“He was just being honest.”
“Like hell.”
Patrick deliberately planted his hands on either side of Maddie, caging her between him and the vehicle. They were on a little-used back road, shielded on either side by tall mounds of blackberry vines and the tinted windows of the Blazer. It was secluded enough to offer privacy, and public enough to keep him from getting carried away.
“Maddie, he was trying to push his inadequacy onto you. Not every man requires an exaggerated version of womanhood to get his jollies. Some of us even enjoy a figure built on more elegant lines. Like yours. So don’t tar us all with the same damned brush.”
“But I’m not very generous up—”
Patrick gave up and fastened his mouth over hers. Quite possibly it was the only way to get Maddie to be quiet, and right now he needed her to be quiet.
He needed…oh, hell, he needed something he shouldn’t need.
For a fraction of a second Maddie was frozen in shock. She might have wondered what kissing Patrick O’Rourke would be like, but she’d never expected to find out. One thing was certain, there wasn’t a single easygoing thing about his kiss—it was pure electricity.
Maddie raised her arms around Patrick’s neck and held on for dear life. Heat poured through her veins, making her aware of every part of her body. The sensations seemed so strange and unexpected, shivering through her body with a power that reminded her of lightning over the desert.
“That’s it…yes,” Patrick muttered into her mouth.
His hands moved, stroking her back, his fingers gliding over the curve of her bottom. It made her insides jump in response and she stretched more fully against him, feeling small and fragile and protected within his embrace, though she wasn’t the least bit small and fragile and didn’t need protection.
Patrick was a tall man, equal in size to his older brother, and so similar in appearance to Kane O’Rourke it was uncanny. She couldn’t imagine wanting Kane touching her, but she’d wanted Patrick’s kiss, maybe even from the beginning when he’d mistakenly bussed her cheek and shocked the socks off her.
Fool, a voice whispered in her head.
Getting tangled up with another man was not the way to discover what to do with her life, but it felt so good having his hard length pressed against her, she couldn’t stop. In five minutes, perhaps, but not now. She might be a fool, but she’d missed so much in her twenty-six years that she wasn’t going to miss this.
The sound of the breeze and the lapping of water blended with the roar of blood in her ears. Patrick’s lips trailed down her check and pressed to the side of her throat. He was lightly sucking the skin and she wondered if she’d have a mark there when he finished—something that branded her, however temporarily, as belonging to Patrick O’Rourke.
The thought didn’t displease her as much as it should have. She didn’t belong to him, and wasn’t likely to in the future. The man she kept glimpsing below Patrick’s charming, easygoing surface was as appealing as he was unattainable. Whatever demons drove him, they weren’t the ones he told the world…they probably weren’t even the ones he told himself.
If she hadn’t been able to understand Ted, how could she possibly understand a man who was a thousand times more complicated? And she…a sigh escaped as Patrick began flicking her skin with the tip of his tongue. The velvety, moist caresses made her squirm again, and she threaded her fingers through his dark hair.
“Maddie.” Her name was more a vibration, than a sound. “Do you understand now?”
Understand?
For an instant she wondered if Patrick had read her mind about understanding him.
“About…what?” Maddie managed to get out.
“About what I was saying.”
It took another long minute to process the question, partly because she was so muddled. Patrick was still holding her, but he wasn’t doing anything, and she really wanted him to keep doing what he’d been doing, which was kissing and touching her in all kinds of lovely places.
She remembered they’d discussed Ted being a louse. She wasn’t entirely certain her ex-fiancé was a louse, just immature and thoughtless. They should have talked more over the years, but sometimes talking meant honesty, and neither one of them had really been willing to admit their teenage passion had fizzled like a wet firecracker. Even to themselves.
“Maddie?”
Jeez, why did Patrick have to start talking now of all times.
“What?” she said crossly.
“Do you believe me now, that you’re attractive?”
Maddie’s mouth tightened. So, he’d just been trying to demonstrate she wasn’t such a dog when it came to being desirable, which meant nothing at all. She decided she was right after all. Men were…men. Maybe they couldn’t help being rotten. She stiffened and tried to step backward, but she was trapped by the car, and Patrick’s fingers still curved around her bottom.
Fine, she would just shove him away, that’s what.
Her fingers were more reluctant than her mind to let go of such an attractive male, but she managed to free them from Patrick’s hair.
“Sure, I believe you,” she muttered, and pushed at his chest. He didn’t budge, of course, it was like pushing at a rock face in El Morro. There wasn’t any justice in the world.
She heard him sigh.
“What’s wrong now?
“You,” Maddie snapped. She tried to wiggle sideways and met with no more success than her previous efforts. “Let go of me.”
“Not until we talk about it.” Patrick wasn’t about to admit he was having trouble bringing his body under control, something he didn’t want Maddie to see. Not that she couldn’t have figured it out for herself, but she was so riled up—for reasons he couldn’t begin to imagine—she obviously wasn’t paying attention to the physical evidence.
Unless…there was another possibility he didn’t want to think about. Maddie couldn’t possibly be a virgin at the age of twenty-six. Her fiancé might have been a skunk, but he couldn’t have been that slow off the mark.
Could he?
Patrick shook his head. He hadn’t tried to seduce a virgin since he was a teenager. Not that he’d had a particular interest in virgins, but when you’re a kid, the choices are limited. If Maddie was really that inexperienced, then she was even more vulnerable than he’d imagined.
God, Maddie lived with her feelings visible to everyone, making her doubly vulnerable to all the pitfalls and dangers in the world. He’d managed his emotions for so long it was unsettling to be around someone who felt both joy and sorrow with such abandon.
She wriggled, doing devastating things to his self-control. “I said to let me go.”
Patrick raised one eyebrow. “I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. You’re probably itching to slap my face, and this way you can’t get much English into your swing, even if you do try.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Not really. I bet you were too stunned to slap Ted, so you probably have a lot of pent-up anger to take out on someone. If I show up at dinner tonight with a bruise on my jaw, they’ll all wonder who I’ve been fighting.”
“Like I could ever bruise you,” Maddie snapped. “I’d break my hand trying.”
“You never know. So talk to me.”
“All right,” she said. “Let’s talk about a guy who kisses a woman as some kind of stupid ‘demonstration.’ How would you feel if I’d kissed you to demonstrate something?”
“Guys aren’t like women. We like kissing for any reason,” Patrick said without thinking.
“That isn’t…you aren’t…you…” She let out an inarticulate shriek.
Jeez.
What was that cliché about the difference between men and women and their views on sex? Men don’t need a reason, they just need a place. Right. To a certain extent it was true, but he could see Maddie’s point. If he’d wanted to bolster her self-confidence, he should never have claimed he had a rational reason to kiss her.
Especially when it was just an excuse—nothing about kissing Maddie was rational, he’d just wanted to make it sound that way after the fact.
“I guess we’ll have to do it over again,” Patrick said, his voice rumbling through the tightness in his chest. He didn’t want to hurt Maddie; she’d been hurt enough.
“Do what?”
“Kiss. And I could try some other forms of persuasion.”
Ignoring all the reasons he shouldn’t take things further, Patrick slid his finger down Maddie’s jaw, then her throat, settling on the first button of her dress. He hadn’t been a wild teenage boy for nothing, and first thing he’d noticed about her dress that morning was that the buttons were not the decorative variety.
With the skill he’d developed by the time he was sixteen, he unfastened the first button one-handed. Beneath his fingers Maddie drew a sharp breath but remained silent. Three more buttons slid from their holes, and a satisfied smile curved Patrick’s mouth when he eased his hand inside the opening. He liked front-clasp bras.
The pupils in her eyes dilated as the hooks were dispatched with equal dexterity.
“Anything to say?” he muttered.
“Like what?”
Like stop.
Patrick couldn’t quite bring himself to suggest it—not when he didn’t want to stop—so he lifted one shoulder. “I told you I wasn’t the least bit nice, and this should prove it. What would your father say if he knew what I was doing?”
“He wouldn’t say anything, he’d just shoot you. Daddy believes in the direct approach.”
A grin pulled at Patrick’s mouth. “And how would you feel about me getting shot?”
“That…he should have waited. At least for a minute.” A peculiar mix of anticipation and dread filled Maddie’s golden-brown eyes. She wanted to know what he thought of her body, and at the same time was afraid of finding out.
The chance that Maddie was a virgin was rapidly becoming a certainty in his mind, but he pushed the thought away. There were some things it was safer not to know.
Patrick leaned closer and pressed a kiss to her mouth as he eased his fingers around the feminine territory he’d uncovered. Freed of the silk bra, her breast plumped into his hand, her nipple hardening as he rubbed his palm across the sensitive tip. The sensation nearly drove him to his knees. It wasn’t as if he’d never touched a woman before, but Maddie’s scent and taste and essential innocence were an aphrodisiac.
No longer thinking of privacy or the fact he didn’t have any business kissing Maddie, Patrick thrust his tongue deeper into her mouth. He’d always enjoyed kissing—long slow kissing that went on forever, and Maddie had a mouth he could spend a lifetime getting to know. Inexperienced or not, she had a natural talent for kissing that made a man appreciate being alive.
And her fingers…hell, he loved the feel of her curious fingers, touching him at the same time he explored the satin skin beneath her dress. He should have realized she’d be so sensual. Everything about Maddie was sensual, from the full curve of her lips to the pleasure she took in a bird crying as it soared across the sky.
He was on the verge of losing complete control when a bawdy shout and whistle from a passing motorboat brought him back to reality.
“Damn,” he growled, taking a quick look over his shoulder. The boat was moving on, the occupant’s interest already focused on something else. His body had blocked most of their view, so the person couldn’t have seen anything more than a man kissing a woman. Thank heaven. At his worst he’d never been an exhibitionist, and despite Maddie’s emotional candor, he didn’t think she was, either.
He turned back and saw Maddie leaning against the Blazer, her dress in disarray. His body, still tight, turned up the pressure, trying to wrest control away from his mind and conscience. It probably wouldn’t take much to seduce her, but he wasn’t that kind of man.
“In case you didn’t get the message,” Patrick said deliberately, pressing his hips closer, “I happen to think you’re very sexy. Incredibly sexy. And these…” He stroked a pert nipple. “Are the prettiest I’ve ever seen.”
He meant it, too. Maddie’s breasts were small, but they were round and up-tilted, with the loveliest shape. His father had always said more than a handful was just a waste, and Maddie was the sweetest of handfuls.
“Understand?” he asked roughly.
Maddie bobbed her head. The sensations cascading through her body were still so overwhelming she didn’t know whether to be glad or upset he’d broken off the kiss. It had never been like that with Ted, both alarming and delicious and exciting at the same time.
Nothing had prepared her for Patrick O’Rourke. She wasn’t certain she believed him about her breasts being that pretty, but the hard bulge pressed against her stomach was evidence he found something attractive about her.
Until she was a little less confused, it would have to be enough.
Chapter Six
“I can’t get over how much you two look alike,” declared Kathleen O’Rourke, staring from Beth to Maddie and back again.
Kathleen was the youngest of the O’Rourke siblings, and mother of darling three-year-old twin daughters. After dinner they’d started a game of Candyland with the girls, but Amy and Peggy had fallen asleep in the middle, their dark, curly heads on their mother’s lap. It turned out that Patrick had four brothers, two older than him, and four younger sisters, but only Kathleen had any children.
“It shouldn’t be so surprising, your girls are identical,” Maddie said comfortably. She was used to her own extended family, so the ebb and flow of people in Pegeen O’Rourke’s old house was dear and familiar.
What wasn’t comfortable was seeing Patrick in the dining room. He was seated at the table, drinking coffee and debating football tactics with his brothers, and looking so darned gorgeous it made her wobbly all over again.
Had she really let him touch her like that?
It didn’t seem possible, yet the imprint of his hard, knowing hands was still on her breasts, and she still felt a hot rush of blood whenever she thought about it. He hadn’t said much afterward, just helped her back into the Blazer and returned to the radio station with a grim expression on his face. An hour later he’d stopped by the ad office, as impersonal as a stranger, and asked if she was ready to go. They’d barely talked on the ferry ride and long drive to his mother’s place, and she didn’t think he’d so much as glanced at her since arriving.
Maddie shifted restlessly, focusing on the cheerful game board lying on the floor. In a few years she might have been teaching her own children to play Candyland—if things had been different. She bit down on her bottom lip, wondering if she’d ever feel normal again.
“I recognize that look,” Kathleen said in a low voice.
“What look?”
“That ‘my world just fell apart’ look. I’ve seen it often enough in the mirror.” She sighed. “You see, my husband ran off with my best friend when I was pregnant with the girls.”
Maddie’s eyes opened wide. She felt horrid about finding Ted with another woman before the wedding, but she’d gotten off lightly considering what had happened to Kathleen. “That’s awful. What happened to me…it wasn’t…” Her voice trailed.
Kathleen shrugged. “Betrayal is betrayal.”
“Have you ever considered getting married again?” Maddie blurted out, then bit her lip in consternation. She didn’t know Kathleen well enough to ask that sort of question, and it certainly wasn’t any of her business.
But Kathleen didn’t seem offended. She stroked Amy’s sleep-flushed face and shook her head. “It might be different if it was just me, but I have to think about the girls,” she said. “I can’t take the chance of them getting hurt.”
“That wouldn’t happen with the right man,” Beth said, clearly distressed for her sister-in-law. “At least stay open to the possibility.”
Kathleen and Maddie shared an understanding look. Beth was expecting a baby, had a husband who adored her, and was pr
obably the happiest woman alive. They may as well argue the earth wasn’t round as try to convince her that the risks of falling in love might outweigh the benefits.
As if directed by an internal radar, Maddie’s gaze was drawn again to Patrick. From her position on the floor, she mostly saw his profile. He seemed relaxed except for the hand splayed tautly on his thigh, out of sight beneath the dining room table.
He’d tensed earlier, almost imperceptibly, when Kane had suggested giving him a loan to expand KLMS. Of course Patrick had laughed it off with a joke about being independent, yet his underlying reaction puzzled Maddie. Independence was important, but it was as if there was a transparent wall between him and the rest of the O’Rourkes, one he didn’t want anyone to get through.
Patrick turned his head and caught her watching him before she could look away. For once he was somber and unsmiling, and she squirmed uncomfortably. Was he thinking about how she’d looked with her dress unbuttoned, with his fingers teasing her nipples?
Maddie shivered.
Doubts were already creeping back. Nothing could change the fact he’d initially kissed her for reasons that had nothing to do with thinking she was attractive. He’d said as much. And just how much did it take a man to get aroused? She didn’t know enough about men and sex to be sure of anything, much less about a man like Patrick.
All at once Patrick pushed back from the table and stood up. “Maddie, how about taking a walk with me?” he asked.
“Good idea,” said Shannon. She was the eldest O’Rourke daughter, and so drop-dead glamorous that Maddie felt dowdy in comparison. “I need some exercise. I ate too much.”
He looked pained. “Shannon, don’t be ridiculous. You can’t walk in those high heels.”
His sister wrinkled her nose at him as she twirled her elegantly shod foot. “Always the charmer, aren’t you, dear brother?”
The Right Twin For Him (O'Rourke Family 2) Page 7
