A Kiss Remembered (13 page)

“So is she,” Pru screamed, pointing an accusing finger at Shelley, who was barely managing to control an impulse to fly at the girl and scratch her eyes out. She could gladly strangle her for touching Grant the way she had. “What’s she doing here undressed and cozily curled up on your couch?”

“That’s none of your damn business,” Grant said heatedly. He gripped her shoulder hard and spun her toward the door. He opened the door with one hand while pushing her through it with the other.

“Well, I’ll make it my business to see that Chancellor Martin finds out you’re sleeping with your students,” she threatened before Grant slammed the door in her face and clicked the lock decisively.

“Can you believe her?” Grant shouted, raking a frustrated hand through his already mussed hair. “I—Shelley?”

He had turned around to see her white, tense face. Rather than quaking with rage as she had been doing but seconds ago, she was now cowering. “What is it?” he asked, rushing to her.

She swallowed. “Nothing, Grant. I think you should take me home.” She began to get up, but his hands stayed her. He forced her face up to meet his eyes.

“Look at me,” he demanded when she tried to avert her head. “Why? Why do you want me to take you home?
Why
, dammit?”

“Because … because … she’s right, Grant. I shouldn’t be here. People will think—”

“I don’t give a damn what people will think,” he roared.

“Well I do,” she shouted back.

“Shelley …” His hands closed around her shoulders so tightly she winced. He eased his grip slightly. “I learned that no matter how circumspect you are, some people will jump at the chance to point a finger at you. People love to condemn others because it gives them a sense of self-righteousness. It gets you nowhere to try to please everybody. It’s futile, impossible. You need only please yourself.”

“No, Grant. I was taught early on that there are rules we have to live by whether we like them or not. We’re breaking the rules. I’ve lived my life one way for twenty-seven years. I can’t start changing now.” It took every ounce of her self-discipline to look him in the eye and say, “If you won’t drive me to campus to pick up my car, I’ll walk.”

He cursed viciously. “All right. Go upstairs and change.”

They left the house within minutes. He ushered her out the door, locking it behind him. Impervious to the rain, he helped her into his car and backed out the driveway.

“My car’s parked behind Haywood Hall,” she said when he headed in the opposite direction from the campus.

“I’m hungry. I had planned on taking you to dinner tonight.”

“Why? As payment for my favors?”

His head jerked around and she quailed under the sparks of anger shooting from his eyes. “Read it any way you like,” he snarled.

She would have preferred that he slap her. At least then only her cheek would be smarting. Tears clouded her vision, matching the rain that pounded the wind-shield. She turned her head so he wouldn’t see the effects their verbal dueling had had on her and proudly held her shoulders erect.

He drove to the outskirts of town to a popular steak house. Its rustic exterior blended into the backdrop of a rain-washed landscape. “I hope you like steak.”

“Go to hell,” she said, pushing open her door and dashing through the rain toward the door of the restaurant. If he thought etiquette had to be observed by buying her dinner, she wanted only to get it over with, so she could go home and nurse her wounds.

Inwardly, she shrank from the stormy expression on his face as he joined her under the covered porch and pulled open the door. His arm operated with the thrusting action of a piston. “Get inside,” he said tensely. She shot him a seething look before marching past him.

A hostess led them to a table near the fireplace. “Can I get you something from the bar?” she asked.

“No. Yes.” They answered in unison.

“Nothing for me,” Shelley said with stiff dignity.

“Draft beer, please,” Grant said.

The waitress left the menus and Shelley studied hers thoroughly until the woman returned with Grant’s beer to take their order.

“Shelley?” he asked politely.

“I only want a salad. Vinaigrette dressing.”

“She’ll have a steak, too. A filet cooked medium. And a baked potato with all the trimmings. I’ll have prime rib, medium rare, baked potato, too. Thousand Island dressing.” He snapped the menu shut and handed it to the confused waitress, his eyes daring Shelley to contradict him.

She only shrugged and turned her head to stare into the fire. She remained resolutely silent during the entire meal, answering his direct questions politely but initiating no conversation. If this were nothing more than a payoff, she’d be damned before she’d let him enjoy it.

Once they were back in the car, he ground it into gear and spun out onto the rain-slicked highway. His increasing anger only served to feed hers. The earnest lover of the night before had vanished, and in his place was an angry, embittered man she didn’t know.

A few blocks short of the campus he turned onto her street. “My car—”

“I know. It’s at Haywood Hall. I don’t want you driving in this weather, especially in a car—”

“I can take care of myself!” she yelled.

“I’m sure you can,” he shouted back. “Indulge me, okay?”

He slammed on the brakes in front of her house and caught her arm before she opened the door. “Don’t,” was all he said, but the simple word was potent. With only a little indifference and a great deal of fear, she obeyed him and waited for him to come around and hold the door for her.

“Thank you for everything,” she said with dripping sweetness before inserting the key in her front door and turning it.

“Not so fast,” he said, catching the closing door with his boot and stepping inside behind her. “I’m not going to let you go into an empty house alone after you’ve been away overnight, no matter how well you can take care of yourself.” He shut the door behind him and switched on the light.

He made a thorough inspection of her small house while she stood at the front door in growing irritation. When he strolled back into the room, obviously in no hurry to leave—indeed he had taken off his jacket and held it over his shoulder by his index finger—she said curtly, “Good night.”

His grin was sly as he dropped his jacket onto a chair. “Good nights are usually said in the bedroom, Shelley.” She stood in mute stupefaction as he came to her and yanked her against him, one arm going around her waist like a steel pincers. The other hand imbedded itself in her hair and pulled her head back as he leaned over her. “And they’re usually accompanied by a kiss.”

“No—” she barely got out before his mouth came down over hers. He kissed her without mercy, his tongue a marauder. Even though she struggled and squirmed against him, he lifted her easily and carried her kicking and thrashing into the bedroom.

She landed on the bed with an impact that drove the air from her lungs. He followed immediately, pinning her beneath him.

“Let me go.” Tears of frustration mingled with those of despair as her fists pounded ineffectually on his chest.

“Not a chance.” He locked her wrists into one of his fists. He fumbled with the buttons of her blouse and for the second time in twenty-four hours peeled down the silver slip to bare her breasts. “Tell me you don’t like this. Don’t want it. Don’t need it.” With his free hand, he caressed her. His touch was gentle, in direct contrast to the strength with which he held her.

“No, please don’t,” she moaned when she felt the rebellious response of her own body. Her head tossed back and forth on the pillow, but the fight was lost and she knew it. Her efforts were valiant, but without conviction. Her moans of protest became whimpering pleas as he stroked her now with his tongue. It flitted over her nipples in a caress like the rapid beating of a butterfly’s wings.

At the first sign of her acquiescence, he released her hands. They burrowed into his hair, frantic now that he might be the one to escape.

“Shelley, Shelley,” he breathed against her stomach as he pushed up her skirt and peeled the panty hose down her legs. He cursed them and his own clumsiness. Lest he terrify her with his desire, he forced himself to slow down, but her anxious hands on his shoulders were frantically imploring. He fastened his mouth on hers when his caressing fingers confirmed what he’d suspected. She was ready for him, pliant and moist.

He hurriedly freed himself from his restrictive clothing and poised on the threshold of her womanhood. He cradled her face between his hands and searched her eyes. “Do you think I’d let a stupid girl like that come between us? After ten heartbreaking years for both of us, do you think I’d let anything or anyone rob us of this happiness again?”

She shook her head, tears of love dampening her cheeks and the backs of his hands. “I told you that if I ever had you for one night, I’d never be able to let you go,” he continued. “But I’ll leave if you ask me to. I’ll leave. Now. But you have to ask me to.”

Her fingers intertwined behind his head and she pulled him down. She spoke against his lips. “No, Grant. Don’t leave.”

“Dinner. I didn’t mean what I said about—”

“Neither did I. It was a stupid thing for me to say.”

“I got rough. If I hurt you—”

“No, no,” she moaned. “But love me now.”

His body sank into hers, hard and full, filling the void his absence from her life had created and which only he could heal. Their tumult came quickly and simultaneously. As his life-force pumped into her, he said, “Nothing will separate us again.”

And she believed him.

She awakened in a tangle of limbs. Grant’s even breathing stirring the hair on the top of her head assured her that he was sleeping soundly. She eased away from him, covered his nakedness against the morning chill and crept to her closet to take out a fleecy robe.

Wrapping herself in it, she moved softly toward the kitchen with the intention of percolating coffee to carry in to him when he woke up. Musing on the tantalizing prospects of what would happen once they’d been fortified with caffeine, she was not immediately aware of the knocking on her front door. Puzzled as to who could be calling so early in the morning, she went to open it.

She peered through the tiny window at the side of the door and her heart lurched into her throat. “Daryl,” she whispered in dismay.

CHAPTER 8

H
e knocked again, more imperiously this time. For no other reason than to stop his insistent knocking, she unlocked the door and swung it open.

For long moments they stared across the threshold at each other. Shelley marveled over her supreme indifference at seeing him. Once, shortly after the divorce, the sight of him would have made her heart do somersaults. She would have been nervous, self-conscious. At one time he had possessed the power to make her feel insignificant. No longer.

As a sign of her newfound confidence, she made him speak first. “Shelley,” he said, nodding his head with cold condescension. He was still handsome in a boyish, dimpled kind of way. “Did I get you up?”

“Yes,” she lied. It gave her a sense of superiority to know that she was naked beneath the robe and that he couldn’t arouse her body, never had been able to. She longed to shout that at him, to flaunt his failure, to debase and humiliate him as he had her the night he had emotionlessly informed her that he wanted her out of his life.

“May I come in?”

She shrugged and moved aside. He pushed past her brusquely and for the first time she noticed the anger that had kept his dimples from really showing. He was furious over something. He rarely let himself get so upset that it showed.

He turned toward her after only a sweeping glance around her living room. “Sit down,” he said, flexing his fingers against his thighs, another sign of his agitation.

“No,” she responded and crossed her arms over her chest. She couldn’t imagine what had brought him from Oklahoma City so early on a Sunday morning, but she wasn’t about to obey his commands as she once had. The only emotion he had aroused in her was curiosity. But she wouldn’t even give him the satisfaction of asking what he wanted. She looked at him coolly.

His jaw tensed. He was grinding his teeth, a habit he’d tried for years to break. Once again his fingers were flexing as he held his arms stiffly at his sides. “I want to know what the hell you think you’re doing?”

She blinked several times and laughed shortly. “I was about to make coffee.”

He took a menacing step forward. “Don’t play cute with me, dammit. You know what I’m talking about. That Chapman guy. Are you seeing him?”

She wondered distractedly how he could get the words past lips that didn’t seem to move. “Yes,” she answered simply. “I’m taking his poli-sci class twice a week.”

“It’s more than that,” he roared, suddenly giving vent to his barely contained rage. “A friend of mine saw you at the football game and then later at the chancellor’s house together. You’ve been going to his apartment in the evenings. What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, repeating himself.

“That’s none of your business,” she said, flinging her head back in an attitude of defiance that he’d never seen before and that momentarily stunned him. The storm brewing in her blue eyes was new to him, too.

When he had regained his senses, he hissed, “The hell it’s not. You’re my—”

“
Ex-
wife, Dr. Robins. And at your choosing, if you’ll remember. I don’t know why you’re here and care less, but I’m telling you now to leave.”

He ignored her. “He’s always been your dreamboat, hasn’t he?” He sneered. “I don’t think you realized how often you dropped his name. My God, seven, eight years after high school, who the hell remembers their teachers? But not you. ‘Mr. Chapman this,’ and ‘Mr. Chapman that.’ I only thought you were enthralled because he had gone to Washington. Now I know better, don’t I? With his seedy reputation, I’d think your adolescent infatuation with him would be crushed. Or does what he did to that girl in Washington only make him more dashing?”

She wasn’t going to defend Grant to this buffoon. Turning her back on him, she walked to the door and opened it. “Don’t bother to come see me again, Daryl. Good-bye.”