Lady Love (12 page)

“Was she like you?” he asked suddenly.

She smiled. “She was beautiful,” she said. “Blue-eyed, with black hair and skin like peaches and cream. I used to lose boyfriends to her, despite the fact that she was twenty-five years my senior. She was always laughing.”

“I think you’re beautiful, Merlyn,” Amanda said. “Don’t you, Daddy?”

“Shame on you,” Merlyn chided her, “for putting your daddy on the spot.”

“As it happens,” he said, catching her eye, “I agree.”

The look made her tingle all the way to her toes.

“How were you named Merlyn?” he asked.

“My mother had a passion for English legends. She was English, you see. Merlin, the magician of King Arthur’s court, was one of her favorite characters. She thought the name delightful for a girl, with the change of a letter.”

“Who was King Arthur?” Amanda asked.

Merlyn couldn’t resist recounting the old legend, while the little girl listened, fascinated.

“Haven’t you ever seen any of the plays or movies about King Arthur?” Merlyn asked.

“Oh, I’ve never been to a play,” Amanda confided. “And Grandmama and I don’t get to the movies very often. And Daddy doesn’t like for me to watch TV.”

Merlyn’s eyes flashed as they met Cameron’s. “How terrible.”

“Maybe I’ve been too strict,” Cameron mused. “It’s just that I’m so busy. Too busy. That can change.”

Merlyn looked back out at the lake, where birds were circling the water. A few speedboats were chancing the choppy waves that had been churned up by the wind. “It’s none of my affair,” she said softly.

“You should see the lake when it’s covered with sailboats, Merlyn,” Amanda sighed. “They’re so pretty, like white swans.”

“Do you sail?” she asked Cameron.

“I’ve never had the time to learn,” he said. He stuck a hand in his pocket. The wind blew his dark, thick hair as they strolled down the wooded trail, and she watched him without wanting to.

“Making money must be very important to you,” she ventured.

“In recent years, it’s been more a matter of keeping it than making it,” he said.

“Daddy, can I spend the night with Dale?” Amanda interrupted as they came to a graveled driveway that went down to a brown cottage at the shore of the lake. “You said you’d think about it. Can I?”

He frowned. “What did your grandmother say?”

“She said I could if it was okay with you. Please? Dale’s a nice girl, and her mother’s a nurse, and they have to go home day after tomorrow.”

“All right,” he said, defeated.

“Hooray!” Amanda laughed. “Can I go and tell her? It will only take a minute.”

“We’ll wait for you by the fallen tree,” he told her. “Don’t be long.”

“Yes, Daddy. Thanks!” And she was off like a gangly little pony, all legs and flying hair.

“Where does Dale live?” Merlyn asked, curious.

“In that house.” He gestured toward the graveled driveway. “Come on, we’ll cut through here.”

“Don’t you want to speak with her mother?”

He looked like a thundercloud. “I do not.”

She followed along behind him through the woods, almost tripping over undergrowth, dodging branches, until they came to a clearing.

“Why not?” she asked breathlessly, when he stopped at a fallen pine tree.

“Because she’s divorced, thinks she’s God’s gift to man, and the last time I came to get Amanda, she answered the door in a see-through negligee. Does that answer your question?” he growled.

She laughed softly. “Did it embarrass you?” she teased.

“Yes, it did,” he said, surprising her. “I don’t like being hunted.”

There was no smile to soften the statement. She studied his hard face and felt sorry for him.

“Is a woman’s body so alarming to you, Cameron?” she asked.

He studied her for a long moment before he spoke. “My wife,” he said quietly, “used what I felt for her like a weapon. She knew I wanted her. She liked to show me what I was missing, and then go cold and laugh at me. Some things that other women do remind me of that. I’m not a stuffed shirt, Merlyn. But I’m proud. Too proud, perhaps.”

She felt sick at the thought of any woman treating him like that. It explained so much.

“How long were you married?” she asked, her voice soft.

“Six years,” he replied. “But we stopped being lovers after the first year. When she got pregnant with Amanda, she raged at me for days. After the baby was born, I was given the choice of either having some minor surgery to prevent any future accidents, or giving up the marriage bed.” He bent his head momentarily, then met her eyes. “I told her what she could do with her body. And I left her to her lovers.”

She stared down at the ground. “I knew that there were women like that,” she said after a minute. “I had a girlfriend once who used to brag about how she kept her boyfriend in check by using sex as a weapon. I thought it was cheap and vulgar.”

Her opinion seemed to surprise him. He sat down on the tree and stared at her. “Wouldn’t you do the same thing to get your way?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Afraid not.” She glanced at him with a wry smile. “If what I felt with you in that closet is anything like the real McCoy, Mr. Thorpe, I don’t think I’d be capable of holding out.”

He burst out laughing, in spite of himself. “Hell!”

“Well, you asked,” she reminded him. “I may be a virgin, but I’m not a prude.”

“Are you curious about it?” he asked.

“Yes, of course,” she replied honestly. “But to me it means commitment, you see. And I’ve never wanted anyone enough to go the whole way.” Her face clouded. “After Adam, especially.”

“What did your father have that Adam wanted so much?” he asked.

“Some stock,” she said.

His eyes narrowed. “He’s not a poor man, then.”

“He’s comfortable,” she said, crossing her fingers behind her. He was that, all right. Very comfortable! “Any more questions, Mr. Thorpe?”

“I’m curious about you, Merlyn,” he said quietly. “I don’t like puzzles.”

“So conventional,” she sighed. “You just don’t like me, because I’m a free spirit. I’d go swimming in the nude or play my guitar in public if I felt like it. I’ve even gone on the stage once or twice in community playhouses. But you wouldn’t do any of those things, would you?”

He shook his head. “Afraid not. I’m inhibited.”

“Except in closets,” she murmured dryly, and then flushed. She jumped to her feet.

He was next to her immediately, pulling her against him. She wouldn’t look up, but she could feel his breath on her forehead, smell the spicy cologne he wore, sense the warmth of his powerful body.

“Only with you,” he whispered. His breath came jerkily. “I’ve never wanted any woman this much.”

She put her hands against his shirtfront, liking the feel of the hard muscles. “I won’t sleep with you,” she said matter-of-factly, although her heart was beating wildly. “That’s right up front, and I mean it. No teasing, no games. If I ever give myself, it will be in love, and for life.”

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked curtly. “Marry you to get you?”

“I don’t want to marry you,” she said. “You’re too restrained for me, too wrapped up in making money. I want someone to play with.”

“You’re not a child,” he scoffed.

“Yes, I am,” she said simply. Her eyes traced the hard lines of his face. Impulsively, one slender hand reached up to touch his straight nose, his firm mouth. “I don’t want to grow up if it means being staid and doing the correct thing all the time. I like my life as it is.”

“I feel the same about mine. So does Delle,” he added curtly.

She smiled sadly. “Then marry her.”

His jaw tautened. His arms crushed her into his body, and he watched her face as his head began to bend.

“Don’t,” she pleaded gently. Her hands went to his hips to try to move them away.

The reaction she got was shocking and a little intimidating. They were so close that she could feel what was happening to him, and a tiny gasp left her lips.

He laughed despite his evident hunger, but he wouldn’t let her go. “Calm down,” he murmured. “Just because I’m capable, doesn’t mean I’m going to throw you on the ground.”

She swallowed, feeling threatened. “Let me go, please,” she begged.

“Merlyn,” he chided gently. He searched her eyes. “Are you really so embarrassed?”

“Yes!” she burst out.

He drew in a slow breath and let her move away, but only enough to satisfy her outraged modesty. “How old did you say you were?” he said in amazement.

Her darkened green eyes lowered in embarrassment. He tilted her face up, and his smile faded. He seemed to find something in her face that fascinated him, awed him. His dark eyes held hers for a long moment. Then, with a strange, deep sound, he began to slowly unfasten the black and tan patterned shirt over his massive chest.

She watched his fingers, deeply tanned, slender fingers with flat nails, as they slipped the buttons out of their buttonholes.

“What…are you doing?” she asked, trying to inject reason into the situation.

“I’m going to teach you something new,” he said in a deep, rumbling tone. “Come here.”

He caught her face between his hands and brought it gently against the thick, curling hair and warm muscle of his chest. Slowly, achingly slowly, he brushed her nose, her cheeks, against his body, until the sensuality of it got through to her and she moaned. Her nails dug into him as she sensed what he wanted her to do, and she opened her mouth on his warm, damp skin.

His hands contracted in her hair and his body stiffened. Under her mouth, his broad chest was rising and falling with a sharp, irregular rhythm.

She drew back and looked up, wanting to see his face and what he felt. But there was no reaction in it. His eyes were dark and steady on hers.

“Do…do you feel it?” she asked hesitantly. “The way I do,” she added, “when you touch me…in the same way?”

“How do you feel?” he asked.

Her lips tugged into a nervous smile. “Like I’m on fire, I guess,” she confessed.

“That comes close,” he said. He pressed her cool fingers to his body and bent to kiss her. “No,” he whispered. “Not like that.” His tongue probed softly at the line of her lips. “Do that to me,” he whispered. “And I’ll show you how hot a kiss can get.”

She did. And he did. And around them the forest blazed with promise. Her hands tugged wildly at his thick hair as he lifted her. She arched, clinging, wanting him so much that nothing in the world seemed to exist except the torment they were sharing.

“I want you,” she whispered brokenly. “I want you!”

“I want you, too,” he murmured hungrily. His breath came in ragged jerks. “So much!” he whispered.

Her mouth opened under the expert probing of his, and she gave in completely. If there hadn’t been the prospect of Amanda returning any minute, she knew that he could have laid her down in the pine straw and taken her. And she’d have gloried in every second of his possession.

A sound penetrated the silence. A sharp sound, like branches being snapped not too far away.

Cameron let her slide down to her feet, his eyes dark and watchful. He was trembling.

“Are you all right?” she asked dazedly, touching his strong chest.

He blinked, looking down at her blankly while he tried to catch his breath. His eyes seemed clouded, his face strained.

“What?” he asked unsteadily.

“You’re trembling,” she whispered, concerned.

He laughed shortly. “Darling, so are you,” he replied. His warm hands held her shoulders. “With desire, Merlyn. Didn’t you know?”

She felt gauche and unworldly, and she must have looked it. Tenderly, he bent and brushed soft kisses over her closed eyelids.

His eyes went down her body and back up again, undressing her. She knew he was remembering the way she’d been in her bedroom that morning when he’d come upon her fresh from her bath. He smiled slowly.

“Don’t undress me like that,” she burst out.

He chuckled. “I don’t have to. I remember every inch of you.”

“Cameron!”

“Cameron Edward,” he said, moving forward again. “And yours? Your full name?”

“Merlyn Forrest St…” She caught herself, but not in time.

“What?” He was scowling now. “I thought Forrest was your last name. It isn’t, is it?”

She backed away. “It is. I was thinking of something else.”

He didn’t come closer. His face closed up, but his eyes revealed his curiosity. “You’ll tell me, sooner or later.”

“I won’t be here later,” she reminded him. “I’m leaving at the end of the week.”

“Are you afraid of my potent charm?” he murmured with a wicked smile.

“It’s pretty potent, all right,” she agreed honestly. “I’m still shaking.”

“So am I,” he confessed. He lit a cigarette, fumbling with the lighter and laughing, as if his own clumsiness amused him.

“Need some help?” she asked dryly.

“Touch me,” he challenged, “and I won’t need a lighter to start fires.”

“Flatterer,” she murmured.

Amanda came crashing through the brush. “Gosh, I went the wrong way,” she called out, laughing. “Did you worry?”

“No, honey,” Cameron told his daughter, throwing an arm around her. “Merlyn and I were busy talking.”

“About what?” Amanda asked.

Cameron studied Merlyn over the young girl’s head, and his eyes were still burning. “Just things,” he murmured. “What time do you have to be at Dale’s?”

“Six.”

“Merlyn and I will drop you off on our way to Atlanta.”

Merlyn looked at him in surprise. “Atlanta?”

“I have to go to a cocktail party. Business. I thought you might like to come with me,” he said. His eyes were promising things she didn’t even want to guess at.

“I don’t know.…” she said hesitantly.

“You’ll be as safe as you want to be,” he said quietly. “Come with me.”

She sighed. She wanted to. It was stupid, but she did want to. “All right,” she said, and turned away before he could see the pleasure on her face.

Chapter Eight