Beloved (15 page)

248

Beloved

Diana Palmer

249

The local live cowboy band played a slow, lazy tune and
Simon
pulled
Tira
onto
the dance floor, wrapping her up tight in his arms.

The one with the prosthesis was a little uncomfortable
and she
moved imperceptibly.

"Too tight?" Simon asked softly, and let up on
the pressure. "Sorry. I'm used to the damned thing, but I still can't
quite judge
how much pressure to use."

"It's all right. It didn't
hurt."

He lifted his head and looked down into her eyes.
"You're the only woman who's ever seen me without it," he mused.
"In the
hospital, when it was a stump—''

"You may have lost part of your arm, but you're
alive," she interrupted. "If you hadn't been found for another hour,
nothing
would have saved you. As it was, you'd lost almost too much
blood."

"You stayed with me," he recalled. "You
made me fight. You
made me live. I didn't want to."

She averted her eyes. "I know how much
Melia
meant to you,
Simon. You don't have to remind me."

Secrets,
he thought. There were so many secrets that he kept,
that she didn't know about. Perhaps it kept the distance between
them. It was tune to shorten it.

"
Melia
had an abortion."

She didn't grasp what he was saying at first, and the
lovely
green eyes she lifted to his were curious.
"What?"

"I made her pregnant and she ended it, and never told
me,"
he said shortly. "She didn't want
to ruin her figure. Of course,
she wasn't positive
that the baby was mine. It could have been by
one of her other lovers."

She'd stopped dancing to stare up at him uncomprehendingly.

"She told me, the night of the accident," he
continued. "That's
why I lost control
of the car in a curve, in the rain, and I remember
thinking in the split second before it crashed that I didn't care to
live with all my illusions dead."

"Illusions?" she echoed.

"That my marriage was perfect," he said.
"That my beloved
wife loved me
equally, that she wanted my children and a lifetime
with only me." He laughed coldly. "I married a cheap, selfish
woman whose only concern was living in luxury and
notching her
bedpost. It excited her that she had
men and I didn't know. She
had them in my
bed." His voice choked with anger, and he looked
over her head. His arm had unconsciously tightened around
Tira
, and this time she didn't protest. She was shocked by
what he was
telling her. She'd thought, everyone
had thought, that he'd buried
his heart in
Melia's
grave and had mourned her for years.

"The child was what hurt the most," he said
stiffly. "I believed her when she said she thought she was sterile. It was
a lie. Ev
erything she said was a lie, and I was
too besotted to realize it.
She made a fool of
me."

"I'm
so sorry for all the pain you've been through." Her eyes
filled with tears. "It must have been
awful."

He looked down at her, his eyes narrow and probing.
"You
were married to John when it
happened. You came to the hospital
every day.
You held my hand, my good hand, and talked to me,
forced me to get up, to try. I always felt that you left John because
of me, and it made me feel guilty. I thought I'd broken
up your
marriage."

She dropped her gaze to his strong neck. "No,"
she said
tersely. "You didn't break it
up."

He curled her fingers into his and brought them to his
chest,
holding them there warmly. "Were you in
love with him, at
first?"

"I was attracted to him, very fond of him," she
confessed
softly. "And I wanted, badly, to
make our marriage work." She
shivered a
little and he drew her closer. Her eyes closed. "I
thought...
I
wasn
' t woman enough.''

His indrawn breath was audible. He knew the truth about
her
marriage now, but he hesitated to bring up a
painful subject again
when things were
going so well for them. His lips moved down to her eyes and kissed the eyelids
with breathless tenderness.

250

Beloved

"Don't cry," he said curtly. "You're more
than woman
enough. Come closer, and I'll prove it
to you, right here."

"Simon..."

His
arm slid down, unobtrusively, and drew her hips firmly
against his. He shuddered as the touch of her body produced an
immediate, violent effect.

She gasped, but he wouldn't let her step back.

"Do you feel how much I want you?" he whispered
in her ear.
"I've barely touched you and I'm
capable."

"You're a man..."

"It
doesn't, it never has, happened that fast with anyone else," he said
through his teeth. "I want you so badly that it hurts like
hell. Yes,
Tira
, you're
woman enough for any man. I'm sorry that
your husband didn't... No, that's a lie." He lifted his head and
looked into her shocked eyes. "I'm glad he
couldn't have you."

The words went right over her head because she was so
shocked at what he was saying. She stared at him in evident confusion and
embarrassment, her eyes darting around to see if anyone
was
watching. Nobody was.

"It
doesn't show. There's no reason to be so tense." His arm
moved back up to her waist and loosened a little.

She drew in steadying breaths, but she felt weak. Her
head went
to his chest and she made a plaintive
little sound against it.

His fingers contracted around hers.
"We opened Pandora's box together in your bedroom, on your bed," he
whispered at her ear.
"We want each
other,
Tira
."

She swallowed. "I can't."

"Why not?"

She
hesitated, but only for an instant. "I don't have affairs,
Simon."

"Of course you do, darling," he drawled with
barely concealed
jealousy. "What else do you have
with Charles Percy?"

Chapter 8

Tira
stopped dancing. She wasn't sure why she was upset, be
cause Simon had made no bones about thinking she was
sleeping
with Charles. Apparently when he'd
made light love to her earlier,
he'd thought her
responses were those of an experienced woman.
She wondered what he'd think if he knew the truth, that she'd
waited for him all these years, that she wanted no other
man.
"Go ahead," he invited, a strange
light hi his eyes. "Deny it."
She let her gaze fall to his wide, firm mouth. “Think what you
like,"
 
she
invited.
 
"You will anyway. And I'll
remind you,
Simon, that you have no right to
question me about Charles."
"No right?
After what you let me do to you?" She flushed and her teeth clenched.
"One weak moment..."
"Weak, the
devil," he muttered quietly. "You were starving
to death. Doesn't he make love to you anymore?"
"Simon, please don't," she pleaded. "Not
tonight."
The hand holding hers contracted.
"Were you thinking of him,
then?"

"Heavens, no!" she burst out, aghast.

He searched her eyes for a long moment, until he saw her
cheeks flush. His hand relaxed.

“I wasn’t the only one who was starving,” she murmured, a little
embarrassed.

He coaxed her cheek onto his chest. “No, you weren’t,” he agreed. He
closed his eyes as they moved to the music.

She was surprised that he could admit his own hunger. They were moving
into a totally new relationship. She didn’t know what to make of it, and she
didn’t quite trust him either. But what she was feeling was so delicious that
she couldn’t fight it. She let her body go lax against him and breathed in the
spicy scent of his cologne. Her hand moved gently against his shirt, feeling
hair and hard, warm muscle under it. He stiffened and it delighted her that he
could react so strongly to such an innocent caress.

“You better not,” he whispered at her ear.

Her hand stilled. “Are you…hairy all over?” she whispered back.

He stiffened even more. “In places.”

Her cheek moved against his chest and she sighed. “I’m sleepy,” she
murmured, closing her eyes as they moved lazily to the music.

“Want to go home?”

“We haven’t been here very long.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve had a hard week, too.” He let her move away.
“Come on. We’ll make our excuses and leave.”

They found Corrigan and asked him to tell the others Merry Christmas
for them.

“They’re still trying to talk
Tess
out of
leaving,” he murmured dryly. “I hope they can. The smell of baking biscuits
makes Dorie sick right now,” he said, glancing down at his wife lovingly. “So
they’ll have to go without if they can’t change her mind.”

“I wish them luck,” Simon said. “We enjoyed the party. Next year, maybe
I’ll throw one and you can all come up to San Antonio for it.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Corrigan replied. He glanced from one of them
ot
the other. “Have you two given up combat?”

“For the moment,”
Tira
agreed with a wan
smile.

“For good,” Simon added.

“We’ll see about that,”
Tira
returned, her
eyes flashing at him even through her fatigue.

They said their goodbyes and Simon drove them back to San Antonio. But
instead of taking her home, he took her to his apartment.

She wondered why she didn’t protest, which she certainly should have.
She was too curious about why he’d come here.

“Mo questions?” he asked when they stepped out of the elevator on the
penthouse floor.

“I suppose you’ll tell me when you’re ready,” she replied, but with a
faintly wary gaze.

“No need to worry,” he said as he unlocked his door. “You won’t get
seduced unless you want to.”

She blushed again and hated her own
naivete
.
She followed him inside.

She’d never seen his apartment before. This was one invitation she’d
always hoped for and never got. Simon’s private life was so private that even
his brothers new little of it.

The apartment was huge and furnished in browns and creams and oranges.
He had large oil paintings, mostly of landscapes, on the walls, and the
furniture had a vaguely Mediterranean look to it. It was heavy and old, and
beautifully polished.

She ran her hand over the rosewood back of the green velvet-covered
sofa that graced the living room. “This is beautiful,” she commented.

“I hoped you might think so.”

There was a long pause, during which she became more and more
uncomfortable. She glanced at Simon and found him watch-
ing
her with quiet, unblinking silvery eyes.

“You’re making me nervous,” she laughed uneasily.

“Why?”

She shrugged in the folds of her velvet wrap. “I’m not sure.”

He moved toward her with a walk that was as blatant as if he’d been
whispering seductive comments to her. He took the cloak