by Diana Palmer
“Are you sculpting me?” he whispered softly.
She shook her head. “Just a low-budget safari,” she whispered gently. “It’s rugged territory, very dangerous.”
“It must be, the way you were touching it.” His big fingers speared through the hair at the sides of her head and tilted her face up. “Don’t ever be nervous about touching me,” he murmured, his eyes solemn.
“You don’t seem like the kind of man who’d enjoy it,” she said. “I mean, being touched by everyone.”
“I don’t,” he admitted. “But, Nikki, I like it very much when I’m making love to a woman,” he whispered at her lips, brushing across hers with his own in a slow, rocking, faintly sensuous motion while his big hands kept her face exactly where he wanted it. “I like being touched, and kissed, and...needed. Don’t you?”
She felt the slow, nibbling movements of his lips with an ache that sat up and wailed inside her, coaxing her arms to reach up and hold him, her lips to part and invite something rougher, something more satisfying than these maddening little tortures of kisses.
“What do you want?” he whispered in a low, tender tone, his voice sensuous with triumph, with pleasure.
She realized only then that she was reaching up on her tiptoes, trying to capture that warm, elusive mouth, her eyes narrowed to slits, her breath choking her.
“I want you to kiss the breath out of me,” she whispered back, the hunger in her voice, her eyes.
“I may do that,” he murmured as he wrapped her body up against his, parting her lips with a curt, hungry pressure. “And then I’ll put it back again...”
She was barely aware of the night sounds all around them, of the music drifting up from the patio, of anything except the feel of Cal’s big, hard-muscled body against hers, of the massive arms that were swallowing her.
She’d never felt this kind of hunger before, not with Ralley, not with any other man. It was new and devastating, and she wanted the kiss to go on forever, to never stop. All she wanted from life was the hard, warm hunger of that ardent mouth on her own, and the sweet ache it was kindling in her slender body.
His nose rubbed softly against hers as his mouth lifted to nibble at hers. “It isn’t enough, is it?” he whispered gruffly.
“No,” she murmured, only half-aware of what she was saying. Her fingers tangled in the thick hair at the nape of his broad neck. “Don’t stop...” she whispered into his mouth as she brought it back down on her own.
“I was hoping you might say that,” he murmured sensuously, and all at once he began to deepen the kiss past her shallow experience, to make of it an intimacy beyond any simple joining of two mouths. Nikki clung to him, moaning softly at the unexpected reserves of passion he was drawing from her with his expertise.
“What kind of men are you used to?” he asked in a tone that mingled amusement with impatience. “For God’s sake, don’t expect me to do it all.”
“Then, you’ll just have to teach me, Mr. Steel,” she whispered at his lips.
He drew back, staring down at her with narrowed eyes that blazed with unsatisfied desire. “Teach you?”
She sighed, watching his face grow even harder. “I hate to ask, but do you have some deep-seated fear of virgins?”
His chin lifted slightly and his hands contracted where they rested on her narrow waist. “You were engaged, you said,” he probed.
She nodded. “I was. But to a man I managed very easily to keep at arm’s length through the very few weeks before he ran away with my best friend.” She sighed softly, “I’m ashamed to say that I wasn’t even tempted.”
“You’re tempted with me,” he said. “More than tempted.”
She smiled. “Maybe I’m hoping that once I’ve got over that hurdle, you’ll discover that I’m irresistible and you can’t live without me.”
He released her with a jerky motion and turned away, ramming his hands into his pockets. “Nikki, the world lost all its color when I lost my daughter,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to get involved again. I don’t want children, and I don’t want a woman. Not in the way of loving. I’ve never met a woman I couldn’t walk away from. So let’s draw back and do some serious thinking before we take that irrevocable step, Nikki.” He turned, his eyes turbulent, and stared at her. “I’d hate to see you hurt,” he replied softly.
“Thanks so much for all your consideration,” she said with evident sarcasm, filled with hurt and disappointment. She was deliberately pushing him now, and she realized it, but she was somehow powerless to stop. All that monumental control of his, that cool, arrogant confidence, suddenly irritated her. She was offering herself to him—and he wanted to wait?
“Don’t do it, Nikki,” he warned quietly.
“Don’t do what?” she asked innocently. “Don’t presume to question you? Excuse me, I’m sure you aren’t used to people doing that, Mr. God Almighty Steel. You give the orders, don’t you?”
He moved toward her like a springing cat, so quickly that she didn’t even see him coming until his rough hands caught her upper arms and slammed her into the muscular wall of his body.
“You only want me so long as you can walk away when it’s over,” she said deliberately, tingling with apprehension and excitement.
“Nikki,” he said, and she watched the control snap, watched the dammed-up fury break loose and darken his eyes, tauten his broad face, knit his heavy brows together.
“What the hell kind of game are you playing?” he asked curtly. “What do you want from me? A commitment? I’m sorry. I’m not looking for emotional involvement of any kind. I’ve had all I can take of it and survive. Marriage is not in my vocabulary anymore.” He sighed roughly. “Nikki, I like being with you. I’d like to have an affair with you, even if only for a few days. But that’s all I have to offer, take it or leave it.”
She didn’t look at him. “I suppose all that talk about getting to know each other was part of the approach?” she murmured.
He shifted his gaze uncomfortably. “I didn’t want you to feel pressured. But I’m running out of time. I’ve talked the Jones Restaurant chain’s ownership into a merger with my hotels, and the new hotel’s off the ground at last. I don’t have any reason to stay down here. I’ve got work to do. I need to go back to Chicago.”
“Don’t let me stop you, Cal,” she said quietly. She still couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes as she refastened the ties he’d loosened on one shoulder.
“Shut up before you push me over the edge,” he added in a tight, angry tone.
“And if I do, what happens?” she breathed, her pale green eyes mirroring the excitement that was whirling like a small tornado inside her.
“You know,” he ground out, bending. “Damn you, you know...!”
Her mouth ached under the rough assault of his, and the hunger of it was a pleasure beyond fathoming. His hands moved, stripping her against every hard, warm curve of his big body from her thighs to her breasts, making her feel every inch of him, the warmth, the power of him.
Her fingers tangled in his dark hair, holding his mouth over hers even though it showed no sign of ever wanting to be free. Her mouth opened, tempted, teased his, deepening the kiss shyly until he caught her head in his hands and she felt the expert penetration of his mouth in ardent response.
His teeth nipped her lower lip as he drew away, breathing roughly, his eyes dark and narrow. “Do you want me?” he asked curtly. “Because I’m not a boy, and I don’t play juvenile games. For me it doesn’t end at foreplay anymore. Another minute of this and you’ll sleep with me, because we’re both human and we want it too much. Now, do I stop while I still can, or do I start stripping you?”
She sobered, like a drunk thrown headfirst into a snowbank. She drew away from him with her eyes lowered, her face paling.
He drew in his breath heavily, like a man who’d been runn
ing. Nikki couldn’t meet those accusing dark eyes; she didn’t try. She felt as nervous as a child taking a shot, and her heart hurt her with its desperate beat.
“You can make me want you, that’s very obvious. But so can a dozen other women. I’m not impotent,” he said in a voice that made her feel two inches tall.
She folded her arms across her breasts and stared down at the floor. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It was a stupid thing to do.”
“At least we agree about that,” he muttered. He lit another cigarette. She hadn’t seen him smoke that much in the time they’d known each other. She had a feeling it was something he did when he was angry or upset. He seemed to be both right now.
“I, uh, I think I’ll go to bed,” she said, feeling acutely embarrassed by her own behavior. She turned to go inside, but he didn’t try to stop her, or say a word. He hadn’t moved when she closed the door.
* * *
SHE SLEPT FITFULLY, awaking the next morning with a headache and a sore heart. She didn’t know how she was going to face Cal after the spectacle she’d made of herself last night. She still couldn’t understand why she’d pushed him that far, unless it had been hurt pride. No, that wasn’t all it was, she admitted quietly to herself. It was his refusal to get involved, to commit himself, that had caused her to react that way. She’d wanted more than he was prepared to give, and something inside her had wanted to prove to him that he wasn’t immune to her as a woman. She laughed under her breath as she put on white slacks and a matching tank top. No, he wasn’t immune to her physically, that was for sure. But what she wanted was the kind of feeling she had for him, the need to be with and comfort and give...
She stepped into her low-heeled beach sandals and barely paused to run a brush through her hair before she squared her shoulders and went into the sitting room. She hadn’t bothered with makeup, and she didn’t care. Cal wouldn’t notice. He’d probably send her home this morning, anyway, and she was half hoping he would.
It was nine o’clock, and she’d imagined that he was still in his staff meeting, but when she went out into the sitting room, he called to her from the balcony.
Her heart shifted nervously at his deep voice, but she walked calmly through the sliding door with none of her apprehension showing.
A lavish breakfast was spread out on the wrought iron table. Cal was buttering a biscuit over a plate dotted with eggs, sausage, ham and grits.
“I heard you stirring around, so I had breakfast sent up,” he said as nonchalantly as if nothing at all had happened last night. “Coffee’s in the pot. Help yourself.”
She sat down and automatically poured herself a cup, lacing it with cream and a spoonful of sugar. She took a piece of toast, but no eggs or meat, an omission he noticed immediately.
“Not eating won’t make it go away,” he said shortly. “We’re not going to talk about last night, now or ever. It didn’t happen. Eat your breakfast and we’ll go down to the aquarium and watch the dolphins perform.”
“I thought you came down here on business,” she murmured quietly.
“I did,” he growled. He looked up from his plate. “But right now I think I’d do anything to see the light back in your eyes again.”
“I just didn’t sleep very well,” she said.
He reached across the table and caught her hand in his, swallowing it in a warm, possessive clasp.
“Shall I be blunt?” he asked gently. “Nikki, what you feel is a mild case of infatuation.”
She went red from her hairline to her chin, but she met his eyes bravely. “I didn’t realize it showed,” she said unsteadily.
“I read you very well, Miss Blake,” he replied, and his voice was kind. “Nor am I blind. You aren’t old enough to build fences around your emotions to hide them. Especially with me. Nikki, you run to me, haven’t you ever noticed?” His face clouded. “I’m trying to be as gentle as I can, but I’m hurting, and I can’t help it. I want you to understand that it’s only the newness of it—I’m simply that, a new experience. Once that edge blunts down, we can be friends. But until it does, you’re going to have to keep from putting temptation in my path. I do want you very much, despite everything.”
She didn’t care about the dolphins, or sightseeing, or breakfast. Her blank eyes met his.
“If you don’t mind terribly,” she said in a ghost of her normal voice, “I think I’ll go home.”
His fork was halfway to his mouth. It never made it. He put it back down and leaned forward on his forearms with a heavy sigh, studying her with unnerving precision.
“I wanted you, too,” he said gruffly. “I still do. My God, I ache to my heels every time you walk around the room, but, Nikki...damn it!” He shot back the chair and got to his feet, jerking around to grasp the balcony rail and stare down at the crowded beach. “Nikki, you’re not ready for that kind of relationship with a man. Not yet, not with me. Men build houses for women like you. They sweat blood to make a decent living, and they look forward to children playing in a fenced-in yard out back somewhere. I’ve had that. But you haven’t. The way you live, where you live, is a world apart from mine. I like my women experienced and unemotional, because an affair is all I want to offer. But the kind of man you’ll marry one day isn’t going to want that kind of woman, and you know it. He’ll want something untouched. A vibrant, happy young woman with a sunny disposition and a body that she’ll give to him first, last and always.” He stared at his big hands on the railing and sighed. “Honestly, the thought of fathering another child terrifies me,” he said. It was in his voice, in those few words: the fear of caring deeply, the fear of losing another child, of losing a woman he loved. He’d chosen the simplest solution.
He wouldn’t love again. That way he couldn’t be hurt.
She felt the same pain, but for a different reason. He knew she cared for him. That was frankly embarrassing. But at least they were taking care of all the obstacles at once. Perhaps friendship was better than nothing. She’d be with him; she’d get to know him. In time the ache might even be manageable. And in the meantime she could make his loneliness bearable for him; she could erase some of those hard, hurting lines in his face. She could...take care of him.
She stood up and moved to join him, watching the blue water wash lazily up on the beach in white foam.
She nudged against him playfully. “I thought we were going to see the dolphins,” she murmured. “If you’re going to stand here and leer at half-naked women on the beach, I’ll go by myself.”
He glanced down at her. Miraculously all the hard, deep lines that had been cut into his face began to relax, to give way before a whisper of a grin.
She smiled to herself. It was good to see those melancholy eyes light up. Even if it was only laughter, and not love, that was the cause.
* * *
THE HUGE SEA WORLD complex was like a small dose of marine biology, fascinating to Nikki, who’d never been in one before. She went from tank to tank, staring wide-eyed behind thick glass at huge sea turtles, sharks and a variety of colorful, fascinating creatures, which included dolphins and a baby whale.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” she whispered, watching the sleek, elegant dolphins slice through the water. “But how terrible to keep them confined like this, to deny them the freedom of the ocean.”
“Is anything ever free, Nikki—even people?” Cal asked from beside her, his dark eyes narrow and brooding.
“Not completely,” she agreed. “But I do hate cages. I hate zoos more than anything in the world.”
“Most of the animals that live in them grew up there,” he reminded her. “It’s the only environment they know. Put them back in the wild and they’d starve, if civilization didn’t get them first. Wildlife is dwindling, honey. Haven’t you noticed? We’re paving it out of existence.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she said quietly. “I don’t know. I only k
now how I’d feel if someone locked me up and wouldn’t let me go where I pleased. Even if it was in the name of protection.”
“Marriage is a kind of prison,” he remarked.
“With the wrong person, yes, it must be,” she agreed, her mind idly going to Ralley and the unpleasant prospect of the marriage fate had spared her. “But there are happy marriages.”
He laughed cynically. “When you put a rich man and a poor woman together, perhaps, so long as she’s stacked and—”
Nikki turned on her heel and walked toward the steps that led up to the big tank where the dolphins were scheduled to perform any minute.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Cal said tightly, catching her arm as he followed her up the steps.
“You warned me at the beginning that you don’t pull your punches,” she said quietly, “I’m not that sensitive.”
“Then why did you walk away from me?”
She made an odd gesture with her shoulders, shrugging off the slight wound she wasn’t going to let him see. “Oh, look,” she enthused as they joined the crowd around the tank. Two dolphins leaped into the air in unison to take fish from the outstretched hands of a trainer on a high platform.
Nikki’s eyes watched them as they went back under the water and swam feverishly side by side, to jump up and rush backward on their tails. Their faces seemed to wear an eternal smile.
“I’m sorry I don’t live near the ocean,” she murmured under the applause of the other tourists, “I’d love to learn more about dolphins and whales. I’ve never missed a Jacques Cousteau special yet.”
“Intelligent creatures,” Cal agreed, following her fascinated gaze to the black-and-white baby whale opening its huge mouth to receive a fish. “Have you ever heard the recordings of whale songs?”
She nodded, smiling. “Haunting. Beautiful. Like a symphony without music. Did you know that dolphins may be more intelligent than we are?” she added with a grin.