by Diana Palmer
“I’ll learn,” she said mutinously.
He touched her soft mouth with his free hand, bending over her with silent intent. “You don’t learn desire,” he said softly. “Either it’s there or it isn’t. You feel it for me, don’t you?”
She reddened. “I won’t stay here and let you… Nate!” she gasped.
“You won’t what?” he asked, as his hand smoothed deliberately down her body, trespassing under the waistband of her jeans to stroke her smooth, flat belly. “Go ahead. Tell me.”
But she couldn’t. Her mind was in limbo. She stared up at him helplessly, too entranced to even struggle.
He liked that helplessness. His hand smoothed back up, under her embroidered smock top to the lacy covering of her bra. He traced the whirl of lace, watching her face color, feeling her breath quicken.
“This is what you like most, isn’t it?” he murmured, and his hand slid gently under the lace, to touch her bare skin, to trace the hard nipple that was screaming her response. “You like me to touch you here. But you like my mouth more than my hands, don’t you, Christiana?” he whispered, bending. “Even through the fabric, it drives you mad…”
It did. She whimpered at the feel of his mouth on her. Her fingers clung to his thick hair and she shivered with the fire-hot brand of his mouth even through two layers of cloth.
“To hell with this,” he ground out. He found the fastening underneath her and pushed the offending barrier out of his way, jerking up her smock so that he could find her with his mouth.
It had never been like this, so intense, so heated. She felt the hungry mouth fasten on her breast and she began to weep with reaction. The pleasure was almost pain in its intensity. She clung to him, pressing closer, begging for his touch.
He lifted his head, pausing to look down at his handiwork with blazing eyes before he lifted his gaze to lock with hers. She looked loved, he thought dazedly. Her misty pale green eyes were half-closed, her face a study in absolute surrender. He thought he’d never seen anything half as lovely in his life.
“Can Harry give you that?” he asked huskily.
“Don’t,” she pleaded in a broken whisper. “Don’t…play with me. I can’t help it.”
He let out a rough sigh. “You might not believe it, but neither can I.” He rolled away from her, his face hard and drawn.
She turned her head and only then noticed that the sheet had come away. He was as beautiful as a sculpture, all long elegant lines and powerful muscle. Even where he was most a man, he was beautiful. She couldn’t see him with a great deal of clarity, but her eyes found him fascinating, dark skin with a tangle of black hair all over him, the very epitome of masculinity.
He felt her eyes and turned his head, watching her gaze wash over him. It aroused him to see her pleasure in his nudity, and the arousal took a physical form that she saw with dawning realization and then flaming embarrassment.
“You don’t have to be afraid of it,” he said gently when she averted her gaze jerkily. “It’s a reaction I can’t help, but I won’t hurt you.”
“I’ve never seen a man like…that,” she whispered.
“Yes.” Her reactions were too drastic to be faked. She was virginal all right, and her innocence excited him so much that he could hardly control the need to drag her under him and slake his thirst. But that would be wrong. “Christy.”
She darted a glance at him, feeling threatened.
“It’s all right to look,” he said, his voice slow and tender.
She hesitated, but curiosity was too strong. Her eyes slid over him and back up again, her face scarlet. “You’re so beautiful,” she whispered, her voice hopelessly adoring.
The look on his face fascinated her. He frowned slightly, his eyes searching and curious. It wasn’t a comment he’d expected from her.
Because she didn’t understand the look, she was afraid she’d put her foot in her mouth again. She sat up, rearranging her disheveled clothing with hands that trembled.
He sat up, too, turning her to him. He didn’t speak, but his eyes did. They were eloquent. He turned her across his legs, so that she could feel him intimately against her. When his mouth settled over hers again, she opened her own willingly, adoringly, and gave him complete access. His tongue thrust inside and she went limp in his arms.
“I can’t take any more,” he whispered, his voice deep and shaken as he lifted his head. “Cover me.”
He held her up so that she could tug the sheet over his hips, concealing what he couldn’t help.
He held her then until the faint tremor went out of his powerful body, until he could breathe normally again. “I want you,” he said at her ear. “You’d better cut your trip short and go back to Florida.”
She bit her lower lip. “Why?”
“You know why,” he said with a bitter laugh. He tilted her face up to his mocking eyes. “My mother raised me to be a gentleman, but what I feel isn’t so easily controlled. This time I mastered it. Another time, I might not. If you want to go to your marriage bed a virgin, you’d better get as far away from me as you can.”
Chapter Six
Her mouth was swollen. She could barely get words through it at all. “I love you,” she whispered miserably.
His jaw tautened. “No.”
Her eyes lowered to his bare chest. “Are you…so certain?”
“Certain enough.” He moved her over him and off the bed. “If you’ve never been intimate with anyone, it’s easy to delude yourself into thinking physical attraction is love. I know. I did that once. But it doesn’t last,” he added quietly, his dark eyes cutting into hers. “This is nothing more than an interlude, and my fault. I shouldn’t have touched you.”
She looked down at him with anguish. He wanted sex and she wanted love. It was an impossible situation, and he was right. She should go home. She turned away toward the door.
“I’ll get my things packed,” she said.
“I didn’t mean you have to leave today,” he said tersely. Good God, what was wrong with him, he thought furiously. He knew it was the best thing all around, for her to go quickly. But the thought of her leaving was like a knife in his chest.
“I should—”
“Not today!” he said curtly.
She turned around, her back against the door. She couldn’t really see him clearly, but she could feel his rage. “You said it would be better,” she reminded him.
He leaned back against his pillows, still taut with unsatisfied desire, and raked a hand through his thick black hair. “Probably it would, but you’ve got a responsibility to the group. I don’t want to cost them a worker they need,” he said, not looking at her. “I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again. Despite what I said about your chastity, I’ll send you home in your present condition. There won’t be any more…interludes.”
Could he know how much it hurt to think of never being held by him again, kissed by him? She sighed shakily.
“All right,” she said. “Can I bring you anything?”
“No, thank you, honey,” he said gently. “Go on. I’ll be all right.”
“I’ll get back to work, then.” She hesitated as she opened the door, not looking at him. “I’m glad you’re not hurt,” she said huskily. She closed the door behind her.
She didn’t see Nate again until the next day. She’d been too embarrassed to go near him. It seemed to be that she went from shame to shame with him. First giving in so easily, then confessing that she loved him. She couldn’t imagine what had possessed her to admit it, knowing that he felt nothing like that for her. But it had seemed so natural at the time.
George had been helping her sort pottery shards, in between doing his own search of the area. She loved what she was learning about the Hohokam, despite the sting in her heart over Nate.
“One school of archaeologists believes that the Hohokam society thrived for over nine thousand years,” George murmured as they studied the design on a large shard. “Imagine a society that s
table, that unchanged.”
“I can’t,” she said, brushing aside a stray wisp of hair. She was still going without makeup, without fixing her hair except into a soft bun, and without…
Well, what harm was there, she asked herself bitterly. She only had a few days left and she wasn’t hurting anybody with this last little deceit. Besides, it was her own business.
She and George were still buried in their discoveries when it was time to go back to the ranch for supper. She piled into the equipment van beside George and thought about all that had happened since she’d come to Arizona, and wondered how she was going to live the rest of her life without Nate. She’d marry Harry and help get his kids through college, and then…and then what? The thought of being touched by Harry’s pudgy hands made her sick.
She still looked nauseous when she got to the buffet line. Nate was standing in the doorway watching her, curious about the reason for that expression. He waited until she’d placed a meager portion on her plate and then he walked over and drew her by the arm to the table where his own coffee and food were waiting and seated her.
“What prompted that God-awful expression?” he asked, letting his dark eyes slip to the deep neckline of her sleeveless magenta blouse before they held hers.
“I was thinking about Harry’s hands,” she said without considering her words, and then blushed as Nate’s eyebrows went up to the neatly stitched cut on his forehead.
“Comparing them to mine?” he asked quietly.
She grimaced. “I wish you wouldn’t,” she murmured, glancing nervously around to see if anyone had heard. But the others were at the opposite end of the patio, talking shop as they sat together at three grouped tables.
He lifted a forkful of steak to his mouth, his smile faintly smug. “You’ll pay a high price for that wedding ring if you don’t enjoy having him touch you.”
She stared down at her plate, hardly seeing anything on it. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life alone. I’ve had enough of that already. There will be compensations.”
“Name one.”
“I’ll have someone to watch television with,” she murmured dryly.
“Buy a dog. He’ll have the added attraction of being someone to take on walks and buy presents for.”
“I can take Harry on walks and buy presents for him,” she said stubbornly.
His eyebrows arched. “Sure you can, honey, but the dog won’t expect you to put his kids through college. Or can you tell me that Harry won’t expect your help financially?”
“Harry and I agreed…” she began.
“Damn Harry,” he said, his eyes kindling. His gaze fell to her soft mouth and lingered there. “I don’t want supper. I want you.”
“Don’t,” she moaned. She had to drag her eyes away from his. She forced herself to taste the steak. It was probably delicious, but she couldn’t really savor it with him looking at her like that.
“I don’t think I slept five minutes the whole night,” he continued quietly. “What we did together haunted me.”
“I don’t want to have a love affair with you,” she said, glaring at him.
“If you love me, why not?” he asked.
“Because sex is sordid without mutual feeling,” she returned icily. “Don’t you ever listen to the sermons when you go to church?”
He shrugged. “Not usually. You could go with us next Sunday and I’ll try.”
“I won’t be here next Sunday,” she said, and went white when she said it, because it was only then that she fully accepted that the group was leaving Saturday. Tears stung her eyes and made them suddenly bright, and her throat felt as if it had a pincushion in it.
His jaw tautened at the look on her face. “Don’t look like that,” he warned gruffly. “I’ll come right over that table after you if you do, and to hell with gossip. I can’t bear to watch you cry!”
She lowered her face and struggled for composure. “Why do you do this to me?” she wailed.
“Why do you do it to me?” he countered. “My God, do you realize I’ve been stuck out here in the sand for over three years without a woman? I’ve been celibate so long, I’m surprised that my body even remembered how to react when it had a half-naked woman against it!”
She looked up, shocked. “What?”
“I’ve been celibate for three years,” he said, slowly as if she was too thick to understand words of more than one syllable. “You aren’t the only one who had to do some renovating on yourself. I’ve never been much to look at, but I had money, so there was the occasional woman who gave her all for a few luxuries in the past. But I hated being bedded for my wallet, so I gave up on the fair sex. Then it dawned on me that a man can work on his appearance if he wants to, so I lost some weight and had my hair styled, got some new clothes and…other things…and my life changed overnight. But suddenly sex for its own sake wasn’t enough. I seemed to lose my taste for it. Until you came along,” he added darkly, “and complicated things.”
“What did you look like before?” she asked, fascinated.
“Never mind. I’ll show you a photo one day.” His eyes narrowed. “Saturday is too soon. You can stay.”
“I can’t, you know,” she replied sadly. “Joyce Ann made me promise to help her with her husband’s banquet. She’s a hopeless cook, you see, and it’s going to be a major occasion for him. He’s a junior partner in his business and two of the big bosses are expected.”
He smiled at her lazily. “Can you cook?”
“Yes. I’m not cordon bleu,” she murmured, smiling back, “but I used to win prizes at the fair for my pies and cakes.” She lowered her eyes. “I’m doing some French haute cuisine for the banquet.”
“You could come back, when it’s over,” he suggested.
She couldn’t tell him that she wouldn’t be able to afford the plane fare again. Her pride wouldn’t let her. She just shook her head. “I have commitments.”
“To Harry,” he said icily.
She lifted her eyes. “Yes. To Harry. He may not be the world’s greatest lover, but he’s kind and I’ll have security.”
“You’ll have nothing,” he said. “Nothing, except the memory of what it was like to lie in my arms.”
She bit her lip. “That’s not fair.”
“I can make it more than a harmless memory,” he said, his voice deepening. “I could give you one long, endless night to carry back with you. We could go all the way.”
Her eyes closed. She loved him, and he knew it, but it wasn’t fair to taunt her like this. “I can’t,” she moaned.
“Look at me!”
The commanding tone brought her pained eyes up to meet his.
“I won’t let you get pregnant,” he said roughly. “And there’s no danger of anything else with me, because I’ve never been promiscuous. I’ve been careful, in every way. I can give you something you’ll never have with your stodgy prospective husband.”
“I know that,” she replied quietly, averting her eyes. “But I’d be cheating him out of something that’s his due if he marries me. And you can sit there and harp on the new morality and my old-fashioned hang-ups until hell freezes over,” she added when he started to speak, “but it’s a matter of honor with me. If a man is willing to give me his name and be faithful to me, I owe him something in return. He has every right to expect fidelity in me.”
He caught his breath. She was right. But he’d never thought of it like that. Fidelity. Honor. She was quoting words he’d said without understanding them. Now, suddenly, he did. She felt that she had to be faithful, even when there was no ring, when no vows had been spoken. A woman like that would never settle for any convenient bed partner after she was married, or indulge in casual affairs without seeing the harm in them. She’d marry one man, love one man, die faithful to one man. She’d have his children… .
He stopped there. No, she wouldn’t have Harry’s children. He didn’t want any more. She’d die without having known the beauty of an infant in
her arms, and it was so pointless. She was made to be a mother. He watched her ardently, trying to imagine how she’d look big with his own child inside her body, blooming in the fulfillment of motherhood. A scalding need surfaced in him, one he’d never realized he possessed. He wanted a family of his own. A wife. Sons. Daughters. He was thirty-seven years old and, except for his mother, totally alone. He had no one, really. But he wanted to have someone. He wanted Christy. His eyes narrowed. He hadn’t really expected her to take him up on his offer of one wild night of love, although at the time, it had seemed perfectly sensible to offer it. Now he wasn’t sure that he should have. She was a woman completely out of his experience. A woman with principles. He felt suddenly proud that a woman like that could love him.
“Fidelity,” he repeated, watching her. “One man, one love. But if you don’t love him, aren’t you going to be cheating him, just the same?”
“I’ll learn to love him,” she said stubbornly.
“You said you loved me,” he returned, and the words warmed him as he saw them hit the target.
She shifted restlessly in her chair. “You yourself said that that was just a cheap physical interlude,” she returned, her voice wounded.
“I never said it was cheap,” he returned. His eyes kindled. “That was the one thing it could never be, between you and me. My God, just the idea of letting a woman see me without my clothes was unthinkable only a week ago!”
She gasped. “You’re not serious!”
“Why not?” he asked, his expression dark and formidable. “Do you think you’re the only one with hang-ups? It was the most natural thing in the world to let you look at me, but I’d never have pulled that sheet away with any other woman.”
Her eyes looked everywhere except at him, because the memory of what she’d seen was potent.
“And you needn’t look so shocked,” he replied. “You can’t pretend that you’ve ever let your heartthrob back home look at you the way you let me.”