A Love Like This

by Diana Palmer

  “She will at that,” he agreed. “Well, good night.”

  “Good night,” King replied.

  Bobby left, and a minute later the car roared angrily down the driveway.

  “They don’t seem ideally suited, do they?” Elissa asked quietly, watching the taillights disappear among the palms.

  “They used to be,” King replied. “When times were hard, they were always together, doing simple things like window-shopping or just walking. Then, when the money started coming in, Bess was like a kid in a candy shop. She had to have all kinds of expensive things.” He sighed. “And Bobby wanted her to have them. He worked harder and harder to give them to her, but it kept him away from home a lot. When the oil market fell, he went into partnership in a small construction firm back home.”

  He paused, as if thinking, then continued pensively, “Bobby’s always felt obliged to compete with me. In recent years, he’s tried even harder. That means Bess spends too much time alone, and she isn’t the kind of woman who can just sit. She isn’t even domestic. Too bad she and Bobby never wanted children.”

  He turned, missing Elissa’s sharp glance. Didn’t he know that Bess was just hiding what she really wanted? Elissa was sure that the other woman did want children, very much. He poured himself another Scotch. “Want another?” he asked as an afterthought.

  She nodded. “Yes, thanks. Why does he want to compete with you?”

  “It’s the way he’s made, I guess. The second brother isn’t going to be second best. He’s twenty-eight now, and I think he wants to best me financially before he gets to be my age.” He poured Elissa’s drink before he opened the sliding doors to the beach. He stood there, tall and unapproachable, the breeze running like fingers through his thick black hair as he watched the surf crash white and frothy onto the hard-packed sand beyond the patio. “He doesn’t like the fact that his father allowed me to inherit,” he added. “His father and I got along pretty well—in a business sense at least—and I think Bobby somehow felt threatened by that.”

  “He’s your half brother, of course,” she said hesitantly, remembering how little King liked to talk about personal matters.

  “That’s right.” He lifted his glass to his lips with a bitter smile. “He’s not a duke’s mixture—didn’t you notice?”

  She glared at him. “Neither are you,” she snapped. “You’re part Apache, which is something else entirely.”

  He cocked an amused eyebrow at her. “Thank you for clarifying the situation for me,” he murmured drily, and he went back to contemplating the outside world.

  For a few minutes they sipped their drinks in silence, and Elissa wondered at the sense of freedom the liquor gave her. She hadn’t had more than a small glass of wine in a long time. But the vodka seemed to be doing strange things to her, making her extremely aware of King, diluting her inhibitions. She felt light-headed. Reckless. Her body burned with new temptations. She put down the empty glass, and her hand seemed to move in slow motion. King was close to finishing his drink, too. Was it his third? She couldn’t keep track. Bess had gotten to him, all right. Elissa wondered if he was completely sober.

  “Do you have other family?” she asked after a minute, joining him in the doorway.

  “Bobby’s father died some years back. Our mother is in a nursing home,” he added simply. “Alzheimer’s disease. We visit her, but she doesn’t know us anymore.”

  “How terrible for you. And for her.”

  “It is that,” he agreed. He took a long swallow. “I don’t know about my own father. He got sick of my mother’s rich friends and left us when I was just a boy.” He studied his glass. “He was from New Mexico, but he worked on oil rigs in Oklahoma. That’s where he met my mother.” He glanced at her. “She was blonde and blue-eyed, like Bobby, and she loved the good life. Money was everything to her. My father had simpler tastes.”

  “I wouldn’t have asked,” she replied quietly. It startled her that he was willing to share such a personal thing with her. Either he was extremely upset by Bess, or the alcohol was affecting him.

  She stared at his shirt where he’d unbuttoned it and removed his tie. Against the white fabric, his skin looked even darker than usual. Her eyes were drawn to the thick mesh of hair over hard, bronzed muscle.

  As if he sensed that rapt stare, he turned toward her and his eyes caught hers. He didn’t look away. While her heart went wild, with deliberate slowness he tossed away the cigarette he’d just lit and took a step toward her, bringing her totally against him, so that her breasts touched his chest where his shirt was open. She wasn’t wearing anything under the jumpsuit, and she could feel her nipples harden at the contact with him. Tensing away from him, she wondered uncomfortably if he felt them, too.

  “Anything sexual disturbs you, doesn’t it?” he asked softly, well aware of the tension in her body. “Well, I’m safe—you said so yourself. So why don’t you cut your teeth on me?”

  “I can’t!” she gasped. He had her with her back to the sliding glass door, so that she was trapped between its coldness and his warmth, her breasts wildly sensitive against his hard chest.

  “Shh,” he whispered at her temple. “Don’t panic. I won’t hurt you.” He smiled softly. The drinks had done the trick; he was finally feeling relaxed and slightly muddled, which was a relief from all the heavy thinking he’d had to do lately. He couldn’t have Bess, he reasoned now, but Elissa was fair game, wasn’t she? Shy and virginal—how tempting to a man. What would it hurt to give her a little experience? He cared about her, in a way. And who better to deal with her repressions? She’d almost admitted earlier that she’d let him.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked in a high-pitched tone. Her fingers started to push him away, but when her hands encountered warm, hair-roughened skin, they stopped struggling and flattened against him. She realized she didn’t feel like resisting, anyway. The alcohol had done something to her willpower. She felt more like relaxing against King than fighting him; his proximity was having a throbbing effect on her body.

  “Because I need something to occupy me, to keep me out of trouble. So you’re going to be my hobby,” he said.

  “I don’t want to be your hobby,” she protested weakly. Her legs felt trembly.

  “I was yours at the beginning,” he reminded her. “You’ve no one to blame but yourself.”

  “That was different. You were repressed,” she said defensively. He was too close. She was inhaling the tangy, clean scent of him, and it was intoxicating her more than the vodka had. His bared chest was hard under her fingers, and between seeing him and smelling him and feeling him, she was adrift on sensation, her heart pounding. All that devastating masculinity, so close.

  “I was repressed?” he asked with an amused smile.

  “You were all alone,” she said quietly, avoiding his eyes. “I felt sorry for you. I was alone, too. I... Well, I thought it would be nice to have a friend.”

  “You had Warchief,” he pointed out, grinning. “Speaking of Warchief...” He glanced around. The big parrot was on his perch ring, one foot drawn up, his eyes closed. “Unusual, his going to sleep without being covered. Is that antibiotic working, do you think?”

  “He isn’t sneezing or rasping,” she said, grateful for the change of subject. “He’s better. He’s just sleepy. He always goes to sleep at dusk, when you’re not around.” She grinned. “He’s in love with you.”

  “I think he’s a she,” he laughed. Then he turned his attention back to her, looking down at the bodice of her jumpsuit with narrowing eyes. He moved experimentally, rubbing his chest against her, and she gasped at the sudden, sharp pleasure the friction produced.

  She flushed to the roots of her long dark hair. “King!”

  “Shocking, isn’t it?” he asked, lifting his narrow gaze to hers.

  Her eyes searched his, curiosity momentarily displacing her ne
rvousness at this new intimacy.

  His gaze held hers while the hands at her waist began to move her in a sensuous circle against his hard, warm chest.

  The only sounds she heard were the hoarseness of the ocean against the sand and the wildness of her own breathing. She couldn’t bear to look at King as sensation overwhelmed her, and she lowered her forehead to his shoulder. He was breathing heavily, too, his heartbeat audible.

  His thumbs edged under her arms, brushing at the sides of her breasts, feeling her softness, feeling her begin to tremble with the newness of physical pleasure.

  “You aren’t wearing a bra, are you?” he whispered, his voice deep and soft at her ear. “That silky thing is so thin that it’s like holding you naked in my arms.”

  The power of the erotic suggestion was such that Elissa bit her lip to keep from crying out. Her nails dug into his shoulders, and her legs threatened to buckle underneath her. She shuddered.

  “Elissa,” he breathed roughly.

  She could smell the Scotch on his breath, but even that was oddly exciting. His arms suddenly lifted her into an embrace tight enough that she could feel his ribs digging into her. She clung to him, her face buried in his throat, breathing in the exquisitely male scent of him, her head spinning, her body aching for something it had never known, her breasts crushed against hard muscle. He bit her ear, then ran his tongue around its soft curves, an intimate gesture that she’d never realized could have such a profound effect.

  Her arms tightened around his neck, her face fiery with unexpected passion as he held her. Was she mistaken, or was there a fine tremor in the arms so fiercely holding her?

  His cheek brushed against hers. “Your breasts feel swollen,” he whispered, once more moving her body against him. “Do they ache?” he whispered knowingly.

  “Yes,” she gasped mindlessly. “Oh, King!” Her curiosity outweighed her caution, outweighed the fear that had always come with the threat of intimacy, and she reveled in the feel of his slick, damp skin against her tender breasts.

  “I can make them stop aching,” he whispered huskily. His lips traveled down her face to her throat, his breathing harsh and rapid. “Here...”

  His mouth slid over the silky bodice and suddenly pressed, open and hot, right against the soft curve of her thinly veiled breast.

  She cried out at the pleasure it gave her, and her back arched to give him access.

  But the sound had shocked King into realizing what he was doing. His head jerked up, his eyes wide and frankly stunned. “Dear God,” he said harshly. He hadn’t expected this. Hadn’t expected to want her. He hadn’t known it until now, hadn’t dreamed... He felt the tautness of his body and suddenly released her and turned away, not wanting her to know what she was doing to him.

  She gaped at him. He was breathing harshly as he reached over to pick up his nearly finished drink from the table. His hand seemed to tremble a little as he lifted the glass to his mouth and drained it. “I’m sorry,” he bit off, setting the glass down hard on the table. “I didn’t expect that to happen.”

  He was apologizing, she registered, but for what? For wanting her? “I don’t...mind.” She said it and was amazed to find that it was true. She didn’t mind having him want her. It was heady and wildly exciting.

  He turned, his dark eyes glazed and questioning. “Why not?”

  She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know.” Her eyes fell to his chest. “I still... I still ache,” she whispered shakily.

  His lips were parted, as if he was finding it difficult to breathe. “Have you felt like that with anyone else?” he asked, distressed to realize it was suddenly deeply important that he know.

  “No,” she confessed, her voice soft, gentle.

  He couldn’t decide what to do. Should he send her home or pick her up in his arms and take her into his bed and show her how sweet he could make it for her? Damn. How could just a couple of drinks make him so addled?

  She looked up at that moment and saw the indecision in his eyes, and she knew exactly what had caused it. Her face colored. “I—I can’t sleep with you,” she whispered huskily. “I...like what you just did to me, but... I can’t deal with that kind of easy intimacy. Not even with you.”

  His dark eyes roamed down her body, the sight of that sweet softness he’d known so briefly making him ache. He caught her eyes. “I can make you want it,” he said in a stranger’s sensuous voice.

  “And after?” she asked.

  He drew in a slow breath. “My God, what am I saying?”

  “It’s been a hard night for you,” she said, forcing herself not to take it too seriously. He was frustrated, that was all, and she was handy and he’d forgotten all the reasons why not. “I wish things were different.”

  “So do I.” He rammed his hands into his pockets. “Believe me, so do I.” It was the truth. His body fairly throbbed with wanting her. How odd, his muddled brain mused, to have this kind of reaction to Elissa when it was Bess he’d been afraid of wanting. Could it be misplaced desire? Lord, he couldn’t even think straight.

  “I’d better go home.”

  He turned. “I’ll walk you.”

  “No. It’s all right. You can watch me out the door,” she said quickly—too quickly.

  “I can’t help it, you know,” he said softly, accurately reading the apprehension in her lovely face and smiling in spite of himself when she colored. “A man’s body will give him away every time. But I trust you not to take advantage of it,” he added with dry humor.

  She stared at him, then gasped with helpless laughter, “You horrible man!”

  “Well, I’m vulnerable,” he commented as he opened the front door and stood aside to let her pass. “A man has to look out for his honor, after all. I might marry someday. She’ll want to be the first.”

  “I’m sure she’d be at least the fifteenth,” she chided, laughing at her own boldness. Now that the heart-shattering truth of just moments before had passed, it was once again easy to talk to him, even about the intimate things.

  “Not quite that many,” he mumbled as they walked, the breeze, warm and salty smelling, ruffling the fronds of the palm trees.

  “Well, you didn’t learn what you did back there by reading a book,” she observed.

  He cocked an eyebrow and laughed faintly. “No, I didn’t.” He stopped, tilting her chin up. “God, it was sweet.”

  Her lips parted, and her breath caught in her throat. Then he laughed softly, angrily, as he took her arm, almost roughly, and propelled her along the moonlit beach. “I must be drunk,” he muttered. “You’ll have to overlook a few things about tonight, I guess. I haven’t been myself.”

  Which was absolutely true. Even speaking was hard for him right now. He needed a cold shower—badly. And for some reason, he didn’t want Elissa to know what he was feeling, to know the extent of this bizarre aberration in his thought processes. It shocked him, the sudden hunger he felt to strip her out of that jumpsuit, throw her down on the beach and make her his. He remembered how she’d looked in that sexy nightgown, and he almost groaned out loud. He had to be drunk all right, he told himself. How could he even imagine a union between them? She with her hang-ups and he with his impossibly confused feelings for Bess. Was this what people meant by love on the rebound? Or had he always wanted Elissa and refused to acknowledge it in the face of her physical reticence?

  “You’re very quiet,” she said when they reached her door.

  “I’m shocked at my own behavior,” he said curtly.

  “It’s been difficult for you,” she returned, unable to meet his eyes. “It was just the alcohol.”

  “Yes. It must have been. We’ll forget it happened.”

  “That might be best,” she said lightly, forcing herself not to show the disquiet she felt.

  “You don’t need to make it sound so damned easy,” he said, un
reasonably irritated and finding himself on the verge of spewing out exactly what he’d wanted to keep silent about, yet unable to stop himself. His self-control was shot. “Do you know how much I want to lay you down in the sand and have you? Do you?” he demanded harshly. “And because of that, you’d better stay away from me until I get myself together.” Hurting, and lashing out because of it, he straightened to deal the killing blow. “Because anything I did right now would be because of Bess—wanting Bess—and you’d better remember it.”

  It was a lie—he was too confused to know his own mind right now—but he reasoned that enough people stood to get hurt by Bess’s recent interest in him, and he didn’t want Elissa to become a casualty, too. Anything—anything at all—that would keep her at arm’s length would ultimately be for her own good. She didn’t need to compromise her innocence because of his confused longings. So he’d have to be cruel to be kind, even though she wouldn’t realize it right now. Someday, however, she’d thank him for what must seem like callous behavior.

  She clenched her teeth. He hadn’t exactly shocked her with the admission—she’d suspected she’d been a stand-in for Bess—but had he needed to be so blunt? “Then I’ll say good-night.”

  “Say it, and go inside.” He jammed his hands into his pockets.

  “What a sweet-tempered man you are,” she muttered. She turned to unlock the door, then glared at him over her shoulder as she went inside. “Thanks for a lovely evening. I did so enjoy it.”

  He glared back. “Including the way you threw yourself at me back there?” he asked with a cold, mocking smile, pushing her that last step.

  He was asking for a hard slap. She tried to remember that he’d been drinking, but all she wanted to do was push him into a coral reef and whistle for a passing shark! “I was drinking,” she admitted, “and so were you.”

  “Well, I won’t make the same mistake with you again,” he returned coldly. “Obviously you can’t hold your liquor.” He didn’t know why he was goading her—why didn’t he let her go inside, where she’d be safely away from him?