by Diana Palmer
She bit her lower lip. “Have you?”
“And apparently you’ve realized why I lost my temper.”
The flush got worse. She looked at the floor.
He laughed bitterly. “That’s right, Barrie, try to pretend it didn’t happen. Run some more.” His hand shot out and caught her arm. “Stop that,” he said curtly. “Your lip’s bleeding.”
She hadn’t even felt the pain. She pulled out a tissue and held it to her lip. It came away red. “It’s a habit,” she faltered.
He let go of her arm and sank back against the pillows. He looked older. There were new lines in his face, around his eyes. He looked as if he’d never smiled once in his life.
She clutched the tissue in her hand. “Dawson?”
His gaze came back to hers, questioning.
“Why is it that you weren’t…cold…with me?” she asked hesitantly. “I mean, all those other women, like Mrs. Holton…and she’s a knockout.”
He searched her eyes. “I don’t know why, Barrie,” he replied. “Maybe it’s because I hurt you so badly. Maybe it’s what hell really is. I want you and you’re physically afraid of me. Ironic, isn’t it? Do you have any idea, any idea at all, how it makes a man feel to know that he’s impotent?”
She shook her head. “Not really.”
“All these long years,” he said, brushing the unruly hair back from his broad forehead. His eyes closed. “It makes me sick when women touch me, fawn over me. I don’t feel anything, Barrie. It seemed to be like that with you. That’s why I pulled you against me that way, I wanted to show you what you’d done to me.” He laughed with bitter irony. “And I got the lesson, didn’t I? It was the most violent, raging arousal I’ve ever had in my life—with the one woman who shudders at my touch.” His eyes closed.
She clenched her teeth as she studied him. She’d loved him all her life, it sometimes seemed. And then in one short night, he’d destroyed her love, her future, her femininity. If his life was hopeless, so was hers.
He glanced at her. “It’s been that bad for you, too, hasn’t it?” he asked suddenly, with narrowed eyes that seemed to see right through her. “All those damn men parading through your life in a constant, steady stream, in threes and fours. And you’ve never let one of them touch you, not even in the most innocent way.”
She shivered. It was too much. It was too much, having him know that about her. He might as well have stripped her soul naked.
She started to jump up, but he caught her wrist with surprising strength for a man in his condition and jerked her firmly right back down into the chair again.
“No,” he said, glaring at her. “No, you don’t. You aren’t running this time. I said, you’ve never let anyone touch you, in any way, even to kiss you, since me. Go ahead. Tell me I’m lying.”
She swallowed. Her face gave him the answer.
His lips parted. He exhaled softly. “Damn me, Barrie,” he said huskily. “Damn me for that.”
He let go of her wrist and lay back on the bed. “For the first time in my life, I don’t know what to do,” he confessed dully.
He sounded defeated. Dawson, of all people. She hated that uncertainty in his deep voice. She hated what they’d done to each other. He was her whole world.
She reached out, very slowly. Her cold fingers just barely touched his bare arm, just at the elbow.
As if he couldn’t believe what his senses were telling him, he turned his head and looked at her pale hand on his arm. His eyes lifted to hers, curious, intent.
She bit her lip again. “I don’t want you to die,” she said unsteadily.
He looked at her fingers, curled hesitantly around his arm. “Barrie…”
Before he could get the words out, the door opened and the pretty nurse was back again, smiling, cheerful, full of optimism and already possessive about her handsome patient.
“Supper,” she announced, putting a tray on the table. “Soup and tea, and I’m going to feed you myself!”
“Like hell you are,” Dawson said curtly.
The nurse started. His eyes weren’t welcoming at all. They had a very cobralike quality, flashing warnings at her. She laughed with a sudden loss of confidence and pushed the high, wheeled tray over to the bed. “Well, of course, if you feel like feeding yourself, you can.” She cleared her throat. “I’ll be back to pick it up in a few minutes. Try to eat it all, now.”
She smiled again, but with less enthusiasm, and went out the door much more quickly than she’d come in.
Dawson took a pained breath. His head turned toward Barrie. “Help me,” he said quietly.
It was intimate, helping him eat. She watched every mouthful disappear past those thin, firm lips, and without wanting to, she remembered the feel of them on her mouth in passion. She’d been innocent and very frightened. He hadn’t realized that. His kisses had been adult, passionate, giving no quarter. She knew that he’d never even suspected that she was a total innocent until…
Her flush was revealing. Dawson swallowed the last of the soup and caught her gaze.
“I have my own nightmares,” he said unexpectedly. “If I could take it back, I would. Believe that, at least.”
She moved restlessly as she put the soup bowl back on the table and helped him sip some of the hot tea. He made a terrible face.
“It’s good for you,” she said stubbornly.
“It may be good as a hand warmer in a cup on a cold day,” he muttered. “If it’s good for anything else, I wouldn’t know.” He lay back down. “If they want to shovel caffeine in me, why can’t I have coffee?”
“Ask someone who knows.”
He chuckled without humor. His eyes searched hers. “Going to stay with me tonight?”
“It seems to be expected.”
His face hardened. “Don’t let me put you out. I’m perfectly capable…”
She winced.
He closed his eyes. Beside his thigh, his fist clenched until the knuckles went white.
She pulled her chair closer. Her fingers spread tremulously over his big fist and lingered there. “Dawson, don’t,” she whispered. “Of course I’ll stay. I want to.”
He didn’t say a word. And still, his hand clenched.
Her fingers pressed down, became caressing.
She knew when his head turned, when his eyes opened. She knew that he was watching her. With a long, helpless sigh, she lifted his hand and put it to her lips. And he shuddered.
She dropped it abruptly, horrified at her own action, and started to get up, red-faced.
But he had her hand now, turned in his, firmly held. He drew it until he could press the palm to his hard mouth. His eyes closed and he made a sound deep in his throat. When he looked at her again, what she saw in his face made her go hot all over.
“Come here,” he said huskily.
Her knees became weak. She felt the imprint of his mouth on her palm as if it were a brand. She never knew whether or not she would have obeyed that heated command, though, because the door opened and the doctor, making rounds, came in smiling. Dawson let go of her hand and the moment was lost.
But not forgotten. Not at all, not through the long night when he slept, because of the pills they gave him, and she lay in the chair and watched him sleep. They seemed to have reached some sort of turning point. Her life lay in that hospital bed now. She had no desire whatsoever to leave him. And it seemed to be the same for him.
* * *
When he woke the next morning, a new young nurse came in with soap and a towel and a basin of water. Her eyes were bright and flirting, but when she offered to bathe him, he gave her a look that made her excuse herself and leave.
“You’re intimidating the nurses,” Barrie remarked with a faint smile. She was tired and half-asleep, but the look he’d given the nurse amused her.
“I don’t want them touching me.”
“You’re not up to bathing yourself,” she protested.
His eyes searched hers without amusement,
without taunting. “Then you do it,” he said quietly. “Because yours are the only hands I want on my body.”
She stared at him helplessly. He wasn’t chiding her now. His eyes were warm and quiet and soft on her face.
She got up, a little hesitant. “I’ve never bathed anyone except myself,” she said.
He untied the hospital gown at the neck and, holding her eyes, sloughed it off, leaving the sheet over his lean hips.
She colored a little. She’d never seen him undressed, despite their intimacy.
“It’s all right,” he said, soothing her. “I’ll leave the cover where it is. I can do the rest myself, when you finish.”
She didn’t stop to ask why he couldn’t do it all. Her hands went to the cloth. She wet it, and put soap on it. Then, with gentle motions, she drew it over his face and throat and back, rinsing it and him before she put more soap on the cloth again and hesitated at his arms and chest.
“I’m not in a place, or in a position, to cause you any worry,” he said gently.
She managed a smile. She drew the cloth down his arms, to his lean, strong hands, and back up to his collarbone. She rinsed it again before she began to smooth it, slowly over the thick hair on his chest. Even through the cloth, she could feel the warm muscles, the thickness of the hair. She remembered just for an instant the feel and smell and taste of his chest under her lips, when she’d been all but fainting with desire for him.
He felt her hesitate. His hand pressed down on hers. “It’s only flesh and bone,” he said quietly. “Nothing to be afraid of.”
She nodded. Her hand smoothed down to his navel, his flat stomach. He groaned suddenly and caught her fingers, staying them.
His breath came erratically. He laughed abruptly. “I think…you’d better stop there.”
Her hand stilled. Involuntarily her eyes slipped past it, and she stared.
“One of the pitfalls of bathing a man,” he said, swallowing hard. “Although I won’t pretend not to enjoy it. For years, that hasn’t happened at all.”
Her eyes were curious as they met his.
“You don’t understand,” he mused.
She smiled faintly. “Not really.”
“That doesn’t happen with other women,” he explained slowly. “Not at all.”
“And if it doesn’t, you can’t—” She stopped.
He nodded. “Exactly.”
Evading his intent gaze, she lifted the cloth and rinsed it and then soaped it again. She handed it to him. “Here. You’d better…”
His hand touched hers. He searched her eyes. “Please,” he whispered.
She bit her lip. “I can’t!”
“Why?” He didn’t even blink. “Is it repulsive, to touch me like that, to look at me?”
Her face was a flaming red. “I’ve never…looked!”
“Don’t you want to?” he asked gently. “Honestly?”
She didn’t speak. She didn’t move, either. His hand went to the sheet and he pulled it away slowly, folding it back on his powerful thighs.
“We made love once,” he said quietly. “You were part of me. I’m not embarrassed to let you look. And I’ll tell you for a fact, I’d never let another woman see me helpless like this.” He took a long, slow breath and felt the tension drain out of him. He was weak and disoriented, and his body relaxed completely. It worried him a little that he couldn’t maintain the tension, but when he was well again, perhaps he could find out if he really was capable completely. Unaware of his misgivings, Barrie bit down hard on her lip, and let her eyes slide down. She looked and then couldn’t look away. He was…beautifully made. He was like one of the nude statues she’d seen in art books. But he was real.
She tried to use the cloth, but it was just too much too soon. With a smile and a grimace she finally gave in to her shyness and turned away while he finished the chore.
“Don’t feel bad,” he said gently when he was covered again, and the bath things were put aside. “It’s a big step for both of us, I guess. These things take time.”
She nodded.
He tugged her down into the chair beside the bed. “Do you realize that we made love and never saw each other undressed?”
“You shouldn’t talk about it,” she faltered.
“You were innocent and I was a fool,” he said. “I rushed at you like a bull in heat, and I never even realized how innocent you were until I hurt you. And I couldn’t accept that you were, Barrie,” he confessed heavily. “Because if I admitted that, I had to accept what I’d done to you, how I’d scarred you. Maybe my body was more honest than I was. It didn’t want another woman after you. It still doesn’t. The reaction you get, I can’t give to anyone else.”
She met his eyes. “I don’t…want anyone else, either,” she said softly.
“Do you want me?” he asked bluntly. “Are you able to want me?”
She smiled sadly. “I don’t know, Dawson.”
He took her hand and held it tight. “Maybe that’s something that we’re both going to have to find out, when I leave here,” he said, and it sounded as if he dreaded the outcome as much as she did.
Seven
THEY let Dawson go home three days after he was admitted. The doctor insisted that he be cautious about returning to work, and that if he had any recurring symptoms from the head injury, he was to get in touch. Barrie wasn’t happy about them discharging him, but she did have every sympathy with the nursing staff. Dawson in a recovered state was better off without time on his hands. He made everyone uncomfortable.
He’d progressed from the bed to the desk in his study and he’d taken Barrie in there with him to discuss the tract of land Leslie Holton had agreed to sell him.
She stared at the contract on the desk, which had arrived by special courier that morning. “She wasn’t that eager to sell at first. How did you change her mind?” she asked with barely contained irritation.
He leaned back in his chair, his forehead still purplish from its impact with the steering wheel, marred by the thin line of stitches that puckered the tanned flesh.
“How do you think I convinced her?” he taunted.
She didn’t say a word. But her face spoke silently.
He smiled cynically. “And that’s a false conclusion if I ever saw one,” he mused. “I can’t do that with anyone except you, Barrie.”
She flushed a little. “You don’t know that.”
“Don’t I?” His pale eyes slid down her body which was in a loose knit shirt and jeans, and lingered on the thrust of her high breasts. “Then let’s say that I’m not interested in finding out if I can want anyone else.”
“You’d been drinking,” she reminded him.
“So I had.” He stood up. “And you think it was the whiskey?”
She shrugged. “It might have been.”
He moved away from the desk, glanced at her thoughtfully for a moment, and then on an impulse, went to close and lock the office door. “Let’s see,” he murmured deeply, and moved toward her.
She jumped behind a wing chair and gripped it for dear life. Her eyes were wide, wild. “No!”
He paused, searching her white face. “Calm down. I’m not going to force you.”
She didn’t let go of the chair. Her eyes were steady on him, like a hunted animal’s.
He put his hands into his pockets and watched her quietly. “This isn’t going to get us anywhere,” he remarked.
She cleared her throat. “Good.”
“Barrie, it’s been five years,” he said irritably. After the closeness they’d shared while he was in the hospital, now they seemed to be back on the old footing again. “I’ve been half a man for so long that it’s a revelation to have discovered that I’m still capable of functioning with a woman. I only want to know that it wasn’t a fluke, a minute out of time. I want to…make sure.”
Her big eyes searched his. “I’m afraid of you like that.”
“You weren’t just after you had the nightmare,” he reminde
d her. “You weren’t the next morning. In fact, you weren’t in the hospital when I let you bathe me.”
Her hands released the back of the chair. Her short nails had left fine marks in the soft leather. She stared at them. “You weren’t…aroused when you pulled back the sheet,” she faltered.
“That’s what bothers me most, that it didn’t last until you tried to bathe me,” he said heavily. “Maybe it was just a flash in the pan, the whole thing,” he said with black humor. “But either way, I want to know. I have to know.”
There was something in the way he looked that made Barrie feel guilty. Her own fear seemed a poor thing in comparison with the doubt in his hard face. It was devastating for a man to lose his virility. Could she really blame him for wanting to test it, to know for sure if he’d regained what he’d lost?
Slowly, hesitantly, she stepped away from the chair and let her hands fall to her sides. After all, she’d seen him totally nude, she’d felt his body against hers when it was aroused, and she hadn’t succumbed to hysteria. Besides, she loved him. He was here with her, alive and vital. Her mind wouldn’t let go of the picture it held—Dawson in the overturned car, his face covered with blood. She looked at him with her heart in her eyes.
His eyes traced her face in its frame of long, wavy dark hair to her soft, parted lips. His hands were still in his pockets, and he didn’t move, despite the fact that her expression made him feel violent. She looked as if she cared.
“Are you just going to stand there?” she asked after a minute.
He searched her eyes. “Yes.”
She didn’t understand for a moment, and then he smiled faintly, and she realized what he wanted. “Oh,” she said. “You want me to…kiss you.”
He nodded. He still didn’t move.
His lack of action made her less insecure. She moved toward him, went close, so that she could feel the heat from his tall, powerful body, so that she could smell the clean scents of soap and cologne that always clung to him. He’d shaved. There was no rasp of beard where she reached up and hesitantly touched his cheek. Involuntarily her fingers slid down to his long, firm lower lip and traced it.
His breath drew in sharply. She felt him tense, but his hands stayed in his pockets.