Only 05 - Autumn Lover

of pain.
    “Don’t you dare compare what happened between us to what the Culpeppers did to that poor girl,” Hunter said in a soft, deadly voice.
    “Let go of me.”
    The pressure on Elyssa’s wrist didn’t lessen.
    “You bathed her,” Hunter said. “You tended her fever. You saw what those animals had done to her.”
    His eyes were brilliant slits of gray. They were radiant with a rage and frustration that was almost tangible.
    For days Hunter hadn’t been able to get close enough to Elyssa to talk to her, much less to touch her. Whenever he appeared, she faded like a ghost into the shadows.
    Hunter felt like he had spent his life looking at Elyssa’s back as she retreated from him.
    “If you hadn’t been a virgin, you never would have felt a bit of pain and you damn well know it,” Hunter said savagely.
    “Do I?” Pointedly Elyssa looked at her wrist. “You’re hurting me now.”
    “No, I’m holding you, and you know that too. Say it, Sassy. Say that you know I never meant to hurt you.”
    “My name is Elyssa .”
    The grip on her wrist changed subtly. She was still caged by Hunter’s strength, but it was different now. Almost caressing.
    And then it was frankly caressing.
    His fingertips traced the veins on the soft inside of Elyssa’s wrist with the delicacy of a kiss. Once, twice, three times, until her heart was beating so rapidly she was certain he could feel it racing.
    “Hunter…” Elyssa whispered. “Don’t.”
    She felt the shudder that went through Hunter when she spoke his name. Slowly he lifted her wrist and put his lips where his lips where his fingertips had been. The tip of his tongue traced the veins with aching restraint.
    Elyssa made a small sound and shivered very much as Hunter had.
    “Stop running from me,” Hunter whispered against Elyssa’s soft skin. “I’ll make it so good for you. I swear it, honey.”
    The hungry response of her own body to Hunter’s caresses both shocked and infuriated Elyssa. She snatched back her wrist.
    “Thank you for your generous offer,” she said with cool sarcasm, “but pain is an excellent teacher. I have nothing new to learn from you.”
    “You have everything to learn from me.”
    “Then I’ll go through life as ignorant as an egg.”
    “Are you pregnant?”
    The question hit Elyssa like a bucket of ice water.
    “Are you?” he asked softly.
    “Go to hell, Hunter Maxwell.”
    “I have a right to—”
    “How many mustangs are green-broke now?” Elyssa cut in. “Are we going to meet the army contract with the horses, at least?”
    Hunter looked at Elyssa’s glittering blue-green eyes and clenched his jaw in frustration.
    It had been the same for the past three days. If he cornered her into talking to him, she refused to talk about anything but business. He was fed up with it.
    Hunter also was unsettled by his own relentless hunger for Elyssa. He had sworn never to let a woman have that kind of hold over him again, but Elyssa had made a mockery of his defenses.
    Touching her right now had been a mistake. A bad one. The scent and softness of her skin had hardened his body in a rush of blood so fierce it made him light-headed.
    It also made him angry with himself, with her, with everything.
    “The Herrera brothers are breaking the last of the mustangs now,” Hunter said tightly.
    Elyssa sensed the anger seething just beneath Hunter’s control. She gave him a wary glance. Between worrying about the ranch and worrying about facing him every minute of every day, she felt as tightly strung as a dance fiddle.
    But at least Elyssa felt more certain of herself when ranch business was the topic of discussion.
    You have everything to learn from me .
    Hunter’s flat statement echoed in Elyssa’s mind, unsettling her as much as the tender, incandescent caress of his tongue on her inner wrist.
    “What about beeves?” Elyssa asked.
    “We’re short.”
    “Any chance of making it up?”
    “We’re working on it,” Hunter said laconically.
    “I’m aware of that. Will we make the contract?”
    “One way or another.”
    “What does that mean?”
    Pointedly Hunter looked at the Indian girl and said no more.
    Elyssa’s eyes widened slightly. Apparently Hunter, too, wondered just how much English the girl understood.
    “The boys are combing the marsh in all the placesyou showed them,” Hunter said. “Morgan and Johnny have the dogs working the high canyons.”
    “I see.”
    “You will,” Hunter vowed under his