Beloved

by Diana Palmer

  “Of course you do, darling,” he drawled with barely concealed jealousy. “What else do you have with Charles Percy?”

  Chapter Eight

  Tira stopped dancing. She wasn’t sure why she was upset, because Simon had made no bones about thinking she was sleeping with Charles. Apparently when he’d made light love to her earlier, he’d thought her responses were those of an experienced woman. She wondered what he’d think if he knew the truth, that she’d waited for him all these years, that she wanted no other man.

  “Go ahead,” he invited, a strange light in his eyes. “Deny it.”

  She let her gaze fall to his wide, firm mouth. “Think what you like,” she invited. “You will anyway. And I’ll remind you, Simon, that you have no right to question me about Charles.”

  “No right? After what you let me do to you?”

  She flushed and her teeth clenched. “One weak moment…”

  “Weak, the devil,” he muttered quietly. “You were starving to death. Doesn’t he make love to you anymore?”

  “Simon, please don’t,” she pleaded. “Not tonight.”

  The hand holding hers contracted. “Were you thinking of him, then?”

  “Heavens, no!” she burst out, aghast.

  He searched her eyes for a long moment, until he saw her cheeks flush. His hand relaxed.

  “I wasn’t the only one who was starving,” she murmured, a little embarrassed.

  He coaxed her cheek onto his chest. “No, you weren’t,” he agreed. He closed his eyes as they moved to the music.

  She was surprised that he could admit his own hunger. They were moving into a totally new relationship. She didn’t know what to make of it, and she didn’t quite trust him, either. But what she was feeling was so delicious that she couldn’t fight it. She let her body go lax against him and breathed in the spicy scent of his cologne. Her hand moved gently against his shirt, feeling hair and hard, warm muscle under it. He stiffened and it delighted her that he could react so strongly to such an innocent caress.

  “You’d better not,” he whispered at her ear.

  Her hand stilled. “Are you…hairy all over?” she whispered back.

  He stiffened even more. “In places.”

  Her cheek moved against his chest and she sighed. “I’m sleepy,” she murmured, closing her eyes as they moved lazily to the music.

  “Want to go home?”

  “We haven’t been here very long.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ve had a hard week, too.” He let her move away. “Come on. We’ll make our excuses and leave.”

  They found Corrigan and asked him to tell the others Merry Christmas for them.

  “They’re still trying to talk Tess out of leaving,” he murmured dryly. “I hope they can. The smell of baking biscuits makes Dorie sick right now,” he said, glancing down at his wife lovingly. “So they’ll have to go without if they can’t change her mind.”

  “I wish them luck,” Simon said. “We enjoyed the party. Next year, maybe I’ll throw one and you can all come up to San Antonio for it.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” Corrigan replied. He glanced from one of them to the other. “Have you two given up combat?”

  “For the moment,” Tira agreed with a wan smile.

  “For good,” Simon added.

  “We’ll see about that,” Tira returned, her eyes flashing at him even through her fatigue.

  They said their goodbyes and Simon drove them back to San Antonio. But instead of taking her home, he took her to his apartment.

  She wondered why she didn’t protest, which she certainly should have. She was too curious about why he’d come here.

  “No questions?” he asked when they stepped out of the elevator on the penthouse floor.

  “I suppose you’ll tell me when you’re ready,” she replied, but with a faintly wary gaze.

  “No need to worry,” he said as he unlocked his door. “You won’t get seduced unless you want to.”

  She blushed again and hated her own naivete. She followed him inside.

  She’d never seen his apartment before. This was one invitation she’d always hoped for and never got. Simon’s private life was so private that even his brothers knew little of it.

  The apartment was huge and furnished in browns and creams and oranges. He had large oil paintings, mostly of landscapes, on the walls, and the furniture had a vaguely Mediterranean look to it. It was heavy and old, and beautifully polished.

  She ran her hand over the rosewood back of the green velvet-covered sofa that graced the living room. “This is beautiful,” she commented.

  “I hoped you might think so.”

  There was a long pause, during which she became more and more uncomfortable. She glanced at Simon and found him watching her with quiet, unblinking silvery eyes.

  “You’re making me nervous,” she laughed un steadily.

  “Why?”

  She shrugged in the folds of her velvet wrap. “I’m not sure.”

  He moved toward her with a walk that was as blatant as if he’d been whispering seductive comments to her. He took the cloak from her shoulders and the evening bag from her hands, tossing both onto the sofa. His jacket followed it. He took her hands and lifted them to his tie.

  She hesitated. His fingers pressed her hands closer.

  With breath that was coming hard and fast into her throat, she unfastened the silk tie and tossed it onto the sofa. He guided her fingers back to the top buttons of his shirt.

  The silence in the apartment was tense, like the set of Simon’s handsome, lean face. He stood quietly before her, letting her unfasten the shirt. But when she started to push it away, he shook his head.

  “Looking at the prosthesis doesn’t bother me,” she said huskily.

  “Humor me.”

  He drew her close and, pressing her fingers into the thick hair that covered his broad, muscular chest, he bent to her mouth.

  His lips were tender and slow. He kissed her with something akin to reverence, brushing her nose with his as he made light contacts that provoked a new and sweeping longing for more.

  Her fingers contracted in the hair on his chest and she went on tiptoe to coax his mouth harder against her own.

  She felt his good hand on the zipper that held up her gown. She didn’t protest as he slid it down and let the dress fall to the floor. She didn’t protest, either, when he undid the catches to her longline bra with just the fingers of one hand. That, too, fell away and his gaze dropped hungrily to her pretty, taut breasts.

  She stepped out of her shoes and he took her hand, pulling her along with him to his bedroom. It was decorated in the same earth tones as the living room. The bed was king-size, overlaid with a cream-and-brown striped quilted bedspread and a matching dust ruffle.

  He reached behind him and closed the door, locking it as well.

  She looked into his eyes with mingled hunger and apprehension. She knew exactly what he was going to do. She wanted to tell him how inexperienced she was, but she couldn’t quite get the words out.

  He led her to the bed and eased her down onto it. His hand went to his belt. He let his slacks fall to the floor and, clad only in black silk boxer shorts, he sat down on the bed and removed his shoes and socks.

  “Your shirt,” she whispered.

  He eased down beside her, levering himself just above her at an angle. “I don’t think I can do this without the prosthesis,” he said quietly. “But I’d rather you didn’t see it. Do you mind?”

  She shook her head. He was devastating at close range. She loved the look of him, the feel of his hand on her face, her throat, then suddenly whispering over her taut breasts.

  She arched under even that light pressure and her hands clenched as she looked up at him.

  “Are you going to let me take you?” he asked in a soft, blunt tone.

  She bit her lower lip worriedly. “Simon, I’m not sure—”

  “Yes, you are,” he interrupted. “You wan
t me every bit as badly as I want you.”

  She still hesitated, but then she spoke. “Yes, I do.” That was all she said—she couldn’t tell him her secret yet.

  He touched the hard tip of her breast and watched her shiver. “You beautiful creature,” he said half under his breath. “I only hope I can do you justice.”

  While she was searching for the right words to make her confession, his head bent and his mouth suddenly opened right on her breast.

  She caught his head, her nails biting into his scalp.

  He lifted himself just enough to see her worried eyes. “I’m only going to suckle you,” he said with soft surprise, wondering what sort of lover Charles Percy must have been to make her so afraid. “I won’t hurt you.”

  He bent again, and this time she didn’t protest. She couldn’t. It was so sweet that it made her head spin to feel his hot, hard, moist mouth closing over the tight nipple. She moaned under her breath and writhed with pleasure. He nibbled her for a long time, moving slowly from one breast to the other while his hand traced erotic patterns on her belly and the insides of her thighs.

  She barely noticed when he removed her briefs and then his own. His practiced caresses overwhelmed her. She was so enthralled by them that she ached to know him completely.

  A long, feverish few minutes later, he moved between her long legs and his mouth pushed hard against her lips as his hips eased down against hers and he penetrated her.

  The sensation was shocking, frightening. She drifted from a euphoric tension to harsh pain. Her nails bit into his broad shoulders and she called his name. But he was in over his head, all too quickly. He groaned harshly and pushed harder, crying out as he felt her envelop him.

  “Oh…!” she sobbed, pushing against his chest.

  He stilled for an instant, shuddering, and lifted tortured eyes to hers. “I’m hurting you?” he whispered shakenly. “Dear God…no, sweetheart!…don’t move like that…!”

  She shifted her hips in an effort to avoid the pain, and her sharp movements took him right over the edge.

  His face tautened. He pushed, hard, his body totally out of control. “Oh, God, Tira, I’m so sorry…!” he said through his teeth, his eyes closed, his body suddenly urgent on hers.

  He whispered it constantly until he completed his possession of her, and seconds later, he arched and shuddered and cried out in a hoarse groan as completion left him exhausted and shivering on her damp body.

  She felt him relax heavily onto her damp skin, so that she could barely breathe for the weight. She wept silently at the reality of intimacy. It wasn’t glorious fireworks of ecstasy at all. It was just a painful way to give a man pleasure. She hated him. She hated herself more for giving in.

  “Please,” she choked. “Let me go.”

  There was a pause. He drew in a long breath. “Not on your life,” he said huskily.

  He lifted his head and stared into her eyes with an expression on his lean face that she couldn’t begin to understand.

  “Charles Percy,” he said deliberately, “is definitely not your lover.”

  She swallowed and her face flamed. “I…I never said he was, not really,” she stammered.

  He supported himself on the prosthesis and looked down at what he could see of her damp, shivering body. He touched her delicately on her stomach and then trailed his hand down to her thighs. There was a smear of blood on them that seemed to capture his attention for a moment.

  “Simon, it hurts,” she whispered, embarrassed.

  His eyes went back to hers. “I know,” he replied gently. His hand moved gently between her long legs to where their bodies were still completely joined, and she caught his wrist, gasping.

  “Shhh,” he whispered. Ignoring her protests, he began to touch her.

  Shocked at the sudden burst of unexpected pleasure, her wide eyes went homing to his. Her mouth opened as the breath came careening out of her. She caught his shoulders again, digging her nails in. This was…it was… Her eyes closed and she moaned harshly and shivered.

  “That’s it,” he whispered, easing his mouth down onto hers as she shivered and shivered again. “This isn’t going to hurt. Open your mouth. I want you to know me completely, in every way there is.” His hips moved slowly, and he felt her whole body jump as his sensual caresses began to kindle a frightening sweet tension in her. “I’m going to teach you to feel pleasure.”

  She gripped his shoulders and held on, her eyes closed as his mouth worked its way even deeper into her own. She moved her legs around his muscular thighs to help him, to bring him into even closer contact, and gasped when she felt his invasion of her grow even more powerful, more insistent. The pain was still there, but it didn’t matter anymore, because there was such pleasure overlaying it. She wanted him!

  She heard her own voice sobbing, pleading with him, as the frenzy of pleasure grew to unbearable proportions. She was beyond pride, beyond protest. He was giving her pleasure of a sort she’d never dreamed existed. She belonged to him, was part of him, owned by him.

  His movements grew urgent, deep. He whispered something into her open mouth but she couldn’t hear him anymore. She was focused on some dark, sweet goal, every muscle straining toward it, her heartbeat pulsing in time with it, her tense body lifting to meet his as she pleaded for it.

  His hips shifted all at once in a violent, hard rhythm that brought the ecstasy rushing over her like a wave of white-hot sensation. She cried out endlessly as it swept her away, her body pressing to his in a convulsive arch as the pleasure went on and on and on and she couldn’t get close enough…!

  This time, she didn’t feel the weight of him as he collapsed onto her exhausted body. She held him tightly, pulsing in the soft aftermath, her legs trembling as they curled around his. She could hear his ragged breathing as she heard her own.

  A long time later, he lifted his head and looked down into her wide eyes. He smiled at the faint shock in them. “Yes,” he whispered. “It was good, wasn’t it?”

  She made an embarrassed sound and hid her face against him.

  He smiled against her hair. “I thought it would never stop,” he whispered huskily, brushing damp strands of hair away from her lips, her eyes as he turned her toward him. “I’ve never been fulfilled so completely in all my life.”

  She searched his eyes, seeing such tenderness in them that she felt warm all over. She reached up and touched his damp face with pure wonder, from his thick eyebrows to his wide, firm mouth and his stubborn chin. She couldn’t even speak.

  “You must be the only twenty-eight-year-old virgin in Texas,” he murmured, and he wasn’t joking. His eyes were solemn. “Did you save it for me, all these years?”

  She didn’t want to admit that. He probably guessed that she had, but only a little pride remained in her arsenal.

  She sighed quietly. “I never knew a man that I wanted enough,” she confessed, averting a direct answer. She dropped her gaze to his broad, bare chest where the thick hair was damp with sweat. “I suppose you’ve lost count of all the women you’ve had in the past few years.”

  His finger traced her soft mouth. “I haven’t had a woman since Melia died. I dated Jill, but we were never intimate.”

  Her surprise was all too evident as she met his rueful gaze. “What?”

  His powerful shoulders rose and fell. “A one-armed man isn’t a lover many women would choose. I’ve been sensitive about it, and perhaps a little standoffish when it came to invitations.” He searched her eyes. “I’ve always been comfortable with you. I knew that if I fumbled, you wouldn’t laugh at me.”

  “Never that,” she agreed quietly. She looked at the way they were lying and flushed.

  “Now you know,” he murmured with a warm smile.

  “Yes. Now I know.”

  “I’m sorry I had to hurt you.” Regret was in his eyes as well as his tone. He traced her eyebrows. “It had been too long and I lost control. I couldn’t pull away.”

  “I understood
.”

  “You were tight,” he said bluntly. “And very much a virgin. I apologize wholeheartedly for every nasty insinuation I’ve ever made about you.”

  She was uncomfortable. Was he apologizing for making love to her?

  He tilted her face back up to his and kissed her tenderly. “I won’t say I’m sorry,” he whispered into her mouth. “You can’t imagine how it felt, to know I was the first with you.”

  She frowned worriedly.

  He lifted his head and saw her expression. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “You didn’t use anything,” she said.

  “No. I assumed that you were on the pill,” he replied. “That went along with the assumption that you were sleeping with Charles and you’d never gotten pregnant.”

  The very word made her flush even more. “Well, I’m not,” she faltered.

  An expression crossed his face that she couldn’t understand. He looked down at her body pressed so closely, so intimately to his, and curiously, his big hand smoothed over her flat belly in a strangely protective caress.

  “If I made you pregnant…”

  He didn’t have to finish the sentence. She always seemed to know what he was thinking. She reached up and put her cool fingers against his wide mouth.

  “You know me,” she whispered, anticipating the question he was afraid to ask.

  He sighed and let the worry flow out of him. He bent to her mouth and traced it with his lips. “It would complicate things.”

  She only smiled. “Yes.”

  His mouth pressed down hard on hers all at once and his hips moved suggestively.

  She cried out.

  He stilled instantly, because it wasn’t a cry of pleasure. “This is uncomfortable for you now,” he said speculatively.

  “It is,” she confessed reluctantly. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry that I hurt you.” He lifted his weight away and met her eyes. “It may be uncomfortable when I withdraw. I’ll be as slow as I can.”

  The blunt remark made her cheeks go hot, but she watched him lift away from her with frank curiosity and a little awe.

  “Oh, my,” she whispered when he rolled over onto his back.