Man of the Hour by Diana Palmer Read Free Book Online Page A

feel of it drove him mad, he bent his head and tenderly drew his lips over it, breathing in the scent of her body. “Totally, absolutely untouched.”
    “I…can’t feel like this with any other man,” she confessed, shaken to her soul by what they were sharing. “I can’t bear another man’s eyes to touch me, much less his hands.”
    His breath drew in raggedly. “Why in God’s name did you leave, damn you?”
    “I was afraid!”
    “Of this?” His mouth opened over her nipple and she cried out at the flash of pleasure it gave her to feel it so intimately.
    “I was a virgin,” she gasped.
    “You still are.” He drew her across him, one big hand gathering her hips blatantly into the hard thrust of his, holding her there while he searched her eyes. “And you’re still afraid,” he said finally, watching the shocked apprehension grow on her face. “Terrified of intimacy with me.”
    She swallowed, then swallowed again. Her eyes dropped to his bare chest. “Not…of that.”
    “Then what?”
    His body throbbed. She could feel the heat and power of it and she felt faint with the knowledge of how desperately he wanted her. “Steven, my sister died in childbirth.”
    “Yes, I know. Your father told me. It was such a private thing, I didn’t feel it was my place to ask questions. I just know she was twelve years older than you.”
    She looked up at him. “She was…like me,” she whispered slowly. “Thin and slender, not very big in the hips at all. They lived up north. It snowed six feet the winter she was ready to deliver and her husband couldn’t get her to a hospital in time. She died. So did the baby.” Meg hesitated, nibbling her lower lip. “Childbirth is difficult for the women in my family. My mother had to have a cesarean section when I was born. I was very sheltered and after my sister died, mother made it sound as if pregnancy would be a death sentence for me, too. She made me terrified of getting pregnant,” she added miserably, hiding her face from him.
    He eased his intimate hold on her, stunned. His hand guided her cheek to his broad, hair-roughened chest and he held her there, letting her feel the heat of his body, the heavy slam of his heart under her ear.
    “We never discussed this.”
    “I was very young, as you said,” she replied, closing her eyes. “I couldn’t tell you. It was so intimate a thing to say, and I was already overwhelmed by you physically. Every time you touched me, I went light-headed and hot and shaky all over.” Her eyes closed. “I still do.”
    His fingers tangled gently in her hair, comforting now instead of arousing. “I could have reassured you, if you’d only told me.”
    “Perhaps.” She nuzzled her cheek against him. “But I hadterrors of getting pregnant, and you came on very strong that night. The argument…seemed like a reprieve at the time. You told me to get out, and then you took Daphne to a public place so that it would be in all the papers. I told myself that choosing dancing made more sense than choosing you. It made it easier to go away.”
    He lifted his head, staring out the darkened window. Seconds later, he looked down at her, his eyes lingering on her breasts.
    She smiled sadly. “You don’t believe me, do you? You’re still bitter, Steven.”
    “You don’t think I’m entitled to be?”
    She shifted against him, her eyes adoring his hard face, totally at peace with him even in this intimacy now. “I didn’t think you cared enough to be hurt.”
    “I didn’t,” he agreed readily. “But my pride took a few blows.”
    “Nicole said you got drunk…”
    He smiled cruelly. “Did she add that I was with Daphne at the time?”
    She stiffened, hating him.
    His warm hand covered her breast blatantly, feeling her heartbeat race even through her anger. He searched her eyes. “I still want you,” he said flatly. “More than ever.”
    She knew it. His face was alive with desire. “It wouldn’t be wise,” she said quietly.