Maybe she should think about doing something else, she thought as she pushed through the revolving door that led to the street. Corie would be only too happy to take over the reins. In spite of her flattering comments, Corie was every bit as proficient and talented as she claimed her boss to be. The customers were more than happy with Corie’s ideas. Valeri had checked with them and heard nothing but glowing praise.
Deep in thought, she didn’t notice the tall figure standing directly in front of her until she’d bumped into him. “Oh, excuse me—” Her breath slammed into her throat. It couldn’t be. And yet it was.
“Hi, there, sweetheart,” Nat said, flashing his crooked grin. “You need a ride?”
She could only stare up at him, speechless and suddenly afraid. Why had he come back? Why now, just when she was beginning to pick up the pieces of her life again?
He tilted his head to one side. “You’re looking a little worried. Afraid I’ll wreck the car again, I guess. Well, I can’t say I blame you. I guess I do make a habit of it.”
She couldn’t believe he was standing in front of her—tall, tanned and looking as incorrigible as ever. He wore jeans and a khaki work shirt, and looked thinner than she remembered. She gazed at him hungrily, filling her mind and her soul with the sight of him, in case he should suddenly vanish again, leaving her empty and in pain.
His grin faded a little as she continued to stare at him wordlessly. “You are happy to see me, I hope?” he asked, sounding more uncertain than she’d ever heard him before. “I mean, if you’re not...just say the word, and I’ll walk out of your life and you’ll never see me again. Only, you’ll have to tell me to go, because I’m not budging until I hear you say the words.”
She cleared her throat as the ridiculous happiness bubbled up inside her. What did it matter why he’d come back or how long he would stay? He was here now, and she was damn well going to enjoy him.
He was looking worried now, and there was something lurking in his eyes that made her pulse race. She could be mistaken, but he almost looked afraid. That wasn’t an emotion she normally attributed to Nathan Thorne.
“Valeri...I’m sorry, maybe this isn’t a good time...”
She finally found her voice. “Will you please stop babbling, you itinerant burnand kiss me,” she ordered unsteadily.
His grin came back, and she felt wonderful. “Be my pleasure, ma’am,” he said, “but not here. I’ve got a few things I want to say to you, and I want to do it in private.”
Her heart seemed to leap into her throat. Stamping out the hope before it could take flight, she suggested tentatively, “My apartment?”
“Perfect. Your car or mine?”
“I’ll drive. I want to get there in one piece.”
He shook his head. “Man! And they say an elephant never forgets.”
He accompanied her to the car, his hand possessively on her arm. How she loved his take-charge attitude. He made her feel special...protected. It had been a long time since she’d had anyone protect her. Alex, bless his heart, was not the protective type, much as he worried about her.
Nat took the keys from her and opened the door, waiting until she was settled behind the wheel before closing it. She watched him stride around the car, still unable to believe he was actually here—tangible and so undeniably appealing.
He slid in beside her, invoking all the memories she’d fought so hard to suppress. She wanted to touch him, to hold him, to kiss him until she had no more breath. She felt ridiculously shy, wondering if she looked the same to him, or different.
She wished she’d worn something other than the rather plain blue suit. Something softer and more glamorous. She should have had her hair cut weeks ago.
“Relax, I’m not going to attack you, I promise.”
The words, spoken in his deep voice, unsettled her. “I’m not worrying about that,” she said, a little stiffly. “I was just wondering if I’d left my apartment tidy enough for visitors.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t even notice. After where I’ve been the last few weeks, your apartment is going to look better than a luxury suite in a five-star hotel.”
Determined to steer the conversation into safer channels, she asked brightly, “So what have you been up to lately?”
She began to relax as he launched into a vivid description of Manila, and some of the problems he’d run into. Although he sounded the same, she sensed something different about him, though she couldn’t put her finger on it.
The minute she closed the door of her apartment behind them, she felt the tension creeping over her once more. Nat actually seemed nervous, and she couldn’t imagine what it was that he had to tell her. She slipped off her suit jacket and laid it on the back of the armchair. “Can I get you a drink?”
“Later.” He looked at her, his eyes warm on her face. “Sit down, Valeri. There’s something I have to tell you.”
She sat on the edge of her couch, with the familiar thumping of her heart pounding in her ears. He stood for a moment looking down at her, then he moved over to the fireplace and looked up at the tapestry.
“I know what it is to grow up without a father,” he said softly. “I never knew mine.”
“I’m sorry.” Her whisper barely left her lips. She sensed now that what he had to tell her was painful to him. And likely to be painful for her. He was going to explain why he wasn’t the man for her. She braced herself, hoping it might be easier to accept if she knew why.
Nat drew out a long sigh, then began speaking in a low voice that was sometimes difficult to hear. “My mother never married my father. I don’t know if she ever knew who he was. She was a drunk, and took out her frustrations on my hide. One night when I was three years old, she took off somewhere while I was asleep, and left me all alone to wake up in an empty apartment. I never saw her again.”
Valeri pressed her lips together to stop the sound of distress from escaping.
“The county put me in three different foster homes. My first foster mother screamed abuse at me every chance she got. My second stood by without saying a word while her husband nearly killed me with his belt. The third tried to rape me when I was fourteen. That’s when I got smart and left town. I’ve been on my own ever since.”
As hard as she tried, she could not stop the tears from spilling over. He still stood with his back to her, and she couldn’t see his face. His head was down, though, and she could hear the pain in his voice.
“I never knew what it was to have a woman love me. I could never trust any woman, so I kept all my emotions locked up in a neat little box, where no one could get at them. I figured that as long as I didn’t give a damn, no one would ever hurt me again.”
He paused, and the silence went on for so long that Valeri knew she had to say something. Moving her lips with difficulty, she said quietly, “Nat, it’s all right. I understand.”
He turned to look at her then, and she almost cried out at his ravaged face. “Valeri, when I watched you put your life on the line for your father, I finally understood what real love could be. It took me a while to realize it, but I want to love someone like that. I want to be loved like that.”
She was crying in earnest now. She tried to speak, but he stopped her with a raised hand.
“Let me finish. Any woman who would risk her life for someone she loves is a woman I’d trust with my life. I need you, Valeri. I want you—with or without the sex—and I swear I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to earn the kind of love you’re capable of giving.”
She struggled valiantly to stop the flow of tears. “Nat, you deserve so much more than I can give you. I love you with all my heart, but it just wouldn’t work. I would give everything I have to be able to respond to you physically. But I can’t. I don’t know how. Sooner or later, it wouldn’t be enough. You’d want more than I could give.”
He knelt before her, his face so full of tenderness that she ached with love for him. “Sweetheart, you have to learn to trust me, just as I learn
ed to trust you.”
“I do trust you, Nat. I trusted you with my life when you promised to get me out of Sabhad’s house alive. I couldn’t have gone in there if I hadn’t trusted you to keep that promise.”
He reached for her hands and pressed them against his chest. She could feel the steady beat of his heart, warming her, reassuring her. “Then trust me now, Valeri. Trust me with your body, as you do your mind. Let me show you how beautiful making love can be. You taught me how to love emotionally. Now let me teach you how to love a man physically.”
The panic stirred and the tension gripped her body again. “Nat, I don’t want to disappoint you.”
He smiled. “You won’t. We’ll take it one step at a time, and I promise I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do.”
Still she hesitated, part of her longing to go to him, the other part afraid.
“Trust me,” Nat whispered, and leaned forward to touch her lips lightly with his own.
She returned the pressure, then, as he drew back, she allowed him to pull her to her feet.
“Where’s the bedroom?” he asked, brushing her fingers with his lips.
She shivered. “Just down the hall.”
“Do you have a full-length mirror anywhere?
“Yes, in the hallway.”
“Good.” He took her hand and led her into the hallway. He paused in front of the mirror and made her face it, standing behind her to look over her head. “I want you to watch,” he said softly. “Watch how your body responds to me, and mine to you.”
He reached from behind her and began unbuttoning her shirt. His wrists rested against her breasts, making them tingle as he moved down. She found it hard to breathe, impossible to speak.
She looked at her face in the mirror. Her jaw was set, her mouth pinched, her eyes wide and scared. She made a deliberate effort to relax the muscles in her face.
He pulled her shirt out of her skirt and undid the last button. Very slowly he slipped the shirt off her shoulders and free of her arms. “You look so good,” he murmured in her ear. “You have no idea how many times I’ve imagined you just like this.”
She could see the rapid rise and fall of her breasts, trapped in her bra. Her throat ached with the effort of keeping her breathing even. She met his gaze in the mirror, and he smiled. “You’re doing fine,” he whispered, then lowered his lips to her shoulder, where he trailed a kiss all the way to her neck. His mouth felt warm and moist against her sensitive skin.
Her knees began to sag. Something began to coil tightly low in her belly. She felt his fingers on her back as he unsnapped her bra. Carefully, he slipped the straps from her shoulders, and let the bra drop to the floor.
Her bared breasts felt as if they were swelling, the nipples standing out like hard pebbles. She felt an urge to thrust them forward into his hands as his fingers gently cupped them.
“Look how beautiful you are, Valeri,” he murmured huskily. “See how your body responds to my hands when I do this.” His thumbs brushed her nipples, and she whimpered.
Now she could feel the tension slipping away from her shoulders and her back. A new kind of pressure took over, a deep, pulsing sensation, a sweet ache of longing.
She watched his strong fingers unzip her skirt and ease it over her hips. Her half slip fell to the floor, and she stepped out of the puddle of clothes, closer to the mirror.
He slowly crouched, drawing her pantyhose down her thighs to her ankles, where he lifted each foot out of its shoe and drew the stockings off her feet.
She waited—her lungs aching with the effort of breathing—for him to remove her panties, but he straightened instead, and trailed another kiss along her shoulder.
With his lips still buried in her neck, he unbuttoned his shirt and tugged it off. She watched, mesmerized, as his hands went to his belt and unbuckled it. Her throat constricted as he eased his zipper down, then moved away from her so that he could push his jeans down his long legs.
When he was free of his shoes and socks he straightened again, and looked at her in the mirror. “Just so you know,” he said softly, “I love you, Valeri. I think I have ever since I put you to bed in that motel room. I wanted you then. But that was nothing compared to the way I want you now.”
The last of her reservations vanished when she watched him ease his briefs over his hips. He was beautiful. A proud, arrogant male in full arousal. Now all she could think about was relieving the torment that gripped her body.
He took off her panties while she watched in the mirror. He ran his warm, roughened hands over her entire body until she was trembling with the hot need that would not let her go. He kissed her, starting with her mouth and working his way down until she could no longer stand. Then he caught her up in his strong, tanned arms and carried her to bed.
Never in her life had she felt like this. Flying without wings, floating through clouds, soaring through space. His gentle fingers tormented her, thrilled her, excited her until she felt she could stand no more. Just when she was on the point of begging him to stop, he rolled onto his back and pulled her down on top of him.
“Kiss me,” he muttered, his voice thick with emotion. “Everywhere. All over.”
She did as he asked, his excitement feeding hers as her lips glided over his body, down his belly, along his thighs....The sound of his harsh breathing, the sharp little groans, were a symphony of excitement and passion to her ears. She couldn’t give enough, take enough.
Finally, with a groan, he flipped her on her back again, and once more the magic of his fingers claimed her soul. This was what it was like to love a man, she thought, exultant in her own pleasure. The sensations she’d heard so much about and had never really believed real were finally hers to indulge in.
Her body writhed and arced of its own accord, responding to the insistent fiery touch of the man who knew exactly how to inflame her with an ever-intensifying need.
She cried out, again and again, marveling at the sound, at the urgent response of her body. She wanted him inside her. She craved the release he kept so tantalizingly out of reach.
At long last, he raised himself above her. This was the moment she had waited for, and in that instant a flash of doubt cooled the heat ravaging her body.
His eyes burned with his passion as he looked down at her. “Relax, sweetheart,” he muttered hoarsely. “Trust me. Trust yourself. Let go, don’t fight it. Give in to it, let it take you where you want to go...come to me, baby...I need you so much.”
“I need you, too.” She gripped his shoulders as he eased himself into her, and then her body arced again.
His slow, steady rhythm built the pressure up inside her, higher and higher, until she lost all track of time and space. There was no panic, no feeling of dread or frustration. No guilt, no stigma, no humiliation. There was only him and her and the primitive beat of their bodies as they rocked together, faster and faster, striving for the exquisite pinnacle of release.
They reached it together, in a final, shuddering, turbulent upheaval that shook the bed.
She lay for a long time in his arms, spent and unbelievably content. She could have stayed there forever, half dozing, half dreaming, alone with him in a safe, warm haven of pleasure.
Soon he moved, however, disturbing her peace. He propped himself up on his elbow and looked at her. “I don’t suppose you’d consider feeding a hungry man?”
She smiled. “If you don’t mind taking a chance on my cooking.”
“I’d take a chance on anything you did.”
She stared into his eyes, marveling at what he’d accomplished... what she herself had accomplished. He’d made a whole woman out of her. She would love him forever for that.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
He raised his eyebrows. “For what?”
“For loving me.”
He leaned down and kissed her soundly on the lips. “You’d better get used to it. There’s a lot more where that came from.”
She
was afraid to ask the question, but she had to know how long he would be hers before she had to say goodbye to him again. “How long can you stay?”
He tilted his head in the gesture she found so endearing. “You trying to get rid of me already?”
She shook her head. “Never.”
“Good, because that’s exactly when I’m going to leave. Never.”
She stared at him, afraid to hope, terrified he didn’t mean what she thought he meant. “But your job?”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t a job. It was a way of life. I’m out of it for good. I settled that before I came here. Even if you weren’t prepared to take me on, I knew I was finished in that line of work.”
She had thought she couldn’t be any happier. She’d been wrong. She felt bursting with it. “What will you do now?”
He shrugged. “That kind of depends on you. I was hoping we could do something together. I know you have a pretty successful business going, and I’d understand if you wanted to keep it, but I have to tell you, I don’t know the first thing about public relations, and I’m not sure I’d be any good to you there, so I was wondering if you’d consider doing something else for a change. I’m not pressuring you in any way, of course. I’d understand if you—”
She shut him up with her fingers on his lips. “You’re babbling.”
“You seem to have a habit of making me do that.”
She stretched out her body in sheer delight. “Well, as a matter of fact, I was getting a little tired of PR work. I’d like to do something a little more exciting. What do you suggest?”
His eyes crinkled at the corns as he smiled at her. “Oh, I don’t know. I have some money saved up...we could charter boats in the Caribbean, run a skydiving school, hunt sharks...whatever appeals to you.”
She grinned up at him. “All of the above.”
“Whatever it is, you can be sure we’ll make a go of it. How can we miss with two adventurous souls like us working together?”
Her eagerness caught her up in a whirl of excitement. “We’ll come up with something fitting for a devil.”
He kissed her again. “How would you like to be married to a devil?”
The Mercenary And The Marriage Vow Page 23