Deep Purple (44 page)

“
You’re despicable!” she cried and, throwing her napkin on the table, ran from the room.

Only as she heard the water thunde
ring in the shower an hour later did she realize that she and Nick must have connecting rooms. As she lay in the large bed, she could envision his rock-hard body, the way the water cascaded over the broad chest, catching in the tangle of hair, and then sluicing on down to be damned up by the thick wiry patch below his navel.

And she could too vividly imagine other things
—the way he had seared into her, hammering at her until she was at last depleted. He alone set off the fire, he alone quenched it.

The show
er stopped, and she heard the click of the glass door as he stepped out of the shower stall. She held her breath. Surely he did not dare to force her. Not with Trouble lying at the foot of the bed. She would fight Nick with every ounce of resistance she had left.

Then she heard the opening and closing of the door to his room. She lay stiffly through the dark hours of the night . . . expecting . . . waiting . . . and haunted.

CHAPTER 57

N
ick drove her and her father to the hospital the next day and waited patiently in the outer office while she paced the floor. The battery of tests took all morning, and at one point Nick left and reappeared with a paper cup of coffee.

“
Drink it,” he told her when she shook her head. To argue seemed to require more energy than she had at that moment, and she obediently swallowed the acrid liquid.

The doctor, an older man (had the United States armed services taken all the young ones?), informed her he wanted
to keep her father in for a few days more while he ran additional tests.

"Is it bad?”
she asked Nick as he drove her back to the guest ranch. "Do you think they've found something wrong with Father—other than the tuberculosis?"

“
I think your father's condition is weakened by the pneumonia, but the doctors probably want to clear him of any other illnesses before they make a final diagnosis.” He glanced at her tightly interlocked fingers. “Relax, Mandy. You're doing everything possible for your father.”

She
dragged her gaze from the window to Nick's homely but powerful profile. “And you . . . why are you doing all this?”

“
You're going over old ground again,” he said flatly.

She turned her gaze back to the dairy farms that were interspersed with the growing nu
mber of office buildings on Center Avenue.

With her father in the hospital, Nurse Haines was discharged until she would be needed again. Mrs. Rawlings lived in a cottage separate from the ranch house. After she served dinner and retired for the evening, Am
anda was left alone with Nick. Nervously she picked at the roast beef and broccoli. Any moment she expected Nick to order her to strip and spread herself naked on the dining table. One would expect such a thing from a barbarian like Nick.

But he talked lig
htly of the Axis surrender in North Africa and what it would mean to the war and the new Davis-Monathon Air Force Base that was in construction southeast of Tucson. He made no effort to touch her. Damn him, he was playing with her as a cat did with a mouse!

After dinner he suggested a game of chess. “
I—I have a headache,” she said. ‘‘I think I’ll go on to bed.”

He rose from the table as she moved past him, and she could feel his eyes on her. When she reached the dining-room doors, he said, “
Do you think husbands really believe that old excuse?”

She pivoted to face him. “
You’re a husband. Talk to Danielle about it!”

He was out of the chair like a cannon ball, the force of his anger almost knocking her against the doorframe, though he came to a halt only inche
s from her. “I’m asking you!” he gritted.

“
And I’m not your wife, thank God!”

The smoldering embers banked in his eyes suddenly ignited into furious flames. His eyes scalded her from head to toe, as if he knew beneath the kimono she was naked. The heat of
his anger pinned her to the door. Her breath came in deep fearful gasps. Then, abruptly, he swung from her to stalk away.

She grabbed at his arm, holding on. “
It’s true, isn’t it?” she demanded, her anger now leaping to meet his. “You married Danielle gambling that her Warren background assured your ticket to political and financial success! You can be bought, too, Nick Godwin!”

“
So?” he asked in a dangerously quiet voice. “At least Danielle was enough of a lady not to sell herself for anything less than a wedding ring.”

Amanda's hands clenched at her sides. “
So much of a lady that she found bedding with an animal distasteful!”

Nick
’s face took on its meanest look. He made a grab for her. She dropped his arm and spun away, running toward her bedroom.

She cou
ld hear him behind her. She quickened her speed, running down the maze of arched corridors. Then she realized he was only loping behind, with Trouble following him.

Nick caught up with her as she jerked open her door. His arm closed about her waist, liftin
g her from the ground, and he slammed the door shut with an enraged kick of his foot. Outside Trouble whimpered.

In two strides Nick was at her bed, tossing her on it. She rolled to a sitting position, holding her ground. “
Well?” she demanded impatiently, as he stood over her, glaring at her. “Go ahead, rape me! Isn’t that what you wanted?”

He yanked her to him, so that, kneeling on the mattress, she was forced to look up into the strong, homely face. “
Dammit, Mandy, that’s all you understand, isn’t it?” He shook her. “I don’t want some sacrificial virgin!”

Her head was bobbing like a rag doll
’s. “But you want me!” she managed to get out triumphantly.

“
And you want me!” His mouth landed on hers. Her lips opened beneath the force of his. His tongue burned her lips like a red-hot poker. She moaned as his kiss devoured her mouth. Her head fell back when his mouth at last released hers. His kisses laced the hollow of her throat while his hands slid the robe from her shoulders.

“
No . . . no,” she tried to protest, but the words came out in a gasp as his hand cupped the weight of one bared breast possessively and his mouth kissed the other, tugging, pulling on the nipple, then nipping at it with his teeth and flicking it with his tongue. Would he never stop the sweet torture?

Somehow she was sprawled on the bed and he was kneeling over her, stripping himself of his shirt and pants while his hot gaze ravaged the intimate swells and recesses of her body. Then he was straddling her. But he withheld hims
elf. “Tell me,” he prompted in what was almost the menacing purr of a panther. “Say it, Mandy! Say you want me also!”

She met his fierce gaze. Her lips clamped shut.

He warned, “I won’t have your accusing glare afterward.”

Enraged silence.

He made to rise. She gasped angrily. “Yes! Yes, damn you!”

He slid over her then, like a knife seeking its sheath. He took her with smooth, rapid strokes. She met his pounding torso, raising her hips to receive him. She hit back at him with her pelvis, afraid his savage t
aking of her would end before he had rid her of the plague that raged inside her.

Sweat bathed them until they were slippery. Still they clung to each other as if in fierce combat. He did not fail her. He drove into her time after time until she felt the k
not of impatience and frustration explode in a glorious release, coinciding with his own explosion.

There was that heart-stopping moment that followed, the “
little death,” when her body lay lifeless, and then Nick gathered her against him. His thumb wiped the perspiration that glistened beneath her eyes and above her lips. “It was good, wasn’t it?” he whispered. “The way it should have been before. The way it could always be.”

She lay in the crook of his arm, her body delighting in the soft words he murmure
d into her ear, the light caressing of her battered flesh. Unwillingly she responded to the feathery touch of his coaxing hands and the velvet-rough tongue. Incredibly, he was taking her again. And she was opening to receive him.

He felt her grow hotter, m
oister. He saw her lids half close in the throes of sensual oblivion and her lips part in sweet abandon. Would she never understand what he was trying to show her? Would the Stronghold always stand between them?

The passion and the pleasure were longer in
coming, but all the more tender, more gentle, so that when she reached the peak of unbearable ecstasy, she knew she never wanted the feeling to end. Nick cupped her to him and felt the tears that wet his chest. “Why?” he whispered.

She gulped back the tear
s. “Because it was wonderful. And because I know that I’ll want you again, dammit!”

He laughed softly, and she turned to him. “
Do you love Danielle?” she asked in the darkness, glad that he could not see her face.

“
I thought I did when I married her.” He moved away a little and laid one arm across his forehead. “Oh, I was honest enough to admit to myself that the Warren name helped. But, yes, she was dazzling and delicate, and I was fascinated by her.”

“
Yet the fascination with her didn’t stop you from wanting me?”

“
No.”

“
Good,” she said tersely. “Now get out of my bedroom.”

He rolled back to her, half-pinning her to the bed. “
Not yet, Mandy.” His smile was roguish. “The night’s not over yet.”

CHAPTER 58

A
manda lazed by the pool. Her hand floated languidly in the water. On the pool’s far side, beneath the dappled shade of an ironwood. Trouble dozed, panting.

The noon sun beat down on Amanda
’s exposed back and panty-clad derriere. The gravel-studded cement was warm and rough against her bare breasts. She really needed to see about finding something to wear. If that sex-crazed man had his way, she would go naked.

The pool
’s chlorinated water, inches away, steamed up into her face. She heard footsteps and looked up through her veil of hair to see Nick standing over her. He was dressed in an expensively cut gray business suit. One hand held his brief case, the other his tie.

He cocked a lazy grin. “
If you're not careful, you’ll grow susceptible to the easy life of the wealthy. Then you’ll have no choice but to live here.”

She shrugged, throwing her hair over her shoulder and rolling over, her arms crossed before her breasts. She took great delight in seeing the sudden hunger leap like a flame in his eyes. Recalling the night before, she f
elt the warmth spread upward from the pit of her stomach. “Nothing could keep me here if it were not out of necessity.”

His brows rose. “
You mean if it were not for governmental red tape, your father's illness, the state of the nation, and a host of sundry problems, you would be gone from here immediately?”

“
Precisely.”

“
Well, at least I’m benefiting in some way from the world war,” he said dryly. He dropped the tie on the umbrella-shaded table and began to shrug out of his coat. When he unbuttoned his shirt and his hand went to the zipper of his trousers, she said nervously, “What are you doing?”

“
Stripping,” he said, never taking his eyes from the nylon panties that clung to her damp skin, revealing more than they concealed. “Can’t I go for a swim in my own pool?”

She gasped and sprang to a sitting position at the same time the telephone shrilled, as if in her defense. Nick sighed and went through the opened jalousie doors to the den. Three minutes later he returned with a glass of water. He hunched at her
side. “Here, take this.” In his palm glistened a pink capsule.

“
It’ll relax you. Take it.”

“
I don’t need to relax,” she protested. “I feel just—” Seeing the grim lines about Nick’s white mouth, she broke off. “It’s Father!”

Nick deftly slid the capsule bet
ween her parted lips. “Yes. Swallow the water.”

Mechanically she obeyed him. “
What’s happened?” she demanded.

“
A heart attack. It felled him.”

“
No,” she rasped. “No!” She began to sob hysterically, and Nick picked her up, muffling her cries against his chest as he carried her down the hall. In his bedroom he laid her on his bed. When she tried to scramble free, he pushed her down against the mattress. “Ssssh, honey,” he said. He lay down beside her and pressed her head in the hollow of his neck. “I’m not going to bother you. Just try to forget right now.”

At that moment she did not want to forget. She only wanted to rush to the hospital. Feebly, she pushed against the rock that entrapped her. Great paws held her wrists so that she could barely twist about. A
t last lethargy subdued her and her body began to drift. She could remember the wiry hair on Nick’s chest tickling her face and the musky masculine scent of his skin filling her nostrils like an anesthesia before she lost consciousness.

A slow darkness des
cended over her, and when she awoke, pinpricks of stars filled the sky outside Nick’s wide bedroom windows. She shot up in the bed. A figure rose from the corner, and Nick materialized out of the shadows. “My father?” she asked, hoping that what she remembered was some bad dream.

Nick went into the bathroom and came back with a glass. “
I’ve arranged for the funeral the day after tomorrow,” he said. “Your father—would he have wanted a Buddhist or a Shinto ceremony? I never heard you or him mention religion, so I arranged for a simple memorial service.”

Then it was all true. She shook her head numbly. “
No, he was of no particular religion. A memorial service will be fine.” Nick passed her the glass with another capsule. “It’s over,” she said. “The hysterics. I don’t want anything.”

“
The hysterics, maybe. But not the memories that crowd in and keep you from sleep. You’ll need all the rest you can get the next few days. Come on, Mandy,” he coaxed, “don’t be so damned stubborn for once in your life.”

It was the ol
d Nick speaking, and this she could cope with. She reached out and took the pill, quickly swallowing it. He placed the glass on the nightstand and turned to go back to the chair he had occupied. “I’m keeping you from your bed,” she said, embarrassed. And only then did she realize she was beneath the spread and sheets, still nude but for her panties.

He sprawled in his chair. “
It’s not the first time you’ve kept me from sleeping, Mandy,” he said with a wry smile.

She sighed. “
Well, you certainly can’t expect to get much pleasure in taking advantage of a drugged woman, and the bed’s big enough for both of us.”

Already the pill was beginning to have its effects, and she was only vaguely aware as the bed eased beneath Nick
’s solid weight and the warmth that enveloped her as he pulled her into his arms.