Ethan

by Diana Palmer

  "It will be like this in bed," he whispered, his deep voice shaken as it made tiny chills against her moist, swollen lips. "Except that we'll join in the most inti­mate way of all first. Then I'll rock you against me. . .like this . . .and we'll have each other on crisp, white sheets in my bed. . .!"

  His tongue penetrated her mouth. She arched against him, moaning, her hands trembling as they caught in his hair and held his mouth against her own. She could see them—Ethan's lean, dark-skinned body over hers, the light glistening on his damp skin, the movement of it against her own pale flesh in a rhythm as deep, as slow, as waves against the beach. His strained face above hers, his breath shaking, as hers would be, his mouth moving to her breasts. . .

  She caught her breath. Sensations of pleasure made her shudder as his hands clenched on her hips and forced her even closer.

  "I want you," he groaned against her mouth. His fingers trembled as they slid under the waistband of her jeans.

  "I know," she whispered feverishly. Her hands slid to his thighs, trembling too. "I want. . . you, too."

  He shuddered with the fierce need to give in to what he was feeling, what she was feeling. But it couldn't happen like this. No, he told himself. No! He eased back a breath and looked down into her soft, misty eyes. "Not like this," he bit off. "Our first time shouldn't be on a piano bench in an unlocked room. Should it?"

  She stared up at him, shivering. It had only then occurred to her where they were. "I saw us," she whispered unsteadily. "In bed."

  His face clenched. "My God, so did I, twisting against each other in a fever so hot it burned." He buried his face in her throat, and it was burning hot. His arms contracted.

  His hands smoothed against her bare back and he touched her soft breasts. He lifted his head, looking down at the rose-tipped softness in his hands. "Did you ever dream that we'd be like this together one day?" he asked, almost in awe, and lifted his eyes to hold hers. "Sitting alone in a quiet room with your body open to my eyes and my hands, and so natural that we both accepted it without embarrassment?"

  "I dreamed of it," she confessed in a soft whisper. She looked down at the darkness of his hands against the creamy beauty of her breasts. She trembled, and didn't mind letting him see. She belonged to him now. If wanting was all he felt, she could live with it. She'd have to.

  "So did I," he whispered huskily. "Every long, lonely night." And he bent to take one small, perfect breast into his mouth.

  She arched to him, clinging to his hair, gasping at the delicious sensations that washed over her, loving the warm moist suction of his mouth on her.

  "It will be like this in bed, too," he whispered against her flushed skin. "Except that I'll kiss more than your breasts this way, and I won't stop until you're as satisfied as I am."

  She drew her mouth over his eyes, his cheekbones, his nose, his mouth. "I hope you won't be sorry," she said quietly.

  He lifted his head and looked down at her. If she'd ever loved him, he'd killed it. He was bulldozing her into this wedding, but it seemed the only way out. Perhaps love could be taught. "We'll have a white wedding, with all the trimmings," he added. "Com­plete with a wedding night. There won't be any anti­cipating our vows, and to hell with modern attitudes." He kissed her gently. "This is what marriage should be. A good marriage, with respect on both sides and honor to make it all perfect."

  Respect. Honor. No mention of love, but perhaps she was being greedy. "Your mother was right. You are a puritan," she teased.

  "So are you." He lifted her away from him with rueful reluctance and fastened her clothes again, then his. "I like the idea of a blushing, shy bride," he murmured, watching her face color. "Do you mind?"

  "No," she assured him. "Not at all. I've waited so long to be one."

  "As long as I've waited for you," he replied, his face almost a stranger's with its hard restraint. He moved away from her. "We'll make it together this time," he said. "Despite your father and Miriam and all the other obstacles, this time we'll make it."

  She looked up at him with hope and quiet adora­tion. "Yes. This time we'll make it," she whispered.

  They had to. She knew that she'd never survive having to leave him again. Later, she'd explain about her father and the peace they'd made. For now, it was enough that they were facing a future with each other. Love might come later, if she could be the kind of wife he wanted, and needed. In the meantime, she'd live one day at a time.

  Her only worry was what he was going to think if he found out that her career was over. He might think again that she was marrying him for security.

  She phoned her father that night and explained the situation to him. Oddly enough, he wasn't disap­pointed, and he even congratulated her. He'd make do, he promised, and she'd get the lion's share of the deals he was working on her behalf.

  That reassured her. She'd have her little nest egg. Then, in the future, when Ethan finally tired of her body, she'd have something to fall back on. She could have a kind of life, even though it wouldn't include him.

  She slept fitfully, wondering if she'd made the right decision. Was it right for Ethan, who was losing the woman he really loved? Or should she have let him go for good? By morning, she was no closer to a deci­sion.

  Chapter Eleven

  So it's back on again," Coreen said with a nod, eye­ing her son warily as he and a somber Arabella broke the news to her. "Uh-huh. For how long this time?"

  "For good." He lifted his chin. "You took the gown back, I suppose," he added.

  "No, I didn't take the gown back," Coreen re­plied. "I stuck it in the closet because I was reason­ably sure that you inherited enough of my common sense not to duplicate the worst mistake of your life."

  He stared at her. "You kept it?"

  "Yes." She smiled at Arabella. "I hoped he'd come to his senses. I just wasn't sure that he could get past his old doubts. Especially," she added, with a grim glance in Miriam's direction, "when the past started to interfere with the present."

  "I'll tell you all about that, someday," Ethan promised his mother. "In the meantime, how about those plans for the wedding?"

  "I'll call Shelby tonight. Is that all right with you, Arabella?"

  "I'd like that," Arabella said with downcast eyes. "Are you sure Shelby will have time to help us?"

  "She'll make it. Her mother and I were best friends, many years ago. This time, don't let Arabella get away," Coreen cautioned her son.

  He looked down at Arabella with open hunger. "Not on your life. Not this time."

  Arabella was trying not to look as nervous as she felt. That hunger in Ethan's eyes was real, even if he didn't love her, and she was suddenly uncertain about being able to satisfy it. If it hadn't dimmed in four years, how was she, a virgin, going to be woman enough to quench it?

  He saw that fear in her eyes and misinterpreted it. He drew her to one side, scowling. "You aren't get­ting cold feet?"

  "It's a big step, marriage," she said, hedging. "I'll get my nerve back."

  "I'll give you anything you want," he said curtly. "You can have the moon, if you like."

  She averted her gaze to Miriam and her fiancé. They looked the picture of coming nuptial bliss. Nothing like Arabella and Ethan, so tense and nervous with each other, stepping gingerly around the big issues they still had to face.

  "I don't want the moon," she said. "I'll settle for a good marriage."

  "We come from similar backgrounds and we have a lot in common," he said stubbornly. "We'll make it."

  Shelby Jacobs Ballenger came by the next morning to talk to Arabella while Coreen and Mary listened in. She was a beautiful woman, much prettier than Mir­iam, and there had been a lot of gossip about the rocky romance she and her husband, Justin, had weathered. If it was true, none of it showed on her supremely happy face, and even the birth of two sons hadn't ruined her slender figure.

  "I can't tell you how much we appreciate your help," Arabella said, smiling at Shelby. "I've never had to worry about arrangeme
nts of this sort be­fore."

  "It's my pleasure," Shelby replied, beaming. "I have a special place in my heart for weddings. My own was something to remember—unfortunately, for all the wrong reasons. But even with a bad start, it's been a miracle of togetherness. Justin is all I ever wanted, he and my boys."

  "How do you manage any free time?" Arabella asked.

  "It's not easy, with preschoolers," Shelby laughed, "but my sister-in-law is a jewel. Abby's keeping them while she's confined to the house. It's their third child on the way, you know. Justin said he was going to have a long talk with Calhoun and see if he knew what was causing them!"

  Everyone laughed. It was well known around Ja­cobsville that Calhoun and Abby would have loved an even dozen.

  "Now." Shelby got out a notebook. "Let me run you through the possibilities and then we'll sort out the particulars."

  It took the better part of the morning. Shelby left just before lunch and Arabella's head was swimming with it all.

  "I don't want a wedding," she moaned to Coreen. "It's too complicated."

  "We could elope," Ethan suggested.

  Coreen glared at him. "Mary and Matt already did that. I won't let you. It's a church wedding or you'll live in sin!"

  "Mother!" Ethan gave a theatrical expression of shock.

  "It won't be that difficult. We already have the bride and the dress; all we have to worry about are in­vitations and food."

  "Well, we could phone the guests and have a bar­becue," he replied.

  "Go away, Ethan," Coreen invited.

  "Only if Arabella comes with me. I thought she might like to see the kittens. They've grown since she's been away," he added offhandedly.

  She was tempted, but she wasn't sure she wanted to be alone with him. She'd successfully avoided him the night before, because of that look in his eyes that made her skin tingle.

  "Come on, chicken," he taunted, so handsome in his jeans and chambray shirt that he looked the epi­tome of the movie cowboy.

  "All right." She capitulated, following him out the door, to Coreen and Mary's amusement.

  He caught her hand in his as they walked, linking her fingers sensuously through his own. He glanced down, his silver eyes approving of her gray slacks and gray-and-yellow patterned sweater. "You look good with your hair down like that."

  She smiled. "It gets in my eyes."

  He tilted his hat low over his eyes as they went out into the sunlight. "It's going to get hot today. We might go swimming."

  "No, thanks," she said. Too quickly. She felt his eyes probing.

  "Afraid history might repeat itself?" he asked softly. He stopped at the barn door and turned her, his hands gentle, his eyes questioning. "We're engaged. I might not draw back this time. I might take you."

  She dropped her eyes to his chest. "I want a white wedding."

  His own eyes were looking for telltale signs, for anything that would give him a hint of what she really was feeling. "So do I. Will it be any less white if we express what we feel for each other with our bodies?"

  Her gaze shot up, her face flaming with bad tem­per. "That's all you feel for me, though. You said so. Wanting. You want me. I'm something you'd like to use. . .!"

  He let her go abruptly, literally pushing her away from him. "My God, I can't get through to you, can I?" he asked bitterly.

  She wrapped her arms across her breasts. "I wouldn't put it like that," she replied. "You wanted me four years ago, but you married Miriam. You loved her, not me."

  "Four years ago, Miriam told me she was preg­nant," he said, his face hardening at the memory. "By the time I realized she wasn't, we were married."

  Her face tightened. She knew what he was saying. He and Miriam had anticipated their wedding vows. Probably by the time he'd made love to her at the swimming hole, he'd already been intimate with Mir­iam. She felt sick.

  She started past him, but he caught her arms and held her. "No!" he said roughly. "It wasn't like that! It was you from the very beginning. Miriam was the substitute, Arabella, not you." He pulled her back against him, his teeth grinding together in anguish. "I knew that afternoon that if I didn't do something, I'd have you in spite of all my noble intentions. Miriam was handy and willing." He bent his head over hers. "I used her, and she knew it, and hated me for it. I cheated all three of us. She came to me and told me she thought she was pregnant, so I married her. You had your career and I didn't think you were old enough to cope with marriage, so I let you go. My God, don't you think I paid for that decision? I paid for it for four long years. I'm still paying!"

  Time slowed to a standstill as what he was saying penetrated her mind. "You made love to Miriam be­cause you wanted me?" she asked wanly. That was just what Miriam had said. That it had been a physi­cal obsession on his part.

  "Yes," he said with a heavy sigh. His fingers smoothed over the fabric of her sweater, caressing her shoulders. "And couldn't have you." His mouth pressed her hair away from her neck and sought it, warm and hard and fiercely passionate. "I wouldn't have been able to stop, Arabella," he whispered hus­kily. "Once I had you, I couldn't have stopped." His mouth opened, warm and moist against the tender flesh, arousing and slow. "You'd never have been able to leave, don't you see, baby? You'd have been mine. Totally mine."

  Her eyes closed as the arousing movement of his lips made her knees go weak. He was seducing her with words. She shouldn't let him do this to her. She was weak.

  He edged her into the deserted barn, against the in­side of the closed door, so that the weight of his lean body pinned her there from breast to thighs. He shuddered with his need.

  "I'm going to make you marry me," he said into her mouth. "If it takes seduction, that's all right, too. I'll get you to the altar anyway I have to."

  "Blackmailer," she protested shakenly.

  "Kiss me back." He moved against her and felt her begin to tremble. Her mouth lifted and he took it with slow, aching movements that made her moan under the crush of the kiss, that made her give it back in a feverish surge of passion.

  A long time later, he dragged her arms from around his neck and stepped away from her, a reddish burn along his cheeks, a tremor in the lean, sure hands that held her wrists.

  "You can have a month," he said with savage hun­ger just barely held in check. "If the ring isn't on your finger by then, look out. I won't wait a night longer."

  He turned and left her there, still shaking, with her back to the wall.

  Exactly one month later, she spoke her vows in the small Jacobsville Methodist church with her father there to give her away and half of Jacobsville in at­tendance. Ethan hadn't touched her since that day in the barn, but his eyes threatened her every time he looked at her. He might not love her, but his passion for her was as alive and hot as the weather.

  Miriam had long since gone back to the Caribbean with Jared, and she'd sent them a wedding invitation. She'd beaten Ethan to the altar by two weeks, but Ethan hadn't seemed to mind. He'd been busy, and away a good bit recently on ranch business. Coreen remarked dryly that it was probably just as well, be­cause his moods were making everyone nervous.

  Only Arabella understood exactly what those moods were about, and tonight she was going to have to cope with the cause of them. He'd reserved a hotel room for them at a resort on the Gulf of Mexico, and she was more nervous than she'd ever been in her life. All the walls were going to come down and she'd be alone with Ethan and his fierce desire for her. She didn't know how she was going to survive a posses­sion that was purely physical.

  "You made a beautiful bride," Coreen said, kiss­ing her just before she went upstairs to change. She wiped away tears. "I just know you and Ethan are going to make it this time."

  "I hope so," Arabella confessed, radiant despite her fears as she paused to kiss Mary and Matt and to thank Shelby.

  "It was my pleasure," Shelby assured her, and tightened her grip on her tall husband's hand. Justin Ballenger was altogether too much man for the aver­age woman,
but Shelby had moved in under his heart, and he looked as if he didn't mind one bit. He smiled down at her, his lean face briefly radiant as his dark eyes swept over her with possession and pride.

  "I won't forget all you've done for me," Arabella murmured, a little shy of Justin. She leaned forward and kissed Shelby's cheek. "Thank you."

  "I hope you'll be very happy," Shelby said gently.

  "You get out of marriage what you put into it," Justin added and smiled at her. "Give a little and take a little. You'll do fine."

  "Thanks," Arabella replied.

  He and Shelby moved off, hand in hand, and Ara­bella watched them with pure envy.

  Ethan caught her hand, pulling her around. He searched her eyes with a light in his that puzzled her. It was the first time he'd come near her since he'd said, "I do," and he hadn't kissed her at the altar, to everyone's surprise and puzzlement.

  "The luggage is in the car. Let's go," he said qui­etly, his eyes narrowing as they smoothed over her body. "I want you to myself."

  "But. . . aren't we going to change?" she faltered.

  "No." He framed her face in his lean hands and pulled it up to the descent of his. "I want to take that dress off you myself," he whispered, and his lips touched hers in a promise of a kiss that made her knees go weak. "Come along, Mrs. Hardeman."

  He made the name sound new and sweet. She took his hand and let him lead her out, coping somehow with the shock and amusement of all the people who'd gathered around them here. The reception was sup­posed to be held in the fellowship hall, but Ethan had apparently decided that they were going to forego the traditional celebration. He grinned, whispered some­thing to his delighted mother, and they left in a hail of rice and confetti and good wishes.

  They drove to Galveston in his mother's Mercedes-Benz, since his own car had been left as a decoy for well-wishers with their soap and tin cans. His moth­er's car was untouched, and he grinned at Arabella's expression when she saw it.