“I’m not sure I’m ready to speak of marriage any longer. Allowing you into my bed doesn’t seem like such a good idea, and unless I miss my guess, you think I’m going to submit to whatever you have in mind for me.”
“All this because I like to touch you?” he asked, his smile lacking humor.
“Is that what you call it? I had to put up with your shenanigans the first few days you were here, Tyler. I’ve managed to get you out of my bed and onto the floor, and unless I change my mind in the near future, that’s where you’ll stay.”
“I don’t think so.”
As a statement of intent it could not be bettered, she decided and she turned from him, the need to hide her tears of major importance right now. And why the man had the ability to make her shed those hated salty drops was beyond her. She only knew that she somehow allowed him to make her feel helpless, like a woman without strength to make her own choices. Debra Nightsong was not a woman to be subdued so easily.
“Have I frightened you again?” His words angered her and she felt her face burn with humiliation.
“You don’t frighten me. You never have. I fear no man, Tyler whoever you are.”
He grinned, the challenge of his frown, the dark anger he’d directed at her a thing of the past. “I think we’re having an argument, Nightsong. Our first, if I’m not mistaken. And I’d just as soon not be exchanging harsh words with you.”
“Then just be quiet and leave me alone.” She turned away, her hands peeling his from her body, and went into the house. The kitchen was dark but she knew her way well and walked across to the hallway and from there to her bedroom. In a house this small there was no trick to gaining the one room she could claim as her own and hope for privacy to be granted her.
The door closed with a solid sound behind her and she leaned against it, her mind spinning. She was so angry at him, and for the life of her she wasn’t sure why. He’d handled her as if it were his right, and that alone was enough to fire her temper. But his intentions were honorable, she’d stake her life on that fact. Yet, she could somehow not give her total acceptance to his proposal, for he asked more than she was willing or perhaps able to give him.
Behind her the door moved, and she recognized that he had lifted the latch, that he was putting his weight against it, moving her from her position. In mere seconds he would be trespassing in her domain—a domain he shared, she reminded herself. Yet, it was the only place she felt safe, and once he intruded, she would no longer have the privacy her heart craved.
“Step away from the door, Debra. I don’t want to hurt you when I push it open.”
She trembled at his words, knowing that he would not back down, that his determination exceeded her own in this matter. Her head bowed, she walked into the center of the bedroom, and behind her, heard the door swing open, knew the moment he entered the quiet of her bedroom.
“Why are you running from me?”
She turned to face him, knowing she was but a dim shadow in the darkness of her room. He was limned in the doorway, the kitchen lamp glowing behind him, and she was struck with the size of him, the width of his shoulders, the way his head brushed close to the lintel. “I haven’t run. Only tried to find a place by myself, where I can think my own thoughts without you…”
He walked closer to her, almost touching her clothing with his own, so near did he stand. The warmth exuding from his body touched her with fingers of fire and she withdrew, almost trying to shrink within the contours of her dress. “I’ve never tried to infringe on your privacy, Debra, only tried to speak with you, to make you understand my thoughts and ideas. I don’t know how to convince you that I’d be a good husband to you, that marriage for us would be a good choice.”
“You’re infringing on me now,” she said harshly, her voice lifting with the anger behind it. “Go away, Tyler, and leave me be. I don’t want you near me.”
He smiled, and she was almost convinced by the gentleness that expression conveyed. “I think your problem may be that you do want me near you, Nightsong. And you’re not sure what to do about it. I don’t think my touch is repulsive to you, for you tremble beneath my hands, and your mouth softens when I touch it with mine.”
He would touch her now. She knew it, in the depths of her body, where the gentle fires of her newborn passion burned. And when his hands were on her, when she yearned to crush herself against his greater strength, those fires might burn out of control, and she would no longer be able to refuse him.
As if her thoughts reached his mind, as if he knew exactly what she feared, his hands gripped her waist, drawing her closer to his form, and then slid behind her, capturing her in the warmth of those muscular limbs that held her with the tenderness of a mother with a child.
She wanted to melt against him, her body cried out for the heat that radiated from him, and her legs trembled with weakness that was not usual for Debra Nightsong. She’d always been strong, capable and certain of her needs. Now this man held her body next to his, and suddenly her needs were those he’d brought to life within her.
She craved his fingers beneath her breasts as they had been only long minutes ago on the porch, and at the same time, she hated the yearning she felt. For it could only make her weak to so cling to a man. She must be strong, as her mother had bid her. She must stand on her own two feet and make a life that would be safe and under her control.
Yet, the strength of the man before her drew her inexorably into his shadow, and she felt almost a part of him, her breasts crushed against his wide chest, her legs parting for the intrusion of his muscular thighs between them. He smoothed the fabric of her dress down the full length of her back and his hands cradled the firm rounding of her bottom, lifting her against himself, holding her high so that her face was on a level with his.
His words were soft, but firm, and she watched his lips, barely moving as he issued his will aloud. “Kiss me, Debra. Touch my lips with yours and taste the desire I hold in my heart for you.”
She could barely breathe, her heart pounding in her chest like the drums in her mother’s village. His lips lured her, softening before her eyes, parting as if he strove to catch a breath, glistening from his tongue’s movement across them, and she was drawn into his spell.
Her mouth opened a bit, and she offered him the caress he had demanded, for she would not allow him to think she only did as he asked out of fear. Her lips were soft against his, her mouth a vessel to be filled by the length of his tongue, and though the caressing movement against her teeth and her own tongue was still new and strange to her, she felt warmed by his taking of her in this way.
He tilted his head a bit, the better to gain his goal, his mouth opening over hers, his tongue suckling hers in a gentle motion that sent shards of sensation to the depths of her belly. He tasted of the coffee he’d drunk for supper, of the peppermint candy he kept in his pocket. A mixture of sweetness, of masculine strength, of all the things she loved about him.
And that, she realized as his tongue traced the ridges of her mouth, was the sole reason she would accede to his demands. For she loved not only his taste, his touch and the look of him, but the man himself, the man who had entered her life so harshly, with no warning, and taken over the running of her farm as if it were his due. And perhaps it was, for she knew she had given him reason to take his place here as a helpmate, as a husband.
In all but name and physical possession, she was his already, his wife, his woman.
He left her mouth then, touching her cheek and the fragile skin of her throat with the warmth of his lips, whispering against her ear with words that wrote upon her heart, words that claimed her as his own,