"No!" She struggled to free her arms. "I'm not through hitting!"
"I'm through being hit."
She bucked her hips beneath him, making him groan. "Love, that doesn't have the effect I think you intended."
Tears flooded her eyes in a rush. "Why did you stay in there? Why didn't you run away the first time you fell?"
He released her hands and leaned down beside her. "I didn't fall."
"I saw you go down twice."
He frowned. "I suppose it'd look like I fell. But I was retrieving some things."
"What things?"
His face tightened. "Just some things."
It was then that she heard mewing sounds. "The kittens!" She twined her head toward the sound and saw several shaky balls of fur crawling out from under his coat to their mother. "I thought for sure they were dead--they were up in the hayloft."
"The cat was moving them one at a time to the ground. But then the fire spread. The grayish one--"
"They're all gray now."
"Then the small one who is still hissing...he was not cooperative with my rescue."
Tori was grinning now. "That's why you went down a second time? To rescue one last kitten?"
"In for a penny," he muttered.
Tori saw the mother cat blink at them with a kitten in her mouth, already setting to work transporting, "I think you've just become my hero. My rescuer of kittens."
"That's enough," he grumbled.
She kissed his face. "I didn't know how I was going to get to you."
"Damn it, Victoria. You need to promise you'll never do anything dangerous to help me."
"Can't," she mumbled.
He put his hand on her face, and brushed at the tears on her cheeks. "Why?"
She caught his gaze. Because I'm in love with you. More than ever before.... She knew she couldn't bear to live without him--no matter what the circumstances--and drew a breath to tell him--
"Miss!" Huckabee called as he trotted over. "Are you all right?"
Grant groaned and rolled on his back as though stunned from the intimate contact with her.
"We're fine," she said, but now that she and Grant had separated, she began shaking in the cold grass.
Grant shot to his feet. "Huckabee, get a bath heating," he barked.
"The new girl has a heap of water on."
"Good." Grant pulled her up and grabbed his coat from the ground, then wrapped it around her shoulders, bringing her close to his side. Even through the smoke and soot, she imagined she could smell his skin.
Halfway up the valley, she stumbled, and he swooped her into his arms. When she moved an inch to be more comfortable, he mistook the motion as a protest.
"Just let me have this," he rasped.
She relaxed in his arms. Did he think that would be all she'd give him tonight?
He carried her into her room, booted open the door to the bathing closet, then raised his eyebrows when he saw the massive marble bath situated before a stoked grate. Steam rose from the water.
He deposited her at the side of the basin. "Will you manage?" His voice was low and rough.
No, she wouldn't. She didn't want to let him out of her sight and knew a grand way to keep him here. She looked down shyly, gliding her finger back and forth across the water. "We both smell like smoke, and there's a bath big enough for two. All this inviting water..."
She bit her lip nervously, wondering what he would do, but before she glanced up at him he was already kicking off his boots. She jumped up to help him with his shirt, then lifted her arms for him to draw her ruined nightdress from her.
Her fingers sought his trousers and grazed his skin low as she worked the buttons, the slight touch sending his breath whistling.
"Get into the water, Victoria." His voice was ragged. "You need to get warm."
She was tempted not to, to see if he'd take her right there. When she hesitated, he clasped her shoulders, turned her, and tapped her on the bottom to prod her forward. With shaking legs, she climbed the two steps leading up to the edge. As she sank into the water all the way up to her chest, she sighed in contentment even as she held her hand out to him.
He eased in, then drew her between his legs. She thought he would kiss her, but he moved her to put her back to his chest. He grasped a bar of soap and gently washed her hair, piling it atop her head so he could bathe her back and shoulders before moving to her upper chest. He scarcely touched her breasts. This was all business. He poured water over her hair and back, rinsing her clean.
"Your turn." She moved around in the basin to sit behind him. As he'd done, she washed him, massaging the tight muscles of his back, rinsing him off. To reach his chest, she leaned into his back, making sure he felt her breasts slipping across his skin. In an instant, he turned to her, kneeling, reaching out on each side of her to grasp the basin behind her. His whole body enclosed her.
He reached his head down to kiss and nip from her collarbone to her breast. She arched her back so he could taste her nipples. When he dragged his tongue over the first, his arms straightened and flexed around her. Her hands latched on to them, holding on as she raised herself to him. He licked and suckled mercilessly, and right when she thought she might reach her climax just from his mouth on her breasts, he groaned against one pebble-hard peak, "I can't take much more. I've wanted you too long."
"Then take me to bed," she murmured.
He sucked in a breath and stood, but she was slower, especially slow when his heavy shaft hung just before her face, commanding her attention. He reached down to lift her up, but she ignored his hand and grasped him. He groaned as if in pain, but she couldn't have let go if she desired to. So slick and hard, with water sluicing down the hollows and outcurves of rigid stomach muscles, running along the trail of hair to his engorged shaft.
"I missed this...." Before he could stop her, she kissed him lovingly, showing him how much. His flesh was hot against her lips and pulsed against her tongue, making her hungry to suck him into her mouth as he'd described all those nights ago.
With an inhuman growl, he buried his hands in her hair. She couldn't tell if he was pulling or pushing her away and thought he didn't know either. "You don't know what you do to me. Seeing your lips on me and knowing you want t
o pleasure me with your mouth. I've dreamed of this for so many nights."
"What else have you dreamed of?" she asked against the crown, right before she flicked the salty tip with her tongue.
"My God." He threw his head back and she gazed upward over the straining muscles in his chest and arms. His body was a mass of power.
He didn't answer her question, but hauled her out of the basin, grabbed a towel, and roughly licked and dried every inch of her. She tried to do the same to him, but he pulled her to his chest, to look down at her eyes. "Did I frighten you the last time we made love? Did I hurt you?"
"No, never."
"Then let me show you what I've dreamed of." His words made shivers run up her spine.
He led her to the bed, pulling her to him when he sat, long legs stretched out, his back against the headboard. He was so strong he easily situated her where he wanted her, legs spread across him, straddling him as she had earlier in the night.
Would they make love like this? Her atop him? Before she could voice the question, he had his big hands on her bottom, pulling her sex forward toward his waiting mouth. When his tongue first found her, he groaned against her flesh, making her shudder. She felt herself grow wetter, knew he felt it when he growled, "Sweet as honey."
In total abandon, she twined her fingers in his hair, clasping him closer. At that, he groaned again and moved her down his body, placing her on his rod, guiding her down him. The movement was slow and torturing for her. For him as well, if she could tell by his squeezing and clutching, by the muscles straining in his neck and chest.
She let out a breath she hadn't known she held. Too intense...He went deeper than before, plunging far inside, and she still wasn't able to take all of him.
"I'm so near," she panted.
Immediately, he drew her from him, bringing her back to his hungry mouth as he casually sat devouring her.
"Oh, God," she cried, arching her back, pushing against his hot tongue rubbing inside her. Her peak loomed once more, but now it was sharper, near frightening.
When she placed her hands against the wall above him, preparing for the ecstasy about to take her, he again set her away, this time pounding her down on him, then surging his hips up.