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Not going to be a baby. Not going to be a baby.
Who had said that?
“Let’s get married tonight. In Mexico.” How Brand’s green eyes had sparkled.
“What about your parents? Our big wedding?”
“We’ll tell them later, my love. We’ll have a second wedding.” He’d made her drink…to toast the baby. She’d choked on the bitter stuff and then gotten woozy.
“Not good for the baby…”
“There’s not going to be a baby.”
That’s when he’d said it. Brand had said it. In Mexico. In the shack. Before he’d told her what he was really going to do.
Two men held her. She was weak, drunk or drugged, not herself in any case. Brand was ripping off her nylons, not caring that those awful men with those lust-filled eyes were watching them. She didn’t care much, either, not when she knew what he was up to. He was tying her hands and her ankles to the bed.
The baby. Don’t hurt the baby.
Brand leaned over her with a syringe. She felt a sharp prick in her left arm. His face whitened in a blinding blaze that looked a lot like a halo.
“There’s not going to be a baby. Everything will be okay. You love me, and I love you. And we’ll go on as before.”
Before her eyes a green horn sprouted from Brand’s thatch of golden curls, and his halo fell and dangled there. Brand winked at her, his green eyes sparking fire.
She screamed and screamed. Somebody else was there—a wiry, sickly looking fellow with haunted eyes and greasy, spiked red hair. Moonlight glinted off something black in his hand.
Brand dove behind her, using her as a shield.
She was staring up into stormy gray eyes. “Don’t shoot my baby!”
Gunshots. Little bits of concrete falling onto her face.
They were all gone. Except McKade looming over her, his contemptuous, piercing gaze more lustful than Brand’s or his men’s. When she struggled, McKade brandished a broken beer bottle near her face, slicing his own finger with those razor-sharp edges. A drop of his blood fell onto her cheek. Who could have illusions about such a man?
She wanted Brand, who was elegant and golden, Brand whose family was rich and famous and respectable.
By comparison, McKade was big-boned and rough, his appetites blatantly carnal.
Brand was her Prince Charming…not…
Not going to be a baby.
A tongue of green fire shot out of McKade’s mouth.
Then Brand, toppled halo and all, returned. The vision caught fire and turned the most livid shade of green.
She began to scream.
It was deliciously disconcerting to awake in Mc-Kade’s arms, her lips pleasantly smothered against the villain’s warm, wide furry chest, the very same villain who’d caused her nightmare. Brand had made her do awful things in bed. McKade, who had rescued her, had not forced her to earn that money.
Then McKade, his voice tense with the strain, said, “Not going to be a baby. What did you mean? Whose baby?”
“Nobody’s,” she lied, nestling closer because his warmth was so lovely. The last thing she would tell him about was the baby.
She was pregnant.
The powerful father of her baby, for all his surface charm, didn’t want her or their child. He would have killed her. McKade had saved her from Brand and other worse dangers in Mexico. He’d saved her baby. But McKade didn’t respect her. A man of his obvious limitations never would. And he certainly wasn’t the fatherly type.
Not going to be a baby. Oh, yes, yes. She was going to have her baby.
I saved your cute little ass.
McKade wanted that cute little ass. He’d paid a thousand dollars for it.
And he would get it, pregnant or not, if she didn’t get out of town—fast. She couldn’t go home. No telling who Brand had at her aunt’s house waiting for her to return. Too bad for McKade that her purse, her car and her money were at her aunt’s because that meant she needed his. If he was as rich as he said he was, he could get more.
McKade’s large hand stroked her hair, her back. “It’s over. You’re safe.”
Safe? When the Baineses controlled Laredo? When Brand had said he’d never let her go? When the rogue who’d found her tied up in Mexico, and bought her because he thought her cheap and awful, held her in his arms? When the brain beneath her mussed curls was spinning worriedly with ideas about how to best him?
Safe? With him? If he thought that, then he was even more clueless than she’d thought.
The impossible devil laughed, the pleasant rumble deepening the grooves that bracketed that beautiful, ever so sensual, male mouth.
Safe? She hardly knew him, but the chemistry or whatever it was that was between them was so volatile they’d almost had sex twice. She felt as if she were a delectable mouse waiting for some big cat to pounce. After Brand, she was afraid of sex.
She stared up at McKade, and was aware of harshly carved features, of his animal white smile, of that unruly lock of midnight-black hair that tumbled over his brow. A sensible woman would be terrified to bump into a man like him in a dark alley.
Sensible? Nobody had ever accused Willa of that failing.
Safe? The sooner she outwitted this beguiling devil and got out of his clutches, the better.
“Thirsty,” she whispered, shuddering against his chest so he’d go, so she could think, if that’s what her churning mental processes could be called.
He left her, splashed water into a glass in the bathroom, but returned too soon, the mattress dipping beneath his weight once more.
He lifted her into a sitting position again, holding her against his heated length while she sipped from the glass. When she’d gulped it all down, he set the glass aside and continued to hold her.
Leave. Leave.
Of course, he didn’t. His head was too thick-boned and dense for telepathy to work. Slowly, shyly, she became aware of that heavily muscled, big-boned body against hers, aware of his heat seeping inside her, aware of her nipples hardening against his massive chest. Meltingly pleasant sensations rippled through her.
She sighed blissfully. Then she caught herself.
Aware of her response, he tensed.
It was just the terror of her nightmare that made her so vulnerable. That made him feel so good…so natural. So right. She’d been shy about sex…even with Brand, only letting him because she’d loved him so much. Only playing the games he’d wanted later because she’d wanted to win his love.
Letting a man hold her like this wasn’t sex. Still, it was exciting. Her feelings were like those of a seventeen-year-old girl with a first crush. How, after all she’d been through, all he’d put her through, could she feel…It was too soon after Brand.
He saved you.
McKade.
The clever rascal was using that to his own advantage.
“I’m okay,” she said, so he would leave.
“Good.” His voice was gruff. He almost pushed her away as he shoved himself up from the bed. “No more bad dreams, promise?”
The minute he stood up, his wide muscular shoulders were silhouetted against the light from the window. Suddenly, irrationally, she ached to have him back. “What do you want from me?”
“Sex. A thousand dollars’ worth.”
“And that’s all?”
“Of course.”
“Then why didn’t you take—”
“All in good time. When you feel better.”
“I’m surprised you have any qualms.”
“I want to get my money’s worth.”
“You’re vile.”
“And you’re such an excellent judge of character.”
She drew a sharp, little breath. She was stung, but she liked sparring with him. It distracted her from her more serious problems.
“If you’re disappointed we didn’t…” His suggestive voice was low and hoarse. “If you’re feeling lusty…just say the word. I’ll be happy to oblige.”
“Go back to your chair.”
He laughed but obeyed. She clutched her sheets and was secretly bereft and disappointed.
As soon as he was safely ensconced, she said, “McKade, if you were the last man on earth, I wouldn’t want you.”
“Then, pretend, the way you pretended when you danced. If you’re half as good at sex as you were at stripping, we’ll be dynamite together.”
“Good night, McKade.”
“Good night, Willa.”
He snapped out the light and fell silent. Suddenly, the darkness and the walls seemed to close in on her. She was a little girl tied to the mast again. She was a woman tied to that bed in that fetid shack.
He’d come, saved her.
Saved her baby.
No matter how she tried, she couldn’t seem to get over that.
“McKade?”
“Change your mind about sex?”
“Is that all you think of?”
“When I’ve got a thousand bucks of my money on the line and a girl like you in my bed—”
“I’m beginning to think your bark’s worse than your bite.”
“I’ve got a helluva bite. I promise you’ll love it.” His voice was a soft, sensual rumble. “Just say the word and I’ll nibble you all over.”
“Would you quit!”
When he fell silent, the shadows in the room seemed to darken. When she’d been a little girl, her aunt had told her the witches lived in the closet and they’d get her if she got out of bed.
Willa had thought the witches had yellow eyes and long black fingernails. On a shudder, she closed her eyes. Terrifying darkness enveloped her. Instead of witches she saw Brand. Her eyes snapped open.
Willa got out of bed and scrambled across the floor to McKade’s chair. Her hands climbed his jeans, fingernails clawing the denim. Huddling at his feet, she seized his long fingers and held on tightly. His long, brown fingers closed over hers.
He drew a breath. So did she.
“I’m scared of the dark.”
“You’ve been through a lot.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
So, she told him about her parents, about the accident, about the two days and nights before she was saved.
“I was dehydrated and sunburned, but most of all, ever since, I’ve been terrified of the dark. Tonight when I was alone in that shack, it was like that storm. I had lost everything…all my illusions. The shack was so dark. I—I could hear things crawling. I—I couldn’t have stayed there two days…and two nights…wondering what would happen to me.…I would have gone really mad, died of fear. I know I would have. You came. You saved me.”
He stood up. Slowly, he pulled her up with him. He said nothing, he just held her, and never had rougher hands felt more gentle. After a long time, he lifted her into his arms and carried her back to the bed where he tucked her under the crisp sheets.
When he rose to go, she blindly circled his neck with her arms and held on. “Move your chair closer.”
His fingers tightened on hers. “Be careful what you ask for.” His eyes blazed.
She let him go.
When he’d scooted the wooden legs across the floor and sat down, she fell asleep almost instantly. This time, because she knew he was there to keep her demons and her aunt’s witches at bay, her dreams were pleasant.
