Miss Greenhorn (7 page)

“Maybe,” he agreed. “My parents never got along. My father married my mother because he wanted this ranch. He managed to drive it into bankruptcy with his extravagant ideas of how to make an empire of it. He died when I was twenty-five,” he added curtly, and his dark eyes glittered. “He never forgave me for preferring geology to ranching. When he couldn't browbeat me into doing what he wanted, he tried freezing me out. I don't think he said ten words to me after I started college.”

She wondered if he'd ever told anyone else that, and decided that he was such a private person that he probably hadn't. It flattered her that he felt so at ease with her. “Your mother is very proud of you.”

His dark gray eyes searched hers. “Yes. She was the one person who ever cared enough to let me be myself.” He pushed back the creamy Stetson he was wearing. “Most women go into a relationship with the idea that they'll change a man to suit them. It's not that easy to restructure a person's personality, and not much of a man who'll allow a woman to do it.”

“If you change people, sometimes you change the things you love most about them, without realizing it,” she replied.

He stared at her blatantly. She was beautiful with the sun making a golden fire of her wavy hair as the wind moved it around. Her pale green eyes were soft and warm as she looked back at him, and there was an attractive color in her cheeks. She was wearing a gaily striped blouse with puffy sleeves that buttoned up the front with her tight jeans and tan boots, and she looked like the Eastern tourist she was. But she had a lovely figure and Nate remembered so well how she felt in his arms. Fires began to burn deep inside him as he looked at her. She knew the score, for God's sake, and she wanted him, too. He knew by the electricity that sparkled between them when they were alone. So why was he holding back?

His jaw clenched. He glanced past her to the shade of some palo verde trees by the wash that was, infrequently, a running stream during the rainy season. “Let's rest a bit,” he said.

She followed him into the shady area and watched him tether his mount to a palo verde tree. He reached up to help her down from her own horse, deliberately letting her slide against him, so that she could feel the corded muscles in his body, feel the warm strength of it, feel his breath sighing heavily against her face as he helped her down.

The nearness was unnerving, especially when his dark eyes looked down into hers and time spun out between them.

“I'll tie Blue for you,” he said huskily. “Then you and I are going to make love.”

She wasn't quite sure she'd heard that last bit, because he turned away as he said it and probably she'd misunderstood. He tethered Blue and came back to her, and then she knew that she hadn't mistaken what he'd said. His eyes were blazing with raw desire.

He bent and lifted her easily in his muscular arms and carried her, holding her fascinated gaze, to the shelter of the tree. He laid her down in the soft sand and stretched out beside her, pausing just long enough to let his hat sail to one side before he bent to her mouth.

She knew then how much he'd been playing with her. The teasing kisses of the past were totally eclipsed by the blatant, demanding hunger of the kiss he now gave her. His mouth was hard and rough, pushing her lips apart with fierce command, making her submit with the threatened pressure of his body while he deepened the kiss into something far beyond her slight experience.

“Relax,” he said against her soft mouth. “There's nothing to be afraid of. I may be a little rougher than the men you're used to, but I won't hurt you.”

That didn't make sense at first. Then she felt his tongue go into her mouth, felt his hands sliding under her top, against her bare skin. Her eyes flew open and she tried to speak, but his mouth grew rougher.

He moved, one long leg insinuating itself between both of hers, and she felt the power and strength of him in an embrace she'd never shared with a man before.

“Please…you're going…too fast!” she whispered, frightened.

He lifted his head, searching her eyes. He frowned, because she actually looked frightened. Odd, when she was such a pretty, outgoing woman. Men must have been camped on her doorstep for years now, and she surely didn't reach her present age without some experience. Not the way she looked. It must be part of the act, but that fear seemed real.

“How old are you, Christy?” he asked, his voice deep and faintly husky with desire. He knew, but he asked anyway.

“I'm twenty-five,” she said uneasily.

His fingers were against her ribcage, gently caressing her so that unknown sensations began to work in her body. He made her feel odd, uneasy, excited, especially when he worked his way up to the band of her bra just under her breasts and lingered there. She shouldn't let him touch her this way, but something was happening to her that she didn't understand.

“I'm thirty-seven,” he murmured, holding her eyes while that hand moved again and his fingers touched her breast, making her jump. “We're both plenty old enough to know what we're doing, aren't we?” he added.

“I…guess so,” she managed. Her heart leaped. He was touching her, his fingers warm through the thin fabric of her bra, and she lay there docilely, letting him caress her. She couldn't imagine why she was permitting the intimacy, except that it was making her head spin and her body blaze up with pleasure. She made an odd sound and raised her back, shocking herself with the sensuous little movement.

He smiled, bending to her mouth again. “That's more like it,” he whispered. “I wondered how long you could keep up the act…”

Her thoughts dissolved as his mouth covered hers again. His thumb rubbed over her nipple and she felt it tighten until it was almost painful, but every time he touched it, her body flinched with helpless pleasure. She moaned, tangling her hands in the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling his hard mouth even closer against her own. She opened her lips for him, inviting the thrust of his tongue into the soft, warm darkness of her mouth.

Fever, she thought while she could. It burned like a vicious fever. She wanted to be closer to him. She wanted to be without her clothing so that he could cool her hot skin by touching it with his lean, strong hands. She wanted his touch as she'd never wanted anything.

He seemed to know it, too, because he lifted her and snapped the fastening of her bra. Then he looked into her eyes and slid his hand over her naked breast, watching the expression that washed over her face.

“Yes, it's good, isn't it?” he asked gruffly. “Feeling my hands on your body, my mouth on your mouth. And this is just the beginning. Hasn't it been like this before?”

“No,” she whispered brokenly. She shivered as he began to raise the hem of her blouse.

“There isn't another soul within twenty miles of us,” he breathed, letting his eyes slide down to the bareness of her white skin as he pushed the offending fabric away and left her bare to the collarbone. His breath caught at the sight of her pretty breasts, pink-tipped, firm and peach-colored. He couldn't get enough of the sight of her. But it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough. He bent his head and opened his mouth, taking her inside.

Christy wept. It was the sweetest agony she'd ever known. His eyes on her body, the expression on his face that told her she was beautiful to him, the feel of his mouth against her tender skin. She clung to him, arching herself up to his lips, begging for the feel of them on her body. She thought she wouldn't survive the pleasure, and then he turned her into him and brought her hips against his with one fierce jerk of his lean hand.

She'd never experienced the feel of a man's aroused body. It terrified her. She cared for him and she didn't want to ask him to stop, but it was going to be too late if she waited much longer. Judging by the feel of him, and the faint shudder of his powerful body, he wasn't going to be too eager to stop anyway. He was sophisticated and he seemed to feel that she was, too. She didn't understand why he was letting things go this far. She'd told him she was a greenhorn, but perhaps he'd misunderstood.

She had to force her lips not to cling when he lifted his head. She could imagine how she looked, with her mouth swollen and her body half bare to his eyes. It was agony to stop.

“Please,” she whispered, putting a trembling hand against his broad chest.

“Unbutton it,” he said, his voice rough, his eyes glittering with desire.

“What?”

He snapped open the buttons, disclosing a chest thick with curly black hair. “Here.” He dragged one of her hands to the hard, warm muscles and buried her fingers in the thick hair. “This is what I like,” he breathed, moving her hand against him, groaning at the delicious touch.

She felt her other hand joining the first one, too entranced by the forbidden delight to deny it to her starving senses. She touched him, fascinated with the way he felt under her hands, the wiry abrasion of hair tickling her fingers. He arched under her touch, just as she had under his, and she caught her breath to know that she could give back the pleasure he was showing her.

“Christy,” he groaned. He bent to her mouth, dragging her body against his so that they melted together, skin against hair-roughened skin.

She cried out at the surge of feverish pleasure the contact gave her, at the hunger it rekindled to feel his aroused body so close to hers. But when he rolled her onto her back and moved over her, trapping her beneath his powerful legs, she panicked.

Her eyes flew open. “No!” she whispered shakily, meeting his hot gaze. “No, Nate, please! I can't!”

“Can't, the devil,” he said, his voice biting as he stared down at her, on fire with the need to bury himself in her. “You can stop playing. You don't have to ply me with virginal wiles. I want you like hell.”

“It isn't…playing,” she said. “I'm a virgin.”

He laughed coldly. “At your age? The way you look? Like hell you are!” He bent to kiss her again.

But she turned her face away. “I didn't always look like this! Nate, I've never…done this!” she said frantically. “You don't understand!”

“Do you expect me to believe that?” he demanded, jerking her face back to his furious eyes. “My God, you've teased and flirted and had one ‘accident' after another to get my attention. You've thrown yourself at me ever since you got here, so why act shocked when I make a move on you? You want me. I've known that from the first.”

She bit her lower lip, so horribly embarrassed that she could hardly get the words out. He still had her pinned and now his arousal was becoming a terrible punishment.

“Yes, I wanted you,” she confessed miserably. “But I thought… I thought you felt something for me.”

He glared down at her, furious with her and with himself for what she was doing to him. “Felt something?” He laughed coldly. “Can't you feel what I want?” he asked with cruel mockery and moved his hips deliberately against her, watching the flaming color come into her face. “Yes, you know what that is, don't you? Why pretend it's such a shocking experience?”

“Because it is.” She swallowed and closed her eyes, wishing she could just disappear. Her hands clenched on his shoulders. “Until a week ago, I looked like somebody's old maid aunt. I got my hair done and bought new clothes and…and revamped my personality. I thought for once in my life, I'd try to be like those women I admired on television. You know, the independent, sophisticated, outgoing women that men…that men want.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I didn't know, didn't realize, that I'd be mistaken for a…for a tramp!”

Her voice broke and it finally got through to him that he was treating her like one.

His lean hand jerked her face back up to his while his body throbbed in anguish over hers. “Are you serious?” he asked curtly. “Are you really trying to convince me that you're a virgin? That you've never been intimate with a man?”

“Nobody ever wanted to be intimate with somebody who looked like I did,” she whispered, her voice shaking as she met his accusing dark eyes. His weight was formidable and she just wanted to get away from him. He looked as if he hated her. “I was just a dull little dishwater blonde. I had my hair lightened and my face done, I bought new makeup and new clothes and forced myself to try and be outgoing. I thought…” She closed her eyes. “I thought maybe if I were pretty, men might notice me. I've been alone all my life. I just wanted somebody to love me,” she whispered in a fever of embarrassment.

His jaw clenched. It sounded too genuine to be a lie, but he hated her for what he was hearing. “Love is a rare commodity,” he said tersely, easing his body away from hers. “I don't have any to give. All I wanted was one night with you, Christy, not happy ever after. I'm thirty-seven. If I wanted to be married, believe me, I could be.”

“Yes, I know that,” she said. She heard him move away and she managed to sit up without looking at him, embarrassed at her disheveled clothing, at the way she'd responded to him. Her trembling fingers gathered the fabric to her taut, swollen breasts. She could still feel his mouth on them, like a brand.

“I can't believe a woman could be that green,” he said, his voice cutting as he glared down at her, trying to get his breath. “Surely you knew what I was leading up to? The way you kept stumbling around me, the way you smiled and teased, added to the way you looked was enough to make any man want you.”

“Yes. Well, I didn't know that,” she managed. She sighed miserably. “I'm sorry. I just wanted someone to love me.”

He looked at her with pure fury, his fists clenched at his sides while he breathed unsteadily. “And all I wanted was a little sex,” he said coldly, forcing himself to say the words, to make her understand. It was cruel, he knew it, but it would be the kindest thing in the long run. He didn't want commitment. All he'd wanted was a night in her arms, but he hadn't bargained for this! “If you want love and marriage, honey, you won't find either one with me. I thought you were in the market for a holiday romance, and I was willing to oblige. My mistake.”