Eye of the Tiger. Diana Palmer

eyes narrow and icy. “You don’t think I can behave like a lady, is that it?” she asked, glaring up at him. “Well, don’t worry, Mr. Taber, you won’t have to suffer my embarrassing presence. And I think the Blakes will manage not to laugh at me.”

      “I didn’t mean… Damn it, girl, will you stop putting words in my mouth? I’m talking about Granger. I’ve already told you he’s a wolf! A rich, sleek, well-fed wolf with a big wallet, just fishing for a naive little girl like you to warm his bed!”

      She turned and stared at him. “Just like you,” she agreed, and watched him explode, then turned back to her dishes. “Why are you worried about my morals? If I want to be corrupted by someone else, that’s my business. Besides, I’ve always wanted to make love suspended from a tree limb,” she added dryly.

      “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he murmured, studying her. “Eleanor, you’re trying to fit into a world that has nothing of value to offer you.”

      “Like yours?” she asked politely.

      “I’m talking about you and Wade Granger! Aren’t you experienced enough to realize why he’s sniffing around you?”

      He made it sound so cheap and vulgar! “I am not a tramp,” she replied through clenched teeth, “despite your efforts to make me feel like one.”

      “When did I ever do that, Eleanor?” he asked in a deep, poignant tone, his eyes searching hers.

      She didn’t want to remember that night. “If you want to stay to lunch, I’m making ham sandwiches,” she said abruptly, washing a plate hard enough to scrub half the pattern off.

      He came up behind her, smelling of tangy cologne. She remembered the scent of it: it had clung to her body that night. It had been on her pillow when she awoke the next morning. It was a graphic reminder of her one lapse in a lifetime of sanity. The warmth of his body radiated toward her, warming her back, threatening her.

      “I was careful with you that night,” he said, his voice velvety rough, warm. “More careful than I’ve ever been with a woman, before or since. Even afterward, I was tender. I’ve never been able to forget it, the way you wanted me at first, the wild little shudders, the sweet cries that pulsed out of you until I hurt you.”

      “Please,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “I don’t want to remember!”

      “You cried,” he murmured. His lean hands smoothed her waist, drew her back so that she rested against his powerful body. “You cried when I took you, looking straight into my eyes, watching…and I felt that you were a virgin, and I tried to stop, but I was so far gone…”

      “No!” She wept, lowering her face.

      His lips touched her hair, and his hands trembled. “You were fire and honey in my arms,” he whispered, “and I remember crying out because the pleasure was an agony.”

      She tore out of his arms and retreated behind the table, looking across at him with dark, wounded eyes. “Go away!”

      His eyes were dark blue with remembered desire, his face shadowed by the flash of light behind him through the curtains. “I will, but the memory won’t,” he said huskily.

      “You used me,” she whispered brokenly, involuntarily, letting the hurt show, seeing how his face hardened. “You had a fight with your sophisticated girlfriend, and you took me out to spite her. And like a fool, I thought you’d asked me because you cared about me. It wasn’t until…until it was all over, until it was too late, that you told me the truth. I hated you then and I hate you now. I’ll hate you until I die, Keegan Taber!”

      His eyes shifted to his boots, to the worn linoleum. “Yes, I know,” he said quietly.

      “Will you please go?” she said in a defeated tone, refusing to look at him again. “My life is none of your business now. Nothing I do concerns you.”

      “Do you want him?” he asked.

      She went and opened the kitchen door. “Goodbye. Sorry you have to leave so suddenly,” she said with a bright, empty smile.

      “I thought I was invited to lunch.”

      “Do you really like arsenic?” she asked with raised eyebrows. “Because I’ve never been more tempted in my life.”

      “Neither have I,” he agreed, but he was studying her slender, pretty figure with narrowed, blue-black eyes. “You’re exquisite, Eleanor. You always were, but maturity has done amazing things to your body.”

      “I am more than a body,” she said curtly. “I’m a human being with thoughts and feelings and a few minor talents.”

      “I know that, too…. Do you fancy a guardian angel, Eleanor?”

      She blinked. “I don’t understand.”

      “You will,” he said with a grim smile. “At least keep away from his apartment, can’t you? I hear he has a bed that begins at the doorway.”

      She had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing, and his twinkling eyes very nearly threw her off balance.

      “Well, that surely beats the backseat of a luxury car, wouldn’t you think…?” she asked with blatant mockery.

      He sighed. “You won’t quit, will you? I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I told you I was so out of my head at the time that I wasn’t even thinking about anyone but you?”

      “Right the first time,” she said, grinning carelessly. “Do you want a ham sandwich or don’t you?”

      He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and took his time lighting it. “I’m going to get around that wall you’ve built, one way or the other. You can make change on that.”

      “Better buy a rocket launcher and a couple of grenades,” she told him. “You’re going to need them.”

      “You may, if Romeo gets a foot in the door,” he said grimly. “Don’t worry your father, will you? He broods.”

      “He’ll have to give me up one day,” she remarked.

      “You aren’t thinking that Granger might propose, for God’s sake?” he burst out, laughing coldly. “Marry a sweet little nobody like you? Fat chance, honey.”

      “I’m not your honey,” she shot back.

      “You were,” he said, his voice rough and soft all at once, his eyes intent. “You were the sweetest honey I ever tasted.”

      “The beehive is out of order,” she replied stiffly. “You’ll have to appease your appetite elsewhere.”

      “There isn’t anywhere else,” he said absently, watching her as the cigarette smoldered in his hand, its glowing tip as red as his waving hair. “There hasn’t been for a long time.”

      “I don’t believe in fairy tales,” she said. “If you’re quite through, I have things to do.”

      He shrugged. “Turned out into the cold,” he said, watching her. “Heartless woman.”

      “It’s spring, and it isn’t cold. And you’re one to be accusing someone of not having a heart.”

      “You don’t think I have one, Eleanor?” He laughed. “You might be surprised at the bruises on it.”

      “I would, if there were any.”

      “Nurses are supposed to have compassion,” he reminded her.

      “I have, for those who deserve it. I have dishes to wash, sandwiches to make….”

      “Wash your damned dishes, and forget making any sandwiches for me,” he muttered, turning to go. “The way my luck’s running lately, you’d probably make mine with a live pig.”

      She heard the door close and went back to her soapy water. It took a long time for