"Why sure," Tate replied with a forced smile. "I don"t mind at all."
Once Buck was gone, Tate"s smile flattened into a somber line. She was more than a little worried about what Adam might do if he found out she was home for the evening. She decided the best plan was to avoid him by staying in her room. It was the coward"s way out, but her brothers had taught her that sometimes it was best to play your cards close to your belly.
Tate quickly found herself bored within the confines of her bedroom. She remembered that there was some work she could do in the office-if only she could get there without being detected by Adam. The light was on in his bedroom across the courtyard. Adam often retired early and did his reading-both ranch and medical journals-in bed.
She was already dressed for sleep in a long pink T-shirt, but it covered her practically to the knees. She decided it was modest enough even for Adam should he find her working late in the office. She tiptoed barefoot across the tiled courtyard, which was lit by both moon and stars, slipped into Adam"s wing of the house via a door at the far end, and sneaked down the hall to the office.
It could have been an hour later, or two, when Tate suddenly felt the hairs p.r.i.c.kle on her arms. She had long since finished working at the computer. Because the chair in front of the desk was more comfortable than the one behind it-which was as straight-backed and rigid as the man who usually sat there-she had plopped down in it to look over the printout of what she had done. She had one ankle balanced on the front of the desk and the other hooked on the opposite knee.
She glanced up and found herself ensnared by the look of desire in Adam"s heavy-lidded blue eyes.
"Working late?" he asked in a silky voice.
"I thought I"d finish a few things."
Tate was frozen, unable to move, uncomfortably aware that her long T-shirt had rucked up around her thighs, and that her legs were bare all the way up to yonder. As Adam stared intently at her, she felt her nipples harden into dark buds easily visible beneath the pink cotton.
Adam"s chest was bare, revealing dark curls that arrowed down into his Levi"s. His jeans seemed to be hanging on his hipbones. His belly was ribbed with muscle, and a faint sheen of perspiration made his skin glow in the light from the single standing lamp.
Adam was no less disconcerted by Tate"s appearance. He had come to his office looking for a ranch journal and found a sultry s.e.x kitten instead. His view of Tate"s French-cut panties was wreaking havoc with his self-control. Her crow-black hair was tousled, and her whiskey-colored eyes were dark with feminine allure.
"You ought to know better than to come here half-dressed," Adam said.
"I wasn"t expecting to see you."
One black brow arched disbelievingly. "Weren"t you?"
Adam abruptly swept the desk clear of debris with one hand while he reached for Tate with the other. Papers flew in the air, cups shattered, Tate"s handful of pebbles pinged as they shot across the tile floor. The last paper hadn"t landed, nor the pinging sound faded, when he set her down hard on the edge of the desk facing him.
Tate"s frightened protest died on her lips. Adam"s fierce blue eyes never left hers as he spread her legs and stepped between them. He yanked her toward him, fitting the thin silk of her panties snugly against the heat and hardness of his arousal.
"Is this what you had in mind?" he demanded.
"Adam, I-"
She gasped as rough hands smoothed the cotton over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, revealing nipples that ached for his touch.
"Adam-"
"You"ve been teasing me for weeks, little girl. Even I have my limits. You"re finally going to get what you"ve been asking for."
"Adam-"
"Shut up, Tate."
He seized both her hands in one of his and thrust his fingers into the hair at her nape to hold her captive for his kiss.
Tate didn"t dare breathe as Adam lowered his head to hers. Her body was alive with antic.i.p.ation. Though she had wanted this ever since she had first laid eyes on Adam, she was still a little afraid of what was to come. She wanted this man, and she was certain now that he wanted her. Tonight she would know what it meant to be a woman, to be Adam"s woman. The waiting was over at last.
Adam"s anger at finding what he considered a sensual trap in his office made him more forceful with Tate than he had intended. But after all, she was no longer the tender, inexperienced virgin of a week ago.
However, somewhere between the moment he laced his hand into her hair and the instant his lips reached hers, his feelings underwent a violent transformation. Powerful emotions were at work, soothing the savage beast. When they finally kissed, there was nothing in his touch beyond the fierce need for her that thrummed through his body.
Tate was unprepared for the velvety softness of Adam"s lips as he slid his mouth across hers. His teeth found her lower lip, and she shivered as he nipped it and then soothed the hurt. His tongue teased her, slipping inside, then retreating until she sought it out and discovered the taste of him. Dark and distinctive and uniquely male.
Tate was lost in sensation as each kiss was answered by a streak of desire that found its way to her belly. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s felt full and achy, yet she was too inexperienced to ask for the touch that would have satisfied her body"s yearning.
Sometime while she was being kissed, Adam had released her hands. Tate wasn"t quite sure what to do with them. She sought out his shoulders, then slid her hands down his back, feeling the corded muscle and sinew that made him so different from her.
Her head fell back as Adam"s mouth caressed the hollow in her throat. The male hands at her waist slowly slid up under her T-shirt until Adam was cupping her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Tate gasped as his thumbs brushed across the aching crests. Her body seemed alive to the barest touch of his callused fingertips.
"I want to feel you against me," Adam said as he slipped the pink T-shirt off over her head.
Before Tate could feel embarra.s.sed, his arms slid around her.
He sighed with satisfaction as he hugged her to him. "You feel so good," he murmured against her throat.
Tate"s b.r.e.a.s.t.s were excruciatingly sensitive to the wiry texture of Adam"s chest hair. She was intimately aware of his strength, of her own softness.
Adam grasped her thighs and pulled her more snugly against him. She clutched his shoulders and held on as his maleness pressed against her femininity, evoking feelings that were foreign, yet which coaxed an instinctive response.
A guttural groan escaped Adam as Tate arched her body into his. His hands dug into her b.u.t.tocks, trying to hold her still.
"You"re killing me, sweetheart," he said. "Don"t move!"
"But it feels good," Tate protested.
Adam half groaned, half laughed. "Too good," he agreed. "Be still. I want to be sure you enjoy this as much as I do."
"Oh, I will," Tate a.s.sured him.
Adam chuckled as he slid his mouth down her throat. He captured a nipple in his mouth, sucked on it, teased it with his tongue, then sucked again, until Tate was writhing with pleasure in his arms.
He took one of her hands and slid it along the hard ridge in his jeans, too wrapped up in the pleasure of the moment to notice her virginal reluctance to touch him. "Feel what you do to me," he said. "I only have to look at you, think about you, and I want you!" His chin rested at her temple, and he was aware of the faint scent of lilacs. He would always think of her from now on when he smelled that particular fragrance.
It didn"t take Tate long to realize how sensitive Adam was to her barest touch, and she reveled in her newfound feminine power.
When he could stand the pleasure no longer, Adam brought each of Tate"s hands to his mouth, kissed her wrists and her palms, then placed her hands flat on his chest. "Lift your hips, sweetheart," Adam murmured as he tucked his thumbs into her bikini panties.
She did as he asked, and an instant later Tate was naked. She hid her face in his shoulder, suddenly shy with him.
Adam"s arms slipped around her. "There"s no need to be embarra.s.sed, sweetheart," he teased.
"That"s easy to say when you"ve got clothes on," she retorted.
Adam laughed. "That can be easily remedied."
He reached between them and unsnapped his jeans. The harsh rasp of the zipper filled a silence broken only by the sound of her labored breathing, and his.
Tate grabbed Adam"s wrist to keep him from pulling his zipper down any more. "Not yet," she said breathlessly.
She couldn"t help the nerves that a.s.sailed her. Adam seemed to think she knew what to do, and perhaps she had led him to believe it was so, but she was all too aware of her ignorance-and innocence.
He dragged the zipper back up but left the snap undone. "There"s no hurry, sweetheart. We have all night."
Tate shivered-as much from a virgin"s qualms as from antic.i.p.ation-at the thought.
Adam settled her hands at his waist and lifted his own to gently cup her face. He angled her chin so that she was looking up at him. "You"re so d.a.m.n beautiful!" he said.
"Your eyes." He kissed them closed.
"Your nose." He cherished the tip of it.
"Your cheeks." He gave each one an accolade.
"Your chin." He nipped it with his teeth.
"Your mouth."
Tate"s eyes had slipped closed as Adam began his reverent seduction. She waited with bated breath for the kiss that didn"t come. Suddenly she felt herself being lifted into his arms. Her eyes flashed open in alarm.
"Adam! What are you doing? Where are we going?"
He was already halfway down the hall to his room when he said, "I want the pleasure of making love to you for the first time in my own bed."
Tate had peeked into Adam"s bedroom, but she had never been invited inside. It was decorated in warm earth tones, sandy browns and cinnamon. She had remembered being awed by the sheer size of his bed. The antique headboard was an intricately carved masterpiece, and the spindles at head and foot nearly reached to the ten-foot ceiling.
The quilt that covered the bed was an intricate box design Tate had never seen before, but the craftsmanship was exquisite. Tate grabbed Adam around the neck to keep from falling when he reached down to yank the quilt aside, revealing pristine white sheets.
"Now we can relax and enjoy ourselves," he said.
Adam laid her on the bed and in the same motion used his body to mantle hers. He nudged her legs apart with his knees and settled himself against her so that she was left in no doubt as to the reason he had brought her here.
"Where did you get this bed?" Tate asked, postponing the moment of ultimate truth.
"It"s a family heirloom. Several generations of my ancestors have been conceived and born here."
But not my own, Adam thought. Never my own.
Tate felt the sudden tension in his body. "Adam?"
Adam"s features hardened as he recalled what had happened over the past week to cause him to be here now with Tate. She had made her choice. And he had made his. He wanted her, and she was willing. That was all that mattered now.
Adam"s kiss was fierce, and Tate was caught up in the roughness of his lovemaking. There was nothing brutal about his caresses, but they were not gentle, either. His kisses were fervent, his pa.s.sion unbridled, as he drove her ruthlessly toward a goal she could only imagine.
Tate was hardly aware when Adam freed himself of his clothes. She was so lost in new sensations that the feel of his hard naked body against hers was but one of many delights. The feel of his hands...there. The feel of his lips and tongue...there.
Tate was in ecstasy bordering on pain. She reached with trembling hands for whatever part of Adam she could find with her hands and her mouth.
"Adam, please!" She didn"t know what she wanted, only that she desperately needed...something. Her body arched toward his, wild with need.
Just as Adam lifted her hips for his thrust, she cried, "Wait!" But it was already too late.
Adam"s face paled as he realized what he had done.
Tate"s fingernails bit into his shoulder, and she clamped her teeth on her lower lip to keep from crying out. Tears of pain pooled in the corners of her eyes.
Adam felt her muscles clench involuntarily around him and struggled not to move, fearing he would hurt her more. "You didn"t sleep with Buck," he said in a flat voice.
"No," she whispered.
"You were still a virgin."
"Yes," she whispered.
"Why did you make me think-Dammit to h.e.l.l, Tate! I would have done things differently if I"d known. I wouldn"t have-"
He started to pull out of her, but she clutched at his shoulders. "Please, Adam. It"s done now. Make love to me."
Tate lifted her hips, causing Adam to grunt with pleasure.
Now that he knew how inexperienced she was, Adam tried to be gentle. But Tate took matters out of his hands, touching him in places that sent his pulse through the roof, taunting him with her mouth and hands, until his thrust was almost savage. He brought them both to a climax so powerful that it left them gasping.
Adam slid to Tate"s side and folded her in his embrace. He reached down to pull the covers over them and saw the blood on the sheet that testified to her innocence.
It made him angry all over again.
"I hope you"re pleased with yourself!"
"Yes, I am."
"Don"t expect an offer of marriage, because you"re not going to get it," he said bluntly.
Tate fumbled for a sheet to cover herself. She sat up and stared at Adam with wary eyes. "I don"t think I expected any such thing."
"No? What about all those dreams of yours-meeting the right man, having a nice home and a gaggle of children playing at your feet?"
"Geese come in a gaggle," she corrected. "And for your information, I don"t think my dream is the least bit unreasonable."
"It is if you have me pictured in the role of Prince Charming."
Tate flushed. She toyed with the sheet, arranging it to cover her naked flank.
Adam watched with regret as her tempting flesh disappeared from view. "Well, Tate?"
She looked into eyes still darkened with pa.s.sion and said with all the tenderness she felt for him, "I love you, Adam."
"That was l.u.s.t, not love."