Authors: Fiona Brand
Cullen's Bride (5 page)
Rabel met his challenge with one of her own. He held her gaze, then inclined his head, granting her the minimum of courtesy before dismissing her. As snubs went, it was devastating. All the overheated blood drained from beneath her skin as swiftly as summer rain leaching through cracked, drought-stricken soil. If Rachel had one skill in life, it was communicating with people. It was the reason she enjoyed hairdressing, the reason she loved the whole concept of the family she'd never fully been a part of, and why she needed so much to put roots down in the hometown she'd never been given a chance to belong in. This man had blocked her as effectively as if she'd run into a solid wall.
And not glass this time. Granite.
Rachel turned back to the group of people she'd been eating with and plastered a smile on her face. It hurt that Cullen kept shutting her out. She'd tried to convince herself that she was simply suffering from the throes of a strong physical attraction. But she knew it was more than that, knew the single-minded intensity of her nature. Somehow, despite her wariness, Cullen had reached past her defences. Whatever was happening to her was out of control, and more dangerous, more compelling, than mere attraction.
Rachel danced some more, talked with a woman who ran a local craft cooperative, and told herself she'd done enough. Rachel Sinclair had had the time of her life. No one would miss her if she walked off and grabbed herself some much needed solitude.
The Hanson property was big, with well set out buildings, manicured lawns and gardens, and a view of the high country they all shared. Rounding a corner, she came to an abrupt halt. Cullen was leaning against a wooden railing, looking out over the newly cut hay paddocks, which stretched away like bleached, rough-cut velvet beneath an almost full moon.
A little of the fighting spirit she'd once taken for granted welled up inside her, and she lifted her chin against the shadows that made his face look even darker, more dangerous, than it usually was. “Getting ready to do a little howling?”
He made a soft sound that might almost have been a laugh But she didn't believe that for a minute. She'd never seen Cullen smile; a laugh was beyond imagining.
“You trying to get me run out of town?” he asked in a low voice. “The locals already give me a wide berth ”
She strolled closer, wondering if he could see through her pretence of casualness to the uncertainty that racked her But his eyes revealed nothing; they still looked about as cold and giving as tempered steel. She set her hands on the top rail of the wood fence, the rough grain abrasive against her chronically sensitive hairdresser's palms. “Maybe if you smiled once in a while they might smile back.”
“I'm not much on smiling.”
“Or dancing.”
“You did enough for both of us.”
The way he coupled them together in the same sentence, his voice low and raspy, sent waves of heat through her. They could be lovers discussing the party, secure in the knowledge that when they lay down at night it was only with each other. Her fingers tightened convulsively on the fence, and she felt the sharp sting of a splinter sliding into her flesh. “I would have liked to have danced with you.”
“Didn't Cole read you the riot act?”
Cullen hadn't even bothered to look at her, to acknowledge the enormous risk she'd taken in exposing her desire to dance with him. And for Rachel it was an unheard of exposure. She'd been brought up to accept her role as passive in the male-female relationship. Men chased, women waited. But suddenly that passivity infuriated her. It hadn't brought her the kind of marriage she'd needed, and it hadn't allowed her to keep her husband.
With a deliberate movement she withdrew her hands from the fence and turned to face him, curling her fingers in on the small pain invading her palm, using the needle-sharp sting to remind her of everything she'd lost and the reasons why. “Cole's my brother, not my keeper.”
“But he warned you off.”
“Cole warns me not to burn my toast,” she said with raw exasperation. “I don't see the point of thisâ”
She stopped abruptly as his gaze pierced her. Impatience and restless energy vibrated from him, along with something else, a tension that was completely male. “I'm not a charity case, Miss Sinclair. I came to the barbecue to conduct business, and because these are my neighbours and I'd like their goodwill while I knock my property into shape. If I want a woman, I can get one ”
“And if I want a man, I can get one on my own.” She paused. “For a time, anyway.”
He let out a slow breath. “I'm trying to save us both some strife. You don't know what you're getting into.”
She tilted her head, challenging him. “I was only talking about dancing. This doesn't mean we're engaged.”
His very stillness sent a shiver through her. She was staring into bright moonlight, while his face was eclipsed by shadow, and she was achingly aware of how alone they were.
He shifted, and his shadow slipped over her, casting her into a darkness that held a sudden suffocating intimacy. His nearness made her acutely aware of his solid muscularity, the sheer density and power of his male body.
“I wouldn't want to stop at a dance.”
The simple statement sent a jolt of pure feminine fear down her spine, but it wasn't enough to make her back off, because a dizzying elation came with it, too. “What makes you think I'd allow you anything more?”
For a moment she thought he was going to touch her, then he turned back to the undulating fields, back to the velvet ebb and flow of the breeze. “Because you'd want it, too.”
“You don't have the first clue what I want,” she returned quietly. She wanted to yell at him, to release the fierceness rising inside her, the terrible aching need to love and be loved. The need for a man who would see only her, want only her. It was a futile desire, but she was riding that emotional roller coaster again, and she'd lost her perspective the same way she'd lost her husband. Fast.
“I know what you don't need,” he said with a destroying gentleness, “and that's a few sweaty hours between the sheets with a man who can't give you anything more than that”
Her heart almost stopped at the image of Cullen's muscled body entwined with hers in dampness and tangled sheets. The image was crude and utterly sexual, brutally ripping away any possibility of softness or tenderness. “You're going to a lot of trouble to scare me off.”
“I'm no Prince Charming,” he admitted flatly. “I'm big and hard, and so hungry it feels like I haven't had a woman in years. I wouldn't court you, Rachel, I'd just take you.”
The shock of his words slapped coldly at her, but something about his body language, the careful distance he kept from her, his refusal to let her see his facial expression, made her stand her ground. “I'd have some say about that. I don't believe for one minute that you treat women like objects.”
The silence closed in around them; the music and laughter of the barbecue seemed to lull and recede, making his voice sound deeper, harsher, on the still night air.
“You're right,” he admitted “I don't.” He turned so the moonlight skimmed his face, so she could see the compassion softening the brooding line of his mouth, stealing the glitter from his eyes. “But I also don't intend to take the daughter of a neighbour and family I respect just to relieve my physical needs. And I especially don't want a woman who thinks she can change me ”
Rachel stiffened at the tender cruelty of his brush-off.
Damn him, he was feeling sorry for her.
Nothing could have made her more furious Not his calm indifference, not the knowledge that somehow he'd seen right through her, seen her desire to put things right for him, to change the mystifyingly strong opinion of the town and somehow melt all the hard reserve he used to distance himself from people. From her. “You could almost convince me you're genuine if you weren't trying so hard to put me off.”
And then she did what she'd promised herself she wouldn't. She reached up and touched the satin-rough line of his jaw.
His fingers closed on hers, calloused and hard as he wrenched her hand away on a soft, succinct curse that should have shocked her. She wasn't shockedâhis touch burned her as she knew it would, sealing them together with a jolt of pure sexual energy that turned the coldness in his gaze to hot metal. Cullen was all the things he'd said he was, and he could probably hurt her very badly indeed, but the one thing he wasn't was indifferent.
She winced as the splinter dug deeper into her flesh.
“What is it?” Cullen rasped.
Without waiting for her reply, he turned her hand over in his grip and unfurled her fingers, letting the cold light of the moon wash across her palm. The splinter was long and thin, jutting darkly from the mound of flesh below her thumb Just seeing how big it was made the wound sting even worse.
Cullen cupped her hand with both of his and unexpectedly lifted her palm to his mouth. His teeth flashed whitely as they closed over the splinter and tugged it from her flesh. He turned his head, jaw rasping against her skin, and spat the splinter out. Then, instead of letting her go, he bent his head, and his mouth closed around the small wound. His teeth pressed into her soft flesh as he sucked out any remaining debris; his tongue laved her skin in a hot, wet caress that rippled through her She couldn't move, could barely breathe. Her whole world had shrunk to the circumference of his mouth and the heat radiating from her palm.
“Damn,” he said, releasing her hand, then reaching out to touch her hair. “This isn't working.”
She drew a shuddering breath at the light stroke of his fingers as he sifted them through an errant tendril. “If you're talking about your plan to scare me off, then I'd say it's doing the exact opposite.”
His mouth curved into a wry smile, and Rachel caught her breath. She'd been right in thinking he would be sinful if he smiled. Sinful and bad, good enough to eat, and dangerously, wildly sexy.
“Baby, I may not scare you, but you sure as hell scare me.”
And then he bent his head, blocking out the moon. His hand curved around her nape, his palm rough against her skin, holding her still as his mouth brushed hers. His lips were firm and unexpectedly tender. She'd braced herself for a hard, plundering, ravaging assault, but the sweetness of his caress was butterfly-soft, and so beguiling that she ached for him to deepen the pressure. Her hands lifted and settled on the incredible warmth of his chest as she parted her lips and tilted her head to grant him easier access. She was as guilty of misjudging Cullen as everyone else wasâhe looked every inch an outlaw, but he was kissing her like an angel. A fallen, dangerously beautiful angel
Cullen groaned when Rachel opened her mouth for him He hadn't expected that. But then, nothing about Rachel Sinclair was predictable. He should have run the second she stepped up to the fence. Come to that, he should have left the party as soon as he saw her arrive. But he hadn't. He'd stayed, and he'd ended up touching her. Worse, he'd let Russ fill his ear with the kind of small-town gossip he should know better than to listen to. He hadn't wanted to know about Rachel's failed marriage, or that her mother had died when she was a baby and her father had been too sunk in grief to hold his daughter. He definitely hadn't wanted to know that when Sinclair had finally surfaced from mourning, he'd been at a loss for how to deal with the girl child who looked so much like his too fragile second wife, beyond paying for other people to care for her.
And most of all, Cullen hadn't wanted to hear about how Rachel had been sent away to school when she was still so small she should have been cuddled up on her mother's lap. He didn't want the image of Rachel, desperate and alone, haunting him. He had enough of his own ghosts and demons.
Her tongue touched his tentatively, almost shyly, and Cullen groaned. Damn. Who was he trying to kid? He'd come to the barbecue because he wanted this. Because watching her from a distance was better than nothing. And suddenly he was more concerned with cradling her close, soothing and stroking her with his hands, than making her believe how impossible it was that they could ever be together.
His tongue mated gently with hers, and she sighed, melting against him. Her arms crept around his neck, fingers drifting through his hair, sliding it free from the leather thong that bound it, then knotting her fingers in it to pull him closer.
Cullen shuddered with pure pleasure at the insistent tugging, sinking his own fingers deeper into her hair, coaxing her tongue farther into his mouth, deepening the kiss with every second that passed, until they were welded together so tightly that her heartbeat shivered through him.
His hand drifted over the warm, silky skin of her back, grazed her zipper and, before he could think, eased it down so he could trace the hollow at the base of her spine and the lacy line of panties that were just as flimsy, just as silken, as her dress. Cullen shuddered again as Rachel continued to pet him as if he were a big, muscular cat, her fingers flexing, stroking, raking through his hair. He wanted to do the same to her, and more. He wanted to push all the silk aside and slip his hand lower, test the sweet moisture he knew he would find ...
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