Desperado (7 page)

He scowled, all too aware that he was aroused and she knew it, and that her hips were straining violently away from his.

“You’re afraid of me,” he whispered, shattered.

She bit her lower lip hard. “I’m afraid of any man, this close, especially you!” she blurted out, visible tears stinging her eyes. “Oh, please, let me go!”

He allowed her to move back to what she considered a decent proximity, but he wouldn’t let go completely. “It couldn’t have been that one night with me that made you this way,” he said, thinking aloud. “Because you’ve always worn clothes that showed nothing of your body. You dress like an old woman to go to bed. You don’t even flirt—except one time when we went out to dinner together and ran into Eb Scott. And you only did that to irritate me.”

“I never understood why you asked me out at all. You’d only just gotten back into the country.”

He reached out and slid his hand against her cheek, caressing it. “It was an impulse,” he said softly. “I wanted to see if marriage had changed you. It had, but not in the way I expected. You were even more tense and nervous than before. Now I understand why.”

She met his gaze. “No, you don’t,” she said abruptly.

He bent unexpectedly and put his mouth against her eyelids,
closing them. She shivered, once, and then she relaxed, letting him draw her close. He kissed her eyebrows, running his tongue softly along them, and then he kissed her cheeks, working his way up her nose and over to her eyes again. It was the most tender caress she’d felt in her whole life. It shocked her into submission, when submission had been the very last thing on her mind.

His hands slid up her back and into the thick wealth of her long hair. “I love long hair,” he breathed against her temple. “You know it.”

Her hands curled into the thick hair behind his head, short and cool in her fingers. Her body was on fire with unsatisfied hungers that she hadn’t felt in years, not since the night Amy had died and, at first, she’d vibrated with delicious unknown sensations when he started touching her.

The memory made her uncertain and she stiffened again.

He lifted his head to look down into her frightened eyes. “I was drunk,” he said very gently, because he knew what she was remembering. “No man should ever touch a woman in that condition. I wasn’t brutal to you, but I hurt you, just the same, because I was out of control.”

Her eyes were wide and uncertain and strangely curious.

“You don’t understand,” he murmured, reading it in her face. “A man has to control his desire long enough to arouse the woman he’s with, Maggie,” he said gently. “It takes longer for a woman to feel the things a man does, especially when it’s her first time.”

She flushed a little, but she didn’t look away.

“Your body didn’t reject me, but you were tense and embarrassed and I went too fast,” he said with a frown. “I remember thinking how odd it was that your body didn’t feel virginal even if your reactions were those of an innocent.”

She closed her eyes and hated her past. She hadn’t known that a man could tell that.

He stared at her with growing suspicion. A woman who had been abused as a child…

She tugged at his arms, breaking his train of thought.

“No,” he said softly, pulling her back. He tilted her face up to his. His eyes were smoldering, intent on her mouth. “I should have done this years ago,” he murmured as he bent. “I kissed you when we were younger, but I barely brushed your mouth with mine. This time,” he whispered huskily, “I’m going to do a hell of a lot more…!”

She waited, breathless, for him to suddenly change his mind, for car doors to slam, for something to interrupt the sensual haze he’d caressed her into.

Nothing did. His fingers cupped her chin and his hard mouth settled slowly, gently, firmly, on her parted lips.

It was like no time before. She felt the very texture of his lips as they moved softly over her mouth, teasing, tasting, lifting. It was as if he were sketching her mouth with a fine sable brush. She went very still as he seduced her mouth with slow, skillful caresses.

She felt his thumb working at the corner of her mouth,
testing its softness as he kissed it, enjoying its texture, its slow response.

He nibbled her lower lip with his teeth, smiling when she lifted toward him for the first time.

“That’s it,” he whispered. His lips worked their way between hers and he hesitated, his breath coming quickly at her moist lips. “Open it, little one,” he whispered. “Open it. Let me inside…”

The words, unfamiliar, deep and sensual, did something unexpected to her body. She felt heat shoot through her. She felt all her defenses fall. She arched up toward him, opening her lips.

She felt his arms slowly lift, riveting her to his hips. She felt his excitement, but she didn’t protest the intimacy. It was drugging, to feel him wanting her, to taste the heat and power of his hard mouth as it explored hers deeply.

Even that terrible night, at first, there hadn’t been this slow, drugging intimacy that made her want to feel his mouth on her body, his hands on her bare skin. The depth of her hunger shocked her. She’d never known desire, except for brief, infrequent tastes when she was with Cord. This was an adventure in the world of the senses, a slow banquet of tasting and touching.

She wasn’t even aware that her fingers were on the hem of his knit shirt, or that he was lifting away to coax them under it. She moved her hands quickly up to the thick pelt of hair that covered his warm muscular chest. She felt him gasp against her mouth when she buried her fingers in it.

She drew back, uncertain.

His face was hard, his cheekbones flushed, his mouth swollen from the long, intimate contact with hers. “I like it,” he said in a husky tone. “Wait.” He dragged the shirt over his head and threw it aside. He didn’t even look to see where it landed before he pulled her hands back to his body and guided them against it. His whole body throbbed, vibrated, from this almost innocent love play.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered, as he bent back to her mouth. “I’d cut off my arm before I’d hurt you again!”

She felt that, in the tenderness of his touch, in the exquisite caress of his mouth on her lips.

She gave in to the moment, refusing to think of the past or the future. Even if it was all she could ever have, she could have this. She reached up to him and lifted her body against his until they were riveted together at the hips. He groaned harshly and bent quickly to lift her.

She felt him moving, felt the shock of his steps against her body as he carried her to the chaise longue and draped her over it. He slid alongside her, his mouth under her shirt as his fingers worked at buttons and catches. She felt him shiver faintly as his lips moved onto the soft skin of her breast.

But just as he pushed the bra out of his way, she felt a skirl of fear, and she caught it to her breast, refusing to let go.

He wasn’t angry. He only smiled. He bent again and his lips opened, smoothing over the soft skin above the bra’s edge. She caught her breath when she felt his tongue there, too.

There was something she was supposed to do. She couldn’t remember what it was. His lips trespassed farther and farther and she arched up, pulling the fabric out of the way of his mouth. It felt, oh, so good! She wanted it lower. She wanted his mouth to cover that tiny hardness that ached, that throbbed, that hurt, for his touch. She wanted him to kiss it…

She felt his laughter ripple against her breast. She didn’t realize that she was speaking aloud, or that her sudden weakness increased his strength, his virility.

“You make me feel ten feet tall,” he whispered against her skin. His hand slid along her rib cage, feeling the undulating motion of her body that was trying so hard to coax his mouth lower.

She moaned with pure frustration, out of her senses with the single-minded pursuit of pleasure. She couldn’t believe what she was feeling with him. It was unimaginable, with her past.

He lifted his head and looked right down into her wide, frustrated eyes. “Do you want me to suckle you?” he whispered sensuously.

“Yes!” she moaned, beyond pride, beyond embarrassment. Her body twisted up toward him. “Oh, Cord, please, please…!”

He touched her mouth gently, his heart bursting with her headlong response, with her hunger for him, despite the past when he’d hurt her.

“I would do,” he whispered huskily, “anything for you. Anything!”

He bent to her body, tugging the bra out of her nerveless
hands to dash it and the shirt and vest onto the floor beside them. His face was intent with pleasure, with need. He touched her firm, pretty breast with its rosy little crown as if it fascinated him. Then he bent with a faint groan, and covered it tenderly with his lips.

He heard her helpless cry of pleasure as he began to suckle her, his tongue working hard against the nipple, the rough pressure dragging a shocked little sound from her throat.

She lifted to his mouth, arched her body to hold him, tempt him there.

“Is it good?” he whispered huskily.

“Yes…!” Her voice broke on the words. “Yes…!” She pressed her mouth deeply into his throat, opening it, tasting his skin in a throbbing hot silence. “Please…don’t…stop!”

He laughed hoarsely. “I don’t know if I could,” he whispered roughly as he bent to her body again.

When his mouth finally lifted and moved to cover hers, she met it hungrily, her arms dragging him down to her.

He was lost. He pressed roughly between her long legs in the jeans, his body throbbing, aching, as he moved against her in a helpless parody of intimacy. She shivered and sobbed and clung as he kissed her. Just a little longer, just a little longer, just a little…!

He felt her body thrusting up at his and he realized almost too late what was happening. He groaned out loud and suddenly dragged his body away from hers. He flung his legs off the divan and bent forward, with his elbows propped on
his knees and his head in his hands. He shuddered again and again with fierce pain.

Maggie sat up, too, her bare breasts pressing to his bare back. “Cord,” she whispered dazedly.

“Don’t touch me!” he exploded, thrusting her away while he still could.

He dragged himself to his feet, still shivering as he went to the liquor cabinet behind his desk and poured whiskey into a glass with shaking hands.

Maggie was scrambling back into her clothes, horrified and sickened at her behavior. She could hear voices from her past, accusing voices, whispered voices, disgusted voices. She was no better than a streetwalker. She’d heard them say that. She’d heard them whisper that. And at her age…!

She got to her feet, wide-eyed, shaking. She ran for the door and went through it while Cord was still trying to recover from what had happened.

She’d forgotten her purse, but it didn’t matter, she wasn’t going back for it. She went out the door and sat down on the porch, hoping nobody had seen or heard what was going on in that room. How could she ever face Cord again? She was devastated!

Even as she was thinking it, the front door opened, and he came out onto the porch. He stopped as he saw her sitting on the swing with her arms tightly around herself.

She saw his long, powerful legs in front of her, and the
shiny polish of his black tooled leather boots. She didn’t look up. She couldn’t. She was too ashamed. Now he had a good reason to hate her.

B
ut the disgust, the anger, that Maggie had expected didn’t come. Cord sat down beside her and slid an arm behind her. He stared at her until she lifted her shamed face and met his eyes. They weren’t angry, or disgusted. They were quiet, curious. They were kind.

“We need to have a long talk about the dangers of heavy petting,” he said with a faint smile.

She colored furiously and averted her face again.

“Maggie, you didn’t commit a cardinal sin,” he said gently. “Will you please stop looking like a whipped child?”

She felt the tears falling down her cheeks without realizing it until she heard his shocked breath and felt his arms catching her up, lifting her onto his lap. He held her gently, smoothing her hair, until the sobs lessened.

“I don’t have a handkerchief,” he remarked ruefully, using his fingers to loosen the last stray tears from her eyelashes.

“Neither do I.” She fumbled in her pocket and found a paper towel she’d stuck there that morning after using it to dry her hands. Amazing foresight, she thought miserably as she mopped herself up.

He rocked the swing into motion, watching her lie exhausted in his arms. “I feel like a teenager,” he murmured.

She glared up at him from red eyes. “Don’t you ever do that again!” she raged from hurt embarrassment.

He touched her soft mouth. “Spoilsport,” he murmured softly, and he smiled.

She flushed, lowering her eyes to his chest. That reminded her of how they’d been, just at the last, and she moved her gaze beyond him to the pastures.

He held her down and kept swinging. He shook his head, staring out at the grazing red-coated cattle in his pasture. “I don’t know why I ever thought you were experienced,” he said.

“My private life is none of your business!” she muttered.

“Then why did you let me take off your bra?” he asked reasonably.

She hit his chest with a tight little fist. He caught it, chuckling, and unfolded it, pressing it into his knit shirt. He stretched and exhaled, his face more relaxed than she ever remembered seeing it.

“I have to go back to town,” she said tautly.

“We haven’t had dessert,” he returned. “You can have cherry pie and homemade vanilla ice cream and coffee when your eyes look normal again.”

She knew what he meant, they were probably swollen and fiery red, as they always became when she cried.

Cord was getting a picture of her that bore no resemblance to the woman he thought he knew. There was something sexual in her past, but not a pleasant memory, and long ago, maybe in childhood. If she’d spent two years with a stepfather, God knew what she might have endured as a little girl. It made him sick to remember his own treatment of her during their one intimacy.

“Do you still ride?” he asked lazily.

“I haven’t, in years.”

He smoothed his fingers over her long, pink fingernails. “You’ve toned the polish down, haven’t you?” he murmured absently. “You used to wear red on your nails all the time.”

“Pink lasts longer,” she replied.

“You can come back tomorrow,” he continued. “We can go riding in the morning.”

She wondered if she wouldn’t do better to join the Peace Corps in the morning! It was easier when he hated her. Now she was faced with the choice of running again or being seduced into a sexual relationship with him. She wasn’t ready for that. She might never be.

He noticed her lack of response to the suggestion, and her worried look. He tipped her face up to his. “I won’t seduce you,” he said at once. “That’s a promise.”

Her lower lip trembled. She dragged her eyes down to his collar.

His chest rose and fell against her. He smoothed down her long hair worriedly. She was fragile like this. She was vulnerable in a way he’d never dreamed she could be. It was a
shock to see a strong, independent, fiery woman like Maggie reduced to absolute submission in a man’s arms. Especially, he thought, in his arms.

He drew her close, resting his cheek against the hair at her temple while the swing rocked back and forth, its chains making a rhythmic metallic sound. Cattle lowed in the distance, and he heard dogs bark—probably his nearest neighbors’. They barked at most everything. The sound was oddly comforting in the early evening. It was growing dark. He heard crickets and birds humming around them, while the scent of honeysuckle and jasmine settled on the heavy, humid night air.

“You’ve got fireflies everywhere,” she murmured, watching the insects emit brief green flashes as they flew among the flowers and the trees near the porch.

“Remember when you used to catch them in a mason jar with holes in the lid?” he mused.

She laughed softly. “And Amy made me let them go. She couldn’t bear to see anything shut up, even an insect. But they were pretty.”

“They’re prettier flying around,” he chided.

She curled her fingers into the soft fabric of his shirt. She was helpless when he held her. She should resent it, she told herself, but all she could manage was delighted happiness.

His fingers curled into hers. His cheek moved against her soft, cool hair. “I don’t think I ever sat and held you like this, did I?”

“When I was nine,” she recalled. “The neighbor’s cat, the one they had declawed, bit my arm. I squalled and cried, and you picked me up and rocked me until Amy got home.”

“I’d forgotten.”

“Of course,” she said without rancor. “It wasn’t important.”

But it was to her, because she remembered. He wondered how often he’d hurt her with his indifference over the years. It was beginning to dawn on him how deeply her feelings went, especially after what had just happened in his study.

“We could go riding tomorrow,” he repeated.

She hesitated. “I have a lot of paperwork to get through,” she said finally. “But thanks anyway.”

He lifted his head and looked down into her face. “You’re going to take a long step back and refuse any invitation I make from now on,” he guessed accurately. “Then you’re going to get out of the country as fast as you can, so that you don’t suffer another lapse of willpower with me. Does that about cover it?”

“In a nutshell,” she confessed, because it was useless to lie now.

He traced her small shell-like ear. “Running away isn’t the answer.”

“I won’t be your mistress,” she said curtly. “Just in case the idea had occurred to you.”

“It hadn’t,” he replied with equal bluntness. His face was solemn, thoughtful. “Something happened to you, something traumatic,” he continued. “You can’t even talk about it. I should have been more perceptive. And I should never have
touched you when I’d been drinking. It makes me sick to think of the damage I did to you that night.”

Her eyebrows arched. She hadn’t expected regrets—not from him. He’d never acted as if he were sorry. In fact, he’d blamed her for the whole sordid mess.

“Yes, I know,” he mused, as if he read the thoughts right in her mind. “I blamed it on you. I hated myself. I couldn’t even bear to think of what I’d done, and to someone who’d always given me comfort and affection.”

“You never said that.”

He shrugged. “How could I? Pride is an obstacle to most apologies. I had more than my share. It was tough being a Spanish kid in an American city. I didn’t fit in anywhere at first.”

“I didn’t remember that,” she said suddenly.

“You didn’t even notice that I was foreign,” he returned. “You appropriated me the first day we were together. You were fluent in Spanish, even at the age of eight. You never said where you learned it.”

“From my mother,” she replied. “Her mother was from Sonora, in Mexico.” She smiled. “And her mother’s mother was one of the women who traveled with the revolutionaries under Pancho Villa during the Mexican revolution! Mama had a picture of her grandmother, wrapped in ammunition belts and carrying a carbine!”

He was pleasantly surprised. “One of my father’s great-uncles fought with Villa,” he recalled. “His son still breeds
fighting bulls. He lives north of Málaga, in Andalusia. He’s my cousin.”

“I never thought how hard it must have been for you here, at first,” she recalled. “You always seemed mature beyond your years, and you were never afraid of anything.”

He smiled. “Neither were you. Well, maybe of biting cats,” he added, teasing.

She laughed. “And snakes,” she said.

He traced her thin eyebrows lazily. “You were an odd child,” he recalled. “At times, you seemed five years older than your actual age. And you never seemed to like boys.” He pursed his lips. “Except me,” he added tauntingly.

“You were close to hand, and you always protected me,” she pointed out.

“You protected me, as well,” he said, and he didn’t smile. “I didn’t like it very much at the time, but it was hard to miss. Sometimes I felt like a possession.”

She studied an undone button at his collar. “You were the only security I had. In fact, you were the only security I’d ever known. I felt so safe with you, as if nobody could ever hurt me again as long as you were near.”

“Then I married Patricia and you got involved with that wild-eyed artist,” he said, scowling.

“He was gay,” she blurted out. “Mannie was one of the best friends I ever had. He taught me to take life at face value and never run from trouble.” She frowned sadly. “He got AIDs and nobody would touch him. I used to visit him at the nursing
home, just so I could hug him. You can’t catch it that way, you know, and sick people miss human contact the most of everything. But most people are scared to get close.” She smiled. “I remember newsreels of Mother Teresa handing an AIDs infected child to a businessman and how terrified he looked. She wasn’t afraid at all.”

His fingers contracted on her back. “You make me ashamed.”

“Of what?”

He smoothed her hair. “You give so much, Maggie,” he replied. “I don’t have that generosity of spirit. I’ve had to fight for everything I ever got, even when I was a kid in Spain. My father was a bullfighter, you know,” he added when she looked puzzled. “Even in Spain, bullfighting is under fire.”

“I didn’t realize…!”

“I was sorry I hadn’t died with my parents in that fire,” he recalled. “I had nobody back home who could be responsible for me and since my mother was an American citizen, they couldn’t deport me. I ended up where you did, in juvenile hall. I was buried in grief and anger at fate, at God, at everybody.” He searched her face. “Then Amy took me home, and there was this quiet little tomboy who sat with me on the porch and spoke the most beautiful Spanish to me when I refused to respond in English.” He smiled. “You made me feel at home, wherever you were. When I got in trouble with drugs, you sat beside me and held my hand, so tight, and promised me that everything was going to be all right. I got teased about that a
lot. A big, strong, tough guy like me at eighteen being comforted by a ten-year-old.”

“I was old for my age,” she said.

“You still are.” He caught her hand in his and held it tight. “You and I share a bond. I’ve always known it, even when I resented it and tried to ignore it.” He looked down into her eyes. “It isn’t possible to ignore it anymore. Not after what just happened between us.”

She scrambled away from him and stood up, breathless. “Please. I don’t want to…I can’t…do that.”

He moved in front of her. The sunset beyond the porch was spectacular, all reds and golds and oranges, but she wasn’t looking. “I’m not asking you for one single thing,” he said gently.

She looked up at him with emotional scars that were briefly visible. “I’m afraid of sex,” she whispered, as if it were some terrible secret. “It’s sordid and nasty, and…”

He put his fingers over her lips, shocked. “Maggie, lovemaking is a beautiful expression of what a man and a woman feel for each other,” he said earnestly. “It’s not sordid and nasty. If I made you feel that way about it, God forgive me!”

He looked wounded. She drew back from the contact of his fingers. “You didn’t,” she said. “What happened that night was…unfortunate. I was drinking, too, and I guess I did something that made you think I wanted it. I’m sorry, too. I could never want…that…to happen if I was sober. I’ve hated it my whole life.”

He was really shocked now. She looked somber, but completely honest. “Why?” he asked softly.

She winced. “It’s so horrible,” she whispered, her eyes vacant. “So horrible!”

The look on her face disarmed him. He couldn’t imagine what had happened to make her feel that way about physical intimacy. She said it wasn’t her experience with him. What, then? He promised himself, he was going to find out.

Meanwhile, he was going to start over with her. That brief interlude had assured him that they had something powerful together, something that needed exploring. He, who shunned intimacy, was suddenly hungry for it.

“If you won’t go riding tomorrow, how about a movie next week?” he asked abruptly.

“Cord, it’s not a good idea,” she said quickly. “We can just forget today. It was a flash in the pan. It didn’t mean anything!”

“You’re afraid,” he said gently. “I know that, and I’m not going to back you into a corner. We can be friends, if that’s all you want. I meant what I said inside,” he added in a deep, husky tone. His dark eyes almost glowed with emotion. “I’d give you anything you wanted, Maggie. Anything in the world!”

She felt her body tingle as she remembered when he’d said it. Even now, his voice was so tender that it made her ache. But she didn’t trust him. It was too soon. She turned away from him, toward the front door. “I want my cherry pie.”

“Just a minute.” He drew her into the light of the window and checked her eyes. He smiled and touched her mouth
gently. “You’ll do. I wouldn’t want the Travises to think I made you cry, even if I did.”

She looked up at him quietly. “I thought you were disgusted at the way I acted, when you pushed me away,” she stammered. “I felt…dirty.”

His eyes closed and he cursed silently. “Never!” he said harshly, opening his eyes on a wave of regret. “I was trying to spare you another trauma,” he said honestly. “It’s too soon for that sort of physical involvement, for both of us. We’re different people now. I was shocked when I knew about your marriage, and ashamed of the way I’d treated you. I never meant things to get so physical.” He shrugged. “I kissed you and I couldn’t stop.” His cheekbones went ruddy and he looked away, almost as if he were embarrassed to admit that. “I pushed you away before I made another stupid mistake that I couldn’t undo.”