Winter Roses. Diana Palmer

will look beautiful on you. Go on to bed. Sleep late. We won’t need to get up before noon if we don’t want to.”

      “I never sleep past seven, even when I try,” Ivy said, smiling. “I always got up to make breakfast for Dad and Rachel, and then just for Dad after she left home.”

      “Mrs. Rhodes will make you breakfast, whenever you want it,” Merrie said. “Sleep well.”

      “You, too.”

      Ivy went into the bedroom that adjoined Merrie’s. There was a bathroom between the guest room and Stuart’s room, but Ivy wasn’t worried about that. Stuart was out of town and she’d have the bathroom all to herself if she needed it. She probably would, if she couldn’t sleep off the headache. They made her violently ill.

      She put on the nightgown and looked at herself in the full-length mirror. She was surprised at how she looked in it. Her breasts were small, but high and firm, and the gown emphasized their perfection. It flowed down her narrow waist to her full hips and long, elegant legs. She’d never worn anything so flattering.

      With her long blond hair and dark green eyes and silky, soft complexion, she looked like a fairy. She wasn’t pretty, but she wasn’t plain, either. She was slender and medium height, with a nice mouth and big eyes. Only one of the big eyes was seeing right now, though, and she needed sleep.

      There was a soft knock at the door. She opened it, and there was Mrs. Rhodes with the water. “Dear, you’re very pale,” the older woman said, concerned. “Are you all right?”

      Ivy sighed. “It was the chocolate. I’ve got a headache. I don’t want Merrie to know. She worries. I’ll just go to sleep, and I’ll be fine.”

      Mrs. Rhodes wasn’t convinced. She’d seen Ivy have these headaches, and she’d seen Stuart suffer through them. “Have you got something to take?”

      “In my purse,” Ivy lied. “I’ve got aspirin.”

      “Well, if you need something stronger, you come wake me up, okay?” she asked gently. “Stuart keeps medicine for them. I know where to look.”

      She smiled. “Thanks, Mrs. Rhodes. I really mean it.”

      “You just get some sleep. Call if you need me. I’m just across the hall from Merrie.”

      “I will. Thanks again.”

      She dropped down on the queen-size bed and pulled the silken covers up over her. The room was a palace compared to her one-room apartment. Even the bathroom was larger than the room she lived in. Merrie took such wealth and luxury for granted, but Ivy didn’t. It was fascinating to her.

      The pain was vicious. The headaches always settled in one eye, and they felt as if a knife were being pushed right through the pupil. Some people called them “head-bangers” because sufferers had been known to knock their heads against walls in an effort to cope with the pain. Ivy groaned quietly and pushed her fist against the eye that had gone blind. The sight had returned to it, and the pain came with it.

      Volumes had been written on the vicious attacks. Comparing them to mild tension headaches was like comparing a hurricane to a spring breeze. Some people lost days of work every year to them. Others didn’t realize what sort of headaches they were and never consulted a doctor about them. Still others wound up in emergency rooms pleading for something to ease the pain. Hardly anything sold over the counter would even faze them. It usually took a prescription medicine to make them bearable. Ivy had never found anything that would stop the pain, regardless of its strength. The best she could hope for was that the pain would ease enough that she could endure it until it finally stopped.

      Around midnight, the pain spawned nausea and she was violently sick. By that time, the pain was a throbbing, stabbing wave of agony.

      She dabbed her mouth and eyes with a wet cloth and laid back down, trying again to sleep. But even though the nausea eased a little, the pain increased.

      She would have to go and find Mrs. Rhodes. On the way, she’d stop in the bathroom long enough to wet the cloth again.

      She opened the door, half out of her mind with pain, and walked right into a tall, muscular man wearing nothing except a pair of black silk pajama bottoms. Blue eyes bit into her green ones as she looked up, a long way up, into them.

      “What the hell are you doing here?” Stuart York demanded with a scowl.

      CHAPTER THREE

      IVY hadn’t seen him in months. They didn’t travel in the same circles, and he was never at home when she was visiting Merrie. The sight of him so unexpectedly caused an odd breathlessness, an ache in the pit of her stomach.

      He was watching her intently, and there was an odd glint in his pale blue eyes, as if she’d disappointed him. He rarely smiled. He certainly wasn’t doing it now. His wide, sexy mouth was thin with impatience. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. His chest was broad and muscular and thick with black, curling hair that narrowed on its way down his belly. The silk pajama bottoms clung lovingly to the hard muscles of his thighs. He was as sexy as any television hero. Even with his thick, straight black hair slightly tousled and his eyes red from lack of sleep, he was every woman’s dream.

      “I was…looking for something,” she faltered.

      “Me?” he drawled sarcastically, and he reached for her. “Rachel told me all about you before she left town. I didn’t believe her at first.” His eyes slid down her exquisite body in the revealing gown. “But it looks as though she was right about you all along.”

      The feel of all that warm strength so close made her legs wobbly. There was the faint scent of soap and cologne that clung to his skin, and the way he was looking at her made it even worse. Over the years, she’d tried very hard not to notice Stuart. But close like this, her heart ran away with her. She felt sensations that made her uneasy, alien sensations that made her want things she didn’t understand. She couldn’t take her eyes off him, but he was misty in her vision. Her head was throbbing so madly that she couldn’t think. Which was unfortunate, because he misinterpreted her lack of protest.

      A split second later, she was standing with her back against the cold wall with Stuart’s hard body pressing down against hers. His hands propped against the wall, pinning her, while his eyes took in the visible slope of her breasts in the wispy gown. He couldn’t seem to stop looking at her.

      “I need…” she began weakly, trying to focus enough to ask for some aspirin, for anything that might make the headache ease.

      “…me?” he taunted. His voice was deep and velvety soft, husky with emotion as his head bent. His pale eyes went to her parted lips. “Show me, honey.”

      While she was working out that odd comment, his mouth was suddenly hard and insistent on her own. She stiffened with apprehension. She’d never been so close, so intimately close, to a man before. His mouth was demanding, twisting on hers as though he wanted more than he was getting.

      She really should protest the way he was holding her, so that she felt every inch of muscle that pressed against her. But his mouth was erotic, masterful. She’d only been kissed a few times, mostly at parties, and never by a boy who knew much about intimacy. It had been her good fortune that she’d never felt violent attraction to a man who wouldn’t accept limits. But her luck had just run out, with Stuart. He knew what he was doing. His mouth eased and became coaxing, caressing. His teeth nipped tenderly at her lower lip, teasing it to move down so that he had access to the whole of her soft, warm mouth.

      She shivered a little as passion grew inside her. She felt his bare chest under her hands, and she loved the warmth and strength of him so close. Her fingers burrowed through the thick hair that covered the hard muscle, making them tingle even as she felt the urgent response of his body to the soft caress. She let her lips part as he pressed harder against them and she moved, involuntarily, closer to the source of the sudden pleasure she was feeling.

      It was like an invitation,