Leslie knew by the look in Matt’s eyes that he was furious. She thought his anger must be directed toward her, although she couldn’t remember anything she’d done to deserve it. As he approached them, he had his cellular phone out and was pushing a number into it. He said something, then closed it and put it back in his pocket.
“I’m sorry, but we have to leave,” he said, every syllable dripping ice. “It seems that Carolyn has developed a vicious headache.”
“It’s all right,” Leslie said, and even smiled as relief swept over her that she hadn’t put that expression on his handsome face. “I wouldn’t have been able to dance again.” Her eyes met Matt’s shyly. “I really enjoyed it.”
He didn’t reply. His eyes were narrow and not very friendly. “Ed, will you go out front and watch for the car? I’ve just phoned the driver.”
“Sure.” He hesitated noticeably for a moment before he left.
Matt stood looking down at Leslie with an intensity that made her uncomfortable. “You make yourself out to be a broken stick,” he said quietly. “But you’re not what you appear to be, are you? I get the feeling that you used to be quite a dancer before that leg slowed you down.”
She was puzzled. “I learned how from my mother,” she said honestly. “I used to dance with her.”
He laughed curtly. “Pull the other one,” he said. He was thinking about her pretended revulsion, the way she constantly backed off when he came near her. Then, tonight, the carefully planned capitulation. It was an old trick that had been used on him before—backing away so that he’d give chase. He was surprised that he hadn’t realized it sooner. He wondered how far she’d let him go. He was going to find out.
She blinked and frowned. “I beg your pardon?” she asked, genuinely puzzled.
“Never mind,” he said with a parody of a smile. “Ed should be outside with the driver by now. Shall we go?”
He reached out a lean hand and pulled her to her feet abruptly. Her face was very pale at the hint of domination not only in his eyes, but the hold he had on her. It was hard not to panic. It reminded her of another man who had used domination; only that time she had no knowledge of how to get away. Now she did. She turned her arm quickly and pushed it down against his thumb, the weakest spot in his hold, freeing herself instantly as the self-defense instructor had taught her.
Matt was surprised. “Where did you learn that? From your mother?” he drawled.
“No. From my Tae Kwon Do instructor in Houston,” she returned. “Despite my bad leg, I can take care of myself.”
“Oh, I’d bet on that.” His dark eyes narrowed and glittered faintly. “You’re not what you seem, Miss Murry. I’m going to make it my business to find out the truth about you.”
She blanched. She didn’t want him digging into her past. She’d run from it, hidden from it, for years. Would she have to run some more, just when she felt secure?
He saw her frightened expression and felt even more certain that he’d almost been taken for the ride of his life. Hadn’t his experience with women taught him how to recognize deceit? He thought of his mother and his heart went cold. Leslie even had a look of her, with that blond hair. He took her by the upper arm and pulled her along with him, noticing that she moved uncomfortably and tugged at his hold.
“Please,” she said tightly. “Slow down. It hurts.”
He stopped at once, realizing that he was forcing her to a pace that made walking painful. He’d forgotten about her disability, as if it were part of her act. He let out an angry breath.
“The damaged leg is real,” he said, almost to himself. “But what else is?”
She met his angry eyes. “Mr. Caldwell, whatever I am, I’m no threat to you,” she said quietly. “I really don’t like being touched, but I enjoyed dancing with you. I haven’t danced…in years.”
He studied her wan face, oblivious to the music of the band, and the murmur of movement around them. “Sometimes,” he murmured, “you seem very familiar to me, as if I’ve seen you before.” He was thinking about his mother, and how she’d betrayed him and hurt him all those years ago.
Leslie didn’t know that, though. Her teeth clenched as she tried not to let her fear show. Probably he had seen her before, just like the whole country had, her face in the tabloid papers as it had appeared the night they took her out of her mother’s bloodstained apartment on a stretcher, her leg bleeding profusely, her sobs audible. But then her hair had been dark, and she’d been wearing glasses. Could he really recognize her?
“Maybe I just have that kind of face.” She grimaced and shifted her weight. “Could we go, please?” she asked on a moan. “My leg really is killing me.”
He didn’t move for an instant. Then he bent suddenly and lifted her in his strong arms and carried her through the amused crowd toward the door.
“Mr….Mr. Caldwell,” she protested, stiffening. She’d never been picked up and carried by a man in her entire life. She studied his strong profile with fascinated curiosity, too entranced to feel the usual fear. Having danced with him, she was able to accept his physical closeness. He felt very strong and he smelled of some spicy, very exotic cologne. She had the oddest urge to touch his wavy black hair just over his broad forehead, where it looked thickest.
He glanced down into her fascinated eyes and one of his dark eyebrows rose in a silent question.
“You’re…very strong, aren’t you?” she asked hesitantly.
The tone of her voice touched something deep inside him. He searched her eyes and the tension was suddenly thick as his gaze fell to her soft bow of a mouth and lingered there, even as his pace slowed slightly.
Her hand clutched the lapel of his tuxedo as her own gaze fell to his mouth. She’d never wanted to be kissed like this before. When she’d been kissed during that horrible encounter, it had been repulsive—a wet, invading, lustful kiss that made her want to throw up.
It wouldn’t be like that with Matt. She knew instinctively that he was well versed in the art of love-making, and that he would be gentle with a woman. His mouth was sensual, wide and chiseled. Her own mouth tingled as she wondered visibly what it would feel like to let him kiss her.
He read that curiosity with pinpoint accuracy and his sharp intake of breath brought her curious eyes up to meet his.
“Careful,” he cautioned, his voice deeper than usual. “Curiosity killed the cat.”
Her eyes asked a question she couldn’t form with her lips.
“You fell off a horse avoiding any contact with me,” he reminded her quietly. “Now you look as if you’d do anything to have my mouth on yours. Why?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered, her hand contracting on the lapel of his jacket. “I like being close to you,” she confessed, surprised. “It’s funny. I haven’t wanted to be close to a man like this before.”
He stopped dead in his tracks. There was a faint vibration in the hard arms holding her. His eyes lanced into hers. His breath became audible. The arm under her back contracted, bringing her breasts hard against him as he stood there on the steps of the building, totally oblivious to everything except the ache that was consuming him.
Leslie’s body shivered with its first real taste of desire. She laughed shakily at the new and wonderful sensations she was feeling. Her breasts felt suddenly heavy. They ached.
“Is this what it feels like?” she murmured.
She met his gaze. “Desire.”
He actually shuddered. His arms contracted. His lips parted as he looked at her mouth and knew that he couldn’t help taking it. She smelled of roses, like the tiny pink fairy roses that grew in masses around the front door of his ranch house. She wanted him. His head began to spin. He bent his dark head and bit at her lower lip with a sensuous whisper.
“Open your mouth, Leslie,” he whispered, and his hard mouth suddenly went down insistently on hers.
But before he could even savor the feel of her soft lips, the sound of high heels approaching jerked his head up. Leslie was trembling against him, shocked and a little frightened, and completely entranced by the unexpected contact with his beautiful mouth.
Matt’s dark eyes blazed down into hers. “No more games. I’m taking you home with me,” he said huskily.
She started to speak, to protest, when Carolyn came striding angrily out the door.
“Does she have to be carried?” the older woman asked Matt with dripping sarcasm. “Funny, she was dancing eagerly enough a few minutes ago!”
“She has a bad leg,” Matt said, regaining his control. “Here’s the car.”
The limousine drew up at the curb and Ed got out, frowning when he saw Leslie in Matt’s arms.
“Are you all right?” he asked as he approached them.
“She shouldn’t have danced,” Matt said stiffly as he moved the rest of the way down the steps to deposit her inside the car on the leather-covered seat. “She made her leg worse.”
Carolyn was livid. She slid in and moved to the other side of Leslie with a gaze that could have curdled milk. “One dance and we have to leave,” she said furiously.
Matt moved into the car beside Ed and slammed the door. “I thought we were leaving because you had a headache,” he snapped at Carolyn, his usual control quite evidently gone. He was in a foul mood. Desire was frustrating him. He glanced at Leslie and thought how good she was at manipulation. She had him almost doubled over with need. She was probably laughing her head off silently. Well, she was going to pay for that.
Carolyn, watching his eyes on Leslie, made an angry sound in her throat and stared out the window.
To Ed’s surprise and dismay, they dropped him off at his home first. He tried to argue, but Matt wasn’t having that. He told Ed he’d see him at the office Monday and closed the door on his protests.
Carolyn was deposited next. Matt walked her to her door, but he moved back before she could claim a good-night kiss. The way she slammed her door was audible even inside the closed limousine.
Leslie bit her lower lip as Matt climbed back into the car with her. In the lighted interior, she could see the expression on his face as he studied her slender body covetously.
“This isn’t the way to my apartment,” she ventured nervously a few minutes later, hoping he hadn’t meant what he said just before they got into the limousine.
“No, it isn’t, is it?” he replied dangerously.
Even as he spoke, the limousine pulled up at the door to his ranch house. He helped Leslie out and spoke briefly to the driver before dismissing him. Then he swung a frightened Leslie up into his arms and carried her toward the front door.
“Mr. Caldwell…” she began.
“Matt,” he corrected, not looking at her.
“I want to go home,” she tried again.
“You will. Eventually.”
“But you sent the car away.”
“I have six cars,” he informed her as he shifted his light burden to produce his keys from the pocket of his slacks and insert one in the lock. The door swung open. “I’ll drive you home when the time comes.”
“I’m very tired.” Her voice sounded breathless and high-pitched.
“Then I know just the place for you.” He closed the door and carried her down a long, dimly lit hallway to a room near the back of the house. He leaned down to open the door and once they were through it, he kicked it shut with his foot.
Seconds later, Leslie was in the middle of a huge king-size bed, sprawled on the beige-brown-and-black comforter that covered it and Matt was removing her wrap.
It went flying onto a chair, along with his jacket and tie. He unbuttoned his shirt and slid down onto the bed beside her, his hands on either side of her face as he poised just above her.
The position brought back terrible, nightmarish memories. She stiffened all over. Her face went pale. Her eyes dilated so much that the gray of them was eclipsed by black.
Matt ignored her expression. He looked down the length of her in the clinging silver dress, his eyes lingering on the thrust of her small breasts. One of his big hands came up to trace around the prominent hard nipple that pointed through the fabric.
The touch shocked Leslie, because she didn’t find it revolting or unpleasant. She shivered a little. Her eyes, wide and frightened, and a little curious, met his.
His strong fingers brushed lazily over the nipple and around the contours of her breast as if the feel of her fascinated him.
“Do you mind?” he asked with faint insolence, and slipped one of the spaghetti straps down her arm, moving her just enough that he could pull the bodice away from her perfect little breast.
Leslie couldn’t believe what was happening. Men were repulsive to her. She hated the thought of intimacy. But Matt Caldwell was looking at her bare breast and she was letting him, with no thought of resistance. She hadn’t even had anything to drink.
He searched her face as his warm fingers traced her breast. He read the pleasure she was feeling in her soft eyes. “You feel like sun-touched marble to my hand,” he said quietly. “Your skin is beautiful.” His gaze traveled down her body. “Your breasts are perfect.”
She was shivering again. Her hands clenched beside her head as she watched him touch her, like an observer, like in a dream.
He smiled with faint mockery when he saw her expression. “Haven’t you done this before?”
“No,” she said, and she actually sounded serious.
He discounted that at once. She was far too calm and submissive for an inexperienced woman.
One dark eyebrow lifted. “Twenty-three and still a virgin?”
How had he known that? “Well…yes.” Technically she certainly was. Emotionally, too. Despite what had been done to her, she’d been spared rape, if only by seconds, when her mother came home unexpectedly.
Matt was absorbed in touching her body. His forefinger traced around the hard nipple, and he watched her body lift to follow it when he lifted his hand.
“Do you like it?” he asked softly.
She was watching him intensely. “Yes.” She sounded as if it surprised her that she liked what he was doing.
With easy self-confidence, he pulled her up just a little and pushed the other strap down her arm, baring her completely to his eyes. She was perfect, like a warm statue in beautifully smooth marble. He’d never seen breasts like hers. She aroused him profoundly.
He held her by the upper part of her rib cage, his thumbs edging onto her breasts to caress them tenderly while he watched the expressions chase each other across her face. The silence in the bedroom was broken only by the sound of cars far in the distance and the sound of some mournful night bird outside the window. Closer was the rasp of her own breathing and her heart beating in her ears. She should be fighting for her life, screaming, running, escaping. She’d avoided this sort of situation successfully for six years. Why didn’t she want to avoid Matt’s hands?
Matt touched her almost reverently, his eyes on her hard nipples. With a faint groan, he bent his dark head and his mouth touched the soft curve of her breast.
She gasped and stiffened. His head lifted immediately. He looked at her and realized that she wasn’t trying to get away. Her eyes were full of shocked pleasure and curiosity.
“Another first?” he asked with faint arrogance and a calculating smile that didn’t really register in her whirling mind.
She nodded, swallowing. Her body, as if it was ignoring her brain, moved sensuously on the bed. She’d never dreamed that she could let a man touch her like this, that she could enjoy letting him touch her, after her one horrible experience with intimacy.
He put his mouth over her nipple and suckled her so insistently that she cried out, drowning in a veritable flood of shocked pleasure.
The little cry aroused Matt unexpectedly, and he was rougher with her than he meant to be, his mouth suddenly demanding on her soft flesh. He tasted her hungrily for several long seconds until he forced his mind to remember why he shouldn’t let himself go in headfirst. He wanted her almost beyond bearing, but he wasn’t going to let her make a fool of him.
He lifted his head and studied her flushed face clinically. She was enjoying it, but she needn’t think he was going to let her take possession of him with that pretty body. He knew now that he could have her. She was willing to give in. For a price, he added.
She opened her eyes and lay there watching him with wide, soft, curious eyes. She thought she had him in her pocket, he mused. But she was all too acquiescent. That, he thought amusedly, was a gross miscalculation on her part. It was her nervous retreat that challenged him, not the sort of easy conquest with which he was already too familiar.
Abruptly he sat up, pulling her with him, and slid the straps of her evening dress back up onto her shoulders.
She watched him silently, still shocked by his ardor and puzzled at her unexpected response to it.
He got to his feet and rebuttoned his shirt, reaching for his snap-on tie and then his jacket. He studied her there, sitting dazed on the edge of his bed, and his dark eyes narrowed. He smiled, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile.
“You’re not bad,” he murmured lazily. “But the fascinated virgin bit turns me right off. I like experience.”
She blinked. She was still trying to make her mind work again.
“I assume that your other would-be lovers liked that wide-eyed, first-time look?”
Other lovers. Had he guessed about her past? Her eyes registered the fear.
He saw it. He was vaguely sorry that she wasn’t what she pretended to be. He was all but jaded when it came to pursuing women. He hated the coy behavior, the teasing, the manipulation that eventually ended in his bedroom. He was considered a great catch by single women, rich and handsome and experienced in sensual techniques. But he always made his position clear at the outset. He didn’t want marriage. That didn’t really matter to most of the women in his life. A diamond here, an exotic vacation there, and they seemed satisfied for as long as it lasted. Not that there were many affairs. He was tired of the game. In fact, he’d never been more tired of it than he was right now. His whole expression was one of disgust.
Leslie saw it in his eyes and wished she could curl up into a ball and hide under the bed. His cold scrutiny made her feel cheap, just as that doctor had, just as the media had, just as her mother had…
He couldn’t have explained why that expression on her face made him feel guilty. But it did.
He turned away from her. “Come on,” he said, picking up her wrap and purse and tossing them to her. “I’ll run you home.”
She didn’t look at him as she followed him down the length of the hall. It was longer than she realized, and even before they got to the front door, her leg was throbbing. Dancing had been damaging enough, without the jerk of his hand as they left the ballroom. But she ground her teeth together and didn’t let her growing discomfort show in her face. He wasn’t going to make her feel any worse than she already did by accusing her of putting on an act for sympathy. She went past him out the door he was holding open, avoiding his eyes. She wondered how things could have gone so terribly wrong.
* * *
The spacious garage was full of cars. He got out the silver Mercedes and opened the door to let her climb inside, onto the leather-covered passenger seat. He closed her door with something of a snap. Her fingers fumbled the seat belt into its catch and she hoped he wouldn’t want to elaborate on what he’d already said.
She stared out the window at the dark silhouettes of buildings and trees as he drove along the back roads that eventually led into Jacobsville. She was sick about the way she’d acted. He probably thought she was the easiest woman alive. The only thing she didn’t understand was why he didn’t take advantage of it. The obvious reason made her even more uncomfortable. Didn’t they say that some men didn’t want what came easily? It was probably true. He’d been in pursuit as long as she was backing away from him. What irony, to spend years being afraid of men, running crazily from even the most platonic involvement, to find herself capable of torrid desire with the one man in the world who didn’t want her!
He felt her tension. It was all too apparent that she was disappointed that he hadn’t played the game to its finish.
“Is that what Ed gets when he takes you home?” he drawled.
Her nails bit into her small evening bag. Her teeth clenched. She wasn’t going to dignify that remark with a reply.
He shrugged and paused to turn onto the main highway. “Don’t take it so hard,” he said lazily. “I’m a little too sophisticated to fall for it, but there are a few rich single ranchers around Jacobsville. Cy Parks comes to mind. He’s hell on the nerves, but he is a widower.” He glanced at her averted face. “On second thought, he’s had enough tragedy in his life. I wouldn’t wish you on him.”
She couldn’t even manage to speak, she was so choked up with hurt. Why, she wondered, did everything she wanted in life turn on her and tear her to pieces? It was like tracking cougars with a toy gun. Just when she seemed to find peace and purpose, her life became nothing but torment. As if her tattered pride wasn’t enough, she was in terrible pain. She shifted in the seat, hoping that a change of position would help. It didn’t.
“How did that bone get shattered?” he asked conversationally.
“Don’t you know?” she asked on a harsh laugh. If he’d seen the story about her, as she suspected, he was only playing a cruel game—the sort of game he’d already accused her of playing!
He glanced at her with a scowl. “And how would I know?” he wondered aloud.
She frowned. Maybe he hadn’t read anything at all! He might be fishing for answers.
She swallowed, gripping her purse tightly.
He swung the Mercedes into the driveway of her boardinghouse and pulled up at the steps, with the engine still running. He turned to her. “How would I know?” he asked again, his voice determined.
“You seem to think you’re an expert on everything else about me,” she replied evasively.
His chin lifted as he studied her through narrowed eyes. “There are several ways a bone can be shattered,” he said quietly. “One way is from a bullet.”
She didn’t feel as if she were still breathing. She sat like a statue, watching him deliberate.
“What do you know about bullets?” she asked shortly.
“My unit was called up during Operation Desert Storm,” he told her. “I served with an infantry unit. I know quite a lot about bullets. And what they do to bone,” he added. “Which brings me to the obvious question. Who shot you?”
“I didn’t say…I was shot,” she managed.
His intense gaze held her like invisible ropes. “But you were, weren’t you?” he asked with shrewd scrutiny. His lips tugged into a cold smile. “As to who did it, I’d bet on one of your former lovers. Did he catch you with somebody else, or did you tease him the way you teased me tonight and then refuse him?” He gave her another contemptuous look. “Not that you refused. You didn’t exactly play hard to get.”
Her ego went right down to her shoes. He was painting her over with evil colors. She bit her lower lip. It was unpleasant enough to have her memories, but to have this man making her out to be some sort of nymphomaniac was painful beyond words. Her first real taste of tender intimacy had been with him, tonight, and he made it sound dirty and cheap.
She unfastened her seat belt and got out of the car with as much dignity as she could muster. Her leg was incredibly painful. All she wanted was her bed, her heating pad and some more aspirins. And to get away from her tormenter.
Matt switched off the engine and moved around the car, irritated by the way she limped.
“I’ll take you to the door…!”
She flinched when he came close. She backed away from him, actually shivering when she remembered shamefully what she’d let him do to her. Her eyes clouded with unshed angry tears, with outraged virtue.
“More games?” he asked tersely. He hadn’t liked having her back away again after the way she’d been in his bedroom.
“I don’t…play games,” she replied, hating the hiccup of a sob that revealed how upset she really was. She clutched her wrap and her purse to her chest, accusing eyes glaring at him. “And you can go to hell!”
He scowled at the way she looked, barely hearing the words. She was white in the face and her whole body seemed rigid, as if she really was upset.
She turned and walked away, wincing inwardly with every excruciating step, to the front porch. But her face didn’t show one trace of her discomfort. She held her head high. She still had her pride, she thought through a wave of pain.
Matt watched her go into the boardinghouse with more mixed, confused emotions than he’d ever felt. He remembered vividly that curious “Don’t you know?” when he’d asked who shot her.
He got back into the Mercedes and sat staring through the windshield for a long moment before he started it. Miss Murry was one puzzle he intended to solve, and if it cost him a fortune in detective fees, he was going to do it.