Married To The Boss (13 page)

It was difficult to breathe, difficult to form a coherent argument. Her breasts ached, as did other parts of her body. Without thinking, she leaned into his taunting palm and slowly closed her eyes. “I've always been plain, from the time I was a little girl.”

He smoothed her breast without missing a beat. “Says who?”

At first she didn't hear the suppressed rage in his tone, she was so overwhelmed by sensations. His nearness, the heat from his large body, his heady, masculine scent. But she did hear it, and her reply was duly cautious. “My…my mother was a practical woman. She saw no reason why I should waste my time trying to be something I could never be.”

His curse was low and filled with such fury she shuddered in response. Why was he so angry?

“Where's your mother now?”

He released her breast, making her sigh in relief—and disappointment. His hands tightened on her, one wrapping securely around her fingers, trapping her hand on his hard thigh, while the other slipped over her shoulders to draw her flush against his side.

Dana didn't dare look at him, too unsure of what she would see and of what she was feeling. “She passed away several years ago.”

“I didn't know.”

“There was no reason you should have. My mother moved to northern Oklahoma once I started to work, to a small town there.” She peeked at him, then quickly away. She felt like a fainthearted ninny, but so much had happened that she'd never experi
enced before, she had no way of knowing how to deal with it. “We hadn't been close for a long time, but I saw her on holidays and during my vacations. In fact, I used one of my vacations to go home and take care of the arrangements after she died unexpectedly.”

She could feel the tension emanating from him. “How did it happen?”

A vague uneasiness had filtered into his tone that she didn't understand. “She had a massive stroke. By the time I was notified, she was already gone.”

There was a stretch of painful silence before R.J. asked, “Why didn't you tell me?”

She looked at him and said simply, “You don't pay me to involve you in my personal affairs. I asked for the time off, and you gave it to me.”

He left the bed in an angry rush. “I've been a bastard.”

“No!” Dana jumped to her feet and caught his arm. She held tight, though he didn't try to pull away. “That's not true, R.J. You're one of the most generous, giving men I've ever known.”

“Yeah, right. That's why after years of employment, after being friends with my family and with me, you never bothered to tell me when your mother passed away.”

He sounded hurt, and she stared at him, bewildered. “I don't understand why you care.”

He turned to face her. “Where's your father?”

Dana lifted one shoulder. She didn't know why he
was pushing so hard on this. “I have no idea. I never knew the man.”

R.J. looked her over, and she was acutely aware of her position at the side of the bed, her feet together, her knees together, her hands clasped at her waist. She was on the verge of pulling the spread from the bed and whipping it around her when he asked, “Will you explain that?”

“If you really want to know.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, planted his feet apart and waited. He wouldn't leave her room until he was good and ready, she decided. “My father left my mother for another woman when I was still a baby. She said it was some awful floozy who was much younger than him.”

“A pretty woman?”

“I suppose. Surely he wouldn't have run off with a homely woman.”

R.J. worked his jaw in thought. “So you have no memory of your father at all?”

“No. There weren't even any pictures since my mother destroyed them all. But she told me often that I took after him in my looks.”

His eyes narrowed. “How so?”

“He had the same washed-out hair color, the same thin, lanky build.”

A savage sound escaped him. “I take it she was a bitter woman?”

She didn't want R.J. to know about her painful relationship with her mother, how hard she had found it to tolerate her mother's critical nature and jaded
outlook. As soon as she'd been old enough, she'd put space between them, but she'd never shared the hurt with anyone and didn't want to start now.

Keeping all emotion out of her tone, she said, “Oh, yes, Mother was angry. To hear her tell it, my father was a loathsome creature with no scruples at all. I got the feeling the woman he ran off with wasn't his first indiscretion.” Then she added, “He hurt her very badly, leaving her alone with a baby to raise.”

“With
you
to raise.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

R.J. seemed to be soaking it all in, and he didn't look pleased. Dana decided it was time to change the subject.

“I called your family earlier to explain about our wedding.”

His head jerked up and his eyes glittered. “You told them—”

“No! No, I didn't tell them that. How you explain things to your family is your business. I just told them that because of all the bad publicity that had been circulating and because you knew they all had plenty on their minds, you'd wanted to keep things as simple as possible.”

He grunted, and she wasn't sure if it was a sound of favor or disapproval.

Dana nervously fiddled with the hem on her shirt. She was in a bedroom with the man she'd loved forever, her hair in wild disarray, and wearing only half her clothes. All things considered, she thought she
was handling the situation well. “Do you know what Abbey told me?”

“That she'd have my ass for not inviting her?”

Dana chuckled despite her uneasiness. R.J. teased and bantered with all his sisters, but they knew he loved them just the same. “No. She said you were far too upstanding to shirk your responsibilities. It angers her that you've been put through this mess.”

“It hasn't been easy for anyone involved.”

“No, it hasn't. But you're the one the press has been pointing a finger at most.”

R.J. had been pacing, and suddenly he stopped. Hands on his hips, head tilted, he studied her, then suddenly laughed. “I'll be damned. You did that deliberately, didn't you?”

She stared at him, surprised by his sudden mood shift. “What?”

“Changed the subject on me. We were talking about you and your personal misconceptions, not about me and this bloody scandal.”

Dana laced her hands together and lifted her chin. “The scandal will die down once I get through pointing out—truthfully—what an outstanding person you are. I've got a busy week planned for you, and I trust you won't complain.”

R.J. shook his head. “No, you don't. I'm not letting you lead me off the track that easily again. I'm on to you now, lady.”

Dana didn't want him to be on to her. She didn't want him delving into her psyche, picking away at her painful past. Her childhood hadn't been an easy
one, and now R.J. wanted to refute what she knew as truth. But it was so much easier to cling to her old beliefs than to take a chance on believing in him.

R.J. didn't appear willing to give her a choice in the matter. He looked her over once more and smiled. “Sometimes my own stupidity amazes me.”

“You are
not
stupid, R.J.”

“I'm not a bad lover, either, but I suppose I'll have to prove it.”

“No!”

He started toward her again, this time with a purpose. “I think the only way to make you understand just how attractive I find you is to show you. So that's what I'm going to do.”

As he advanced again, she backed up. Only this time she moved too fast, and when she hit the edge of the bed she lost her balance and dropped back on it, bouncing twice.

R.J. was over her before she could even catch her breath.

R.J.
LOOKED DOWN
at her wide-eyed expression and smiled gently. “I'm not going to maul you, Dana. Relax.”

She gave an audible gulp and stiffened even more.

“It's amazing,” he half teased, “how different a woman can look after a man gets to know her.”

“You've known me for years!”

“No, I've known the woman you've pretended to be, not the real you.” And now he thought he knew why she'd always hidden herself. Dana had bought into her mother's angry words. Her mother claimed Dana looked a lot like her father—and the father was a total bastard. How had that made Dana feel?

“Is that what you think?” she asked, her voice unnaturally high. “That I'm now somehow different? Just because you've caught me with my hair loose and my…” Her words trailed off.

“And your pants off?” His grin was wicked, but then, he felt wicked. Wicked and eager. Patience had never been his virtue, but in this case he'd find a healthy dose of it somewhere. Dana needed to learn her own appeal, and he intended to instruct her on the matter. There'd be no reason for him to dent his pride, not when he had a perfect excuse for getting
closer to her. “I'd like to get the rest of your clothes off, too.”

“No!”

“I wish I could remove that damn word from your vocabulary.” He wanted to reassure her, to help her relax. He had no intention of rushing her now that he realized how much care she needed, not only because of her virginity, but because of her fragile ego. “Regardless of my animalistic display of yesterday, I am capable of controlling my baser instincts. I want you. Ever since I stepped in here and saw your bare legs and your hair loose and the warm blush on your face, all I've thought about is making love with you. But I don't want you to be afraid of me—”

“I'm not afraid of you.” She looked appalled at the mere suggestion.

“—and I don't want you to be nervous. I want you to trust me.”

Very softly, she whispered, “I do trust you, R.J. That's not what this is about. It's…it's a lot more complicated than that.”

R.J. felt a lick of dread go down his spine. He stiffened, feeling the tension gather in his neck. “You want me to have a paternity test done?”

Dana looked at him blankly. “What?”

He gently smoothed his hand over her hair, though he felt anything but gentle. “You're still wondering if maybe I'm the father of the baby, aren't you?”

He braced himself for her reply, but wasn't ready for her burst of anger. She shoved him, almost throw
ing him to the side. He caught her shoulders and held her still. “Dana?”

Hands pressed flat on his chest, she lifted her head and shouted an inch from his nose, “No! I do not think you're the baby's father. That's a stupid thing for you to say. For the last time, R.J., anyone who knows you knows it's an utterly ridiculous accusation.”

The emotions that hit him then were too confusing to sort out. Her belief in him meant a lot, and he was grateful for it. But if the paternity issue wasn't the problem, then he'd been right all along.

He'd been a failure in the sack.
He felt the heat of his embarrassment climb up his neck. She didn't want to sleep with him again not because she doubted his honor, but because he'd been such a disappointment. His expertise in pleasing a woman had never been questioned before now.

Of course, he'd never gone deaf, dumb and blind over a woman before, either.

He clenched his teeth and resisted the urge to defend himself once again. Dana was simply too inexperienced and too unsure of her own appeal to understand that it was his hunger for her that had driven him wild. All she knew was that he'd come after her with the finesse of a rutting bulldog, and she hadn't found any satisfaction at all.

That thought made his muscles twitch. He couldn't wait to bring Miss Dana Maitland—his wife—to completion, to show her in explicit detail just how appealing she really was. Once she found out what
sex was all about, things would be different between them.

But in the meantime, he needed to work at shoring up her confidence. He had no doubt her mother had played a real number on her, repressing Dana's natural sensuality as something evil. After all, it was the sensuality of some other woman that had taken her husband away.

It was ironic that Dana's father had abandoned her because he didn't care about his wife, while R.J.'s father had walked away because his wife had died, leaving him a man incapable of caring about anyone or anything else.

He held her head between his hands, keeping her gaze locked with his. He enjoyed looking at her, and his fascination with her emerald eyes hadn't diminished one bit. He smoothed his thumbs over her cheekbones, seemingly unable to stop touching her. His sweet, efficient, orderly Dana.

She was by far the sexiest woman he'd ever seen.

“I've never in my adult life,” he whispered, “treated a woman the way I did you last night. But it was your fault too, honey. You shocked the hell out of me. I didn't expect you to be so…”

“So what?” Her antagonistic tone proved she was going to fight him every inch of the way. “I'm just me, R.J. The same woman you've known for years, the woman you recognized for her secretarial skills. Not for anything else.”

She was so defensive, he thought. He had his work cut out for him. R.J. rolled to the side and then
hauled her up in the bed so they were lying against the pillows. “Let's look at this logically.” He lifted a long strand of her hair and examined it. “You have beautiful hair, soft and pale. Not at all washed out. That's just plain stupid. Look at it, Dana, how the light catches it. It's the type of hair a man imagines spread out over his pillow while his woman smiles up at him.”

“I already told you flattery doesn't affect me.”

He hid a grin. Her voice had shaken just the tiniest bit as she made that statement. R.J. propped himself up on one elbow. Without moving a single inch, Dana looked at him. She had the appearance of a frightened doe, too wary to move but too cautious not to keep a close eye on him. Her body was rigid.

“What color was your mother's hair?”

“She had very thick, dark brown hair.”

“I see.” And he did. He could imagine her mother making all kinds of comparisons, but he held his anger in check. Dana didn't need his anger now.

Once again, he settled his palm over her breast. “Mmm. So soft. Those suits you wear make it impossible for a man to see what's beneath. But now I've felt you, and I've tasted you, and I know.” He met her wide, unblinking gaze. “I won't ever forget, babe.”

As he continued to touch her, her lips parted on a shuddering breath. He didn't want to overly arouse her, because he wanted her to know he'd wait for her. Until she told him she wanted him, until she began to believe in herself, he'd settle for giving her
all the compliments she hadn't gotten from him so far.

“Do you want me, Dana?”

Her lashes fluttered as if she was trying to regain her wits. “You didn't marry me for this.”

He rested his hand on her silky thigh and wanted to shout out how much he wanted her. But that sure as hell wouldn't reassure her. “We could consider it an added benefit.”

He said it like a question, leaving the ball in her court. Part of him was so turned on he felt as if he could come with just a touch. He couldn't recall ever wanting a woman so badly or denying himself so completely.

But another part of him, the natural protector, wanted to hold her close and dispel whatever ridiculous myth her mother had perpetrated. Why would any mother make her daughter believe such nonsense?

Dana shyly reached up and put her small palm on his chest. Just that, such a simple touch, and his guts tightened in reaction. She looked at him, her eyes dark and soft, her lashes leaving shadows on her cheekbones. He kissed her nose.

“R.J., I like my job.”

“I'm glad.” He was distracted by her small ears, tracing the gentle whorls with a fingertip.

“If you and I…if we had sex…”

“Yes.”
Hell yes.

“…it would change everything.”

R.J. stalled in the middle of licking her ear. Damn.
That had been his argument from the first, but he no longer cared. Somewhere along the way his common sense had been sidelined by other emotions, and they were totally different from the physical wanting that had exploded inside him. There was tenderness and curiosity and a deep caring. He'd known Dana for many years and naturally felt a unique fondness for her, built on in part by her loyalty and commitment to the job. That fondness had suddenly altered into something else, though, something he wasn't entirely certain of. All he knew was that he wanted her to be aware of her feminine charms, to know that he wanted her because of the woman she was, not because of a duty he felt from her initial demands or an enforced closeness.

Lifting his head to look at her, he asked carefully, “What if I promise you I won't let it interfere with your job?”

She snorted. “That'd be impossible, even for you.”

He rubbed her thigh and felt her shift subtly against him. Damn, he wanted to rip that awful, baggy tunic off her and kiss her whole luscious body. He sucked in a lungful of air and said, “You're right, of course. I'm sorry.” He took her hand and carried it to his erection, holding her fingers tight against him while watching her eyes widen. “I'm afraid a man's libido sometimes leaves no room for scruples. We'll say anything to convince a desirable female to see things our way, especially when in a state like the one I'm in now.”

Her gaze remained glued to his face, and her fingers didn't move. She licked her lips. “Maybe…maybe it's that…um, state, that makes you think you want me.”

He laughed, then groaned when her fingers tightened. “Sweetheart, you're the one who put me in this state, and I want you, not anyone else. Do you think I walk around like this all the time?”

“I don't know.” Her expression turned serious, and her fingers started moving, gently squeezing him through his slacks, sliding the tiniest bit up and down his length, exploring. “I don't know much about this part of men.”

He could barely talk. More than anything he wanted his pants off and her small hand on his naked flesh. His erection strained into her palm, and her eyes opened even wider.

“You moved.”

R.J. choked. A fine beading of sweat touched his forehead. It took him a minute, but he managed to hold on to his control. He'd sooner become celibate than rush her again, and there was no way he'd stifle her curiosity. “You have your hand on me, sweetheart. It's driving me crazy. I moved.”

“Oh.” She started to pull away, but he caught her wrist.

“Crazy in an excruciatingly wonderful way.” He saw the awareness dawn in her eyes, saw her eyes darken, the pupils expand.

“Like this?” She stroked him with a tentative touch.

R.J. bit back a moan at the pleasure of it. “Yes.” Then he added, “Harder.”

Dana levered herself up on one arm, her reluctance forgotten. Rather than meet his eyes, she looked down at her hand, which curved around him through his slacks. She clenched her fingers, and when he jerked, she let him go. “Did I hurt you?”

“God, no,” he rasped. “But I think we'd better stop right here or I'm a goner. I can't take much more.”

“You can't?”

He shook his head. “No, absolutely not. That is, unless you want to carry things to the natural conclusion.”

She stared at him, then scrambled to sit up. Before she turned her back to him, he saw her expression of dazed amazement. “I…no. I don't want us to…”

“Have sex.” R.J. sat up, too, though more slowly. He took advantage of her distraction to straighten himself, then sighed with minimum relief. “That's where we were headed, you know.”

She rubbed her forehead in confusion. “I don't know what got into me. I hadn't intended any of that.”

R.J. looked at her straight, proud shoulders, her mussed hair, and grinned despite his painful arousal. “You're a woman and I'm a man and we want each other. Things are bound to get out of hand now and then.” Because he felt secure that she wouldn't be able to hold out against him for long, not with her natural sensuality, he said, “But don't worry. Until
you make it clear that you want me, I won't pressure you.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder, her expression one of complete disbelief.

Laughing, he flicked the tip of her nose. “I promise.” But in the meantime, he'd also take advantage of his time with her to wear her down gently. He was thirty-nine years old; he knew women, and he knew how to get what he wanted. Before the week was out, Dana would be sleeping in his bed—where she belonged.

He gave her a swift, hard kiss good-night and forced himself to his feet. At the door, he stopped and faced her. “Good night, sweetheart. If you need anything, just let me know.”

She still looked dazed by all that had transpired, but she managed a nod, and a polite, “Good night, R.J. Sleep well.”

Ha. He'd be lucky if he slept at all with his body still on fire and the tempting knowledge that Dana, and relief, were only a few feet away. But while he lay awake, he'd have plenty to think on—like anticipating her surrender. He was a pro at getting what he wanted. Dana and all her silly hang-ups didn't stand a chance.

 

S
HE WAS THE PRO
—at sexual torment.

By Thursday, R.J. was wondering how much longer he'd be able to survive. He sat at his desk, ignoring the files Dana had just set before him. He wondered if it was his imagination or if she was de
liberately teasing him. Lately, nothing with Dana was clear-cut. Oh, she still did the work of two people. More so than ever, in fact.

His mother had called just that afternoon to tell him he was once again in the papers. It had been that way every day, his face, his every word splashed across a multitude of papers from around the state. What wasn't a direct quote from a lucky source who'd been on the scene was taken from other reliable sources, because no one wanted to miss the story. He was big news.