She shrugged and smiled carelessly. "Of course not. I really am tired," she added.
"Come on," Micah said. "Have you got something for sandwiches?" Micah asked Mac. "We didn't stop for food."
"Sure," Mac replied, visibly uncomfortable. "I'll get right to it."
Micah led Callie down the long hall and turned her into a large, airy room with a picture window overlooking the ocean. Except for the iron bars, it looked very touristy.
"Mac does most of the cooking. We used to take turns, but after he was wounded, and we found out that his father once owned a French restaurant, we gave him permanent KP." He glanced at her with a wry smile. "We thought it might encourage him to put on the prosthesis and try to be rehabilitated. Apparently it's working."
"He's very nice."
He closed the door and turned to her, his face somber. "He meant that the sort of woman I usually bring here is blond and long-legged and buxom, and that they usually ignore the hired help."
She flushed. "You didn't have to explain."
"Didn't I?" His eyes narrowed on her face as a potential complication presented itself when he thought about having Lisette take Callie on that shopping trip. The woman was extremely jealous, and Callie had been through enough turmoil already.
"I haven't told Mac or Lisette that we aren't related. It might be as well to let them continue thinking we are, for the time being."
She wondered why, but she wasn't going to lower her pride by asking. "Sure," she said with careful indifference. "No problem." Presumably this Lisette would be jealous of a stepsister, but not of a real one. Micah obviously didn't want to cause waves. She smiled drowsily. "I think I could sleep the clock around."
"If Maddie's her usual efficient self, she should have packed a nightgown for you."
"I don't have a gown," she murmured absently, glancing at the case he'd put down beside the bed. "Pajamas, then." "Uh, I don't wear those, either." He stood up and looked at her pointedly. "What do you sleep in?"
She cleared her throat. "Never mind." His eyebrows arched. "Well, well. No wonder you locked your bedroom door when you lived with us." "That wasn't the only reason," she said before she thought.
His black eyes narrowed. "You've had a hell of a life, haven't you? And now this, on top of the past." She bit her lower lip. "This door does have a lock?" she persisted. "I'm sorry. I've spent my life behind locked doors. It's a hard habit to break, and not because of the way I sleep."
"The door has a lock, and you can use it. But I hope you know that you're safe with me," he replied quietly. "Seducing innocents isn't a habit with me, and my men are trustworthy." "It's not that."
"If you're nervous about being the only woman here, I could get Lisette to come over and spend the night in this room with you," he added.
"No," she said, reluctant to meet his paramour. "I'll be fine."
"You haven't been alone since it happened," he reminded her. "It may be more traumatic than you think, especially in the dark."
"I'll be all right, Micah," she said firmly.
He drew in an irritated breath. "All right. But if you're frightened, I'm next door, through the bathroom."
She gave him a curious look.
"I'll wear pajama bottoms while you're in residence," he said dryly, reading her mind accurately.
She cleared her throat. "Thanks."
"Don't you want to eat something before you go to bed?"
She shook her head. "I'm too tired. Micah, thanks for saving me. I didn't expect it, but I'm very grateful."
He shrugged. "You're family," he said flatly, and she grimaced when he wasn't looking. He turned and went out, hesitating before he closed the door. "Someone will be within shouting distance, night or day."
Her heart ached. He still didn't see her as a woman. Probably, he never would. "Okay," she replied. "Thanks."
He closed the door.
She was so tired that she was sure she'd be asleep almost as soon as her head connected with the pillow. But that wasn't the case. Dressed only in her cotton briefs, she lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling, absorbing the shock of the past two days. It seemed unreal now, here where she was safe. As her strung muscles began to relax, she tugged the cool, expensive designer sheet in a yellow rose pattern over her and felt her mind begin to drift slowly into peaceful oblivion.
"Callie? Callie!"
The deep forceful voice combined with steely fingers on her upper arms to shake her out of the nightmare she'd been having. She was hoarse from the scream that had dragged Micah from sleep and sent him running to the connecting door with a skeleton key.
She was sitting up, both her wrists in one of his lean, warm hands, her eyes wide with terror. She was shaking all over, and not from the air-conditioning.
He leaned over and turned on the bedside lamp. His eyes went helplessly to the full, high thrust of her tip-tilted little breasts, their nipples relaxed from sleep. She was so shaken that she didn't even feel embarrassment. Her pale blue eyes were wild with horror.
"You're safe, baby," he said gently. "It's all right."
"Micah!" came a shout from outside the bedroom door. It was Bojo, alert as usual to any odd noise.
"Callie just had a nightmare, Bojo. It's okay. Go back to bed!"
"Sure thing, boss."
Footsteps faded down the corridor.
"I was back in the chair, at Lopez's house. That man had the knife again, and he was cutting me," she choked. Her wild, frightened eyes met Micah's.
"You'll shoot me, if they try to take me and you can't stop them, right?" she asked in a hoarse whisper.
"Nobody is going to take you away from here by force," he said gently. "I promise. I can protect you on this island. It's why I brought you here in the first place."
She sighed and relaxed a little. "I'm being silly. It was the dream. It was so real, and I was scared to death, Micah! It all came back the minute I fell asleep!" She shivered. "Can't you hold me?" she asked huskily, her eyes on his muscular, hair-roughened chest. Looking at it made her whole body tingle. "Just for a minute?”
"Are you out of your mind?" he ground out.
She searched his eyes. He looked odd. "Why not?"
"Because..." His gaze fell to her breasts. They were hard-tipped now, visibly taut with desire. His jaw clenched. His hands on her wrists tightened roughly.
"Oh, for heaven's sake. I forgot! Sorry." She tried to cover herself, but his hands were relentless. She cleared her throat and grimaced. "That hurts," she complained on a nervous laugh, tugging at his hands. They loosened, but only a fraction.
"Did you take those pills I gave you to make you sleep?" he asked suddenly.
"Yes. But they didn't keep me asleep." She blinked. She smiled drowsily. She felt very uninhibited. He was looking at her breasts and she liked it. Her head fell back, because he hadn't turned her loose. His hands weren't bruising anymore, but they were holding her wrists firmly. She arched her back sensuously and watched the way his eyes narrowed and glittered on her breasts. She saw his body tense, and she gave a husky, wicked little laugh.
"You like looking at me there, don't you?" she asked, vaguely aware that she was being reckless.
He made a rough sound and met her eyes again. "Yes," he said flatly. "I like it."
"I wanted to take my clothes off for you when I was just sixteen," she confided absently as her tongue ran away with her "I wanted you to see me. I ached all over when you looked at me that last Christmas. I wanted you to kiss me so hard that it would bruise my mouth. I wanted to unbutton your shirt and pull my dress down and let you hold me like that." She shivered helplessly at the images that rushed into her reeling mind. "You're so sexy, Mi-cah," she whispered huskily. "So handsome. And I was just plain and my breasts were small, nothing like those beautiful, buxom women you always dated. I knew you'd never want me the way I wanted you."
He shook her gently. "Callie, for God's sake, hush!" he grated, his whole body tensing with desire at the imagery
she was creating.
She was too relaxed from the sleeping pills to listen to warnings. She smiled lazily. "I never wanted anybody to touch me until then," she said softly. "Men always seemed repulsive to me. Did I ever tell you that my mother's last lover tried to seduce me? I ran from him and he knocked me down the stairs. I broke my arm. My mother said it was my fault. She took me back to the foster home. She said I was a troublemaker, and told lies about what happened."
"Dear God!" he exclaimed.
"So after that, I wore floppy old clothes and no makeup and pulled my hair back so I looked like the plainest old maid on earth, and I acted real tough. They left me alone. Then my mother married your dad," she added. "And I didn't have to be afraid anymore. Except it was worse," she murmured drowsily, "because I wanted you to touch me. But you didn't like me that way. You said I was a tramp, like my mother..."
"I didn't mean it," he ground out. "I was only trying to spare you more heartache. You were just a baby, and I was old enough to know better. It was the only way I knew to keep you at arm's length."
"You wanted my mother," she accused miserably.
"Never!" he said, and sounded utterly disgusted. "She was hard as nails, and her idea of femininity was complete control. She was the most mercenary human being I ever met."
Her pale blue eyes blinked as she searched his black ones curiously. "You said I was, too."
"You're not mercenary, honey," he replied quietly. "You never were."
She sighed, and her breasts rose and fell, drawing his attention again. "I feel so funny, Micah," she murmured.
"Funny, how?" he asked without thinking.
She laughed softly. "I don't know how to describe it. I feel...like I'm throbbing. I feel swollen."
She was describing sexual arousal, and he was fighting it like mad. He drew in a long, slow breath and forced himself to let go of her wrists. Her arms fell to her sides and he stared helplessly at the thrust of her small, firm breasts.
"It's so sad," she sighed. "The only time you've ever looked at me or touched me was because I was hurt and needed medical attention." She laughed involuntarily.
"You have to stop this. Right now," he said firmly.
"Stop what?" she asked with genuine curiosity.
He lifted the sheet and placed it over her breasts, pulling one of her hands up to hold it there.
She glowered at him as he got to his feet. "That's great," she muttered. "That's just great. Are you the guy at a striptease who yells 'put it back on'?"
He chuckled helplessly. "Not usually, no. I'll leave the door between our rooms and the bathroom open. You can sing out if you get scared again."
"Gosh, you're brave," she said. "Aren't you afraid to leave your door unlocked? I might sneak in and ravish you in your sleep."
"I wear a chastity belt," he said with a perfectly straight face.
Her eyes widened and suddenly she burst out laughing.
He grinned. "That's more like it. Now lie back down and stop trying to seduce me. When you wake up and remember the things you've said and done tonight, you'll blush every time you look at me."
She shrugged. "I guess I will." She frowned. "What was in those pills?"
"A sedative. Obviously it has an unpredictable reaction on you," he commented with a long, amused look. "Either that or I've discovered a brand-new aphrodisiac. It makes retiring virgins wanton, apparently."
She glared up at him. "I am not wanton, and it wasn't my fault, anyway. I was very scared and you came running in here to flaunt your bare chest at me," she pointed out.
"You were the one doing the flaunting," he countered. "I'm going to have Lisette buy you some gowns, and while you're here, you'll wear them. I don't keep condoms handy anymore," he added bluntly.
She flushed and gasped audibly. "Micah Steele!" she burst out, horrified at the crude remark.
"Don't pretend you don't know what one is. You're not that naive. But that's the only way I'd ever have sex with you, even if I lost my head long enough to stifle my conscience," he added bluntly. "Because I don't want kids, or a wife, ever."
"I've already told you that I'm not proposing marriage!"
"You tried to seduce me," he accused.
"You tempted me! In fact, you drugged me!"
He was trying valiantly not to laugh. "I never!" he defended himself. "I gave you a mild sedative. A very mild sedative!"
"It was probably Spanish Fly," she taunted. "I've read about what it's supposed to do to women. You gave it to me deliberately so that I'd flash my breasts at you and make suggestive remarks, no doubt!"
He pursed his lips and lifted his chin, muffling laughter. "For the record, you've got gorgeous breasts," he told her. "But I've never seen myself as a tutor for a sensuous virgin. In case you were thinking along those lines."
She felt that compliment down to her toes and tried not to disgrace herself by showing it. Appar-
ently he didn't think her breasts were too small at all. Imagine that! "There are lots of men who'd just love to have sex with me," she told him haughtily.
"What a shame that I'm the only one you'd submit to."
She glared at him. "Weren't you going back to bed?" she asked pointedly.
He sighed. "I might as well, if you're through undressing for me."
"I didn't undress for you! I sleep like this."
"I'll bet you didn't before you moved in with my father and me," he drawled softly.
Her flush was a dead giveaway.
"And you never locked your bedroom door at home," he added.
"For all the good it did me," she said grimly.
"I never got my kicks as a voyeur, especially with precocious teenagers," he told her. "You're much more desirable now, with a little age on you. Not," he added, holding up one lean hand, "that I have any plans to succumb. You're a picket-fence sort of woman."
"And you like yours in combat gear, with muscles," she retorted.
His eyes sketched her body under the sheet. "If I ever had the urge to marry," he said slowly, "you'd be at the top of my list of prospects, Callie. You're kindhearted and honest and brave. I was proud of you in the jungle."
She smiled. "Were you, really? I was terribly scared."
"All of us are, when we're being hunted. The trick is to keep going anyway." He pushed her down gently with the sheet up to her neck and her head on the pillow, and he tucked her in very gently. "Go back to sleep," he said, tracing a path down her cheek with a lean forefinger. He smiled. "You can dream about having wild sex with me."
"I don't have a clue about how to have wild sex," she pointed out. She lifted both eyebrows and her eyes twinkled as she gave him a wicked smile. "I'll bet you're great in bed."
"I am," he said without false modesty. "But," he added somberly, "you're a virgin. First times are painful and embarrassing, nothing like the torrid scenes in those romance novels you like to read."
She drew in a drowsy breath. "I figured that."
He had to get out of here. He was aroused already. It wouldn't take much to tempt him, and she'd been through enough already. He tapped her on the tip of her nose. "Sleep well."
"Micah, can I ask you something?" she murmured, blinking as she tried to stay awake.
"Go ahead."
"What did my mother see that made her think she'd enticed you that night we had the blowup?"
"Are you sure you want to know?" he asked. "Because if you do, I'll show you."
Her breath caught in her throat and her heart pounded. She looked at him with uninhibited curiosity and hunger. "I'm sure."
"Okay. Your choice." He unsnapped his pajama bottoms, and let them fall. "She saw this," he said quietly.
Her eyes went to that part of him that the pajamas had hidden. She wasn't so naive that she hadn't seen statues, and photographs in magazines, of naked men. But he sure didn't look like any of the pictures. There were no white lines on him anywhere. He was solid muscle, tanned and exquisitely male. Her eyes went helplessly to that par
t of him that was most male, and she almost gasped. He was impressive, even to an innocent.
"Do you understand what you're seeing, Callie?" he asked quietly.
"Yes," she managed in a husky whisper. "You're...you're aroused, aren't you?"
He nodded. "When I got away from you that Christmas night, I was like this, just from being close to you," he explained quietly, his voice strained. "The slacks I was wearing were tailored to fit properly, so it was noticeable. Your mother was experienced, and when she saw it, she thought it was because of her. She was wearing a strappy little silver dress, and she had an inflated view of her own charms. I found her repulsive."
"I didn't know men looked like that." Her lips parted as she continued to stare at him. "Are you...I mean, is that...normal?"
"I do occasionally inspire envy in other men," he murmured with a helpless laugh. He pulled his pa-jama trousers back up and snapped them in place, almost shivering with the hunger to throw himself down on top of her and ravish her. She had no idea of the effect that wide-eyed curiosity had on him. "Now I'm getting out of here before it gets any worse!" he said in a tight voice. "Good night."
She stretched, feeling oddly swollen and achy. She stretched, feeling unfamiliar little waves of pleasure washing over her at the intimacy they'd just shared. She noticed that his face went even tauter as he watched her stretch. It felt good. But she was really sleepy and her eyelids felt heavy. Her eyes began to close. "Gosh, I'm tired. I think I can sleep...now." Her voice trailed off as she sighed heavily and her whole body relaxed in the first stages of sleep.
He looked at her with pure temptation. She'd been sedated, of course, or she'd never have been so uninhibited with him. He knew that, but it didn't stop the frustrated desire he felt from racking his powerful body.
"I'm so glad that one of us can sleep," he murmured with icy sarcasm, but she was already asleep. He gave her one last, wistful stare, and went out of the room quickly.
The next morning, Callie awoke after a long and relaxing sleep feeling refreshed. Then she remembered what had happened in the middle of the night and she was horrified.
She searched through the bag Micah's friend had packed for her, looking for something concealing and unnoticeable, but there wasn't a change of clothing. She only had the jeans and shirt she'd been wearing the day before. Grimacing, she put them back on and ran a brush through her short dark hair. She didn't bother with makeup at all.
Books By Diana Palmer Page 282
