“Not in bed, I don’t.”
He took a deep breath. “Tiffany, there’s more to a relationship than sex. About which,” he added shortly, “you know precious little.”
“I can learn,” she murmured.
“Damned fast, judging by tonight,” he agreed with a wicked smile. “But physical pleasure gets old quickly.”
“Between you and me?” she asked, her eyes adoring him. “I don’t really think it ever would. I can imagine seducing you in all sorts of unlikely places.”
His heart jumped. He shouldn’t ask. He shouldn’t… “Such as?” he asked in spite of himself.
“Sitting up,” she breathed daringly. “In the front seat of a really elegant European sports car parked right in front of my house…”
His blood was beating in his temple. She made him go hot all over with those sultry eyes, that expression…
“You’d better go inside,” he said tersely.
“Yes, I suppose I had,” she murmured dryly. “It really wouldn’t do, would it, what with the risk of someone coming along and seeing us.”
It got worse by the second. He was beginning to hurt. “Tiffany…”
She opened the door and glanced back at his hard, set face. He was very dark, and she loved the way he looked in evening clothes. Although now, she’d remember him with his shirt undone and her hands against that sexy, muscular chest.
“Run while you can, cattle baron,” she said softly. “I’ll be two steps behind.”
“I’m an old fox, honey,” he returned. “And not easy game.”
“We’ll see about that,” she said, smiling at him. “Good night, lover.”
He caught his breath, watching her close the door and blow him a kiss. He had to get away, to think. The last thing he wanted was to find himself on the receiving end of a shotgun wedding. Tiffany was all too tempting, and the best way to handle this was to get away from her for a few weeks, until they both cooled off. A man had to keep a level head, in business and in personal relationships.
He put the car in gear and drove off. Yes, that was what he should do. He’d find himself a nice business trip. Tiffany would get over him. And he’d certainly get over her. He’d had women. He’d known this raging hunger before. But he couldn’t satisfy it with a virgin.
He thought about her, the way she’d let him see her, and the aching started all over again. His face hardened as he stepped down on the accelerator. Maybe a long trip would erase that image. Something had to!
Tiffany went back into the house, breathless and worried that her new experiences would show. But they didn’t seem to. Wyatt came and asked where she and King had been and she made some light, outrageous reply.
For the rest of the evening, she was the belle of her own ball. But deep inside she was worried about the future. King wasn’t going to give in without a fight. She hoped she had what it took to land that big Texas fish. She wanted him more than anything in the whole world. And she wasn’t a girl who was used to disappointments.
Chapter 3
“Well, King’s left the country,” Harrison Blair murmured dryly three days after Tiffany’s party. “You don’t seem a bit surprised.”
“He’s running scared,” she said pertly, grinning up at her father from the neat crochet stitches she was using to make an afghan for her room. “I don’t blame him. If I were a man being pursued by some persistent woman, I’m sure that I’d run, too.”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid he isn’t running from you,” he mused. “He took his secretary with him.”
Her heart jumped, but she didn’t miss a stitch. “Did he? I hope Carla enjoys the trip. Where did they go?”
“To Nassau. King’s talking beef exports with the minister of trade. But I’m sure Carla took a bathing suit along.”
She put in three more stitches. Carla Stark was a redhead, very pretty and very eligible and certainly no virgin. She wanted to throw her head back and scream, but that would be juvenile. It was a temporary setback, that was all.
“Nothing to say?” her father asked.
She shrugged. “Nothing to say.”
He hesitated. “I don’t want to be cruel,” he began. “I know you’ve set your heart on King. But he’s thirty-four, sweetheart. You’re a very young twenty-one. Maturity takes time. And I’ve been just a tad overprotective about you. Maybe I was wrong to be so strict about young men.”
“It wouldn’t really have mattered,” she replied ruefully. “It was King from the time I was fourteen. I couldn’t even get interested in boys my own age.”
“I see.”
She put the crochet hook through the ball of yarn and moved it, along with the partially finished afghan, to her work basket. She stood up, pausing long enough to kiss her father’s tanned cheek. “Don’t worry about me. You might not think so, but I’m tough.”
“I don’t want you to wear your heart out on King.”
She smiled at him. “I won’t!”
“Tiff, he’s not a marrying man,” he said flatly. “And modern attitudes or no, if he seduces you, he’s history. He’s not playing fast and loose with you.”
“He already told me that himself,” she assured him. “He doesn’t have any illusions about me, and he said that he’s not having an affair with me.”
He was taken aback. “He did?”
She nodded. “Of course, he also said he didn’t want a wife. But all relationships have these little minor setbacks. And no man really wants to get married, right?”
His face went dark. “Now listen here, you can’t seduce him, either!”
“I can if I want to,” she replied. “But I won’t, so stop looking like a thundercloud. I want a home of my own and children, not a few months of happiness followed by a diamond bracelet and a bouquet of roses.”
“Have I missed something here?”
“Lettie said that’s how King kisses off his women,” she explained. “With a diamond bracelet and a bouquet of roses. Not that any of them last longer than a couple of months,” she added with a rueful smile. “Kind of them, isn’t it, to let him practice on them until he’s ready to marry me?”
His eyes bulged. “What ever happened to the double standard?”
“I told you, I don’t want anybody else. I couldn’t really expect him to live a life of total abstinence when he didn’t know he was going to marry me one day. I mean, he was looking for the perfect woman all this time, and here I was right under his nose. Now that he’s aware of me, I’m sure there won’t
