Mexican Nights (18 page)

He laughed delightedly. "So you want to play rough, eh?" With one quick movement of his hand, he sprayed her face and head with water.

Sputtering, she shook her head, sending the wet strands of her hair slapping across her face. "Don't you have any manners at all?" she squeaked desperately. "I want to get out of here without being leered at. A gentleman would go to the other end of the pool and turn his head away."

He had hold of her arm now, gripping lightly, but she knew that those strong fingers would tighten like steel bands if she tried to pull away now. "We both know I'm not a gentleman, Terri. Gentlemen lead such boring lives. A gentleman wouldn't even be here."

"How true!" she gasped. Her body had started to shake, and she felt goose bumps along the arm where Derek's hand was grasping her. "You're despicable! Disgusting!"

Slowly, he pulled her toward him. In trying to fight him off, her hand slid across his chest and down his flat, hard stomach. Stomach! "Derek," she gasped, jerking her hand away, "you—you don't have any clothes on!"

He laughed softly, his arm coming around her, sliding with a slow, sensuous movement across her back beneath the water. "You, my dear girl, are hardly in a position to lecture me about that. I was wearing my swim trunks, as a matter of fact, but when I found your clothes beside the pool I took them off. I didn't want you to feel—out of place—or embarrassed."

Embarrassed! She was absolutely mortified! Oh, heaven, what was she going to do! If Derek didn't stop moving his hand across her back like that, she would faint. And now his other arm was around her, too, tracing the silky contour of her hip.

"Derek, please—don't touch me like that." The words trembled weakly from her mouth.

"Don't you like me to touch you?" he demanded huskily.

"No—I—" Her own breathing quickened in spite of herself.

His hand slid beneath her arm to cup the ripe fullness of her breast. "Yes, you do, Terri. I can feel your heart beating fast." He bent his head to tease her mouth with his own.

"You—you mustn't—" she protested, twisting her face away from him, and his lips trailed caressingly down the curve of her cheek instead, stopping to nibble at the lobe of her ear.

"You're beautiful," he said, and his voice had thickened.

"No—" And involuntarily she swayed toward him, wanting him to go on touching her as she had never wanted anything before.

"Yes—so beautiful," he repeated dreamily, bending his head, and she felt his mouth moving against her breast, which was just above the water, caressing the tip until it grew taut between his lips.

"Derek…" she gasped weakly, "I think…"

"Don't think," he murmured, lifting his head to gaze into her face. "Just feel." His eyes, shadowed by the thick brows in the moonlight, were dark and deep with mystery.

A sensation of liquid warmth flowered inside her, a fire that was both ecstasy and torment, and her fingers, with a will of their own, slipped over his smooth shoulders and became entangled in the hair at the nape of his neck. Those dark mysterious eyes were smoldering as they dwelt on the ripeness of her mouth. His hands slid down her back to her waist, and on to her hips as he pulled her toward him, making her every cell aware of the hardness of the muscles of his stomach and thighs. There was such sensuous delight in the demanding urgency of his body that no power on earth could have stopped her body from pressing against him.

He groaned softly, a sound of anguish, as his mouth sought hers and found her lips parted and without resistance. She loved the feel of his skin against hers, the crisp wet hair on his chest, which was crushed against her breasts.

"
Oh, Terri
!" he muttered in an agonized voice, drawing back from her for a moment. "I've been going crazy wanting you. I knew if we got away together you would stop fighting me. Terri, I want you… I need you so much…" Then he jerked her tightly against him, his mouth hardening with increasing demand.

Through the daze of her thundering emotions his words penetrated. Want… need… But there had been no mention of love. This was all part of a well-planned campaign. He had brought her here not to work, which they could have done better with the help of Mike and Jack, but to break down her defenses. He had just admitted it, and that was the most painful realization of all. How cold-bloodedly calculating could a man be? To go to such lengths…

The warmth in her body slowly turned to a shaking chill. With a fierce strength, born of despair, she pushed him away. "No! Let me go!" A sob broke through the words.

Perhaps because she took him by surprise, or perhaps because he recognized the desperation in her voice, he released her. Gasping for breath, she climbed out of the pool, heedless now of her nudity.

"Terri, what's wrong?" The words were filled with pain and incredulity.

Her throat had become so thick and tight that she couldn't answer. She merely shook her head and started to run toward the walkway that led from the courtyard in the direction of the guest house. Her bare feet slapped against the smooth paving, and gulping sobs escaped her, harsh racking sounds in the stillness of the night. She reached the gate and, opening it with trembling fingers, flung it back and ran through. She had forgotten about the graveled area near the guest house and was not prepared for the pain that shot through the soles of her feet as they made contact with the small, sharp stones.

Her fleeting body had built up enough momentum to prevent her stopping until she had stumbled several steps onto the gravel. And by that time it was too late to stop herself from losing her balance and pitching forward on her stomach, arms outspread across the gravel.

Tiny needles of pain stabbed her everywhere. She howled in protest and then lay with her face inches from the gravel, and all the rest of the front of her body crushed against sharp projections. She sobbed helplessly, afraid to move for fear any movement would make the pain worse.

Then she felt strong arms around her, lifting her to her feet, wrapping a giant towel around her body. Without a word, Derek picked her up and carried her into the guest house. Still crying silently, she huddled against him, her arms clinging to his neck.

He placed her on the couch and stood looking down at her. He'd put his swimming trunks on but didn't have time to dry himself as rivulets of water trickled down his body.

"Why did you run away from me like that? I wouldn't hurt you."

She shook her head, clutching the thick towel about her, unable to find any words with which to reply.

"Stay right there," he said curtly. "I think I saw a bottle of Mercurochrome in the kitchen cabinet." He left her, and she heard cabinet doors opening and closing. Then he was back with a small bottle of red liquid and a damp wash cloth. "I'll wipe your cuts clean first then use the Mercurochrome. This will sting, but it has to be done so that there won't be any infection."

She clutched the towel tighter, staring up at him.

He sighed heavily. "This is no time for modesty." Then he bent and tugged the towel open, exposing the front of her reclining body. Protestingly, she started to get up, but he pushed her back down. "Don't be difficult, Terri!" There was such steel determination in the tone that she stopped struggling and lay still while he began to touch the tiny applicator to the breaks in her skin made by the gravel. She caught her breath and gritted her teeth against the stinging pain as he moved, grim-mouthed, from one cut to the next until he had covered her with red spots.

Finally, he straightened and looked down at her for a long moment, his gaze sweeping over her from head to toe with an expression that was strangely still and remote and impossible to fathom.

She could feel again the sweet intimacy with which he had touched her in the pool, could feel the strong muscles of his back under her hands. A part of her longed to open her arms to him and plead with him to take her back into his warm embrace. But the cold hardness in his eyes made it impossible for her to speak.

Abruptly, he turned away and strode toward the kitchen. "Cover yourself and go to bed," he snapped. "Stay out of my sight until tomorrow. I don't want to look at you anymore tonight."

Shivering and hugging the towel about her, she got her trembling legs beneath her and obeyed.

Derek's rejection was like ice water thrown in Terri's face. She stumbled into her bedroom, unable to summon the strength to hunt for another nightgown. Letting the towel drop to the floor, she crawled between the sheets and lay like a lifeless manikin, mindlessly sliding into sleep.

She awoke the next morning physically rested, but as soon as full consciousness returned, a heavy depression descended upon her. She lay, without moving, trying to work up enough interest to shower and dress. But with a devilish insistence, her thoughts returned to the night before—those now dreamlike minutes in the courtyard, and then Derek's dark face, the hard eyes staring at her, a strange, confused expression in them, and finally his hateful words:
Stay out of my sight… I don't want to look at you anymore
…

She despised him… but she hated herself even more. How could she have been so weak and foolish as to fall in love with an arrogant, conceited brute like Derek? She closed her eyes, remembering how determined she had been to stand up to him those first days in Mexico City. How confident she had been that she could put him in his place, complete this assignment satisfactorily, and return to New York unchanged. She didn't know where she had gone wrong, but it seemed that Derek was now holding all the cards. He had succeeded in making her doubt her professional abilities and he had managed to demonstrate quite effectively just how emotionally ill-equipped she was to deal with a man like him.

Momentarily, she had an impulse to do something rash—anything to shake Derek's monumental self-confidence and unmitigated pride. But what could she do? She had tried playing up to Jack Ledbetter and almost got more than she had bargained for. When she had been friendly to David Almedo, Derek had ordered her not to see him again. She felt hot resentment as she remembered that.

The gall of that man! Well, if she had another chance to see David, she'd show Derek. For a moment she toyed with the idea of contacting David, taking him up on his offer to show her around Mérida. She would have to go to the main house to find a telephone. Could she make the servants understand what she wanted? And suppose she did get to a phone and in touch with the archaeologist—was she sure she could handle a smooth operator like the sophisticated David Almedo? Her lips twisted ironically. So far her score wasn't very high when it came to handling men. Besides, why lie to herself? She didn't really want to be with David Almedo.

Her thoughts went thus, around in circles, for some time. Finally, sighing heavily, she threw back the sheet and went into the bathroom to shower and shampoo. She found her folded nightgown and sandals on top of the clothes hamper. For a moment she stared at them. Sometime last night or early this morning Derek had put them there. He'd been in her bedroom and she hadn't even known it. Had he looked at her, watched her? Had she been covered by the sheet? Not that it mattered all that much. After the incident at the pool, whatever he saw would be rather anticlimactic.