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  He bent over and picked her up in his arms, shifting her as he turned toward the ocean.

  “Blair, there are red...flags,” she faltered.

  He looked down at her and brought her close, so that she could feel the thick hair on his chest against the strip of bare skin that showed in her bathing suit.

  His eyes were on her mouth as he walked, oblivious to the whole damned world. “Why did you have to put on that damned bathing suit?” he said harshly.

  He waded into the water, until it was up to his rib cage.

  Niki’s heart was beating like mad. She could feel his heart against her, under the warm, hard muscles of his chest, a drumbeat that gained rhythm by the second.

  His black eyes dropped to her mouth. He bent, very slowly, and touched his lips to hers in a soft whisper of contact.

  Her nails bit into his shoulders. It was like flying. She’d dreamed of having him kiss her for so long, wanted it, wondered how it would feel. She didn’t hear the cries of the seagulls flying overhead, the laughter of children way down the beach. She didn’t hear the slap of the ocean against the sand. All she felt was the shaky beat of her own heart.

  Blair’s warm, firm lips parted against hers, teasing the upper lip away from the lower one, sliding over her soft mouth with pure seduction. At her back, his arm contracted, moving her breasts against him, feeling the tips harden as they pressed into the warm muscle of his chest.

  “Blair,” she moaned huskily.

  He nipped her upper lip. “Open your mouth.”

  “What?” she whispered, dazed by the contact.

  “Open it for me, baby,” he whispered. “Let me inside.”

  The husky words shocked her into doing as he said. She felt the slow, velvety stab of his tongue into the warm darkness, felt the seductive movement work on every cell in her body. She shivered with her first taste of real desire.

  He felt that, felt her eager, shy response. He felt her fingers in the thick hair at his nape, biting in, caressing. Her body was trembling, like his legs.

  He eased her down into the water and pulled her very slowly into the thrust of his body, letting her feel the power and heat of the arousal.

  She gasped.

  He lifted his head, just a little, just enough to see the shock in her slitted eyes. They glittered like silver in sunlight. “I want to peel you out of that bathing suit and lay you down on the beach,” he whispered as his mouth teased hers. “I want to go into you, hard and slow and deep, and feel you curl into me, possess me, while I take you...”

  His mouth crushed down onto hers, and she shuddered as his big hands went to her hips and ground them into his. He wasn’t thinking anymore. He was living, breathing, only through the contact with Niki’s exquisite body. He wanted her to the point of madness. It had never been this bad, not even with Elise, when he thought he’d die if he couldn’t have her.

  Niki tried to protest, even if weakly. But the warm, slow crush of his mouth on hers was like a drug. She couldn’t get close enough to him. She couldn’t get enough of him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on for dear life, tears stinging her eyes as the incredible pleasure, borne on excruciating tension, felt as if it might tear her apart. She wanted...something. Something more. She ached all over. It was as deep as pain. She sobbed helplessly under his hard mouth.

  His hands tightened on her hips as he drew back to look into her eyes. She was totally yielding, helpless. He could have her. He could take her back to the hotel, to his room, and have her on the king-size bed with sunlight streaming in through the blinds. He could give her paradise. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her.

  And then, as the cold water began to soothe the heat in his tormented body, he felt the tremors running through her, saw the shock in her flushed face. This was Niki. He was treating her like a sophisticated woman, but he had to remember she was a virgin. She’d never had a man before.

  That excited him even more. He closed his eyes on a shudder. He pulled her close and held her tightly, but without passion.

  “Blair,” she sobbed at his throat.

  “Just hold on until it passes,” he ground out. “Be still, Niki. Be still, honey.”

  She had some vague memory of warnings from older women about hungry men and how it hurt them. He might deny it, but he’d wanted her desperately. She’d felt it. She closed her eyes and let herself dream as they clung to each other in the cold, restless ocean. Surely he couldn’t walk away from her after this and pretend nothing had happened.

  But apparently, he could. He drew back a minute later, his face hard and quiet.

  “We need to get out of here. We’re too close to the current, and the riptides are dangerous,” he said. He picked her up and carried her back to the beach, hating himself for what he’d done, for letting her tempt him.

  “You’d been swimming already,” she said breathlessly.

  “I know what to do in a riptide. I’ve been in them before.” He put her down on the sand.

  She looked up at him with her heart in her eyes, waiting, hoping, self-conscious.

  He didn’t look down at her. “I have some phone calls to make back at the hotel. I’ll see you later, Niki.”

  Then he just walked away. Just walked away, as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t held her and kissed her and said...incredibly intimate things to her. He didn’t look back. It was as if he’d never touched her.

  She went back to her towel, spread it back out, put on her sunglasses and lay down, trying to stop her racing heart. She noticed that Blair had already taken his towel and sunglasses with him when he left. Now what? she wondered. For her, the world had shifted two degrees. But for Blair it obviously hadn’t. Was it because Janet was here, and he was feeling a rekindling of their old romance?

  Her heart fell. Was that why he’d kissed her so hungrily, because he’d been thinking of Janet, and Niki in her seductive bathing suit had tempted him? She had to fight tears. At least she was wearing sunglasses. The few people on the beach wouldn’t see them.

  * * *

  BLAIR WAS DYING inside as he strode back into the hotel, away from the temptation on the beach. He’d been cold to her, when that was the last thing, the very last thing, he felt. Niki was in his heart. She had been for a very long time. But he wanted more for her than an old, used-up oilman who lived for his business. He couldn’t afford to let her fixate on him.

  He thought back over the past two years: Niki lying in his arms after her disastrous blind date; Niki taking care of him when he’d had bronchitis; Niki with the children at Christmas, laughing, her face as bright as the season itself; Niki, when he was drowning in anguish after the divorce, leading him out of a drunken stupor and taking him home with her and her father, to take care of him. There had never been a woman in his entire life who’d nurtured him so much, yet made him so hungry for her. But for her own good, he was going to have to smother those feelings. He couldn’t give in to temptation and ruin her life. He wanted her desperately. But she was the one woman on earth he absolutely could not have. Ever!

  * * *

  A FEW MINUTES LATER, Niki got up from the sand, picked up her towel and walked slowly back to the hotel. All her dreams of love, of Blair, had seemed about to come true. But he didn’t want to be close to her. He was angry, although he’d tried to hide it from her. Maybe he was disgusted with her, as well. She’d behaved like a wanton. She flushed with embarrassment.

  He’d given her heaven, but all she had given him was an ache that she couldn’t satisfy. He’d turned away from her as if the whole thing was her fault. Which, of course, it was. She’d bought a revealing bathing suit that showed too much of her body, and she’d tempted him. She’d known that he wanted her. He’d hidden it away, but something inside her had instinctively known, had understood his hunger for her. She’d worn the s
uit deliberately, to seduce him into acting on his feelings for her.

  But nothing had gone the way she’d hoped it would. Her dreams of a shared future had gone up in smoke. He wanted her. He’d kissed her. He’d enjoyed it as much as she had. But it had only been physical, and she realized that with a start. He didn’t want her in any permanent way. He felt that she was too young, had told her over and over again, and that opinion hadn’t changed, even after the heated encounter in the ocean.

  Tempting him had only dragged a physical response out of him, not an emotional one. He’d enjoyed her, as he’d enjoyed other women. As he’d probably enjoyed that woman, Janet, that he’d been talking to earlier in the hotel.

  She recalled with pain the look that had always been on his face before when he spoke to her. His expression had been gentle, soft, happy. He was tender with Niki, but only when he was pretending that she was a child. After their physical interlude, he’d acted as if he found the whole thing distasteful.

  From hope, she passed quickly to shame and embarrassment. There had been emotion growing between them, something deep and soft and gentle. She’d felt it. But with her stupid impatience, with her desire to tempt him out of his reticence, she’d ruined it.

  She’d finally had what she’d wanted. She’d had him in her arms, kissing her, wanting her. But it was not to be. She remembered the old adage “Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it.” After this afternoon’s fiasco, it was only too true.

  CHAPTER SIX

  BLAIR HAD TOLD Todd that he wasn’t having supper with them. Niki knew why, and it devastated her, but she couldn’t let it show.

  “Niki, you aren’t eating enough to keep a bird alive,” her father chided her at dinner. “This is excellent steak. Almost as good as what we raise ourselves. And you’re just picking at it.”

  “Sorry,” she said with a wan smile. “I really do have a headache. I shouldn’t have stayed in the sun so long.”

  He laid down his fork and sipped red wine, giving her a long look. “He and Janet are friends. Just friends.”

  She looked up, feigning surprise. “Janet?”

  He scowled. “I thought you were brooding because Blair wasn’t eating with us.”

  “No, that’s not it,” she denied, then had to rush to find an explanation. “Mr. Jacobs had wondered why I got my job without going through the usual interview process.” She held up a hand when he started to speak, angrily. “I told him that you’d asked Blair to have him hire me. He just wondered, that’s all. He’s a very nice man. Did you know that his daughter has rheumatoid arthritis?”

  He shook his head. “No. No, I didn’t.”

  “Dan was giving him all sorts of ‘helpful’ advice like he’s given me. Herbal compounds and diets that can actually heal what’s wrong with Mr. Jacobs’s daughter and me, no doctors necessary,” she added with a laugh.

  “Good God!”

  “He’s nice, otherwise.” She hesitated. “He wants me to go on a hike with his nature group. I said I would.” She looked up. He was grimacing. “Dad, I’ll take all my meds with me, and I’ll be careful. Dan’s right about one thing. I do pamper myself too much sometimes.”

  “No, you don’t,” he said, and the worry showed on his face. “Your lungs are fragile. Nothing is going to cure them. Not with current medical technology. Your friend Dan sounds like a health nut.”

  She laughed softly. “I suppose he does, at that. But he’s kind, in his way. He thinks exercise will benefit me.”

  “I’m sure that you’d do just fine on a four-mile jog,” he said, dripping sarcasm.

  “Oh, Dad,” she chided. “I won’t let him drag me on one. I’d fold after the first five minutes. I know that, even if he doesn’t.”

  “All right. But you make sure your cell’s in your pocket. If you have a bad episode, we can follow GPS to find you and get you out of there.”

  “I will.”

  He drew in a long breath and sipped more wine. Things had seemed to be going so well between Blair and Niki. Now she was involved with this man who sounded like a complete lunatic, and Blair was cozying up to old flames. Sure, there was an age difference between Blair and Niki. But he knew, better than other people, how little it mattered when love was involved. He’d been almost eighteen years older than Niki’s sweet mother, and they’d loved each other with an anguish of passion right up until her death, far too young, of lung cancer.

  He shivered inside. Lung cancer. He’d seen her eaten up with it, undergoing surgery after surgery, chemo and radiation, and more chemo, for almost two years until she died. He’d stayed by her bedside every minute. When they’d diagnosed Niki with asthma, he’d been miserable. She had weak lungs, like her mother. He’d insisted on chest X-rays every other year, just to make sure her lungs were all right. Her next X-ray was a few weeks away. He held his breath when she had them, although her doctor found his obsession touching. He couldn’t lose Niki. It would be like losing his sweet wife all over again. He couldn’t bear that.

  “You’re very morose,” Niki pointed out.

  “Yes, sorry. It’s almost roundup, on the ranch,” he said, and looked at her with a suffering expression.

  It was enough to bounce her out of her own misery. She grinned. “Let Tex take point this year,” she said, referring to the cowboy who was their range manager, a man who was only ever known by an abbreviation of the state he came from.

  “He’s already taking point. But decisions have to be made that only I can make,” he pointed out.

  “I suppose so. All the more reason to enjoy this vacation while you can,” she added, lifting her glass of sparkling water. “Cheers!”

  He chuckled and touched his wineglass to hers. “Cheers!” he replied, and drained it.

  * * *

  NIKI HAD LONG since gone to bed when Blair passed by their suite. All the lights were out, so he didn’t stop to chat with her father. He was exhausted. Janet had chatted with him for several hours about her film career behind the cameras and her responsibilities and her miserable, lonely life.

  He’d smiled and pretended interest. Inside he was agonizing over the way he’d treated Niki. He should never have let himself be tempted. That damned bathing suit had undermined all his inward protests about their differences.

  But the worst thing had been the way he’d ignored her afterward. How hurt she must have been, to have him push her away without even a word about what had happened, what he was feeling. He hadn’t wanted to. He’d been hurting, overwhelmed and in anguish by his headlong response to her. He’d wanted to tell her how exquisite their passion had felt to him, how sweet and heady it was to love her like that, to feel her first response to physical delight. It had been her first real taste of intimacy, and he’d made it into a shameful memory.

  Her soft young body in that bathing suit would have tempted a saint. He hadn’t been able to resist her. It was his lack of control that had made him angry, not Niki’s shy attempts to gain his interest. She’d given him everything he asked for, and he’d turned away from her with anger.

  She hadn’t even questioned his behavior. Apparently, she’d thought that she’d disappointed him, and she’d gone quiet. No fuss, no argument. No woman in his life had ever been as gentle with him as Niki was. He was used to temperamental, fiery women who never even thanked him for gifts, who took his interest as their due. It had never bothered him before. But Niki was a new experience in many ways. He’d treated her shabbily. Now all he wanted was to make amends. But he didn’t know how.

  She was still too young for him. None of his arguments could change that. But he couldn’t afford to backtrack, to let her think that he wanted more than a few minutes of passion with her. That he wanted...forever.

  He clamped down hard on his hunger. He would find a way, a kinder way, to ease her out of his life.


  With another woman, he’d have sent a diamond necklace, a fur, the keys to an exotic car. None of those were likely to please a woman who fell in love with a tiny strip of buckskin attached to a piece of deer antler. Her lack of avarice puzzled him. Losing her would just about destroy him. As he sat down on the sofa in his suite, he put his head in his hands and poured himself another whiskey. If he drank enough of it, he might get through the night.

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING, Niki went back down to the beach in her new bathing suit. She knew Blair wasn’t going to come near her, but she did want to enjoy the surf and the sunshine and try to get over yesterday.

  She had hardly slept the night before. She felt Blair’s mouth on hers, his body hard and close, wanting her. She could hear his voice at her ear, husky with feeling, whispering things that made her blush. She hadn’t known what physical passion was. Now that she did, it caused an ache, a hunger that was almost painful. She wished that he’d never touched her, because he’d awakened her to a whole new world of pleasure, then dropped her like a hot horseshoe. She was certain that she’d never understand men as long as she lived.

  When she got to the beach, understanding men was suddenly a real issue.

  “Ooooh, baby, look at you!” a shabbily dressed young man catcalled, staring at her and walking around her as if she were on sale. “Why don’t you come back to my room with me and we’ll see if we can break the box springs?”

  She just gaped at him. In her life, no man had ever made such crude remarks to her.

  “I don’t know you,” she blurted out.

  “Well, of course you don’t, you’ve got too many clothes on! You look like one hot little piece of tail, honey,” he chuckled. “Come on.” He grabbed her hand.

  She shook it off and backed away, the towel held in front of her like a shield.

  His face contorted. His eyes were bloodred and he looked...something. Drunk, maybe. “Too good for the locals, huh?” he snarled. “What do you think you’re doing, walking around like that?” He gestured toward her bathing suit. “No woman wears a bathing suit like that unless she’s looking to get laid!”