Against the Rules Read online

  Trembling in appreciation of his male beauty, she walked silently to the bed and leaned down to feel for the switch on the lamp. She made no noise at all, she was certain of it, yet abruptly his right arm snapped out and his fingers clamped around her wrist. His dark eyes flared open and he stared at her for several seconds before the feral gleam in the dark depths faded. “Cat,” he muttered.

  He had been sound asleep. She would have sworn to it. But his instincts were still honed to battle pitch, aware of any change in his surroundings, any other presence, and his body had acted even before he was awake. She watched him as the jungle faded from his mind and he recalled his present location. His look of hard savagery changed to one of narrow-eyed anger. The pressure of his fingers lessened, but not enough to allow her to pull away. Instead he drew her to him, bending her over the bed in an awkward position, holding her by the strength of his arm.

  “I told you to stay away from Glenn Lacey,” he snarled softly, holding her so closely that his breath heated her cheek.

  Who had told him? she wondered bleakly. Anyone could have. The entire ranch must have seen Glenn arrive to pick her up. “I’d forgotten that I’d made a date with him,” she confessed, keeping her voice low. “When he called, he already had tickets to the ball game in Houston and I just couldn’t turn him down after he’d gone to so much trouble. He’s a nice man.”

  “I don’t care if he’s the next American saint,” Rule replied, still in the same tone of soft, silky menace. “I told you that I won’t have you going out with other men and I meant it.”

  “It was just this once, and besides, you don’t own me!”

  “You think so? You’re mine, and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you.”

  She gave him a guarded, painful look. “Would you?” she murmured, afraid that she knew all too well what his reaction would be if she sold the ranch. He would hate her. He’d drop her so fast that she’d never recover from the devastation of it.

  “Push me and find out,” he invited. “That’s what you’ve been doing anyway. Pushing me, trying to find the limits of the invisible chain that’s around your pretty little neck. Well, honey, you’ve reached it!”

  The pressure on her arm resumed and he pulled her closer. Cathryn braced her left arm on the bed and tried to pull away, but even flat on his back he was still far stronger than she was. She gave a soft cry as her arm gave way and she sprawled across him, trying frantically to keep from jarring him or knocking against his broken leg.

  He released her arm and thrust his hand into her hair, tangling his fingers in the long silky length of it and forcing her head down. “Rule! Stop it!” she wailed, an instant before his mouth clung to hers.

  She tried to refuse his kiss, tried to keep her teeth clenched and her lips firmly together. She failed in both. Without hurting her, he caught her jaw and applied just enough pressure to open her mouth to him, and his tongue moved past the barrier of her teeth, licking little fires into life everywhere it touched. Dazed, she felt the strength leave her body and she sank limply against him.

  He kissed her so long and so hard that she knew her lips would be swollen and bruised the next day, but at the time all she was aware of was the intoxicating taste of him, the sensual thrust of his tongue, the stinging little bites that he used as both punishment and reward, stringing them from her mouth down her throat and over her sensitive collarbone to the soft curve of her shoulder. It was only then that she realized he had unbuttoned the front of her dress and pulled it open, and she moaned in her throat. “Rule...stop it! You can’t....”

  Carefully he let his head fall back on the pillow but he didn’t release her. His hand shoved under the cup of her bra and he nestled her breast in his hot palm. “No, I can’t, but you can,” he murmured.

  “No...your head...your leg,” she protested incoherently, closing her eyes against the heated delight that coursed through her veins as he continued to fondle her.

  “My head and my leg aren’t bothering me right now.” He pulled her closer and began kissing her again, insisting on the response that he knew she was capable of. The thrusting depth of his kisses made her head spin, and she sank against him once more.

  He tugged at the straps of the bra until they came free; then he reached behind her and deftly unsnapped the back strap, freeing her breasts completely. Cathryn whispered a choked, “Please,” not even knowing herself if she was begging him to stop or continue. She shuddered wildly when his hand swept up under her skirt and caressed her with bold aggression, and though she kept mindlessly whispering her mingled protests and pleas, she was clinging to him with all the strength in her arms.

  He groaned harshly and tugged her leg over his hips, pulling her into position. Sudden tears dampened her cheeks, though she hadn’t been aware that she was crying. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she sobbed.

  “You won’t,” he crooned. “Please, honey, make love to me. I need you so much! Can’t you feel how I ache for you?”

  At some point during those bold, intimate caresses he had removed her panties, impatiently tossing away the silken barrier that kept him from the secrets of her body. His hands guided her slowly, easing her down until they were fully joined.

  It was so sweet and wild that she almost cried out, stifling the sound in her throat at the last moment. With every fiber of her body she was aware of the particular sexiness of a man who lay back and let a woman enjoy his body, let her set the tempo of their loving. It was all the more enticing because Rule was so compellingly masculine, his power undiminished by his injuries. She loved him, loved him with her heart and soul and the undulating magic of her body. With exquisite tenderness she took what he offered and returned it to him tenfold, presenting him with the gift of her soaring pleasure and returning to earth to savor his writhing response as he too was pleasured.

  She was lying on his chest in drowsy completion, her half-closed eyes moving idly over the room, when she saw the open door and stiffened. “Rule,” she moaned in mortification. “I didn’t close the door!”

  “Then close it now,” he instructed softly. “From the inside. I’m not finished with you, honey.”

  “You need to sleep....”

  “It’s almost dawn,” he pointed out. “We seem to do all our loving in the early morning hours. And I’ve done nothing but sleep for a week. We need to talk, and now’s as good a time as any.”

  That was true, and she was loath to leave him anyway. She eased out of the bed, careful not to jostle him any more than she already had, and closed the door, locking it for good measure. It would be just like Ricky to come bursting in in the morning, knowing that Cathryn was with him. Then she slipped out of her dress, poor covering that it was, considering that he had dropped the top of it to her waist and lifted the skirt to the same level. Naked, she climbed under the sheet with him and pressed against his side, almost drunk with the pleasure of lying beside him once more. She nuzzled her face into the hollow of his shoulder and inhaled the heady male scent of him. She was so relaxed, so replete...

  “Cat,” he murmured into her hair, feeling the way she lay against him. She didn’t answer. A sigh of raw frustration escaped him as he realized that she was asleep; then he curved her slender body more tightly against him and pressed a kiss into the tumble of dark red hair that streamed across his shoulder.

  When Cathryn woke several hours later, roused by a pain in her arm caused by the fact that she had been resting all her weight on it, Rule was asleep. Cautiously she raised her head and studied him, seeing how pale and tired he looked, even in sleep. Their lovemaking had been sweet and urgent, but he hadn’t really been well enough. She eased away from him and stood up, massaging her arm to restore circulation to it. A thousand tiny pins pricked her skin and she hugged the arm to her until the worst of it had passed; then she silently pulled on her dress and picked up the remainder of her clothing, slipping out before he woke.

  She was tired. Those few hours of sleep hadn’t been nearly enough,