Heartless

by Diana Palmer

  His free hand touched her silky hair, spread it over the white pillow. It looked like pale sunlight in winter. “I wouldn’t think so. She came to live with my parents just before I was born. She’s been more of a mother to me than my own was. I lost my mother when I was small. Mrs. Harcourt was the one who kissed the cuts and cuddled me when I was afraid of the dark.” His face hardened. “I was outraged when I knew Kittie had fired her.”

  “Barbara gave her a job. Dilly, too.”

  “Well, they’ve both been rehired,” he said darkly. “They’re already up in San Antonio overseeing the remodeling. I hired a firm to put everything back the way it was, including your room.” He added the last hopefully.

  She drew in a soft breath. “I’m not coming back, Jason.”

  He started to argue. She reached up and put her fingers gently over his firm lips. Incredibly, the light touch seemed to fascinate him.

  “I have an opportunity to stand on my own two feet, to show that I can make a living, pay rent, be independent. I’ve had everything I wanted since I was fourteen. Now I want to see what I can do on my own.”

  He caught her fingers in his hand and kissed the tips tenderly. “Something I’ve never done,” he said quietly. “My father was wealthy. He inherited a lot, and my mother’s people were also well-to-do. I’ve never had to make my own way.” He sounded bitter.

  “But you have,” she protested. “Jason, when you bought that ranch in Comanche Wells, it was a broken-down, bankrupt little piece of scrub land with a few mangy cattle on it! You’ve built it into one of the most well-known seed bull enterprises in the state! You didn’t inherit that, you earned it.”

  He was surprised by her vehemence. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  “If your father hadn’t left you anything, you’d still be rich. You have a good business head on your shoulders.”

  “Courtesy of an expensive college education.”

  “You have to have the talent.”

  He smiled. His black eyes lingered over her bruises and he grimaced. “I could have spared you this,” he said heavily. “If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in saving a business, I’d have been home, you never would have been abducted.”

  “My mother always used to say that things happened for a reason,” she said, trying to soothe him. He looked tormented. “I’ve had a cushy life. You spoiled me. You spoiled Glory, too, but especially me. I’ve never had to work for anything.”

  “You worked hard at that history degree,” he countered then frowned. “You had to have tutors for every subject. You didn’t have a social life, except for your male…friend, the whole time. I’d forgotten that.”

  She hesitated. She really wanted to tell him everything. But she was still a little afraid of his reaction.

  “You don’t trust me, Gracie,” he said. “You’re keeping things back.”

  She moved restlessly on the sheet. “You said it yourself. We’ve never really talked to each other, beyond everyday things.”

  His fingers went to her cheek and brushed lightly over it. “Barbara said I didn’t know you at all, that I never wanted to. She was wrong.” His eyes began to glitter. “I want to know everything about you.”

  Her heart jumped. His expression wasn’t really threatening, but it held elements of a fierce passion. She’d felt it more than once, especially the day before when he’d plowed through people getting to her in the hospital.

  Her fingers curled around his. “You might not like what you find out.”

  So there was more. His eyes narrowed. “Tell me.”

  She hesitated. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter. But perhaps it would. How would he react to the whole truth? In the back of her mind, she recalled Kittie’s threat to make it all public. But Kittie was out of the picture now. She wouldn’t have any real reason to throw Gracie to the media wolves. Or would she? If Jason found out that way, would he ever forgive her for hiding it all these years?

  “You’re procrastinating,” he accused. “At least tell me why you had to have tutors, when your mind is sharp as a whip.”

  That might not hurt so much. “I had a…a head injury just before my mother and I came to live with you.”

  His breath caught in his throat. “A head injury?”

  She nodded.

  “How did you get it?”

  She drew in a long breath and went for broke. “I was late getting home from the library because my friend’s mother’s car had engine trouble. We had to walk to a service station and I got a ride home from the mechanic.” Her eyes closed. It was a bad memory. “My father was waiting at the door. He said all women were sluts, like my mother, just asking for whatever they got from men. He said he’d make me sorry I’d behaved that way.”

  Jason didn’t say a word. He waited, tense, holding her fingers tight.

  “He picked me up and threw me headfirst into a wall, Jason,” she said quietly.

  10

  JASON CURSED VIOLENTLY. In that instant, a lot of things became crystal clear in his mind, above everything why Gracie didn’t like to be picked up.

  He smoothed back her soft hair, his eyes reflecting the pain he felt at the admission. “I wish I’d known you then,” he said softly. “I’d have wiped the floor with your father!”

  She knew he meant it. He’d always been protective with her, always gentle. She wondered why she’d ever thought he might hurt her, even in intimacy.

  “I guess we really do carry our childhoods around with us all our lives,” she said reflectively. “My mother drilled it into me that I could never trust a man intimately. I know she was only trying to protect me, to spare me from what she went through. But she warped me. I guess the glitch in my brain didn’t help much, either.”

  “That’s why you have so many falls,” he guessed.

  She nodded. “It messed up some of my motor functions. Not to a crippling degree, and there has been some improvement over the years. But I’ll never be completely normal. I have to work harder than most people to learn new things.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said gruffly. His hand smoothed down to her mouth and his thumb teased across it. “You’re perfect to me just the way you are.”

  She was hesitant. “I thought it would change things if you knew,” she said.

  His black eyes met her light ones. “Would it matter to you, if you found out some dark secret from my past?” he teased.

  She laughed. “You don’t have any dark secrets, Jason.”

  “That’s what you think,” he murmured. “Answer the question.”

  “No. Nothing would change.”

  “Exactly.” He waited for her to get the point.

  She was still undecided. “Maybe there are worse things,” she began.

  “Maybe you should tell me, and get it all out in the open,” he replied. “I told you it wouldn’t change anything. It won’t.”

  She sighed. “All right. But give me a little time, Jason. I’m pretty overwhelmed right now.”

  “Yes. And it was my fault,” he added.

  She hated the anguish in his lean, handsome face. She reached up and tugged at his head, pulling it down to her. “Stop that,” she whispered. “You didn’t know I was going to get kidnapped. You didn’t have a thing to do with it.”

  He was trying to listen, but his eyes were fixed on her soft mouth. He looked as if he were starving to death.

  She liked that. She enjoyed the intensity of his eyes on her mouth. She tugged and parted her lips just as his opened over them. It was like flying, she thought with pure delight. He wasn’t fighting her. He was, if anything, trying to manage a little restraint. He didn’t know, but that wasn’t necessary. Not at all. She slid her arms around him and pulled hard.

  His lean body crushed down over hers before he could brace himself. “Gracie,” he groaned.

  She wasn’t listening. He wasn’t fighting very hard, either. She raised up, positioning her mouth slowly against his so that she increased the pressure and the intim
acy of the light, warm kiss. She coaxed him into recklessness. She moaned, because the feelings she was experiencing were new and hot and delicious.

  “For God’s sake…!” He opened his mouth over hers and thrust his tongue deep into her soft, warm mouth.

  She gasped, but already the heat was washing over her, as well. She felt his lean hand at her breast, claiming it hungrily, caressing it in his palm. He moved half onto the bed beside her and his arms slid under her, grinding her soft breasts up against his broad chest. Even through two layers of fabric, the contact was electric, arousing.

  “You little fool,” he murmured against her mouth as his hand drew back and started working buttons out of buttonholes. “What if I can’t stop…?”

  By then, his bare hand was cupping her breast under her gown and she lifted completely off the bed, shivering with the delight of the contact.

  “It’s so good,” she whispered.

  “I know something better,” he bit off against her lips.

  While she was trying to figure that out, his mouth slid down her throat, under the gown and right onto her soft, bare breast. She tensed at first, but he wasn’t hurting her. His lips smoothed over the silky, warm skin, exploring, savoring. His tongue curled around the nipple and made it go suddenly hard and sensitive.

  She gasped, arching up to increase the pressure. She heard a soft, deep laugh, and then he positioned her and his mouth swallowed her up whole. He drew her inside the dark, sensual warmth with a slow, seductive suction that made her go up like a Chinese rocket.

  Exploding, mindless with pleasure, her nails bit into his shoulders and she moaned, a high-pitched aching kind of sound that aroused him even more. When her body went rigid and started shuddering, he lost all semblance of control and suckled her hard enough to leave a crimson stain, a love mark, that wouldn’t fade for days.

  When he lifted his head, she was stunned, panicked, with tears of shame running down her cheeks.

  It was hard not to feel conceited. He knew without asking that she’d never felt anything like it in her life. It was like a tiny climax, a release of the tension he’d built in her with his mouth. She shivered and flushed. He kissed away the tears, his lips warm and tender and patient.

  “Nobody ever said…it felt like that,” she managed shakily.

  “You can’t describe it with words,” he whispered sensually. His mouth brushed lightly over hers. “I made you climax. Your breasts are incredibly sensitive.”

  She was lost for words. She didn’t know what to say, how to feel. Her shy, worried eyes met his. He was smiling, but it wasn’t a pompous sort of smile. It was full of lazy affection. That, and pride.

  He looked down at her small, firm breast and traced around it with a long forefinger. “I left marks. I’m sorry. I lost my head a little.”

  She looked where he was touching. There was a crimson mark from his mouth there. “It didn’t hurt.”

  “It isn’t supposed to hurt,” he replied quietly. “It’s supposed to make you explode.”

  She flushed.

  He smiled. “Now you know.”

  She reached up and touched his mouth with her fingers. She was fascinated by him. He was looking at her breasts and she was letting him, enjoying his eyes on her, his hands on her. “Jason,” she whispered, “does sex feel like this?”

  His breathing changed as he met her wide, curious eyes.

  The tension in the room was suddenly so thick it was oppressing. He looked down at her body and swallowed hard. He could pull the rest of that gown away. He could throw off his clothes. He could go into her, hard and deep, and push her into the mattress with the weight of his body while he had her. She would let him. Her eyes were giving away all sorts of secrets. She’d cried out when he’d suckled her. She was noisy. She would cry out endlessly as he pleasured her… But the house was empty. Nobody would hear them.

  He ached to have her. It was a pain that never eased. He would be gentle with her. He would give her a memory of him that would never fade, that would make her totally, completely his own. It was wrong, he knew. She was religious. She would regret it. But he was so far gone now that he couldn’t think past relief. Even as he told himself he had to stop, his hands were going to the gown, to push it down her body…

  The sudden insistent jangle of the doorbell burst like an explosion into the raging heat of the bedroom.

  Jason’s hands stilled on the nightgown that was already down around Gracie’s rounded hips. They looked at each other in disbelief.

  The doorbell sounded again.

  Jason groaned. His body was clenched in agony. He forced himself to drag his eyes from Gracie’s firm, hard breasts and get up from the bed. Turning away, he struggled to regain his control, to make his body release the anguished tension that whipped through him.

  Gracie fumbled her gown back on. She was shaking. It had almost gone too far. She’d coaxed Jason into indiscretion and now it was going to haunt them both. She got out of bed, shouldering into a robe, grimacing as her bruised muscles and her sensitized breast protested.

  “I’ll get it,” she whispered without looking at him.

  She went down the hall barefooted. At the front door, she looked out through the peephole. It was FBI Special Agent Jon Blackhawk, in a vested suit, his ponytail as dignified as his lean, handsome face.

  She opened the door. “Agent Blackhawk,” she greeted.

  He frowned. She looked very flushed. “Are you okay?” he asked worriedly. “I needed to ask you some questions about Machado, but you don’t look well. I could come back…”

  “No need,” she said. “Honest.” She opened the door and led him into the living room. “Would you like something to drink?”

  “I’ll make coffee,” Jason Pendleton said from the doorway. He looked a little flushed, too. He was dressed in working clothes, amusing Blackhawk, who’d only ever seen him in dignified city clothes. He looked like a different man.

  Blackhawk wasn’t blind to the fact that he’d interrupted something between the two of them, but he’d learned to pretend. It helped him with his job. “I’d love a cup. I missed mine this morning.”

  “Coming right up. Gracie?” Jason asked in a different tone.

  She smiled at him. “Yes, please.”

  He smiled back and turned away to the kitchen.

  JON BLACKHAWK WAS THOROUGH in his questioning. He wanted to know everything Gracie had seen in the camp, right down to the number of men and how they were clothed.

  “There were a lot of military men down there,” she told him. “They were wearing uniforms. The General didn’t like the Fuentes bunch. He said he allowed them in the vicinity, but he hated drug lords. It was one of Fuentes’s men who attacked me,” she added tightly.

  “Someday that bunch will fall, just like Manuel Lopez’s organization did,” Jon assured her.

  “Yes, and somebody will step in to fill his shoes,” Jason added. He was sitting across from them in an armchair, looking very much at home. He stared at Gracie when she wasn’t looking, filling his eyes with her flushed beauty.

  “Life goes on,” Jon agreed. He looked at his notes. “Did the General mention any plans to retake his government?”

  She shook her head. “He only said he was going to get it back. It’s why he’s kidnapping people.” She grimaced. “I expect he’s kicking himself about now after losing my ransom.”

  “My brother helped that along,” Jon said irritably. “He was involved with a snatch and grab, assisted by persons in Jacobsville who will remain anonymous, apparently.”

  “Kilraven was afraid Gracie might be killed while we were negotiating,” Jason said quietly. “So was I, frankly. If you need someone to blame, I’m your man. I wouldn’t risk her. Not for anything.” He looked at Gracie with eyes that could have started fires.

  She beamed. “I knew you had to be behind it when they came in.”

  “They?” Jon asked.

  “Grr…great balls of fire, is that the time?”
she exclaimed, having just caught herself from mentioning the name of her rescuer. “I have to meet Barbara for lunch!”

  “In your condition?” Jason exclaimed. “Are you out of your mind?”

  Even as she spoke, a car pulled into the driveway. Barbara’s car.

  “Oh, hell,” Jason muttered under his breath.

  Gracie blushed.

  Jon bit back a laugh. He had a good idea of what was going on. He didn’t say so, of course. He was a gentleman.

  He got two more questions out before Barbara walked in with bags of food from the restaurant. She stopped in the doorway and stared. There was Gracie in a nightgown and robe, her hair tousled, her face flushed. There was Jason, looking out of sorts and frustrated. And there was FBI Special Agent Blackhawk, obviously amused by it all. He stood up as she entered. So did Jason. Old-World manners, Barbara thought with indulgent amusement.

  “I brought lunch,” she told Gracie. She glanced at the men. “Maybe I should go back for more.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t,” Jason said. “I’ve got cattle to move. I just stopped by to see how Gracie was doing.”

  “I was getting intel,” Jon added. “I think I’ve got enough for now, but I’ll phone you, if I may, if I think of anything else.”

  “Of course,” Gracie said.

  “Thanks. See you,” he told Jason.

  Barbara carried the food into the kitchen. Jason helped Gracie up from the sofa, his eyes soft and possessive.

  “I’ll see you later,” he said softly. He brushed back the disheveled hair from her face. “In a couple of days, wouldn’t you like to come over and supervise?”

  “Supervise what?” she asked.

  “Next Thursday is Thanksgiving. We need to put up Christmas trees and decorations,” he murmured, staring at her lips. “I’ll get the men to help. We’ll bring Dilly and Mrs. Harcourt down from San Antonio and let them start decorating here.”