She tried to lever herself up, but
Nick caught her in his arms and lifted her from the bed, standing
her on her feet. “Is that better?” he asked with a smile that told
her he was well aware of her ploy.
When his gaze slid downward to the
soft, full curve of her breasts displayed in the opening of his
shirt, she blushed and tried to cover herself. “It’s a little late
for that, isn’t it?” he said with a laugh and gathered her against
him.
She turned her face away from his
kiss, and his lips burned the delicate hollow of her ear. She stood
paralyzed by the unbearable pleasure of his touch, unable to move
as he kissed the pulse that beat at her temple, all pain forgotten
except the kind of pain he induced. His mouth slipped down to
capture hers, his hungry lips playing lightly across her softer
ones. His kiss demanded nothing but tempted her with the delight of
the pleasure to come.
She swayed against him, her lips
parted, her lids fluttering closed in impatient expectation. When
his hands imprisoned her hips, his thumbs massaging her pelvic
bones, her hips arched toward his, wanting something more. Then,
abruptly, she jerked away, astounded at how easily she had given
herself up to his passion.
“Find someone else to add to your list
of conquests,” she said in a tight voice, unable to meet his
darkened eyes. She whirled away and fled to the safety of the
kitchen. But even then she was thwarted, for when she shakily tried
to reach a glass in the cabinet she almost knocked the sugar bowl
over.
“See, you need me,” Nick said behind
her as he set the sugar bowl back in its place.
She spun around, feeling cornered
there in the small kitchen with him. She searched his countenance
for some sign of anger, but his expression held only indifference.
Warily she watched him as he took a bottle of Bollinger from the
refrigerator and two wineglasses from a cabinet. He poured out the
sparkling liquid and passed her a glass.
“To the blizzard’s end,” he said with
a sardonic smile.
“I’ll second that,” she murmured,
sipping the wine. Her gaze went to the window, and it did seem that
the snow was not falling so heavily. Perhaps she would not have to
spend one more night with Nick after all. If nothing else, she
could spend the night sitting in the hospital lobby. But she knew
she could not stay in the cabin with Nick.
She looked back to find his eyes on
her, and once again her heart trip-hammered at his nearness. “I
think I’ll try to call Pam,” she said, trying to edge past
him.
Nick crooked a hard smile. “You’re a
coward, Julie. I feel sorry for whatever man it is who has your
cold heart.”
She felt like a trapped animal as she
tilted her head back to look up into Nick’s mocking eyes, but her
words were full of bravado. “I don’t have a cold heart!” she
blustered. “It’s just—just that you don’t make me feel. . . that
way.”
“Oh?” Nick clamped his hands on the
kitchen counter at either side of her. “After what happened a few
moments ago I was left with a different impression.”
“Well, you got the wrong impression
about me,” she said. She had a distinct suspicion that the
conversation was going from bad to worse.
“Perhaps you have the wrong impression
about me,” he said, his gaze resting on her mouth, where her tongue
nervously played across her lower lip.
“Hardly!” she countered and pushed
aside one of his hands, escaping her imprisonment. Too easily. She
half expected him to follow her into the bedroom, and her heart was
thudding like a jogger’s by the time she reached the telephone. She
was somewhat surprised, therefore, as she dialed information for
the hospital’s number, to find herself alone.
The telephone in Pam’s room was busy,
and she could only hang up and hope to reach Pam a little later.
Rather than get trapped in the bedroom, she returned to the living
room, taking a seat at the couch’s far end. She sipped at her wine
as she covertly watched Nick move easily about the room while he
prepared dinner—fried venison steaks—or r¬plenished the
fire.
The knowledge that she could not stay
in the cabin another night drummed in her mind, and at last she
blurted out, “Can you take me into Roswell now—please? It’s almost
stopped snowing.”
She half expected him to deny her
request, but he only shrugged, saying, “If that’s what you want.
But we’ll have to wait an hour or so until the snowplows have
cleared the roads.” To wait even an hour seemed too long to her.
She fidgeted with the blanket, drinking her wine and anxiously
watching the window for further signs of snow. She grew more
nervous with each passing moment, so that when Nick brought the
steak to her she could not eat but only gulped the wine like a
thirsty man in the desert, unaware when Nick refilled her
glass.
She drained her glass a second time
and looked up to find him standing over her. “I imagine you’d like
a shower before you leave, wouldn’t you?” he asked.
“Yes—no!” Why couldn’t she think
straight? “I think I would,” she amended, her tongue feeling as
thick as fuzz on a peach. After all, she might not get a chance to
bathe until she got back to Santa Fe, which might not be until
Tuesday night, if that soon.
“I’ll only be a few minutes,” she
mumbled and pushed herself to her feet—which was a mistake because
it put her only a fraction of an inch away from Nick. She tried to
move around him, but his hands were suddenly at her hips, holding
her as immobile as the brace did her shoulders. When his tongue
teased open her lips, her knees buckled and she sagged aginst him
with a low moan that was partly out of passion, partly out of
despair.
Nick withdrew his lips. “You make me
forget all my good intentions,” he growled.
She clutched his arms to keep from
swaying from the lightheadedness that assailed her. “If you ever
had any,” she gasped.
“Absolutely none – not where you’re
concerned. His plunging kiss, the way it brutally took from her one
moment and gently gave the next, was like nothing she had
experienced.
She was suddenly aware, as she never
had been, of the sweet smell of the pinon Wood burning in the
fireplace, of the soft, distant music that only her ears could
hear, and of Nick himself—of his rough beard that abrad¬ed her
delicate skin, of the black flecks that rimmed the pure blue irises
of his eyes, and of the warm, salty taste of his skin that still
clung to her lips.
She wanted to know again that same
exciting feeling that had tickled the pit of her stomach and lifted
her to an intense plateau of exhilaration. Once more she raised on
tiptoe, this time her hands sliding up behind his neck as she
offered him her virginal kiss.
Nick held her away for a moment, his
keen eyes searching her face; then he pulled her roughly into his
arms. His mouth bruised hers, and his teeth forced her lips open as
his tongue ravished hers. His hand tangled in her disheveled curls,
holding her firmly against him, and after a moment she lost all
will. She surrendered to the kiss that drugged her senses deeper
than the pain pills ever had.
It was not until Nick slipped his hand
in¬side his shirt she wore that she realized he had unfastened its
buttons. “No, Nick,” she as his hand slid inside her bra and cupped
one breast.
But her pleas went unheeded as he
swept her up into his arms and carried her into the bedroom, laying
her gently on the bed. “Tell me you don’t want me, Julie,” he
whispered before his rapacious mouth claimed her lips.
Chapter Four
N
ick’s mouth took possession of her, and little by little
Julie’s small movements of protest abated. She hated herself for
her weakness, for wanting him as she did; yet she could not deny
him her lips, the shell like recesses of her ear, the hollow of her
pulsating throat.
The telephone’s shrill ring rent
through the passion that pervaded the room. Nick crushed her mouth
beneath his, but the telephone was insistent, as if it were her
defender.
With an oath Nick released her lips,
though his body still held her pinioned, and reached for the
telephone. “Yes?” he barked. A moment passed, and he said, “Julie
Dever?”
Someone was asking for her! she
furiously shook her head in warning, but Nick, angered by the
interruption, ignored her. “Why, yes, Julie’s here, Miss
Morley.”
He thrust the receiver at Julie. She
lay beneath him, sick at heart. There was no use trying to pretend
with Dee Morley. The Sun’s gossip columnist could easily put two
and two together and come up with a scandalous affair. At last she
said, “Yes, Dee?”
“Darling,” the pretentious voice
cooed, “the Sun has been absolutely worried about you and Pam. Why,
if Pam hadn’t called today, we would have never known about your
accident.”
Julie gritted her teeth. Why had she
not remembered to call in to the office? “How did you find me?” she
asked quietly.
“The hospital, dear. They told me
that—can you imagine?—why, yes, I suppose you can— that Senator
Raffer brought you in. Well, I tell you, dear, it didn’t take long
for me to conclude that the senator had ...” The voice paused then
said, “. . . offered you the hospitality of his cabin. Tell me,
darling, is the man as . . . much of a man as he seems to
be?”
Julie choked. For the first time tears
spilled out over her thick lashes. “I’m busy, Dee.
Good-bye.”
“I can imagine,” purred the voice as
Julie passed Nick the receiver.
He replaced the telephone in its
cradle, and Julie whispered, “You’ve had your revenge for my
columns! Sweeter than even your twisted mind could imagine. Dee
will make certain that every citizen who reads the Sun will know
that I’m . . . that sort of girl.”
Nick drew back. His penetrating eyes
behind the lazy lids studied her shamed face. “Julie,
I—”
“Don’t say anything! Just get your
raping over with. Because when you’ve finished with me I’ll just be
beginning with you. And by the time I’m finished you’ll never see
your name on a ballot again!”
The blue eyes were suddenly masked,
the face as hard as granite. Her gaze locked with his in a battle
of wills. Whatever would have happened next was forestalled by the
repeated ringing of the telephone again. Nick jerked the receiver
to his ear. “Yes?” he demanded, his gaze never releasing
hers.
Once more he passed the telephone to
her. It was Pam this time. “Kid, you’ve got to get out of there
quick!” her friend said in a forced whisper.
“What are you talking about, Pam? Are
you all right?”
“I’m fine—but, Julie, you’re not! Some
seamy tabloid newspaperman just called. It seems they’ve gotten
wind of our accident. . . and, Julie, they know you’re alone with
the senator in his cabin! I swearT didn’t say—”
“No, I know you wouldn’t,” she said.
“I’ll get back to you in a little bit.”
She hung up the receiver, unable to
keep the sigh of depression from escaping. “It seems we’re both
about to achieve our revenge,” she told Nick, averting her eyes
from his piercing gaze. “It seems some tabloid has heard about the
accident and the fact that I’m alone in a cabin with you.” She
looked at him now with despair. What would her parents say if they
saw the headlines of the fiasco in one of those
tabloids?
Nick’s gaze searched her face, as if
trying to discern whether she was telling the truth. He rolled away
from her. The flare of a match briefly lit up his inscrutable
expression. The tense silence of the room grated on her nerves like
the dripping of a leaky faucet. She wanted to shout, to pound that
impassive face, to rouse some emotion from him. Her whole world had
collapsed around her, her reputation would be ruined and her career
jeopardized—and Nick could lie there calmly smoking!
Moments later he ground the cigarette
out in the ashtray and rose from the bed. “No doubt we’ll be
besieged by reporters as soon as this storm lets up,” he said
grimly before turning away.
Her gaze followed him into the living
room, where the darkness swallowed him up. Her mind was a whirlwind
of discordant, disconnected thoughts. Miserable, she pushed herself
from the bed. Obviously the wisest thing would be for her to leave
before they arrived. Perhaps Nick could take her into Ruidoso and
let her out somewhere, though she doubted that her absence would
halt the scandalous headlines.
She paused at the doorway, gathering
her courage to ask him. He stood before the hearth, one hand
resting on the mantel. The fire’s light silhouetted the powerful
lines of his masculine body.
As if he sensed her presence, he said
quietly, never turning around, “I suppose the only answer to save
your virtuous reputation and my career is to marry you.”
She blinked, not quite certain she had
understood. When nothing more followed, she crossed to stand at his
side. Nick looked down at her; then his gaze dropped, and she
realized that she had forgotten to button the shirt, that his gaze
was plundering the treasures of her exposed breasts. Quickly she
pulled the shirt closed. “Would you mind repeating what you just
said?”