by Diana Palmer
“Thanks.”
She put her discarded clothing on a chair and climbed in quickly, pulling the covers up to her chin.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Stay just like that,” he coaxed, “and when I come out, I’ll tell you a nice fairy tale.”
She glared at him through a rosy haze. “I’ll probably be asleep. I haven’t ever had so much to drink.”
He nodded slowly. “That may be a good thing,” he said enigmatically, and went into the bathroom.
* * *
She wasn’t asleep when he came out. She’d tried to be, but her mind wouldn’t cooperate. She peered through her lashes and watched him move around the room turning out lights. He had a towel hooked around his hips and as he turned out the last lamp on his side of the bed, she saw him unhook the towel and throw it over the back of the vinyl-covered chair.
She stiffened as he climbed in beside her and stretched lazily.
“I can feel you bristling,” he murmured dryly. “It’s a big bed, honey, and I don’t sleepwalk. You’re safe.”
She cleared her throat. “Yes, I know.”
“Then why are you shivering?”
He rolled over and moved closer. She could feel the heat of his body through her thin gown. She trembled even more when his long leg brushed against hers.
“Shivering,” he continued, moving closer, “and breathing like an Olympic runner.” He slid a long arm under her and brought her sliding right over against him. “I haven’t forgotten the signs when a woman wants me,” he whispered as his hands smoothed the gown right down her body. “And you want me, Dana.”
She started to protest, but his mouth was already covering hers. He turned and pulled her to him, so that she felt his nude body all the way down hers. He was warm and hard, and even in her innocence she was aware that he wanted her badly.
His lean hands smoothed over her flat belly, tracing down to the juncture of her long legs. His thumb eased between them and he touched her softly in a place that she hadn’t dreamed he would.
She jerked.
“No,” he said gently. “Don’t pull back. This isn’t going to hurt. It’s only going to make it easy when I take you.” His fingers were slow and sensual and insistent. She shivered, and the pressure grew. His mouth teased over her parted lips while he taught her body to yield to building pleasure.
“Does it feel good?” he whispered.
“Yes,” she sobbed.
“Don’t fight it,” he breathed. His mouth slid down to her breasts and explored them in a silence that grew tense as the movement of his hand produced staggering sensations that arched her body like a bow.
He was doing something. It wasn’t his finger now, it was part of his body, and he was easing down and pushing, penetrating…!
“It hurts,” she whispered frantically.
“Here,” he whispered, shifting quickly. He moved again, and she shivered, but not with pain. “Yes, that’s it,” he said quickly. “That’s it, sweetheart!”
She was unconsciously following his lead, letting him position her, buffet her. She felt his skin sliding against her own, heard the soft whisper of it even as the sensations made her mind spin. She was making sounds that she didn’t recognize, deep in her throat, and clinging to him with all her strength.
“I…wish…!” she choked.
“Wish what?” he bit off, fighting for breath. “What do you want? I’ll do anything!”
“Wish…the light…was on,” she managed to say.
“Oh, God…” he groaned.
He tried to reach the light switch, but just at that moment, a shock of pleasure caught him off guard and bit into his body like a sweet, hot knife. He gave up any thought of the light and drove against her with all his might, holding her thrashing hips as she went with him on the spiral of pleasure. He heard her cry out and thanked God that she was able to feel anything, because his only sane thought was that if he didn’t find release soon, he was going to die…
“Dana!” he cried out as he found what he craved, shuddering and shuddering as he gave himself to the sweetness of ecstasy.
Her hands soothed him as she came back down again, shivering in the aftermath. She stroked his hair and his nape, pressing tender kisses on his cheeks, his eyes, his nose.
“It was good,” she whispered. “It was so good, so sweet. Oh, Hank, do it again!”
He couldn’t get enough breath to laugh. “Sweetheart, I can’t,” he whispered huskily. “Not just yet.”
“Why? Did I do something wrong?” she asked plaintively.
He turned his head and kissed her soft mouth. “A man’s body isn’t like a woman’s,” he said gently. “I have to rest for a few minutes.”
“Oh.”
He kissed her lazily, stretching his strained muscles and drawing a deep breath before he laced her close against him again and sighed.
“Did it hurt very much?” he murmured drowsily.
“A little, at first.” She stretched against him. “Heavens, it’s just like dying,” she remarked with wonder. “And you don’t care if you die, because it’s so good.” She laughed wickedly. “Hank, turn on the light,” she whispered.
“I thought you were a prude,” he taunted.
“No, I think I’m a voyeur.” She corrected him. “I want to look at you.”
“Dana!”
“And don’t pretend to be shocked, because I know you aren’t. I’ll bet you want to look at all of me, too.”
“Indeed I do.”
“Well, then?”
He turned on the light and peeled the covers away. She looked at him openly, coloring just a little at the sight of his blatant nudity. He didn’t blush. He stared and stared, filling his eyes with her.
“God, what a sight,” he murmured huskily. He held out his arms. “Come here.”
She eased into them, felt him position her and lift her, and then bring her down over him to fit them together in a slow, sensual intimacy.
“Now,” he whispered huskily, moving his hands to her hips. “Let’s watch each other explode.”
“Are we…going to?” she whispered back, moving slowly with him.
He nodded, because he couldn’t manage words. His black eyes splintered as the sensations began to build all over again. His last sane thought was that he might never be able to get enough of her….
* * *
He was distant the next morning. Dana had expected a new and wonderful closeness because of their intimacy in the night, but Hank was quiet and reserved in a way he’d never been before.
“Is something wrong?” she asked worriedly.
He shrugged. “What could be wrong?” He checked his watch. “We’d better get a move on. I have an appointment in the office late this afternoon, and I can’t afford to miss it. Got your stuff together?”
She nodded, still a little bewildered. “Hank…you aren’t sorry about last night, are you?” she asked uneasily.
“Of course not!” he said, and forced a smile. “I’m just in a hurry to get home. Let’s go.”
And so they left and went home.
CHAPTER FOUR
Dana peered again at the thick gold wedding ring on her hand. They’d been back in Jacobsville for two weeks, and she was living in his big sprawling brick mansion now. The housekeeper, Miss Tilly, had been with Hayden for a long time. She was thin and friendly and secretly amused at the high-handed manner Hayden had managed his wedding, but she didn’t say a word. She cooked and cleaned and kept out of the way.
Dana was uneasy at first. Her brand-new husband didn’t wear a wedding band, and she didn’t like to suggest it to him for fear of sounding possessive. But it made her uncomfortable to think that he didn’t want to openly indicate his wedded state. Surely he wasn’t thinking of having affairs already?
That was a natural thought, because despite his ardor in Las Vegas on their wedding night, he hadn’t touched her since. He’d been polite, attentive, even affectionate. But he hadn’t touched her as a lover.
He was like a friend now. He’d insisted on separate bedrooms without any explanations at all, and he’d withdrawn from her physically to the point that he wouldn’t even touch her hand. It wore on Dana’s nerves.
* * *
His behavior began to make sense the next morning, however, when Tilly went to answer the doorbell and a strange couple entered the house as if they belonged there.
“Where’s Hank? He saw Bob at the bank and invited him to lunch,” the woman, a striking brunette, announced flatly. “Didn’t he say he’d be back by this time, Bob?” she asked the much older, slightly balding man beside her. He looked pale and unhealthy, and he shrugged, as if he didn’t much care. He glanced at Dana with an apologetic smile, but he seemed sapped of energy, even of speech.
“I don’t know where he is. I just got home,” Dana said. She was very conscious of her appearance. She was wearing jeans and boots and a dusty shirt, because she’d been down to her own place to check on her small herd of cattle. She smelled of horses and her hair wasn’t as neat in its braid as it had started out.
“And who are you, the stable girl?” the woman asked with a mocking smile.
Dana didn’t like the woman’s attitude, her over-polished look, or the reek of her expensive perfume that she must have bathed in.
“I’m Mrs. Hayden Grant,” she replied with curt formality. “And just who do you think you are, to come into my home and insult me?” she added for good measure, with sparks in her blue eyes.
The woman was shocked, not only by the name she’d been given, but by that quick hostility.
She fumbled her words. “I’m Betty Grant. I mean, Betty Collins,” she amended, rattled and flushed. “I didn’t know Hank…had remarried! He didn’t say anything about it.”
“We’ve known each other for years, but we’ve only been married a few weeks,” Dana replied, furious at Hank for putting her in this position so unexpectedly. He hadn’t said anything about his ex-wife paying a visit. “Tilly, show them into the living room,” she told the thin housekeeper. “I’m sure Hank will be along,” she added curtly. “If you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.” She spared the man a smile, because he hadn’t been impolite, but she said nothing to Betty. Her feelings had been lacerated by the woman’s harsh question.
She walked to the staircase and mounted it without a backward glance.
“She isn’t very welcoming,” Betty told her husband with a cold glance toward the staircase.
“She wasn’t expecting you,” Tilly said with irritation. She’d never liked the ex-Mrs. Grant and she liked her even less now. “If you’d like to wait in here, I’ll bring coffee when Mr. Grant comes.”
Betty gave the housekeeper a narrow-eyed look. “You never liked me, did you, Tilly?”
“I work for Mr. Grant, madam,” she replied with dignity. “My likes and dislikes are of concern only to him. And to Mrs. Grant, of course,” she added pointedly.
As the blood was seeping into Betty’s cheeks, the housekeeper swept out of the room and closed the door. She went down the hall to the kitchen and almost collided with Hayden, who’d come in the back door.
“Whoa, there,” he said, righting her. “What’s got you so fired up?”
“Your ex-wife just slithered in, with her husband,” she said grimly, noticing the pained look the statement brought to his face. “She’s already had a bite of Mrs. Grant, which she got back, with interest,” she added with a smile.
He sucked in his breath. “Good Lord, I forgot to phone and tell Dana I’d invited them. Is she very upset?”
“Well, sir,” Tilly chuckled, “she’s got a temper. Never raised her voice or said a bad word, but she set Betty right on her heels. Betty asked if she was the stable girl.”
His face grew cold and hard. “How does she look?”
“Dana?”
He shook his head. “Betty.”
“She looks very rich, very haughty and very pretty, just as she used to.” She frowned. “Sir, you aren’t going to let her knock you off-balance again, are you?”
He couldn’t answer that. The memory of Betty in his bed had tormented him ever since the divorce, despite the ecstasy Dana had given him that one night they’d had together.
“No,” he said belatedly. “Certainly I’m not going to give her any rope to hang me with.”
“Might think about telling Dana that,” Tilly mused. “She won’t take kindly to the kind of shock she just got. Especially considering the sleeping arrangements around here.”
He opened his mouth to reply hotly, but she was already through the door and into the kitchen. He glared after her. Tilly’s outspokenness was irritating at times. She was right, which didn’t help the situation.
“Bring a tray of coffee to the living room,” he bellowed after her.
There was no reply, but he assumed that she heard him. So, probably, had half the county.
He strolled into the living room, trying not to think about how it was going to affect him to see Betty. He wasn’t as prepared as he’d thought. It was an utter shock. She’d been twenty when she left him, a flighty girl who liked to flirt and have men buy her pretty things. Ten years had gone by. That would make her thirty now, and she was as pretty as ever, more mature, much more sensuous. The years rolled away and he was hungry for this woman who’d teased him and then taken him over completely.
She saw his reaction and smiled at him with her whole body. “Well, Hank, how are you?” she asked, going close.
With her husband watching, she reached up and kissed him full on the mouth, taking her time about it. She laughed softly when he didn’t draw back. She could feel the tension in him, and it wasn’t rejection.
He hated having her know how he felt, but he couldn’t resist the urge to kiss her back. He did, thoroughly. His skill must have surprised her, because he felt her gasp just before he lifted his head.
“My, you’ve changed, lover!” she exclaimed with a husky laugh.
He searched her eyes, looking for emotion, love. But it wasn’t there. It never had been. Whatever he felt for her, Betty had never been able to return. Her victorious smile brought him partially back to his senses. Ten years was a long time. He’d changed, so had she. He mustn’t lose sight of the fact that despite her exquisite body and seductive kisses, she’d left him for a richer man. And now Hank was married. Dana was his wife, in every sense of the word.
He blinked. For the space of seconds he’d kissed his ex-wife, Dana had gone right out of his mind. He felt guilty.
“You look well,” he told Betty. His eyes shifted from her to his friend Bob in the distance. He held out his hand. “How are you, Bob?” he asked, but without the warmth he could have given the man before the divorce.
Bob knew it and his smile was strained as he shook the proffered hand. “I’m doing all right, I guess,” he said. “Slowing down a little, but it’s time I did. How’ve you been?”
“Prosperous,” Hayden replied with a faint, mocking smile.
“So I’ve seen,” the older man said congenially. “You’ve made quite a stir among breeders, and I hear one of your two-year-olds will debut this year at the track.”
“That’s the long and short of it. How’s the poultry business?”
“I’ve divested myself of most of my holdings,” Bob said. He grimaced. “I was so busy traveling that I didn’t realize I’d lost control until there was a proxy fight and I lost it,” he added, without looking at Betty. “Then I had a minor stroke, and even my shares weren’t worth the trouble. We’re living comfortably on dividends from various sources.”
“Comfortably is hardly the word,” Betty scoffed. “But we’ve got one prize possession left that may put us in the black again. That’s one reason we’re here today.” She smiled flirtatiously at Hank, who looked very uncomfortable, and deliberately leaned back against his desk in a seductive pose. “When did you get married, Hank? When you heard we were moving back here?”
His face hardened. “That’s ha
rdly a motive to get married.”
“I wonder. Your new bride is frightfully young, and she seems to prefer the great outdoors to being a hostess. She wasn’t very friendly. Is she the little farm girl whose father just died? She’s not even in your league, socially, is she?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” came a voice from the doorway.
Hank turned his attention to his wife and didn’t recognize her. Her blond hair was down around her shoulders, clean and bright, and she was wearing a silk sundress that even made Bob stare.
She was wearing just enough makeup, just enough perfume. Hank’s eyes went down to her long, elegant legs and he felt his whole body go rigid as he remembered how it felt to kiss her. His face reflected the memory, to Betty’s dismay.
Dana walked in, her body swaying gracefully, and took Hank possessively by the arm. She was delighted that she’d bought this designer dress to wear for Hank. The occasion hadn’t arisen before, so she’d saved it. “I thought you’d forgotten the invitation,” she said idly, glancing at Betty. “We’re so newly married, you see,” she added with indulgent affection.
Betty’s face had flushed again with temper. She crossed her legs as she leaned back further into the desk. Her eyes narrowed. “Very newly married, we hear. I was just asking Hank why the rush.”
Dana smiled demurely and her hand flattened on her stomach. “Well, I’m sure you know how impetuous he is,” she murmured huskily, and didn’t look up.
The gesture was enough. Betty looked as if she might choke.
Hank was surprised at his wife’s immediate grasp of the situation, and her protective instincts. He’d been horrible to her, and here she was saving his pride. He’d been set to go right over the edge with Betty again, and here was Dana to draw him back to safety. Considering his coolness to her since their marriage, and springing this surprise on her today, it was damned decent of her.
His arm contracted around her waist and he smiled down at her with genuine appreciation. “A child was our first priority, but we sort of jumped the gun,” he added, lying through his teeth as he helped things along. “We’re hoping for a son.”