by Diana Palmer
“Which it damned well was. I’ve been living on it for the past few weeks. If you knew,” he murmured huskily, “how I felt when I called home the next day to apologize, to see if I could make you understand what I felt, and Mother said you were gone…God! And then I couldn’t find you. No one seemed to know where Miss Forrest had gone.” His hands caught her and crushed her into the hard lines of his body. “I was out of my mind by the time your father called and told me the truth. I could have gone on my knees.”
“I felt like that when you walked through my front door,” she confessed. Her arms slid around him, and she savored the hard muscles of his back. “You really changed your mind about marrying Delle after the first night I spent at the lake?”
“Yes,” he replied. He chuckled. “And especially after I kissed you in the closet,” he said. “After that, I couldn’t work up the least bit of enthusiasm for her. I realized I couldn’t really marry for money. It didn’t help that both my mother and my daughter kept harping on your assets all the time. They’re still at it, by the way,” he added with a laugh. “They’re wild to come and see you.”
She nuzzled her face against his chest. “You could have brought them with you.”
“Yes, I could have. But I thought we needed time to ourselves to get this settled.”
She nipped at his chest with her teeth.
He caught his breath sharply. “Merlyn!”
She undid the buttons on his shirt easily. She kissed him there, loving the scent of his big body. “You’ve had a bath,” she whispered. “You smell of soap as well as British Sterling.”
His hands were clenched at her back. “Yes,” he said in a husky undertone. “Darling, that…disturbs me.”
“Yes, I know it does,” she agreed. She drew back with sultry eyes and led him toward the pool off the patio, which was enclosed by a privacy fence all around and shielded from the house.
He went with her without a protest, and she laughed softly, delightedly, locking the gate before she shoved him down onto the lounger.
“Now, I’ve got you,” she murmured, joining him.
He reached up and tangled his fingers in her hair. His face was soft with love, and his eyes were blazing with new passion. “Have you?”
He moved sharply, turning so that she was under him, and his mouth found hers in one smooth, hungry motion.
She gasped at the unleashed ferocity, at the sudden, swift intrusion of his hands under her blouse.
“Yes,” he whispered ardently, lifting his head to watch with glittering eyes as he discovered the lack of undergarments under the soft blouse. His hands stroked her taut breasts, his thumbs nudging the hardened nubs insistently, his chest rising and falling with shuddering breaths. “Yes, you want me, don’t you?”
“Want you?” she breathed raggedly. “I’d die for you!”
His hands moved again, and one of them lifted to rip open the buttons, baring her swollen breasts to his eyes. He bent and put his open mouth against the very tip of one, slowly taking it until he all but enveloped her in the moist, warm caress. She arched gracefully, and caught his head in her hands, to urge it closer.
“It was like this,” she whispered softly, “that night was like this. I wanted you so much, and I was afraid you’d push me away.”
“I couldn’t have lived if I’d done that,” he confessed. “I wanted you too much. But I felt so bad afterwards. You were a virgin, and I’d let my heart rule my head. I was sure you’d hate me for it.”
She held his face in her hands and stared at him incredulously. “So that’s why you were acting so strange!”
He smiled ruefully. “I thought it was the wine,” he said. “That you’d overindulged and given in to lust. I didn’t really believe you loved me. Not until I had time to think about it, that is. Then I remembered what you’d said before, and what you’d told me the day we walked in the woods, about only being able to give yourself in love, and forever.” He bent and brushed his mouth over hers lovingly. “But by the time I remembered, you were gone. Oh, God, I thought I’d lost you,” he whispered as he took her mouth. He crushed it under his, and the whole weight of his body came down on her, his hair-matted chest crushing her soft, bare breasts, his hips insistent and disturbing over her own, his thighs parting hers with sheer weight.
Her fingers clung to him, loving the heaviness of his body, the intimacy of the embrace. She returned the kiss as wildly as he gave it, her mouth open and inviting, her tongue eager and ardent.
He lifted his head eventually, and he was as flushed and wild-eyed as she was.
“I love you,” he ground out harshly. “Now do you marry me, or…?”
“Yes, I’ll marry you,” she whispered. She reached up with a long sigh, and touched his hard mouth. “Today, tomorrow, any time you say. On one condition,” she added with mock solemnity.
He lifted an eyebrow. “What?”
“That you stop playing the violin forever!”
He chuckled. “Well, I suppose we can let one of the kids take lessons, later.”
She smiled secretly and drew him slowly down to her. “Yes, darling,” she whispered. “One of the kids. Cam, I love you,” she breathed into his mouth.
He smiled back and kissed her thoroughly. His head lifted slowly, and he looked down at her with possessive eyes. “Merlyn, all kidding aside, is there going to be a baby?” he asked.
She stretched lazily and looped her arms around his neck. “I truly don’t know. But it’s very possible.”
He nuzzled her nose with his. “If you aren’t pregnant yet, we can always try again,” he whispered. His hips moved slowly over hers, and his eyes burned down into her wide, loving ones. “How do you feel about making love under the sun?”
Her lips parted. “Here?” she whispered, glancing around.
The hands against her bare skin were becoming urgent. “Right here,” he whispered.
Her fingers smoothed over his broad chest, and she savored the feel of his muscles, his immediate reaction to her. He wanted her desperately, she could feel it. And she wanted him. His body was like a narcotic: it made her dizzy with longing; it made her ache in the oddest places.
He lifted himself just a little so that he could look down on her uncovered breasts, and he stared at them hungrily. “Shy?” he murmured wickedly.
“Someone might come by,” she faltered. “The maid, or the gardener…or Dad…”
“And you say I’m conservative,” he chided. He chuckled softly as his hand went to the top of her jeans and slowly moved the zipper down. “You just locked the gate,” he whispered.
“Cam!”
But his mouth had already taken possession of hers, and his hands were skillfully easing her out of her clothing. She felt the warmth of the sun like a kiss on her smooth, bare skin. “Your father gave the hired help the day off,” he whispered into her open mouth. “Didn’t you know? And he told me he was locking the main gate on the way out.” He lifted his head. “Look around. Only the birds could see us here.”
That was probably true, but while she was looking around, he was getting the rest of the fabric out of the way, and when she started to frame another question, it was far too late.
Her voice splintered as he parted her lips with the urgent pressure of his. His hands were touching, guiding, his body moving warmly, hungrily against hers in an arousing rhythm. His chest brushed against her breasts with an abrasiveness that was wildly ardent.
“That’s it,” he whispered as she began to move under his weight. “Yes, darling, yes, yes!”
She moaned as the pleasure began to build and her fingers moved all over him, soothing, caressing, inciting, until they found his hips and urged him closer. Her eyes opened and she looked up through a mist of desire, seeing the hard intensity of passion on his face.
“Cameron,” she whispered shakily.
His nostrils flared, his eyes flickered. He lifted his torso and moved his hips slowly against her. As he did, his eyes wandered p
ossessively over every slender inch of her. “I’ve been too long without you,” he breathed roughly.
“Oh, I’ve missed you so,” she whispered. She arched her body toward his, her eyes burning, her face taut with passion, with the knowledge that this was truly love, not just a physical release.
His eyes went back to hers and he eased himself down again, his movements urgent now, hard, rough.
“Yes,” she whispered, matching her own passion to his. “Yes!”
“We’re loving, this time,” he ground out as his hands clutched her hips. He held her eyes hungrily. “Loving, Merlyn!”
“Loving!” she whispered back, her voice shaking. Her body seemed to have a will of its own, matching the reckless passion of his, and she closed her eyes as new sensations drove reality out of her mind. She shifted and suddenly cried out as wave after wave of pleasure buffeted her. She clung to him, wrapped herself around him, possessing him as his body completed its hungry invasion. She wanted to please him in every way he’d pleased her, with her hands, her mouth.…Her efforts were rewarded with the hoarse, harsh cry that came from his throat and mingled softly with the musical whistling of songbirds and the distant sound of traffic.
Trembling, he lifted his head and looked down at her with passionate black eyes. After a minute, he began to kiss her, his mouth tender now, deliciously tender and loving.
She clung, indulging him, brushing her trembling mouth over his closed eyelids. “Oh, my,” she whispered unsteadily.
“Yes,” he murmured. “Oh, my. So good, so gloriously sweet…loving. This is what it should be.”
“Wild honey,” she whispered, laughing a little.
“It was wild, all right.” He lifted his head to look at her, smiling softly. “Thank you. Did I ever say thank you?”
“For what?” she asked gently.
“For saving all this for me. For not giving in to anyone who asked, for not belonging to the sexually permissive world out there. For coming to me a virgin.”
She caught her breath. “I’m glad I waited, Cam,” she said quietly. “You know, honestly, if I had it all to do over again, I think I wouldn’t have drunk so much wine and seduced you.” She smiled ruefully. “It still feels uncomfortable, without marriage.”
“Yes, I know,” he said quietly, watching her. “Tomorrow we’ll put it right. We’ll be married as soon as possible and ease your guilty conscience. I suppose it’s different for a woman. But I do love you, Merlyn. With all my heart.”
She brushed her lips against his. “I love you, too.”
He sat up slowly, stretching, and she stared at him wonderingly. His body was as muscular and perfect as a Greek statue, rippling and shadowed with dark hair. “You’re beautiful, Cam,” she whispered shakily.
“I’m glad you think so,” he replied, his eyes warm and soft with love and fulfillment. They ran up and down her slender body, lingering on the slight swell of her stomach, the high perfection of her breasts. “I’ll have to find another word for you. Beautiful doesn’t come close.”
She got to her feet, still trembling a little, and let him draw her into a warm, close embrace. She nuzzled her face against his damp, hairy chest. “By the swimming pool!” She laughed softly. “And I used to think you were so conventional.”
He nibbled at her ear. “I was. Until you came along and shook my world to its foundations with your wild clothes and wilder mouth. I think we may die someday trying to satisfy each other in bed.”
She sighed and closed her eyes. “Oh, darling, but what a way to go.”
And he didn’t argue with that.
***
By the time Jared Steele came back home late that afternoon, they were sitting on the front porch dressed to the hilt, waiting for him so that they could have supper at Chez Moi.
He came dancing up the steps and grinned at Merlyn’s soft white chiffon dress and Cameron’s tuxedo. “Give me two shakes and I’ll have my tux on. By the way, are we celebrating?”
Cameron grinned, holding Merlyn’s hand warmly in his. “We certainly are.”
“Go ahead, gloat,” Merlyn muttered, glaring up at her parent. “Say ‘I told you so.”’
His silvery eyebrows arched. “Who, me? But I had nothing to do with it.”
“Oh, yes, you did,” she returned. “You talked me into playing the part of an ordinary working girl, and you knew Cameron didn’t have a wife. You sneaky old devil.”
Her father put his hand to his heart. “I am not sneaky. Cameron, did I know you before this all came up?”
Cameron pursed his firm lips. “Well, we did have lunch together at that last business conference, and you did pump me for the story of my life.”
“When?” Merlyn asked.
“About a week before you went to work for Mother.” Cameron grinned. “Of course, I had no idea whose father he was at the time.”
“Dad!” she burst out.
“How was I to know the two of you would hit it off?” Jared asked innocently.
She sighed angrily. “Well, at least you won’t be doing any more matchmaking now,” she said smugly.
“Think not?” The older man grinned and started into the house. “Wait until your children come along.”
“Dad!” she cried after him.
Wicked, soft laughter floated out to the porch as she met Cameron’s dancing eyes.
“What are we going to do about him?” she asked with a resigned sigh.
He grinned as he caught her fingers and locked them in his. He leaned back against the glider and stretched. “No problem, darling,” he said lazily. “I know this lovely middle-aged widow in Jonesboro who has four unmarried sisters.…”
She burst out laughing. As the sun melted down behind the sheltering oak trees, she looked up into Cameron’s eyes and saw everything she would ever want or need in their dark, loving depths.
eISBN: 978-1-4603-4536-8
Lady Love
Copyright © 1984 by Diana Palmer
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