Tender Stranger. Diana Palmer

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