CHAPTER 5
For the next few days, Harden tried not to think about the reasons he shouldn’t be with Miranda. She was in his blood, a sweet fever that he couldn’t cure. The more he tried to resist her, the more his mind tormented him. Eventually, he gave in to it, because there was nothing else he could do.
Work was piling up back at home because he wasn’t there to help Evan. His mind was anywhere except on the job these days. More and more, his waking and sleeping hours were filled with the sight of Miranda’s lovely face.
He hated his obsession with her. He was a confirmed bachelor, well able to resist a pretty face. Why couldn’t he escape this one? Her figure was really nothing spectacular. She was pretty, but so were plenty of other women. No, it was her nature that drew him; her sweet, gentle nature that gave more than it asked. She enveloped him like a soft web, and fighting it only entangled him deeper.
During the past few days, they’d been inseparable. They went out to dinner almost every night. He took her dancing, and last night they’d gone bowling. He hadn’t done that in years. It felt unfamiliar to be throwing balls down alleys, and when he scored, Miranda was as enthusiastic as if she’d done it herself.
She laughed. She played. He was fascinated by the way she came out of her shell when she was with him, even if he did get frequent and disturbing glimpses of the anguish in her silver eyes.
He didn’t touch her. That was one luxury he wouldn’t allow himself. They were too explosive physically, as he’d found out the morning he’d taken her home from the hotel. Instead, they talked. He learned more about her, and told her more about himself than he’d shared with anyone else. It was a time of discovery, of exploration. It was a time between worlds, and it had to end soon.
“You’re brooding again,” she remarked as he walked her to her door. They’d been out to eat, again, and he’d been preoccupied all night.
“I’ve got to go back,” he said reluctantly. He looked down at her with a dark frown. “I can’t stay any longer.”
She turned and unlocked her door slowly, without glancing his way. She’d expected it. It shouldn’t have surprised her.
“I’m a working man, damn it,” he said shortly. “I can’t spend my life wandering around Chicago while you’re in your office!”
She did look at him then, with soft, sad eyes. “I know, Harden,” she said softly.
He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Can you write a letter?”
She hesitated. “A letter? Well, yes…I’ve never had anybody to write to, of course,” she added.
“You can write to me,” he said, his voice terse with impatience and irritation. “It isn’t the same as having time to spend together, but it’s better than phone calls. I can’t talk on the phone. I can never think of anything to say.”
“Me, too,” she said, smiling up at him. Her heart raced. He had to be interested if he was willing to keep in touch. It lifted her spirits.
“Don’t expect a letter a day,” he cautioned her. “I’m not that good at it.”
“I don’t have your mailing address,” she said.
“Get me a piece of paper. I’ll write it down for you.”
He followed her into the apartment and waited while she produced a pad and pen. He scribbled the ranch’s box number and zip code in a bold, black scrawl and gave it to her.
“This is mine,” she said, taking the pad and writing down her own address. She put the pad aside and looked up at him. “You’ve made life bearable for me. I wish I could do something that nice for you.”
His teeth clenched. He let his eyes run down the length of the black strappy dress she was wearing to long legs encased in nylon and sling-back pumps with rhinestone buckles. His gaze came back up to her loosened dark hair and her soft oval face and her trusting silver eyes.
“You could, if you wanted to,” he said huskily.
She swallowed. Here it was. She hadn’t mistaken his desire for her, and now he was going to ask something that she didn’t know if she could give.
“Harden…I…I don’t like intimacy,” she said nervously.
His eyebrows arched. He hadn’t expected her to be so blunt. “I wasn’t going to ask you to come to bed with me,” he murmured dryly. “Even I have more finesse than that.”
She took a steadying breath. “Oh.”
“But while we’re on the subject,” he said, pushing the door shut behind him, “why don’t you like intimacy?”
“It’s unpleasant,” she said flatly.
“Painful?” he probed.
She put her purse on a table and traced patterns on it, without looking at him. Harsh memories flooded into her mind. “Only once,” she said hesitantly. “I mean unsatisfying, I guess. Embarrassing and unsatisfying. I never liked it.”
He paused behind her, his lean hands catching her waist and turning her, so that she faced him.
“Did he arouse you properly before he took you?” he asked matter-of-factly.
She gasped. Her wide eyes met his as if she couldn’t believe what he’d said.
He shrugged. “I don’t find it uncomfortable to talk about. Neither should you, at your age.”
“I haven’t ever talked about it, though,” she stammered.
“Your brother is a doctor,” he pointed out.
“But, my goodness, Sam is worse than I am,” she exclaimed. “He can’t even say the word sex in front of people. He’s a very repressed man. Straitlaced, isn’t that the word? And Joan is a dear, but you can’t talk to her about…intimacy.”
“Then talk to me about it,” he replied. “That first morning, when I kissed you, you weren’t afraid of being intimate with me, were you?”
She nibbled her lower lip. “No,” she said, her face flaming.
“Was it like that with your husband?”
She hesitated. Then she shook her head.
“There’s a chemistry between people sometimes,” he said, watching her face. “An explosive need that pulls them together. I haven’t felt it often, and never quite like this. I gather that you’ve never felt it at all before.”
“That’s…fairly accurate.”
He tucked his hand under her chin and lifted her shy eyes to his. “Sex, in order to be good, has to have that explosive quality. That, and a few other ingredients—like respect, trust, and emotional involvement. It’s an elusive combination that most people never find. They settle for what they can get.”
“Like I did, you mean,” she said.
He nodded. “Like you did.” He lifted one lean hand to her face and very lightly traced her mouth, watching it part, watching her breathing change suddenly. “Feel it?” he asked softly. “That tightening in your body when I touch your mouth, the way your breath catches and your pulse races?”
“Yes.” She swallowed. “Harden, do you feel it?”
“To the soles of my feet,” he replied. He bent and lifted her, very gently, in his arms, his eyes on her face. “Let me make love to you. Set any limits you like.”
The temptation made her heart race. She dropped her eyes to his thin mouth and wanted it beyond bearing. “Don’t…don’t make me pregnant,” she whispered. “I don’t have anything to use.”
His body shuddered. It humbled him that she’d let him go that far. “I don’t have anything to use, either, so we can’t go all the way together,” he said unsteadily. “Does that reassure you?”
“Yes.”
He moved toward the bedroom, and stopped when he noticed her eyes darting nervously to the bed.
“He made love to you there,” he said suddenly, his eyes blazing as he guessed the reason for her hesitation. He looked down into her face. “Was it always there?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“How about on the sofa?”
Her body tensed with anticipated pleasure. “No.”
He whirled on his heel and carried her to the long, cushy sofa. He put her down on it and stood looking at the length of her with eyes that made her body move restlessly.
She felt uneasy. He was probably used to women who were voluptuous and perfectly figured, and she had plenty of inhibitions about her body that Tim had given her. The padded bra had been his idea, because he never thought she was adequate.
Harden saw the hesitation in Miranda’s big eyes and wondered at it. He unfastened his tie and tossed it into the chair beside the sofa. His jacket followed. He held her eyes while his hand slowly unbuttoned the white shirt under it, revealing the breadth and strength of his hair-matted chest. He liked the way Miranda’s eyes lingered on his torso, the helpless delight in them.
“Do you like what you see?” he asked arrogantly.
“Can’t you tell?” she whispered.
He sat down beside her, his hand sliding under her back to find the zipper of her dress. “We’ll compare notes.”
But her hands caught his arms as she realized what he was going to do. All her insecurities flamed on her face.
He frowned. And then he remembered. His thin mouth pulled into a soft, secretive smile. “Ah, I see. The padded bra,” he whispered.
She blushed scarlet, but he only laughed. It wasn’t a cruel laugh, either. It was as if he was going to share some delicious secret with her, and wanted her to enjoy it, too.
His hand slowly pulled the zipper down. He ignored the nervous hands trying to stop him. “Will it help if I tell you that size only matters to adolescent boys who never grow up?” he asked softly.
“Tim said…”
“I’m not Tim,” he whispered as his mouth gently covered hers.
She felt the very texture of his lips as he brushed them lightly over and around hers. He caught her top lip between his teeth and touched it with his tongue, as if he were savoring the taste of the delicate inner flesh. Her breath stopped in her throat because it was very arousing.
And meanwhile, he was sliding the dress off her shoulders, along with her bra straps.
“You…mustn’t,” she protested just once.
He hesitated as the dress slid to the upper curves of her firm breasts. “Why?” he asked softly, his lips touching her mouth as he spoke.
“It’s…it’s too soon,” she said, her voice sounding panicky.
“No, that’s not the reason,” he murmured. He lifted his head and searched her silver eyes. “You think I’ll be disappointed when I look at you.” He smiled. “You’re beautiful, Miranda, and you have a heart as big as all outdoors. The size of your breasts isn’t going to matter to me.”
The color came into her cheeks again. Even Tim had never said anything so intimate to her.
“So innocent,” he said solemnly, all the humor gone. “He didn’t leave fingerprints, did he? But I promise you, I will.” His hands moved, drawing the fabric away from her firm, high breasts, and he looked down at them with masculine appreciation.
She didn’t even breathe. Her heart was racing madly, and she felt her nipples become hard under that silent, intent scrutiny. She might be small, but he wasn’t looking at her as if he minded. His eyes were finding every difference in color, in texture, sketching her with the absorption of an artist.
“Sometimes I think God must be an artist,” he said, echoing her silent thoughts. “The way He creates perfection with just the right form and mix of colors, the beauty of His compositions. I get breathless looking at a sunset. But I get more breathless looking at you.” His eyes finally lifted to hers. “Why are you self-conscious about your size?”
“I…” She cleared her throat. Incredible, to be lying here naked from the waist up and listening to a man talk about her breasts! “Well, Tim said I was too little.”
He smiled gently. “Did he?”
He seemed to find that amusing. His hands moved again, and this time she did protest, but he bent and gently brushed her eyelids shut with his mouth as he eased the rest of the fabric down her body. In seconds, he had her totally undressed.
He lifted his head then and looked at her, his eyes soft and quiet as she lay trembling, helpless.
“I won’t even touch you,” he whispered. “Don’t be embarrassed.”
“But…I’ve never—!” she stammered.
“Not even in front of your husband?” he asked.
“He didn’t like looking at me,” she managed unsteadily.
He sighed softly, his eyes on her breasts, the curve of her waist, her flat belly and the shadow of her womanhood that led to long, elegant legs. “Miranda, I fear for the sanity of any man who wouldn’t like looking at you,” he said finally. “I swear to God, you knock the breath right out of me!”
Her eyes fell in shocked delight, and landed on a point south of his belt that spoke volumes. She gasped audibly and averted her gaze to his chest.
“I’ve always tried to hide that reaction with other women,” he said frankly. “But I don’t mind very much if you see it. I want you very badly. I’m not ashamed of it, even if it is the wrong time. Look at me, Miranda. I don’t think you’ve ever really looked at a man in this condition.”
His tone coaxed her eyes back to his body, but she lifted her gaze a little too quickly and he smiled.
“Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable?” she blurted out.
“What? Letting you look, or being this way?”
“Both.”
He touched her mouth with a lean forefinger. “I’m enjoying every second of it.”
“So am I,” she whispered as if it were a guilty secret.
“Will you let me touch you?” he asked softly, searching her eyes. “It has to be because you want it. In this, I won’t do anything that even hints of force or coercion.”
Her head was whirling. She looked at him and fires kindled in her body. She wanted to know what it felt like to have his hands on her, to feel pleasure.
“Will I like it?” she whispered.
He smiled gently. “Oh, I think so,” he murmured.
He bent, and very lightly brushed his lips over one firm breast, his teeth grazing the nipple.
She gasped and shivered. “You…didn’t tell me you were going to do that!” she exclaimed, her silver eyes like saucers.
He lifted his head and searched them. “Didn’t I?” He smiled again. “Is it all right?”
Having him ask her that made her go boneless. Tim had always taken, demanded, hurt her. The funny thing was that she’d thought it would be like pleading if a man asked first, but Harden looked impossibly arrogant and it didn’t sound anything like pleading. Her whole body trembled with shocked pleasure.
“Yes,” she whispered. “It’s all right.”
“In that case…”
His lean hands lifted her body in an arch so that his lips could settle and feed on her soft breasts. She couldn’t believe what was happening to her. She’d never felt pleasure before. What she’d thought was desire had been nothing more than infatuation, and this was the stark reality. It was hot and sharp-edged and totally overwhelming. She was helpless as she’d never been, living only through the hard mouth that was teaching her body its most sensitive areas, through the hands that were so gently controlling her.
Her hands were in his thick, dark hair and his mouth was suddenly on hers, forcing her lips apart with a tender ferocity that made her totally his.
“Don’t panic,” he whispered.
She didn’t understand until she felt him touch her in a way that even Tim never had. She cried out and arched, her body going rigid.
Harden looked down at her, but he didn’t stop, even when he felt her hands fighting him. “Just this, sweetheart,” he whispered, watching her eyes. “Just this. Let it happen. It won’t hurt.”
She couldn’t stop. It was like going over a cliff. She responded because it was impossible not to, her face taut with panic, her eyes wild with it. She was enjoying it, and she couldn’t even pretend not to. He watched her face, smiling when she began to whimper, feeling her responses, feeling her pleasure. When it spiraled up suddenly and arched her silky body, when she wept and twisted and then cried out, convulsing, he felt as if he’d experienced everything life had to offer.
He cradled her in his arms while she cried, his lips gentle on her closed eyes, sipping away the tears.
“Amazing, what a man can do when he sets his mind to it,” he whispered against her mouth. “I’m glad to see that my instincts haven’t worn out. Although I’ve read about that, I’ve never done it before.”
Her eyes flew open. She was still trembling, but through the afterglow of satisfaction, she could see the muted pleasure in his eyes.
“Never?” she exclaimed.
“Why are you shocked?” he asked. “I’m no playboy. Women are still pretty much a mystery to me. Less so now,” he added with a wicked gleam in his eyes.
She blushed and hid her face in his throat. His hair-roughened chest brushed her breasts and she stiffened at the pleasurable sensations that kindled in her. Involuntarily she pressed closer, pushing her hard nipples into the thick hair so that they brushed his skin.
He went taut against her. “No,” he whispered.
He sounded threatened, and she liked his sudden vulnerability. He’d seen her helpless. She wanted to see him the same way. She brushed against him, drawing her breasts sensually across his broad chest until she felt him shudder. His big hands caught her arms and tightened, but he didn’t try to make her move away.
“Here.” He lifted her, so that she sat over his taut body, facing him, and then his hands bruised her hips and pulled her closer, so that the force of his arousal was blatant against her soft belly. He wrapped her up, crushing her breasts into his chest, and sat rocking her hungrily.
“Harden,” she whispered.
His jaw clenched. He was losing it. “Touch me, sweetheart.”
Her hands smoothed over his chest.
“No,” he ground out. “Touch me where I’m a man.”
She hesitated. His mouth whispered over her closed eyes. He caught one of her hands and slowly smoothed it down over his flat stomach, his breath catching when he pressed it gently to him.
Her heart ran away with her. She’d never touched Tim like that. The intimate feel of Harden’s body made her throb all over. She liked touching him. But when he began to slide the zipper down, she jerked her fingers away and buried her hot face in his throat.
“You’re right,” he said roughly, fastening it back. “I’m letting it go too far. Much too far.”
He eased her away and got up, his tall body shivering a little with residual desire as he fumbled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. “Put your things back on, little one,” he said huskily.
She stared at him with her black dress in her hands. “You don’t want me to,” she whispered.
His eyes closed. “My God, no, I don’t want you to,” he ground out. He turned, his face rigid with unsated passion, his body blatant with it. “I want to bury myself inside you!”
She trembled at the stark need. Her lips parted helplessly. “I…I’d let you,” she said fervently.
His gaze dropped to her breasts and beyond it, to her flat belly. She’d had a baby there. She’d lost the baby and her husband, and he shouldn’t be doing this to her. He shouldn’t be taking advantage of her vulnerability.
He closed his eyes again and turned away. “Miranda, you aren’t capable of making that kind of decision right now. It’s too soon.”
Too soon. Too soon. She came back to herself all at once. This was the apartment she’d shared with Tim. She’d been pregnant. She’d lost control of the car and killed her husband and her unborn child. And only minutes before, she’d been begging another man to make love to her.
She dragged the black dress over her head and fumbled the zipper up, her face white with reaction. She bundled up the rest of her things and pushed them down beside the sofa cushion, because she was shaking too hard to put them on. What had she done!
Harden had fastened his shirt and put his tie and jacket in place by the time she dressed.
He looked down at her with quiet, somber eyes in a face as hard as stone. “I won’t apologize. It was too sweet for words. But it’s too soon for lovemaking.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes. “But, we did…”
“I pleasured you,” he replied quietly. “By lovemaking, I mean sex. If I stay around here much longer, you’ll give yourself to me.”
“You make me sound like a terrible weakling.” She laughed mirthlessly.
He knelt just in front of her, his hands beside her hips on the sofa. “Miranda, it isn’t a weakness or a sin to want someone. But you’ve got a tragedy to work through. By staying here, I’m only postponing your need to put it behind you, not to mention clouding your grief with desire. I want you, baby,” he said huskily, his eyes fierce as they met hers. “I want you just as desperately as you want me, but you’ve got to be sure it’s not just misplaced grief or a crutch. Sex is serious business to me. I don’t sleep around, ever.”
She wanted to ask him if he ever had. He seemed very experienced, but he didn’t sound as if sex was a minor amusement to him. He might be even more innocent than she was, and that made her feel less embarrassed about what she’d let him do.
She searched his face. “Harden, I might not have acted like it, but it’s serious business to me, too. Tim was the only man I ever slept with.”
“I know.” He caught her hand and held the soft palm to his mouth hungrily. “But he never satisfied you, did he?”
She swallowed. Finally she gave in to that blatant stare. “Not like you did, no.” She hesitated.
“You want to ask me something,” he guessed from that odd look. “Go ahead. What is it?”
“Would it feel like that if I gave myself to you? If we went all the way?” she asked slowly.
His fingers clenched on hers. “I think it might be even more intense,” he said gruffly. “Watching you almost sent me over the edge myself.”
She reached out and touched his face, adoring the strength of it under her cool fingers. “You…had nothing,” she exclaimed belatedly.
He only smiled. “Don’t you believe it,” he said with a deep, somber look in his pale blue eyes. “And now, I’ve got to go. I’ve put it off as long as I can.”
He got to his feet. Miranda let him pull her up and her heart was in her eyes as she gazed up at him.
“I’ll miss you more than ever, now,” she confessed.
He sighed. “I’ll miss you, too, little one,” he said curtly. “Write to me. I’m as close as the telephone, if you just want to talk. You’ll get through this, Miranda. All you need is a little time.”
“I know. You made it so much easier, though.”
He brushed his fingers through her unruly hair and tilted her face up to his hungry eyes. “It isn’t goodbye. Just so long, for a while.”
She nodded. “Okay. So long, then.”
He bent and kissed her, so tenderly that she almost cried. “Be good.”
“I can’t be anything else. You won’t be here. Harden,” she said as he opened the door.
He looked back, his eyebrow arching in a question.
“Just remember,” she said with forced humor. “You saved my life. Now you’re responsible for it.”
He smiled gently. “I won’t forget.”
He didn’t say goodbye. He gave her one long, last look and went out the door, closing it gently behind him. He hadn’t really saved her life, she knew, because she hadn’t meant to jump off the bridge. But it made her feel good to think that she owed it to him, that he cared enough to worry about her.
She had his address, and she’d write. Maybe when she was through the natural grieving process, he’d come back, and she’d have a second chance at happiness. She closed her eyes, savoring the intimacy she’d shared with him. She wondered how she was going to live until she saw him again.