Diana Palmer Texan Lovers: Calhoun / Justin / Tyler / Sutton's Way / Ethan / Connal. Diana Palmer

Chapter Ten

      Calhoun had a penthouse apartment with a private elevator and a view of Houston that was breathtaking. It was furnished in tans and browns, with African carvings and weavings mingled with Western paintings and Indian rugs. It was an apartment that was welcoming despite its purely masculine ambience.

      “Do you like it?” Calhoun asked, watching her from the closed door.

      “Very much,” she said, smiling. “It suits you.”

      He came into the room, his eyes never leaving her face. “How about something to drink? I can make coffee.”

      She shifted her eyebrows. “Coffee?”

      His dark eyes narrowed. “Just because you got drunk with Justin doesn’t mean you can expect the same courtesy here.”

      She shifted restlessly, her purse clutched against her waist. “Well, I didn’t mean to get drunk with Justin.”

      “I’ll bet the pair of you could hardly walk the next morning.”

      “We sort of leaned on each other,” she confessed. She searched his hard face. “He was afraid you were going to use your experience to take Shelby away from him. He didn’t come right out and say so, but it was implied.”

      “As if I could hurt him like that,” he said curtly. His dark eyes wandered quietly over her face, tracing every soft line. “Did you care that I danced with her?”

      She turned toward the window. “I like the scenery,” she said, trying to change the subject, trying to breathe normally.

      “Yes, I like it, too,” he said finally. “I wanted something with a view of the city. And I have to spend a lot of time here on business, so that makes it a good investment.”

      She heard his steps coming closer, and she could feel his warmth at her back, smell the clean, spicy scent of him.

      Her pulse jumped as his lean hands caught her waist and pulled her against his big body. She heard his breath and felt it in her hair as he wrapped her up in his arms from behind, rocking her lazily as they watched the city lights spread out below them.

      He inhaled the floral scent of her body and the clean, shampooed softness of her hair all at the same time. He bent his head and brushed his mouth against her neck through her silky hair.

      “I miss you,” he said softly. “You haunt me.”

      “You’ll get used to not having me around,” she said sadly. “After all, up until five and a half years ago, you and Justin had the house all to yourselves.”

      “And then you moved in,” he mused, linking his lean hands in front of her. “We got used to running feet and laughter, to music in the living room and movies on television and teenage girls in and out and hot-rodding young men speeding up the driveway.”

      “You were both very tolerant for old bachelors,” she said. “Looking back, I guess I really cramped your style.”

      He stiffened a little, because it was true. She had at first. But now it hurt to look back, to remember his furtive affairs, his hidden amours. It hurt to think that there’d ever been a woman in his arms except Abby.

      “A woman in the dark is just a body,” he said softly. “And I never gave my heart, Abby.”

      “Do you have one?” she asked.

      He turned her gently, putting her hand on his chest, over his white silk shirt, against hard, warm muscle and thick hair. “Feel it beat,” he whispered.

      “That isn’t what I meant.”

      “I know.” He looked down at her hand, feeling his body tauten at the light touch. He moved her fingers across his chest to a hard male nipple and held her palm there, letting her feel.

      She glanced up at him, her blue-gray eyes wide and searching as he stroked her hand against the hardness.

      “That happens to women,” she whispered.

      “And to men.” He gently pulled her closer, his hands moving into her hair as he bent his head. “Unbutton my shirt. I’m going to show you how to touch me.”

      Her heartbeat sounded and felt unnaturally loud in the stillness of the room. But she didn’t protest. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons, and eventually she had the shirt out of his slacks and away from his broad, bronzed chest with its thick covering of hair.

      He smiled at her faint embarrassment. “Here. Like this.” He pulled her hands against him in long, sensual strokes and watched their slender gracefulness as he drew them down to the wide belt around his slender hips. But when he tried to move them past it, she froze.

      He searched her soft eyes quietly, sensing the turmoil in her heart. “You’re very innocent,” he said, his voice unusually deep and slow. “You’ve never touched a man intimately, have you?”

      She traced a tiny pattern on his chest. “I’ve never done anything intimate with a man in my life, except with you.”

      He was incredibly pleased to hear that. His chin lifted. “I need more than a few chaste kisses,” he said softly.

      She flushed, staring at the heavy rise and fall of his chest. “I’m sorry.”

      He bent abruptly and lifted her, cradling her against him as he turned and walked down the hall with her.

      He went through an open door, and she turned her head to find a huge king-size bed with a cream-and-chocolate quilted cover over it in a darkened room.

      “Calhoun, no,” she whispered, raising her eyes to his in the dimness of the heavily curtained room.

      “I won’t even undress you,” he breathed, brushing her lips with his. “We’re going to make a little love, and then I’ll take you home. There won’t be a risk. I give you my word on it.”

      “But you want me,” she whispered in protest when he slid her onto the coverlet and stretched out beside her, his body so close that she could feel how aroused he was.

      “Of course I want you,” he said gently, smiling as he lay poised above her, his lean hands smoothing back her long, soft hair. “But there’s no risk involved, as long as you don’t do anything to knock me off balance.”

      She searched his dark face, loving every inch of it. “How could I do that?” she whispered.

      “By doing anything I don’t invite,” he murmured deeply. “Don’t touch me, or move against me, or kiss me unless I tell you how.” He moved down then, drawing his open mouth lazily over her lips until he managed to get between them. “That’s it,” he whispered. “Just relax.”

      He was doing the most sensuous things to her mouth. It amazed her, the sensations he aroused so effortlessly. Her breath was already coming in gasps, and she felt her body tautening as what he did to her mouth began to affect the entire length of her.

      “God, you’re sweet to kiss,” he whispered into her parted lips. “Come here, Abby.”

      He abruptly rolled over onto his back and turned her with him so that she was above him, looking down into his dark, dancing eyes.

      “That’s better,” he murmured. “Do you feel less threatened on top?”

      She colored faintly, and he laughed. Then he drew her mouth down over his and opened it, and the laughter stopped.

      She felt his hands moving her, lifting her. She was beside him, then over him, and he had her hips, bringing them down completely over his.

      “Don’t do that,” he whispered when he felt her tautness. “Just lie still and let me feel your body over mine.”

      She felt shaky. She trembled as his tongue began to probe gently around her lips and past them, teasing its way into the sweet darkness of her mouth.