Bargain With The Devil Part 4

"I've told you not to think too much about my rights," he re-minded her, his mouth grating across the softness of her lips. "I'll take the ones I want!"

"Not with me, you won't!" she swore. "We may have a deal, but this wasn't part of it!" Stacy lashed out with her foot, aiming for his shin and connecting solidly. She heard his indrawn breath of pain and pushed savagely against his chest as his hold momentarily weak-ened. She was free!

"Why you little...!" He glared furiously at her as she backed rap-idly away from him. "Don't you dare run away after that little stunt," he ordered, ignoring his bruised shin in favor of stalking her across the room.

"Leave me alone, Hunter, I'm warning you!" Stacy cried, edging toward the kitchen, her hand held out in front of her in a hopeless attempt to ward him off. His name certainly suited him admirably in that moment, she thought dismally. He was coming after her with all the deliberate, unswerving intent of a large cat closing in on its prey.

"There's no point in running," he told her coldly, matching each of her retreating steps with an advancing one of his own. "This time you're not getting off as easily as you did earlier. You're going to start learning what it means to be Mrs. Hunter Manning tonight!"

"This wasn't part of our deal!" she protested once more, almost at the back door now. Still, he made no sudden move to close the distance between them. It was as if he wanted her to. suffer the dis-tress of being stalked until there was no more room to run, no place to hide.

"When it comes to the fine print in our bargain," he informed her in a hard voice, "I'm the authority, not you!"

It was the steel in his words that finally sent Stacy over the edge of panic. With a small exclamation of fury and fear, she yanked open the kitchen door and ran down the steps into the backyard. The bulk of the greenhouse seemed to offer some shelter, and she intuitively raced to put it between herself and her tormentor. Then, in the dark-ness, she waited, her heart pounding. It wouldn't take him long to find her, she realized hopelessly. The yard simply wasn't that large, and he'd probably seen the direction in which she'd run anyway....

But there was no sound, nothing to indicate his angry pursuit. In the tense silence Stacy tried to calm her breath so that she could listen more closely for the sound of his footsteps. Still nothing. The seconds stretched painfully into moments and the urge to sneak a glance back toward the house was overwhelming. Where was he?

It occurred quite suddenly to Stacy that perhaps he hadn't fol-lowed her after all. Perhaps he'd abandoned the chase in disgust. There had been no sound of a car being started, however, so she hadn't been lucky enough to have him leave altogether. That meant he was still somewhere around, but where?

Very cautiously, Stacy edged around the corner of the green-house. In the dim light spilling from the open kitchen door she could see nothing. A strange, fearful curiosity began to go to work in her head. She had a.s.sumed he would simply run her down, and she would be left to plead and argue and threaten uselessly. There was no movement from within the house, and Stacy finally summoned up her willpower. She certainly couldn't stand outside all night, and if he had meant to chase after her and drag her back to the house, he would have done so by now.

"Hunter?" she whispered breathlessly, taking one delicate step just inside the kitchen door. "Hunter, can't we talk about this? I'll give you my word not to back out of the marriage if you'll just "

"If I'll just what, Stacy?" he asked mildly from directly behind her.

"Oh!" She spun around to face him. She had gone right past where he stood in the shadows of the porch! He was close enough to put his hands on her. With grim realization Stacy acknowledged that her recklessness and her impetuosity were both poor survival charac-teristics around a hunter who knew when to stalk his prey and when to outwait it.

"Go ahead," he drawled, his fog-shrouded gaze on her startled face. "Let's hear what new intricacies you're trying to weave into our deal." y- What was the point? Stacy thought, resignation sweep-ing out all her other emotions as she stood looking up at his implaca-ble face. Her wide green eyes were filled with reluctant acceptance of the bargain she had struck with the devil tonight, and she could tell by the glitter of male satisfaction in his narrowed gaze that Hunter saw her capitulation.

"It might be tricky getting a Rylan to carry out all the terms of a bargain that isn't particularly in her favor, but I'm going to do it. I swear it!" Hunter's words were uttered with such absolute determi-nation and such a sense of overpowering inevitability that Stacy didn't even try to protest when he put out a hand, curled it around the nape of her neck, and lowered his head to take her lips.

CHAPTER FOUR.

Stacy stood with a strange, totally artificial calm as Hunter's mouth invaded her own. She knew she should be reacting in some way, trying to talk him out of his intentions, but all the fight seemed to have temporarily gone out of her limbs. It was as if knowing he held all the aces in their uneven game had finally brought her the realiza-tion that it was useless to struggle anymore tonight. She stood pas-sively, her eyes closed against the reality of what was happening, and waited.

"That's better," he ground out against the skin of her throat as his lips sought the small pulse there. "Your fate was sealed back there at your brother's house tonight. There's no point in struggling against it. Come and find out what it holds in store for you...."

Stacy heard the soft, beguiling tone of his words and shivered with dismay. "Why do you waste words trying to coax me into giv-ing you what you want?" she asked. "You've made it very clear that you're going to force yourself on me regardless of my wishes!"

"So now you're going to try the role of martyr?" he taunted lightly, not seeming particularly worried. His hands slowly tightened around her waist as he continued to explore the skin of her throat and shoulders with his lips. There was a slow, lazy, tantalizing aspect to his love-making that was disturbing something deep within Stacy.

"It doesn't suit you, Stacy," Hunter went on after a few seconds of deepening kisses at the corners of her lips. Kisses that urged and beckoned.

"Wh-what doesn't?" Stacy swallowed, feeling his hands pull loose her shirt from the waistband of her jeans. An instant later his fingers were on the warmth of her bare skin, sliding slowly upward toward her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"The martyr role," he explained softly. "Deep down, you're a fighter like me. And once you accept the fact that I'm bigger, stronger, and far more ruthless, we'll get along very well together!"

That was too much! "Not a chance!" she promised fiercely.

"See what I mean?" he murmured teasingly. "You'll never make it as a saint. But neither will I let you hurt yourself by continually fighting me. You're going to channel all that energy and spirit into a much more useful role. That of being my wife!"

"So that you can throw the fact in my fathers face!" she charged bleakly, wondering yet again what Hunter would do when he real-ized how little impact that would have on Paul J. Rylan.

There was a fractional hesitation before Hunter bit out a soft, rasping "Yes!"

Instantly the cajoling, seductive element disappeared from his lovemaking. As if Stacy's accusation had made him realize there was little point in trying to coax her into -a more pa.s.sionate mood, Hunter, with a low growl compounded of desire and determination, bent and lifted her high into his arms.

"Put me down, d.a.m.n it!" Stacy yelped as her senses spun mo-mentarily with the unexpected change in position.

Without thinking about it, she closed the fingers of one hand into a small fist, raising it to use against his chest.

"Hit me once more tonight, Stacy Rylan, and I will really lose my temper," Hunter warned almost mildly, carrying her into the kitchen and on toward the living room.

Something in his voice, perhaps the very lack of obvious anger, stopped her. "Then put me down, and neither of us will be forced to go through any more scenes!" she ordered loftily, well aware she was in an exceptionally weak position from which to bargain. She glared furiously up into his determinedly set features. He smiled thinly.

"I wouldn't think of skipping this next little scene," he told her in deep, rough tones. He came to a halt beside the couch, patterned in huge yellow flowers, and dumped her unceremoniously onto it. "Don't move!" he grated as she tried at once to find her balance and get off the cushions. "Not one inch."

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded as haughtily as she could with her hair in her eyes. He looked very large and forbid-ding as he stood beside the couch, examining his captive.

"I'm going to find out exactly what I'm gaining out of this deal besides a green-thumbed health-food nut!" He lowered himself be-side her, and she tried to pull away, but there wasn't anywhere to move now.

"I'm not a nut!" she informed him stiffly, "and you're only going into this marriage for revenge, so you can't tell me you want any-thing... anything else!"

"But I do want something else. Something that will make the re-venge complete. I want you!" Hunter reached out and took hold of her left wrist, chaining it deliberately as he leaned heavily across her other arm and upper body.

With his free hand he slowly, methodically began undoing the b.u.t.tons of her shirt.

"Hunter, please!" Stacy begged, abandoning all hope of being able to hold him at bay with angry words. "Don't do this!"

The foggy pools of his eyes met hers, and she had the oddest sen-sation of being enveloped by the shifting, swirling currents there. His fingers were halfway through their task. She felt the slightly rough-ened tips straying inside the opening of her shirt, testing the softness of the skin of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s above the edge of her bra.

"Pleas?" he questioned, sounding vaguely interested. "No more orders or bargains?"

"Hunter," Stacy whispered desperately, her wide eyes making no effort to hide her anxiety. "I'm begging you to wait. At least give me a chance to know you and get accustomed to the idea of marrying you! Everything has happened so quickly tonight. I I realize it's different for a man," she added, stumbling slightly over the words, "but I need time "

"What more do you need to know about the devil?" Hunter asked with a mocking touch of whimsy as his fingers undid the last of the b.u.t.tons and slowly, coolly pushed aside the material, exposing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Stacy felt the angry blood rush into her cheeks and turned her face into the cushion of the couch. Her eyes squeezed shut on her fury and helplessness. He was right, she thought bitterly. What more did one need to know about the devil? And she had made her pact of her own free will, hadn't she? What right did she have to complain about her fate? She felt him touch her breast, slide beneath the lacy cup of the small bra, and then his fingers were gently circling, tug-ging, and-teasing her nipple. Stacy sipped air on a tiny moan.

"Look at me, Stacy," he commanded in a low, husky murmur as he shifted to settle his full length along her trapped body. She could feel the steel in him, the smooth, muscled heaviness of his leanness as he crushed her softly into the couch.

"I said look at me," he repeated, as she refused to meet his eyes. Helifted his hand, the one he had been using to caress her breast, and fjrmly turned her taut face away from the poor protection of the flowered cushion.

Unwillingly Stacy looked up into the rugged, uncompromising face and swallowed dryly. In that moment it took all her courage simply not to cry. And Stacy hadn't cried for a very long time.

"I'm not doing this because of some uncontrollable l.u.s.t I've con-ceived for a woman I've only known a couple of hours," he told her forcefully. "I'm doing it because my instincts tell me you're going to argue, bargain, and try to wriggle out of this marriage unless I make it very clear there's no going back."

"I'll honor my end of the deal!" she snapped, offended that he thought she would sink to his level of scheming.

"I'd prefer to make certain of it," he retorted grimly. "Besides," he taunted, thumbs toying with the corners of her mouth, "aren't you even mildly interested to see whether or not you can bear to have the devil in bed with you?"

"And if I can't bear it?" she challenged. "Will you call off our deal if it turns out I'm not capable of enjoying the act of love with a man who despises me and my whole family?"

Something hardened in the grayness of his eyes, and the line of his mouth tightened. "The bargain stands regardless of how miser-able you choose to make your own life!"

"Because you'll do anything to complete your revenge?" she hissed, knowing it was useless to goad him. Nothing would make him change his mind.

"Because of that and the fact that once I've made a deal, -I stick by it," he said arrogantly through tightly clamped teeth.

"Well so do I!" she stormed. Precious seconds ticked past.

"You want me to trust you?" he mused finally.

"Yes," she breathed. "Please." She could sense the thoughtful hesitation in him as if he were examining the idea from all sides.

"All right." He agreed so suddenly, she flinched. "Come to think of it, it might not be a bad idea if you learned to trust me, too. Give me a little on account tonight, Stacy Rylan, just to show your good will," he mocked, "and I'll give you my word not to make a Man-ning out of you until our wedding!"

"A little on account?" she queried suspiciously.

"Don't you trust me?" he asked, his mouth twisting cruelly.

Stacy stared at him for a timeless instant. The strange part was that she really did trust him. He was a hard, bitter, unforgiving man, but she somehow believed him when he said his word was his bond. He was too proud for it to be otherwise.

"A... a few kisses and that's all," she hedged carefully.

"That's my Stacy." He sighed, bending his head to set his mouth on hers. "Always trying to qualify the terms of the bargain!"

She stiffened beneath him as his mouth moved aggressively on hers in a sudden, sensuous a.s.sault. She felt him demand entry be-tween her parted lips and grudgingly let him past the gate of her teeth into the warm, moist cave beyond. She had agreed to this, she reminded herself. A moment later she was aware of his masculine tremor of response and was startled to find herself reacting to it with a curious feminine satisfaction. Perhaps Hunter Manning wasn't as cool about all this as he seemed! For some strange reason tiie thought intrigued her. Instinctively she knew she. was searching for a weakness in him.

"Touch me," he breathed, lifting his head to say the words warmly against her lips. He released her wrist and freed her other arm, at the same time settling himself more firmly against her. She could feel the rising heat of his thighs as he used his knee to force her legs apart and deepen the intimacy of their contact. Stacy felt his stirring maleness and shivered.

They were engaged in a battle of sorts, she realized vaguely, and their mutual anger seemed to feed another emotion. Perhaps it was the fact that pa.s.sion was providing an outlet for her temper, Stacy thought wonderingly. It had never worked like that before, but then no man had ever infuriated her on such a fundamental level before, either.

Hesitantly at first and then with a curiosity she could not contain, Stacy touched him, her hands sliding down the length of his back and under the material of his shirt. She felt the warmth of his skin as her fingers made contact, and it seemed to send an electric shock through her whole body. His tongue flicked urgently into her mouth, and his hands slid around behind her to unfasten the hook of her bra.

Stacy had a fleeting thought that she ought to protest his going this far and then remembered his promise to cut the lovemaking short. She could trust him, and besides, there was a rising urgency in herself that no longer wished to be denied. It was as if her anger were transforming into pa.s.sion.

"That's it, little Rylan witch," he growled from somewhere deep in his chest as he fought free of her mouth and went on to plunder and menace the vulnerable area behind her ear. "Touch the devil and see if you'll get burned, just as he's going to get singed in this red hair of yours!" One of his hands lifted to twist a section of the heavy, tangled ma.s.s around his fingers, and Stacy felt the sharp edge of his teeth close tantalizingly around her earlobe.

At the same moment she was aware of the sharp caress of his teeth, there came another, equally fiery summons on her breast as Hunter's fingers aroused it to a taut peak with a series of almost but not quite painful tugs.

The twin attack proved too much for Stacy's heightened, swirling senses. With a fierce, demanding little cry that seemed to come from the back of her throat, she arched against his hardness, her fingers kneading the muscles of his back with growing urgency.

Common sense and a remnant of her earlier pride tried to inter-vene, reminding her of how she had gotten into this situation, but there was a new element on the scene, an unfamiliar, totally unex-pected, and altogether compelling desire that was sweeping through her. Stacy knew enough about herself to know that with the right man and in the right place, her nature was rea.s.suringly warm and affectionate, but this was not the gentle, soft pa.s.sion she had sensed in herself on previous occasions. And this was the wrong man and the wrong place!

"Hunter!" His name was a cry of longing and need torn from her throat as she began to writhe beneath him, her body demanding, pleading, insisting on more of him.

"Do you want me, witch?" he muttered fiercely, creating a trail of burning, stinging, exciting kisses down the length of her throat to the delicate curve of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "I want you," he said huskily when she moaned in response to his blunt question. "I want you very, very badly. The devil in me needs to ride you until you cry out for mercy! Until you surrender completely...!"

His lips began a sensuous, teasing attack on her already hardened nipples, and Stacy thought she would die if she didn't have more of him. Desperately she fumbled with his shirt, almost ripping the but-tons off in her pa.s.sionate haste. In a moment she was twining her fingers into the curling hair of his chest, following the line of it to where it disappeared into the waistband of his slacks.

"I knew," he breathed, making her aware with his body of the pleasure he was finding at her probing touch. "I knew when you confronted me tonight on the patio, so determined and so brave, that there was a pa.s.sion in you! A pa.s.sion I'm going to own completely!"

She wanted to protest his masculine arrogance, cry out that he would never own her, but she was too deeply tangled up in the whirl of her needs and desires. All that mattered at the moment was getting closer to him. With every new touch, every new caress her body responded to him like a well-tuned instrument in the hands of a mas-ter, and she knew he was dangerously aware of the fact.

Later, she thought distantly, removing her hands from his chest to clench her fingers in the thick blackness of his hair, later she would find a way to undo the damage she was doing. But first she must find out where all this wild pa.s.sion would- lead. It was all so different....

And then he was ceasing his a.s.sault, pulling back from the brink to which he had taken them. Hunter's large hands wrapped carefully, firmly around hers and trapped them quietly between their bodies.

"Hush, little witch," he soothed as she twisted restlessly beneath him. He used his legs to still her own and kept talking to her in a husky, soothing, crooning way until Stacy, unable to move now, finally opened her eyes and stared up into the fog pools of her devil's gaze. The quick, shallow pants of her breathing slowed to a more normal pace as she continued to watch him.

He was smiling, she finally realized as reality swept back in with a terrifying rush. The desire in his eyes was fading rapidly to be replaced by pure masculine triumph, and Stacy knew with awful certainty that she had put a weapon in his hands tonight. A weapon he would not hesitate to use against her.

"I have never in my life been more tempted to break my word than I was tonight, Stacy Rylan," he told her in a slightly humorous, whimsical tone as he released her now-quiet hands and framed her face between strong fingers. "If it wasn't so important to teach you that I mean exactly what I say, I'm not sure I could have stopped when I did. But I can guarantee I won't be offering any more deals like that one! I'd never be able to survive them!"

Stacy was bitterly aware of a newfound respect for this man who had so easily overcome her pride and her anger to turn her into that pa.s.sionate creature she had become in his arms. But it was not a respect born out of admiration for his skills as a lover or his restraint, rather it sprang from a new kind of fear. For some reason it had been easier to accept the idea of this marriage-for-revenge when she had been certain of her scorn for the one forcing it upon her. But the weakness she had discovered at his hands tonight threatened every-thing.

"You're so d.a.m.n sure of yourself!" she got out between painfully clenched teeth as anger seeped into her bloodstream. "First Leana and now me! All you have to do is snap your fingers and the woman you wish to use is at your feet, is that it? You don't even lose any of your own self-control in the process, do you? A moment ago you cut off your own desire as if it were attached to an electric switch! It was more important to teach me a lesson on this particular occasion, so you simply turned everything off when you'd achieved your pur-pose!"

The touch of warmth and whimsy that had been lurking in his eyes disappeared at her bitter words to be replaced by steel, and the lines at the corners of his mouth tightened into their usual position.

"You think that's all there was to it?" he said, gritting his teeth.

"I know that's all there was to it! You proved it!"

"My G.o.d!" he snapped with patent disbelief. "I give you my word not to take you tonight, and what do I get when I keep it? Ac-cusations of being some kind of robot! It must be true what they say about there being no pleasing a woman!"

"Why should you worry about pleasing me?" she flung back, knowing she should be backing down and quitting the field but un-able to do it. "I'm only a tool you're planning to use against my father, remember?"

"I remember well enough!" he retorted with a touch of violence. "But the process of using you for that is also going to have the effect of turning you into my woman. And..." he went on caustically, "I have recently decided that one of the things I don't want from my woman is a lot of ranting and raving when she's lying in my arms! Now behave yourself, Stacy Rylan, or I will give you the beating I should have administered earlier this evening!"

Stacy glared mutely up into his angry, forbidding face and knew that this time he meant it. She had pushed a little too far and the only intelligent thing to do was back down. The knowledge was in her eyes.

"That's better," he noted coolly, sitting up beside her on the couch and fastening the b.u.t.tons of his white shirt with crisp, short-tempered movements. "I'm glad it's sinking in that I'm really not in a mood to soothe your ruffled feathers."

He finished b.u.t.toning the shirt and got to his feet to stuff the the ends of it into the waistband of his slacks. He turned his head to glance down at her where she lay on the couch, holding the edges of her own shirt together with fingers that shook slightly.

"I should have known making a Rylan witch into a Manning witch wasn't going to be all that easy," he growled, raking a hand through the tousled ma.s.s of his hair and forcing the silver streak back into place. "But I'll manage it," he tacked on laconically, start-ing for the door. He paused on the threshold, his fingers splayed along the edge of the jamb, and tossed her a warning look over his shoulder.

"I'll be in touch with you tomorrow, Stacy Rylan, and let you know exactly how much time you have before you become Stacy Manning!" With that he was gone, slamming her front door behind him with such force that the fern swung gently from the ceiling.

The phone call from Eric the next morning at work was not, Stacy told herself resentfully, the best possible way to have started the day. She was inspecting several boxes of seedlings that had re-cently been transplanted when the young clerk, Julia, called to her down a long row of hanging plants.