by Diana Palmer
“Do them now, while I’m here to help you.”
She did, because it would keep him here that much longer. She enjoyed his company far too much. She filled the sink with soapy water, while outside the rain continued steadily, broken occasionally by a rumble of thunder. “Were you always so bossy?” she asked as she washed a plate and handed it to him to be rinsed.
“I suppose so,” he confessed. “That’s force of habit. I was the highest-ranking officer in my group.”
“What did you do in Naval Intelligence?”
He put the plate in the dish drainer and leaned toward her. “That’s classified,” he whispered.
“Well, excuse me for asking!” she teased.
His dark eyes searched hers. “I like the way you look when you smile,” he commented absently. “It lights up your whole face.”
“You hardly ever smile.”
“I do when I’m with you. Haven’t you noticed?”
She laughed self-consciously. “Yes, but I thought it was because you find me tedious.” She washed another few dishes and passed them to him.
He rinsed them and then began drying, because there were none left to be washed. “I find you disturbing,” he corrected quietly.
She let the water out of the sink and took a second cloth, helping to dry the few dishes. “Because I’m forever dragging you into awkward situations?”
“Not quite.”
They finished drying the dishes and Jessica put them away. She hung up the kitchen towels. Lightning flashed outside the window, followed by a renewal of pelting rain and a deep, vibrating rumble of thunder.
“Are you afraid of thunderstorms?” he asked her.
“A little.”
He moved closer, his face filling her whole line of vision. “Are you afraid of me?” he continued.
Her eyes slid over his face, lingering on his firm mouth and chin. “That would depend on what you wanted from me,” she countered bluntly.
“That’s forthright enough,” he said. “All right, cards on the table. Suppose I want you sexually?”
She didn’t drop her eyes. “I don’t want sex.”
His gaze narrowed. “Because of what happened to you?” he guessed.
“Not entirely.” She stared at the opening in his shirt, feeling her heartbeat increase as the clean cologne-and-soap scent of his body drifted into her nostrils. “It’s mainly a matter of morality, I guess. And I’m not equipped for casual affairs, either. This is a small town. I…don’t like gossip. I’ve always tried to live in such a way that people wouldn’t think less of me.”
“I see,” he said slowly.
She shifted her shoulders. “No, you don’t. You’ve been away so long maybe you’ve forgotten what it’s really like.” Her eyes were faintly pleading. “I like my life the way it is. I don’t want to complicate it. I’m sorry.”
His lean hands caught her waist gently and brought her against the length of his body. He stopped her instinctive withdrawal.
“Hush,” she whispered. “Be still.”
“What are…you doing?”
“I’m showing you that it’s too late,” he replied. His big hands smoothed her back up to her shoulder blades. “You want me. I want you. We can slow it down, but we can’t stop it. Deep inside, you don’t want to stop me.” His gaze dropped to her soft mouth, and he watched her lips part. “You’ve been handled brutally. But you’ve never been touched with tenderness. I’m going to show you how it feels.”
“I’m not sure that I want to know,” she whispered.
He bent toward her. “Let’s see.”
Her fingers went up to touch his lips, staying their downward movement. Her eyes were wide and soft and faintly pleading. “Don’t…hurt me,” she said.
He moved her hand to his shirtfront and scowled. “Do you think I want to?”
“No, I don’t mean physically. I mean…” She searched for words. “Sterling, I can’t play games. I’m much too intense. It would be better if we were just friends.”
He tilted her chin up and held her eyes. “Think about what you’re saying,” he said gently. “I know about your past. I know that you’ve been assaulted, that you don’t date anyone. I even know that you’re half-afraid of me. Considering all that, do you think I’m the sort of man who would tease you?”
She looked perplexed. Her hand had moved somehow into the opening where the buttons were unfastened. She felt the curly tangle of thick chest hair over warm, hard muscle. It was difficult to concentrate when all she wanted to do was touch him, test his maleness.
“Well, no,” she confessed.
“I don’t play games with women,” he said flatly. “I’m straightforward. Sometimes too much so. I want you, but I’d never force you or put you in a position where you couldn’t say no.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Or don’t you realize that I’ve been in that position myself?”
Her brows jerked together as she tried to puzzle out what he was saying.
“When one of my foster mothers got drunk enough,” he said slowly, bitterly, “anything male would do. She tried to seduce me one night.”
Her heart ached for him. What a distasteful, sickening experience it would have been for a young boy. “Oh, Sterling!” she said sadly.
The distaste dominated his expression. “I knocked her out of the bed and left the house. The next morning, we had it out. I told her exactly what would happen if she ever tried it again. I was almost as big then as I am now, you see. She couldn’t force me.” His hands let her go and he moved away.
She’d come across the same situation so many times, with so many families. It was amazing how many children suffered such traumas and never told, because of the shock and shame.
She moved closer to him, but she didn’t touch him. She knew very well that abused children had real problems about being touched by other people sometimes—especially when something reminded them of the episodes—unless it was through their own choice. The scars were long lasting.
“You never told anyone,” she guessed.
He wouldn’t look at her. “No.”
“Not even your caseworker?”
He shrugged. “He was the sort who wouldn’t have believed me. And I had too much pride to beg for credibility.”
She mourned the help he could have gotten from someone with a little more compassion.
“I’ve never told anyone,” he continued, glancing down at her. “Amazing that I could tell you.”
“Not really,” she said, smiling. “I think you could tell me anything.”
His face tautened. It was true. He would never balk at divulging his darkest secrets to this woman, because she had an open, loving heart. She wouldn’t ridicule or judge, and she wouldn’t repeat anything he said.
“I think I must have that sort of face,” she continued, tongue-in-cheek, “because total strangers come up and talk to me about the most shocking things. I actually had a man ask me what to do about impotence.”
He chuckled, his bad memories temporarily driven away. “And what did you tell him?”
“That a doctor would be a more sensible choice for asking advice,” she returned. Her eyes searched his dark, hard face. “Sex was really hard for you the first time, wasn’t it?” she asked bluntly.
Again his face tautened. “Yes.”
She glanced away, folding her arms over her breasts. “I wasn’t a child when I had my bad experience, but it made the thought of intimacy frightening to me. I’m realistic enough to know that it would be different with someone I cared about, but all I can see is the way he was. He reminded me of an animal.”
“Do I?”
She turned quickly. “Don’t be absurd!”
One eyebrow quirked. “Well, that’s something.”
She went back to him, looking up solemnly into his face. “I find you very disturbing,” she confessed. “Physically, I mean. I guess that’s why I shy away from you sometimes.”
He traced her smooth cheek with a steely fo
refinger. “I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone as honest as you.”
“I hate lies. Don’t you?”
“I hear enough of them. Nobody I’ve ever arrested has been guilty. It was a frame-up, or they didn’t mean to, or somebody talked them into it.”
“I know what you mean.”
The exploring finger reached her mouth and traced its soft bow shape gently. His jaw tightened. She could hear the heavy breath that passed through his nostrils as his eyes began to darken and narrow.
“Why don’t you unfasten my shirt and put your hands on me?” he asked huskily.
Her face colored vividly. “I don’t know if that would be a good idea.”
“It’s the best one I’ve had tonight,” he assured her. “No games. Honest. I want to make love to you a little, that’s all. I won’t let it get too far.”
She put her hands against his shirtfront, torn between what she wanted to do and what was sensible.
“It’s hard for me, with women,” he said roughly. “Does that reassure you any?”
She smiled gently. “Will it make you angry if I confess that it does?”
He bent and his smiling mouth brushed against hers. “Probably. Open your mouth.”
She obeyed him like a sleepwalker, but he soon brought every single nerve she had singing to life. Her hands slid under the shirt and over the thick tangle of hair that covered him, past male nipples that hardened at her touch. He moaned softly and pulled her closer. She sighed into his mouth as he deepened the kiss and made her knees go weak with the passion he kindled in her slender body.
“It isn’t enough,” he said in a strained tone. He bent and lifted her, his gaze reassuring as she opened startled eyes. “I want to lie down with you,” he whispered as he carried her to the sofa. “I have to get closer, Jessie. Closer than this.”
“It’s dangerous,” she managed through swollen lips.
“Life is dangerous.” He put her down on the sofa, full length, and stretched out alongside her. “I won’t hurt you. I swear to God, I won’t. All it will take is one word, when you want me to stop.”
His mouth traced hers. “And what…if I can’t say it?” she whispered brokenly.
“I’ll say it for you….”
He kissed her until she trembled, but even then he didn’t touch her intimately or attempt to carry their lovemaking to greater depths. He lifted his head and looked down at her with tenderness and bridled passion. With her long hair loose around her face and her lips swollen from his kisses, her dark eyes wide and soft and dazed, he thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful in all his life.
“Are you stopping?” she whispered unsteadily.
“I think I should,” he mused, managing to project a self-assurance he didn’t really feel. His lower body ached.
“But we haven’t done anything except kiss each other….” She stopped abruptly when she realized what she was saying.
He chuckled wickedly. “Jessie, if I push up that sweatshirt, we’re both going to be in trouble. Because, frankly, it shows that you aren’t wearing anything under it.”
She followed his interested gaze and saw two hard peaks outlined vividly against the soft material. Scarlet faced, she got to her feet. “Well!”
He sat back on the sofa, watching her with smug, delighted eyes. She aroused an odd protectiveness in him that he’d never felt with another woman. She was unique in his shattered life. He wanted her, but it went far beyond desire.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said gently. “I didn’t say it with any cruel intent. It delights me that you can want me, Jessie.” He hesitated. “It delights me that I can want you. I wasn’t sure…”
She searched his hard face. “Yes?” she prompted gently.
He got up and went to her slowly, secrets in his eyes.
She pushed back the glorious cloud of her hair and then reached up to touch his sculptured cheek. “Tell me,” she coaxed.
He brought her hand to his lips. “I exaggerated when I told you there had been a parade of women through my bed,” he said quietly.
Her eyes were solemn, steady, questioning.
His shoulders moved restlessly. He looked tormented. He tried to tell her, but the words wouldn’t come.
Her fingers traced his hard mouth. “It’s all right.” She pulled his head down and kissed his eyes closed. He shivered. “My dear,” she whispered. Her mouth traced his and softly kissed his lips, feeling them open and press down, responding with a sudden feverish need. He pulled her close and increased the pressure, groaning as she gave in to him without a single protest.
He let her go slowly, his tall, fit body taut with desire and need as he looked down at her hungrily.
“I’ve never been with anyone like you,” he said flatly. “Because of the way I grew up, I always equated sex with a certain kind of woman,” he said huskily. “So that’s where I went, when I had to have it.” He sighed heavily. “Not that I was ever careless, Jessie.”
She bit her lip, trying not to remember Bess’s taunt.
“What is it?” he asked suspiciously.
“I can’t tell you. You’ll get conceited.”
His eyebrows arched. He cocked his head. “Come on.”
“A girl I know made the comment that she thought you’d be absolute heaven to make love with, and that she’d bet you were always prepared.”
He chuckled softly. “Did she? Who?”
“I’ll never tell!”
He pursed his lips, amused. “As it happens, she was right.” He bent and brushed her mouth with his. “On both counts,” he whispered and nipped her lower lip.
She smiled under his lips. “I know. About the first count, anyway.”
“You can take my word for the other. How about supper tomorrow night?”
She stared at him blankly. “What?”
“I want to take you out on a date,” he explained. “One of those things where a man and woman spend time together, and at the end of the evening, do what we’ve already done.”
“Oh.”
His eyebrow lifted as he fastened his shirt. “Well?”
Her face lit up. “I’d love to!”
He smiled. “So would I. Thanks for supper.” He moved to the door and glanced back. She was ruffled and flustered. He liked knowing that he’d made her that way. “I’ll send the mechanic over first thing in the morning to see about that fan belt. And I’ll come and drive you to work.”
“You don’t have to,” she declared breathlessly.
“I want to.” The way he said it projected other images, exciting ones. She laughed inanely, captivated by the look on his dark face.
“I’d better go,” he murmured dryly. “Good night, Jessie.”
“Good night.”
He closed the door gently behind him. “Lock it!” he added from outside.
She rushed forward and threw the lock into place. A minute later she heard deep laughter and the sound of his booted feet going down the steps.
Seven
The restaurant was crowded, and heads turned from all directions when Jessica, in a neat-fitting burgundy dress with her hair loose around her shoulders, walked in with McCallum, who was wearing slacks and a sports coat.
“I told you people would notice that we’re together,” she said under her breath as they were seated.
“I didn’t mind the last time, and I don’t mind now,” he murmured, smiling. “Do you?”
She smiled back. “Not at all.”
The waitress brought menus, poured water into glasses and went away to give them time to decide what to order.
“Why…Miss Larson!”
Jessica looked up. Bess, one of her caseworkers, and a good-looking young man who worked in the bank had paused by their table.
“Hello, Bess,” Jessica said, smiling. “How are you?”
“Fine! Don’t you look nice? Hi, McCallum,” she added, letting her blue eyes sweep over him in pure flirtation. “You look nice, too!”
<
br /> “Thanks.”
“Bess, the waitress is gesturing to us,” the young man prompted. He was giving McCallum a nervous look. Probably it was the fact that McCallum was in law enforcement that disturbed him. Lawmen were set apart from the rest of the world, Jessica had discovered over the years. But it could have been the way Bess was looking at the older man. Jessica had to admit that McCallum was sensuous and handsome enough to fit any woman’s dream. Compared to him, Bess’s date seemed very young, and he was undoubtedly jealous.
“Oh, sure, Steve. Good to see you both!” she said breezily, leading him away.
“She thinks you’re a hunk,” Jessica said without thinking, then bit her lip.
His eyebrows lifted. “So?” Now he knew who’d made the comment she’d related at her cabin.
“She’s very young, of course,” she added mischievously.
“No, she isn’t,” he countered. “In fact, she’s only a year younger than you. Nice figure, too.”
Jessica fought down an unfamiliar twinge of jealousy. She fumbled with her silverware. Nobody disturbed her like McCallum did.
He reached across the table and caught her hand in his, sending thrills of pleasure up her arm that made her heart race. “I didn’t mean it like that. Jessie, if I were interested in your co-worker, why would I spend half my free time thinking about you?”
She smiled at him, thrown off balance by the look in his dark eyes. “Do you?” she asked. Her hand slipped and almost overturned her water glass. He righted it quickly, smiling patiently at her clumsiness. It wasn’t like her to do such things.
“Hold tight, and I’ll protect you from overturning things,” he said, clasping her cold fingers in his. “We’ll muddle through together. In my own way, I’ve got as many hang-ups and inhibitions as you have. But if we try, we can sort it out.”
“Sort what out?” she echoed curiously.
He frowned. “Do you think I make a habit of taking women out? I’m thirty-five years old, and since I’ve been back here, I’ve lived like a hermit. I’m hungry for a woman….”
This time the glass went over. He called the waitress, who managed to clear away the water with no effort at all. She smiled indulgently at an embarrassed Jessica, who was abjectly apologetic.