Diana Palmer - Courageous

“I could pull the bodice down,” he whispered, his head spinning, “and slide my lips over your breasts until I found that sweet hardness hiding there.”

She shuddered. She arched back, helpless, hopeful, breathless with anticipation as he began to move the softly shaped fabric out of his way. She felt his mouth open, felt the warm moistness of it pressing against the swell of her breast. She moaned. Her body trembled as she arched again, pleading for relief from the tension that grew to unbearable need in seconds.

“What the hell,” he ground out.

His hand came up and found the zipper, eased it down. He pulled the fabric away and looked at the rosy, hard tips of her pretty breasts for just an instant before his mouth went down and covered one of them.

She cried out helplessly, which only made him more hungry. His mouth opened on the sweet flesh, his tongue traced the nipple, dragging against it to produce sensations Peg had never felt in her life.

Her nails bit into the fine fabric of his suit jacket. She was spinning like a top, burning, aching with desire that she’d never even dreamed of before this.

Somewhere a truck engine sounded loud even in the heated silence of Peg’s room. She heard a door slam.

“It’s … Dad!” she exclaimed hoarsely.

He barely heard her. He lifted his head, his eyes riveted to the stiff nipple. He cupped her breast and bent his head again to explore the soft flesh with his mouth. “Dad?” he whispered.

“Dad,” she managed to say, and moaned.

His hand contracted gently around her soft breast. “Damn.”

“Damn,” she echoed with a shaky laugh.

He lifted his head with a steadying, deep sigh. He held the bodice away from her breasts, smiling warmly at the faint red marks he’d left there in his passion. “Beautiful,” he whispered.

She flushed. Her body felt stiff and swollen. She wondered if his did, too.

With a rueful expression, he reached behind her and reluctantly zipped up the dress, hiding what he’d done to her. Fortunately no marks showed over the bodice.

She looked at him with awe.

He touched her soft mouth with his forefinger. It wasn’t quite steady. “We’d better go,” he said huskily.

She nodded.

He went out of the room and she came out behind him, retrieving the small evening bag the designer had also loaned her from her dresser on the way.

They were in the hall on the way to the front door when Ed came in. He looked from one of them to the other. They looked oddly flushed, but quite presentable.

“What a pair,” he mused, smiling. “You look like socialites.”

“Thanks, Dad.” She grinned.

Grange chuckled. “Well, like impostor socialites, maybe. None of us working stiffs are likely to be mistaken for the real thing.”

“I like us just the way we are,” Ed replied. “Have a great time.”

“We will,” Peg assured him. “See you later.”

“We’ll be home by midnight,” Grange said complacently, smiling at Ed. “I’ve got a lot to get done tomorrow.”

Ed nodded solemnly. “Even more reason to enjoy tonight.”

“Yes.” He took Peg’s arm. “Let’s go. We don’t want to be too late.”

Peg winked at her dad on the way out.

Grange didn’t speak on the way to the civic center in Jacobsville. He’d lost control of himself entirely back there. It had been a very good thing that Ed had come home when he did. Only a few steps to the bed, and he’d gone without a woman for a long time, a very long time. Added to that were Peg’s visible feelings for him, and his weakness for her. All that, with her bedroom door standing wide-open and so inviting. Just as well that Ed had saved them from themselves, he thought.

Peg was nervous. His silence did that to her. She had no resistance to him. She wanted him desperately. But he wasn’t a playboy and he didn’t want to get married, so where did that leave them? He was going away in a few days. She might never see him again. It was devastating, after what had happened back at the house. Her breasts were still tingling.

She glanced at him covertly. Had she made him mad? Was she too responsive? Should she have protested? But, why? He was experienced enough at least to realize what she felt for him. But he kept saying she was young. Did he mean, too young for him? Was her age the barrier to anything more serious than some heavy petting?

“Stop torturing yourself over there,” Grange mused, glancing at her with twinkling dark eyes.

She jumped, and then laughed. “How did you know?”

“You’re twisting that evening bag into a very odd shape.”

“Oh!” She laid it flat and smoothed it, grimacing. “It’s a loaner, too.”

“A loaner?” he inquired.

“Yes. Like the dress and shoes. Cinderella gear.” She leaned toward him as far as the seat belt would allow. “It transforms at midnight into rags. Just so you know.”

“You’d be pretty even in rags.”

She flushed. “Really?”

He glanced at her warmly. “Really.” He forced his eyes back to the road.

She watched him, worried and curious. “Do you guys have automatic weapons and rockets and stuff, like in those merc movies?” she asked suddenly.

He glanced at her and chuckled. “Yes. But intelligence gathering and coordinating native groups with ours are my stock-in-trade.”

“Oh. Then you don’t have to, well, go in shooting, right?” she asked, just to clarify the point.

Why worry her unnecessarily? he thought. So he smiled. “Of course not.”

She relaxed.

And it was that easy. He didn’t tell her about the after-hours training he and his major assault team had been doing over at Eb Scott’s place, with state-of-the-art weaponry and some new toys that could be deployed at long range. It was going to be a bloodbath, even at its best, and a lot of his men weren’t going to come home. He was in it for noble reasons: to depose a dictator who was torturing innocent people. But there was a substantial cash reward in the offing as well, and he had plans for his cattle ranch. He wanted a grubstake to get him started, something that he earned and not something that Jason Pendleton out of gratitude had given him. He wanted to build an empire of his own, with his two hands. That would mean a great risk. But without great risks, there were no great rewards. Besides that, Machado had hinted about a cabinet position if and when he regained power. That would be something to consider as well, although Grange hadn’t thought about relocating to another country, in another continent.

“You’re very solemn,” Peg said, jolting him out of his mental exercises.

He glanced at her with something like consternation. Where would Peg fit into his plans? She was very young, at nineteen; perhaps too young. And taking her out of the country she’d lived in her whole life, to a new and very dangerous environment—it didn’t bear thinking about. Besides that, there was the possibility that this might take months or even years to accomplish. He was gathering intel even now on the opposition forces and their capabilities. His men were good, but he would have to ally with groups that had boots on the ground in Barrera and coordinate them for an attack. It meant a lot of work.

“I was just thinking,” he said after a minute.

She smiled. “Don’t,” she advised. “We’re going to the ball and there is no tomorrow. Okay?”

“Okay.”

The Jacobsville Civic Center was decorated for the holidays, with holly and tinsel, golden bells and a huge Christmas tree with ornaments made by the local orphanage and the friends of the nearby animal shelter. The Cattleman’s Ball would benefit both charities.

The town citizens were decked out in their finery as well. Bonnie, who worked as a clerk at the pharmacy, was dressed all in red, one of the couture gowns provided by the local designer, and she was on the arm of a visiting cattleman who had arrived in, of all things, a Rolls-Royce. He was tall and dark and middle-aged, but very appealing.