Darling Enemy (14 page)

Tears formed in her big brown eyes and she turned her face away before he could see them. She’d been lonely before, and she’d survived. But having tasted his ardor, it was going to be worse now. The thought of the lonely years ahead hurt terribly.

She brushed at a tear inconspicuously and straightened in her seat. This would never do. She’d have to get hold of herself.

As if sensing her uneasiness, he turned on the radio. A constant stream of music and news filled the silence between them as his powerful Ferrari ate up the miles. He was pushing it even harder than usual, as if he couldn’t wait to be rid of her.

He pulled up in the parking lot at the busy international airport a few minutes later and cut off the engine. But he didn’t make a move to get out of the car. His big hands gripped the steering wheel hard for an instant, then he sat back in his seat and lit a cigarette.

“Did you have to wear that particular blouse?” he asked in a cold voice.

She avoided his piercing gaze. “It was the only clean one I had,” she said quietly. “I was going to wash the others this afternoon.”

“You’ll have to buy a ticket,” he said. “I didn’t stop to make reservations for you.” He studied her with stormy eyes. “Do you have the fare?”

She swallowed. “Of course,” she lied. She had planned to borrow money from Jenna.

He took a sharp draw from the cigarette. “Of course,” he laughed shortly, reading her like a book. “I’ll put it on my charge card. You can pay me back when you start working again.”

She couldn’t refuse. All she had in her purse was a hundred dollars. She’d spent every other penny on the hospital bill and food. But having to accept charity from him was the final indignity. A single tear made a path down her cheek, but she turned away before he saw it.

“Thank you,” she said, composing herself.

He took another quick, jerky draw from the cigarette. “Will you be able to work?”

“I think so,” she said proudly. “I’ll have to, if I want to enroll for the next semester. I should be able to do trunk shows at least, the scars don’t show at a distance. And I can cover them now with cosmetics. I’ll be fine. Just fine.”

He made an impatient sound and turned to stare out the window. His hat seemed to bother him. He ripped it off and tossed it onto the back seat, running a hand through his thick blond hair.

“It was your idea,” he said accusingly, glaring across the seat at her with fierce gray eyes.

She blinked. “What was?”

“Going back to New York,” he growled. “Back to your fabulous career, isn’t that how the song goes?”

She bit her lower lip. It would only take a word, just one word, to get his arms around her. But she couldn’t say it. She couldn’t give in now, she couldn’t sacrifice her pride, her self-respect, for just a few nights with him....

She stared out the window, hating the departing jets, hating the very sound of the engines as the huge planes swept up to touch the clouds. One of those would take her out of King’s life forever.

As she brooded, she felt his fingers lightly touch her hair. She turned, aching, and looked up into his eyes.

Time seemed to stretch like a violin string between them while they searched each other’s faces.

“Come here and kiss me goodbye,” he growled huskily and reached out to draw her against him.

With something between a sob and a moan, she let herself be tugged over the console and into his big arms. He leaned across to put out his cigarette before he gathered her close and bent to touch her mouth with his.

Breathing unevenly, she parted her lips, giving him back the kiss as gently as he gave it, tracing his hard face with fingers that trembled and went cold as they eased over his skin, into the thick, cool strands of hair at his temples.

“Don’t nibble me,” he whispered huskily. “Kiss me properly.”

“I can’t,” she moaned, hiding her face in his warm throat. “I can’t. Oh, King!” His name was a cry of anguish, and he reacted to it in an unexpected way.

His arms contracted, lifting her higher against his taut body. “Teddi, do you want to go?” he asked intently.

“I have to,” she said simply, her voice muffled against his collar.

“Why?”

“You know why,” she whispered, closing her eyes. It was heaven to be held like this, crushed against his big body, feeling his breath, his heartbeat, as if they were her own.

“I thought I did,” he agreed. “But you aren’t any more anxious to get out of this car than I am to let you. It isn’t the philandering accountant, it never was. It isn’t your damned career, either.” He lifted her face and searched her eyes quietly. “I think you’d better tell me the truth, little one,” he said softly, “before you destroy both our lives.”

Her heart jerked in her chest. “Both?” she whispered incredulously, aware of a new note in his deep voice, a new light in his eyes.

A sob broke from her lips. “Oh, King, I don’t want an affair,” she wailed brokenly.

“Neither do I,” he said quietly. His big hands smoothed the blouse away from her collarbone, easing under the fabric to almost, but not quite, touch her high, firm breasts. When she tried to pull away, he brought her gently back. “Don’t fight me, darling,” he said softly. “There’s no need for it anymore. I’m only touching what belongs to me. You do. You always did.”

Her eyes closed and she moaned. She was going to give in, she knew it, and she was going to hate both of them. Tears welled in her eyes. “I should go home,” she breathed.

“Home is where I am,” he said. His eyes searched hers. “I told you that once, and you thought I was kidding. I wasn’t.”

“King...?” she whispered, aching for more than the light, teasing play of his fingers on her skin.

“I took one look at you when you were fifteen years old,” he said in a voice too tender to be King’s, “and hated you on sight because you were years too young for what I needed from you. By the time you were seventeen, I was in torment. That night during the storm, when I walked in to check on you—I found you lying there in that transparent gown, and I wanted you so much that I ached like a boy. But I had to walk out and leave you, because you were a virgin and I was afraid of what I might do.” His eyes searched hers. “I wanted you to the point of madness that night, and it’s only been a little less consuming since.” As he spoke, his hands eased down under the loose blouse and gently took the weight of her soft, bare breasts, and she cried out with the sudden stab of pleasure.

“It’s all right,” he breathed, bending to kiss her trembling mouth. “I feel the same way when you touch me. Waves of blinding pleasure, washing over my body like fire...”

She lifted her arms around his neck, yielding her body completely to his slow, tormenting hands, trembling at the newness of allowing him to touch her, caress her this way. Her eyes looked straight into his, her teeth catching her lower lip to stifle the moans that welled up behind them.

“I had to let you think I hated you,” he whispered gruffly, watching her. “It was the only protection I could give you. If I’d touched you like this even once, there would have been no stopping me. I was obsessed with you. It was agony to have you at the ranch, because I spent all those long days and nights forcing myself not to look at you, not to come too close.” He expelled a harsh breath, and she read the torment in his eyes with a sense of wonder at what he seemed to be saying. “Then, at Easter, you started playing up to me, and I all but left the country. I taunted you, but I had to, can you understand that? I had to run you off before we got in over our heads, until I could get a grip on myself. And Billingsly had been filling my head full of lies...I was so jealous of you that I could have killed him!”

She searched his darkening eyes. She had to know—she had to know!

“King, do you care?” she whispered shyly.

“Care?” His eyes closed and opened again, gray flames rising in them. His hands moved to her face, cupping it, caressing it, and they began to tremble. “I love you,” he breathed. “I love you so much that I feel as if I’m starving to death for you. I want to have you all my life. To share with. To laugh and cry with. To love with. You’re my whole world, little one, didn’t you know?”

Tears poured from her eyes like rain on the desert. She couldn’t stop. Trembling fingers traced his face, her eyes openly adoring him, loving him.

He caught his breath at the emotion in her face, and his own eyes closed for an instant. “My God, I’ve been blind, haven’t I?” he asked huskily. “You’re in love with me, aren’t you?”

She nodded, her lower lip trembling, her eyes washed with tears as she tried to smile. “I can’t remember when I didn’t love you,” she admitted brokenly. “But I thought you just wanted an affair...”

“I do,” he teased gently, his eyes devouring her. “Sixty years’ worth, and a few sons and daughters to love, and you in my bed every night, even the nights when we’re too tired to make love.” His eyes burned with emotion as they searched hers. “I want you in ways that go far beyond anything strictly physical, although,” he added, easing the blouse off one shoulder to smooth his lips along her silken flesh, “I could make a meal of you right now.”

She nuzzled her face into his throat with a joyful sigh. “I love you,” she whispered, “and I want you. But, darling, all our children will be illegitimate.”

He laughed softly. “Then perhaps you’d better marry me before we discuss how many we’re going to have.”

“Did you say marry?” she asked, drawing back, confident enough to tease, seeing everything she would ever want or need in his worshipping eyes. “Old Footloose and Fancy-Free Devereaux actually proposing?”

“Do I recall your saying that you couldn’t take ninety-nine years of me?” he countered.

“Was that before or after you threw me out of the house?” she retorted.

“I couldn’t help myself,” he confessed. “Having you around would have done me in if you hadn’t cared. I thought you were telling me that I mattered less than your career, that you couldn’t see a future with me. I was devastated.”

“You’re my career,” she said very quietly. “You and the children I’m going to give you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

He seemed to have a hard time getting his breath. His eyes narrowed. “And college?”

“There’s a college in Calgary,” she reminded him. “And I’ve got all the time in the world to finish school now.”

He leaned down and kissed her softly. “In that case, you’d better go ahead and enroll, hadn’t you, before we’re married. Then maybe you’ll have time to finish. Although, I don’t know what their policy is toward pregnant students....”

Her eyes held his. “That soon?” she whispered.

He drew her back down, easing her head into the crook of his arm. “Very soon,” he breathed, as his mouth opened and parted the soft line of her lips. “Will you mind?”

Her only response was a soft cry that was lost in the hunger of his kiss, and for a long time the only sounds were of heightened breathing, wild, sharp moans and cries. When he finally let her draw a breath, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright with excitement.

“We’d better go home before we get arrested,” he said unsteadily. “You see what you do to me? I touch you and lose what little mind I have left.”

She touched his mouth with soft, loving fingers. “It’s always been that way for me.”

He pressed her fingers to his lips and let them go reluctantly. “We’re going to have a lot of explaining to do when we get back, I’m afraid,” he sighed as he let her ease back into her own seat.

She laughed. “I won’t mind. Will you?”

He shook his head. “Fancy a double wedding, do you?” he asked with a cocked eyebrow.

Her face brightened. “Oh, King, could we?”

He caught her hand as he started the car and put it in gear. “We’ll talk to Jenna and Blakely about it. Let’s go home, darling.”

She clung to his hand as they left the airport, her eyes full of dreams. In the distance, the Rockies were welcoming, and the sun shone down in a clear blue sky. Teddi smiled up at her fiancé with a warm, possessive gaze. He was right. Home was where he was. She leaned her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes.

* * * * *

New York Times
Bestselling Author

He’s everything she fears…and everything she wants.

Mercenary by name and by nature, Carson is a Lakota Sioux who stays to himself and never keeps women around long enough for anything emotional to develop. But working with his friend Cash Grier on a complex murder investigation provides Carson with another kind of fun—shocking Cash’s sweet-but-traditional secretary, Carlie Blair, with tales of his latest conquests.

Then Carlie lands in deep trouble. She saw something she shouldn’t have, and now the face of a criminal is stored permanently in her photographic memory…and Carlie is the key piece of evidence that could implicate a popular politician in the murder case.

Her only protection is Carson—the man she once despised. But when she learns that Carson is more than just a tough guy, Carlie realizes she’s endangered herself further. Because now her only chance to live means losing her heart to the most dangerous kind of man….

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