by Diana Palmer
The faint emphasis on “I” froze her. She looked into eyes that stared back with unnerving intensity, faintly bloodshot, as if he hadn’t slept any better than she had.
“Why?” she asked softly. “So you can start on me all over again? Carry on where you left off yesterday?”
He drew in a slow breath, ramming his hands into his jean pockets as he leaned back against the wall and stared at her. “I found out everything I wanted to know about you yesterday,” he said. “Every single thing, in the one way I could without the risk of being lied to. I didn’t mean to frighten you quite so badly, but I wanted answers you wouldn’t have given me any other way.”
She stiffened. “You mean you did that on purpose?”
He nodded solemnly. “It was a revelation. I had a feeling that you weren’t half as sophisticated as I’d given you credit for being. The first time I kissed you, I had to force you to open your mouth—hardly the response of a woman who knows much about kissing,” he added with a faint smile. “And you were far too devastated by what happened at the lake, as if it was something totally new. It all added up to one thing. When I kissed you on the way home, the way you reacted clinched it. What I didn’t bargain for,” he added on a weary sigh, “was the fear. Surely to God you knew I wouldn’t force you?”
“No,” she admitted, turning back to the coffeepot. “I didn’t know that. You...you were so rough.”
“Someday you might understand why,” he told her. “But I don’t think I’ll try to explain it right now.”
He was across the room in three long strides, his nearness sudden enough to be startling. She could feel the heat from his body, feel his warm, smoky breath stirring the hair at her temples, but still he didn’t touch her.
She looked up apprehensively, helpless in the pull of his silvery eyes.
“I don’t want you to go,” he said quietly. “Now that I know the truth, I’ll never handle you so roughly again.”
Kindness from him was so new that it was startling. “But we’re enemies,” she whispered.
A muscle flinched in his square jaw. “We were,” he agreed.
“You don’t even like me,” she persisted. “Why keep me around to irritate you even more?”
His face relaxed a little. One big, long-fingered hand came out of his pocket to touch, gently, the soft line of her cheek. “Because, little one,” he murmured, “I like the way it makes me feel when I touch you.”
Her cheeks flamed. Her lips parted. “Don’t...”
He bent, brushing his lips over her forehead, her eyelids, her eyebrows in a silent caress that tingled with sensation. The whispery touch made her knees feel rubbery.
“You see?” he asked softly, drawing back to catch her stunned expression. “I’m not always rough.”
She gazed up at him, fascinated, her eyes wide and very dark and curious.
His breath came roughly as he met that look, and like a man in a trance, his big hands came up to cup her face and hold it up to his.
“Come close,” he breathed, bending toward her again. “I won’t hurt you.”
She obeyed him because the temptation was too much to resist. She loved the feel of his big body against hers, its strength and warmth; she loved the touch of his calloused hands against the tender skin of her face. She loved so much about him....
He brushed his mouth tenderly over hers, smoothing it, teasing it, and she caught her breath at the exquisite sensation and drew back an inch.
“Don’t draw away,” he murmured, his thumbs caressing the corners of her mouth. “It won’t be like yesterday. Come here, darling.”
And this time, he made it sound like an endearment. His mouth pressed softly, gently against hers, not forcing it open, not exerting any kind of pressure at all. It was the gentlest kind of kiss, and everything womanly in her responded wildly to it.
She eased up on her tiptoes, her fingers resting against his warm chest, feeling the rise and fall of his heavy breathing. Her eyes closed as she increased the pressure of her own mouth, wanting something more, something...more!
“Please...please,” she begged, uncertain herself what she was asking of him.
“Are you sure?” he whispered against her pleading mouth. “It won’t be this tender if I kiss you the way you’re asking to be kissed.”
Her eyes lazily slid open and looked up into his. “Oh, yes,” she breathed shakily, “I’m sure...”
His fingers tightened at the sides of her head, his own eyes slitted and fairly blazed with hunger. “Open your mouth for me, darling,” he whispered, and she felt his own lips parting even as he spoke, felt the moist insistence of them on her yielding mouth. Her eyes closed. The world began to spin around deliciously as she felt his tongue caressing the inner sweetness of her lips....
This slow, sweet ardor was a world away from the rough passion of yesterday, even though he was hungry, and the hard crush of his mouth showed how hungry. But there was enough restraint in him to make her feel protected, secure in the warmth of his arms as he rocked her gently against his big body.
The sound of a door slamming brought his head up with a gruff curse. He drew in a steadying breath and reluctantly let her go. “I’m beginning to think there’s no privacy in the world anymore,” he muttered darkly.
Remembering their bad luck yesterday and the day before, she couldn’t hold back a smile.
He shook her gently by the waist. “Think it’s funny?” His eyes gleamed wickedly. “Come riding with me. If you dare.”
“I don’t know,” she murmured thoughtfully, surprised at their suddenly easy relationship. “Isn’t it supposed to be terribly dangerous going off into the woods with men?” She peeked up at him through impossibly long, thick lashes.
He caught his breath at the look, his fingers tightening. “Only for women who look like you do,” he returned curtly. “Teddi...”
“Teddi, are you in there?” Jenna called suddenly.
King let go just as the door opened and Jenna walked in, her face beaming, her long hair swinging gaily. She stopped short at the sight of her taciturn brother and her flushed friend.
“Scrambled eggs at twenty paces?” Jenna guessed, looking from one to the other. “Or is it a duel with crossed forks?”
King smiled faintly. “Not quite. Here, I’ll carry this in.” He took up the platter of eggs and went into the dining room with it, leaving the girls to bring the coffee.
“Well?” Jenna prodded in an impatient whisper.
“We’re going riding,” Teddi said, shaking her head. “I don’t ever expect to understand your brother.”
“Oh, I think you might, someday,” Jenna replied knowingly as they went through into the dining room, where Mary and King were already seated.
All through breakfast, Teddi felt his gaze. Once, she looked up from her cup of coffee and stared straight into his steady gray eyes. She didn’t move and neither did he, and the air between them sizzled with emotion. He was, she thought wildly, such an impossibly attractive man. She wanted the wildest things—to sit down in his lap, and twine her fingers through that thick, blond hair, to trace his chiseled mouth and feather kisses all over his face. Her heart thudded furiously as she read the exact same hunger in his eyes, silver eyes that seemed to see right into her mind.
“Teddi, that was just delicious,” Mary said, bringing her back to reality as she laid her fork down with a smile. “I didn’t realize until this minute just how much I miss Miss Peake. Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome,” Teddi replied, trying not to let the exploding emotions she was feeling show in her voice.
“At least the biscuits don’t bounce,” King observed, leaning back and cocking an amused eyebrow at her.
“King, what a thing to say!” Mary chided. “Why, I thought Teddi’s first efforts were...admirable,” she said, searching for a polite way to describe Teddi’s attempts to make the same biscuits several years earlier.
“I’ve no quarrel with that,” King re
plied. “They were admirable, all right.” He stood up, flexing his broad shoulders absently. “But the biscuits still bounced.”
Teddi couldn’t repress a smile. “It wouldn’t have been so bad if that Oklahoma cattleman hadn’t been at the table,” she murmured.
“And especially,” Jenna couldn’t resist adding, “after King had just been bragging about the delicious food Miss Peake was known for, unaware that Teddi had just had her first lesson in biscuit making.”
“They looked lovely,” Mary interrupted loyally.
“And now they’re good enough to enter in bake-offs.” Jenna smiled.
“Well, I get lots of practice,” Teddi reminded her. “Since there aren’t any modeling jobs to be had near the college, I work a split-shift at a restaurant,” she told Mary. “My classes don’t begin until late morning, so I’m up baking biscuits at 5:00 a.m. Then I go back and work another four hours after classes.”
“What the devil for?” King demanded. “Your aunt supports you and pays your tuition. Do you need to kill yourself for spending money?”
“What do you mean, Dilly pays—” Jenna began hotly, until Teddi almost knocked over a chair trying to silence her.
“Never mind, Jenna,” she said firmly, silently daring her friend to say another word. If King wanted to believe she was a girl who had to have money for frivolities, and a freeloader to boot, let him, she didn’t care. “Excuse me,” she said without meeting his eyes, and, putting down her napkin, left the room.
King caught up with her at the staircase, reaching out with a firm but gentle hand to catch her as she started up the steps toward her room.
“I didn’t mean that the way you took it,” he said before she could speak. His face looked harder than ever, his big body taut and poised, one booted foot on the step she was standing on.
She met his eyes, her look wary and uncertain. “I still have to have clothes to wear to classes,” she said quietly. “And on some modeling assignments, I have to have my own wardrobe.”
He drew in a deep breath. “And your aunt’s generosity doesn’t extend that far?”
He wouldn’t have believed the extent of her aunt’s “generosity,” she thought bitterly, remembering that she had to buy her own clothes, pay her own tuition, and manage transportation to and from college. She was practically penniless after all that. But an education would give her the means to support herself, and she only had another year to go. Just one more year. Then she’d be totally independent of Dilly.
The hand on her arm was suddenly caressing, drawing her back down beside him. “We have a truce, remember?” he asked in a deep, lazy tone. “It shocked me to think of your doing something less glamorous than modeling. It always has. You don’t look like a cook, darling.”
“The biscuits prove I am one, though,” she reminded him with a faint smile. “They don’t bounce anymore.”
He watched the light come back into her wide, dark eyes, and nodded. “So they don’t. Come on. We’ll ride up to the gate and back over by the Johnson property.”
“Where all those gorgeous blue spruces are?” she asked.
“You always loved blue spruce, didn’t you?” he laughed.
She nodded.
He smiled. “Still an outdoor girl, aren’t you? Do you miss the city?”
She looked up at his rugged face under its shock of blond-streaked hair and saw blatant curiosity in his eyes. “No,” she said truthfully. “I don’t miss it at all.”
He stared down at her so intensely that she felt as though her heart would run away with her. But a minute later, he tore his eyes away from hers and led her out the door.
Chapter Six
Riding around Gray Stag was one of Teddi’s favorite recreations anytime, but riding with King beside her was a taste of heaven.
He looked magnificent in the saddle, she thought dreamily, glancing at the tall, broad-shouldered man beside her. In his well-fitting jeans and shirt, with a wide-brimmed hat cocked over one eye, shading his hard face, he was handsome enough to make any movie cowboy envious.
He took a draw from his cigarette and turned his head, catching her staring at him. One corner of his mouth curled and he chuckled softly at her embarrassment.
“The, uh, the scenery is lovely through here,” she said, clearing her throat nervously.
“So are you, little one,” he murmured appreciatively. “I don’t mind if you look at me, Teddi. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
He knew too much about women, she thought half angrily, trying to hold back a grin. She lost, and laughter burst out of her like the sun out of a thundercloud.
He reined in his horse and just looked at her, as if the gleeful, silvery laughter fascinated him. With the sun glinting off her dark hair, and the laughter making lights in her wide brown eyes, she was a sight to stop traffic.
“You make me feel about thirteen,” she accused when she stopped to catch her breath. “And I do wish you’d stop making fun of me. It’s not fair.”
“I’m not making fun of you,” he denied, smiling faintly. “I just like watching you blush, darling.”
“Beast,” she said, pouting.
He chuckled, urging his mount into a trot alongside her. “Have you seen my new Arabians?” he asked.
“No, we started that way, but Jenna and Blakely got sidetracked...”
His face hardened. “They’re doing a lot of that lately,” he muttered. “Blakely’s slacking up on the job.”
“King, he’s a nice man,” she began hesitantly, wary of disrupting the uneasy truce between them.
His cold gray eyes cut into hers. “You know how Jenna likes to spend money,” he said curtly. “How long do you think the boy could support her tastes on his salary? Even if I gave him a tract in the Valley and helped him get started, it would be a hell of a job getting a foothold. He’d need a wife who could work alongside him, support him. Can you see my sister buckling down to that kind of drudgery, at her age?”
“I think Jenna is a lot like you,” she said after a minute, choosing her words carefully. “I think she could do anything she wanted to do. And she loves Blakely.”
“She’s infatuated with him,” he corrected. “Girls your age don’t know what love is.”
She averted her eyes. “Don’t we?” she asked with faint bitterness, remembering all the sleepless nights she’d had because of the heartless man riding beside her.
“The fact is, Teddi bear,” he concluded, “Jenna is my sister, and it’s a family problem.”
She felt as if he’d hit her. Always an outsider, was that to be her destiny? “Thanks for reminding me that I’m not allowed a voice in your family matters,” she said with cold dignity, refusing to look at him. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go on alone. I don’t like the company I’m keeping.” She wheeled her horse and rode back down the wide trail under the mammoth pines and spruces, along the wide bend in the river.
King caught up with her there and reached out to catch the reins and jerk her mount to a halt. “Get down,” he said.
She didn’t move. He dismounted gracefully, his eyes blazing, and jerked her down from the saddle into his hard arms.
“I want to go home,” she burst out, seconds away from tears.
“Home is where I am,” he said in a goading undertone. “Or haven’t you worked that out yet?”
Before she could come up with any sane reply, he bent his head and took her mouth.
She barely felt him lift her into his arms. Her eyes were closed; her whole being was centered around the feel of his warm, hard mouth stroking between her full lips, preparing it, opening it to the piercing intimacy of his tongue.
She drank in the scent of him, the woodsy, smoky mingling of soap and cologne and tobacco, the hardness of his big body where her soft breasts were crushed into it as he carried her.
She felt herself being lowered, but she didn’t open her eyes. She was too lost in the slow, tender ardor of his mouth to care where they
were. She felt the pine straw under her back, heard the sounds of wind and bubbling river water mingling in her dazed ears as she felt the warmth of him all the way down the length of her tingling body.
It was only when she felt his fingers brushing lightly over her breast that her eyes flew open and she struggled briefly.
But he held her there with gentle firmness, controlled her with the weight of his body, one powerful leg thrown across hers to keep her from moving away.
“Let me,” he said softly, holding her eyes as surely as he held her body, his fingers trespassing over her small, taut breasts as if they had every right in the world to be there.
“Don’t,” she pleaded in a choked whisper. Her wide, dark eyes pleaded with his blazing gray ones in a silence that magnified the sound of his fingers brushing over the cotton of her blouse.
“Why?” he asked.
“It’s so intimate,” she managed, hating the helpless reaction of her body that was telling him blatantly how much she was enjoying it.
He bent his blond head and brushed his mouth over her eyelids, forcing them shut. “Don’t look at me with those accusing eyes,” he whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you. I only want the feel of you, the softness of you under my hands. I want to show you how it can be between a man and a woman.”
“You...you just want to humiliate me again, the way you did that day...in the barn,” she choked.
She felt him grow taut before his mouth touched her cheek, her neck just below her ear. “That’s not the reason,” he whispered gruffly. “If you need one, it’s because I’m starving for you, is that blunt enough?”
He lifted his head and she opened her eyes, watching the hard mouth poised over hers, feeling the banked tension in his body. “Don’t...don’t force me,” she whispered apprehensively. “Don’t...be rough.”
“I’ll cherish you, if you’ll lie still and let me,” he breathed against her mouth. “All you have to say is ‘no,’ darling.” His heavy blond eyebrows drew together as his lips fitted themselves exactly to hers, pressing them gently apart. His big hands cupped her face, holding it just where he wanted it, while he kissed her as if he’d die trying to get enough of her soft, tremulous mouth. She found herself soothed by his controlled ardor. She relaxed against him, letting herself sink into the pine straw.