Wild Enough For Willa

His heart slowed to painful thuds. Male nerve cells registered body heat, registered gardenias, woman smell. Registered her. She fit him like a glove.

She was available. She would do anything.

Wildfire.

Her breasts pressing into his chest made him dizzy. His hand began to shake so badly he had to stop so he wouldn’t cut her.

She held her breath.

So did he.

Get a grip. Don’t let her know. Work fast.

Again, jagged brown glass sheered the flimsy nylon.

But she knew. The instant she was free, her hands were all over him.

“I love you. Love me. I love you. Love me,” she pleaded in Marcie’s drawl.

Her hands. Her body.

Marcie’s voice.

Love me. That constant refrain pounded through him like a drumbeat. Eagerly her hands moved over his torso.

He had to get away. It had been a mistake to lean over her. Her skillful, expert hands, her whore’s hands knew exactly what to do to arouse a man like him.

Lightly, ever so lightly, she stroked. Sliding across his chest, her heated fingertips had his damp shirt out of his pants in no time, his belt unbuckled. Then like heat-seeking missiles, her hands were inside his jeans, circling him with her fist.

Low moans rose from her throat, her excitement matching his when she found him already hard.

Marcie used to moan like that. Until he’d forbidden her to make that sound in bed. You’re not a whore. You’re my wife.

He’d liked what Marcie had done too much. He’d known she’d win him through sex. It was a way to that deeper part of him he’d sealed and locked, so he’d be safe. With a whore, he could let go in bed. Because there were other lines he wouldn’t cross with a whore.

The girl writhed. To hold her still, he threw a leg over her thighs. She wiggled, snugged herself closer. He slashed her ankle bindings loose with the broken bottle. Their hips joined.

Meltdown.

Wrapping herself around him, she clung.

For years he’d been alone—his whole damn life. This woman, the soft warmth of her, erased all that. He gulped in air as her fist caressed him.

“Love me.…”

“You’re a whore.”

He saw tearing pain in her gaze. She froze, and he was moved beyond words by the sheen of tears misting her black-lashed blue eyes, by the way she drew back with proud dignity. “I love you…B-B…”

But whatever drug she was on got the best of her. Before Luke could register the name she called him, she wiggled closer, bringing her lips up to his. She caught her lower lip with her teeth. When she released it with a soft kiss, the swollen softness was pink, wet and shiny. And so damned kissable.

She kissed him, and her adoration, sweetness and innocence amazed him. Her seeming innocence, he amended.

He held his breath, his heart beating hard and fast. Don’t. Don’t.

But she kept at it, this spontaneous nibbling of his lips. She had a marvelous mouth. And not just to look at. She tasted, oh, God, she tasted delicious and so damned innocent…and so utterly utterly sweet.

Her tongue teased his, traced along the upper edges of his teeth. Nobody kissed like that but an expert.

Almost at once, he was shaking. Hardly knowing what he did, his mouth opened. He wanted more.

Gently, marveling at the softness of her skin, he let his knuckle touch her face. She didn’t recoil. For a long moment he just held her. He felt her breasts rising and falling beneath his chest.

Ravenous, he began to kiss her. “You are beautiful,” he breathed, his lips moving from her mouth, to her cheek, to her throat. Suddenly, he could contain himself no longer. Peeling her panties lower, he pushed her down into the mattress and straddled her. He tore at his jeans, unzipped his fly and shoved his jeans down. Somehow he had the presence of mind to fumble in his wallet for a condom. He tore it out of its package, put it on.

“How many others…besides me? How many, damn you? Brand Baines? Those jerks with Baines, too? What games did you play with them?”

“Only you, Brand…” She raised soulful eyes to him.

She didn’t even know who he was, didn’t care.

Then she saw him. Really saw him.

“You’re not—Brand!”

“How many—”

“Where am…” She moaned, shut her eyes, thrashed her golden head back and forth. “Oh, dear!”

“You’re in a shack. You were playing bondage games with three men.”

Another voice, bright and sassy, not Marcie’s. “Don’t you dare say things like that to me, mister.” But she was very pale. “Why, who are you anyway?”

In the next breath she saw the nylon around her wrist and moaned. “Bondage? You—you monster!”

“Me? This little game was all your idea!”

Panicking, wild to escape him now, she pounded on his chest, kicked at his legs. “No…No…No…”

He hated teases. “Whores don’t say no.”

“Don’t you dare tell me what I can or cannot do. I can too say no if I want to. No…No…”

“No?” He laughed harshly, covering her sputtering lips with his hand. “I can have you. Anybody can. You can’t say no. Not now.”

“No,” she mumbled and most defiantly against his thick fingers. Then she bit him, rather ferociously.

“Ouch!” His hat fell off.