Quiet Walks the Tiger - By Heather Graham Page 0,67

with a towering force that was chilling although they were several feet apart. His fingers were clenched tightly around a napkin, the knuckles white, the thin line of his grimly twisted lips just as devoid of color.

“I think we discussed this once,” he said with soft danger. “I am not Terry. I do not sleep on couches, nor will you. I am not Terry.”

Sloan met his gaze, dismayed at the hard-core jade. He still intended to tell her just how high to jump...

“No,” she agreed scathingly. “You are not Terry. Terry was a nice man.” She spun on him before he could retaliate and sought refuge in her bedroom, staring long at the lock on the door. She pushed it in, but then released it as his voice tauntingly followed her.

“Don’t bother, Sloan. If you’re in my—our—room, a lock isn’t going to stop me from entering.”

He didn’t come to bed for a long, long time. Sloan lay in silent misery, her nerves and, yes, anticipation fighting sleep. Each time she heard a movement in the house, she jumped while her mind raced double-time. Damn! She did want him so badly, being near him and not touching him was like slow and torturous starvation...

But all she really had now was a piece of paper and her pride. She couldn’t allow herself to show how vulnerable she was...

He entered the room in the dark, and she barely breathed, feigning deep sleep, hearing the sounds as he undressed as if each piece of clothing had fallen with the burst of an explosion. He crawled in beside her, and her entire body went stiff, her heart seemed to thunder, and her flesh was painfully aware of his heat as she waited...

And waited.

He didn’t touch her. He plumped his pillow, adjusted his position, stretched his body out comfortably. But didn’t touch her.

Sloan lay in shocked confusion. And, she realized sinkingly, disappointment. Whatever she had been telling herself was a lie. She had been glad that he had insisted upon sleeping together; she had been wonderfully relieved that he was going to force her into his arms so that she would have an excuse to salve her pride.

But now she just ached, her disappointment becoming a physical agony.

She didn’t know how long she lay there, her eyes open, staring blankly into the dark, when he shifted again, and his arm grazed her shoulder.

“What is the matter with you?” Wes demanded impatiently, obviously aware she had never been sleeping. “You’re as cold and stiff as marble and shivering like a rabbit.”

“I—I—” Sloan stammered.

She heard his soft chuckle; it was a gentle sound of amusement, and it caressed her warmth. “I see,” he said, and although his voice was amused, it was tender. “You thought I was going to force you into keeping conjugal rights. No, my love, I’ll not force you. I won’t sleep in another room, but I won’t force you.”

“You...you don’t want to make love?” Sloan said in a strangled voice.

She felt his hand on her cheek, the knuckles grazing her flesh, his whisper soft and gentle. “I didn’t say that. But I want you to want to.” He was silent for several seconds, his hand moving to smooth back her hair, to trail down her throat. Surely, Sloan thought, he must feel the terrible pounding of her heart in the erratic racing of her pulse.

“Do you want to make love, Sloan?”

His voice, threading through the night like deep velvet, was husky and wistful. It was the perfect touch to break her final grasp on control. Sloan lay still just seconds, her eyes closing, her fingers clawing into fists at her side. Then she turned into him, her face burrowing into the dark hair on his chest, the tenseness of her body evaporating as she melded to him, her hands freed from their convulsive grasp to tremble as they rose to his shoulders, sweetly relishing the power play of muscles beneath them. “Yes,” she whispered, barely audibly, “yes, please, Wes, make love to me...”

“Oh, God.” She heard his groan, deep and guttural within his throat. His hands raked through her hair, his kisses rained upon her face, covering her eyelids, devouring her mouth, falling with reverence over her breasts as he rolled over her with a need as urgent and demanding as she could have possibly desired. “Oh, dear God, wife,” he murmured, divesting her gently of the silken sheath of nightgown that barely separated them, “I’ve missed you...wanted you, dreamed of you...making love to