by Diana Palmer
He snapped open the buttons, disclosing a chest thick with curly black hair. “Here.” He dragged one of her hands to the hard, warm muscles and buried her fingers in the thick hair. “This is what I like,” he breathed, moving her hand against him, groaning at the delicious touch.
She felt her other hand joining the first one, too entranced by the forbidden delight to deny it to her starving senses. She touched him, fascinated with the way he felt under her hands, the wiry abrasion of hair tickling her fingers. He arched under her touch, just as she had under his, and she caught her breath to know that she could give back the pleasure he was showing her.
“Christy,” he groaned. He bent to her mouth, dragging her body against his so that they melted together, skin against hair-roughened skin.
She cried out at the surge of feverish pleasure the contact gave her, at the hunger it rekindled to feel his aroused body so close to hers. But when he rolled her onto her back and moved over her, trapping her beneath his powerful legs, she panicked.
Her eyes flew open. “No!” she whispered shakily, meeting his hot gaze. “No, Nate, please! I can’t!”
“Can’t, the devil,” he said, his voice biting as he stared down at her, on fire with the need to bury himself in her. “You can stop playing. You don’t have to ply me with virginal wiles. I want you like hell.”
“It isn’t…playing,” she said. “I’m a virgin.”
He laughed coldly. “At your age? The way you look? Like hell you are!” He bent to kiss her again.
But she turned her face away. “I didn’t always look like this! Nate, I’ve never…done this!” she said frantically. “You don’t understand!”
“Do you expect me to believe that?” he demanded, jerking her face back to his furious eyes. “My God, you’ve teased and flirted and had one ‘accident’ after another to get my attention. You’ve thrown yourself at me ever since you got here, so why act shocked when I make a move on you? You want me. I’ve known that from the first.”
She bit her lower lip, so horribly embarrassed that she could hardly get the words out. He still had her pinned and now his arousal was becoming a terrible punishment.
“Yes, I wanted you,” she confessed miserably. “But I thought… I thought you felt something for me.”
He glared down at her, furious with her and with himself for what she was doing to him. “Felt something?” He laughed coldly. “Can’t you feel what I want?” he asked with cruel mockery and moved his hips deliberately against her, watching the flaming color come into her face. “Yes, you know what that is, don’t you? Why pretend it’s such a shocking experience?”
“Because it is.” She swallowed and closed her eyes, wishing she could just disappear. Her hands clenched on his shoulders. “Until a week ago, I looked like somebody’s old maid aunt. I got my hair done and bought new clothes and…and revamped my personality. I thought for once in my life, I’d try to be like those women I admired on television. You know, the independent, sophisticated, outgoing women that men…that men want.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I didn’t know, didn’t realize, that I’d be mistaken for a…for a tramp!”
Her voice broke and it finally got through to him that he was treating her like one.
His lean hand jerked her face back up to his while his body throbbed in anguish over hers. “Are you serious?” he asked curtly. “Are you really trying to convince me that you’re a virgin? That you’ve never been intimate with a man?”
“Nobody ever wanted to be intimate with somebody who looked like I did,” she whispered, her voice shaking as she met his accusing dark eyes. His weight was formidable and she just wanted to get away from him. He looked as if he hated her. “I was just a dull little dishwater blonde. I had my hair lightened and my face done, I bought new makeup and new clothes and forced myself to try and be outgoing. I thought…” She closed her eyes. “I thought maybe if I were pretty, men might notice me. I’ve been alone all my life. I just wanted somebody to love me,” she whispered in a fever of embarrassment.
His jaw clenched. It sounded too genuine to be a lie, but he hated her for what he was hearing. “Love is a rare commodity,” he said tersely, easing his body away from hers. “I don’t have any to give. All I wanted was one night with you, Christy, not happy ever after. I’m thirty-seven. If I wanted to be married, believe me, I could be.”
“Yes, I know that,” she said. She heard him move away and she managed to sit up without looking at him, embarrassed at her disheveled clothing, at the way she’d responded to him. Her trembling fingers gathered the fabric to her taut, swollen breasts. She could still feel his mouth on them, like a brand.
“I can’t believe a woman could be that green,” he said, his voice cutting as he glared down at her, trying to get his breath. “Surely you knew what I was leading up to? The way you kept stumbling around me, the way you smiled and teased, added to the way you looked was enough to make any man want you.”
“Yes. Well, I didn’t know that,” she managed. She sighed miserably. “I’m sorry. I just wanted someone to love me.”
He looked at her with pure fury, his fists clenched at his sides while he breathed unsteadily. “And all I wanted was a little sex,” he said coldly, forcing himself to say the words, to make her understand. It was cruel, he knew it, but it would be the kindest thing in the long run. He didn’t want commitment. All he’d wanted was a night in her arms, but he hadn’t bargained for this! “If you want love and marriage, honey, you won’t find either one with me. I thought you were in the market for a holiday romance, and I was willing to oblige. My mistake.”
What she saw in his face made her feel ashamed. She averted her eyes from the condemnation of his, embarrassed and wounded. Her hands trembled as she got her bra and blouse back on and scrambled to her feet. She brushed the sand from her jeans without looking at him. She couldn’t say anything, because her mind had stopped working.
He hated her. He hated himself. He glared at her trembling body and wanted to throw things. Why hadn’t he realized that it was no act? No experienced woman would have behaved as she had, and no actress was good enough to keep up the masquerade so consistently. It was no act. She really was a virgin. Imagine that, he thought furiously. A real live innocent who looked like she did. She’d said something about changing her image, but he couldn’t imagine that she’d been less than beautiful before.
Then a terrible thought occurred to him. He tried to push it away, but it wouldn’t go.
“How are you set financially?” he asked bluntly.
“I teach school. How do you think I’m set?” she asked miserably. She pushed back her disheveled hair. Her eyes lifted to his. “What difference does it make?”
“None, now that I’ve found you out,” he replied coolly. “I’m rich. I guess the money really appealed to you, didn’t it?”
She gaped at him. Could he honestly believe that? Probably he could. He seemed to enjoy thinking the worst of her today. Maybe it made him feel better. She was aware that getting stirred up was painful to men, and he’d been pretty stirred.
She turned away, toward her horse. “I’d like to go back now,” she said in a defeated tone.
“We might as well,” he agreed curtly. “You’ve had your shot at the brass ring, but you fell a little short, didn’t you, honey?”
She cringed at the mockery in his tone. She loved him, and he could treat her like this, with such coldness. It was just as well that she’d found out now, before she let herself hope for anything more. He wanted sex, not love, and she wasn’t capable of a purely physical liaison. What irony. She’d come to Arizona looking for love, and she’d found a man with a heart as barren as the desert he lived in.
She let him help her into the saddle, noticing absently that he’d fastened his shirt back up. She didn’t want to remember how his chest had felt under her caressing hands, or how his mouth had felt on her body. She had to put it into perspective. It had been physical attraction, nothing more. He didn�
��t want her for keeps, he just wanted to make love to her. She sighed wearily. If that was all he wanted, then why hadn’t he just left her alone? It would have been kinder for both of them if he’d never touched her.
He swung into the saddle, disturbed by his own feelings of guilt. He’d been the pursuer, not she, despite the accusations he’d made. He should have known how green she was and left her to George. Damn it, he’d backed her into a corner and then attacked her for refusing to let him use her. He was vaguely ashamed of his own behavior. But he didn’t want to get married, he told himself firmly. He’d escaped the noose too many times already to voluntarily put his head into it now. No, he’d get over Christy and she’d get over him. It was just one of those unfortunate interludes that was best forgotten.
“Don’t look so dismal,” he said, riding along beside her as they headed back. “We’ll forget it happened.”
She didn’t answer him. She didn’t want to look at him or talk to him ever again. It might not be a mature attitude to take, but she didn’t feel very mature. She felt cheap and ashamed. Perhaps he was right, and she had led him on with her false image. Perhaps men looked at things differently than women did, and her pretty appearance gave the impression, along with her unfortunate clumsiness and teasing, that she was “available.”
Joyce Ann was right, she decided. She should go home and marry Harry and settle down. This disguise she’d adopted was nothing like the woman she really was, and she should be ashamed for giving a false impression. Starting tomorrow, the old Christy was going to be very much back in her proper place. She wasn’t going to hurt anyone else with her stupid ideas of changing. Besides, she thought sadly, she couldn’t change, not really. She wasn’t vivacious and outgoing and beautiful. She was serious and introverted and plain. She’d do well to remember it from now on. Nathanial Lang didn’t want her as she appeared to be, then he certainly wouldn’t want her as she was. It had been a lucky escape for both of them.
He glanced at her, disturbed because she wouldn’t answer him. She looked…devastated. He dragged his eyes back to the trail in front of them. He shouldn’t have been so cruel to her. She was more sensitive than he’d realized.
“Christy…” he began.
“It’s all right, Mr. Lang,” she said gently. She didn’t look at him, but at the reins in her hands. “I’m sorry for everything. I won’t bother you anymore, I promise.”
“Oh, for God’s sake…!” he raged.
She would have burst into tears at his tone, but a party of riders approaching cut into the tense silence between them and she gave a huge sigh of relief when she saw George. Sanctuary, she thought, heading old Blue in his direction. George had recovered enough to come on the trail ride, and Christy was going to stick to him like glue, she promised herself. At least George only wanted companionship, not to get her into bed!
Nate watched her ride away with mixed feelings. It looked as if George was going to get her after all. Just as well, he assured himself. He had nothing to offer her. George was steady and dependable.
Nate lifted his chin and glared as the younger man beamed when Christy joined him. Damn it all, he thought furiously, life had been so simple before this archaeology outfit pushed itself into his privacy. Now he was confused and hurt and he didn’t know what he wanted anymore. He wheeled his own mount with a silent curse and rode away, leaving his foreman to conduct the group on its trail ride without him. He couldn’t stand the pain in Christy’s soft eyes one more minute!
Chapter Five
Christy was never as glad to see anyone as she was to see George. She rode up beside him and stuck like glue, trying not to notice the abrupt way Nate Lang made his departure. She was still shaking inside from what had happened.
“Are you all right?” George asked when they stopped to water the horses on the mountain trail.
“Of course,” she said brightly, brushing back her disheveled hair.
“You look funny,” he said, frowning. “Upset.”
“I almost fell off my horse,” she lied. “It unnerved me. But I’m all right now. Are you?” she added, remembering his fall.
He smiled sheepishly and adjusted his glasses, an action that Christy found all too familiar, as they slipped down his nose. “Well, actually, that was a planned fall. I’m good with horses, but I thought you might notice if I got hurt.”
“Of course I noticed,” she chided gently.
He cleared his throat, toying with his horse’s reins and looking at them instead of her. “Christy, I like you…a lot.”
“I like you, too, George,” she said gently. She put a hand on his forearm. Nathanial Lang was right, she thought as she studied the flustered young man. It was better to be honest with people. “George, I have to tell you that I’m going to be married when I go back to Jacksonville. I hadn’t made up my mind when I came out here, but I sort of had it made up for me.”
He looked wounded for a moment, then he got himself back together and straightened. “I’m sorry, for myself. He’ll be a lucky man. Have you known him long?” he added, and forced a smile.
“Since I started teaching,” she said. “He teaches sixth grade at the elementary school where I work. He’s…he’s a good bit older than I am. He’s divorced and he has three sons. They’re all in high school, but they like me and I like them.”
He tried not to show how dismayed he felt. Surely Christy deserved better than that! “You’ll have one big family, what with his kids and the ones you’ll have together,” he said cheerfully.
She seemed to wither before his eyes. She even looked momentarily older. “Oh, Harry doesn’t want any more children,” she said. “He’s made sure he won’t have any, so there’s no question of…” She turned away, hating the thought of never holding a child of her own in her arms. It was too painful to think about. “We’d better go.”
George helped her to mount and then got on his own horse. What she told him was enough to keep him depressed all the way back to the ranch.
Christy refused to go on the overnight camp out. Nate went, and she was glad to have the recreation room pretty much to herself. She was so engrossed in a book that she hardly heard Mrs. Lang come in and sit down across from her.
“You’d have enjoyed the camp, Christy,” the small woman said, smiling at her gently. “It’s quite something, the campfire on the desert and the taste of freshly brewed camp coffee. Our foreman, Terrance, plays guitar and he has a marvelous voice.”
“I didn’t really feel up to it,” she said, and it was the truth in several ways. “I got pretty sore from the ride earlier today.”
Mrs. Lang’s dark eyes were persistent as they searched the younger woman’s face. “Nate hasn’t said two words all day. He snapped at me when I asked if he was going camping, and he stayed in his study until it was time to leave. When he found out you weren’t going along, he used language I won’t even repeat. It got worse when George volunteered to stay behind with you. I think Nate might have roped and dragged him with them if he hadn’t changed his mind.”
Christy flushed, fumbling with the book. “George is a nice boy. But I explained things to him this afternoon. I had to make him understand that…well, that there was no chance of our being more than friends.”
Mrs. Lang smiled. “I had an idea that you’d have to speak to him eventually. I assume your affections are engaged elsewhere?” she fished delicately.
Christy nodded. “I’m getting married when I go back to Florida.”
Mrs. Lang dropped her dishcloth and bent to pick it up, her expression astonished. “I had no idea that you were engaged,” she said haltingly.
“I’m not,” Christy told her. “I came out here to think things over. I changed the way I look, but not the way I think and feel,” she added sadly, lifting a ravaged expression to the older woman. “I’m still old-fashioned and full of hang-ups and unsuited to the modern world.”
“In other words, you don’t sleep around.”
In spite of he
rself, Christy laughed at the twinkle in the other woman’s eyes. “No, I don’t sleep around,” she agreed. She leaned back against the sofa. “Men don’t really want marriage anymore. They don’t need it unless they want children or belong to some conservative organization that likes settled executives. It’s not that easy for even a pretty woman to find a husband, but it’s doubly hard for an unattractive one. I can’t live a breezy, rootless existence with only a career for comfort. I want a home of my own and children, even if they aren’t my own,” she said firmly, for her own benefit. “I’m twenty-five. If I don’t marry while I have the chance, it might never come again.” She looked up. “I don’t want to live alone until I die.”
“Tell me about this man you’ve decided to marry.”
Christy did, her eyes dull and lackluster. “He’s almost forty,” she added. “But he’s a kind man, and he’ll give me security and a good life.”
“Do you love him?”
“I’m very fond of him,” Christy said hesitantly.
“Do you want him?”
She thought of Nate’s mouth on hers, his hands holding her against him with passionate need, and she closed her eyes. “I can endure that part of the marriage.”
“Oh, my dear,” Mrs. Lang sighed heavily. “My dear, it’s more than just endurance. Men know when you feel nothing. It will hurt your husband. Eventually, it will kill your marriage. It isn’t fair to either of you to marry without desire.”
“The way my life is going, I can have either but not both,” she said with a humorless laugh. She looked up. “Mrs. Lang, I’ve done a bad thing. I’ve pretended to be something I’m not, and now I’m having to pay for it. I wish I’d stayed at home and been satisfied with what I had.”
“If everyone took that attitude, America would never have been discovered,” Mrs. Lang returned. She leaned forward and patted Christy’s hand. “Don’t worry so, child. Let each day take care of itself. You still have a week to go, you know.”
“I thought I might go home Monday…”