Made For Each Other

by Parris Afton Bonds

  He had promised her before the wedding that he would not force himself on her, but she was well aware that it was extremely difficult for her to resist his insistent attentions when he chose to turn on his seductive charm. When they reached their suite, she paused only briefly enough at her bedroom door to say goodnight, but he had other plans. One hand braced on the doorframe, he said, “Not so fast.”

  Her heart did a trip-beat. “What?” she breathed.

  His hand reached out to caress the column of her neck, and she inhaled audbly. Her lids fluttered closed at the sensuous sensation rippling through her.

  He grinned wickedly, letting his fingers slip lower to her clavicle. Remember, we need to tighten your brace.”

  “I think I can manage that,” she murmured.

  “Oh, but don’t deny me a husband’s pleasure in helping his wife.”

  He backed her into her bedroom and deftly stripped her of her jacket. Looking helpless up at his mocking expression, she saw his eyes suddenly smoulder. She took a step back, but got no farther, blocked by the bed. A hungry smile curled only slightly the ends of his mouth. His fingers fastened on the buckles of each brace and he pulled her toward him only a fraction. “I’m not going to ravish you, Julie.”

  When a little breath escaped her lips, whether it was relief of disappointment, she wasn’t sure, he jerked harshly on each buckle. Then, his fingertips at her breasts, he gave her the briefest little shove, and she fell backwards onto the mattress.”

  “Ohhh!” she gasped.

  “Goodnight, Mrs. Raffer,” he said turning and shutting the door behind him.

  “Go to hell, Mr. Raffer!” she shouted after him. She struggled off the mattress and locked the door behind him. Stripping to her panties, she crawled immediately into the king-size bed, feeling very small. She thought she would go to sleep immediately, but frustration kept her wide awake at first. Then, every so often, above the distant pounding of the surf against the beaches, she could hear Nick walking about his room. Once she thought he opened his terrace doors, but she was not sure. And she tried to remember if she had locked her own doors to the terrace.

  She was too sleepy by then to check. The last thing she remembered was the unaccustomed feel of the ring on her third finger; then dawn’s pink shafts of light awoke her.

  Stretching, she made her way out onto the terrace, thinking she would watch the sunrise alone. But Nick was already out there with a cup of coffee. “Throw on your clothes and have some coffee,” he said, laughing when she quickly shielded her breasts and drew back within the shadow of the room.

  He was pouring her a cup when she emerged, this time fully clad in her tight jeans and his shirt, the tails of which she had tied in a knot at her waist as he had done to her aboard the plane. “You continue to amaze me, Mrs. Raffer,” he said with a rueful smile. “I didn’t think many women got up early if they didn’t have to.”

  “You have a poor opinion of women, Mr. Raffer” She took the cup of thick black coffee he passed her.

  The half-closed eyes scrutinized her with amusement. “Perhaps my limited experience has unjustly influenced me.”

  She wanted to tell him she would not call his experience limited, but he continued, saying, “Now, if you tell me you like fishing, I’ll begin to suspect—”

  “But I do,” she said with a laugh. “Really! My father and I fish along Hickory Creek every time I go back home.”

  Nick’s dark brows arched in genuine surprise. He stood up and said, “I’m making reservations for a boat at nine, and we’ll test your mettle at sailfishing.”

  Less than three hours later she found herself out in a three-ton boat manned by two young Mexicans and piloted by an old man whose skin was as brown as his beard and hair were white. Sitting next to Nick in an anchored chair that swiveled, she lazily fished through the morning as the boat rode the Caribbean’s gentle waves. Though the sun warmed her skin, the sea breeze played with her hair so that it kept getting in her face.

  “Here,” Nick said, wheeling around in his chair to catch her head between his hands. “Hold still for a moment.” Deftly he began to fashion pig-tails out of her wind-whipped hair, securing each handful of hair with a strip of fishing string.

  When he had finished she returned to her fishing, though somewhat awkwardly with her brace limiting her range of motion. She was more confused than ever about the man to whom she was married. Some moments he could be brusque and exacting, and at others he was incredibly tender and gentle, so that if she had not known better she would have thought he cared for her.

  The morning passed into noon without either of them getting a bite. They broke for a lunch of tuna sandwiches and a wicker- covered flask of sangria. she found she liked the mixture of wine and fruit juices much better than the hard liquor she had occasionally tasted at Santa Fe’s soirees. Just as the boat was putting about to head back for port, her line snapped outward, almost jerking her from the chair.

  “You’ve got one!” Nick shouted. “Hang in there, Julie!”

  A gigantic fish with a spotted sail three times as large as its blue body soared out of the water in a graceful arc. Her muscles felt as if they would be torn from her body. Without the full use of her left arm, her back was forced to strain with the effort to control the rod. At once Nick was behind her, his arms about her own. “Reel in,” he coaxed her as he steadied the rod.

  She did not know which battled more, the fish or her own emotions; for the sight of Nick’s bronzed arms, the corded muscles straining with the pull of the fish, the hard warmth of his body molding hers from behind, caused her insides to flood with the want of him while her heart warned her of the danger of becoming involved with him.

  But it was too late. She already was involved. She was his wife for six months . . . but in name only.

  When the sailiish was finally landed and iced down, she was exuberant. “We’ll have it mounted above the fireplace,” Nick told her, and she noted that there was a mixture of amusement and pride in the usually guarded eyes.

  That evening, after a siesta and dinner on the terrace, Nick took her dancing. But the pleasant man of the afternoon was gone. She did not know what she had done to incur his moodiness. She realized she was not as beautiful as the women he was accustomed to escorting, but she had tried to look her best that last evening on Cozumel.

  She did know that Nick slipped into these uncommunicative moods each time she was forced to knock on their connecting bedroom door and ask for his help in taking her brace off and putting it back on before and after her baths. She suspected he resented her displaying so tantalizingly what she had expressly denied him; what he did not know was that it was just as difficult for her to stand before him clad only in a towel, to feel his warm fingers against her flesh, and not surrender.

  That evening she had spent a long hour soaking in the tiled tub. Then she arranged her freshly washed hair in a cluster of curls anchored at the nape of her neck with a red oleander picked from the potted shrubs on the terrace. Lastly, she slipped into the long white huipile with its border of green embroidery at hem and sleeves. She only wished the brace were not so visible above the scooped neckline.

  But the long mirror on the bathroom door assured her that, considering the day spent in the sun and wind, she was extraordinarily pretty that evening, especially with the pink glow the afternoon sun had left on her full cheekbones.

  Yet Nick wore a distant look of cool politeness and made little conversation in between the dances when they returned to their bamboo booth that coordinated with the rest of the nightclub’s jungle motif. If his arms did not embrace her so firmly, pressing her small body against the length of his when they danced to romantic songs like “Noche de Ronda” and “Maria Bonita”—if his fingers did not linger at her side where her breasts swelled—she would have thought he was completely indifferent to her feminine charms.

  However, when they returned to their suite after midnight, Nick clearly demonstrated otherwise when she wo
uld have closed the connecting door. Perhaps it was the effects of the one glass of salted margarita she had drunk, but she unwisely did not pull away when Nick’s hand cupped the back of her neck, slowly tightening, as he drew her to him. she stood on tiptoe, swaying against his broad chest for support.

  It was only supposed to be a light thank- you kiss for the marvelous days at Cozumel, but the touch of Nick’s warm mouth against her own, parting her lips in a demanding insistence, caused her to forget her resolve not to become emotionally involved with him.

  After a long moment he released her passion-bruised lips, but his hand, entangled in the cinnamon curls at the nape of her neck, still held her captive. He pulled her head back firmly, tilting her face to his searching gaze. “Changing your mind?”

  Infuriated—not only at Nick but at her easy submission—she shoved away from him. Her carefully arranged curls came loose to fall in wild disorder over her shoulders. “And you—you gave your word you wouldn’t—”

  “It was only a husbandly kiss, Mrs. Raffer,” he taunted.

  “Goodnight, Mr. Raffer!” She slammed the door and bolted it, trying hard to ignore the soft laughter on the other side. Sleep was difficult that night, for a pair of bold blue eyes invaded her dreams, watching her with derision lurking in their drowning depths.

  The next morning she sat stonily opposite Nick while they ate a breakfast of papaya and pineapple on their balcony. He seemed indifferent to her mood as he casually glanced over the English edition of one of Mexico’s leading newspapers, which had been shoved beneath the door. Finished with her fruit, she stood. “I’m going to pack,” she told the back of the New York Stock Exchange listings.

  Nick folded the newspaper and laid it aside. “Not yet. The boat doesn’t leave for Yucatan until this afternoon. We’ll spend the morning sunbathing.”

  She resented this imperious attitude even more than the passionate kiss he had extracted from her the night before. “I got too much sun yesterday. I think I’ll stay in my room and read.”

  She turned to go, and Nick’s hand shot out to grab her small-boned wrist. “You’re my bride, Julie. And my bride doesn’t spend her honeymoon‘reading in her room.”

  She wanted to protest but knew it would do little good. Nick was not the sort of man to put up with a temper tantrum. She had no doubt that he would shake her within an inch of her life if she went against his will.

  Her lips a tight, thin line, she removed her wrist from his grasp. “I’ll be ready in a moment,” she said disdainfully as she rubbed where his fingers had bit into her skin.

  It was the first time Nick would see her in the new bathing suit he had bought for her, for she had not come out of the boutique’s changing room when she had tried the bikini on. Now, looking at herself in the mirror, she felt almost naked. She wished she were taller, with longer legs and breasts like melons instead of ta-tas. And why did she have to wear that unbecoming brace about her shoulders!

  Nick’s eyes swept over her when she met him outside their rooms, but he said nothing about the way the bikini bottom barely concealed her curves, too ample to her way of thinking.

  He wore black briefs that emphasized his rock-hard thighs and taut stomach, and she kept her gaze on the stone steps that descended the bluff to the hotel’s private beach so her gaze would not stray to Nick’s virile physique.

  The two of them were alone on the beach that early in the morning, although by ten the sun was already white hot. Nick stretched out on the tawny sand without looking at her and crossed his hands behind his head. she seated herself a few feet away and began to rub the suntan cream she had brought on her legs, though it could just as easily have been sand she rubbed for all she noticed. She was more aware of Nick’s long, lean body only inches from hers. When he turned over on his stomach, cradling his head in his arms, she jumped and dropped the tube of suntan cream.

  What if she had angered him enough the evening before that he had decided to forgo his promise? If he even touched her . . . the prospect made her stomach muscles tighten in apprehension – and,yes, anticipation.

  “Rub some cream on my back, will you?” he mumbled lazily.

  Her tongue played over her lower lip. She knew darned well Nick was aware of the volatile emotions his presence aroused in her! Gathering her courage, she knelt beside the lithe brown figure. She squeezed out the cream in a snakelike figure down the length of the broad back, stopping just where the waist tapered into the narrow hips. She found herself admiring those hips—not slat-ass like some men’s she had noticed, but firmly rounded with muscles.

  “I’ll fry before you rub the cream in,” Nick said casually, but for the first time that morning she thought she detected the slightest hint of humor in his voice.

  She steeled herself and began to rub the cream into the warm flesh. She tried to keep it on an impersonal level, but as her fingertips moved over the tendons and muscles that involuntarily rippled at her touch, her heart began to beat faster, and the tight knot of desire began to expand in her stomach so that it would soon snap at the unrelieved tension.

  She wanted to stop then before she gave herself away, for surely he could detect by the way her hands almost caressed his body how highly aroused she was—and, unreasonably, she wanted to go on touching him. It would be one of the few times she would have an excuse to without betraying her feelings—and that was something she was determined not to do. She would not behave like all the other women who clustered around Nicholas Raf fer, throwing themselves on him.

  “My turn,” he said.

  “No, I—I’ve already put—”

  “But not on your back,” he pointed out and took the tube from her tight grasp. He pushed her face down on the towel and deftly un-snapped the bikini top. Without regard for her gasp of protest, he began to rub the cream into her soft skin. Held immobile by the brace on her shoulders and by his thighs locked about her hips, she could only lie passively while those sure fingers stroked her in a manner that was anything but impersonal, trailing along the fine line of her back to encircle her waist and slide back up to massage the graceful curve of her shoulders.

  She held her breath, afraid, yet excited. Her heart seemed to beat so loudly that the rumble of the surf against the beach was a distant whisper in comparison. She wanted to feel more than Nick’s hands on her; she wanted to feel the entire length of his sun- warmed body pressed against hers.

  But when his hands slipped around her small rib cage to encompass her freed breasts, she quivered as if an electric wire had touched her. And yet she could do no more than lie passively as his knowing fingers found her nipples and teased them into life. “Nick. . . ” His name on her lips was a half moan, half plea.

  “Admit you want me,” he whispered at her ear.

  She wanted his gentle massaging to go on forever. “Yes!” she rasped. “I want you”—the words slipped out unintentionally—“but I’ll hate myself and you ... for making me like your other women.”

  Chapter Six

  The weight of Nick’s body on her buttocks was suddenly withdrawn. Julie turned her head to see him standing above her, fists planted on hips. His lips were stretched in a flat, grim line. “I’m going for a swim; then we’d better get ready to leave.”

  She watched him as he strode across the white sand toward the gentle roll of turquoise waves. She desperately wished he were not so virile, that he did not have such a magnetic personality or such an intelligent mind . . . anything to make her want him less.

  And she knew she could never really have him. As it was, he detested her for her outspoken columns. Now that she was his wife, he could only compare her unfavorably with Santa Fe’s young socialites who competed for his attentions. He could have married any one of them, and now he was trapped in a loveless marriage with her. But though he could and did have any number of women at his command, she swore that she would not join the throng of women who had surrendered to him.

  Yet it would not be easy to live in such intimate c
ontact with him. Her skin still burned with the heat of his touch . . . as inside she burned with unfulfillment. She watched his easy, sure strokes cut through the incoming waves, thinking that if it were not for the broken collarbone she would be out there swimming also, if for no other reason than to cool off her desire for him.

  Nick’s distant but unfailing courtesy on the flight back to El Paso accomplished the cooling most effectively. And by the time they had made the silent journey by car in the early-morning hours from El Paso to Santa Fe she felt positively frozen inside.

  When the Blazer left the highway that paralleled the Rio Grande and traveled down a dirt road to halt in what seemed the middle of the high desert, she was ready to storm from the car. Only the thought of a scandalous paragraph in Dee Morley’s column kept her anchored to her seat.

  “Why are we stopping here?” she demanded, keeping her eyes trained on the distant peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains that were painted pink by dawn’s first light.

  Nick switched off the engine. “This is where I live.”

  She looked around. She saw only a juniper-dotted mound. “Where?”

  Nick pointed before him. “There—beneath that mound. I built an underground home last year—to escape the demands of city life.”

  Now she could make out on the southern side windows framed by a portion of stucco that blended with the earthen roof. She had heard of underground homes, but the idea that she would be living in one completely captivated her. More than that, she felt a great relief, for she had expected Nick to live in one of those pretentious haciendalike mansions required by a senator’s image—and with a dozen servants trailing underfoot to make her extremely uncomfortable.

  Inside, the home was just as informal. Reached by steps descending into a section of the mound, a hand-carved wooden door opened onto a large room with smoothly whitewashed walls that sloped out toward their bottom to form curved benches topped with thick burnt-orange cushions. The unbroken strip of high, narrow windows gave a magnificent view of tawny desert floor walled by mountains capped with winter’s white' lace. The small kitchen was very utilitarian, with most of the appliances concealed by stucco facades.