fractionally, and she watched his face, hard with passion, as his body fit itself perfectly to her slenderness.
She barely breathed, her eyes wide and full of new knowledge as she felt him intimately and knew without words how badly he wanted her.
“Are you afraid this time?” he whispered quietly.
“I should be,” she replied. She reached up and touched his face as he drew his chest slowly, teasingly over her breasts. Her breath caught, but she traced his eyebrows, his cheeks, his mouth with fingers that trembled and adored him.
His big, callused hands slid under her back, lifting her up into the curve of his body. “I want you, Abby,” he whispered, bending to her mouth as his body shuddered over hers. “I want you so much….”
She curled her arms around his head and held his mouth against her eager one. “I want you, too, Calhoun,” she whispered into his mouth.
He almost lost control completely then. He kissed her until he had to stop for breath, his body shuddering rhythmically, his knee between her long, soft legs, his hand low on her hips. He felt her trembling and heard her whimper. Oddly, it brought him to his senses.
Slowly, so slowly, he rolled onto his side, bringing her with him, cradling her against his damp body. He slid his hands to her head, holding her forehead to his throbbing chest.
“Lie still, honey,” he whispered raggedly when she began to move again. He caught her hips and stilled them. “Just lie against me and breathe. It will be all right in a minute. Lie still, baby.”
Her hands were flat against his chest, trembling there in the thick mat of hair, and she felt his unsteady breathing against her hair. He was as shaken as she was, but why had he stopped? She didn’t understand. If he wanted her, then why had he stopped?
“Sweet thing,” he breathed when the tremor was almost out of his big arms. “Sweet, precious thing, another few seconds and nothing on earth would have stopped me, did you know?”
She nuzzled her head against him. “Why did you stop?” she asked dazedly.
He tilted her head back on the pillow and smiled into her drowsy eyes. “Don’t you know?”
“Because I’m not blond, I guess,” she sighed, almost weeping with frustration and disappointment.
“Because you’re not lucid,” he corrected. He brushed the long, soft hair away from her face. “Abby, you’re half lit.”
“I want you,” she moaned.
“I know. I can see it. Feel it.” He hugged her close for a minute, because he was almost in control now. Then he let go and quickly and efficiently slid her into her gown. “Sit up, honey.”
She did, and he eased back the covers and helped her get under them. She lay quietly beneath two layers of fabric and blinked at him sleepily. “Calhoun, stay with me,” she whispered.
He smiled gently, his dark eyes possessive on her flushed face. “Justin would love finding us in your bed together. He’d probably make me marry you.”
“And I guess that would be the end of your world,” she replied.
His expression hardened. He drew in a slow breath and touched her cheek gently, thoughtfully. “I’ve been alone a long time. I like being my own boss, answering to no one. I’ve been a rounder, and in some ways I still am. I’m a bad marriage risk.”
“One woman wouldn’t satisfy you, I guess,” she murmured, hiding her eyes from him. All her dreams were dead now. Every last one. He wanted her, but not enough for marriage. He was telling her so.
He shrugged, confused and feeling faintly hunted. “One woman never has,” he said curtly. “I don’t want to be tied.”
“God forbid that I should try,” Abby said, forcing a smile. “Don’t worry, Calhoun, I was just…experimenting. I wondered why you were so rough with me the other morning, and I wanted to see if passion made people rough. I guess it does, because that’s how I felt tonight. Thanks for the…the lesson.”
He frowned slightly, searching her eyes. “Is that all it felt like. An experiment? A lesson in making love?”
“Tyler said I needed teaching,” she said with a yawn, missing the flash of fury in his face. “But I don’t anymore.” She closed her eyes and turned her face against the pillow. “I’m sleepy.”
Calhoun sat watching her, his eyes stormy. She’d used him. That was all she’d wanted. She’d been experimenting, seeing how it felt to be touched. Damn her!
He got up, glaring at the lacy bra he’d removed from her soft breasts just before she’d let him touch them. Let him! God, she’d helped him! His blood ran hot at the memory of how uninhibited she’d been with him tonight. Had she been competing with Shelby, or had it been curiosity alone? Could she care about him and be hiding it? And how did he feel? Did he just want her physically, or was it more than that? Could he bear the loss of his freedom? Because it would come to that if he took her. Marriage. Trap.
He tossed the bra onto the chair beside her bed and took a long last look at her sleeping face. She didn’t need to be blond. She was exquisite. Her long hair was spread out around her, her lashes were feathering her flushed cheek, and her parted lips were pink and faintly swollen because he’d been hungry. She was delicious. Virginal and sweet-tasting and exquisitely beautiful without her clothes. He wondered if he’d ever get over the taste of her—if he’d be able to forget. Hell, would he ever be able to have another woman, or would the memory of Abby always stand in the way?
He opened the door and went out, closing it quietly behind him. He should never have touched her in the first place, he thought furiously.
He had to get away for a while. Far away, so that he could think things through. Now that he’d touched Abby, it was going to be the purest kind of hell keeping his hands off her. And Justin wouldn’t like having that sort of loveplay going on, not if it threatened Abby. Calhoun knew that if he took Abby into his arms again, it wasn’t going to end with a few kisses. He wanted her too badly, and she was too responsive. He aroused her as no man ever had. That meant she’d give herself to him with hardly any coaxing. Calhoun was terrified that he might lose his head and take her.
He didn’t want marriage. He didn’t want ties. Abby wouldn’t understand that. In her world, lovemaking meant marriage. Maybe in his, too, when the woman was a virgin. He didn’t like the noose she was tying around his neck, but he hated the thought of never touching her again almost as much.
She was heaven to love. Her mouth was young and sweet and so eager to learn. Her body was nectar. Just the sight of it made him drunk, not to mention the exquisite feel of it between his hands, under his skin.
Abby, he groaned inwardly as he made his way to his own room. He couldn’t have her and he couldn’t give her up. He didn’t know what in hell he was going to do. Maybe when he got back from wherever he wound up he would have reached a decision.
He sat down at the small desk in a corner of his room and wrote Justin a note telling him he was going away for a few days to check on some stockers in Montana. Justin might think it strange, but Abby wouldn’t. He wondered how she was going to feel when she woke up and found him gone. He hoped she wouldn’t even remember what they’d done in her bed together. But even if she did, that was going to be one private memory. Abby wouldn’t share it any more than he would.
Abby groaned the minute the light got to her eyes. She had the world’s biggest headache, and nausea sat in the pit of her stomach like acid.
She managed to get on her feet and into the bathroom, where she bathed her face with cold water and pressed a cold cloth against her eyes. She remembered drinking whiskey in the study with Justin. Then Calhoun had taken her to bed, and—
Her