by Diana Palmer
“Here, in front of me,” he growled, motioning her down between his knees, his big hands catching at her pant-clad legs to coax her.
His touch brought back memories. He’d only done that when necessary, to help her out of cars, or through doors, but his fingers had sent wild chills down her spine every time he’d put them on her, and she’d never got over it. Now, with the months of missing him adding to the excitement, her heart went wild when he leaned forward and cupped her face in his warm, strong hands.
“This is the only way I have of seeing you now,” he said quietly. “Do you really mind?” he asked gently.
“No,” she whispered. “No, I don’t mind.”
“Your voice is unsteady,” he remarked. “Are you afraid I might choke you?”
“No, sir,” she replied, closing her eyes as his thumbs ran over them, over her thin eyebrows and down over her long patrician nose to her soft bow-shaped mouth and then around the outline of her oval face with its high, elegant cheekbones. His fingers were just slightly callused, as if he’d been riding lately, and they felt deliciously abrasive on her whisper-soft skin as he touched it, finally running his hands over her short dark hair. He sighed heavily.
“You’ve had it cut,” he murmured.
“I—it got in my way,” she lied, knowing full well she’d had it cut because he’d once liked it.
“I remember how it looked that day we walked through the park,” he said gently, his voice deep and slow in memory. “It was blowing out of control, and I got you a piece of ribbon from the flower vendor to tie it with.”
“And a bouquet of violets to go with it,” she added, hurting with the memory. It had been such a bittersweet day, the last she’d had with him before the story hit the stands.
His hands tightened on her face. “Let it grow again,” he said gruffly.
“If you like.” She looked up into his sightless eyes, and she wanted to cry. They were sensuous, with chips of gold in their tawny depths, with lashes any woman would have envied, and lines at the corners. The brows above them were thick and dark, and she wanted badly to reach up and touch them.
“I’m not through,” he said quietly, his eyes seeming to search her face as he held it in his big dark hands. “I want to know how you’ve changed physically, and this is the only way left to me. Will it offend you to let me touch you?”
Her eyes closed on a wave of pain. To feel his big hands touching her body was as close to heaven as she expected to come on earth. Offend her?
“No,” she whispered unsteadily. “It won’t...offend me.”
He caught her by the shoulders and drew her to her feet as he rose, holding her in front of him. His fingers released her and began a journey of discovery that made her tremble with delight. They traced her arms through the silky Qiana blouse that was the same shade of dark green as her eyes, discovering that they were as thin as ever. They ran back up to her shoulders and traced them to her long, elegant neck, then down to her collarbone.
“You’re very thin,” he said gently, pausing at the V neck of the blouse.
“I—I always lose weight a little in the autumn,” she faltered.
“Do you?” His fingers moved again, down over the high, smooth slope of her breasts, and he felt her stiffen and jerk as they lingered on the beginning of the soft curves.
“I know, it’s intimate,” he said softly, scowling as his fingers traced tiny patterns through the fabric and the flimsy lace of the bra under it. “And you aren’t used to letting a man touch you this way, are you?” Without waiting for an answer, he moved his hands completely over her high breasts, then down over her rib cage to her waist, her narrow hips, and finally to her thighs.
“You’re so thin you tear at my heart,” he said in a voice that puzzled her. “Did you eat supper?”
“Yes, sir,” she told him.
“From now on see to it that you eat a big breakfast, and don’t skimp on lunch. If I find out that you’ve been cutting meals, I’ll feed you myself, is that clear?” he added shortly.
“Being thin is the rage right now,” she said, defending herself, unwilling to admit that the reason for her slenderness was grieving over being away from him all this time.
“I don’t want you thin,” he replied. “I want you the way you were when I could still see. You had the loveliest figure I’d ever seen. High, firm breasts, a small waist, and hips that were utterly tempting. I want you that way again.”
She flushed at the speech. “Doesn’t it matter that I might not want to gain weight?” she managed to ask.
His hands slid back up to her waist and pulled her body close against his. “No,” he replied honestly.
Her hands pressed patterns into his silky brown velour shirt, feeling the hard muscles under the softness of the fabric, warm from his big body. “Saxon...” she began nervously.
He bent. “I like the way you say my name,” he whispered, his warm breath smoky against her lips. “Say it again.”
This was getting too close for comfort, and she tried to make him let go. But he only held her tighter.
“Don’t fight me,” he murmured absently. “Pound for pound, I’m twice your size.”
“Don’t,” she pleaded quietly, hating the sensations his careless caresses were causing. “You’re just lonely, and you’ve been without a woman for a long time...”
“What makes you think so?” he murmured with a mocking smile. “I may be blind, but that doesn’t stop the wolf pack from stalking me. Didn’t you know? Randy’s been running interference for months—or I’d be shaking them out of my mattress. They think the sympathetic nurse approach will touch my cold heart.”
“How amusing,” she muttered, laughing involuntarily.
“That’s something I’d never expect you to do,” he added solemnly. “Money never mattered, did it? You’d have spent time with me if I’d had nothing—as long as I was newsworthy,” he added with sudden bitterness, and for an instant his hands were cruel where they gripped her.
“Saxon, I didn’t betray you,” she whispered, gritting her teeth against the bruising fingers. “I didn’t!”
His mouth crushed down onto hers, finding it blindly, hurting as he took out the memories on her soft lips. It was like being tossed onto the rocks by storm-torn waves; he was brutal and tears welled in her eyes. She’d wanted him eight months ago with an almost shocking passion, and despite her nunlike upbringing, she’d have given herself to him joyfully in the throes of her growing love. But this was hardly worthy of her daydreaming.
As if he sensed the tears, he lifted his dark head and scowled. His heart was thudding roughly against his chest, his breath came hard and fast.
“I’m hurting you?” he asked curtly.
She licked her cut lip and managed to catch her own breath. “Please let me go,” she said through her tight throat.
His big hands relaxed their bruising grip and he murmured something gruffly under his breath. His blind eyes shifted restlessly.
“I tasted blood on your mouth,” he said heavily. “Are you all right?”
She swallowed nervously. “It was...just a cut. I’m all right. Saxon, let me go, please!”
“I used to wonder how it would be to kiss that pretty mouth,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean it to be like this though. Don’t struggle,” he said, subduing her effortlessly. ‘‘Let me have your mouth one more time. Let me...make amends,” he murmured, bending again.
This time his mouth was exquisitely gentle, rubbing against hers with a slight teasing pressure that was as tender as a baby’s touch. His big arms swallowed her like warm bathwater, coaxing her body to relax, to allow the touch of his, to soften and melt into him.
“You taste like a virgin,” he whispered into her mouth, twisting her body sensuously against the length of his, and his lips smiled tenderly against hers. “Are you?”
“Are you?” she returned with what spirit she could muster, her voice sounding as wobbly as her legs.
“Not for half my life,” he replied. “Can’t you tell?”
She could, but she wasn’t going to admit it. Her fingers pushed against his chest. “Saxon—”
“Don’t you want to unbutton my shirt, Maggie?” he whispered sensuously, nibbling tenderly at her full lower lip. “Haven’t you wondered what it would be like to touch my skin?”
Her face flamed. Her blood surged up in her veins and ran in full flood. Yes, she’d wondered, and she wanted to, but giving in to Saxon now would be a step toward emotional suicide. He wasn’t sure himself whether he wanted her, or just revenge, and she wasn’t sure enough of him to find out.
She was debating on how to tell him all that when the door opened suddenly.
Maggie ducked under his arms and got around beside him just as Mrs. Tremayne, Lisa and Randy walked in, talking and laughing and unaware of the undercurrents in the far end of the room.
CHAPTER FOUR
BLESSEDLY NOBODY SEEMED to connect Maggie’s red face and Saxon’s smug smile, and the conversation became general. She sat on the sidelines, watching Lisa smiling comfortingly at her, and felt herself relax. Her lip, where Saxon had bitten it, no longer bothered her.
She studied the big imposing man in the big chair beside the fireplace with covetous eyes. He was so good to look at, so good to touch. Part of her was disappointed that the others had chosen that moment to interrupt, while another part felt relief. He wasn’t sure himself whether he hated her or not, and while she might enjoy the touch of his hands, she couldn’t take the harsh accusation in his voice without reacting to it. He’d frightened her, shocked her, by turning out to be the man who blamed her for his predicament. But Maggie was spirited, and she had a temper. And she wasn’t going to let any man—even Saxon Tremayne—walk all over her.
A comer of her full mouth turned up. So he was determined to keep her here, was he? She’d let him think he was bulllying her into staying. He was right about one thing; he did, very definitely, need someone to keep him from tumbling headfirst into a long bout of self-pity. The man she remembered had been obsessively athletic, enjoying horseback riding, polo, tennis, and handball. He was an excellent swimmer as well, and he was always restless, eager to be up and away. When she’d been working on the disastrous feature, she’d had to follow him around just to get any information at all.
The man sitting so quietly in his chair now was a stranger. He still barked as the old Saxon Tremayne had. But some of that magnificent spirit was lacking; the bounding self-confidence was gone. Remembering the way he’d been, it hurt her to watch him. She shifted in her chair, her eyes worried. Somehow she’d have to help him cope, if she could. She’d have to make him go out of the house, meet other people, learn to stand by himself again. And she’d do that, she told herself. One way or another she was going to help him—even if he didn’t want to be helped—and she didn’t kid herself that it was going to be easy. He had a magnificent temper, one that matched his towering physique, and it was going to take cunning as well as kindness to get him back on his feet.
“You’re very quiet, Miss Reporter,” Saxon called suddenly, causing an immediate lull in the conversation about the nearby mountains and the blazing beauty of autumn in the upstate this month.
“Am I?” Maggie asked. “I was wondering if you’d like to take a drive up in the mountains one day.”
His face hardened, his eyes kindled. “What for?” he asked curtly. “Do you expect my eyes to be miraculously restored?”
“You don’t have to see to appreciate beauty,” she returned, watching him closely. “Of course, if you’d rather hide in here...”
“Hide?” he exploded, and his mother smothered a grin.
“Well, what would you call it?” Maggie asked reasonably. “You never leave the house, do you?”
He shifted angrily in the chair that just barely contained his formidable body. “I won’t be led around like a half-witted child,” he said proudly.
“You won’t be,” she promised. “You know, you really ought to be flattered. I don’t offer my company to just anybody. And I certainly don’t take men driving every day.”
The teasing seemed to get through the armor around him. He pursed his chiseled lips and cocked an eyebrow. “How do I know you can hold a car in the road?”
“You don’t,” she agreed, and laughed. “You’ll just have to trust me not to do you in. Besides, I’ll be in the car too. I’ll have to be careful.”
He drew in a deep breath. “All right. In the morning if it isn’t raining.”
“What’s wrong with rain? Do you melt if you get wet?” she asked him.
He lifted a bushy eyebrow. “Don’t be smug, miss,” he murmured with a glint in his sightless eyes. “I know very well what melts you, or don’t you remember?”
She averted her red face. “You’ll have to get Saxon to take you by the company while you’re out,” Sandra remarked, noting the color in Maggie’s face and guessing the reason for it.
Saxon’s face darkened, his big hands went taut on the arms of his chair. “That’s out,” he said firmly.
“But, dear,” Sandra argued gently, “it would do you good—”
He got to his feet impatiently. “I’ll decide what’s good for me,” he said curtly. “Where’s that damned coffee table? I’m forever tripping over it. I can’t understand why you people insist on moving it around!”
Maggie got to her feet, moved by Sandra’s worried face. “Stop growling at people,” she told Saxon, moving close to take his big hand gently in hers. For a moment she was sure he was going to shake it—and her—off. But after a brief hesitation his warm fingers curled around hers and pressed them possessively, sending a warm current through her body.
“Going to lead me around, are you?” he asked sharply.
She winked at the others. “No, sir,” she said pertly. “I thought I’d let you lead me.”
“Oh?” He smiled faintly. “What would you like to walk into first? A chair, a wall?”
“How about the front porch?” she suggested. “The sun’s come out, and the mountains in the distance are glorious.”
“I wouldn’t know,” he replied.
“I’ll describe them to you,” she offered, tugging at his hand. “Excuse us while we argue in peace,” she told the others, who laughed softly as the two went out the door.
“Are we going to argue?” Saxon asked when she seated him beside her in the glider on the long, graceful front porch.
She drank in the sweet, crisp autumn air, her eyes on the brightly colored leaves of the distant trees that covered the Blue Ridge Mountains. “It seems to be all you want to do,” she replied.
“Like hell it is,” he murmured, reaching out until he found her hand. He curled her fingers into his and leaned back with a hard sigh. “I’ve missed you.”
“Have you?” She looked up at his hard face and something inside her melted. She wanted to admit just how much she’d missed him, but it might give him a weapon to beat her with, and she didn’t know yet how far her trust of him would reach. His mood swings were too sudden.
He laughed curtly. “Don’t believe me, do you? What’s wrong, honey? Do you think I’m looking for weaknesses before I attack?”
“Aren’t you?” she returned.
He shrugged his broad shoulders and released her hand to light a cigarette. He scowled as smoke curled up from the cigarette in his fingers. “I blamed you at first,” he admitted. “My God, I’ve never hated anyone as much. I didn’t expect that kind of betrayal from you. I thought we were close to the beginning of a very—different kind of relationship than the one we had.”
Her eyes closed. She’d thought so too. The day before the issue had hit the stands carrying the story that
had damned her in his eyes, there’d been one long moment when they’d stared at each other with all the camouflage removed; when his eyes and hers had echoed the same horrible hunger, the need that would almost certainly have been translated into fierce ardor if his office door hadn’t been suddenly opened by a junior executive.
“Are you ever going to believe me?” she asked under her breath.
“I’m blind,” he ground out, and took a vicious draw from his cigarette. “Have you any idea what it feels like to be without the sun, to live in shadow, to be totally dependent on other people? It’s something that’s never happened to me before, and I’m—” He stopped, chopping off the words abruptly to take another draw from the cigarette and blow it out. His heavy frame relaxed. “I’m not coping,” he admitted finally. “Sometimes, at night, the pain is bad. I can’t sleep, so I lie awake and brood. I can’t run the company like this, not without eyes, so the whole burden falls on Randy, and he’s not old enough or experienced enough to cope.”
“What utter rot,” she told him bluntly, turning in the seat to face him, warmed by the heat from his big body. “You can do anything a sighted man can do, if you’ll just stop feeling sorry for yourself and try.”
He stiffened, then exploded. “Feeling sorry for myself?” His face went rigid and his sightless eyes searched for her voice. “Damn you!”
It would have been less intimidating if he shouted, but that calm, cold voice had the cut of a sharp razor, and Maggie felt chills at the impact. But she wasn’t going to back down, not one inch. Pity, despite the fact that she felt it, wouldn’t help this proud, arrogant man to escape the prison he was making for himself. Only anger was going to do that.
“What would you call it, Mr. Tremayne?” she taunted. “You sit in the house all day and refuse to help yourself. You won’t go near your empire. What’s the matter? Won’t you be able to take it if somebody opens a door for you?”
The cigarette shot off the porch and he caught her shoulders in his big hands with amazing accuracy, shaking her roughly. “Stop it,” he shot at her.