Authors: Carol Finch
When her silky arms slid around his neck, Hawk looked pleasantly startled. Then a cautious smile slid across his lips. "We have bargained before, minx. I am still uncertain which of us emerged the winner. What must I pay for your devotion to my cause?"
"In return I request your loyalty," Rozalyn informed him huskily. Her body moved suggestively against his hard, male contours, kindling the old familiar flame Hawk was hard-pressed to ignore.
"My loyalty?" One dark brow rose to a quizzical angle. "I'm not certain I understand your meaning."
"Don't you?" Her throaty voice made his skin prickle. "Perhaps it is best if I show you what I mean," she said as her breasts taunted his bare chest. "When another woman behaves like this"—her inviting lips feathered across his, dragging a tormented groan from his throat— "do not respond to her in this manner." Her open mouth slanted across his lips, and her darting tongue intruded to tease and arouse. Slowly, she withdraw, but only far enough to increase Hawk's craving for her.
"And if some other woman should assault you in this manner"—her bold caresses trickled down the thick matting of hair on his chest and then weaved across the corded muscles of his thigh—"do not answer her invitation like this. . . ." Her hand folded over his, leading his fingertips to the front of her gaping shirt to mold flesh against flesh.
Hawk's knees buckled beneath him. The feel of her satiny skin beneath his palms fed his hunger for her and left him breathing in ragged spurts. Her inventive techniques were arousing his passion.
"And if this wicked witch dares to do this"—a roguish grin crossed Hawk's lips, and he grasped the hem of her buckskin shirt, drawing it over her head, baring her full breasts to his hawkish gaze—"I suppose it would never do for me to touch her like this. . . ."
His hot, greedy kisses spilled over the slope of her shoulder to trace a path of fire to the taut peak of her breast while his skillful hands ventured along her ribs. Caresses, as light as the skimming touch of a butterfly, fluttered across her skin, sensitizing each nerve ending.
"Most definitely not." Rozalyn, too, breathed erratically now.
"And this wouldn't do either, I suppose," Hawk murmured against the valley of her breasts as his adventurous hands hovered over the leather laces of her breeches.
"Nor this . . ." Her lips moved provocatively against his, pressing his bold manhood against her and suggesting an intimacy that made Hawk's heartbeat quicken.
"I thought not," Hawk groaned, his voice tormented. He was quickly losing interest in this tempting game. After all, he could endure only a limited amount of such teasing before his primal needs took command of his body.
He glanced toward the upended cot and then thoughtfully studied the plush fur rug set before the small hearth. An inviting flame glowed in the fireplace, one Hawk could not resist. His good arm slid beneath Rozalyn's knees, and swiftly, he carried her across the demolished room and set her on her feet. The golden light caressed her flesh while his flaming green eyes devoured the exquisite sight of her.
And Rozalyn studied him in the flickering fire light as he stripped from his breeches. Again he reminded her of a sleek black panther, a solid mass of brawn and muscle. The hard terrain of his body aroused her, tempted her to touch what her eyes beheld, and she could not resist running a dainty finger over the lean muscles of his belly or the sinewy columns of his thighs.
"I want no other woman to know you by touch, Hawk." Rozalyn's voice was soft, but insistent. "During the months we spend together I ask that we share passion only with each other. That is all I request of you. I will demand nothing more and I will expect nothing less. If you can accept me on my terms', I will make no attempt to escape you."
Hawk s husky laughter drifted about them, tickling Rozalyn's senses and urging her closer to his hard, masculine strength. He hooked his arm around her waist when she involuntarily swayed toward him, lifting her
petite
body from the planked floor as he peered into her spellbinding blue eyes. "You have made me an offer I cannot refuse. A truce then, temptress ... on your own terms. Shall we seal our vow with a kiss?"
He did not allow Rozalyn the opportunity to accept or reject his suggestion. His sensuous lips swooped down on hers with such savage urgency that she could not draw a breath, could only surrender to his crushing embrace. His kiss carried enough heat to inflame the night. Her body, alive with rapturous sensations, quivered with anticipation.
When Hawk pressed her to the fur rug, his practiced hands began to move over her, eliciting eager responses. Long, lean fingers glided up and down her thighs, drifted over the shapely curves of her hips. Like a river meandering along its course, his caresses flowed across her belly, then rose in leisurely fashion to encircle the throbbing peaks of her breasts. Rozalyn sighed with pleasure when his lips retraced their tantalizing path across the inviting contours of her body. Over and over again his kisses and caresses aroused and massaged, making desire unfurl in every part of her being. ButRozalyn hungered to return the sweet torment.
Perhaps she could not compete with the majestic mountains and their perilous beauty. And she was unlike the submissive Indian maiden who had once shared Hawk's bed, but she could prove to him that she could stir him in her own way. She would not say that he had captured her heart, but she could silently show Hawk that she worshipped the feel of his muscular body, that she treasured their intimate moments of giving and sharing.
When Rozalyn propped herself beside him, Hawk watched her glistening hair tumble over her shoulders and whisper across his chest. The flickering light captured her perfect features, casting bewitching shadows on her ivory skin as her gentle hands splayed across his chest and then descended to map the hard muscles that curled around his ribs. Ever so slowly, her caresses glided across his abdomen, and he caught his breath when her fingertips traced the corded muscles of his inner thigh. Then her touch receded, skipping across his hair-roughened flesh to curl around each male nipple.
Hawk swore he would die of pleasure when her moist lips followed the titillating trail she had blazed with her provocative caresses. He couldn't breathe. His mind had turned to mush, his body to clay. She was molding him into her own creation, leaving him a quivering mass of muscle that flexed and relaxed each time her fingertips grazed his pliant flesh.
A muffled groan tumbled from Hawk's lips. Her skillful touch was driving him insane. Rozalyn knew how to please and arouse him, to make him quake with maddening hunger. A gnawing arose in the pit of his belly, and it channeled through every part of his body. Adeptly, he twisted away from Rozalyn's tempting touch. Then his sleek, hard body moved over hers, his muscles taut as he braced himself above her.
Rozalyn's lashes fluttered up to meet the fire that blazed in his emerald eyes. Their glow took her breath away, and the savage nobility in his rugged features made her feel like the defenseless prey of a mountain lion. His gaze pierced her soul, freeing deep-seated feelings that had been safely tucked away.
"Roz . . . You touch me and I cannot control the fierce passions that rage within me." His voice was rough and ragged, his gaze so intense that she could feel the heat of it upon her skin. "You think me a beast, a heathen?" His raven head came deliberately toward hers, his eyes focused on the sensuous curve of her lips, as if he were mesmerized by the sight of them. "I am that," Hawk confessed huskily. His eyes took on a pained expression when he noticed the red blotches on her face where his stubbled beard had brushed abrasively against her tender skin. "I am half-man, half-savage. Even when I garb myself in the fancy trappings of a gentleman I cannot be like your sophisticated dandies. I wanted you, even in the beginning, and I was never gentleman enough to deny myself. The fire between us has always lured me into its flames. I cannot help what I am and I cannot help wanting you. Love me, Roz." His voice echoed with barely restrained desire. "I need you as a starving man craves nourishment. . . ."
His muscled body settled intimately upon hers, and Rozalyn eagerly accepted him and his kiss, which bespoke his undeniable hunger. As his solid strength became hers and she, in turn, became a living, breathing part of him, sensations erupted in them with the suddenness of a thunderstorm, sweeping them up into the whirlwind of passion.
His sinewy arms folded about her, molding her closer, as his tense body drove into hers, creating a hypnotic rhythm that took them into the eye of the storm. There was no longer a breath of gentleness in his embrace, only a fierce, maddening need to appease the hunger she had instilled in him. But Rozalyn did not crave tenderness. She responded to the wild abandon of his lovemaking, her hips arching to meet his hard thrusts.
She had a mystical power over this awesome mountain man, a power more potent than force or strength. Her touch could arouse his savage passions and when he came to her there was no holding back. He gave all of himself to her, as she gave to him, and their fiery lovemaking melted their icy anger and transformed it into a passionate flame.
If she could not have Hawk forever, at least she had touched the raw emotions that lay beneath his tough exterior. Perhaps he could never love her, but he could not forget the intense heat of their lovemaking. There was black magic between them; it forged their bodies and souls into one being.
Hawk groaned in exquisite pleasure as his body surged against hers. The violent storm between them had tossed them far from reality, and they were now drifting on a sea of splendrous sensations. When Hawk reached that moment of sublime contentment, his spent body shuddered against Rozalyn's yielding contours. Then he inhaled a ragged breath, his senses still filled with the arousing scent of her. The heady pleasure of their passion made him smile quietly to himself. If this be a dream, he never wished to wake.
His hands absently combed through her lustrous tendrils which glowed in the fire light, and reluctantly he slid down beside her. While he stared pensively at the hearth, Rozalyn rolled on to her stomach to watch the curling fingers of the fire skip across the burning log.
"What is she like, Hawk?" Rozalyn didn't know what possessed her to pose such a probing question, especially at this moment, but the words were out before she could bite them back.
"Who?" A puzzled frown creased Hawk's brow. He couldn't think past that very moment.
"Chumani," Rozalyn murmured. "She is very pretty."
"That she is," Hawk agreed softly. A wry smile slid across his lips when he shot Rozalyn a sideways glance. Then he eased her onto her back, his body hovering only inches from hers. "And Jonas? I suppose a woman could find him attractive."
"She could," Rozalyn concurred. Her wandering hand flowed over the bulging muscles of his arm. "If she weren't comparing him to you."
"Did he kiss you?" Hawk had to know. That possibility had plagued him since he'd learned Jonas had escorted Rozalyn to his cabin. "Did you let him—"
Rozalyn pressed her index finger to his lips to shush him, and her eyes sparkled like sunbeams twinkling in the early morning sky when she graced him with a smile. "You don't want to know." She tossed back the same phrase he had once given her when she had asked a prying question.
But Hawk did not respond in the same way she had. He damned well wanted to know what had gone on behind the closed door and her answer could not come soon enough to suit him. "You are not leaving this cabin until you tell me exactly what you and Jonas were doing. I know you weren't talking because I was listening!"
"I am not divulging any intimate secrets," Rozalyn assured him with a mischievous smile. The possibility of Hawk being even the slightest bit jealous delighted her.
"Ornery minx," Hawk grumbled, but he could not suppress the grin that surfaced in response to the impish expression that was plastered on her perfect features. "Did he touch you like this?" Hawk decided to employ Rozalyn's playful tactics. His inquiring hand roved over the soft swells of her breasts. "Did his kiss kindle a fire that threatened to burn out of control?"
As his warm lips skipped lightly over hers, Rozalyn responded to his arousing embrace, but not to his probing question.
"Tell me, damn you," Hawk growled in frustration, his arms tightening to crush her feminine body against his own hard contours.
"The right approach might persuade me to divulge my sordid secrets," she purred suggestively. "Perhaps after you make love to me again . . ."
Hawk peered incredulously at her willing smile. "Now?" My God, their lovemaking had been so thorough and devastating that Hawk seriously doubted he could find the energy to move, much less indulge in a repeat performance.