Escapade (18 page)

“You look a little better. Ted was worried about you.” She frowned, glancing toward the closed door. “Where is Ted?”

“Being discreet,” he murmured dryly. “He probably thinks I’m making passionate love to you on the carpet.”

She flushed and laughed at him. “Is that where you usually do it?”

“Sometimes. But I prefer the beach in the moonlight,” he said deliberately, watching her reaction.

Her jaw clenched. “How
is
Terri? Wasn’t she supposed to come with her husband”—she emphasized the word—“for a visit?”

“Yes. Brad mentioned it, remember?” he asked mockingly.

“You make a lot of noise about his affairs, but you’re as bad as he is,” she muttered. “Women are just a commodity to you.”

“They certainly have been,” he agreed. He stared at the smoking cigar in his hand. “They’ll probably figure that way in the future, now.”

“Just because you’re sterile,” she said angrily.

She wondered what he’d do if she sat down on the floor and started screaming her head off with pure frustrated rage. “Suppose I’m barren?” she tossed back, trying to sound careless about it. “One woman in seven is,
I
believe.”

“I’d bet money on your ability to have children, Amanda. But it’s no longer any business of mine.” He took a draw from the cigar and turned to her. “I think you’ve heard rumors about a throwaway paper moving into San Rio. Is that right?”

“Yes. Is it true?” she asked.

“I’m trying to find out. How will Johnson cope, do you think?”

“He’ll drown himself in the bathroom sink,” she muttered.

“Well, we’ll see. Got any ideas?”

She had plenty, but she wasn’t telling them to him. Not yet. “I’m just the bookkeeper, remember?”

“The
Gazette
will belong to you one day—partially, at least. If you don’t go soft and let Brad get his hands on it by marrying him.”

“Didn’t you just tell me that you weren’t ever going to marry me? Why shouldn’t I marry Brad?”

He ground his teeth together. “That’s your decision. But if you do it just to pull his irons out of the fire he got himself into, I'll block you somehow.”

“He’s your brother! Those gamblers play rough. Don’t you care?”

He did. But her attitude infuriated him. “You seem to care enough for both of us,” he said icily.

“Oh, you won’t listen! You won’t hear anything you don’t like!”

He put out his cigar. “I think I’ll have that shower. I may fly over to Nassau in the morning,” he said, cutting off the discussion. “I have to talk to one of the ministers about my new project. Care to come along?”

“I’m a working girl,” she reminded him. “I have to go back to San Antonio.”

“To do what?” he asked. “Pull the newspaper out of Ward Johnson’s hands or seduce my brother?”

Incensed, she picked up a holder of paper clips from the desk and hurled it at him wi
th
all her might. He ducked, laughing with surprise.

She leaned over the desk and fumbled at a box of diskettes, heavy enough to do a little damage if they connected. But he was quick. Before she could get up again, he was against her, his hand preventing hers from lifting the box.

“Mustn’t throw things,” he chided at her ear.

“You son of a…
!”

He had her on her back in the middle of several piles of legal-looking papers, and his mouth was on hers before she could get the last word out.

She struggled, but only for the few seconds it took him to get his hips squarely over hers and press down. She felt the strength and heat of his arousal and began to tremble in helpless response.

His chest drew lazily against her breasts while he kissed her. making the nipples go hard. He laughed as he urged her mouth open and penetrated it deeply with his hard tongue.

His hand held her thick hair at her nape as he kissed her with an intimacy beyond anything she’d ever experienced. His knee edged her legs apart, and he pressed between them with slow, deliberate insistence.

She gasped into his mouth, clinging to his broad shoulders as she tried to get enough breath to stay alive.

His hand was at the zipper of her jeans. He drew it down, and his hand went inside, under her briefs. He touched her as no man ever had, staying her instinctive withdrawal, his mouth hardening into passion as she moaned.

Pleasure caught her, and her nails curled into his shirt as she began to shiver rhythmically. Her mouth trembled under the sudden gentleness of his warm lips. His tongue traced and teased until she was mindless with abandon. And when she thought she couldn’t bear the sweet tension another second, his mouth opened on her lips and his tongue thrust deeply into the sweet darkness of her mouth even as his hand did something incredible to her self
-
control.

She sobbed against his mouth as she flew into a thousand heated pieces of satisfaction. Her body throbbed, exploded. She
couldn’t live through it…

“Josh!” she cried, shivering. Her nails scored his shoulder as the pleasure built.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” he whispered as he kissed her wet face, his hand soothing now, calming her as she shivered in the aftermath. “All silvery explosions and heat. And now you belong to me. All of you, Amanda. You’re my woman.”

His hand intruded gently. He lifted his head and looked into her shocked, dilated eyes. “Lie still,” he whispered. He pushed, and she gasped.

“Josh!
…
”

“Shhhh.” His hand in her hair contracted, holding her. “I want this.
I
need it.
I won't hurt you any more than I
have to.”

She didn’t understand until his hand intruded even farther. There was a hesitation, a flash of pain. She looked into his dark, intent eyes and realized only then what he was doing to her.

“Josh!”

The pleasure was back. She was helpless. She arched backward, unable to prevent her body’s seduction or her abandon. She cried out harshly as he fulfilled her. There was more pain, but now it didn’t matter, because
she was touching the sky!…

“There,” he whispered, cradling her. He was carrying her into the bathroom. She didn’t remember that he’d lifted her at all. She was close against him, her face in his throat as she shivered. “There, darling, it wasn’t bad, was it?”

“You
…
you
…
”
She tried to speak.

“Shhh.” He brushed his mouth over her closed eyes. His lips were trembling. “You let me,” he whispered, his voice raw, hoarse. “God in heaven, you knew what 1 was doing, and you let me!”

Her nails contracted and she burrowed her face closer into his throat. “It hurt.”

“It won’t again. When I have you, there won’t be any pain, ever,” he whispered. He clasped her close, his jaw clenching as he remembered the look on her face. He was violently aroused from it, but there was no way he could satisfy himself. He fought his devils until he conquered them, and by the time he put her down gently in the bathroom, he was pale but composed.

He ran water in the bathtub and slowly undressed her while it filled. She watched him, catlike, her eyes wide and soft and stunned. When she was nude, he touched the faint stain on her thighs and kissed her forehead.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he whispered. He lifted her gently and put her down into the faintly scented water. “This will help.”

She flinched, because the water stung, but after a minute it did seem to have a soothing effect. She lay there, letting him bathe her, his eyes slow and tender and possessive on her soft breasts. Their crowns grew hard and dusky as he touched them with the cloth, and her body responded to him involuntarily. And all the while she watched him, awed by what he’d given her.

“So that’s what it feels like,” she whispered when he was drying her with a big, warm towel.

“Yes, darling,” he said quietly. “That’s what it feels like.”

She reached up and touched his face. “I want you,” she whispered.

“I know.”

Her fingers stilled on his mouth. “You won’t?”

He shook his head. “Not just yet.”

“But you—”

“I had the first and sweetest taste of you that any man could ever want,” he whispered. “Without robbing you of your chastity. You haven’t known me intimately. That gift is still yours to give some lucky man, to let him know the secret, warm tightness of your body enveloping him in passion.”

“I don’t want anyone except you,” she whispered. “I never will.”

“You think so.” He smiled cynically. “That won’t last. You still have illusions. I’ve lost all mine.”

“I want to know how it feels to go all the way with you,” she said gently. “You know that I
won’t get pregnant. Why…
?”

“I told you. The first time belongs to your husband. I’ll never be that,” he said. He wrapped the bath sheet around her and tucked it between her breasts. “I’ll bring your suitcase. You’ll want a change of clothes.”

She watched him leave the room, her eyes full of love and pain. He wanted her. She knew he wanted her. But this was all he was going to give her. He wouldn’t marry her because he felt she couldn’t be satisfied with what he could give her. That meant he wouldn’t sleep with her. To him, it was dishonorable.

She smiled to herself. He didn’t seem to realize that love allowed for any kind of sacrifice, even the certainty
of never having a child that he’d fathered. She wanted Josh. Only Josh.

But he was inflexible, and he wouldn’t argue. She knew certainly that if she tried to go to him in the night, he’d put her out of his bed and his life with finality. He said no, and it wasn’t an arguable position. But he’d said “Not yet.” That could mean a lot of things. And he did care for her very deeply, she knew it. A blind woman could have seen it. There was hope. She had that, if nothing else, and she was going to hold on to it until he put her bodily on a plane home.

His delight in her was evident. All she had to do was find a way to convince him that where love existed, nothing else mattered.

She moved to the window and looked out, trying to lift her spirits by thinking about the changes she was going to make at the
Gazette,
her secret project to save the job press. But she couldn’t get her mind to stay on it. It would stray back to the feel of Josh’s touch bringing her to ecstasy.

Minutes later he deposited the suitcase in the bedroom with her and looked at her for one long, anguished instant. She smiled and started toward him, but he went out and closed the door without saying a word. The gesture was as audible as if he’d spoken. And as final.

She didn’t see him again. When she got up the next morning, he’d already left the island.

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

A
manda
didn’t bother to ask where Josh had gone when she was ready to leave the next morning. She knew that Ted wouldn’t tell her. He’d been instructed to take her across to Nassau in the launch to hitch a ride on the Learjet. Josh had taken the helicopter himself.

She had to give him time, she decided. When he worked it out in his own mind, perhaps he’d come to her. In the meanwhile, pushing him wouldn’t accomplish anything. And she had some needs of her own to attend to: saving her family business.

She hadn’t been home long when Mirri, her radiant face full of excitement, came in the front door of the cottage without knocking, an old habit from school days.

“I didn’t even remember you were out of the country until I phoned your office to invite you to lunch! How is Josh?”

“
He was sick,” she said, refusing to divulge more. “He’s much better now. What in the world has happened to you?”

“Can’t you guess?” Mirri grinned. “The very starchy Mr. Stuart turned out not to be starchy after all. I asked him out, and we’ve been more or less inseparable ever since.”

“You told him.”

Mirri grimaced. “Well, sort of. We got off to a pretty rough start, but everything just fell into place. I love him!” She sounded, and looked, awed. “What’s more, I think he’s on the road to feeling something similar for me. We went to a rodeo the other night, and th
en to a concert in the park…
He won’t kiss me anymore, but he does seem to like being with me.”

“Why won’t he kiss you?”

“Because we’re too explosive, and he’s old-fashioned.” She chuckled.
“He doesn’t think unmarried sin
gle people should make love. Isn’t he priceless?”

Amanda lifted her brows and smi
led. “Are things progressing?”

“I’m not really sure. He’s hard to talk to lately,” she replied. “He’s gone broody. All silent and tense
…
”

Amanda leaned forward. “I’ll bet he’s bad-tempered, too, and snaps at you for no reason.”

Mirri laughed. “Yes, he does.”

“He’s in love,” Amanda said. “You should read more novels and you’d know things like that,” she added, teasing.

“
I
guess I should. So that’s it!” she exclaimed, radiant.

“And I thought I was stupid about men. Look at you!”

“Well, I’m in the learning stages of love.” She chuckled.
“He’s very repressed, you see.
” She didn’t add that
the sexy Mr. Stuart was as virginal as Amanda. That was her own special secret.

“Then why don’t you ask him to marry you?” Amanda suggested. “You might buy him a ring.”

Mirri clapped her hands at the outrageous suggestion. “Candlelight, soft lights, soft music, all the trimmings? It’s great! I’ll do it!”

“I was only joking!”

“Yes, but isn’t it a great idea?” She was beaming now. “I can’t wait!”

“Mirri—”

“You won’t be able to talk me out of it, so shut up,” Mirri said impishly. She noticed for the first time how tired Amanda looked. “Say, you don’t look very well.”

“It was a hard two days,” she said, averting her eyes. She couldn’t tell Mirri what had happened. Josh’s rejection had taken its toll on her, even if she didn’t really believe he was saying good-bye forever. Hope was all she had left.

“Can I do anything to help?” Mirri asked.

“What? Oh. No, thanks, I’m fine.”

“You don’t look it,” came the perceptive reply.

“Josh won’t have an affair with me, and he won’t marry me,” she said finally.

“And you gave up that easily?” Mirri teased.

“He needs time. I’m giving it to him. He’ll either come around or he’ll find someone who doesn’t want or need a commitment or children.”

The wording made Mirri curious, but she didn’t pry. Amanda was like her: a clam. Especially when she was
hurting. Diplomatically she changed the subject. “How about lunch?”

“You aren’t having it with Mr. Stuart?”

Mirri grinned. “Well, yes, but you could come along.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. I have to go and see if I’m still working for the newspaper.”

“As if Mr. Johnson could fire one of his employers.”

“I’ll only have forty-nine percent ownership,” Amanda said wearily. “Josh keeps control. He’s afraid I might want to help Brad pay off his gambling debts.”

“What gambling debts?”

Amanda told her. “They’ve threatened him. Josh is jealous of Brad. He doesn’t want me, but he doesn’t want Brad to get me, if you see what I mean,” she said bitterly.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Mirri murmured.

“Isn’t it, though?” Amanda's eyes flashed.

“Are you going to help Brad?”

“I can’t, unless I want to marry him,” she replied. “And I don’t. The poor old soul will have to do what he can for himself. I don’t know if Josh is right or wrong about making Brad stand on his own two feet. But 1 can't bail him out, and Josh won’t. He’s on his own.”

“Poor old Brad.”

“Yes.” Amanda nodded.

She reported in at the office, but Mr. Johnson was staring at Dora as if she were the beginning of life, and she wasn’t sure that he’d even missed her.

After going over the books just briefly, to make sure she hadn’t missed anything damaging in her absence, like making out payroll checks or leaving deposits undeposited, she eased into the printing office and discussed
another few quick changes with Tim while Ward Johnson was occupied.

S
everal lonely days later, she went into San Antonio on her lunch hour to see Brad. She was still fuming because he hadn’t phoned in all the time she’d been back to ask how his brother was.

He ushered her into his office and seated her, smiling personably. “I phoned Ted yesterday,” he confessed, irritated by her impatience with his behavior. “But I knew Josh would be all right,” he said when she confirmed it. “He’s indestructible.”

“It’s nice to know that you’re so devoted to the only brother you have,” she replied with quiet sarcasm.

He lifted a careless eyebrow as he dropped onto the big leather chair behind the desk. He was smarting over Amanda’s studied rejection of him. Big brother always got the choicest tidbits. He even had Amanda in his pocket. The old competition that had always simmered between him and Josh boiled over.

“Brother Josh has been taking care of himself for years. He doesn’t like people to see his weaknesses. Or didn’t you find that out when you went rushing down to the cay?” he added bitterly.

“If you mean did he throw me off the island once he was sober again, of course he did,” she replied. “I know he doesn’t like people seeing him when he’s vulnerable. But better that than finding him dead.”

“He wouldn’t commit suicide,” Brad said, but he didn’t sound quite sure.

“Ted and I weren’t quite that positive,” she replied
without giving away anything about Josh’s reasons for being drunk. She knew that Ted wouldn’t have, either. It was up to Josh to tell Brad what he wanted him to know.

She half expected Brad to ask her what was wrong with Josh, but he didn’t. He smiled at her, and his brown eyes twinkled warmly. “Did you miss me?” he asked with a sensual chuckle. “Are you dying of unrequited love yet?”

“You know better than that,” she replied, laughing.

He swung his chair back to face her. His eyes were full of unholy glee at his own predicament. “Marc’s going to kill me because I haven’t paid my gambling debts, Josh has thrown me to the wolves. You won’t give me the time of day.” He shook his head. “I think I’ll go dive off the roof.”

Amanda wondered about his remark that she wouldn’t give him the time of day. “You might at least call Josh and talk to him.”

He got up from his chair with cold anger. “He takes it all,” he said without choosing his words. “He gets everything. It’s always been that way!”

“If he does, it’
s because he works at his life,
” Amanda said defensively. “You’re good at your job, but you don’t take your work seriously—it, or life. You go from woman to woman, playing at love, and squander your money as fast as you earn it. Then you get mad because Josh won’t bail you out. You want it all, Brad, but you want it handed to you. Life doesn’t work that way.”

“You sound very knowledgeable.”

“I’m learning that the way you get things is to fight
for
th
em. If they’re important to you.” She got to her feet elegantly. “I’ve been walked on most o
f my life until just recently. I
got tired of being on the receiving end and settling for handouts. What I want I’ll get for myself from now on.”

“You won’t
get Josh,” he said mockingly. “He won’t marry you.”

She forced a smile, to show him that he hadn’t hit the target he was aiming for. “I know that.”

“He won’t love you, either! You’re just another woman in a line of women who’ve slept with him!”

“I have not slept with your brother!” she raged. “But for your information, he was the reluctant one, not me!”

He glared at her, furious at her admission that she wanted Josh even while he was oddly relieved that she hadn’t slept with him.

“He’s got Terri,” he rasped. “Why would he want you?”

She lifted her head proudly. “Terri is married, and she hasn’t been to the cay.”

“Is that what he told you?” he asked with a harsh laugh. “Amanda, how can you be so gullible?”

She was sure he was lying. He had to be! But then he’d seen Terri in Jamaica and he hadn’t told her. She’d found out from Brad. Couldn’t he be keeping other secrets about her as well? “Why do you keep trying to turn me against Josh?” she asked impatiently.

“Don’t you know?”

He moved forward, catching her in his arms. He bent
a
nd kissed her, holding her roughly when she would have drawn back. With all his expertise he tried to win a
response from her, but she only stood quietly in his arms, neither responding nor protesting. He groaned and forced himself to be gentle, to woo instead of demand.

Amanda adored him, but not like this. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings any more than she’d already done. There was no one but Josh for her. All the same, thoughts of Terri and Josh’s refusal to enter into any kind of a relationship with her claimed her mind. Perhaps Brad wouldn’t be such a bad choice. Once he cured his gambling fever
…
and he had admirable traits. He was kind and generous, and no one underestimated his ability to stand his ground in a fight.

She hesitated, not fighting him, while those thoughts chased each other around her mind. She put her hands on his shoulders, and for an instant her lips softened.

The door opened silently, and the man standing outside it, who had started to speak, closed his mouth at the sight that met his dark eyes. Brad, with Amanda. He felt sick to his soul. With a black scowl, unseen, he closed the door as gently as he’d opened it, turned on his heel and walked past the openmouthed secretary without saying a single word.

Back in the office, Brad stood, breathing roughly, his emotions in turmoil. Amanda had gently pushed away from him and moved back.

“I’m sorry, but no,” she said, lifting her hands protectively when he started toward her again. She felt miserable that he wanted something she couldn’t give him.

Her expression told him everything. He almost hated her at that instant for the weakness she’d kindled in him. She felt nothing when he kissed her. Nothing!

“I even look like him,” he said tersely. “But it isn’t enough, is it?”

“I love him, Brad,” she said, more gently than she’d meant to. She’d tried not to notice how much he cared about her. Too much, and in the wrong way. “I’ve always loved Josh. I’m sorry.”

H
e winced and turned aw
ay, as if he couldn’t bear the sight of her a second longer. “What now, Amanda?”

She stared at him, stunned. It was incredible, that vulnerability in a man who used women like toys. He’d kissed her with real feeling, not with base passion. But she couldn’t give what she couldn’t feel.

“I’m so sorry,” she said helplessly.

His back stiffened. “Yes. So am I,” he told her. He didn’t look at her. He rammed his hands into his pockets and stared at his desk. His eyes closed. “I love you, Amanda.”

She didn’t know what to say. She’d never felt so helpless or guilty, and she’d really done nothing deliberately to hurt him. He was upset and confused, and when he came to his senses he’d more than likely realize that he was emotionally scattered. But that wouldn’t help him right now. They’d been friends for a long time. She hated hurting him, even when he was doing his best to hurt her.

“Brad…
”

“Leave it. You can’t help what you feel for Josh.” He turned, smiling mockingly. “We’re both trapped.”

She managed a faint smile in response. “I suppose.” She searched his eyes. “What are you going to do?”