Calder Pride

by Janet Dailey

When he took a step to drop the key on the bedside table, she turned and came toward him, her blouse unbuttoned fully two-thirds of the way down. The muscles in his chest and throat constricted, closing off his breathing as he stared at the lacy white fabric stretched tautly over her breasts.

  Woodenly he lifted his hand to give her the key. But she ignored it and reached past him, giving the door a decisive push. It swung shut with a dull thud and a click of the latch. She turned back to him and slid her hands up the front of his shirt to his shoulders, her blouse gaping open a little more.

  “I want you to stay.” She tilted her head back, black hair swinging to hang down her back.

  His hands came up, but they stopped short of touching her and, instead, held the air inches from her body. He dragged his gaze from her breasts up to her face. It lingered fractionally on her lips, still slightly swollen from his previous rough kiss, then traveled up to her eyes. He saw the desire in them—and the faint shadowing of grief that lurked at the edges. It didn’t take a great deal of intelligence to figure out that she was using him as a stand-in, a substitute for the man who had died.

  “This isn’t a good idea,” he told her, his voice rumbling the warning.

  “Why? Because I suggested it?” Her gaze traveled over his face, exploring the angular line of his jaw, his high, hard cheekbones, and the slant of his forehead. His hat sat low on it. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those men who doesn’t like it when a girl makes the first move?”

  Reaching up, she swept his hat off and gave it a toss, then ran her fingers through his coarse black hair, combing away the flatness from the hat and studying the wayward strands that curled onto his forehead.

  “Because you aren’t thinking clearly,” he said with a terseness. “You’ve had too much to drink tonight.”

  Cat paused to consider that. “Maybe I have,” she admitted. “Lord knows, I’ve never been this brazen before. Maybe the alcohol has washed away my good sense. But I don’t recall appointing you to be my conscience.”

  “Stop kidding yourself.” A thread of anger ran through his voice. “It isn’t me you want.”

  A knifing pain twisted through her at his words. Cat fought it off with a defiant toss of her head. “Isn’t it?” she challenged him.

  Since entering the hotel room, she had avoided his gaze. His height, his build, the darkness of his hair—they reminded her of Repp. But she couldn’t maintain the pretense when she looked into his gray eyes. Yet that didn’t stop the little thrill from tingling through her at the dark light smoldering in them.

  “Tonight, you made me feel things I didn’t think I would feel again. Want things I didn’t think I’d ever want. For the first time in months, I feel alive. If that’s wrong…” She paused, her voice catching on a tiny sob. Anger was her only defense against the pain. “Why do you men have to be so damned noble? I hate this stupid code of honor that demands certain women be treated differently. Who asked you to do that? It sure as hell wasn’t a woman.”

  In all the anger, he saw the emptiness that ached to be filled. It was something he understood, something he felt himself. His hands settled on her, and he lowered his head to brush his mouth across her lips, tasting her tremulous sigh.

  “You’d better know that I don’t have any protection with me,” he warned in a thick murmur.

  “I don’t care,” she whispered back. “All my life I’ve been protected. Someone else has always decided what’s best for me. But not anymore. Not tonight. Tonight I just want you to love me.”

  It was a request all too easy to fulfill; he’d been loving her in his mind nearly all night. Discarding reason and caution, he gathered her to him as his mouth came back to devour her lips, swallowing her groan that echoed his own hunger.

  She was filled with the taste of him. It turned her greedy and demanding, determined to satisfy this raw ache that seemed only to intensify. She strained even closer, trying to absorb him into her. His arms tightened around her like twin bands of steel binding her to him.

  A moment later a hand tugged at the back of her blouse, pulling the material free from her jeans, then slipped under it to spread across her back. She breathed in sharply as little shudders traveled through her. His hand followed the curve of her spine, then glided to the front and cupped a lace-covered breast. Her flesh seemed to swell under his hand.

  Wanting more, she arched closer and felt the uncomfortable bunching of her blouse. Desperate to rid herself of it and give him free access, Cat pulled at the blouse. A button slipped loose from its stitched hole and the other popped off. As she shed the blouse, his deft fingers dealt with the front closing of her lacy brassiere. Even before she shrugged it off, his hand was on her breast, his thumb rubbing over her nipple.

  Another groan rose in her throat as sensation built upon sensation. And there was more to come. But this time she wouldn’t be left aching and unsatisfied. The knowledge increased the need to touch him, a need that quickly grew into an urgency to feel the warmth of his skin beneath her hands. She tugged at his shirt, needing to eliminate the barrier it posed. The pearl snaps gave, one after the other popping apart, and her hands spread over his leanly muscled chest, discovering the incredible heat of his skin and the patch of dark curly hair that tickled her palms with its softness.

  When she pressed closer, needing to feel the sensation of skin against skin, a corner of his belt buckle jabbed her stomach. Without conscious direction, her hands moved to do away with this new, irritating obstacle and felt the sudden, inward contraction of his stomach muscles, instantly followed by the quick seizing of her hands.

  “Slow down,” he muttered against her cheek, his breathing as raw and ragged as her own. “We’re rushing this, and there’s no need. We have plenty of time.”

  The cursed phrase screamed through her, but all Cat managed to utter was a single, strangled, “No.” She pushed back from him, shaking her head.

  He caught her chin in his hand and tipped it up, forcing her to look at him. Desire was a hot, dark glow in his eyes. It snatched at her breath and sent evocative shivers through her.

  “You are a wild one, Maggie the Cat,” he murmured idly. “But if we keep this up, it’ll be over before it’s begun. I don’t want that. Do you?”

  What he seemed to be suggesting sounded infinitely more satisfying. The possibility made her answer soft and breathy. “No.”

  “All right, then.” Approval and something else glittered in his eyes—a something else that dazzled and sent her pulse skittering all over the place.

  For the briefest of seconds, Cat questioned what she was doing. She didn’t know this man; he was a complete stranger. But her reasons were selfish, she knew; she hadn’t felt so alive in months, and she was afraid she never would again. In the back of her mind, Cat was certain this was the way it would have felt with Repp.

  “We have all night,” he told her. “Let’s not hurry one minute of it.”

  “No,” she agreed on a whisper.

  The thought was a new one. In the past she had always used heat and an unrelenting pressure in an effort to drive Repp beyond the limits of his control. But this—this had breathtaking possibilities.

  “So, tell me…” He released her chin and let the flat of his fingers glide over the delicate curve of her cheek before skimming the line of her jaw, following it almost to her lips. “Do you want me to undress you?”

  SEVEN

  Her legs went weak at the thought of his hands easing her jeans off her hips, of his fingers sliding down her lacy bikini briefs. As heady as that thought was, she knew she would be driven wild with frustration before all her clothes wound up on the floor.

  “I’ll do it myself.” She was too familiar with frustration to voluntarily subject herself to more of it.

  “My loss.” His warm smile was quick and crooked.

  His hands fell away, and he stepped around her to the bed. With one fluid swing of his arm, he threw the bedcovers back, then turned to her and glanced at the l
amp. “Off or on?”

  Standing there completely topless, her jeans unsnapped and half-unzipped, Cat had no idea why she hesitated over her answer. A darkened room would allow her to pretend she was making love to Repp when the truth was something different. Something she would have to face eventually.

  “On,” she said and wondered how soon she would regret that.

  A flicker of surprise showed in his eyes. Then he moved away from the lamp, shrugging out of his shirt and hanging it on the corner of the straight-backed chair. Cat walked over to the bed and sat on the edge of it to pull off her boots. She undressed by rote, her mind blank, registering no thought or feeling. It was only when she laid aside the last of her clothes that Cat became aware of her nudity and conscious of his gaze on her. She turned to meet it, her head lifting fractionally, the tilt of it wary and vaguely defensive.

  He stood, as naked as she, a heat in his eyes that made the air-conditioned room feel unbelievably warm. Her glance wandered over his lean, hard body with an unconscious boldness. There wasn’t an ounce of spare flesh anywhere on him. There was only bronze skin stretched tautly across a complex roping of muscle and sinew. He was stunning to look at, all male and fully aroused.

  Suddenly uneasy, Cat shot her glance back to his face and saw that he was watching her. The steady regard of his eyes unnerved her a little. It must have showed in her face.

  “It isn’t too late to change your mind,” he said.

  Instantly reassured by his remark, Cat allowed a small smile to curve her mouth, fully aware that with most men, it would have been too late the instant she invited them in the room.

  “I guess I am my father’s daughter. Once he sets his foot on a path, he never swerves from it.”

  “He’s an unusual man.” He moved toward her.

  “He is.” Cat tried to picture this man facing her father, curious to see how he would measure up to the Calder standard. But it was an image she couldn’t summon to mind. Not that it mattered. The two men would never meet.

  “You are an unusual woman as well. And a very beautiful one. It should be against the law for anyone to be as beautiful as you are.” He knew, even before he kissed her and eased her onto the bed, that she would ruin him for any other woman.

  As his hand traveled over her in a roaming caress, he also knew that only once before had he been so determined to take his time and drag out the pleasure.

  Then, he had been a boy of seven, living on the reservation with his mother. A few days before Christmas, a church group had distributed gifts to the children in his school. The other kids had torn into theirs, but he hadn’t. He had never had a real present before, not one wrapped in bright, shiny paper, tied in ribbons with a big red bow. He had sat for the longest time, simply holding it, now and then touching the slick ribbon and tracing the arcing curve of its bow. Finally he had removed the bow and held it up to the window, watching the play of light and shadow change the color of it from crimson to ruby. Next he had eased the ribbons off the box and looped them around his neck. After that he had taken the paper off, being extra careful not to tear it. After folding it neatly, he had laid the paper aside and stared at the box, content for the moment to simply run his hands over it and wonder what was inside. At last he had lifted the lid very, very slowly and stared at the blue and green parka within—not a hand-me-down from the thrift store like the rest of his clothes, but a brand-new jacket. When he put it on, he had felt warm, warmer than he’d ever felt before or since.

  Until now—with the heat of her body burning its impression along the length of him. Her reaching hands urged him closer, but he ignored their demands. He intended to enjoy every inch of her beautiful outer wrappings and prolong that moment of opening the box.

  Turning to her, he started at the top, with her lips, driving them apart and swallowing her needy moan. The soft lamplight spilled over them, but his eyes were closed to the contrast of bronzed skin against ivory flesh. Had he noticed it, it would have merely been one more difference to celebrate.

  His mouth rocked off her lips and rolled onto her cheek, then followed its curve to her eyelids and the long sweep of feathery lashes. With his tongue, he traced the delicate inner shell of her ear, drawing an involuntary gasp and shudder from her. His own breathing roughened at the sound of it as he shifted his interest, first to the lobe of her ear, then to the graceful line of her neck. At his touch, chills raced over her skin.

  The roundness of her breast filled the cup of his hand, its peak turning hard and pointy under the stimulating brush of his thumb. Drawn by the sensation of it, he began a slow foray toward it with only a few detours along the way to explore the pulsating vein in her throat and nibble at the curve of a delectable shoulder bone.

  When he lightly rubbed his lips over the very tip of her breast, her fingers clawed into his hair, her whole body arching to end the teasing contact while faint, mewling sounds of frustration came from the back of her throat. But he refused to be hurried, deliberately drawing out the torture with little nips and nibbles before finally drawing it into his mouth.

  A keening sweetness nearly shattered his control as she writhed against him, all motion and demand. He fought the primitive instincts that screamed through his system. With an effort, he ignored the thrust of her hips and the frantic press of her hands. He stroked a hand across the flat of her stomach to the swell of her hip, then down a slender thigh and back along the inside of it.

  She shrank from him when his fingertips brushed the cloud of dark hair on their return journey to the flat of her stomach. He went back to the spot, sliding his fingers through her hair, seeking and finding the hot, moist center of her while she twisted in a desperate effort to elude his fingers.

  “Dear heaven, no. Please, don’t do this,” she moaned in a panic. “I don’t want your hand. I want you!”

  The half plea and half demand went through him like a flame. In the next breath, his needs flared as hot and hungry as hers. Shifting onto her, he positioned her hips to receive him while his mouth reclaimed her lips.

  Ready for him, she was wet and tight. Too tight. “Relax,” he muttered against her lips when she strained to take him in. “You’re too tense.”

  He heard her half-swallowed sob of frustration and echoed the feeling. At the first small loosening, he worked himself in a little farther, taking it slow and resisting the urge to ram it in. Sweat beaded on his skin from the effort and from the torment of her tight sheathing. With each gentle rock of the hips, he penetrated deeper.

  Suddenly she bit off a cry of pain at the same instant that he pushed against an inner barrier. He stiffened in surprise, then levered himself onto his elbows.

  “What the—” he began, still trying to wrap his scattered thought around this stunning discovery that she was a virgin.

  “No. Don’t you dare stop now!” There was a raw fury in her protest, a match to the temper blazing in her eyes as she locked her legs behind him and slammed her hips into him.

  The membrane tore. The package was ripped open and he was inside it. Her face was pressed against the side of the pillow, pain twisting it, though not a sound came from her. Anger rose, black and bitter in his throat.

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” He wrapped her hair in his fist and forced her to look at him.

  Tears shimmered in her eyes. “What difference does it make?” Her voice was tight with pain and spite.

  “Damn you.” With eyes closed, he rested his forehead on hers and muttered in regret, “There was a gentler way.”

  She was hurting. This time it wasn’t the kind of physical ache that led to pleasure. More than that, with the way she so tightly sheathed him, he wasn’t sure he had the control to wait until she wanted him again. As he shifted to ease some of his weight from her, he saw the wince and felt the dig of her nails.

  “It won’t hurt much longer,” he told her and concentrated on smoothing the tangles from her long black hair and spreading it over the bed’s white sheet. “I ima
gined you like this—your hair tumbling in an ebony fan about your head, your lips swollen from my kisses, your body naked beneath mine.”

  “Do we have to talk?” Cat pushed the words through clenched teeth and forced her fingers to uncurl.

  She desperately wanted to get this over, but the slightest movement produced a fresh ripple of pain. She fought through it and moved her hips, hoping to urge him to completion, fully aware she had made a mistake. A huge, horrible mistake.

  He ignored the inviting thrust of her hips and stroked a hand down her side, then up to her breast. “What’s wrong with talking?”

  He teased the corner of her lips, then paused with a sudden flash of insight that sent a muscle leaping along his jaw. “Or does talking make it harder for you to pretend I’m the man you loved, the one who died?”

  “You bastard,” she hissed.

  “Scored a bull’s-eye, didn’t I?” he said with more grimness than satisfaction. Anger gave him the edge he needed to keep his desires in tight check. “What was he like?” He nuzzled her ear, feeling the involuntary shudder that danced over her skin. “Tell me about him.”

  “No. It’s none of your business.”

  “Can’t you remember?” he taunted, forcing her to concentrate on his words rather than the slow, circular grind of his hips.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I can,” she sputtered in anger, barely registering the new discomfort.

  “Then what did he look like?” He nipped at her ear while his fingers toyed with a nipple, teasing it erect. “Was he tall? Short?”

  “Tall.”

  “What color was his hair?” he murmured, nuzzling the hollow behind her ear.

  “Dark.” Cat was unaware of the moment when her hands slid over his back.

  “Like mine?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was it like? Short? Long? Straight? Curly?” Logan persisted, determined to keep her thoughts distracted by his questions.

  “Short. Short and thick.”

  Heat curled through her, slicking her skin with perspiration. Cat was stunned to discover the tearing pain was gone. Its place had been taken by a greedy ache that had her hands clutching at him and her hips moving in instinctual rhythm with his.