by Diana Palmer
“How can you eat like that and never gain an ounce?” He chuckled.
“I run it all off,” she replied, smiling. “Nervous energy, I suppose.”
He reached across the small table and traced patterns on the back of her small hand. “I’m the same,” he told her. “I can’t sit still.”
She studied his face quietly. “You seem different. Less haunted.”
He smoothed his fingers in between hers. “I’d never talked about it. Not to anyone.” He searched her black eyes. “They sent me to a psychologist, too.” He made a face. “His idea was to drug me senseless and have me tell him all about my childhood.”
She drew in a breath. “Mine said that the whole thing was my fault.”
He didn’t reply. He wondered that himself. A young woman, beautiful, feeling her power, might have grudges against her mother and take them out on her by trying to steal her boyfriend. “I don’t like being psychoanalyzed anyway,” he said.
She nodded. She glanced up at him and away. “I never told anyone about, well, you know,” she said, flushing. “It’s so intimate a thing. I could never speak of it to my brother. I don’t have close friends.” She recalled her friend the ballerina, but that wasn’t a close relationship. Lisette was more an acquaintance than a real friend. In fact, she’d never told Michelle about her physical issue, and Michelle was like her sister.
“I don’t have close friends, either, except maybe your brother. And I could never tell another man what she did to me.”
“It must have killed your pride,” she said sadly.
He closed his fingers around hers. “I wasn’t feeding you a line, you know,” he said, his voice low and soft as he searched her eyes. “I haven’t had a woman since Ysera. I could never trust anyone again.”
“And I can’t...have anyone,” she replied. The skin on her high cheekbones colored. “Not in my present condition.”
His fingers smoothed over hers seductively. “You do know that there are ways to pleasure a woman without penetration?” he asked outrageously.
Her hand jerked and almost upset her wineglass. She caught it just in time. “You beast!” she gasped, flushing.
He chuckled softly. “And out comes the broom,” he teased, but not in a malicious way. His eyes fell to the bodice of her dress, to the hard tips poking against the soft fabric. “It excites you when I say intimate things to you. I like that.”
She sipped wine, put the glass down and folded her arms across her chest, glancing warily around to make sure he hadn’t been overheard.
“We’re alone in the world, Sara,” he said softly. “Don’t you know?”
She bit her lower lip. “Listen, I can’t...”
His pale eyes glittered as his fingers slid intimately between her own. “You can. You’re going to. With me,” he whispered in a husky undertone. “Only with me.”
She felt helpless. It wasn’t really a bad feeling. Her whole body tingled as she looked at him, feeling the sudden hard clasp of his hand around hers. The look on her face made him want to stand up and howl. He wondered if she realized what she was giving away with that hungry, soft desire he could read in her eyes.
“We’d better go,” he said stiffly, because he was fighting down the most powerful arousal he’d felt in years. There was still the drive to Houston and the opera to get through. But after, he promised himself as he helped her out of her chair, he was going to find out everything about her. He was going to know her, physically, as intimately as he could. Perhaps she was telling the truth about her innocence. But one way or another, he was going to find out.
* * *
SARA, BLISSFULLY UNAWARE of what he was plotting, smiled up at him with her heart in her eyes as he paid the tab and led her by the hand out of the restaurant and to the parking lot.
It was a cool night for May, and already dark. They were going to be very late for the ballet. She had on a soft cashmere coat that clung to her silky curves. He paused to unlock the Mercedes, but instead of putting her inside it, he drew her right up against his powerful body, so close that she could feel his sudden, instant arousal.
She caught her breath and tried to pull back, but he wouldn’t let her. He wasn’t brutal, but he was firm.
He stared down into her shocked eyes. “Do you feel how hard I am?” he whispered. “And I’ve barely touched you.” One big lean hand held her against his hips while the other smoothed boldly right up her body and over her soft, hard-tipped breast. “I want to pull your dress down and put my mouth over your nipple and suckle you, hard.”
She shivered. Her nails bit into the expensive fabric of his jacket and she actually gasped out loud.
“Yes, you want it, don’t you?” he whispered at her lips. “I can strip you and put you in a bed under my naked body and have you, even without penetrating you.” He shuddered at the thought. “You’ll let me, won’t you?” he breathed. “Breast to breast, thigh to thigh, in the darkness, moving against each other like the rapids in a river, driving for satisfaction, pleasuring each other almost to madness...”
She made a sound that ground into him like fire. He pushed her back against the car door and moved one powerful long leg between hers, lifting her as he bent to her mouth and kissed her with stark hunger.
His mouth insisted, demanded. It parted her lips, pushed them apart, while his tongue suddenly shot right into it. The rhythmic motion of his hips caused her to cry out.
The tiny, helpless cry brought him to his senses. With a groan, he stepped back, his tall body shuddering as he realized how close he’d come to having her, right there in public view. She looked every bit as shaken as he felt.
Tears stung her eyes. She hadn’t realized how vulnerable she was, how seductive he could be. It was a mistake. She was going to get in over her head, and she wasn’t ready. This was a man who wasn’t ready, either, for a long-term relationship. He was a damaged man who was still bristling with revenge for what a heartless woman had done to his ego. She couldn’t trust him, didn’t dare trust him. But she wanted him!
Her eyes looked up into his, and he felt his whole body go rigid. She would let him. He knew it without a word being spoken.
He put her into the car and got in beside her. “Fasten your seat belt,” he whispered huskily.
She swallowed. She could still taste him on her mouth. “What...is the ballet we’re going to see in Houston?” she managed.
“The ballet starts in five minutes, and it’s in Houston. We’d never make it before it was half over. We’re going home,” he returned roughly.
“Oh.”
He caught her hand in his and held it tight. She could feel the tension in him like a living thing. She knew what he meant. He wasn’t taking her to her apartment. He was taking her home with him. And it wasn’t going to end well, but she couldn’t find a single excuse not to agree.
For the first time, she wanted a man in ways that she had never thought possible. She threw caution to the wind.
* * *
HE PULLED UP in front of his house and cut off the engine. He opened her door and let her walk ahead of him onto the porch. He put the key in the lock, turned it, walked in with her and locked the door behind them. He turned off the porch light.
She felt the excitement like a living thing. She looked up at him. His face was like stone. His pale blue eyes were the only things alive in that inscrutable canvas.
He took her hand and led her into the living room, where a single lamp was burning. Looking straight into her eyes, he took off his dinner jacket and his tie, slipped out of his belt and dress shoes and unbuttoned his shirt all the way to his trousers.
He took the purse from her nerveless hands, tossing it into a chair. She stood helplessly in front of him while he unhooked the dress and slid it down her arms, leaving her in a low-cut black slip and a lacy bra.
His big hand slid under the hooks of the bra, and then the straps that were holding them up. Watching her face, he pushed the fabric away from her high,
tip-tilted breasts and let it fall to the floor. His eyes, wise and soft, ate her like candy.
“I thought you’d be pink here,” he whispered, tracing her hard nipples. “But you look like milk chocolate instead.” He smiled tenderly and bent his head. “I thought I’d go mad before we got here. God, Sara, I’m so hungry...”
His mouth opened on her breast, taking the nipple inside, working it with his tongue.
She’d never felt the sensations he was teaching her. She arched her back to give him better access, her body shivering with new pleasures.
He lifted her and put her down on the sofa, smoothing his body over hers, while he fed on her soft, warm breasts.
“I think I dreamed you,” he bit off. His free hand went under her briefs and touched her. He felt her jerk, felt her hand go to his wrist. He lifted his head and looked into her wide, shocked eyes.
“You said it was imperforate,” he whispered. “Let’s see.”
She colored fiercely. His pale eyes narrowed as he probed, felt the barrier, tested it. “I don’t expect the truth from a woman,” he said gruffly. “But this—” he pushed at the barrier gently “—is no lie.”
“Ple...please?” she whispered, pushing at him. “Don’t...”
“Don’t?” His face grew mocking. His smile was full of sarcasm. “You tease and tempt me all night, and now you want to stop?”
“I’m not...her,” she tried to remind him.
But he was blind with desire, reliving his nights with Ysera, hearing her laugh at him, ridicule him. Sara was like her, beautiful and eager, until he began to be intimate with her. Then she grew cold, just like Ysera. Then would come the laughter...
His hand was insistent. He watched the shocked pleasure that bloomed on her face as he touched her blatantly. “Yes, you like that, don’t you?” he asked, and did it again. He laughed as she arched up, trembling, her mouth open, her eyes wide as saucers as her body responded to him.
“Please,” she whimpered.
“So composed, so removed from passion,” he said, hurting as he remembered how Ysera had baited him, teased him. “Cool and elegant, tempting men until they burn like torches and then laughing when they go up in flames. But you’re not laughing now, are you?” he taunted, his eyes on her face while he brought her to ecstasy. “Yes, that’s right,” he whispered, his face flushing as he watched her go right over the edge. “Come for me, honey,” he breathed. “Come for me. Yes. Just...like...that!”
She arched up, crying out endlessly, as she felt the first climax she’d ever known. And he was watching her, laughing, taunting.
“Now who’s helpless?” he growled, his hand moving again, dragging sounds out of her throat that she’d never heard it make.
He stripped her, whispered what he was going to do, and how it was going to feel, laughing at her helpless response. He was years in the past, getting even, hating her for what Ysera had done to him.
She cried out, arching, her body shuddering over and over again as he forced her to climax.
He was dying to have her. He couldn’t contain it. He threw off his clothes and went down on her, his mouth grinding into hers before he moved between her long, trembling legs. He didn’t dare try to penetrate her, but he could find his own satisfaction without that. He whispered urgently, gathered her legs together and went between them, high on her silken thighs, and pushed down again and again, his body corded, his mind burning with need. He buried his hot face in her throat, and his hips drove against hers in the cool room. The lights were on, but she couldn’t see him; he wouldn’t let her see him.
He drove blindly for relief, her legs held in the vise of his own as he found, finally, the right pressure, the right rhythm, to drag those high-pitched little cries out of her throat. He felt her shudder even as he lifted and pushed down one last time, with the last bit of his strength, and he shot off the edge of the world into such heated pleasure that he almost lost consciousness.
She was crying. He was vaguely aware of tears on his cheek where it was pressed so hard into her throat. His big body shuddered in the aftermath of the most explosive climax he’d ever felt in his life. It was more than that. It was orgasm. He’d never experienced it.
After a minute, he lifted his head and looked down at her. Her face was almost white.
“Let...me...go,” she whispered brokenly. “Oh, please...!”
His face clenched. “Sara...”
She moved suddenly, struggling away from him, grabbing her underthings. She ran for the back door.
He was still shaking with sated passion. He got up and put on his slacks before he went after her, barefooted.
She made it into the stable, so hysterical that she didn’t even stop to wonder if someone might be in there. She didn’t care. She was sick. She dragged on her underthings and cowered against the corner wall, drawing her knees up. She heard his voice, taunting her, laughing at her, getting even...
It was her own fault. She’d tempted him, and she knew he wasn’t ready. He was living in the past. Now here she was, shivering like a whipped child, hiding in the shadows, so ashamed that she couldn’t even open her eyes. Her stepfather had said vulgar things to her, made her look at him, laughed as he tried to force her.
Afterward, her mother had called her names and said she begged for it. The defense attorney had described her as a teenaged seductress making playthings of men. The tabloids had made her out to be a homewrecker. Then the shooting, her stepfather’s face as the bullets hit him, her mother’s harsh curses afterward, the horror of trying to go to school, to live with the shame and disgrace...!
“Sara!”
She cried out as he stopped in front of her. He’d turned on the lights, and she hadn’t even noticed. Her face was a study in terror. He moved a step closer, and she held both hands out, palms toward him, trembling.
“No, please, please, don’t...!” she sobbed.
He’d been a policeman once, years in the past. He recognized the fear and the posture. He closed his eyes and shuddered. Dear God, why hadn’t he realized...!
“Sara,” he said softly, kneeling a few feet away from her, “how old were you when it happened? When your stepfather tried to force you?”
Her voice caught in her throat. “Thir...teen,” she sobbed. “I was...thirteen.”
His eyes closed. His hand clenched into a fist at his side. He’d assumed that she’d been a rival for the affection of her mother’s boyfriend. He’d gotten the wrong end of the stick. God only knew how much damage he’d done tonight. He’d paid her back for what Ysera had done to him. Here was the result.
“Honey, it’s freezing out here,” he said in a choked tone. “Come on back into the house...”
“No.” Her great black eyes were tragic. “No!”
He winced. He pulled out his cell phone and punched in a number. His hands were shaking. He had to put the numbers in twice before the phone rang on the other end. His face was like stone. “Madra, can you come down to the ranch? I’ve done something... There’s a young woman. Please. I don’t know how much damage I’ve done,” he ground out. “Yes. Yes, I’ll send a car. Hurry. Thanks.”
He hung up and called a limousine company, gave them an address and an order. He hung up.
“Madra is coming down to take care of you,” he said. “She’s a physician. Sara, will you let me take you inside?”
She didn’t even hear him. She was wrapped up in the past, in the terror, all alone.
CHAPTER SIX
WOLF HAD TAKEN a blanket from the tack room and dropped it around Sara’s bare shoulders, careful not to touch her. She was still shaking. He couldn’t even get her to answer him. He’d never felt so miserable, so cruel, in all his life. He hated what he’d done. He didn’t know how he was ever going to make up for it.
Sara was aware of movement, of a car driving up. Wolf went away. A minute later he was back with a beautiful blonde woman.
She looked young until Sara saw her face up close. She had to b
e Wolf’s age, or thereabouts. She spoke to Sara, very gently, and got out her stethoscope.
There was a cursory examination and then the prick of a needle in her arm. She was shivering. The blanket felt nice. After a minute, she began to relax.
“You need to bring her inside now,” Madra said gently.
“Honey, I’m going to pick you up,” Wolf said softly, a catch in his deep voice as he moved closer. “I won’t hurt you. I swear.”
She stiffened, but she didn’t say anything. She closed her eyes and shuddered as he carried her into the house and into the guest room downstairs. He put her on the coverlet.
“Leave me alone with her,” Madra said gently.
“Of course.”
He went out, straight into his den, closed the door, opened a whiskey decanter and poured himself a glass.
* * *
“THAT WON’T HELP,” Madra said from the doorway a few minutes later.
He finished the last bit of amber liquid from the glass. During her absence, he’d removed Sara’s dress and shoes from the living room. He could put them in the guest bedroom later, when he had the opportunity. He didn’t want to embarrass Sara even more by having them on open display in the living room.
He’d put his own things back on, minus the dinner jacket. It was embarrassing to have to catalog his sins for this old friend, but Sara had needed help. No way was he letting her leave here alone. Not after he’d seen the look on her face.
He turned, pale and somber. “Did she talk to you?”
She shook her head. “She’s sleeping. All she could say was please, don’t.” She stared at him.
He turned away from the accusation in her dark eyes. “I hadn’t been with a woman in a long time. I just...lost it. I didn’t force her,” he added through his teeth. “That wouldn’t even be possible. She’s...a virgin,” he said in a tortured tone. “Too much a virgin. It would require minor surgery.” He drew in a long, harsh breath. “All the same, I scared her to death.”