Chapter 17

I stayed out of sight until they left. Mark wasn't to be found, and I
thought he'd gone with the rest. Brenda tried to persuade me to go but
being in same car with Jeff and Mark was something I couldn't handle. And I certainly wasn't going to subject myself to witnessing Melissa's disgusting affections on Mark. The thought of seeing them hold hands, hug, and kiss made me sick to my stomach.

I walked through the hedges to the gazebo. The roses in the garden
provided beautiful color. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the wonderful
November day.

"Sulking?"

I jumped at the sound of Mark's voice. I found him at the entrance to
the gazebo cigarette in hand. He was wearing beige slacks and a yellow
knit shirt.

I curled my leg under my body, tugging my white sweater down. "Haven't
you done enough for one morning?"

"What have I done? I didn't ask him to leave."

"No, you just made it impossible for him to stay and hold on to his
pride."

"In any case, it's no great loss."

"To you. Your girlfriend is still here."

"Yes. She is."

"Naturally she is your guest."

He walked toward me, stopping in front of me. "Would you really want a
man who was afraid of me?"

"No. I'd like one who'd beat the hell out of you."

"Had any luck yet?"

I remembered Hunter Helmsley, Jeff and many others. "Why didn't you go
with them? Melissa seemed to have taken a shine to Jeff last night."

"Melissa's tastes aren't mine."

I stared down at the cushions tracing lines with a finger.

"Why wouldn't you leave him stay, Mark? He wasn't bothering you."

"He wasn't?" He finished his cigarette and flung it out. "The damned
young fool, letting you drive in that rain! I should have broken both
his legs!"

"It was my car, he couldn't have told me to let him get behind the
wheel."

"I could. And I would have if I'd been with you, you'd never have left
the airport."

I couldn't suppress a smile: It was exactly what I'd been thinking on
the way home. "There was a moment or two when I wish you had been."

He didn't reply and when I looked up it was to find his face strangely
rigid.

"You shouldn't have worried. You taught me to drive remember?" I asked, remembering back to my 16th birthday when Mark let me learn to drive in his truck. I was the first person he'd ever let drive it. I was so happy, he seemed so proud.

"All I knew was that you were in danger in the company of some fool,
a boy who didn't know how to take care of you. If anything had happened
to you, I'd have killed him."

"What a violent thing to say," I laughed nervously.

He didn't smile. "I've always been violent about you. Are you just now
noticing?"

Mark sat down and laid one big hand on the back of the seat over my
shoulder and his eyes dropped to my mouth. The action brought us
closer; so close that I could smell the masculine fragrance of soap and
cologne, feel the warmth of his body.

"Mark," I whispered, longing for him.

He bent his head and brushed his mouth against mine, the sensation
quickened my pulse and breathing. He drew back and I lifted a finger to
trace the curve of his mouth.

His lips moved, catching my exploring finger, and I felt the tip of his
tongue moving softly against it. My eyes looked straight into his, and
I read the excitement in them.

"Stand up, Jaime. I want to feel you against me."

Like a sleepwalker, I obeyed, letting him draw me so close that I could
feel his thighs pressing against mine, the muscles of his chest like a
wall against my breasts.

His thumbs brushed against my mouth, and he studied it as if he needed
to memorize it. "Afraid?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Last time..."

"It's not going to be like last time. Jaime."

My mouth parted eagerly when his lips met mine. My arm went around his neck holding him and I kissed him back feverishly, trying to show that I could be anything he wanted me to be.

His big hands tangled in my hair and his devouring mouth forced mine
open wider. He explored it with a deepening intimacy that made me
tremble. With a sense of wonder I felt his hands at my back, sliding
under my sweater and up to move caressingly against my skin.

"No bra?" he murmured against my mouth and I could feel the amused smile that moved his lips.

I reached around to catch his wrists and hold them as he started to
slide his exploring hands around under my arms.

"Mark.." I protested.

He chuckled softly and drew his hands away to place them at my waist.

"You said you weren't afraid." he reminded me.

I looked at his chest. "Must you make fun of me? You know I'm not
sophisticated."

"It's quite obvious. If you were, you would have known better than to
plaster yourself against a man when he kisses you. Ten years ago, I'm
not sure I'd have been able to stop." He whispered.

"But..."

"This is real, Jaime." He took my hand and pressed it inside the
opening of his shirt against the hard flesh. I felt the heavy rhythm of
his heart. "Do you feel it? You make my blood run like a river in a
flood."

My fingers lingered in his shirt liking the feel of his muscular body,
remembering suddenly the way he looked that night long ago.

He caught my hands and slid them under the shirt to lie against his hard chest. My fingers trembled.

"I've never touched...anyone like this," I was awed by the new longings surging through my body, making me tremble in his big arms. "I never wanted to, until now."

His lips brushed my forehead, his breath warm and a little unsteady,
while my fingers explored the powerful muscles.

I raised my eyes to look at Mark. "I...Mark, I feel..." His fingers pressed gently against my lips.

"Kiss me. Don't think, don't talk. Just kiss me."

His lips teased me, causing a surge of hunger that dragged a moan from me. I went on tiptoe to help him, to tempt him, my lips parting under the lazy pressure of his mouth as he began to deepen the kiss. I felt his hands caressing my back, moving around my ribcage. But, this time I
didn't catch his wrists.

His thumbs edged out to trace the slope of my breasts and I stiffened
instinctively from the unfamiliar touch.

"It's all right," he whispered at my lips. "Don't pull away from me."

"It's...new." I whispered.

"Being touched? Or being touched by me?"

"Both."

His fingers moved higher, and he watched me while they found the peaks
and traced them tenderly, just before his hands fully covered them.

"How does it feel? Is it good?"

My nails dug into his chest involuntarily as the magic worked on me, and I moaned softly.

"I shouldn't...let you," I whispered.

"No, you shouldn't. Tell me to stop. Tell me you hate it."

"I...wish I could." His mouth was on my closed eyelids, my nose, my
cheek, while his hand made wild shivers of sensation wash over my bare
skin.

His mouth bit at mine tenderly in a succession of teasing kisses that
made me want to cry out. "God, you're sweet. As soft as a whisper
where I touch you."

My fingers rested on his chest. "I...dreamed about how it would be
with you," I whispered. "Ever since that night I saw you, I've
wondered..."

"I know," he whispered back. "I saw it in your eyes. I wondered too. But you were so damned young..."

"Mark..." I managed to moan.

"What do you want?" He asked, his dark eyes burning into mine. "There's nothing

you can't ask me, don't you know that? What do you want, Jaime?"

My body ached with the newness of wanting and I didn't know how to say it. It had never been like this, never!

"I don't know how to say it. Mark...please..." I muttered.

He bent, lifting me in his big arms and carried me to the cushioned seat. He came down beside me with something in his face that was faintly shocking after all the years of deep affection. I was just beginning to see Mark as a lover, and the effect it was having on me

defied description. I looked up at him with all my confusion in evident.

"I won't hurt you." He whispered.

"I know. I've never kissed a man lying down." I replied shyly.

"Haven't you?" He smiled as he lifted himself to ease his chest down on me, so that we were thigh to thigh, hip to hip, breast to breast. I gasped at the intimate contact and my fingers dug into the muscles of his shoulders.

"Am I too heavy for you, Jaime?" he whispered against my mouth.

"No." I whispered back.

He brushed his mouth across mine. "Pull your shirt up," he whispered.

"Mark..."

"You want it as much as I do. Pull it up, Jaime...then help me pull up

my shirt." He requested in short breaths.

"It's...I mean, I've never..."

His thumbs brushed against the corners of my mouth while his tongue traced the trembling line of my lips.

"Don't you want to feel me against you like that? With nothing between us?"

"Yes."

"Help me."

With trembling hands, I lifted the hem of his shirt and eased it up over the warm, hard muscles, and my heart pounded.

His mouth coaxed my own open, tasting it his fingers tenderly caressing my face.

"Now yours. There's nothing to be afraid of, I won't hurt you, I won't force you."

I looked into his eyes while I slid the sweater up over my breasts shuddering in pleasure, I felt him ease down again until my nipples vanished against his chest. I felt his body against mine in a contact that made magic in my mind and I could help but gasp.

"Isn't it great?" He asked me.

My fingers hesitated on his collarbone. My breath caught in my throat.

"You're...so warm..."

"A man being burned alive does feel warm." He moved then, holding my eyes while his body eased completely onto my own.

"It's all right." He took my mouth and I opened willingly to him. I shifted restlessly under the crush of his body and a hard groan tore out of his throat while he kissed me. A shudder ran the length of him.

"Don't do that. I may be past my youth, but I can lose my head with you so easily it isn't funny."

"I..I like the way it feels, to lie with you like this."

"I like it to. Kiss me." Then I kissed him never wanting it to end.

He caught my wrists and tore my hands away from his back. He looked down at me as if he'd been temporarily out of his mind and he shook his head as if to clear it. With a violent movement he got to his feet and ripped his shirt down, keeping his back to me as I fumbled, embarrassed with my sweater. I'd forgotten what had happened just an

hour ago, forgotten the anger and frustration I'd felt. In the shadow of Mark's possession I'd even forgotten Melissa. How could I have let him...!

I looked up at him and saw the smile.

"Now tell me you miss Jeff." He said, grinning.

I licked at the inside of my swollen lips, tasting the touch of his mouth there and felt the anger boil again.

"Was that why?" I asked in the only thing I could manage, a whisper, stepping away from him.

He rammed his hands into his pockets, his face harder than I could ever remember seeing it.

"Or was it...because you don't want another man to have me?" I asked angrily.

"I've got all the bodies I need. I didn't raise you to take you into my bed the minute you came of age."

"But, just now..." I began, remembering what had just happened between us.

"I want you, all right. I have for a long time, but just because I lose my head for one minute, that doesn't mean I plan to do anything about it." He said.

Of course not, how could he, when he planned to marry Melissa? "Don't worry," I said bitterly. "I'm not going to 'read anything' into it this time either."

"What?"

"That's what you told Melissa, isn't it?" I asked as I stepped out of the garden. "That you were afraid I might 'read something' into what happened the other night? I'm not a child, Mark, I quite realize that men can be attracted physically to women they don't even like, much less love."

"Just what are you talking about?" he demanded.

"Melissa told me yesterday how much you regretted your actions the other night!" I yelled at him.

The expression on his face puzzled me. "She told you that?" he asked.

I turned, knowing that I'd let him talk me into believing what he wanted me to. "No, I just made it up for the fun of it."

"Jai...!"

"Don't call me that!" I glared back at him. "I hate you! And I'm going to get a job and my own apartment, and you can drag Melissa off into gazebos and make love to her! I don't ever want you to touch me again, Mark!"

"You will." He said, as his smile returned.

I turned and ran to the house, throwing myself on my bed and cried. I loved Mark. Not as a protector, but as a man. I loved Mark. And he was going to marry Melissa.

There was no way I could go on living under the same roof as Mark and his wife!