Her gaze fell to the neckline of his sweater. "Should I apologize for my inexperience?" The challenge was a little angry, a little hurt and a little defiant.
"How old are you?" His fingers dug into the flesh of her shoulders.
"Twenty-two," she answered stiffly.
"My God, where have you been all your life? In a convent?" Brock was dryly incredulous and mocking. "Twenty-year-old virgins went out with hula hoops."
His remark ignited her temper. "It's too bad if you think I'm an oddity. My father's skiing accident left him almost completely paralyzed. I had to feed him, bathe him, dress him, read to him, do everything for him, for five years. Daddy never complained for himself, but he used to cry because I didn't go out and have fun. Perry took care of him whenever he was home, but he never knew when an emergency would come up and he'd have to go to the inn. I dated now and then." She was angry and didn't attempt to conceal it. "But who wants to get serious about someone with a sick father? We couldn't afford to hire anyone to take care of him full time. I'm not complaining about those five years. I don't regret a single one of them, because they brought me closer to my father than I'd ever been. So you can make fun of me if you want—"
He covered her mouth with two fingers to check the indignant tirade. His chiseled male features were etched in sober lines. "I'm not making fun of you." He traced the outline of her mouth and became absorbed with the shape of it. Her anger vanished as if it had never been. "It's simply rare to meet someone with your passionate nature who hasn't been around. It doesn't change anything." His gaze lifted to catch her look and hold it. The dark silver glitter of his eyes dazzled her. "I'm going to keep trying to get you into bed. Knowing I would be the first just makes you a prize I'm more determined to have."
Very slightly, his fingers tilted her chin. Then his mouth closed onto hers in consummation of his promise. A fluttering surge of desire rose within her, like a slow-burning flame fanned to burn hotter.
Brock gathered her into his arms, unhurriedly, arching her backward, his hips pinning her to the counter. The wayward caress of his hands was keenly pleasurable. He shifted his attention to the pulse quivering so wildly in her throat.
"Whose sweat shirt is this?" he muttered when a hand became tangled in the loose folds.
"Perry's." It was a husky admission, shattered by her vivid awareness of his stark masculinity.
"This has got to go." He pulled at a shoulder inseam, saying the words against her neck, punctuating them with kisses. "From now on, if you wear a man's clothes, they're going to be mine."
"Whatever you say," she whispered with a throbbing ache in her voice, boneless and pliant in his arms, her forehead resting weakly against his shoulder while he rained havoc on the sensitive skin of her neck and throat.
"You know what I say." Brock seized on the submissive response, his tone fiercely low and urgent. "I've been saying it every time I looked at you or touched you. I want to make love to you—here and now. You have both feet on the floor. What do you want?"
But it wasn't that simple. Not for Stephanie. Not even with the twisting, churning rawness knotting her insides. The awful confusion kept her from answering him, but he must have felt her stillness and chose not to press the point. Instead he loosened his arms, letting his hands move in a series of restless caresses over her shoulders.
"I've postponed everything until after lunch so we could spend the morning together," he informed her in a slightly thick voice. "But there isn't any way I'm going to be able to stay in this house alone with you and not…" He took a deep breath and released her entirely. "We'd better go for a drive somewhere. At least with my hands on the steering wheel, I'll be able to keep them off you. Go and change, fix yourself up—whatever you want to do. I'll wait for you down here."
Stephanie looked at him, reluctant to agree to his suggestion, but his gray eyes warned her not to protest unless she was willing to accept the alternative. That was something that still confused her.
"I'll only be a few moments," she promised.
Chapter Five
THE ROADS were crowded with the cars of tourists, eager to see the spectacle of the autumn foliage and catch a glimpse of the lore that personified Yankee New England—wooden covered bridges, white church steeples, antique shops, and village squares. The route Brock took became less a planned drive and more a matter of choosing a path with the least resistance.
Stephanie relaxed in the contours of velour-covered seats, enveloped in the luxury of the blue Mercedes. The radio was turned low, its four speakers surrounding her with the serene sounds of the music. A riot of color exploded outside the window: reds and yellows against the backdrop of dark green pine forests climbing the slopes of the White Mountains, and a crisp blue sky.
Traffic thinned in the lane ahead of them as Brock made the turn that would take them on the road south through Franconia Notch. An outcropping of granite loomed into view, and a contented smile curved Stephanie's mouth when she saw it.
"There's my friend," she murmured, unconsciously breaking the companionable silence.
"Which one?" Brock's gaze narrowed on the rear view mirror, trying to identify which of the cars they had passed that had contained her friend.
"Not that kind of friend." Her smile broadened as she pointed. "Him. The old man of the mountains." She gazed at the jagged profile Mother Nature had carved into the granite millennia ago. "I used to make up stories about him when I was a child—the way some kids do about the man in the moon, I suppose."
"If he's my only competition, I've got it made." Brock sent her a sidelong glance that was warm and desiring, beneath its teasing glitter.
"At least your heart isn't made of stone like his." They had passed the granite profile, immortalized so long ago by Nathaniel Hawthorne in his classic "The Great Stone Face." Stephanie settled back into her seat again, letting her gaze roam to Brock's profile, much more virilely alive and vigorous. Just to look at him made her feel warm. "When I was little, I was certain there was a way that I could make him come to life, some magic I could perform the way the fairy godmothers did with their enchanted wands. And he would tell me all the secrets of the world." She laughed softly at her whimsy.
"Now?" Brock sounded curious, speculative.
Stephanie shrugged. "I grew up, I guess."
"No. All you have to do is touch me and I come to life." His low delivery was heavy with its sexy intonation, repeated by the languid yet serious gleam of his look. "I can prove it whenever you want."
Swallowing, Stephanie glanced away, feeling the feverish rise of heat in her veins. Her gaze made a restless sweep outside the window at the passing scenery, seeking escape without wanting to find it. The interior of the luxury car seemed suddenly very small and intimate. The click of the turning signals startled her, pulling her gaze to Brock.
"I think we could both use some air," he offered by way of explanation.
Before they reached the end of the mountain pass, he turned off and parked at the visitors' lot to the flume. When he switched off the motor, Stephanie opened the passenger door, not waiting for him to walk around the car to do it for her. The invigorating briskness of the autumn air immediately cleared her head, freeing her senses to notice other things around her.
As she waited for Brock to join her, she zipped the front of her Eisenhower jacket—a combination of dyed white and gray rabbit fur and tan leather. The legs of her deep burgundy corduroys were tucked into her high boots. The short jacket added to her clean-limbed look. The air was cool enough to turn her breath into a frosty vapor.
When Brock reached automatically for her bare hand, she automatically placed it in his, the warmth and firmness of his grip filling her with a pleasant sensation of belonging. He crooked her a faint smile before setting off to join the band of tourists lining up to get on the bus that would take them to the flume.
The endless chatter of the tourists negated the need for them to talk. Stephanie didn't mind. It left her free to savor
the sensation of being squeezed close to Brock on the bus seat so a third passenger would have a place to sit.
His arm was around her, her shoulder resting against the unbuttoned front of his parka; the muscled length of his thigh and hip imprinted on her own. There was safety in the knowledge that she was surrounded by people, allowing her to simply enjoy the closeness with the temptation removed to take it to a more intimate degree.
As the bus slowed in approach of their destination, Brock murmured in her ear, "If you turn out to be a damned tease, I'm going to wring your lovely neck—after I take a bite of it."
Her head pivoted sharply in alarm. She looked up, relieved to see he was smiling. The remark had been aimed to let her know he was deriving his own kind of pleasure from having her body crashed to his side. He lightly brushed his lips across the wing of her eyebrow in a fleeting kiss.
An older woman behind them twittered in a whisper to her companion. "Isn't it wonderful a pair of lovers!" Which deepened the corners of Brock's mouth without curving them. Stephanie glanced to the front, feeling a little self-conscious.
When the bus stopped to let them out, neither of them rushed to join the mass exodus. They let the other tourists hurry on ahead of them while they followed more slowly. Stephanie wasn't as comfortable with the silence between them as she had been. When Brock removed his hand from the back of her waist to button the middle buttons of his coat, she paused with him. Ahead was the railed boardwalk winding through the cool shadows of the gorge.
"It's really better to come here in the summer when it's hot," she said to fill the silence. "Then you can appreciate the coolness and the shade."
"If you want to get warm, just let me know. I'll only be too happy to oblige." When her gaze fell under the lazily suggestive regard of his, he reached out to lace his fingers through her chestnut hair, pulling her toward him and lightly stroking her cheek and his other hand. He smiled gently. "You don't know how to handle all this sexual bantering, do you?"
"I've never been with anyone…who alludes to it as constantly as you do," she admitted, trying not to be embarrassed.
"I'm just saying what's on my mind," Brock stated, gazing deep into her blue eyes. "On my mind every time I'm near you." The vibrancy of his low voice caught at her breath, cutting it off in her throat. "Does that disturb you?"
"Yes."
"I'm glad." It was said gently, his mouth swooping down to feel the coolness of her lips against his own. Straightening, Brock took his hand away and wrapped an arm around her shoulders to turn her toward the boardwalk.
They entered the deep ravine in silence, walking side by side until the boardwalk narrowed and Stephanie moved ahead. On both sides of them, a sheer rock wall towered upward to seventy feet in the air. Moss grew thickly on the moist rock, hugging the striated crevices. In the spring and summer, delicate and rare mountain flowers blossomed in the shadowy darkness of the gorge.
A laughing stream tumbled over the rock bed running alongside and below the boardwalk. The long chasm was carved by nature and the swift waters of the Pemigewasset River, centuries before the glaciers of the Ice Age moved across the land.
The cool temperature and the high humidity combined to pierce the bones with a chilling dampness. Stephanie shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her jacket to protect them from the numbing cold. They strolled along the boardwalk that twisted and curved with the ravine. Red and gold leaves swirled downward from the trees high overhead to float in the little stream like colorful toy boats.
Stephanie paused near the end of the flume where the boardwalk made a right angle turn with the gorge. Leaning against the railing, she gazed down at the stream. A sodden group of leaves had formed a miniature dam, but the rushing water had found a spillway at one end and was fast eroding the fragile blockage.
"It's peaceful here, isn't it?" She glanced at Brock, standing beside her, leaning a hand on the railing, but it was she who had his undivided attention.
"Have dinner with me tonight, Stephanie," he said. "Just the two of us. In my suite—with wine, candlelight and soft music. I'll hire a car and send Helen wherever the hell she wants to go—Boston, New York, Rome. We'll have the whole night and top it off with breakfast in bed tomorrow morning."
Stephanie made to move away from him, but Brock blocked the attempt, shifting his position to trap her to the rail, a hand on either side of her. "I met you less than twenty-four hours ago," she reasoned helplessly.
When he began brushing kisses over her neck and cheek, Stephanie didn't resist this persuasive tactic of a master. She was conscious of the warmth of his breath and coolness of his mouth against her skin, making her tingle with awareness.
"Pretend that when we met yesterday afternoon, it was two weeks ago. Dinner was a week ago and this morning was yesterday. Time is something I don't have in quantity. We have to make the most of what's available, not waste it on all these needless preliminaries," Brock murmured. "Stay with me. We'll have all night to get to know each other—in every way there is."
She shuddered with exquisite longing and drew back, tossing her head in a wary kind of defiance. "You don't understand, Brock." Her voice was tight and soft. "I want to be more than a virgin you slept with one October in New Hampshire."
His look became stony as he straightened from the railing. "All right," he said grimly. "Forget about tonight." His balled fists sought the pockets of his jacket, facing her with nearly a foot between them. "I have to leave shortly after noon tomorrow. What are you doing in the morning?"
The question caught Stephanie off guard. "I…I usually go to church."
The muscles along his jawline tautened, flexing in suppressed anger. There was a bleakness in his gray eyes that chilled her with its wintry blast. "I suppose you're going to ask me to come with you. My God, Stephanie, I'd be sitting in that pew lusting after you," he expelled the words in a rush of hot anger. "Please, spare me the hypocrisy of that!"
Her mouth opened but she couldn't find anything to say. His hand snaked out to grab her elbow and propel her along the boardwalk. The serenely quiet and peaceful ravine suddenly became rife with raw tension.
Not a word was exchanged until they had returned to the car and Brock started the motor. "Will I see you before you leave?" Stephanie risked a glance at his forbidding profile as she asked the subdued question.
"Not tonight. I haven't got that kind of control."
He didn't even look at her as he reversed out of the parking space. Before he turned onto the road, he let the car idle and glanced at her. There was a softening in the hardness of his expression—a surfacing patience that was reluctant.
"We'll get together in the morning…before church. In the meantimes—" he pushed back the sleeve of his parka to see his watch "—it's time I was back at the inn. Perry and I have an appointment to meet the architect at one."
At the farmhouse, Brock didn't bother to get out of the car. When he looked at her, not moving, Stephanie leaned across the seat to kiss him. His hands didn't touch her and his response to the contact of her lips was severely checked, barely warm.
Vaguely dejected, Stephanie walked to the house and paused at the door of the two-story brick structure to watch Brock drive away. She didn't really blame him for his attitude, but she knew that hers was not without justification, too.
ON SUNDAY morning, Stephanie awakened earlier than usual. Since Brock hadn't given her any indication when he might call or come, she didn't take the chance of being caught unaware. She was dressed complete with makeup when she went downstairs to make coffee and get the Sunday newspaper the paperboy had delivered to their doorstep.
Before she drank her second cup of coffee, she was on pins and needles waiting for the phone to ring or the sound of a car driving up the lane. All the while the knowledge that Brock would be leaving at noon and she didn't have any idea when he would come back kept preying on her mind. A noise in the living room sent her rushing out of the kitchen, certain she had missed hearing Brock's
car, but it was a bleary-eyed Perry who had caused the sound.
"Brrr, it's cold in here! Why haven't you started the fire?" he grumbled, and shivered in his corduroy robe. His hair was mussed from the night's sleep and a pair of old slippers covered his large feet as he moved tiredly toward the Count Rumford fireplace. "You're up and dressed very early this morning. How come?" He waved aside the question, kneeling to set dried logs on the grate. "I remember. You told me at supper that Brock was supposed to come over this morning."
"Yes, he is." While her brother got the fire going, Stephanie walked to the front window to look out. "You were late coming home last night."
"I know. I hope you have the coffee made," he sighed. "Is the Sunday paper here yet?" The fire was crackling merrily in the fireplace, already chasing out the chill in the room.
"Yes, to both. I'll bring them to you," she volunteered, and retraced her steps to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee for her brother and bring him the newspaper.
When she returned, he was stretched out in his favorite armchair, his feet on the footstool, his eyes closed. She set his coffee on the lampstand beside him and dropped the paper on his lap. Perry stirred, slowly opening one eye and yawning.
"Why didn't you sleep longer?" Stephanie chided. "There wasn't any reason for you to get up this early." Sundays were, theoretically, his days off, except in the winter, but he usually stopped by the inn in the afternoons.
"I'm really bushed," he admitted. "But I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep."
While he sipped at the steaming hot coffee, Stephanie wandered to the hooked rug covering the wide floorboards in front of the fireplace. The living room was large and open, with exposed beams and hand-planed wainscoting. The sliding glass doors were decorated with October frost, partially concealing the hills rising behind the house.
"I always think I'm doing well until I come away from a meeting with Brock." Which was where Perry had been the night before until well after midnight. "Now, I feel drained and empty. He's like a sponge, absorbing everything I know out of my brain and asking endless questions," he sighed.
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