Bargain With The Devil Part 7

"Don't...!" Stacy gasped as he calmly went to work on the but-tons of her s.h.i.+rt, but with only one hand to defend herself, she couldn't stop him. Desperately she clutched at his wrist, trying to pull it away, but he ignored the small effort. "I won't... I won't go to bed with a man who can turn his emotions on like a robot! The only reason you want me tonight is to consolidate your revenge! You don't feel any real pa.s.sion or or love, or " She stumbled over the words, a furious red rising into her cheeks.

"So that's what this is all about," he whispered. "You haven't forgiven me for that first night when I walked out after having given you my word not to take you. And you must be holding this whole week of rather restrained love-making against me, too. But there was a reason for my self-control, little witch," he explained, finis.h.i.+ng his work on the b.u.t.tons and using his hand to cup her chin. "I couldn't risk having you panic and refuse to go through with the wedding, could I? After all, until your father's phone call tonight, I was con-vinced marrying you was the best, way to achieve my goal."

"That's exactly what I mean!" Stacy wailed helplessly. "All you can think about is your d.a.m.n revenge!" Didn't he understand? Didn't he have any compa.s.sion for her feelings in the matter? What woman wanted the humiliation of surrendering completely in the arms of a man who wouldn't allow himself to lose his own control in the process? Whose pa.s.sion was merely another weapon for achiev-ing his goal of revenge?

"Make me think of something else, then, witch," he challenged suddenly, releasing her wrist long enough to push the daisy-splattered s.h.i.+rt off her shoulders. Before she could take advantage of the loosened grip, however, he had an arm clamped firmly around her waist, holding her still while he unclasped the honey-colored bra. An instant later the sc.r.a.p of material fell to the floor, and Stacy, naked from the waist up, knew there was no point in pleading with him any longer. With a small, hopeless cry she turned her face into his shoulder, unable to meet his gaze while she stood before him like this.

He allowed her to hide her eyes while his hand slipped warmly up from the skin of her narrow waist to palm the nipple of one breast. She heard his sharply indrawn breath, and then his lips were in her hair, inhaling the fresh, clean scent of it while his hand ex-plored the shape of her softness.

"Small and delicate and so tempting," he murmured, his fingers tugging at the nipple gently at first and then with increasing demand. Stacy s.h.i.+vered as the tip of her breast hardened in response to his touch. Memories of her pa.s.sion once before in his arms came Hood-ing back, weakening her resolve to be free of him. Instead a new kind of desire was growing in her. A desire to make her devil of a husband lose his self-mastery in the one way a woman should be able to manage. Could she manage it?

If only, Stacy thought, aware of the uncontrollable little tremor that rippled through her at his touch, she could defeat him at his own game. Make him know a degree of pa.s.sion so intense that, at least for the time he lay in her arms, he forgot about his revenge and eve-rything else in the world. It was an intoxicating idea, the appeal of which grew with every pa.s.sing second. She could not hope to fight this man with the inadequate strength of her body, nor could she win by pitting her willpower alone against his. But Stacy knew how to fight to get what she wanted. Hadn't she been doing it in one way or another all her life? There must be a way to get what she wanted from Hunter Manning.

Stacy felt the compulsion of his arm against her lower back, pro-pelling her thighs against him. His body seemed to radiate a sensu-ous heat that carried the scent of his maleness to her sensitive nos-trils. As if he were one of her prize orchids, she breathed in the aroma of him, finding it an enticing and provocative combination of after-shave, masculine sweat, and the earthy smell of the desert at night.

Slowly, inevitably, Stacy wound her arms around his neck, her fingers finding and exploring the thick darkness of his hair at the nape. Unable to help herself, she responded to the impetus of his arm and arched against him, aware of the texture of his s.h.i.+rt against her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"That's it, little witch," he growled, his voice carrying a new huskiness. "I want to know the pa.s.sion in you in a way no other man will ever be allowed to know now that you belong to me!" His fin-gers traced the line of her spine down to the waistband of her jeans, sliding inside and around to the clasp in front.

"Hunter... do you want me, really want me?" Stacy heard herself ask thickly, her eyes closing as she felt him undo the jeans and begin to slide them over the curve of her hip.

"Oh, yes, my sweet, green-eyed witch," he vowed as he stripped the denim from her. "I want you. I'm more than willing to consum-mate our bargain tonight. You're woman enough to recognize the signs, surely?" He half-chuckled, leaning down to pull back the cov-ers of the wide bed. A second later he had picked her up and set her in the middle of it, where she lay in only her briefs. He stood looking down at her for a moment, his eyes traveling from the dark fire of her hair across the pillow, across the small peaks of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and then coming to rest on her one, remaining garment. A slow, slas.h.i.+ng smile crossed his face.

"Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned. You really do like flowers, don't you?" He reached down to run a finger just inside the elastic waist of her prim cotton underpants with their bright flower design.

Stacy, abruptly resentful of his gentle mockery, scooted across the bed, just out of reach. "Are you going to laugh at me on top of everything else?" she asked in a flat little voice, her eyes accusing.

"No, flower lady," he soothed, his fingers at work on the fasten-ings of his own clothes. "I'm going to enjoy you, not laugh at you. There's a difference." He dropped his s.h.i.+rt across a nearby chair, and Stacy blinked at the hard, lean length of him as he quickly stepped out of his remaining clothes.

There was an overpowering masculinity about him that reached out to something deep and hidden in Stacy - something she couldn't fight. Instead it made her want to grasp hold of its essence and draw it to herself. In the confusion of emotions flooding her at that mo-ment, she couldn't put a name to the attraction Hunter held for her. She only knew it was not a mere physical thing. It was far more. potent, bound up as it was with the force of his will, his** determi-nation to make his own rules, and Stacy's instinctive, inexplicable knowledge that, once committed, Hunter could be trusted to the ends of the earth. As she lay there watching him undress in the lamplight, Stacy suddenly knew that she wanted him to be totally committed to her. In that there lay a measure of safety.

Before she could a.n.a.lyze and a.s.sess the meaning of her feelings and desires, Hunter was beside her on the bed, putting out a hand to pull her tightly against his strength. She felt his legs tangle with her own, trapping them gently, firmly, totally. The crisp, curling hair of his chest teased her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as he moved sensuously against her. He was rather like a large cat luxuriating near the warmth of an open hearth, she thought vaguely, unable to resist first a hesitant touch and then a small, stroking exploration of the line of his lean waist and narrow hip.

"You're going to be my own private flower garden, honey," he whispered deeply, bending over her to nibble carefully at the tip of her ear. "I'm going to be able to wander in any time and gather a handful of blossoms. Blossoms that no other man can touch now that you're mine. Will you like switching roles and becoming the garden instead of the gardener?" he added with a strange whimsy as his hands trailed possessively, urgently across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and down to the briefs he had mocked a moment earlier.

"Do you think," she whispered in a small, pleading little voice as his fingers slipped under the edge of her last piece of clothing and removed it, "that you really want the responsibility of a garden, Hunter?" She lifted her head higher on the pillow, enough to meet the gray evening fog of his gaze.

"Are you afraid I won't know how to tend my flowers?" he murmured, putting his lips on her throat, tracking lazily, languidly down to the small bones in the hollow of her shoulder. "Have no fear of that. I'll admit this is the first time I've ever owned a garden, but I know what I want out of it, and I'll do all the necessary labor in-volved." He gave a soft, husky laugh that originated deep in his chest, and then his mouth was tracing the path of his fingers down to the curve of her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Stacy sucked in her breath as she felt his fingers move in a ran-domly exciting pattern against the skin of her stomach. Involuntarily she s.h.i.+vered, seeking more of his warmth.

"Gardens..." she began a little desperately, her face buried in the heat of his chest. "Gardens can be very demanding...." Her fingers flexed into his hard muscled back as the pattern he was drawing on her stomach was extended to the inner softness of her thigh.

"So can gardeners," he told her thickly, letting her know the ris-ing masculine desire in his hard body. She felt a tremor go through him as she raked her fingers gently down the length of his back to the base of his spine. He s.h.i.+fted, sprawling more heavily against her, and his weight crowded her deeply into the bedclothes beneath him.

"Tell me," he invited in a low growl, "what my garden would have of me!"

Stacy closed her eyes against the heavy currents of pa.s.sion be-ginning to wash through her, and her answer came interspersed with a quickening series of small pants.

"Gardens need someone who understands them, cares for them, someone who who needs them in return " Stacy gasped as Hunter's hand prowled closer to the ultrasensitive warm core of her.

"And this gardener wants a patch of flowers that looks toward him for its strength rather than toward the sun or anything else," Hunter said with sudden, quiet fierceness, his fingers growing bolder and more aggressive by the second. The lazy, languid approach he had been taking was fading rapidly as he felt her rising response.

"Oh, Hunter," Stacy got out in a tight, quick-breathed voice as he began to probe the most intimate places of her body, seeking, teas-ing, coaxing until she began to twist and writhe beneath him. "Yes," she whispered helplessly, succ.u.mbing to the waves of sensation he was creating. Her arms wrapped around him, clutching him more closely to her arching body, and she began to plant tiny, demanding little kisses against the tanned column of his throat.

"Tell me you want me, flower witch," he grated against the silky smoothness of her skin. She heard the demand in his words and wondered briefly at it. Wasn't it obvious that she was becoming that strange creature he created when he held her like this? He must be aware of her desire!

"Tell me," he insisted in a voice that was turning raspy. It slith-ered along tier nerve endings, heightening his demand for a response.

"I want you, Hunter," she heard herself say almost harshly. "You must know that!"

"I want you to know it," he retorted with a new pa.s.sion. "Know it and admit it to me and to yourself!"

He would make her totally his, she realized in some distant part of her mind. Totally a Manning bride. Tonight he sought to complete his revenge, limited though it had become. He was using the lack of self-control she experienced in his arms to consolidate his hold on her. After tonight there would be no question of whose woman she was. In the most primitive sense of the word, she would belong to Hunter Manning.

There was nothing she could do about it, Stacy knew. She could not deny the power of him. Her only salvation, lay in showing him that the sort of bonds he sought to impose tied both the bound one and the one who held the chains. Hunter might think to possess her, but she would do her best to teach her arrogant, coldly pa.s.sionate husband that there was a price for such possession. The possessor risked becoming possessed. Hunter would learn what it meant to have a wife!

With a pulsating need Stacy responded completely to the over-whelming, mastering, reckless pa.s.sion Hunter elicited. It was strange to find her body reacting like this, as if it had long sought the chal-lenge this man presented. She clung to him, imposing the countless demands of a woman in the arms of her lover, demands women had instinctively imposed since the beginning of time. And men like Hunter, their masculinity so primitive and potent as to make them seem almost out of place in the twentieth century, took an arrogant satisfaction in fulfilling those feminine commands, not realizing that each time they did so they dug themselves deeper and deeper into the quicksand magic of a witch. There would come a point, Stacy knew with sudden intuition, when Hunter would be caught, unable and unwilling to free himself. Pushed beyond some important point, Hunter would become a victim of the desire he had deliberately created in her.

"Ah, sweet, green-eyed witch," he said, his own breath coming now in shorter, more violent pants, his body trembling slightly each time she s.h.i.+vered, although he still seemed in control. "You will flower only in my arms! You will need only me to make you feel like this!"

"Yes, Hunter," Stacy responded, aware that he was beginning to demand access for his legs between hers. She felt the first, tentative insistence of his knee as it sought to part her limbs and open her up completely to his invasion. She also felt the momentary astonishment and arrogant, male disbelief when she refused to cooperate. And the witch in her laughed silently.

He waited a moment longer, talking to her gently, be-guilingly, his hands eliciting more and more of the telltale s.h.i.+vers that now racked her body almost constantly.

"Come, little garden," he whispered deeply, coaxingly. "Open the gate and let me collect some blossoms. I know you want your gar-dener inside...." Once again his knee pressed insistently, seeking to part her legs, and once more Stacy, though she arched pa.s.sionately against him, refused admittance.

"Why do you resist, flower witch?" he murmured, stroking her inner thigh with encouraging, arousing fingers. "You want this as much as I. See how heated and moist and welcoming you are...."

"How much do you want it, Hunter?" she breathed tantalizingly, her green eyes glittering up into his as he lifted his head to look down into her love-softened face. She saw the storm of his male need swirling in the depths of his gray eyes, which collided with hers, and half-smiled, putting up a hand to toy with the silver in his dark hair.

"By G.o.d, witch," he grated, clearly astounded. "Would you play games with me tonight?" And suddenly the masculine pa.s.sion in his eyes hardened into something beyond the normal level of desire. Stacy saw it and wondered what she had unleashed. But it was too late to change her mind about how to deal with Hunter Manning.

In a flash she felt her wrists caught and pinned on either side of her head. With a low, fierce growl, Hunter settled fully on top of her soft, slender body, not asking for admittance between her legs this time but forcing them inexorably apart with his knee.

"Do you want to try another bargain, is that it, witch?" he snarled softly. "Did you really think I would let you do that to me in bed? You're mine, Stacy, and I'll take what is mine. There will be no bargaining between us in bed!"

Still anchoring her wrists, Hunter lowered his head to Stacy's parted lips, and in the instant before he took them she saw the deep mists of his eyes flickering with silver flames that trapped her once and for all. His mouth closed over hers at the same instant that he moved strongly against her, making them one in a thrilling, over-powering union.

Stacy surrendered completely. Not even the ancient, aroused witchcraft in her could fight him or taunt him or bargain with him now. She was his and in that moment of being claimed, body and soul, there was no room for pretense or games. She knew with every nerve in her that Hunter was aware of the completeness of the capitu-lation, but she no longer cared. The only important thing in the world was to respond to the forceful, dizzying rhythm he established. The small, female sounds that came from the back of her throat seemed to goad him into taking her higher and higher in a spiral of sensation. The spiral tightened, intensified, made her senses swim until she lost all awareness of anything else in the universe but the world she shared with Hunter. And then, with a last, incredibly-arousing movement, it all dissolved in a blazing, s.h.i.+mmering burst of light and heat.

A long while later Stacy slowly opened her eyes, aware of the weight of her husband as he still sprawled partially across her, his head resting heavily beside her on the pillow. He was breathing deeply, and there was a film of perspiration on his sun-darkened skin. The gray, fog-shrouded eyes were open, watching her intently as she turned her face to look at him.

"Trust you," he said very deliberately between long, recuperating breaths, "to blow all my plans to smithereens!"

Stacy, startled at the total unexpectedness of the wry comment, blinked. "What do you mean?"

"I should have known," he growled softly, "that any bride who would marry as part of a bargain and then show up for the wedding in a pair of jeans would find a way to ruin my wedding-night plans!"

Stacy licked her lower lip uncertainly. "What are you talking about, Hunter?" she whispered: "I'm talking about how I was going to seduce and amaze you with my infinite finesse in the fine art of love-making. Show you that you could go crazy in my arms and I would know how to handle it...."

Stacy frowned uncomprehendingly. "Hunter, this doesn't make any sense. I don't "

"But what happens? At the last moment you start playing some very dangerous games. Teasing me, taunting me until I thought I'd go mad!" Hunter groaned, lifting himself up on one elbow and look-ing down into her face. "Does that settle the issue of my robotic self-control?" he demanded a little roughly, stroking her cheek with a finger. "Playing games with the devil is risky business, little flower witch. But I should have known that, too, is part of your nature."

He was right, Stacy realized with vague surprise as she studied the gray depths of his gaze. She did want to challenge him, lure him, make him aware only of her. He had succeeded in his goal tonight whether or not he fully realized it. She felt thoroughly bound to him in a way that admitted no rational explanation. It was far too primi-tive. But had she succeeded in accomplis.h.i.+ng any part of her goal?

Stacy came awake early the next morning with a slow, languid stretch that was unexpectedly restricted by the weight of a man's arm across her middle. In an instant the memories of the night flooded into her consciousness as she turned to glance at her sleeping hus-band: memories of seemingly endless hours of pa.s.sion and demand. It was as if, once unleashed, Hunter made no more attempt to control his desire and sensuous need. The devil might not yet know a human warmth in this most intimate of relations.h.i.+ps, but Stacy knew she had unlocked one small door. Hunter Manning might have an unholy control over his temper, but he could not perfectly control his pas-sion. He took from Stacy all she had to give and, in turn, withheld nothing of himself on that most primitive of levels.

Now, in the early desert light filtering in through the windows on the courtyard, Stacy gazed wonderingly into the sleep-softened face of her devil husband. The silver slash of hair tumbled amid the dark locks across his brow, giving him a thoroughly rakish look, even in sleep, and the hard, tough line of his body under the sheet was satis-fying to her in the morning sunlight. Last night had unlocked more than one door, she admitted privately. Her own pa.s.sion had been a revelation, even a little frightening. She had alternately teased and surrendered, fought and seduced, glorying in her newfound power. And Hunter had matched her at every turn, at times fiercely demand-ing, at others beguiling and seductive. Stacy realized that somehow they were a challenge to each other.

Hunter had made no secret of his satisfaction in mastering her af-ter he had deliberately driven her wild, and he was always there at the heights with her, holding her close as they fell gently back to earth. Someday, Stacy told herself resolutely as she stirred and slipped out from under his arm, he would learn he wasn't in com-plete control.

"Don't tell me," Hunter suddenly said without opening his eyes, "you're an early riser."

Stacy winced. "I'm afraid so."

"I suppose it's only to be expected from a flower person," he re-marked, his lashes lifting lazily to study her nude figure as she stood by the bed. The look deepened Stacy's already pink coloring, and she hurried to the closet that had been allotted to her on the day her belongings had arrived. Plunging inside, she brought out the Chi-nese-silk robe embroidered with huge, brilliant flowers against a dark background and flung it on.

"It's okay," he confided, watching her in some amus.e.m.e.nt. "I get up pretty early myself. There's not much else one can do out here on the desert when sunrise always leaps out at you!" He sat up, the sheet falling back to reveal his smoothly muscled torso. Stacy fled with as much dignity as possible to the beautifully appointed bath.

"What would you like to do today?" Hunter asked with polite coolness half an hour later, digging into the ruby-red grapefruit Stacy had set in front of him. "You don't have to go to work, do you? We should give some semblance of enjoying our honeymoon!"

"No, I don't have to go in, although I usually do," she told him slowly. "A student from the University handles things on Sat.u.r.day."

"Good," Hunter nodded, satisfied. "Then we'll spend the day to-gether. Honeymoons are a time for getting to know one another, aren't they?" he added with a curiously challenging half-smile.

Stacy took a deep breath, determined to be as cool as her hus-band. "There is something I should probably take care of today...."

"What's that?" He glanced up inquiringly.

"Well, I never got all my plants moved."

His eyes narrowed fractionally. "I just a.s.sumed you'd taken them to the nursery."

"I'm afraid not. I I planned to move them here after I was sure That is, after I found out whether or not " She broke off help-lessly, seeing the knowledge of what she was trying to say appear in Hunter's eyes.

"You weren't going to move your precious plants into your new home until you found out for certain it was going to be your home, is that it?" One dark brow lifted sardonically.

"Something like that."

"You could have asked me, Stacy," he chided a little grimly. "I would have told you there would be no question about it."

She shrugged, trying for an offhanded look. "Well, how was I to know you might not throw me out after you had finally talked to my father? If he'd called sometime before the wedding "

"I would still have gone through with it," Hunter growled softly at her bent head.

"Even if you had realized before the marriage that I was wasn't being totally forthright?..."

"Even," he stated bluntly, "if I had discovered that you were in-tent on tricking me. I'd already decided this bargain would suit me just fine, and I haven't changed my mind."

"I see," she whispered, not knowing what to make of his enig-matic statement. "Well, that leaves me with a lot of plants to move."

In the end they used Stacy's van to move the dozens of plants, re-trieving it from where it had been left the day before in front of the nursery. Stacy checked in with the young man who managed the place on Sat.u.r.days and then drove with Hunter to the house she was vacating.

"I take it for every plant hanger stuck here in your ceiling, I'll have to install one in mine ours," he corrected at once as he care-fully lifted down the huge fern in the hall of the little house.

Stacy, her arms full of pots, paused to peer up at him where he stood on a small stool. "Will you mind?" she asked a little anxiously. Not everyone, she had learned, liked being surrounded by greenery to the extent she did.

He grinned at her, the fern in one strong fist. "I'll put them in on one condition." The sudden humor surprised her.

"What's that?" she demanded suspiciously.

"That you don't go changing your mind after we've located a plant. I'm not about to have that house studded with lots of little hooks from which nothing is hanging because you didn't like the way the plant looked in that particular corner!"

"Don't worry," she told him bracingly. "Your house is going to love my plants!"

Sometime later Stacy handed up the last of the hanging plants for Hunter, once again on a small stool, to position in front of a section of courtyard windows. She stepped back to eye the effect and nodded with satisfaction.

"That looks perfect! It will get all the light it needs, but the courtyard will provide enough shade to keep it from getting burned."

"Somehow," Hunter observed, jumping lightly from the stool and glancing around at his handiwork, "I never envisioned spending my honeymoon turning my home into a greenhouse!"

Stacy slanted him a long green glance. "I think my plants do a lot for this place. And the, uh, greenhouse comes on Monday...."

"What are you talking about? That huge thing in your old back-yard?" he demanded, his dark head swiveling around to confront her. "That doesn't go with the rental?"

"I'm afraid not," she admitted humbly. "But you don't have to worry about moving it. I'll borrow some help and some tools from the nursery on Monday afternoon. It will be in before you know it!" Seeing his look of rueful resignation, she added quickly, "You know, I must say I would never have suspected you of being so good with your hands. I mean, you don't look like the type who cares much about little home projects such as putting in plant hooks." Her appre-ciative glance went to the small hammer he still held in one hand.

"What type do I look like, Stacy?" he said with a sudden, quirk-ing smile as he set down the hammer and dusted off his hands on his jeans. His foggy eyes met hers with curious intentness and Stacy swallowed in nervous reaction for no good reason, "Well," she hesi-tated and then said slowly, "the first time I saw you on my brother's patio, I thought to myself that you could have been cast in a Western film."

"Playing the good guy in the white hat, I trust," he said, chuck-ling.

"Not quite." She grinned back, seeing the humor in his , eyes. "I envisioned you more as the marauding gunslinger riding into town and bringing trouble with him. A black hat, definitely!"

He stepped forward, raising a hand to cup her ch^in, and the gray eyes gleamed down into hers. "I didn't do much to make you change your first impression, did I? A gun-slinging devil. Is that really how you see me?"

There was a question in his eyes, a question Stacy knew needed to be answered. She parted her lips, unable to look away from the demand, and was on the point of saying something, exactly what she wasn't certain, when the phone rang.

The fragile moment was shattered at once, and Hunter dropped his fingers.

"I'll get it," Stacy offered, hurrying toward the phone with a strange sense of relief. "Your hands are filthy!"

She was aware of his negligent shrug as he walked toward the kitchen sink to rinse his dirt-stained hands.

"h.e.l.lo?" Stacy said quickly, wondering if she was going to have to introduce herself as Hunter's wife to the caller. Most people probably didn't know he was married yet.

"Stacy? This is Leana. Happy honeymoon!" There Was a curi-ous, almost forced quality in her sister-in-law's voice that brought a small frown to Stacy's forehead.