Wild Child Read online

  At first he wasn’t sure she’d seen him, but she spun around as he approached, her eyes blazing.

  “Stay away. Wheeler. I’m warning you.”

  So much for forest nymphs. She looked angry enough to murder him. “Let’s stop playing games, Cat,” he said, approaching her. “What the hell is wrong?”

  “Games? You want me to stop playing games?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you’re a bastard, Wheeler—like all the rest of them.” She whirled and faced the spuming river again, clutching her arms. “It means I hate you.”

  Blake had never witnessed such contained fury in a woman. She was explosive, shaking from head to toe, and as primed to go off as the stick of dynamite he’d once fantasized.

  “I hate you,” she whispered again.

  This time he heard the catch in her voice. It was a husky break that cut through his frustration long enough to give him a glimpse of her turmoil. In that moment she looked so conflicted he wanted to take her in his arms. She made him burn with needs he didn’t understand. Women didn’t come any more difficult, and yet he had this outrageous desire to connect with her, to whisper into her hair and gentle the fury shaking through her body.

  He walked to where she stood and spoke quietly to her rigid back. “Cat, what is it? Talk to me.”

  She shook her head, and another ribbon of dark hair tumbled down from its precarious perch on the crown of her head. He felt her stiffen even before he’d smoothed back the cascading hair, but he carried out the impulse anyway.

  “Don’t!” She jerked away as though his touch repulsed her.

  Blake pulled back, stunned. Her shrillness sliced at him. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  She whirled and glared at him. “Maybe I don’t like you, Wheeler. Maybe you’re one of the biggest bastards around! How’s that for a reason?” She shoved past him, jamming an elbow into his ribs in her furious rush to get away.

  Blake’s grunt of pain was reflexive. His confusion became raw disbelief. Difficult, hell! She was a blazing little witch. Frustration—sexual and every other kind known to manknotted in his muscles. “You want a bastard?” he called after her. “You’ve got one, lady.”

  He closed the distance between them in a few quick strides, caught her by the wrist, and whipped her around. Her gasp didn’t stop him, and neither did the quiver of apprehension in her mouth. He’d had enough of her emotional pyrotechnics to last him a lifetime.

  “I’m losing patience with the sixteen-year-old delinquent routine, D’Angelo.” He breathed the next words through closed teeth. “Grow up, dammit. Or maybe you need a couple more years in Purdy Hall?”

  Her face drained of blood, and the sound that came out of her was heart-catching. Blake didn’t have time to respond to her distress, or even to register it. She tore free of his hold and slapped him hard, twice, an open-hand crack to his jaw, followed by a stinging backhand. And then she staggered backward, gasping.

  Blake’s jaw burned like fire as he stared at her. He touched the welling heat where her hand had connected, and colliding urges took shape inside him. He didn’t know whether to grab her and shake her until she couldn’t breathe—or to beg her forgiveness. Tears sparkled brilliantly in her eyes and her hands were fisted at her mouth.

  “What do you want from me?” she whispered, her breath shaking each word. “Haven’t you hurt me enough?”

  Blake felt as though a truck had rammed him.

  “No more,” she said, a sob breaking her voice. “No more, Wheeler. Leave me alone.”

  Hurt and anger glittered in her eyes, but it was the emotion locked up in her mouth that wrenched at Blake. All the years of heartache seemed to be imprisoned there, waiting for someone to set them free, to set her free. Guilt flashed through him, a soft, sharp aching that laid its weight on his muscles like a heavy blanket.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, not knowing exactly what he meant at that moment, except that he was sorry . . . for everything that had happened to her. He knew without being told that someone had hurt her that evening, and he had the strangest sensation of wanting to savage the person responsible. Strange because the tightness in his chest told him he was that person. He was the one who had thrown her life into turmoil. He was the catalyst in her troubled existence. “I’m sorry,” he said again, his voice husking. “You have to believe that.”

  Hot tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Cat,” he said softly, “you are tearing me apart. What’s wrong?”

  Cat’s heart fisted painfully. She was so full of anguish she couldn’t do anything but shake her head. It was all there, lodged in her throat, the years of heartbreak, the impulse to lash out. She wanted to hurt him. She wanted him to hurt the way she did. And yet she knew if she let free all the torment inside her, she would never stop. She would rail and cry and thrash at him until she crumpled into a heap—and she couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t break down in front of him. She hated him . . .

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. And then the rushing river swept up his words and whispered them over and over until there was no other sound in the park.

  Seconds flashed by as they stood apart from each other. Moonlight washed over them, accentuating the distance between their bodies and the intensity of their discordant needs. Cat was paralyzed with conflict. Blake was held in check by the fiery brilliance of her tears, and by his sudden, lacerating need to touch her.

  He held out his hand.

  “Cat . . . I’m not going to hurt you.”

  He watched her chest heave with a sigh, saw her body shudder violently, her head jerk up. And something broke open inside him. He couldn’t take it anymore, the gut confusion, the pain. He surged toward her and swept her into his arms.

  “No!”

  The scream burst from somewhere deep in Cat’s spine. She felt the heat of him, the sweet, hard shock of his body, and all she could do was slam her fists against his chest and moan. “No!” she pleaded, flailing at him. “No—”

  “Cat—it’s all right.”

  His voice was low and savage. He held her so tightly she couldn’t breathe, as though he meant to squeeze the agony out of her with the heat and hardness of his arms. Pain flared through her body in a roaring, fiery wave. It burned her like a torch. It left her weak. A sob nearly closed off her throat.

  “D—damn you, Wheeler.”

  She moaned as he loosened his hold and touched her hair, caressing her with a tenderness that was nearly unbearable.

  “Let me hold you, Cat,” he said, his voice whisper-harsh. “Just for now, baby, until the pain is gone.”

  Yes . . . she wanted that. It nearly killed Cat as she realized she wanted him to hold her. All of the searing torment inside her seemed to collect and explode in her throat. Struggling free of him, she pushed back and was stunned at what she saw. His face was ravaged with emotion. His eyes were dove gray and piercingly beautiful. They reflected her pain.

  “Damn you,” she whispered, sobbing.

  Tears soaked her contorted face.

  Blake’s heart twisted at the sight of her. Without a word he gathered her back into his arms, and she collapsed against him with a soft, heartbreaking sound. He felt a convulsion take her. It caught him, too, spasming deep in his center. She stiffened through the shock wave, gasping softly, and then she flowed back against him, as though all the rage were draining out of her. Her face was wet with tears, her body sweet and hot with the fever of her turmoil.

  Cat . . . sad, beautiful Cat.

  She was fragile in his arms, as breakable as bone china. Lord, he thought, how easy it was to overlook her fragility. She hid it too well under fiery outbursts. She was desperate to protect herself, to hold people off, and she’d almost succeeded. He’d forgotten an essential truth about her. She was broken, inside.

  She sighed and shook against him. The need to shelter and protect her was satisfying to Blake’s soul. At the moment it felt as though it were
all he would ever need—her gentle, rhythmic respiration, her soft form molded against him. And yet for all his contentment his body was reminding him in subtle ways that the other needs were there, too. He was aware of a low, insistent pressure in his loins, and a sweet, rising heat in his muscles.

  He closed his eyes and cupped her head with his hands, feeling her heartbeat quicken a little. He wanted to stroke her face and dry her tears. He wanted to kiss her sad, lush mouth. Instead, he whispered to her, telling her how beautiful she was and how nothing would ever hurt her again.

  Tears burned Cat’s eyes as she let herself be gentled and caressed. It was heaven and hell in his arms. It felt like a betrayal of her deepest self, and at the same time it felt as though she belonged there. With him. His arms were warm and strong and sheltering. His body heat flowed over her raw nerves like a balm. A sigh welled inside her, laced with poignancy.

  She marveled at his melting gentleness, at his ability to hold her and stroke her, seemingly forever. It was only when he murmured her name and touched her chin with his fingers that she felt a little flutter of fear.

  She resisted him at first.

  Even as he feathered her jawline, gently, irresistibly.

  At last she surrendered to the urgings of his hand, and her breath caught as she let him tilt her face up. Her mind told her what she would see. Silver eyes. A powerful man, sweetly tortured.

  “Was it me, Cat?” he asked. His voice roughened with emotion. “Did I hurt you that badly?”

  Tears welled in her eyes.

  He blotted them with his fingers, gently, and then, finally, irresistibly, he touched his lips to her cheeks, to her damp eyelashes . . . and to her trembling mouth.

  Something surged in Cat as he kissed her. A sensation that was as naked and sweet as the river glittering in the moonlight beside them. It was energy in its purest form. Light curled deep within her, soft and sparkling. It fanned upward and outward, filling her until she could feel it everywhere, even beneath her closed eyelids. Yes, she wanted this, his touch, his kiss. She needed this, desperately. Every nerve in her body was singing out its need.

  He whispered her name. He touched her throat.

  Longing soared inside her. She shook with the suddenness of it. Her body tightened, and almost as swiftly resistance resurged. Heartbreak. She knew the price of her needs. She knew what loving him would bring. Certain heartbreak!

  Blake sensed her resistance even before she stopped him.

  “Blake, please . . . don’t.”

  She caught hold of his hand, an entreaty in her voice. She was asking him not to take advantage of the emotion that was trembling through her limbs. What she didn’t know was that her eyes were contradicting her words. They were dizzy with desire, wild with secret yearnings. Her soft desperation was an aphrodisiac. It tore him apart. It made him hard.

  “I can’t do this,” she said, “I can’t make love with you.”

  Blake felt the kick in his stomach muscles. He searched her eyes, mesmerized by the little shocks of fear and excitement he saw in their depths. “We won’t then, if that’s what you want. Is that what you want. Cat?”

  “Yes,” she said, a whimper in her throat. But at the same time that she said it, she stunned him by reaching up to caress his mouth. Her fingers trembled as she touched him, and Blake’s gut spasmed with physical desire. His heart burned with tenderness. She wanted this as much as he did, but she was frightened out of her mind.

  He took her into his arms and held her with an urgency that brought him the most exquisite pain he’d ever known. Lord, but she tore him apart. She made his muscles fist and his heart labor. Holding her wasn’t enough anymore. His body had other needs. His body was nail-hard.

  She moaned softly as he released her and tilted her face up. He caressed her lipline and felt the unsteadiness in her mouth. “Let it happen, Cat,” he said. “Let it happen with me.”

  Cat wet her lips, sighing, torn.

  She had never thought of a man’s eyes as beautiful, but Blake Wheeler’s were. They were suffused with tenderness and lightning-hot with desire. White hot. More than beautiful. Irresistible. Even as she allowed herself to relax a little, she could feel the sensations building up inside her again, taking shape. They were as reverberant as church music, as sweet and sharp as the chords of an organ.

  His hand was warm against the slender column of her throat. With every flicker of his thumb along her lips, Cat felt a draining urgency. He was telling her what it would be like when he touched her that way everywhere, all over her body, when he saturated her senses with sexual longing.

  A moan welled in her throat.

  She could feel the rigidity of Blake’s fingers as he stroked her face. The gentleness was bleeding out of him as the demands of his body mounted. He was hurting too.

  “Cat,” he said, “what do you want?”

  With a soft moan she ended the immediate torment. Her eyes told him what she wanted. Him. Love. Heartbreak.

  Nine

  CAT REACHED OUT to touch him, and Blake captured her hand, dwarfing its delicate bones with the sheer size of his. “Can you feel it, Cat?” he asked, holding her palm to his chest, pressing it into smooth muscle and up against the thrilling jolt of his heart.

  Cat gasped softly as he slid her hand over the washboard ridges of his stomach and along the sinewy steel of his thighs. She was so startled she could only nod her head. She felt plenty. He was stunningly hard. Everywhere.

  “It’s racking me up,” he said, bringing her fingertips to his lips. His voice was husky, vibrant and low. “This need I’ve got for you. It’s getting painful, Cat.”

  Cat’s heart was frantic. The instinct to pull away from him flashed through her psyche, but she couldn’t. He held her paralyzed with the sensual strokes of his thumbnail along her inner wrist. And then he brought her to him. Curving his hand to the nape of her neck, he reined her in with the finesse of a handler subduing a beautiful, wild animal.

  “Racking me up, Cat.”

  He brushed his forefinger over her lips, then took possession of her mouth, slowly and sensually, with a restraint that made her feel as though she might go crazy if he didn’t drag her into his arms and kiss her senseless. His lips tantalized her, sipping and pulling gently, as though she were an ice cream confection meant to be savored rather than devoured. He wasn’t acting like a man in need! Or perhaps he didn’t understand that she wanted this, too. She wanted him!

  Passion flared inside her, sharp and irresistible. She moved against him instinctively, arching from the small of her back and enticing him with the buttery softness of her breasts. A kind of sexual recklessness overtook her as she pressed against him, sinking her hipbones into the solid heat of his body. It would have been a potent invitation to most men, but somehow he held back.

  Like a demon he feathered her skin lightly, delicately with his lips, and breathed shocking suggestions against her shell-pink earlobes. Unbearably sensual murmurings aroused her cheekbones and temples and eyebrows. Her nerves fluttered painfully and her stomach clenched. It was rapture, shameless and stingingly sweet. He teased her with his mouth until she felt as though she were splitting apart somewhere in the deepest part of her, until she was wet and wilder for sex than she’d ever been in her life.

  “Blake, God . . . hold me, ta—”

  She broke off as a shudder racked her.

  “Take you?” he said. His eyes went silver with desire.

  His breathing changed, faster, tighter. He cupped her hips with his hands and brought her up against him, staring into her eyes. The hardness she’d touched a moment before was now pressed against her, everywhere. She moaned out a soft, wild sound as he bent toward her. His kisses were fire. They were quick, hot flares of passion. She yielded under him, moaning again as he broke loose and crushed her mouth under his. It was ravishment of the most thrilling kind. It was her fantasy . . .

  Cat was waiting to be taken, violently, sweetly—dragged to the ground and mad
e love to, swept into sexual oblivion. She felt a shudder go through his muscles, and then, oddly, he seemed to regain a measure of control, to curb the stampeding energy inside him.

  Blake was torn by his own needs. He was experiencing the driving miracle of raw sexual heat and the heady power that came with controlling it. Seared by the softness of her mouth and body, he was learning that a man could want a woman so badly that it felt like physical torture. Every cell in his body ached for contact, and yet he wanted to make the moment last forever. He wanted to feel as though he were going to die before he took her, and he wanted her to die when he did.

  He caught her face in his hands and breathed kisses all over her flushed skin. And then he held her back, taking in the dark riot of her hair and the passion that enflamed her. The sight of her high breasts and long, sleek legs brought him pain as he flashed on the exquisite relief they promised. He imagined her taking him, sheathing him in ecstasy. He imagined her soft coital cries and sighs.

  He’d shocked her on the terrace with a sexy proposition. Now those words felt like a promise. “I’m going to lift your skirt, Cat,” he said, his stomach clenching. “Sweet, sad Cat. I’m going to take you right here in the park.”

  Her eyes flashed with desire, but her body flinched as though he’d knocked the breath out of her. “Is that what you want from me?” she questioned softly. “Sex? Is that all you want?”

  “All I want?” He glimpsed a sparkling of agony in her eyes. “What I want, Cat,” he said, “what I really want is to make it better. I want to take you in my arms and burn away the past.”

  Burn away the past . . .

  Blake watched the light show of emotion that animated her features. Fear, desire, heartache. He witnessed the feelings moving through her, shaking her, and marveled at her ability to withstand so much turbulence.

  She stared up at him. “Yes . . . I want that too.”