Enamored

She started to lift her arms, to fold them over herself, because the way he was looking at her frightened her a little. But he turned abruptly and started out.

“I’ll get some branches,” he said tersely. “We’ll need something to keep us from getting filthy if we have to stay here very long.”

While he was gone, Melissa stripped off her blouse and wrung it out. It didn’t help much, but it did remove some of the moisture. She dabbed at her hair and pushed the strands away from her face, knowing that she must look terrible.

Diego came back minutes later with some wild-banana leaves and palm branches that he spread on the ground to make a place to sit. He was wetter than ever, because the rain was still coming down in torrents.

“Our pursuers are going to find this weather difficult to track us through,” he mused as he pulled a cigarette lighter from his pocket and managed to light a small cheroot. He eased back on one elbow to smoke it, studying Melissa with intent appreciation. She’d put the blouse back on, but even though it was a little drier, her breasts were still blatantly visible through it.

“I guess they will,” she murmured, answering him.

“It embarrasses you, niña, for me to look at you so openly?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t have much experience…” She faltered, blushing.

He blew out a thick cloud of smoke while his eyes made a meal of her. It was madness to allow himself that liberty, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. She was untouched, and her eyes were shyly worshipful as she looked at his body. He wanted more than anything to touch her, to undress her slowly and carefully, to show her the delight of making love. His heart began to throb as he saw images of them together on the makeshift bedding, her body receptive to his, open to his possession.

Melissa was puzzled by his behavior. He’d always been so correct when they’d been together, but he wasn’t bothering to disguise his interest in her body, and the look on his face was readable even to a novice.

“Why did you become a mercenary?” she asked, hoping to divert him.

He shrugged. “It was a question of finances. We were desperate, and my father was unable to face the degradation of seeking work after having had money all his life. I had a reckless nature, and I enjoyed the danger of combat. After I served in the army, I heard of a group that needed a small-arms expert for some ‘interesting work.’ I applied.” He smiled in reminiscence. “It was an exciting time, but once or twice I had a close call. The others slowly drifted away to other occupations, other callings, but I continued. And then I began to slow down, and there was a mistake that almost cost me my life.” He lifted the cheroot to his lips. “I had enough wealth by then not to mind settling down to a less demanding lifestyle. I came home.”

“Do you miss it?” she asked softly, studying his handsome face.

“On occasion. There were good times. A special feeling of camaraderie with men who faced death with me.”

“And women, I guess,” she said hesitantly, her face more expressive than she realized.

His black eyes ran over her body like hands, slow and steady and frankly possessive. “And women,” he said quietly. “Are you shocked?”

She swallowed, lowering her eyes. “I never imagined that you were a monk, Diego.”

He felt himself tautening as he watched her, longed for her. The rain came harder, and she jumped as a streak of lightning burst near the temple and a shuddering thunderclap followed it.

“The lightning comes before the noise,” he reminded her. “One never hears the fatal flash.”

“How encouraging,” she said through her teeth. “Do you have any more comforting thoughts to share?”

He smiled faintly as he put out the cheroot and laid it to one side. “Not for the moment.”

He took her by the shoulders and laid her down against the palms and banana leaves, his lean hands on the buttons of her shirt once more. This time she didn’t fight and she didn’t protest, she simply watched him with eyes as big as saucers.

“I want to make sure the bleeding has stopped,” he said softly. He pulled the edges of the blouse open and lifted the handkerchief that he’d placed over the cut. His black eyes narrowed, and he grimaced. “This may leave a scar,” he said, tracing the wound with his forefinger. “A pity, on such exquisite skin.”

Her breath rattled in her throat. The touch of his hand made her feel reckless. All her buried longings were coming to the surface during this unexpected interlude with him, his body above her, his chest as bare and brawny as she’d dreamed it would be.

“I have no healing balm,” he said softly, searching her eyes. “But perhaps, pequeña, I could kiss it better….”

Even as he spoke, he bent, and Melissa moaned sharply as she felt the moist warmth of his mouth on her skin. Her hands clenched beside her, her back arched helplessly.

Startled by such a passionate reaction from a girl so virginal, he lifted his head to look at her. He was surprised, proud, when he saw the pleasure that made her cheeks burn, her eyes grow drowsy and bright, her lips part hungrily. It made him forget everything but the need to make her moan like that yet again, to see her eyes as she felt the first stirrings of passion in her untried body. The thought of her innocence and his resolve not to touch her vanished like the threat of danger.

He slid one hand under the nape of her neck to support it, his fingers spreading against her scalp as he bent again. His lips touched her tenderly, his tongue lacing against the abrasions, trailing over her silky skin. She smelled of flowers, and the scent of her went to his head. His free hand went under her back and found the catch of her bra, releasing it. He pulled the straps away from her shoulder and lifted her gently to ease the wispy material down her arms along with her blouse, leaving her bare and shivering under his quiet, experienced eyes. He hadn’t meant to let it happen, but his hunger for her had burst its bonds. He couldn’t hold back. He didn’t want to. She was his. She belonged to him.

He stopped her impulsive movement to cover herself by shaking his head. “This between us will be a secret, something for the two of us alone to share,” he whispered. His dark eyes went to her breasts, adoring them. “Such lovely young breasts,” he breathed, bending toward them. “So sweet, so tempting, so exquisitely formed…”

His lips touched the hard tip of her breast, and she went rigid. His arm went under her to support her back, and his free hand edged between them, raising sweet fires as it traced over her rib cage and belly before it went up to tease at the bottom swell of her breasts and make her ache for him to touch her completely. His mouth eased down onto her breast, taking it inside, savoring its warm softness as the rain pelted down overhead and the thunder drowned out the threat of the world around them. Their drenched clothing was hardly a barrier, their bodies sliding damply against each other in the dusty semidarkness of the dry ruin.

He felt her begin to move against him with helpless longing. She wasn’t experienced enough to hide her desire for him or to curb her headlong response. He delighted in the shy touch of her hands on his chest, his back, in her soft cries and moans as he moved his mouth up to hers finally and covered her soft lips, pressing them open in a kiss that defied restraint.

She arched against him, glorying in the feel of skin against wet skin, her bareness under his, the hardness of his muscles gently crushing her breasts. Her nails dug helplessly into his back while she felt the hunger in the smoke-scented warmth of his open mouth on hers, and she moaned tenderly when she felt the probing of his tongue.

He was whispering something in husky Spanish, his mouth insistent, his hands suddenly equally insistent with other fastenings, hard and swift and sure.

She started to protest, but he brushed his mouth over hers. His body was shuddering with desire, and he sat up, his eyes fiercely possessive as he began to remove the rest of her clothing.

“Shhh,” he whispered when she started to speak. “Let me tell you how it will be. My body and yours,” he breathed, “with the rain around us, the jungle beneath us. The sweet fusion of male and female here, in the Mayan memory. Like the first man and woman on earth, with only the jungle to hear your cries and the aching pleasure of my skin against yours, my hands holding you to me as we drown in the fulfillment of our desire for each other.”

The soft deepness of his voice drugged her. Yes, she wanted that. She wanted him. She arched as his hands slid down her yielding body, his lips softly touching her in ways she’d never dreamed of. The scent of the palm leaves and the musty, damp smell of the ruins in the rain combined with the excitement of Diego’s feverish lovemaking.

She watched him undress, her shyness buried in the fierce need for fulfillment, her eyes worshiping his lean, fit body as he lay down beside her. He let her look at him, taking quiet pride in his maleness. He coaxed her to touch him, to explore the hard warmth of his body while he whispered to her and kissed her and traced her skin with exquisite expertise, all restraint, all reason burned away in the fires of passion.

She gave everything he asked, yielded to him completely. At the final moment, when there was no turning back, she looked up at him with absolute trust, absorbing the sudden intrusion of his powerful body with only a small gasp of pain, lost in the tender smile of pride he gave at her courage.

“Virgin,” he whispered, his eyes bright and black as they held hers. He began to move, very slowly, his body trembling with his enforced restraint. “And so we join, and you are wholly mine. Mi mujer. My woman.”

She caught her breath at the sensations he was causing, her eyes moving and then darting away, her face surprised and loving and hungry all at the same time, her eyes full of wonder as they lifted back to his.

“Hold me,” he whispered. “Hold tight, because soon you will begin to feel the whip of passion and you will need my strength. Hold fast, querida, hold fast to me, give me all that you are, all that you have…adorada,” he gasped as his movements increased with shocking effect. “Melissa mía!”

She couldn’t even look at him. Her body was climbing to incredible heights, tautening until the muscles seemed in danger of snapping. She cried out something, but he groaned and clasped her, and all too soon she was reaching for something that had disappeared even as she sought to touch it.

She wept, frustrated and aching and not even able to explain why.

He kissed her face tenderly, his hands framing it, his eyes soft, wondering. “You did not feel it?” he whispered, making her look at him.

“It was so close,” she whispered back, her eyes frantic. “I almost…oh!”

He smiled with aching tenderness, his body moving slowly, his head lifting to watch her face. “Ah, yes,” he whispered. “Here. And here…gently, querida. Come up and kiss me, and let your body match my rhythm. Yes, querida, yes, like that, like—” His jaw clenched. He shouldn’t be able to feel it again so quickly. He watched her face, felt her body spiraling toward fulfillment. Even as she cried out with it and whispered to him he was in his own hot, black oblivion, and this time it took forever to fall back to earth in her arms.

They lay together in the soft darkness with the rain pelting around them, sated, exquisitely fatigued, her shirt and his pulled over them for a damp blanket. He bent to kiss her lazily from time to time, his lips soft and slow, his smile gentle. For just a few minutes there was no past, no future, no threat of retribution, no piper to pay.

Melissa was shocked by what had happened, so in love with him that it had seemed the most natural thing on earth at the time to let him love her. But as her reason came back, she became afraid and apprehensive. What was he thinking, lying so quietly beside her? Was he sorry or glad, did he blame her? She started to ask him.

And then reality burst in on them in the cruelest way of all. Horses’ hooves and loud voices had been drowned out by the thunder and the rain, but suddenly a small group of men was inside the ruin, and at the head of them was Melissa’s father.

He stopped dead, staring at the trail of clothing and the two people, obviously lovers, so scantily covered by two shirts.

“Damn you, Laremos!” Edward Sterling burst out. “Damn you, what have you done?”

Chapter Three

Melissa knew that as long as she lived there would be the humiliation of that afternoon in her memory. Her father’s outrage, Diego’s taut shouldering of the blame, her own tearful shame. The men quickly left the ruins at Edward Sterling’s terse insistence, but Melissa knew they’d seen enough in those brief seconds to know what had happened.

Edward Sterling followed them, giving Melissa and Diego time to get decently covered. Diego didn’t speak at all. He turned his back while she dressed, and then he gestured with characteristic courtesy for her to precede him out of the entrance. He wanted to speak, to say something, but his pride was lacerated at having so far forgotten himself as to seduce the daughter of his family’s worst enemy. He was appalled at his own lack of control.

Melissa went out after one hopeful glance at his rigid, set features. She didn’t look at him again.

Her father was waiting outside. The rain had stopped and his men were at a respectful distance.

“It wasn’t all Diego’s fault,” Melissa began.

“Yes, I’m aware of that,” her father said coldly. “I found the poems you wrote and the note asking Laremos to meet you so that you could—how did you put it?—‘prove your love’ for him.”

Diego turned, his eyes suddenly icy, hellishly accusing. “You planned this,” he said contemptuously. “Dios mío, and like a fool I walked into the trap…”

“How could I possibly plan a raid by guerrillas?” she asked, trying to reason with him.

“She certainly used it to her advantage,” Edward Sterling said stiffly. “She was warned before she left the house that there was trouble at your estate, Estrella told her as she rode out of the yard, and she went in that general direction.”

Melissa defended herself weakly. “I didn’t hear Estrella. And the poems and the note were just daydreaming….”

“Costly daydreaming,” her father replied. He stared at Diego. “No man with any sense of honor could refuse marriage in the circumstances.”

“What would you know of honor?” Diego asked icily. “You, who seduced my father’s woman away days before their wedding?”

Edward Sterling seemed to vibrate with bad temper. “That has nothing to do with the present situation. I won’t defend my daughter’s actions, but you must admit, Señor Laremos, that she couldn’t have found herself in this predicament without some cooperation from you!”

It was a statement that turned Diego’s blood molten, because it was an accusation that was undeniable. He was as much to blame as Melissa. He was trapped, and he himself had sprung the lock. He couldn’t even look at her. The sweet interlude that had been the culmination of all his dreams of perfection had turned to ashes. He didn’t know if he could bear to go through with it, but what choice was there? Another dishonor on the family name would be too devastating to consider, especially to his grandmother and his sister.

“I will not shirk my responsibility, señor,” Diego said with arrogant disdain. “You may rest assured that Melissa will be taken care of.”

Melissa started to speak, to refuse, but her father and Diego gave her such venomous looks that she turned away and didn’t say another word.

The guerrillas had been dealt with. Apollo Blain, tall and armed to the teeth at the head of a column led by the small, wiry man Laremos called First Shirt, was waiting in the valley as the small party approached.

“The government troops are at the house, boss,” Shirt said with a grin.

Apollo chuckled, his muscular arms crossed over the pommel of his saddle. “Cleaning house, if you’ll forgive the pun. Glad to see you’re okay, boss man. You, too, Miss Sterling.”

“Thanks,” Melissa said wanly.

“With your permission, I will rejoin my men,” Diego said with cool formality, directing the words to Edward. “I will make the necessary arrangements for the service to take place with all due haste.”

“We’ll wait to hear from you, señor,” Edward said tersely. He motioned to his men and urged his mount into step beside Melissa’s.

“I don’t suppose there’s any use in trying to explain?” she asked miserably, too sick to even look back toward Diego and his retreating security force.

“None at all,” her father said. “I hope you love Laremos. You’ll need to, now that he’s well and truly hamstrung. He’ll hate both of us, but I won’t let you be publicly disgraced, even if it is your own damned fault.”

Tears slid down her cheeks. She stared toward the distant house with a sick feeling that her life was never going to be the same again. Her hero-worshiping and daydreaming had led to the end she’d hoped for, but she hadn’t wanted to trap Diego. She’d wanted him to love her, to want to marry her. She had what she thought she desired, but now it seemed that the Fates were laughing at her. She remembered a very old saying that had never made sense before: be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.

* * *

Weeks went by while Melissa was feted and given party after party with a stiff-necked Señora Laremos and Juana, Diego’s sister, at her side. Their disapproval and frank dislike had been made known from the very beginning, but like Diego, they were making the most of a bad situation.

Diego himself hardly spoke to Melissa unless it was necessary, and when he looked at her she felt chilled to the bone. That he hated her was all too apparent. As the wedding approached, she wished with all her heart that she’d listened to her father and had never left the house that rainy day.

Her wedding gown was chosen, the Catholic church in Guatemala City was filled to capacity with friends and distant kin of both the bride’s and groom’s families. Melissa was all nerves, even though Diego seemed to be as nonchalant as if he were going to a sporting event, and even less enthusiastic.

Diego spoke his vows under Father Santiago’s quiet gaze with thinly veiled sarcasm and placed the ring upon Melissa’s finger. He pushed back the veil and looked at her with something less than contempt, and when he kissed her it was strictly for the sake of appearances. His lips were ice-cold. Then he bowed and led her back down the aisle, his eyes as unfeeling as the carpet under their feet.

The reception was an ordeal, and there was music and dancing that seemed to go on forever before Diego announced that he and his bride must be on their way home. He’d already told Melissa there would be no honeymoon because he had too much work and not enough free time to travel. He drove her back to the casa, where he deposited her with his cold-eyed grandmother and sister. And then he packed a bag and left for an extended business trip to Europe.

Melissa missed her father and Estrella. She missed the warmth of her home. But most of all, she missed the man she’d once loved, the Diego who’d teased her and laughed with her and seemed to enjoy having her with him for company when he’d ridden around the estate. The angry, unapproachable man she’d married was a stranger.

It was almost six weeks from the day she and Diego had been together when Melissa began to feel a stirring inside, a frightening certainty that she was pregnant. She was nauseated, not just at breakfast but all the time. She hid it from Diego’s grandmother and sister, although it grew more difficult all the time.

She spent her days wandering miserably around the house, wishing she had something to occupy her. She wasn’t allowed to take part in any of the housework or to sit with the rest of the family, who made this apparent by simply leaving a room the moment she entered it. She ate alone, because the señora and the señorita managed to change the times of meals from day to day. She was avoided, barely tolerated, actively disliked by both women, and she didn’t have the worldliness or the sophistication or the maturity to cope with the situation. She spent a great deal of time crying. And still Diego stayed away.

“Is it so impossible for you to accept me?” she asked Señora Laremos one evening as Juana left the sitting room and a stiff-backed señora prepared to follow her.

Señora Laremos gave her a cold, black glare from eyes so much like Diego’s that Melissa shivered. “You are not welcome here. Surely you realize it?” the older woman asked. “My grandson does not want you, and neither do we. You have dishonored us yet again, like your mother before you!”

Melissa averted her face. “It wasn’t my fault,” she said through trembling lips. “Not completely.”

“Had it not been for your father’s insistence, you would have been treated like any other woman whose favors my son had enjoyed. You would have been adequately provided for—”

“How?” Melissa demanded, her illusions gone at the thought of Diego’s other women, her heart broken. “With an allowance for life, a car, a mink coat?” Her chin lifted proudly. “Go ahead, señora. Ignore me. Nothing will change the fact that I am Diego’s wife.”

The older woman seemed actually to vibrate with anger. “You impudent young cat,” she snarled. “Has your family not been the cause of enough grief for mine already, without this? I despise you!”

Melissa didn’t blink. She didn’t flinch. “Yes, I realize that,” she said with quiet pride. “God forbid that in your place I would ever be so cruel to a guest in my home. But then,” she added with soft venom, “I was raised properly.”

The Señora actually flushed. She went out of the room without another word, but afterward her avoidance of Melissa was total.

Melissa gave up trying to make them accept her now that she realized the futility of it. She wanted to go home to see her father, but even that was difficult to arrange in the hostile environment where she lived. She settled for the occasional phone call and had to pretend, for his sake, that everything was all right. Perhaps when Diego had time to get used to the situation, everything would be all right. That was the last hope she had—that Diego might relent. That she might be able to persuade him to give her a chance to be the wife she knew she was capable of being.

Meanwhile, the sickness went on and on, and she knew that soon she was going to have to see a doctor. She grew paler by the day. So pale, in fact, that Juana risked her grandmother’s wrath to sneak into Melissa’s room one night and ask how she was.

Melissa gaped at her. “I beg your pardon?” she asked tautly.

Juana grimaced, her hands folded neatly at her waist, her dark eyes oddly kind in her thin face. “You seem so pale, Melissa. I wish it were different. Diego is—” she spread her hands “Diego. And my grandmother nurses old wounds that have been reopened by your presence here. I cannot defy her. It would break her heart if I sided with you against her.”

“I understand that,” Melissa said quietly, and managed a smile. “I don’t blame you for being loyal to your grandmother, Juana.”

Juana sighed. “Is there something, anything, I can do?”

Melissa shook her head. “But thank you.”

Juana opened the door, hesitating. “My grandmother will not say so, but Diego has called. He will be home tomorrow. I thought you might like to know.”

She was gone then, as quickly as she’d come. Melissa looked around the neat room she’d been given, with its dark antique furnishings. It wasn’t by any means the master bedroom, and she wondered if Diego would even keep up the pretense of being married to her by sleeping in the same room. Somehow she doubted it. It would be just as well that way, because she didn’t want him to know about the baby. Not until she could tell how well he was adapting to married life.