Diana Palmer Collected 1-6: Soldier of Fortune / Tender Stranger / Enamored / Mystery Man / Rawhide and Lace / Unlikely Lover

“Oh, you’re something else, Miss St. Clair,” he said gently. He bent and touched his mouth to the very tip of one breast.

Her breath wouldn’t come steadily. She looked down at his blond head. “I…we should…that is…”

He lifted his head. “Suppose in the morning we get married?”

“M-married?”

He nodded. “Married.” He pulled up her bodice with obvious reluctance. Then he reached behind her, retrieved her glasses, and put them back on her.

“But…”

His knuckles brushed one perfect breast lazily, feeling it go hard again. “This isn’t going to get better,” he said. “By tomorrow we’ll be in such a fever that nothing is going to keep us away from each other. I haven’t experienced anything this powerful since I was about fifteen. And I’m damned sure you’re feeling it for the first time.”

“Yes, I know that, but we’re strangers,” she protested, trying to keep her head.

“We aren’t going to be strangers for much longer,” he said flatly. “My God, I want you,” he ground out. “If you won’t marry me, I’m getting the hell out of this hotel tonight, and on the next plane out of Veracruz. Because I can’t bear to be around you without taking you. And I won’t take you without marriage.”

“But…”

“Am I so unmarriageable?” he burst out. “My God, I’ve had women propose to me! I’m not ugly, I’m well to do, I like dogs and cats, and I pay my bills on time. I’m in fairly decent health, I have friends…why in hell won’t you marry me?”

“But it’s only desire,” she began.

“Stop trying to be logical,” he said gruffly. “I’m not capable of logic when I’m aching like this. I want you. And you want me. For God’s sake, put me out of my misery!”

“Would…would we have a divorce if…after we…if you…” she began.

“I’m getting older.” He got to his feet and drew her up with him. “I travel a lot, you’d have to get used to that. But until now I’ve never had anyone of my own. I like you. I like being with you. And I think we’ll set fires in bed. It’s more than most people start out with. At least we aren’t kids who believe in fairy tales like love and happily-ever-after. I’d rather have a woman who doesn’t bore me than an infatuation that wears off.”

“And if you fell in love with someone later?” she asked quietly, hearing her dreams die.

“I’ll never love again,” he said with equal quietness. “But if you do, I’ll let you out.” He took her hands in his. “Yes or no? I won’t ask again.”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation. Harriett would faint. Nobody would believe it back home, that she’d found a man like this who wanted her. All the questions she’d meant to ask went right out of her mind.

He bent and kissed her—without passion and very tenderly. “My full name is Eric James van Meer. I was born in the Netherlands, although everyone calls it Holland, in a place called Utrecht. I lived there until I was in my teens, when I joined the service. The rest, you know, a little. Someday I’ll tell you all of it. When I have to.”

“That sounds ominous.”

He put an arm around her. “It doesn’t have a lot to do with us right now,” he said. His arm tightened. “Do you want to be a virgin until tomorrow morning?”

Her lips parted. Her breath came wildly. Of course, she thought, and started to say it. But she couldn’t. The words stuck in her throat. She thought of the long night, and her logical mind was booted out of its lofty position by a body that was in unholy torment.

“I want you so much,” she said unsteadily.

“No more than I want you,” he returned gruffly.

They were in the light of the hotel lobby now. He stopped, turning her toward him. His hands cupped her face and his eyes were dark and hot and full of anguish.

“I was raised a Catholic,” he explained. “And in my religion, what I’m going to do to you tonight is a sin. Probably in your religion it is, too. But in the sight of God, for all our lives, I take you for my wife here, now. And tomorrow, in the sight of men, we make it right.”

Tears stung her eyes as the words touched her heart. “And I take you for my husband, for better or worse, as long as I draw breath.”

He bent and brushed his mouth tenderly over her wet eyes. “In Dutch, we call a married woman Mevrouw,” he whispered.

“Mevrouw,” she repeated.

“And darling,” he added, smiling, “is lieveling.”

“Lieveling,” she repeated, smiling back.

“Upstairs,” he said, turning her, “I’ll teach you some more words. But you won’t be able to repeat them in public.” And he laughed at her expression.

Chapter Four (#ulink_d8fa100e-1dcf-5e0b-bec6-e133cfca0bd5)

Dutch’s room was nothing like Dani’s. It overlooked the bay, and its quiet elegance would have suited royalty. She watched him lock the door, and nervously went to stand on the balcony where she could see a lighted ship in port.

The wind blew her hair and her dress, and she felt like a voyager on the brink of a new discovery.

“One of the passenger ships,” he remarked, nodding toward the brilliantly lighted vessel. “Beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Yes. I don’t know much about ships, but I like looking at them.”

He lit a cigarette and smoked it quietly. “I used to sail,” he said unexpectedly.

She turned, looking up at the stranger who, in less than twenty-four hours, would be her husband and her lover. “Did you?”

“I moved to Chicago about eight years ago,” he said. “I have an apartment on the lake, and I had a sailboat. I got drunk one night and she turned over with me. I let her sink.”

Her eyes narrowed uneasily as she stared up at him, and he stared back, unblinkingly.

“I’m not an alcoholic,” he said gently. “I probably sound like one to you, with these veiled references to the past. I don’t drink often, but there are times when I get black moods. I won’t drink around you. Ever.”

It sounded as if he were willing to make any compromise, and something warm and soft blossomed inside her. She went close to him, her eyes trusting, quiet and deep. “I can make compromises, too,” she said quietly. “I’ll live anywhere you like.”

He searched her eyes. “I don’t mind readjusting.”

“Yes, I know, but your work is in Chicago, I gather, or you wouldn’t live there.”

“My work is international,” he said, and scowled. “I don’t work out of Chicago. I live there because I have friends there.”

“Women friends?” she blurted out.

He only smiled. He finished the cigarette, tossed it into an ashtray and drew her gently against him. “You’re going to be the first woman I’ve been with this year,” he murmured with a mocking smile. “Does that answer the question?”

She felt and looked shocked. “But…but don’t you need…?” She couldn’t find a delicate way to say it.

“I thought I was beyond all that, until you came along,” he confessed. “I can’t even remember the last time I felt this way about a woman.”