Heartbreaker Read online

  Numbly she turned back to watch the coffee dripping; when it finished, she filled a big mug, then wrapped her cold fingers around the mug to warm them. It had to be nerves making her hands so cold. Quietly she went upstairs to look into her bedroom, wondering if he would still be sleeping.

  He wasn’t, though evidently he’d awoken only seconds before. He propped himself up on one elbow and ran his hand through his tousled black hair, narrowing his eyes as he returned her steady gaze. Her heart lurched painfully. He looked like a ruffian, with his hair tousled, his jaw darkened by the overnight growth of beard, his bare torso brown and roped with the steely muscles that were never found on a businessman. She didn’t know what she’d hoped to see in his expression: desire, possibly, even affection. But whatever she’d wanted to see wasn’t there. Instead his face was as hard as always, measuring her with that narrowed gaze that made her feel like squirming. She could feel him waiting for her to move, to say something.

  Her legs were jerky, but she managed not to spill the coffee as she walked into the room. Her voice was only slightly strained. “Congratulations. All the gossip doesn’t give you due credit. My, my, you’re really something when you decide to score; I didn’t even think of saying no. Now you can go home and put another notch in your bedpost.”

  His eyes narrowed even more. He sat up, ignoring the way the sheet fell below his waist, and held out his hand for the coffee mug. When she gave it to him, he turned it and drank from the place where she’d been sipping, then returned it to her, his eyes never leaving hers.

  “Sit down.”

  She flinched a little at his hard, raspy, early-morning voice. He saw the small movement and reached out to take her wrist, making coffee lap alarmingly close to the rim of the mug. Gently but inexorably he drew her down to sit facing him on the edge of the bed.

  He kept his hand on her wrist, his callused thumb rubbing over the fine bones and delicate tracery of veins. “Just for the record, I don’t notch bedposts. Is that what’s got your back up this morning?”

  She gave a small defensive shrug, not meeting his eyes.

  She’d withdrawn from him again; his face was grim as he watched her, trying to read her expression. He remembered the fear in her last night, and he wondered who’d put it there. White-hot embers of rage began to flicker to life at the thought of some bastard abusing her in bed, hurting her. Women were vulnerable when they made love, and Michelle especially wouldn’t have the strength to protect herself. He had to get her to talk, or she’d close up on him completely. “It had been a long time for you, hadn’t it?”

  Again she gave that little shrug, as if hiding behind the movement. Again he probed, watching her face. “You didn’t enjoy sex before.” He made it a statement, not a question.

  Finally her eyes darted to his, wary and resentful. “What do you want, a recommendation? You know that was the first time I’d…enjoyed it.”

  “Why didn’t you like it before?”

  “Maybe I just needed to go to bed with a stud,” she said flippantly.

  “Hell, don’t give me that,” he snapped, disgusted. “Who hurt you? Who made you afraid of sex?”

  “I’m not afraid,” she denied, disturbed by the idea that she might have let Roger warp her to such an extent. “It was just…well, it had been so long, and you’re a big man… .” Her voice trailed off, and abruptly she flushed, her gaze sliding away from him.

  He watched her thoughtfully; considering what he’d learned about her last night and this morning, it was nothing short of a miracle that she hadn’t knocked his proposal and half his teeth down his throat when he’d suggested she become his mistress as payment of the debt. It also made him wonder if her part in the breakup of Mike Webster’s marriage hadn’t been blown out of all proportion; after all, a woman who didn’t enjoy making love wasn’t likely to be fast and easy.

  It was pure possessiveness, but he was glad no other man had pleased her the way he had; it gave him a hold on her, a means of keeping her by his side. He would use any weapon he had, because during the night he had realized that there was no way he could let her go. She could be haughty, bad-tempered and stubborn; she could too easily be spoiled and accept it as her due, though he’d be damned if he hadn’t almost decided it was her due. She was proud and difficult, trying to build a stone wall around herself to keep him at a distance, like a princess holding herself aloof from the peasants, but he couldn’t get enough of her. When they were making love, it wasn’t the princess and the peasant any longer; they were a man and his woman, writhing and straining together, moaning with ecstasy. He’d never been so hungry for a woman before, so hot that he’d felt nothing and no one could have kept him away from her.

  She seemed to think last night had been a casual thing on his part, that sunrise had somehow ended it. She was in for a surprise. Now that she’d given herself to him, he wasn’t going to let her go. He’d learned how to fight for and keep what was his, but his single-minded striving over the years to build the ranch into one of the biggest cattle ranches in Florida was nothing compared to the intense possessiveness he felt for Michelle.

  Finally he released her wrist, and she stood immediately, moving away from him. She sipped at the coffee she still held, and her eyes went to the window. “Your men got a big kick out of seeing your car still here this morning. I didn’t realize they’d be back, since they put up the fencing yesterday.”

  Indifferent to his nakedness, he threw the sheet back and got out of bed. “They didn’t finish. They’ll do the rest of the job today, then move the herd to the east pasture tomorrow.” He waited, then said evenly, “It bothers you that they know?”

  “Being snickered about over a beer bothers me. It polishes up your image a little more, but all I’ll be is the most recent in a long line of one-nighters for you.”

  “Well, everyone will know differently when you move in with me, won’t they?” he asked arrogantly, walking into the bathroom. “How long will it take you to pack?”

  Stunned, Michelle whirled to stare at him, but he’d already disappeared into the bathroom. The sound of the shower came on. Move in with him? If there was any limit to his gall, she hadn’t seen it yet! She sat down on the edge of the bed, watching the bathroom door and waiting for him to emerge as she fought the uneasy feeling of sliding further and further down a precipitous slope. Control of her own life was slipping from her hands, and she didn’t know if she could stop it. It wasn’t just that John was so domineering, though he was; the problem was that, despite how much she wished it were different, she was weak where he was concerned. She wanted to be able to simply walk into his arms and let them lock around her, to rest against him and let him handle everything. She was so tired, physically and mentally. But if she let him take over completely, what would happen when he became bored with her? She would be right back where she’d started, but with a broken heart added to her problems.

  The shower stopped running. An image of him formed in her mind, powerfully muscled, naked, dripping wet. Drying himself with her towels. Filling her bathroom with his male scent and presence. He wouldn’t look diminished or foolish in her very feminine rose-and-white bathroom, nor would it bother him that he’d bathed with perfumed soap. He was so intensely masculine that female surroundings merely accentuated that masculinity.

  She began to tremble, thinking of the things he’d done during the night, the way he’d made her feel. She hadn’t known her body could take over like that, that she could revel in being possessed, and despite the outdated notion that a man could physically “possess” a woman, that was what had happened. She felt it, instinctively and deeply, the sensation sinking into her bones.

  He sauntered from the bathroom wearing only a towel hitched low on his hips, the thick velvety fabric contrasting whitely with the bronzed darkness of his abdomen. His hair and mustache still gleamed wetly; a few drops of moisture glistened on his wide shoul