At the stall door, she studied the mother and child. The foal lay curled on the hay, the mare standing slack-legged beside her.
"I miss having a baby who needs me," she murmured. "They trust you to take care of them. It's the most incredible feeling, isn't it? Knowing that came from you."
She indulged herself another moment, stroking the mare's head when it was offered. Then she turned, and he was there. All in black, he was like a shadow that became real in a blink. She stepped back.
"I was—I hadn't seen the foal since—I didn't mean to disturb you."
"You've been disturbing me for a long time. Longer than I realized." His gaze holding hers, he stepped forward. "I saw you, running across the lawn. In the starlight. You looked like something out of a dream. But you're not, are you?"
"No." She retreated again, nerves shattered. "I should go, I—" She couldn't take her eyes off his as he came closer, boxed her against the stall door. "I should go."
"Pretty Laura Templeton," he murmured. "You always look so polished, so perfect. Nothing out of place." He skimmed a finger over the soft lapel of her blouse, dipped a finger in the vee and watched her eyes go dark. "Makes a man like me want to muss you up, get right under that polish and find out just who the hell you are."
He closed his hands over her breasts, calloused hands over thin silk. Felt her shudder. "Who the hell are you, Laura? Why are you here?"
Her heart was pounding against his palm, so violently that she wondered it didn't simply leap out into his hand. "I came to see the foal."
"Liar." He pressed her back against the wood, and when the door gave, she would have stumbled if he hadn't held her. "I bet he never mussed you up, did he? Always polite, always the gentleman. You won't get that from me."
"I—" She was panicked now, thrilled, terrified. Her gaze darted from his as hay crackled under her feet. The stall was empty but for them. She was alone with him. Trapped. "I don't know how to do this."
"I do. I can make you stay, or I can make you run. I wonder which it'll be. But you came to me, so it'll be my way."
He fisted his hands on the opening of her blouse, shredded it in one quick, shocking yank. "Stay or run."
His eyes were dark, demanding, focused on hers. Cool air shivered over her bare skin. "If you stay, you're mine. My way. Stay or run." He gripped her hair, yanked her h
ead back, and watched her, waited.
"Stay," he murmured, then crushed his mouth to hers and ravished.
Speed and desperation. She was pummeled by both as he dragged her down into the hay and branded her lips, her throat, her breasts. She cried out when his teeth closed over her, lancing heat from breast to loins until her body was a bucking, writhing mass of sensation.
The asking was over, she knew. The choice was made. Now he would take, as he had in the dreams that haunted her at night. Rough and fast and mercilessly.
And she wanted that, the painful spin out of control, the hard, tough, impatient hands scraping her skin, the relentless, almost brutal mouth feeding on her.
She found his flesh—hot, smooth. The hay beneath her was prickly, abrading her skin and adding one more reeling sensation. The sound of her clothes tearing under his frantic hands, hands that streaked back to squeeze and probe and possess, was unreasonably erotic.
She could hear herself cry out, hear her own short, harsh panting, each gasp of shock and pleasure. Helpless as a raft on a storm-tossed sea, she rolled, thrashed, and gave herself over to fate.
Every time her hands gripped him, those neat lady's nails biting in, his blood swam. Each time she whimpered, moaned, his pulses whipped. The first time her body convulsed and his name—his name—burst like a sob through her lips, his head reeled.
He could see every fresh shock in her eyes, those clouded gray storms that widened, unfocused, closed on a throaty moan. No one had given her this, of that he could be sure. No one had taken her where he would take her. Of all the things she'd been given, all the places she'd traveled in her privileged life, this was new. Though some part of him, deeply buried, hurt that this was all he could offer, he would make it enough for tonight.
For tonight, and as long as it lasted, he would and could be to her what no one had ever been.
He could feel every dark flash of new pleasure sing through her body and explode inside his own. He could hear her shocked gasps, and swallow them. He could take more, still more, and make her arch violently against him in desperate greed. And that delicate ivory skin, so smooth, so fragrant, dewed with the clean sweat of good sex.
His hands, so strong, so quick, so powerful. They cupped her, bruised, destroyed. Her own were lost in his hair, dragging him down until his mouth found hers again, until she could answer that hard, vicious kiss with one of her own.
His body was so tight, so relentlessly male, muscles bunching under her hands, ridges of old scars sliding under her questing fingers. His skin was hot, burning, and bloomed damp when she bit desperately at his shoulder.
The air was ripe, thick, and tasted of him on each gulping breath she took. Whatever he did to her, she welcomed; whatever he demanded, she gave.
He lifted her hips, high, and his eyes burned into hers. With one violent thrust, he was inside her, hilt deep. The hands she'd gripped on his arms slid limply to the hay as her body simply erupted.
"Stay with me, Laura." His fingers dug into her flesh, and he began to move. "Stay with me."