by Diana Palmer
She thought for a minute, feeling herself sinking into deep water. She’d been too pleased at the sight of him tonight, too happy that he’d bothered to come and ask her out.
He came up behind her; and with a quick-silver thrill of excitement, she felt his big, warm hands pressing into her tiny waist. “I have a housekeeper, Mrs. Brodie. She’s elderly and buxom, and she’ll cut off my hands if I try to seduce you. Satisfied, Miss Purity?”
She felt her color coming and going as he drew her closer, his breath whispering warmly in her hair.
“I…I wasn’t worried about that,” she managed weakly.
Deep, soft laughter rumbled in the chest at her back. “Do you think I’m too old to feel desire?” he asked.
“Mr. Moreland!” she burst out.
“Make it Bryan,” he said.
“Bryan,” she repeated breathlessly.
“Why aren’t there any men in your life?” he asked suddenly. “Why don’t you date?”
Her eyes closed against the memory. “I date you,” she corrected weakly.
“Before me there was someone. Who? When?” he asked harshly, his fingers biting into her soft flesh. “Tell me!”
“He was married,” she said miserably.
There was a long, heavy silence behind her. “Did you know?”
She shook her head. “I was just nineteen, and horribly naïve. I met him while I was a freshman in college. He was one of the instructors. We went together for two months before I found out.”
She felt him tense. “How far had it gone?”
She shifted restlessly. “Almost too far,” she admitted, remembering the phone call that had saved her virtue. A phone call from his wife, and she’d answered the phone…
“And you gave up on life because of one bad experience?” he asked quietly.
“I learned not to trust men,” she corrected, bending her head. “It was…safer…to stay at home, unless I was with girl friends.”
“And now, Carla?” he persisted.
She chewed on her lower lip nervously. “I…don’t know.”
His hand slid down her hips, pulling her back closer to him. Involuntarily, her hands went to push against the intimacy of his, and he laughed.
“Turn on the broiler for me,” he said, releasing her. “That omelet’s going to be stone cold.”
She obeyed him mindlessly, fighting down her confusion.
They ate in a companionable silence, and she felt his dark eyes watching her when she wasn’t watching him. Something was happening between them. She could feel it, and it frightened her.
Afterward, she put the dishes in the sink to soak, refusing his offer of help to wash them, and led the way into the living room nervously.
“I can’t stay,” he said. “I’ve got to stop in at a cocktail party later tonight to try and twist the governor’s arm for emergency funding for my revitalization.”
“Dressed like that?” she asked without thinking.
“It’s informal,” he teased. His dark, bold eyes traveled down the length of her slender body. “You look pretty informal yourself.”
“I wasn’t expecting company.”
“Sorry I came?” he asked bluntly.
“No,” she replied.
His jaw tightened, and she saw a strange darkness grow in his eyes as he looked at her. He held her gaze until she thought her heart was going to burst, until the only sound she could hear was the wild beating of her own heart.
“Good night, Carla,” he said abruptly and, turning, went out the door without a backward glance.
She stood exactly where she was and caught her breath. He hadn’t wanted to go out that door. She’d read it in his eyes. But he hadn’t kissed her. He still hadn’t kissed her.
“What’s wrong with me?” she asked the room unsteadily, turning to look in the mirror. But all she saw was a disappointed face and a body in a too-tight blouse. The reflection told her nothing.
She had Daniel Brown, the informant, meet her for coffee the next afternoon in the small international coffee house where she had gone with Moreland that first time. Brown was a personable young man with an honest face, but she didn’t quite like the way his blue eyes darted away while he spoke.
“Did you know that the mayor and James White were close friends?” he asked as they sat and drank coffee at a corner table.
She stared at him. “James White? Isn’t he that rich realtor who was investigated for fraud last year?”
“The same. Do a little digging, and you may come up with some interesting little tidbits.”
“Why are you furnishing all this information so generously?” she asked abruptly.
He looked uncomfortable. “I don’t like corruption,” he replied.
“Is that the truth?” she probed, “or are you just trying to get back at the people who helped you out of your job?”
He shrugged. “It’s a dog-eat-dog world.”
“Sometimes,” she agreed. “Why do you think Moreland’s involved?”
“He’s got too much money showing to be a mayor,” he replied vaguely.
“So he has. But I understood he was independently wealthy.”
“Did you?” he asked. “You’re seeing a lot of him lately.”
“I’m working on a story,” she said for the second time, to the second person, that week.
“He wasn’t much of a husband,” he said with a strange bitterness. “Don’t get your hopes up in that direction, either.”
She stood up. “My personal life is my own business.”
“That’s what you think.” He sipped his coffee. “Check out White. You’ll see.”
She turned on her heel and left him there. Late that afternoon, she took her wealth of bits and pieces to Edwards and requested that he give it to the paper’s attorneys and see if they could force the city attorney to release the airport land purchase records.
Bryan Moreland’s farm was like a picture postcard. Well-kept grounds, white-fenced paddocks, silver silos, a red barn with white trim, and a farmhouse with a sprawling front porch and urns that must have been full of flowers in the spring and summer.
Mrs. Brodie grinned from ear to ear when Moreland brought Carla in and introduced her. The buxom old woman obviously approved, and the table she set for lunch was evidence of it. Carla ate until her stomach hurt, and Mrs. Brodie was still trying to press helpings of apple cobbler on her.
Moreland helped her escape into his study, where a fire was blazing in the hearth. It was a dreary day outside, drizzling rain and cold. But the den, with its Oriental rug and sedate dark furniture, was cozy. She stared at the portrait above the white mantel curiously. It was a period painting, and the man in it looked vaguely like Bryan Moreland.
“Is he a relative?” she asked.
He tossed two big, soft cushions down on the floor in front of the hearth and stretched out with his hands under his head. “In a manner of speaking,” he replied lazily. “He was my grandmother’s lover.”
She blushed, and he laughed.
“And the picture hangs in here?” she asked, aghast.
“He’s something of a family legend,” he replied. “He’d be damned uncomfortable in the closet. Come here,” he added with a sensuous look in his dark eyes as he gestured toward the pillow next to his.
She hesitated, drawn by the magnetism of his big body in the well-fitted brown trousers and pale yellow velour shirt, but wary of what he might expect of her.
His dark eyes took in the length of her body, lingering on the plunging V-neck of her white sweater, tracing her dark slacks down to her booted feet.
“If we make love,” he said quietly, “I won’t let it go too far. Is that what you’re afraid of, Carla?”
She caught her breath. He seemed to read her mind. She only nodded, lost for words.
His eyes searched hers. “Then, come on.”
She eased down beside him, curling her arms around her drawn-up knees with the pillow at her back. “Are we?”
she asked huskily.
He traced the line of her spine with deft, confident fingers. “Are we what?” he asked deeply.
“Going to make love,” she managed shakily.
“That depends on you, country mouse,” he said matter-of-factly, and he removed his caressing hand.
She half-turned and looked down at him. His eyes were dark, smouldering, and there was no smile to ease the intensity of his piercing gaze.
“If you want it, come here,” he said gruffly.
She didn’t even think. She went down into his outstretched arms as if she were going home, as if she’d waited all her life for a big, husky, dark man to hold out his arms to her.
He crushed her against his broad chest and lay just holding her as the fire crackled and popped cheerfully in the dimly lit room.
“It’s been a long time for me, Carla,” he said in a strange, gruff tone. “Kisses may not be enough.”
She felt her body stiffen against him. “I can’t…”
“Don’t start freezing on me,” he said at her ear. “I’m not going to throw you over my shoulder and beat a path to my bedroom with you.”
“But you said…” she whispered.
“I may touch you,” he murmured sensuously. His mouth brushed lazily, warmly, at her throat, while his big hands worked some magic on her back through the sweater. “Like this.” He eased his hands underneath it, against the silken young flesh of her bare back. “And this,” he added, sweeping his hands up to her shoulder blades, discovering for himself that she was wearing nothing under the sweater.
“No…” she whispered unsteadily, a protest that sounded more like a moan.
His thumbs edged out under her arms, brushing against flesh that had never known a man’s hands, and she caught her breath at the sensations it fostered.
“I want to love you,” he said softly. He eased her back on the rug, with her head and shoulders against the pillow, letting his hands move very gently on her rib cage in a silence burning with emotions.
“Bryan…” she whispered achingly.
He bent, and his mouth parted slightly as it touched hers in soft, slow movements. It was torture, the teasing, brushing touch of his mouth and hands, a delicious torment that made her heart beat violently against the walls of her chest. She had never wanted anything as desperately as she now wanted Bryan, and in a fever of wanting, she heard her own voice shatter as she cried out for his touch.
His mouth took hers violently, hungrily, pressing her head deep into the pillow while his hands taught her sensations so exquisite, she arched submissively toward them.
Once her eyes slid open to look up into his, and he smiled at the awe and emotion in them—a smile that was strangely tender and soft with triumph.
He drew her own hands to the buttons of his shirt and watched while she undid them, clumsily, because she was shaking from the lazy caresses of his deft hands.
“Here,” he said quietly, drawing her mouth to his chest. “Like this. Hard, honey, hard!” he whispered huskily as her mouth brushed against the warm flesh that smelled of spice and soap.
She reached up to draw his mouth back down to hers and felt a shudder run through him as his body moved over hers in a way that was pleasure beyond bearing.
He hurt her mouth, bruised it, as all his hard control seemed to disappear at her yielding. He drew back suddenly, and his dark eyes were smouldering with hunger as they looked down into hers.
“I want you like hell,” he said in a rough whisper. “Another minute of this and I’m going to take you. Is that what you want, Carla?”
Sanity came back in a blazing rush. She gasped at the emotions that lay raw and bruised at the harshness of his statement.
“No,” she said shakily. “No, it isn’t. Bryan, I’m sorry…”
He rolled away from her and got to his feet. He went straight to the bar and poured himself a large whiskey, downing it before he lit a cigarette—all without looking at her.
She pulled down her sweater and got to her feet, her tongue gingerly touching her bruised mouth. She felt vaguely ashamed at her abandon, and as she stared at his broad back, she couldn’t help wondering if he thought she was like this with other men. In fact, she’d never let any man touch her like that. She was at a loss to explain why it had seemed so right when Bryan had done it. Her face flamed at the memory.
“I’ll take you home,” he said coldly. “Get your coat.”
“Bryan…” she began apologetically.
He turned, and his eyes were blazing. “Get your damned coat,” he said, in a voice that froze her.
Fighting tears, she gathered her possessions and followed him out to the car.
Chapter Six
She went around in a brown mood for the next week, alternately crying and cursing her own stupidity for getting herself emotionally involved with a man who only wanted one thing of her.
In between the tears, she waited vainly for the phone to ring, jumping every time it trilled, only to find some routine caller on the other end. The doorbell only rang once in all that time, and she dashed for it, her heart racing, only to find a neighbor inviting her to a rent party for another neighbor down on his luck.
How, she wondered, could she have thought Moreland was as involved as she was? Just because he took her out a few times didn’t mean he wanted to marry her. She knew that, but had she really mistaken his objectives that much? All along, had he only been angling for a way to get her into his bed?
She could still blush, remembering the way it had been between them, that strange look in his eyes as they met hers while her body seemed to belong to someone else in her wild abandon. She wasn’t easy, she wasn’t! But, apparently, he thought so; and she still felt the whip of his anger even now, his smouldering silence as he’d driven her home and left her there, without even a word of apology. She hadn’t been crying, but surely he could have seen that she was about to. Or perhaps he had. Perhaps it just hadn’t mattered to him one way or the other.
That was the hardest thing to face; the fact that he just didn’t care at all, except in a purely physical sense.
“No date with the mayor today?” Bill Peck chided as she sat down at her desk on Friday morning with an increasingly familiar listlessness.
She wanted to pick up something and throw it at him, but she kept cool. “I was writing a story,” she reminded him. “It’s finished.”
“And it’s been lying on Edwards’s desk for the past week, where it will probably be lying this time next year,” he reminded her. “The revitalization story’s been done to death, and you know it. What’s the matter, honey, did your big romance go sour?”
She whirled, her green eyes flashing as they met his calculating ones. “You go to hell,” she flashed in a tight, controlled voice. “What I do and how I do it are no concern of yours. I don’t work for you; I work with you, and don’t you ever forget it!”
A slow, mischievous smile appeared on his face, causing her anger to eclipse into puzzlement.
“That’s my girl,” he chuckled.
She slammed a pencil down on her spotless desk. “You beast!” she grumbled.
“It’s my middle name. Now, are you finally back to normal? Business as usual?” He grabbed his coat. “Come on, we’ve got a press conference this morning. I’ve already cleared it with Eddy.”
Eddy was his nickname for the city editor, and if Eddy said okay, she had no choice. But she got her purse and camera together with a sense of foreboding. “A press conference where?” she asked carefully.
“At city hall, where else?”
She froze, desperately searching her mind for an excuse, any excuse to get out of it. Another meeting. There had to be another meeting or an interview or a picture—oh, God, there had to be something!
“I said, let’s go,” Peck said, taking her arm. “You haven’t got an excuse. I need some pix, and I can’t handle a camera with this finger,” he added, holding up a bandaged right forefinger. “I cut it on a s
heet of bond paper, can you imagine?” he sighed. “Worse than a knife cut.”
“Can’t you take Freddy?” she asked hopefully.
“What’s the matter?” he asked with a sideways glance. “Afraid of him?”
She knew exactly what he meant, and she wanted to admit that she was terrified. She almost put it into words, but just at the last minute, she stopped herself.
“I’m not afraid of anybody,” she said instead. “My father said it was better to go through life giving ulcers than letting other people give them to you.”
“Wise man,” he grinned. “On a trip to the Orient, did you say?”
It was just the question she needed to start her talking, and to take her mind off Moreland. They were in the elevator at city hall before she realized what Peck had been doing.
“You did that on purpose,” she accused gently.
He glanced down at her, cocking his hat at an angle over his pale brow. “Who, me?”
“Yes, you, you lovely man.”
He grinned at her. “Like to adopt me?”
“No. You’re too tall.”
He squatted down a little. “How about now?”
“Lose a hundred pounds, and we’ll talk about it,” she assured him.
The conference room was crowded, but she didn’t spend one second looking around for Bryan Moreland. She took a seat beside Peck in the back section and lowered her eyes to her camera, keeping them down resolutely while she pretended to fiddle with light settings.
“You don’t think you’re going to get me a shot from here, do you?” Peck asked as he sat down beside her.
“I’ll use the telescopic lens,” she said under her breath. All around them, news people were milling around. A couple of them, radio reporters whom she recognized from other stories, called to her, and she managed a frozen smile and a tiny wave of her hand in response.
“What in hell is the matter with you?” Peck asked. “You look like you’re trying to get smaller.”
“Will you please shut up?” she begged. His voice was loud, and it carried. “Please sit down and pretend we aren’t acquainted.”
“But we work for the same paper,” he argued.