face was dangerous. “I killed him, Tat. I wish I could have spared you what happened.”
Her fingers went up to his mouth and pressed there. They were cold.
He kissed them tenderly. “Those scars are marks of honor,” he whispered. “And I want very much to kiss them. But I can’t.”
“You...can’t?”
He moved away from her, just a little, and coaxed her eyes down to the raging masculinity below his belt line.
She flushed.
“I can’t,” he repeated. “Because our first time isn’t going to be when I’m too damned stinking drunk to do justice to you.”
He sat up, tugged her up and put her bra and blouse back on. He nuzzled his nose against hers, but he didn’t kiss her. “Don’t take this the wrong way. But get out of here.”
She got to her feet. He pulled the sheet across his hips and lay back with a smile.
She didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t offering anything but a sensual experience at some point in the future. He could take her and walk away. She would die a thousand deaths.
She bit her lip. “Stanton, I’m engaged...”
He studied her intently. “You want me,” he whispered. “I want you. How is the beloved physician going to feel when we go at each other like starving wolves?”
“That won’t happen,” she said, clenching her teeth.
The tension left his face. He looked at her quietly. “It will. And you know it. I can’t walk away from you again, Tat. I’m not even going to try. I’ll sober up in the morning.” It was almost a threat. His eye narrowed. “And when I do, there won’t be any place on earth you can go to get away from me.”
“I’m going...to be married,” she said harshly.
“To a man you neither love nor want,” he said. “You’ve never really seen how aggressive I can be when I want something. You’re going to find out.”
She flushed. The past few minutes had been entirely too stimulating. “I’m going home!”
He nodded slowly. “For now.”
She turned and almost ran from the room. He watched her, his eye full of longing as she closed the door firmly behind her. He smiled to himself.
* * *
All the way to Manaus, Clarisse kept going over the night before in her head. Rourke wanted her. It was almost unbelievable that he’d let someone convince him that she and he were related. She tried to see it from his point of view. She grimaced. If that had been reversed, if she’d thought they were related... Her eyes closed on a wave of pain. She’d have done the same. She would have wanted him to hate her, so that she didn’t give in to her hunger, so that she didn’t slip.
He’d been different last night. Tentative, when Rourke was never tentative. Then he’d treed a bar. She couldn’t recall that he’d ever done anything like that. He’d threatened the man who came on to her; he’d been violent. She’d never seen him so out of control. Why had he been drinking in the first place?
Then she remembered. She’d told him she was marrying Ruy Carvajal. Had that set him off?
And was it just that he wanted her? Could he feel something for her, too, something powerful and overwhelming, the way she felt about him? She laughed silently. No. Rourke didn’t love her. He was fond of her, of course; they had a long history. And he certainly wanted her. He’d gone hungry for eight years, so now that the barriers were down, he was full of expectation, full of plans to seduce her. She wanted him, too, but once he had her, he’d go on to the next conquest. It wasn’t that he wanted her so much, it was that she’d been inaccessible to him.
But he’d had her in bed with him, half-naked, and he hadn’t even touched her. She flushed, recalling what he’d shown her, how aroused he’d been. Surely if it had been only physical, he’d never have hesitated. Of course, he’d been drinking...
She took the glass of champagne the stewardess offered and drained the glass. It made the hurt a little easier. She’d told Rourke no. Now she was going home to get married. She’d tell Ruy when he came home. He’d said he’d be away for three weeks. She’d tell him when he got back. He would be delighted. She’d help him regain his status in his community. She’d protect herself from being tempted to give in to Rourke’s hunger. It would benefit everyone.
The stewardess offered a refill. She accepted it. She drained the second glass. She was pleasantly numb. She didn’t drink, so the champagne affected her strongly. She closed her eyes, drifting away. Rourke wanted her, at last, at long last. But all he really wanted was one night in bed with her, after which he’d walk away and probably be just as abusive, just as taunting as he’d ever been in the past. Except this time he’d have real ammunition. He would be able to taunt her with giving in to him, if she was crazy enough to let him into her bed. She’d become what he’d always accused her of being.
Her heart jumped when she remembered what he’d said to her, while they were dancing and later, in his room. He knew she was innocent. But he’d known when they were dancing. How had he known?
She closed her eyes and let herself drift away. She was going home. She would marry Ruy. Rourke would return to Nairobi. She would be safe. Yes. Safe.
* * *
What she didn’t know was that a tall, blond man with a bloodshot pale brown eye was even at that moment buying a plane ticket to Manaus.
Clarisse took a cab to her small house, the one that her parents had bought so many years ago. She’d been staying at hotels when she was in the country, when she’d brought Peg Grange here, because the memories were too stark. But she had to face the past someday. The house was part of it.
She put down her suitcase and purse and walked into the living room. She’d replaced the couch where Rourke had almost seduced her eight years ago. But the memories were still there, so exciting, so hot, that she flushed just recalling them.
It had been Christmas Eve. She was seventeen years old. Rourke had been in Manaus on a job, and he came by to pay his respects to Clarisse’s parents. He and her father had been friends, despite the difference in their ages. Her parents and K. C. Kantor had been close since Clarisse was a child, playing with Rourke when her father was stationed in Kenya.
Rourke had teased her while they decorated the Christmas tree. She’d been wearing a slinky dress that her mother hadn’t approved of, but she knew Rourke was coming by the house and she’d wanted so much to look grown-up, to make him see her as a woman.
And he had. He’d looked and looked. While they spoke, while he teased her, while they put the ornaments on the tree.
Her father and sister had been doing last-minute shopping. Her mother had been home, but a neighbor had come by and asked her to step next door and look at a small child with a fever. Maria had been a nurse and she was still the last refuge of people with little money. Reluctantly, because she knew Rourke’s reputation, she’d
