Heart of Ice

by Diana Palmer

  “Why bother? He’ll be gone day after tomorrow,” she repeated.

  “Kati—”

  “Go to bed and stop worrying about me,” Kati said gently, and hugged her concerned friend. “Egan and I will go on being enemies, because I won’t give in and he’ll give up. He makes a nice enemy.”

  “You wouldn’t think so if he’d ever really been yours,” Ada replied.

  “Anyway, we both need our sleep. It will all work out, somehow. Sleep well.”

  Ada gave up. She smiled as she went out. “You, too.”

  But Kati didn’t. Not until the wee hours of the morning. And Egan still hadn’t come home. He was with that blonde, kissing her with that wide, cruel mouth that had tormented hers so sweetly….

  Something woke her. She didn’t know what. But she felt the light on her eyelids and the coolness of air on her skin, and her dark, drowsy eyes opened slowly.

  He was standing beside the bed, wearing nothing but a pair of slacks, with his broad chest sensuously bare and a cup of black coffee in one hand. And he was looking at her in a way that brought her instantly alert and wary; his glittering silver eyes were on fire.

  She frowned slightly as she realized that he wasn’t looking at her face. Her eyes shifted, and she noticed to her embarrassment that the loose gown had shifted in the night, leaving one perfect breast pink and bare.

  Her hand went to jerk the bodice back up.

  “No, Kati,” he said in a husky undertone, and his eyes went back up to hers. “No. Let it happen.”

  He moved close, setting the coffee on the table. He dropped smoothly down beside her, and she hated the sudden weakness and hunger of her body as she stared up at him. Her hair was spread out on the pillow like a ragged halo of red and gold, her cheeks rosy with sleep, her eyes sultry. And he looked just as disheveled, just as attractive to her, with his hair tousled, his muscular arms and chest bare and tanned.

  His hands went under her head, both of them, and he eased down so that his chest rested on her partially bare one.

  She gasped at the unfamiliar sensation of skin on skin, and her eyes dilated under the piercing scrutiny of his.

  “I’m going to kiss you until you can’t stand up,” he said roughly, bending. “My God, I want your mouth…!”

  He took it, with a hard, hungry pressure that frightened her. Her slender hands lifted quickly to his shoulders and started to push—until they discovered the rough silkiness of his skin, the power in his bunched muscles. She ran her hands slowly down his arms, feeling the tension of the hard muscles, and back up again, to the hard bone of his shoulders.

  Meanwhile, his mouth was slowing, gentling. He lifted it so that it was poised just over hers, and he looked at her for a long moment.

  “You don’t like it hard, do you?” he asked in a gruff undertone. “I do. Hard and hot and deep. But I’ll make the effort, at least.”

  He bent again, coaxing her lips. It was an education in sensual blackmail. She lay tense under the crush of his torso, feeling each brief, soft contact like a brand. Her lips parted because she couldn’t stop them, her breath was coming in short gasps and her heartbeat was shaking her. She hadn’t known that women felt like this, despite the novels that bore her name. All her research had come from books, from films and television and bits and pieces of gossip. But what Egan was teaching her bore no resemblance to any of that. He was making her catch fire, and she was moving and reacting in ways that embarrassed her.

  “That’s more like it, baby,” he breathed. “Much, much more like it. Now,” he whispered, letting his hands slide down the long, bare line of her back, “now, if you want my mouth, come up and get it.”

  Blind, aching, she arched up and caught his hard mouth with hers, kissing him with enough enthusiasm to make up for her lack of experience at this kind of impassioned caress.

  She felt his tongue go into her mouth, and she moaned sharply at the intimacy.

  He lifted his dark head as if the sound had shocked him, and looked down at her rigid, anguished features. His free hand tugged slowly at the other strap of her gown and his eyes followed its movement.

  “Do you want me, Kati?” he asked quietly. “Shall I get up and lock the door?”

  Her mind cleared instantly with the words as she stared up into his blazing eyes. He was asking her a straightforward question, and the answer would have been an unqualified yes. But he was offering a quick, temporary merging of bodies that would shame her when her sanity returned. And what in heaven’s name would Ada think?

  As if he sensed the indecision, his hand stilled on her arm. “Second thoughts?” he asked softly.

  “I…can’t,” she whispered, searching his narrow eyes.

  “I understand,” he murmured, glancing toward the door with a wry smile. “We’re not likely to be alone much longer.”

  He thought it was because of Ada, and it didn’t really matter, did it? Whatever the reason, the result was going to be the same.

  He looked back down at her and shifted so that the thick hair on his chest rubbed against her soft bareness; he smiled at her reaction.

  “Like it?” he murmured arrogantly, and his hand came up to tease the softness under her arm, making her gasp.

  “You have to stop that,” she told him in a halting tone.

  “Do I?” He bent and brushed his mouth lightly over hers while his fingers toyed with the silken skin and edged slowly, relentlessly, toward the hardening nub that would tell him graphically how he was affecting her.

  “Egan?” she whispered in a voice that sounded nothing like her own. Her fingers lifted, catching in his hair, and her body was no longer part of her. It was his, all his, and every inch of it was telling him so.

  His nose rubbed against hers as his mouth brushed and lifted; and his fingers made nonsense of principles and morals and self-respect.

  “Kati?” he whispered, sensuously. He nipped at her lower lip. “Kati, take my hand and put it where you want it.”

  It was the most wildly erotic thing she’d ever heard or dreamed or thought. Helplessly, she reached out for his hand and carried it to the aching peak, and pressed it there.

  “Oh, God,” she ground out, trembling, her face pressing into his hot throat, her body shuddering with the force of her own hunger.

  “Silk,” he whispered, his own voice rough and unsteady. “You’re silk. So soft, so whisper-soft.” His mouth found hers and he kissed her so tenderly that tears welled in her eyes, while his hand cupped and his thumb caressed, and it was the sweetest ache in the world that he caused her.

  And then, all at once, the bodice was back in place, the sheet was over her and she was lying, shaking, in the bed as he propped up pillows and set her against them like a big doll.

  “Ada,” he ground out, handing her the cup with hands that trembled.

  Her own trembled, and between them they just got it steady as Ada opened the door without knocking and came in yawning.

  “Morning,” she murmured, grinning at them. “I’ve got breakfast. Bring your coffee with you. Thanks for taking it to her, Egan.”

  “My pleasure,” he murmured, and went out without a backward glance.

  “Bad mood again?” Ada grimaced. “I thought it might mellow him up if I sent him in with your coffee. I guess I goofed again. Well, hurry up and dress, I’ve got something special!” Ada added and went out the door laughing.

  Kati sat there with tears suddenly rolling down her cheeks, so shaken and frustrated that she wanted to scream the roof down. She should have listened to Ada, she told herself. Ada had known what she didn’t—that Egan was relentless when he wanted something. And what he wanted now was Kati.

  Chapter Six

  Ada had made fresh croissants—so light and flaky they could almost fly—and she had real butter to go on them. But Kati didn’t taste anything she ate. She felt as if she were in the throes of some terrible fever, and every time she glanced at Egan, it got worse.

  He was wearing a shirt
and his boots now, with his dark slacks, and he was still beautiful. Kati could hardly drag her eyes away.

  “You must have been late last night,” Ada remarked to her brother. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I let myself be talked into going to a party after the show,” he muttered. “Damned bunch of freaks. It was like a drugstore in there.”

  “You left,” Ada said with certainty.

  “I left. And took Jennie with me. And she screamed bloody murder all the way back to her apartment.” He laughed shortly. “Which got her nowhere at all. She knew how I felt about that from the beginning, I never made any secret of it.”

  “Things are different in the city, Egan,” Ada said sadly. “Very different.”

  His head lifted. “Geography doesn’t change what’s right and what isn’t,” he said shortly.

  “I know that,” Ada agreed. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but I don’t feel I have the right to dictate to the rest of the world. Kati and I just keep to ourselves.”

  He glanced at Kati then, his eyes sweeping over her pale jersey blouse and slacks possessively. “Are you an old-fashioned girl in that respect, at least?” he asked, but he didn’t sound so sarcastic as usual. “Do you drink and pop pills and smoke pot?”

  “I drink cola,” she replied. “And I do take aspirin when my head hurts.” She watched him with wide eyes. “But I don’t think I’ve ever tried to smoke a pot. What kind of pot did you have in mind?”

  He burst out laughing. It changed his entire face, erased some of the hard, leathery lines. He looked faintly attractive, despite that cragginess. “My, my, aren’t we sharp this morning?”

  She lowered her eyes before he could read the embarrassment in them. “Eating improves my mind.”

  “I know something better,” he remarked just as she lifted the coffee cup to her mouth.

  “Don’t move!” Ada gasped as hot coffee went all over the table and into Kati’s lap. “I’ll get a towel!”

  She disappeared, and Egan mopped at her legs with a napkin.

  “That was damned poor timing on my part,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean to make you hurt yourself.”

  She looked up into his silver eyes, astonished. “That’s a first,” she breathed.

  He looked back, his gaze intent. The napkin rested on her thigh. “Did I tell you how lovely you are?” he asked under his breath. “Or what it did to me to touch you like that?”

  She felt her lips part helplessly. “Egan, about…what happened—”

  “I want it again,” he breathed, bending so that his mouth threatened hers. “I want you against me so close that I can feel your heart beating.”

  “You don’t understand,” she whispered weakly.

  “You want me,” he returned huskily. “That’s all I need to understand.”

  It was true, but it wasn’t that uncomplicated. And before she could tell him how complicated it really was, Ada was back and the moment was lost. And she was trembling again.

  She walked around like a zombie, going through the motions of helping Ada in the kitchen. They invited Marshal and Jack over for dinner the next day, since neither of them was going to try to go home for Christmas. And getting everything ready was a job.

  Egan watched television and paced. Finally he got his jacket and hat and went out, and Kati almost collapsed with relief. She ached every time she looked at him, until it was torment to be within seeing distance.

  He came in just as the annual Christmas Eve specials were beginning on the public broadcasting station, and he tossed his hat onto the hall table and shed his jacket.

  “Culture,” he murmured, watching the opera company perform.

  “Go ahead, Mr. Winthrop, make some snide remark,” Kati dared, feeling young and full of life because her heart leaped up just at the sight of him.

  He smiled at her, with no malice at all on his dark face. “I like opera.”

  “You?”

  “Well, there was a report awhile back on music and milk production,” he told her, dropping easily into his armchair, “and it seems that cows produce more milk when they’re listening to classical music.”

  Kati smiled. “It must cost a lot.”

  “What?”

  “Having the orchestra come all the way out to the ranch.”

  “You little torment,” he accused and reached out to tug a lock of her long hair playfully.

  Ada, watching all this, just stared at them.

  “Something wrong?” Egan asked her.

  Ada shrugged. “Not a thing in this world, big brother.”

  He grinned at her. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

  “Begging for liberty on his knees,” she told Egan. She laughed. “If he gets it he’ll be here any minute.”

  “I’d bet on him.” He glanced at Kati. “How about yours?” he asked tautly.

  “Jack’s making calls to his family,” she said. “He won’t be over until tomorrow.”

  He didn’t say anything, but he settled down in the chair to watch the programs with an oddly satisfied smile.

  Marshal came a few minutes later, and Egan even joined in when they sang Christmas carols during the next program. They drank eggnog and ate cake, and Kati thought she’d never been so happy in her life.

  Ada led Marshal under the mistletoe on his way out at midnight and kissed him lovingly, winking at Kati as the two of them moved out into the hallway.

  “I’m going to walk Marshal to the elevator,” she called back. “Don’t wait up.”

  “Don’t fall down the elevator shaft!” Kati called after her.

  The door closed on a giggle. Which left Kati alone with Egan and trembling with new and frightening emotions.

  He stood up, holding out his hand. She put hers into it unhesitatingly and let him lead her to the mistletoe. His lean, strong hands caught her waist and brought her gently against the length of his hard body.

  “I’ve waited all day for this,” he whispered, bending.

  She stiffened, but his hands smoothed down over her hips and back and he nudged his face against hers gently.

  “I know how you like it, baby,” he breathed. “I won’t hurt you this time, all right?”

  She was beyond answering him. Her body throbbed. Throbbed! It was the most incredible physical reaction she’d ever had in her life, and she couldn’t control it.

  His mouth opened and hers opened to meet it, inviting the new intimacy, and she drowned in the magic of the long, sweet kiss. She breathed him, the tangy fragrance of cologne and, closer, the minty hotness of his mouth.

  “I want you,” he whispered, his voice shaking.

  She drew back a little, trying to catch her breath and regain her sanity. It was impossible, but she couldn’t even speak. They were simply torturing each other with this kind of thing. But how could she explain it to him?

  He rested his forehead on hers and his eyes closed on ragged breaths. Against her hips, his body was making an embarrassing statement about his feelings, and she withdrew just enough to satisfy her modesty.

  “Still playing games, Kati? You don’t have to put on any acts for me. That virginal withdrawal—”

  “Egan, you have to listen to me,” she managed, looking up.

  “I’ve got an apartment two streets over,” he said on a harsh breath. “One even Ada doesn’t know about. We could be there in fifteen minutes, and she’d never have to know.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. His eyes were blazing with it, and she knew her own legs were trembling. For one wild second she looked up at him and knew how it would be between them. She could almost feel the length of him without clothes: the silken slide of skin on skin, the aching pleasure of being touched by those lean, expert hands…

  “Come with me, Kati,” he said unsteadily. “We’re just torturing each other. I’ve got to have you.”

  “I can’t,” she ground out. She lowered her chin so that her tormented eyes were on a level with his chest, and her trem
bling fingers pressed against his warm shirt.

  His fingers tautened on her waist, moved to her hips and jerked them into his. “I ache,” he whispered. “You know what I’m feeling.”

  Her eyes closed. She wasn’t stupid; she could imagine that it was ten times worse for him than it was for her. But she couldn’t undo all the years of conditioning. Flings weren’t for her. She had too much conscience.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, Egan, but I can’t.”

  He drew in an angry breath, and she stiffened because she knew he was going to go right through the ceiling. She couldn’t even blame him; she should never have let him touch her.

  But oddly enough, he didn’t say a word. He loosened his grip on her hips, allowing her to move away, and drew her gently into his arms. He held her, his head bending over her, his heartbeat shaking both of them, until his breathing was normal again.

  Her hands felt the warm strength of his back even through his shirt, and she loved the protected feeling she got from being close like this. Her eyes closed and, just for a moment, she allowed herself the luxury of giving in completely, of pretending that he loved her.

  “I could make you,” he whispered at her ear. “I could take the choice away.”

  “Yes, I know,” she agreed softly. Her cheek nuzzled against his chest.

  “This kind of passion is a gift,” he said quietly. “I could give you pleasure in ways you’ve never had it with another man. Not because I’m any damned prize in bed, but because we react to each other like dynamite going up.”

  “I can’t,” she replied softly. “I want to, but I can’t.”

  His hand smoothed her long hair gently. “Because of him?”

  She drew in a steadying breath. She was going to have to tell him, and it wasn’t going to be easy.

  The door opened, thank God, and Ada walked in, stopping dead when she saw the two of them wrapped in each other’s arms.

  “Wrestling match?” she guessed. “Who’s winning?”

  “Mistletoe,” Egan murmured, nodding upward. “Damned potent stuff. She’s got me on my knees.”

  “That’ll be the day,” Ada grinned.