Passion Flower

by Diana Palmer

  He moved closer, his fingers tangling in her blond hair as he loomed above her. “You had a lot to say about that brunette. Or don’t you remember?”

  She blinked. Brunette? Vaguely she remembered saying something insulting about the woman’s body. Then she remembered vividly. Her face flamed.

  “Something about how little she was, if I recall,” he murmured dryly.

  She bit her lower lip and her eyes met his uneasily. “Did I? How strange. Was she short?”

  “That wasn’t what you meant,” he said. One lean hand moved down her shoulder and over the covers below her collarbone. “You meant, here, she was small.”

  If she looked up, she’d be finished. But she couldn’t help it. Her eyes met his and the world seemed to narrow down to the two of them. She loved him so. Would it be wrong to kiss him just once more, to feel that hard, wonderful mouth on her own?

  He seemed to read that thought, because his jaw tautened and his breathing became suddenly ragged. “The hell with being patient,” he growled, reaching for the covers. “Come here.”

  He stripped them away and jerked her into his arms, rolling over with her, so that she was lying on him. Where his shirt was undone, her body pressed nakedly into his hairy chest.

  His eyes were blazing as they looked up into hers. He deliberately reached down to yank his shirt away, his eyes on the point where her soft breasts were crushed against his body. Dark and light, she thought shakily, looking at the contrast between his dark skin and her pale flesh.

  But still he didn’t touch her. His hands moved up into her hair, oddly tender, at variance with the tension she could feel in his body.

  “Don’t you want...to touch me?” she whispered nervously.

  “More than my own life,” he confessed. “But I’m not going to. Come down here and kiss me.”

  “Why not?” she whispered, bending to give him her mouth.

  “Because Consuelo’s on her way up the stairs with coffee and toast,” he breathed. “And she never knocks.”

  She sat up with a gasp. “Why didn’t you say so!”

  He laughed softly, triumphantly, his eyes eating her soft body as she climbed out of the bed and searched wildly for a robe.

  “Here,” he murmured, throwing his long legs over the bed. He reached under her pillow and got her nightgown. “Come here and I’ll stuff you in it.”

  She didn’t even question the impulse that made her obey him instantly. She lifted her arms as he held the nightgown over her head and gasped as he bent first and kissed her rosy breasts briefly, but with a tangible hunger. While she was getting over the shock, he tugged the long cotton gown over her head, lifted her, tossed her into the bed, and pulled the covers over her with a knowing smile.

  And Consuelo opened the door before she could get out a word.

  “Good morning!” The older woman laughed, handing the tray to Everett. “Also is hair of the dog, in the glass,” she added with a wry glance at Jennifer. “To make the señorita’s head a little better.”

  And she was gone as quickly as she’d come. Everett put the tray down beside Jennifer on the bed and poured cream into her coffee.

  “Why did you do that?” she whispered, still shaking from the wild little caress.

  “I couldn’t help myself,” he murmured, smiling at her. “I’ve wanted to, for a long time.”

  She took the coffee in trembling hands. He steadied them, watching her shaken features.

  “It’s part of lovemaking,” he said softly. “Nothing sordid or shameful. When we make love, that’s how I’ll rouse you before I take you.”

  She shuddered, and the coffee cup began to rock again. Her eyes, meeting his, were wild with mingled fear and hunger.

  “Except,” he added quietly, “that I won’t stop at the waist.”

  Coffee went everywhere. She cursed and muttered and grumbled and moped. But when she raised her glittering eyes to his the pupils dilated until they were almost black.

  He laughed softly, menacingly. “Almost,” he said enigmatically. “Almost there.” He got up. “I’ll get Consuelo to come and help you mop up.” He turned with one hand on the doorknob, impossibly attractive, wildly sensuous with his hair ruffled and his shirt open and his bare, muscular chest showing. “The brunette was Jeb Doyle’s daughter,” he added. “She’s looking for a husband. She rides like a man, she loves cattle and kids, she’s twenty-eight and she lives about five miles south of here. She may be small, but she’s got nice, full hips. Just right for having children. Her name’s Sandy.”

  She was getting madder by the second. He was baiting her! She picked up the coffee cup and, without even thinking, threw it at him.

  It shattered against the closed door. He went down the hall laughing like a banshee and she screamed after him. By the time Consuelo got to her, the rest of the coffee and the headache remedy had turned the bedspread a strange shade of tan.

  For the next week, she gave Everett the coldest shoulder she could manage. He was gone from the ranch frequently, and she noticed it and remembered what he’d said about the brunette, and wanted desperately to kill him. No, not just kill him. Torture him. Slowly. Over an open fire.

  It got worse. He started having supper with Jennifer every night, and the whole time he’d sit there and watch her and make infrequent but agonizing remarks about the brunette.

  “Sandy’s getting a new colt tomorrow,” he mentioned one evening, smiling wistfully. “She asked if I’d come over and look at it for her.”

  “Can’t she see it by herself?” she asked sweetly.

  “Conformation is very important in a horse,” he said. “I used to breed them years ago, before I got interested in cattle.”

  “Oh.” She concentrated on her food.

  “How’s the decorating coming?”

  “Fine,” she said through her teeth. “We’re getting the paper up in your bedroom tomorrow. Then there’ll only be the other bedrooms to go. You never said how you liked the way the living room and the study came out.”

  “They’re okay,” he said. He lifted a forkful of dessert to his mouth and she wanted to jump up and stab him in the lip. Okay! And she’d spent days on the projects, working well into the night alongside the men!

  He glanced up at her flushed face. “Wasn’t that enthusiastic enough?” He took a sip of coffee. “Damn, Jenny, what a hell of a great job you’re doing on the house!” he said with a big, artificial smile. “I’m pleased as punch!”

  “I’d like to punch you,” she muttered. She slammed down her napkin, slid out of the chair, and stomped out of the room.

  Watching her, Everett’s eyes narrowed and a faint, predatory smile curved his lips.

  The next day, she concentrated on his bedroom. It was difficult to work in there, thinking about whose territory it was. Her eyes kept drifting to the bed where he slept, to the pillow where he laid his dark head. Once she paused beside it and ran her hand lovingly over the cover. Besotted, she told herself curtly. She was besotted, and it was no use. He was going to marry that skinny, flat-chested brunette!

  She didn’t even stop for lunch, much less supper. The workmen had left long before, and she was working on the last wall, when Everett came into the room and stood watching her with a cup of coffee in his hand.

  “Have you given up eating?” he asked.

  “Yep.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Want some coffee?”

  “Nope.”

  He chuckled softly. “Bad imitation. You don’t even look like Gary Cooper. You’re too short.”

  She glared down at him. Her jeans were covered with glue. So were her fingers, her bare arms, and the front of her white T-shirt. “Did you want something?”

  “Yes. To go to bed. I’ve got to get an early start in the morning. I’m taking Sandy f
ishing.”

  She stared into the bucket of glue and wondered how he’d look plastered to the wall. It was tempting, but dangerous.

  “I’d like to finish this one wall,” she murmured quietly.

  “Go ahead. I’m going to have a shower.” He stripped off his shirt. She glanced at him, fascinated by the dark perfection of him, by the ripple of muscle, the way the light played on his skin as he started to take off his...trousers!

  Her eyes jerked back to the glue and her hands trembled. “Everett?” she said in a squeaky voice.

  “Well, don’t look,” he said reasonably. “I can’t very well take a bath in my clothes.”

  “I could have left the room,” she said.

  “Why? Aren’t you curious?” he taunted.

  She gritted her teeth. “No!”

  “Coward.”

  She put glue and more glue on a strip of wallpaper until the glue was three times as thick as the paper it was spread on. Not until she heard the shower running did she relax. She put the wallpaper in place and started scrambling down the ladder.

  Unfortunately, just because the shower was running, it didn’t mean that Everett was in it. She got down and started for the door, and there he stood, with a towel wrapped around his narrow hips and not another stitch on.

  “Going somewhere?” he asked.

  “Yes. Out of here!” she exclaimed, starting past him.

  She never knew exactly how it happened. One minute she was walking toward the door, and the next she was lying flat on the bed with Everett’s hard body crushing her into the mattress.

  His chest rose and fell slowly, his eyes burned down into hers. Holding her gaze, he eased the towel away and bent to her mouth.

  She trembled with kindling passion. It was so incredibly sweet to let her hands run over his hard, warm body, to feel the muscles of his back and arms and shoulders and hips. To let him kiss her softly, with growing intimacy. To know the crush of his body, the blatant force of his hunger for her. To love him with her hands and her mouth.

  He lifted his head a minute later and looked into her awed eyes. “You’re not so squeaky clean yourself,” he said softly. “Why don’t you come and take a bath with me?”

  Her hands touched his hard arms gently, lovingly. “Because we’d do more than bathe, and you know it,” she replied on a soft sigh. “All you have to do is touch me, and you can have anything you want. It’s always been like that. The only reason I’m still a virgin is that you haven’t insisted.”

  “Why do you think I haven’t?” he prodded.

  She shifted. “I don’t know. Conscience, maybe?”

  He bent and brushed his mouth softly over hers. “Go and put on something soft and pretty. Have a shower. Then come downstairs to the living room and we’ll talk.”

  She swallowed. “I thought you had to get to bed early. To take Sandy fishing,” she murmured resentfully.

  “Did it ever occur to you that you might be formidable competition for her, if you cared to make the effort?” he asked, watching her. “Or didn’t you know how easy it would be to seduce me? And once you did that,” he murmured, touching her soft mouth, “I’d probably feel obliged to marry you. Not being on the pill and all,” his eyes went back to hers with blazing intensity, “you could get pregnant.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. She never knew when he was teasing, when he was serious. And now, her mind was whirling.

  While she worried over his intentions, he moved away from her and got to his feet, and she stared at him in helpless fascination.

  “You see?” he said, his voice deep and full of secrets, “it isn’t so shocking, is it?”

  She lifted her eyes to his. “You’re...very...” She tried to find words.

  “So are you, honey,” he said. “Take your bath and I’ll see you downstairs.”

  And he walked off, oblivious to her intent stare.

  Minutes later, she went nervously down the staircase in a white dress, her hair freshly washed and dried, loose around her shoulders. Something that had been brewing between them for a long time was coming abruptly to a head, and she wasn’t quite sure how to face it. She had a terrible feeling that he was going to proposition her again, and that she was going to be stupid enough to accept. She loved him madly, wanted him madly. That Sandy person was after him, and Jennifer was afraid. She couldn’t quite accept the idea that he might marry someone else. Despite the pain he’d caused her, she dwelled on the fear of losing him.

  He was waiting for her. In beige trousers and a patterned beige shirt, he looked larger than life. All man. Sensual and incredibly attractive, especially when she got close enough to catch the scent of his big body.

  “Here,” he said, offering her a small brandy.

  “Thank you,” she said politely. She took it, touching his fingers, looking up into dark, quiet eyes. Her lips parted helplessly.

  “Now sit down. I want to ask you something.”

  She sat on the edge of the sofa, but instead of taking the seat beside her, he knelt on the carpet just in front of her. Because of his height, that put her on an unnerving level with his eyes.

  “Afraid of me, even now?” he asked softly.

  “Especially now,” she whispered, trembling. She put the snifter to one side and her trembling fingers reached out and touched the hard lines of his face. “Everett, I’m...so very much in love with you,” she said, her voice breaking. “If you want me to be your mistress...oh!”

  She was on the carpet, in his arms, being kissed so hungrily that she couldn’t even respond to him. His mouth devoured hers, hurting, bruising, and he trembled all over as if with a fever. His hands trembled as they touched, with expert sureness, every line and curve of her body.

  “Say it again,” he said roughly, lifting his head just enough to look at her.

  Her body ached for his. She leaned toward him helplessly. “I love you,” she whispered, pride gone to ashes. “I love you, I love you!”

  His head moved down to her bodice, his mouth nudged at the buttons, his hands bit into her back. She reached down blindly to get the fabric out of his way, to give him anything, everything he wanted. There were no more secrets. She belonged to him.

  His mouth taught her sensations she’d never dreamed her body would feel. She breathed in gasps as his lips and teeth explored her like some precious delicacy. Her hands held him there, caressed his dark head, loved what he was doing to her.

  He raised his head to look at her, smiling faintly at her rapt face, her wide, dark green eyes, her flushed face, the glorious disarray of her hair and her dress.

  “I’ll remember you like this for the rest of our lives,” he said. “The way you look right now, in the first sweet seconds of passion. Do you want me badly?”

  “Yes,” she confessed. She brought his hand to her body and held it against her taut flesh, brushing his knuckles lazily across it. “Feel?”

  His nostrils flared and there was something reckless and unbridled in the eyes that held hers. “For a virgin,” he murmured, “you’re pretty damned exciting to make love to.”

  She smiled wildly, hotly. “Teach me.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Please.”

  He shook his head. He sat up, leaning back against the sofa with his long legs stretched out, and looked down at her with a wicked smile. “Fasten your dress. You make me crazy like that.”

  “I thought that was the whole point of the thing?” she asked unsteadily.

  “It was, until you started making declarations of love. I was going to seduce you on the sofa. But now I suppose we’d better do it right.”

  Her eyes widened in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

  He pulled her up and across his lap. “Oh, the hell with it,” he murmured, and opened the top button
of her bodice again. “God, I love to look at you!”

  She swallowed hard. “Don’t you want me?”

  “Jenny.” He laughed. He turned and brought her hips very gently against his. “See?” he whispered.

  She buried her face in his throat and he rocked her softly, tenderly.

  “Then, why?” she asked on a moan.

  “Because we have to do things in the right order, honey. First we get married, then we have sex, then we make babies.”

  She stiffened. “What?”

  “Didn’t you hear me?” He eased her head down on his arm so that he could see her face.

  “But, Sandy...” she faltered.

  “Sandy is a nice girl,” he murmured. “I danced one dance with her, and she went back to her fiancé. He’s a nice boy. You’ll like him.”

  “Fiancé!”

  He jerked her close and held her hard, roughly. “I love you,” he said in a voice that paralyzed her. His eyes blazed with it, burned with it. “Oh, God, I love you, Jenny. Love you, want you, need you, in every single damned way there is! If you want me to get on my knees, I’ll do it, I’ll do anything to make you forget what I said and did to you that last day you were here.” He bent and kissed her hungrily, softly, and lifted his head again, breathing hard. “I knew I loved you then,” he said, “when you handed me that check to pay for my bull, and told me the truth. And all I could think of was that I loved you, and that you were out of my reach forever. A career woman, a woman with some money of her own, and I had nothing to offer you, no way to keep you. And I chased you away, because it was torture to look at you and feel that way and have no hope at all.”

  “Rett!” she burst out. Tears welled up in her eyes and she clung to him. “Oh, Rett, why didn’t you tell me? I loved you so much!”

  “I didn’t know that,” he said. His voice shook a little. His arms contracted. “I thought you were playing me along. It wasn’t until you left that I realized that you must have cared one hell of a lot, to have done what you did for me.” He shifted restlessly, and ground her against him. “Don’t you know? Haven’t you worked it out yet, why I sold the oil rights? I did it so that I’d have enough money to bring you back.”