by Diana Palmer
He searched her dark green eyes, dark with pain and the pleasure of looking at him. “Are you in love with me?” he asked suddenly, curtly.
She flushed, but she didn’t look away, “I’m infatuated,” she replied tightly. “Remember? Or maybe I just want an ermine coat and a sports car.”
He only smiled. “No, honey, not you. But if you did, you could have them.” His eyes narrowed, the amusement left his face. He looked surprised. “You could have almost anything you wanted, with no strings attached. All you’d ever have to do is ask.”
“I’ve got everything I need,” she lied. Without him she’d be poor all her life.
“I haven’t,” he murmured, his eyes sweeping over her body like a tangible caress, dark and hungry and bold. His chest rose and fell heavily, his jaw tautened. He turned away with a quick, graceful movement.
“That business meeting I mentioned was on the level,” he said shortly, turning at the doorway. For the first time, she noticed the handsome gray suit he was wearing, the delicately patterned silk tie that complemented it. “There aren’t any other women, Nikki. Not now.”
His tone implied that there would be, and she managed a faint smile. “Don’t work too hard.”
“I’ll check on you before I turn in. Genner can find me if he has to.” His eyes narrowed. “Honey, we can get a doctor...”
“Really, I’ll be fine,” she promised, touched by the very evident concern.
He nodded curtly, even though he didn’t seem convinced.
She was half-asleep when she heard her bedroom door open. The pain had subsided enough to let her drift off, and she was lying on her side with the sheet around her hips, to keep it away from her back. The cream Cal had smoothed over the burn earlier had taken most of the sting out of it, but the sheet was still abrasive.
She felt rather than saw someone at her side, and she opened her eyes drowsily.
“Hello,” she murmured sleepily, with a lazy smile as she saw Cal standing there in a black robe.
“Hello, yourself,” he replied. His eyes drank their fill of her small, high breasts and the bare curve of her waist before she came fully awake and realized that she was uncovered.
Her fingers reached to jerk up the sheet, but he sat down beside her, stalling the instinctive movement.
“No,” he said quietly.
She met his searching gaze levelly, shy with him as she’d never been before, faintly embarrassed at the newness of letting him look at her.
“You have lovely breasts,” he said gently, studying them.
Her breath came quickly, unsteadily. The room was dim, and the sound of the sea nearby was like a lullaby. Her own eyes went to Cal’s broad chest, clearly visible where the robe had fallen away. It was short, only midthigh, and as robes went, it was of little value as a cover. Almost all of his massive hair-roughened chest was visible, abrasively masculine with its rippling bronzed muscles. His broad thighs were barely covered, either, as dark as his chest and sprinkled with curling hair. Nikki had never wanted anything as much as she wanted to touch him. She burned with the hunger, so intent on the sight of him that she missed the narrow appraisal of his eyes.
He reached out and caught her hands, bringing them slowly to the single loop in the belt around his waist.
She looked up, the question, the hesitation, in her wide, pale eyes as time seemed to hang between them.
“You may be disappointed, Little Miss Curiosity,” he said with a flicker of humor in his dark eyes. “I’m pushing forty.”
While he spoke, he guided her hands, helping them to unfasten the robe. With a single, smooth motion he let it fall to the floor and watched her stunned, absorbed face with patient amusement.
Her eyes fell helplessly to the full, blatant masculinity of his big, powerfully muscled body. She couldn’t help staring. It was the first time she’d ever seen a man without clothes at this range, and Cal would have been devastating to an experienced woman. There wasn’t an ounce of flab anywhere. He had the conditioned physique of a professional athlete, all darkly tanned flesh and rippling, sensuous muscle under a rugged carpet of curling hair as dark as that on his head.
Her eyes ran over him, then back up to meet his quiet gaze. “I didn’t know that a man could be beautiful, until now,” she said in a hushed whisper.
His chest rose and fell heavily as he stared at her. “I’ve been called a lot of things in my time, but never that.”
She sat up, her fingers hesitantly, nervously, touching his shoulder, his chest where the dark hair made a wedge against the powerful muscles.
“Do you mind?” she asked breathlessly.
He shook his head, watching her closely. “Did you go this far with him?”
“With Ralley?” she asked. She shook her head with a wan little smile. “Leda came along before he really wanted to that badly. And honestly, I never wanted to at all. I was never curious about him like this. I never ached to touch him...” She paused, realizing just how much she was confessing as her eyes levered back up to his.
“I’ll let you touch me any way you want to,” he said in a deep, husky whisper. His eyes darkened. “But I’m not superhuman, and I do want you like hell. If things get out of hand...”
She leaned forward, touching her mouth very gently to his as her hands eased down his massive body and she felt the tremor that rippled under her hands.
“Nikki...” he ground out, catching her wandering hands to press them roughly, possessively, against his body and she gasped at the urgency in the motion.
Her eyes opened, looking straight into his, reading the tearing hunger that shadowed them.
“I want to,” she whispered shakily. “I want to please you. I want to lie in your arms and feel your body against every inch of me.”
“You sweet little fool, you don’t even know how to take precautions, do you?” he growled unsteadily, even as he lowered himself onto his back, bringing her down with him. “I hope to God I can keep my head long enough... Come here, Nikki. If you want me, show me how much.”
She let her body melt down against his, her soft breasts crushing onto his hard, hair-matted chest, gasping at the sweetness of the contact as she ran her hands through the cool, dark hair at his temples.
“Don’t let me hurt you,” he murmured as his hands traveled gently down her back to her hips and eased them fully over his.
“Cal...!” she gasped, stiffening.
His smile was fully male, predatory, his eyes narrowed with calculating amusement. “And this is only the beginning.” He laughed softly. “Kiss me, Nikki.”
With a soft moan she burrowed her mouth into his, trembling at the feel of his warm, hard fingers brushing gentle patterns on her tender back, her legs, the inside of her thighs, as he deepened the kiss sensually and made of it something erotic beyond words.
He eased her onto her side so that his mouth could smooth the skin of her throat, could take full, aching possession of her taut breasts in the thick silence of the room—a silence broken sporadically by the rasp of skin against skin, by the sharp, shocked little cries that tore out of her throat.
Time seemed to throb into oblivion as he roused her to a point beyond bearing, whispering urgently, coaxing, guiding her until she could feel the tremors racking her body echoed back by his.
“Now,” he whispered roughly, lifting her over him with hands that were at once gentle and urgent. “This is what...making love...is,” he ground out, and as his mouth took hers, she heard a strange, sweet cry echo in her mind while the world spun golden floss as it whirled away into the throbbing darkness...
Dawn was filtering in through the blinds when she opened her eyes and realized where she was. Her head was pillowed on a man’s warm shoulder, and she could see the wall across a broad, bronzed chest covered with curling black hair.
Her fingers tangled idly in that c
arpet above a deep, regular heartbeat, and she smiled, shifting her pleasantly aching body with a feline grace.
Her eyes traced the broad masculine face so close to hers, lingering on the imposing nose, the chiseled mouth, the faint shadow of beard on his square jaw. He was good to look at, to lie with. Her cheek gently nuzzled against his shoulder as she drank in the masculine scent of his body that mingled with the remnants of his expensive cologne.
I love you, she thought, looking at him. I love you more than life, and if this is all I can ever have with you, it will be enough. I’ll cradle the memory of the night in my mind like a lighted candle, and on lonely nights, I’ll take it out and unwrap it and live it all over again. I’ll live on loving you until the day I die...
His eyes were suddenly open, watching her. “Good morning,” she said hesitantly.
His fingers touched her mouth. “Come here and do it properly,” he murmured, smiling. She moved, letting her body fit into the now-familiar contours of his. She smiled under his hungry mouth.
“Better?” she teased.
“Much better.” He traced the straight line of her nose and smiled into her soft eyes. “How’s your back?”
“It doesn’t feel blistered anymore,” she admitted.
“How about the rest of you?” he murmured.
Her fingers tangled in his thick, dark hair. “The rest of me never felt better,” she whispered, leaning forward to brush her mouth against his. “I never dreamed it would be like that,” she breathed.
He chuckled deeply. “How did you think it would be?”
She shrugged, nuzzling closer. “I thought it would hurt,” she said honestly.
“It depends on the man, my love,” he murmured at her ear, “and whether he cares enough about his woman not to hurt her.” His fingers tightened at the nape of her neck and he sighed roughly. “My God, you can’t imagine how it felt, Nikki,” he growled unsteadily. “To hear those wild, sweet little noises you made and to know while I was having you that I was the first man, the only man...” His arms hurt suddenly as he drew her breathlessly close. “There’s never been a night like that for me.”
“You... I know you’ve had women,” she murmured.
He drew back and looked down into her misty eyes. “I’ve never had a virgin, Nikki,” he admitted quietly. “So, you see, last night was a first for me, too.”
“Did I really please you?” she asked, her eyes telling him how important that was.
“Yes,” he replied. His finger traced the long, sweet line of her lips. “Couldn’t you tell, you repressed little thing?” he chuckled.
Her mind vaguely recalled a harsh groan, accompanied by the sound of her name being repeated like a litany while he shuddered uncontrollably under her own taut body. Her eyes closed and she nestled against him.
“Yes,” she breathed. “Oh yes, I could tell. I wanted to give you even more...”
He drew her close, and his mouth burned against hers in a long, sweet kiss that left her aching with new sensations, new hungers. She looked up at him, pleading.
“No,” he whispered, pressing a finger against her lips, and the smile had gone from his face. “By some miracle I managed to keep my head enough to protect you last night. But I want you even more this morning, and I’m fresh out of magic.”
“Would you hate it so much if I got pregnant?” she asked daringly.
His face darkened. He drew away from her and got out of bed, stretching his huge frame jerkily. “You’d better get some clothes on,” he said as he pulled on his robe. “We’re flying out about nine this morning.”
She sat up in bed, gaping at him. “But you said we’d be here at least—”
He rammed his hands in the pockets of his robe and glanced at her, his eyes hot and possessive on the unconscious nudity of her torso. “I only have so much in the way of self-control,” he ground out. “If we stay here another day...” He turned away, muttering a curse under his breath. “Don’t argue with me.”
She watched him until he disappeared into the bathroom. Her green eyes misted with unexpected tears. So it had only been a means to an end. He’d wanted her, so he’d brought her here to make it easier. She closed her eyes and chewed unconsciously on her lower lip as a wave of humiliation washed over her. He wouldn’t have forced her, she knew that even now. But she’d given in without a struggle, poor little green fish, and now there was nothing left in her that he wanted.
She dragged herself out of bed and began to get her clothes together. When he came out, she’d have a bath, she told herself, making the thoughts come mechanically. She’d pretend that nothing had happened; she wouldn’t ask for what he couldn’t give. Tears bled helplessly down her flushed cheeks. What a stupid fool she’d been!
CHAPTER SIX
NIKKI SHOWERED AND changed into a yellow sundress that left most of her back bare, a concession to the blistering that was still uncomfortable. With Cal she tried to pretend that nothing had happened, that things were the same as they had been the day before. But she didn’t realize how brittle her voice was, or how false the smile pasted on her lips looked.
“Nikki,” he began as they started to get into his small corporate jet, holding her back with a gentle hand, “I want to explain something to you.”
“You don’t need to,” she said with all the bravado she could muster. She even managed a smile. “These things happen. There had to be a first time for me. I’m just glad it was with you.”
“You’re making it sound cheap,” he ground out. His fingers tightened. “It wasn’t a one-night stand for me. Will you believe that?”
She shifted restlessly. “You told me at the very beginning that you didn’t want commitment,” she reminded him. “I haven’t asked for that, have I?”
He laughed bitterly, studying her wan face. “No, you haven’t asked for a damned thing,” he agreed curtly. “But I’ve cut you up pretty badly, haven’t I? You look like a ghost of the laughing woman I brought down here.”
She shrugged. “I’ll get over it.”
“Will you really?” His eyes cut into hers. “You’re in love with me.”
“Infatuation, remember, Mr. Tycoon?” she shot back, her cheeks flaming with sudden color. “I’ll outgrow it, you said.”
He moved a step closer, and just the warmth of his big body was intimidating, intoxicating. She felt herself beginning to sway toward him, hating her own helpless reaction.
He bent, letting his chiseled mouth stop barely an inch above hers. “Will you...outgrow it?” he whispered sensuously. “Come here, Nikki. Kiss me.”
With a muffled sob she reached up to drag his mouth down against hers. “Oh damn you, Cal,” she breathed into his demanding mouth as he kissed her roughly, hungrily, crushing her slenderness to him.
He was breathing heavily when he let her go, and his eyes were darkly blazing down at her. “I touch you and it’s the Fourth of July,” he said unsteadily. “Every sane thought goes out of my head, and I want nothing more from life than the brush of your body against mine in the darkness. What happened last night, I didn’t plan. But it wasn’t casual and it wasn’t cheap.” He drew in a deep, steadying breath, “I’m taking you home because I’ve got meetings I can’t cancel, and it’s impossible for me to think when you’re with me. I’m not walking away from you. I don’t even think that’s possible anymore.”
She stared up at him, dumbfounded, her eyes telling him everything she felt, without a word being spoken.
He traced her trembling mouth with a finger that wasn’t quite steady, his broad face somber and dark in the early-morning light. In the gray suit and dark blue tie he looked every inch the conservative businessman. Her fingers rested on his thin white silk shirt, through which the dark shadowy wedge of hair was faintly, sensuously visible. She remembered suddenly how it had felt under her fingers last night while he taught her how to tou
ch him...
“I think I’ll wither away from you,” she whispered achingly, her eyes searching his. “Like a flower out of the sun.”
His fingers caught her by the waist and held her in front of him lightly. “Don’t forget, we’ve got a date. Your birthday.”
She smiled half-heartedly. “I’ll be ready. But you don’t have to—”
“Haven’t you learned by now,” he murmured deeply, “that I don’t waste time doing things that don’t please me?”
She studied his dark face. “Do I please you?”
“What a ridiculous question. Get in the plane, you funny woman, before I leave you here.”
“Yes, Your Worship,” she murmured, dashing in ahead of him as his dark brows arched threateningly.
Genner sat in the jet while Cal walked Nikki toward the airport office so that she could call Mike to pick her up.
Her steps involuntarily dragged, her eyes glancing off the tall, massive figure beside her. She’d dreaded this moment ever since she’d fallen for Cal, dreaded the parting long before it came. And the hurt wasn’t lessened by knowing its inevitability.
He glanced down at her and his face seemed to harden. “It isn’t goodbye.”
“No, of course not,” she agreed with a weak smile.
“Your birthday is a week from Friday, isn’t it?” he asked quietly, and she nodded. “I’ll be here at five o’clock. Make a note and we’ll fly down to New Orleans for dinner. All right?”
Her poor crumpled heart lifted a little, and she managed a brighter smile for him. “I’ll look forward to it,” she said gently.
His eyes dropped to her mouth and lingered on it so intently that it made her lips part in response.
“I wish small towns weren’t hotbeds of gossip,” he said huskily. “I’d like to break your mouth open under mine and kiss you the way I did last night. I’d like to hold you so close that you could feel how hungry I am for you. And that might shock a few people.”
“I’m going to miss you,” she said without thinking.
“How do you think I feel, for God’s sake?” he ground out. His dark eyes glittered at her. “If I took you with me, we wouldn’t get out of the damned bed for a week. I’ve got too many irons in the fire to risk it right now, too many people depending on me for their jobs.”