The mischief left his eyes, and he put the guitar aside. His hand came to rest at her waist, staying her attempt to get up. She almost jumped at the unexpected tightness of his grip. "Why did you call me that?''
"Slicker? Why, it's just an expression." It had been a casual endearment she'd used for Bernie and some of the veterans at the hospital. "I've said it to you before and you never-"
"Where the hell did you get it from?" There were things about her, odd expressions included, that struck him wrong. He didn't like the inner awareness that she guarded part of herself from him, even now when she was in his arms. Sometimes he could sense the edge of fear in her, but it was impossible to know who or what she was afraid of. Was it him?
"I h-heard it in Virginia," she stuttered, damning herself for being a clumsy liar. "I won't call you that anymore if you don't like it."
"I don't."
She looked at him, confused by the faint sneer that had touched his lips. "I'm sorry," she muttered and made a move to leave. He jerked her back down on the step, his arm hooked around her waist. Their eyes met in an electrically charged glance. Addie was aware of his tension but couldn't understand it. "What's the matter?"
He looked exasperated enough to shake her. Wrapping his hand behind her neck, he forced her head back with a hard kiss. Addie wriggled in protest at his roughness, bracing her arms against him and trying to push him away. His chest was as hard as a brick wall, defeating her efforts to dislodge him. The strong hand gripping the back of her neck rendered her helpless, and Ben tightened his hold on her until she submitted with a small, angry sound. The kiss amounted to nothing more than a contest of physical strength. There was no use in fighting him.
His tongue demanded access to the inside of her mouth, and Addie clenched her hands into fists, her body rigid in his arms. Brutal, arrogant creatures-men thought force was the way to solve every thing and how dare he do this to her after all they had talked about earlier! Long after the hurtful kiss should have ended, he raised his head and glared at her, angry and aroused, and unsatisfied.
"What are you trying to do?" Addie asked coldly, touching her tongue to her puffy lips in cautious exploration. "You… you… " She tried to think of a word Russell would have. used. "… son-of-a-bitch! You hurt me."
He showed not one bit of regret for the pain he'd caused her. "Then we're even."
"The hell we are! What have I said or done to hurt you?"
"It's what you haven't said, Addie. It's what you haven't done." And before she had any time to mull that over, he kissed her again. Bristling, she reached up and tangled her fingers in the hair at the back of his head, pulling hard until he stopped. "Damn you," he muttered, his eyes blazing. "I didn't want to love you. I knew you'd drive me crazy. Try to keep me at a distance. I'll be damned if I'll let you. I'll hammer away until I get inside you, and hang on no matter how hard you try to shake me off."
Heedless of her clutch on his hair, he slammed his mouth on hers, and this time Addie couldn't fight off the heat that raced through her body. She released her grip on his hair, her hands fluttering down to his shoulders. It was impossible to ignore the warmth of his steel-muscled body, the unsteady pounding of his heart. Her arms slid around his neck, and her breasts thrust against his chest. She matched her softness to his roughness, offered freely what he sought to take, met his violence with surrender. Silently her body communicated what she hadn't been able to say out loud.
Yes, I need you… love…yes, I'm yours… As he felt her response, Ben groaned and released the nape of her neck. His arms wrapped tightly around her.
Their bodies burned underneath their clothes, hungry to be free of all that separated them. Ben's violence disappeared, and in its stead grew the sweet ache of desire. Intoxicated with a potent mixture of lust and love, he tried to fill himself with the taste and feel of her. His tongue plunged deep in a frenzy of hunger, and she moaned as she writhed against him.
They sought to be closer, but he encountered the hard ridges of corset stays as he searched for the shape of her. Her skirts were a mass of petticoats and protective layers of cloth. The only thing accessible to him was her mouth, and he devoured her wildly, kissing, kissing. Panting as if he had run for miles, Ben ran a shaking hand over her hair, remembering how it had trailed over his body last night. He was starving for the feel of her naked and unbound beneath him.
The impulse to take down the tight braids pinned to her head was too powerful to resist. Although he knew it would anger her, he found the end of a hairpin with his thumb and forefinger and pulled it out. Immediately Addie gasped and wrenched away from him as a lock of hair fell to her shoulder.
"Give that back to me," she snapped, flustered as she held her hand out for the pin. "What are they going to think if I walk in the front door with my hair falling… Give it back!"
He was tempted to refuse. Let her walk in like this. Let them see her all flushed and disheveled, and everyone would know for certain how things stood between the two of them. But Addie's imperious little hand was shoved further into his face, demanding the return of what he'd stolen, and despite the urgings of the demon riding on his shoulder, he placed the hairpin in her palm. She accepted it without a word of thanks, winding up her hair and fastening it securely in back of her head. Her breath came gustily between her lips, proof of the turmoil he'd caused within her.
"I didn't do anything to provoke that… that display. If you're going to behave like that, then stay away from me until you can find some self-control!" She shot up and went down the two steps to the ground. This time he didn't prevent her, merely watched her with brooding eyes. "You're perfectly capable of being a gentleman when it suits you, and from now on I demand-"
"You want me to be a gentleman? That's a far cry from what you wanted last night. Or is your demand only good up until bedtime?"
"Ohhh!" She was too incensed to answer. Turning on her heel, she left to go back to the house, muttering curses against him and men in general.
Addie groaned softly in her sleep, twisting against the clinging sheet, floating in a netherworld of dreams… or was it memories?… watching herself in familiar scenes. She saw her own face, the same and yet so terribly different. The voice, the body, even the hair…it was all hers, but the shading, the resonation, the texture of the picture was different… twisted…off-key. Why were her eyes so cold? Why was her face so empty?
She and Jeff sat on the porch swing, talking in conspiratorial whispers, touching discreetly, absorbed in each other. The evening sky threw concealing shadows over them, and they sat close to each other, comfortable in the darkness. They had been there for a long time, drawn deeper and deeper into a secretive communion, until they broke past the barrier of forbidden subjects. And they discussed what should never have been planned.
"It's got to be done soon," Adeline whispered. She curled up closer to him, her eyes dark and feline as she concentrated on him. "He's waiting for his lawyer to get here from the East."
"You won't have to do anything. I'll take care of it. I just need a name from you. "
"I'll have to think about it," she said, silently calculating. She would have to pick the right man, someone smart, someone without a conscience.
"Adeline, if you're worried about the rest of your family-"
"We'll all be better off this way." A hard smile curved her lips.
"But about how you're gonna feel after it's done-"
"I won't care. Why should I? If he cared about me, he wouldn't want to change his will. After it's changed, it'll be in trust for years, and I won't get anything till I'm an old woman." Adeline noticed the amazement in his expression, perhaps even a touch of fear at her callousness. She sought to soothe him. "He only cares about Ben Hunter. He doesn't want me to be happy. I never have been. But it'll be different with you, won't it, Jeff?" She stroked her finger down the front of his shirt, hooking it into the waist of his pants. Slowly she rubbed the back of her knuckle against his tightening abdomen. "We'll be happy together," she said, and Jeff sighed hungrily.