Diana Palmer - Fire and Ice

“If that was meant to shock, it fell short of the goal,” he said softly. “You’re very much on the defensive with me. Why?”

She didn’t like the turn the conversation was taking. “Ladies don’t discuss such subjects, anyway,” she drawled.

“Oh, haul down the flag, Margie,” he growled. “I’m tired of the pose. A little of that accent goes a long way.”

Her eyes gleamed. “And I’m getting pretty tired of you, too, Mr. Tycoon. I don’t like being taken apart and analyzed! And by the way, I find your accent just as grating as you seem to find mine, you carpetbagger!”

He burst out laughing. “Will it ease your mind if I tell that a grandmother of mine was born and raised in Charleston?”

“Not much, no,” she said. She was losing this battle of words, and she didn’t like it. He wasn’t what she’d expected.

“What’s wrong, honey, have you given up trying to charm me?”

She glanced at him. “I’d have more luck trying to charm a sweet potato,” she commented.

He chuckled deep in his throat. “You might at that.” He reached out suddenly and caught her shoulder, jerking her close enough to smell the rich fragrance of his cologne while his head tilted back and he looked down his arrogant nose at her. “Whether you know it or not, you’re coming to Panama City. And if you try that sweet seduction on me again, you’d better remember something: I’ve been married and women are no strangers to my bed. I’m not a gentle lover, Margie.”

She actually gasped at the insinuation. “As if I care,” she managed weakly.

“I’ve known women like you,” he said levelly, his eyes holding her relentlessly. “You flirt and charm outrageously, but at the first sign of passion, you turn around and run. It took me a while to get your measure, but I’ve got it now, and you’d better look out. Throw yourself at me in Panama City and I’ll take you on the damned beach.”

She felt the threat all the way to her toes as he freed her and moved back into his own seat to light another cigarette, as calm as if he’d been out for a stroll. “And for the record, all your scheming isn’t going to help your sister. There is no way, repeat no way,” he said, his shadowed dark eyes like glittering slits, “that I am going to give my approval to that marriage.”

“Then why invite us to Panama City? For target practice?”

“I have my reasons,” he said enigmatically.

“You won’t even give Jan a chance,” she accused.

“I don’t dare,” he returned sharply. “I know the obstacles. You don’t. Your way of life and mine are as different as New York and a swamp.”

“You bloody Yankee!” she spat. She was beautiful in her fury, wild-eyed, flushed, her hair coming loose to stream down around her shoulders.

“Gloves off, Silver?” he taunted, drawing on the cigarette.

“As if I’d want my sister to marry into a family that produced a son like you,” she cried. “I’d rather she died an old maid!”

He looked as if he were going to strangle trying not to laugh. Devil, straight out of hell, she thought furiously.

“Calm down, honey.”

She wanted to attack him. She wanted to get her hands on him and beat him. It was the first time in her life she’d felt such physical rage.

He knew it, too. His eyes glittered with amusement.

“I want to go home,” she ground out, dragging her eyes away from him to glare at the deserted parking lot. She felt tears wetting her long eyelashes, and hated him for being able to make her cry.

“Giving up?” he taunted.

She drew in a long, shuddering breath.

Incredibly, he laid the cigarette in the ashtray and pulled her into his arms. She was rigid and shocked, but he hauled her up against him and began rocking her slowly, gently. She let her taut muscles relax little by little until she could feel the soft swell of her breasts pressed against the warm wall of his chest.

“I won’t go…to Panama City,” she breathed, knowing Jan needed her support, but too afraid of him to risk it.

“Yes, you will,” he said gently, his voice right at her ear so that she could feel his warm breath on her skin. “You’ll go because I want you to go…and underneath, you want it, too,” he whispered darkly.

She pushed against his chest and found herself panicking when she didn’t regain her freedom.

“Oh, don’t!” she pleaded quickly, pushing harder, her eyes widening. “Please, don’t ever do that….”

He let her go immediately, watching her struggle for composure.

“Is it me, or are you that way with all men?” he asked quietly.

“I can’t bear to be trapped or held against my will,” she admitted. “It terrifies me.”

He glanced out the windshield to see Jan and Andy moving slowly toward them, hand in hand, and he cursed violently under his breath.

“Someday,” he threatened softly, “you’re going to tell me why.”

“Don’t bet on it,” she advised, her composure returning with her temper. “If I come to Panama City, I expect to avoid you.”

He smiled dangerously. “You’re coming, all right,” he told her. “If I have to carry you every step of the way.”

“That’s called kidnapping,” she informed him. “It’s illegal.”

“I make my own rules. Didn’t you know?” he asked with magnificent arrogance. “What I want, I get.”

“Not this time,” she said.

“Especially this time,” he returned. His eyes searched hers in the silence of the car and for a moment the world disappeared into their brown, shadowy depths.

She felt a sensation like fingers drifting across her bare skin as she stared back at him. Time seemed to freeze while she fought against an attraction she’d never known before. He was nothing like the picture her mind had formed of him. He was a renegade, an outlaw, a pirate who only lacked a patch over one eye. He was the biggest threat she’d ever faced, and part of her wanted to get out of the car and run. But another part, a nagging part, was intrigued by the budding of a slow, soft curiosity about him.

His finger reached out and touched, lightly, the softness of her bow-shaped mouth; a touch like a whisper, incredibly sensuous, as it eased just slightly between her lips and found the pearly whiteness of her teeth.

She drew back from him with a strange little gasp.

His wide, sensuous mouth curved mockingly. “Tell me you’re coming to Panama City, Margie,” he murmured as the younger couple approached the car. “Or I’ll forbid Andy to bring your sister.”

“You would!” she accused.

“Damned straight. Yes or no? Now!”

“Yes,” she groaned. She looked away.

Andy opened the door and he and Jan climbed into the back seat, both of them smiling and on top of the world.

“Where to now, big brother?” Andy laughed.

“Home,” Cannon said, starting the car.

He let the Lincoln ease to a stop in front of Margie and Jan’s house minutes later and cut the ignition. When they reached the door he turned to Margie, while Andy and Jan said a slow, sweet good night a few feet away.

“I’ll pick you both up at six on Friday morning,” he said quietly.

“If you’d just give me the flight number and the airline…” she faltered, hating her own fear of him.

“Flight number?” He smiled coolly. “I have my own jet, honey. I’m going to fly us down.”

She knew that she was pale; she could feel the blood draining from her face. “I’d rather not….”

“I’ve been flying for twenty years, Margie,” he said with a tender note under the impatience. “I promise you I’m no daredevil when other lives depend on my actions.” He studied her narrowly. “You haven’t flown in a small aircraft since the crash that killed your husband?”