Man of the Hour: Night Of Love

Somewhere in the middle of it, she began to cry—great, broken sobs of guilt and grief and unappeased hunger. He held her, cradled her against him, his eyes as anguished as his unsatisfied body. But slowly, finally, the desire in both of them began to relax.

“Don’t cry,” he whispered, kissing the tears from her eyes. “It was inevitable.”

She turned her face so that he could kiss the other side of it, her eyes closed while she savored the rare, exquisite tenderness.

When she felt his lips reluctantly draw away, she opened her eyes and looked into his. They were soft, just for her, just for the moment. Soft and hungry, and somehow violent.

“You’re untouched,” he said huskily, his face setting into hard, familiar lines. “Even here.” His hand smoothed over her bare, swollen breast and as if the feel of it drove him mad, he bent his head and tenderly drew his lips over it, breathing in the scent of her body. “Totally, absolutely untouched.”

“I…can’t feel like this with any other man,” she confessed, shaken to her soul by what they were sharing. “I can’t bear another man’s eyes to touch me, much less his hands.”

His breath drew in raggedly. “Why in God’s name did you leave, damn you?”

“I was afraid!”

“Of this?” His mouth opened over her nipple and she cried out at the flash of pleasure it gave her to feel it so intimately.

“I was a virgin,” she gasped.

“You still are.” He drew her across him, one big hand gathering her hips blatantly into the hard thrust of his, holding her there while he searched her eyes. “And you’re still afraid,” he said finally, watching the shocked apprehension grow on her face. “Terrified of intimacy with me.”

She swallowed, then swallowed again. Her eyes dropped to his bare chest. “Not…of that.”

“Then what?”

His body throbbed. She could feel the heat and power of it and she felt faint with the knowledge of how desperately he wanted her. “Steven, my sister died in childbirth.”

“Yes, I know. Your father told me. It was such a private thing, I didn’t feel it was my place to ask questions. I just know she was twelve years older than you.”

She looked up at him. “She was…like me,” she whispered slowly. “Thin and slender, not very big in the hips at all. They lived up north. It snowed six feet the winter she was ready to deliver and her husband couldn’t get her to a hospital in time. She died. So did the baby.” Meg hesitated, nibbling her lower lip. “Childbirth is difficult for the women in my family. My mother had to have a cesarean section when I was born. I was very sheltered and after my sister died, mother made it sound as if pregnancy would be a death sentence for me, too. She made me terrified of getting pregnant,” she added miserably, hiding her face from him.

He eased his intimate hold on her, stunned. His hand guided her cheek to his broad, hair-roughened chest and he held her there, letting her feel the heat of his body, the heavy slam of his heart under her ear.

“We never discussed this.”

“I was very young, as you said,” she replied, closing her eyes. “I couldn’t tell you. It was so intimate a thing to say, and I was already overwhelmed by you physically. Every time you touched me, I went light-headed and hot and shaky all over.” Her eyes closed. “I still do.”

His fingers tangled gently in her hair, comforting now instead of arousing. “I could have reassured you, if you’d only told me.”

“Perhaps.” She nuzzled her cheek against him. “But I had terrors of getting pregnant, and you came on very strong that night. The argument…seemed like a reprieve at the time. You told me to get out, and then you took Daphne to a public place so that it would be in all the papers. I told myself that choosing dancing made more sense than choosing you. It made it easier to go away.”

He lifted his head, staring out the darkened window. Seconds later, he looked down at her, his eyes lingering on her breasts.

She smiled sadly. “You don’t believe me, do you? You’re still bitter, Steven.”

“You don’t think I’m entitled to be?”

She shifted against him, her eyes adoring his hard face, totally at peace with him even in this intimacy now. “I didn’t think you cared enough to be hurt.”

“I didn’t,” he agreed readily. “But my pride took a few blows.”

“Nicole said you got drunk…”

He smiled cruelly. “Did she add that I was with Daphne at the time?”

She stiffened, hating him.

His warm hand covered her breast blatantly, feeling her heartbeat race even through her anger. He searched her eyes. “I still want you,” he said flatly. “More than ever.”

She knew it. His face was alive with desire. “It wouldn’t be wise,” she said quietly. “As you once said, Steven, addictions are best avoided.”

“You flatter yourself if you think I’m crazy enough to become addicted to you again,” he said with a faintly mocking smile as all the anguish of those four years sat on him.

Meg was arrested by his expression. The mention of the past seemed to have brought all the bitterness back, all the anger. She didn’t know what to say. “Steven…”

His hand pressed closer, warm against her bare skin in the faint chill of the car. “Your ballet company needs money. All right, Meg,” he said softly. “I’ll get you out of the hole.”

“You will!” she exclaimed.

“Oh, yes. I’ll be your company angel. But there’s a price.”

His voice was too silky. She felt the apprehension as if it were tangible. “What is the price?” she asked.

“Can’t you figure it out?” he asked with faint hauteur in his smile. “Then I’ll tell you. Sleep with me. Give me one night, Meg, to get you out of my system. And in return, I’ll give you back your precious dancing.”

4

Meg spent a long, sleepless night agonizing over Steven’s proposal. She couldn’t really believe that he’d said such a thing, or that he’d actually expected her to agree. How could his feverish ardor have turned to contempt in so short a time? It must be as she thought: he wanted nothing more than revenge because she’d run out on him. Even her explanation had fallen on deaf ears. Or perhaps he hadn’t wanted to believe it. And hadn’t he been just as much at fault, after all? He was the one who’d sent her away. He’d told her to get out of his life.

She wished now that she’d reminded him of that fact more forcibly. But his slowly drawled insult had made her forget everything. She’d torn out of his arms, putting her clothes to rights with trembling hands while he laughed harshly at her efforts.

“That was cruel, Steven,” she’d said hoarsely, glaring at him when she was finally presentable again.

“Really? In fact, I meant it,” he added. “And the offer still stands. Sleep with me and I’ll drag your precious company back from the brink. You won’t have to worry about pregnancy, either,” he added as he started the car. “I’ll protect you from it with my last breath. You see, Meg, the last thing in the world I want now is to be tied to you by a child.” His eyes had punctuated the insult, going slowly over her body as if he could see under her clothes. “All I want is for this madness to be over, once and for all.”

As if it ever would be, she thought suddenly, when he’d left her at her door without a word and driven off. The madness, as he called it, was going to be permanent, because she’d taken the easy way out four years ago. She hadn’t confessed her fears and misgivings about intimacy with him, or challenged him about Daphne. She’d been afraid to say what she thought, even more afraid to fight for his love. Instead, she’d listened to others—his father and her own mother, who’d wanted Meg to have a career in ballet and never risk pregnancy at all.

But Steven’s motives were even less clear. She’d often thought secretly that Steven was rather cold in any emotional way, that perhaps he’d been relieved when their engagement ended. His very courtship of her had been reluctant, forced, as if it was totally against his better judgment. Meg had thought at the time that love was something he would never understand completely. He had so little of it in his own life. His father had wanted a puppet that he could control. His mother had withdrawn from him when he was still a child, unable to understand his tempestuous nature much less cope with his hardheaded determination in all things.

Steven had grown up a loner. He still was. He might use a woman to ease his masculine hungers, but he avoided emotional closeness. Meg had sensed that, even at the age of eighteen. In a way, it was Steven’s very detachment that she’d run from. She had the wisdom to know that her love for him and his desire for her would never make a relationship. And at the back of her mind, always in those days, was her unrealistic fear of childbirth. She wondered now if her mother hadn’t deliberately cultivated that fear, to force Meg into line. Her mother had been a major manipulator. Just like Steven’s father.

Meg had gone quickly upstairs the night before, calling a cheerful good-night to her brother, who was watching a late movie in the living room. She held up very well until she got into her own room, and then the angry tears washed down from her eyes.

A night of love in return for financing. Did he really think she held herself so cheaply? Well, Steven could hold his breath until she asked him for financial help, she thought furiously! The ballet company would manage somehow. She wouldn’t meet his unreasonable terms, not even to save her career.

By the time Meg was up and moving around the next morning, David had already gone to the office. She had a headache and a very sore ankle from just the small amount of walking she’d done the night before. She couldn’t quite meet her own eyes in the mirror, though, remembering how easily she’d surrendered to Steven’s hot ardor. She had no resistance when she got within a foot of him.

She washed her face, brushed her teeth and ate breakfast. She went to the hospital for her physical therapy and then came back home and did stretches for several minutes. All the while, she thought of Steven and how explosive their passion had been. It didn’t help her mood.