Books By Diana Palmer

by Palmer, Diana

  Harley aimed a kick at the knife and knocked it out of Clark's hands, but Clark was good with his feet, too. He landed a roundhouse kick in Harley's stomach and put him over a table. Leo slugged him, but he twisted around, got Leo's arm behind him and sent him over a table, too.

  The two cowboys held back, aware of Leo's size and Harley's capability, and the fact that Clark had easily put both of them down.

  There was a sudden silence. Janie dragged herself into a sitting position in time to watch Cash Grier come through the doorway and approach Clark.

  Clark dived for the knife, rolled, and got to his feet. He lunged at Grier with the blade. The assistant police chief waited patiently for the attack, and he smiled. It was the coldest, most dangerous smile Janie had ever seen in her life.

  Clark lunged confidently. Grier moved so fast that he was like a blur.

  Seconds later, the knife was in Grier's hand. He threw it, slamming it into the wall next to the counter so deep that it would take Tiny quite some time, after the brawl, to pull it out again. He turned back to Clark even as the knife hit, fell into a relaxed stance, and waited.

  Clark rushed him, tipsy and furious at the way the older man had taken his knife away. Grier easily sidestepped the intended punch, did a spinning heel kick that would have made Chuck Norris proud, and proceeded to beat the living hell out of the man with lightning punches and kicks that quickly put him on the floor, breathless and drained of will. It was over in less than three minutes. Clark held his ribs and groaned. Grier stood over him, not even breathing hard, his hand going to the handcuffs on his belt He didn't even look winded.

  Leo had picked himself up and rushed to Janie, propping her against his chest while she nursed her elbow.

  "Is it broken?" he asked worriedly.

  She shook her head "Just bruised. Is my mouth bleed­ing?" she asked, still dazed from the confrontation.

  He nodded. His face was white. He cursed his own helplessness. Between them, he and Harley should have been able to wipe the floor with Clark. He pulled out a white linen handkerchief and mopped up the bleeding lip and the cut on her cheek from Clark's nails. A big, bad bruise was already coming out on the left side of her face.

  By now, Grier had Clark against a wall with a minimum of fuss. He spread the man's legs with a quick movement of his booted feet and nimbly cuffed him.

  “I’ll need a willing volunteer to see the magistrate and file a complaint," Grier asked.

  "Right here," Harley said, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. "I expect Mr. Hart will do the same."

  "You bet," Leo agreed. "But I've got to get Janie home first."

  "No rush," Grier said, with Clark by the neck. "Harley, you know where magistrate Burr Wiley lives, don't you? I'm taking Clark by there now."

  "Yes, sir, I do, I'll drive right over there and swear out a complaint so you can hold that...gentleman," Harley agreed, substituting for the word he really meant to use. "Janie, you going to be okay?" he added worriedly.

  She was wobbly, but she got to her feet, with Leo's sup­port. "Sure," she said. She managed a smile. "I'll be fine."

  "I'll get you!" Clark raged at Janie and Leo. "I'll get both of you!"

  "Not right away," Grier said comfortably. "I'll have the judge set bail as high as it's possible to put it, and we'll see how many assault charges we can press."

  "Count on me for two of them!" Janie volunteered fear­lessly, wincing as her jaw protested.

  "But not tonight," Leo said, curling his arm around her. "Come on, honey," he said gently. "I'll take you home."

  They followed Grier with his prisoner and Harley out the door and over to Leo's big double-cabbed pickup truck.

  He put her inside gently and moved around to the driver's seat. She noticed then, for the first time, that he was in working clothes.

  "You must have come right from work," she com­mented.

  "We were moving livestock to a new pasture," he re­plied. "One of the bulls got out and we had to chase him through the brush. Doesn't it show?" he added with a nod toward his scarred batwing chaps and his muddy boots. "I meant to be here an hour ago. Harley and I arrived together. Just in the nick of time, too."

  "Two of Cy Parks's guys were at the counter," she said, "but when Clark threatened to cut me, they were afraid to rush him."

  He caught her hand in his and held it tight, his eyes going to the blood on her face, her blouse, her forearm. She was going to have a bruise on her pretty face. The sight of those marks made him furious.

  "I'll be all right, thanks to all of you," she managed to say.

  "We weren't a hell of a lot of help," he said with a rueful smile. "Even Harley didn't fare well. Clark must have a military background of some sort. But he was no match for Grier." He shook his head. "It was like watching a martial arts movie. I never even saw Grier move."

  She studied him while he started the truck and put their seat belts on. "Did he hurt you?"

  "Hurt my pride," he replied, smiling gently. "I've never been put across a table so fast."

  "At least you tried," she pointed out. "Thank you."

  "I should never have let you stay in there," he said. "It's my fault."

  "It was my choice."

  He kissed her eyelids shut. "My poor baby," he said softly. "I'm not taking you to your father in this condi­tion," he added firmly, noting the blood on her blouse and face. "I'll take you home with me and clean you up, first. We'll phone him and tell him there was a little trouble and you'll be late."

  "Okay," she said. "But he's no wimp."

  "I know that." He put the truck in gear. "Humor me. I want to make sure you're all right."

  "I'm fine," she argued, but then she smiled. "You can clean me up, anyway."

  He pursed his lips and smiled wickedly. "Best offer I've had all night," he replied as he pulled out of the parking lot.

  Chapter Nine

  The house was quiet, deserted. The only light was the one in the living room. Leo led Janie down the hall to his own big bedroom, closed the door firmly, and led her into his spacious blue-tiled bathroom.

  The towels were luxurious, sea-blue and white-striped blue towels, facecloths and hand towels. There were soaps of all sorts, a huge heated towel rack, and a whirlpool bath.

  He tugged her to the medicine cabinet and turned her so that he could see her face. "You've got a bad scratch here," he remarked. He tilted her chin up, and found an­other smaller cut on the side of her throat, thankfully not close enough to an artery to have done much damage.

  His hands went to her blouse. She caught them.

  "It's all right," he said gently.

  She let go.

  He unfastened the blouse and tossed it onto the floor, looking her over for other marks. He found a nasty bruise on her shoulder that was just coming out. He unfastened the bra and let it fall, too, ignoring her efforts to catch it.

  There was a bruise right on her breast, where Clark had held her in front of him.

  "The bastard," he exclaimed, furious, as he touched the bruise.

  "He got a few bruises, too, from Grier," she said, trying to comfort him. He looked devastated.

  "He'd have gotten more from me, if I hadn't walked right into that punch," he said with self-contempt. "I can't remember the last time I took a stupid hit like that."

  She reached up and touched his lean face gently. "It's all right, Leo."

  He looked down at her bare breasts and his eyes nar­rowed hotly. "I don't like that bruise."

  "I got a worse one when my horse threw me last month," she told him. "It will heal."

  "It's in a bad place."

  She smiled. "So was the other one."

  He unzipped her jeans and she panicked.

  He didn't take any notice. He bent and removed her shoes and socks and then stripped the jeans off her. She was wearing little lacy white briefs and his hands lingered on them.

  "Leo!" she screeched.

  He grimaced. "I knew it was going to be a
fight all the way, and you're in no condition for another one." He un-braided her hair and let it tangle down her shoulders. He turned and started the shower.

  "I can do this!" she began.

  His hands were already stripping off the briefs. He stopped with his hands on her waist and looked at her with barely contained passion. "I thought you'd be in a class of your own," he said huskily. "You're a knockout, baby." He lifted her and stood her up in the shower, putting a washcloth in her hand before he closed the sliding glass door. "I'll get your things in the wash."

  She was too shell-shocked to ask if he knew how to use a washing machine. Well, you fool she told herself, you stood there like a statue and let him take your clothes off and stare at you! What are you complaining about?

  She bathed and used the shampoo on the shelf in the shower stall, scrubbing until she felt less tainted by Clark's filthy touch.

  She turned off the shower and climbed out, wrapping herself in one of the sea-blue towels. It was soft and huge, big enough for Leo, who was a giant of a man. It swallowed her up whole.

  Before she could wonder what she was going to do about something to wear, he opened the door and walked right in with a black velvet robe.

  "Here," he said, jerking the towel away from her and holding out the robe.

  She scurried into it, red-faced and embarrassed.

  He drew her back against him and she realized that she wasn't the only one who'd just had a shower. He was wear­ing a robe, too. But his was open, and the only thing under it was a pair of black silk boxer shorts that left his powerful legs bare. His chest was broad and covered with thick, curl­ing hair. He turned her until she was facing him, and his eyes were slow and curious.

  "You'll have bruises. Right now, I want to treat those cuts with antibiotic cream. Then we'll dry your hair and brush it out." He smiled. "It's long and thick and glossy. I love your hair."

  She smiled shyly. "It takes a lot of drying."

  "I'm not in a hurry. Neither are you. I phoned your dad and told him as little as I could get away with."

  "Was he worried?"

  He lifted an eyebrow as he dug in the cabinet for the antibiotic cream. "About your virtue, maybe," he teased. "He thinks I've got you here so I can make love to you."

  She felt breathless. "Have you?" she asked daringly.

  He turned back to her with the cream in one big hand.

  His eyes went over her like hands. "If you want it, yes. But it's up to you."

  That was a little surprising. She stood docilely while he applied the cream to her cuts and then put it away. He hooked a hair dryer to a plug on the wall and linked his fingers through her thick light brown hair while he blew it dry. There was something very intimate about standing so close to him while he dried her hair. She thought she'd never get over the delight of it, as long as she lived. Every time she washed her hair from now on, she'd feel Leo's big hands against her scalp. She smiled, her head back, her eyes closed blissfully.

  "Don't go to sleep," he teased as he put the hair dryer down.

  "I'm not"

  She felt his lips in her hair at the same moment she felt his hands go down over her shoulders and into the gap left by the robe.

  If she'd been able to protest, that would have been the time to do it. But she hesitated, entranced by the feel of his hands so blatantly invading the robe, smoothing down over her high, taut breasts as if he had every right to touch her intimately whenever he felt like it.

  Seconds later, the robe was gone, she was turned against him, his robe was on the floor, and she was experiencing her first adult embrace without clothing.

  She whimpered at the fierce pleasure of feeling his bare, hair-roughened chest against her naked breasts. Her nails bit into the huge muscles of his upper arms as she sucked in a harsh breath and tried to stay on her feet.

  "You like that, do you?" he whispered at her lips. "I know something that's even more exciting."

  He picked her up in his arms and started kissing her hungrily. She responded with no thought of denying him whatever he wanted.

  He carried her to the bed, paused to whip the covers and the pillows out of the way, and placed her at the center of it. His hands went to the waistband of his boxer shorts, but he hesitated, grinding his teeth together as he looked at her nudity with aching need.

  He managed to control his first impulse, which was to strip and bury himself in her. He eased onto the bed beside her, his chest pressing her down into the mattress while his mouth opened on her soft lips and pressed them wide apart.

  "I've ached for this," he ground out, moving his hands from her breasts down her hips to the soft inside of her thighs. "I've never wanted anything so much!"

  She tried to speak, but one of his hands invaded her in the most intimate touch she'd ever experienced. Her eyes flew open and she gaped up at him.

  "You're old enough, Janie," he whispered, moving his hand just enough to make her tense. "And I've waited as long as I can."

  As he spoke, he touched her delicately and when she protested, he eased down to cover her mouth with his. His fingers traced her, probed, explored her until she began to whimper and move with him. It was incredible. She was lying here, naked, in his bed, letting him explore her body as if it belonged to him. And she was...enjoying it. Glo­rying in it. Her back arched and she moaned as he found a pressure and a rhythm that lifted her off the bed on a wave of pleasure.

  One of his long, powerful legs hooked over one of hers. She felt him at her hip, aroused and not hiding it. Through the thin silk, she was as aware of him as if he'd been naked.

  "Touch me," he groaned. "Don't make me do it all. Help me."

  She didn't understand what he wanted. Her hands went to his chest and began to draw through the thick hair there.

  "No, baby," he whispered into her mouth. He caught one of her hands and tugged it down to the shorts he was wearing. "Don't be afraid. It's all right."

  He coaxed her hand onto that part of him that was bla­tantly male. She gasped. He lifted his head and looked into her eyes, but he wouldn't let her hand withdraw. He spread her fingers against him, grimacing as the waves of pleasure hit him and closed his eyes on a shudder.

  His reaction fascinated her. She knew so little. "Does it...hurt?"

  "What?" he asked huskily. "Your hand, or what it's doing?"

  "Both. Either."

  He pressed her hand closer, looking down. "Look," he whispered, coaxing her eyes to follow his. It was intimate. But not intimate enough for him.

  "Don't panic, baby," he whispered, levering onto his back. He ripped off the shorts and tossed them onto the carpet He rolled onto his side and caught one of her hands, insistent now, drawing it to him.

  She made a sound as she looked, for the first time, at an aroused male without a thing to conceal him except her hand.

  "Don't be embarrassed," he whispered roughly. "I wouldn't want any other woman to see me like this."

  "You wouldn't?"

  He shook his head. It was difficult not to lose control. But he eased her fingers back to him and held them there. "I'm vulnerable."

  Her eyes brightened. "Oh." She hadn't considered that he was as helpless as she was to resist the pleasure of what they were doing.

  His own hand went back to her body. He touched her, as she was touching him, and he smiled at her fascination.

  She couldn't believe it was happening at all. She stared up at him with all her untried longings in her eyes, on her rapt face. She belonged to him. He belonged to her. It was incredible.

  "Are you going to?" she whispered.

  He kissed her eyelids lazily. "Going to what?"

  "Take me," she whispered back.

  He chuckled, deep in his throat. "What a primitive de­scription. It's a mutual thing, you know. Wouldn't you take me, as well?"

  Her eyes widened. "I suppose I would," she conceded. She stiffened and shivered. "Oh!"

  His eyes darkened. There was no more humor on his face as his t
ouch became slowly invasive. "Will you let me satisfy you?" he asked.

  “I don't...understand.''

  "I know. That's what makes it so delicious." He bent slowly, but not to her mouth. His lips hovered just above her wide nipple. "This is the most beautiful thing I've ever done with a woman," he whispered. His lips parted. "I want nothing, except to please you."

  His mouth went down over the taut nipple in a slow, exquisite motion that eventually all but swallowed her breast. She felt his tongue moving against the nipple, felt the faint suction of his mouth. All the while, his hand was becoming more insistent, and far more intimate, on her body. He felt her acceptance, even as she opened her legs for him and began to moan rhythmically with every move­ment of his hands.

  "Yes," he whispered against her breast when he felt the pulsing of her body. "Let me, baby." He lifted his head and looked down into her eyes as she moaned piteously.

  She was pulsating. She felt her body clench. She was slowly drifting up into a glorious, rhythmic heat that filled her veins, her arteries, the very cells of her body with ex­quisite pleasure. She'd never dreamed there was such plea­sure.

  "Janie, touch me, here," he whispered unsteadily.

  She felt his hand curling around her fingers, teaching her, insistent, his breath jerky and violent as he twisted against her.

  "Baby," he choked, kissing her hungrily. "Baby, baby!"

  He moved, his big body levering slowly between her long legs. He knelt over her, his eyes wild, his body shud­dering, powerfully male, and she looked up at him with total submission, still shivering from the taste of pleasure he'd already given her. It would be explosive, ecstatic. She could barely breathe for the anticipation. She was lost. He was going to have her now. She loved him. She was going to give herself. There was nothing that could stop them, nothing in all the world!

  "Mr. Hart! Oh, Mr. Hart! Are you in here?"

  Leo stiffened, his body kneeling between her thighs, his powerful hands clenching on them. He looked blindly down into her wide, dazed eyes. He shuddered violently and his eyes closed on a harsh muffled curse.