by Diana Palmer
His thumbs edged out to trace the gentle slope of her high, firm breasts and she stiffened instinctively at the unfamiliar touch.
“It's all right,” he whispered at her lips. “Don't pull away from me.”
Her eyes opened, wide and curious and a little frightened. “It's…new,” she whispered.
“Being touched?” he asked quietly. “Or being touched by me?”
“Both,” she admitted.
His fingers moved higher, and he watched her face while they found the hard peaks and traced them tenderly, just before his hands swallowed the velvet softness and pressed against it with warm, sensuous motions.
“How does it feel, Kate?” he asked in a deep, honeyed tone. “Is it good?”
Her nails dug into his chest involuntarily as the magic worked on her, and she moaned softly.
“I shouldn't…let you,” she whispered.
“No, you shouldn't,” he agreed, moving closer. “Tell me to stop, Kate,” he whispered. “Tell me you hate it.”
“I…wish I could,” she whispered. His mouth was on her closed eyelids, her nose, her high cheekbones, while his hands made wild shivers of sensation wash over her bare skin.
His mouth bit at hers tenderly in a succession of teasing kisses that made her want to cry out. “God, you're sweet,” he whispered huskily. “As soft as a whisper where I touch you.”
Her fingers tangled in the mat of hair over his strong chest. “I…dreamed about how it would be with you,” she whispered shakily. “Ever since that night I saw you with Jessica, I've wondered…”
“I know,” he whispered back, “I saw it in your eyes. That was what wrung me out so, Kate, because I wondered, too. But you were so damned young…”
She drew a deep, unsteady breath, lifting her body higher against his deft, sure hands. “Blake…?” she moaned.
“What do you want?” His dark eyes burned into hers. “There's nothing you can't ask me, don't you know that? What do you want, Kate?”
Her body ached with the newness of wanting and she didn't know how to put into words what she needed. It had never been like this, never!
“I don't know how to say it,” she admitted in a breathless whisper. “Blake…please…”
He bent, lifting her in his big arms without a word, and carried her to the cushioned seat that ringed the gazebo. Then he came down beside her with something in his hard, dark face that was faintly shocking after all the years of banter and camaraderie and deep affection. She was just beginning to see Blake as a lover, and the effect it was having on her defied description. She looked up at him with all her confusion in her green eyes, and in her flushed, expectant face.
“I won't hurt you,” he said softly.
“I know.” She lifted her fingers to his hard, chiseled mouth and traced it gently. “I've never kissed a man lying down.”
“Haven't you?” He smiled as he lifted himself to ease his formidable torso down onto her, so that they were thigh to thigh, hip to hip, breast to breast. She gasped at the intimate contact and her fingers dug into the rippling muscles of his shoulders.
His fingers cupped her face as he bent. “Am I too heavy, Kate?” he whispered against her soft mouth.
She flushed at the question, but she didn't look away. “No,” she managed shakily.
He brushed his mouth across hers. “Pull your sweater up,” he whispered.
“Blake…”
He kissed her closed eyelids. “You want it as much as I do,” he breathed. “Pull it up, Kate…then help me pull up my shirt.”
She looked into his eyes, trembling. She wanted him until she ached from head to toe, but he was suggesting an intimacy she'd never experienced before, and once it happened, there wouldn't be any going back.
“It's…I mean, I've never…” she stammered.
His thumbs brushed against the corners of her mouth while his tongue lightly traced the trembling line of her lips.
“Don't you want to feel me against you like that, Kate?” he whispered sensuously. “With nothing between us?”
She gasped against his invading mouth. Her eyes closed tightly. “Yes,” she ground out, and even her voice trembled. “Oh, Blake, yes, yes…!”
“Help me,” he whispered huskily.
With trembling fingers, she lifted the hem of his yellow knit shirt and eased it up over the warm, hard muscles under their mat of crisp black hair, and her fingers savored the sensuous contact with him, while her heart pounded out a mad rhythm.
His mouth coaxed hers open, tasting it, gentling it, his fingers tenderly caressing her face.
“Now yours, love,” he whispered softly. “There's nothing to be afraid of, nothing at all, I won't hurt you, I won't force you. Now, Kate…”
She looked into his darkening eyes while she slid the soft sweater up over her taut breasts and with a shuddering pleasure, she felt him ease down again until her taut nipples vanished into the dark pelt over his chest. She felt his body against hers in a contact that made magic in her mind and she gasped.
“My God, isn't it delicious?” he whispered tautly, shifting his powerful torso slowly, sensuously, across her breasts in the utter silence of the gazebo.
Her fingers hesitated on his hard collarbone, lightly touching him, feeling him. Her eyes widened as the intimacy sent her pulse racing, as her breath caught in her throat.
“You're…so warm,” she whispered.
“A man being burned alive does feel warm,” he replied half-humorously. He moved then, holding her eyes while his body eased completely onto hers.
“It's all right,” he breathed, calming her as she stiffened involuntarily at the greater intimacy with his body. His hands stroked her hair lightly, his forearms taking the bulk of his weight. He studied her closely. “Now I can feel you completely,” he whispered, “and you can feel me. We can't hide anything from each other when we touch like this, can we, Kate? You know without words how much I want you, don't you?”
She flushed wildly as the exact meaning of his words got through to her, and she noticed for the first time all the differences between his body and hers.
Pleasure surged up in her like spring sap in a young tree as she sensed her own awakening to emotions and sensations that had lain dormant inside her, waiting for a catalyst.
Her fingers touched his face, his mouth, his arrogant nose, his thick dark brows, and when she breathed, she was made even more aware of the warmth and weight of his hair-roughened chest against the sensitive warmth of her bareness.
The weight of him crushed her yielding body down into the soft cushions and her arms went up to hold him even closer as he bent to take her mouth under his.
She opened her lips, her fingers tangling in his thick, cool hair as the kiss went on and on. His tongue darted into her mouth, demanding, tormenting, while his hands slid under her thighs and lifted her body up against his with a bruising pressure, until she was achingly aware of how much he wanted her.
She shifted restlessly under the crush of his body, and a hard groan tore out of his throat while he kissed her. A shudder ran the length of him.
“Don't do that,” he whispered against her lips. “I may be past my first youth, but I can lose my head with you so easily it isn't even funny.”
She watched him, fascinated. “I…I like the way it feels, to lie with you like this,” she admitted in a whisper.
“My God, I like it, too,” he groaned. “Kiss me, honey…!”
His hungry ardor flared like wildfire between them. She stopped trying to understand and melted into him. It was glorious, the hungry crush of his mouth, the feel of his arms, the long, hard contact with his powerful body, the warmth of him that seemed to burn her everywhere they touched. She never wanted this kiss to end. She wanted to spend the rest of her life in his arms like this, holding him, loving him. Loving him!
He caught her wrists abruptly and tore her clinging hands away from his back. He looked down at her as if he'd been temporarily out of his mind
and had only just realized what he was doing. He shook his dark head as if to clear it. With a violent movement he got to his feet and pulled his shirt down, keeping his back to Kathryn while she fumbled, embarrassed, with her sweater. She stared at his broad back incredulously. She'd forgotten what had happened just an hour ago, forgotten the anger and frustration she'd felt. In the shadow of Blake's blazing ardor she'd even forgotten Vivian. How could she have let him…!
He turned, catching that expression of shock in her eyes, and something seemed to harden his face, take the soft light out of his eyes. He smiled mockingly.
“Now tell me you miss Donavan,” he said in a voice that cut through her heart like a razor.
She licked at the inside of her swollen lips, tasting the lingering touch of his mouth there, her eyes vulnerable, hurt.
“Was that why?” she asked in a sore whisper getting to her feet.
He rammed his hands into his pockets. His face was harder than she could ever remember seeing it.
“Or was it…because you don't want another man to have me?” she asked painfully.
“I've got all the bodies I need, Kate,” he said tightly “I didn't raise you to take you into my bed the minute you came of age.”
“But, just now…” she began hesitantly.
“I want you, all right,” he admitted, scowling down at her. “I have for a long time. But just because I lost my head with you a minute ago, that doesn't mean I plan to do anything about it.”
Of course not, how could he, when he planned to marry Vivian? “Don't worry,” she said bitterly, stepping away from him. “I'm not going to ‘read anything’ into it this time either.”
“What?”
“That's what you told Vivian, isn't it?” she asked in a broken voice, slanting a glance back at him as she stepped down into the garden. “That you were afraid I might ‘read something’ into what happened the other night? I'm not a child, Blake, I quite realize that men can be attracted physically by women they don't even like, much less love.”
“Just what are you talking about?” he demanded, his eyes blazing.
“Vivian told me yesterday how much you regretted your actions the other night!” she threw at him.
The expression on his hard face puzzled her, if a fleeting shadow could be called that. “She told you that?” he asked.
She whirled. “No, I just made it up for the fun of it!”
“Kate…!”
“Don't call me Kate!” She glared back at him through her tears, missing the sudden glint in his dark eyes. “I hate you. And I'm going to get a job and my own apartment, and you can drag Vivian off into gazebos and make love to her! I don't ever want you to touch me again, Blake!”
“You will,” he said in a strange, deep tone.
She turned and ran back toward the house as if invisible phantoms were chasing after her. She locked her bedroom door behind her and threw herself down onto the bed, venting the stored-up tears. She loved Blake. Not as she always had, as a protector, but newly, differently, as a man. She could barely believe it had happened, and she didn't want to admit it even in the privacy of her own mind. She loved Blake. And he was going to marry Vivian. Her eyes closed in pain. Vivian, living here, loving Blake, too, touching him, kissing that hard, beautiful mouth…
She groaned out loud with anguish. She'd have to get a job. There was no way around it now. She sat up, drying her tears. She'd start looking first thing in the morning, Blake or no Blake, and find something that she could do to make a living for herself. There was no way she could go on living under the same roof with Blake and his wife!
Chapter Seven
She was purposely late for breakfast, and when she got downstairs she glanced around quickly, hoping to find that Blake had already eaten.
Maude was just finishing a piece of toast across from Phillip, who was sipping his coffee. Blake, Dick Leeds and Vivian were nowhere in sight.
“My, aren't you dressed up,” Maude commented, her approving glance resting on Kathryn's pretty beige suit and crepe de chine eggshell blouse with its neat bow. Her hair was drawn into a soft chignon, with wisping curls around her face, her feet encased in spike-heel open-toed sandals in beige and brown. She looked the picture of working womanhood.
“Trendy-looking,” Phillip added with a wink. “Where are you off to in your fine feathers, little bird?”
“I'm going to get a job,” she said with a cool smile.
Maude choked on her toast and had to be thumped on the back by Phillip.
“A job?” she gasped. “Doing what, Kathryn?”
“It depends on what I can find,” the younger woman said with a stubborn light in her green eyes. “Now, don't argue, Maude,” she added, catching the quick disapproval in the pale, dark-eyed face.
“I wasn't going to, dear,” Maude protested. “I was just going to ask how you planned to tell Blake.”
“She already has,” Blake told them, appearing in the doorway dressed in a becoming gray suit with a patterned tie that emphasized his darkness. “Let's go, Kate.”
She sat there almost trembling with emotion, her wide green eyes pleading with him, even as she knew she wasn't going to fight. All her resolutions vanished when Blake confronted her. After yesterday, all the fight was gone, anyway. She didn't have the heart for it anymore.
“She hasn't had breakfast,” Phillip observed.
“She'll learn to get downstairs in time, won't she?” Blake replied, and there was something vaguely menacing about the way he was looking at his younger brother.
Phillip grinned sheepishly. “Just an observation, big brother.” He laughed.
Blake's dark eyes went to Kathryn, skimming over her possessively. “I said, let's go.”
She got up, leaving a cup of fresh coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs behind her as she followed him out into the hall apprehensively.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Both heavy brows went up. He opened the front door for her. “To work, of course.”
“But, I don't have a job yet.”
“Yes, you do.”
“What as?” she asked.
“My secretary.”
She followed him out to his dark sedan in a daze, only speaking when they were going down the driveway at Blake's usual fast pace.
“Did I hear you right?” she asked, and stared at his profile with unconcealed disbelief.
“You did.” He took out his cigarette case and extracted a cigarette from it as he drove, leaning over to push in the cigarette lighter.
“But, Blake, I can't work for you,” she protested.
His dark eyes scanned her face briefly. “Why not?”
“I can't type fast enough,” she said, grasping at straws. Having to be near him all day, every day, would be more agony than ecstasy.
“You're about average, little one. You'll do.” He lit his cigarette and pushed the lighter back in place. “You said you wanted a job,” he reminded her.
She watched cars in the other lane passing by them, not really seeing anything as she sat stiffly beside Blake.
“Where was Vivian this morning?” she asked quietly. “The two of you were out late last night.”
“So we were,” he said noncommitally.
“It's none of my business, of course,” she said tightly, avoiding his eyes.
He only smiled, keeping his attention on the road.
***
The Hamilton Mills complex was located in a sprawling ground-level facility in the city's huge industrial park, modern and landscaped. Kathryn had been inside the building many times, but never as an employee.
She followed Blake into his attractive carpeted office, where the dark furniture was complemented by elegant furnishings done in chocolates and creams. Her eye was caught and held by a portrait that spanned the length of the big leather sofa under it. She stared at the sweeping seascape, the sunset colors mingling in the clouds, the palm-lined beach a swath of white and silver. In the foregrou
nd were the shadowy outlines of a man and a woman.
“Like it?” he asked as he checked the messages on his desk.
She nodded. “It's St. Martin, isn't it?” she asked quietly. “I recognize that spot.”
“You ought to. We shared a bottle of champagne under that spread of trees on your eighteenth birthday. I nearly had to carry you back to the beach house.”
She laughed, remembering her own bubbling pleasure that night, Blake's company and the sound of the surf. They'd talked a lot, she recalled, and waded in the foaming surf, and drunk champagne, while Phillip and Maude visited one of the casinos and lost money.
“It was the best birthday party I ever had,” she murmured. “I don't think we had a cross word the whole trip.”
“Would you like to do it again?” he asked suddenly.
She turned. He was standing in front of his desk, his legs slightly apart, his hands on his lean hips.
“Now?” she asked.
“Next week. I've got some business in Haiti,” he explained mysteriously. “I thought we might stay in St. Martin for a few days and I could go on to Haiti from there.”
“Why Haiti?” she asked, curious.
“You don't have to come on that leg of the trip,” he said with a finality that permitted no further questioning.
She studied the painting again. “We?” she asked in a bare shadow of her normal voice.
“Vivian and Dick, too,” he admitted. “A last-ditch effort to get his cooperation.”
“And hers?” she asked with more bitterness than she knew.
There was a long pause. “I thought you knew by now why she came along.”
She dropped her eyes to the huge wood frame of the painting, feeling dead inside. So he was finally admitting it. “Yes,” she whispered. “I know.”
“Do you? I wonder,” he murmured, scowling at her downcast face.
“Is anyone else coming?” she asked. “Phillip?”
“Phillip?” he said harshly. His face hardened “What's going on between you two, Kathryn Mary?”