She didn’t take his hand. Instead, she ran to him, her arms wide, and fell against his chest as he held her tightly.
“Oh, Kady,” he said, his mouth against her hair. “I love you so very much. You don’t know how happy I am to see that you’re not angry at me anymore. I’m sorry about the lawsuit, but my father set it up. I didn’t even remember it. I’m sorry I lied to you about Ruth’s codicil, but I was afraid you would send me packing if you didn’t have a reason to stay with me.”
“I would have,” she said, her head against his wet clothes.
“And the marriage . . . That was just my dream. I wanted to live with a girl with a long dark braid. You don’t have a spotted pony, do you?”
It was the same dream that Cole had, the one he had told her about in this very cabin.
Pulling away from her a bit, he lifted her chin so her eyes met his. “Do you forgive me for telling a few fibs? I just wanted to be near you and to make you love me.”
At that last she turned away from him. Did she love him? She wasn’t sure, but then she didn’t seem to be sure about her feelings for any man. All the time she was with Cole she had told him and herself that she was in love with Gregory. Then she’d found out what Gregory was truly like and she’d begun to remember Cole as though he were a saint. But she could do that, couldn’t she, since he was dead and had never reached adulthood.
“I don’t know—” she began but he cut off her words with a soft kiss.
“You don’t know whether or not you love me,” he said, his eyes showing amusement. “I’m patient and I can wait for you to find out. It’s just a matter of time.”
He carried her to the bed then and began to slowly remove her clothing, all the while kissing the skin that he exposed.
“Kady, I . . .” he began, as though he had something very important to say to her, but then he lifted his head and looked into her eyes, and what she saw there was fiery hot. “The hell with finesse,” he said with a bit of a grin, and the next minute her clothes went flying.
And Kady found that she was ignited in a frenzy of desire such as she’d never felt before. She tore at his sopping wet clothes, wanting her hands and mouth on his skin, wanting to taste and touch him, as he was doing to her.
His hands and mouth seemed to be everywhere at once, and when he was naked, he stretched out on the bed and pulled her on top of him, his mouth on her breasts, his hands on her hips, both of them frantic, excited, kissing, tasting.
When she could stand it no more, he pushed her to her back and entered her with a driving force. Kady arched her hips to meet him and nearly screamed aloud at his first touch. This was the man she had been waiting for, the man she’d wanted all her life.
Within seconds they had both reached a peak of ecstasy, and, limp, Tarik collapsed on her, holding her close to him. For a few moments Kady lay still, trying to catch her breath, but then he began kissing her neck and his hand strayed downward and they began again.
Kady sat on the floor, her back against the bed, and she could feel her heart pounding under her naked breasts. She knew she should get up and put some clothes on but she was too worn out, too satiated to think of moving. Actually, she was too happy to care about little things like clothes.
The room was a mess. At one point during the day, Tarik had thrown her across the dining table, and in his exuberance, he’d knocked ornaments and place mats to the floor. They had stopped making love long enough for her to make them something to eat; then they’d eaten off each other’s bare bodies.
Now, when the bathroom door opened, she looked up at him and started to pull the bedspread that was on the floor under her up to cover her body.
“No,” he said, grinning, and she smiled back. He was naked, and she had never seen a more beautiful body. He had broad shoulders, with a great mat of black hair on his chest, and he was muscular from years of learning how to handle hand weapons. In the last hours she had learned just how flexible and strong he really was. However, there were bruises over most of his body, and when Kady asked about them, he’d given his cocky grin and said, “Training.”
Now, he sat on the floor beside her, pulling her head down to his shoulder. “Like to take a bath with me?”
“Very hot with bubbles?” she murmured.
“Very hot, lots of bubbles,” he said as she stood and pulled the bedspread about her shoulders. “Put some clothes on, but not many,” he said, grinning lasciviously.
Kady started to ask him why she had to put on clothes to go to the bathroom, but then she knew what was in his mind: Cole’s hot spring, the place where she’d washed her hair in a time long past.
Thirty minutes later they were both up to their necks in a hot natural spring, the same one Kady had used before.
But there were many changes now, as a natural-looking grotto had been built, with beautiful rock ledges and ferns hanging above them.
“Did you do this?” she asked, her head back, eyes closed. “Did you restore the cabin?”
“Yes,” he said softly, watching her.
“Why? If Hannibal shoots at people for trespassing, then—” She opened her eyes to look at him. “Does he usually shoot at people who come to Legend?”
Tarik gave her a one-sided grin. “Not usually.”
Kady’s first reaction was anger that she had discovered yet another of his lies. She thought of accusing him of forcing Hannibal to participate in Tarik’s . . . Losing her anger, she closed her eyes and relaxed. In his pursuit of her, she thought, Tarik had made a great deal of effort to get near her, and it felt good. Thinking back to her relationship with Gregory, yes, it felt very, very good to have a man go to such lengths to win her.