Darling Enemy
Page 14
“King, do you care?” she whispered shyly.
“Care?” His eyes closed and opened again, gray flames rising in them. His hands moved to her face, cupping it, caressing it, and they began to tremble. “I love you,” he breathed. “I love you so much that I feel as if I’m starving to death for you. I want to have you all my life. To share with. To laugh and cry with. To love with. You’re my whole world, little one, didn’t you know?”
Tears poured from her eyes like rain on the desert. She couldn’t stop. Trembling fingers traced his face, her eyes openly adoring him, loving him.
He caught his breath at the emotion in her face, and his own eyes closed for an instant. “My God, I’ve been blind, haven’t I?” he asked huskily. “You’re in love with me, aren’t you?”
She nodded, her lower lip trembling, her eyes washed with tears as she tried to smile. “I can’t remember when I didn’t love you,” she admitted brokenly. “But I thought you just wanted an affair...”
“I do,” he teased gently, his eyes devouring her. “Sixty years’ worth, and a few sons and daughters to love, and you in my bed every night, even the nights when we’re too tired to make love.” His eyes burned with emotion as they searched hers. “I want you in ways that go far beyond anything strictly physical, although,” he added, easing the blouse off one shoulder to smooth his lips along her silken flesh, “I could make a meal of you right now.”
She nuzzled her face into his throat with a joyful sigh. “I love you,” she whispered, “and I want you. But, darling, all our children will be illegitimate.”
He laughed softly. “Then perhaps you’d better marry me before we discuss how many we’re going to have.”
“Did you say marry?” she asked, drawing back, confident enough to tease, seeing everything she would ever want or need in his worshipping eyes. “Old Footloose and Fancy-Free Devereaux actually proposing?”
“Do I recall your saying that you couldn’t take ninety-nine years of me?” he countered.
“Was that before or after you threw me out of the house?” she retorted.
“I couldn’t help myself,” he confessed. “Having you around would have done me in if you hadn’t cared. I thought you were telling me that I mattered less than your career, that you couldn’t see a future with me. I was devastated.”
“You’re my career,” she said very quietly. “You and the children I’m going to give you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
He seemed to have a hard time getting his breath. His eyes narrowed. “And college?”
“There’s a college in Calgary,” she reminded him. “And I’ve got all the time in the world to finish school now.”
He leaned down and kissed her softly. “In that case, you’d better go ahead and enroll, hadn’t you, before we’re married. Then maybe you’ll have time to finish. Although, I don’t know what their policy is toward pregnant students....”
Her eyes held his. “That soon?” she whispered.
He drew her back down, easing her head into the crook of his arm. “Very soon,” he breathed, as his mouth opened and parted the soft line of her lips. “Will you mind?”
Her only response was a soft cry that was lost in the hunger of his kiss, and for a long time the only sounds were of heightened breathing, wild, sharp moans and cries. When he finally let her draw a breath, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright with excitement.
“We’d better go home before we get arrested,” he said unsteadily. “You see what you do to me? I touch you and lose what little mind I have left.”
She touched his mouth with soft, loving fingers. “It’s always been that way for me.”
He pressed her fingers to his lips and let them go reluctantly. “We’re going to have a lot of explaining to do when we get back, I’m afraid,” he sighed as he let her ease back into her own seat.
She laughed. “I won’t mind. Will you?”
He shook his head. “Fancy a double wedding, do you?” he asked with a cocked eyebrow.
Her face brightened. “Oh, King, could we?”
He caught her hand as he started the car and put it in gear. “We’ll talk to Jenna and Blakely about it. Let’s go home, darling.”
She clung to his hand as they left the airport, her eyes full of dreams. In the distance, the Rockies were welcoming, and the sun shone down in a clear blue sky. Teddi smiled up at her fiancé with a warm, possessive gaze. He was right. Home was where he was. She leaned her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes.
* * * * *
New York Times Bestselling Author
He’s everything she fears…and everything she wants.
Mercenary by name and by nature, Carson is a Lakota Sioux who stays to himself and never keeps women around long enough for anything emotional to develop. But working with his friend Cash Grier on a complex murder investigation provides Carson with another kind of fun—shocking Cash’s sweet-but-traditional secretary, Carlie Blair, with tales of his latest conquests.
Then Carlie lands in deep trouble. She saw something she shouldn’t have, and now the face of a criminal is stored permanently in her photographic memory…and Carlie is the key piece of evidence that could implicate a popular politician in the murder case.
Her only protection is Carson—the man she once despised. But when she learns that Carson is more than just a tough guy, Carlie realizes she’s endangered herself further. Because now her only chance to live means losing her heart to the most dangerous kind of man….
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ISBN-13: 9781460340011
DARLING ENEMY
Copyright © 1983 by DIANA PALMER
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