Passion Flower Read online

  “The apology wouldn’t have meant much after what you said to me!” she said through her teeth, flushing at the memory of the crude phrase.

  He looked away. For a long minute he just sat and smoked. “You’re almost twenty-four years old, Jenny,” he said finally. “If you haven’t heard words like that before, you’re overdue.”

  “I didn’t expect to hear them from you,” she shot back, glaring at him. “Much less have you treat me with less respect than a woman you might have picked up on the streets with a twenty-dollar bill!”

  “One way or another, I’d have touched you like that eventually!” he growled, glaring at her. “And don’t sit there like lily-white purity and pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. We were on the verge of becoming lovers that night on the sofa.”

  “You wouldn’t have made me feel ashamed if it had happened that night,” she said fiercely. “You wouldn’t have made me feel cheap!”

  He seemed about to explode. Then he caught himself and took a calming draw from the cigarette. His dark eyes studied the lean hand holding it. “You hurt me.”

  It was a shock to hear him admit it. “What?”

  “You hurt me.” His dark eyes lifted. “I thought we were being totally honest with each other. I trusted you. I let you closer than any other woman ever got. And then out of the blue, you hit me with everything at once. That you were a professional woman, a career woman. Worse,” he added quietly, “a city woman, used to city men and city life and city ways. I couldn’t take it. I’d been paying you scant wages, and you handed me that check...” He sighed wearily. “My God, I can’t even tell you how I felt. My pride took one hell of a blow. I had nothing, and you were showing me graphically that you could outdo me on every front.”

  “I only wanted to help,” she said curtly. “I wanted to buy you the damned bull. Sorry. If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn’t offer you a dime.”

  “Yes, it shows.” He sighed. He finished the cigarette and crushed it out. “Who’s the redhead?”

  “Drew? Sally told you. He’s our architect. He has his own firm, of course, but he collaborates with us on big projects.”

  “Not on mine,” he said menacingly, and his eyes darkened. “Not in my house.”

  She glared back. “That will depend on how much renovation the project calls for, I imagine.”

  “I won’t have him on my place,” he said softly.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t like the way he looks at you,” he said coldly. “Much less the way he makes free with his hands.”

  “I’m twenty-three years old,” she reminded him. “And I like Drew, and the way he looks at me! He’s a nice man.”

  “And I’m not,” he agreed. “Nice is the last thing I am. If he ever touches you that way again when I’m in the same room, I’ll break his fingers for him.”

  “Everett Donald Culhane!” she burst out.

  His eyebrows arched. “Who told you my whole name?”

  She looked away. “Never mind,” she said, embarrassed.

  His hand brushed against her hair, caressing it. “God, your hair is glorious,” he said quietly. “It was nothing like this at the ranch.”

  She tried not to feel his touch. “I’d been ill,” she managed.

  “And now you aren’t. Now you’re...fuller and softer-looking. Even your breasts...”

  “Stop it!” she cried, red-faced.

  He let go of her hair reluctantly, but his eyes didn’t leave her. “I’ll have you, Jenny,” he said quietly, his tone as soft as it had been that night when he was loving her.

  “Only if you shoot me in the leg first!” she told him.

  “Not a chance,” he murmured, studying her. “I’ll want you healthy and strong, so that you can keep up with me.”

  Her face did a slow burn again. She could have kicked him, but they were sitting down. “I don’t want you!”

  “You did. You will. I’ve got a whole campaign mapped out, Miss Jenny,” he told her with amazing arrogance. “You’re under siege. You just haven’t realized it yet.”

  She looked him straight in the eye. “My grandfather held off a whole German company during World War I rather than surrender.”

  His eyebrows went up. “Is that supposed to impress me?”

  “I won’t be your mistress,” she told him levelly. “No matter how many campaigns you map out or what kind of bribes or threats you try to use. I came with you to save Sally’s business. But all this is to me is a job. I am not going to sleep with you.”

  His dark, quiet eyes searched over her face. “Why?”

  Her lips opened and closed, opened again. “Because I can’t do it without love,” she said finally.

  “Love isn’t always possible,” he said softly. “Sometimes, other things have to come first. Mutual respect, caring, companionship...”

  “Can we talk about something else?” she asked tautly. Her fingers twisted the purse out of shape.

  He chuckled softly. “Talking about sex won’t get you pregnant.”

  “You’ve got money now. You can buy women,” she ground out. “You said so.”

  “Honey, would you want a man you had to buy?” he asked quietly, studying her face.

  Her lips parted. “Would I...” She searched his eyes. “Well, no.”

  “I wouldn’t want a woman I had to buy,” he said simply. “I’m too proud, Jenny. I said and did some harsh things to you,” he remarked. “I can understand why you’re angry and hurt about it. Someday I’ll try to explain why I behaved that way. Right now, I’ll settle for regaining even a shadow of the friendship we had. Nothing more. Despite all this wild talk, I’d never deliberately try to seduce you.”

  “Wouldn’t you?” she asked bitterly. “Isn’t that the whole point of getting me down here?”

  “No.” He lit another cigarette.

  “You said you were going to...” she faltered.

  “I want to,” he admitted quietly. “God, I want to! But I can’t quite take a virgin in my stride. Once, I thought I might,” he confessed, his eyes searching her face. “That night... You were so eager, and I damned near lost my head when I realized that I could have you.” He stared at the tip of his cigarette with blank eyes. “Would you have hated me if I hadn’t been able to stop?”

  Her eyes drilled into her purse. “There’s just no point in going over it,” she said in a studiously polite tone. “The past is gone.”

  “Like hell it’s gone,” he ground out. “I look at you and start aching,” he said harshly.

  Her lower lip trembled as she glared at him. “Then stop looking. Or take cold showers! Just don’t expect me to do anything about it. I’m here to work, period!”

  His eyebrows arched, and he was watching her with a faintly amused expression. “Where did you learn about cold showers?”

  “From watching movies!”

  “Is that how you learned about sex, from the movies?” he taunted.

  “No, I learned in school! Sex education,” she bit off.

  “In my day, we had to learn it the hard way,” he murmured. “It wasn’t part of the core curriculum.”

  She glanced at him. “I can see you, doing extracurricular work in somebody’s backseat.”

  He reached out and caught her hair again, tugging on it experimentally. “In a haystall, actually,” he said, his voice low and soft and dark. Her head turned and he held her eyes. “She was two years older than I was, and she taught me the difference between sex and making love.”

  Her face flushed. He affected her in ways nobody else could. She was trembling from the bare touch of his fingers on her hair; her heart was beating wildly. How was she going to survive being in the same house with him?

  “Everett...” she began.

&nb
sp; “I’m sorry about what I said to you that last day, Jenny,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry I made it into something cheap and sordid between us. Because that’s the last thing it would have been if you’d given yourself to me.”

  She pulled away from him with a dry little laugh. “Oh, really?” she said shakenly, turning her eyes to the window. They were out of Houston now, heading south. “The minute you’d finished with me, you’d have kicked me out the door, and you know it, Everett Culhane. I’d have been no different from all the other women you’ve held in contempt for giving in to you.”

  “It isn’t like that with you.”

  “And how many times have you told that story?” she asked sadly.

  “Once. Just now.”

  He sounded irritated, probably because she wasn’t falling for his practiced line. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the cool window pane.

  “I’d rather stay in a motel,” she said, “if you don’t mind.”

  “No way, lady,” he said curtly. “The same lock’s still on your door, if you can’t trust me that far. But staying at Big Spur was part of the deal you and I negotiated.”

  She turned her head to glance at his hard, set profile. He looked formidable again, all dark, flashing eyes and coldness. He was like the man she’d met that first day at the screen door.

  “What would you have done, if I’d given in?” she asked suddenly, watching him closely. “What if I’d gotten pregnant?”

  His head turned and his eyes glittered strangely. “I’d have gotten down on my knees and thanked God for it,” he said harshly. “What did you think I’d do?”

  Her lips parted. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

  “I want children. A yardful.”

  That was surprising. Her eyes dropped to his broad chest, to the muscles that his gray suit barely contained, and remembered how it was to be held against him in passion.

  “Libby said you loved the ranch,” he remarked.

  “I did. When I was welcome.”

  “You still are.”

  “Do tell?” She cocked her head. “I’m a career woman, remember? And I’m a city girl.”

  His mouth tugged up. “I think city girls are sexy.” His dark eyes traveled down to her slender legs encased in pink hose. “I didn’t know you had legs, Jenny Wren. You always kept them in jeans.”

  “I didn’t want you leering at me.”

  “Ha!” he shot back. “You knew that damned blouse was torn, the day you fell off your horse.” His eyes dared her to dispute him. “You wanted my eyes on you. I’ll never forget the way you looked when you saw me staring at you.”

  Her chest rose and fell quickly. “I was shocked.”

  “Shocked, hell. Delighted.” He lifted the cigarette to his mouth. “I didn’t realize you were a woman until then. I’d seen you as a kid. A little helpless thing I needed to protect.” His eyes cut sideways and he smiled mockingly. “And then that blouse came open and I saw a body I’d have killed for. After that, the whole situation started getting impossible.”

  “So did you.”

  “I know,” he admitted. “My brain was telling me to keep away, but my body wouldn’t listen. You didn’t help a hell of a lot, lying there on that couch with your mouth begging for mine.”

  “Well, I’m human!” she burst out furiously. “And I never asked you to start kissing me.”

  “You didn’t fight me.”

  She turned away. “Can’t we get off this subject?”

  “Just when it’s getting interesting?” he mused. “Why? Don’t you like remembering it?”

  “No, I don’t!”

  “Does he kiss you the way I did?” he asked shortly, jerking her around by the arm, his lean hand hurting. “That redhead, have you let him touch you like I did?”

  “No!” she whispered, shocking herself with the disgust she put into that one, telling syllable.

  His nostrils flared and his dark eyes traveled to the bodice of her dress, to her slender legs, her rounded hips, and all the way back up again to her eyes. “Why not?” he breathed unsteadily.

  “Maybe I’m terrified of men now,” she muttered.

  “Maybe you’re just terrified of other men,” he whispered. “It was so good, when we touched each other. So good, so sweet... I rocked you under me and felt you respond, here...” His fingers brushed lightly against the bodice of her dress.

  Coming to her senses all at once, she caught his fingers and pushed them away.

  “No!” she burst out.

  His fingers curled around her hand. He brought her fingers to his mouth and nibbled at them softly, staring into her eyes. “I can’t even get in the mood with other women,” he said quietly. “Three long months and I still can’t sleep for thinking how you felt in my arms.”

  “Don’t,” she ground out, bending her head. “You won’t make me feel guilty.”

  “That isn’t what I want from you. Not guilt.”

  Her eyes came up. “You just want sex, don’t you? You want me because I haven’t been with anyone else!”

  He caught her face in his warm hands and searched it while the forgotten cigarette between his fingers sent up curls of smoke beside her head.

  “Someday, I’ll tell you what I really want,” he said, his voice quiet and soft and dark. “When you’ve forgotten, and forgiven what happened. Until then, I’ll just go on as I have before.” His mouth twisted. “Taking cold showers and working myself into exhaustion.”

  She wouldn’t weaken; she wouldn’t! But his hands were warm and rough, and his breath was smoky against her parted lips. And her mouth wanted his.

  He bent closer, just close enough to torment her. His eyes closed. His nose touched hers.

  She felt reckless and hungry, and all her willpower wasn’t proof against him.

  “Jenny,” he groaned against her lips.

  “Isn’t...fair,” she whispered shakily.

  “I know.” His hands were trembling. They touched her face as if it were some priceless treasure. His mouth trembled, too, while it brushed softly over hers. “Oh, God, I’ll die if I don’t kiss you...!” he whispered achingly.

  “No...” But it was only a breath, and he took it from her with the cool, moist pressure of his hard lips.

  She hadn’t dreamed of kisses this tender, this soft. He nudged her mouth with his until it opened. She shuddered with quickly drawn breaths. Her eyes slid open and looked into his slitted ones.

  “Oh,” she moaned in a sharp whisper.

  “Oh,” he whispered back. His thumbs brushed her cheeks. “I want you. I want to live with you and touch you and let you touch me. I want to make love with you and to you.”

  “Everett...you mustn’t,” she managed in a husky whisper as his mouth tortured hers. “Please, don’t do this...to me. The driver...”

  “I closed the curtain, didn’t you notice?” he whispered.

  She looked past him, her breath jerky and quick, her face flushed, her eyes wild.

  “You see?” he asked quietly.

  She swallowed, struggling for control. Her eyes closed and she pulled carefully away from his warm hands.

  “No,” she said then.

  “All right.” He moved back and finished his cigarette in silence.

  She glanced at him warily, tucking back a loose strand of hair.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said, as if he sensed all her hidden fears. “I want nothing from you that you don’t want to give freely.”

  She clasped her hands together. Her tongue touched her dry lips, and she could still taste him on them. It was so intimate that she caught her breath.

  “I can’t go with you,” she burst out, all at once.

  “Your door has a lock,” h
e reminded her. “And I’ll even give you my word that I won’t force you.”

  Her troubled eyes sought his and he smiled reassuringly.

  “Let me rephrase that,” he said after a minute. “I won’t take advantage of any...lapses. Is that better?”

  She clutched her purse hard enough to wrinkle the soft leather wallet inside. “I hate being vulnerable!”

  “Do you think I don’t?” he growled, his eyes flashing. He crushed out his cigarette. “I’m thirty-five, and it’s never happened to me before.” He glared at her. “And it had to be with a damned virgin!”

  “Don’t you curse at me!”

  “I wasn’t cursing,” he said harshly. He reached for another cigarette.

  “Will you please stop that?” she pleaded. “I’m choking on the smoke as it is.”

  He made a rough sound and repocketed the cigarette. “That’s it! I quit. You’ll be carrying a noose around with you next.”

  “I’m glad you’re quitting smoking, but I won’t be throwing a rope around your neck,” she promised him with a sweet smile. “Confirmed bachelors aren’t my cup of tea.”

  “Career women aren’t mine.”

  She turned her eyes out the window. And for the rest of the drive to the ranch she didn’t say another word.

  The room he gave her was the one she’d had before. But she was surprised to see that the linen hadn’t been changed. And the checks he’d written for her were just where she’d left them, on the dresser.

  She stared at him as he set her bag down. “It’s...you haven’t torn them up,” she faltered.

  He straightened, taking off his hat to run a hand through his thick, dark hair. “So what?” he growled, challenge in his very posture. He towered over her.

  “Well, I don’t want them!” she burst out.

  “Of course not,” he replied. “You’ve got a good paying job, now, don’t you?”

  Her chin lifted. “Yes, I do.”

  He tossed his hat onto the dresser and moved toward her.

  “You promised!” she burst out.

  “Sure I did,” he replied. He reached out and jerked her up into his arms, staring into her eyes. “What if I lied?” he whispered gruffly. “What if I meant to throw you on that bed, and strip you, and make love to you until dawn?”