Reckless Passion (18 page)

"No, that won't serve as
an
excuse," he told her softly, leaning back against the cushions and stretching out his legs contentedly while he considered the problem. "You can cope with both pursuers if you wish." He turned his head to look at her searchingly. "Tell me the truth, honey: Why are you trying to back off from the relationship we began this past weekend?"

"I've told you, Yale. I want a normal, properly developed one. I never meant to wind up in bed with you that first night, and you know it. It got everything off on the wrong foot," she said, speaking into her snifter.

"Maybe things between us didn't start out following the acceptable pattern, but that doesn't mean they're not right..." he started earnestly, breaking off when she flung up her head, brilliant eyes almost pure green.

"I let myself get rushed into a whirlwind relationship once before, and it was a disaster! I'm not going to let it happen again, and that's final! This time it will go along a reasonable, natural path, or it won't go at all!"

For a few assessing seconds he watched her, studying the grim resolution in her set face.

"Your marriage?" he hazarded coolly.
"Or this other man?"

"What other man?" she clipped.

"The one you told me about last night," he said dryly.

"Oh, him."
She bent over her brandy, swirling it carefully in the bottom of the glass. "I was...was referring to my marriage," she confessed at last, surprised at herself. She had never told anyone about the fears which had haunted her since that early mistake.

"Tell me about it," he whispered persuasively, putting out a hand to trail soothing fingers down the length of her yellow sleeve. "You said he was charming, kind, that you had a lot in common, but that you never felt the click...."

"It was all a long time ago, Yale. I told you, I hardly ever think about it anymore. I'm not bitter, just cautious."

"He rushed you off your feet? Pushed you into marriage and then, six months later, admitted he'd changed his mind?"

"That's it in a nutshell." She shrugged. "Not his fault or anyone else's except, possibly, mine for not slowing things down and letting the relationship develop more before committing myself."

"Your fault!" he muttered harshly. "How can you blame yourself? My God, woman! He used you! Can't you see that? How old were you at the time?"

"He didn't... At least, he never meant... I was twenty-two," she finished lamely.

"And how old was he?"

"Thirty-one."

"That settles it," Yale bit out succinctly. "You were used. He was old enough to have more integrity than to sweep a young woman off her feet and marry her just to punish his ex-fiancée! And you've spent the last eight years somehow thinking the disaster was
all your
fault, haven't you?"

She drew a deep breath. "I had six months, Yale, and I couldn't make it work. It started going downhill from day one. If I'd demanded that we get to know each other better before the marriage, not let him talk me into it until we'd developed our relationship into something besides a romance, it all could have been avoided. I would have learned about the ex-fiancée and, perhaps, understood what he was going through...."

"That's garbage," Yale informed her with complete assurance. "And if I ever meet the guy, I'll flatten him. Not for divorcing you—I'm grateful to him for that—but for leaving you saddled with this ridiculous guilt and fear!"

"You're starting to sound like your other half!" she managed flippantly, wondering how she'd ever let the conversation veer off into this particular channel. It was a channel which had been closed for a long, long time.

"Sorry, but even we accountants have our
hmits
!'

"Yale," she began
placatingly
, not quite knowing what to say next.

"Sweetheart, I know what I'm talking about. I know what it means to be used. I know what it means to be married for an ulterior motive!"

"Did you love her very much?"
Dara
breathed, thinking of the young woman he had brought out of the hills with him.

"No," he said quietly, his eyes on the unicorn tapestry as if the truth were woven into it. "She was a pretty little thing and I was attracted to her. We'd known each other all our lives. I guess I felt some sort of responsibility to take her with me when I left the mountains. She wanted out as much as I did. I knew exactly how she was feeling and I couldn't leave her behind. We had everything in common, you'll have to grant us that," he said sardonically. "We knew everything there was to know about each other. And it wasn't enough to save the marriage."

There was a short silence.

"Is that why you mock my efforts to build a more solid relationship before we go back to bed?" she prodded in a surprisingly steady voice. "You don't have any faith in my approach?"

He shook his head slowly. "What I'm saying is that time and propinquity won't make much difference if two people simply aren't right for each other to begin with. As for the argument of getting to know each other well before the relationship moves to the bedroom, I don't have any problems with that—"

Dara
interrupted with a quick, grateful smile. "Then you
do
understand something of what I'm trying to say!"

He eyed her
consideringly
. "I was about to say that in our case, we didn't violate your strictures the way you seem to think we did!"

"What are you talking about? We hardly knew each other a few hours before we found ourselves in that...that sleazy motel room!"

"Don't call it sleazy," he said with a lazy grin. "I have very pleasant thoughts of that motel room. What I meant was, even though we only spent a few hours together before we checked into that motel, we knew an awful lot about each other. You knew more about me by that time than you knew about your first husband when you married him!"

"Well, you didn't know much about me! The next morning you were convinced I'd gone to bed with you in order to secure your stock account!" she retorted icily. "And the next night you were willing to pay an even higher price! In both cases you acted as if you were involved in a business transaction!'

He set his snifter down on the glass table and reached to remove hers from her fingers. "Doesn't the fact that I was willing to pay any price you asked tell you something important?" he whispered, pulling her gently, coaxingly into his arms.

"It tells me you may not be a very good businessman!" she attempted bravely as his hands closed around her.

"Think what a fortune in commissions you'll make off me! I'll probably wind up buying any off-the-wall stock you pitch at me!"

He cut off any retort she might have made by sealing her mouth with his. The tip of his tongue probed persuasively at the gate of her fiercely clenched lips and his fingers began working their way suggestively down her spine to her waist.

"Oh, Yale,"
Dara
murmured and heard his pleased masculine chuckle. An instant later he had gained the territory of her mouth. She gave in to the heated call of his body, nestling into the curve of his arm.

The intoxicating male scent of him was like a drug on her senses, senses that had already been seduced by an evening of tantalizing conversation and the undeniable excitement a woman feels in the presence of a man who wants her. She felt him free a hand to remove his glasses.

Telling herself that Yale in his Southern-gentleman role would be much easier to handle when the time came to say good night,
Dara
allowed herself to be drawn closer to the flame. Her cheek moved luxuriously against the roughness of his jacket as her head rested on his shoulder. Everything about this man elicited a response from her senses. Everything clicked.

"You have a way of feeding the fire in me even when you're sitting across the table trying to sell securities to me!" Yale's muttered accusation was heavy with undisguised desire.

His hands tightened in the thickness of her hair, holding her unmercifully still while he drank his fill of her lips.

"Touch me
,-
Dara
," he commanded huskily as her fingers crept up the front of his jacket and found the buttons of his shirt. “I love to feel your hands on me. You do want me, sweetheart. Admit that much, at least!'

"I want you, Yale," she whispered, eyes closing in utter pleasure as he lifted the hair aside and found her throat with his lips. "You must know that!'

"I know it," he growled against the skin of her shoulder. "I just want to make sure you do."

She felt a vague trickle of alarm stir at the back of her mind.

"Why?" she pleaded starkly.

"Because it will make it easier for you to tell that other man he has to go!'

She felt the abrupt tension in him as he pushed her slowly back against the cushions. Simultaneously he lowered the zipper of the yellow gown, and by the time she found herself beneath him, the bodice had been lowered to her waist.

Mutely she watched as he raised himself far enough away to shrug out of the jacket, flinging it aside, and then he was covering her again. His hands glided down her throat to her breasts and his legs settled with arrogant force between her thighs. The yellow skirt was hiked up almost to her hips and
Dara
felt ravished.

"You must tell him soon,
Dara
," he grated, dusting the valley between her breasts with tiny, stinging little kisses.
"Tomorrow.
Get rid of him!"

"Yale, let me explain," she begged, arching instinctively into his body.

"No, I don't want to talk about him anymore. Just tell him it's over. Tell him on the phone. I don't want you seeing him again," he rasped.

"You're starting to sound like your other self again," she told him tauntingly, filled suddenly with an inexplicable desire to goad and provoke. He made her go a little crazy when he did this to her, she realized. And the notion of his being jealous was satisfying, indeed.
Even if it was terribly risky.

"The two of us are perfectly in accord when it comes to some things," Yale vowed, sliding slowly down her body. “We share a common goal, remember!"

"Oh!"

The exclamation was torn from her as his hands, moving forcefully down her ribs and waist, pushed the soft yellow fabric over her hips. His tongue went over her skin with a damp heat that made her writhe and her fingers clench fiercely in the amber of his hair.

"Oh, Yale!"

Her mounting excitement seemed to inflame him further and his lips teased at her waist and stomach. She moaned, her head tossing restlessly on the cushion, and tried to gain some semblance of control over her spinning senses. Desperately she made herself think of the previous night and how she had sworn she would not invite him to her bed again. Not until she was sure of him....

"You will tell him in the morning, won't you,
Dara
?"

"Tell who...what...?" It was becoming impossible to think, she realized. She had to get a grip on her emotions. It was too soon. She couldn't give in, not yet, not with so much at stake....

"That other man, damn it!" he said harshly, his teeth nipping with deliberate punishment at her vulnerable inner thigh. She flinched, and instantly his tongue came out to soothe the spot.

"There won't be any other man in your life except me! You're building a relationship with me, no one else! Is that understood?"

"Yes," she breathed. "Yes, Yale, I understand. There won't be anyone else...." As long as you're around, there couldn't be anyone else, don't you know that?
she
added silently.

"Good," he said with such complete satisfaction that he gave himself away.
Dara
sucked in her breath in sudden, overpowering fury.

“Why, you... you bas—'' She broke off of her own accord, knowing that even in the heat of her anger, she couldn't fling that particular word at him again
. "
You arrogant, overbearing, domineering,
trucker!
What makes you think you can make love to me until I'll do whatever you want?"

"Wait," he protested as her fingers tightened threateningly in his hair. She could feel the rueful laughter in him and tugged harder. "Wait, honey, that can't be me you're describing!"