Diana Palmer Collected 1-6: Soldier of Fortune / Tender Stranger / Enamored / Mystery Man / Rawhide and Lace / Unlikely Lover

“As if any man would want to.” She laughed, and started to move away again. This time he let her, looming over her as she lay back, with his forearms beside her head and his eyes boring into hers at close range.

“If we weren’t on a public beach, I’d give you a crash course in arousal, doubting Thomasina,” he murmured. “Something just happened to me that shocked me to the back teeth, and it’s your fault.”

Her eyes widened as her mind tried to convince her that she hadn’t heard him make such a blatant statement.

“I see you understand me,” he said with a lazy smile. “What’s wrong, Southern belle, have you led such a sheltered life?”

She swallowed. “Yes.” She studied his hard face. “Yours hasn’t been sheltered.”

“That’s right,” he told her. “I could turn your hair white with the story of my life. Especially,” he added deliberately, unblinkingly, “the part of it that concerns women.”

Her eyes dilated as they held his. “You…aren’t a romantic.”

He shook his head slowly. “No,” he said quietly. “Occasionally I need a woman, the oblivion of sex. But that’s all it ever is. Sex, with no illusions.”

Her eyes searched his, reading embarrassing things in them. “There’s a reason,” she said softly, knowingly.

He nodded. “I was twenty-four. She was twenty-eight, wildly experienced, and as beautiful as a goddess. She seduced me on the deck of a yacht, and after that I’d have died for her. But she was expensive, and I was besotted, and eventually I sold everything I had to buy her loyalty.” His eyes darkened, went cold with memory and rage as Dani watched. “I’d helped buy my parents a small home for their retirement with money I…earned,” he added, not mentioning how he’d earned the money. “And I even mortgaged that. The bank foreclosed. My father, who’d put his life savings into his part of the house, died of a heart attack soon afterward. My mother blamed me for it, for taking away the thing he’d worked all his life for. She died six months later.”

He’d picked up a handful of sand and was letting it fall slowly onto the beach while she stared at his handsome profile and knew somehow that he’d never told this story to another living soul.

“And the woman?” she asked gently.

The sand made a small sound, and his palm flattened on it, crushing it. “She found another chump…” He glanced at Dani with a cold laugh. “One with more money.”

“I’m sorry,” she said inadequately. “I can understand that it would have made you bitter. But—”

“But all women aren’t cold-hearted cheats?” he finished for her, glaring. “Aren’t they?”

“The one boyfriend I ever had was two-timing me with another girl,” she said.

“What a blazing affair it must have been,” he said with cold sarcasm.

She searched his face, seeing beneath the anger to the pain. “I loved him,” she said with a gentle smile. “But he was more interested in physical satisfaction than undying devotion.”

“Most men are,” he said curtly.

“I suppose so.” She sighed. She rolled over onto her back and stretched. “I’ve decided that I like being alone, anyway. It’s a lot safer.”

He eased onto his side, watching her. “You disturb me,” he said after a minute.

“Why? Because I’m not experienced?” she asked.

He nodded. “My world doesn’t cater to inexperience. You’re something of a curiosity to me.”

“Yes. So are you, to me,” she confessed, studying him blatantly.

He brushed the hair away from her face with strong, warm hands, callused hands that felt as if he’d used them in hard work. She liked that roughness against her soft skin. It made her tingle and ache with pleasure. He looked down at the bodice of the bathing suit, watching her reaction. The material was thin and the hard tips of her breasts were as evident as her quickened breathing.

She started to move her arms, to cover herself, but he caught her eyes and shook his head.

“That’s as natural as breathing,” he said in a voice that barely carried above the sound of the surf. “It’s very flattering. Don’t be ashamed of it.”

“I was raised by a maiden aunt,” she told him. “She never married, and I was taught that—”

He pressed his thumb over her mouth, a delicious contact that made her want to bite it gently. “I can imagine what you were taught.” He let his dark gaze drop to her mouth and studied it slowly as he touched it, watching it tremble and part. “I like your mouth, Dani. I’d like to take it with mine.”

The thought was exciting, wildly exciting. Her gaze went involuntarily to his hard, chiseled mouth. His upper lip was thin, the bottom one wide and sensuous. She would bet he’d forgotten more about kissing than she’d ever learned.

“Have you been kissed very much?” he asked.

“Once or twice,” she said lightly, trying to joke.

“French kisses?” he provoked.

Her body was going crazy. She could feel her heart trying to escape her chest, and her breathing was audible. It got even worse when his hard fingers left her mouth to run down the side of her neck, across her collarbone and, incredibly, onto the swell of her breast above the swimsuit.

Her gasp whispered against his lips and he smiled. “Shocking, isn’t it?” he murmured, watching her eyes dilate, her face flush as his fingers lazily slid under the strap. His body shielded her from other sunbathers, and there was no one in front of them. “No one can see us,” he whispered reassuringly. He laughed softly, wickedly, as his fingers slid under the fabric with a lazy teasing pressure that was more provocative than frightening. Her body reacted wildly to being teased, and she knew that he could see what was happening. He was much too sophisticated not to know exactly what she was feeling.

“Skin like warm silk,” he breathed, his mouth poised just above hers while his fingers brushed her like whispers of sensation, and she tensed and trembled as the pleasure began to grow.

She wanted more. She wanted him to touch the hard, aching tip of her breasts; she wanted to watch him do it, to see him possess her with that callused, expert hand. Her face even told him so.

His eyes were getting darker now, and the indulgent smile was vanishing as well. “If you keep looking at me like that,” he said under his breath, “I’m going to slide my hand completely over you and to hell with spectators.”

Her lips parted. She felt reckless and abandoned and vulnerable. Four days in which to store a lifetime of memories, she thought bitterly. Every one of her friends was married, every one of them had some happiness. But not Dani. Not ever. And now this man, who could have had any woman on the beach, was playing with her, amusing himself, because he saw how vulnerable she was…and she was letting him.

Her eyes clouded, and something deep inside the blond man stirred helplessly when he saw it.

“No,” he whispered with aching tenderness. “Don’t. I’m not playing.”

She bit her lower lip to stop sudden tears. He saw so much, for a stranger. “Yes, you are,” she protested. “You—”

His mouth lowered onto hers, just enough to let her lips experience its texture before he withdrew it. His hand, resting warmly under the strap of her bathing suit, began to move.

Her body trembled, and he whispered, “Hush,” brushing his mouth tenderly over the bridge of her nose. “No one can see what I’m going to do to you.” His lips went to her eyes, brushing them tenderly closed. His long fingers nudged under the fabric, farther and farther.

Her hands were on his shoulders, her fingers clinging, her breath sighing out unsteadily against his tormenting mouth. “Eric,” she whispered experimentally.

He hesitated for an instant, lifting his blond head. He looked down into eyes that were full of new sensations, wide and soft and hazy. His free hand eased to the back of her neck, stroking it softly. He held her gaze as his hand moved slowly down, and then up, and she felt the warm roughness of his palm against the hard point of her breast.

“Is this the first time?” he whispered.

“Can’t you…tell?” she whispered back brokenly. Her body moved helplessly, so that she could experience every texture of his hand where it rested, and an odd, tearful smile touched her mouth. “Thank you. Thank…”

He couldn’t bear it. The gratitude hurt him. He moved his hand back up to her face and kissed her mouth softly, with a tenderness he hadn’t shown any woman since he was little more than a boy.

“You speak as if you think it’s a hardship for me just to touch you,” he said quietly. “If you knew more about men, you might realize that I’m as aroused by you as you are by me.”

“Me?” she repeated, her eyes wide and bright and full of magic.

“You, you voluptuous, exciting little virgin,” he said, his voice rough with laughter. “I ache all over.”

She began to smile, and his attention was caught by the sunniness of it, by the sudden beauty of her face. And he’d thought her drab and dull. How odd. He sensed a deeply buried sensuality in that voluptuous body, and he wanted it.

He propped himself up on an elbow, his free hand still tugging absently at her short hair.

She gave her eyes the freedom to roam that powerful body, talking in its bronzed sensuousness, the light covering of dark blond hair on his chest, his rippling stomach muscles, his strongly muscled thighs. He even had nice feet. And his legs weren’t pale, as most American men’s were. They were broad and dark, and looked good.

“I like your legs, too,” he murmured.

She glanced back up. “Do you mind?” she asked gently. “I know I’m gawking like a schoolgirl.”

“You’re very honest, aren’t you?” he remarked for the second time that day. “It’s vaguely disconcerting. No, I don’t mind if you look at me. Except that it—”

“It…?” she persisted.

“Arouses me,” he said frankly.

“Just to be looked at?” she asked, fascinated.

He smiled a little. “Maybe it’s my age,” he said with a shrug. “You have very expressive eyes, did you know? They tell me everything you’re thinking.”

“Do they really?” She laughed, looking up at him. “What am I thinking now?” she asked, her mind carefully blank.

He pursed his lips and smiled slowly, and she felt a deep, slow ache in her body that was intensified when she looked at the broad sweep of his chest.

“That you’d like to have dinner with me,” he hedged. “How about it?”

“Yes. I’d like to. If you won’t seduce me for dessert,” she added.

He sighed softly. “I’d like to have you,” he confessed. “But I couldn’t quite take you in my stride, either. A virgin would be something of a rarity for me. Most of my one-night stands have been the exact opposite of virgins.”

She tried not to blush, but her cheeks betrayed her.

He searched her eyes. “I wouldn’t hurt you,” he said suddenly. “And with you, it would have to be lovemaking, not sex.”

Her body felt boneless as he searched her eyes, and there was a flash of something like tenderness in the look he gave her. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Why?”

She dropped her eyes to his chest. “Because I think…I’d have liked you…for a lover.”

“Yes, I think I’d have liked you for one,” he agreed softly. He tilted her face back to his and searched her eyes. “Wrong time, wrong place. We should have met ten years ago.”

She smiled ruefully. “You wouldn’t have liked me at sixteen,” she said. “I really was twenty pounds overweight.”

He drew in a slow breath. “And I was in the early days of some pretty raw living,” he agreed. “What a pity.” He lifted her hand and kissed the soft palm, watching her face color with pleasure. “How long will you be here?”

“Four days,” she said miserably.

His teeth bit into the soft flesh. “Make some memories with me,” he whispered.

“That will only make it worse…” she began.

“We’ll keep it light,” he said. “I won’t seduce you.”

“By tomorrow I’ll probably beg you to,” she said unhappily, studying him with helpless longing. “I’m frighteningly vulnerable with you.”

His eyes went along her body and he felt himself going rigid with desire. “Yes. I’m pretty vulnerable myself.”

She had to force her eyes to stay on his face, and he smiled wickedly, knowing exactly what she was thinking.

He laughed and she rolled over onto her stomach again.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured as he stretched out beside her. “I’ll take care of you. Don’t sweat it.”

She turned her eyes toward his and searched them, and then she smiled. “You’re so handsome,” she whispered helplessly.

“You’re a knockout yourself,” he said. “Flat-chested, hell.” He laughed. “You’re dynamite!”

“Thank you.”

He searched her face appreciatively. “So innocent. J.D. would laugh himself sick at me.”

“J.D.?” she asked curiously.

“An old friend.” He grinned. “Close your eyes and let’s soak up some sun. Later, I’ll take you sight-seeing.” His eyes closed and then opened. “Not to the docks,” he added, and closed them again.

She closed her own eyes with a smile. Miracles, she thought wistfully, did occasionally happen to lonely spinsters. These were going to be the four most beautiful days of her entire life. She wouldn’t take a second of them for granted, starting now.

Chapter Three

Dani was glad she’d stopped by the little boutique in the basement of the hotel on her way up to change for dinner. She’d bought a white Mexican dress with an elastic neckline and lots of ruffles, and when she put it on she looked slightly mysterious, with her brown hair and gray eyes and creamy complexion. Her wire-rimmed glasses weren’t so spiffy, she admitted, but they did make her eyes look bigger than they were. And she wasn’t really fat, she told herself, smiling at her reflection. It was mostly what was on top, and the dress even minimized that. She got her small evening bag and went downstairs to meet Dutch in the lobby.

He was wearing white slacks with a white shirt and blue blazer, and he rose lazily to his feet from a plush sofa, leaving his evening paper there as he joined her.

“Nice,” he said, taking her arm. “What do you fancy? Mexican, Chinese, Italian, or a steak?”

“I like steak,” she murmured.

“So do I.” He guided her along the hall past the family restaurant and into the very exclusive Captain’s Quarters next door. White-coated waiters in white gloves were everywhere, and Dani glanced up at Dutch apprehensively as he gave the hostess his name.

“What is it?” he asked softly, guiding her along behind the well-dressed young woman with the menus.

“It’s so expensive,” she began, worried.

His face brightened, and he smiled. “Do you mind washing dishes afterward?” he whispered mischievously.

She laughed up at him. “Not if you’ll dry,” she promised.

He slid an arm around her waist and pulled her close. “You’re a nice girl.”

“Just the kind your mother warned you about, so look out,” she told him.

He glanced down at her. “No. My mother would have liked you. She was spirited, too.”

She smiled shyly, aware of envious eyes following them along the way. He was so handsome, she thought, peeking up at him. Muscular, graceful, and with the face of a Greek statue, male perfection in the finest sense. An artist would have been enchanted with him as a subject.

The hostess left them at their table, near the window, and Dutch seated Dani with a curious frown.

“What were you thinking about so solemnly just now?” he asked as he eased his tall form into the chair across from her.

“That you’d delight an artist,” she said simply. “You’re very elegant.”

He took a slow breath. “Lady, you’re bad for my ego.”

“Surely you look in the mirror from time to time?” she asked. “I don’t mean to stare, but I can’t help it.”

“Yes, I have the same problem,” he murmured, and his eyes were fixed on her.

She was glad she hadn’t yielded to the temptation to pull the elastic neck of her dress down around her shoulders. It was hard enough to bear that dark stare as it was.

“Shall I order for you, or are you liberated?” he asked after she’d studied the menu.

“I kind of like it the old-fashioned way, if you don’t mind,” she confessed. “I’m liberated enough to know I look better in a skirt than in a pair of pants.”

He chuckled. “Do you?”

“Well, you’d look pretty silly in a dress,” she came back.

“What do you want to eat?” he asked.

“Steak and a salad, and coffee to drink.”

He looked at her with a dry smile, and when the waiter came, he gave a double order.

“Yes,” he told her, “I like coffee, too.”

“You seem very traveled,” she remarked, pleating her napkin.

“I am.” He leaned back in his chair to study her. “And you’ve never been out of the States.”

“I’ve been nowhere—until now.” She smiled at the napkin. “Done nothing except work. I thought about changing, but I never had the courage to do it.”

“It takes courage, to break out of a mold,” he said. He pulled the ashtray toward him and lit a cigarette. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m doing it anyway. This is one habit I don’t intend to break.”

“‘I’ll die of something someday,’” she quoted. “There are lots of other clichés, but I think that one’s dandy.”

He only laughed. “Smoking is the least dangerous thing I do.”

“What do you do?” she asked, curious.

He thought about that for a moment, and pursed his lips as he wondered what she’d say if he told her the truth. She’d probably be out of that chair and out of his life so fast…He frowned. He didn’t like that idea.

“I’m in the military,” he said finally. “In a sense.”

“Oh. On active duty?” she continued, feeling her way because he seemed reluctant to elaborate.

“No. Inactive, at the moment.” He watched her through a veil of smoke from his cigarette.

“Is it dangerous, what you do?”

“Yes.”

“I feel like a panelist on ‘What’s My Line?’” she said unexpectedly, and grinned when he burst out laughing.

“Maybe you’re a double agent,” she supposed. “A spy.”

“I’m too tall,” he returned. “Agents are supposed to be under five feet tall so that they can hide in shrubbery.”

She stared at him until she realized he was joking, and she laughed.

“Your eyes laugh when you do,” he said absently. “Are you always this sunny?”

“Most of the time,” she confessed. She pushed her glasses back as they threatened to slide down her nose. “I have my bad days, too, like everyone else, but I try to leave them at home.”

“You could get contact lenses,” he remarked as he noticed her efforts to keep her glasses on her nose.

She shook her head. “I’m much too nervous to be putting them in and taking them out and putting them in solution all the time. I’m used to these.”

“They must get in the way when you kiss a man,” he murmured dryly.

“What way?” She laughed, a little embarrassed by his frankness. “My life isn’t overrun with amorous men.”

“We can take them off, I suppose,” he mused.

Her breath caught as she read the veiled promise in his dark eyes.

“Stark terror,” he taunted gently, watching her expression. “I didn’t realize I was so frightening.”

“Not that kind of frightening,” she corrected him. Her eyes lowered.

“Dani.”

He made her name sound like a prayer. She looked up.

“Seducing you is not on the agenda,” he said quietly. “But if something did happen, I’d marry you. That’s a promise, and I don’t give my word lightly.”

She began to tingle all over. “It would be a high price to pay for one mistake.”

He was watching her oddly. “Would it? I haven’t thought about marriage in years.” He leaned back in his chair to study her, the cigarette burning idly in his fingers. “I wonder what it would be like,” he mused, “having someone to come back to.”

What an odd way to put it, she thought. Surely he meant someone to come home to. She pulled herself up short as she realized that it was just conversation. He was only amusing himself; she had to remember that. Making memories, as he’d put it. They were strangers and they’d remain strangers. She couldn’t afford to mess up her whole life because of a holiday romance. That was all this was. A little light entertainment. She’d better remember that, too.

The waiter brought their food, and as they ate they talked about general things. He seemed very knowledgeable about foreign conflicts, and she imagined that he read a lot of military publications. That led to talk of the kind of weapons being used, and he seemed equally knowledgeable about those.

“My best friend’s husband likes to read about weapons,” Dani volunteered, remembering Harriett’s Dave and his fascination with weaponry. “He has volumes on those exotic things like…oh, what is it, the little nine-millimeter carbine—”

“The Uzi,” he offered. “It has a thirty-shot magazine and can throw off single shots as well as bursts. A formidable little carbine.”

She laughed. “I can shoot a twenty-two rifle. That’s about the extent of my knowledge of weapons.”

“I know more about knives than guns, as a rule, although I’ve used both.” He reached into his inside blazer pocket, produced a large folded knife and put it on the table.

She stared at it, fascinated. It was made of silvery metal, with a carved bone handle, and when she tugged the blade out, it was oddly shaped and had a sinister look.

“It’s not a pocket knife, is it?” she asked, lifting her eyes.

He shook his head. “Although it passes for one, going through customs.”

“Where did you find something so unusual?” she asked, fascinated by it.

“I made it.” He picked it up and repocketed it.

“Made it?” she exclaimed.

“Sure.” He laughed at her expression. “Where do you think knives come from? Someone has to make them.”

“Yes, of course, but I didn’t recognize…It’s very formidable looking,” she added.

“I don’t carry it for decoration,” he said. He leaned forward and sipped his coffee. “Would you like some dessert?”

“No, thank you,” she said. “I don’t like sweet things very much, thank God.”

He smiled. “Neither do I. Let’s go walk on the beach for a while.”

“Lovely!”

She waited while he paid the check and then followed him out into the darkness.

The night was warm, and she took off her sandals, which she’d worn without hose, and danced in and out of the waves. He watched her, laughing, his hands in his pockets, his blond hair pale and glowing in the light from the hotel.

“How old did you say you were?” he asked when she came running back up the beach, sandals dangling from one hand.

“About ten,” she laughed up at him.

“You make me feel old.” He lifted a hand and touched her cheek, her lips. There were people farther down the beach, but none close enough to be more than dark shapes.

“How old are you?” she asked.

“Thirty-six,” he said. His other hand came out of his pocket. He took her sandals from her nerveless fingers and dropped them down into the sand. The soft thud barely registered above the crashing surf.

“You excite me,” he said in a deep, slow tone. He cupped her face in his hands and drew her closer, so that she could feel the pleasant heat of his body against hers. “Do you know how a man’s body reacts when he’s excited?”

Her face felt blistering hot, and she couldn’t seem to move as he released her face only to take her hips in his hands and draw them against him.

Her breath caught and his open mouth touched her forehead. His breathing was audible now, and she was learning fascinating things about him, about the subtle differences in his body that she was apparently causing.

“No protest at all?” he asked quietly.

“I’m…curious,” she whispered. “As you’ve already seen, I know very little about this.”

“I don’t frighten you?”

“No, not now.”

His mouth smiled, she could feel it. His thumbs bit into the soft flesh of her stomach as he urged her closer. “Not even now?” he whispered.