Beverly Barton - Paladin's Woman

"Silly boy. You know better than that. You men are all such fools when it comes to women. You get so possessive and can't bear to think that we might be as experienced as you are. We're supposed to be thankful to all the women who taught you how to be studs in bed, but you're jealous of the men who taught us how to be pleasing."

"Hell, Dina. Rusty knows you've been married five times, doesn't he?"

"Yes, but—"

"Go back to bed before Rusty wakes up and finds you gone. It would be easier to explain everything about your past to him than it would to explain what you've been doing in my bedroom at five-thirty in the morning."

She ran her fingers down his throat, across his bare chest to the undone snap of his tuxedo trousers. "All we've done is talk."

Nick grabbed her hand, shoving it away. "And that's all we're going to do, now or ever. I'm not a sex-hungry seventeen-year-old."

Addy didn't want to listen. She wanted to close the door and forget what she'd seen and heard. But she couldn't. She owed it to her father to find out what was going on between Dina and Nick, didn't she? Of course she did. Liar, her conscience screamed at her. You're jealous. How could this have happened? she wondered. How could she have allowed herself to become interested in a man like Nick Romero?

It was because he'd rescued her that she'd started thinking of him as a knight in shining armor. During the few hours of restless sleep she'd had, she'd dreamed of Nick. Black eyes. Bronze skin. Big and broad and strong. She didn't want to think of him as her champion, as her own personal paladin, but she did. He had defended her from her ex-husband's insults and then saved her from an attacker. Nick Romero, no matter what else he was, was quite a man.

Dina reached out, allowing her hand to hover over Nick's bare chest. "If you're entertaining any fanciful notions about Addy, I'd advise you to forget them. Rusty keeps a close watch on his little girl's love life and he wouldn't approve of you."

"Now that's where you're wrong," Nick said. "Rusty McConnell wholeheartedly approves of me. Just earlier this morning, after you and Brett went upstairs, he told Addy that he wouldn't mind having me for a son-in-law."

"What?" Dina's voice screeched loudly.

"Quieten down before you wake Addy." Nick glanced at Addy's partially open door and smiled.

"You're leaving in a few days. Going—going to El Paso to visit your grandmother."

"I might stay around a while longer."

"Are you doing this to make me jealous?" Dina asked.

"Go back to Rusty's bed, Dina, and leave me alone."

"You can't ever forgive me, can you?"

"Leave, Dina. Now."

Swirling the floor-length robe as she turned, Dina marched down the hall, her chin tilted high. Addy watched until her father's fiancée turned the corner leading to the west wing of the house. She started to close the door. Nick Romero stuck his foot inside the narrow crack. Addy tried to shove the door closed. Ramming his shoulder into the door, he pushed it open.

"Up awfully early aren't you, Addy?"

"Something woke me."

"Something or someone?"

She glared at him, the corners of his mouth curving upward in a self-satisfied smile. He knew she'd seen Dina leaving his room in her see-through nightie and he didn't know whether or not she'd tell her father.

"I think we should have a little talk," Nick said, his body pressing against hers. "In private."

He was warm, his thickly muscled bronze chest like a hot pad where it touched her. Even through her gown she could feel his heat. The tremors began in her stomach, radiating upward and outward until every nerve in her body tingled. The reaction was totally unexpected. Being near a man had never shaken her so badly.

When he grasped her elbow, maneuvering her backward into her room, she made no protest. But when he shut the door, she stepped away from him, wary of his intentions. She didn't know this man, this brother-in-law of Dina's, this former DEA agent. How did she know he was trustworthy, despite her father's approval? Rusty had liked Gerald in the beginning, had been impressed with his knowledge of aeronautics and the day-to-day running of a company like M.A.C.

"Stop looking at me as if you're afraid." Nick took a tentative step toward her, then stopped suddenly when he realized she was genuinely scared. "I don't ravish unwilling women if that's what's worrying you."

"I want you to leave."

"Not until I explain what Dina was doing in my bedroom."

"I don't care what she was doing, or what you were doing or if the two of you were doing something together."

"Adamant about it, aren't you?" Nick grinned at her, taking in the way Addy McConnell looked first thing in the morning. With her long red hair hanging freely halfway down her back and her tall, slender body encased in a cute little blue cotton nightgown and matching robe, she looked about twelve years old. Her face, scrubbed clean of the light makeup she'd worn earlier, radiated with a healthy glow. Her skin was golden tinted, with only a smattering of freckles here and there. A few on her nose. A few more on her throat and arms. He wondered how many there were on the rest of her body.

"Daddy knows that Dina isn't as pure as the driven snow…"

"But my guess is that Rusty wouldn't be pleased to find out that his fiancée, the woman he's bedding, was in my room trying to seduce me." Nick watched Addy closely.

"Was that what she was doing, seducing you?" Addy maintained a calm control over her voice, praying that the quivering she felt inside wouldn't manifest itself in her words.

"It's an old game between Dina and me. Has been for years. She tries to seduce me. I reject her. She likes to think she's tormenting me, that I have to call forth all my strength in order to resist her." Not since that once, twenty-five years ago, when he'd succumbed to his brother's widow, had Nick ever given in to that specific temptation again. After he'd gone against his better judgment and made love to Dina, she'd told him she was going to marry another man. An older man. A more powerful man. A richer man. And he'd spent the rest of his life feeling guilty for bedding Miguel's widow, feeling as if he'd betrayed his brother. Oh, he'd been hot for her then, so hot he'd thought he'd die. But that fire had burned itself out a long time ago and he and Dina had somehow come through it as friends. Friends of a sort, that is.

"My father is very possessive. He wouldn't want to share her."

"He doesn't have anything to worry about where I'm concerned, but he might want to do a nightly bed check in Windsor's room." Nick didn't know it for a fact, but he was reasonably sure that Dina and her stepson had been lovers for years, between her marriages and perhaps even during them. He'd bet his last dime that Rusty McConnell wasn't aware of that little fact.

"What a hateful thing to imply!" Addy said. "You're probably trying to place blame on Brett to save your own hide. After all, I didn't see Dina coming out of Brett's room, did I?"

"Jealous?" Nick moved toward her, slowly, deliberately, like an animal stalking his prey.

"Of you and Dina?" Addy laughed, the sound blatantly phony. "Don't be ridiculous."

Nick reached out, slipping his hand beneath her hair, circling her neck. She gulped in huge swallows of air. Her eyes widened in a mixture of shock and excitement. He pulled her closer. In her bare feet, she stood five inches shorter than he did. The perfect height for him.

"You don't like me very much, do you, Addy?" He touched the tip of his nose to hers, and smiled when he heard her indrawn breath.

"I … I don't know you." Decently clothed in her gown and robe, Addy felt naked, bare to his gaze and touch. Vulnerable. Nick Romero made her feel vulnerable.