Ted had mentioned that Josh had gotten some test results that afternoon. Amanda knew about his physical, and her blood ran cold. He’d been hinting about some condition. What if he had cancer? He’d said he didn’t, but that was before the test results. He smoked those cigars. He kept threatening to quit, and presumably he’d gone to that smoking seminar. What if it was that or something worse that! that? What if one of the women he’d slept with had given him some killer disease?
She’d never been one to bite her nails out of nervousness, but by the time she arrived at Opal Cay she’d gnawed them all off just barely above the quick.
“Ted? How is he?” she asked when the tall man joined her in the chauffeured limousine on the way up to the house from the airstrip.
“Still throwing things and cursing at the top of his lungs, thank God,” Ted said heavily. “
Thank you for coming. I
couldn’t get Brad to take me seriously.”
“Brad took me out to dinner last night,” she told him. “He was acting very strangely when he took me home. I think he'd had a little too much to drink.”
“
I noticed. And we can certainly say that of Josh, I’m afraid. I’ve never seen hi
m drunk.” He grimaced. “I hope I
neve
r have to again. He’s violent.”
“The doctor must have told him something terrible,” she said uneasily, her big green eyes expressive in a face like rice paper.
“That’s what I thought,” Ted replied. “I found him like this when I got back from Freeport on business. I couldn’t get in there with him, and he wouldn’t talk to me. He hasn’t stopped cursing for the past two hours.”
Amanda absorbed that all the way to the house. It
seemed to take forever. What if he was badly sick? What could she do? More important, would he even let her near him?
“Good luck,” Ted said when he left her at the door of Josh’s study. He went on upstairs with her single suitcase.
“Thanks,” she called, absently smoothing away the wrinkles in her simple green silk sheath.
She knocked on the door.
“Go away!” came a powerful, angry voice, and something smashed against the wood.
“Josh, it’s me!” she called back. “It’s Amanda!”
There was a sudden silence. Footsteps stumbled closer. A key turned in the lock, and the door opened.
Josh looked down at her from bloodshot dark eyes, his tall body taut and unkempt in a shirt and slacks that looked slept in. His blond hair was disheveled. He was flushed, and there were terrible lines in his face. He looked at her as if she were salvation itself. “Amanda!” he choked.
She went to him, sliding hungrily into his arms, holding him. He clasped her bruisingly close, and the face he pressed into her soft throat was hot. His big body shook with emotion.
“Oh, Josh,” she whispered achingly. “Here
…
darling, let me close the door.” She did, gently, and he wouldn’t let go of her even that long, following her to it.
“I need you,” he said raggedly, holding her closer. “Stay with me.”
“Of course I will. Of course, Josh.” She maneuvered him over to the sofa, but when he sat down he pulled her onto his lap and clasped her breasts to his face.
“Please, tell me what’s happened,” she said tenderly, smoothing back his damp hair from his broad forehead. “Talk to me.”
His fingers stabbed into her back, and he drew in a shuddering breath. “Oh, God,” he whispered.
“Tell me,” she coaxed.
His face rubbed against her throat. “I don’t want to. I wanted to hide my head in the sand, but I can’t anymore.”
Her hands tugged gen
tl
y at his hair. “Talk to me. What did the doctor tell you?”
He took a deep breath, and another. He lifted his head, and his dark eyes met hers levelly. “I can’t father a child, Amanda. I’m sterile.”
“Oh, Josh!” She stared at him with dawning realization. “It was this,” she said involuntarily. “This is what you’ve had on your mind for so long. You suspected it all along.”
“Yes.” He pushed back his damp hair. He looked older. His dark eyes searched her face with aching loss. “I didn’t tell Ted to call you, did I?” he asked uncertainly.
The liquor was doing its evil work on him. It might be a blessing, considering how devastated he looked. “No,” she said. “But I’d have come anyway. You silly man.” She touched his lean cheek and looking at him with worshiping eyes. “I’d come from the moon if you needed me. I said so, remember?”
“So you did.”
Her fingers pressed against his hard mouth. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“That makes two of us.” His eyes narrowed on hers. “Are you crying?”
“I think I am, a little,” she confessed, wiping away ; the faint traces with the backs of her fingers. “I’m sad,” she told him. “You’re so beautiful, Josh. Your children
would have been beautiful, too.
” She saw the pain in his eyes and understood. “It hurts, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.” His jaw tautened, to keep emotion at bay. He struggled to master himself. He drew a knuckle under her eyes to take away the tears. “I’m drunk, Manda.”
“I know.” She smiled and smoothed back his hair. “I guess you need to be, don’t you?”
“It numbed the ache.”
She bent forward and kissed his eyes. He stiffened at the unexpected gesture and seemed to go boneless. A faint gasp escaped him. He sat back against the sofa, and she pressed her advantage. Her warm mouth brushed his eyelashes. They were thick and dark and soft. She smiled as she smoothed her lips over his eyebrows and his broad forehead, his high cheekbones and arrogant straight nose. They brushed his square, jutting chin and then whispered onto his broad, sexy mouth.
He stilled, accepting the caresses with something like awe. His eyes closed and he sighed, giving her the freedom to touch him as she liked. She slid closer and put her mouth over his, kissing him with tenderness and wonder. But his lips remained firm and tightly closed.
“What a prude you are!” she whispered, teasing gently through the maelstrom of emotion she was putting behind her. She lifted her head and smiled into his dark eyes. “Won’t you let me kiss you properly? You won’t
get pregnant from a deep kiss, Josh,” she murmured dryly.
Almost at once she realized she’d said the wrong thing. His eyes blazed up like brown fires, glaring at her. His big hands went to her waist and started to push her away.
“Don’t,” she pleaded quietly. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make a joke of it. But you can’t expect people to avoid the mention of the word
pregnancy
around you for the rest of your life.”
His jaw tautened, but he stopped pushing. “I’m not a child,” he said. “Stop treating me like one.”
“I never have,” she protested gently. “I never would. Josh, do you really think the ability to make a woman pregnant is what makes you a man?”
“It’s a good part of it,” he argued.
“But there are much more important things, like gentleness and compassion and intelligence and strength. You have all those.”
He drew a long, harsh breath into his lungs. “I’m sterile.”
“Yes. But not impotent.”
He laughed. It was bitter and cold, but it was a laugh of sorts. “Should I thank God for that, do you suppose?”
“Most things that happen are for a reason, even if we don’t know what the reason is,” she told him. “I’m sorry that you can’t father a child, Josh, but it certainly doesn’t make you less a man in my eyes.”
“Aren’t you prejudiced, though?” he mused, looking at her almost hungrily. “You wouldn’t mind if I lost a leg or an arm, or if I were crippled. You’d love me if I went ugly overnight. ”
She smiled, accepting the gibe. It was true, after all. Why pretend?
“I’d love you if you’d always been ugly and went lame, too,” she murmured, and her eyes smiled at him. “Love doesn’t ever change or wear out or go away. Not if it’s the real thing.”
“And is yours the real thing?”
She hesitated. But only for a few seconds. Her soft eyes searched his, and she gave him her heart along with the words he was asking for.
“I’m afraid so,” she replied.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
T
hrough
the fog of his pain and intoxication, the words softened him, comforted him.
He allowed her to draw him down again, to hold him. It had always seemed a weakness of sorts to be vulnerable in front of a woman. But Amanda wasn’t just any woman.
He smiled against her cheek. “I never had tenderness, did I ever tell you? I can’t remember ever being embraced by either of my parents.”
“Not even when you were little and hurt?”
“Especially not then,” he replied, then added sarcastically, “Big boys don’t cry, Amanda, didn’t you know? They pick themselves up and grit their teeth, but they don’t show weakness. At least, that’s what I was taught.
”
She smoothed her hands over his warm back, savoring the feel of the hard muscles. She smiled. “Sometimes,” she whispered, “it’s all right to let your guard down and ignore all the rules.”
He chuckled. “Is it?” He lifted his head and searched her eyes. The effects of the liquor were still there, but it
was only relaxation he felt now. That, and a dangerous lessening of control. “Suppose we both say to hell with the rules?”
“
I thought I just suggested that,
”
she whispered dryly.
Smiling, he found zippers and fastenings and slid the dress away from her breasts. He searched for the catch that held her bra and unsnapped it, smoothing the lacy wisp of it down to her waist so that he could see her. Even that wasn’t enough. He wanted more. He eased the dress down. His big hand went to the lacy curve of the briefs that matched the discarded bra and removed them, too. She gasped with pleasure at the tender, intimate touch.
“No protests?” he asked, smiling.
“When I’ve been trying to seduce you for years?” she whispered back, laughter in her voice, love in her face.
“You’re a miracle,” he breathed. He bent his head, totally intoxicated by her welcoming smile and soft eyes. His mouth touched her breasts, and his big body relaxed on hers. “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered against her soft skin. “I won’t hurt you, and I’m not drunk enough to force you.”
“As if you’d ever have to.” Her body moved slowly and began to go soft under his mouth. He smiled as he felt it, felt the pleasure kindle as he nuzzled her breasts and began to suckle at them.
She shivered. Her legs moved to accommodate his. He shifted so that he was between them, and when he pressed down she felt him in an intimacy they’d never shared.
He lifted his head briefly to make sure that she wasn’t frightened or unwilling. He moved deliberately, letting
her experience his full potency. She caught her breath, and her body flinched from the whip of hot pleasure the movement brought. And she laughed, softly, wickedly.
He smiled, too, delighting in her uninhibited response.
His big hands cradled her head as he shifted, nudging her leg so that he could get even closer. He moved again, a sensuous downward thrust of his lean hips that made her body aware of his capability and ache to respond to it.
“Maybe I can’t make you pregnant,” he said in a deep drawl. “But I can you make you moan like the damned with pleasure. Do you want all of me?”
He was offering her heaven. She wanted to throw her arms around him and give in without a protest. But he wasn’t completely sober, and in the morning he might hate her if she gave in to him. She didn’t want to put more on his conscience than he already had on it. It wasn’t really honorable to take advantage of a man’s weakness, she told herself.
“I want you very much, Josh,” she whispered at last. But she stayed his hand when he moved it between her body and his. “But not now.”
“Why not?”
“Because you aren’t sober,” she said softly. “I want my first time to be the most exciting thing that’s ever f happened to me. I want it to last all night and exhaust me. You’re going to be impatient. You might even pass out, right in the middle of it, and where would I be then?” she added impishly.
He looked stunned for an instant, and then he realized what she’d said and began
to laugh, softly at first and
the
n uproariously. “Oh, my God!…”
He rolled off
her, chuckling, then lay beside her on the wide couch with one arm thrown over his head and one knee drawn up. “Leave it to you to knock the desire right out of me.”
She looked in spite of her resolve and discovered that he was no longer blatantly capable.
“Maintaining that takes a lot of concentration,” he murmured dryly, glancing at her with such worldly knowledge that she actually blushed.
“Laugh, damn you,” she muttered. “I’ll get back at you one of these days.”
She felt between them for her bra and started to put it on, but he stayed her hand.
“Not yet.” He moved, holding her gently against the sofa while his dark eyes glittered down at her seminudity with raw possession. “Perfect,” he pronounced finally. “Just perfect. I can’t imagine how I’ve kept my hands off you.”
“Willpower?” she suggested, tingling with pleasure from the contact with his eyes.
“Something like that.” He bent and put his mouth on her soft belly, feeling it contract. “Do you like that? I can move my mouth down a few inches and make you crazy.”
“I’m sure you could,” she said.
He rolled over onto his back again, watching her as she got up and put back on the things that were still in one piece. “Shame about the dress,” he mused. “Buy something that won’t wrinkle so easily.”
She chuckled involuntarily.
He stretched with a languorous sigh. “I suppose I really am too drunk to do you justice, anyway.”
“I knew that.”
“You know me better than anyone on earth,” he agreed. He threw his legs off the sofa and got up. “I need a shower. Maybe that would sober me up.”
He stripped off his shirt and draped it around a chair for Harriet to deal with. The housekeeper spoiled him, Amanda mused. So did everyone else, though. She stared hungrily at his broad, hair-roughened chest. He was so handsome that he made her head spin, and she loved being intimate with him. She ached for it.
Her hand went out involuntarily and pressed into the hard, warm muscle under the incredibly thick body hair. “I love the way you look under your shirt,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to touch you this way, but you never would let me.”
His heartbeat ran away, but he made himself catch her hand, gently, and lift it away. “One day I will. But just now, as we’ve both already agreed, I’m intoxicated,” he reminded her, smiling to soften the rejection. “If you want me, you’ll have to wait until I’m back in my right mind.”
Her pale green eyes sought his. “You won’t go through with it when you’re cold sober,” she said with resigned insight. “You keep pushing me away when you’re yourself.”
“For your own good.” He took her by the shoulders and studied her s
olemnly. “I want you badly. But
an affair is all you can have now, and if I wasn’t half out of my mind on liquor, I’d never have started what I did a few minutes ago. That isn't for you. Marriage without children would be a prison after a while. You’ve always wanted kids, Amanda. Well, I can’t give you any.”
Cold chills ran down her spine. “So you’re going to save me from myself. How noble.”
His fingers contracted angrily. “I’m sterile.”
“You said that.”
“I’m saying it again. And don’t hand me that same old bull about your being nothing more than a career woman, because I won’t believe it. You need
…
a whole man.”
She could have hit him over the head. Her eyes blazed with anger. “You
are
a whole man,” she said furiously.
“If you mean that I can have sex, yes,” he said bluntly, smiling with cold determination. “Is that what you want, Amanda, to have
sex
with me?” He emphasized the word with cruel ferocity. “Lie down and spread your legs, then. I can give you that!”
The crudity made her sick. It wasn’t a physical need she felt with him. He knew that. It was probably why he was taunting her, in his misguided efforts to spare her a life without children. She turned away.
Josh grimaced at his own lack of finesse. All he wanted was to make her see that he was no marriage prospect. Amanda deserved a full life, and he could no longer give it to her. Even with Brad she could have children. Pain hit him in the gut so hard that he almost went to his knees at the thought of Amanda in bed with Brad.
“I need to change my clothes,” she said curtly. “As you said, I’m wrinkled.”
“All right. Go ahead.”
She did. But he wasn’t fooling her. She was certain that he loved her. She’d seen it in his eyes, even in his determination to spare her a fruitless marriage. She could forgive him that crude remark he’d made because she
understood, too well, why he’d said it. It wasn’t that he didn’t care. It was that he cared too much.
After she changed her clothes, she went into the kitchen and had Harriet make him some soup and strong coffee. She took them in herself.
He’d had a shower and cleaned up. He looked pale and worn, but he was clean and he smelled like spice.
She pushed him gently onto his desk chair and perched herself on its edge. She was wearing blue jeans and a tank top, her hair loose, and she made a pretty picture. He was trying to enjoy it when she stuck a bowl of soup under his nose and proceeded to ladle it into him.
“I don’t like soup,” he muttered, angry and dark-eyed.
“But you’ll eat it, won’t you, my darling?” she asked softly.
A dark flush shadowed his cheekbones. He opened his mouth and accepted the soup. “Daring, aren’t we?” he challenged.
“Yes,” she agreed. She smiled as he finished the soup. It was strange to be needed by someone as self-sufficient as Josh. She enjoyed the feeling it gave her. She dabbed at his strong mouth with a linen napkin, her eyes lingering involuntarily on it.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I was wondering,” she murmured.
“Wondering what?”
“If I could have a kiss.”
He smiled gently. “I suppose
I
could sacrifice myself, if you need it that badly.”
She smiled back and leaned toward him. It was new and heady to be allowed to kiss him just because she felt like it, to savor the touch of his hard mouth so gentle and
warm against her own. But he wouldn’t allow her to deepen the kiss. He kept it chaste and tender, drawing back long before she wanted him to.
“No heavy stuff,” he cautioned when her lips tried to follow his. “I refuse to let myself be seduced.”
“Spoilsport.” She sighed. “How am I ever going to learn anything if you don’t teach me?”
“I’ll decide when,” he told her firmly. He averted his eyes. “While we’re on the subject, I apologize for the crude remark I made earlier.”
She didn’t have to ask which one. It still rankled. “You’d been drinking,” she said, rationalizing.
“And feeling sorry
for myself,” he added wryly. “I
suppose I’ll have to contend with that for a while. I’d only started to have dreams of dynasty building.” He got up and moved away from her, sticking his hands deep into the pockets of his white slacks as he stared out at the ocean. “All my life, I’ve worked to make money, to build up a legacy for my descendants. What was it all for, Amanda?”
“Brad may father children
…
”
He whirled, furious. “Not yours!”
She was literally without words. She stared at him and couldn’t even speak.
“If he touches you, I’ll break his neck!”
“I’m sure Brad’s never had those kinds of thoughts about me,” she faltered, and then remembered the way he’d kissed her in the nightclub. She blushed.
Josh’s face was livid. “He’ll do anything to get the money he needs to pay back Marc Donner, even if it means marrying his childhood friend.”
“He wouldn’t,” she began.
“He would,” he said with certainty. “If I thought he had half a chance of seducing you, I’d have him kidnapped and flown to the Antarctic.”
She flushed. “Does being my first man matter so much?”
“No,” he said tersely. “But sleeping with a man would mean too much to you emotionally. To Brad, it would be just one more conquest. A man like that could destroy you.”
Her lips parted on a quick breath. “But I don’t want Brad, don’t you understand?” she said. “I don’t feel anything when he holds me, Josh. I feel nothing at all.
“You won’t listen, will you?” she asked wearily. “Don’t you want to believe me, is that it? You’ve discovered that you’re sterile, so there’s no possible future for us?”
It was too close to the truth for comfort. He pulled a cigar from the holder on his desk and lit it.
“I thought Dina signed you up for that smoking clinic.”
“She did. It was great. I learned how to smoke a cigar while holding a smoking deterrent tablet in my mouth.”
She laughed in spite of herself. “You’re hopeless.”
“I’ll quit. Not yet,” he added. “It’s this or alcohol until I come to grips with myself.”