Friends and Lovers. Diana Palmer
He drew a sharp, impatient breath and she heard the click of his lighter as he lit another cigarette.
“You smoke too much,” she chided gently.
“I do a lot of things too much,” he growled, and his eyes seemed to hate her for an instant.
“Like seducing blondes?” she asked, and could have bitten her tongue for the slip.
“It would take a blowtorch to seduce you.”
She glared at him, her eyes flashing with green sparks. “He hurt me!” she threw at him. “You’re a man. What could you possibly know about a woman’s feelings…?”
“He hurt you because you were a virgin,” he growled. His voice, like his eyes, was bitter. “And because he wanted a body, not the emotions, personality and spirit that went with it. No man who cared about a woman would damage her that way. He left scars that haven’t healed in two years. He crippled you.” He drew on the cigarette roughly. “By God, I should have killed him!”
She blinked at him, at the unfamiliar violence in his deep, lazy drawl. “You didn’t even know his last name,” she reminded him.
“Didn’t I?” One corner of the mustache curled faintly, and there was glittering triumph in his eyes. “It wasn’t hard to find out, honey. All I had to do was call the writer’s club where you met him.”
She froze in her seat, staring at him uncomprehendingly. “You…went to see him?”
He nodded.
“And?” she prompted.
He blinked, smoking his cigarette quietly.
“John!” she said, exasperation in her voice.
He blew out a thick cloud of smoke. “When you fall off a horse,” he said, ignoring her, “the quickest way to get over it is to get right back on again.”
She’d had enough. Her fingers gripped her purse as she reached for the door handle. “I’ve had all the physical involvement I want just now,” she ground out. “Good night!”
“Satin!”
She started at the authority in his deep voice and turned to look at him.
“If I’d planned to proposition you, I would have done it over two years ago,” he said shortly. “Will you stop taking offense at everything I say?”
“I thought it was the other way around,” she muttered. Her wide, hurt eyes sought his and she crushed the little purse in her hands. “Oh, John, what’s happening to us?” she asked miserably. “We’ve been so close, such good friends, and all of a sudden it’s falling apart.” She reached out a hand and drew it back when she realized what she was doing—he couldn’t even bear to let her touch him anymore. “I…I don’t get along with most people,” she said with uncommon solemnity. “I’ve always been a misfit, a little odd. But I…I’ve always been able to talk to you, and you understand me. I don’t want to lose that.”
“You’ll always be my friend, Satin,” he said quietly. “That hasn’t changed. It never will.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that I don’t have a hell of a lot of friends myself, male or female? That blonde tonight is a case in point. She likes expensive baubles and I’m rich. She’ll climb into my bed at the drop of a hat, as long as she can expect something tangible in return.”
“They why encourage her?” she grumbled, surprising herself.
The cigarette, forgotten, smoldered while he looked at her impatiently. “Why does the subject of Melody bother you so much? Does it hurt to realize that most women aren’t frozen from the neck down?”
Her face went bloodred. That was the second time he’d made such a remark about her, and she’d had enough. For a split second, she considered slapping him. Her green eyes glittered, her hand lifted.
“Try it,” he encouraged softly, something new and faintly dangerous in his silver eyes as they caught the movement of her hand. “Come on, honey, try it.”
She almost did. It was the first and only time she’d wanted to strike him, and she was tempted. But he had the look of a man who was anticipating retaliation, and she was uncertain about the form it might take.
Her tense body relaxed. “No, thanks,” she said stiffly. “You’re entitled to your opinion of me. I’m aware that it’s gone down a few notches lately.”
He took a draw from the cigarette and studied her flushed face quietly. “For just a minute, that cool little mask you always wear slipped. You wanted to hit me, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” she said curtly, averting her eyes.
“Why didn’t you?”
She shifted restlessly. “Because I’ve never imagined that you were the kind of man to turn the other cheek.”
“I wouldn’t have hit you back, if that’s what you mean.” He leaned across to open the door, and she felt the brief, hard pressure of his arm across her soft breasts. She sat like a statue until he moved away, and only then did she realize that she’d stopped breathing for an instant.
“What would you have done?” she asked in a strangely breathless tone.
He studied her through a wisp of smoke, his lips pursed thoughtfully. “What do you think?” he asked in a blatantly sensuous tone.
“I think it’s late,” she said.
“Later than you think, honey. I’ll send Josito for you about seven, okay?”
She searched his eyes, finding questions instead of answers. He made her nervous, he frightened her.
“We’ll take it slow and easy,” he said softly, his eyes giving the words a different, exciting meaning.
Incredibly, she blushed, while he searched her eyes until she thought her frantically beating heart would burst.
“Maybe it would be better if I didn’t,” she said in a whisper, thinking out loud.
“Don’t be afraid of me,” he said. “We’ve always trusted one another, Satin.”
She laughed self-consciously. “I must be more exhausted than I imagined,” she said, staring at him. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight.”
“Don’t you, honey?”
She swung her long legs to the ground and got out of the low-slung car. “Thanks for bringing me home,” she said in a strained tone.
“Will you be all right?” he asked, and there was genuine concern in his voice.
“Of course I will,” she said firmly. “I don’t need taking care of, you know. I’m very independent.”
“So am I, but who sat up with me for two nights when I had the flu?” he asked, his mustache curling.
She flushed, remembering how she’d helped Josito sponge him down during that unusual illness. John never got sick, but he’d been far from well that night. It had taken both of them to hold him down until the fever broke. And she remembered vividly the feel of his hair-roughened skin under her hands as she’d bathed him to bring down the fever….
“Who else was there?” she muttered self-consciously. “Josito couldn’t manage alone.”
He smiled at her, a quiet, tender smile that made her want to fling herself into his arms. “I’d have done the same for you,” he said. One eye narrowed and the mustache twitched wickedly. “In fact, I’d have enjoyed it tremendously.”
The thought of his big, rough hands touching her the way she’d touched him made her go weak in the knees. It was an odd reaction, a frightening one.
“Go home,” she grumbled, slamming