The Complete Mackenzie Collection

by Linda Howard

  “Just how ‘real’ did you have in mind?” he asked, amused.

  Again she was at a loss. “Well, how would I know? I just know that I’m attracted to you, and I’d like for you to be attracted to me, but I’ve never done this before, so you’re asking me to play a game without knowing the rules. Would you hand a football to some guy who’d never heard of the game before and say ‘Here you go, buddy. Play ball’?”

  His eyes danced at the astringency of her tone, but his voice was calm and grave when he replied, “I see your point.”

  “So?” She spread her hands inquiringly. “What are the rules? That is, if you don’t mind playing.”

  “Oh, I like a little game now and then.”

  He was drawling again. She gave him an uncertain glance, wondering if he was making fun of her.

  He put his hands on her hips and moved her a little farther back on the desk. Caroline grabbed his upper arms, her nails digging into his biceps. No one had ever touched her hips before, except for one eager beaver who had pinched her bottom and gotten shoved over a wastebasket for his effort. The steely muscles under her fingers made her doubt she would be able to shove Joe anywhere.

  He moved even closer and somehow used his hard thighs to spread her legs. She looked down in shock. He was between her legs. Her head jerked back up, but before she could say anything he brushed a light, gentle kiss across her mouth. The contrast between that non-threatening kiss and his very threatening position between her legs disoriented her.

  He cupped her face with one hand, slowly caressing her cheek, his fingertips moving lightly over the smooth, velvet texture of her skin. His other hand slipped around over her bottom and firmly pulled her forward until he was nestled intimately in the notch of her thighs. Caroline’s heart thumped violently, and she lost her breath, as well as her ability to sit upright. Her bones turned liquid and she sank against him, unintentionally deepening the embrace. The hard bulge of his sex throbbed against the soft yielding of her loins, and she felt an answering throbbing begin deep inside her.

  He kissed her again, this time with a slowly increasing demand. Helplessly she opened her mouth to the probing of his tongue. His hips moved against her, between her spread thighs, in the same rhythm as his tongue moved in her mouth. The hard bulge in his trousers was even harder, even bigger.

  Her senses were swimming, just as they had been the night before. His tongue probed deep into her mouth, stroking her own tongue and demanding a response. His taste was hot and heady, hiss kin smelling of soap and man. Her breasts were throbbing, and again the only relief seemed to be contact with his hard, muscled chest. It was all almost too much to bear, but the only alternative was to tear herself out of his arms, and she couldn’t make herself do that.

  She couldn’t, but he could. Somehow she found herself being gently freed and set away from him. She swayed, and he steadied her, his hard hands clasping her arms. She stared up at him a little wildly. Damn his control! Why couldn’t he feel even a little of the turmoil that enveloped her? He had gotten aroused, no doubt about that, but it hadn’t affected his control at all, while she was about to go up in flames.

  “The rules are simple,” he said calmly. “We have to let you get accustomed to touching and being touched, and find out what you like. We’ll take it slow, go a little bit further each time. I’ll pick you up at seven tonight.”

  He kissed her again and left as silently as he had entered the room. Caroline sat on the desk, trying to get control of her heart and lungs, trying to deal with the empty ache of her body. She was in trouble. She was in big trouble. She had started something she couldn’t handle, but she wouldn’t have called it off even if she thought she could, and she strongly suspected it was beyond her control anyway.

  Unless she was very much mistaken, Joe Mackenzie intended to have an affair with her. A full-fledged, get-naked, lovemaking affair. And she was willing; she was going into this with her eyes open, knowing full well that for him it was likely to be only an affair, while it would be much more to her. He would always be in control, the strong core of him always guarded and remote and uninvolved, while she was well on her way to losing her heart.

  Chapter 5

  The tests went well that day, which was a good thing, because Caroline was in a daze. Adrian made a snide remark to her when they were alone and she confounded him by giving him a vague smile. She was alarmed at her own lack of concentration. That had never been a problem before; her ability to concentrate was so strong that one professor in college had made the comment that she would be able to read during an earthquake, and he hadn’t been far off the mark.

  She would never have believed that a man could totally disrupt her thought processes, especially since he wasn’t paying her any particular attention. He didn’t have to, she realized. He had made his intention plain the day before, and he’d been seen kissing her good-night; as far as everyone on base was concerned, she was Colonel Mackenzie’s woman. He was the alpha male, and none of the other men would challenge him for his chosen mate. She was a little appalled at this demonstration of how little things had changed since prehistoric times, even though she had done her part by going along with him. Now there was food for thought. Had she gone along with him because his suggestion had made sense, or because he was the alpha male and she had felt subconsciously compelled to obey him?

  Nah. She had never felt compelled, subconsciously or otherwise, to obey anyone. She had gone along with him because he made her heartbeat go crazy, pure and simple, and it was useless to keep looking for extenuating circumstances with which to excuse herself.

  When they were back in the office going over the day’s test results and preparing for the next day’s flights, Cal rolled his chair over to hers. “So, how’d it go on the date with the boss man?”

  Despite herself, her hands immediately started trembling and she laid down the paper she had been trying to read. “Very casual, low-key. Why do you ask?”

  To her surprise, his friendly eyes were full of concern. “Well, I’ve never known you to date before, and I guess I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t twisting your arm. He is the head man on this project, and he has a lot of influence, not just with the base commander and the men here, but all the way to the Pentagon.”

  She was touched. “And you thought I might feel I had to go out with him to stay on the team?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  She patted his hand, smiling. “Thanks, but everything’s okay.”

  “Good. Adrian isn’t bothering you too much, is he?”

  “I haven’t paid any attention to him, so I guess he isn’t.”

  Cal smiled and rolled back to his own desk.

  Caroline checked the time. Three and a half hours until seven o’clock. She had always found her work engrossing, but along with her loss of concentration she had evidently become a clock-watcher, too. No one had ever warned her that associating with men was efficiency-destroying.

  For almost the first time in her life she stopped work when everyone else did. She hurried to her quarters, turned the air conditioner on high and jumped into the shower. It was only as she was stepping out of the stall that she realized she didn’t know where they were going or how she should dress.

  She stared at the telephone. She could call him. She didn’t know his number, but that wasn’t any problem, because the base operator would. It was the sensible thing to do. She was a big believer inbeing sensible, so she sat down on the bed and placed the call before she talked herself out of her own common sense. He answered on the first ring. “Mackenzie.”

  God, his voice sounded even deeper on the phone. She took a deep breath. “This is Caroline. Where are we going tonight?” There, that was just right. To the point, no silliness, a simple request for information.

  “Wear a skirt,” he replied maddeningly, cutting through her no-nonsense question to the reason behind it. “Something I can get my hands under.”

  The receiver clicked in h
er ear, and she stared at it. The damn man had hung up on her! And her heart was racing again. Damn him, damn him, damn him. It wasn’t fair. She was all but in a panic with anticipation and fear and wanting, and his heartbeat was probably as steady as a rock.

  A skirt? After that comment, he was lucky she wasn’t running for the hills. There was no way she could get in that truck with him expecting at any moment to feel those hot, callused hands sliding up her thighs. If he’d kept his mouth shut she would probably have worn a skirt because it was cooler, but if she wore one now, she would automatically be giving him permission to put his hand up it, and God knows what else. And it wasn’t that she didn’t want him to, just that he’d said they would go slow and that didn’t sound slow at all to her, and even if it was, she would like to have a little control over the situation. What she would really like was to destroy his control, to have him as hot and bothered and on the verge of madness as she was.

  She sat down on the bed and took several deep breaths. Maybe nuns had the right idea. Men were obviously detrimental to a woman’s mental health.

  She put on khaki fatigue pants and a tailored white shirt. That was as close as she was going to get to a skirt…not very close at all.

  He knocked on the door at seven o’clock precisely, and when she opened it he burst out laughing. “What have you been thinking?” he asked, still chuckling. “That I’m a big bad wolf all set to gobble you up?”

  “The thought crossed my mind.”

  He watched as she double-checked the appliances in the small quarters, then locked and double-checked the door. She was a cautious woman indeed. He put his hand on her waist as he walked her to the truck. “You don’t have anything to worry about,” he said soothingly. “I’m not going to eat you.” Three seconds ticked by before he murmured, “Yet.”

  He felt her jump. Her peculiar blend of inexperience and sexuality was slowly driving him mad. When he kissed her, she responded with a heat and intensity that brought him to the brink of violence, but at the same time he sensed that she was ready to bolt at any time. She reminded him of nothing so much as a filly when a stallion is brought to her for the first time, nervous and apt to bite or kick, while at the same time her scent was telling the stallion she was more than ready for his mounting and he was going wild trying to accomplish it. Well, he’d calmed many a mare for both riding and servicing, and he knew just how to go about it.

  He lifted her into the truck before she could change her mind and went around to the driver’s side. The proposition she had put to him that morning had been in his mind all day, as had the blunt, forthright way she had done it. Caroline didn’t know how to be flirtatious or sweetly cajoling; she had just laid it on the line, and her ego with it. He had wanted to take her in his arms and hold her, tell her that she needed to learn how to protect herself better than that. She had no defenses and didn’t even realize it. Everything about her was straight ahead, no detours or subterfuges. He’d never had a woman ask for him like that before, ask him to teach her about men and sex. He’d been half-aroused all day, silently cursing the constrictions of his uniform.

  Now he was in his customary off-duty jeans and boots, but the jeans were even more restrictive. He shifted position uncomfortably, trying to stretch his leg out to give himself more room. Damn it, he either needed to get out of his pants or get rid of his hard-on—preferably both, and in that order.

  “Where are we going this time?” she asked, pushing her wind-blown hair out of her face.

  “Do you like Mexican?”

  Her eyes lit up. “Tacos,” she purred. “Enchiladas. Sopapillas.”

  He laughed. “Got it.” As she pushed her hair back once more, he said, “Would you rather I put up the windows and turned on the air conditioning?”

  “No, I like it.” She paused before admitting, “My ’vette is a convertible.”

  He was smiling as he returned his attention to the road. Her name should have been Paradox, because she was one conflicting characteristic after another.

  They went to his favorite Mexican restaurant in Vegas, where the best enchiladas she’d ever eaten, coupled with a frozen Margarita, relaxed her and made her forget that she was nervous. Joe drank water with his dinner, something she found curious. “I thought pilots were supposed to be hard drinkers,” she said.

  “Most of us put away our share of pilot juice,” he said lazily.

  “But not you?”

  “Nope. There’s a time limit within which you aren’t supposed to drink if you’re going to be flying the next day, but I think it’s too close. I want perfect control of myself and my machine. The laws of physics and aerodynamics aren’t very forgiving at Mach 2.” He lifted his glass of water in a little toast. “Not only that, I’m a half-breed. I don’t drink. Period.”

  She gave a brief nod as if admitting the wisdom of that. “If it’s so dangerous, why do any pilots drink?”

  “To wind down. You’re so tense for so long, with the adrenaline burning up your veins, that you can’t come down from the high. Our lives are on the line every minute up there, even on routine flights. Hell, there’s no such thing as a routine flight.”

  She started to ask a question about Night Wing, but remembered where they were and left it for another time. Security wasn’t something she took lightly.

  After dinner she said, “What now?” then wished she hadn’t. She also wished she hadn’t had that Margarita. She saw his point about needing perfect control.

  “Now, sweetheart, we play.”

  When he said play, he meant play. Ten minutes later they were on a miniature golf course.

  She hefted the putter experimentally. “I’ve never done this before.”

  “Looks like I’m going to be first with you at a lot of things,” he replied with that maddening calm of his.

  She scowled and lifted the putter like a bat. “Maybe not.”

  He kissed her even as he relieved her of the putter with a move so fast she saw only a blur. Disgruntled, she thought that if he’d lived in the Old West he would have been a gunfighter.

  “Your first lesson,” he said, turning her so her back was to him and putting his arms around her. He folded her hands around the handle in the correct manner and showed her how to swing, smooth and level, hitting the ball with carefully restrained power. Strength wasn’t a factor in miniature golf; the game required judgment and coordination.

  He made a hole in one on the first green. “You’ve done this before,” she accused.

  “Among other things.”

  “New rule. Each innuendo will add a stroke to your score.”

  “Good. Added strokes means it’ll last longer.”

  She wanted to throw her ball at him and stomp off the green, but instead she shouted with laughter and firmly added another stroke to his score. Rules were rules.

  To her surprise, she seemed to have the needed judgment of distance, force and direction, and challenged him even though she had never played before. He was too aggressive by nature to give her the game and set himself to the task of beating her, displaying intense concentration and superb hand-eye coordination. Caroline was just as determined, and the game was largely played in silence, to a tie. He pointed out that it was a draw only because of the penalty stroke she’d added to his score.

  “So let’s play another,” she challenged. “Throw this one out, and the best two out of three wins.”

  “Deal.”

  They had to play five more games, because two others ended in draws. He won the first game, she won the second, and the next two were the ties; he finally ended it by winning the fifth game by one stroke.

  She was scowling as they turned in their putters, and Joe was reminded of the look on her face the night before, when the slot machine had kept taking her quarters without making a payoff. He had had the idle thought that she was on the verge of dismantling the machine when it had finally paid out. No doubt about it, Caroline made no pretense of being good-natured about losing. She did
n’t like it. He understood that, because he didn’t like it, either.

  On the drive back to the base he slowed and pulled off the road, then drove about a quarter of a mile into the desert before stopping. He killed the lights and motor, and the night silence poured in through the open windows.

  “Are you ready for another first?”

  Caroline tensed. “What kind of first?”

  “Parking.”

  “Thanks, but I had to pass a test on that when I got my driver’s license.”

  He chuckled at the testy comment but sensed the nervousness behind it. “Here are our rules on making out. Number one, I’m not going to make love to you. Your first time is going to be on a bed, not in the front seat of a truck. Number two, we’re going to keep most of our clothes on, because if we don’t, your first time will be in the front seat of a truck.”

  She cleared her throat. “It sounds pretty frustrating.”

  “It is. That’s the whole point of parking and making out.” He laughed and slid out from behind the steering wheel, then scooped her onto his lap. A little more shifting and he was sitting with his back propped against the passenger door, his long legs stretched out on the seat, while she was lying pressed against his right side, half on the seat and half on him, her head on his shoulder with her face tilted up, and he was leisurely kissing her.

  If the windows had been up they would have fogged over. His mouth was slow and hot and demanding, making her forget about time. The slow beat of pleasure began to pound in her veins, and her arms wound about his neck.

  His palm covered her breast and the shock jolted her, making her tear her mouth from his. He ruthlessly took it again, stifling her instinctive protest, so she could only whimper into his mouth. As the shock faded, she began to whimper from the pleasure of it, and her nipple beaded tightly beneath the layers of cloth.