Fit for a King

“Good night,” King replied.

Bobby left, and a minute later the car roared angrily down the driveway.

“They don’t seem ideally suited, do they?” Elissa asked quietly, watching the taillights disappear among the palms.

“They used to be,” King replied. “When times were hard, they were always together, doing simple things like window-shopping or just walking. Then, when the money started coming in, Bess was like a kid in a candy shop. She had to have all kinds of expensive things.” He sighed. “And Bobby wanted her to have them. He worked harder and harder to give them to her, but it kept him away from home a lot. When the oil market fell, he went into partnership in a small construction firm back home.”

He paused, as if thinking, then continued pensively, “Bobby’s always felt obliged to compete with me. In recent years, he’s tried even harder. That means Bess spends too much time alone, and she isn’t the kind of woman who can just sit. She isn’t even domestic. Too bad she and Bobby never wanted children.”

He turned, missing Elissa’s sharp glance. Didn’t he know that Bess was just hiding what she really wanted? Elissa was sure that the other woman did want children, very much. He poured himself another Scotch. “Want another?” he asked as an afterthought.

She nodded. “Yes, thanks. Why does he want to compete with you?”

“It’s the way he’s made, I guess. The second brother isn’t going to be second best. He’s twenty-eight now, and I think he wants to best me financially before he gets to be my age.” He poured Elissa’s drink before he opened the sliding doors to the beach. He stood there, tall and unapproachable, the breeze running like fingers through his thick black hair as he watched the surf crash white and frothy onto the hard-packed sand beyond the patio. “He doesn’t like the fact that his father allowed me to inherit,” he added. “His father and I got along pretty well—in a business sense at least—and I think Bobby somehow felt threatened by that.”

“He’s your half brother, of course,” she said hesitantly, remembering how little King liked to talk about personal matters.

“That’s right.” He lifted his glass to his lips with a bitter smile. “He’s not a duke’s mixture—didn’t you notice?”

She glared at him. “Neither are you,” she snapped. “You’re part Apache, which is something else entirely.”

He cocked an amused eyebrow at her. “Thank you for clarifying the situation for me,” he murmured dryly, and he went back to contemplating the outside world.

For a few minutes they sipped their drinks in silence, and Elissa wondered at the sense of freedom the liquor gave her. She hadn’t had more than a small glass of wine in a long time. But the vodka seemed to be doing strange things to her, making her extremely aware of King, diluting her inhibitions. She felt light-headed. Reckless. Her body burned with new temptations. She put down the empty glass, and her hand seemed to move in slow motion. King was close to finishing his drink, too. Was it his third? She couldn’t keep track. Bess had gotten to him, all right. Elissa wondered if he was completely sober.

“Do you have other family?” she asked after a minute, joining him in the doorway.

“Bobby’s father died some years back. Our mother is in a nursing home,” he added simply. “Alzheimer’s disease. We visit her, but she doesn’t know us anymore.”

“How terrible for you. And for her.”

“It is that,” he agreed. He took a long swallow. “I don’t know about my own father. He got sick of my mother’s rich friends and left us when I was just a boy.” He studied his glass. “He was from New Mexico, but he worked on oil rigs in Oklahoma. That’s where he met my mother.” He glanced at her. “She was blonde and blue-eyed, like Bobby, and she loved the good life. Money was everything to her. My father had simpler tastes.”

“I wouldn’t have asked,” she replied quietly. It startled her that he was willing to share such a personal thing with her. Either he was extremely upset by Bess, or the alcohol was affecting him.

She stared at his shirt where he’d unbuttoned it and removed his tie. Against the white fabric, his skin looked even darker than usual. Her eyes were drawn to the thick mesh of hair over hard, bronzed muscle.

As if he sensed that rapt stare, he turned toward her and his eyes caught hers. He didn’t look away. While her heart went wild, with deliberate slowness he tossed away the cigarette he’d just lit and took a step toward her, bringing her totally against him, so that her breasts touched his chest where his shirt was open. She wasn’t wearing anything under the jump suit, and she could feel her nipples harden at the contact with him. Tensing away from him, she wondered uncomfortably if he felt them, too.

“Anything sexual disturbs you, doesn’t it?” he asked softly, well aware of the tension in her body. “Well, I’m safe—you said so yourself. So why don’t you cut your teeth on me?”

“I can’t!” she gasped. He had her with her back to the sliding glass door, so that she was trapped between its coldness and his warmth, her breasts wildly sensitive against his hard chest.

“Shh,” he whispered at her temple. “Don’t panic. I won’t hurt you.” He smiled softly. The drinks had done the trick; he was finally feeling relaxed and slightly muddled, which was a relief from all the heavy thinking he’d had to do lately. He couldn’t have Bess, he reasoned now, but Elissa was fair game, wasn’t she? Shy and virginal—how tempting to a man. What would it hurt to give her a little experience? He cared about her, in a way. And who better to deal with her repressions? She’d almost admitted earlier that she’d let him.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked in a high-pitched tone. Her fingers started to push him away, but when her hands encountered warm, hair-roughened skin, they stopped struggling and flattened against him. She realized she didn’t feel like resisting, anyway. The alcohol had done something to her willpower. She felt more like relaxing against King than fighting him; his proximity was having a throbbing effect on her body.

“Because I need something to occupy me, to keep me out of trouble. So you’re going to be my hobby,” he said.

“I don’t want to be your hobby,” she protested weakly. Her legs felt trembly.

“I was yours at the beginning,” he reminded her. “You’ve no one to blame but yourself.”

“That was different. You were repressed,” she said defensively. He was too close. She was inhaling the tangy, clean scent of him, and it was intoxicating her more than the vodka had. His bared chest was hard under her fingers, and between seeing him and smelling him and feeling him, she was adrift on sensation, her heart pounding. All that devastating masculinity, so close.

“I was repressed?” he asked with an amused smile.

“You were all alone,” she said quietly, avoiding his eyes. “I felt sorry for you. I was alone, too. I … well, I thought it would be nice to have a friend.”

“You had Warchief,” he pointed out, grinning. “Speaking of Warchief …” He glanced around. The big parrot was on his perch ring, one foot drawn up, his eyes closed. “Unusual, his going to sleep without being covered. Is that antibiotic working, do you think?”

“He isn’t sneezing or rasping,” she said, grateful for the change of subject. “He’s better. He’s just sleepy. He always goes to sleep at dusk, when you’re not around.” She grinned. “He’s in love with you.”

“I think he’s a she,” he laughed. Then he turned his attention back to her, looking down at the bodice of her jump suit with narrowing eyes. He moved experimentally, rubbing his chest against her, and she gasped at the sudden, sharp pleasure the friction produced.

She flushed to the roots of her long dark hair. “King!”

“Shocking, isn’t it?” he asked, lifting his narrow gaze to hers.

Her eyes searched his, curiosity momentarily displacing her nervousness at this new intimacy.

His gaze held hers while the hands at her waist began to move her in a sensuous circle against his hard, warm chest.