she opened her eyes, the room was bathed in moonlight. Her mind was still spinning, and she still felt at peace.
He was in the room with her.
He had come in quietly, and the door had closed softly behind him. He stood just inside of it, his hands on his hips, and watched her where she lay upon the bed. The moonlight fell on his features, and they were both harsh and curiously beautiful. For the longest time he stood there. The wind seemed to rise, not to a moan, but to a whisper. She imagined that outside tumble-weeds were being caught and tossed in the strange, sweet dance of the West, buffeted as she was being buffeted. Her heart rose and fell like that tumbleweed, tossed around heedlessly.
No…
He was a marvelous creature, sleek as a cougar, sharp as an eagle. He was still standing there, his hands on his hips, his head at an angle, as if he were waiting, as if he were listening to the curiously tender whispering of the wind.
Then he moved. He unbuttoned his cuffs. He took off his boots and stripped off his socks. He came to her in silence, barefoot, and he dropped his gun belt beside the bed. Then he looked down at her, and saw that her eyes were open. "You're still awake."
She nodded gravely, and then she smiled. "I'm sorry. I was out of line this evening. And I… I don't want to fight."
Unbuttoning his shirt, he sat beside her on the bed. His eyes remained on hers. He reached over and touched her cheek. "I don't want to fight, either, Kristin. You've had a hard time of it, and you've done well. Someone else might have shattered a long, long time ago."
The gentle whisper of the wind was in his voice, and there was an evocative tenderness in his fingertips as they brushed her cheek. She didn't reply, but kept her eyes on his, and then the whisper of the wind seemed to sweep into her, to permeate her flesh and fill her veins. She was warm, and achingly aware of herself, and of the man. Surely, she was still asleep. Surely it was all a dream. It was a spell cast by the moonlight. It lived in the clouds of imagination.
But it was real. Very real. He leaned over then and caught her lips in a curious kiss. It was light at first. He tasted her lips, teasing them with the tip of his tongue. Then he plunged his tongue deep into her mouth, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and felt the rugged, steel-muscled frame of his chest against her. She felt his hands on her, rough and tender. Then his hands were in her hair, threading through the tendrils, and he was stroking her arm as he moved his lips over her throat and down to the place where her breasts spilled provocatively from her lace chemise. His mouth fastened over her nipple through the sheer fabric, and she cried out softly. He shifted swiftly, taking her mouth again, taking her cry into him.
He stood, dropping his shirt and stripping away his pants. The moonlight fell on him. He was tall and rugged, lean and sinewed, his skin shining almost copper in that light, his shoulders shimmering with it. She stared at him. If this was a dream, she was grateful for it. She wanted him. She wanted him with her heart and with her mind, she wanted him with every fiber of her being. She wanted him desperately.
She was not to be denied.
He came down beside her and took her in his arms, and she strained to meet his kiss again. He unlaced her chemise, and her breast spilled from it. He lowered his head again, touching her nipple with his tongue, fondling the weight of her breast with a touch so achingly soft… She was barely aware that she arched to him, that she dug her fingers into his hair and cried incoherently for him to come to her. But it was not to be. His hands brushed her flesh, and where they had been she yearned for them again. His kisses ranged over the length of her, a mere breath, a mere whisper, and then were gone. She writhed. She tried to hold him, to pin him down. And she felt something move in her, like lava rising to the surface of the earth. She felt the earth teeming and bubbling with heat and steam, and still he pressed her. She moved her hands against him, felt the tension in his taut muscles, and touching him inflamed her, bringing her to still greater heights. She no longer knew herself. She had become some strange wanton. She felt his hands on her hips, and on her belly and she moved toward the feel of them, the promise of them. He made her touch him, and the pulsing heat and size of him gave her pause. Then a curious elation filled her, and for a moment she was afraid she might faint.
Her remaining clothes were gone now. Like him, she lay naked in the moonlight, her skin shimmering like copper beneath its glow.
Time had lost all meaning. She lay upon clouds of moonlight, and all that was real was the hardness of this man, the demand in his eyes. The wind had become the ragged cry of his breath, and the storm was the near-savage urgency that drove him. He did not tease. He sucked hard on her breast until she thought she would explode. He did not shyly caress her thighs, but stroked within, to the heart of her, and as he touched her, he caught her cries again with his lips. He knelt before her, caught her eyes again, then watched her, before he caught the supple length of her legs and brought them around him. He stared at her as he lowered his head, and she opened her mouth to stop him, but she could not.