Raven's Prey

room spun as he crushed her mouth with avid hunger. Around them the other dancers moved like shadows. Honor’s arms crept up to circle Judd’s neck and she sighed very softly,
    Slowly he began to move them once more to the subtle beat of the music, his mouth lingering on hers. “Honor?”
    “Ummm?” She stirred languidly in his grasp.
    “I don’t think I’m going to be able to live up to my promise tonight,” he growled huskily against her cheek. His hands flexed at her waist as if he badly wanted to touch her bare skin. “Will you let me take you home and make love to you?”
    “Do I have a choice?” she whispered, trembling a little at the urgency of his tone.
    He hesitated and then said bluntly, “No, not if I can help it. God, I want you, woman. Please don’t fight me.” Judd lifted his head and stared down at her with glittering obsidian eyes that seemed to burn into her soul. “Let me take you home and make you mine. I’m going out of my head just thinking about the feel of you under me, the way you turn to flame when I touch you. I can’t—”
    “Judd, stop it!” she cried softly, her knees growing weak under the spell of his undoubted passion. “You mustn’t talk like that. Not here on a dance floor, for heaven’s sake!” But she knew he had already felt her reaction. How could she stop him tonight when she could feel the rising desire coursing through her veins? She was in love with this man. She would probably never be able to stop him from making love to her whenever he chose.
    “Then let’s get out of here,” Judd said briskly, dropping his hands from her waist and taking her wrist. He started toward the door.
    “Wait a minute! We’re supposed to be on a date. You promised me dancing and a lovely evening and everything!” She tried unsuccessfully to free her fingers from his grasp but he had her out the door.
    “You already know damn good and well I’m not the romantic type!” he growled as he pulled her toward the parked jeep.
    “Then what type are you?” she demanded.
    He spun around when he reached the jeep, his expression relentless and urgent. “Honor, don’t play games with me tonight. I want you and I know you want me. I could feel you trembling back mere on the dance floor. And surely to God you know what you do to me!”
    She turned her face up, the moonlight making her look very pale in the velvet darkness. “You haven’t answered my question, Judd,” she said evenly. “What type of man are you?”
    “I don’t know what the hell you mean by that! You know exactly what type of man I am. I’m the same man I was when you pointed a gun at me that first night in Mexico. I’m the damned mercenary who accepted the contract to find you and bring you out of Mexico. Two thousand dollars plus expenses, remember? I’m the guy who spent the morning yelling at you in the cockpit of an airplane. I’m the man who kidnapped you from your home in Phoenix. I am not romantic. There are a few things in my past that won’t stand up very well to close scrutiny. I don’t always understand your sense of humor and your parents would probably collapse in shock if they ever met me. But, by God, I want you, Honor Knight, and I’m going to do whatever I have to do to keep you. Is that very clear?”
    Honor felt her soft, romantic mood slipping away in the face of his unexpected harshness. “Why are you yelling at me? We’ve had a lovely evening so far and~; ~now you’re raining it!”
    “I’m trying to put things in perspective. I want you to know exactly where I stand. I’m sorry if I’m ruining the evening but I seem to make a habit of doing that, don’t I? Entertaining a woman for an evening isn’t my forte.”
    “But yanking her home and taking her to bed is? You’re pretty fundamental in your outlook on life, aren’t you, Judd? You just do as you damn well please. You fly your plane, make a few bucks now and then off jobs you don’t question too thoroughly, drink a little tequila and occasionally, when it suits your mood, take a woman to bed.”
    He stared stonily down at her for a long instant. “You’re trying to make me lose my temper, aren’t you?” he finally asked. “Why, I wonder?”
    “Maybe because when you lose your temper you seem almost human,’’ she whispered throatily.
    They stood searching each other’s faces beneath the cold glare of the parking-lot light, and then Judd opened the door of the jeep and pushed her gently inside.