Regan's Pride (9 page)

“I've never let myself want a child,” he said roughly. “Do you know why?”

She barely had the strength to shake her head.

“Because people would mistake me for its grandfather. I'm feeling my years a bit, Corrie. I wouldn't be able to do all the things children like doing with their parents. By the time a child of mine was ready for college, I'd be almost ready for Social Security.”

Her blue eyes sought his and searched his lean, dark face. “You're so handsome,” she said involuntarily. “It would…be a pity not to have a child of your own.”

His heartbeat went wild. He'd never felt such desire for a woman. He reached out and touched her throat, where a pulse shuddered just under the skin.

“Thinking about children excites you,” he commented roughly. “Did you want one of your own?”

“Not with him,” she said, her voice unsteady. “I made sure that I couldn't.”

His hand stilled at her throat. “What do you mean, you made sure?” he demanded.

There was a note to his voice, an urgency, that was disturbing. She searched his worried eyes. “I mean, I took something to prevent a child,” she said.

He let out a breath that he hadn't realized he was holding. “You didn't have surgery?”

“Oh, no,” she said. His eyes disturbed her. “Why would it bother you to think that I couldn't have a child?” she blurted out, and then stood still with horror at what she'd asked so blatantly.

If she'd shocked herself, it seemed that she'd shocked him even more. He stared at her blankly for a moment. Then he scowled and searched her eyes until she flushed.

“I don't know,” he said honestly. He moved closer, bringing his hands up to frame her oval face. They were faintly callused hands, warm and strong against her skin.

Her fascinated eyes fell to his mouth and she remembered how it had felt the morning he gave her Shep, when she'd kissed him so uninhibitedly.

His hands tilted her head just a little, and one thumb eased up to her lower lip, teasing it to part from her top one.

“Keep your eyes open while I kiss you,” he said
huskily, bending slowly toward her. “I want you to know who I am, every minute!”

As if she could forget, she thought with faint hysteria. His hard mouth parted against hers, his lips easing down on hers with a slow, sensuous pressure.

She stiffened and her hands went to his shirt, but he didn't stop.

His hand came up to stroke her cheek, toy with her mouth while his lips explored it. And all the while he watched her watching him, seeing her pupils begin to dilate when his body shifted against her, dragging her breasts against his broad chest.

His free hand slid down her back to the base of her spine and gathered her sinuously against him, so that she felt his jean-clad thigh push between her own legs in an intimacy that was new and exciting.

He lifted his head to look at her. His breathing was as unsteady as her own, and there was nothing calm in his eyes now. He traced her cheek and the outline of her mouth. At the same time, his muscular leg moved farther between hers and his hand pressed her closer in a new and disturbing intimacy. She could feel the insistent pressure of him against the inside of her thigh. It was the first time since she'd first met him that he'd ever allowed her to feel his body in complete arousal.

She started to pull back instinctively, but he moved so that he was perched against the edge of his desk. He drew her in between his legs and held her there by both hips, deliberately moving her to make her aware of what he was feeling.

She blushed and her eyes couldn't get higher than his chin.

“Look at me, Corrie,” he said huskily.

She had to drag her eyes up, and they were shy, apprehensive, excited all at once.

His lips parted on a slowly released breath, and his hands lifted her slightly into an even more intimate position. He caught his breath sharply at the sensations it brought and his teeth clenched. He held her there firmly, groaning softly with pleasure at her involuntary movement.

“Ted…!” she protested in a feverish whisper.

“I'd like to make you feel the kind of pleasure it gives me to hold you like this, Corrie,” he said, staring into her eyes. He smiled gently. “Embarrassed?”

“I've never done this with you,” she faltered.

“No,” he agreed. His eyes fell to her soft knit blouse and lingered where her nipples pressed visibly against the cloth.

She knew what he was looking for. Her own body was her worst enemy, but she couldn't hide it from him.

One long leg came around her legs at the knee, holding her, while his hand slid under the knit top. He caught her eyes and slowly lifted his hand under the hem until it reached the thin garment that was no barrier to his touch. He traced the nipple with his forefinger and thumb and felt her whole body jerk.

“Is this where he cut you?” he asked very quietly.

She swallowed. “No. It's…the other one,” she whispered.

“I'll be very careful with you,” he promised softly. “Don't be frightened.”

He reached around behind her and unfastened the catch. Seconds later, his hand pressed tenderly against
her bareness and she gasped at the sensations he drew from her body so effortlessly.

His hands slid up her rib cage, taking the fabric with them, and when she caught them, he only shook his head and kept going.

The impact of his eyes on her bare flesh made her very still. He studied the long, thin scar with the tracks of removed stitches still visible, and his jaw tautened. Then his attention turned to her other breast and lingered there for a long moment on the perfection of it, the firm, creamy softness with its hard, dusky tip.

When she saw his head bend, she was too hypnotized to register what it meant. Then his mouth opened on her unblemished breast and began to suckle her. She stiffened and clutched at him, making a tiny cry in her throat.

He drew back at once to see whether passion or fear had produced that choked sound.

“Am I hurting you?” he asked softly.

She bit her lower lip, hesitating as she tried to decide between the truth and a lie.

But he knew. A warm light darkened his pale eyes. “Don't be embarrassed,” he said softly. “I'm enjoying it, too. You're so soft, Corrie. It's like rubbing my lips over a rose petal.”

He bent again, and this time she had no resistance left. She gave in to him without a protest, moaning softly as he suckled her until she trembled, totally given over to the delicious sensations he was creating.

She felt him lift her, turn her, so that she was suddenly lying back on the desk among the papers and pens. His mouth was insistent, demanding, and she felt his hand on her inner thigh, parting her legs. He lowered
his hips against hers. The blatant feel of him in intimacy, even through two layers of denim, was explosive. She cried out and lifted helplessly upward, straining against him, while one lean hand snaked under her and pulled her into him with a quick, hard rhythm.

Her nails dug into his shoulders and she shivered, moaning so hungrily that his mouth left her breast to grind into her own and silence her. She shivered again, her hands urgent, clinging, pulling, in a delirium of anguished hunger.

He was as far gone as she was, totally without restraint. Ignoring the clutter of the desk, he pressed her down into it with the weight of his body and drove against her with a harsh, blind groan of pleasure.

She hadn't realized what could happen, even when two people were fully clothed. She bit his lower lip ardently, tugged at his thick silver hair, moved under him with wanton little jerks until the pleasure made her shake all over. She wept because it wasn't enough, and there was no possibility of getting any closer to him.

He realized belatedly how far they were going. His breath left him in a rough explosion, and for an instant his hands were cruel as he fought for control.

“Help me,” he whispered into her open, ardent mouth. “Help me, Corrie. Lie still, honey, please…!”

She sobbed brokenly under his mouth while he soothed and gentled her until passion slowly gave way to exhaustion and her body stopped shivering.

Finally her eyes opened. The ceiling was above her and she felt paper clips under her shoulders and what felt like a pencil against her jean-clad hip. Seconds later, Ted's pale, hard face lifted and his turbulent pale blue eyes looked into hers.

She felt as shocked as he looked, and a lot more embarrassed.

“Easy now,” he said softly. “It's all right.” He lifted himself away from her and moved off the side of the huge desk, his eyes on the disorder they'd created. Half his paperwork was scattered all over the floor and there were tears in some of the rest.

He was amazed to find her that responsive after what she'd been through. She might have found her husband repulsive, but she was as helpless in Ted's arms now as she'd been the first time he'd ever kissed her. The knowledge of it, and the involuntary pride, filled his face as he watched her fumble under her floppy shirt with the catches to her brassiere.

She saw that expression and didn't understand it. Her hands finished closing the fastening and dropped to her sides. She stared at him, finding her own curiosity magnified in his eyes. He looked sexy, she thought, with his mouth faintly swollen from the long contact with hers, and his silver hair falling roguishly onto his forehead.

She searched for Shep, who'd given up on her and gone to sleep on the floor in the corner. “Some watch-dog you are,” she muttered at the sleeping puppy.

“I don't think he was convinced that you wanted to be rescued,” Ted murmured.

She flushed, touching her shirt absently, wincing as her hand came into contact with the cut.

He scowled, understanding immediately. “I was too rough, wasn't I? I'm sorry. I realize that it must still be pretty sore.”

“It's all right,” she said. Her shy gaze dropped to his
broad chest. “You didn't hurt me. There's something I'd like to ask you.”

“Go ahead.”

Her teeth nibbled at her lower lip. She could still taste him on it. “Is it only that good in the beginning?” She lifted her head, frowning worriedly as she met his curious eyes. “I mean, before people actually have se… When they get really intimate,” she amended quickly.

H
e didn't look shocked, she thought. In fact, he was smiling. “No. It feels like that all the time, all the way,” he said gently. “Especially when two people want each other so desperately.”

“Oh.” She squared her shoulders. “I've been lonely,” she said abruptly, so that he wouldn't get the wrong idea about her headlong response.

It didn't work. He was looking more smug by the minute. “You were lonely,” he echoed.

She glared at him. “Very lonely. I couldn't help it.”

“Do I look as if I feel taken advantage of?” he asked pleasantly.

She searched for words and couldn't find any.

He leaned back against the desk, watching her. “You hated intimacy with Barry, didn't you?”

She hesitated. Then she nodded. “He said things…” She couldn't bear to remember them. “He hated the way
I froze when he touched me. I couldn't bear for him to touch me. He liked to talk about what he did with other women—” She broke off and turned away. “Oh, God, you can't imagine what it was like!”

He moved behind her. His lean hands held her shoulders without pressure. “I'm getting a pretty raw picture of it,” he said curtly. “But it's over now. You have to start putting it behind you.”

She turned in his grasp, her blue eyes wide and frightened. “What if I can't? What if I really am cold, like he said?”

He pursed his lips and his eyes smiled at her. “Corrie,” he said softly, “if I hadn't pulled back when I did, could you have stopped me?”

She felt the color whip up in her cheeks like a soufflé.

“You're not cold,” he assured her.

“But we didn't…!”

“If we had,” he emphasized, “it wouldn't have been any different.” His eyes held hers. She couldn't drag them away, and heat ran through her body like fire. “You might draw back at first, but it would only be a momentary withdrawal. I can make you so hungry that you could take me without preliminaries at all.”

Her eyes showed the faint curiosity the remark brought forth.

“You don't understand? For a woman who was married, Corrie, you're singularly naive.” He told her, bluntly, exactly what he meant, and her indrawn breath was audible.

“You don't know very much about your body, do you?” he asked quietly. “I'm sorry that you think sex is something dark and cruel. It isn't. It's a way of
expressing feelings and needs that we can't put into words.”

“Have you ever done it with someone you loved?” she asked, just as bluntly.

He hesitated. His chest rose and fell slowly. “No,” he said after a minute. “I've enjoyed women and they've enjoyed me, on a no-strings basis. But I've been very careful about my liaisons. There's never been a commitment.”

“And never will be,” she said, echoing what he'd said before. “You've said so often enough.”

His pale eyes narrowed as he studied her face. “You'll want to marry again,” he said. “You're not the sort of woman who would feel comfortable having children without a husband.”

She turned away, feeling empty as his hands left her shoulders. She wouldn't want children because they wouldn't be Ted's. How could she tell him that? “I don't want marriage or children anymore,” she said dully.

“Coreen, all men aren't like Barry!”

She looked back at him solemnly. “How does a woman know before she marries a man what he'll be like as a husband? How does she know that he won't hurt her or abuse her, or be unfaithful to her?”

“If he loves her, that will all fall into place,” he said curtly.

“Some men can't be tied down to just one woman,” she replied. “You ought to know. You change your women like you change your saddles,” she added ruefully. “Every other newspaper has you pictured with some new woman.”

“Gossip pages run on gossip,” he said shortly. “I enjoy the company of pretty women when I go out.”

“Of course, and why shouldn't you? You're a bachelor. You have no ties, no responsibilities.” She looked away from his curious expression. “But a married man should care enough to give up other women. Or at least, I used to think so. Barry never gave up anything.”

“Barry didn't love you,” he said flatly.

“He owned me,” she replied. “He used to say that he bought and paid for me, and maybe he did. God knows, Dad would never have been so comfortable at the end if he hadn't intervened. And I'd have had no place at all to go.”

Ted didn't like remembering that. He'd given her no help, offered no comfort. Even if he'd wanted to, Barry made sure that he kept the two of them separated. He was jealous, Ted realized now. Barry had noticed the looks Ted was giving Coreen and it had made him want her, but only to keep her from Ted. Why hadn't he ever realized that Barry competed with him? Barry had lied to both of them, to keep them apart. And he hadn't known.

Coreen noticed Ted's angry scowl and turned away. “Sorry,” she said. “I don't mean to keep dragging the past up.”

“Yes, I know.” His eyes were faintly sad as they searched over her. “I'm sorry that we can't change it.”

She shrugged. “Everyone goes through unpleasantness. We just have to remember that there's always a light at the end of the tunnel.”

“Is there?” He held her eyes with his. “You're vulnerable with me. Is it because Barry was cruel to you, or is it because we never made love and you're curious?”

She lifted her chin. “Maybe it's both.”

“Maybe it's neither.” He stuck his hands into his
pockets and studied her mutinous face. “But the years are still wrong. You need a young man.”

“So you keep saying. If you believe it, why did you send Barney away?”

He glared at her. “Don't you have something to do?”

She sighed. “I wish I did. Sandy once said you needed help in here. I can type. And I can take dictation, if you don't go too fast.”

He glanced at the desk irritably, noticing its disorder and remembering how it came to be in such a mess.

“You can start with that,” he said, nodding his head toward it. “And next time I lay you down, I won't stop,” he added unexpectedly.

She lifted both eyebrows in what she hoped was sophisticated cynicism. “If you don't, you'll marry me,” she said with equal candor.

Once, the very word marriage would have stopped him in his tracks. Now, he didn't find it so threatening. And the more he was around Coreen, the hungrier and lonelier he felt. He glared at her.

“I'd better practice more control, in that case,” he said mockingly.

“Yes, perhaps you should.” She wasn't going to back down ever again, she decided. Her eyes met his bravely. “I'm not taking anything these days.”

His cheeks went ruddy and she noticed that his eyes began to darken as they fell suddenly, explicitly, to her waistline.

“You're too old for children, remember?” she said with pure sarcasm.

He looked back up. His eyebrows arched. “I'm not
too old to make them,” he said with a soft threat in his deep voice. “So don't push too hard.”

She felt alive; more alive than she had since she was single and Ted had been her whole world. She didn't understand her own bravado. But she did know that she wasn't afraid of what he was threatening. She wasn't afraid of him at all.

“If we had a child,” she said deliberately, “it would have blue eyes.”

His jaw tautened. He didn't reply. He turned away from her to look for his hat. “I have some business to take care of. If you want to tidy the office, go ahead. But don't move anything off the desk. I'll never be able to find it again.”

“Okay.”

“Where's Shep?”

“Over there.” She gestured at the corner, and grinned. “Mrs. Bird boiled him a drumstick but he left it, to follow me.”

He smiled at her. “You and that pup.”

“He's the most wonderful present I ever had. I mean it.”

“I know.” He paused beside her on his way out and tilted her face up to his with a tender hand so that he could search her eyes. “I like seeing you smile. You don't do it very often these days.”

“I'm getting better.”

He nodded. His gaze fell to her mouth and the fingers on her chin went rigid.

“Afraid to kiss me?” she whispered boldly.

He smiled faintly. “Maybe I am. You and I are explosive.”

Her eyes were curious. “Isn't it always like that, for a man?”

His thumb slid over her chin and moved up to tug at her soft lower lip. “Not for me,” he confessed quietly. “I only feel this fever with you, Corrie,” he whispered against her mouth as he took it.

It was a mistake. He knew it the minute he felt her lips part beneath the ardent pressure of his mouth. He groaned and dropped his hat on the floor in the rush of his need to get her against him. He half lifted her into his aroused body and his tongue penetrated the soft depths of her mouth. He felt her shiver and heard her moan, and the world spun away.

Someone was knocking at the door. He heard it, as if from deep in a well. He lifted his head and found himself fighting to breathe. Coreen's eyes were half-closed with desire, her mouth swollen and red, her body arched slightly, yielding, waiting. His hand was smoothing hungrily over her undamaged breast and he felt her heart beating like mad under it.

“What is it?” His voice sounded hoarse, even when he raised it.

“That man's here about the new combine, Mr. Regan!” one of his men called through the door.

“Tell him I'll be there in ten minutes!” he yelled back.

“Yes, sir!”

Footsteps died away. Coreen hadn't moved, or protested, or tried to pull away.

“Do you want more?” he asked coolly, angered by his own weakness.

She had no pride left. “Yes,” she whispered, “please.”

“Corrie…!”

“Please,” she whispered again, tugging at his head.

Her eyes closed as he bent helplessly to her waiting mouth. The kiss was deeper this time, slower, more achingly thorough than ever before. His powerful legs trembled as she pushed closer to his aroused body and he felt her softness and warmth against him.

His lean hands found her hips and tugged her rhythmically against him while he kissed her until he had to stop for air.

“Do you realize that I could take you right here, standing up, right now?” he asked in a rough whisper.

“Yes,” she said simply.

He parted her lips with his, and pushed his tongue slowly past her teeth once, twice, deeper with each movement. “Open your mouth a little more,” he whispered raggedly. “Let me touch you…more deeply…inside!”

She cried out at the imagery and her whole body vibrated as he deepened the kiss to blatant intimacy. His legs parted and he pulled her between them, raising her so that they were perfectly matched, male to female. He groaned so harshly that her nails bit into him as she tried to get even closer, to satisfy the hunger in him that she could almost taste.

Her fingers went, trembling in their haste, to the buttons on his shirt. He made a feeble attempt to stay them, knowing too well what was going to happen to him if she touched his chest. But he didn't really want to stop her. Seconds later, when he felt her fingers caressing through the thick mat of hair that covered him to the waist and below, he shuddered and cried out.

She caught her breath at the unfamiliar sound. It
excited her even more to know that she could arouse him so easily. Instinctively, her mouth moved down to his chest and pressed hungrily against it through the thick mat of hair. His heartbeat shook her for the one, long instant that he gave in to his own need.

“No,” he ground out, shuddering as he finally managed to pull her away and hold her back from him with bruising hands while there was still time. “Oh, God…no, Corrie!” he said hoarsely.

She lifted her face and looked into his ravaged eyes with slowly dawning comprehension. “I'd let you,” she whispered feverishly.

His eyes closed and his teeth ground together. His hands on her shoulders hurt her while he fought his own desperate need.

“Ted, I'd let you,” she repeated brokenly.

He rested his damp forehead against hers and dragged in enough breath to fill his lungs. “No. I could make you pregnant,” he whispered, shaken.

He sounded as if that would be the end of the world as far as he was concerned. He didn't want a child. He didn't want commitment. In the fever of their kisses, she'd forgotten. But he hadn't. He was shaken, but not enough to forget the possible consequences of making love to her.

She took a long, shaky breath. “Yes,” she said a minute later, “that's right. Silly of me…not to remember.”

He barely heard her. His body was in the grip of a kind of pain he hadn't experienced since adolescence. “Stand still, honey,” he whispered roughly. “Don't make it worse….”

She hadn't realized that she was shifting restlessly,
brushing his hard body. She stood very still while he concentrated on his breathing until the rigor of his body began to relax. She watched him unashamedly, learning things about him, about men, that she hadn't known. Her eyes were curious, running over him like hands, searching out all the signs that gave away his raging desire and its slow—very slow—containment.

He felt her rapt eyes on his face. “Stop staring,” he muttered as he took one last breath and the steely fingers on her shoulders began to relax.

“I'm curious,” she said simply, and her gaze was faintly self-conscious. “I've never seen you like this.”

His eyes speared into hers. “Proud of yourself?” he asked curtly.

She nodded. “In a way. Nobody ever wanted me that much. Does it hurt?”

He laughed coldly. “My God…!”

“Well, does it?” she persisted. “Some books say it does and some say it doesn't, but they all agree that a man can control it if he has to. Barry said he couldn't, and that was why he hurt me. But it wasn't true, was it?”