by Diana Palmer
“Sorry,” he said abruptly. “I can’t say.”
Mrs. Culbertson nodded curtly and smiled at Dorie. “I’ll just get that coffee. Be back in a jiffy.”
She left and Corrigan’s dark eyes slid over Dorie’s pretty figure.
“You look very nice,” he said. His eyes lifted to her wavy hair and he smiled appreciatively. “I always loved your hair. That was a first for me. Usually I like a woman’s hair long. Yours suits you just as it is.”
Her slender hand went to the platinum waves self-consciously. “It’s easy to keep like this.” She shifted to the other foot. “Your brothers came to the house yesterday and asked me to come out here and look at the household accounts. They say they’re starving.”
“They look like it, too, don’t they?” he asked disgustedly. “Good God, starving!”
“They were very nice,” she continued. “They talked to Turkey Sanders and he’s repairing my car.”
“His mechanic’s repairing your car,” he told her. “Turkey’s having a tooth fixed.”
She knew she shouldn’t ask. But she had to. “Why?”
“He made a remark that Cag didn’t like.”
“Cag. Oh, yes, he’s the eldest.”
He brightened when he realized that she remembered that. “He’s thirty-eight, if you call that old.” Anticipating her next question, he added blithely, “Leo’s thirty-four. I’m thirty-six. Rey’s thirty-two.”
“So Cag hit Turkey Sanders?”
He shook his head.
“Then who broke his tooth?”
“Leo.”
“Cag got mad, but Leo hit Turkey Sanders?” she asked, fascinated.
He nodded. “He did that to save him from Cag.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Cag was in the Special Forces,” he explained. “He was a captain when they sent him to the Middle East some years back.” He shrugged. “He knows too much about hand-to-hand combat to be let loose in a temper. So we try to shield people from him.” He grinned. “Leo figured that if he hit Turkey first, Cag wouldn’t. And he didn’t.”
She just shook her head. “Your brothers are… unique,” she said finally, having failed to find a good word to describe them.
He chuckled. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“Do they really hate women?”
“Sometimes,” he said.
“I’ll bet they’re sought after,” she mentioned, “especially when people get a good look at this ranch.”
“The ranch is only a part of the properties we own,” he replied. “Our people are fourth-generation Texans, and we inherited thousands of acres of land and five ranches. They were almost bankrupt when the old man died, though,” he mused. “He didn’t really have a head for figures. Broke Grandad’s heart. He saw the end of his empire. But we pulled it out of the fire.”
“So I see,” she agreed.
“The only problem is, none of us are married. So if we don’t have descendants, who’s going to keep the empire going?”
She thought of the most terrible answer to that question, and then got the giggles.
He raised an eyebrow.
She put a hand over her mouth until she got herself back under control. “Sorry. I was only thinking of that movie about the man who got pregnant…!”
He gave her a level look, unsmiling.
She cleared her throat. “Where are the accounts?”
He hesitated for a minute, and then opened the desk drawer and took out a set of ledgers, placing them on the spotless cherry wood desk.
“This is beautiful,” she remarked, stroking the silky, high-polished surface.
“It was our grandfather’s,” he told her. “We didn’t want to change things around too much. The old gentleman was fond of the office just the way it is.”
She looked around, puzzled by the plain wood paneling. There were no deer heads or weapons anywhere. She said so.
“He didn’t like trophies,” he told her. “Neither do we. If we hunt, we use every part of the deer, but we don’t have the heads mounted. It doesn’t seem quite sporting.”
She turned as she pulled out the desk chair, and looked at him with open curiosity.
“None of your brothers are like I pictured them.”
“In what way?”
She smiled. “You’re very handsome,” she said, averting her eyes when his began to glitter. “They aren’t. And they all have very dark eyes. Yours are gray, like mine.”
“They favor our mother,” he said. “I favor him.” He nodded toward the one portrait, on the wall behind the desk. It looked early twentieth century and featured a man very like Corrigan, except with silver hair.
“So that’s what you’ll look like,” she remarked absently.
“Eventually. Not for a few years, I hope.”
She glanced at him, because he’d come to stand beside her. “You’re going gray, just at the temples.”
He looked down into her soft face. His eyes narrowed as he searched every inch of her above the neck. “Gray won’t show in that beautiful mop on your head,” he said quietly. “It’ll blend in and make it even prettier.”
The comment was softly spoken, and so poetic that it embarrassed her. She smiled self-consciously and her gaze fell to his shirt. It was open at the collar, because it was warm in the house. Thick black hair peered over the button, and unwanted memories of that last night they’d been together came flooding back. He’d taken his shirt off, to give her hands total access to his broad, hair-roughened chest. He liked her lips on it…
She cleared her throat and looked away, her color high. “I’d better get to work.”
His lean hand caught her arm, very gently, and he pulled her back around. His free hand went to the snaps that held the shirt together. He looked into her startled eyes and slowly, one by one, he flicked the snaps apart.
“What…are you…doing?” she faltered. She couldn’t breathe. He was weaving spells around her. She felt weak-kneed already, and the sight of that broad chest completely bare drew a faint gasp from her lips.
He had her by the elbows. He drew her to him, so that her lips were on a level with his collarbone. She could hear his heartbeat, actually hear it.
“It was like this,” he said in a raw, ragged tone. “But I had your blouse off, your breasts bare. I drew you to me, like this,” he whispered unsteadily, drawing her against the length of him, “and I bent, and took your open mouth under my own…like this…”
It was happening all over again. She was eight years older, but apparently not one day less vulnerable. He put her cold hands into the thick hair on his chest and moved them while his hard mouth took slow, sweet possession of her lips.
He nudged her lips apart and hesitated for just a second, long enough to look into her eyes and see the submission and faint hunger in them. There was just the hint of a smile on his lips before he parted them against her soft mouth.
CHAPTER FOUR
She had no pride at all, she decided in the hectic seconds that followed the first touch of his hard mouth. She was a total washout as a liberated woman.
His hands had gone to her waist and then moved up to her rib cage, to the soft underside of her breasts. He stroked just under them until she shivered and moaned, and then his hands lifted and took possession; blatant possession.
He felt her mouth open. His own answered it while he touched her, searched over her breasts and found the hard nipples that pushed against his palms.
His mouth grew rougher. She felt his hands move around her, felt the catch give. Her blouse was pushed up with a shivering urgency, and seconds later, her bare breasts were buried in the thick hair that covered his chest and abdomen.
She cried out, dragging her mouth from his.
He looked into her eyes, but he wouldn’t let her go. His hard face was expressionless. Only his eyes were alive, glittering like gray fires. He deliberately moved her from side to side and watched her face as he did it, enjoying, wi
th a completely masculine delight, the pleasure she couldn’t hide.
“Your nipples are like rocks against me.” He bit off the words, holding her even closer. “I took your breasts inside my mouth the night we made love, and you arched up right off the bed to give them to me. Do you remember what you did next?”
She couldn’t speak. She looked at him with mingled desire and fear.
“You slid your hands inside my jeans,” he whispered roughly. “And you touched me. That’s when I lost control.”
Her moan was one of shame, not pleasure. She found his chest with her cheek and pressed close to him, shivering. “I’m sorry,” she whispered brokenly. “I’m so sorry…!”
His mouth found her eyes and kissed them shut. “Don’t,” he whispered roughly. “I’m not saying it to shame you. I only want you to remember why it ended the way it did. You were grass green and I didn’t know it. I encouraged you to be uninhibited, but I’d never have done it if I’d known what an innocent you were.” His mouth slid over her forehead with breathless tenderness while his hands slid to her lower back and pulled her even closer. “I was going to take you,” he whispered. His hands contracted and his body went rigid with a surge of arousal that she could feel. His legs trembled. “I still want to, God help me,” he breathed at her temple. “I’ve never had the sort of arousal I feel with you. I don’t even have to undress you first.” His hands began to tremble as he moved her sensually against his hips. His mouth slid down to hers and softly covered it, lifting and touching and probing until she shivered again with pleasure.
“I thought you knew,” she whimpered.
“I didn’t.” His hands moved to the very base of her spine and lifted her gently into the hard thrust of his body. He caught his breath at the wave of pleasure that washed over him immediately. “Dorie,” he breathed.
She couldn’t think at all. When he took one of her hands and pressed it to his lower body, she didn’t even have the will to protest. Her hand opened and she let him move it gently against him, on fire with the need to touch him.
“Eight years,” she said shakily.
“And we’re still starving for each other,” he whispered at her mouth. His hand became insistent. “Harder,” he said and his breath caught.
“This…isn’t wise,” she said against his chest.
“No, but it’s sweet. Dorie…!” He cried out hoarsely, his whole body shuddering.
Her hand stilled at once. “I’m sorry,” she whispered frantically. “Did I hurt you?”
He wasn’t breathing normally at all. His face was buried in her throat and he was shaking like a leaf. She brushed her mouth over his cheek, his chin, his lips, his nose, whispering his name as she clung to him.
His hand gripped her upper thigh, and it was so bruising that she was afraid she was going to have to protest. He fought for sanity, embarrassed by his weakness.
She was still kissing him. He felt her breasts moving against his chest, intensifying the throbbing, hellish ache below his belt.
He held her firmly in place with hands that shook.
She subsided and stood quietly against him. She knew now, as she hadn’t eight years ago, what was wrong with him. She felt guilty and ashamed for pushing him so far out of control.
Her fingers touched his thick, cool hair lovingly. Her lips found his eyelids and brushed softly against them. He was vulnerable and she wanted to protect him, cherish him.
The tenderness was doing strange things to him. He still wanted her to the point of madness, but those comforting little kisses made his heart warm. He’d never been touched in such a way by a woman; he’d never felt so cherished.
She drew back, and he pulled her close again.
“Don’t stop,” he whispered, calmer now. His hands had moved up to the silken skin of her back, and he smiled under the whisper of her lips on his skin.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
His fingers slid under the blouse again and up to explore the softness of her breasts. “Why?” he asked.
“You were hurting,” she said. “I shouldn’t have touched you…”
He chuckled wickedly. “I made you.”
“I still can’t go to bed with you,” she said miserably. “I don’t care if the whole world does it, I just can’t!”
His hands opened and enfolded her breasts tenderly. “You want to,” he murmured as he caressed them.
“Of course I want to!” Her eyes closed and she swayed closer to his hands. “Oh, glory,” she managed to say tightly, shivering.
“Your breasts are very sensitive,” he said at her lips. “And soft like warm silk under my hands. I’d like to lay you down on my grandfather’s desk and take your blouse off and put my lips on you there. But Mrs. Culbertson is making coffee.” He lifted his head and looked into her dazed, soft gray eyes. “Thank God,” he whispered absently as he searched them.
“Thank God for what?” she asked huskily.
“Miracles, maybe,” he replied. He smoothed the blouse up again and his eyes sketched her pretty pink breasts with their hard dark pink crowns. “I could eat you like taffy right now,” he said in a rough tone.
The office was so quiet that not a sound could be heard above the shiver of her breath as she looked up at him.
His pale eyes were almost apologetic. “I think I have a death wish,” he began huskily as he bent.
She watched his mouth hover over her breast with a sense of shocked wonder. Her eyes wide, her breath stopped in her throat, she waited, trembling.
He looked up, then, and saw her eyes. He made a sound in the back of his throat and his mouth opened as he propelled her closer, so that he had her almost completely in that warm, moist recess.
She wept. The pleasure grew to unbearable heights. Her fingers tangled in his hair and she pulled him closer. She growled sharply at the sensations she felt. Her hips moved involuntarily, searching for his body.
The suction became so sweet that she suddenly arched backward, and would have fallen if it hadn’t been for his supporting arm. She caught her breath and convulsed, her body frozen in an arc of pure ecstasy.
He felt the deep contractions of her body under his mouth with raging pride. His mouth grew a little rough, and the convulsions deepened.
Only when he felt her begin to relax did he lift his head and bring her back into a standing position, so that he could look at her face.
She couldn’t breathe. She sobbed as she looked up into his pale eyes. The tears came, hot and quick, when she realized what had happened. And he’d seen it!
“Don’t,” he chided tenderly. He reached for a handkerchief and dried her red eyes and wiped her nose. “Don’t be embarrassed.”
“I could die of shame,” she wept.
“For what?” he asked softly. “For letting me watch you?”
Her face went red. “I never, never…!”
He put a long forefinger against her lips. “I’ve never seen a woman like that,” he whispered. “I’ve never known one who could be satisfied by a man’s mouth suckling at her breast. It was the most beautiful experience I’ve ever had.”
She wasn’t crying now. She was staring at him, her eyes wide and soft and curious.
He brushed back her wild hair. “It was worth what I felt earlier,” he murmured dryly.
She colored even more. “I can’t stay here,” she told him wildly. “I have to go away…”
“Hell, no, you don’t,” he said tersely. “You’re not getting away from me a second time. Don’t even think about running.”
“But,” she began urgently.
“But what?” he asked curtly. “But you can’t give yourself to me outside marriage? I know that. I’m not asking you to sleep with me.”
“It’s like torture for you.”
“Yes,” he said simply. “But the alternative is to never touch you.” His hand slid over her blouse and he smiled gently at the immediate response of her body. “I love this,” he said gruffly. “And so
do you.”
She grimaced. “Of course I do,” she muttered. “I’ve never let anyone else touch me like that. It’s been eight years since I’ve even been kissed!”
“Same here,” he said bluntly.
“Ha! You’ve been going around with a divorcée!” she flung at him out of frustration and embarrassment.
“I don’t have sex with her,” he said.
“They say she’s very pretty.”
He smiled. “She is. Pretty and elegant and kind. But I don’t feel desire for her, any more than she feels it for me. I told you we were friends. We are. And that’s all we are.”
“But…but…”
“But what, Dorie?”
“Men don’t stop kissing women just because they get turned down once.”
“It was much worse than just getting turned down,” he told her. “I ran you out of town. It was rough living with that, especially when your father took a few strips off me and told me all about your past. I felt two inches high.” His eyes darkened with the pain of the memory. “I hated having made an enemy of him. He was a good man. But I’d never had much interest in marriage or let anyone get as close to me as you did. If you were afraid, so was I.”
“Cag said your parents weren’t a happy couple.”
His eyebrow lifted. “He never talks about them. That’s a first.”
“He told me to ask you about them.”
“I see.” He sighed. “Well, I told you a little about that, but we’re going to have to talk more about them sooner or later, and about some other things.” He lifted his head and listened and then looked down at her with a wicked grin. “But for the present, you’d better fasten your bra and tuck your blouse back in and try to look as if you haven’t just made love with me.”
“Why?”
“Mrs. Culbertson’s coming down the hall.”
“Oh, my gosh!”
She fumbled with catches and buttons, her face red, her hair wild as she raced to put herself back together. He snapped his shirt up lazily, his silvery eyes full of mischief as he watched her frantic efforts to improve her appearance.
