Midnight Rainbow Read online

  The sure knowledge that he could have her ate at him, filling his mind with images and sensations. Within ten minutes he could have her begging him for it, and he’d be inside her, clasped by those long, sleek, dancer’s legs. The only thing that stopped him was the almost childlike trust with which she slept curled on top of him. She slept as if she felt utterly safe, as if he could protect her from anything. Trust. His life had been short on trust for so many years that it startled him to find someone who could trust so easily and completely. He was uncomfortable with it, but at the same time it felt good, almost as good as her body in his arms. So he lay there staring into the darkness, holding her as she slept, the bitter blackness of his thoughts contrasting with the warm, elusive sweetness of two bodies pressed together in quiet rest.

  When the first faint light began to filter through the trees, he shifted his hand to her shoulder and shook her lightly. “Jane, wake up.”

  She muttered something unintelligible and burrowed against him, hiding her face against his neck. He shifted gently to his side, easing her onto the blanket. Her arms still hung around his neck, and she tightened her grip as if afraid of falling. “Wait! Don’t go,” she said urgently, and the sound of her own voice woke her. She opened her eyes, blinking owlishly at him. “Oh. Is it morning?”

  “Yes, it’s morning. Do you think you could let me up?”

  Confused, she stared at him, then seemed to realize that she was still clinging around his neck. She dropped her arms as if scalded, and though the light was too dim for him to be certain, he thought that her cheeks darkened with a blush. “I’m sorry,” she apologized.

  He was free, yet oddly reluctant to leave the small enclosure of the tent. His left arm was still under her neck, pillowing her head. The need to touch her was overwhelming, guiding his hand under the fabric of her shirt, which was actually his. He flattened his hand against her bare stomach. His fingers and palm luxuriated in the warm silkiness of her skin, tantalized by the knowledge that even richer tactile pleasures waited both above and below where his hand now rested.

  Jane felt her breathing hasten in rhythm, and her heartbeat lurched from the slow, even tempo of sleep to an almost frantic pace. “Grant?” she asked hesitantly. His hand simply rested on her stomach, but she could feel her breasts tightening in anticipation, her nipples puckering. A restless ache stirred to life inside her. It was the same empty need that she’d felt when she’d stood almost naked in his arms, in the middle of the stream, and let him touch her with a raw sensuality that she’d never before experienced. She was a little afraid of that need, and a little afraid of the man who created it with his touch, who leaned over her so intently.

  Her only sexual experience had been with her husband. The lack of success in that area of their marriage had severely limited what she knew, leaving her almost completely unawakened, even disinterested. Chris had given her no useful standard, for there was no comparison at all between her ex-husband—a kind, cheerful man, slender and only a few inches taller than she was—and this big, rough, muscular warrior. Chris was totally civilized; Grant wasn’t civilized at all. If he took her, would he control his fearsome strength, or would he dominate her completely? Perhaps that was what frightened her most of all, because the greatest struggle of her life had been for independence: for freedom from fear, and from the overprotectiveness of her parents. She’d fought so hard and so long for control of her life that it was scary now to realize that she was totally at Grant’s mercy. None of the training she’d had in self-defense was of any use against him; she had no defense at all. All she could do was trust him.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said evenly. “I’m not a rapist.”

  “I know.” A killer, perhaps, but not a rapist. “I trust you,” she whispered, and laid her hand against his stubbled jaw.

  He gave a small, cynical laugh. “Don’t trust me too much, honey. I want you pretty badly, and waking up with you in my arms is straining my good intentions to the limit.” But he turned his head and pressed a quick kiss into the tender palm of the hand that caressed his cheek. “Come on, let’s get moving. I feel like a sitting duck in this tent, now that it’s daylight.”

  He heaved himself into a sitting position and reached for his boots, tugging them on and lacing them up with quick, expert movements. Jane was slower to sit up, her entire body protesting. She yawned and shoved her tangled hair back from her face, then put on her own boots. Grant had already left the tent by the time she finished, and she crawled after him. Once on her feet, she stretched her aching muscles, then touched her toes several times to limber up. While she was doing that, Grant swiftly dismantled the tent. He accomplished that in so short a time that she could only blink at him in amazement. In only a moment the tent was once more folded into an impossibly small bundle and stored in his backpack, with the thin blanket rolled up beside it.

  “Any more goodies in that bottomless pack of yours?” he asked. “If not, we eat field rations.”

  “That yukky stuff you have?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, let’s see. I know I don’t have any more orange juice….” She opened the pack and peered into it, then thrust her hand into its depths. “Ah! Two more granola bars. Do you mind if I have the one with coconut? I’m not that crazy about raisins.”

  “Sure,” he agreed lazily. “After all, they’re yours.”

  She gave him an irritated glance. “They’re ours. Wait—here’s a can of…” She pulled the can out and read the label, then grinned triumphantly. “Smoked salmon! And some crackers. Please take a seat, sir, and we’ll have breakfast.”

  He obediently sat, then took his knife from his belt and reached for the can of salmon. Jane drew it back, her brows lifted haughtily. “I’ll have you know that this is a high-class eating establishment. We do not open our cans with knives!”

  “We don’t? What do we use, our teeth?”

  She lifted her chin at him and searched in the backpack again, finally extracting a can opener. “Listen,” she said, giving the opener to him, “when I escape, I do it in style.”

  Taking the opener, he began to open the can of salmon. “So I see. How did you manage to get all of this stuff? I can just see you putting in an order with Turego, collecting what you wanted for an escape.”

  Jane chuckled, a rich, husky sound that made him lift his dark gold head from his task. Those piercing yellow eyes lit on her face, watching her as if examining a treasure. She was busy fishing crackers out of the backpack, so she missed the fleeting expression. “It was almost like that. I kept getting these ‘cravings,’ though I seldom mentioned them to Turego. I’d just have a word with the cook, and he generally came up with what I wanted. I raided the kitchen or the soldiers’ quarters for a little something almost every night.”

  “Like that pack?” he queried, eyeing the object in question.

  She patted it fondly. “Nice one, isn’t it?”

  He didn’t reply, but there was a faint crinkling at the corners of his eyes, as if he were thinking of smiling. They ate the salmon and crackers in companionable silence, with the food washed down by water from Grant’s canteen. He ate his granola bar, but Jane decided to save hers for later.

  Squatting beside the pack, she took her brush and restored order to her tangled mane of hair, then cleaned her face and hands with a premoistened towelette. “Would you like one?” she asked Grant politely, offering him one of the small packets.

  He had been watching her with a stunned sort of amazement, but he took the packet from her hand and tore it open. The small, wet paper had a crisp smell to it, and he felt fresher, cooler, after cleaning his face with it. To his surprise, some of the face black he’d put on before going in after Jane had remained on his skin; he’d probably looked like a devil out of hell, with those streaks on his face.

  A familiar sound caught his attention and he turned to look at Jane. A tube of toothpaste lay on the ground beside her, and she was industriously brushing her t