To Desire a Scoundrel: A Christmas Seduction (Novella) (Southern Heat) Page 3

  Dear God, she wanted to hurt him. Wipe that taunting smirk from his lips; lower his hitched brow with her fist. Before she’d met him, she never once imagined hitting a man, kicking him...well, in the nether region. “My mother, did you see my mother?” Though it made her feel like a recalcitrant child, Kate nonetheless implored: say no, please say no.

  “See her? Why, she’s holding my cheroot for me.”

  Fury ripped through Kate. “I hate you,” she screamed and rushed at him, slamming her fist into his shoulder. She heard his grunt of pain as they stumbled to the ground. Pummeling his chest, she closed in on his neck, teeth bared and snapping. She gasped for breath and flailed. He captured her legs between his, halting her struggles. As black began to spot her vision, she dropped her head to his shoulder and tried to draw whatever air her corset would allow into her lungs.

  “Easy, Kat. Easy, sweetheart. Jesus, I was only joking,” she thought he said.

  The air worked its magic, confusion flowing out, awareness flowing in. Awareness of his body pressing into hers from knee to chest. His warm breath cuffing her cheek, his solid heartbeat drumming against her own. She turned her face into the grass, smelled dirt and winter and him. “I hate you,” she said, voice breaking for real this time.

  His arms tensed, his chest hitched, mid-breath. “Sometimes” —his voice broke and he tried again— “sometimes I hate you, too, you little bitch.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek and tasted blood, concentrated on it. Finally, this pain outweighed any other. Outweighed the sensation of him lying atop her; but it was not enough to obliterate the desire spiraling through her body. “Get off me.”

  Tanner sighed and finally, his weight lifted. Kate rolled her head and blinked as sunlight spilled into her eyes. He was poised above her, elbows braced, gaze fixed on her face. She dug her backbone into the ground to escape. A moist chill seeped through wool, and she shivered.

  “What’s wrong with you? Running out in the cold in this skimpy getup?” His chest rose and fell, air surging from his lips. “Are you truly this distressed to find you let a better prospect than your beloved Crawford get away?”

  “Where did you get the idiotic idea I let you go? Your duplicity forced us apart.”

  “Well, you didn’t grieve for long.”

  Grieve? For months, every time she closed her eyes, images of Tanner were there. Riding through the downtown streets, his hair gleaming as richly as his sorrel’s dark coat. Daring her to make love in a field of wildflowers along the banks of the James River. Teaching her to play chess and grinning with delight the first time she beat him. Winking at her across a crowded ballroom, a circle of admirers surrounding him, the gentle pleasure curving his lips reserved for her.

  Or so she had believed.

  Foolish belief. Foolish woman.

  She jerked beneath him, placed her hands against his chest, and shoved. “Get off me, Tanner. Now.”

  He shook his head and shifted, settling between her thighs.

  Long and hard…and hot.

  “I understand your objective, Mr. Barkley,” she whispered.

  “Hmm, do you, Kat?” Another devastating shift of his body.

  “You want to remind me.” She chewed at her bottom lip to keep from pressing her mouth to the pulse in his neck. Oh, to sink her teeth in—

  He followed the movement, lids slipping low, masking the gleam in his eyes.

  No, she thought, hunger sweeping her. A raw, incorrigible hunger she did not want to experience again. Had not expected to experience again. A rapid pulse began, in her stomach, and lower, between her legs. While she waited for him to move, the pulse steadied into an appallingly even rhythm. Desperate, she rolled her hips, bucked once, twice.

  Tanner stayed, steadfast and as hard as a rock.

  Dipping his head, he said near her ear, “Remember the first time I kissed you?” He laughed, his breath warming her cheek. “The vacant storeroom at the Governor’s Ball.” He nipped at the edge of her jaw. “We slipped away, into that darkened corner.” Sucking her skin between his teeth, a groan slipped from his throat. “That was when I realized how tall you were. An astonishing realization.” He ground his hips against hers. “We fit well together, Kat. A perfect fit.”

  She expelled a sigh. “I forgot you two years ago. I forgot everything.”

  He lifted his head, his eyes glowing like sapphires. "Forgotten?” Angry now, his hands tangled in her hair, turning her head as he fit his mouth to hers.

  Dear God, if only she had forgotten. And even if she had, his touch awakened the world. He nudged her thighs apart, searching for grooves he’d chiseled long ago. “Open for me, Princess. I want to kiss you, really kiss you. God, I’ve missed this. Missed you.”

  Surprised by his tender entreaty, she started to obey, knowing she would be lost but not caring.

  Then, he halted suddenly and lifted his head; his face was the color of chalk. He lowered his brow to hers, shadows obscuring her view. Warm skin. Too warm. Moist. With a jolt of alarm, she realized he leaned against her to steady himself. “Mr. Barkley?”

  A shudder shook him. “Miss...Peters.” A bead of sweat rolled from his face to hers. It burned across her cheek, trailed into her hair.

  “Are you ill?”

  He managed a laborious, choking laugh, but nothing more.

  “Please, if you’re ill.” She had known he was, ever since he climbed into the stagecoach with uncharacteristic caution. “If you’re ill, you must tell me what’s wrong.” No matter how much she hated the man, she could not let him suffer.

  With a groan, Tanner rolled to his back, his good arm settling across his face. Kate shoved to her knees. Heaven. Blood soaked the bandage circling his injured limb; a thin stream trickled down his wrist and between his fingers, coloring the straw beneath his palm red.

  Tears sprang to Kate’s eyes, blurring her vision as she tried to blink them back. She bit her bottom lip and tasted tobacco and him. She rose to her feet, her knees shaking. “I think you need...I think you need a doctor. I’ll go get a doctor.”

  Against his brow, he clenched his fingers into a fist, veins protruding, muscles flexing. “No. All I need is...a drink.”

  “Are you crazed? You’re bleeding. You need a doctor.”

  Tanner’s chest rose on a weak breath. Then he smiled, a flimsy show of white teeth and mulishness. His fist shook, so he closed it tighter. “I need a...woman. And if you won’t...oblige me, there is one...at the saloon. She calls me Cowboy.”

  Kate stumbled back, as wounded as he looked. Deep in her chest—right below the blood smeared across her bodice—a dreadful ache settled. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “When did you get this cruel? When?”

  “After you broke my goddamned heart. That’s when.”

  Turning, she plowed through the shrubs, caring little if her dress got ripped to shreds, telling herself she cared little if Tanner Barkley bled to death in the field behind her mother’s shop.

  ***

  “You damn fool.” Adam’s shadow spilled over the table, shading Tanner.

  Tanner blinked in the sudden darkness. “What do you know about it?”

  “I’ve been looking for you for over an hour, Tan. Did you see the doctor?”

  He laughed and hooked his ankles atop a chair, his heels dangling off the edge. The chair wobbled, and he wobbled with it. “No. I’ve found all I need here, thank you.” He raised his glass in salute and emptied it in one swallow.

  “Kate came to me. Right after she left you, apparently.”

  Tanner untangled his boots and dropped his feet to the floor. “Cowboy-lover!” He grinned as Doris twitched her generous hips, skirted tables, pinching fingers and grasping arms, and slipped into his lap, lips drawn, exposing teeth the color of fresh corn.

  “Hey, Cowboy.” She poured more whiskey in Tanner’s glass, bosom jiggling with each movement.

  “Howdy, darlin’.” Tanner slipped his good arm around her waist. Somewha
t fleshy, not as lean as his bitchy princess, but she would do. He sniffed. No scent of sandalwood and cinnamon. No ink stains on her fingers.

  Or eyes the exact hue of whiskey and violent sunsets.

  “Doris, get off his lap. And Tanner, what in the name of God is that stupid sling?”

  “Cowboy, you gonna let him call my sling stupid looking? I ripped apart a new petticoat for that. Broderie anglaise and all.”

  “Don’t talk to her like that. Prettiest sling I ever saw.” Still he gave her a shove, a bit relieved. Doris’ substantial weight, coupled with the scent of sweat and perfume, was beginning to offend the temperate part of his brain. “Later, darling, later. Mr. Chase and I need to talk.”

  With a hug, Doris departed, navigating the maze of groping and catcalls.

  “Christ, Tanner.” Adam yanked his fingers through his hair and flung himself into a chair.

  “What? What? What?” Tanner took a sip of whiskey, his gaze roving the room. He would be damned, double-damned, triple-damned, if he let Kat Peters tangle him up in the deadly knots she had before. Or let his best friend push him around.

  “What’s that in your pocket?”

  Pocket? Tanner glanced at the ceiling, shifted his buttocks in his chair. Adam’s candid scrutiny had the power to strip a man naked. Especially a man none too quick on his feet. Nonetheless, Tanner raised a defiant hand and plucked at his shirt. Probably a frilly trinket Cowboy-lover had—

  Oh...he’d forgotten about those. He dropped his arm, shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “Kate’s spectacles.” Adam slapped his hand to the table. “Give them to me.”

  “No.”

  “She’s coming over early tomorrow, before the party, to help Charlie make Christmas decorations. I’ll return them to her.” A persistent tap against wood. “Give them to me.”

  “I said no!” Tanner jerked to his feet, his chair banging the wall. “I’ll be there. I can...I can give them to her.” Except he did not want to see her, did he?

  God, he hoped he didn’t.

  “From the looks of things, you don’t need to get near her, and she doesn’t need to get near you.”

  “Don’t interfere, Adam. Not in this.” Of course, his friend was right. He knew that. He just didn’t like anyone telling him not to get near her.

  Adam slid his hand in a circle, dark gaze probing. “You’re here, bloody and drunk, and she’s out, or was out, riding my horse hell-bent for leather. Why shouldn’t I interfere?”

  Tanner bolted a step forward, upsetting the table. The whiskey bottle danced off the edge and shattered on the floor. Shards of glass crunched beneath Tanner’s boots as the smell of alcohol surrounded them. “Taber? You let her ride Taber?”

  Adam grimaced and stood, pulling soaked cloth from his legs. He shook one foot, then the other. “For the love of....” He rounded the overturned table, grasped Tanner’s shoulder, and propelled him across the crowded saloon.

  “Careful, newspaper boy, careful.”

  “Doesn’t your precious Doris know you’re a newspaper boy, too?”

  “I’m a newspaperman,” Tanner said, and stumbled past the swinging doors with a hop and lurch. He stopped his forward motion thanks to a wooden post and an uneven board wedged against the toe of his boot. His arm circled the post, tangling in a strand of ivy garland, and knocking a holly wreath to the ground. He pressed his brow to the rough wood, the boardwalk tilting beneath his feet. Jesus, for a breath of air not tainted with the scent of pine. “Damn decorations.”

  A strong grasp steadied him. “Can you make it down?”

  He nodded and swallowed the taste of tree limbs and whiskey. Peeling off the post, he righted himself with more strength than he would have imagined he possessed.

  “You want me to get a wagon, Tan?”

  “No, no. No wagon.”

  “Doc Olden—”

  “No doctor.” Tanner yanked his fingers through his hair, pulled his damp collar from his neck.

  “Your arm—”

  “I popped a few stitches. The bleeding stopped hours ago.”

  “But—”

  “To the homestead, Mr. Chase.” He tumbled off the boardwalk, a fresh layer of sweat glazing his skin with each step. Jesus, he needed to get off his feet before he landed on his face in the dirt.

  Adam muttered a curse and caught up to him. Tanner shook off the hand that crept beneath his elbow.

  Moonlight washed over them, throwing slanted shadows across their path. Dry footfalls and the occasional squeal of a passing wagon were the only sounds. Tanner watched his breath cloud before his eyes and wondered why his world felt as if it was shattering. Same as his mother’s Bristol glass goblet, the one he had thrown at his brother after a particularly rousing childhood argument.

  “Kate was very upset when she came to me, Tan.”

  Tanner’s steps faltered. He dug the heel of his boot into a wheel groove and spoke so softly he barely heard his own words, “I never intended to hurt her.”

  A step ahead, Adam paused, turned.

  “I was investigating a story. Falsified government contracts. Bribery. It involved a family business, which I infiltrated. Asher. You may remember the name, one of your father’s associates, I think. Anyway, I met Kate at a company event. Before either one of us realized it, we were spending a lot of time together. Just good friends. Then, the walks along the river turned into dinners at a restaurant I frequented, followed by two-hour chess matches.” He laughed. “She was a damn good chess player. Anyway, I didn’t tell her, I never had the chance to tell her, I should say...about the investigation. I didn’t tell her anything about the newspaper. Just acted like I worked for Asher, nothing more, nothing less.” He kicked a lump of dirt into the weeds lining the road. “Except, there was more than her working for Asher. She” —he glanced at Adam, then at his feet— “she was his fiancé.”

  “As in supposed to marry him?”

  “Sounds really bad, doesn’t it?”

  Adam closed his eyes on a worn sigh. “Tell me you didn’t use her for information.”

  “I didn’t. Adam, I found more than enough on my own.”

  An accusing silence, fraught with guilt and the severe snap of half-frozen straw, settled between them.

  Adam cupped his hands around his mouth and blew into them. “She found out by reading your article? Couldn’t you have told her before the damn thing went to press?”

  Tanner tilted his head and gazed at the sky. Thousands of stars, more than he had ever seen, winked back at him from black velvet folds. “I took the finished story to my editor and told him everything. How I infiltrated the company, about my friendship with Kate, that I needed time. One week. I asked him to wait to print. He agreed. The next morning I...we, Kate and I…had a luncheon appointment. I dressed, opened the newspaper over coffee and—” He shook his head, unable to finish.

  “He printed.”

  A grim laugh burst from Tanner’s mouth. “Under my byline. Largest type I’d ever been given.”

  “Did you explain it to her?”

  “Of course. I pleaded. Me” —he rapped his chest— “Tanner Barkley. Pleading. With a woman. Went rushing to her house, all the way practicing these desperate explanations. I had been planning to tell her for three weeks. Gathering courage to tell her, I guess.” Tanner didn’t mention arriving at the Times office later that day, arguing with his editor and breaking the bastard’s nose. Or, just after, picking up his grandmother’s engagement ring—resized to fit Kat’s dainty finger. A ring now sitting in the top drawer of his desk. “She was pretty cold-hearted. Returned my letters. Refused my calling cards, which I had to dig out of my moldy university trunk, mind you. Threw a rock at my head from a second story window. Hell, I even sent a telegraph to her crab of a mother.”

  “Mrs. Peters?”

  “Who else?”

  Adam clapped his hands over his eyes. “Heaven help us all.”

  “Come to think of it, she wasn’t too pleased to
see me this morning.”

  Adam groaned. “Charlie’s decorating party is going to have more spark than she can handle.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Nothing.” Adam dropped his hands by his side, his shoulders slumping. “So, you haven’t spoken with Kate since then?”

  “No. Except a distant greeting at a ball. Once outside a shop. Oh, and a crowded street two months ago. And only if I sneak up on her. Catch her unaware. If she sees me coming, forget it.”

  “You could try again.”

  “No, I damn well will not try again. Not after she ran right out and hooked old Crawford like a limp fish. I know I hurt her, when she deserved honesty. But, at the time, I couldn’t afford to give up the information. I realize the blame lies with me, yet....” Yet, he’d come to think she had hurt him even worse than he had hurt her. She hadn’t been the fool who fell in love, left holding an empty bag of dreams. And an engagement ring he could not stand to touch.

  They continued along the road, through a dense copse of pines. Moonlight lit the path in scattered patches, but Tanner followed Adam, stepping blindly, not sure how far they were from the house. He would not have cared except his strength leaked away faster than water from a sieve.

  “Left here, Tan.”

  They turned onto a narrow drive, centered by a rounded ridge of brown grass. Tanner forced one foot in front of the other. A crisp breeze raised his hair from his collar. He coughed, shivered. Glancing to the side, he caught Adam’s frown. He searched the shadowed porch, finding two rocking chairs and a large orange cat. “She’s not here, is she?” he asked and blinked, the edges of his vision fading. If he made a fool of himself, collapsed or something, he didn’t want to do it in front of Kat.

  If he woke to find her touching him, gazing at him with those mysterious amber eyes, he honestly didn’t know what he might do.

  “No, she’s not here. I met her at the livery.” Adam halted, fidgeting with the lapel of his coat. “She looked a bit wild-eyed. Big John didn’t have any horses available, so I let her take Taber. I remember what I endured with Charlie. I thought riding might help. Always helped me.”