Bound by Honor: Mercenary's Woman. Diana Palmer

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СКАЧАТЬ she wondered if she was going to faint with the unexpected delight of it. It had been so long!

      He felt her immediate, helpless submission. His free arm went around her shoulders and drew her lazily against his muscular body while his hard mouth moved lightly over her lips, tasting her, assessing her experience. His mouth became insistent and she stiffened a little, unused to the tender probing of his tongue against her teeth.

      She felt his smile before he lifted his head.

      “You still taste of lemonade and cotton candy,” he murmured with unconcealed pleasure.

      “What do you mean?” she murmured, mesmerized by the hovering threat of his mouth.

      “I mean, you still don’t know how to do this.” He searched her eyes quietly and then the smile left his face. “I did more damage than I ever meant to. You were seventeen. I had to hurt you to save you.” He traced her mouth with his thumb and scowled down at her. “You don’t know what my life was like in those days,” he said solemnly, and for once his eyes were unguarded. The pain in them was visible for the first time Sally could remember.

      “Aunt Jessica told me,” she said slowly.

      His eyes darkened. His face hardened. “All of it?”

      She nodded.

      He was still scowling. He released her to gaze off into the distance, absently lifting the cigar to his mouth. He blew out a cloud of smoke. “I’m not sure that I wanted you to know.”

      “Secrets are dangerous.”

      He glanced down at her, brooding. “More dangerous than you realize. I’ve kept mine for a long time, like your aunt.”

      “I had no idea what she did for a living, either.” She glared up at him. “Thanks to the two of you, now I know how a mushroom feels, sitting in the dark.”

      He chuckled. “She wanted it that way. She felt you’d be safer if she kept you uninvolved.”

      She wanted to ask him about what Jessica had told her, that he’d phoned her about Sally before the painful move to Houston. But she didn’t quite know how. She was shy with him.

      He looked down at her again, his eyes intent on her softly flushed cheeks, her swollen mouth, her bright eyes. She lifted his heart. Just the sight of her made him feel welcome, comforted, cared for. He’d missed that. In all his life, Sally had been the first and only person who could thwart his black moods. She made him feel as if he belonged somewhere after a life of wandering. Even during the time she was in Houston, he kept in touch with Jessica, to get news of Sally, of where she was, what she was doing, of her plans. He’d always expected that she’d come back to him one day, or that he’d go to her, despite the way they’d parted. Love, if it existed, was surely a powerful force, immune to harsh words and distance. And time.

      Sally’s face was watchful, her eyes brimming over with excitement. She couldn’t hide what she was feeling, and he loved being able to see it. Her hero worship had first irritated and then elated him. Women had wanted him since his teens, although some loved him for the danger that clung to him. One had rejected him because of it and savaged his pride. But, even so, it was Sally who made him ache inside.

      He touched her soft mouth with his fingers, liking the faint swell where he’d kissed it so thoroughly. “We’ll have to practice more,” he murmured wickedly.

      She opened her mouth to protest that assumption when a laughing Stevie came running out the door like a little blond whirlwind, only to be caught up abruptly in Ebenezer’s hard arms and lifted.

      “Uncle Eb!” he cried, laughing delightedly, making Sally realize that if she hadn’t been around Ebenezer since their move from Houston, Jessica and Stevie certainly had.

      “Hello, tiger,” came the deep, pleasant reply. He put the boy back down on his feet. “Want to go to my place with Sally and learn karate?”

      “Like the ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ in the movies? Radical!” he exclaimed.

      “Karate?” Sally asked, hesitating.

      “Just a few moves, and only for self-defense,” he assured her. “You’ll enjoy it. It’s necessary,” he added when she seemed to hesitate.

      “Okay,” she capitulated.

      He led the way back into the house to where Jessica was sitting in the living room, listening to the news on the television.

      “All this mess in the Balkans,” she said sadly. “Just when we think we’ve got peace, everything erupts all over again. Those poor people!”

      “Fortunes of war,” Eb said with a smile. “How’s it going, Jess?”

      “I can’t complain, I guess, except that they won’t let me drive anymore,” she said, tongue-in-cheek.

      “Wait until they get that virtual reality vision perfected,” he said easily. “You’ll be able to do anything.”

      “Optimist,” she said, grinning.

      “Always. I’m taking these two over to the ranch for a little course in elementary self-defense,” he added quietly.

      “Good idea,” Jessica said at once.

      “I don’t like leaving you here alone,” Sally ventured, remembering what she’d been told about the danger.

      “She won’t be,” Eb replied. He looked at Jessica and one eye narrowed before he added, “I’m sending Dallas Kirk over to keep her company.”

      “No!” Jessica said furiously. She actually stood up, vibrating. “No, Eb! I don’t want him within a mile of me! I’d rather be shot to pieces!”

      “This isn’t multiple choice,” came a deep, drawling voice from the general direction of the hall.

      As Sally turned from Jessica’s white face, a slender blond man with dark eyes came into the room. He walked with the help of a fancy-looking cane. He was dressed like Eb, in casual clothes, khaki slacks and a bush jacket. He looked like something right out of Africa.

      “This is Dallas Kirk,” Eb introduced him to Sally. “He was born in Texas. His real name is Jon, but we’ve always called him Dallas. This is Sally Johnson,” he told the blond man.

      Dallas nodded. “Nice to meet you,” he said formally.

      “You know Jess,” Eb added.

      “Yes. I…know her,” he said with the faintest emphasis in that lazy Western drawl, during which Jess’s face went from white to scarlet and she averted her eyes.

      “Surely you can get along for an hour,” Eb said impatiently. “I really can’t leave you here by yourself, Jess.”

      Dallas glared at her. “Mind telling me why?” he asked Eb. “She’s a better shot than I am.”

      Jessica stood rigidly by her chair. “He doesn’t know?” she asked Eb.

      Eb’s face was rigid. “He wouldn’t talk about you, and СКАЧАТЬ