"Suppose I told you," she replied, "that Tippy Moore would be a hard act for even an experienced woman to follow, much less a novice?"
He looked surprised. "You think I'm sleeping with her?"
She averted her eyes. "She doesn't try to make any secret of the fact that she's experienced."
He didn't speak at once. He seemed to be struggling with things he didn't know how to put into words.
"Good God," he said softly, "you're probably not the only person around here who sees it that way, either, are you?"
She shook her head. "It's pretty common gossip."
His jaw tautened. "And a few people know that we're married, too. I didn't think how it might look, that you might have to bear the brunt of it."
She moved one shoulder restlessly and stared sightlessly at the television screen. "I go around with Cash," she said. "I suppose we've both given Jacobsville enough ammunition for gossip."
He swore softly under his breath and his eyes lifted to the ceiling. Christabel was having to live down his behavior, and it had never occurred to him that he was making her the object of gossip. But how could he not have known, he asked himself, when Tippy made headlines wherever she went.
"I wouldn't have to ask if you were sleeping with Grier," he said. "I know you too well."
He actually sounded resentful. She felt herself bristle. She almost lashed out, before she remembered what he'd already been through today. She didn't have the heart to make him more uncomfortable than he already was.
"She's wearing an engagement ring, Judd," she replied in a subdued tone. "I know you plan to marry her. We're only married on paper, anyway, and soon we won't be. I don't blame you for wanting somebody pretty and famous and sophisticated. I never was in the running, that way, and I've always known it."
He scowled as he stared at her, shocked. Did she really have a self-image that low? And was it his fault that she did? He'd been so careful to keep a distance between them all these years, to protect her from becoming intimately involved with him before she'd dated or been around other men. He hadn't wanted to take advantage of their odd relationship, to use her in a way that many other men wouldn't have hesitated, in his position, to do.
But she'd said Tippy was wearing an engagement ring!
"What engagement ring, Christabel?" he said slowly.
Her wise brown eyes slid around to meet his black ones. "That emerald and diamond ring you gave her. Why would a man give a woman a ring that expensive if he wasn't seriously involved with her?" she asked matter-of-factly.
He took a deep breath and settled back onto the pillows. He wanted to say, "Because I let my pride get in the way at a jeweler's when she put it on and refused to take it off. I couldn't bear to tell her I couldn't afford what she considered a bauble." But he couldn't admit that he'd been such an idiot. So now Christabel thought he was engaged to another woman and counting the days until he could get rid of her!
CHAPTER TWELVE
“So I guess we should get the annulment pretty soon," Christa-bel added, trying to sound matter-of-fact about a painful subject.
He glared at her. "We'll get an annulment when I say so. Besides, right now, we can't afford it."
"We're getting enough from the film deal to pay an attorney," she countered, puzzled.
"Then let's say it's convenient to stay married for a while," he returned, his eyes brooding as they studied her.
"Tippy Moore might not think so," she said with more bitterness than she knew. "It's no secret that she's crazy about you. She doesn't try to hide it."
He didn't say what he knew about Tippy. He liked that faint jealousy in Christabel's soft voice. He liked knowing that she wanted him. She was pretty and sexy and his body began to ache when he stared at those perfect little breasts under her shirt.
"Tippy doesn't know that we're married," he replied. "She thinks we're just business partners."
"She's right," she responded.
The look in his eyes was dark and quiet. "No. You and I are more than that to each other. We always have been." His gaze went down her body like hands and narrowed. "Your nipples are like little stones. You want me. Did you think it didn't show?" he taunted softly when she actually gasped at the blunt comment.
She got up from the chair. "Maybe you shouldn't have had all those beers," she said, uncertain of him in this mood. She didn't want him to do something he was going to regret later, even if she was dying for it.
"I'm not drunk. You can go to bed with me, if you want to," he offered bluntly.
Her raised eyebrows were eloquent and she laughed nervously. "Imagine that, and I'm not even wearing a red negligee!"
"Careful. I'm not kidding." He put both hands under the back of his head and gave her a scrutiny that could have boiled milk. "You think I'm a rake," he said gruffly. "You think I've forsaken my marriage vows, even if they are on paper, for the sake of a few adventures with other women. My God, you don't know me at all, Christabel."
She was almost shaking with nerves as she stared down at him from a distance of a few feet.
"I'm no virgin," he confessed darkly. "But I take my vows as seriously as you take yours. I haven't had a woman since I married you."
She couldn't manage a single word. Why hadn't it occurred to her that he was as rigidly conventional as she was, and deeply religious as well.
"You haven't had a lover? It's been five years!" she choked finally.
"I know," he replied, and in a tone that almost made her smile.
"But, how...?"
"There are these racy movies on the satellite channel," he began with a wicked upturn of his lips. "And other means of satisfaction."
She went scarlet. It was such an intimate thing to know about him. But, then, he knew all her secrets, too—at least, the ones that mattered. He wasn't having sex with Tippy Moore. That jumped out at her like a spring. It made her exultant.
"Lost for words?" he mused, watching her closely. "Shocked?"
She nodded.
He drew in a long breath. "I've had a hard day. I'm half lit, even on three beers. But I sure as hell am capable, and I want a woman tonight. Considering our situation, the only available woman is you."
She was still standing there, rigid, unmoving, her heart beating her to death.
His eyes fell to her breasts, where two hard little points were thrusting against the white sweater. "You're ripe for a man and you'd die to have me." He caught the flash of her eyes and the smile widened. His eyes went over her like hands. "I want you, Christabel. Right now."
She hesitated, not because she didn't want to, but because she was still afraid that he was teasing, testing her. She didn't think he was serious.
He noticed that. His black eyes began to burn as he held her own gaze until her heart ran wild.
"You know you want it. Your heart is beating you to death. I can see it from here. Turn the television off and come here, baby," he said in a deep, sensuous drawl. "And I'll make all your guilty little dreams come true."
Like a sleepwalker, controlled by a part of her that she didn't recognize, she went to the television and switched it off. Then she went to stand just in front of him, excited, hungry, curious, her heartbeat raging as she looked down at all that hard muscle.
"Don't you dare tease me," she said huskily. "I won't play games with you."
"I'm not playing." He reached out and caught her hand, tugging until she fell heavily against and onto his long, muscular body. It was new, and heady, to be so intimately close to him after all these years of repressed need. He felt alien against her for the first few seconds. His legs were long and powerful. She felt the muscles in them ripple as they moved, intertwining with hers. She felt something else, too, something he'd rarely let her feel. He wanted her. It was exciting to know that, and a little intimidating, because she didn't have a clue what it was going to feel like later on. She'd heard stories...
He felt her tense. He turned her ha
lf under him and looked into her eyes from point-blank range. "I know you're a virgin," he said huskily. "I'm excited by it, and you can feel that, can't you? But I'll be careful. Very, very careful. The last thing I want to do is to frighten you or hurt you."
She relaxed and reached up to him, suddenly aware of her own body's faint swelling, of a new and exciting sensation of pleasure in her most secret places. She ached to have him touch her, kiss her. It amazed her that it had happened so unexpectedly.
"You might regret it later," she whispered.
"I won't. Neither will you. I can guarantee it," he added with confidence.
She stared at his hard, disciplined mouth with real hunger. She could hardly get a decent breath. He smelled of faint cologne and aftershave and soap. He felt like sweet heaven this close. His body was warm and hard and she felt enveloped by it.
"Maybe I'm dreaming," she whispered, running her hands over him. "All those repressed years without experimentation have driven me mad!"
He chuckled softly. "Think so? If you want to experiment," he murmured, catching his hand in her hair to hold her face gently under his, "you can do it with your husband. Open your mouth, baby...!"
She opened her mouth to gasp, and his caught it. It was like the dance, except that this time, he was slow and tender with her. His lips toyed with hers gently, in a breathless silence that made her far too aware of the steely body against hers, of the warmth of his hands on her back, the expert sensuality of his hard mouth. The other kisses they'd shared seemed innocent by comparison. This time he meant business, and it showed.
Her arms snaked around his neck and she lifted to his kisses with hungry abandon. She felt him moving her top out of the waistband of her jeans. Seconds later, his hands were against bare skin, against the hateful scars her father had left so many years before.
She jerked.
He stilled her instinctive withdrawal by turning her under him, so that he could look down into her eyes. "I have scars of my own, remember?" he said quietly. "Here."
He pulled up his black undershirt and drew her hand to his rib cage. "Feel it?" he asked. "I took a pump shotgun blast there when I was a rookie cop. Fortunately for me, it was a light load and it didn't go in very far. But it left a ridge, like the one in my shoulder left a depression."
She traced it slowly. "I'd forgotten that."
He smiled lazily. "I hadn't." He smoothed her long hair around her shoulders, soft and fine. "Your hair is one of your best points," he murmured as his lean fingers began feeling for buttons on her blouse. "Next to these..."
"Oh…Judd, listen, you can't take it off!" she protested when she remembered her padded bra.
"Sure, I can." He kept going, until he had it open and her padded bra revealed. Then he realized why she'd fought to keep him from seeing it. He scowled, "What the hell are you wearing this padded bra for?" he asked.
She sighed. "I didn't want you to see it. I thought if I looked bigger, you might be more interested in looking at me," she confessed. "Don't men like big women?"
"Taste is an individual thing, honey," he murmured, searching for the fastening. He lifted her with one arm while his fingers expertly released the catch. "I don't like big women. I never have."
While she was getting used to that idea, he moved her so that he could pull the whole works off, baring her to his eyes from the waist up. It was like lightning striking. All her dreams about him hadn't been this explicit. She was soaring with joy.
He smiled slowly at the way she looked. It was heady to think she hadn't done this with anyone else. He wanted her first time to be with him. He'd never wanted anything so much.
She tried to speak, but his head was already bending. Even as she spoke, he opened his mouth right over her nipple and took most of her soft little breast right into it. His tongue worked on the sensitive nub while his mouth learned her in a silence broken only by her frantic heartbeat and soft sobs of pleasure. Her fingers caught the thick muscles in his upper arms and dug into them with delight as his mouth explored her body.
His hand worked its way down her spine and brought her against him hungrily. He released her breast only to find her mouth, while he eased her under his undershirt so that he could feel her breasts against his bare, hair-roughened chest.
"Judd," she sobbed into his mouth. "I never thought it would feel like this!"
"Neither did I," he whispered roughly. "I want you like hell! Are you still taking the Pill, or do I have to use something?"
Her mind was not working at all. She couldn't think. "How did you...?"
"I saw them on your bedside table, the last time I was here." He lifted his head, and his black eyes pinioned her. "Were you taking them for Grier, just in case?" he demanded suddenly, angrily.
"No!" she gasped. "I would never...!"
"Then, why?" he persisted hotly.
She was almost shaking from the intimate contact with him. He was aroused. He wanted her. She couldn't think. Her young body was on fire with need, hunger, aching thirst. She was going to die if he stopped now. What had he asked? "My...periods were...erratic, and I got sick with them," she said. "The doctor put me on the Pill just...just for a couple of months, until I got regulated." She didn't add that it had been six months ago, and she'd stopped taking them in the second month, without even finishing the prescription. She was a pack rat. She never threw out things until Maude made her. She'd put them on the dresser while she searched for a pen and hadn't put them back. "Don't stop," she pleaded when he hesitated. "Please don't stop, Judd!"
He scowled as she took his hand back to her breast and caressed it tenderly, coaxing it back onto the soft skin.
"Isn't the Pill supposed to be dangerous?" he whispered.
"He said not at my age, since I don't smoke or have headaches regularly." She arched up to his caressing fingers with a soft gasp. Her eyes fell back in her head. "Oh, that's nice! I never realized it would feel like this when I watched those movies!"
His eyes narrowed. He smiled slowly, his black eyes glittery as they went to the soft little mound he was caressing. "If it's safe, I can have you the way I want to," he said huskily, "without anything between us except skin."
"Yes. Any way you want to, Judd, right here, right now..." Her voice broke on a whimper of pleasure. She lifted up to his devouring mouth, clinging, aching for more than this. "Please, please, don't stop!"
"I'm not going to," he bit off against her swollen lips. "I'm starving to death for you. I've got to have you, baby!" he added roughly. "I've got to!"
She barely heard him. She was going under in a veritable flood of sudden passion. His experienced touch sent her mind reeling out of control of her body. She arched up to him, moved restlessly under the slow, sensuous crush of his lean hips, opened her mouth to the devouring kisses that made her young body ache even more.
He caressed her out of her jeans and underwear, and his mouth, his warm, hard mouth, was on her breasts, on her belly. She was gasping, clutching, drowning in new sensations as he worked his way down her tormented body. He touched her in a way she'd never expected a man to touch her, but his mouth covered her small, embarrassed cry. His tongue eased into her mouth in slow, sensuous explorations that augmented the expert caress of his hands.
Somewhere along the way, his undershirt went onto the rug, followed by his jeans, leaving him in the black boxer shorts he favored. They did nothing to camouflage the hungry thrust of his body.
He paused to look down into her face, seeing the lack of comprehension, the lack of sanity that mirrored his own. Her arms were around his neck, her body arched up to his like a sacrifice. Her eyes were slitted. She was moaning softly, moving against him with helpless delight. She made him feel ten feet tall. She made him feel like the greatest lover who ever lived.
The boldness of his eyes managed to get through to her. She noticed his rapt stare and began to feel self-conscious about her nudity.
"Don't be embarrassed," he said roughl
y. "You belong to me. We're married, Christabel. There's nothing to be ashamed of."
"I'm not, really," she said huskily. "But all the lights are on," she added helplessly and with a shy laugh. "And I've never done this before."
"Do you want the lights off, the first time?" he asked softly. She nodded. "Okay." He didn't add that it was going to be difficult for him, too, in the light. Like her, he had hang-ups that he didn't like admitting.
He got to his feet, lifting her gently into his arms. He searched her dazed eyes for a second before his mouth eased down to cover hers again, tenderly, as he walked past the tall, glittery Christmas tree and down the long hall to his bedroom.
He didn't turn on the light. He put her down long enough to close and lock the door before he carried her to bed. She felt his mouth on her body in the warm darkness of the room, the soft sounds of flesh against flesh barely reaching her ears above her own gasps. It was more intimate than she'd ever imagined it would be, especially when the boxer shorts came off and she felt him, really felt him, in total contact with her.
"Easy," he whispered as she tensed involuntarily. "It's not going to be what you think. We've got all the time in the world. Ease your legs in between mine, honey."
She was puzzled by the soft entreaty, but she did as he asked, and suddenly felt his powerfully muscled body in even closer contact, and a sharp flash of pleasure accompanied the intimate contact.
He felt her sensuous movement and laughed huskily. "Didn't you expect that? Even after all those explicit movies?"
“They aren't quite this explicit," she whispered on a husky laugh, gasping when he moved again. "I didn't realize...it would feel so good! Or be so intimate!"
He laughed, too. His teeth caught her soft upper lip and his tongue played with it while his hands worked a sort of magic on overstimulated nerve endings lower down. She moved again, convulsively this time, arching up to tempt him closer.
Books By Diana Palmer Page 348
