by Diana Palmer
“Only you could ever say that with a straight face,” Cherry chuckled. “You’re the only person he gets along with, as a rule, except that lately he seems to explode if your name is mentioned. But he hates most people, and he just tolerates me because he has to.”
“He seems to like Gabe most of the time,” Kate murmured, her eyes faraway as she remembered the good days. “And he even tolerates Red Barton, whom most cattlemen would shoot on sight for gross insubordination. That cowboy stays in trouble all the time.”
“He does that. By the way,” Cherry said with a mischievous grin, “Gabe waylaid me in the driveway on my way out and asked if I thought you might be receptive to going to a square dance with him. I told him I couldn’t speak for you.”
Kate thought about Jason and his horrible temper and the way he’d treated her. “Tell him I will.”
“It’s about time. He’s been mooning around for weeks; it will be good therapy. I’ll tell him.” Cherry grinned. She left, with her precious skirt in hand, waving good-bye.
“Jason won’t like it, honey,” Mary said quietly.
“It’s none of Jason’s business,” Kate said shortly. “If he can ignore me, I can ignore him.”
“I thought it bothered you that he hadn’t been around to see you,” Mary replied. She hugged Kate gently. “I’m sorry.”
Kate had to fight tears. It hurt terribly that, after what had happened, Jason still hadn’t come to see her.
“I like Gabe a lot,” she said out loud as she tried to sound and feel convinced. “He’s good fun and I won’t have to fight him off.” I hope, she added silently. “There’s no reason in the world why I can’t date him.”
In fact, there was one big reason why not. And he hit the ceiling when he overheard Cherry and Gabe talking about the upcoming square dance.
“Hold it right there,” Jason called to his foreman after Cherry had gone inside.
Gabe had started back toward the corral, but he froze in place and turned, grinning sheepishly.
“I, uh, guess you heard what Cherry said,” he ventured.
“Go near Kate,” Jason said, his voice deep and slow and measured, his dark eyes glittering, “and you’ll leave the Spur in a basket.”
So that was how things stood. Gabe liked Kate, but he liked his job even more, and he knew how dangerous it was to cross Jason Donavan.
“I think a lot of Kate,” Gabe said gently. “I just meant to take her out on the town. I wouldn’t hurt her, in any way.”
“I know that,” Jason replied tersely. “It doesn’t change things. Stay away from her.”
“If that’s how you want it.”
“I’ll give her your condolences,” Jason replied. He turned and headed for the Bronco, sick of life in general and cattle and philandering, trespassing cowboys in particular. Damn Kate for agreeing to go out with that softhearted lunatic, and damn Cherry for sticking her nose in. He didn’t want to seduce Kate, but he sure as hell didn’t want Gabe doing it. And then he realized that as long as Kate was free, she was fair game. She was as young and fresh and pretty as a country rose, and men would want her. His face hardened. He started the car with a vicious turn of the key and gunned the engine fiercely as he shot out into the highway, narrowly missing a fence.
Kate had done that to get even, he knew it. He’d hurt her, and then he’d let her think that Daphne meant something to him. But he couldn’t let her get involved with Gabe, any more than he could let her get involved with him. His hands gripped the steering wheel hard. If only he could get her out of his system without hurting her any more. But he wanted her even more now, and found himself dreaming of her. He felt her mouth under his every time he closed his eyes. But that wasn’t love, it was lust, and Kate deserved something more.
Jason thought as he drove, furious at circumstances. He’d been trying to fight memories of Kate and gain some time to turn things around. He sighed angrily. Life was sure as hell getting complicated.
Kate was back at work on her designs when she heard a car drive up outside. Surely it wasn’t Cherry again. Mary was in the bathroom, soaking in a tub of hot water, so Kate got up and went to see who it was.
She opened the door and her heart did cartwheels. It seemed like years since she’d seen Jason. He was wearing dress slacks with a patterned gray shirt and tie, a silky sport coat and his dress Stetson. He looked furious. She didn’t need a telegram to inform her that he’d just found out about her acceptance of Gabe’s invitation.
Her green eyes glittered as he came up on the porch. She didn’t take one step toward him. He was doing some looking of his own, his dark eyes feeding on the sight of her after so many days of trying to remember every detail of her face and body. He didn’t like that damned short haircut, and he almost said so. But he had no right to dictate to her. She looked as if she hated him, and that bruised him in ways he hadn’t expected.
“My goodness, are you lost?” Kate asked, throwing down the gauntlet with unexpected ease. She even smiled as she folded her arms tightly across her chest. “I can’t imagine you’d come here for any other reason.”
“You aren’t going anywhere with Gabe.” Damn. He’d meant to lead up to it slowly, not slam it at her that way. His jaw tautened as he saw rebellion sparkle in her eyes. “And it’s no good arguing about it,” he added before she could speak. “I’ve told him if he comes near you, he’s through at the Spur.”
That was faintly shocking. “Gabe’s your friend,” she reminded him. “And you’d never get another foreman who’d work half as hard as he does.”
“I won’t deny that. But all the same, if you go out with him and I find out about it, he’s fired. And I will find out about it,” he added quietly. “I swear to God I will.”
“What does it matter to you who I go out with, Jason?!” she demanded. “You couldn’t shoot me off the place fast enough Saturday.”
“You know why I’ve kept my distance,” he said after a minute. He paused to light a cigarette, scowling at her. “But this was low, Kate. You’re not going to use Gabe to get to me.”
It was the wrong thing for him to say to her. He’d dashed her dreams to shreds and made it out to be her fault. “And I suppose I threw myself at you?” she challenged, biting her lower lip to still its telltale trembling.
“Didn’t you?” he asked with a cold smile, impatient with her accusations and his own doubts and misgivings.
Her hand went up, but this time he caught her wrist in a steely grasp that had his full strength behind it. She shivered a little in anticipation because his eyes flashed wildly.
“Kate, is that Jason?” Mary called from the bedroom.
Jason dropped Kate’s wrist just as Mary came out in her new blue crepe dress, looking very elegant despite her thinness. “Well, hello.” She grinned. “Kate, I just called Betty Gallaway and we’re going to see that new movie about that wild Australian man together. You don’t mind, do you?”
Kate was trying desperately to hold her temper. “No. Of course not.”
Mary didn’t smile smugly, but she felt like it. She’d obviously just interrupted something violent, and if she left these two alone, there was every chance that they’d finally start talking again. She’d leaped out of the tub when she heard him drive up, dressed, and called Betty in a space of five minutes. Thank God Betty was free.
“Well, I’m off. Don’t you two kill each other,” she said, kissing Kate good-bye. “See you, Jason.”
“Sure,” he replied, but he was breathing roughly and still glaring at Kate when he said it.
Mary eased out past them, got into the Tempo, started it, blew the horn and drove away. Kate pushed back her hair, glaring back at Jason.
He took deep, slow breaths, and then he looked down at Kate, whose mutinous fury had passed into lackluster depression. He reached out and held her wrist, smoothing his fingers over the soft flesh that he’d just crushed.
She looked up at that moment, her soft eyes searching his, and every sa
ne thought went out of Jason’s head. He flipped the cigarette out into the sandy yard and eased Kate into the house, closing the door gently behind him.
“I hate you,” he said through his teeth. “My God, I could…!” His mouth crushed down over hers in a kiss that was part revenge, part torment.
She barely heard him. Her lips parted softly and she reached around his hard waist, pressing into the powerful length of his body while his searching mouth made rough love to hers in the silence.
The feel of Kate’s soft, warm body was the final straw, breaking Jason’s will, making him helpless to stop himself.
His lean hands slid under her top, up to her uncovered breasts, and before she could recover enough to protest, his tongue went into her mouth. He backed her into the door. His hard, hungry body pushing down against hers took the last sane thought right out of her mind. He worked at buttons and fastenings and in feverish minutes, she felt his broad hair-covered chest softly crushing her own bare one in an abrasive contact that was as wildly arousing as the feel of his powerful legs against her.
“I tried,” he breathed roughly, his voice shaking as he kissed her. “God help me, I did.” His lean hands smoothed down her body, brushing her hips against his, holding her to him in an intimacy that she should have protested, but didn’t. “I want you. I want you so badly, Kate…”
She touched his dark hair gently as his insistent mouth covered hers. She knew that no one had ever really loved Jason. But she did. She wanted to show him how much. She wanted to teach him that trust and love and emotional ties weren’t painful. She wanted to teach him how to love. Perhaps, in this way, Kate might build a future with him. She might give him a taste of the kind of life he’d once wanted, and might stop him from finishing the wall he was building to keep out the world.
There were risks, of course. But this was Jason, and Kate felt that he also needed her. And if there hadn’t been a woman for him in the past few years, just the possession of her might be enough to bind him to her forever. Yes. Yes. She closed her eyes and let him settle his aching body over hers, with the door hard and cool at her back and the blazing warmth of his muscular torso brushing hungrily against her as he bent suddenly to lift her.
“Forgive me,” he whispered hoarsely, breathing the words into her trembling lips.
Her arms closed around his neck as she fought down the faint fear of his possession. “I love you,” she whispered back. “There won’t be anything to forgive.”
Jason couldn’t even speak for the blood hurtling through his mind. He carried Kate to the sofa and laid her down, blind and deaf and dumb with the helplessness of desire.
Chapter Nine
Jason eased her down on the long, faded sofa, his mouth still over hers. God, she was soft. Her body trembled faintly when he began to stroke it, and her legs tangled with his. She was innocent, but he could feel the buried passions in her and hadn’t he heard her whisper that she loved him? He wanted her so much. The years of abstinence and the sweet feast in sight made him irrational, so perhaps he’d imagined what Kate had whispered. Right or wrong, it was too late to draw back. His body was on fire, his mind drowning in her scent, her softness.
He bit at her lips, lifting his head to search over the soft pink thrust of her breasts, the smooth line of her flat stomach as his hand eased her loosened jeans down.
Kate’s breath caught and she stiffened. She hadn’t thought about how intimate it was going to get, and this was just the beginning.
He read accurately that brief hesitation. It was a big step, and she was frightened. He bent to her mouth, barely able to speak at all for the shuddering passion that had overtaken him. “This is part of loving,” he breathed against her trembling mouth. “I know how shocking it must seem to you, but I swear I won’t do anything to hurt you.”
She knew how naive she must seem to an experienced man. She tried to relax. “I’m sorry…”
He touched his mouth to hers. “Trust me, Katy,” he whispered with aching tenderness.
He slid his hand into the thick, short hair behind her head and lifted her mouth up to join with his. He wished to God he knew more about women than he did because he’d never been with a woman who was virginal and he wasn’t sure he knew how to arouse her enough to spare her the discomfort of her first time.
Even now, in the back of his mind, he could hear his father raging about sex, about how women used it to break a man’s spirit. No real man would let a woman make him weak by tempting him with her body, his father had sermonized. That constant lecturing had scarred Jason, in fact it had kept him away from women most of his adult life, so he didn’t have the expertise Kate seemed to credit him with. But he’d certainly learned enough to see him through. He touched Kate hesitantly where he was sure no one else ever had. She jerked, but his mouth hardened on hers, stilling her sudden frantic movement. And then he found her, where she was virginal, and she moaned.
The sensations that shot heat through her body made her shudder. She made a sound, a cry, under his devouring mouth, but she lay very still. He touched her again, more intimately this time, and again the pleasure burned. Her arms reached up to him. She answered the pressure of his mouth, going under in dazed submission as he brushed and stroked and probed.
He lifted his mouth just a fraction and watched her face. Her eyes were half-closed, misty with arousal. Her cheeks were flushed, her mouth swollen and parted, waiting for him to claim. He probed and she gasped, but without protest. It was beyond belief, the pleasure it gave him to watch her. Jason was trembling with his own desire, but even stronger was the tenderness he felt for her, the need to protect, to comfort, to cherish. Later, perhaps, the guilt and shame would come, as it always had before. But now he was in the throes of magic, and nothing mattered except fulfillment. His. And hers.
“There’s a barrier,” he whispered, holding her eyes as his hand moved. “A very thin one. Let’s get rid of it now, little one.”
She trembled, feeling him push gently against her, the fear dark in her eyes at the faint stab of discomfort. Kate gasped, but Jason brushed his mouth over hers and caught the tiny sound. It embarrassed her, the way he was touching her, the helplessness of her body in his sight. She was losing control and he was going to see…!
“Don’t close your eyes,” he said softly. “There’s nothing so very terrible about letting me see your pleasure, Kate.”
Tears burned her eyes while sensation climbed and climbed. She couldn’t answer him. She gasped, arching, her body no longer hers, her face taut, her jaw clenching.
He pushed against her then, gauging the exact moment when he could without hurting her more than necessary, and she moaned like a wounded thing, pain mingled with pleasure in her cry. Blazing torment turned sweet, lifting her. He hesitated then, to see how complete her abandon was, and she began to writhe uncontrollably.
“No,” she whimpered as he sat up, “Oh, don’t stop!” Her head turned toward him, her legs shifting sensuously, her body racked with a new and involuntary fever.
He got to his feet, and she saw him undressing through a red mist of uncontrollable desire, still moving, like a small animal in a trap, weak and vulnerable. It only took a minute, his tall, powerful body shuddering openly when he reached down to strip her out of the rest of her covering.
He looked down at her taut nudity, his body powerful and tense with its damp, bronzed muscle and the thick hair that curled down his chest, his flat belly to his blatant masculinity.
“Jason,” she moaned, trembling.
“You’re exquisite,” he said roughly, his voice as aroused as her body. “God, you’re exquisite.”
He eased down over her, every movement slow enough to make her moan with impatience. The fear was gone. Only her body was alive, wanting the power and domination of his with a primitive kind of desire. She’d never realized the strength of desire until now. Trembling with the need for his body, the anguish of emptiness waiting to be filled, she arched up, weeping, as he m
oved her legs gently to admit the weight of his body.
“I hope I know enough,” he whispered enigmatically, sliding his hands under her head to cradle it while he played with her mouth. He eased down, and the words sounded almost reverent, like the tenderness of his hands as he positioned her.
“Jason,” she wept. “Jason, please…please!” She moved against his body, urgently, but he held back.
“You have to be hungrier than this,” he whispered, his mouth gentling hers. “I can’t bear to hurt you now.”
“You won’t…!”
“Not yet.” He touched her as he had before, and she cried against his mouth at the exquisite things he did to her. And all the while, his mouth moved first against hers, and then down to the peaks of her breasts. He kissed her there, his tongue and his teeth teasing, tenderly arousing, insistent. And all the while, she moaned, her teeth clenching in pleasured agony, her body writhing as if in unbearable pain.
“I can’t…bear…any more!” she sobbed.
“Neither can I,” he breathed into her open mouth. He shifted slowly, despite his trembling need, and she felt the gentle, shocking touch of him and her eyes flew open. His were above her, watching, almost black with desire. “Lie very still for me, honey,” he whispered as he moved down slowly, and his hand slid under her hips. “Just for…another second. Just…for a second…yes!” he groaned, and he pushed down.
She looked at him with eyes like saucers, shaking at the slow, bold intrusion that shattered all her previous conceptions of lovemaking. This was the mystery…blatant, intimate, earthy. She gasped as he moved again and her hands caught at his hard arms as she felt a faint spasm of discomfort.
“Kate,” he whispered shakenly, holding her eyes as he eased down. “Oh, God, I don’t want to hurt you, honey. Sweetheart, is it very bad?”
The tender concern in that deep, slow voice brought tears misting into her eyes. Men weren’t supposed to care about a woman’s pleasure, were they? But he cared. His face was taut with the strain of trying to hold back for her sake, and that forced the tension out of her. She didn’t want to hurt him, either.