Читать книгу Wild Enough For Willa - Ann Major, Ann Major - Страница 12

“Help…” This girl’s Texas drawl was as pronounced as Marcie’s. Thus, the e was elongated.

Luke stared at the black door as if it were the gate to hell.

“Please…” Again her prominent vowels seemed endless. “P-le-e-ease…”

“Marcie?” he whispered.

No. But this girl’s faint cries held raw urgency. He drew in a savage breath and then pushed against warped wood that creaked heavily on ancient hinges.

“Help…”

He cursed the dark and Mexico and the heat that had him dripping with sweat. Most of all he cursed the whore and her soft, alluring drawl that compelled him into this black and forbidding shack.

A bar of moonlight backlit his tall, muscular body and the broken bottle he held raised above his black head. More of that same silver light slipped through the cracks in the mortar left by shoddy workmanship and glistened against dirty, broken windowpanes.

The room was squalid, hot and hellish; its ceiling so low he had to stoop slightly. Plywood had been nailed against a hole in the wall. Corrugated tin was both ceiling and roof. The dirt floor was carpeted with cigarette butts and loose boards. Then he saw a Mexican bullwhip coiled like a black snake around a brand new, red high-heeled pump on the dirt floor, this shoe an exact match to the one he’d found earlier.

He picked the shoe up, turning it in his palm, and whistled. “Cinder-eff-ing-rella!”

“Who are you—Prince Charming?” drawled a small wavery voice, in an attempt at bravery. “What gives? A prince in blue jeans and cowboy hat?”

He liked her spunk.

The yellow-haired girl was tied by her wrists and ankles with remnants of her own nylons to a metal bed in the middle of the room. She lifted her drugged gaze to his.

A board groaned under his weight.

Her eyes bulged when she saw the bottle. Trying to free herself, she squirmed on the bare mattress. Moonlight rippled over her long shapely legs that were spread widely apart.

The room seemed to shrink, and the confines of it were suddenly more stifling. He drew a sharp breath.

Masses of reckless, yellow hair framed her exquisite oval face.

Sexy. Sexy as hell.

He thought, Wow.

He muttered, “Damn.”

It was only natural to want to keep his reaction to himself and to be repelled by it. He averted his eyes from the girl’s face and her awesome legs. But he felt like he’d fallen into a sensual barrel of forbidden delights. A girl with looks like hers made a man think of only one thing.

Images of those endless legs, a short polka-dot dress pushed above shapely thighs, black lace bikini panties and a garter belt had burned themselves into his testosterone-charged brain. Her breasts bulged against a low neckline. And that face…with those slanting eyes that caught the moonlight. Those full red lips…

Ah, such a face would give a saint wet dreams. Not that McKade was a candidate for sainthood. For as surely as there was a devil in hell keeping tabs, McKade’s name would be scrawled in roaring flames at the top of that fiend’s list of sinners.

“Are you going to he-e-e-l-p me…or…”

“Shhh…”

Why did she sound so much like Marcie? Why did she have to be blond?

Don’t look at those legs, or at that face. Don’t notice that her skin is pale and luminous, her shapely lips so moist and bright with paint they make your mouth go dry.

Her makeup, her costume, the mere fact Baines and his goons had brought her here and tied her to this bed to play kinky games told Luke what she was—a whore. As a kid, he’d had fun with her kind.

Was this hellhole her room? Or Baines’s?

Glazed, startlingly blue eyes, lined in heavy black, stared up at him. “It’s our honeymoon. Love me. Love me…P-please…just love me.”

Love?

What Luke felt had a lot more in common with what she would do for a dollar than with love. He wanted sex; she sold sex.

She moistened her lip with her tongue. Then she seemed to suffer a moment’s shortness of breath beneath his direct gaze.

His stomach lurched. She represented sex and the forbidden, all the vices he’d learned young and tried to rise above when he’d crawled out of the gutter. She had designed herself to bring out the beast in him.

She did.

“Shhh…”

With a muted whimper, followed by more slurred endearments, she strained toward him. Black stockings jerked, and she collapsed against the bed.

She was drunk or very high on something. Yet not so high that she wasn’t conscious of him. Nor did she act ashamed to be lying there with her breasts and legs so exposed. Instead, she twisted her hips deliberately to entice him, begging, “Love me.…”

At that honey-soft plea, his breath stalled. His body hardened. Her cheap beauty and suggestive posture paralyzed him. For a second or two, he even forgot about the heat.

He hadn’t changed. His fine suits, his fine house, the fine wife he’d buried only this afternoon…The fine schools he’d attended but hadn’t fit into…His whole damn life was a lie.

This girl was real. Too damn real. And she made him real.

“Don’t play your whore tricks on me,” he snarled even as he sank down on the bed beside her.

On a whimper, she shrank from him. Her wide eyes fixed on the broken bottle in his hand. Strips of black nylon held fast and put her at his mercy.

He saw a brown boy, facedown, in a vacant lot and the bullies standing over him, kicking dirt and rocks at him.

“Be still. I won’t hurt you. I’m going to cut you loose.”

She watched him. He fought not to look at her. Still, sitting on her bed, their hips touching, he felt joined to her in ways he didn’t understand.

He caught the scent of her perfume. Gardenias. Sweet, sweet gardenias. The fragile scent took him back to a summer day, to a cool, shady garden, to a haughty white woman who’d frowned at him with fury when he’d picked that single perfect blossom. He remembered her children in the same garden and the bouquets they’d held.

No.

The heat of the whore against his hip was a wholesome pleasure compared to his bitter memories. Perspiration beaded his brow. Better her. Better this hellish shack than his own shameful past.

The girl stared at his face unblinkingly. “Hawaii? Love…”

He waved the razor edges of the brown glass under her chin. Then he deliberately sliced a brown fingertip across the glass that was like a blade. Blood bubbled, oozed. A single drop splashed her cheek.

She started, whimpered.

“Hold still. Understand? So I don’t cut you.”

Her expression was grave, but she didn’t move when he began sawing with the bottle.

After a few swipes, the nylon gave, and her limp arm fell across her breast. Trouble was, he had to lean across her to reach her other wrist.

The second he felt her female flesh molding his, something hot and dangerous consumed him.

His heart slowed to painful thuds. Male nerve cells registered body heat, registered gardenias, woman smell. Registered her. She fit him like a glove.

She was available. She would do anything.

Wildfire.

Her breasts pressing into his chest made him dizzy. His hand began to shake so badly he had to stop so he wouldn’t cut her.

She held her breath.

So did he.

Get a grip. Don’t let her know. Work fast.

Again, jagged brown glass sheered the flimsy nylon.

But she knew. The instant she was free, her hands were all over him.

“I love you. Love me. I love you. Love me,” she pleaded in Marcie’s drawl.

Her hands. Her body.

Marcie’s voice.

Love me. That constant refrain pounded through him like a drumbeat. Eagerly her hands moved over his torso.

He had to get away. It had been a mistake to lean over her. Her skillful, expert hands, her whore’s hands knew exactly what to do to arouse a man like him.

Lightly, ever so lightly, she stroked. Sliding across his chest, her heated fingertips had his damp shirt out of his pants in no time, his belt unbuckled. Then like heat-seeking missiles, her hands were inside his jeans, circling him with her fist.

Low moans rose from her throat, her excitement matching his when she found him already hard.

Marcie used to moan like that. Until he’d forbidden her to make that sound in bed. You’re not a whore. You’re my wife.

He’d liked what Marcie had done too much. He’d known she’d win him through sex. It was a way to that deeper part of him he’d sealed and locked, so he’d be safe. With a whore, he could let go in bed. Because there were other lines he wouldn’t cross with a whore.

The girl writhed. To hold her still, he threw a leg over her thighs. She wiggled, snugged herself closer. He slashed her ankle bindings loose with the broken bottle. Their hips joined.

Meltdown.

Wrapping herself around him, she clung.

For years he’d been alone—his whole damn life. This woman, the soft warmth of her, erased all that. He gulped in air as her fist caressed him.

“Love me.…”

“You’re a whore.”

He saw tearing pain in her gaze. She froze, and he was moved beyond words by the sheen of tears misting her black-lashed blue eyes, by the way she drew back with proud dignity. “I love you…B-B…”

But whatever drug she was on got the best of her. Before Luke could register the name she called him, she wiggled closer, bringing her lips up to his. She caught her lower lip with her teeth. When she released it with a soft kiss, the swollen softness was pink, wet and shiny. And so damned kissable.

She kissed him, and her adoration, sweetness and innocence amazed him. Her seeming innocence, he amended.

He held his breath, his heart beating hard and fast. Don’t. Don’t.

But she kept at it, this spontaneous nibbling of his lips. She had a marvelous mouth. And not just to look at. She tasted, oh, God, she tasted delicious and so damned innocent…and so utterly utterly sweet.

Her tongue teased his, traced along the upper edges of his teeth. Nobody kissed like that but an expert.

Almost at once, he was shaking. Hardly knowing what he did, his mouth opened. He wanted more.

Gently, marveling at the softness of her skin, he let his knuckle touch her face. She didn’t recoil. For a long moment he just held her. He felt her breasts rising and falling beneath his chest.

Ravenous, he began to kiss her. “You are beautiful,” he breathed, his lips moving from her mouth, to her cheek, to her throat. Suddenly, he could contain himself no longer. Peeling her panties lower, he pushed her down into the mattress and straddled her. He tore at his jeans, unzipped his fly and shoved his jeans down. Somehow he had the presence of mind to fumble in his wallet for a condom. He tore it out of its package, put it on.

“How many others…besides me? How many, damn you? Brand Baines? Those jerks with Baines, too? What games did you play with them?”

“Only you, Brand…” She raised soulful eyes to him.

She didn’t even know who he was, didn’t care.

Then she saw him. Really saw him.

“You’re not—Brand!”

“How many—”

“Where am…” She moaned, shut her eyes, thrashed her golden head back and forth. “Oh, dear!”

“You’re in a shack. You were playing bondage games with three men.”

Another voice, bright and sassy, not Marcie’s. “Don’t you dare say things like that to me, mister.” But she was very pale. “Why, who are you anyway?”

In the next breath she saw the nylon around her wrist and moaned. “Bondage? You—you monster!”

“Me? This little game was all your idea!”

Panicking, wild to escape him now, she pounded on his chest, kicked at his legs. “No…No…No…”

He hated teases. “Whores don’t say no.”

“Don’t you dare tell me what I can or cannot do. I can too say no if I want to. No…No…”

“No?” He laughed harshly, covering her sputtering lips with his hand. “I can have you. Anybody can. You can’t say no. Not now.”

“No,” she mumbled and most defiantly against his thick fingers. Then she bit him, rather ferociously.

“Ouch!” His hat fell off.

Furious, he jammed a knee between the girl’s legs, positioned himself to lunge. She was too slim, too small to stop him.

“You want me to tie you up again. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

She countered with a piteous, mewing sound. Terrified eyes locked on his for a long, shocked moment. Then she slumped lifelessly.

Blood pumped. Take the sexy, sassy witch.

Rigid, she lay beneath him, blue eyes wide-open.

They were isolated. She was helpless. He could do whatever the hell he wanted.

So, do it. Nobody would know. Not even her.

He was swollen, on fire. The room was an oven. His black hair dripped perspiration onto the bed, onto her pale skin that gleamed with sweat, too. The need to take and ravage was so powerful, it almost robbed him of his humanity.

I can say no if I want to. No…No…

Sassy. Even when her face had been bloodless and she’d been so scared.

“Oh, God…” Had it come to this?

Panting hard, he drew back and moved a hand in front of her face. She didn’t blink, didn’t even see the five splayed fingers. He ran his hands through his soaking hair, smoothed it back, inhaled a ragged breath.

Something really was wrong with her. He fingered her wrist, found a pulse.

Wild with relief that at least she was alive, he pushed himself off her. He sat in the hot, stifling dark, cursing himself and her blasphemously. Through gritted teeth, he sucked in more deep breaths as he fought to regain normalcy…sanity…decency.

When she just lay there, her glassy eyes fixed on the ceiling, he got scared, too. Lifting her, he began to shake her.

“Wake up.”

She frowned, struggling to focus on his scowling face. “Sleepy…You are being most unpleasant.…”

Near panic, he dressed quickly, pulled her panties up those incredibly long legs, smoothed her dress. Touching, redressing her stirred him almost more than he could bear.

“Stand up.”

“Can’t…Dizzy…”

“Keep talking.” He slapped her. Not hard. But hard enough to leave a red mark on her pale cheek. He instantly regretted having done so.

“You’re mean.”

He grabbed her shoe and his Stetson. When he jammed her bare foot into the high-heeled red pump, she couldn’t balance and swayed into him.

“Oops.”

He grabbed her. “What kind of pills are you on?”

“You really are most disagreeable.…I’m a good girl. I don’t do drugs.”

“Liquor then? How much?”

“Brand…Drink…Not liquor, though.”

Luke didn’t know much about drugs.

“Whatever it was, you’re higher than a kite.”

Bottom line. He had to get her out of here. “Put your arms around my neck.”

“Are we going on our honeymoon?” Then she realized who she was really with. “I think you’d make the most dreadful bridegroom.”

Jostling her into his arms seemed to waken her. She was lighter than he expected. Effortlessly, he carried her outside into the close, hot, humid dark, which reeked of diesel fumes, charcoal smoke and other fouler pollutants.

“Are we in Maui yet?” she asked, a tinge of desperation in her dazed, curious voice.

They were standing on a crumbling sidewalk in front of a shack smeared with graffiti. He’d nearly raped her. She’d called him a monster.

She thought they were on their honeymoon.

He played along. “Can’t you hear the surf and see the hula dancers?”

“Maui. Darling. Just like you promised.”

Her wistful eyes and impish smile of sheer joy both dazzled him and terrified him.

Darling. The word, the way she said it wrapped itself around her soul. And his.

And her smile. That incandescent smile.

He wanted that irresistible smile to be for him. For him alone.

She took off his hat, turned it over and then plopped it on her own golden head. It swallowed her. She looked like a little girl playing cowgirl.

His gut clenched. So did his heart.

He could feel nothing for her. Nothing.