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"Are you all right?" he whispered softly. "I didn't frighten you?"
"No." She was looking at him as intently as he was studying her, measuring memory and imagination
against the sweet reality of what they'd done together. "Not at all."
He touched her breast tenderly and smiled at her. "It was good," he whispered.
"Yes."
He eased down on his elbows and slowly drew his chest over her sensitized breasts, watching her
shiver and gasp with the delicious sensation of it. "This is good, too," he breathed, bending again to
her mouth. "I want you, Nell."
She tensed as his mouth brushed hers, and he smiled against her trembling lips.
"I'm not going to do anything about it," he reassured her. "Kiss me, and then you'd better get out of
here."
She slid her arms up around his neck and gave him her mouth in a kiss as sweet and wild as the ones
before. But seconds later he drew away and rolled over, taking her with him. He lay on his back,
shuddering a little with a need he couldn't fulfill.
"You might as well get rid of the baggy britches and loose blouses," he murmured, holding her bare
breasts against his broad chest. "I'll never fall for the camouflage again, after this."
"Am I too big?" she whispered, because it mattered if she was.
He brushed the hair away from her mouth. "No. You're just right. All of you." He brushed a warm kiss
against her Hps and loosened his arms. "You'd better get your things back on. I'm weak, but I'm still
capable. I don't want this to get out of hand."
She touched his face, her fingers cold and nervous, tracing its hard contours, fascinated with him.
"You can't imagine what it was like for me," she whispered. "I...well, it wasn't what I thought it would
be."
He smiled. "Not even after you saw that racy movie?" he murmured dryly.
She swallowed, remembering when she'd told him about it and what had followed. "Well, no. Seeing
and experiencing are different."
"Indeed they are." He helped her to sit up and spent a long minute looking at her before he gathered
up her bra and blouse and proceeded to help her back into them. "No," he said when she tried to stop
him. "You dressed me.
Now it's my turn."
So she sat still and let him dress her, delighting in his gentle touch, in his obvious pleasure in her.
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TYLER
DIANA PALMER
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"You can't stay here tonight," he said. "I hope you realize why."
"Yes. I know why."
He buttoned her up to the throat and smoothed back her long disheveled hair. "I would like very much
to take your clothes off and pull you under this sheet with me and love you up to the ceiling," he said
seriously. "I could do that,.despite your innocence. But I'd hate myself for abusing your trust, and you
might hate me for backing you into a corner. I don't want anything to spoil what's building between us.
I don't think you want that, either."
She linked her fingers into his as he toyed with her hair. "No. I don't want anything to spoil it, either,"
she whispered.
He drew her hand to his mouth and kissed it gently. "I won't sleep. I'll remember how it was while we
were loving each other in this bed, and I'll ache to have you here with me."
She trembled at his description of what they'd done. It had felt like loving, even if he only meant that
in a physical sense. Her warm eyes searched his, and her face was radiant with shared pleasure, with
hope, with new dreams that seemed to be turning into reality.
"I never dreamed it would be this way," she said absently.
"How did you think it would be?"
"Frightening," she confessed without telling him why. McAnders had made it into a terrifying thing, a
violent act that would have hurt if he'd succeeded. But what she'd experienced with Tyler wasn't
terrifying. It had been beautiful.
"And it wasn't?" he persisted gently.
"Not frightening, no," she said with a demure smile. "A little scary, but in a nice way. So many
sensations..."
"For me, too, Nell," he said somberly. His eyes held hers. "That was no casual diversion, and don't
you forget it. I'm not a playboy."
"You're not a monk, either," she said. She smiled shakily. "I may be innocent, but I'm not stupid."
He sighed, smoothing her closed fingers with his thumb. "If you want the truth, yes, I've had women.
But always women who couldn't or wouldn't consider marriage or anything permanent. And never for
money. Lovemaking is too beautiful to reduce to a quick coupling that only satisfies a casual hunger."
She couldn't speak. She hadn't expected him to say anything ike that, and it occurred to her that she
didn't really know him very well. "I'm glad you think of it that way," she said.
"Don't you, honestly?" he asked.
"With you I do," she said after a minute. McAnders's angry handling was fading away like a bad
dream. Now when she thought about physical expressions of affection, she was always going to feel
Tyler's hands on her body.
He touched her lips with a long forefinger. "Go away," he said softly. "I want you terribly, Miss
Regan."
She smiled tenderly. "I'm very glad of that. But I'll go."
She got up from the bed, her eyes possessive as they ran over his taut body.
"Would you like an anatomy lesson?" he asked with a dry smile. "I could pull this sheet away and
teach you volumes about men."
She averted her eyes, her cheeks scarlet. "I'll just bet you could," she muttered, because she
remembered how his body had changed when hers came into contact with it. "And stop making fun of
me because I'm not clued in."
"I happen to like you that way, believe it or not," he mused. Come back in the morning. We can have
another argument."
"I don't really want to argue with you."
"The alternative could get us into real trouble."
She laughed because he sounded so morose and dryly amused all at once. Her face changed with the
sound, brightened, went soft and radiant.
"You are lovely when you laugh," he said huskily. "And if you don't get out of here right now, I'm
going to throw off this damned sheet and come after you."
She let out a low whistle and headed for the door. "The mind boggles," she murmured as she glanced
over her shoulder and smiled at him. "Sleep tight."
"Oh, that's funny," he agreed. "A real screamer. I'll have to remember to put it in my memoirs."
"I won't sleep, either," she said softly, and left him reluctantly.
She went out the door smiling, her heart so light that it could have floated before her. She'd never
been so happy in all her life. The most unexpected things happened sometimes. They'd argued and
she'd been sure that there was no hope, and now he'd kissed her so hungrily, handled her so gently that
she was building daydreams again.
This had to be the real thing, she told herself doggedly. He'd told her he wasn't playing, so it had to be
for real. It had to be!
And all of a sudden, she started thinking about the past, about a man who'd teased her and kissed her
lazily once or twice, a man she'd thought she loved. And that man had betrayed her trust and tried to
force her into bed, all because he'd wanted her bright, beautiful sister-in-law. It didn't bear thinking
about. Surely history wasn't going to repeat itself with Tyler. Nell closed her eyes in faint fear. She
couldn't bear the thought of that.
If Bella noticed that Nell's lips were swollen and her hair wildly disheveled and her face full of a new
radiance mingled with fear, she kept it to herself. But she was less abrasive than usual as Nell helped
with the dishes, and she was smiling when the younger woman went up to bed.
Nell awoke the next morning after a sleepless night to hear a furious commotion going on down in
the kitchen.
She hurriedly dressed in jeans and a neat checked shirt, left her hair down around her shoulders and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]