Chasing the Sunset(13)

I will not do it, he thought savagely. This is where I draw the line. She can experiment on someone else. That thought sent a twinge of discomfort through him. He did not want her to experiment on someone else. He wanted to see her looking this way at him while she was flat on her back in his bed, those magnificent breasts in his hands. He cursed silently again.This line of thought was getting him nowhere. It certainly was not easing his frustration one whit.

Maggie laid a slender hand on his arm and he flinched slightly, easing away from the tantalizing brush of her hand as unobtrusively as possible. She smiled at him, gently, her eyes lingering with such favor on his features that it almost felt like a stroke on his overheated skin.

“Do you want to go and dabble your feet in the water?” she asked. “It is awfully hot, and you are all . . . sweaty.”

So saying, she took her index finger and ran it slowly through the perspiration on his neck, smiling an enigmatic smile. Nick stared at her finger as if mesmerized.

“I have got to go somewhere,” he said in a dazed manner, his gaze never leaving the hand that had touched him, followed it as she put that same finger, the one that she had run through his sweat, onto her full lower lip, her tongue darting out to meet it, followed it as she brushed it through the soft curls that surrounded her pixie face, followed it as she touched the front of her dress. “I have got to go . . . somewhere.”

He stared at her wildly, she thought. He seemed mesmerized by the way she had licked her finger, so she decided to try it again. Her emerald eyes held his, and she flicked her tongue out again to lick slowly along the length of her finger. She watched a flush of color spread slowly up from his collar, and his mouth twitched.

“Do not play with me, Maggie,” he said in a harsh, low voice. “You do not know what you are doing. I am a grown man, not a little boy. Cut your teeth on someone else.”

”What if I do not want somebody else?” she asked in a husky voice. “What if I want . . . only you?”

His face hardened and became a mask that Maggie could not read. Only his eyes were alive; they licked over her and set her on fire everywhere they touched.

“You cannot have me, little girl,” he said cruelly. “I want a woman, and I only want her in my bed. I have got no other use for them, and you would just go mixing up love and lust.” His eyes met hers. “That is all it is, Maggie. Lust.”

They stood in silence for a moment, staring at each other. Maggie felt her bravery disappear, and she felt her shoulders slump. What did she think that she was doing, anyway? She was not a woman that anyone would want. She imagined that she saw desire on his face. It was only wishful thinking, a mirror of her own thoughts.

“Let’s go back,” Maggie said quietly, when she could no longer meet Nick’s gaze.

“Yes,” he said. “Let’s go back.”

He set off at a swift pace that soon had them at the house and left Maggie standing on the doorstep all alone, while he went . . . somewhere.

**********************************

“I am sorry, Sally,” Nick said ruefully, his arm crossed over his eyes as he lay naked in her bed. “I do not know what is the matter with me.”

Sally laughed shortly, and reached over him with a plump white arm to the bedside table. She picked up a cheroot from a decorative box.

“Oh, sugar, you do too,” she said in her sweet-as-honey drawl as she lit the little cigar, making acrid smoke swirl around the bed. “Everybody knows about that pretty little thing you have got livin’ at your house. At least show me the courtesy of not lyin’ to me. I thought we were better friends than that.”

Nick lowered his arm to stare at her, at the blonde hair that flowed around sweetly rounded shoulders, at the face that had comforted him many, many nights since the disaster of his wedding.

“We are friends,” he told her. “As good friends as I can ever be with a woman. I did not realize you were dissatisfied with our arrangement, “he said stiffly.

”You thought I would make everything all better again, just like I have done forever,” she said sharply. “Well, I cannot nurse you through every woman in your life, and I will not. Do not cheapen what we have had by using me as your back up woman, Nick. I am worth more than that.”

She held the sheet firmly to herself with one hand, eyeing him defiantly, and he felt a burst of shame. Sally Henderson was a fine woman, and she deserved better than to be used to distance himself from his problems. She was the widow of an old friend of his, and they had naturally turned to each other for consolation when they had needed it. The affair had been mutually beneficial, he had thought, but evidently it was time to move on. He could not sleep with her every time he needed to take the edge off because of Maggie.

Hell, he thought tiredly, he could not sleep with her at all if tonight was anything to go by. He swung his long legs off the edge of the bed. He had been as close to Sally as he could allow himself to be. He brought her presents, he slept with her, and he had maintained their relationship within strict borders. She was his mistress; he was her lover. They did not share secrets; they provided release for each other, and that was all.

“There is obviously something between you two, at least on your part,” Sally said at his back, not unkindly. “You are going to have to deal with it, and not in your usual way,” she said wryly. He could hear the smile in her voice. She was careful to keep it so; she wanted no hint of the chagrin she felt to show. “I am apparently not the solution this time.”

“I should have married you, Sally,” he said, turning and taking her hand. “Why didn’t I?”

“Because I would not have had you,” she told him haughtily, then ruined the effect by grinning broadly. “Anyway, I have been considering getting married again, and not to you. Get on out of here, you. Go talk to that girl.”

She pushed at his shoulder, and Nick leaned to kiss her mouth softly, then brought up both her hands to press a kiss on her white knuckles, one at a time.

“It has been grand, Sally,” he said, a crooked grin twisting the corners of his mouth. “Thank you.”

Sally tossed her hair, giving him a practiced smile that Nick thought bordered on shy. That was almost ridiculous considering the content of their former relationship. Her bright blue eyes met his, then her lashes swept down to cover whatever emotion it was he saw flash briefly in their cerulean depths.

“He is a lucky man, whoever he is.”

“Go on,” she said tartly. “Just go do it. Stop wastin’ time.”

Sally wanted him to leave so that she could indulge herself in a good cry. She thought Nick had been happy with her; they had been lovers for over a year, and she had thought that maybe, just maybe, he had started to need her. That was not the case, she saw now. She had tried every trick in the book, save one, and she refused to ruin her figure by getting pregnant, even for Nick. She had been just a convenience to him, nothing more. She could at least maintain the appearance of giving in gracefully. He would never know how she wanted to rant and scream at him, how she wanted to pound her fists on his chests.

Nick chuckled to himself as he put on his clothes. He was still chuckling as he mounted his horse and started the ride home. Who had have thought it? Sally shoving him out the door, and straight into someone else’s arms. Not that he was going to go into Maggie’s arms.

He whistled softly to himself on the trek home, all of a sudden in a surprisingly good mood. The moon was full, and Jet shied nervously at the shadows cast by the trees, and at the way the wind moaned and rustled through the grass and made it stir as if it were a living creature. The horse whickered softly, and Nick soothed him automatically, making a clucking noise with his tongue. It was a night made for lying naked in bed with your arms close around your lover and whispering secrets, he thought ruefully. Too bad he did not have a lover any longer, or that he did not care to reveal his secrets to anyone. He would have to make do with a whiskey and a book.

Once Jet was put to bed and Nick was slumped in a chair in the library, he rubbed his forehead, sipped his whiskey, and stared moodily at the empty grate of the fireplace. He had not bothered to light a lamp, and it was dark. He preferred it that way, just the moonlight and him. He was going to drink enough to put himself to sleep for once, and he was not going to think of that vulnerable, beautiful, sweet girl who lay sleeping upstairs . . . in a bed that belonged to him, with her perfect breasts unfettered, just waiting for him to . . .

Nick cursed himself savagely, drawing up his sprawled legs to sit up straight and try to ignore the rising evidence of his arousal. His permanent arousal, or so it seemed, except, of course, for when he had the chance to relieve that self-same arousal, he thought sourly. Then what happened? Why, it went away, with but one errant thought of the toffee-haired charmer that haunted his every waking moment. Nick tossed back the whiskey and reached for the bottle to pour another. If he was going to get drunk, he might as well do it right. He tossed that one down, too, and then brought the bottle to his mouth for a long, reckless swig. He gasped and rubbed his mouth on his sleeve. He started to feel warm, so he sprawled back out and loosened the buttons on his fine linen shirt, noticing that his coordination left something to be desired. Oh, well, he thought, and brought the bottle back to his mouth, being drunk has its disadvantages. A crooked grin twisted his mobile mouth, and Nick started to feel a sight better about his situation. He was relaxed for the first time in weeks.