she hadn’t connected the mired cattle with Hal’s disobedience. Poor old Hal, she thought. Matt would eat him alive.
“Will he ever grow up?” Jerry grumbled. “He plays at life.”
“He’s very young, dear,” Betty intervened.
Catherine was just about to rush to his defense, too, just as a loud voice broke the silence in the hall, followed by a thump and a hard thud. Catherine jumped to her feet and opened the door to find Hal just picking himself up from the floor. Matt was standing over him, unruffled, his face like stone, his eyes blazing with anger. He glanced at Catherine, and he was a stranger again, all authority and bristling masculinity. He laughed curtly.
“Florence Nightingale to the rescue,” he chided. “Pick him up and pet him, if you like, but do it damned fast. He’s leaving for Houston. And if he doesn’t straighten out his priorities while he’s there,” he added with a cold glare at Hal, who was gingerly touching his jaw, “he can damned well stay in Houston.”
“My God, it was only four head—” Hal began.
“One head would have been one too many,” Matt replied.
“Jerry and I have a stake in the corporation, too,” Hal shot back. “You’re not the whole show!”
“I am until you can carry your share of the load,” Matt returned. “Grow up!”
Hal got to his feet and glared at the taller man. “The iron man, aren’t you?” He laughed mirthlessly. “No chinks in your armor, no human weaknesses. Not even a weakness for a special woman.”
“You’d better phone and see if you can get a flight out of here tonight,” Matt said, ignoring the little speech.
Hal inclined his head. “Whatever you say, boss.” He fingered his jaw and glanced ruefully at Catherine. “Be sure to duck, cousin.”
Catherine watched him turn toward the stairs. She started back toward the dining room, but Matt caught her arm.
The light touch was indescribable. He came up behind her and was so close that she could hear his heavy breath as it sighed out over her hair. His fingers were steely through the soft jersey of her dress sleeve, and she couldn’t seem to get her breath.
Someone had closed the door to the dining room after she’d gone through it. Probably Jerry, she thought dazedly; he wasn’t one to eavesdrop.
“Afraid of me?” he asked at her back.
She turned and looked up at him with soft green eyes.
“No. Not really. It’s just that you seem like a stranger sometimes, Matt.”
“Hal has to learn responsibility,” he said.
“I won’t argue that,” she replied. “But he won’t ever be you.”
He sighed half-angrily. His dark eyes searched hers in the sudden stillness of the hall.
“Don’t you have a date to rush off to?” she asked pointedly.
“I have a social engagement,” he replied. He pulled out a gold cigarette case—the one she’d given him for Christmas last year—and casually lit a cigarette, as if he had all the time in the world.
“Same difference,” she said.
He shook his head, then lifted the cigarette to his smiling mouth. “It’s a formal dinner. And women weren’t included, except for the wives of the organizers.”
“You don’t owe me any explanations, Matt.” She started toward the dining room, but he drew her back with the lightest pressure of his fingers.
“No, I don’t,” he agreed. She stared at his red tie.
His fingers moved to her throat and stroked its soft elegant line, and her mouth trembled. She looked up at him with her breath sticking in her throat.
“Don’t,” she pleaded breathlessly. It was the first time he’d ever touched her like that, and it frightened her. All her wild dreams went into hiding at the reality. The uncontrolled pleasure she felt was unexpected.
“Why not?” he murmured. “Bachelors are entitled to play a little, honey,” he said with a slow smile, and his fingers stroked over a larger area, edging under the neck of her dress and onto her shoulder.
“Not with me, you don’t,” she said. She reached up to catch his fingers. “It’s not fair, Matt. Shooting fish in a barrel.”
“Why not, when it’s the only way you can get the fish at all?”
“Matt…”
He looked down at her soft, full mouth, outlined carefully with a delicate lipstick. He moved closer, the hand that held the cigarette sliding around her waist to draw her body to the length of his.
She couldn’t breathe at all now. She looked up into dark, secretive eyes and felt her body begin to throb. He’d held her before, of course, to comfort her when she cried and once to carry her over a rising stream bed. He’d even carried her to bed once when she was sick. But it had never been like this before, with his dark eyes hungry as they looked into hers and a nameless awareness between them that grew by the second.
“Have you ever been kissed properly?” he asked in a deep, gruff whisper.
Her lips parted under a rush of breath. “Of…course.”
“I like it hard,” he whispered, bending his head. “I may be rough with you at first. Don’t be frightened.”
“Matt!” Her voice sounded wild.
His fingers tilted her chin, and there was a sensuality in his face that she’d never seen before. “What are you so nervous about?” he breathed against her lips.
Her mouth felt the threat of his, and her hands clenched on his lapels as the images in her mind overwhelmed her. Her body was trembling, and he was so close to her that he had to feel it.
“So hungry,” he whispered, threatening her mouth with his without ever coming close enough to take it. “Aching for me. And all it would take is another fraction of an inch, like this,” he whispered, moving his head down so that she could breathe the minty scent of him, “and I could have you, Kit.…”
“Please,” she whimpered, stiffening as the words and his cologne and the warmth of his whipcord body all weakened her. “Matt, please, please…” She didn’t realize that she was reaching up, her cold and trembling hands at the nape of his neck, her body at fever pitch with wanting.
“Oh, no.” He laughed softly. Both hands caught her by the waist. “Not yet.”
Her eyes widened. She was shaking. Shaking! And he was smiling at her with such worldly amusement.…
“Damn you,” she said under her breath, tears threatening.
“I’m late already,” he said. “Go eat your dinner, honey. We’ll put everything on hold until tomorrow night. The movie,” he reminded
