Diana Palmer Christmas Collection: The Rancher / Christmas Cowboy / A Man of Means / True Blue / Carrera's Bride / Will of Steel / Winter Roses

“We both learned something today,” he said quietly. “Dorie, if you can be satisfied by so small a caress, try to imagine how it would feel if we went all the way.”

Her eyelids flickered. Her breath came like rustling leaves.

He bent and drew his mouth with exquisite tenderness over her parted lips. “Or is that the real problem?” he asked at her mouth. “Are you afraid of the actual penetration?”

Her heart stopped dead and then ran away. “Corrigan!” She ground out his name.

He drew back a breath so that he could see her eyes. He wasn’t smiling. It was no joke.

“You’d better tell me,” he said quietly.

She drew her lower lip in with her teeth, looking worried.

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“I know that.” She took a long breath. “When my cousin Mary was married, she came to visit us after the honeymoon was over. She’d been so happy and excited.” She grimaced. “She said that it hurt awfully bad, that she bled and bled, and he made fun of her because she cried. She said that he didn’t even kiss her. He just…pushed into her…!”

He cursed under his breath. “Didn’t you talk to anyone else about sex?”

“It wasn’t something I could discuss with my father, and Mary was the only friend I had,” she told him. “She said that all the things they write about are just fiction, and that the reality is just like her mother once said—a woman deals with it for the pleasure of children.”

He leaned forward on his hands, shaking his head. “I wish you’d told me this eight years ago.”

“You’d have laughed,” she replied. “You didn’t believe I was innocent anyway.”

He looked up into her eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said heavily. “Life teaches hard lessons.”

She thought about her own experience with modeling. “Yes, it does.”

He got to his feet and looked down at her with a worried scowl. “Don’t you watch hot movies?”

“Those women aren’t virgins,” she returned.

“No. I don’t guess they are.” His eyes narrowed as he searched her face. “And I don’t know what to tell you. I’d never touched an innocent woman until you came along. Maybe it does hurt. But I promise you, it would only be one time. I know enough to make it good for you. And I would.”

“It isn’t going to be that way,” she reminded him tersely, denying herself the dreams of marriage and children that she’d always connected with him. “We’re going to be friends.”

He didn’t speak. His gaze didn’t falter. “I’ll check back with you later about the books,” he said quietly.

“Okay.”

He started to turn, thought better of it and leaned down again with his weight balanced on the chair arms. “Do you remember what happened when I started to suckle you?”

She went scarlet. “Please…”

“It will be like that,” he said evenly. “Just like that. You won’t think about pain. You may not even notice any. You go in headfirst when I touch you. And I wasn’t even taking my time with you today. Think about that. It might help.”

He pushed away from her again and went to the desk to pick up his hat. He placed it on his head and smiled at her without mockery.

“Don’t let my brothers walk over you,” he said. “If one of them gives you any trouble, lay into him with the first hard object you can get your hands on.”

“They seem very nice,” she said.

“They like you,” he replied. “But they have plans.”

“Plans?”

“Not to hurt you,” he assured her. “You should never have told them you could cook.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Mrs. Culbertson wants to quit. They can’t make biscuits. It’s what they live for, a plateful of homemade buttered biscuits with half a dozen jars of jam and jelly.”

“How does that concern me?”

“Don’t you know?” He perched himself against the desk. “They’ve decided that we should marry you.”

“We?”

“We’re a family. Mostly we share things. Not women, but we do share cooks.” He cocked his head and grinned at her shocked face. “If I marry you, they don’t have to worry about where their next fresh biscuit is coming from.”

“You don’t want to marry me.”

“Well, they’ll probably find some way around that,” he said pointedly.

“They can’t force you to marry me.”

“I wouldn’t make any bets on that,” he said. “You don’t know them yet.”

“You’re their brother. They’d want you to be happy.”

“They think you’ll make me happy.”

She lowered her eyes. “You should talk to them.”

“And say what? That I don’t want you? I don’t think they’d believe me.”

“I meant, you should tell them that you don’t want to get married.”

“They’ve already had a meeting and decided that I do. They’ve picked out a minister and a dress that they think you’ll look lovely in. They’ve done a rough draft of a wedding invitation…”

“You’re out of your mind!”

“No, I’m not.” He went to the middle desk drawer, fumbled through it, pulled it farther out and reached for something pushed to the very back of the desk. He produced it, scanned it, nodded and handed it to her. “Read that.”

It was a wedding invitation. Her middle name was misspelled. “It’s Ellen, not Ellis.”

He reached behind him for a pen, took the invitation back, made the change and handed it back to her.