For Now and Forever

by Diana Palmer

  He seemed to feel the heat of her body before she ever got to him, because he reached out and caught her shoulders, pulling her against him.

  “I told you at the beginning that I tend to get impatient and short-tempered,” he said quietly. “It won’t get better, especially when the headaches come, so if you want to back out of the agreement and go home, I won’t stop you.”

  The statement shocked her. It didn’t sound like a man after revenge. She stared up into the unseeing dark eyes with her heart in her own—and all her resentments fell away. It wasn’t fair, she thought bitterly, that he could undermine her resistance this way, just by being humble. And it was so obviously a false impression, because when had Saxon Tremayne ever been humble?

  She sighed. “I’ve got a temper of my own, and I lose it far too often,” she murmured. “Shouldn’t we go?”

  He drew her forehead against his chest with a sigh, holding her gently, rocking her in his warm arms with his cheek against her dark hair. “Bear with me,” he whispered at her ear. “I’m doing my damnedest not to hurt you.”

  It was quite a confession for the rigid, uncompromising man she remembered. She had a feeling that he never apologized.

  “Said the wolf to the lamb.” She laughed.

  “You’ve got teeth yourself,” he reminded her with a laugh. His arms tightened for an instant before he released her. “You wouldn’t last long around me if you were one of those meek little angels most mothers want their daughters to grow into. Let’s go home, honey. I’ve got to rout Randy out and talk tactics with him.”

  “You’re the boss,” she said, taking his hand to walk him out the door.

  Tabby met them in the outer office. “Want me to pack up some of these little nagging problems and let you carry them off, boss?” she asked, tongue in cheek.

  “What kind of little nagging problems?” he asked.

  “Well, for example,” she rattled off, “there’s the soft drink machine that masquerades as a one-armed bandit. There’s the coffee machine that gives coffee but no cups. There’s the computer repairman who promised to be here Monday and hadn’t shown up Friday. There’s the dogged apparel fastener salesman who wouldn’t listen when I tried to tell him we were contracted to another supplier. There are the three girls who can’t sew but want to start at twice the salary we pay production workers...”

  “Get me the hell out of here,” Saxon told Maggie with a loud laugh. “Take care of it, Tabby,” he called over his shoulder.

  The redhead stuck out her tongue as they left the building.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “WHERE TO NOW?” Maggie asked when they were back in the car.

  “That’s up to you, honey. You’re driving,” he said with a smile.

  “Want to ride up in the mountains and have a picnic?” she suggested, feeling elated and adventurous. “We could stop and get some cheese and crackers and cookies.”

  “Childhood revisited?” he chided.

  “Something like that,” she admitted. “Lisa and I used to go fishing with Dad, and we’d always stop at some little country store to get something to snack on. I’d all but forgotten what fun it was.”

  “I haven’t been fishing since I was twelve,” he recalled.

  “What do you do for relaxation when you’re not working yourself to death?” she asked after she’d cranked the car and pulled out onto the highway.

  “The corporation has been my vocation and my avocation for years, Maggie,” he said quietly. His hands dug for a cigarette and he lighted it with careless ease. “I haven’t had time for anything else.”

  “It sounds rather narrow,” she observed.

  “Does it? What do you do when you’re not working on the newspaper?”

  She sighed. “Not a lot,” she confessed. “We only have two reporters, and the other one is just part-time, after school. I’m on call twenty-four hours a day. If anything happens, I’m expected to cover it, regardless of what time it is.”

  “That doesn’t sound very safe,” he remarked. “What if there’s a night robbery?”

  “I get my camera and go,” she said simply. “It’s part of the job. News doesn’t take holidays.”

  “Blind dedication,” he scoffed.

  “We’re the public’s eyes and ears,” she argued, warming to battle. “We’re writing history as it happens. Who’s going to record important events for posterity if we don’t?”

  “I fail to see what difference it’s going to make if a small-town bank robbery is recorded for posterity,” he said shortly. “And does it really matter if you get the facts at midnight or at seven the next morning?”

  She drew in a sharp breath. “You just don’t understand.”

  “I never did. You give a hundred and ten percent to the job, and who cares? Not the people who read the stories. They knew everything before the paper went to press. They just read it to find out who got caught.”

  “You’re oversimplifying.”

  “No, I’m not. You’re overstating the importance of what you do. I’ve noticed that about dedicated journalists,” he continued. “They see the job as a holy grail. It’s nothing more than an overglorified gossip column, which sometimes causes more problems than it solves. I’ve seen radical groups parading for the benefit of television cameras.”

  “We do a lot of good,” she muttered, executing a turn.

  “Name something,” he challenged.

  “All right, I will.” And she proceeded to rattle off projects the paper had supported—programs to benefit the needy, the homeless, the aged, the underprivileged, the uneducated, the bereaved, the blind, the victimized, the multiple-handicapped—and only when she paused for breath did he stop her with an upraised hand and an amused laugh.

  “Okay, I get the picture,” he admitted. “Maybe small-town papers accomplish more, and I won’t argue that you do some good. But,” he added, “will the world end if you give it up?”

  She thought about that. “Not for the subscribers,” she confessed. “Because there’s always somebody who can replace you on a newspaper staff, and probably do a better job than you did yourself. But I don’t know if I could live without it, you see.”

  “Why not?” His head lifted, as if her answer seemed to matter intensely to him.

  “It’s not a dull job, and it’s never routine,” she replied. “There’s always something going on, either a project you’re following, or a big story beginning to break under wraps. You can’t get bored, because you don’t have the time.” Her face lit up with the memories. “You get to go in the front door of places you couldn’t get in the back door of if you were just an average citizen. You get to meet extraordinary people, do exciting things. I love it,” she concluded. “It’s...everything.”

  “A man should be that, to a woman,” he said quietly.

  “No man is ever going to be everything to me,” she replied, easing the car onto the highway that led to the distant mountains.

  “I wouldn’t be overconfident if I were you,” he advised. “Very often, none of us are as self-sufficient as we convince ourselves we are.”

  “Speaking from personal experience?” she challenged.

  “Yes,” he admitted, surprising her. “I never thought I’d live to see the day when I’d have to be led around by the hand like a child, Maggie. I’d have bet money that it could never happen.”

  “It won’t always be like this for you,” she told him with more conviction than she felt.

  “Won’t it?” He laughed bitterly. “That’s not what my surgeon told me.”

  “Circumstances may change,” she reminded him.

  “Whales may drive cars some day,” he retorted.

  “Saxon...”

  “Leave it, honey. Tell me where we are.”

  He wasn’t going to discuss it any more, that was obvious. She
sighed wearily. “We’re heading out of Jarrettsville going west, and there’s a highway leading off to our left across the Tyger River. Which way do I go?”

  “Straight ahead. We should be in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountain chain by now.”

  “We certainly are.” She laughed, noticing the hilly countryside, the open country and the occasional cabin nestled among the glorious foliage.

  He named two highways and added, “Where they intersect, take the left fork and about three to four miles along, there’ll be a small country store on the right. We can stop there and get some snacks.”

  “You’ve got a good memory,” she remarked.

  “I do my best. Are you familiar with mountain driving?”

  “Not as used to it as I’d like to be,” she admitted, “but I won’t panic if the brakes get hot and start squealing. I’ve driven in the Georgia mountains up around Blairsville and Hiawassee. And believe me, that’s good training!”

  “I know what you mean. The curves are quite a challenge.” His face hardened, and she knew he was remembering his racing days.

  “Would you like to hear the news?” she asked, and before he could refuse, she turned on the radio, grateful for the small diversion that might keep him from brooding.

  Minutes later they were climbing around some hairpin curves, and she wasn’t nervous at all with Saxon beside her. Oddly enough he made her feel secure. She’d stopped at the little country store and stocked up with canned sausages, crackers, cookies and soft drinks and some old-fashioned hoop cheese.

  “It’s beautiful here,” she said, stopping at a deserted roadside park that overlooked the mountains.

  “Deserted?” he asked.

  “Oh, very. Shall we unload and stay awhile?”

  “Suits me.”

  She helped him out of the car and, ignoring the cement tables and benches, they sprawled under a spreading maple tree, finishing off the cheese and crackers and sausages before they relaxed with soft drinks and cookies.

  “It’s so beautiful here,” she said with a sigh, stretching back to close her eyes. “Cool and sweet-smelling and so peaceful.”

  “You’re years too young to need peace,” he observed.

  “We all need it at times,” she returned.

  “Remind me to have a wheelchair brought in for you, Granny.” He laughed, finishing off his soft drink. He lay back on the crisp leaves beside her with a sigh. “God, I needed this. The silence, the mountains, you...”

  She rolled over on her side to study him. Close up like this, he was a different man from the high-powered tycoon she’d glimpsed in his office earlier.

  “A loaf of bread, a jug of wine...” She grinned.

  “And thou,” he murmured. He reached out to find her arm, and his fingers stroked it gently, sending little darts of sensation through her. “Come here, Maggie,” he said softly.

  “It’s public.” She hesitated.

  “I’ll hear a car before you will,” he said quietly. His fingers tightened. “I—I need it, can you understand that? I need to prove to myself that I’m not half a man as well as a blind one...”

  What an unfair argument that was, she thought miserably, going to him without reservation. But it was out of love, not pity—something he couldn’t know. The feel of his long hard body against hers was a foretaste of heaven, and all she wanted out of life at that moment.

  “I’ve wanted this all day,” he murmured, nuzzling his mouth against her soft face until he searched out her warm lips. His hands pressed her toward him; the scent of him filled her nostrils. “I’ve wanted the taste of you, the feel of you against me—things I haven’t had a lot of since you came back.”

  Her eyes closed, and she forced herself to relax, to yield to his strength. “You’re very strong,” she murmured, letting her hands trace his broad shoulders.

  “And you’re very soft,” he replied. His hands moved up her rib cage to savor the high full curves of her breasts. “Especially here...”

  She started to protest, but his mouth was working magic on hers, as expert as she remembered, and just as dangerous as it mocked her faint protest at the intimacy of his fingers.

  “Don’t fight me,” he murmured against her lips. “I’ll confine my attentions to this very interesting territory, if that’s what you want. Where are the buttons?”

  She tried to concentrate, but he was stroking her lips with his tongue and her mind was somewhere in limbo, not on the unusual pattern of the buttons that were located under her arm.

  “So,” he murmured, finding them, and his fingers went to work, easing them apart. “And this little wisp,” he whispered, unhooking the fastening of the bra that was little more than decoration. “Ah,” he breathed as his hands found sweet, living warmth and felt her sudden stiffening, heard her wild gasp. “Maggie, you’re like silk to touch,” he breathed, “and so sweet that I could eat you!” He brought his mouth down against the taut, swelling rise of her body and savored the lightly scented skin with something rivaling reverence. “You taste of flowers,” he whispered as she arched and bit her lip to keep from crying out, letting his hands lift her up to his gentle, searching mouth. He tasted her, nibbled at her, until a sharp cry burst from her lips with the force of the pleasure he was giving her.

  “Maggie,” he moaned softly, and moved his hands back down to cup her, stroke her. His mouth slid up to hers and took it roughly. His fingers contracted suddenly, and she cried out.

  He stiffened, lifting his head, his hands quickly easing their rough grip, “I’m sorry,” he said gently, “that was unforgivable. Did I hurt you badly?”

  Maggie licked her dry lips and watched his sightless face, frozen with concern. She felt the air chilling her taut bareness where his warm, moist lips had left it vulnerable. “You didn’t hurt me, Saxon,” she confessed softly.

  The hard lines of his face relaxed, and his hands swallowed her again, feeling her body tense and arch up to him as he explored it. “Still, I won’t be that rough again,” he promised. “Do you like the feel of my hands, Maggie?”

  She fought for sanity, but he was creating unbelievable tension in her—new pleasures, exquisite pleasures. “Please,” she breathed, reaching up to catch his head, to coax it down to her hungry body. “Like this...”

  “Yes, darling,” he breathed, easing his mouth against her, “like this...” He drew his forehead across her, his eyes, his cheeks, in a caress like nothing she’d ever imagined. For all her age she was remarkably innocent when it came to intimacy. Not because she was a prude, but simply because no man had ever stirred her blood the way Saxon was stirring it.

  His lips touched her, adored her, in a silence that was intensified by the rustle of leaves in the breeze, the crispy sound of the leaves under her back as she writhed helplessly beneath his hands, his mouth.

  He moved then, easing up to let her feel his full weight, from breast to thigh, and the unfamiliar differences between his male body and her own. She caught her breath at the sensation of oneness.

  His mouth savored hers as his body moved sensuously over her own, faintly rocking, softly grinding, and she moaned helplessly.

  “Nymph,” he breathed into her mouth, his hands going under her slender hips to lift, gently, to press her to him. “Sweet little seductress, feel the effect you have on me.”

  “Saxon,” she whispered achingly. “Oh, Saxon, what are you doing?”

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” he whispered soothingly. “I know all too well how new this is for you. Just lie still, honey, and let me show you what to do. I’m going to be very, very slow, very tender...” His hands moved and she bit off a tiny cry as she felt them easing the skirt up her smooth thighs.

  “The road,” she choked, feeling her crazy body yield to his, her legs cooperating with him, her hands clinging when they should be pushing, when his intention was too clear to
mistake even for a novice.

  He caught his own breath as he moved, creating a new, almost unbearable intimacy between them. Her body felt as if it were going to stiffen into oblivion, to die of the tension, arching endlessly upward, her fingers digging into his hips.

  “Now,” he breathed shakily, and his fingers found the buttons of his own shirt, opening it so that her breasts flattened under the warm, prickly weight of his hair-roughened chest. His body moved again, his hands touching her in unbearable ways. “Now, Maggie, help me...”

  It was the last straw. She gave in without reservation, loving him, wanting him, tears rolling down her cheeks at the painful hunger he was creating while she waited to give him everything, her body, her heart, her very soul...

  The sound of an approaching car barely penetrated her screaming mind, but Saxon heard it. Sensitive to the least interruption, despite his own staggering involvement, he lifted his head and froze. He was dragging at air, his body shuddering with mindless necessity, damp and faintly trembling, his heart shaking him.

  “Oh, God, no,” he ground out, and she watched his face contort as he dragged himself away from her to lie rigidly on his back. He looked like a man in unholy torment.

  “Saxon, are you all right?” she asked quickly, dragging herself up hurriedly to rearrange her clothes, her eyes fearful as she stared at him and the car approached rapidly.

  “What do you think?” he ground out.

  His voice sounded ragged. She wondered at the wisdom of trying to fasten his shirt, but he was already doing it himself even as a carload of tourists came snaking past them on the highway. A woman in the passenger seat waved merrily, apparently oblivious to the blazing tension of the comfortable-looking people under the big maple tree.

  “They’re gone,” she murmured unnecessarily.

  He drew in one long final breath and sat up, his face dark and drawn. “Damn,” he growled huskily. “Maggie, I almost took you, do you realize that? Right here, in plain view of the highway, and I was so far gone, I didn’t even realize what I was trying to do!”