Nelson's Brand

by Diana Palmer

  She averted her eyes, clinging to his strong lean hand as he led her to one of the tables where homemade ice cream was being dished up.

  “I guess you know enough about it already, if what people say about your reputation is true,” she said quietly when they were standing in line.

  He turned to look down at her, worldly knowledge in his pale eyes. “Are you fishing for a denial?” he asked in a voice that sent goose bumps down her spine. “What they say about me is true. I’ve never made any secret of it. I’ve just been a little less discreet in the past few months.”

  She felt nervous. He’d never looked more like a predator, and she was feeling more threatened by the minute.

  He moved closer to her as the line caught up and surged forward. His reputation had never bothered him before. It bothered him when Allison looked at him in that threatened way. “What about you?” he asked just above her ear. “You don’t talk about your private life very much.”

  “There’s not a lot to tell,” she confessed.

  His lean hand traced her shoulder lazily, an action calculated to disturb her. It didn’t fail. Her breath caught audibly, and he felt a surge of desire for her that made his knees go weak.

  “I don’t believe that.” He caught her waist with both hands and held her lightly in front of him while the queue moved ever closer to the ice cream. “What flavor do you like?”

  “Vanilla,” she said at once, because whenever that rare treat had been available, vanilla was invariably all that was offered.

  “I like chocolate myself.”

  “Most men do, I think,” she recalled with a smile, remembering how her charges, even the oldest of them, grumbled about the lack of that flavor.

  His fingers tightened. “Something you know from experience?”

  She put her hands over his to support them. “I suppose, in a way,” she agreed.

  “How experienced are you?” he asked.

  “That’s a question a gentleman doesn’t ask,” she chided, trying to make a joke out of it. And fortunately, before he could pursue the matter, they reached the ice cream.

  The orchestra played many familiar pieces, and Allison found herself sitting beside Gene on the grass on a quilt they’d borrowed from a younger couple nearby.

  Gene had mentioned that they’d come up from Wyoming, and the young man—much thinner and fairer than Gene—had grinned and asked, “Came up especially for the music, did you?”

  “To tell you the truth, we came up for a movie,” Gene replied ruefully. “But we left.”

  The young woman, a vivid redhead, put her hands over her mouth and giggled with a shy glance at her companion. “The one about cattle ranching?” she asked.

  “That’s right,” Gene agreed.

  “We left, too,” she said in a very country-sounding drawl. “My daddy would skin me alive if he knew I’d been to such a film, so I made Johnny leave. He liked it,” she added with another meaningful look.

  “It’s life,” the boy replied. “We’re getting married in two months, after all, Gertie.”

  “Johnny!” She went scarlet and jumped up. “I’ll get us some more ice cream!”

  “Virgins,” Johnny sighed and then smiled with pure joy.

  That smile bothered Gene. He’d never known a virgin, not in all his life. He’d certainly never dated one. But part of him envied that young boy, to be going into a marriage with a woman who’d saved such a precious part of her life for him. He’d never have to wonder about his wife’s ex-lovers or how he compared, because there hadn’t been any. He’d be the only one, at first anyway, and all her first times would be with him.

  He looked down at Allison with speculation. How would it be, he wondered, if she were that fresh and untouched? His eyes ran slowly down her body and he tried to picture himself with her in bed, slowly teaching her things he’d learned. Would she be shocked? Or would it all be old hat to her? He’d found that experienced women tended to be inventive in bed, and uninhibited. That was a definite plus. But it must have been special, too, to be able to teach those responses to a woman, to touch her and hear her cry out with pleasure and know that no other man had ever seen or heard her in ecstasy.

  The thoughts bothered him. Surely Allison was experienced, at her age, and she could certainly flirt with the best of them. He sighed. Anyway, what could he expect from a casual interlude like she was going to be? It was just going to be sex, nothing more, and daydreams had no part in this.

  As the music built and the last of the ice cream began to disappear, Gene suddenly became aware of time. It was almost a three-hour drive back to Pryor at night, and they were going to be later than he’d expected.

  “I hate this, but we have to go,” he told Allison after checking his watch. “We’ve got a long drive back.”

  “We saw your Jeep,” Johnny remarked. He smiled. “Nice wheels. We’re starting out in an ancient pickup. But it’s tough,” he added, “and that’s what you need on a ranch.”

  “Tell me about it.” Gene grinned. “We’ve got a twenty-year-old Ford pickup that I still use to haul calves. Nothing wrong with a classic vehicle.”

  Johnny beamed. “You bet!”

  Gene shrugged. “Starting out is fun. Everybody does it.”

  “You two married?” Gertie asked.

  “No chance,” Gene chuckled. “She’d run a mile if I asked her.”

  “Too bad. You look good together.” Gertie leaned against Johnny with love beaming out of her face as she looked up at him.

  “So do you two,” Allison said gently. “God bless.”

  “You, too.”

  “Thanks for the loan of the quilt,” Gene added, neatly folding it before handing it back. He didn’t want to think about how he and Allison looked together, and marriage was the last thing on his mind. He was glad Allison hadn’t made an issue of his reply to Johnny’s question. She seemed almost relieved that he’d made a joke of it. Maybe she was marriage-shy, too. That would make things easier.

  “Our pleasure. Drive carefully.”

  Gene nodded. He took Allison’s hand and walked her back to the Jeep.

  “That was fun,” she said. “Thank you.”

  He looked down at her. “We’ll do it again sometime,” he said noncommittally.

  He opened the passenger door for her, but as she moved into the space he’d made, he turned unexpectedly so that his body was touching hers, one hand holding the door, the other on the cab, so that she was trapped.

  “I like the dress,” he said. “Lilac suits you.”

  “Thank you,” she replied. His proximity was working on her like a drug. She felt her breath catch as she drank in the clean, cologne-scented warmth of his tall, fit body close to hers.

  He bent one leg, so that his knee brushed past her thigh to rest against the seat. The contact brought him even closer, his body shielding her from onlookers in the park.

  His breath was warm as his head bent, his glittery eyes meeting hers in the light from the park. “I’ll be too busy for a few days, but on the weekend we could go sightseeing up around the Custer Battlefield. And next Tuesday night, we’ll go up to Cody for the rodeo if you like.”

  “Yes,” she said without hesitation. She searched his lean, dark face with pure pleasure. “I’d like that very much.” Allison was surprised at the effect he had on her. He wasn’t even touching her and her body was tingling.

  He smiled, because he could read her expression very well indeed. He bent a little closer, so that she could feel his breath on her mouth. She could almost taste him.

  “So would I, cupcake,” he said softly. He let his eyes drop deliberately to her mouth and stared at it until he heard her breath catch and saw her lips part in helpless response. He leaned just a little closer. “We’d better go,” he whispered, letting his breath brush her mouth. It was exciting to tease her; she responded to it so deliciously. She made him feel like the first man who’d done this with her, and his ego soared.

  Just as s
he was beginning to tremble with anticipation, he drew back slowly, still smiling, and gently handed her into the cab. As he went around to the driver’s side, his eyes gleamed with unholy delight. The one advantage of experience was that it could recognize capitulation. He was going to stay away from her for a few days and build the tension between them before he made another move. Calculation, surely, but it would be for her benefit, too. Their first time would be explosive.

  He got in and started the Jeep. “It’ll warm up in a minute,” he said, watching her wrap her arms around her breasts.

  She smiled thankfully, trying to hide her nervousness. “I didn’t think it would get chilly at night.”

  “Now you know.”

  “I sure do!” she agreed with a laugh, and shivered until the heater began to blow warm air.

  She leaned her head back against the seat and Gene turned on a country-and-western radio station. The drive back to Pryor was very pleasant, despite the fact that they talked very little. She felt safe with him. Comfortable and safe, even through the excitement he generated in her. She wondered if earlier he’d wanted to kiss her and had drawn back because of the crowd. Or was he playing with her? She didn’t know. She sighed silently, wishing she had just a little more experience of men to draw on.

  They pulled up at the Manley house. It was dark, except for the porch light, and when Allison glanced at the Jeep’s clock, she was amazed to find it was three o’clock in the morning.

  “I told you we’d be late getting home,” Gene mused, watching her catch her breath as she looked toward the dash. “At least they don’t seem to be worried about you,” he added, nodding toward the darkened windows.

  “Don’t you believe it,” she replied with a gentle smile. “The lights may be off, but I’ll bet Winnie isn’t asleep. She’s like a mother hen sometimes.”

  He turned in his seat and unfastened her seat belt and then his, leaning back as one dark hand went out to tease the hair at her throat lazily. “Do you need one?” he laughed softly.

  She felt her body tingle. All evening it had been a war of nerves with him, from the way he’d played with her hand in the theater to the way he’d looked at her in the park and that almost-kiss as he’d helped her into the Jeep to come home. Now she was at fever pitch, and she wanted his mouth more than she’d ever imagined she could want anything.

  “No, I…don’t think so,” she said unsteadily. Her eyes fell to his mouth hungrily.

  He saw that rapt stare and his heart jumped. She was easy to read for a sophisticated woman. Perhaps it was the first time she’d reacted so strongly to a prospective lover, and that made him proud. It was one thing to turn a virgin’s head, but quite another to make an experienced woman nervous and unsure of herself.

  His fingers moved to her cheek and traced it lightly and then settled at her jaw while his thumb dragged across her soft mouth in a savagely arousing motion.

  She actually gasped, her eyes widening as they met his in the dim light from the dash.

  “You don’t wear much makeup, do you?” he asked deeply. The feel of her mouth was exciting to him. His thumb rubbed more insistently at her lips, parting them against the pearly white of her teeth. “I’m glad. I don’t like layers of lipstick on a woman’s mouth when I kiss it.”

  She felt hot all over. Winnie had warned her about Gene Nelson’s expertise and she hadn’t understood. Now, suddenly, she began to. She wanted to pull his fingers away from her mouth, she wanted to pull them closer, she wanted to run!

  He saw and felt that reaction, registering it with a little curiosity and a lot of pride. He smiled softly as he caught a handful of her long hair with his other hand and pulled her face under his with easy mastery.

  “Bite me,” he breathed as his mouth dragged against hers in brief, arousing kisses. She tasted mint and coffee and ice cream and pure man as he played on her attraction to him in the smouldering silence that followed. She couldn’t breathe properly. Her fingers bit into his broad shoulders, feeling the steely tautness of the warm muscle as his teeth nibbled at her lower lip.

  He lifted his head a fraction and looked into her dazed hazel eyes, his own pale green ones bright with arousal. “Bite me,” he repeated gruffly, his fingers contracting in her hair to force her face back up to his. “I like it rough,” he breathed into her open mouth. “Don’t you?”

  She didn’t know how she liked it or what he expected of her. She could barely think at all and the words didn’t really register. She moved closer, not needing the impetus of his strong hand in her hair to force the movement. She felt him stiffen a little as she slid her arms around his neck with a helpless moan and pushed her mouth hard against his.

  The kiss was sweet and heady. His lips parted hungrily and he pressed her head back into his shoulder with the sheer force of his ardor. He made a sound deep in his throat. The taste of her was making him drunk. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt like this in a woman’s arms. Her soft, eager response tested his control to the limits. For an experienced woman, she was purely lacking in seductive skills, unless this rapt submission to his mouth was some kind of feminine tactic.

  At any rate, he was too involved to care. He shifted her, bringing her across his hard thighs to lie in his arms while his mouth began to invade hers.

  She struggled faintly and he drew away, his breath shuddering out against her moist, swollen lips.

  “What is it?” he asked, his voice almost betraying him with its deep, drowsy huskiness.

  She swallowed, trembling at the feel of his hard thighs under her. Something had happened to him while they were kissing, something masculine that was totally out of her experience, and she was shy and a little frightened.

  When she tried to shift away, he understood, but he only smiled mockingly. “Is this a problem?” he murmured, one steely hand pressing at the base of her spine to hold her against his raging arousal.

  She gasped and stiffened in his arms.

  “Too much too soon, Allison?” he murmured, his pale green eyes narrowing as they met hers. “At any rate, I can’t help it.”

  “Please,” she said, flustered, and tried again to move away. He held her, firmly but gently. She knew she probably sounded like an outraged virgin—but that was what she was.

  “You’re twenty-five,” he said solemnly. “Too old for little-girl games.” His hand contracted again, deliberately, and he watched her face flush, her eyes widen. Odd, that reaction, because it actually seemed genuine. Not that it could be. He refused to believe that.

  “Gene,” she protested breathlessly, because incredibly the evidence of his need kindled something comparable in her. She’d never felt that knotting in her lower belly, the rush of warmth, the weak trembling that made her helpless.

  He bent toward her, his lips poised just above hers, tempting them. He whispered something then, something so explicit and softly threatening that she actually gasped. When her lips parted, his moved sensuously between them, his tongue probing tenderly past her teeth as if to emphasize what he’d just said to her.

  The combination of seductive whisper and equally seductive action tore a shocked moan from her throat. What he was doing to her mouth was…outrageous! Crude, and suggestive and…

  She shivered. Her eyes opened to find him watching her while his tongue probed and withdrew in a soft, gentle, subtly arousing rhythm that she was utterly helpless to resist.

  And while his tongue touched and tasted, one lean hand was riding up her rib cage to tease around a swollen breast. Even through three layers of fabric, the sensation was devastating. He held her gaze the whole while, intoxicated with the way she responded to it, with the look on her face, the shocked, almost terrified fascination in her misty, dilated eyes. When his thumb suddenly stroked her taut nipple she shuddered and moaned sharply.

  He lifted his head, because he liked that. He wanted to see if he could make it happen again. And he did. Again and again, the sound of his fingers faintly abrasive against the f
abric of her bodice unnaturally loud in the cab of the Jeep. His hand became more insistent on her soft body, openly caressing now as she gasped for breath and stiffened in his arms, lying helplessly against him and without resistance.

  “Yes, it feels good, doesn’t it?” he breathed, pride and faint arrogance in the way he was watching her. “You’re very, very aroused, little Allison,” he said softly, turning his attention to the hard tip of her breast, so very visible through her thin dress. “And just so you won’t forget until I see you again…”

  Before she realized what he meant to do, he bent and put his lips over the hard nipple and suddenly closed his teeth on it.

  She gasped and pushed at him frantically, shocked and frightened by the intimacy.

  He lifted his head, frowning, because her reaction puzzled him.

  “My God,” he breathed. “You don’t surely think I meant to hurt you?”

  “Di…didn’t you?” she whispered shakily, all eyes.

  He touched her gently, soothing the place his teeth had been, noticing that she flinched at even that light caress. “I’m sorry if I frightened you,” he said tenderly. “Evidently you’re used to gentler men altogether.”

  “Well, yes, I am,” she faltered. It was true, too, but not in the way he meant it. She was still shivering from the force of what he’d made her feel. She’d never been so helpless. She couldn’t have stopped him, no matter what he’d done to her, and now she realized what Winnie had been trying to tell her.

  “I’m not a gentle lover,” he said quietly, searching her eyes. “I’ve never had to be. My kind of woman can match my passion move for move, and it’s always been rough and wild because I like it that way.” He drew in a slow breath, and his hand flattened over her breast suddenly, in an almost protective gesture. “It never occurred to me before that some women might find that kind of ardor intimidating.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I didn’t quite know what to expect.”

  Why in God’s name he should feel guilty, he didn’t know. But he did. He bent and kissed her with noticeable restraint, almost with tenderness. “Next time,” he whispered at her lips, “I’ll be a little less wild with you, and a hell of a lot gentler. The last thing I want is to make you afraid of me.”