Fit for a King (8 page)

60

Diana
Palmer

Fit for a
King

61

I won't hurt you,” He smiled softly. The
drinks had done the trick; he was finally feeling relaxed and
slightly muddled, which was a relief from all the
heavy thinking he'd had to do lately. He couldn't
have Bess, he reasoned now, but Elissa was fair
game,
wasn't she? Shy and virginal—how
tempting to a
man. What would it hurt
to give her a little experi
ence? He cared about her, in a way. And who
better
to deal with her repressions? She'd
almost admitted
earlier that she'd
let him.

"Why
are you doing this?" she asked in a high-
pitched tone. Her fingers started to push
him away,
but when her hands encountered
warm, hair-
roughened skin, they
stopped struggling and flattened
against
him. She realized she didn't feel like resisting,
anyway. The vodka had done something to her willpower.
She felt more like relaxing against King than
fighting him; his proximity was having a throbbing
effect on her body.

"Because
I need something to occupy me, to keep me out of trouble. So you're going to be
my hobby," he said.

"I
don't want to be your hobby," she protested
weakly. Her legs
felt trembly.

"I
was yours at the beginning," he reminded her.
"You've no one
to blame but yourself."

"That
was different. You were repressed," she said
defensively. He was
too close. She was inhaling the tangy, clean scent of him, and it was
intoxicating her

more than the vodka
had. His bared chest was hard
under her fingers, and between seeing him
and smell
ing him and feeling him, she was adrift on sensation, her
heart pounding. All that devastating masculinity, so close.

"/
was repressed?" he asked with an amused
smile.

"You
were all alone," she said quietly, avoiding
his eyes. "I
felt sorry for you. I was alone, too. I...
well, I thought it
would be nice to have a friend."

"You
had Warchief," he pointed out, grinning.
"Speaking of
Warchief..." He glanced around. The
big parrot was on
his perch ring, one foot drawn up,
his eyes closed. "Unusual, his
going to sleep without
being covered. Is that antibiotic working, do
you
think?"

"He
isn't sneezing or rasping," she said, grateful
for the change of
subject. "He's better. He's just
sleepy. He always goes to sleep at
dusk, when you're
not around." She grinned. "He's in love with
you."

"I
think he's a she," he laughed. Then he turned
his attention back
to her, looking down at the bodice
of her jump suit with narrowing eyes.
He moved experimentally, rubbing his chest against her, and she gasped at the
sudden, sharp pleasure the friction pro
duced.

She
flushed to the roots of her long dark hair.
"King!"

62

Diana
Palmer

Fit for a
King

63

"Shocking, isn't it?"
he asked, lifting his narrow
gaze to hers.

Her eyes
searched his, curiosity momentarily dis
placing her
nervousness at this new intimacy.

His gaze
held hers while the hands at her waist
began to move her in a sensuous circle
against his
hard, warm chest.

The only
sounds she heard were the hoarseness of
the ocean against the
sand and the wildness of her
own breathing. She couldn't bear to look at
King as
sensation overwhelmed her, and she lowered her fore
head to
his shoulder. He was breathing heavily, too,
his heartbeat
audible.

His thumbs
edged under her arms, brushing at the sides of her breasts, feeling her
softness, feeling her begin to tremble with the newness of physical plea
sure.

"You
aren't wearing a bra, are you?" he whis
pered, his voice
deep and soft at her ear. "That silky
thing is so thin that
it's like holding you naked in my
arms."

The power
of the erotic suggestion was such that
Elissa bit her lip to keep from crying
out. Her nails
dug into his shoulders, and
her legs threatened to
buckle
underneath her. She shuddered.

"Elissa," he breathed roughly.

She could
smell the Scotch on his breath, but even that was oddly exciting. His arms
suddenly lifted her
into
an embrace tight enough that she could feel his

ribs digging into
her. She clung to him, her face bur
ied in his throat, breathing in the
exquisitely male
scent of him, her head spinning, her body aching for
something it had never known, her breasts crushed
against hard muscle.
He bit her ear, then ran his
tongue around its soft curves, an intimate
gesture that
she'd never realized could have such a profound ef
fect.

Her arms
tightened around his neck, her face fiery
with unexpected
passion as he held her. Was she mis
taken, or was there a fine tremor in
the arms so
fiercely holding her?

His cheek
brushed against hers. "Your breasts feel
swollen," he
whispered, once more moving her body
against him. "Do they ache?" he whispered know
ingly.

"Yes,"
she gasped mindlessly. "Oh, King!" Her
curiosity outweighed
her caution, outweighed the fear that had always come with the threat of
intimacy, and
she reveled in the feel of his slick, damp skin against
her
tender breasts.

"I
can make them stop aching," he whispered huskily. His lips traveled down
her face to her throat, his
breathing harsh and rapid. "Here..."

His mouth
slid over the silky bodice and suddenly
pressed, open and
hot, right against the soft curve of
her thinly veiled breast

She cried out at the pleasure
it gave her, and her back arched to give him access.

Diana Palmer

But the
sound had shocked King into realizing what
he was doing. His
head jerked up, his eyes wide and
frankly stunned. "Dear God,"
he said harshly. He
hadn't expected this. Hadn't expected to want her. He
hadn't known it until now,
hadn't dreamed... He felt
the tautness of
his body and suddenly released her
and
turned away, not wanting her to know what she
was doing to him.

She gaped
at him. He was breathing harshly as he
reached over to pick
up his nearly finished drink from
the table. His hand seemed to tremble
a little as he
lifted the glass to his mouth and drained it. "I'm
sorry,"
he bit off, setting the glass down hard on the
table. "I didn't
expect that to happen."

He was
apologizing, she registered, but for what?
For wanting her?
"I don't...mind." She said it and
was amazed to find
that it was true. She didn't mind
having him want her. It was heady and
wildly excit
ing.

He turned,
his dark eyes glazed and questioning.
"Why not?"

She
shrugged helplessly. "I don't know." Her eyes
fell to
his chest. "I still...I still ache," she whispered
shakily.

His lips
were parted, as if he was finding it difficult
to breathe. "Have
you felt like that with anyone
else?" he asked, distressed to realize
it was suddenly
deeply important that he know.

"No," she confessed, her voice soft, gentle.

Fit for a King
                        
65

He couldn't decide what to do.
Should he send her
home or pick her up in
his arms and take her into his
bed
and show her how sweet he could make it for
her? Damn. How could just a couple of drinks make
him so addled?

She
looked up at that moment and saw the inde
cision in his eyes, and she knew exactly
what had
caused it. Her face colored.
"I—I can't sleep with
you,"
she whispered huskily. "I...like what you just did to me, but...I can't
deal with that kind of easy intimacy. Not even with you."

His dark
eyes roamed down her body, the sight of
that sweet softness
he'd known so briefly making him
ache. He caught her eyes. "I can make you want it,"
he said in a stranger's sensuous voice.

"And after?" she asked.

He drew in a slow breath.
"My God, what am I
saying?"

"It's
been a hard night for you," she said, forcing
herself not to take
it too seriously. He was frustrated,
that was all, and she was handy and
he'd forgotten
all
the reasons why not. "I wish things were differ
ent."

"So do I." He rammed
his hands into his pockets.
"Believe
me, so do I." It was the truth, his body
fairly throbbed with wanting her. How odd, his mud
dled brain mused, to have this kind of reaction to
Elissa
when it was Bess he'd been afraid of wanting.

66

Diana
Palmer

Fit for a
King

67

Could it be misplaced
desire? Lord, he couldn't even
think straight.

 
“I’d
better go home."

He turned. “I’ll walk you."

"No.
It's all right. You can watch me out the
door," she said quickly—too quickly.

"I can't help it, you
know," he said softly, accu
rately
reading the apprehension in her lovely face and
smiling in spite of himself when she colored. "A
man's body will give him away every time. But I
trust
you not to take advantage of
it," he added with dry
humor.

She
stared at him, then gasped with helpless laugh
ter, "You
horrible man!"

"Well,
I'm vulnerable," he commented as he
opened the front door
and stood aside to let her pass.
"A man has to look out for his honor,
after all. I
might marry someday. She'll want to be the first."

"I'm
sure she'd be at least the fifteenth," she
chided, laughing at
her own boldness. Now that the
heart-shattering truth of just moments before had
passed, it was once again easy to talk to him,
even about the intimate things.

"Not quite
that many," he mumbled as they
walked, the breeze, warm and salty
smelling, ruffling
the
fronds of the palm trees.

"Well,
you didn't learn what you did back there
by reading a
book," she observed.

He cocked an eyebrow and laughed faintly. "No,

I didn't." He
stopped, tilting her chin up. "God, it
was sweet."

Her lips
parted, and her breath caught in her throat.
Then he laughed
softly, angrily, as he took her arm, almost roughly, and propelled her along
the moonlit
beach.
"I must be drunk," he muttered. "You'll have
to overlook a few things about tonight, I guess. I
haven't been myself."

Which was absolutely
true. Even speaking was
hard for him right now. He needed a cold
shower—
badly. And
for some reason, he didn't want Elissa to
know
what he was feeling, to know the extent of this
bizarre aberration in his thought processes. It shocked
him, the sudden hunger he felt to strip her out
of that
jump suit, throw her down on
the beach and make
her his. He
remembered how she'd looked in that
sexy
nightgown, and he almost groaned out loud. He had to be drunk all right, he
told himself. How could
he even
imagine a union between them? She with her
hang-ups and he with his impossibly confused feel
ings for Bess. Was this what people meant by love
on the rebound? Or had he always wanted Elissa
and refused to acknowledge it in the face of her physical
reticence?

"You're
very quiet," she said when they reached
her door.

"I'm
shocked at my own behavior," he said curtly.

"It's
been difficult for you," she returned, unable
to meet his eyes.
"It was just the alcohol."