Made For Each Other (10 page)

And her hours of sleep had been
haunted by images of him—his brown hands adjusting the brace about
her shoulders, tying her hair in pig tails, stroking her body with
suntan cream. There were images of his handsome face—fierce with
passion, gentle with concern, and hard with derision. And then
there were the images of his body, which she had glimpsed but never
known.

All these images rose up together to
mock her now. For she feared that if she were not careful she would
fall in love with Nicholas Raffer . . . against her will, against
her better judgment, against all logic and reasoning. But then love
never was logical, she cynically told herself as she got out of the
tub and dried off.

She looked into the mirror above the
bath-room counter. “You, Julie Raffer, are a fool,” she said aloud,
testing the sound of her new name. “You have married a man who
doesn’t love you.”

She slipped into her brace, knowing
dismally that she would have to wait for Nick to fasten it for her.
Over the brace she put one of the sundresses he had bought her in
Cozumel, a lavender-colored one with white lace trimming, then
brushed her hair until it curled at the ends.

When Nick came home two hours later
she was grating cheese for the topping of a chicken-and-noodle
casserole she had prepared. He looked from the neatly set table for
two to the steaming casserole pan she had just removed from the
oven.

“I—I thought you might be hungry,” she
said. “And there was just the canned chicken to fix. I hope you
don’t mind.” Why had she not considered that he might not like
chicken casserole, that he might have preferred eating
out?

“It smells delicious,” Nick said
tonelessly and tossed his briefcase on the couch. “I’ll wash
up.”

She finished sprinkling the grated
cheese on top of the casserole and was pouring tea into the glasses
when Nick returned. He held out a chair for her at the dining
table, and she took the seat, careful not to brush against
him.

But he did not let her escape so
easily. “Just a moment,” he said, his hands grasping her shoulders.
“Your brace needs to be fastened.” And once more she had to suffer
through the exquisite agony of his touch.

After they had begun eating, Nick
said, “I looked up your address and had my secretary send a truck
over to pack your belongings. Your clothes should be here
tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Nick. That was kind of
you.” Was that her voice sounding so polite and calm?

He shrugged. “It was Sheila’s
idea.”

The casserole stuck in her throat.
“Sheila?” she asked, knowing exactly who Sheila was.

Nick’s gaze met hers across the table.
“A friend who stopped by to offer her congratula-tions.” He took a
drink of tea, then said, “She reminded me that since our marriage
was so. . . sudden, you’d be needing your clothes.”

“That was thoughtful of her,” Julie
said sweetly. “I’m sure she didn’t want me running around naked in
front of you.”

Nick looked up. A sardonic grin
creased the comers of his mouth. “You sound jealous, Mrs.
Raffer.”

“I’m not! Mr. Raffer!”

He laughed but let the subject go at
that, which infuriated her that much more. She wanted to ask him if
he was going to continue to see Sheila, but knew she had no right
to question him. His marriage to her was an arrangement of
convenience, she reminded herself, not love.

Nick built a fire in the fireplace
while she cleaned up the dinner dishes, and she heard him a few
minutes later running water in the tub. She realized it would soon
be bedtime—and there was just one bed. As each minute passed, she
grew more nervous, once almost breaking a glass she was washing in
the slippery, sudsy dishwater. She stalled as long as she could,
hoping Nick would already be asleep by the time she
finished.

With the last dish put away and the
kitchen gleaming brighter than in any cleaning com-mercial on
television, she could delay no longer. The bedroom was already
darkened, and Nick’s long frame was silhouetted on the bed. She
held her breath, hoping he was indeed asleep, since he had not
slept at all the night before.

Quietly she undressed in the dark.
Struggling out of her clothes took longer than usual, and it was
not until she was clad only in her panties that she realized she
did not have a gown. In Cozumel she had slept nearly nude, but she
had been alone. Here in Nick’s house, though . . .

She was still holding her clothes
before her, caught in her dilemma, when his voice reached her out
of the dark. “Julie, come to bed.”

It was a command. she stiffened. Her
hands balled into fists. “I’ve nothing to wear to bed.” Why did her
voice sound like a croak?

A short laugh and a shift of the
mattress. She could make out now that he had raised on one elbow.
“I stopped wearing pajamas when I was ten, Julie.”

Her knees were weak with the
confrontation she had been expecting for so long. She had planned
to be firm and unyielding. She drew a deep breath, and this time
her voice was steadier. “I’ve never slept with a man before—nude,”
she added, for she remembered she had slept with him that once in
his cabin.

“I’m not any man,” he said. “I’m your
husband.”

Her anger was her defense. “And I’m
not any woman you can easily bed. I’m a partner in a deal we made,
Mr. Raffer!”

“Ah, yes. You haven’t let me forget,
have you? Perhaps I should remind you again that I said I wouldn’t
force you to do anything. What happens will be of your own
choosing.”

When she still hesitated, he snapped,
“Good grief, get a shirt of mine out of the chest if it’ll make you
feel any safer. But, Julie . . . that shirt won’t make a darned bit
of difference if I decide to change my mind about my
promise.”

She knew she was being silly, old-
fashioned some would call her, about a piece of fabric. After all,
Nick had seen her nearly naked, dressed only in her panties and
bra. Still, she felt safer, from her own desires if nothing
else.

More by touch than by sight she made
her way to the chest of drawers and pulled out the first item her
hand grasped, a jersey shirt. It was only after she had struggled
into the shirt that she realized the clinging material surely
revealed her outthrust nipples; she was grateful there was no light
in the room.

She slid beneath the sheets, keeping
to the far side of the bed. A bed had never felt so comfortable,
she thought. But, as tired as she was, she could not sleep. For
more than an hour she lay there, afraid to make the slightest
movement and draw Nick’s attention. Then, by the time she at last
heard his steady, rhythmic breathing of sleep, her mind was too
obsessed with the thought of the man himself.

She tossed and turned, and rolled and
wriggled, until her head was reeling in its efforts to keep from
thinking the same thought, to keep from seeing the same images. At
last she gave in and let her fantasy take over. And her fingers.
Stealthly, they stoled out to barely graze his jawline. Instantly,
her hand was mancled by his grip. Her lids fluttered open to find
Nick’s dark face over her own.

“Mrs. Raffer, are you a hypocrit that
you can deny you want me,” she heard the sardonic grin in his
voice, “and yet satisfy yourself when you think I’m
sleeping.”

“I . . I . . ”

“You what?” He pulled her against him,
and she could feel his angry breath on her nose.

“I want to know more about you,” she
said hoarsely. “Within safe limits.” She added, amazed by her
immediate inventiveness.

“Know . . . or explore?” His demanding
hands held her body captive. “Well, I can set the safe limits, if
that’s all that’s bothering you. Just use the safe word,
‘stop.’

“What if I say the word
now?”

“Then you truly are a hypocrit.” With
infinite leisureliness, he lowered his mouth to hers. She sighed,
letting herself feel the hard-soft touch of his lips. Languorously
they scouted the contours of first her mouth, then her eyelids, her
cheebones, and back to her mouth. She was chained by his kisses of
passion. She should have struggled from the arms that embraced her.
She should have called out the safe word, but the could not bring
herself to miss out on the exquisite feelings starbursting
throughout her body, even down to her toes and up to her scalp. The
scalding kisses at the hollow of her neck, between the valley of
her breasts, alongthe smooth curvature of her rib cage, made her
forget everything until she was aflame with want of him.

“Can I continue?” he whispered agasint
her ear. By now, he was half atop her.

She sighed tremulously and slipped her
hand about his neck to draw his mouth down to hers. Her lips parted
beneath the insistence of his own, and the probing kiss set a
wildfire of desire in her so that she pressed against Nick’s long
body seeking what only he could give her.

Somewhere in the passion-drugged
recesses of her mind she slowly became aware that Nick had deftly
stripped her of her clothing. She realized with terror that soon
she would be another name to add to his list of conquests. Only the
suddenness of her move permitted her to escape the hands that
ravaged her. She jerked to a sitting position, clutching the
blanket before her. “Stop! Stop!”

When she would have fled from the bed,
Nick’s hand at her wrist held her imprisoned. “Love,” he said
mockingly, “look where you are—on my side. You came to me. Your
arms slid around me.”

“But you knew better! But you don’t
know me, Mr. Raffer. I’m not one of your easy twits!” And with that
she sprang from the bed, the blanket still clutched about her. “I’m
sleeping on the couch from now on,” she told the darkened
face,

But even on the couch she could not
sleep that night with the memory of Nick’s soft laughter ringing in
her ears and his burning touch still tingling her flesh.

Chapter Seven

“A
h,
senora
,
you do not feel so well?” Mrs. Martinez asked, pausing as she
polished the large rectangular glass coffee table.

“Just a little tired, I guess,” she
said.

And it was true; she was not sleeping
well at nights that past week, and she was rising extra early so
Mrs. Martinez would not suspect she did not sleep with Nick. Worse,
the couch was uncomfortable. Julie wished he would ask, even
command, her to get back in his bed. But her pride forbade her—and
fear.

For, once Nick claimed her body as
his, she was afraid he would no longer want her. She saw the desire
in his eyes, the hunger for her etched on his face . . . but after
he possessed her, would he discard her along with all the other
women he had known? All but Sheila Morrison, that was.

And the thought of Sheila Morrison
reminded her of the Christmas party the governor’s wife was giving
that evening. Nick had told Julie over breakfast that morning that
not only would the state’s politicians be attending but also Santa
Fe’s cultural element that so heavily populated that area—the
artists and writers. Which meant, in Julie’s mind, Sheila
Morrison.

She sighed at the dismal prospect of
meeting Sheila. Twice in the past week Julie had talked with Pam,
and her friend had told her that the Sun planned full coverage of
the gala event—photographs and the whole works. “No doubt Sheila
Morrison’s gorgeous face will occupy every page of the society
section,” Pam had said dryly.

Julie knew that Pam was dying for her
to divulge all the details of her so-called romantic elopement, but
her friend had only said, “I don’t believe it! Can you imagine, you
made the catch of the year, Julie Dever—I mean Raffer!”

Even Jim had called that week to
congratulate her on her marriage, and if there had been any
bitterness or jealousy in his voice, he had hidden it well. He had
also requested that she continue her editorial column until he
found someone to take her place. But she quickly informed him she
had no intention of giving up her job.

Nick would probably be just
chauvinistic enough, she thought grimly, to resent her
working—after all, a senator’s wife working might not make a good
impression on the public! She hoped he did resent it; it was just
one more reason to dislike him. As long as she could maintain an
unfavorable image of Nick, she was safe from the danger of ever
falling in love with him. Heaven forbid! She felt only a deep
sympathy for the poor, hapless young women who did give their
hearts to that unfeeling man.

She finished writing the thank-you
notes for the wedding gifts that had begun arriving that week and
had Mrs. Martinez help her remove the brace before the old woman
left for the day. Since Julie would have to face Sheila Morrison
that evening, she wanted to look her best, and she was still in the
tub when Nick arrived home. She had only time to draw her arms
across her breasts as he pushed open the door.

A flicker of desire lit the blue eyes.
“You make a fetching picture,” he said lightly, leaning one
shoulder against the door.

“Thank you,” she replied in a stilted
voice. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to—”