Читать книгу Diana Palmer Collected 1-6: Soldier of Fortune / Tender Stranger / Enamored / Mystery Man / Rawhide and Lace / Unlikely Lover - Diana Palmer - Страница 16

Chapter Nine

It was an odd kind of day for Gabby. She thought she knew every one of J.D.’s moods, but that day he was different, in a way that she couldn’t quite define.

He strolled beside her through the trees in the nearby park, then along the beach that edged the lake, watching birds rise and soar, watching boats sail and putter by. The wind tossed his dark hair and the sun made it glint blue-black. And Gabby thought she’d never felt like this in her life, free and yet protected and wildly excited, all at the same time. It was hard to remember that this was more of an end than a beginning. J.D. had a guilty conscience about the way he’d treated her and was trying to make amends before she left. That was all. She had to stop trying to make more out of it.

His fingers brushed hers as they walked, and he glanced down, watching her carefully.

“Looking for warts?” she asked, attempting to lessen the tension between them.

“Not really,” he murmured. “I’m trying to decide what you’d do if I made a grab for your hand.”

That irrepressible honesty again. She smiled and gave him her slender fingers, feeling trembly as he slowly locked them into his own. She was remembering that flight to Mexico and how he’d caressed her fingers with his own, and the remark he’d made about bodies fitting together that way. Her face burned.

He chuckled softly. “I wonder if you could possibly be thinking about the same thing I am, Gabby?” he murmured.

“I wish you’d mind your own business,” she told him.

“I’m trying, but you’re pretty transparent, honey. You still blush delightfully.”

She tugged her fingers away and, to her disappointment, he let them go.

“No pressure,” he said when she gave him a puzzled glance. “None at all. I’ll take only what you give me.”

She stopped, facing him. Nearby, the lake lapped softly at the shore and some children made wild sounds down the beach as they chased each other.

“What are you trying to do?” she asked.

He sighed. “Show you that I’m not a monster,” he said.

“I never thought you were,” she replied.

“Then why does this happen every time I come close to you?” he asked. His big hands shot out and caught her by the waist, dragging her against him.

She panicked. Her body twisted violently, her hands fought him. It was all over in seconds, but his face had gone white, and her own was flushed with exertion and anger.

She drew her lower lip between her teeth and bit it. J.D. looked…odd.

He gave a hard laugh and turned away. With unsteady fingers, he managed to light a cigarette despite the breeze. He took a long, steadying draw from it.

“Oh, God.” He laughed bitterly. “I did a job on you, didn’t I?”

Her legs were none too steady, but she managed to calm her voice enough to trust it with speech. “I’d never been handled roughly by a man before, J.D.,” she told him. “And you said some pretty harsh things.”

He turned, staring down at her. “Yes, I did.” His dark eyes wandered slowly down her body, lingering on the soft curves as he lifted the cigarette to his mouth. “By the time I got around to that, I’d long forgotten my motives.”

She blinked. “I don’t understand.”

His eyes found the horizon across the lake, and he smoked his cigarette quietly. “It doesn’t matter,” he said vaguely. He finished the cigarette and ground it out under his boot.

“You’ve gone back to smoking,” she said.

His shoulders rose and fell. “There doesn’t seem much point in quitting now.”

She wrapped her arms tightly across her breasts as she watched him walk down the beach. She followed him, searching for words.

“If you hadn’t grabbed me like that, I wouldn’t have fought you,” she said curtly. She hadn’t wanted to tell him that, but he looked as if her reaction to him had devastated him. Her marshmallow heart was going to do her in, she told herself when he stopped in his tracks and gaped at her.

“What?” he burst out.

She turned away, letting the wind blow her long, dark hair around. She couldn’t manage another word.

He moved closer, but slowly this time. His hands came up to her face, hesitantly cupping it. Her heart pounded, but she didn’t pull away.

His chiseled mouth parted as he looked deeply into her eyes. His face was rigid with control. She could feel the warm threat of his body against her, smell the musky scent of his cologne.

“Half of what I told you in that room was true,” he said in a husky whisper. “In my younger days, I never gave a damn about the woman I took. But now, it matters. What I did to you, the things I said…I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. It haunts me.”

“Why?” She, too, whispered.

His thumbs edged toward her mouth. “I…cared.”

Her pupils dilated, darkening the green of her eyes. “Cared?”

He bent, and his hands were unsteady as they cupped her face. “I kept thinking about how close I came to losing you out there in the jungle,” he whispered against her lips. “I wanted to purge myself of the memory and the emotion. So I hurt you.” His face hardened, his heavy brows drew together. “But what I did…hurt me more.” His hard lips brushed hers, nibbled at them. “You’ve seen me at my worst. Trust me now, Gabby. Let me show you…how tender I can be.”

She wanted it almost frantically. She wanted a memory to take down the long, lonely years with her. So she let him have her mouth, as he wanted it. And his lips taught hers new sensations, new ways of touching and exploring.

He moaned softly, and his hands contracted, but his mouth was still tender even though she could feel his big body going rigid against her.

Her eyes opened and found his watching her, passion blazing out of them, a hunger like nothing she’d ever seen in him.

He lifted his head, his breath unsteady on her moist, parted lips. “Don’t be afraid of me,” he whispered. “Please.”

She swallowed, and her breasts lifted and fell with her breath. “Jacob…”

His eyes closed as though he were in pain. “I thought I’d never hear you say my name like that again,” he said harshly.

Her hands were against the front of his shirt, and she didn’t even know how they’d landed there. She was all too aware of what was under it, of how it felt to bury her fingers in that thick, cool mat of curling hair.

“Don’t make things difficult for me,” she whispered helplessly.

His hands slid around to the back of her head, tilting her face upward. “Do you think it’s easy for me, letting you go?”

“Yes,” she said with a trembling smile. “You said yourself that you didn’t want any ties.”

“Then why in God’s name do I die a little every time I walk away from you?” he asked curtly. “Why do I wake up with your name on my lips?”

“I can’t be your lover!” she whispered. “I can’t!”

His nose brushed against hers, his lips hovered above her mouth, teasing it, coaxing it to follow his. “It would be so easy,” he said softly, in a voice like dark velvet. “So easy. All it would take is ten minutes alone together with my mouth on yours and my hands under your blouse, and you’d give yourself with glorious abandon, the way you wanted to before I went to rescue Martina. Remember?” he breathed against her lips. “Remember, Gabby? You stood in my arms and let me touch you, and we rocked together and moaned…”

“Jacob.” She hid her hot face against him. “Jacob, don’t, please!”

His hands slid slowly down her back until they reached her hips and brought them into the curve of his, holding her there, pressing her there, so that she knew all too well what he wanted of her.

“This is a public place,” she managed to say weakly, clinging to him.

“Where you’re safe,” he replied thickly. “Because if I did this anywhere else, I couldn’t help what would happen. I want you so much.”

“This is only making it worse,” she told him. She leaned her forehead against his chest. She could smell the tangy soap he used, the clean scent of the shirt he wore. Her hands spread over his hard muscles.

His breath quickened at the almost imperceptible movement. “Unbutton it.” He breathed roughly. “Touch me there.”

“There are people…!”

“Yes.” His lips touched her closed eyelids, her forehead. “Touch me.”

She could hardly breathe at all. He was drowning her in sensation, and she loved him so much it was torture. It was just going to be harder to leave him, but how could she fight this? Part of her was frightened of his strength, but a larger part remembered how it had felt when he was tender, when he’d been so careful not to hurt her.

“I won’t ever hurt you again,” he whispered, lifting her fingers to the top button. “Not ever. I won’t overpower you, or make crude remarks to you. I’ll teach you to trust me, if it takes the rest of my life. Gabby…”

She closed her eyes. Tentatively her fingers fumbled the first button free. He tensed as she found the second, and the third. She stopped there, resting against him, and eased her fingers just inside. They tingled as they came in contact with firm muscle and curling hair.

He caught his breath, shifting his chest so that her fingers slid farther under the fabric.

“You did that,” he reminded her in a sensuous undertone, “when I started to touch you under your nightgown, at the finca. Remember? You shifted and moved so that I could touch you more easily.”

What she remembered most was the way it had felt when he’d touched her. Her eyes slowly opened, and he turned her face so that he could look into them.

His own eyes were black with desire; his face was hard and drawn, his lips were parted. “Yes, I like that,” he whispered as she curled her nails against him and dragged them softly over his skin. “I like that.” His chest rose and fell heavily and still his eyes held hers. “If we made love, you could do that to every inch of me. And I could do it to you, with my mouth.”

She trembled. He felt it and drew her slowly into his arms. He stood like that, just holding her, in a strangely passionless embrace while the world became calm.

“Words,” he said over her head, his tone light and solemn at the same time. “So potent…Until you came along, I’d never made love to a woman with my mind.”

She stared out at the sailboats on the lake and involuntarily one hand pressed closer against him. “We’re at an impasse,” she said after a minute.

His cheek nudged her dark hair. “How?”

She laughed bitterly. “J.D., I’m leaving next Friday.”

“Maybe,” he said, and his arms tightened.

“Definitely.” She pulled away from him, and he let her go immediately. She looked up. “Nothing has changed.”

He let his eyes roam over her soft body. “At least you’ve stopped cringing.”

“Thank you,” she replied. “For removing the scars. Now I can go on to a lasting relationship.”

“Why not have it with me?” he asked. “I’m well-off. I’m sexy—”

“You’re unreliable,” she said, interrupting him. “I want someone who doesn’t know an Uzi from a blender!”

He sighed heavily, and his dark eyes were thoughtful. “I need a little time.”

“Time won’t help,” she said. “You’re hooked again. It’s like the cigarettes, only worse. I can’t live my life standing at windows and waiting for telephones to ring.”

“You’ll do that regardless.”

She stopped dead and turned around, gaping at him. “What?”

“You’ll do that anyway,” he said matter-of-factly, watching her. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket with a what-the-hell smile and lit it. “You’ll miss me. You’ll want me. You’re leaving the office, but the memories are portable and indestructible. You won’t forget me any more than I’ll forget you. We started something we haven’t finished, and it’s going to be between us all our lives.”

“It’s just sex!” she yelled at him.

Two young men walked past, grinned at J.D., and winked at Gabby, who was wishing she could sink into the sand. She hadn’t even heard them approach.

She turned and fled back down the beach at a trot. J.D. was right beside her, effortlessly matching her steps and still smoking his cigarette. He finished it just as they reached the car, and he crushed it out before he joined her in the luxurious interior.

“It isn’t just sex,” he said, turning to face her, one arm across the back of the seat and an odd expression on his face. He smiled slowly. “But sex is going to be one big part of our relationship in the not-too-distant future.”

She glared at him. “You’d be lucky!”

“No, you would,” he said, cocking an eyebrow. “When I mind my manners, I’m a force to be reckoned with. What I did to you in that bed was all bad temper and irritation. What I did to you the morning before was what it’s really like.”

She couldn’t control her heated response to that intimate remark. Her breasts tingled at the memory. His eyes dropped slowly to her breasts, and he smiled wickedly. Following his gaze, she saw why and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Too late,” he murmured. “Your body will give you away every time. You haven’t forgotten what we did together.”

Her nostrils flared. “There are other men in the world.”

“Sure,” he agreed pleasantly. “But you don’t want other men. You want me.”

“Conceited ass,” she enunciated clearly.

His fingers touched her mouth and parted her lips, as if their texture fascinated him. “You risked your life for me,” he said absently. “Why?”

She laughed nervously. “Maybe I just wanted to try out the gun.”

He tilted her face up and leaned over to brush his mouth tenderly across her trembling lips. “Maybe there was a reason you don’t want me to know,” he murmured. He drew back and looked at her. “Hungry?”

The change of topic threw her. He had switched from lover to friendly companion in seconds. She managed a smile. “Yes. What did you have in mind?”

“Cheeseburgers, of course.” He chuckled and started the car.

“I like those myself.”

He glanced at her. “Let’s talk,” he said unexpectedly. “Really talk. I want to know everything about you. What you like to read, how it was to grow up in Texas, why you’ve never gotten involved with a man…everything.”

That sounded intriguing. It suddenly occurred to her that she knew very little about him. What he liked and disliked, what he felt. She tried to read his face.

“Curious about me, too?” he asked, glancing sideways. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

She laughed uneasily. “‘Anything’ covers a lot of territory.”

“And requires a hell of a lot of trust on my part,” he added with a smile. “Anything, Gabby.”

Total honesty. She stared down at her hands and wondered why they were trembling. She wasn’t sure of his motives, of where this was leading. She looked up and all her uncertainty was on her face.

He reached over and caught one of her hands, lifting it to his thigh. Her palm tingled at the contact.

“Make me stay here,” he said unexpectedly.

“What?” she asked.

“Make me stay,” he repeated. His eyes caught hers briefly. “You can give me something that all the unholy little wars on earth couldn’t. If you want me, show me. Give me a reason, half a reason, to settle down. And I might surprise you.”

She stared out through the windshield and felt as if she were floating. It was a beginning that she wasn’t sure she wanted. She might hold his interest briefly, until he tired of her body. But what then? He was offering nothing more than a liaison. He wasn’t talking about permanent things like a house and children. Her eyes darkened with pain. Perhaps it would have been better if he hadn’t gotten rid of her fear of him.

Her troubled eyes sought his profile, but it was as unreadable as ever. The only thing that gave her hope was the visible throbbing of his pulse and the searing desire in his eyes. He wanted her so desperately that she couldn’t help wondering whether he didn’t feel something for her, too. But it would take time to find out, and she wasn’t going to withdraw her resignation. As much as it might hurt, in the long run it would be saner to leave him than to try to hold him. Gabby wasn’t built for an affair. And she wasn’t going to let him drag her into one, just to occupy himself while he decided between practicing law and soldiering.