That Tender Feeling (12 page)

‘Cliff? May I come in?' she called out.

‘No—don't you dare! I'm starkers!'

His voice seemed to be coming from somewhere near the door. Observing that no strip of light filtered from beneath it, she said, ‘It's dark. But if you're that modest, get into bed.' Inspiration came to her aid. She knew just the right approach. ‘I've brought your present.'

‘Stick it under the tree like any other civilized being, and I'll get it in the morning. I have a golden rule that I never open my presents until Christmas morning.'

Her teeth were beginning to chatter, they probably would have done, anyway, because it was cold standing there, but she was shivering more from fright than anything. If she didn't go in before her nerve went, she'd find herself hastening back to her room.

She compressed her lips and took a deep breath. Her hand closed round the doorknob. ‘That's one rule you're going to have to break.' She opened the door and entered the room, smiling despite everything as she heard him dive into bed. ‘It isn't gift-wrapped. I'm sorry about that.' Her voice was shaky, and she was sorry about that, too.

‘I don't know what fool game you're playing at, but it's obvious that I'm not going to get any peace until you've handed it over. So do so, and get out!' he yelled.

‘It's me. I'm your present,' she said, sliding into bed beside him.

His hands shot out. ‘Oh, no, you don't!' She knew that he meant to evict her, but then his fingers contacted her naked flesh. ‘Rusty, what am I going to do with you?'

‘You need me to tell you that?' she asked in pretend incredulity, somehow managing to suppress the sob in her throat.

Another groan. His hands came up to clamp her face, as if he couldn't trust them to be free. ‘It's a very sweet thing you're doing, Rusty, but I can't. And before you start making fun of that, I don't mean can't, like not able to, I mean can't, not to you.'

‘Why? Don't you find me desirable? Don't you want me?'

‘I've wanted you from the moment I set eyes on the grown-up you, but I'm not going to take you. You're warm and beautiful.' She wasn't so sure about the beautiful, although it was nice to be told that she was. But she was warm now. The bedclothes were cold—he hadn't pampered himself with a hot-water bottle—but the combined body heat they were generating made one unnecessary. ‘I must care about you; otherwise, I wouldn't be talking this way now. I'd be accepting what you're offering and hardly believing my luck.'

‘So why aren't you?'

‘Because I can't marry you, and you're too special for anything else. Stick to your principles, and hold out for the guy who'll give you what you've a right to expect. Marriage and a settled future.'

It ripped her apart to hear him say that. He was pretending that he could marry her and give her a settled future if he'd wanted to. He was making it appear as though he were being selfish about this so that she'd go away. And it was just the reverse. She asked herself how anyone could be so
un
selfish. Anyone with a heart would forgive him for taking everything that she was offering. It was both touching and wonderful that he was willing to deny himself for her—putting her feelings before his own—and it increased her determination.

‘Somehow, the things that mattered aren't all that important anymore. Who needs a silly old wedding certificate and the things that supposedly go with it!' she scoffed.

‘Just who are you trying to convince? Me or yourself?'

‘I'm being serious. I've been living in a child's dream. But now I've grown up.'

‘It won't work, Rusty. My regard for you is too high for me to use you to satisfy my lust. My lust for your innocence. You wouldn't be getting a good enough bargain.'

That was a debatable point. She knew that if she didn't give Cliff that comfort, she wouldn't be able to live with her own conscience afterward.

And so the glib falsehood, the lie by implication, fell from her lips. ‘Really, Cliff! How unrealistic can you get? How innocent of you to think that I'm a virgin! Has it slipped your mind that I've been engaged to be married?'

‘No, I haven't forgotten that.' His voice came out sounding amazingly stilted. ‘I just thought—'

She could sense that he was frowning. Pursuing her victory, she said silkily, ‘I'm human, too, you know. I wish you'd stop being virtuous, or whatever it is you're being, and consider
me
.'

‘I think stupid might be the correct description. And, dammit, it's you I'm considering,' he growled.

‘But not in the right way. Hasn't it occurred to you that I might be missing out?'

‘I wish you wouldn't talk like that. It cheapens you.'

‘I'm sorry you see it that way. A woman gets the same kind of torments as a man. Perhaps I think you're cheapening me by making me do all the chasing.' Realizing that she should follow that up, do something to back up the experience she claimed to have, she knuckled his cheek and then turned her hand to draw her fingers down his taut throat and along the muscled hardness of his chest.

He grabbed hold of her hand, pushing away in a manner to fend her off, and then, on a muffled groan of despair, he used the leverage to bring her close, lifting her arm to kiss the tender pulse beating erratically on the inside of her wrist before trailing fingers of fire down her arm and across her back as he gathered her to his chest.

‘Ros . . . oh, Ros,' he murmured against her ear, and she knew that as she had discarded Heathcliff in favor of Cliff, he had said goodbye to that rusty-haired little girl he had been so ready to tease. She was Ros now, a warm, delicious woman whose nearness was a delight to him.

His lips scraped sensuously across her cheek, plucking at the corner of her mouth, inveigling its softness to part for his prolonged pleasure in a long and fulfilling kiss. His fingers moved up through the richness of her hair, searching out the tender hollows behind her ears and the one at the nape of her neck that sent erotic ripples of feeling down her spine. She hadn't known that such an innocent touch could give such passionate pleasure. Her own hands roved over his chest; the thick, dark, masculine growth of hair prickled her sensitized palms, which dragged up to caress his strong neck before clasping his dark head adoringly. She was too electrified by it all to be anything more than the passive partner. She was burning up with an unexpected intensity of feeling, and she needed a second to get her labored breathing on some kind of even keel.

She had come to his bed for reasons of the most pure and selfless nature, but her reward was the most tormenting delight she had ever known. A torment she never, never wanted to end. His fingers seemed to spend forever acquainting themselves with her back; there wasn't a bump in her spine, a muscle or hollow, he didn't know in the most intimate detail. The direction changed, and now his touch traced her rib cage. Her heart leaped as the exploration inched higher, gently curving to the underside of one breast before cupping its fullness. And then she was wriggling in joy as his strong thumb stroked sensuous circles round the rosy crescent.

His mouth poured liquid fire into hers. He kissed her until she was insensible, gliding mindlessly to unscaled heights of delirium. A wild, uncontrollable longing swept through her, a craving that consumed her in its molten beat. Her stomach muscles contracted so violently that the pain was as intense as a cramp. In a way, she supposed it was a kind of cramp, a sensual cramp, the driving anguish of her need. Her body was a hot aroused flame that wanted to wrap around him, yearned to be absorbed by his strength.

His arm formed a tighter circle as he held her shuddering form more closely, but the appeasement she expected was denied her as his fingers lifted to stroke back the clinging damp tendrils of hair from her overheated brow.

‘Are you absolutely sure, Ros?' he asked.

She had never been more sure of anything in her life. She had never sat down and defined her feelings for him, but if this emotion overflowing her heart wasn't love, she didn't know what love was. Being in love is wanting to give. She would have given her life for him; her body was such a small thing by comparison.

It wouldn't be true to say she was totally without inhibitions. There was still a hard core of apprehension and shyness deep within her that he hadn't touched, but that was getting easier to ignore all the time. It certainly wasn't solid enough for her to change her mind. She was ninety percent happy about things, smug, questioning how any woman could hold herself aloof from the man she loved. Love was the key for her. Love and unselfish devotion were above the niggardly ten percent of primness and principles. It seemed significantly less important that the affection was one-sided. He might not love her in the way she wanted him to love her, but he was loving in his actions. His patience with her was infinite, and she knew the rewards would be exceptional because of this, far exceeding the joys she'd experienced so far in his caring embrace. Her fingers gripped his shoulders on convulsive sweetness as her awakened body quivered on expectation.

‘Yes, Cliff, I'm sure. So very, very sure.' When that did not unleash the primitive force of his passion, when he still made no move to possess her body, she said, ‘Why do you ask?'

He took a long time in answering.

‘I ask you because you are a liar, R—' His tongue stalled on the R that preceded her name, a momentary hesitation that made plain the nature of the lie he was accusing her of. He knew she was a virgin. If he goes back to calling me Rusty, I'll scream, she vowed—‘Ros,' he said, which was something at least.

‘You know, don't you?'

‘I'd have to be completely lacking in experience myself not to know that you are . . . untouched,' he finished delicately.

‘Hardly untouched,' she said, finding his hand and tracing her fingertips across the tips of his.

‘You know what I mean.'

‘I still don't know why you stopped. You're acting as if my virginity is something to be prized which you mustn't violate.'

‘It's special to you, Ros. For that reason, it's got to be special to the man who takes it.'

Her consolation was the tortured rawness of his breath. He was denying himself, but not without great effort.

But he didn't have to. Even though his words had tapped on that doubting ten percent, she still had to help him, make it easy for him. It strengthened her resolve to do better.

Drawing in her breath, she said, ‘Having got me to this pitch, you're not—not going to leave me unsatisfied, are you?'

‘The answer to that should be a decisive yes, but I'm not that much of a saint, so let's talk it out some more. I don't want to leave either of us unsatisfied. I want you to understand that the score hasn't altered. Forgive me, but I've got to be brutal to be kind. Your sweetness isn't going to enslave my heart, if that's what you're thinking. I intend to remain free and uncommitted. If you're looking for a permanent relationship, you're in the wrong bed. I'm not sure how long I'll be hanging around. I've accumulated a fair bit of leave, so I can be flexible in my plans. But sooner or later, I'll up and go. You've got to understand that.'

She swallowed. How could he still pretend? How could he talk of going so rationally?

‘Good grief! You're not crying, are you? I thought you were the girl who went for blunt speaking?'

‘I am. Where are you going now?' she asked as the bed suddenly lightened.

‘To get a handkerchief for you. I can't abide a soggy pillow.'

‘To know that, you must have had experience of a soggy pillow. It wouldn't be your tears; you're too hard. I must assume that I'm not the first girl in your bed you've made cry.'

That snappy note was good. If she went soft on him, he might suspect that she knew about him. She sensed that he was already sifting about in his mind for her motive in coming to his bed. He was too quick by far. She mustn't let him know why she was there.

His face towered above hers again. She could just make out the shadowy outline of it and the bulk of his strong shoulders. She was glad it was dark, glad he couldn't see the quaking vulnerability in her eyes.

‘I'm trying to do the right thing, Ros. It's not easy, believe me, but I've got to give you time to know that it is really what you want.'

‘I've said it is, haven't I?'

‘It's not enough to want it now. You've got to be happy about it in the morning.'

‘I will be.'

‘Perhaps I'm not just thinking of you. I want to be happy with it, as well. Something doesn't add up. There's got to be a reason behind this crazy impulse of yours. I want to know what it is.'

She sniffed, not trusting herself to speak.

‘Here.' The handkerchief he'd gone to fetch was pushed into her hand. His fingers brushed the top of her head. ‘Get some sleep, Ros. We'll talk again in the morning.'

‘Aren't you—?'

‘No. Don't disturb yourself. I'll take your bed. I must be going soft in the head,' she heard him say as he moved away.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sleep was a long time in coming, so not surprisingly, she woke to the realization that it was two hours later than her normal waking time. On Christmas day, too, with so much to do! Even then she knew that it was an alien presence entering her room that had disturbed her. Looking round, she saw that it wasn't her room but Cliff's, and the alien presence was none other than the man himself bearing a breakfast tray.

‘What a rare treat,' she said, sitting up forgetfully and then, on seeing what Cliff saw, reaching hastily for the pajama jacket he'd put out in readiness the night before but had not got round to wearing.

His expression told her that it was prudish to be that modest after what had occurred between them, and what had almost occurred, the previous night. Even though part of her mind did agree with him, she did the buttons.