by Ann Major
He thought she was Deirdre. Alarm bells were ringing in her ears. But thinking this was the only chance she’d ever have to enjoy him, she ignored them. Her arms circled his neck with a moan.
She felt him shudder and her heart leaped as she realized he felt it, too.
Suddenly he released her.
He had that lopsided grin plastered on his gorgeous cocky face again. His golden hair fell in sexy tangles across his brow.
"God, you're hot," he whispered, his low tone huskily pitched. "We shouldn't waste this on tennis. Your place or mine?"
His insolence snapped her out of her hypnotized state. She had no idea who this Neanderthal sex maniac was or what sort of relationship he might have with her sister, nor why she was so crazed by his kiss that her mind refused to work logically.
The most appalling thing of all was that she was actually tempted!
His place? She imagined a cave. Dear God!
Utterly shaken, her reaction was pure instinct. Her hand pushed at his chest with all the force she was capable of. "Who are you, and what are you doing here…attacking me like some sex-starved lunatic?"
His sheepish, charming look died instantly. He stared at her for a long moment. "What the hell's the matter with you?"
"I think maybe you’ve mistaken me for my twin sister, who, by the way, has never mentioned you," she snapped back.
"Darlings!" Deirdre popped out of the cabana with two iced colas. "Hey, great! Tad! I see you've decided to forgive me. Did you two already introduce yourselves to each other?"
Jess and Tad glowered at one another, stunned, as the truth dawned on them both.
Tad recovered first. “Not formally, darlin’.”
That kiss, that incredible, melting explosion of body and soul had been Deirdre's kiss. Not hers. She’d known that all along, but for some idiotic reason, Jess felt like weeping. Or better, like kicking Deirdre’s new boyfriend for putting her in this impossible situation.
Deirdre looked trim and cool in her white tennis shorts. She had brushed her hair, and it shone like puffs of gold. As she handed Jess a cola, sharing her own with Mr. Beautiful Cave-dweller, Jess felt quivery with jealousy. She was never jealous.
"But you two were getting acquainted?" Deirdre persisted.
"Not really," Jess replied coolly.
"Tad, I didn’t tell you about Jess because I wanted to surprise you.”
“You sure as hell succeeded,” he said.
“So, meet Jessica, and Jess, this is my new boyfriend, Tad Jackson. He's on loan from A & M University for a semester."
The man and woman who'd just tasted each other's mouths inside and out stood as still as statues, glaring at one another under that blazing October sun as a cool wind wafted across their over-heated bodies.
"An Aggie," Jess wailed with true despair.
There was an ancient pseudo-friendly rivalry between UT and A&M.
"And proud of it," Tad murmured drily. To Deirdre he said, "Why the hell didn't you tell me you had a twin?"
"Why didn't you tell me you had a new boyfriend?"
Both injured parties blurted these two questions at once.
"Because Jess always hates my boyfriends," Deirdre explained.
Jess felt Tad's blue eyes assess her with a sweeping, superior coolness.
"And this once I wanted the man in my life to make a good impression on Jess," Deirdre explained.
"Well, he damn sure made an impression," Jess said slowly and distinctly.
"Did I?" He met Jess's boldly inspecting stare and returned it with a mirthless quirk to his mouth.
"Don't mind Jess. All she does is study. She never dates and thinks she hates men, especially Aggies."
"You know what they say about women who protest too much."
"I don’t have time to date," Jess said stiffly. "I'm going to be a doctor."
"All I want is to fall in love and get married, and make my man happy, but our Jess is going to save the world," Deirdre said laughingly, sipping her cola.
Tad set his hot, insolent gaze upon Jess until she blushed. "Well, the world certainly needs someone to save it. But my personal motto is every man for himself."
His gorgeous voice was low and disturbing, and the vaguely possessive note in it sent quivers down Jess's spine, especially since he kept looking at her.
Jess's face felt warm, too warm, and not entirely from the sun. "I’m not in the least surprised. In fact I could tell that the first minute I met you," she said, feeling as if she were on treacherous footing as she baited him. "But it's not a very original motto, Mr. Jackson. It happens to be what nearly every human who has ever lived has thought also. Which is exactly why the world is in such a deplorable state."
Jess would never have insulted him had she known that there was no surer way to inflame his interest.
Tad forgot Deirdre and loomed nearer Jess, his mouth tight. "So you're blaming me for the mess we're in?"
"People like you."
His dark brows shot up. "And you're going to change it all?"
"Is it so wrong to want to make a difference?"
"No. But maybe it's just a little hypocritical, not to mention naive, of you. What can one person do? One...woman?"
She shook with temper and reaction. "How dare—"
He moved nearer. "You see, I could tell—the first minute I met you—that you were a woman with selfish impulses of your own. It's just that you're not as honest about them as I am." Again he let his hot, liquid blue eyes wander boldly over her body. "I know what I want." His gaze lingered on her breasts. "You don't."
"Me? Not so honest?" she'd sputtered, furious. She whirled on her twin. "Deirdre, th-this conceited...individual is the worst boyfriend you've ever had."
His smile broadened. "I take that as a compliment," the conceited individual whispered so close to Jess's ear that his warm breath tingled on her neck. "There's nothing I like better than standing apart from the crowd."
His gaze slid to her lips, and Jess had to fight the impulse to moisten them. “Life is short. If I see something I want, I take it.” She remembered his kiss, and the memory caused a curling sensation in the pit of her stomach.
She was hungry. But not for food. For him. Which was insane.
He was watching her. There was a musing curiosity about the look he gave her, oddly warm and gentle.
Deirdre put her arms possessively around him. "Please, Jess, please quit picking on him!"
Picking on him! As if that were possible.
His amused gaze on Jess, he laughed and lowered his golden head toward Deirdre’s so that she could pet him more easily.
He was horrid! He deserved the worst she could dish out! But as she watched the manicured fingers stroking his brown neck, caressing the strong jawline, Jess wanted nothing more than to have the right to touch the smirking devil like that herself.
The sunlight made his hair gleam silvery gold. His dazzling eyes blazed at her, mocking her. His white smile was equally dazzling and equally mocking. Aggie or no, she caught her breath at the masculine beauty of him.
Never in all her life had Jess felt more rawly vulnerable…or so envious of her sister.
She couldn’t believe that she was lusting to mate with this Neanderthal, who belonged to her twin.[JO12]
Furious at herself, Jess spun on her heel and stomped toward the chain-link gate.
But their voices followed her.
"Oh, dear! I so wanted you two to get off to a great start," Deirdre moaned.
"Well, at least it was memorable," he replied huskily, unperturbed.
"I don't think she even likes you."
"I’m sure she’ll warm to me," came that silken, know-it-all tone. “I’ll just have to turn on some of my Aggie charm. You’ll see, I’ll win her over.”
Anger boiled up so violently it practically choked Jess. She wished the earth would open up and swallow her because the galling reality was that he was right. On that hot, miserable morning Jess had met and fal
len irrevocably in love with the exact sort of sexist, macho scoundrel she'd always told herself she despised. And if that wasn't bad enough, he was an Aggie who belonged to her twin. The last thing she wanted to do was be in competition for a man with her twin.
Forbidden fruit. Was that why his kiss had been sweeter than candy? And hotter than fire?
Was that why even as Jess quickened her steps across those white-lined, baking green rectangles of clay, deep in her bones, she already craved the sweet hot taste of him again?
Lying in one corner of the court was a brown, crisply creased Stetson with two jaunty turkey feathers sewn into the headband.
His hat!
Suddenly all Jess's frustrations were focused on that wide-brimmed hat with its saucy feathers. She took a sharp detour and made a flying leap right in the center of it and stomped on the crown until it was as flat as a pancake and the quills of the feathers lay limp and broken.
"Jess!" Deirdre yelled.
Jess dashed toward the gate like a naughty child.
"I can't believe she mashed your hat," Deirdre cooed. "And look what she did to your feathers!"
His laughter was a deep, reverberating bass. "What's one ornery tea-sipping girl to a hat that survived a stampede of ornery bulls?" He loped across the court, grabbed his hat, and shoved a fist into the crown to straighten it. "Turkey feathers are easy to come by, so no worry, darlin’," Jess heard him say. "How many boyfriends have there been—I mean—before me?"
So that dart had found its mark, Jess thought with guilty satisfaction.
"None that counted after I met you, honey bunch," Deirdre purred. "She just said that to stir you up and make you mad."
He placed his crumpled hat with the broken turkey feathers on his head at a jaunty angle. "Well, I don't know about mad, but she damn sure stirred me up."
Jess slammed her car door.
All the way home Jess told herself that she hated him and never wanted to see him again.
But why, oh why, did she keep picturing him in her mind's eye? Why did she keep remembering the piercing quality of his shattering blue eyes? Why did she keep remembering the way his hair had slid like silk through her fingers? Why did she keep shivering every time she remembered his lips on hers, his warm hands roaming her body?
She clutched the steering wheel and groaned. "Why him? Dear God! Why him?"
Tad Jackson did not even remotely resemble the kind of person she had intended to choose as a life partner. Hadn't she always dreamed of someone tall and dark, a paragon of easygoing affability and charm? Someone with liberal sensibilities who cared about the poor? Someone sensitive and kind who would court her gently? Someone who shared her views, or at least someone who could be persuaded to share them? Someone, although she did not admit this to herself, with a tractable disposition whom she could easily bend to her will? Only recently she had begun to date such a man—Jonathan Kent.
Tad Jackson was the epitome of everything she disapproved of.
But he was tall, whispered a treacherous little voice in the back of her mind. And unforgettably handsome.
He has the most devastating smile, said the voice. And he knew how to kiss.
He was also irascible, arrogant and selfish—the conceited sort of male chauvinist who was used to bending women to his will. An Aggie with tunnel vision.
But Tad Jackson had stormed onto that tennis court and taught her that most unforgivable lesson of all.
The truth.
With one kiss that had burned all the way to her soul.
With one kiss that had taught her that she did not know herself at all.
With one kiss that had made her betray her only sister.
After that day, Jess pretended she hated him, but every insult she hurled at him was a hollow lie. Jess wanted him, and because she did she’d ruined all their lives. For that, she had never forgiven herself.
And neither had he.
Six
Tad thought he was dreaming when he awoke in a shimmer of moonlight and felt his hard body nestled into the softness of a woman's. Long strands of glimmering golden hair lay across his arm. In the darkness his fingers had tangled in the gleaming lengths of silk.
Jess. The one woman he hated. Her arms were around him. He lay beside her on a narrow bed. Hers, he realized. In her sleep she had cuddled trustingly against him.
What were they doing here together? Vaguely he remembered her nursing him long into the night. She must be exhausted.
He hardly dared breathe for fear of awakening her. Carefully he slipped his arm beneath her head to hold her to him and then he lay there, savoring the warmth of her nearness, thinking he was crazy to do so.
The sheet was drawn back, and the strap of her gown had fallen down her arm. He could see the darker circle of her nipples, their beaded tips pressing against the gauzy fabric every time she breathed.
He inhaled the dizzying sweetness of orange blossoms. And even though he knew the scent and her beauty were a fatal trap, his arm slid beneath her neck and drew her closer.
She moaned softly, and her mouth brushed his temple in an attempt to fight him. "Jackson..."
He liked hearing his name, even his last name, from her lips. Dear God! What was happening to him? That he could feel such tenderness toward this woman who had betrayed him into a marriage that had nearly destroyed him. A phony do-gooder. A woman who'd deliberately kept his child from him for a year and thereby had caused him untold anguish.
He wanted to dislike her. But that didn't stop him from wanting her warmth and nearness now.
Jess opened her eyes and stared at him in sleepy bewilderment. Her muscles tightened and she began to withdraw from the encircling fold of his arms and body. She started to say something. If he gave her half a chance there would be a lecture. He could feel her beginning to struggle. He grabbed her wrists and held her fast.
The velvet moonlit darkness cast a spell. The soft night breezes blew through the window and caressed their bodies. Tonight, this moment, he felt no hate. He did not mind so much that she was meddlesome and determined. And as for Lizzie—Jess had kept her safe. Still, if she talked, they would quarrel.
He felt a quickening emotion. Something deep inside him, something he did not understand at all wanted her with him as she had been in her sleep, silent and trusting. She was the wrong woman. He knew this in his bones. But he needed her, as he hadn't ever needed anyone else.
Like an animal following some primitive instinct, he brought a callused fingertip to her mouth, gently shushing her before she spoiled the mood with some tart comment.
He no longer held her by force but by the terrible strength of his will. He kissed her brow tenderly. Then her eyelids. His hand lightly caressed her cheek.
She tried to pull away, but he dragged her back. For a long moment they stared into one another's eyes. With a drowsy sigh of defeat, she closed hers.
They slept again.
*
When Jess awoke she was tangled in Tad's brown arms and legs, her head resting on his shoulder. His beard was tickling her cheek. One of her arms was thrown across his waist; his legs were sprawled on top of hers.
Dear Lord! He looked so dark and virile against her paler body and the white sheets. She flushed as she became shudderingly aware of his nakedness and maleness.
He was sound asleep, his skin cool, his breathing even.
Thank God for that. But she couldn't let him find her like this. He was so abominably conceited, he would probably brag about how she'd nestled up so close to him. He would never believe that he'd been such an impossible patient, she'd been exhausted from nursing him and had simply collapsed beside him.
Funny, how warm and safe she felt in his arms. Not that it would do to dwell on that. Cautiously she slid her legs from under his. Once safely out of the bed, she couldn't resist hovering above him for a moment.
How tired he looked, even in sleep. He didn't seem quite so arrogant. The agony of the past year was etched into his lean,
dark face. There were new lines beneath his eyes; his tanned skin was stretched across his cheekbones. His hands were callused from hard labor, his skin peeling in places on his palms. She fought against some idiotic instinct to brush the golden hair away from his forehead, to smooth the lines with her fingertips. He drove himself—and everyone else—too hard.
Only minutes before she had felt so safe and contented in his arms. Now she wanted to protect him from the world, from the lies, the betrayal, from everything that had destroyed his life.
"You sentimental fool!" an inward voice scolded. "He hates you."
He must never, never know how profoundly he stirred her.
She bolted from the room and from the house as soon as it was daylight, determined to face Wally about the mower.
In the gloom of the gum-scented rain forest, she stared at the shattered mower. It was ten o'clock in the morning and although she'd only gotten a few hours' sleep, Jess felt unusually vital and alive. Behind her, watching her from the cliff was the silent child, with the stuffed brontosaurus clutched in his hand.
The bulldozer had excavated more deeply since she'd been here last. Her gaze ran up the height of the jagged coral cliff where sunlight flickered across the path of torn vines and rock art. Jackson was luckier than he deserved. Any other man of a less stubborn will and constitution might have died from such a fall.
Unfortunately, the mower had not fared nearly so well. The housing was cracked; the blade and the crankshaft were bent. She picked up a wheel and tossed it back down beside the broken aluminum carburetor.
There was nothing for it but to confess to Wally and pay for the mower. Nothing for it but to scramble back up the cliff and head to the hotel. She grabbed hold of a thick vine to pull herself up.
Without warning the sky darkened, and the birds stilled. A sudden eerie silence charged the atmosphere. Normally Jess was not superstitious, yet she sensed something.
A warning.
It was ridiculous. Unscientific. Illogical. The type of superstition or paganism that might lie dormant in the palpitating breasts of other ninnies but never in hers.
A sudden gust of wind stirred the hot, humid air.
