The Rebel King

Chapter 5

For the second morning in a very few days, Rhia wallowed her way to consciousness to the smell of coffee, and to find Nikolas Donovan sitting on the bed beside her. This time, instead of gently caressing her face, he was shaking her. Not the least bit gently.

"Rise and shine, luv-time to get up." His voice sounded obscenely cheerful.

She pried open one eye and said. "It's dark!" in an outraged tone. And then gasped, cringed and covered her eyes with her hand as light stabbed them cruelly from the lamp on the table beside the bed.

"There." Nikolas said without sympathy. "It's not dark anymore. Come on-get up. I've brought you coffee. We've got about fifteen minutes before the trailers leave."

"Leave? For where, in God's name? At this hour-" Oh, God, was she whining? She struggled to sit up, and Nikolas helpfully drew back the light blanket that covered her. She pulled it back up to her chin and glared in his direction without focusing. "What hour is it, by the way?"

"Two forty-five-well, actually-" he glanced at his watch "-it's two forty-eight, now. I suggest you hurry if you want time to drink that coffee."

She closed her eyes and rubbed at her temples, which did absolutely nothing to diminish the pounding behind them. To make matters worse, when she opened her eyes again Nikolas was still there, and. once she had him in focus, looking sinfully handsome and smiling at her like a beneficent saint. She regarded him for a moment with loathing, then said. "Are you being deliberately cruel, or is this an aspect of your personality I wasn't briefed about?"

His laugh sent involuntary ripples of pleasure through her. It was like rubbing against fur. "My dear, you did say you wanted to pick grapes with the crew this morning."

She gave him a sideways look of stark disbelief. "Impossible."

"Sony to have to tell you this, but I heard you with my own ears. So did Phillipe and most of the crew."

"I couldn't have…could I? When?"

"Hmm…let's see. It was after your third glass of marc, I believe-or perhaps it was the fourth-I'm afraid I lost track. Anyway, the crew was very much impressed with you. If you back out now, you're going to suffer an enormous loss of face."

Rhia groaned and collapsed back on the pillows, closing her eyes. "Oh, God, Father Matthew was right."

"Father Matthew?" Nik's voice was vibrant with rather poorly suppressed emotions-laughter, she was sure. And something else. Something that sounded a lot like-oddly-affection.

"Yeah-he was the priest in the Catholic girls' school I went to in Florida. He always told me I'd go to hell. I think this must be it."

He made a smothered sound-definitely laughter. "Oh, come now-it's not so bad once you get outside. Rather nice, actually." There was a pause, and she felt the touch of something cool and soothing on her aching head-something that warmed almost instantly and became Nikolas's fingers. "You're really not a night person, are you?" he said tenderly. "Who knew?"

She opened her eyes and tried to glare at him, but found that her eyelids had grown inexplicably heavy. "It's not night," she mumbled, "it's morning. Dark, pitch-dark morning." Her tongue felt heavy, too, and her lips seemed to have swollen. She had a powerful desire, now to press them into the nice warm palm that was cradling the side of her face. "I've always been a night person, actually. My nights have only become an ordeal since I met you."

"It doesn't have to be that way, you know." The pad of his thumb brushed gently across her swollen lips, but instead of soothing them, set them on fire. The heat and heaviness began to spread…like melting molasses…into her arms…her legs…her body. Her breasts felt tight, and even the kiss of silk and lace was more than her sensitized nipples could bear.

"You do know," Nikolas murmured, "if it weren't for this unfortunate hang-up you have about my allegedly royal blood, you and I would be lovers by now."

Her heart stuttered and her stomach wallowed drunkenly- roughly the way those parts of her had behaved the first time she'd jumped out of an airplane during her training for the Lazlo Group job. Now, as then, pride made her catch a breath and fight valiantly against the panic. "You're awfully sure of yourself, aren't you?" There… tart, and not too breathless.

His reply was wordless. He simply leaned down and kissed her.

In some buried, weakened part of herself, had she been expecting it? In that same part of herself she'd definitely wanted it. When she felt his warm lips pillow against hers, she uttered a single whimpering cry…and opened to him.

And then she was in free fall, the wind rushing so hard against her face she couldn't breathe. Fear gripped her, and then exhilaration. I've got to stop this! I have to stop…

But she couldn't stop. And in the end, after she thought she must surely have passed the point of no return, it was Nikolas who pulled the ripcord. "Yes," he murmured, with his lips still touching hers, "I am."

His lips moved, then…along her jawline, riding on the velvety cushion of his sweet, warm breath. Her breasts grew heavier, each breath lifting them intolerably against the chafing fabric of the silk-and-lace camisole she'd slept in, making them yearn for the touch of his fingers instead.

Fighting it. she said in a desperate rush, "It's not just your ancestry-it's my job…Nik. My job-oh, damn."

His mouth found the hollow below her jaw, slid, hot and open, along the side of her neck. She moved her head-didn't want to…couldn't help it-moved it to give him better access to the sensitive places there, the places where her pulses thumpety-thumped like the jazz beat pouring from a Bourbon Street bar. Her fingers ached with the struggle to keep from burying themselves in his hair.

"Your job doesn't need to know what happens between us here," he whispered against her singing flesh.

"I'll know." It came on a gasp…or maybe a sob.

Nikolas let go of a breath and fought his way out of the whirlpool of desire like a diver struggling toward the light. He knew he had no business being angry-and he wasn't. He'd had no business doing this in the first place-he knew that, too. At least, not now. Although…someday, someday soon…

He pulled away from her swiftly, the way he'd tear off a bandage or pull out a tooth-because it was less painful that way. Brushing her warm, moist cheek with the backs of his fingers, he said lightly, "You're unusually dedicated to your job, aren't you?" Or is it your employer you feel such loyalty to? He wanted to say it, but didn't. He wasn't a jealous man-or never had been. So why was it he felt a sudden urge to strangle a man he'd never met?

"I am," Rhia said in a voice that was flat and slightly thickened. She sat up and drove both hands, fingers spread wide, into her hair. Holding her head between her hands, she uttered a small and somewhat surprised, "Ow."

"Hangover?" Nikolas inquired, feeling like a wretch.

She nodded carefully "A wee one, yeah." And he could see her girding herself, and her willpower inarching out to do battle with her human frailties. After a moment she drew herself up, pinched the bridge of her nose between a thumb and forefinger, pulled in a long breath and opened her eyes. She reached for the cup of coffee he'd placed on the bedside table, sipped, than lifted her head and leveled a determined look at him. A steady green look from under thick black lashes. "I owe Corbett Lazlo a lot. I'd hate like hell to let him down."

"Ah." Nikolas said. "I see."

She shook her head and set the coffee back on the table. "No, I don't think you do." Throwing back the bedclothes, she pulled her knees up and swiveled them past him so that, for one heart-stopping moment, she was sitting beside him on the bed, with her smooth, sleek thigh touching his, and her body's warmth and musky feminine scent wafting over him. clouding his senses.

While he was still fighting the effects of her nearness, she rose and walked unselfconsciously to the bathroom, and his gut clenched as his gaze followed her. Buttocks…firm and rounded, solid muscle under a delicate veneer of feminine softness, scarcely disguised at all by the skimpy panties she wore. Long, taut legs and a stride of confidence and an athlete's unstudied grace. When the bathroom door closed behind her. he released a breath he didn't know he'd been holding, then laughed silently at himself for his heart-pounding, sweaty schoolboy's lust.

When she emerged from the bathroom moments later, he had himself in hand… somewhat. It helped that she looked like a well-scrubbed teenager, with her hair in damp strands around her face and her eyes struggling to focus. She didn't look at him as she went straight to the backpack she'd left lying on the floor near the foot of the bed.

"I probably owe Corbett Lazlo my life," she said in a matter-of-fact tone as she hefted the backpack onto the bed and unzipped it. "I definitely owe him for the fact that I'm not in jail right now." And she lifted both hands and clasped them together above her head in a long sinuous stretch that bared a good bit of her lean and supple torso and momentarily robbed Nikolas of his breath.

When he had it back again, he said drily, "Nice try, luv, but you're not going to distract me that way. You can't suppose I'd let that remark go without explanation."

She threw him a look over her shoulder, a look of vague innocence he didn't buy for a minute. "There's not that much to explain, really." She gave him a sleepy-eyed smile, and he remembered the way she'd evaded the question about her association with the Lazlo Group when he'd asked it in Phillipe's kitchen a few days ago in Paris, evaded it with a smile, then, too, and the same subtle little seductions.

He said nothing…watched her take a rolled-up T-shirt and jeans out of her backpack and put them on over the wisps of underwear she'd slept in. Her movements were brisk and efficient, slightly jerky, without any hint of awareness or seduction, now. Socks and a yellow bandana handkerchief came from the depths of the backpack next. She tied the kerchief around her hair the way she'd worn it the day before, then zipped up the backpack, picked up the socks and turned to look for her shoes. He snaked out a hand and caught her wrist.

She went utterly still. Her eyes met his and seemed to shimmer in the lamplight, the way the sea does when the sun strikes it through a hole in the clouds. He felt her wiry strength, and the pulse tap-tapping against his grip, and they both knew very well she could have broken free at any time and done him considerable damage in the process. Instead, for reasons he couldn't imagine, she stood quietly, her hand relaxed in his grasp, and waited.

"It's quite unfair, you know. You know so much about me," he said softly. "And I know so little about you."

He thought he saw something flicker behind her eyes, and for a moment her mouth…her face seemed to blur…become younger. Become vulnerable. Her lips parted, and he held his breath. But instead of words, he heard the reedy beep of a tractor's horn.

"They're here," she said breathlessly. Reaching for the coffee he'd brought her, she gulped down half of it. then bent down and scooped up her shoes from the floor beside the bed. "You'd better have something for me to eat out there somewhere," she threw darkly over her shoulder as she marched barefooted out of the room. "I don't pick grapes on an empty stomach-not even for a prince."

It felt good to have the last word, but it was a hollow victory. As she sang out good-mornings to the work crew and allowed reaching hands to pull her onto the wagon, Rhia's stomach was still jittering with the aftereffects of too much marc, and the awareness of how close she'd come to opening up to Nikolas Donovan-emotionally and sexually. My God, Rhee, what were you thinking?

The picture that flashed instantly into her mind was graphic and unequivocal: Herself…Nik…gloriously entwined. Heartbeats bumping against each other in sultry, syncopated rhythms…sweat-slick bodies gliding together… melding in sweet and perfect harmony… Rhee, oh, Rhee- you're not seriously thinking of going to bed with him, are you?

Someone handed her a fresh sweet roll and she bit into it without tasting it, unable to swallow, unable to think or respond to the friendly babble of voices around her. Unable to hear anything at all but the chorus of happy voices inside her head crying. Yes! Oh, please, yes!

The morning went by faster than Rhia had imagined it would. And Nikolas was right-it wasn't so bad once she was out in the fresh cool darkness of the early morning. Floodlights set up at intervals along the road cast long mysterious shadows as the pickers fanned out through the rows of grapevines, men. women and teenagers, all joking and jostling and calling challenges to one another. Competition was fierce among them to see who could fill a bucket the fastest. Fierce, but good-natured.

Rhia was given a bucket and a pair of clippers-secateurs-and shown how to snip each bunch of grapes from the vine and drop it into her bucket. After that she was on her own. She quickly lost track of Nikolas, which was probably a good thing, as she found herself becoming caught up in the friendly competition, too, not wanting to be the last one to fill her bucket. She worked as quickly as everyone else did, squatting down to reach the lower vines, snip-snip-snipping until all the bunches had been picked, then rising and moving on to the next vine. In spite of the coolness of the morning air. she was soon sweating, and glad of the bandana she wore which helped keep not only the dust and leaves out of her hair, but the sweat out of her eyes.

She learned to shout "La hutte!" as the others did, when her bucket was full, then wait for the person with the cone basket strapped to his back to come down the row so she could empty her bucket into the basket. When the basket was full, it would be carried back to the wagons and dumped into a barrel through a large funnel with a hand grinder, which would break up the grapes, partly crushing them.

It was hard work, but it made the time go quickly, and Rhia was surprised when she discovered that the darkness had thinned to pale lavender, and the hum of the generators that had powered the floodlights was replaced by the chatter and warble of birdsong, and the distant crow of a rooster. She paused to watch, entranced, while the sky became rosy pink, then salmon, then scarlet, and the sun lifted a molten eye above the purple hills and turned them a rich golden brown. The sun's touch felt like a warm hand laid lightly on her shoulders.

She saw that Nikolas, two rows over, had also stopped to watch the sunrise. As if he felt the touch of her eyes, he looked at her and smiled, and she felt a swelling inside, and the inexplicable prickle of tears.

But she refused to let herself ponder the meaning of such unfamiliar feelings, and instead brushed away a runnel of sweat with the back of her hand, pushed her hair impatiently over her shoulder and Nikolas Donovan from her mind and went back to snipping bunches of grapes from vines now sparkling with a diamond dusting of morning dew.

By midmorning, though, she was starving, and her headache had returned with a vengeance under the late-summer sun. She could feel it pounding like a hammer and anvil behind her temples as she reached the end of her row and straightened stiffly, rubbing at the small of her back. Her bucket was nearly full-might as well empty it before starting a new row, she thought.

She was looking around for la hutte when she spotted Nikolas over by the wagons, leaning against the tailgate, talking with Phillipe and drinking from a bottle of water. And keeping an eye on her, apparently, because when he saw her looking his way he motioned her over. It was her contrary nature that made her defy the happy little lifting sensation inside her chest and first pause to take off and unhurriedly retie her headscarf…take her own water bottle from her belt and drink…rearrange the grapes in her bucket-completely unnecessarily-before joining him. That made her refuse to look at him, lounging there with unconscious elegance in spite of the sweat that made Rhia feel itchy and dirty but only made his dusky skin gleam like polished wood and his black hair curve in wet spikes over his forehead. Made her refuse to admire the way he managed to look regal in spite of the open-neck shirt and jeans he wore, and the red scarf tied rakishly at his throat like a buccaneer's.

As she approached the two men, she saw Nikolas say something to Phillipe, who clapped him on the shoulder, blew Rhia a kiss, then sauntered off. She hesitated, then walked on, knowing the heat in her face and body wasn't all from the warmth of the sun. She was acutely aware of every inch of her body, the way it moved inside her clothes, the chafe of fabric against her sensitive places, because of the way his eyes watched her…eyes full of knowledge, confidence, and promise. We would be lovers by now…

"Taking a coffee break?" she said caustically, furious with the way her nipples hardened and rubbed against the lace that covered them, the way her pulses throbbed in all the wrong places. The way her chest hummed at just the sight, the nearness of the man.

"Nope-quitting time." Nikolas took her bucket from her and motioned with his head. "Job's all done."

She saw then that the other pickers were drifting in from the vineyard, laughing, chattering, teasing one another as they passed their laden buckets up to someone on the wagons to be dumped into the grinders mounted on barrels. Phillipe was there in the midst of it all, bantering and exchanging back-slaps with the men, kisses with the women, as they removed hats and scarves, wiped necks and brows, lit cigarettes or drank from water bottles.

"So, what now?" Rhia closed one eye. squinted up at the sun and added hopefully. "Lunch?"

His smile kindled, and she felt herself responding to it even though she very much did not want to. "If you mean like yesterday's bacchanalia, sorry to disappoint you, luv, but no. No marc for you today, I'm afraid. Everybody'll be heading on home, I should imagine. They've chores of their own to take care of. after all. Things to do…"

"So, tomorrow you all move on to another farm, is that the way it works?"

"Not tomorrow, it's Sunday. Nobody picks on Sunday." He made a scolding noise with his tongue. "Shame on you-nice Catholic girl, you should know that."

Rhia gave him a look as she lifted a hand and pulled the scarf from her head, gave it a shake to let what breeze there was move through her sweat-damp hair. She was too hot and tired to banter with him. And hungry. "Right now, all I know is, I need a sandwich and a shower-not necessarily in that order."

"I think I can arrange that." His lashes lowered, his smile grew lazy and his movements unhurried as he casually reached out and fingered a damply curling lock of her hair off her neck and guided it over her shoulder.

Somewhere, far, far away, bees were humming, birds were singing, people were laughing…and Rhia heard none of it. She heard only the pounding of her heart, felt only the sizzle of the sunlight on her cheeks, and the shivery baish of Nikolas's fingers on her neck. She swayed slightly; she couldn't help it.

"Though…I must say, I like you this way-all wet and wild, hot-eyed and dusty. Rather like a gypsy."

He knew he shouldn't do it. Shouldn't touch her, shouldn't tease her-though it amounted to teasing himself more than anything. But he couldn't seem to help it. Somewhere along the line, his wanting had become need, and since he wasn't in the habit of allowing his physical and sexual needs to get in the way of his commitments and responsibilities, he wondered if he was allowing this particular need to blossom on purpose, as a distraction and a buffer from the chaos of his life.

As good an explanation as any. he thought. A tiny ember of alien emotions flared within him-anger, a touch of fear, touches of bitterness and bleak despair-and was quickly smothered. In a day or two he would face whatever the future had in store for him, but for now… for now, by damn, he would allow himself toenjoy whatever pleasures this beautiful, exotic, intriguing creature might offer him. No guilt, no regrets.

He'd devoted his life so far-his youth, certainly-to a cause, denied himself the comfort and fulfillment of relationships, settling instead for the temporary ease of casual affairs, the willing company of the type of woman that seemed to come his way in endless supply. He had no idea what he might be doing a week or a month from now. but for today, and perhaps tomorrow, there was this woman. Rhia. That the most beautiful and fascinating woman he'd ever met should have come into his life at such a time seemed to him more than chance. More, even, than serendipity. It almost…almost… made him believe in fate.

Fate. The thought jarred him back to awareness, where he discovered green cat's eyes gazing into his. hazy with confusion, and his hand resting on Rhia's neck, his thumb stroking up and down her sweat-slick throat, and a hot coal of desire in his belly that threatened to set him on fire.

Taking back his hand, he said. "Right, then, let's see what we can do about getting you your heart's desire…" Brisk was what he'd intended, and instead heard his voice emerge thick and furry as woolen mittens. He swiped his hand across the leg of his jeans-as if that could wipe the feel of her skin from his sensory memory-then walked the length of the wagon, checking the load of filled barrels. He paused beside the tractor to give Rhia a come-here gesture with his head and hand. "Here, this rig looks ready to go-come on, up you get."

He watched her eyes get that certain glow and her chin that particular little tilt that he was coming to know very well. It meant her independent nature was about to do battle with her feminine side. He felt a ridiculous surge of purely masculine triumph when she stepped forward and gave him her hand, allowing him to "help" her onto the tractor's high step. And a surge of something much more mysterious, a kind of exotic delight, when she gave him a sideways look as she did so. a look that clearly said. I'm only doing this to humor your masculine ego, you know.

She gave her head a toss as she seated herself on the high rear fender. Nik chuckled as he took the driver's seat and started up the tractor. He waved to Phillipe and the other pickers and pulled out of the line and onto the road, smiling to himself, all his senses, his nerves, his whole body sizzling with a particular excitement…alertness…expectancy He remembered it well, that feeling, though it had been a good long while since he'd experienced it.

The thrill of the chase.