Marielle stood in front of the open closet of her bedroom, trying to decide what to wear to the dance tonight. Her hand touched the garments hanging there one by one, occasionally stopping to pull a dress out for closer inspection. This midnight blue velvet? No, she decided. Too formal. The black lace? She shook her head. Too sophisticated. Her eyes fell on a sheath of shimmery amber silk. This one, maybe? She considered it briefly, then decided against it. Too citified.
Trey had told her that although the men didn’t bother with tuxedos or black tie, they did wear their dress western clothes. And the women, he’d said, went all out. Most of the women lived on ranches and didn’t get too many opportunities to wear their party finery. So they looked forward to this dance and others like it as a chance to dress up. Marielle hadn’t packed much in the way of evening wear when she’d moved out here. Now, looking at the few dresses hanging in her closet and dismissing them for one reason or another, she wished she had a wider selection. For some reason, it was important to her that she look her best tonight.
Not, she told herself sternly for the umpteenth time, that it had anything to do with her escort. Of course not. Her heart beat faster, just thinking about him … his lean maleness, his slow, sexy smile, his bedroom eyes—okay, she ruefully acknowledged. It was her escort who sparked the desire to show herself to her best advantage tonight. Female vanity, she told herself. What normal, red-blooded woman wouldn’t want to look her best for a hunk like Trey?
She glanced at the clock on her nightstand and gasped. Six-thirty! Trey would be here to pick her up in fifteen minutes and she hadn’t even made up her mind what to wear. She’d spent longer than usual on her hair and makeup, vacillating between wearing her hair up or down, straight or curled, and so on. Now, she thought, she’d better quit agonizing over what to wear and put something on or she wouldn’t even be ready when he got here.
She hastily rummaged through her closet again. Wait, what was that? A zippered garment bag hung at the back of the small closet. Her brows furrowed and she tried to recall what it held. Then she remembered and pulled it out hurriedly, unzipping the bag even as she went to remove it from the closet rod. She laughed out loud in delight as the dress was revealed.
She’d bought it last year on sale and never worn it, saving it for special occasions. Emerald green, the bodice of stretchy velvet had a high neck, long tight sleeves, and keyhole back. The drop-waist skirt with rows of filmy chiffon flounces over a wide, floating velvet skirt was perfect for dancing, she decided gleefully. Absolutely perfect. Not too formal, not too frou-frou—just right. She said a silent thanks to the impulse that had caused her to dash into a little boutique and buy it when she’d seen it in the window.
She hadn’t taken time to try it on, she remembered now with a flicker of misgiving as she quickly removed the dress from its padded hanger. What if it didn’t fit? It will, she reassured herself confidently. After all, it was stretchy. Stretchy stuff stretched to fit. That was the whole idea.
It didn’t have a zipper so Marielle carefully lowered the dress over her upswept hairdo and proceeded to wiggle into the long tight sleeves and bodice. Something, she realized breathlessly a few minutes later, easier said than done. After several moments of squirming around like a contortionist, she’d only managed to get one arm in a sleeve, and the bodice finally worked down to her waist. Now she stood awkwardly, one arm dangling outside the dress, and began the arduous task of inserting her other arm in the narrow tube of the remaining sleeve.
Whew! At this rate she’d be too tired to dance by the time she got the stupid dress on, she thought, snaking her arm inch by inch into the clingy fabric. At last! Marielle breathed a sigh of relief when her hand finally emerged from the wristband of the tight sleeve. Now all she had to do was pull the waistline down around her hips and … .She froze in horror.
It wouldn’t go any farther! Marielle tugged at the skirt of the dress—yards of chiffon and heavy velvet—to no avail. It wouldn’t budge. She wailed inwardly. The damned thing wouldn’t fit over her hips, and since the skirt wouldn’t stretch like the top, she couldn’t make it fit. Great, just great, she fumed silently. Now what? Nothing to do but take the blasted thing off and wear one of the others, she realized. And quickly, before Trey came to pick her up.
At that moment, as if on cue, she heard a knock at the front door. Oh, Lord! She went to the bedroom door, the skirt bunched around her waist, and opened it a crack.
“Come in,” she called loudly. Another knock at the door more insistent this time. He hadn’t heard her. Well, she’d just have to turn up the volume, she decided. She wouldn’t go to the door like this.
“Come in!” she bellowed. She heard the front door open, then close. Trey’s voice called out, “Marielle? Are you ready?”
“Er, almost,” she told him through the crack in the door. “Just have a seat, Trey. I’ll … uh, I’ll be right out,” she assured him. Closing the door, Marielle whirled toward the closet and began pulling the offending garment up over her head. Her mind was racing, wondering which of the other dresses she should wear. Umph! She grunted softly, tugging at the tight fabric. Getting it on hadn’t been easy. It seemed that getting it off wouldn’t be any easier.
Several moments later, panting with exertion, Marielle writhed and twisted her upper torso in a futile attempt to extricate herself from the dress. She whimpered in frustration and despair. This was like a bad dream. She’d tried to free her arms, first one and then the other, by bending each one at the elbow inside the tight sleeves and inching toward the arm-hole. Now she was pinioned neatly, hands at her shoulders unable to do more than flap her arms and half-empty sleeves uselessly.
She grew claustrophobic and panicky. The ticking of the small bedside clock sounded like Big Ben, reminding her with every passing second that Trey sat in the living room waiting for her. She forced herself to take a deep breath and calm down. She had to quit fighting the dress. It wasn’t working. The more she struggled, the tighter it got. Like one of those Chinese finger traps, she thought, and couldn’t stifle a hysterical giggle. A knock sounded at her bedroom door and she realized, much to her chagrin, that Trey was right outside.
Galvanized into action, she decided to get the small scissors from her sewing kit on the dresser and somehow—considering that her hands were nearly immobilized—snip her way free. With the dress over her head, covering her eyes, she groped her way blindly in the general direction of where she thought the dresser should be, determined to free herself somehow.
Trey had been sitting in Marielle’s living room for fifteen minutes now. He glanced at his watch again. The dance had already started. He didn’t want to be impatient, but what could be taking her so long? She’d been amazingly prompt the other times he’d come to fetch her for a riding or shooting lesson. Well, he told himself with an indulgent smile, women were known to be fussy about their appearance on occasion. She’d be meeting a lot of the townspeople from Wolf Pass for the first time tonight. She probably just wanted to look her best.
Personally, he didn’t see how she could do anything else. Even if she showed up in a dress made of feed sacks, she’d still outshine any other female at the dance. Bandy was right; he acknowledged … Marielle wouldn’t be a wallflower. The men around here would by vying for her attention.
Hell, they’d be standing in line. He frowned, his good mood suddenly dampened by the thought of Marielle surrounded by a bevy of admirers.
Trey didn’t like the pictures that thought conjured in his imagination … Mari on the dance floor, swaying slowly in another man’s arms … Mari looking up at another man with those incredible green eyes … Mari’s wine-red lips parted in a sweet smile for somebody else …
He jumped up suddenly from the couch and prowled restlessly around the small room. His pacing was interrupted by a series of small thumps and other unidentifiable noises coming from the direction of Marielle’s bedroom. He moved quietly toward her door and listened closely, puzzled.
He could hear loud breathing in there, punctuated by soft moans and a strange, slithery sound. He stepped closet to the door, beginning to get concerned.
Trey rapped sharply on the bedroom door. “Mari, are you okay? Is something wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong!” he heard her reply. Her voiced sounded strained and oddly muffled. His brows knit in perplexity. Hmmm, he thought. Curiouser and curiouser.
“Marielle, do you need some help?” he inquired tactfully, remembering that women sometimes experienced technical difficulties with back zippers and other fasteners.
“No!” she shrieked. “No! Don’t come in here! I’ll be out soon, I promise!”
Now he could hear her moving around again on the other side of the door. The floorboards creaked with her steps, which sounded slow and strangely stealthy. Then he heard her sharp cry of pain.
That did it, he decided. Something was not right in there and he was going in whether she liked it or not.
“Marielle,” he shouted, flinging the door wide and bursting into her bedroom, “I’m coming in!”
Trey stopped abruptly in his headlong charge into Marielle’s bedroom, brought up short by the sight that met his astonished eyes. Marielle stumbled backward, away from the bedpost. At least he assumed it was Marielle. He narrowed his eyes, quickly studying the rounded hips, flat stomach, and long, tapering legs underneath the green thing completely covering her top half. Yes, definitely her, he decided. He’d only seen one pair of legs like that in his life. And they belonged to Marielle Stevens.
“Marielle?” he said. “What is that you’re wearing?”
She gave a muffled sob from underneath the fabric that encased her head and upper body. “It’ a dress. And I’m not wearing it,” she told him bitterly. “It’s wearing me. It won’t come off. I … I think it’s grown into me, like some kind of fungus or something.” She wiggled feebly, illustrating her predicament. “See?”
Trey knew that staring at her, under these circumstances especially, didn’t seem the gentlemanly thing to do. But he couldn’t help himself. That little shimmy she’d just done, demonstrating her futile attempts to free herself from the dress, had mesmerized him.
He drank in the sight of her. The parts that he could see, anyway. His groin tightened as he feasted his eyes on her lush beauty. Marielle stood clad in nothing from the waist down except a pair of impossibly sheer, brief panties. Her feminine mound of auburn curls showered clearly thorough the scrap of fabric that barely covered it.
His gaze roved down those incredibly shapely legs that seemed to go on forever … .then back up again to the enticing vee where they joined. He swallowed. It took every ounce of his self-control not to throw her down across that big four-poster bed so temptingly available nearby, tear that wisp of an undergarment away with one sharp yank, and plunge his throbbing manhood into her gorgeous body.
“Trey,” she said plaintively, her voice trembling, “Do you think you could help me out here? I really would like to go to the dance sometime tonight.” She tried to laugh, and he heard the catch in her voice. He shook his head to clear it of lustful thoughts, ashamed of himself for standing there, gawking at her while she needed his help. Trey groaned inwardly, disgusted with himself. What kind of person was he, anyway? Mari was upset, trapped in that dress, and all he could think of was satisfying his desire for her. He stepped toward her and, taking her shoulders through the fabric, turned her gently around so that he could try and free her from her velvet straitjacket.
With her back to him, determined not to let his eyes stay downward and back into forbidden territory, Trey assessed the situation. “What exactly seems to be the problem?” he asked.
“It stuck at my hips,” she said. It won’t go any further and obviously, I can’t—I can’t w-wear it like this.” Trey could tell that Marielle wavered perilously close to tears. He quelled his own impulse to laugh at her plight, perceiving that at this very moment it was no laughing matter to her.
“No,” he agreed seriously, “you certainly can’t.” His hands explored the heavy mass of material bunched around her midriff and found what felt like a metal catch of some kind. “Marielle,” he said, “I think I just solved your problem.” As he spoke, his fingers were busy releasing the hook and eye fastening that held the dress together at the waist. When he did so, the skirt of the dress slithered on down past her hips as designed.
Marielle gave a cry of joy. “Oh my gosh! You mean it was fastened? I didn’t notice the thing. I guess I was in too big a hurry to get dressed.” She laughed. “Now,” she went on, hurriedly pulling open a drawer, “I’ll finish getting dressed and we can leave.”
Suddenly, she stilled. Trey saw the back of her neck flush a faint red. She turned slowly to face him, her eyes wide. “I, I was—uh, I mean I wasn’t—” she stammered. “I apologize for my, er … oh, hell.”
Trey was amused. It had finally dawned on her that she’d been in a state of near nudity when he’d come into the room. He’d wondered when it would hit her. He smiled slowly, sending her a teasing look, and took his time before replying to her garbled remarks.
“Don’t apologize, Mari,” he drawled. “Believe me, the last few minutes aren’t something that I’ll ever regret.” Rocking back on his heels, he crossed his arms and regarded her thoughtfully. “In fact,” he declared judiciously, “I’d go so far as to say that you’ve managed to pack more excitement into the past ten minutes than I’ll find at that dance all night.”
Later that evening, line dancing with Bandy, Marielle remembered Trey’s words and blushed. Her steps faltered as she recalled the slow, sexy smile that had accompanied them. Despite her state of actual embarrassment at the time he’d uttered that suggestive sentence, she’d been enthralled. For one impetuous moment, she’d had the urge to tell him that they should forget the dance—just stay home and make their own entertainment.
She regained her equilibrium as the song the band was playing ended, and people began leaving the dance floor to go back to their tables. She followed Bandy back to where their group sat, gratefully accepting the cold beer he handed her as soon as they sat down.
“Are you having fun, Miss Mari?” the old man asked her eagerly.
“Yes, Bandy, I am,” she assured him happily. The evening hadn’t gotten off to a very auspicious beginning, true enough. But Trey had exerted himself to make her feel at ease about what had happened, calming her shattered nerves and gently teasing her into good spirits by the time they’d reached the dance.
She glanced across the table at Trey, where he was leaned back lazily in his chair, one hand holding a long-necked beer bottle. He intercepted her look and flashed a brilliant smile in reply. She caught her breath, captured by the passion in his dark eyes. Time seemed to stand still, and suddenly they were alone in the crowd, just the two of them in that secret magical place—where they were the only two people in their own private world.
Marielle heard the band strike up again, as though from a distance … a slow, soft melody. When Trey rose and came to her, silently extending his hand, she left her seat and accompanied him to the dance floor. Wordlessly, she melted into him when he took her in his arms and their bodies moved effortlessly in rhythm with the music and each other.
She closed her eyes, dreamily savoring the feel of his firm muscles rippling under her hands, inhaling the clean male scent of him, shivering with pleasure as his warm breath fanned her ear. Neither spoke. Words were unnecessary. Their bodies spoke a language as old as time itself, saying all that needed to be said. He tightened his hold on her, communicating his own pleasure. Marielle drifted around the dance floor in a sensual daze, wishing that the music would never stop.
All too soon, the song ended and they threaded their way through the crowd back to their companions. Marielle noted some speculative looks thrown their way and figured that tongues would be wagging about the nature of the relationship between herself and Trey. Let ‘em talk, she decided. She didn’t care.
&nb
sp; Actually, she realized with a thrill of excitement, looking at Trey as he took his place across from her again—she’d come to the conclusion that she’d thoroughly enjoy giving them something to talk about.
Trey dropped Marielle off at her house with a brief good night and turned his truck toward home. He would have liked to have lingered, walked her to the door, gone inside for a nightcap, stayed till daylight making love to her …
But he couldn’t. He’d contented himself with a smile and a friendly peck on her smooth check. He just plain didn’t trust himself around her. Not tonight, anyway. He heaved a sigh of frustration. No wonder he couldn’t’ trust himself anymore this evening. Hell, he was only human!
The whole night had gotten off to a rousing start when he’d walked in and found her almost naked. He groaned aloud, feeling his groin tighten again in memory of that visual delight to his senses. Later, they’d spent every slow song in each other’s arms, moving in perfect harmony around the floor to the romantic music. Damnation! He swore silently, trying not to dwell on the thought that had entered his mind while they danced. If they moved together in such perfect harmony, their bodies in such perfect rhythm, on the dance floor … then he could imagine all too well how perfect their lovemaking would be.
He wanted Marielle. Wanted her so badly that his whole body burned for her, hot with the desire that coursed through his blood. He’d fought to control it before it consumed him. But he was afraid that he was losing the fight. Would losing really be such a bad thing? After all, he told himself with a grin, remembering Marielle’s curvaceous body and sweet lips, losing this fight would make him a winner. She wanted him, too. He knew that. Could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice, and taste it in her kiss. But she’d called the brief passion they’d shared a mistake … .said that she had neither the time nor the inclination for it.
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