Rawhide and Lace

by Diana Palmer

  “I had to, damn it!” he cried. “You were his, for all practical purposes. I’d betrayed him; so had you. I couldn’t live with it. I had to get you out of here before I…”

  “Before what, iron man?” she asked him. “Before you lost your head again? Is it so hard to admit that you’re human enough to feel desire?”

  “Yes!”

  He slammed the brandy snifter into the fire, watching it splinter amid the explosion of blazing liquor. Erin jumped at the impact, but he didn’t even flinch. He brushed back a lock of unruly hair and reached automatically into his pocket for a cigarette. He lit it and took a long draw while Erin sat nervously watching him.

  He moved away from the fireplace restlessly. “My father’s idea of marriage was warped. He saw it as a business merger. Sex, he always told me, was a weakness that a man with any backbone should be able to overcome.” He paused in front of her and looked down, his silvery eyes cold and unfeeling. “Erin, I had my first woman when I was twenty-one, and it took weeks to get over the guilt. I gave in to a desire I couldn’t control, and I hated it. And her.” He lifted his shoulders. “Maybe I hated my father, too, for forcing his principles onto me. My mother couldn’t live with him. She was normal. A warm, loving woman. He couldn’t even touch her at the last.”

  He moved back to the fireplace and stared into the flames while Erin sat quietly and thrilled to the wonder of hearing these intimate things—things, she knew, that he’d never shared with another living soul.

  “I’m more like him every day,” he said dully, studying the flames. “I can’t change. Walls work both ways. They keep people out…but they keep people in, too.”

  Her heart ached for him. Her own problems seemed to diminish a little as she realized what he was saying.

  “You’re lonely,” she said gently.

  He turned and looked at her, and for the first time his expression wasn’t hidden. He seemed older, worn; and there was pain in every line of his hard face. “Honey, I’ve been lonely all my life,” he said, his voice deep and quiet, the endearment curiously exciting to Erin because it was so unlike him. “My upbringing and my looks have been two strikes against me with women ever since I can remember.”

  She blinked. “Your looks?”

  “Don’t be coy,” he muttered. “I know I’m no prize.”

  “If you think looks make any difference, you’re no prize mentally, and that’s for sure,” she said slowly, deliberately. “I’ve never known anyone who was more a man than you are.”

  His eyes widened, as if the compliment had shocked him. He stared at her, the cigarette forgotten. “I hurt you….”

  “I was a virgin,” she said softly. “Sometimes it’s difficult for women the first time. You couldn’t have helped that.”

  His jaw tensed. “Coals of fire, Erin.”

  She remembered the quotation from the Bible, about heaping coals of fire on an enemy’s head by being kind to him. “It isn’t flattery,” she told him. “I don’t like you enough to flatter you.”

  He actually laughed. “Aiding and abetting the enemy, then?”

  She shrugged. “The enemy’s managed to bring me back to life. I think I owe you a compliment or two.”

  “You won’t think so when I start on that hip,” he assured her. He lifted his chin imperiously and smiled. “Drill instructors will look like pussycats when I get through with you.”

  “You were a marine, weren’t you?” she shot back. “‘Once a marine, always a marine’—isn’t that what they say? Well, you won’t break me, mister. I’m tough!”

  He liked her spirit. He always had. But the woman he’d found in that New York apartment hadn’t shown any. It had taken this trip and a lot of goading, but he’d managed to shake her out of all that self-pitying apathy. And he was pleased with the result.

  “You’re pretty like that,” he remarked, noting the color in her cheeks, the emerald depths of her eyes, the provocative disorder of all that black hair curling around her elfin face. “Scars and all. In no time at all, you’ll never know where the cuts were.”

  “My hip will never look the same without skin grafts,” she muttered, brought back to painful reality. “And I don’t really want to go through any more surgery.”

  “Once a man got you undressed, a scar on your hip would be the last thing he’d be staring at,” he said bluntly.

  She’d forgotten that he’d seen her by the firelight without her clothing. She remembered that frank appraisal, as if he’d never seen a nude woman before and wanted to memorize every soft line and curve. Her breasts had fascinated him. He’d touched them so gently, caressed them, whispered how beautiful they were. Without warning, her face went scarlet.

  “Yes, you remember too, don’t you?” he asked, his voice low and sensuous. “It was right where I’m standing, and I looked at you until I got drunk on the sight. And you let me. You lay there all soft and sweetly moving, and you let me.”

  “It was new,” she said defensively, lowering her eyes to her dress.

  “It was heaven,” he corrected. “The closest I ever expect to get in my lifetime. If it hadn’t been for Bruce…” He turned and threw his cigarette into the fire, closing his eyes against the pain. “Oh, God, I’ll never forgive him!”

  His tone of voice disturbed her. It was bitter, yet filled with the anguish of loss…profound loss. She got up, unconsciously walking without the cane, limping a little as she paused beside him.

  He was so tall. Towering. She had to look up to see his dark face, and the warmth and strength of him drew her like a magnet. It had been so sweet that afternoon to lie in his arms again and feel his mouth; and those memories were her undoing.

  “It doesn’t matter anymore,” she said gently. “He’s dead. Let him rest in peace. He had so little of it in life, Ty.”

  “How much do you think I have?” he demanded, staring down at her with tormented eyes. “It’s eating me alive!”

  She held him by the arms and actually shook him. “The car came at me around a curve, head on,” she said, frustrated into telling him the truth about the wreck. “Nobody could have avoided it, upset or not!”

  He watched her without speaking for a long moment. “Is that the truth?”

  “Yes! And it was in New York State, just minutes from home, Ty. I could have been driving out of the city to an assignment and had it happen.” She held his eyes with her own, adding slowly, “You didn’t cause it.”

  He shook his head and smiled grimly. “Didn’t I?” He took a slow breath and seemed to notice her hands for the first time. “Would you have had the baby?”

  “Of course,” she said without thinking.

  He reached out and touched her cheek where the hairline scar ran just beside her ear. “Someone would have told me, eventually,” he said quietly. “I’d have come to you. I’d have married you.”

  “What kind of life would that have been?” she asked sadly, searching the hard lines of his face. “You’d never have accepted what I did for a living, or even the way I was. You didn’t want a butterfly—you even said so. And modeling was my whole life. I loved it; I loved the bright lights and the people and the delight of showing off pretty clothes.” The smile that had animated her face faded as she remembered the wreck. “I lost all that. I can’t go back to it, not like this. I can learn another kind of work, but nothing will ever replace modeling.” Except you, she wanted to say. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t lower her pride enough to tell him that living with him and being loved by him would have been more than enough recompense for the career she’d lost.

  She turned back toward the sofa, stumbling a little.

  “Oh, damn this leg!” she burst out, near tears.

  “If you don’t like it, suppose you fix it,” he said. “Exercise it, like the doctor told you. If you want your career back, earn it!”

  She couldn’t know that her remark about her career had caught him on the raw, that he was hurting because she’d as much as told him that h
e didn’t matter. He deserved it, he knew he did, but it cut all the same.

  “Okay,” she told him defiantly. “I will!”

  He smiled. “Good. Now go get on something you can exercise in and I’ll coach you. We can have coffee later.”

  She hobbled down the hall to her room without a backward glance. And she told herself she hated him more than ever.

  The first session was more painful than she’d anticipated. She did the exercises described on the sheet, with Ty looming over her, demanding more than she thought she was capable of.

  “You can push harder than that, for God’s sake,” he said when she slackened.

  “I’m not a man!”

  He looked pointedly at her firm, full breasts under the revealing fabric of her body leotard, and a faint smile touched his mouth. “I’ll drink to that.”

  “Stop looking at me there,” she told him haughtily.

  “Wear a bra next time,” he countered, watching her from his armchair as she stretched on the carpet. “I can’t help it if I get disturbed by hard nipples.”

  She gasped, flushed, and sat up in one sharp movement. “Tyson!” she burst out.

  His eyebrows arched, and he looked as hopelessly the dominant male as any movie sex symbol. “Why the redrose blush, honey?” he asked innocently. “Or don’t you remember that you had sex with me on this very carpet?”

  “Oh, I hate you!” she cried, eyes flaring, cheeks flaming, hair disordered and wild around her oval face. The leotard emphasized her thinness, but it also lovingly outlined a body so exquisite that lingerie companies had bid for her services as a model.

  “No you don’t; you just hate sex,” he replied. “And that’s my fault. But one of these days, I may change your mind about that.”

  “Hold your breath,” she challenged.

  “Daring me, Erin?” he asked, and his smile held shades of meaning as his silver eyes glittered over her body.

  Watching those eyes, she began to tingle from head to toe. Her hip was throbbing, but she felt reckless all the same. She wanted to wipe that arrogant smile off his face. She wanted to make him vulnerable, wanted to watch the walls come down.

  She arched her back, just a little, just enough to make the hard tips of her breasts blatantly visible. “Maybe I am,” she whispered huskily. “So what are you going to do about it, cattle king?”

  He was smoking a cigarette, but at her words he deliberately crushed it out in the ashtray. “I hope your hip’s up to some additional exercise,” he drawled.

  And with a movement so fast it blurred, he slid down over her body and pinned her there, arching above her with one lean, muscular leg thrown heavily over both of hers.

  “Okay, honey, now what do we do?” he said softly. “Is this what you had in mind?” And looking down, he blatantly slid one lean hand directly over a full breast, cupping it.

  She felt her breath catch. Watching him earlier—and now—a lot of things were becoming clear to her. The way he’d been in the car, hungry but not practised; the way he was cupping her now, blatantly, without any preliminaries: she had a deep hunch that he knew less about women than he was pretending to. Male pride obviously ran deep. Well, two could play at this game. She didn’t know a lot, either, but she’d heard women talk….

  “Not like that,” she whispered, lifting his hand. “Like…this.”

  She showed him how to trace the softness, to tease the tip until her body stiffened and trembled with the need to be touched. She drew his fingers against her until he understood and began to do it without coaching.

  “You like it that way?” he asked under his breath, searching her eyes for an instant before they went back to the softness of her body under his hand.

  “Yes,” she whispered shakily. “It arouses me.”

  His breath shuddered out of him. He could hardly believe it, that she was willing to show him what she liked, that she wasn’t complaining about his lack of finesse or laughing at him. All at once he wondered if Bruce had been lying after all, about that. She didn’t seem the kind of woman to laugh at inexperience…especially now.

  “What else do you like?” he asked huskily.

  It was like drinking wine. She felt drunk on him. Her hip was forgotten, every other thought drained away. She was woman enticing man. She was a siren trapping a sailor, giddy with her own power.

  Her hands eased up to the shoulders of the leotard, and, holding his fascinated gaze, she drew it down and bared her taut breasts.

  “Oh, God…” He shuddered as he saw their creamy fullness, the dark mauve points lifting gracefully toward him. “Oh, God, you’re beautiful, baby…!”

  She felt beautiful. She felt achingly hungry as well. She reached up with trembling hands to take his hard face and draw it toward her body.

  “What do you want?” he whispered, frowning.

  “I want you to put your lips…here.” She touched her breasts lightly, caressing their swollen peaks.

  He stopped breathing. “On your breasts?” he asked hesitantly. “I won’t hurt them?”

  She felt the smile in her eyes as she shook her head. “Oh, no,” she promised. “You won’t hurt them.”

  He eased his hands under her bare back to lift her, bending over her in spite of his reservations. But her body had a scent like roses, and when he touched his mouth to the curve of her soft breast, she stiffened and began to tremble like a rain-tossed leaf.

  More confident now, he began to draw his lips around the very tip of her breast. And when that made her moan softly, he opened his mouth and took the nipple inside, warming it with his tongue. She cried out then, and just as he thought he’d hurt her and tried to move away, her hands dug into the nape of his neck and she arched her soft body up to him with a tiny whimpered plea.

  He groaned himself at the surge of pleasure it gave him to know that she was enjoying it, too. His hands smoothed down her rib cage, savoring her warm, silky skin while his mouth fed on the unexpected sweetness of her breasts.

  When he lifted his head, her expression shocked and delighted him. Her eyes were half closed, watching him, her lips parted over pearly teeth. Her face was alive with color, her hands caressing the hard muscle of his chest.

  “Could you take off your shirt?” she asked drowsily.

  He couldn’t take it off fast enough, in fact. His hands fumbled because he was aroused—as he hadn’t been since that night with her. But that night was nothing like this. He was on fire. Burning up.

  He ripped off the shirt and shuddered a little with pride as her eyes ran over him with blatant appreciation. She reached up hesitantly, smoothing over the thick mat of hair that covered the warm, bronzed muscles, and at her touch he felt his heart running wild.

  She lifted herself up gracefully and kneeled in front of him. Her eyes traced his torso, and she seemed to sway toward him. She dug her nails into his muscular arms and leaned a little against him, drawing the very tips of her breasts softly, abrasively, against the hardness of his chest.

  He shuddered violently. “Erin!” he gasped.

  “Oh, Ty…” It was as much a moan as a whisper. She put her mouth on his and kissed him hungrily, feeling his arms come around her, crushing her, trembling as they fit her exquisitely to the contours of his chest. The hair was cushy and thick, and she liked the feel of it against her soft breasts. She could feel his heartbeat shaking both of them. It was so sweet. So sweet…

  The sudden intrusion of a knock on the front door made her almost sick with mingled frustration and shock.

  She jerked back. He looked as dazed as she felt. He looked at her one last time and cursed under his breath as he helped her back into the leotard.

  He got to his feet gracefully and was just shouldering into his shirt when they heard footsteps echoing down the hall. Erin looked toward the door—and realized they’d both forgotten to close it!

  “I used to be levelheaded before you came along,” Ty muttered, glaring at her as he fastened buttons. “My God, with t
he door standing wide open…! You little siren,” he breathed, his eyes warm with memories as they held hers. “God, that was sweet!”

  “Well, you’re helping me get back on my feet,” she murmured demurely. “I thought the least I could do was divert you a little.”

  “That was more seduction than diversion,” he replied. He reached down a hand to help her up. But instead of letting her go, he held her just in front of him. “Erin, we’ve got to do something about this,” he said solemnly. “You knock me off balance pretty bad. I could lose control, now more than ever. I…don’t want to make you pregnant by accident.” The thought seemed to torture him; his face hardened into grim lines, his eyes grew dark.

  “I’m sorry,” Erin said quietly. “I won’t do it again. I don’t know what got into me, Ty…”

  “No,” he whispered, touching her mouth with his forefinger. “No, don’t apologize for it. You made me feel like a man again, like a whole man….” He hesitated uncharacteristically. “I want you.” He said it in a whisper, as if it were some terrible secret.

  She drew in a slow breath. “I know.” She dropped her eyes to his chest. She could have said the same thing, but she was afraid to give him that kind of power over her. His hands gripped her arms painfully hard just as José came to the door.

  “Señor, it is the foreman, Señor Grandy. A wild dog has brought down a calf. He says it is the same dog as before, that of Señor Jessup.”

  “Damn,” Ty muttered. Instantly he was the powerful cattle baron again, cold, relentless, indomitable; a formidable adversary. And a stranger. “Get my.30-.30 and bring me a box of ammunition,” he ordered José. “And tell Grandy to wait for me. Call Ed Johnson while I’m gone and tell him the situation. I may have a court suit over this.”

  “Sí, señor,” José said graciously, and left them.

  “It’s Mr. Jessup’s dog?” she asked Ty, watching him reach into the closet for his sheepskin jacket and the familiar old Stetson he wore when he was working.

  “That’s about the size of it. Part shepherd, part wolf. I’ve told him about that dog, but he won’t pen it up. I’ve lost my last calf to it.”