Part 9 (1/2)
”How perceptive of you to know I was talking about myself,” he snapped. ”Stay out of trouble while I'm gone, and don't put your foot down on my accelerator.”
”I won't touch your precious car, if you'd rather,” she shot back, her green eyes flas.h.i.+ng. ”I'll take a cab, and let all of Jacobsville see me do it!”
He glared at her and she glared back. And all at once, he started to grin, then to smile, and finally laughter burst from his set lips and glittered in his black eyes.
”h.e.l.lcat,” he murmured.
”Savage,” she threw right back.
He tossed the cigarette into the big ashtray on his dresser and moved toward her purposefully. She threw off the covers and headed for the other side of the bed, but he was too quick. Before she was halfway over, he had her flat on her back and had pinned her with the length of his big, hard-muscled body.
”That's it, struggle,” he encouraged with a groan. ”My G.o.d, can you feel what's happening to me?”
She could. She stopped, her cheeks like red flags.
”Well, the world won't end,” he said with soft amus.e.m.e.nt. ”You know how I feel when I'm aroused, and last night we didn't have several layers of clothes between us.”
”Stop!” She buried her face in his throat, clinging, trembling with embarra.s.sment and excitement.
”You baby,” he chided, but the words were tender. He rolled over onto his back, pulling her over with him, his dark eyes searching her pale ones as she poised over his chest. He looked down at the deep cleavage of her pajama jacket and the faint swell of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s above it where they were pressed against him. ”Is this better?” he murmured.
”You're a horrible man, and I don't think I want to live with you anymore,” she said, pouting.
”Yes, you do.” He coaxed her mouth down to his by pulling a strand of her long, silky hair. ”Kiss me.”
”You'll rumple your suit,” she said.
”I've got a lot of other suits, but I want to be kissed. Come on, I've got a plane to catch.”
She gave in to the gentle teasing. All the arguing was forgotten the minute her soft mouth touched his hard one. She felt his hand sliding into her hair, pulling gently, and her lips parted to the soft, intense searching of his warm mouth.
”After you see the doctor, we'll have to wait a couple of days before we can finish what we started last night,” he whispered into her mouth. ”So don't start worrying about that and getting nervous all over again, okay?” His dark eyes searched hers. ”I won't rush you, Shelby. This time, it's going to be exactly the way you want it.”
She kissed his eyes, gently closing the eyelids, lingering on the thick lashes in a rage of tenderness. She wanted to whisper that she loved him more than her own life, that everything she'd done that had hurt him had been, in the beginning, only to protect him. But he didn't trust her yet, and she was going to have to bring him around before she could share her deepest secrets with him.
”Will you believe me when I say that I'm not afraid of you anymore?” she whispered against his lips.
”Honey, that's pretty hard to miss, considering the position we're in,” he whispered back.
”What positi...Justin!”
He laughed as he flipped her onto her back and slid over her, nibbling warmly at her lips. ”This position,” he whispered. ”Kiss me goodbye and I'll go.”
”I've already done...that...several times,” she whispered, the words punctuated with soft, clinging kisses.
”Do it several more and I'll work on getting my legs to support me,” he murmured drily. ”My knees are pretty weak right now.”
”So are mine.” She linked her arms around his neck and bit his lower lip. ”You're mine now,” she said quietly, her eyes holding his. ”Don't you go off and flirt with other women.”
Her possessiveness made him ache. He slid his hands under her back and lifted her up, taking his time as he bent hungrily to her open mouth. He kissed her with growing insistence until his own body forced him to either stop or go on.
He rolled away reluctantly and got to his feet, taut with pride as he looked down at his handiwork. She was sprawled in delicious abandon on the sheets, her hair like a halo around her, her mouth soft and red and swollen from his kisses, her eyes dreamy with desire.
”If I had a photograph of you that looked the way you look now,” he said huskily, ”I'd walk around bent double every time I looked at it. I've never seen a woman as beautiful as you are.”
”I'm not even pretty,” she chided, smiling. ”But I'm glad you like me the way I am. I like you, too.”
He drew in a slow breath. ”I'd better get out of here while I can. It helps to remember your condition.”
She averted her eyes to the sheets, feeling nervous.
”You'd really have let me go on, wouldn't you?” he asked, his voice deep with feeling. ”Even knowing how bad it was going to hurt you, you wouldn't have stopped me.”
”I wanted you to know,” she whispered.
”It took a lot of courage.” He frowned, watching her. ”Did it hurt you when I accused you of being frigid?”
”A little,” she said, trying to spare him.
He sighed angrily. ”A lot, I imagine. Try to remember that I didn't know the truth, and don't hate me for it. There are a lot of things you don't know about me, either, Shelby.” He turned then, retrieving his cigarette from the ashtray. ”I'd better get a move on,” he said after a cursory glance at the thin gold watch on his wrist. ”No speeding,” he cautioned from the door.
The remark intrigued her, but she knew he wasn't going to tell her any more than he wanted her to know. ”All right. Have a good trip.”
”I'll do my best.”
He didn't say goodbye. He gave her one last glance and closed the door behind him. Shelby watched him leave with mixed emotions. Sometimes she wished she could read his mind, because that was the only way she was ever going to know how he really felt about her. She wondered if he knew himself.
She got up and dressed and drove the Thunderbird to the office, taking a minute to make an appointment that afternoon with Dr. Sims. By the time she got home, she was worn out from the combination of an unexpectedly long day trying to keep peace between an irritable Mr. Holman and a venomous Tammy Lester, and having the rest of the surgery done-which was embarra.s.sing as well as uncomfortable, because she had to tell Dr. Sims why she needed it.
But a cup of fresh coffee and a nice supper soothed her. She went upstairs to her own room, wis.h.i.+ng she had the right to go straight to Justin's. But he hadn't said anything about the sleeping arrangements, so apparently he'd thought of last night as a temporary thing because of what had happened.
She went to sleep early. She didn't hear the car come in, or Justin's footsteps heading toward his own bedroom expectantly. She didn't hear the m.u.f.fled curse when he found his bed empty, or the shocked silence when he found Shelby asleep in her own.
He closed the door firmly and went to his room, dreams going black in his eyes. He'd expected her to be waiting up, or at least sleeping in his bed. But she hadn't, and he didn't know if she'd just been uncertain about what to do or if she was putting a wall between them because of the argument they'd had that morning.
Shelby, blissfully unaware of what had happened after she was asleep, went down to breakfast the next morning full of hope. Only to find a cold, taciturn Justin at the table looking at her as if she'd just tried to shoot him.
She stopped suddenly in the doorway. Her long denim skirt swung around her calves, her hands going nervously to the blue cotton blouse and scarf she was wearing with it.
”Good morning,” she said, faltering.
”h.e.l.l, no, it isn't,” he said.
Her eyebrows arched. ”It isn't?”
He lifted his coffee cup and sipped the rich black liquid. ”I'll have one of the boys drive you to work,” he said. ”May I have the keys to the Thunderbird?”
She reached into her skirt pocket and put them beside him on the table, but he caught her hand before she could move away.
He looked up, his expression brooding. ”Why did you go back to your own room?”