Beloved (11 page)

220

Beloved

Diana Palmer

221

“Well,
come in, then," she said curtly, her green eyes sparkling
with bad temper as she pulled her robe closer
around her.

He stared at her with open curiosity. He'd never seen her
in
night clothing before. The white robe emphasized her creamy skin,
and the lace of her gown came barely high enough to
cover the
soft mounds of her breasts.
With her red-gold hair loose in a
glorious
tangle around her shoulders, she was a picture to take a
man's breath away.

"Why did you run?" he asked softly.

Her face colored gently. "I wasn't expecting you to
be there,"
she said, and it came out almost as an
accusation. "You've already seen the performance once."

"Yes, with Jill," he added deliberately,
watching her face
closely.

She averted her eyes. He looked so good in an evening
jacket,
she thought miserably. His dark, wavy
hair was faintly damp, as
if the threatening
clouds had let some rain fall. His pale gray eyes
were watchful, disturbing. He'd never looked at her this way be
fore, like a predator with its prey. It made her nervous.

"Do you want some coffee?" she asked to break the
tense
silence.

   
"If you don't put arsenic in it."

   
She glanced at him. "Don't tempt me."
She led him into the kitchen, got down a cup and poured a cup
of coffee for him. She didn't offer cream and sugar,
because she
knew he took neither.

He turned a chair around and straddled it before he picked
up
the cup and sipped the hot coffee, staring at
her disconcertingly over the rim.

   
With open curiosity, she glanced at the prosthesis hand, which
was resting on the back of the chair.

    
"Something wrong?" he asked.

She shrugged and picked up her own cup. "You used to
hate
that." She indicated the artificial arm.

"I hate pity even more," he said flatly.
"It looks real enough
to keep people from
staring."

"Yes," she said. "It
does look real."

He sipped coffee. "Even if it doesn't feel it,"
he murmured
dryly. He glanced up at her face and
saw it color from the faint
insinuation in his
deep voice. “Amazing, that you can still blush,
at your age," he remarked.

It wouldn't have been if he knew how totally innocent she
still was at her advanced age, but she wasn't sharing her most closely guarded
secret with the enemy. He thought she and Charles were lovers, and she was
content to let him. But that insinuation about
why he used the prosthesis was embarrassing and infuriating. She
hated being jealous. She had to conceal it from him.

"I don't care how it feels, or to whom," she
said stiffly. "In
fact, I have no
interest whatsoever in your personal life. Not any
more."

He drew in a long breath and let it out. "Yes, I
know." He
finished his coffee in two swallows.
"I miss you," he said simply.
"Nothing is the same."

Her heart jumped but she kept her eyes down so that he
wouldn't see how much pleasure the statement gave her.
"We
were friends. I'm sure you have plenty
of others. Including Jill."

His intake of breath was audible. "I didn't realize
how much you and Jill disliked each other."

"What difference does it make?" She glanced at
him with a
mocking smile. "I'm not part of
your life."

"You were," he returned solemnly. "I didn't
realize how much
a part of it you were, until it was
too late."

"Some things are better left alone," she said
evasively. "More
coffee?"

He shook his head. "It keeps me awake. Wally called
and of
fered me the attorney general's post,"
he said. "I've got two
weeks to think about
it."

"You were a good attorney general," she
recalled. "You got
a lot of excellent
legislation through the general assembly."

222

Beloved

Diana Palmer

223

He smiled faintly, studying his coffee cup. "I
lived in a goldfish
bowl. I didn't like it."

"You have to take the bad with
the good."

He looked at her closely. "Tell me what happened the
night they took you to the hospital."

She shrugged. "I got drunk and
passed out."

^“
And the
pistol?"

"The mouse." She nodded toward the
refrigerator. "He's under
there, I can hear
him. He can't be trapped and he's brazen. I got
drunk and decided to take him out like John Wayne, with a six-
shooter. I missed."

He chuckled softly. "I thought it was something like
that. You're not suicidal."

"You're the only person who thinks so. Even Dr.
Gaines didn't
believe me. He wanted me to have
therapy," she scoffed.

"The newspapers had a field day. I guess Jill
helped feed the
fire."

She glanced up, surprised. "You
knew?"

"Not
until she commented on it, when it was too late to do anything. For what it's
worth," he added quietly, "I don't know
many people who believed the accounts in her cousin's paper."

She leaned back in her chair and stared at him levelly.
"That
I did it for love of you?" she
drawled with a poisonous smile.
"You hurt my
feelings when you accused me of killing my hus
band," she said flatly. "I was already overworked and
depressed
and I did something stupid. But I hope
you don't believe that I
sit around nights
crying in my beer because of unrequited passion
for you!"

Her tone hit him on the raw. He got slowly to his feet
and his
eyes narrowed as he stared down at
her.

She felt at a distinct disadvantage. She'd only seen
Simon lose
his temper once. She'd never forgotten
and she didn't want to
repeat the
experience.

"It's late," she said
quickly. "I'd like to go to bed."

"Would you really?" His pale
gaze slid over her body as he

said it, his voice so sensuous that it made her bare toes curl up
on the spotless linoleum floor.

She didn't trust that look. She started past him and
found one
of her hands suddenly trapped by his
big one. He moved in, easing
her hand up onto
the silky fabric of his vest, inside it against the
silky warmth of
his body under the thin cotton shirt. She could
feel the springy hair under it as well, and the hard beat of his
heart as his breath whispered out at her temple,
stirring her hair.
She'd never been
so close to him. It was as if her senses, numb
for years, all came to life at once and exploded in a shattering
rush of physical sensation. It frightened her and
she pushed at his
chest.

"Simon, let go!" she said
huskily, all in a rush.

He didn't. He couldn't. The feel of her in his arms
exceeded
his wildest imaginings. She was soft and warm and she
smelled
of flowers. He drank in the scent
and felt her begin to tremble. It
went
right to his head. His hand left hers and slid into her hair at
her nape, clenching, so that she was helpless
against him. He
fought for control. He mustn't do this. It was too soon.
Far too
soon.

His breath came quickly. She could hear it, feel it. His
cheek
brushed against hers roughly, as if he wanted
to feel the very
texture of her skin there. He had a
faint growth of beard and it
rasped a little,
but it was more sensual than uncomfortable.

Her heart raced as wildly as his. She wanted to draw
back, to
run, but that merciless hand wasn't
unclenching. If anything, it had an even tighter grip on her long hair.

She wasn't protesting anymore. He felt her yield and his
body
clenched. His cheek drew slowly against
hers. She felt his mouth
at the corner of her
own, felt his breath as his lips parted.

"Don't..." The little cry was
all but inaudible.

"It's too late," he said roughly. "Years
too late. God,
Tira
,
turn your mouth against mine!"

She heard the soft, gruff command with a sense of total
unre
-

224

Beloved

P
^almer

225

ality
. Her cold
hands pressed against his shirtfront, but it was, as
he said, already too late.

He moved his head just a fraction of an inch, and his
hard, hot mouth moved completely onto hers, parting her lips as it explored,
settled, demanded. There was a faint hesitation, almost
of shock,
as sensual electricity flashed between
them. He felt her mouth
tremble, tasted it,
savored it, devoured it.

He
groaned as his mouth began to part her lips insistently. Then
his arm was around her, the one with the
prosthesis holding her
waist firmly
while the good one lifted and traced patterns from her cheek down to her soft,
pulsing throat. He could hear the tortured sound of his own breath echoed by
her own.

She whimpered as she felt the full force of his mouth,
felt the kiss she'd dreamed of for so many years suddenly becoming re
ality. He tasted of coffee. His lips were hard and
demanding on
her mouth, sensual, insistent. She
didn't protest. She clung to him, savoring the most ecstatic few seconds of her
life as if she never
expected to feel
anything so powerful again.

Her response puzzled him, because it wasn't that of an
expe
rienced woman. She permitted him to kiss her,
clung to him
closely, even seemed to enjoy his
rough ardor; but she gave noth
ing back. It was
almost as if she didn't know how...

He drew back slowly. His pale, fierce eyes looked down
into
hers with pure sensual arrogance and more
than a little curiosity.

This was a Simon she'd never seen, never known, a sensual
man with expert knowledge of women that was evident even
in
such a relatively chaste encounter. She was
afraid of him because she had no defense against that kind of ardor, and fear
made her
push at his chest.

He put her away from him abruptly and his arms fell to his
sides. She moved back, her eyes like saucers
in a flushed, feverish
face, until she was
leaning against the counter.

Simon watched her hungrily, his eyes on the noticeable
signs
of her arousal in her body under the thin
silk gown, in her swollen
mouth and the faint
redness on her cheek where his own had

rubbed against it with his faint growth of beard. He'd never
dreamed that he and
Tira
would
kindle such fires together. In all
their years
of careless friendship, he'd never really approached her
physically until tonight. He felt as if he were drowning
in un
charted waters.

Tira
went slowly to the back door and opened it, unnaturally
calm. She still looked gloriously beautiful, even more so
because she was emotionally aroused.

He took the hint, but he paused at the open door to stare
down at her averted face. She was very flustered for a woman who had
a lover. He found himself bristling with sudden and
unexpected
jealousy of the most important man in
her life.

"Lucky Charles," he said
gruffly. "Is that what he gets?"

 
Her eyes flashed at him. "You get out of here!"
she managed
to say through her tight throat. She
pulled her robe tight against
her throat.
"Go. Just, please, go!"

He walked past her, hesitating on the doorstep, but she
closed
the door after him and locked it. She went
back through the
kitchen and down the hall to her
bedroom before she dared let the tears flow. She was too shaken to try to delve
into his motives for
that hungry kiss.
But she knew it had to be some new sort of
revenge for his friend John. Well, it wouldn't work! He was never
going to hurt her again, she vowed. She only wished she
hadn't
been stupid enough to let him touch her in
the first place.

Simon stood outside by his car in the misting rain,
letting the coolness push away the flaring heat of his body. He shuddered as
he leaned his forehead against the cold roof of the car
and thanked
God he'd managed to get out of there
before he did something
even more stupid
than he already had.

Tira
had submitted. He could have had her. He was barely able
to draw back at all. What a revelation that had been,
that a woman he'd known for years should be able to arouse such instant, sweep
ing passion in him. Even
Melia
hadn't had such a profound effect
on him, in
the days when he'd thought he loved her.