by Diana Palmer
“Tiffany,” her father exclaimed, his eyes widening at the sight of her. He’d never seen her appear quite so poised and elegant.
King was doing his share of looking, as well. His dark eyebrows dove together over glittering pale eyes and his head moved just a fraction to the side as his gaze went over her like seeking hands.
“I don’t have a penny left for lunch,” she told her father on a pitiful breath. “I spent everything in my purse on this new dress. Do you like it?” She turned around, her body exquisitely posed for King’s benefit. His jaw clenched and she had to repress a wicked smile.
“It’s very nice, sweetheart,” Harrison agreed. “But why can’t you use your credit card for lunch?”
“Because I’m going to get some things for an impromptu picnic,” she replied. Her eyes lowered demurely.
“You could come to lunch with us,” Harrison began.
King looked hunted.
Tiffany saw his expression and smiled gently. “That’s sweet of you, Dad, but I really haven’t time. Actually, I’m meeting someone. I hope he likes the dress,” she added, lowering her head demurely. She was lying her head off, but they didn’t know it. “Can I have a ten-dollar bill, please?”
Harrison swept out his wallet. “Take two,” he said, handing them to her. He glared at her. “It isn’t Wyatt, I hope,” he muttered. “He’s too easily led.”
“No. It’s not Wyatt. Thanks, Dad. See you, King.”
“Who is it?”
King’s deep, half-angry voice stopped her at the doorway. She turned, her eyebrows lifted as if he’d shocked her with the question. “Nobody you know,” she said honestly. “I’ll be in by bedtime, Dad.”
“How can you go on a picnic in that dress?” King asked shortly.
She smoothed her hand down one shapely hip. “It’s not that sort of picnic,” she murmured demurely. “We’re going to have it on the carpet in his living room. He has gas logs in his fireplace. It’s going to be so romantic!”
“It’s May,” King ground out. “Too hot for fires in the fireplace.”
“We won’t sit too close to it,” she said. “Ta, ta.”
She went out the door and dived into the elevator, barely able to contain her glee. She’d shaken King. Let him stew over that lie for the rest of the day, she told herself, and maybe he’d feel as uncomfortable as she’d felt when he took his secretary to Nassau!
Of course there was no picnic, because she wasn’t meeting anyone. She stopped by a fish and chips place and got a small order and took it home with her. An hour later, she was sprawled in front of her own fireplace, unlit, with a trendy fashion magazine. Lying on her belly on the thick beige carpet, in tight-fitting designer jeans and a low-cut tank top, barefoot and with her long hair loose, she looked the picture of youth.
King’s sudden appearance in the doorway shocked her. She hadn’t expected to be found out, certainly not so quickly.
“Where is he?” he asked, his hands in his slacks pocket. He glanced around the spacious room. “Hiding under the sofa? Behind a chair?”
She was frozen in position with a small piece of fish in her hand as she gaped at him.
“What a tangled web we weave,” he mused.
“I wasn’t deceiving you. Well, maybe a little,” she acknowledged. Her eyes glared up at him. “You took Carla to Nassau, didn’t you? I hope you had fun.”
“Like hell you do.”
He closed the door behind him abruptly and moved toward her, resplendent in a gray suit, his black hair catching the light from the ceiling and glowing with faint blue lights.
She rolled over and started to get up, but before she could move another inch, he straddled her prone figure and with a movement so smooth that it disconcerted her, he was suddenly full-length over her body on the carpet, balancing only on his forearms.
“I suppose you’ll taste of fish,” he muttered as he bent and his hard mouth fastened roughly on her lips.
She gasped. His hips shifted violently, his long legs insistent as they parted her thighs and moved quickly between them. His hands trapped her wrists, stilling her faint instinctive protest at the shocking intimacy of his position.
He lifted his mouth a breath away and looked straight into her eyes. One lean leg moved, just briefly, and he pushed forward against her, his body suddenly rigid. He let her feel him swell with desire, and something wickedly masculine flared in his pale, glittering eyes as new sensations registered on her flushed face.
“Now you know how it happens,” he murmured, dropping his gaze to her soft, swollen mouth. “And how it feels when it happens. Draw your legs up a little. I want you to feel me completely against you there.”
“King!”
He shifted insistently, making her obey him. She felt the intimacy of his hold and gasped, shivering a little at the power and strength of him against her so intimately.
“Pity, that you don’t have anybody to compare me with,” he mused deeply as his head bent. “But that might be a good thing. I wouldn’t want to frighten you…”
His mouth twisted, parting her lips. It was so different from the night of her party. Then, she’d been the aggressor, teasing and tempting him. Now, she was very much on the defensive. He was aroused and insistent and she felt young and uncertain, especially when he began to move in a very seductive way that made her whole body tingle and clench with sensual pleasure.
He heard the little gasp that escaped the lips under his hard mouth, and his head lifted.
He searched her eyes, reading very accurately her response to him. “Didn’t you know that pleasure comes of such intimacy?” he whispered.
“Only from…books,” she confessed breathlessly. She shivered as he moved again, just enough to make her totally aware of her body’s feverish response to that intimate pressure.
“Isn’t this more exciting than reading about it?” he teased. His mouth nibbled at her lips. “Open them,” he whispered. “Deep kisses are part of the process.”
“King, I’m not…not…sure…”
“You’re sure,” he whispered into her mouth. “You’re just apprehensive, and that’s natural. They told you it was going to hurt, didn’t they?”
She swallowed, aware of dizziness that seemed to possess her.
His teeth nibbled sensually at her lower lip. “I’ll give you all the time you need, when it happens,” he murmured lazily. “If I can arouse you enough, you won’t mind if I hurt you a little. It might even intensify the pleasure.”
“I don’t understand.”
His open mouth brushed over hers. “I know,” he murmured. “That’s what excites me so. Slide your hands up the back of my thighs and hold me against you.”
“Wh…what?”
His mouth began to move between her lips. “You wore that dress to excite me. All right. I’m excited. Now satisfy me.”
“I…but I…can’t…” she gasped. “King!”
His hands were under her, intimate, touching her in shocking ways.
“Isn’t this what you wanted? It’s what you implied when you struck that seductive pose and invited me to ravish you right there on the floor of your father’s office.”
“I did not!”
His thumbs pressed against her in a viciously arousing way, so that when he pushed down with his hips, she lifted to meet them, groaning harshly at the shock of delight that was only the tip of some mysterious iceberg of ecstasy.
“Tell me that again,” he challenged.
She couldn’t. She was burning up, dying, in anguish. A stranger’s hands fought her tank top and the tiny bra under it, pushing them out of the way only seconds before those same hands tugged at his shirt and managed to get under it, against warm muscle and hair.
While he kissed her, she writhed under him, shivering when she felt his skin against her own. Delirious with fevered need, she slid her hands down his flat belly and even as he dragged his mouth from hers to protest, they pressed, trembling, against the swollen length
of him through the soft fabric.
He moaned something, shuddered. He rolled abruptly onto his side and drew her hand back to him, moving it softly on his body, teaching her the sensual rhythm he needed.
“Dear God,” he whispered, kissing her hungrily. “No, baby, don’t stop,” he groaned when her movements slowed. “Touch me. Yes. Yes. Oh, God, yes!”
It was fascinating to see how he reacted to her. Encouraged, she moved closer and her mouth pressed softly, sensually, against the thick hair that covered his chest. He was shaking now. His body was strangely vulnerable, and the knowledge inhibited her.
He rolled onto his back, the very action betraying his need to feel her touch on him. He lay there, still shivering, his eyes closed, his body yielding to her soft, curious hands.
She laid her cheek against his hot skin, awash in new sensations, touches that had been taboo all her life. She was learning his body as a lover would.
“Tell me what to do,” she whispered as she drew her cheek against his breastbone. “I’ll do anything for you. Anything!”
His hand held hers to him for one long, aching minute. Then he drew it up to his chest and held it there while he struggled to breathe.
Her breasts felt cool as they pressed nakedly into his rib cage where his shirt was pulled away. Her eyes closed and she lay there, close to him, closer to him than she’d ever been.
“Heavens, that was exciting,” she choked. “I never dreamed I could touch you like that, and in broad daylight, too!”
That raw innocence caught him off guard. Laughter bubbled up into his chest, into his throat. He began to laugh softly.
“Do hush!” she chided. “What if Mary should hear you and walk in?”
He lifted himself on an elbow and looked down at her bare breasts. “She’d get an eyeful, wouldn’t she?” He traced a taut nipple, arrogantly pleased that she didn’t object at all.
“I’m small,” she whispered.
He smiled. “No, you’re not.”
She looked down to where his fingers rested against her pale skin. “Your skin is so dark compared to mine…”
“Especially here, where you’re so pale,” he breathed. His lips bent to the soft skin he was touching, and he took her inside his mouth, gently suckling her.
She arched up, moaning harshly, her fists clenched beside her head as she tried to deal with the mounting delight of sensation.
He heard that harsh sound and reacted to it immediately. His mouth grew insistent, hot and hungry as it suckled hard at her breast. Her body clenched and suddenly went into a shocking spasm that she couldn’t control at all. It never seemed to end, the hot, shameful pleasure he gave her with that intimate caress.
She clutched him, breathless, burying her hot face in his neck while she fought to still her shaking limbs, the faint little gasps that he must certainly be able to hear.
His mouth was tender now, calming rather than stirring. He pressed tender, brief kisses all over her skin, ending only reluctantly at her trembling lips.
Her shamed eyes lifted to his, full of tears that reflected her overwhelmed emotions.
He shook his head, dabbing at them with a handkerchief he drew from his slacks pocket. “Don’t cry,” he whispered gently. “Your breasts are very, very sensitive. I love the way you react to my mouth on them.” He smiled. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
“It’s…natural?” she asked.
His hand smoothed her dark hair. “For a few women, I suppose,” he said. He searched her curious eyes. “I’ve never experienced it like this. I’m glad. There should be at least one or two firsts for me, as well as for you.”
“I wish I knew more,” she said worriedly.
“You’ll learn.” His fingers traced her nose, her softly swollen lips. “I missed you.”
Her heart felt as if it could fly. She smiled. “Did you, really?”
He nodded. “Not that I wanted to,” he added with such disgust that she giggled.
He propped himself on an elbow and stared down at her for a long time, his brows drawn together in deep thought.
She could feel the indecision in him, along with a tension that was new to her. Her soft eyes swept over his dark, lean face and back up to meet his curious gaze.
“You’re binding me with velvet ropes,” he murmured quietly. “I’ve never felt like this. I don’t know how to handle it.”
“Neither do I,” she said honestly. She drew a slow breath, aware suddenly of her shameless nudity and the coolness of the air on her skin.
He saw that discomfort and deftly helped her back into her clothes with an economy of movement that was somehow disturbing.
“You make me feel painfully young,” she confessed.
“You are,” he said without hesitation. His pale eyes narrowed. “This is getting dangerous. I can’t keep my hands off you lately. And the last thing on earth I’ll ever do is seduce my business partner’s only daughter.”
“I know that, King,” she said with an odd sort of dignity. He got to his feet and she laid down again, watching him rearrange his own shirt and vest and jacket and tie. It was strangely intimate.
He knew that. His eyes smiled, even if his lips didn’t.
“What are we going to do?” she added.
He stared down at her with an unnerving intensity. “I wish to God I knew.”
He pulled her up beside him. His big hands rested warmly on her shoulders. “Wouldn’t you like to go to Europe?” he asked.
Her eyebrows lifted. “What for?”
“You could go to college. Or have a holiday. Lettie could go with you,” he suggested, naming her godmother. “She’d spoil you rotten and you’d come back with a hefty knowledge of history.”
“I don’t want to go to Europe, and I’m not all that enthralled with history.”
He sighed. “Tiffany, I’m not going to sleep with you.”
Her full, swollen lips pouted up at him. “I haven’t asked you to.” She lowered her eyes. “But I’m not going to sleep with anyone else. I haven’t even thought about anyone else since I was fourteen.”
He felt his mind whirling at the confession. He scowled deeply. He was getting in over his head and he didn’t know how to stop. She was too young; years too young. She didn’t have the maturity, the poise, the sophistication to survive in his world. He could have told her that, but she wouldn’t have listened. She was living in dreams. He couldn’t afford to.
He didn’t answer her. His hands were deep in his pockets and he was watching her worriedly, amazed at his own headlong fall into ruin. No woman in his experience had ever wound him up to such a fever pitch of desire by just parading around in a silk dress. He’d accused her of tempting him, but it wasn’t the whole truth. Ever since the night of her birthday party, he hadn’t been able to get her soft body out of his mind. He wanted her violently. He just didn’t know what to do about it. Marriage was out of the question, even more so was an affair. Whatever else she was, she was still his business partner’s daughter.
“You’re brooding,” she murmured.
He shrugged. “I can’t think of anything better to do,” he said honestly. “I’m going away for a while,” he added abruptly. “Perhaps this will pass if we ignore it.”
So he was still going to fight. She hadn’t expected anything else, but she was vaguely disappointed, just the same.
“I can learn,” she said.
His eyebrow went up.
“I know how to be a hostess,” she continued, as if he’d challenged her. “I already know most of the people in your circle, and in Dad’s. I’m not fifteen.”
His eyes narrowed. “Tiffany, you may know how to be a hostess, but you haven’t any idea in hell how to be a wife,” he said bluntly.
Her heart jumped wildly in her chest. “I could learn how to be one.”
His face hardened. “Not with me. I don’t want to get married. And before you say it,” he added, holding up a hand, “yes, I want you. But desire isn’t e
nough. It isn’t even a beginning. I may be the first man you’ve ever wanted, Tiffany, but you aren’t the first woman I’ve wanted.”
Chapter 4
The mocking smile on his face made Tiffany livid with jealous rage. She scrambled to her feet, her face red and taut.
“That wasn’t necessary!” she flung at him.
“Yes, it was,” he replied calmly. “You want to play house. I don’t.”
Totally at a loss, she knotted her hands at her sides and just stared at him. This sort of thing was totally out of her experience. Her body was all that interested him, and it wasn’t enough. She had nothing else to bargain with. She’d lost.
It was a new feeling. She’d always had everything she wanted. Her father had spoiled her rotten. King had been another impossible item on her list of luxuries, but he was telling her that she couldn’t have him. Her father couldn’t buy him for her. And she couldn’t flirt and tease and get him for herself. Defeat was strangely cold. It sat in the pit of her stomach like a black emptiness. She didn’t know how to handle it.
And he knew. It was in his pale, glittering eyes, in that faint, arrogant smile on his hard mouth.
She wanted to rant and rave, but it wasn’t the sort of behavior that would save the day. She relaxed her hands, and her body, and simply looked at him, full of inadequacies and insecurities that she’d never felt before.
“Perhaps when I’m Carla’s age, I’ll try again,” she said with torn pride and the vestiges of a smile.
He nodded with admiration. “That’s the spirit,” he said gently.
She didn’t want gentleness, or pity. She stuck her hands into her jeans pockets. “You don’t have to leave town to avoid me,” she said. “Lettie’s taking me to New York next week,” she lied, having arranged the trip mentally in the past few minutes. Lettie would do anything her godchild asked, and she had the means to travel wherever she liked. Besides, she loved New York.