Tears of the Renegade Read online

  “A different bed?” he asked, watching her narrowly.

  Susan shivered. “Yes,” she whispered. “Everything. New mattress, new sheets…everything.”

  “Good.” The single word was a low growl of satisfaction, and his gaze was so heated that she rubbed her hands up her bare arms, feeling a little singed. He looked around and indicated a door, releasing her from his visual force field. “Is that the bathroom?”

  “Yes, but why—”

  “Because,” he answered maddeningly, catching her hand and pulling her with him again, into the bathroom. He began unbuttoning his shirt, opening it down to his waist, then pulling the fabric free of his pants and finishing the job. He shrugged out of the shirt and handed it to her; she took it automatically, folding it over her arm.

  “You aren’t going to do that,” she said in disbelief, having realized what he intended.

  “Why not? Do you have a fresh blade for your razor? And I’ll need a pair of scissors to start off.”

  “There’s a small pair in the drawer there,” she said, pointing. “Cord, wait. I wasn’t hinting for you to shave off your beard.”

  “It’ll grow back, if you don’t like my naked face,” he drawled, opening the drawer and taking out the scissors. “Why don’t you just sit down and enjoy the show?”

  Because there was nothing else to do, she closed the lid on the toilet and sat down, her eyes wide with fascination as she watched him snip the beard as short as he could get it with the scissors. He asked again for her razor, and she indicated the left-hand side of the built-in medicine cabinet. He extracted the razor, new blades, and shaving gel from the cabinet, then deftly changed blades.

  He wet his face with warm water and worked the gel into a lather, covering his face with enough foamy white soap to make him look like a wicked Santa Claus. Susan almost winced when the razor sliced into his beard and left a smooth streak of skin in its path. Half of her was trembling with anticipation at seeing his face, but the other half of her hated to see the beard go; it had been so soft and silky, and made her skin tingle wherever it touched.

  He went through the contortions that men put themselves through when shaving, arching his neck, tilting his head, and Susan sat spellbound. It was the first time she’d seen him without his shirt, and her eyes drifted down over his muscled torso. She’d known he was strong, but now she saw the layered muscles that covered him, and her mouth went dry. His broad shoulders gleamed under the light, the skin as taut and supple as a young boy’s. With every movement he made the muscles in his back bunched and rippled, then relaxed, flexing in an endless ballet that riveted her attention. His spine ran in a deep hollow down the center of his back, inviting inquisitive fingers to stroke and probe.

  Susan noticed that the rhythm of her breathing had been broken, and she wrenched her gaze away from his back. Determinedly she again looked in the mirror at the reflection of his face, and the complete concentration she saw there started an ache deep inside her. That frown was so completely male, and it had been so long since she’d seen it. Vance had frowned just like that. For five years her life had lacked something because she hadn’t been able to sit in the bathroom and watch her man shave; a simple pleasure, but one of the lasting ones. Cord was giving her that pleasure again, as he had given her his presence at breakfast, and somehow the simple act of watching him shave was seducing her more completely than his heated kisses could have done.

  Slowly her gaze dipped, and she inspected his mirrored image. His chest was covered by a tangle of black curls that looked as incredibly soft as his beard had been; she clenched her hands to prevent them from reaching out to touch him and verify the texture. His nipples were flat circles, small and dark, with tiny points in the center of them, and she wanted to put her mouth to them. The curve of his rib cage was laced by bands of muscle, and the solid wall of his abdomen rippled with power. The tiny ringlets of hair on his chest became a straight and silky line that ran down the middle of his stomach and disappeared into the waistband of his pants. He raised his arms and his torso stretched, giving her a glimpse of his taut, shallow navel, and the thin scar that began on the right side of it, angling down out of sight.

  Susan almost strangled, and this time she couldn’t stop her hands; they flew out, touching the scar, tracing it lightly. Now her fevered gaze roamed over him again, anxiously, and she found other marks of other battles. A small, silvered, puckered scar on his right shoulder had to be from a gunshot wound, and her spine prickled with fear for him. Another line ran from under his left breast, around under his arm, and ended below his left shoulder blade. Obviously he hadn’t always ducked in time.

  Suddenly she noticed that he was very still under her hands, and she let them fall to her side, swiftly looking away from him. She was aware of his slow movements as he splashed the remnants of lather from his face and patted it dry, but she couldn’t look directly at him.

  “There’s nothing wrong with touching me,” he growled harshly, dropping his words into the sudden canyon of silence. “Why did you stop?”

  She swallowed. “I was afraid you’d think I was prying. My God!” she burst out rawly. “What happened to you? All those scars…”

  He gave a short, mirthless laugh. “Just a lot of hard living,” he answered obliquely. “I was tossed off the lap of luxury a long time ago.”

  She glanced up at the harshness of his tone, and for the first time since he’d finished shaving, she saw his face. Her mouth went dry again.

  She’d never before seen anyone who looked as hard and cool as he did. He’d left his moustache, thank God; she couldn’t imagine his face without it. His jaw was lean and clearly cut, his chin square and impossibly stubborn. His lower lip had taken on a fullness that she hadn’t noticed before, a new sensuality. He lacked the classic perfection of handsomeness, but he had the face of a warrior, a man who was willing to fight for what he wanted, a man who laughed at danger. The hard recklessness of him was more apparent now, as if he’d torn aside a veil that had hidden him from view. She’d thought that his beard had made him look like more of a desperado than he really was; now she realized that the reverse had been true. The beard had disguised the ruthlessness of his face.

  He was looking down at her with mockery in his eyes, as if he had known that the beard had been a camouflage. The years and the mileage were etched on that hard, slightly battered countenance, but she wasn’t repelled by it; she was drawn, like an animal from the depths of a cold night to crouch by the warmth of a fire. In a fleeting moment of despair, knowing herself lost, she realized that the more attractive the lure, the higher the risk, and she would be risking her entire way of life if she allied herself with him. She was by nature cautious and reserved, yet as she stood looking at him in silence, she accepted that risk; for her heart, she would disregard the past and the future, and count the reward well worth the danger. With an inarticulate murmur, she lifted her arms to him.

  An odd look of strain tightened his feature; then with a harsh, wordless sound, he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, lying down on the bed with her still in his arms, twisting until he was half on top of her. His left hand buried itself in her hair, holding her head still, and his mouth came down to imprint his possession on hers. She parted her lips willingly to the demanding thrust of his tongue, giving a tiny sigh of bliss as she curled herself against him, twining her arms around his neck and shoulders, pressing her breasts into the hard, warm plane of his chest. She kissed him with fire and delicacy, offering herself to him with gentle simplicity. He lifted his mouth a fraction of an inch from hers, his breath coming in fast, irregular gulps. “I think…I think I’m going to lose my head over you,” he muttered. “Why couldn’t you be what I’d expected?”

  Before Susan could ask what he meant, before it even occurred to her to wonder at it, his mouth was on hers again, and his arms were tightening about her with a force that would have bruised her if she hadn’t been boneless with need. Everything combined to