by Diane Saxon
She wasn’t a child. She knew the stakes. She’d known when she took him on what was going to happen, and still, she sat there looking down at the floor as though her world had fallen apart.
His had. His body hadn’t caught up with his brain, and his erection still strained, hot and painful.
He stood up, straightened his clothes. White-hot fury consumed him. His jaw ached as he ground his teeth and tried to muster some dignity while she sat huddled on the floor, the T-shirt pressed against her breasts, her bra abandoned next to her.
*
She peered up and knew she had ruined everything. She could see by the set of his jaw, the light in his stormy, sea-green eyes. The disgust on his face said it all. He wouldn’t come back. He must think she was just a cockteaser, as her brothers called women like her. Lead them on, make them want, and then drop them like a ton of bricks.
That wasn’t the way it had been. She wanted to cry out, tell him, but his cold, hard stare froze her to the spot.
She’d known when they had started the sparring where it would end up. Her stupid romantic image of sensuous, gentle lovemaking had exploded.
She’d been so lost in her own passion she really hadn’t realized how far they had gone.
Feeling his fingers thrust into her, stretch her, hurt her, she’d known she had to stop him before he went any further. Panicked, she’d reacted on impulse, instinctively shying away from such savage intimacy.
If he had plunged himself into her in the same way, he would have ripped her apart. She knew that, she’d heard the guys talking about the first time for women, how much it hurt, how much they bled.
She wanted to make love with him, she knew that, couldn’t deny it. She had wanted him to be her first, but not like this, not without care and respect and tenderness. She hadn’t wanted to tell him, naively hoped he wouldn’t notice. Well it had been a stupid idea. She hitched in a breath and started to explain.
“I’m sorry, I…it’s just that…” She stared at the floor for a minute…how to tell him that at her age she had never done it before. Never had sex. He was going to laugh in her face. She drew in a shaky breath, squinted into his still, cold, angry face and tried again, “I’ve never done this type of thing before.” Her voice whispered out of her restricted throat as she peeked back up at him from beneath her lashes waiting for his reaction as soon as he realized his mistake.
But the fury in his eyes stopped her in her tracks. She could say no more, and she lowered her head onto her knees.
“I’m sorry, Michael.” Her voice faded out on her last word, pride stopped her from continuing.
“Yeah, well there’s a name for women like you, and I’m damn sure it’s the same in America as it is in England.” He rubbed the back of his neck and seemed like he wanted to say more. He drew in a long breath, glared down at her huddled figure, turned on his heel, and walked out.
Bill didn’t cry. As she’d told him the day before she hadn’t cried since she was eight, and she wasn’t going to allow herself the luxury of tears now. But her heart broke…just a little.
She sat staring at nothing, mind empty, until the sweat dried cold on her back and the room darkened to evening. Sighing she got up, pulled her T-shirt back on, and dragged her body upstairs into the shower.
It was poker night with the boys.
Chapter 10
The same feeling of ease and camaraderie exuded from the room as it had since she was a kid, warm and inviting, safe and familiar. Bill took her place at the poker table with a bottle of beer in her hand and misery in her heart.
This was what poker night was about though, pushing worries aside. Crude comments and loud laughter. Beer and cigars. She could sit here all evening and listen to the guys complain about their love lives, lack of loves, girlfriends, mothers, kids, and nothing was ever expected of her. She could speak; she could remain quiet. She was just a part of them, and she took comfort in their unquestioning acceptance of her, these men who were her brothers, cousins, and friends.
She leaned back in her seat and allowed her long legs to stretch out in front of her as she studied her hand of cards, finding it hard to concentrate.
She knew the very moment Michael arrived. Her senses were so attuned to him she felt him, smelled him, tasted him, and she raised her eyes to him over the heads of the boys.
“Bill.” He nodded once.
The guys all grunted at him and kept their eyes on their cards.
She lifted her eyebrows briefly and returned to contemplate her hand once more, staring blankly at the cards in front of her. She hoped it wasn’t her turn.
“Bill, I’d like to speak with you. Now.” Michael persisted.
She glanced up at him again with a steady gaze. His feet were planted apart, and he studied her intently. “Well?” she drawled, knowing she was safe if she stayed where she was. The protection she had been fighting lately surrounded her like a comfort blanket.
“I don’t think here is the place, but if you insist…” He pulled up a chair, turned it around backward, and straddled it. Resting his chin on his hands, he stared at her, quirking his mouth in amusement.
She felt her cheeks heat and gave a furtive glance around at the other faces at the table. There was a pretense of complete disinterest, poker faces studied their cards intently, which meant they were listening to every word, inflection, and tone of the conversation between them.
“I fold. I’m going for some fresh air. Pass me another beer, Ethan.” She swaggered outside as if she hadn’t a care in the world, a bottle of beer dangling from her fingertips. Michael followed, long-limbed and leisurely.
“Well?” She couldn’t keep the ungracious and surly tone out of her voice as she leaned back against the wall of the building.
“I wanted to talk about this afternoon.” Quiet and serious, he met her eyes with his own. She felt a chill tingle up her spine. Keeping her voice low, she gave a furtive glance at the back door.
“Well, I thought we dealt with that earlier, I’m a cockteaser. You were frustrated you hadn’t got your rocks off, so you’re pissed at me.” She swiped her hand defiantly across her nose and sniffed, tried to ignore his steady gaze.
“I apologized to you, but you didn’t want to accept. I’m a teasing bitch. I think that about sums it up. Do you think I haven’t heard that kind of talk before, back there in that room?” She kept the words arrogantly casual, her body loose. “I have no more to say on the matter, so fuck off”
“Good, then you can be quiet while I talk.” He paused a moment as she sucked in her breath. She watched as his eyes dropped to her hip and got the impression he was checking she didn’t have her gun strapped on. A wild thrill shot unwelcome through her system.
“Your language is filthy, Bill. You need to look at that. I hope to God you don’t speak like that in front of my sisters and their kids.”
Affronted, she opened her mouth to blast him with some more of the same, and then stopped. What did it matter what he thought of her? He wouldn’t be there much longer. So what if he didn’t believe she was good enough for his sisters and their kids? She felt the sharp slap of his insult and consoled herself with the fact she knew they liked her. There wasn’t a moment she was with them she felt inadequate or inferior. Aside from that, she never would swear in front of those kids—well, there had been a couple of occasions.
Irritated, she straightened up.
“Is that what you came for? To let me know what you think of my foul mouth? I thought we dealt with that this afternoon, too. You won. I still have a shitty mouth, though.”
He smiled a little crookedly and shook his head, paced down the pavement a short way, and then turned back.
“I needed to apologize for my behavior.”
She paused, her beer bottle halted halfway to her mouth. Her eyes widened, her left eyebrow lifted, she held her silence.
“It took me some time to cool down after our encounter. I had to have a really long cold shower.” He accused
. “When my blood cooled enough to drain back into my brain, I started to think.”
An inkling of fear started to build. She lifted the beer to her mouth, tilted her head, and took a slug without taking her eyes off Michael.
“Now see, here’s the thing. I had a revelation. A theory if you like, and you might just laugh your arse off at this, but…as I was leaving, you said to me, ‘I’m sorry, it’s just I’ve never done this type of thing before.’” How the hell had he remembered her exact wording? His powers of observation and analysis worried her. “And I thought you were apologizing for leading me on. Christ, you got me so hot and turned on…” He paced away again, scrubbed his fingers through his hair as though his head hurt, and then swung back, pointed a finger at her as he stalked toward her. “I thought you were excusing yourself by saying you hadn’t freaked out on another guy before at that point. Apologizing for being a ‘cockteaser’ in your words.”
Stepping closer, his clear green eyes studied her and the fear built. She dragged in a breath and held it.
“Then I got to thinking this afternoon.” His voice softened and heat flooded her face. She knew what was coming, and she couldn’t meet his eyes, couldn’t let him see her weakness.
“Bill, look at me while I’m talking to you.” She gave a guilty start and stared at him.
“See, I knew you were really ready for me,” Pulsating heat fanned across her cheekbones, but still he held her eyes. “You were hot and wet; God you were wet.” She shifted her feet, found she couldn’t look away, couldn’t move, couldn’t run. “But when I put my fingers inside you, you were damned tight.” His eyes fluttered shut, and he looked in pain for a moment before he opened them again. “When I think about how really tight you were…” She needed him to stop. She could see his remembered pleasure and his deep, cultured voice was starting to turn her on again.
Her breath backed up in her lungs, and still she couldn’t look away. “And then you said, ‘It’s just…I’ve never done this type of thing.’” He brought his face closer to hers.
“I may be completely stupid, correct me if I’m wrong, but when I thought about it, it made me realize you were actually telling me…you haven’t had sex before…”
Her breath rushed out in a loud whoosh, a crackling laugh escaped her, but her eyes never left his.
“Is that right?” A crease appeared in the center of his forehead as he stared at her with such intensity he almost burned her to the spot. “Were you telling me you’re still a virgin?”
Gasping, she dropped her beer on the floor. As she ducked to retrieve it, he pulled her up sharply, brought her nose to nose with him.
“Is that right?” he repeated more forcefully, his face coming up against hers.
“’Course not. Don’t be a jerk. I’m not a virgin. Don’t be insulting,” she hissed out as she gave a furtive glance over her shoulder to make sure none of the boys were within earshot.
“Ssshhh…Jesus Christ, Michael, do you want them all to hear us?” she whispered frantically as he opened his mouth to speak.
“You’re lying to me.”
She tried to turn away, but he brought her up short. “You’re a virgin, aren’t you?” He accused her like she had some kind of contagious disease.
She nodded jerkily, and misery weakened her limbs. She was mortified. Her shoulders slumped, and she refused to look at him. She knew he stared at her as his thumbs traced lazy circles on her shoulders.
“How in hell’s name has a woman like you stayed a virgin this long?”
Her head snapped back up fast and sharp, and her temper had teeth.
“A woman like me…?”
“Yeah. You’re a dangerous woman. You know that.” He shook his head dropped his hands from her shoulders and pointed beyond her to the poker room. “Those boys in there have spent far too much time trying to protect you and essentially you’ve been kept a prisoner in your own gilded cage.” He looked at her in disgust. “A virgin at the age of twenty-four. It’s unheard of.” He took her arm and pulled her farther away from the building. “In fact, if most girls reach sixteen these days, their parents are damned fortunate.”
Insulted, Bill wrenched her arm away from his hold. It wasn’t like he needed to humiliate her. How dare he?
“Okay, you’ve made your point, Michael. I get it. You’re shocked. No one else knows. No one in that room knows.” She did a bit of her own pointing. “And I’d appreciate it if we could keep it that way. I never meant for it to happen, but you know you just get to a certain age and you think, well maybe it’s not meant to be and all that blood and pain…”
He stared back at her as though she were crazy.
“Do you realize what would have happened if we had continued the way we were? We were so hot for each other that if I had carried on…“ He blew out a breath “…I would have hurt you, Bill. Is that why you stopped me?”
She nodded, mortified they were discussing something so intimate, right there outside the poker room.
“Did I already hurt you, you know, with my fingers?”
Again, she nodded, embarrassment coursing through her. Oh God, she wanted him to go away. He was crucifying her. She’d never had this kind of conversation with anyone in her life. She didn’t have girlfriends. She’d learned at an early age the only girls who wanted to be her friends were the girls who wanted an introduction to her brothers.
She closed her eyes to stop the prickle of tears she knew shouldn’t be there. She never cried. She wasn’t going to start now. He pulled her against his chest and rocked her. She automatically slipped her arms around his waist. Where was her anger now she needed it?
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I wish I’d known, I would have taken more care…I probably wouldn’t have even come near you.” She felt his hand stroke her hair, his lips kiss the top of her head. “Who am I trying to kid? That’s a lie. I can’t keep away from you.” Sliding his mouth down her cheek, along her jaw, back to her lips, he kissed her long and tender, and then to her surprise, set her away from him. As if unable to resist he leaned forward and gave her one last kiss on the tip of her nose.
Her heart broke as she prepared to watch him go. She smiled at him, and he stared at her for a heartbeat, and then yanked her back against his chest. “I want to make love with you so badly it hurts. In fact, you may just have castrated me this afternoon. Let’s go back to your place. I promise I’ll be gentle this time. We’ll go slowly.” He nuzzled her neck, and she tipped her head back to accommodate. His hand came up under her T-shirt to cup her breast.
“Bill?” His voice was persuasive.
“I can’t,” she croaked. “What will the guys say? They’ll know.”
She hated the thought of the ribbing she would go through. She probably would never be able to show her face there again.
He rubbed his thumb across her bottom lip, and then down to her chin to caress it briefly.
Smiling, he let her go, gave her a gentle push in the direction of the house. “Go back to your game then.”
She heard the good-bye in his voice. Instinct told her she would never have another chance with him, and without thinking, she shot after him as he strode off toward his car.
“Hell no, I’ve got to lose my cherry sometime.” She almost yelled at him. He winced at her language, and she smiled wickedly at him. “It might as well be you.” A surge of confidence hit her as she realized he couldn’t help himself. “It just can’t be now, tiger. How about I see you tomorrow night? Eight at my place. Don’t be late.” She tapped his cheek and winked at him before swaggering back in to the poker game.
Her concentration was shot. She hoped to hell the boys hadn’t heard any of their conversation. Especially that last part. Her voice had been pretty loud out there. The sidelong looks they gave her made her feel strangely uncomfortable, so she picked up her keys, made her excuses, and took herself home to spend a lonely, restless night, thinking about Michael.
Chapter 11
Silent,
she watched from the kitchen doorway until she caught Kate’s attention.
“Hi.” She tucked her hands into her jeans pockets and leaned casually against the door frame.
“Hi.” Kate sat back in her chair and studied her for a moment. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah. Can I speak with you?” Bill stepped forward into the room and pulled up short as she noticed Jack in front of the coffee machine in the corner. She glanced at the coffee as it dripped painfully slowly into a large mug, up at Jack’s face as he stood arms folded across his chest, eyebrow raised.
“It’s private,” she grunted.
“Jack,” Kate said quietly, never taking her eyes off Bill as though pinning her with her gaze would stop her from escaping.
“Huh?”
“Jack.” The volume of her voice increased.
“But…” He flicked a desperate glance at his coffee.
“Jack!”
“…coffee.” He pointed at the half-full mug.
“Leave. Please.”
He stomped off through the kitchen door, throwing a last offended and desperate look at his coffee.
“Why don’t you sit down, Bill?”
She stood in the doorway, considered whether it was best to turn tail and run. It wasn’t the most comfortable conversation she was about to have. In fact she wasn’t sure she should have this conversation at all. Especially in light of the fact it was Kate, Michael’s younger sister. But she was the only person she could talk to, and she did need to talk to someone.
She knew she slumped like a teenage boy about to be given another lecture as she dragged her feet across the kitchen floor, hauled a chair around back to front, and straddled it. She rested her forearms across the back and her chin on her arms. The thought crossed her mind she probably looked like a replica of Jack when he was being sullen and childish. She couldn’t help it though, couldn’t shake off the reluctance she felt. With a heavy sigh she stared at Kate and waited.