The Cowboy and the Lady (17 page)

“Not much.” She laughed. “I forgot to salt the macaroni, and burned the meat…” Her voice sighed in memory. “I’m still not a good cook, but I’m better than I was.” She studied his rough, arrogant profile. “You learned to cook in the service, didn’t you?”

That seemed to surprise him. He stared at her searchingly before he turned his attention to his coffee. “One of my specialties was fried snake,” he said dryly.

“Green Berets, wasn’t it?” she recalled with a tiny smile as she toyed with her toast. “I remember how striking you used to look in uniform…”

“You were just a baby then,” he teased.

“I’m glad,” she said suddenly, as a blinding thought floored her. How would it have been all those years ago to have been a woman, and in love with Jace as she was now—to watch the afternoon newscasts knowing he and his unit were so far away and fighting for their lives…

“What’s the matter?” he asked quietly.

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

He swallowed down his coffee and leaned back in his chair. “Where do you live in San Antonio?” he asked conversationally.

She glanced at him and away. It was as if Bea had never come. They were talking now as they had that day at the restaurant—freely, openly, like two people who understood and respected one another.

“In a one-bedroom efficiency apartment,” she replied. “Right downtown. I can walk to work, and it’s convenient to the corner grocery store, too.”

“You don’t own a car?”

“Can’t afford one,” she said sheepishly. Her soft brown eyes teased his. “They break down.”

He drew a long, slow breath. His lean hand went up to unfasten the top buttons on his shirt, as if the warmth of the kitchen was uncomfortable for him. Her eyes involuntarily followed the movement and he smiled sensuously at her.

“Want me to take it off?” he asked in a lazy, teasing drawl.

She caught her breath, remembering without wanting to the feel of that mat of thick, curling hair on his chest under her fingers.

She averted her eyes, wrapping both hands around her coffee cup.

He chuckled softly, but he didn’t stop until he’d opened the shirt all the way down, baring his bronzed chest in the sudden tense stillness of the room. His hand rubbed over it roughly and he drew in a long, heavy yawn.

“God, I’m so tired,” he said heavily.

“Why did you send the flowers?” she asked. An instant later she could have bitten her tongue for the impulsive question.

His silver eyes searched hers. “You might have died,” he said bluntly, “and I’d have been responsible. The flowers were by way of apology,” he added gruffly, looking away. “I never meant you to be hurt like that.”

She stared at his sharp profile, knowing how it shook that towering pride of his to admit he was sorry about anything. And suddenly she realized how much it must have hurt him to know that his father was unfaithful to Marguerite. Knowing it, trying to protect his mother…. All her own pain fell away as she studied him, just beginning to understand his point of view.

“Would you listen, if I explained something to you?” she asked gently.

His silver eyes cut at her. “Not if it’s about your mother,” he said bluntly.

She drew in a sharp breath, her cold hands clenching around the coffee cup. “Jason, have you ever been in love?” she asked harshly. “So deeply in love that nothing and no one else mattered? I don’t pretend to know how your father felt, but Mother loved him beyond anything on earth. There was never anyone but Jude for her, not even my own father. It was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love, and she had the bad luck to feel it for a married man. I’m not condoning what she did, but I can at least understand why she did it. She loved him, Jace.”

His eyes dropped to the table. “When is the wedding?” he asked curtly.

“In a month. I’ll be joining Mother and Reese in the Bahamas for the ceremony.”

He studied her downbent head. “And in the meantime?”

“I’m going back to San Antonio as soon as I’m well enough to travel,” she said honestly, tears in her voice. “You can let Terry know your decision about the account,” she added in a whisper.

He drew in a weary breath. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s yours. You can iron out the details with Duncan.” He stood up. “If you want to leave here that badly, go ahead.”

Her lovely eyes filled with tears as she looked up at him. He wasn’t going to bend an inch. He could let her walk away, out of his life, and not feel a thing. But she loved him too much to let go.

“Is that what you want?” she asked bravely, her face pale in the soft light of the kitchen.

His jaw tautened, his silver eyes narrowed. “You know what I want.”

Yes, she knew all too well. Perhaps Bea was right. Love was the most important thing. A few hours in Jace’s arms might not be proper, but it would be a soft memory to wrap around herself in the long, empty years ahead. She loved him so much. Would it be so wrong to spend just one night with him?

“All right,” she said softly, her tone weak but unfaltering.

He scowled down at her. “All right, what?” he asked.

She lifted her face proudly. “I’ll sleep with you.”

His nostrils flared with a sharp indrawn breath. “In return for what, exactly?” he asked harshly.

“Does everything have to have a price tag?” she murmured miserably, standing up. “I want nothing from you!”

“Amanda!”

She stopped at the doorway, her back to him. “Yes?”

There was a brief, poignant silence. “If you want me, come back here and prove it.”

She almost ran. It would have been in character, and it was what she would have done a few months earlier. But now she knew there was more to Jason’s ardor than an angry kiss in the moonlight. She knew how exquisitely tender he could be, how patient. And her need of him was too great to ignore. There was no limit to the demands he could make on her now that she knew how desperately she loved him.

She turned and went back to him, pausing at the table, her eyes faintly apprehensive as they looked up into his. He hadn’t moved at all, and his gaze was calculating as it met hers.

“Well?” he asked.

She moved closer, searching her mind for a few clues as to what would be expected of her. She’d never tried to seduce a man before. A couple of old movies came to mind, but one called for her to crawl into his sleeping bag and the other would only work if she could already be undressed and in his bed when he came out of the shower.

Experimentally, she linked her hands around his neck and reached up on tiptoe to brush her lips against his jutting chin. He wouldn’t bend an inch to help her, and his chin was as far as she could reach.

“You might help me a little,” she pointed out, puzzled by the faint amusement in his silver eyes.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked obligingly.

“If you’d bend your head just an inch or so….”

He bent down, watching her as she looked up at him hesitantly. Nervous, inhibited, it was all she could do to make that first movement toward him, to put her mouth against his and yield her body to the strength of his.

She closed her eyes and pressed herself against his tall frame, her mouth suddenly hungry as the love she felt melted into her veins like a drug. But it wasn’t enough. It was like kissing stone, and even when she increased the pressure of her lips, he didn’t seem to feel the need to respond.

She drew away and looked up at him, her eyes soft with hunger, her breath unsteady. “Oh, Jace, teach me how.” she whispered brokenly.

His eyes widened, only to narrow and glitter down at her, something passing across his face like a faint shadow as his hands touched her waist and untied the robe with a lazy, deft twist.

She caught his hands as he eased the robe down her arms, leaving her standing before him in only the pale mint gown that was all but transparent, its low neckline giving more than a glimpse of her small, perfect breasts.

“You offered something to me,” he reminded her, something calculating in his gaze. “Cold feet, Amanda?”

She swallowed nervously. “No,” she lied. She let him dispose of the robe, looping it over the chair she’d vacated. His fingers went to the thin spaghetti straps that held the bodice of the gown in place, toying with the bow ties.

“Jason, it’s getting late!” she whispered, feeling a sense of panic, the age-old fear of a woman with her first man.

“Easy, honey,” he murmured, his hands suddenly soothing on her back, his lips gentle as they touched her flushed face. “Just relax, Amanda, I know what I’m doing. Relax, honey, I’m not going to rush you, all right? That’s better,” he mused, feeling some of the tension ease out of her with the leisure of his movements, his tone. “Are you afraid of making love with me?” he whispered.

She swallowed down her fear. “Of course not,” she managed in a voice straight from the tomb.

“Show me.”

She drew back and looked up at him helplessly; it was like being told to play an instrument when she’d never learned to read music. Her look pleaded with him.

His eyes narrowed, but not in anger. Some strange, quiet glow made them darken. He looked down at her with a kind of triumph as one deft hand flicked open the bow on her shoulder. He repeated the gesture with the other bow and held her eyes while the gauzy fabric slid unimpeded to her waist and she felt the soft breeze from the open window on her sudden bareness.

She blushed like a schoolgirl, hating her own inexperience, hating the expertise behind his action, frightened at the intimacy between them even though she’d initiated it.

His eyes dropped to the high, soft curves he’d uncovered, studying them in the tense silence that followed.

“My God, you’re lovely,” he said quietly. “As sweet as a prayer…”

She caught her breath. “What…an incredible way to put it,” she whispered.

He drew his eyes back up to hers. “What did you expect, Amanda, some vulgar remark? What’s happening between us isn’t cheap, and you’re not a woman I picked up on the street. You belong to me, every soft inch of you, and there’s nothing shameful about my looking at you. You’re exquisite.”

Her eyes held his, reading the tenderness in them. “I…like looking at you, too,” she said breathlessly, her fingers lightly touching the powerful contours of his chest, tangling gently in the wiry, curling dark hair over the warm bronzed muscles.

“Mandy…” he breathed, drawing her very gently to him until her softness melted into his hardness, until she could feel the hair-roughened muscles pressing against her own taut breasts, and he heard her gasp.

“Now kiss me,” he whispered huskily, bending his head, “and let me show you how much we can say to each other without words.”

He took her mouth with a controlled ferocity that made her breath catch in her throat, tasting it, savoring it, in a silence wild with the newness of discovery. She lifted her arms around neck, holding him, her body trembling where its bareness was crushed warmly to his until she felt such a part of him that nothing short of death could separate them. She loved him so! To be in his arms, to feel the raw hunger of his mouth cherishing hers, penetrating it, devouring it, was as close to paradise as she’d ever been. Tears welled in her eyes at the intensity of what she was feeling with him, at the depth of the love she couldn’t deny even when she cursed it for making her weak.

His arms contracted at her back and ground her body into his for an instant before he lifted his head and looked down into her soft, yielding eyes.

“I want one word from you,” he said in a gruff, unsteady voice, and the arms that held her had a fine tremor. “I ache like a boy with his first woman, and I can’t take much more of this.”

She knew exactly what he meant, and there was only one way she could answer him after the way she’d responded. She loved him more than her own life, and even though she’d probably hate both of them in daylight, the soft darkness and the sweet pleasure of his body against hers would be a memory she could hold for the long, empty years ahead without him.

She opened her mouth to speak, to tell him, when the beautiful dream they were sharing was shattered by the sudden, loud roar of a car’s engine coming up the driveway.

Jace said something violent under his breath and held Amanda close in his arms, burying his face in her throat in a silence bitter with denial until the tremor went out of his arms, until his shuddering heartbeat calmed.

Her fingers soothed him, brushing softly at the cool strands of hair at his temples. “I’m sorry,” she whispered tenderly. “I’m sorry.”

His lips brushed her silky skin just below her ear and moved up to touch her earlobe. “Are you really?” he whispered. “Or is it like a reprieve?”

“I don’t understand,” she murmured.

He drew back, his eyes missing nothing as they probed hers. “You’re a virgin, aren’t you, Amanda,” he said quietly.

She flushed, her face giving her away, and he nodded, dropping his eyes to the soft curves pressed so closely against him. “I should have known,” he mused, and a corner of his mouth went up as he carefully eased her bodice back in place and lifted her hand to hold it there while he retied the spaghetti straps with a sophisticated carelessness that had her gaping at him.

“I…I tried to tell you before,” she faltered, “but you wouldn’t listen.”

“I was jealous as hell, and hurting,” he said bluntly. “Jealous of Black and jealous of my own brother. I thought you came because of Duncan and I wanted to strangle you both.”

“You’re the only one I wanted,” she breathed, her eyes telling all her secrets to him in the soft, sweet silence that followed.

He caught her narrow hips and drew them against the taut, powerful lines of his legs, watching the faint tremor that shook her.

“I like to watch your face when I hold you like this,” he said tightly. “Your eyes turn gold when you’re aroused.”

Her eyes closed on a wave of pure hunger. “Jace,” she whispered achingly, clinging to him.

“I want you, too,” he whispered back, but for all the wild, fervent hunger she could sense in him, the lips he pressed against her forehead were breathlessly gentle. “Damn Duncan…!” he ground out as the sound of a car door slamming burst onto the silence.