Diana Palmer Collected 1-6: Soldier of Fortune / Tender Stranger / Enamored / Mystery Man / Rawhide and Lace / Unlikely Lover. Diana Palmer
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Dani was dreaming. She felt as if she were floating, drifting, her body bare and fulfilled. She stretched, smiling, and a voice brought her awake.
“Don’t struggle, darling,” a male voice chuckled. “You’ll make me drop you.”
Her gray eyes flew open along with her mouth, and she realized that Dutch was carrying her into the bathroom, where a huge steaming bathtub waited.
“Don’t you want a bath?” he murmured dryly.
“Oh, yes,” she said sleepily. “I had planned on waking up before I got in the water.” She curled into his chest, snuggled her face against his throat, and closed her eyes with a sigh. “But my pillow started moving.”
He laughed, realizing with a start that he’d laughed more in the past two days than in the past ten years. He looked down at her creamy body, her full breasts pressed into the rippling muscle and feathery hair of his chest. She was vulnerable with him. Yet, he sensed that she was much like him in her independence, her wild spirit.
“Wake up or you’ll drown,” he said.
“I thought I already had, and gone to heaven,” she replied, smiling against his throat. She wasn’t even surprised to find herself with him. She seemed to have dreamed about him all night long.
“We have to get married,” he said.
“Going to make an honest woman of me, hmmm?” she teased, peeking up at him.
But he didn’t smile. “You’re already an honest woman. The first I’ve ever known. Hold on.”
He eased her down into the warm silky water and then climbed in beside her. They soaped each other lazily, enjoying the different textures of their bodies, exploring openly.
“I feel like a child playing doctor,” he told her with a wicked glance.
“It’s old hat to you, I suppose,” she said, watching her hands move on his muscular chest, “but I’ve never touched a man like this. It’s all very new to me just now.”
He moved her hands down, watching the flush on her face and the panic in her yes. “All right,” he said gently as she resisted. “You’re still shy with me. I won’t insist.”
“Old maids have lots of hang-ups,” she said quietly.
“I’ll get rid of yours before the week’s out,” he promised. “Want some more soap?”
She let him lather her back. Something was niggling at the back of her mind, and she glanced at him worriedly as he rinsed her.
“What is it?” he asked gently.
“Something you said last night. About…about precautions.”
“There’s no problem,” he said carelessly. “I’ll stop by a drugstore. When we get back to the States, if you’d rather not risk the pill, there’s some minor surgery a man can have—”
Her eyes were horrified. The drawn look on her face stopped him in mid-sentence.
“You don’t ever want children, do you?” she asked, choking on the words.
He looked hunted. “Hell,” he bit off. Why had she brought up the subject! He watched her scramble out of the tub and fumble a towel around herself.
“We aren’t even married yet, and you’re harping about a family,” he burst out, rising to his feet, his handsome face hard with anger. “What the hell do we need kids for? They’re a permanent tie. A bond.”
“Isn’t marriage?” she asked huskily.
“Of course,” he grumbled, grabbing up a towel. “But not like kids.”
“You never answered me,” she said quietly. “You don’t ever want them, do you?”
“No,” he said flatly, tired of the pretense, hating the memories the discussion was bringing back. “Not ever.”
She turned and walked back into the bedroom. She didn’t know him at all. And the first thing she was going to do was cut her losses. She’d go back to her room and forget him. How could she expect to live all her life without a child? What kind of man was he?
Tears blinded her. She got as far as the bed and sat down, feeling empty and sick and alone. She’d dreamed of children. Since she was eighteen she’d haunted baby shops, quietly touching the little crocheted things and imagining her own baby in her arms. She had no one of her own, but a baby would be part of her. The tears rippled down her cheeks in silvery streams, and she closed her eyes.
The man at the bathroom door, watching her, saw them, and something painful exploded inside him. She was snaring him, he thought furiously. Swallowing him up whole with her unexpected vulnerabilities. With a muffled curse he threw the towel aside and went to the bed.
He caught her by the waist, lowering her back against the rumpled covers so quickly that she gasped.
“Eric!” she called uncertainly.
His mouth covered hers, but there was none of the violence she’d expected. His lips played with hers, so gentle that she barely felt them, while his hands removed the towel and whispered over her body until she trembled.
“Draw your legs up,” he breathed. He helped her, positioning his body so that they were curled together, his knees beside her, his chest on hers, his hips against her hips and thighs.
She looked up, fascinated at the look in his dark eyes.
His big, warm hands cupped her face. “Open your mouth now,” he whispered, bending, “and kiss me the way I taught you last night.”
She obeyed him, liking the way her tongue tangled softly with his, liking the intimacy of this slow, tender kissing.
His knuckles brushed over her breasts, making their tips hard and sensitive, and when she gasped, his mouth took advantage of it to make the kiss even deeper. His hands searched over her, sliding under her hips to lift her to the slow descent of his body.
She felt his fingers contract on her thighs and caught her breath at their steely strength. And still he kissed her, whispery contacts that drained her of will, that made her weak. Her body trembled as he explored it with even more intimacy than the night before, each new touch intensifying her hunger for him.
He paused, hesitated, his lips touching hers. His eyes opened, holding hers, and his body lowered.
She caught her breath at the intensity of feeling she knew as he let her experience the very texture of his body with the slowness of his movement.
“Now,” he said, closing his eyes, “we really make love for the first time.”
She didn’t understand at first. And then it began to make sense. He was so tender, so exquisitely gentle, that every movement seemed to stroke a nerve of pleasure. She clung to him, matching his tenderness, trying to give him back the beauty he was giving her. Her eyes fluttered closed and her fingers tangled in his cool blond hair, her body trembling under the expert movements of his. As the pleasure built slowly she began to writhe helplessly. And as fulfillment came closer, she wondered if she was going to survive it.
“Eric?” she whimpered against his mouth.
His own body was trembling, too. “Lieveling,” he said huskily. “Mijn lieveling, mijn vrouw!”
The hands holding her clenched, and he rocked with her, smooth, tender movements that were exquisitely soft. He whispered to her in Dutch, words that she couldn’t understand, but they were breathlessly tender.
She kissed his tanned cheek, his mouth, his chin, and he lifted his head for an instant, his dark eyes glazed, his lips parted.
“Yes,” he told her. “Yes, like that.”
He