Diana Palmer - Renegade

“You wish…what?” he prompted, his jaw clutching as the fragrance of her body drifted down into his nostrils. She was so close that he could see her heart beating at the neck of her blouse. He wanted to jerk her down into his arms and kiss her until her beautiful mouth began to swell.

She was feeling the same hunger. She looked at his mouth and wondered how it would feel to kiss it in tensely, the way she’d stage-kissed her fellow actor in the movie they’d made at the Dunn ranch. She could al most taste Cash’s hard mouth. Her body felt swollen, achy. It was like a thirst that no water would ever be able to quench.

Her breath caught noisily in her throat as her full lips parted. “I wish…”

The sound of the toilet flushing broke them apart. She stood up, forgetting the Danish, and went to the sink to wash her hands because she needed something to still them.

Rory came back, totally oblivious to what he’d interrupted, and helped himself to a Danish. After a minute, Tippy poured coffee for herself and orange juice for Rory, and sat down at the table as if nothing at all had happened.

THEY WENT TO THE AMERICAN Museum of Natural History first, to see the renovated dinosaur exhibit on the fourth floor. There was a long line because of the special exhibits, one that included a film and a shop concerned only with Albert Einstein. They stood in line for over an hour before they were able to get their tickets.

Rory went from one of the fossils to another, eagerly climbing a flight of stairs above the tallest skeleton so that he could look down on the massive shoulder blades and hip joints.

“He loves dinosaurs,” Tippy remarked, sauntering along beside Cash in her long green velvet skirt with boots and a white silk blouse under her black leather coat. Her hair was around her shoulders, and she was drawing attention from men as well as women, despite the very light touch of cosmetics she’d used.

Beside her Cash felt a surge of pride in her company. She really was beautiful, he thought, and it had so little to do with surface appearance. She was pure gold inside, where it counted.

“I like dinosaurs myself,” he commented. “I was here several years ago, but I missed the dinosaurs because this exhibit was being reworked. They’re impressive.”

She leaned closer to a sign to read it.

“You aren’t wearing your glasses,” he remarked.

She laughed self-consciously. “I’m a walking disaster when I have them on,” she said dryly. “I clean them with whatever’s handy. The lenses stay scratched, and I’ve already had them replaced twice.”

“They have new lenses that don’t scratch easily,” he pointed out.

“Yes, that’s the kind I got. Sadly, they aren’t fool proof.” She lifted a beautiful shoulder. “I wish I could wear contacts, but my eyes don’t like them. I get infections.”

He reached out a big, lean hand and caught a strand of her hair in it, testing its softness and bringing her close up against him in the process. “Your hair is alive,” he said quietly. “I’ve never seen this color look so natural.”

“It is natural,” she replied, feeling her knees go shaky at the unexpected proximity. He smelled of cologne and soap—clean, attractive smells. Her hands rested on his shirt, feeling the warm muscle and the faint cushiony sensation of hair under her hands. She wanted to pull the shirt up and touch him there with a fervor that made her breath catch. She’d never felt desire so torrid in her life.

“And nothing about you is artificial?” he probed.

“Nothing physical,” she agreed.

His dark eyes searched her green ones for longer than he meant to. His face seemed to clench. She knew he could probably feel her heart racing. She couldn’t help it. He was a particularly masculine man. Every thing feminine inside her reacted to his touch. “I don’t trust women.”

“You were married,” she recalled.

He nodded. His fingers curled around the strand of hair he was holding. His eyes were haunted. “I loved her. I thought she loved me.” He laughed coldly. “She certainly loved what I could buy her.”

She felt cold chills run down her spine. “There’s so much in your past that you don’t talk about,” she said softly. “You’re very mysterious, in your way.”

“Trust comes hard to me,” he told her. “If people can get close to you, they can wound you.”

“And the answer is to keep everyone at arm’s length?” she replied.

“Don’t you?” he shot back. “Except for Rory, and briefly Judd Dunn, I don’t recall ever seeing you keeping company with anyone. Especially a man.”

She swallowed hard. “I have horrible memories of men. Except for Cullen, and there was no physical contact there. He liked women as friends, but found them physically repulsive.”

“Did you love him?”

“In my way, I did,” she said, surprising him. “He was one of two people in my entire life who were good to me without expecting anything in return.” Her smile was cynical. “You can’t imagine how many times you get propositioned in my line of work. It took years to perfect a line that worked.”

“You can’t blame men for trying, Tippy,” he said curtly. “You look like every man’s dream of perfection.”

Her heart jumped. “Even yours?” she asked in a teasing tone. Except she wasn’t teasing. She wanted him to want her. She’d never wanted anything so much.

He let go of her hair. “I gave up women years ago.”

“Aren’t you lonely?” she wanted to know.

“Are you?” he retorted.

She sighed, studying his strong features with a vague hunger. “I’ve got cold feet,” she said huskily. “Once or twice over the years I took a chance on someone who seemed nice. But nobody wanted to talk to me, to get to know me. They only wanted me in bed.”

His eyes narrowed. “Can you…?”

Her gaze fell to his chest, where the muscles were outlined by the close fit of his knit shirt. “I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “I haven’t…tried.”

“Do you want to?”

She bit her lower lip and frowned, staring at the dinosaur without really seeing it. “I’m twenty-six years old. I don’t risk my heart, and I’m happy enough. I have Rory and a career. I suppose I’ve got all I need.”

“It’s a half life.”

“So is yours,” she accused, looking up at him.

“I have an even better reason than yours,” he said coldly.

“But you won’t share it,” she guessed. “You don’t trust me enough.”

He rammed his hands into his slacks pockets and glared down at her. “I was married once, years ago. I was in love for the first time in my life and crazy to share everything with my wife. She’d just told me she was pregnant. I was over the moon. I wanted to tell her all about my life before I married her.” His eyes grew cold. “So I did. She sat and listened. She was very calm. She didn’t say a word. She just listened, as if she understood. She was a little pale, but that wasn’t surprising. I did horrible things in my line of work. Really terrible.” He turned away from her. “I had to go out of town on business for a few days. She saw me off very naturally, no fuss. I came back with little presents for her and some thing for the baby, even though she was only a few weeks along. She met me at the door with her suit cases.”

He leaned forward against the banister. He didn’t look at her while he spoke. “She told me that she’d gone to a clinic while I was away. She’d seen a lawyer, too. Just before she walked out the door, she told me that she wasn’t bringing the child of a cold-blooded killer into the world.”

Tippy had thought there was something traumatic in his past, besides his work. Now she understood what it was. The hunger he displayed for Judd and Christabel’s twins made sense now. She could almost feel his pain, as if it were her own. She was deeply flattered that he trusted her with something so intimate.