If he noticed the uncertainty in her smile, he didn't mention it, any more than she mentioned the fact that he was gripping her hand as though he expected her to run away.
*
Motionless, aware only of his own thoughts, Cash let himself into the old ranch house in the velvet darkness that comes just before dawn. Mariah didn't expect him. They had decided to spend the day at the ranch and not leave for Black Springs until the following dawn.
But Cash hadn't been able to stay away. He had awakened hours before, fought with himself, and finally lost. He had just enough self-control not to go into Mariah's bedroom and wake her up by slowly merging their bodies. Fighting the need that never left him even when he had just taken her, Cash went into the house and sat in what had once been Diana's workroom and gradually had evolved into an office for him and a library for Mariah's increasing collection of books.
He didn't even bother to turn on the light. He just pulled out one of the straight-back chairs, faced it away from the table, and tried to reason with his unruly body and mind. His body ignored him. His mind supplied him with images of a night at the line shack when Mariah had teased him because his body steamed in the frosty autumn air. He had teased her, too, but in other ways, drawing from her the sweet cries of desire and completion that he loved to hear. The thought of hearing those cries again was a banked fire in Cash's big body, and the fire was no less hot for being temporarily controlled.
The sound of the bedroom door opening and Mariah's light footsteps crossing the living room sent a wave of desire through Cash that was so powerful he couldn't move. A light in the living room came on, throwing a golden rectangle of illumination onto the workroom floor. None of the light reached as far as Cash's feet.
"Cash?"
"Sorry, honey. I didn't mean to wake you up."
Mariah was silhouetted in the doorway. The shadow of her long flannel nightshirt rippled like black water.
"I'm here."
"What are you doing sitting in the dark?"
"Watching the moonlight. Thinking."
The huskiness of Cash's deep voice made Mariah's heartbeat quicken. She walked through the darkened room and stood in front of Cash.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked softly.
"You."
Big hands came up and wrapped around Mariah's wrists. She whispered his name even as he tugged her down into his lap. He kissed her deeply, shifting her until she sat astride his legs and he could rock her hips slowly against his body. The heavy waves of his need broke over her, sweeping away everything but the taste and feel and heat of the man she loved. When his hands found and teased her breasts, she made rippling sounds of hunger and pleasure.
When Mariah unfastened her nightshirt to ease his way, Cash followed the wash of moonlight over her skin with his tongue until she moaned. Soon her nightshirt was undone and he was naked to the waist and his jeans were open and her hands were moving over him, loving the proof of his passion, making him tighten with desire.
"If you don't stop, we'll never make it to bed," Cash said, his voice hoarse.
"But you feel so good. Better each time. You're like Black Springs, heat welling up endlessly."
Cash's laugh was short and almost harsh. "Only since I've known you."
Without warning he lifted Mariah off his lap.
"Cash?"
"Honey, if I don't move now, I won't be able to stand up at all. I want you too much."
Despite Cash's words, he made no move to get up. When Mariah's hands pushed at his jeans, tugging them down until she had the freedom of his body, he didn't object. He couldn't. He could hardly breathe for the violence of the need hammering through him. When she touched him, the breath he did have trickled out in a groan that sounded as though it had been torn from his soul.
Mariah's eyes widened and her breath caught in a rush of sensual awareness that was as elemental as the power of the man sitting before her. Her fingertips traced Cash gently again. Closing his eyes, he gave himself to her warm hands. When the caressing stopped a few moments later, he couldn't prevent a hoarse sound of protest. He heard a rustling sound, sensed Mariah's nightshirt sliding to the floor, and shuddered heavily. When he opened his eyes she was standing naked in front of him.
"Can people make love in a chair?" Mariah asked softly.
Before the words were out of her mouth, Cash's hand was caressing her inner thighs, separating them, seeking the sultry heat of her. She shivered and melted at the caress. When his touch slid into her, probing her softness, her knees gave way. Swaying, she grabbed his shoulders for balance.
"Cash?" she whispered. "Can we?"
"Sit on my lap and find out," he said, luring her closer and then closer still, easing her down until she was a balm around his hard, aching flesh and her name was a broken sigh on his lips. "Each time – better."
For Mariah, the deep rasp of Cash's voice was like being licked by loving fire. She leaned forward to wrap her arms around his neck. The movement caused sweet lightning to flicker out from the pit of her stomach. She moved again, seeking to recapture the stunningly pleasurable sensation. Again lightning curled through her body.
"That's right," Cash said huskily, encouraging Mariah's sensual movements. "Oh, yes. Like that, honey. Just… like… that."
Shivering, moving slowly, deeply, repeatedly, giving and taking as much as she could, Mariah fed their mutual fire with gliding movements of her body. When the languid dance of love was no longer enough for either of them, Cash's hands fastened onto her hips, quickening her movements. Her smile became a gasp of pleasure when he flexed hard against her, enjoying her as deeply as she did him.
He watched her, wanting all of her, breathing dark, hot words over her until control was stripped away and he poured himself into her welcoming softness. Mariah held herself utterly still, drinking Cash's release, loving him, feeling her own pleasure beginning to unravel her in golden pulses that radiated through her body, burning gently through to her soul.
And then there was a savage flaring of ecstasy that swept everything away except her voice calling huskily to Cash, telling him of her love and of their baby growing within her womb…
For an instant Cash couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"What?"
"I'm pregnant, love," she whispered, leaning forward to kiss him again.
Suddenly Cash believed it, believed he was hearing the depth of his own betrayal from lips still flushed with his kisses. He had thought he was prepared for it, thought that a woman's treachery had nothing new to teach him.
He had been wrong. He sat rigid, transfixed by an agony greater than any he had ever known… and in its wake came a rage that was every bit as deep as the passion and the pain.
"You're pregnant," Cash repeated flatly, a statement rather than a question.
He could control his voice, but not the sudden, violent rage snaking through his body, a tension that was instantly transmitted to the woman who was so intimately joined with him.
"Yes," Mariah said, trying to smile, failing, feeling the power of Cash's fingers digging into her hips. "Didn't you want this? You never tried to prevent it and you like children and I thought…"
Her voice died into a whisper. She swallowed, but no ease came to her suddenly dry throat. In the moonlight Cash looked like a man carved from stone.
"No, I never tried to prevent it," Cash said. "I never spend time trying to make lead into gold, either."
He heard his own words as though at a vast distance, an echo from a time when he could speak and touch and feel, a time when betrayal hadn't spread like black ice through his soul, freezing everything.
"I don't understand," Mariah whispered.
"I'll just bet you don't."
With bruising strength Cash lifted Mariah from his lap, kicked out of his entangling clothes and stood motionless, looking through her as though she weren't there. She had the dizzying feeling of being trapped in a nightmare, unable to move, unable to speak, unable even to cry. She had imagined many possible reactions to her pregnancy, even anger, but nothing like this, an absolute withdrawal from her.