Cattleman's Choice

by Diana Palmer

  She swallowed down a rush of shyness and turned back to face him. He was preoccupied, as if he was thinking deep thoughts. He came close again, his gaze intent.

  “Suppose you show me how to dance,” he said at last. “Then next week comes culture. I’ve bought tickets for a ballet in Phoenix. I thought you might come along and explain it all to me.”

  She laughed. “You, at a ballet?”

  He glared at her. “Stop that!”

  “Yes, Carson,” she said demurely.

  “Turn on that damned stereo, will you?”

  A moment later the music flowed sweetly into the silence. Mandelyn went easily into his arms and showed him how to hold her, not too tightly, not too loosely. Then she taught him what to do with his feet. He was a little clumsy at first, but an apt enough student.

  “Why do I have to hold you so far away?” he asked. “I’ve seen couples practically making love on the dance floor.”

  “Not in polite company,” she said huskily, staring at her feet.

  “Yes, in polite company,” he murmured. His hands brought her gently closer, until she was standing right up against him, so close that she could feel his heartbeat against her breasts. “Like this. Here.” He brought one of her hands up to his neck and slid his arm further around her, resting his chin on her head. “Mmm,” he murmured, “much better.”

  That depended on one’s point of view, she thought nervously. She felt stiff, because her body was reacting to his like wildfire.

  “Don’t panic,” he said softly. “We’ll just dance.”

  But she was all too close to him, and something had happened to his body that she’d never experienced before. She tried to edge a little away from him, but he held her fast.

  “Carson,” she protested weakly.

  “Mandelyn, I know you’re a virgin,” he said quietly. “I’m not going to make a wild grab for you.”

  “Yes, I know, but…but…”

  “But you can feel me wanting you and you’re frightened, isn’t that it?” He lifted his head and searched her eyes. “I’m not embarrassed. Why should you be? It’s a man’s very natural reaction to a lovely woman.”

  She’d never heard it put like that. She studied his hard face.

  “I’ve spent my life working with animals,” he said, his voice quiet, deep. “I don’t find anything distasteful about reproduction, about sex. You shouldn’t either. It’s God’s way of perpetuating the species, and it’s beautiful.”

  She flushed, but she didn’t look away. “You make it sound that way,” she said softly.

  His eyes searched hers intimately. “I don’t like the idea of one-night stands and affairs, or people living together without marriage. I’m old-fashioned enough to want a woman with principles when I marry, and not a woman who’ll proposition me just because she feels liberated.”

  Her eyebrows arched. “Has that ever happened to you?” she asked.

  He laughed softly. “As a matter of fact, yes, at a cattle convention, of all places. She was a little rodeo rider and as pretty as a picture. She came up to me, touched me in a way I won’t even tell you about and invited me to spend the night with her.”

  She hesitated. “Did you?” she asked in a tiny voice, all eyes.

  He studied her mouth for a long moment. “Shame on you. A well brought up young woman like you, asking a man that kind of question….”

  “Did you sleep with her?” she persisted.

  “No, as a matter of fact, I didn’t,” he chuckled. “I like to do the chasing.”

  “Yes, I imagine you would,” she replied, but she felt relieved all the same.

  His hand slid down her back to the bottom of her spine and pushed her just a little closer, and she caught her breath and froze.

  “Too intimate?” he murmured. “Okay, I get the message. The kind of girls I’m used to don’t mind being held like that. But I guess I’ve got a lot to learn about civilized behavior.”

  She nuzzled her face against his chest with a sigh. “I’ve got a lot to learn about the reverse,” she said with a smile. “No one’s ever held me this way.”

  His hands contracted on her waist, and she gasped. “Hey, not so tight,” she laughed. “That hurts!”

  “Why don’t you go out with anyone?”

  That was a good question, but it wasn’t the time for confessions. “I like my own company,” she said after a minute.

  “You’ll need a man one day.”

  “No,” she protested. “I don’t want anyone.”

  His hand caught suddenly in the thick length of her hair and tugged sharply. She gasped at the twinge of pain and stared at him as if he were a stranger.

  “You can’t live alone forever,” he said harshly, his eyes glittering down into hers. “You need more than your work.”

  “What do I need, since you’re such an expert on the subject?” she challenged hotly.

  He pulled her hair, more gently now, forcing her head down onto his shoulder while the music played on, forgotten. “You need to be dragged into a man’s bed and loved all night long. That’s what you need.”

  “Not with you,” she protested, pushing against his hard chest. “You’ve got a woman already!”

  He wouldn’t let go. “I have?”

  “Of course,” she grumbled, pushing harder. “The one we’re remodeling you for, remember? The one who’s too stuck up to like you the way…you are…will you let go of me, damn it!” She stood still, hating the slow, sweet stirrings of her own body as he held her and she felt his heartbeat merging with her own.

  His chest rose and fell with gathering speed, and the hand holding her long hair released it and began a caressing motion.

  It dawned on her that the music was still playing, a sultry tune that only made more dangerous an already flammable situation.

  “Dance, don’t fight,” he whispered deeply. “Don’t fight me.”

  Her legs were trembling as he drew her into a rhythm that was more like making love to music than dancing. His hard thighs brushed her own and never in her life had she felt weaker or more vulnerable.

  “I’m afraid.” She didn’t know that she’d said it out loud, or that Carson’s pale blue eyes glittered like diamonds when he heard her.

  “Yes, I know,” he breathed into her hair. His fingers slid between hers caressingly. “I won’t hurt you.”

  Her nails pressed unconsciously against his chest and he stiffened. She frowned, drawing back so that she could see his face. What she found there disturbed her.

  His nostrils flared, his jaw clenched. “No, you aren’t the only one who’s vulnerable,” he said curtly.

  Her fascinated eyes searched his. Her rebellious hands liked his visible reaction to them. They opened the top button of his shirt, and his breath caught, but he didn’t make a move to stop her.

  Her lower lip trembled. “I…Carson?” she whispered questioningly.

  “Go ahead,” he breathed. “Do it.”

  “But…”

  His open mouth touched her forehead. “Do it.”

  He was trembling already. By the time she fumbled open the shirt and eased the edges aside, his quickened breathing was visible as well. Fascinated, she put her hands flat on the hair-roughened flesh and began to caress him with slow, tentative movements. He seemed to like what she was doing, if the intent hardness of his expression was any indication.

  She slid her hands around to his muscular back and laid her hot cheek against his bare skin and closed her eyes. He smelled clean and sexy, and she drew her cheek, then her lips, against his body with dreamy motions.

  His fingers tangled in her hair and turned her face, so that her mouth was against him.

  “Kiss me,” he whispered. “No, honey, not like that. Open your mouth and do it. Yes,” he groaned unsteadily, and his hands grew rough. “Yes.”

  She drew her mouth over every hard inch of his chest, up to his shoulders, his throat, his chin. But even on tiptoe, she couldn’t reach his mouth.


  “Carson,” she moaned protestingly, tugging at his thick hair.

  “Do you want my mouth?” he whispered.

  “Oh, yes,” she whispered back. She moved her body against his slowly. “Oh, yes, I want it very, very much!”

  He bent and touched her lips with his, savoring them for a few taut seconds until her mouth opened. His arms drew her close, his hand held the back of her head still, and the kiss became explosive and hot. He groaned as he felt her quick, fervent response to it. His hands moved down to her hips and pushed them against his, and this time she didn’t protest.

  Her hands worshipped him, running hungrily up his spine, to his shoulder blades, around to his hard ribs and, daringly, to the muscular stomach above his belt.

  He shuddered and lifted his head. She stared up at him with dazed, misty eyes and a swollen mouth.

  “Shouldn’t I touch you like that?” she whispered.

  “I like letting you touch me like that,” he replied huskily. “Unfasten it.”

  She flushed. “No, I couldn’t!”

  He held her hands against him, tenderly. “It’s my body, isn’t it?” he whispered. “If I don’t mind, why should you? Aren’t you curious?”

  She was. She’d never wanted to touch a man that way, not even Ben when she was eighteen, and the realization shook her to her very shoes.

  “Mandy,” he said quietly, “I wouldn’t seduce you. You’d have to want it, too, before I’d go that far.”

  “But…”

  “But what, honey?” He bent and brushed his lips across her eyebrows, her closed eyes.

  “Why…are you making love to me?”

  His mouth smiled. “Because it feels good. Because I’ve never made love to a virgin.”

  She drew back and studied him curiously. “Never?” she whispered.

  He shook his head, smiling. “You’re my first.”

  She felt young and shy and a little embarrassed. Her eyes fell to his bare chest and she tingled just looking at it. “You’re…my first,” she confessed. “I never let anyone…”

  “Never let anyone what, baby?” he whispered.

  “Touch me…the way you did yesterday,” she said finally.

  “Here?” he asked softly, and brushed his knuckles over her soft breast.

  “Y…yes,” she faltered. She pressed close to him, shivering a little. He made her feel the wildest hungers.

  His hands smoothed down her back and around to her hips. He moved her body lazily against his and caught his breath at the rush of sensation.

  “Don’t faint,” he teased when she stiffened. “Think of it as private tutoring, Mandy. You’re teaching me to be a gentleman. Let me teach you how to be a woman.”

  “I’m afraid!”

  “I won’t force you, precious,” he whispered. “I won’t ever force you. Let me show you what magic two people can make. Let me show you how sweet it can be.”

  He lifted her gently in his arms and looked down into her hungry gray eyes while his own blazed with pale blue flames. “I’ve got to have more of you than this,” he whispered. “I want to feel you under me, just once, just for a few seconds.”

  “Carson…!” she moaned against his suddenly devouring mouth.

  “Sweet,” he whispered unsteadily, biting at her open, pleading lips. “God, you’re so sweet….”

  She felt him moving, but his mouth was seducing hers, and she clung to him and closed her eyes. She knew he was taking her to the bedroom. She knew, too, that once he had her down on the mattress and could feel her body yielding under the hard pressure of his own that no power on earth was going to stop him from taking her. Despite all the promises, he was on fire for her. And she was on fire for him. It was going to happen, and she wasn’t even sorry. She sensed something in him that calmed her, that made her relax and return his tender caresses.

  He carried her into the dark bedroom and laid her down on the soft coverlet. His hand traveled down from her shoulder, tracing her breasts, her waist, her stomach, the long line of her legs.

  “I won’t make you pregnant,” he promised tautly, “and I won’t hurt you. Okay?”

  She trembled a little as she realized what he was saying, how explosive the passion between them had become. She felt his hands easing her dress down to her waist, over her hips. There was nothing under it but her briefs, and very gently he removed those, too, so that she was nude.

  “You’re trembling,” he whispered as one big, warm hand rested on her belly. “You’ve never been nude with a man, either, have you?”

  “No,” she managed weakly.

  “Your body feels like cream, Mandelyn,” he said softly. He ran his hands over her, letting her feel their rough tenderness as he learned the soft contours of her body. “Slender, and beautiful, and soft to touch. Honey and spice and cotton candy…”

  He bent and his mouth touched her stomach. She cried out, shocked by the intimacy of his lips there and by her own violent reaction to it.

  “Hush, baby,” he whispered in the darkness. “Hush now, there’s nothing to be afraid of. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Yes, I know,” she laughed shakily, “that’s why I’m frightened. You…you said you wouldn’t…”

  “I want you,” he whispered. “I’ve wanted you for so long, Mandy. I look at you and ache. Couldn’t you pity me enough to give me one night?”

  She wanted that night, too, but pity wasn’t what was motivating her. She saw his head bend, his face a pale blur in the darkness and a piercing sweetness washed over her. Carson. He was Carson, and as familiar as her own face in the mirror, and no part of him was repulsive to her. She wanted him, too.

  “Yes,” she breathed. “Oh yes.”

  He seemed to freeze for a moment, and then he crushed her to him. “Let me turn on the light,” he whispered hoarsely. “Let me watch you when it happens.”

  His hand went out before she could respond. He turned on the bedside lamp, flooding the room with light. She shrunk from him slightly in embarrassment. But he wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were on the large color photograph in the ornate silver frame on the bedside table. His face paled. He reached out a hand and picked it up and stared down at the boyish face through the glass and his hand shook.

  “Who?” he asked, his voice sounding dazed.

  Her eyes barely focused. “It’s Ben. Ben Hammack. He…was my fiancé.”

  Chapter Six

  “Your fiancé?” He spoke as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard her in the first place, and his eyes were riveted to the photograph.

  The lovely, sultry sweetness between them had been dissipated by the stark light, and she fumbled with the coverlet, drawing it quickly over her body.

  “You were engaged?” he persisted. “When?”

  “Before I came out here,” she faltered.

  He stood up, replacing the photograph. His hand ran roughly through his disheveled hair, and she stared up at him helplessly. His shirt was still open and his mouth was faintly swollen from the pressure of the kisses they’d given each other. His eyes still bore traces of frustrated passion when they burned down into hers.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about him before?” he demanded. “When I asked if you’d ever wanted a man before….”

  She shivered at the accusation in his tone.

  “It was when I was eighteen, Carson,” she said, tugging the coverlet closer.

  “Stop that,” he growled. “I know every inch of you now, so stop behaving like a little prude. Was that a lie, too, are you really a virgin?”

  “I haven’t lied to you!”

  “By omission!” he returned. “You never said anything about a fiancé! So where is he now? Did he throw you over? Are you still hung up on him, is that it?”

  “Will you calm down?”

  “Calm down, hell!” he ground out, glaring at her as he fumbled to light a cigarette. “I hurt all over. How could you let me make love to you with the image of another man sitting right here besi
de the bed…!”

  She dropped her eyes, clutching the coverlet, embarrassed. “I was out of my head,” she said miserably.

  “So was I. I’ve never in my life wanted a woman so much. And if I hadn’t turned on that damned light, we wouldn’t be talking now. I’d be loving you.”

  The way he said it caused shimmers of sensation all over her bare body. “Yes, I know,” she whispered.

  “You’d have hated me for it,” he added curtly.

  “Would I?” she murmured.

  His face hardened and he turned away from her to smoke the cigarette. “Where is he, this ex-fiancé?”

  She sighed and stared down at her hands, unconsciously letting the coverlet slide a little. “He’s dead.”

  That seemed to startle him. He turned around and came back to her, sitting down on the bed beside her. “Dead?”

  She drew in a slow breath. “He was killed in a plane crash, on his way to a banker’s convention in Washington, D.C. It was a small plane and it crashed into a hillside. You see, they…picked him up in pieces….”

  He caught her hand reluctantly, and held it firmly in his. “I’m sorry. That would have made it worse.”

  She nodded. Her hand clung to his. “He was twenty-three, and I loved him with all my heart.” Her eyes went past him to the photograph, and Ben looked very young to her now, with his blond hair tousled and his green eyes wicked and mischievous. “He came from a very old Charleston family. We had the same background and our families were friendly. He was brilliant, cultured and he could have gone to the moon. I could hardly believe it when he asked me to marry him. I wasn’t his usual kind of girl at all. I was shy and quiet and he was so outgoing….” She shrugged and the coverlet, unnoticed, slipped again. Carson’s eyes dropped as she spoke, his face going rigid as he stared at the soft, exposed curves. “After he died, I very nearly went crazy. Uncle had inherited the real estate office here and the ranch, and he’d planned to resell it. But when he saw what was happening to me, he moved us out here instead. I think it probably saved my sanity. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Ben died. It was killing me.”