by Diana Palmer
“I enjoyed it, though,” she said, laughing.
“So did I.” He grinned. “Well, goodnight, fair lady, my dragon awaits without.”
“Don’t ride him too hard, now,” she cautioned. “You know how nasty dragons can get when they’re overworked!”
“I’ll remember!” he called as the elevator door shut.
With a sigh, she fit her key into the lock and walked in. There was a light on in the living room, and she hadn’t remembered leaving it on. The carpet muffled her footsteps as she moved cautiously forward. The lock was strong, surely no thief had been able to…
She came silently to the doorway and froze there. Clint was sitting in an armchair facing the hall, his eyes quiet and dark in the distance, his face solemn.
“Wha…how…how did you get in here?” she asked hoarsely.
“Never mind how,” he said in a voice tight with anger. “Who the hell were you with, and where have you been half the night?”
She threw her evening bag down on the coffee table and glared at him, the color of her emerald green dress making her eyes even more vivid.
“None of your business, Clint,” she replied with a calm she was far from feeling. “I don’t owe you any answers.”
He lit a cigarette, his eyes never leaving hers. “I asked you a question. I can get an answer in any number of ways. One,” he remarked quietly, “would be to lay you out on that sofa.”
She flushed at the insinuation. “I thought you were tired of giving me lessons,” she said tightly.
He started to get up.
“All right!” she said quickly. “I…I was out with one of the lawyers in the firm I work for. Just…just a friendly date, Clint. He’s very much like Brent.”
He sank back against the cushion, with a heavy sigh. “Maggie, is that the kind of man who really appeals to you?” he asked wearily.
She studied her evening shoes. “What kind of man are you talking about?”
“Clowns. Boys.”
“They don’t make demands,” she said on a sigh.
“No,” he agreed. “They don’t. Why are you afraid of a man who would? Do you feel that inadequate, little girl?”
“Yes,” she said, in what was little more than a whisper.
“Why?”
She shook her head and perched on the arm of the sofa, her eyes avoiding his.
She heard him get up, heard the muffled thud of his footsteps as he came to her. His lean hands caught her shoulders and forced her to look up at him.
“Because of what that excuse for a fiancé said to you?” he asked quietly. “Or because of what I did to you?”
“A little of…both,” she murmured, hating the weakness he could cause with only an impersonal touch like this.
He let her go and moved away, smoking his cigarette quietly, standing in front of the window to watch with blank eyes the colorful glow of the city stretching to the horizon.
“Please,” she murmured, “why are you here? Is everyone all right at home…?”
“Everyone,” he agreed wearily. “Except me.”
She studied his straight back. “What’s wrong?” she asked gently.
“I love you, Maggie.”
She felt the words. Actually felt them, like a blinding surge of electric current that made her tremble.
He turned, and she saw the truth in his eyes, in the deep lines of his face.
“Have I shocked you?” he asked harshly. “God knows, I’ve shocked myself. I didn’t think I could feel that for a woman. I didn’t think I was capable of it.” He took a long draw from his cigarette, and his eyes gazed at every inch of her from head to toe. “Do you want to know what it felt like when you left? Do you want to know how many nights I’ve spent sitting in the chair by my bed staring out into the darkness, missing you? My God, I have hurt until it feels like I’ve been cut in two.”
Her lips parted tremulously, but she couldn’t speak. It was too new, too incredible. Was she asleep and dreaming it all?
He put out the cigarette and came toward her like a cat, all muscle and grace and vibrant masculinity. He reached down and swung her up into his arms.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” he asked quietly. “Let me prove it to you, Margaretta Leigh. Let me show you what I feel.”
His arms brought her sensuously close and his mouth burned down into hers, opening it, tasting it, devouring it with a hunger that was fierce and blistering.
He dropped down onto the couch, holding her across his lap, touching every soft line of her face with his lips, tenderly smoothing away the tears that his gentleness brought from her closed eyes.
“Clint…!” she whispered brokenly, clinging to him.
“What do you feel, when I kiss you?” he asked against her soft mouth, his breath coming quick and heavy.
“As if I’m…being burned…alive,” she wept, and her fingers went trembling to his cheek, the silvery hair at his temples. “I love you so much,” she breathed. “I love you so…!”
“Show me,” he challenged, bending his head. “Sweet little enemy, show me how much!”
She brought her mouth down onto his and kissed him slowly, hungrily, her nails digging into his back, her lips parting sensuously under his.
He drew back a breath, his eyes almost black with what he was feeling, his heavy heartbeat shaking her. He studied her flushed face, her misty, yielding eyes, and with a tender deliberation, his lean hand slid up her body over the soft, young curves until he felt her tremble.
“Do you like this?” he whispered gently.
She nodded, choked with the force of her own emotions so that even a word was impossible.
“So do I, little innocent,” he said tenderly. He bent and kissed her gently, and his lips curved in a smile against the soft moan that broke from her throat as his hand moved again.
Her head fell back into the crook of his arm and she looked up at him with eyes that held all of heaven.
“I’ve fought this until I thought it was going to kill me,” he said, and she could see the seriousness in his eyes. “Honey, I want more from you than a night in my bed. I want children with you. I want to be there when you hurt so I can hold you until the tears go away. I want to stand between you and the world and keep you safe. God, Maggie, I can’t bear to live without you!” he whispered torturously. “Marry me, Irish. Live with me. Love me.”
Tears were flowing down her cheeks. “Yes,” she whispered, and found herself drowning in his ardor almost before she could get the word out.
Minutes later, he tore himself away from her and stood up, smoothing his ruffled hair, fastening the buttons of his shirt.
“We’d better settle for a civil ceremony,” he said huskily, “and soon.”
She nodded, straightening her clothes and her hair while her heart threatened to storm through her chest.
“When did you know?” she asked, moving into the kitchen and starting a pot of coffee.
He stood in the doorway watching her with a smoking cigarette in his hand, looking so attractive, it took all her willpower not to throw herself at him.
“The summer you were seventeen,” he said gently, smiling.
She gaped at him.
“I wanted you,” he said. “I couldn’t get you away from the ranch fast enough, I wanted you so. From that day on, it was a losing battle. I used every excuse I could think of to keep you away from the ranch, to avoid you when you were there. My God, I’d never felt like that about a woman, any woman. And you were little more than a child.” He shook his head with a wistful sigh. “I thought it would eventually go away. Right up to the day you called and told Emma you were engaged.” He laughed shortly. “I went into a black sulk for days. I got drunk out of my mind. Two of my men threatened to quit because I rode them so hard. And nobody knew why, except me. But even then I wouldn’t admit it.”
“And then I came for the summer,” she said.
“And I went over the edge.” He reached out and touched
her cheek. “Oh, baby, you’ll never know how I fought to keep my hands off you. Until that day by the stream, when I finally let myself go…and every second of it was like a dark, heady wine. If you’d touched me the way I wanted you to…” He broke off with a deep, short breath. “I tried to stay away from you, and it got harder all the time. That last night…it was either make you hate me or carry you upstairs. I hated what I did, even while I was doing it. But at that time, I still didn’t think I wanted marriage.” His eyes closed. “I found out how much I wanted it when they called me from Miami. I damned near crashed the plane getting to you, and I swore if you made it I wouldn’t waste a day getting you to the altar. Then you started recovering and when you remembered what I’d done, you hated me. I couldn’t seem to get close to you again until we had that midnight snack in the kitchen. That was another close call. And then I began to have doubts all over again. I knew you wanted me. But I wasn’t sure you loved me. You’d been infatuated with me for so long, I couldn’t be sure…in a way, I was testing you that night. If I’d been able to make you say yes with no offer of marriage…I thought it would prove that you really did love me. But you said no. And I got my back up and left without saying goodbye. Then you left, and I was too damned proud to go after you.”
She met his eyes and smiled. “Why did you come tonight?”
His finger traced her mouth. “Because Janna told me you loved me,” he said softly, “and put me out of my misery.”
She moved into his arms and pressed close. Her eyes closed as he drew her up against him.
“Are…are you sure you want to marry me?” she asked.
He chuckled deeply. “I don’t see any alternatives. We can’t very well have a family any other way.”
“I hope they’re all boys, and they look just like you.”
“I want one little girl with dark hair and green eyes.”
Her lips brushed his chin. “I’ll see what I can do.”
He kissed her gently. “Let’s call Janna,” he said with a grin. “And mother. And especially,” he added with a glint in his eyes, “Brent.”
“You were jealous!” she gasped.
“Hell, yes! And angry. He kept getting in my way. That night in the pool…Oh, that night,” he whispered against her mouth, “Maggie, I could feel your hands on me for days, do you know that? That was when I began to suspect what I really felt.”
She toyed with a button on his shirt. “Does that mean,” she asked, “that I can’t tie ribbons on the cows’ tails anymore?”
He glared down at her. “Maggie…” he began warningly.
She reached up and linked her arms around his neck. “Let’s call Janna,” she murmured contentedly, “and tell her we’ve decided to become very friendly enemies.”
He smiled down into her eyes. “Sweet enemy,” he whispered, “show me how friendly you want to be.”
And she did.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4370-9
SWEET ENEMY
First published in North America as a MacFadden Romance by Kim Publishing Corporation.
Copyright © 1979 by Diana Palmer.
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