by Susan Kyle
“Not even when you were little and hurt?”
“Especially not then,” he replied, then added sarcastically, “Big boys don’t cry, Amanda, didn’t you know? They pick themselves up and grit their teeth, but they don’t show weakness. At least, that’s what I was taught.”
She smoothed her hands over his warm back, savoring the feel of the hard muscles. She smiled. “Sometimes,” she whispered, “it’s all right to let your guard down and ignore all the rules.”
He chuckled. “Is it?” He lifted his head and searched her eyes. The effects of the liquor were still there, but it was only relaxation he felt now. That, and a dangerous lessening of control. “Suppose we both say to hell with the rules?”
“I thought I just suggested that,” she whispered dryly.
Smiling, he found zippers and fastenings and slid the dress away from her breasts. He searched for the catch that held her bra and unsnapped it, smoothing the lacy wisp of it down to her waist so that he could see her. Even that wasn’t enough. He wanted more. He eased the dress down. His big hand went to the lacy curve of the briefs that matched the discarded bra and removed them, too. She gasped with pleasure at the tender, intimate touch.
“No protests?” he asked, smiling.
“When I’ve been trying to seduce you for years?” she whispered back, laughter in her voice, love in her face.
“You’re a miracle,” he breathed. He bent his head, totally intoxicated by her welcoming smile and soft eyes. His mouth touched her breasts, and his big body relaxed on hers. “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered against her soft skin. “I won’t hurt you, and I’m not drunk enough to force you.”
“As if you’d ever have to.” Her body moved slowly and began to go soft under his mouth. He smiled as he felt it, felt the pleasure kindle as he nuzzled her breasts and began to suckle at them.
She shivered. Her legs moved to accommodate his. He shifted so that he was between them, and when he pressed down she felt him in an intimacy they’d never shared.
He lifted his head briefly to make sure that she wasn’t frightened or unwilling. He moved deliberately, letting her experience his full potency. She caught her breath, and her body flinched from the whip of hot pleasure the movement brought. And she laughed, softly, wickedly.
He smiled, too, delighting in her uninhibited response.
His big hands cradled her head as he shifted, nudging her leg so that he could get even closer. He moved again, a sensuous downward thrust of his lean hips that made her body aware of his capability and ache to respond to it.
“Maybe I can’t make you pregnant,” he said in a deep drawl. “But I can you make you moan like the damned with pleasure. Do you want all of me?”
He was offering her heaven. She wanted to throw her arms around him and give in without a protest. But he wasn’t completely sober, and in the morning he might hate her if she gave in to him. She didn’t want to put more on his conscience than he already had on it. It wasn’t really honorable to take advantage of a man’s weakness, she told herself.
“I want you very much, Josh,” she whispered at last. But she stayed his hand when he moved it between her body and his. “But not now.”
“Why not?”
“Because you aren’t sober,” she said softly. “I want my first time to be the most exciting thing that’s ever f happened to me. I want it to last all night and exhaust me. You’re going to be impatient. You might even pass out, right in the middle of it, and where would I be then?” she added impishly.
He looked stunned for an instant, and then he realized what she’d said and began to laugh, softly at first and then uproariously. “Oh, my God!…” He rolled off her, chuckling, then lay beside her on the wide couch with one arm thrown over his head and one knee drawn up. “Leave it to you to knock the desire right out of me.”
She looked in spite of her resolve and discovered that he was no longer blatantly capable.
“Maintaining that takes a lot of concentration,” he murmured dryly, glancing at her with such worldly knowledge that she actually blushed.
“Laugh, damn you,” she muttered. “I’ll get back at you one of these days.”
She felt between them for her bra and started to put it on, but he stayed her hand.
“Not yet.” He moved, holding her gently against the sofa while his dark eyes glittered down at her seminudity with raw possession. “Perfect,” he pronounced finally. “Just perfect. I can’t imagine how I’ve kept my hands off you.”
“Willpower?” she suggested, tingling with pleasure from the contact with his eyes.
“Something like that.” He bent and put his mouth on her soft belly, feeling it contract. “Do you like that? I can move my mouth down a few inches and make you crazy.”
“I’m sure you could,” she said.
He rolled over onto his back again, watching her as she got up and put back on the things that were still in one piece. “Shame about the dress,” he mused. “Buy something that won’t wrinkle so easily.”
She chuckled involuntarily.
He stretched with a languorous sigh. “I suppose I really am too drunk to do you justice, anyway.”
“I knew that.”
“You know me better than anyone on earth,” he agreed. He threw his legs off the sofa and got up. “I need a shower. Maybe that would sober me up.”
He stripped off his shirt and draped it around a chair for Harriet to deal with. The housekeeper spoiled him, Amanda mused. So did everyone else, though. She stared hungrily at his broad, hair-roughened chest. He was so handsome that he made her head spin, and she loved being intimate with him. She ached for it.
Her hand went out involuntarily and pressed into the hard, warm muscle under the incredibly thick body hair. “I love the way you look under your shirt,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to touch you this way, but you never would let me.”
His heartbeat ran away, but he made himself catch her hand, gently, and lift it away. “One day I will. But just now, as we’ve both already agreed, I’m intoxicated,” he reminded her, smiling to soften the rejection. “If you want me, you’ll have to wait until I’m back in my right mind.”
Her pale green eyes sought his. “You won’t go through with it when you’re cold sober,” she said with resigned insight. “You keep pushing me away when you’re yourself.”
“For your own good.” He took her by the shoulders and studied her solemnly. “I want you badly. But an affair is all you can have now, and if I wasn’t half out of my mind on liquor, I’d never have started what I did a few minutes ago. That isn't for you. Marriage without children would be a prison after a while. You’ve always wanted kids, Amanda. Well, I can’t give you any.”
Cold chills ran down her spine. “So you’re going to save me from myself. How noble.”
His fingers contracted angrily. “I’m sterile.”
“You said that.”
“I’m saying it again. And don’t hand me that same old bull about your being nothing more than a career woman, because I won’t believe it. You need… a whole man.”
She could have hit him over the head. Her eyes blazed with anger. “You are a whole man,” she said furiously.
“If you mean that I can have sex, yes,” he said bluntly, smiling with cold determination. “Is that what you want, Amanda, to have sex with me?” He emphasized the word with cruel ferocity. “Lie down and spread your legs, then. I can give you that!”
The crudity made her sick. It wasn’t a physical need she felt with him. He knew that. It was probably why he was taunting her, in his misguided efforts to spare her a life without children. She turned away.
Josh grimaced at his own lack of finesse. All he wanted was to make her see that he was no marriage prospect. Amanda deserved a full life, and he could no longer give it to her. Even with Brad she could have children. Pain hit him in the gut so hard that he almost went to his knees at the thought of Amanda in bed with Brad.
“I need to change m
y clothes,” she said curtly. “As you said, I’m wrinkled.”
“All right. Go ahead.”
She did. But he wasn’t fooling her. She was certain that he loved her. She’d seen it in his eyes, even in his determination to spare her a fruitless marriage. She could forgive him that crude remark he’d made because she understood, too well, why he’d said it. It wasn’t that he didn’t care. It was that he cared too much.
After she changed her clothes, she went into the kitchen and had Harriet make him some soup and strong coffee. She took them in herself.
He’d had a shower and cleaned up. He looked pale and worn, but he was clean and he smelled like spice.
She pushed him gently onto his desk chair and perched herself on its edge. She was wearing blue jeans and a tank top, her hair loose, and she made a pretty picture. He was trying to enjoy it when she stuck a bowl of soup under his nose and proceeded to ladle it into him.
“I don’t like soup,” he muttered, angry and dark-eyed.
“But you’ll eat it, won’t you, my darling?” she asked softly.
A dark flush shadowed his cheekbones. He opened his mouth and accepted the soup. “Daring, aren’t we?” he challenged.
“Yes,” she agreed. She smiled as he finished the soup. It was strange to be needed by someone as self-sufficient as Josh. She enjoyed the feeling it gave her. She dabbed at his strong mouth with a linen napkin, her eyes lingering involuntarily on it.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I was wondering,” she murmured.
“Wondering what?”
“If I could have a kiss.”
He smiled gently. “I suppose I could sacrifice myself, if you need it that badly.”
She smiled back and leaned toward him. It was new and heady to be allowed to kiss him just because she felt like it, to savor the touch of his hard mouth so gentle and warm against her own. But he wouldn’t allow her to deepen the kiss. He kept it chaste and tender, drawing back long before she wanted him to.
“No heavy stuff,” he cautioned when her lips tried to follow his. “I refuse to let myself be seduced.”
“Spoilsport.” She sighed. “How am I ever going to learn anything if you don’t teach me?”
“I’ll decide when,” he told her firmly. He averted his eyes. “While we’re on the subject, I apologize for the crude remark I made earlier.”
She didn’t have to ask which one. It still rankled. “You’d been drinking,” she said, rationalizing.
“And feeling sorry for myself,” he added wryly. “I suppose I’ll have to contend with that for a while. I’d only started to have dreams of dynasty building.” He got up and moved away from her, sticking his hands deep into the pockets of his white slacks as he stared out at the ocean. “All my life, I’ve worked to make money, to build up a legacy for my descendants. What was it all for, Amanda?”
“Brad may father children…”
He whirled, furious. “Not yours!”
She was literally without words. She stared at him and couldn’t even speak.
“If he touches you, I’ll break his neck!”
“I’m sure Brad’s never had those kinds of thoughts about me,” she faltered, and then remembered the way he’d kissed her in the nightclub. She blushed.
Josh’s face was livid. “He’ll do anything to get the money he needs to pay back Marc Donner, even if it means marrying his childhood friend.”
“He wouldn’t,” she began.
“He would,” he said with certainty. “If I thought he had half a chance of seducing you, I’d have him kidnapped and flown to the Antarctic.”
She flushed. “Does being my first man matter so much?”
“No,” he said tersely. “But sleeping with a man would mean too much to you emotionally. To Brad, it would be just one more conquest. A man like that could destroy you.”
Her lips parted on a quick breath. “But I don’t want Brad, don’t you understand?” she said. “I don’t feel anything when he holds me, Josh. I feel nothing at all.
“You won’t listen, will you?” she asked wearily. “Don’t you want to believe me, is that it? You’ve discovered that you’re sterile, so there’s no possible future for us?”
It was too close to the truth for comfort. He pulled a cigar from the holder on his desk and lit it.
“I thought Dina signed you up for that smoking clinic.”
“She did. It was great. I learned how to smoke a cigar while holding a smoking deterrent tablet in my mouth.”
She laughed in spite of herself. “You’re hopeless.”
“I’ll quit. Not yet,” he added. “It’s this or alcohol until I come to grips with myself.”
“You look a little better. Ted was worried about you.” She frowned, glancing toward the closed door. “Where is Ted?”
“Being discreet,” he murmured dryly. “He probably thinks I’m making passionate love to you on the carpet.”
She flushed and laughed at him. “Is that where you usually do it?”
“Sometimes. But I prefer the beach in the moonlight,” he said deliberately, watching her reaction.
Her jaw clenched. “How is Terri? Wasn’t she supposed to come with her husband”—she emphasized the word—“for a visit?”
“Yes. Brad mentioned it, remember?” he asked mockingly.
“You make a lot of noise about his affairs, but you’re as bad as he is,” she muttered. “Women are just a commodity to you.”
“They certainly have been,” he agreed. He stared at the smoking cigar in his hand. “They’ll probably figure that way in the future, now.”
“Just because you’re sterile,” she said angrily.
She wondered what he’d do if she sat down on the floor and started screaming her head off with pure frustrated rage. “Suppose I’m barren?” she tossed back, trying to sound careless about it. “One woman in seven is, I believe.”
“I’d bet money on your ability to have children, Amanda. But it’s no longer any business of mine.” He took a draw from the cigar and turned to her. “I think you’ve heard rumors about a throwaway paper moving into San Rio. Is that right?”
“Yes. Is it true?” she asked.
“I’m trying to find out. How will Johnson cope, do you think?”
“He’ll drown himself in the bathroom sink,” she muttered.
“Well, we’ll see. Got any ideas?”
She had plenty, but she wasn’t telling them to him. Not yet. “I’m just the bookkeeper, remember?”
“The Gazette will belong to you one day—partially, at least. If you don’t go soft and let Brad get his hands on it by marrying him.”
“Didn’t you just tell me that you weren’t ever going to marry me? Why shouldn’t I marry Brad?”
He ground his teeth together. “That’s your decision. But if you do it just to pull his irons out of the fire he got himself into, I'll block you somehow.”
“He’s your brother! Those gamblers play rough. Don’t you care?”
He did. But her attitude infuriated him. “You seem to care enough for both of us,” he said icily.
“Oh, you won’t listen! You won’t hear anything you don’t like!”
He put out his cigar. “I think I’ll have that shower. I may fly over to Nassau in the morning,” he said, cutting off the discussion. “I have to talk to one of the ministers about my new project. Care to come along?”
“I’m a working girl,” she reminded him. “I have to go back to San Antonio.”
“To do what?” he asked. “Pull the newspaper out of Ward Johnson’s hands or seduce my brother?”
Incensed, she picked up a holder of paper clips from the desk and hurled it at him with all her might. He ducked, laughing with surprise.
She leaned over the desk and fumbled at a box of diskettes, heavy enough to do a little damage if they connected. But he was quick. Before she could get up again, he was against her, his hand preventing hers from lifting the box.
�
��Mustn’t throw things,” he chided at her ear.
“You son of a…!”
He had her on her back in the middle of several piles of legal-looking papers, and his mouth was on hers before she could get the last word out.
She struggled, but only for the few seconds it took him to get his hips squarely over hers and press down. She felt the strength and heat of his arousal and began to tremble in helpless response.
His chest drew lazily against her breasts while he kissed her. making the nipples go hard. He laughed as he urged her mouth open and penetrated it deeply with his hard tongue.
His hand held her thick hair at her nape as he kissed her with an intimacy beyond anything she’d ever experienced. His knee edged her legs apart, and he pressed between them with slow, deliberate insistence.
She gasped into his mouth, clinging to his broad shoulders as she tried to get enough breath to stay alive.
His hand was at the zipper of her jeans. He drew it down, and his hand went inside, under her briefs. He touched her as no man ever had, staying her instinctive withdrawal, his mouth hardening into passion as she moaned.
Pleasure caught her, and her nails curled into his shirt as she began to shiver rhythmically. Her mouth trembled under the sudden gentleness of his warm lips. His tongue traced and teased until she was mindless with abandon. And when she thought she couldn’t bear the sweet tension another second, his mouth opened on her lips and his tongue thrust deeply into the sweet darkness of her mouth even as his hand did something incredible to her self-control.
She sobbed against his mouth as she flew into a thousand heated pieces of satisfaction. Her body throbbed, exploded. She couldn’t live through it…
“Josh!” she cried, shivering. Her nails scored his shoulder as the pleasure built.
“It’s good, isn’t it?” he whispered as he kissed her wet face, his hand soothing now, calming her as she shivered in the aftermath. “All silvery explosions and heat. And now you belong to me. All of you, Amanda. You’re my woman.”
His hand intruded gently. He lifted his head and looked into her shocked, dilated eyes. “Lie still,” he whispered. He pushed, and she gasped.
“Josh!…”