Books By Diana Palmer

by Palmer, Diana

  "Evan, it feels so good," she moaned feverishly. Her hands tangled in his thick hair, holding him to her hungry body "It feels so good, so good!"

  "You taste of rose petals." He lifted his head and looked at her, at the soft flesh with its deep flush that his mouth had caused. He took a slow breath and let his hand slowly caress her. "I want you."

  "I want you, too." Her back arched gently, her eyes glazed with desire. "Can't we...go somewhere and be alone?"

  His jaw tautened. "Risky," he managed.

  "I don't care. I want you to look at me," she said dizzily. "I want to look at you!"

  He wanted to scream. He had to think. He had to protect her. She arched her back again and rubbed her breasts slowly against him.

  "All right," he said shakily.

  He made her sit up, helping her into the blouse again. He started the car without a word. He didn't dare look at her or he'd wreck it.

  He drove quietly, and quickly, to the Tremayne lake. It was deserted during the week, and no one ever went there. He stopped the car, turned off the ignition, and got out.

  Anna lifted her arms as he bent to carry her down to the grassy bank of the lake.

  "This is insane," he whispered as he laid her down in the grass and went down beside her. "We'll go too far."

  "It's all right," she said softly. She pulled off her blouse and let him look at her, totally without inhi­bitions. He was going to marry her. “She loved him. Now she had to convince him that she wasn't fright­ened of him.

  Evan could hardly breathe for the pounding of his heart as he stared at her soft, swollen breasts.

  "You're a virgin," he groaned.

  "Would you rather I let Randall see me like this?" she whispered.

  His eyes flashed. "No. I would not." He stripped off his shirt and his belt before he laid her back on the grass and spread his broad, dark chest over her breasts. He held her eyes as he began to move his torso sensually over hers, letting his hair-roughened muscles drag arousingly over the hard tips of her breasts.

  Her nails dug into his powerful upper arms as the motion kindled a sudden, shocking desire. She gasped jerkily.

  "And this is only the beginning, Anna," he said roughly. "It gets worse. Much worse."

  He bent to her mouth. He'd never kissed her like this, in such a deliberately arousing way. He teased and tormented her soft mouth until she was openly begging for his, driven half mad by the sensual movements of his body against her bare breasts.

  She was almost in tears by the time he finally re­lented, and his tongue penetrated her mouth in one deep, smooth motion. She was so aroused that she actually cried out and went rigid, pulsating with fe­verish need as the kiss she thought would satisfy her only aroused a deeper hunger.

  Her legs moved against Evan's helplessly. He felt her anguished need and his big body levered over hers. He eased her legs apart and slid slowly between them.

  He lifted his dark head. His eyes were black with arousal, his swollen lips parted on jerky breaths. He rested his weight on his forearms and held her dazed, hungry eyes while he deliberately pushed down.

  She felt him in an intimacy that she'd never shared with anyone before. Her eyes dilated and her lips parted on a gasp as she felt the full force of his de­sire.

  He watched her, certain that it was going to be just as it had been with Louisa. She was going to run...

  Even as he thought it, her long legs began to tangle shyly with his. Her hips lifted, very gently. He stiff­ened and shuddered, even though his eyes never left hers.

  She did it again, her face radiant as she 'watched his helpless reaction.

  "This is very, very dangerous," he bit off. "If you arouse me enough, I won't be able to stop."

  "I don't mind."

  His big hand caught her thigh and stilled her under him. "You don't understand. I could make you preg­nant."

  She smiled gently. "You don't understand," she replied. "I want a baby with you."

  He actually shuddered. For one mad instant, he looked into her eyes and gave in to her. His hand moved from her thigh to the base of her spine and he pushed her legs further apart as he settled completely between them in a blatant urgency that made her moan sharply.

  "This is what you're inviting," he said roughly, and pushed, hard. "It will hurt like hell if I'm this aroused when it happens!"

  That was when she first began to make sense of all the warnings, all the misgivings. She relaxed un­der his weight and her eyes held his fierce black ones.

  "Oh," she whispered.

  He was trembling. "Seen the light, have you?" he choked. "I hope to God you haven't seen it too late. Lie still!" he bit off, anchoring her with a merciless hand. He looked at her, shivering with reaction as he fought to control himself.

  She watched him, shaken by his vulnerability, by her own ability to affect him. Sex had been a vaguely frightening mystery, but now it was a wonderous sur­prise. She had a pretty good idea of what it entailed and exactly why Evan was so afraid of his uncon­trolled strength.

  He was breathing unsteadily, his eyes closed, his forehead resting against hers.

  She smoothed the dark hair at his nape gently and relaxed completely, absorbing his formidable weight. He was calming. The rigidity of his muscular body was slowly giving way.

  "So that's what it's like," she murmured, awed.

  Her tone dragged a strained laugh from his throat. "Didn't you know?"

  "Not really," she confessed. Her eyes closed. "Puzzles," she said.

  He caught his breath at the word picture she evoked. "Yes," he managed. "Except that this par­ticular one can be difficult to fit together, unless it's put into place with exquisite tenderness."

  Her arms linked around his neck. His chest was damp and cool against hers as the heat began to die out of them.

  "Am I too heavy?" he asked.

  "Oh, no. I like the way it feels."

  He nuzzled his face against hers. "How about a swim, while we're here?"

  "I don't have a bathing suit," she said absently.

  He lifted his head. "Neither do I. We're being married in two days, Anna. I want you to know it all before I put my ring on your finger."

  The thought of seeing him without his clothes dis­turbed her, but she sensed that for him this was an obstacle that frightened him. As he said, they were going to be married. Many engaged couples did much more together than just swim without their clothes.

  "All right," she said softly.

  Evan caught his breath. "Are you sure?"

  "Yes." She touched his mouth with her fingertips. "I love you."

  So she said. But he wanted proof. If she could look at him without fear, one hurdle would be out of the way. Louisa's face still haunted him.

  "So be it," he said quietly.

  He got to his feet and helped her up, noticing her shy reluctance to undress in front of him. He smiled gently. "I'll walk down the path a bit. Yell when you're in the water."

  She sighed. 'Thank you, Evan."

  "You'll get used to it," he replied. He brushed a kiss across her mouth and moved away.

  She was in the water when he came back, and she kept her eyes averted while he took off his own clothes. Seconds later there was a splash as he landed close beside her.

  "Not so difficult, was it?" he asked with a grin as she trod water beside him.

  "I guess the first time is the hardest," she mused.

  "And the most necessary. Come on, chicken. I'll race you."

  She laughed, catching up with him. They played lazily. The feel of the water against her skin was exquisite. She closed her eyes and floated, glorying in the sense of freedom she felt.

  Evan watched her with hungry eyes, his heart pounding as he got fascinating glimpses of her creamy body under the water. When she arched her back and began to float, her taut nipples breaking the surface of the lake, he was totally lost.

  "Oh, God," he groaned softly.

  He reached for her, pulling her bod
y totally against his as he bent to her lips.

  She let him kiss her, feeling for the first time the touch of his body with no fabric to conceal its power and strength. She hesitated, and he lifted his head.

  "Afraid of me like this?" he whispered.

  "Not afraid, really," she confessed. Her blue eyes searched his dark ones. "I've never been without my clothes in front of anyone since I grew up—not even my mother."

  He held her waist in his big hands and searched her eyes. "I won't hurt you. Try to remember that."

  As he spoke, he lifted and turned her, carrying her toward the bank. She gasped and buried her embar­rassed face in his cool throat.

  His mouth slid across her cheek to her lips and he began to kiss her with exquisite tenderness. After a minute, she forgot her nudity and gave in to the de­licious pleasure of skin against skin.

  She felt the jolt of his body as he walked, then the cool air on her body and the softness of the grass on her back as he laid her down.

  He knelt over her, waiting for her eyes to open.

  She looked at him, flushed and looked away.

  He stiffened. "Don't you want to scream and run?" he asked tersely. "She did."

  The bitterness in his voice knocked the shyness right out of her. She forced her embarrassed eyes back to his powerful body, reminding herself that in two more days he was going to be her husband. She had to grow up, very fast.

  Her lips parted as she looked at him, and her heart began to race. She'd never seen a centerfold, but she was certain that he would have made a perfect one.

  Her rapt stare drained some of the apprehension from him. Her eyes were shy and frankly fascinated, but not afraid.

  He was doing some looking of his own. A wom­an's body was no mystery to him, but Anna's was enough to make a hardened womanizer crazy. Her soft curves were perfect, all of her, from the thrust of her breasts to the sweeping curve of her hips and her long, elegant legs.

  The sight of her aroused him, and he didn't turn away or try to hide the effect she had on him. She had to face that as well.

  Her breath came unsteadily through her lips. "Oh, my," she whispered.

  He lifted an eyebrow, waiting to see if she was bluffing.

  After a minute, her gaze lifted from his body to his eyes. "You thought I'd be afraid if I saw you like this," she said suddenly.

  "Yes."

  She smiled shyly. "I'm sorry to disappoint you," she said, watching the way his eyes followed hun­grily the sensuous lines of her body. "Why don't you come down here and kiss me?"

  He could barely breathe, much less speak. "Be­cause if I do, I won't be able to stop."

  "We're going to be married day after tomorrow."

  "Yes," he agreed. "And we're going to have a wedding night. A conventional one, with all the trim­mings."

  He managed to drag himself to his feet. He fished a couple of towels out of the trunk of his car and tossed one to a subdued Anna.

  "Spoilsport," she managed with a shy laugh.

  With a muttered curse of pure frustrated anguish, he pulled on his clothes and lit a cigarette while she was still fumbling with hooks and snaps.

  She watched him quietly when she had finished. He was remembering the past, she knew. She'd al­ways thought of him as a gentle giant. The idea of Evan hurting anything or anyone deliberately had never occurred to her.

  "You can't be afraid of people you love," she said gently.

  He grimaced, glancing at her. "Can't you? She was."

  She went close to him. "There's something you don't know yet, Evan."

  "What?" he asked huskily, remembering the in­credible beauty of her body as he looked down at her.

  "If Louisa had loved you—really loved you—she couldn't have been afraid of you in bed."

  He flushed. "She loved me," he said doggedly.

  "Did she?" She turned and picked up the towels, folding them neatly. He was preoccupied all the way back to the car.

  He put her in the front seat and got in beside her. There was a terrible truth in what she'd said. He hated the implications of it, that he'd wasted years of his life, years of happiness he might have had with Anna, brooding over a love affair that must have been nothing more than a brief infatuation for Louisa. His great love affair had ended in tragedy, only because he couldn't recognize what Anna seemed to know instinctively—that Louisa had never loved him in the first place. It was a hard pill to swallow.

  Chapter Eleven

  They were married on Friday afternoon, with Evan's entire family in attendance. It was a brief but beautiful ceremony, and Anna could hardly believe she was actually marrying Evan, even after he had slid the diamond-studded gold band that matched her solitaire onto her finger and kissed her tenderly.

  But despite that tenderness, he was worried. Dur­ing the small reception at the Tremayne home, he was preoccupied. Anna alone knew why. He was dreading his wedding night, so haunted by the past that he was certain he was going to send her scream­ing from him. She knew better, but she had to con­vince Evan that his great strength wasn't dangerous in intimacy.

  "It was a beautiful wedding, darling," Polly told her daughter just before Anna and Evan left on their brief honeymoon to New Orleans. "I hope you'll be happy."

  "I will be," Anna replied. She kissed and hugged her mother, then glanced toward her father, who was talking to Evan and Harden. "How about you and Dad?"

  Polly grinned. "He has to fly back to Atlanta to­night."

  "Oh." Anna's face fell.

  "I'm flying back with him," Polly continued, laughing at Anna's shocked face. "He's going to ask for a transfer to Houston so that he can be home nights when he's not scheduled on flights. We're go­ing to be a family again, Anna. And when Duke re­tires—which he's planning to do next year—I may get out of the real estate business and travel around the country with him."

  "It's almost too good to be true," Anna sighed, smiling through tears. "I'm so happy!"

  "So am I," Polly replied. She dried Anna's tears. "Go and have a nice honeymoon. When you're back, with both feet on the ground, we'll talk. Take care of yourself."

  "You, too."

  Minutes later, Anna was sitting beside Evan as he drove them to the airport.

  "Happy?" he asked gently, glancing at her.

  "Very. Are you?"

  "Ask me in the morning," he said with a rough laugh.

  "Oh, Evan," she sighed. "Am I going to have to get you drunk and seduce you?"

  He didn't laugh. His face hardened. "That wasn't funny."

  "I'm not afraid of you," she said gently.

  "I hope not. Because tonight, you'll get to prove it."

  She gave up trying to reassure him and stared out the window. Her wedding day had fallen flat, and the honeymoon had barely started.

  New Orleans was brassy and colorful, and once Anna had rested for a few minutes, she and a sub­dued Evan went out to explore the French Quarter and Bourbon Street. It was late afternoon when they got back to the hotel, and Evan herded her right into the restaurant for supper before they went up to their room. During the meal she tried to make conversa­tion, but he was heavy weather. And if she thought things couldn't be worse, she was mistaken.

  When they got up to their room, she turned to kiss him, but he actually backed away.

  "No," he said shortly, his dark eyes antagonistic. "Not now."

  "We're married, Evan," she said gently. "It's all right."

  "The hell it is." He grabbed up his Stetson and went toward the door. "I've got a business meeting. I'll be late, so don't wait up."

  "A business meeting? On our honeymoon!" she wailed.

  He wouldn't look at her. He'd let his anxiety build until he was terrified to touch her. He couldn't admit that. The next best thing was to invent an excuse to get away from her until he could get a grip on him­self.

  "Sorry," he replied. "It couldn't be helped. I'll be back when I can. Good night."

  He closed the door. Anna sat down
on the bed with a thud and gaped after him. She wondered how she was going to survive marriage with a man who was afraid to touch her. Damn Louisa!

  She finally slept, but not until the wee hours of the morning. When she drifted off, Evan still hadn't come to bed, and she'd cried until her eyes were red.

  Meanwhile, Evan was sitting in a bar, drinking whiskey, trying to convince himself that he wasn't King Kong. Anna loved him. She wasn't Louisa. But she was innocent, and he knew all too well how del­icate an innocent woman's body was. He was help­less when he started kissing her. If he lost control, he knew he was going to hurt her. He loved her until he thought his heart would break. He took another swallow, and another, brooding over all the times his strength had intimidated men and women alike. Be­fore he knew it, the bar was empty. He paid for his drinks and went slowly up to their room, wondering whether Anna was asleep yet.

  The next morning, she woke, vaguely aware that she wasn't alone in the bed. She rolled over and found Evan.

  With a faint sigh, she propped up on her elbow and looked at him. Asleep, he seemed younger and much less dangerous. Poor, tormented man. She couldn't really blame him for those mental scars. A man's ego was his most vulnerable spot, after all.

  But they really couldn't go on like this.

  It seemed underhanded somehow to take advan­tage of a man in his sleep, but Anna knew instinc­tively that Evan's irrational fear of hurting her was going to make any other course of action impossible.

  She tugged off her nightgown and smiled as she looked down on his sleeping face. With any luck at all she could make him believe he was only dream­ing. Of course, she'd have to do it just the right way....

  Dawn was only beginning in the eastern sky, so that there was barely any light in the room. Carefully she pulled the sheet down and threw it off the bed, her breath catching at the sight of Evan's body. He was already aroused, and he began to move rest­lessly, as if just the brush of the sheet had excited him.

  She eased down, her mouth slowly touching his broad chest, teasing his nipples. They were already hard, and she felt his breathing change as she nibbled at them. Her hands slid over the broad expanse of his hair-roughened chest and down his flanks to his hard thighs. As her hands moved, so did her mouth. She kissed him tenderly, nipped at him with her teeth, until she reached his navel and the sudden rip­pling of muscles just beneath it.