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  “Yes, you are,” he said quietly. “Right here.” He put the spoon into the hand holding the small crystal goblet and with his free hand he touched her soft breast through the shirt. He felt its immediate response, but he didn’t follow up. He lifted the spoon again to her mouth. “Come on,” he coaxed. “It’s good for you.”

  She had a sudden picture of Dawson with a toddler, smiling just like that, coaxing food into a stubborn small mouth and she managed a watery smile as she took the ice cream.

  “What are you thinking about?” he wondered.

  “A little mouth that doesn’t want medicine or spinach,” she said quietly.

  He understood her. His eyes darkened, but not with irritation. He took a long breath and held another spoonful of ice cream to her mouth. Eventually he smiled. “I guess I might as well learn to change diapers and give bottles, too,” he mused softly.

  “No bottles,” she said firmly. “I want to nurse the baby.”

  His hand stilled halfway to her mouth. He searched her eyes, shocked at the way the statement aroused him.

  She could tell from the tautness of his body and the darkness of his eyes, from the faint flush across his cheekbones what he was feeling. She felt her own breath catch in her throat. She could see him in her mind, watching as she nursed the baby…

  “You’re trembling,” he said unsteadily.

  She moved restlessly and a self-conscious laugh passed her lips. “I was thinking about you watching me with the baby,” she said shyly.

  “So was I.”

  She let her eyes fall to his hard mouth, tracing the firm, sensuous lips. She caught her breath as a wave of hunger swept over her body.

  “Good God.” He whispered it reverently. He set the goblet aside carefully, because his hands weren’t steady. And when he turned back to her, she had the shirt open. She pulled the edges aside, red-faced and taut, and watched him as he looked at her hard-tipped breasts.

  Shakily her hands went to his face and she tugged as she lay back on the bed, dragging his mouth to her breast. He suckled her hungrily, fiercely, pressing her back into the mattress with a pressure that was nothing short of headlong passion.

  “I’m too hungry. I’ll hurt you,” he warned off, as he gave in to it.

  “No, you won’t.” She drew him closer, arching under the heat of his mouth. “Oh, Dawson, Dawson, it’s the sweetest sensation!”

  “You taste of rose petals,” he growled. “God, baby, I don’t think I can hold it back this time!”

  “It’s all right,” she repeated breathlessly. Her hands helped him get the fabric out of the way. She moved, fixed her body to his, helped him, guided him into sudden, stark intimacy. It should have been uncomfortable, but it wasn’t.

  He felt the ease of his possession and lifted his head to look into her eyes as he levered above her, softly kissing her. “I’ll let you…watch,” he whispered, shivering as he felt the tension building in his loins. “I don’t mind. I love you. I love you, Barrie. I love you…!”

  She watched his face tauten, the flush that spread to his cheekbones as his eyes began to dilate and the movements quickened into fierce, stark passion. He lifted his chest away from hers, his teeth clenched.

  “Look…” he managed before he lost control completely.

  Barrie went with him every step of the way. She lifted to the harsh, violent demand of his body for the satisfaction hers could give it. She opened herself to him, clung to him, as he cried out in great shuddering waves of ecstasy. Then she, too, cried out as her body exploded into pulsing shards of exquisite color, burning so high from the pleasure that the whole world spun around her.

  His voice came from far away and it sounded concerned. “What’s wrong?” he asked gently.

  “I’m fine.” Her eyes opened, wide and green and dazed with satiation. She traced the whorls of damp hair on his body. “I said the most shocking things,” she said uncomfortably.

  “Wicked, sexy things,” he agreed. He smiled. “I loved it.”

  “Oh.”

  He bent and brushed his mouth over hers. “There shouldn’t be limits on what we can say to each other in bed, what we can do to each other,” he explained gently. “I won’t ever tease you about it.”

  “That goes for me, too.” She searched his face. “I watched you,” she whispered.

  He flushed. “I know. I wanted you to.”

  She smiled self-consciously. “But I couldn’t really see much,” she added shyly. “Stars were exploding in my head.”

  “That was mutual. And I couldn’t really watch you for the same reason.” He chuckled. “I suppose I’m losing my inhibitions, bit by bit.”

  “Maybe I am, too.” She pushed back his damp hair gently. “I like being intimate with you. I like feeling you as close as you can get to me.”

  He drew her close and rolled onto his back with a long sigh. “Intimacy is new to me,” he revealed.

  She hit him. “Ha! Where did you learn all those things you did to me this morning? No!” She put her hand over his mouth. “No, don’t you tell me, I don’t want to know!”

  He lifted her onto his chest and searched her angry eyes. “Yes, you do. And I’m going to tell you. I learned them with a succession of carefully chosen, emotionally alienated one-night stands. I learned them without any real participation except for a superficial one. No, don’t look away. You’re going to hear this.” He turned her flushed face back to his. “I have had sex. But until I touched your body, I had never made love. That day on the floor of my study was the first time in my life that I gave myself completely and deliberately to a woman.”

  She felt hot all over. “You didn’t like it.”

  “I loved it,” he said harshly. “I didn’t like having you watch it happen to me. I didn’t trust you enough.” His eyes calmed. “I’m sorry about that, too. We made a baby in the heat of that exquisite loving. I’m sorry I didn’t make it a happier memory for you…for both of us.”

  “I’m not sorry about the baby. Or about watching you,” she whispered wickedly. “It was the most exciting, embarrassing thing that ever happened to me.”

  “I can imagine,” he replied quietly. “Because I kept my head long enough to watch you this morning, all through it.” His eyes began to glitter. “And now I understand why you had to see my face.”

  She eased down over his chest and kissed him softly, nibbling his upper lip. “Because you wanted to see the love in my eyes,” she whispered.

  “Yes. And that’s what you saw in mine, above and beyond the desire that was making me helpless, wasn’t it?” he asked.

  She nodded after a minute. “I didn’t recognize it at the time. But, yes it was. It was the love that you didn’t want me to see,” she realized.

  “Yes.” He traced her nose with his forefinger, enjoying the lazy intimacy of their sprawled bodies. “I could have saved myself the trouble. You honestly didn’t know how I felt until I told you in a drunken rage last night, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t,” she confessed with a chuckle. “And it knocked me so hard that I got on the first plane out here to see if you meant it.” She glared at him. “I thought you didn’t want me here.”

  “I was surprised that you came, and delighted at being spared the trouble of flying right out to Sheridan to show you how completely I’d given in to my own feelings toward you.”

  Her body lay open to his eyes, and he looked at her with wonder and obvious pleasure. “I couldn’t even do this before, did you realize it?” he asked quietly. “It made me feel uncomfortable to see you nude, to look at you openly.”

  “Then we’re making progress.”

  “Apparently.” He traced around her taut nipple and frowned as he saw the blue veins that had become prominent. The nipple was darker, bigger. His hand slid down to her belly and he felt the thickening of her waist. A smile pulled up the corners of his mouth. “My, how you’re changing.”

  She smiled complacently. “I’ll be as big as a pumpkin by
Christmas.”

  His hand caressed her. “So you will.” He bent and drew his mouth gently over her stomach. “We didn’t hurt him, did we?”

  “Babies are very tough,” she said. She knew he was remembering the one they’d lost. “This one wants to be born,” she added. “I feel it.”

  He lifted his head and searched her eyes. He didn’t say anything for a long time. His eyes said all too much.

  “You won’t lose me,” she said deliberately. “I promise you won’t.”

  He took a long breath and let it out. “Okay.”

  She sat up, pressing close to him. “I’m sleepy.”

  “So am I. I think a nap might be a good idea. Do you feel better?”

  “Oh, yes. I didn’t ever feel bad,” she murmured with a chuckle. “On the contrary, I felt entirely too good.”

  He drew her closer. “So did I. I wonder if two people ever achieved such a high at the same time?”

  “Should we call the people at the record book and ask…ouch!”

  He’d pinched her behind. He chuckled at her outraged expression. “I’ll repent. Come here. We’ll sleep for a while.”

  “A while?” she teased as he ensconced them together under the sheet.

  His hand cradled her belly. “Life can be sweet after all.”

  “Hmmm,” she murmured drowsily. Her eyes closed. She went to sleep with the sound of Dawson’s heart beating softly at her ear.

  Twelve

  THE phone was ringing off the hook. Barrie opened her eyes, disoriented. The phone was on the bedside table, on the other side of a broad, very hairy chest. She stared at that chest for a moment trying to get her bearings. Then she remembered where she was.

  She smiled as she poked him in the ribs and felt him jump, coming awake immediately.

  “Phone,” she said, shaking him gently. He reached over and picked it up. “Rutherford,” he said shortly. He was quiet for a moment, then he rolled over onto his back and ran a hand through his hair. “What?” he said then. He made a rough sound in his throat. “Hell, no! Good God, man, what sort of person do you think I am?” There was the sound of hurried, apologetic conversation. “You’d damn well better apologize, if you expect me to stay here again or book my people in for another conference. You didn’t? Well, that’s no excuse. Yes, I should think you are! Very well.” He slammed the receiver down and then started laughing.

  “What was that all about?” she asked curiously.

  He rolled onto his side to prop on his elbow and look down at her. “It seems that the prestige of the hotel was briefly lowered when one of the guests threw a woman’s jeans and tank top and very skimpy underwear out of a window. Naturally I had no idea why they should suspect me of…Stop that!” He flicked her cheek with a long forefinger when she started laughing. “You have no idea who did it, either. Remember that. I spend a lot of time here when I travel, and I do want to come back again.”

  “I still can’t believe you threw my clothes out the window!”

  He grinned. “It seemed the best way to keep you from leaving.” He lifted the sheet and looked at her with eyes as appreciative as any artist’s. He shook his head. “God almighty,” he breathed. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

  She grinned back. “Lecher.”

  He drew her against him and held her close with a long, lazy sigh as his legs tangled softly with hers. “Sore?”

  “Very.”

  “So am I,” he confessed, chuckling at her expression. “Men aren’t made of iron, you know.”

  “No kidding!”

  His arms tightened. “I suppose we’ll have beautiful memories for the next few days, at least.”

  “Several.” She touched the faint cleft in his chin gently. “Dawson, I can’t go back to Sheridan naked.”

  “You can’t?”

  She hit him.

  “All right. I’ll go shopping.” He grinned wickedly. “How about a maternity dress?”

  “I don’t even show yet,” she scoffed.

  “Why waste time wearing normal clothes until you do?” he wanted to know. “A man has his pride, Barrie. I’m rather anxious to show off what I’ve accomplished in such a short time.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “I’m an accomplishment?!”

  “By God, you are,” he said huskily. “The most wonderful accomplishment of my life, you and this baby. I must have a guardian angel sitting on my shoulder.”

  She slid her arms around his neck and reached over to kiss him lazily. “Then so must I, I guess, because you’re certainly my most wonderful accomplishment.”

  He searched her loving eyes with pride and a lingering sense of wonder. “I’m sorry it took me so long to deal with the past,” he said. “I wish I’d told you when you were fifteen that I was going to love you obsessively when you were old enough.”

  Her eyes twinkled. “Did you know so long ago?”

  “Part of me must have,” he replied, and he was serious as he searched her green eyes. “I was violent about you from the very beginning.”

  “And I never even suspected why,” she agreed. She smoothed her hand over his thick gold hair, tracing the wave that fell onto his broad forehead. “What would have become of us if you hadn’t dragged me back to Sheridan to act as chaperone for you and Leslie Holton?”

  “I’d have found another excuse to get you home.”

  “Excuse?”

  “I’ve been managing flirtatious women for a lot longer than five years, honey,” he said with a deliberate grin.

  “You said you were desperate to get that land!”

  “I was desperate to get you home,” he replied lazily. “There’s another tract of land on the north end of the property that’s just become available, and I bought it before Powell Long even had time to get a bid in. I didn’t need Leslie’s tract anymore. Of course, she didn’t know that. Neither did you.”

  “I’m in awe of you,” she said, aghast.

  He lifted a rakish eyebrow. “That’s just right. A woman should always be in awe of her husband.”

  “And a man in awe of his wife,” she returned pertly.

  He grinned. “I’m in awe of you, all right.”

  “Good. I’ll do my best to keep you that way.”

  He stretched drowsily and drew her close. “We can sleep a bit longer. Then we should go home.”

  “I didn’t leave labels in any of my clothes,” she pointed out. “The ones you threw out the window, I mean. There’s no way they could identify you as the mystery lingerie tosser.”

  “That’s not why I want to go home. It’s been just about six weeks, hasn’t it? And despite the home pregnancy test, I want proof. I want something I can take up on the roof and wave at people.”

  She nuzzled her cheek against his chest. “You’ll get it,” she promised.

  * * *

  And he did. The doctor confirmed not only that Barrie was pregnant, but that she was disgustingly healthy and should be over her morning sickness in no time.

  As she and Dawson settled down in Sheridan, she thought back over the long, lonely years they’d been apart and how wonderful it was to have their future settled so comfortably.

  Dawson was still sensitive to teasing just at first, but as he and Barrie grew together he became less defensive, more caring, more tender. Over the months of her pregnancy, Dawson was as attentive and supportive as any prospective mother could wish her husband to be. He seemed to have finally dealt with all his fears, even the one of childbirth.

  But the most incredible revelation Barrie was ever to see was the look on Dawson’s handsome face when he held their twin sons in his arms. As he looked into her worn, delighted face, the expression in his pale green eyes would last her the rest of her life. He looked as if he had the world in that small hospital room. And, as he later told Barrie, he did!

  * * * * *

  eISBN: 978-1-4603-3819-3

  Man of Ice

  Copyright © 2012 by Harlequin Books S.A.

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  MAN OF ICE

  Copyright © 1996 by Diana Palmer

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