Fit for a King (29 page)

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Diana
Palmer

Fit for a
King

233

time, but you hung
up. Bobby and I were visiting
him."

Elissa could hardly breathe.
''Visiting?" she ech
oed hoarsely.

"I
guess you had a pretty good idea what was going on all along, but most of it
was just in my mind
Poor Kingston was truly caught in the middle, all be
cause he
felt sorry for me. Well, he's big brother
again, and I do
adore him. But if you'd seen him these
past weeks, you'd
know that he didn't give a hang about me—not the way you thought. He's nearly
worked
himself to death, taken crazy chances with the
livestock and that
new sports car of his—he's gone
hog-wild, Margaret says. Margaret tried to
get him to
go see
you, but he wouldn't. He said he couldn't go
until
you asked him to, because that would mean you still loved him. Margaret says he
loved you all along,
only he didn't
know it. I think he knows it now. I just
hope I haven't done anything to
take his last chance
away from him. I think
he'll go crazy without you,
and
that's the truth."

Elissa
was still trying to find her voice. "I sent him
away," she
whispered tearfully. "I thought you and
he were getting married. I couldn't let
him sacrifice
his own happiness...just
because I was pregnant."

"Oh,
Lord, I hate myself!" Bess groaned. "Listen,
can't you go after
him?"

"I don't know where he's gone," Elissa wept.

"Well,
if he comes here, I'll send him back," Bess

promised. "Now
you go get some sleep. Don't worry
too much; it isn't healthy for the
baby. My gosh,
Bobby and I will be uncle and aunt. That sounds so
nice. Get
some sleep, honey. Everything will be
okay—I promise."

Elissa's
heart warmed at the compassion in that soft
voice. "I'll be
all right," she said. "You'll let me
know if he shows up
there?"

"Of course I will. And good luck."

"Thanks." Elissa hung
up with a sigh. Lately, all
her luck seemed
to be bad. She went to the sink and bathed her flushed face. It didn't help a
whole lot, so she went out the back door and onto the quiet beach.
Maybe a walk would help clear her mind.

She
wandered along in her robe, hardly seeing
where she was going
for the pain. What irony, she
thought miserably. She'd sent him away, and
for
what?

She didn't
notice the silent figure near the dune
until he spoke.
"You'll catch cold," he said, his voice deep and lazy.

Elissa
whirled, catching her breath, to find King sitting there, smoking a cigarette.
He was in his shirt sleeves, his chest bare where the white shirt was un
buttoned, his dark hair untidy.

"What
are you sitting there for?" she asked shak
ily. "I thought
you'd gone."

"Oh,
I started to," he agreed pleasantly. "And
then I realized I had
no place to go."

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"There are hotels in
Miami," she faltered, wrap
ping her
arms around herself as she drank in the sight of him, her eyes adoring every
hard, powerful line of
his body in the darkness.

"You don't
understand." He put out the cigarette. "You're the only home I have,
Elissa," he said qui
etly. "I don't
have any other place to go."

Tears stung her eyes. She'd
never dreamed, even
when Bess was telling
her those things, that he cared
that
much. Trembling a little with mingled excitement
and fear, she went to him and dropped to her knees
in front of
him.

"I thought it was Bess," she said simply.

He looked
up at her, his eyes dark with possession.
"So did I, at first," he
returned. "Until you started
taking me
over, that is. First my body, then my heart.
In the end, all I felt for Bess was compassion and
responsibility.
I could have told you that when you
left,
but you wouldn't listen," he said gruffly. "Seven
weeks I've stayed away, hoping against hope that
you'd miss me. I broke speed records getting here
tonight, and for what? To be told you didn't give a
damn!"

She stopped
the tirade with her mouth. Poor
wounded man, she thought. She slid her arms
around
his neck and felt him tremble as she pushed, gently
unbalancing
him. He fell against the dune, and she
fell with him, her
softness melting over him, her eyes
red from crying, her mouth tasting of
salty tears.

"Will
you listen?" he ground out against her lips.
Then he groaned and
captured her, enfolding her
against the warm strength of his body. His mouth
opened under hers. She felt the deep penetration
of his tongue, the throb of his heart. He was hers.

She
nibbled his lower lip, lifting her head to stare
down at him, her eyes
adoring, sure of him. Her hands smoothed back his hair, and she smiled as she
touched
him with confident possession.

"Are
you, by any chance, trying to seduce me?"
he whispered. His
heart was pounding, and his body
was making insistent statements about what it
wanted.
He tried
to shift her so that she wouldn't feel how
vulnerable
he was, but he couldn't budge her.

"Just
lie still," she chided. "I know you want me,
so there's no use
trying to hide it."

He glared up at her. "Rub it in," he muttered.

She bent
and kissed his eyelids with aching ten
derness. "Were
you going to sleep on the beach?"
she whispered.

"If
that was as close to you as I could get, yes,"
he said angrily.

He was a
hard man, she thought lovingly, lifting
her head to look at
him. A real handful. But she could
manage him. They'd been friends a lot longer than
they'd been lovers, and now she knew how to throw
him off balance, as well.

She sat
up, opening her robe. "I want to show you
something," she
said without the least bit of self-

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consciousness,
although she peeked down the beach, knowing her parents were eventually going
to come looking for her. Under the robe, she was as she slept,
bare
except for a tiny pair of blue briefs.

He stared
at her, stunned, as if he couldn't believe
what he was seeing.

"This
is what you did to me," she whispered tenderly. She took his hands and
held them to her mi
nutely swollen waistline, watching the incredible ex
pression that tautened his face
as he touched her.

"My child..." His voice was soft, deep,
reverent.

She
gathered his head against her sensitive breasts,
tears stinging her
eyes as she rocked him, cradled
him, feeling his lips touch her, though not
in a sexual
way. His hands smoothed over her under the robe as
he brought
her against his body, holding her so close that she could barely breathe. And
she cried, because
he cared and because she loved him.

"You
little imp," he whispered, nuzzling her warm
throat. "I'm so
crazy about you. I would have carried
you home to Oklahoma in my arms,
walking."

Her lips
touched his face, her breath catching as he
turned and put his mouth with aching
tenderness to
her breasts.

His hands
came up to touch them, to cup them. He
moved, laying her
down gently on the robe so that he
could look, could explore the new
contours of her body with his child tucked under her heart.

"Our baby," he whispered, his fingers trembling

as he lay beside her
in the darkness with the surf
crashing behind them.

She trembled with the
profundity of the moment.
"I know
exactly when we made him," she whispered.

He met her eyes. "So do I,
to the very second. I meant to, even though I was temporarily confused
about Bess. Do you know that the minute I got
home from putting you on that plane, I patched up her mar
riage? She
admitted that she loved Bobby, that she
was
just lonely. She'd never stopped loving him, but
she was afraid to tell him how she really felt. She did,
though, and now they're closer than ever. They're
even talking about having babies."

She laughed. "She called
me a few minutes ago.
She wanted to clear the
air."

"Nice
woman. I'm glad she and Bobby have fi
nally gotten their act together."
He looked down into
her eyes, searching. "Do you know how I feel, or do
you want the words?" he asked gently.

"Have you ever said them before?" she
countered.

He smiled ruefully. "No.
But I never wanted to
before, either."

"When did you know?" she asked.

"I
knew how
you
felt when you were willing to
give yourself to me
in Jamaica." He laughed at her
startled expression. "That's right, tidbit, I knew be
fore you did. But there was Bess, and I didn't
think
I wanted that kind of involvement. But when I saw
you lying in bed in that sexy nightgown, and I got

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hot and bothered
like I never had before..." He bent
and brushed his mouth
over hers, reveling in its soft, trembling response. "After that, bad went
to worse. I didn't really want to seduce you at the ranch, but my
body got
the best of me."

 
“Yes, so did
mine," she sighed, nuzzling his cheek. She closed her eyes. "It's
been hard living
with it, King," she whispered.

"How
do you feel about starting over again?" He
touched her abdomen.
"And decide quick, would
you? I think he's already growing."

She grinned
at him, drunk with happiness. "As if
I could have stopped
loving you." She laughed.
"Seven weeks, damn you!" She hit
him.

He
crushed his mouth down on hers, suddenly all
man, all domination,
burning her with his ardor. "Damn you, too," he growled, his lips
hard against
her mouth. "Calling it a 'cheap little roll in the
hay,' when I'd never loved a woman that way in my life.
Sticking
a knife in my pride, my heart. I went off like
a wounded animal to
lick my wounds, then went to
Jamaica with my heart in my hands to offer to
you...and you'd gone. You'd sold the cottage and
taken Warchief, and the
real-estate agent said you
hated the cottage
and everything connected with it."
His eyes narrowed. "I guessed that meant me, too.
So I went back to Oklahoma and drank myself into a
stupor, then set about working myself
to death."

"While
I was sure you were going to marry Bess,"
she murmured. "I
knew how you felt...."

"How
you thought I felt," he corrected. He kissed
her softly. "I
slept with you for one night, and it
ruined me for any other woman. You've
haunted my dreams ever since. An innocent, and you gave me the
first
total fulfillment I've ever had."

She smiled
against his mouth, bristling with pride.
"Sitting up, too," she murmured,
and she blushed
wildly.

"Don't
smile about it, you brazen hussy," he
taunted. "I
needed my head examined. I prayed every
night that you'd end up pregnant," he
confessed, "because I knew you'd send for me. Your sense of
honor would force you to. And then I'd come to you
and take care of you and find some
way to make you love me again." He traced her breasts, watching them
tauten in the moonlight.

"Don't forget," she
whispered, loving the sensa
tion, "that
my parents are just down the beach."

He kissed her softly. "I hadn't
forgotten," he said with a rueful smile. "I'm not about to give them
any
more cause to resent me."

He helped
her back into her robe and pulled her
onto his knees, cradling her.

"How
could they resent the father of their very
own
grandchild?" she whispered, her mouth brushing
warmly over his.
"He's going to be just like his