by Diana Palmer
“It’s natural,” he murmured, surprising her by reading the question in her eyes. “I tan in the summer, but this stays with me year-round. One of my grandfathers was Spanish.”
“I didn’t mean to stare.”
He took the package of steaks out of her hands and tossed it to one side. His lean hands tugged until she fell against him. In his reclining posture against the counter, the contact was total, all the way up and down, and she stiffened unconsciously.
“No surprises,” he promised. “Just this. Watch.” His voice was deep and sensuous. He held her waist loosely with one hand while the other slowly worked buttons out of buttonholes and finally tugged his shirt free of his slacks, disclosing a broad, muscular chest that was almost completely camouflaged by thick, curling black hair. “Now, look at me,” he said quietly.
She did, helplessly. She’d never seen anyone quite as masculine or as sensuous. He even smelled male, a scent that worked on her senses fiercely as she stood against his long, powerful legs and stared at the expanse of bare flesh he’d uncovered for her.
“Your eyes are very expressive,” he said, his eyes darkening, glittering. “Giving away secrets.”
“What kind of secrets?” she asked huskily, lifting her face to meet that hungry gaze.
“You’d be surprised.” He bent and bit at her mouth roughly. The contact was swift, and then she was free. “Keep those sultry eyes to yourself. They’re more dangerous than you realize.”
He moved lazily toward the bedroom. Tess had barely recovered her balance and her good sense by the time he’d changed into tight jeans and a white T-shirt. The clothing fit him like a second skin, outlining a body that most men would have killed for. He was tall, but not thin. His broad shoulders tapered down in a wedge, over a muscular chest to lean hips and impossibly long legs. He was built like a rodeo rider. Tess had to drag her gaze back to the steaks.
“Like coffee?” he asked, smiling with pure delight at the way she was watching him.
“Yes.”
“I’ll make it.”
The kitchen was too small for two people. That was probably why, she thought breathlessly, he was constantly brushing against her in the most arousing way as he brewed the coffee.
He finished, but he didn’t go away. In his sock feet, he was still taller than she was, and his relaxed manner of dress made her much too aware of him as a man.
“I disturb you,” he mused.
She started to deny it, then thought better of that. He might be compelled to prove it if she did. “Yes,” she said instead.
He leaned back on his hands against the counter, smiling with his eyes in a way that made her knees weak.
“Why don’t you come over here and do something about it,” he challenged softly.
She wanted to groan. She shouldn’t have been vulnerable. The last time she’d been in this apartment, he’d hurt her, scarred her, almost savaged her. How could she feel so wanton now?
“Dane,” she protested, her eyes lifting to his.
“I can feel you tremble,” he whispered deeply, his eyes narrowing with desire. “I can hear you breathing, Tess.” His eyes fell to her breasts, which were shuddering under the thick sweatshirt. “Think how it would be, if I eased up the hem of that sweatshirt and slid my lips over your breasts, took the nipple in my mouth and made it tight and hard….”
“Dane!”
She was shaking. She barely saw him move the frying pan off the burner and turn off the stove. His lean hand snaked out and caught her wrist, pulling her within reach. Both hands went to the sweatshirt and bunched it, clutched it, while his dark eyes probed hers.
“Inch by inch,” he whispered, moving it up to her rib cage. “Inch by aching inch, with my hands on your bare skin…”
Her face burned. Her body burned. She gave in quite suddenly, closing her eyes with a shaky breath, arching her back to ease his way. She felt his hands spread over her rib cage, warm and faintly rough, as he pushed the fabric up farther. He bent and she felt the hot moistness of his lips touch her. She shivered and moaned harshly, her voice unrecognizable.
“Lean on me so that you don’t fall,” he whispered. His tongue eased out against her bare flesh, teasing it, spreading over it until she shuddered, the hem of the sweatshirt rising with his hands to the very edge of her breast in its soft lacy casing. His nose rubbed against the lower band of the bra and she clutched at his shoulders to keep her balance, so overwhelmed that tears of tense pleasure were stinging her eyes.
She hung, waiting, yielding, totally submissive to anything he wanted to do to her. Waited…waited…
“Tess!” His voice exploded into the silence. His hands contracted suddenly and his head jerked up while he fought for breath. “My God, I’m sorry…!”
He pulled the sweatshirt down and left the kitchen without looking at her. She couldn’t move for several long seconds. She was dimly aware of water running somewhere, but even that didn’t immediately register. She finally managed to stand up and turn her attention back to the steaks. They were done, but not burned, thank God. She put them on a platter with shaking hands.
She’d set the table, served the food and poured the coffee by the time he rejoined her. He was wearing a shirt over his T-shirt now, and it was buttoned. His hair was damp, as if he’d just come from a shower. Probably he had. She wouldn’t have minded some cold water, either. She was still on fire for him. Incredible, that kind of hunger, when only days before she’d been afraid of him.
“It’s all right,” he said quietly, noticing the way she avoided looking directly at him while they ate. “Nothing happened.”
Nothing? She almost said the word aloud. She couldn’t manage to look at him. Not that he was paying her any attention. His eyes, like his mind, were forcibly concentrated on his steak.
“This is good,” he said. “I can’t ever get it medium rare. Either it’s raw or leather.”
“It’s the heat,” she faltered. “You have to be sure the pan’s hot enough.”
“You can teach me, while you’re here.”
“Yes, all right.”
He looked at her then, finally, his eyes dark and oddly wary. “Why so embarrassed, Tess?” he asked quietly. “I didn’t even touch you intimately.”
“You did,” she protested. “With words…”
His expression was unreadable. Intense and faintly threatening. “Things went too far, too fast. I was playing with you,” he said cruelly. “Until you melted into me like that…”
Her heart felt as if he’d kicked it. Perhaps that was how he meant it to sound. “I get the message,” she said, forcing her voice to sound light and unconcerned. She looked up, surprising an odd expression on his face as he stared at her. “I’m as guilty as you are.”
He leaned back in his chair, his coffee cup in his hand as he looked at her openly. “Fair enough. But before you get any ideas about why it happened, it’s mostly abstinence, Tess,” he said tautly. “I haven’t been intimate with a woman since the shooting. Maybe I’m more desperate than I realized.”
So that was it. Hope died hard, but he was forcing her to realize that it wasn’t undying love that had motivated him. All the same, he puzzled her. She couldn’t stop the question slipping out. “Why hasn’t there been a woman?” she asked.
He stared at her, shocked. “Because of my leg,” he said involuntarily.
“Because it’s still painful?”
“Because of the way it looks. The way I look, with my leg shot to pieces.” He frowned. “And maybe because of you,” he added reluctantly, searching her eyes. “Sex…hasn’t appealed to me much since you ran from me that day.” He averted his eyes. “Call it a lack of self-confidence.”
“You were different then,” she began slowly. “Tonight… Well, you didn’t frighten me at all.”
“So I noticed,” he said tersely. He stared at her until she blushed. “Don’t trust me, Tess. If I’d gotten my mouth as far as your breasts, I honestly don’t know
what would have happened. Do you understand, little one?” he asked, his eyes narrow with concern. “I want you. God, Tess, I want you so damned much!” he whispered huskily.
It was true. She’d gotten under his skin in the past few days. He’d never been as tender, or as aroused, in his entire life as he’d been with her lately. Her responsiveness went to his head, made him careless and vulnerable.
“But you don’t want to, do you?” she asked softly. She searched his dark eyes.
“You’re a virgin,” he said stiffly. “You tell me if I want to.”
He was more open than he’d ever been. It was obvious that he was afraid of commitment, of loving, of being deserted again. He didn’t trust women, or like them. But his body was starved for physical satisfaction, and Tess was innocent and handy. She had to keep the situation in perspective.
“If I weren’t innocent—” she began.
“If you weren’t, we’d already be lovers,” he said heavily. “You’re afraid of me like that, but you want me just the same.” His dark eyes narrowed on her flushed face. “The first time might be pretty uncomfortable,” he said, his voice almost choked with feeling. “I might not be able to help hurting you, since it’s been so long for me. But the second time…” His high cheekbones went ruddy as he looked at her. “The second time, I’d pleasure you until you cried. I’d be tender. So tender. I’d love you the way I just did in the kitchen, slowly and softly. I’d put my lips all over you. And by the time I joined your body to mine in that intimate way, you’d be sobbing under my mouth….”
He cursed under his breath and got up, running a rough hand over his face. “God,” he breathed unsteadily. “I’ve got to get out of here!”
Tess watched him leave the room, trembling with desire that he’d kindled so unexpectedly. She could hardly believe that he wanted her so much. All the years he’d denied it, been hostile, kept her at arms’ length had been a sham. With shocking clarity, she saw right through him to the vulnerability he was trying to hide. He cared. He cared deeply. Maybe he always had, and her reaction to his ardor had hurt him. She hadn’t known anything about him, really. Hadn’t totally understood that he’d been savaged by two women he cared about, persecuted by one and deserted in his time of need by the other. He was afraid to love, but he did. Tess caught her breath. He loved her. It was the only possible explanation for the way he was with her lately, for the tenderness that he was learning to give her, for his protective attitude.
He didn’t know it, or wouldn’t admit it. But the realization made Tess feel warm all over. The trick was going to be making sure he didn’t find out that she knew. In the meantime, her heart almost burst with joy. He was hers; he belonged to her now as surely as if he’d given her a solemn vow.
He came back a few minutes later, smoking a cigarette and looking totally uninvolved.
“Want some more coffee?” she asked gently.
“Please.”
She poured it while he watched her, averting his eyes when she noticed. They drank coffee in tense silence.
“I’ll get used to having you here,” he said after a minute, “and we’ll manage. I can’t let you go home until the dealers are caught and the court decides how to dispose of them.”
“I know. I’ll try not to be too much trouble,” she added with a smile. She got up and brought out a pudding she’d made for dessert, serving it with no conversation at all. When he touched her, he was vulnerable. But the minute he moved away, the wall came back, reinforced. Except that now she knew why he kept building it, and she wasn’t hurt by it anymore.
Dane was fighting his feelings tooth and nail. He could go crazy for her if he let himself. That couldn’t be. Tess was an old-fashioned girl, with old-fashioned ideas about life and men, courtesy of her grandmother, who’d been responsible for most of her upbringing. He couldn’t take her to bed and forget about her. So he had to forget about her physically. In order to accomplish that, as much as he hated to, he was going to have to push her away and keep her there.
He studied her downcast face with eyes that wanted her, but he averted his gaze the minute she looked up. Boss and employee, he told himself. Surely he could manage that.
Chapter Five
TESS ENJOYED LIVING WITH DANE. She hadn’t expected it to be so sweet, even just being with him while they watched television at night. He liked to sit around in his white T-shirts and jeans, in his sock feet, and sprawl over his armchair while he drank beer and watched old movies. Tess found herself relaxing with him, now that she had a good idea how he felt about her. The way he watched her was exciting, like the evasive tenderness in his eyes when she smiled at him.
He was a loner by nature, a very private man with any number of hang-ups that she discovered quite by accident. It embarrassed him to discuss his feelings, so he never let conversation between them get personal. They talked about the job, about everything except themselves.
A few days after she’d moved in, she was watching a program about birth. He came into the room during it, having been working in his study.
As if it disturbed him to see the embryo being shown at that moment on the screen, he turned to leave.
“I can change the channel if you don’t want to watch this,” she offered.
He hesitated, his eyes going reluctantly back to the screen. They were showing a delivery room now, a very explicit delivery.
“Sorry.” She pushed the Off button on the remote control and laid it down. “I was curious,” she confessed. “I never learned much about sex and reproduction at home, and school courses are very brief. I wanted to know how babies…how they grew.”
“How they got made, you mean,” he corrected, watching her face color. “But they didn’t show that, did they?”
She cleared her throat. “Not really.”
“I’ve got a book,” he said slowly. “You wouldn’t want to read it with me here, I know, but you might find it interesting. It shows how people make love without being graphic or offensive.”
Her eyes searched his averted face. “I didn’t think men were curious about things like that. I mean, you know it all already, don’t you?”
He lit a cigarette, pausing in the doorway. “I know how to have sex with a woman,” he corrected. “I…wanted to know how to make love.”
The words made her warm inside. He looked frankly embarrassed. She watched him quietly. “Because I ran from you?”
His eyes glowered at her. “Don’t get personal.”
She smiled. “That was why, though, wasn’t it?”
He drew in an irritated breath and took another draw from the cigarette. “Maybe it was. So what?” he asked belligerently. “It isn’t as if I’ll ever need to know for your sake. I’m not going to make love to you.”
Her eyes fell to the irregular rise and fall of his broad chest. “I wouldn’t be afraid of it now,” she said softly. “You’re very sexy. I didn’t want you to stop that time in the kitchen.”
His heart shuddered in his chest. “Talking like this is dangerous,” he whispered. “You don’t know how dangerous.”
She looked up at him, her eyes adoring his lean, hard face. “Dane, have you ever thought about having a child?” she asked huskily.
His face exploded with color. He moved jerkily and turned away from her to pull nervously at his cigarette. “No,” he said curtly.
“You don’t want children?” she persisted.
He fingered the cigarette, staring at its glowing orange tip with eyes that barely saw it. “It wouldn’t have made any difference, Tess,” he said after a minute. He looked down at her, his expression reluctant. “I can’t father a child.”
Her mind wouldn’t absorb it. She heard the words without comprehending them.
He turned, his eyes dark and quiet as they searched hers. “Jane wanted to get pregnant,” he said slowly. “She was obsessed with it. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t be gentle with her. She demanded, raged at me when she didn’t conceive. I felt like some gelded
bull by the time she gave up and stopped offering herself to me.” He sighed wearily. “I couldn’t make her pregnant. Eventually, I couldn’t even make love properly.” He bent over to put out the cigarette, only half-smoked. “You think you’ve got scars because of what I did to you. I wish you could see mine.”
He turned and started to leave.
She got up, too, and went to him, her eyes big and soft. “There are a lot of reasons why women don’t conceive.”
“She had a child by her new husband barely ten months after they married,” he said curtly.
“That wasn’t what I meant. You like jeans, but they create a climate that sometimes prevents men from being fertile….” She flushed as she realized what she was saying.
He lifted an eyebrow. “You’re a virgin, I believe?”
“That program I was watching mentioned it,” she hedged.
“I don’t wear jeans all the time,” he reminded her. “Well…”
His gaze went slowly down her body and back up. She was wearing jeans herself, with a floppy, button-up green shirt. Her hair was up in a disheveled knot on top of her head. She looked young and pretty and very sexy.
“Go away,” he said softly. “If I touch you, I won’t stop. I can’t stop. I’ll go every inch of the way.”
She searched his eyes and the flush got worse. It was as intimate as a kiss, the way she looked at him. “I know, Dane,” she breathed.
His jaw tautened. His breathing changed suddenly, sharply.
She looked down, and her eyes triggered a reaction he’d been trying desperately to avoid. She didn’t look away, even then. She found him fascinating. Her expression told him so.
“You’re afraid of me,” he reminded her with choked passion in his voice. “Hold that thought.”