Denim And Lace

“You want me like hell, don’t you?” he asked quietly, his dark eyes holding hers.

She felt the ground moving under her feet. It was like having every dream of him she’d ever had come true. The look in his dark eyes, the feel of his hand in her hair, the way his gaze dropped suddenly to her soft mouth. She knew her legs were trembling. He already knew how affected she was, and she wondered if she could bear the humiliation.

“Cade...don’t do this to me,” she whispered shakily as his fingers moved to her mouth and touched it, making it tremble.

“What am I doing to you, Bess?” he asked deeply, not quite in control anymore. The scent of her body was in his nostrils, drugging him, and he was more aware of her by the minute. He toyed with her collar, his knuckles brushing lazily against the soft skin of her throat, making her tremble with an avalanche of new sensations.

“I can’t help what I feel,” she whispered brokenly.

His eyes caressed the soft perfection of her mouth. Her lips were parted, a little swollen with passion. Her eyes were drowsy-looking despite their excitement. He saw her tongue brush her lips, and his breath caught.

He turned his hand so that his fingers could brush softly up and down the line of her throat. Her skin was like satin. It intoxicated him. He moved closer, towering over her, so close that the tips of her breasts touched him.

Bess looked up at him with all her untried dreams in her eyes. She was on fire for him. She wanted his hard mouth with a passion that was already white-hot, and he’d barely touched her. She was surprised and frightened by the intensity of emotion he aroused in her.

His dark head bent a little. “What would you give for my mouth right now, Bess?” he asked in a voice she didn’t recognize, deep and slow and silky.

She felt his breath on her lips, and her restraint went flying. Damn her pride, she needed him...!

“Any...thing,” she whispered shamelessly, her voice breaking on the word. “Don’t you know already? Anything, Cade...”

Her slender hands were on his arms, her nails digging into him, her body swaying against him. He couldn’t help it. Years of suppressed hunger were overflowing inside him. His narrowed eyes fell to her mouth. He could bend his head a fraction of an inch and make all her dreams come true. He could take her mouth and taste its warm softness under the hard crush of his own. He could hold her and touch her, and for a space of seconds she could belong to him. He could feed on the soft, sweet desire that she’d saved up all these years for him. Only for him.

He was actually bending toward her, her breath mingling with his, her body begging to be held by him. And then he felt the weight of responsibility fall on him.

Bess was still a child emotionally, her mother’s child.

That was what brought him to his senses. Bess wanted him, but that was all it was. The newness of desire and the illusion of hero worship were driving her. He could make her dreams come true, all right, but his would turn to nightmares because it was too soon. Perhaps years too soon.

He lifted his dark head and dropped his hand from her soft neck. “No,” he said. He didn’t say it in a rough way. It was only the one word, but firm enough to make her step away from him and blush.

She had to catch her breath audibly, because the feel of that powerful body so close to hers had made it almost impossible to breathe at all. Her soft brown eyes searched his dark ones as she pushed back an unruly strand of honey-brown hair. She looked and felt ashamed, especially when she remembered that she’d practically begged him to make love to her.

“You’re too young and too green for me, Bess,” he said coolly, forcing the words out. “Go home to Mama.”

He reached behind him, picking up the jewelry case and tossing it to her with as little care for what was inside as if he’d been throwing pebbles.

She caught it in her trembling hands. He didn’t want her. Well, she knew that already, didn’t she? He’d only been playing with her, taunting her. It was like what he’d done to her when she was twenty, rejecting her, throwing her away. Only this was more cruel, because he’d tempted her first, made her show him how badly she wanted him.

Her eyes closed on a wave of pain and shame. “If you won’t take the pearls, you’ll only get fifty cents on the dollar like the other investors,” she said in a ghost of her normal tone.

“I’ve already torn up that agreement your father signed with me,” he said shortly. “You could have saved yourself the trip.”

“That and the humiliation,” she said huskily.

“What humiliation?” he asked quietly. “I know that you want me. I’ve always known.”

She turned away with tears streaming down her cheeks. “You’ll get your money back, Cade. All of it, somehow,” she said unsteadily.

She sounded a little wild, and the tears unsettled him. He wondered if she might take him seriously and go to some other man, and that whipped up a fury of sudden anger.

“You won’t do anything stupid, will you?” he asked suddenly, moving forward.

“What do you mean?”

“Like letting Gussie offer you to some well-heeled, bald millionaire just to get enough money to pay me off?”

She took a deep, hurt breath as she felt behind her for the doorknob. “What do you care?” she cried, feeling reckless. “You don’t even want me, you never did, so why play with me like a trout on a fishing line? You’re cruel, and I think I hate you, Cade!”

He didn’t flinch. Not outwardly, at least, except for the sudden angry glitter in his eyes. He cocked his head and gave her a cold smile. “Do you? Was that why you begged for my mouth? Because you hate me?”

Her face went from a blushing rose to a cold white in seconds. She gave in, as she always did, her eyes closing on a wave of shame.

“No. I don’t. I only wish I could hate you,” she whispered brokenly. “I’ve tried for years...” Tears choked her, and she blinked them away. “I came here because I was sorry for what you’d lost, because I wanted to help you. But you don’t want help, least of all from me. I know you don’t want me. I’ve always known that. I wish I was beautiful, Cade! I wish you wanted me so that I could push you away and watch you hurt as much as I do!”

She opened the door and ran through it, her heart broken. He was horrible. Cruel and cold and she didn’t want him anymore, she hated him...

She loved him! His mouth had been the end of the rainbow, the most exquisite promise of pleasure she’d ever known, and she’d wanted it with a pitifully evident desire. But he’d only been playing. And then he had to go and spoil everything with that cruel taunt...!

Cade meanwhile was glaring at the closed door with a jumble of emotions, foremost of which was anger at his own cruelty and Bess’s helpless reaction to it. He’d never meant to humble her. He’d only wanted to protect her, even from himself. If he started kissing her, he wasn’t sure he could stop. The last thing she needed now was the complication of a hopeless relationship. But he hadn’t meant to hurt her.

He started after her, flaming with frustration and bad temper. “Damned circumstances,” he muttered to himself. He hated making apologies. Not that he intended to make one now. But maybe he could rub a healing balm on the wound he’d inflicted.

But when he stepped out into the long hall, he found Bess halfway down it, sobbing into his mother’s shoulder.

Elise looked at her tall, angry son with knowing, soulful eyes. That look was as condemning as Bess’s had been. Worse. He glared at her, then at Bess’s rigid back, and went into his office again. But he didn’t slam the door. Oddly enough, he felt as if he’d just made the biggest mistake of his life.

“There, there,” Elise murmured softly, smoothing Bess’s soft hair as it fell out of the bun down her back. “It’s all right, darling.”

“I hate him,” Bess whimpered. She clung, even though she’d sworn on her arrival that she didn’t need sympathy. Yes, she did, desperately. Gussie had none for anyone except herself, and Bess had nobody else.

“Yes, I know you hate him.” Elise hugged her close with a sigh. Poor little thing, with only Gussie for company at Spanish House. Elise and Gussie had been friends once, until Cade had made an accusation that had broken their friendship and made them enemies. Elise held no grudges even now, but Gussie hated Cade for the accusations he’d made and the way he’d embarrassed her in front of Elise. Bess didn’t know about that scandal, and there was no reason to tell her. It was better left in the past, to her mind. It was only Cade and Gussie who kept it alive, and Elise had long since given up hope that the two of them would ever bury the hatchet.

All the same, she worried about Bess. At times like this she could have picked Gussie up and shaken her. Didn’t she care enough about Bess to see that she was taking her father’s death badly? The last thing she needed was to be here, letting Cade upset her. Elise, who’d wanted at least one daughter, had to content herself with the hope of daughters-in-law. Someday. Maybe.

Bess wept slowly, enjoying the luxury of tears. She was going to get over Cade Hollister if it killed her, now that she knew how he really felt about her. And she’d pay him back someday. It was going to be her goal in life. So it was a pity that no matter how hard she pictured her revenge, it always ended with his arms around her.

CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_195f7662-d464-5fc4-bc3d-211a4d700eae)

BESS HAD HERSELF under control by the time she went upstairs to say good-night to Gussie. She’d wiped the tears away and even forced herself to smile as she carried her mother a cup of herbal tea and some cheese for a bedtime snack.

“Feeling better?” she asked Gussie.

The older woman stretched lazily. “A little, I suppose. It’s very lonely without your father, Bess.”

“Yes, I know,” Bess said gently.

“I thought I heard the car leave while I was napping,” Gussie said, eyeing her daughter. “Did you go out?”