Winter Roses

“…me?” he taunted. His voice was deep and velvety soft, husky with emotion as his head bent. His pale eyes went to her parted lips. “Show me, honey.”

While she was working out that odd comment, his mouth was suddenly hard and insistent on her own. She stiffened with apprehension. She’d never been so close, so intimately close, to a man before. His mouth was demanding, twisting on hers as though he wanted more than he was getting.

She really should protest the way he was holding her, so that she felt every inch of muscle that pressed against her. But his mouth was erotic, masterful. She’d only been kissed a few times, mostly at parties, and never by a boy who knew much about intimacy. It had been her good fortune that she’d never felt violent attraction to a man who wouldn’t accept limits. But her luck had just run out, with Stuart. He knew what he was doing. His mouth eased and became coaxing, caressing. His teeth nipped tenderly at her lower lip, teasing it to move down so that he had access to the whole of her soft, warm mouth.

She shivered a little as passion grew inside her. She felt his bare chest under her hands, and she loved the warmth and strength of him so close. Her fingers burrowed through the thick hair that covered the hard muscle, making them tingle even as she felt the urgent response of his body to the soft caress. She let her lips part as he pressed harder against them and she moved, involuntarily, closer to the source of the sudden pleasure she was feeling.

It was like an invitation, and he took it. His hips ground into hers and she felt the sudden hardness of him against her with real fear. He groaned harshly. His body became even more insistent. He didn’t seem capable, at that moment, of stopping.

The throbbing delight she felt turned quickly to fear as his hands dropped to her hips and dragged them against the changing contours of his body with intent enough that even a virgin could feel his rising desire. Frightened by his headlong ardor, she pushed at his chest frantically, trying to drag her lips away from the hard, slow drugging pressure of his mouth.

He was reluctant to stop. He could feel his own body betraying his hunger for her. He couldn’t help it. She was exquisite to touch, and she tasted like sweet heaven. He couldn’t think past her body under him in the bed behind them. But finally the violence of her resistance got through to his foggy brain. He managed to lift his head just long enough to meet her eyes.

When he saw the fear, he began to doubt for the first time what Rachel had said about her little sister. If this was the permissive behavior that had been described to him, it was unlikely that she’d had many boyfriends. On the contrary, she looked as if she was scared to death of what came next.

“No,” she choked huskily, her eyes bright with feeling, pleading with his. “Please don’t.”

For just an instant, his hands tightened on her waist. But her gasp and stiffening posture told its own story. Promiscuous? This little icicle? Just on the strength of her response, he would have bet his life on her innocence.

As his head began to clear, anger began to smolder in his chest. He’d lost his self-control. He’d betrayed his hunger for her. He couldn’t pretend that he hadn’t felt desire while he was kissing her. She’d felt his momentary weakness. His own raging desire had betrayed him, with this innocent child-woman who was only eighteen years old. Eighteen!

Anger and shame and guilt overwhelmed him. He pushed her away from him roughly, his eyes blazing as he looked down at her body in the revealing nightgown. Despite everything, he still wanted her, desperately.

“What did you expect, when you go looking for a man, in the middle of the night, dressed like that!?” He emphasized her attire with one big hand.

Shivering, her arms crossed over her breasts. She swayed, putting a hand up to her eye. She’d forgotten the headache for a few seconds while he’d been kissing her, but it came back now with a fury. She leaned back against the wall for support. Stronger than shame, than anger, was pain, stabbing into her right eye like a heated poker.

Her face was white and contorted. It began to occur to him that she was unwell. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked belatedly.

“Migraine,” she whispered huskily. “I was looking for aspirin.”

He made a rough sound in his throat. “Aspirin, for a migraine,” he scoffed. He bent suddenly, swung her up into his arms and strode back into his bedroom with her. The feel of her softness in his arms was intoxicating. She was as light as a feather. He noticed that she wasn’t protesting the contact. In fact, her cheek was against his bare chest and he could hear her breathing change, despite the pain he knew she was feeling. “You’ll get something stronger than aspirin to stop the pain, but not before I’ve checked with your doctor. Sit.” He put her down on the bed and went to the dresser to pick up his cell phone.

“It’s Dr. Lou Coltrain,” she began.

He ignored her. He knew who her doctor was. “Lou? Sorry to bother you so late. Ivy Conley’s spending the weekend with Merrie, and she’s got a migraine. Can she take what you give me for it?”

There was a pause, during which he stared at Ivy, trying not to look at her the way he felt like looking. She was beautifully formed. But her age tortured him. She was too young for him. He was thirty, to her eighteen. He didn’t dare touch her again. In order to keep his distance, he was going to have to hurt her. He didn’t want to, but she was looking at him in a different way already. The kiss had been very much a shared pleasure until he’d turned up the heat and frightened her.

A minute later he shifted, listened, nodded. “Okay. Yes, I’ll send her in to the clinic tomorrow if she isn’t better by morning. Thanks.”

He hung up. “She said that you can have half the dose I take,” he said, pulling a prescription bottle from his top drawer and shaking out one pill. He poured water from a carafe into a crystal glass and handed her the pill and the glass. “Take it. If you’re not better in the morning, you’ll need to go to her clinic and be seen.”

“Could you stop glaring at me?” she asked through the pain.

“You aren’t the only one who’s got a pain,” he said bluntly. “Take it!”

She flushed, but she put the pill in her mouth and swallowed it down with two big sips of water.

He took the glass from her, helped her up from the bed and marched her back through the bathroom to her own room. He guided her down onto the bed.

“I didn’t know you’d be home,” she defended herself. “Merrie promised you wouldn’t. I didn’t expect to walk into the bathroom and run into you.”

“That goes double for me. I didn’t know you were on the place,” he added curtly. “My sister has a convenient memory.”

In other words, she hadn’t told him Ivy was here. Ivy wondered if her friend knew he was due back home. It would have been a dirty trick to play, and Merrie was bigger than that. So maybe she hadn’t known.

“Thank you for the pill,” she said tautly.

He let out a harsh breath. “You’re welcome. Go to bed.”

She slid the covers back and eased under them, wincing as the movement bumped the pain up another notch.

“And don’t read anything romantic into what just happened,” he added bluntly. “Most men are vulnerable at night, when temptation walks in the door scantily clad.”

“I didn’t know…!”

He held up a hand. “All right. I’ll take your word for it.” His eyes narrowed. “Your sister fed me a pack of lies about you. Why?”

“Why were you even talking to her about me?” she countered. “You always said you couldn’t stand her, even when you were in the same class in high school.”

“She phoned me when your father died.”

“Ah, yes,” she said, closing her eyes. “She didn’t want to take any chances that you might come down on my side of the fence during the probate of the will.” She laughed coldly. “I could have told her that would never happen.”

“She thought you might ask Merrie for help.”

She opened her eyes. The pain was throbbing. She could see her heartbeat in her own eyes. “She would have. Not me. I can stand on my own two feet.”

“Yes,” he said slowly, studying her pale face. “You’ve done remarkably well.”

That was high praise, coming from him. She looked up into his lean face and wondered how it would have felt if she hadn’t pulled back. Warm color surged into her cheeks.

“Stop that,” he muttered. “I won’t be an object of desire to some daydreaming teenager.”

His tone wasn’t hostile. It was more amused than angry. Her eyebrows arched. “Are you sure?” she asked, returning the banter. “Because I have to have somebody to cut my teeth on. Just think, I could fall into bad company and become a lost sheep, and it would all be your fault, because you wouldn’t let me obsess over you.”

At first he thought she was being sarcastic. Then he saw the twinkle in those pretty green eyes.

“You’re too young to be obsessing over a mature man. Go pick on a boy your own age.”

“That’s the problem,” she pointed out, pushing her hand against her throbbing eye. “Boys my own age are just boys.”

“All men started out that way.”

“I guess so.” She groaned. “Could you please hit me in the head with a hammer? Maybe it would take my mind off the pain.”

“It takes pills a long time to work, doesn’t it?” he asked. He moved to sit beside her on the coverlet. “Want a cold wet cloth?”