Heartbreaker (4 page)

She didn't want to stop. Already she was
coming apart inside, because she wanted nothing more than to simply lie against
him and feel his hands on her. She'd known it would be like this, and she'd
known she couldn't let it happen, couldn't let him get close to her. The
feeling was so powerful that it frightened her.
He
frightened her. He
would demand too much from her, take so much that there wouldn't be anything
left when he moved on. She'd always known instinctively that she couldn't
handle him.

It took every bit of inner strength she had
to turn her face away from his mouth, to put her hands on his shoulders and
push. She knew she wasn't strong enough to move him; when he released her and moved
back a scant few inches, she was bitterly aware that it was by his own choice,
not hers. He was watching her, waiting for her decision.

Silence filled the room with a thick presence
as she struggled to regain her composure under his unwavering gaze. She could
feel the situation slipping out of control. For ten years she had carefully
cultivated the hostility between them, terrified of letting him discover that
just looking at him turned her bones to water. She'd seen too many of his women
with stars in their eyes while he gave them his attention, focusing his intense
sexual instincts on them, but all too soon he'd moved on to someone else, and
the stars had always turned into hunger and pain and emptiness. Now he was
looking at her with that penetrating attention, just what she'd always tried to
avoid. She hadn't wanted him to notice her as a woman; she hadn't wanted to
join the ranks of all those other women he'd used and left. She had enough
trouble now, without adding a broken heart, and John Rafferty was a walking
heartache. Her back was already to the wall; she couldn't bear anything else,
either emotionally or financially.

But his gaze burned her with black fire,
sliding slowly over her body as if measuring her breasts for the way they would
fit his hands, her hips for the way his would adjust against them, her legs for
the way they would wrap around him in the throes of pleasure. He'd never looked
at her in that way before, and it shook her down to her marrow. Pure sexual
speculation was in his eyes. In his mind he was already inside her, tasting
her, feeling her, giving her pleasure. It was a look few women could resist,
one of unashamed sexuality, carnal experience and an arrogant confidence that a
woman would be ultimately satisfied in his arms. He wanted her; he intended to
have her.

And she couldn't let it happen. She'd been
wrapped in a silken prison her entire life, stifled first by her father's
idealistic adoration, then by Roger Beckman's obsessive jealousy. For the first
time in her life she was alone, responsible for herself and finding some sense
of worth in the responsibility. Fail or succeed, she needed to do this herself,
not run to some man for help. She looked at John with a blank expression; he
wanted her, but he didn't like or even respect her, and she wouldn't like or
respect herself if she let herself become the parasite he expected her to be.

Slowly, as if her muscles ached, she eased
away from him and sat down at the desk, tilting her golden head down so he
couldn't see her face. Again, pride and habit came to her aid; her voice was
calm and cool when she spoke. "As I said, I don't have the money to repay
you right now, and I realize the debt is already delinquent. The solution
depends on you—"

"I've already made my offer," he
interrupted, his eyes narrowing at her coolness. He hitched one hip up on the
desk beside her, his muscled thigh brushing against her arm. Michelle swallowed
to alleviate the sudden dryness of her mouth, trying not to look at those
powerful, denim-covered muscles. Then he leaned down, propping his bronzed
forearm on his thigh, and that was worse, because it brought his torso closer,
forcing her to lean back in the chair. "All you have to do is go ahead and
accept it, instead of wasting time pretending you didn't like it when I touched
you."

Michelle continued doggedly. "If you
want repayment immediately, I'll have to sell the cattle to raise the money,
and I'd like to avoid that. I'm counting on the sale of the cattle to keep the
ranch going. What I have in mind is to sell some of the land to raise the
money, but of course that will take longer. I can't even promise to have the
money in six months; it just depends on how fast I can find a buyer." She
held her breath, waiting for his response. Selling part of the land was the
only plan she'd been able to devise, but it all depended on his cooperation.

Slowly he straightened, his dark brows
drawing together as he stared down at her. "Whoa, honey, let's backtrack a
little. What do you mean, 'keep the ranch going'? The ranch is already
dead."

"No, it isn't," she denied,
stubbornness creeping into her tone. "I still have some cattle left."

"Where?" His disbelief was evident.

"In the south pasture. The fence on the
east side needs repair, and I haven't—" She faltered at the growing
anger in his dark face. Why should it matter to him? Their land joined mostly
on the north; his cattle weren't in any danger of straying.

"Let's backtrack a little further,"
he said tightly. "Who's supposed to be working this herd?"

So that was it. He didn't believe her,
because he knew there were no cowhands working here any longer. "I'm
working the herd," she threw back at him, her face closed and proud. He
couldn't have made it any plainer that he didn't consider her either capable or
willing when it came to ranch work.

He looked her up and down, his brows lifting
as he surveyed her. She knew exactly what he saw, because she'd deliberately
created the image. He saw mauve-lacquered toenails, white high-heeled sandals,
crisp white linen pants and the white silk shirt, damp now, from contact with
his wet clothes. Suddenly

Michelle realized that she was damp all along
the front, and hectic color rose to burn along her cheekbones, but she lifted
her chin just that much higher. Let him look, damn him.

"Nice," he drawled. "Let me
see your hands."

Instinctively her hands curled into fists and
she glared at him. "Why?"

He moved like a striking rattler, catching
her wrist and holding her clenched hand in front of him. She pulled back,
twisting in an effort to escape him, but he merely tightened his grip and pried
her fingers open, then turned her palm to the light. His face was still and
expressionless as he looked down at her hand for a long minute; then he caught
her other hand and examined it, too. His grip gentled, and he traced his
fingertips over the scratches and half-healed blisters, the forming calluses.

Michelle sat with her lips pressed together
in a grim line, her face deliberately blank. She wasn't ashamed of her hands;
work inevitably left its mark on human flesh, and she'd found something healing
in the hard physical demands the ranch made on her. But no matter how honorable
those marks, when John looked at them it was as if he'd stripped her naked and
looked at her, as if he'd exposed something private. She didn't want him to
know so much about her; she didn't want that intense interest turned on her.
She didn't want pity from anyone, but she especially didn't want him to soften
toward her.

Then his gaze lifted, those
midnight
eyes examining every inch of her proud, closed
expression, and every instinct in her shrilled an alarm. Too late! Perhaps it
had been too late from the moment he'd stepped onto the porch. From the
beginning she'd sensed the tension in him, the barely controlled anticipation
that she had mistaken for his usual hostility. Rafferty wasn't used to waiting
for any woman he wanted, and she'd held him off for ten years. The only time
she'd been truly safe from him had been during her brief marriage, when the
distance between
Philadelphia
and central
Florida
had been more than hundreds of miles; it had been the
distance between two totally different life-styles, in both form and substance.
But now she was back within reach, and this time she was vulnerable. She was
broke, she was alone, and she owed him a hundred thousand dollars. He probably
expected it to be easy.

"You didn't have to do it alone,"
he finally said, his deep voice somehow deeper and quieter. He still held her
hands, and his rough thumbs still moved gently, caressingly, over her palms, as
he stood and drew her to her feet. She realized that at no time had he hurt
her; he'd held her against her will, but he hadn't hurt her. His touch was
gentle, but she knew without even trying that she wouldn't be able to pull away
from him until he voluntarily let her go.

Her only defense was still the light mockery
she'd used against him from the beginning. She gave him a bright, careless
smile. "Of course I did. As you so charmingly pointed out, I'm not exactly
being trampled by all my friends rushing to my rescue, am I?"

His upper lip curled with contempt for those
"friends." He'd never had any patience with the bored and idle rich.
"You could've come to me."

Again she gave him that smile, knowing he
hated it. "But it would take so
long
to work off a
hundred-thousand-dollar debt in that fashion, wouldn't it? You know how I hate
being bored. A really good prostitute makes—what?—a hundred dollars
a throw? Even if you were up to three times a day, it would still take about a
year—"

Swift, dark fury burned in his eyes, and he
finally released her hands, but only to move his grip to her shoulders. He held
her still while he raked his gaze down her body again. "Three times a
day?" he asked with that deceptive softness, looking at her breasts and
hips. "Yeah, I'm up to it. But you forgot about interest, honey. I charge
a lot of interest."

She quivered in his hands, wanting to close
her eyes against that look. She'd taunted him rashly, and he'd turned her words
back on her. Yes, he was capable of it. His sexual drive was so fierce that he
practically burned with it, attracting women like helpless moths. Desperately
she dredged up the control to keep smiling, and managed a little shrug despite
his hands on her shoulders. "Thanks anyway, but I prefer shoveling
manure."

If he'd lost control of his temper then she
would have breathed easier, knowing that she still had the upper hand, by
however slim a margin. If she could push him away with insults, she'd be safe.
But though his hands tightened a little on her shoulders, he kept a tight rein
on his temper.

"Don't push too hard, honey," he
advised quietly. "It wouldn't take much for me to show you right now what
you really like. You'd be better off telling me just how in hell you think
you're going to keep this ranch alive by yourself."

For a moment her eyes were clear and
bottomless, filled with a desperation he wasn't quite certain he'd seen. Her
skin was tight over her chiseled cheekbones; then the familiar cool mockery and
defiance were back, her eyes mossy and opaque, her lips curling a little in the
way that made him want to shake her. "The ranch is my problem," she
said, dismissing the offer of aid implicit in his words. She knew the price
he'd demand for his help. "The only way it concerns you is in how you want
the debt repaid."

Finally he released her shoulders and propped
himself against the desk again, stretching his long legs and crossing his
booted feet at the ankle. "A hundred thousand is a lot of money. It wasn't
easy to come up with that much cash."

She didn't need to be told that. John might
be a millionaire in assets, but a rancher's money is tied up in land and stock,
with the profits constantly being plowed back into the ranch. Cash simply
wasn't available for wasting on frivolities. Her jaw tightened. "When do
you want your money?" she demanded. "Now or later?"

His dark brows lifted. "Considering the
circumstances, you should be trying to sweeten me up instead of snapping at me.
Why haven't you just put the ranch and cattle up for sale? You can't run the
place anyway, and at least then you'd have money to live on until you find
another meal ticket."

"I
can
run it," she
flared, turning pale. She had to; it was all she had.

"No way, honey."

"
Don't call me honey
!" The
ragged fury of her own voice startled her. He called every woman
"honey." It was a careless endearment that meant nothing, because so
many other women had heard it from him. She couldn't stand to think of him
lying in the dark with another woman, his voice lazy and dark as they talked
and he called her "honey."

He caught her chin in his big, rough hand,
turning her face up to his while his thumb rubbed over her lower lip.
"I'll call you whatever I want…
honey
, and you'll keep your
mouth shut, because you owe me a lot of money that you can't repay. I'm going
to think awhile about that debt and what we're going to do about it. Until I
decide, why don't you think about this?"

Too late she tried to draw her head back, but
he still held her chin, and his warm mouth settled over hers before she could
jerk free. Her eyes closed as she tried to ignore the surge of pleasure in her
mid-section, tried to ignore the way his lips moved over hers and his tongue
probed for entrance. If anything, this was worse than before, because now he
was kissing her with a slow assurance that beguiled even as he demanded. She
tried to turn her head away, but he forestalled the movement, spreading his
legs and pulling her inside the cradle of his iron-muscled thighs. Michelle
began shaking. Her hands flattened against his chest, but she could feel his
heartbeat pulsing strongly against her palm, feel the accelerated rhythm of it,
and she wanted to sink herself into him. Slowly he wedged her head back against
his shoulder, his fingers woven into her hair as he held her. There was no way
she could turn her head away from him now, and slowly she began to give way to
his will. Her mouth opened beneath his, accepting the slow thrust of his tongue
as he penetrated her in that small way and filled her with his taste.