Tender Savage by Iris Johansen

now.”
    He was sitting quietly, his hands linked over his knees, the way she had seen him sit for hours in the cell—the same stillness, the same air of repressed force and authority, the same graceful sensuality. He was doing absolutely nothing to engender a sexual response in her and yet the response was suddenly there, alive and tingling between them. Her heart pounded crazily; the cotton of her shirt was abrasive against her hardening nipples as her breasts lifted and fell with her quickened breathing. She looked away from him again, trying to keep her expression unrevealing. “I told you I didn’t want you here.”
    “I have to have my chance.”
    “To get me in the sack again?” she asked flippantly.
    He didn’t answer for so long that she lifted her gaze back to his face. His expression was controlled and yet she knew instinctively that she had hurt him. It shouldn’t matter to her, she thought.
    Yet it did matter. His pain made her ache in some mysterious way she didn’t understand.
    “Yes, I want to make love to you again.” His voice was thick. “I want it so much that I’m hurting right now. I keep thinking of how tight and hot you felt when I was moving in and out of you. And the sounds you made when I put my—”
    “I don’t want to hear it.” The color blazed in her cheeks. “It’s over.”
    He shook his head. “It’s not over. If it were over, I wouldn’t be sitting here wanting you, and you wouldn’t be sitting there wanting me.”
    She wouldn’t lie. “You were my first lover. Naturally, I’m still curious about—” She broke off. “But it’s not going to happen.”
    “I think it will. I hope it will.” He smiled crookedly. “But even if it doesn’t, I’ll not lose this time, Lara. Do you know why?”
    She didn’t answer.
    “Because it’s not only the sex. Don’t you know that I enjoyed sitting in that cell watching your face when we were playing games almost as much as I did when I made love to you?”
    She gazed at him in disbelief.
    He chuckled. “It’s true. You notice I said ‘almost.’ The pleasure wasn’t as intense or explosive, but it … warmed me.”
    She understood what he meant. She had to fight that warmth, more dangerous than lust, that flooded through her at his words.
    “So I’ll win just by being with you.” His smile faded. “I think that if you’ll let yourself, you’ll win too. We leapt over a hell of a lot of hurdles in that cell.”
    “I won’t let myself,” she said. “I can’t let myself feel anything for you, Ricardo.”
    He stiffened. “Because of your dreams of that little house and big dogs and everything neat and tidy? Well, my life isn’t neat and tidy, and I doubt if it will ever be.”
    “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. We’re
different.”
    He silently shook his head.
    “We are,” she insisted.
    “Only because you choose to be. You can always choose a new path.”
    “What about you? You could choose a new path.”
    He smiled. “Touché. You’re right. I’m not being fair. I could choose to give up the revolution and follow you to your small town. Do you think I should?”
    She stared at him, disconcerted by the question.
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    She had answered instinctively and now she had to think about it. “Because you
are
the revolution. Because your beliefs make you what you are, make you do what you do.”
    “Your beliefs made you come to the Abbey to rescue me.”
    “But only to save Brett and take him away from you.”
    “Are you sure?” He looked thoughtfully down at his linked fingers. “Wouldn’t there have been other, less dangerous ways to accomplish the same end?”
    “I didn’t see any other way.”
    “Think about it.” He raised his gaze to her face. “I don’t think you’re the woman you believe you are.”
    “You said that before.” She shook her head. “And you’re wrong.”
    “Perhaps,” he said. “But think about it anyway.”
    He had given her too much to