by Diana Palmer
“I know that,” she said breathlessly. “And I don’t think you’re a heel. You love Jeff very much, don’t you?”
He heard the jerky sound of her breathing and moved even closer, his powerful body all but wrapping around hers from behind. His face eased down so that his cheek was against hers, his warm breath sighing out at the corner of her mouth.
Her cold hands rested uneasily atop his, tremulous as the spell of his nearness made her pulse race wildly.
“It’s easy to love a child,” he said heavily. “Even a neglected, temperamental one. A child accepts love and returns it. Adults know better than to trust it.”
“I see.”
His hands tightened and his mouth dropped to her soft neck, pressing there hotly. “You see nothing,” he said huskily. “Lift your mouth. I want it.”
She started to protest, but the stark need of his mouth silenced her. His lips parted hers ruthlessly. He whipped her around against him, his body hardening as he held hers possessively to it. He groaned softly, and the sound made her even weaker.
With a tiny sigh, her mind let go and made her vulnerable in his arms. She reached up, opening her mouth to the rough, insistent probing of his tongue. The sensations he was causing made her knees tremble, and eventually it was only the crush of his arms that kept her on her feet at all.
The sudden silence in the living room was as blatant as a gunshot. Donavan reluctantly lifted his head just as Jeff’s footsteps impinged on the silence.
Fay tried to pull back, but Donavan wouldn’t let go.
“He isn’t blind,” he said unsteadily. “Stay put.”
She didn’t quite grasp what he meant until he moved deliberately against her, making her realize at once that his hunger for her was blatant and easily seen.
She subsided and laid her cheek on his broad chest, relaxing against him as Jeff pushed open the kitchen door, and made an embarrassed sound.
“Sorry,” he faltered. “I needed a soft drink.”
“Help yourself,” Donavan said, chuckling. “We are married, you know,” he added, lightening the atmosphere.
“It’s about time you started acting like you were,” Jeff murmured with a grin. He got his soft drink and closed the door behind him with a faint wink at Fay.
“I’ll remind you of the same thing,” he told her when he stepped back and her face flamed before she was able to avert her eyes. “And you’ve seen me with a hell of a lot less on, in this condition.”
“Will you stop?” she moaned.
“You’re very easily embarrassed for an old married woman.” His eyes narrowed as he paused long enough to light a cigar. He watched her closely. “I’ll keep you from getting pregnant. I want you in my bed tonight. Hear me out,” he added when she started to speak. “Sophistication is the one thing you can’t fake. If even Jeff realizes we aren’t living like married people, his stepfather might realize it as well. We could still lose Jeff.”
She hesitated. “I realize that.”
“You can pretend all you like,” he added, “but you want what I can give you in bed. You’re as excited right now as you were in the motel room the night after we married. The difference,” he said sensually, “is that now we can experience each other totally, Fay. I can satisfy you totally.”
Her lips parted. She could still feel him on them, taste him on them. He looked at her and knew, at once, that she was totally at his mercy.
Slowly he put out the cigar. He opened the door. “Jeff, we’re going to have an early night. Bed by eleven, got that?”
“What? Oh, sure, Uncle Don,” he said distractedly, his eyes on the TV screen. “Sleep well.”
“You, too.”
He closed the door and caught Fay’s cold hand in his. He tugged her with him to the hall door, opened and closed it behind them and then led her into the darkness of his own bedroom.
He closed that door, and locked it. Seconds later, in the warm dark, Fay felt him lever down completely against her, pushing her back against the cool wood of the door as the heat of his muscular body overwhelmed her.
While he kissed her, his hands slid under the dress she was wearing and played havoc with her aroused body. Long before he began to take her clothes off, she was barely able to stand alone.
Later, she lay quietly, trembling, in his bed while he removed his own clothes. She could barely see him in the faint light from the window, but what she saw was devastating, and her breath caught.
“You know what to expect already,” he whispered as he eased down beside her and began to arouse her all over again. “Except that this time,” he whispered into her mouth, “I’m going to fill you…”
She cried out. His mouth hurt, his body was hard and heavy, but she didn’t notice, didn’t care. She welcomed the warm weight of him, the fierce passion of his mouth and hands. She even welcomed the faint flash of pain when he came into her, her body arching up to receive him, her eyes wide with shock and awe as he slowly completed his possession and then paused, hovering with her on the brink of some sensual precipice.
One lean hand had her hip in its steely grasp. He looked at her, breathing unsteadily, his silver eyes glistening with excitement, beads of sweat on his lean, swarthy face.
His hand contracted and he moved, sensually, just enough to make her feverishly aware of how intimate their embrace was.
She caught her breath and he laughed, deep in his throat.
“Yes,” he whispered roughly. “You didn’t realize just how intimate it was going to be, did you, little one?”
“N-no,” she got out. She looked at him in astonishment, feeling him in every cell of her body. It was embarrassing, shocking, to talk to a man in the throes of such intimacy. And he was laughing. “It isn’t funny,” she choked.
“I’m not laughing because I’m amused,” he whispered, and bent to nibble with barely contained hunger at her softly swollen lips. His hips curled down into hers and lifted, creating a sudden sensual vortex that coaxed a cry of shocked pleasure from her lips. “I’m laughing because you’re the most sensual little virgin in the world, and because despite the newness and fear, you’re giving yourself to me without a single inhibition. Lift your hips. Let me feel you as close as you can get.”
She obeyed him, her body on fire. Her dreams had never been so explicit. Her nails bit into his broad shoulders as he began to move with exquisite delicacy.
“I may be a little rough with you now,” he whispered into her mouth. “Don’t be afraid of my passion. If you give yourself to it, to me, I’ll give you a kind of pleasure you can’t even imagine. Match me. Match my rhythm. Don’t pull back. That’s it.” His teeth clenched and he groaned as his body stiffened. “Oh, God, I’m losing it…!”
He did. He lost it completely, before he could give her the time she needed to experience fulfillment. He arched above her, his face contorted and terrible in its unearthly pleasure, and he bit off something explicit and harsh as he gave in to the silky convulsions.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, lying drained and heavy over her. “My God, I’m so sorry!”
“Sorry that you made love to me?” she asked in a curious whisper.
“Sorry that I didn’t satisfy you!”
“Oh.” She stroked his dark hair gently. “You mean, the way you did the night we were married?” She smiled. “Now you can, can’t you?”
He stared at her poleaxed. “You think that what just happened was only for my benefit?”
She frowned. “Wasn’t it?”
He pulled her close and his arms tightened. “You’re one in a million, do you know that? Lift this leg…yes!”
She gasped as his body suddenly became part of hers. She hadn’t expected this again so soon. Weren’t men supposed to be incapable for several minutes after intimacy?
He moved slowly, exquisitely, and her breath caught. She clung to him, as the most astounding sensations worked through her tightening body.
“Donavan,” she began, and suddenly cri
ed out at the unexpected spasm of staggering pleasure.
“Be quiet, sweetheart,” he whispered at her mouth, his hips moving with more insistence now, more purpose. “Hold on tight. Yes, Fay, feel it, yes…yes!”
She wept brokenly as the pleasure burst inside her like an overfilled balloon. She had no control whatsoever over her body or the vicious contractions that convulsed her under his openly watchful eyes.
He whispered to her, words of encouragement, praise, flattery, while his mouth touched quickly over her flushed, taut face. It went on and on. She shuddered and clung, convulsed and clung, experiencing sensations beyond her wildest dreams of perfection.
At last, the world stopped rocking and whirling around her. She trembled helplessly in the aftermath, drenched in sweat, weeping softly from the onrush of pleasure and its abrupt loss.
Donavan cradled her in his hard arms, smoothing back her damp hair as he comforted her.
“This,” he said after a few minutes, “is what intimacy really is.”
“I thought…before, at the motel…” She couldn’t quite find the words.
“An alternate way of making love,” he said quietly. “But nothing like the real thing. Was it, Fay?”
He wasn’t mocking, or teasing. His voice was soft and deep and matter-of-fact.
“We…were like one person,” she whispered into his cool, hair-roughened chest.
“Yes.” His cheek moved against hers and he kissed her, very gently.
Her body felt pleasantly tired. She went boneless against him and slid even closer, her legs tangling with his. “Can I stay with you?” she asked drowsily.
His arms tightened. “Let me put it this way—just try to get away.”
She smiled sleepily. “I don’t think I want to.”
He bit the lobe of her ear softly. “I want you again, right now,” he said huskily, feeling her heart jump under his palm. “But we’ll wait until in the morning. It didn’t hurt? Even the first time?”
“No,” she lied, and snuggled closer. It hadn’t hurt very much. And the second time had been heaven.
“Fay,” he said hesitantly. His fingers threaded through her soft hair. “Fay, I forgot to use anything.”
She didn’t stir, or answer. He looked down and realized belatedly that she was asleep.
He bent and kissed her closed eyelids. “Maybe it’s just as well that you didn’t hear me,” he whispered. His lean hand found her soft belly and rested there possessively. “You’d love a baby, Fay. So would I. Maybe it’s already happened. If it has, perhaps I can convince you that it would be a bonus, not a complication.”
Fay was wavering between consciousness and sleep. She heard Donavan say something about a bonus, but her mind was already headed for oblivion. She clung closer and gave in to it.
Chapter 9
Fay was humming softly to herself when Donavan came in from the barn. He’d gone out without waking her, and she was disappointed. She’d been hoping that the night before might have coaxed him to want her again, but obviously that hope had been doomed.
She stopped humming when he walked in, her eyes a little shy and nervous. “Good morning,” she began, searching for the right words.
He paused in the doorway, and he could have been playing poker for all the expression in his face. Her stiff composure told him things he didn’t want to know. He’d pleased her in the night. He’d hoped that things would change between them now that she knew what married life could be. But he wasn’t reassured. She looked uncomfortable and poised to run. If she felt anything for him, it didn’t show. And he needed some reassurance before he paraded his own feelings in front of her; his pride would take a mighty blow if she didn’t care anymore.
“Good morning,” he replied with equal formality. “Breakfast ready?”
“Almost.”
He turned. “I’ll call Jeff.”
And not a word was said, either about the night before, or about what he felt. Fay watched him surreptitiously, hoping to see some flicker of warmth in those silver eyes. But they never met hers. He was polite, nothing more. Fay left the table resolved not to expect anything from that encounter in the darkness the night before. It was just as well, because that night he didn’t come near her.
The next morning, they went to church, and then spent a lazy afternoon in front of the television watching old movies. There had hardly been three words spoken in front of Jeff, who looked worried.
“Something bothering you?” Donavan asked curtly after supper.
Jeff looked uncomfortable. “Yes, sir. Sort of.”
“What is it?”
“It’s you and Aunt Fay,” he said miserably, wincing at Fay’s shock and Donavan’s quick anger. “I’m sorry, but if you two go into court tomorrow looking like you do right now, I guess I’ll be back in military school by the next morning. Could you pretend to like each other, just while we’re in court?”
“No problem there,” Donavan assured him. “Now you’d better get your bath and go to sleep. We’ve got a big day ahead tomorrow.”
When he left the room, Donavan got up and turned off the television. His eyes lingered on Fay’s flushed cheeks for a few seconds before he spoke.
“He’s dead right,” he told her. “If we don’t present a united front, he won’t be able to stay here.”
“I know.” She folded her hands in her lap and clenched them, staring at her nails. “I don’t want him to have to leave, Donavan, whatever you think.”
His broad shoulders lifted and fell in an offhand gesture. He lit a cigar and stared at its tip. “I shouldn’t have lost my head night before last,” he said tersely. “It made things worse between us.”
She didn’t know how to answer that. She picked at one of her fingernails and didn’t look up. “It was my fault, too.”
“Was it? You didn’t seduce me, honey,” he drawled.
She sighed heavily. “I’m not on the pill,” she said.
He hesitated. “Yes, I know.”
“And you…well, you didn’t do anything…”
“That’s right,” he replied. “Keep going.”
She cleared her throat, glancing up at him. “You might have made me pregnant.”
One corner of his mouth curved gently. “There’s an old family christening gown around here somewhere. My great-grandmother made the lace it’s edged in. There’s a high chair and even a cradle that date back to the first settlers in Jacobsville.”
Fay’s green eyes softened as they met his. Her cheeks warmed as she looked at him. “I…I have a baptismal set, too. The furniture’s all gone. But there’s one antique that Great-Aunt Tessie kept—a silver baptismal bowl. I saved it from the auction.”
The mention of her deceased relative made his expression become grim. He averted his face and smoked his cigar, still pacing slowly. “You inherited a lot of money,” he said. “Can’t you keep the furniture, or don’t you want it?”
“I have no place for it in my apartment,” she said simply.
He spun on his heel, glaring at her. “This is your home. There’s no way on earth you’re leaving here until I know if you’re pregnant.”
She started. “It’s unlikely…”
“Why? Because it was the first time?” he asked with mocking amusement.
His sophisticated attitude angered her. “Can’t we talk about something else?” she asked stiffly.
“Sure.” He raised the cigar to his firm lips. He felt optimistic for the first time. She still reacted to him. She couldn’t hide the way he affected her. It made him feel proud to realize that she was as helplessly attracted to him as he was to her.
Now, if only her heart was involved…
“Why don’t you sleep with me tonight?” he asked sensuously. “After all, one more time isn’t going to make much difference now.”
“You don’t want me to stay here,” she said. “I don’t want a child who has to grow up without his father.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t wan
t you to stay here,” he returned.
“You did so!” she raged, standing. “You said that you didn’t want me anymore because my great-aunt died and left me rich again! You let me go to Florida all by myself—”
“Not quite. Henry went with you,” he pointed out.
She continued as if he hadn’t interrupted “—and then you said I could find somewhere else to live!”
“I didn’t say that,” he murmured dryly. “Surely not?”
“Yes, you did!”
“That was before I slept with you, of course,” he pointed out, letting his eyes punctuate the flat statement. “Now I’m hopelessly addicted.”
“Any woman would do,” she muttered.
“Not really, or I’d have had a few in the past year or so. I’d all but lost interest in sex until you came along and knocked my legs out from under me.”
“A likely story, after the things you did to me night before last…!”
She stopped very suddenly, her hand going to her mouth as she realized what she’d said. She sat down again, hard.
“I had experience, Fay,” he said softly.
She flushed. “I noticed!”
“You might consider that those early encounters made your life a little easier.”
She stared at her feet, still smoldering. “You did things to me that I never even read in books.”
“I’ll tell you a secret, honey,” he mused, putting out his cigar before he came to kneel between her legs where she sat rigidly on the sofa. He was almost on a level with her shocked eyes as he looked into them. “I’ve never done with anyone some of those things I did to you. And never could.”
“C-couldn’t you?” she whispered.
“No.” His hands caught her waist and pulled gently, suddenly overbalancing so that she landed breathlessly on his chest. He rolled, pinning her under him on the big throw rug. As he held her eyes, one long leg inserted itself between both of hers and he moved slowly.
“I want you again. Now,” he told her, his body screaming it in the intimate embrace. His lean hand smoothed blatantly over her soft breast and then began to slip buttons out of buttonholes.