Tender Stranger

He was much too sophisticated for a little country mouse, Dani told herself sternly. She’d just have to keep well away from him. He had no interest in her, despite her helpless fascination with him. He was world-weary and cynical, and looked as if she amused him…nothing more.

She made up her mind to enjoy the rest of her four-day holiday, and went to her room, where she got out a one-piece black bathing suit to wear to the beach. She pinned her irritating hair out of the way and stared at her reflection. What ravishing good looks, she thought sarcastically. No wonder he wasn’t interested. Looking the way she did, it was unlikely that even a shark would be tempted.

Go to Mexico, have fun, her friend Harriett Gaynor had said. Sparkle! Attract men! Dani sighed miserably. Back home it was spring and things were beginning to bloom, and books were selling well—especially romances. And here Dani was, with nothing changed at all except her surroundings. Alone and unloved and unwanted, as usual. She glared at herself and impulsively she called the beauty salon downstairs and made an appointment to have her hair cut.

They had a cancellation, and could take her immediately. Several minutes later she sat watching the unruly locks of hair being neatly sheared off, leaving her delicate features framed by a simple, wavy short cut that curled toward her wide eyes and gave her an impish look. She grinned at herself, pleased, and after paying the girl at the counter, she danced back upstairs and put on her bathing suit. She even added some of the makeup she never used, and perfume. The result wasn’t beauty-queen glamour, but it was a definite improvement.

Then she stared at her bodice ruefully. Well, there wouldn’t be any miracle to correct this problem, she told herself, and pulled on a beach wrap. It was colorful, tinted with shades of lavender, and it concealed very well. She got the beach bag she’d bought in the hotel lobby and stuffed suntan lotion and her beach towel into it. Then, with her prescription sunglasses firmly over her eyes, she set off for the beach.

It was glorious. Beach and sun and the lazy rhythm of the water all combined to relax her. She stretched, loving the beauty around her, the history of this ancient port. She wondered what the first explorers would have thought of the tourist attraction their old stomping grounds made.

Feeling as if someone were staring at her, she opened her eyes and twisted her head just a little. She saw Dutch wandering along the beach, cigarette in hand, blond head shining like white gold in the sun. He was darkly tanned, shirtless, and her fascinated eyes clung to him helplessly. He wasn’t a hairy man, but there was a wedge of curling dark blond hair over the darkly tanned muscles of his chest and stomach. His legs were feathered with it, too: long, powerful legs in cutoff denim shorts, and he wore thongs, as most of the people on the beach did, to protect against unexpected objects in the sand.

She turned her head away so that she didn’t have to see him. He was a sensuous man, devastating to a woman who knew next to nothing about the male sex. He had to be aware of her naivete, and it probably amused him, she thought bitterly.

He watched her head turn, and irritation flashed in his dark eyes. Why was she always gazing at him with that helpless-child longing? She disturbed him. His eyes narrowed. New haircut, wasn’t it? The haircut suited her, but why in hell was she wrapped up like a newly caught fish? He’d yet to see her in anything that didn’t cover her from neck to waist. He frowned. Probably she was flat-chested and didn’t want to call attention to it. But didn’t she realize that her attempts at camouflage were only pointing out her shortcoming?

He glowered at her. Long legs, nice legs, he mused, narrowing his eyes as he studied the relaxed body on the giant beach towel. Nice hips, too. Flat, very smooth lines. Tiny waist. But then there was the coverup. She’d said she needed to lose weight, but he couldn’t imagine where. She looked perfect to him.

She was just a woman, he thought, pulling himself up. Just another faithless flirt, out for what she could get. Would he never learn? Hadn’t he paid for his one great love affair already? Love affair, he thought bitterly. Never that. An infatuation that had cost him everything he held dear. His home, his future, the savings his parents had sacrificed to give him…

He tore his eyes away and turned them seaward. Sometimes it got the better of him. It had no part of the present. In fact, neither did Miss Frump over there.

He turned, blatantly staring at her, a tiny smile playing around his mouth. She was a different species of woman, unfamiliar to him. He found he was curious about her, about what made her tick.

He moved forward slowly, and she saw him out of the corner of her eye. She felt her pulse exploding as he came closer. No, she pleaded silently, closing her eyes. Please, go away. Don’t encourage me. Don’t come near me. You make me vulnerable, and that’s the one thing I mustn’t be.

“You won’t get much sun in that,” he remarked, indicating the top as he plopped down beside her. He leaned on an elbow, stretched full-length beside her, and she could feel the heat of him, smell the cologne that clung to him.

“I don’t want to burn,” she said in a strangled tone.

“Still angry about what I said last night?” he asked on a smile.

“A little, yes,” she said honestly.

He leaned over and tugged her sunglasses away from her eyes so that they were naked and vulnerable. He was worldly and it showed, and so did her fear of him.

“I didn’t mean to ridicule you. I’m not used to women,” he said bluntly. “I’ve lived a long time without them.”

“And you don’t like them, either,” she said perceptively.

He scowled briefly, letting his eyes drop to her mouth. “Occasionally. In bed.” He chuckled softly at her telltale color. “Don’t tell me I embarrass you? Not considering the type of reading material you carry around with you. Surely every detail is there in black and white.”

“Not the way you’re thinking,” she protested.

“Little Southern lady,” he murmured, watching her. She had a softness that he wasn’t used to, a vulnerability. But there was steel under it. He sensed a spirit as strong as his own beneath shyness. “Do I frighten you?”

“Yes. I…don’t have much to do with men,” she said quietly. “And I’m not very worldly.”

“Are you always that honest?” he asked absently as he studied her nose. There were a few scattered freckles on its bridge.

“I don’t like being lied to,” she said. “So I try very hard not to lie to other people.”

“The golden rule?” He fingered a short strand of her brown hair, noticing the way it shone in the sunlight, as sleek as mink, silky in his hand. “I like your haircut.”

“It was hot having it long…” She faltered. She wasn’t used to being touched, and there was something magnetic about this man. It was unsettling to have so much vibrant masculinity so close that she could have run her hands over his body. He made her feel things she hadn’t experienced since her teens, innocent longings that made her tense with mingled fear and need.

“Why are you wearing this?” he asked, and his hand went to the buttons of her shapeless over-blouse. “Do you really need it?”

She could hardly swallow. He had her so rattled, she didn’t know her name. “I…no, but…” she began.

“Then take it off,” he said quietly. “I want to see what you look like.”

There had been a similar passage in the latest book by her favorite author. She’d read it and gotten breathless. But this was real, and the look in his dark eyes made her tremble. She forgot why she was wearing the wrap and watched his hard face as he eased the buttons skillfully out of their holes and finally drew the garment from around her body.

His breath caught audibly. He seemed to stop breathing as he looked down on what he’d uncovered. “My God,” he whispered.

She was blushing again, feeling like a nervous adolescent.

“Why?” he asked, meeting her eyes.

She shifted restlessly. “Well, I’m…I feel…men stare,” she finished miserably.

“My God, of course they stare! You’re exquisite!”

She’d never heard it put that way. She searched his eyes, looking for ridicule, but there was none. He was staring again, and she found that a part of her she didn’t recognize liked the way he was looking at her.

“Is that why you wear bulky tops all the time?” he persisted gently.

She sighed. “Men seem to think that women who are…well-endowed have loose morals. It’s embarrassing to be stared at.”

“I thought you were flat-chested,” he mused, laughing.

“Well, no, I’m not,” she managed. “I guess I did look rather odd.”

He smiled down at her. “Leave it off,” he said with a last lingering scrutiny before he stretched out on his back. “I’ll fend off unwanted admirers for you.”

She was immediately flattered. And nervous. Would he expect any privileges for that protection? She stared at his relaxed body uneasily.

“No strings,” he murmured, eyes closed. “I want rest, not a wild, hot affair.”

She sighed. “Just as well,” she said ruefully. “I wouldn’t know how to have one.”

“Are you a virgin?” he asked matter-of-factly.

“Yes.”

“Unusual these days.”

“I believe in happily-ever-after.”

“Yes, I could tell by your reading material,” he said with a lazy smile. He stretched, and powerful muscles rippled all up and down his tanned body. Her gaze was drawn to it, held by it.

He opened his eyes and watched her, oddly touched by the rapt look on her young face. He’d have bet a year’s earnings that she’d never been touched even in the most innocent way. He found himself wondering what she might be like in passion, whether those pale eyes would glow, whether her body would relax and trust his. He frowned slightly. He’d never taken time with a woman, not since that she-wolf. These days it was all quickly over and forgotten. But slow, tender wooing was something he could still remember. And suddenly he felt a need for it. To touch this silky creature next to him and teach her how to love. How to touch. The thought of her long fingers on him caused a sudden and shocking reaction in his body.

He turned over onto his stomach, half-dazed with the unexpected hunger. Was she a witch? He studied her. Did she know what had happened to him? No, he decided, if she did, it would be highly visible in those virginal cheeks. She probably didn’t even know what happened to men at all. He smiled slowly at the searching wonder in her eyes.

“Why are you smiling like that?” she asked softly.

“Do you really want to know?” he murmured dryly.

She rolled over onto her stomach as well, and propped herself up on her elbows, looking down at him, at the hard lines of his face, the faint scarring on one cheek. She felt drawn to him physically, and couldn’t understand why it seemed so natural to lie beside him and look at him.

His eyes were fixed on a sudden parting of fabric that gave a tantalizing view of her generous breasts; and when she started to move, he reached up and held her still.

“You won’t get pregnant if I look at you,” he whispered.

“You’re a horrible man,” she said haughtily.

“Yes, but I’m much safer than any one of these wily Latins,” he told her. “The lesser of two evils, you might say. I won’t seduce you.”

“As if any man would want to.” She laughed, and started to move away again. This time he let her, looming over her as she lay back, with his forearms beside her head and his eyes boring into hers at close range.

“If we weren’t on a public beach, I’d give you a crash course in arousal, doubting Thomasina,” he murmured. “Something just happened to me that shocked me to the back teeth, and it’s your fault.”

Her eyes widened as her mind tried to convince her that she hadn’t heard him make such a blatant statement.

“I see you understand me,” he said with a lazy smile. “What’s wrong, Southern belle, have you led such a sheltered life?”

She swallowed. “Yes.” She studied his hard face. “Yours hasn’t been sheltered.”

“That’s right,” he told her. “I could turn your hair white with the story of my life. Especially,” he added deliberately, unblinkingly, “the part of it that concerns women.”

Her eyes dilated as they held his. “You…aren’t a romantic.”

He shook his head slowly. “No,” he said quietly. “Occasionally I need a woman, the oblivion of sex. But that’s all it ever is. Sex, with no illusions.”

Her eyes searched his, reading embarrassing things in them. “There’s a reason,” she said softly, knowingly.

He nodded. “I was twenty-four. She was twenty-eight, wildly experienced, and as beautiful as a goddess. She seduced me on the deck of a yacht, and after that I’d have died for her. But she was expensive, and I was besotted, and eventually I sold everything I had to buy her loyalty.” His eyes darkened, went cold with memory and rage as Dani watched. “I’d helped buy my parents a small home for their retirement with money I…earned,” 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 body, talking in its bronzed sensuousness, the light covering of dark blond hair on his chest, his rippling stomach muscles, his strongly muscled thighs. He even had nice feet. And his legs weren’t pale, as most American men’s were. They were broad and dark, and looked good.

“I like your legs, too,” he murmured.

She glanced back up. “Do you mind?” she asked gently. “I know I’m gawking like a schoolgirl.”

“You’re very honest, aren’t you?” he remarked for the second time that day. “It’s vaguely disconcerting. No, I don’t mind if you look at me. Except that it—”

“It…?” she persisted.

“Arouses me,” he said frankly.

“Just to be looked at?” she asked, fascinated.

He smiled a little. “Maybe it’s my age,” he said with a shrug. “You have very expressive eyes, did you know? They tell me everything you’re thinking.”

“Do they really?” She laughed, looking up at him. “What am I thinking now?” she asked, her mind carefully blank.

He pursed his lips and smiled slowly, and she felt a deep, slow ache in her body that was intensified when she looked at the broad sweep of his chest.

“That you’d like to have dinner with me,” he hedged. “How about it?”

“Yes. I’d like to. If you won’t seduce me for dessert,” she added.

He sighed softly. “I’d like to have you,” he confessed. “But I couldn’t quite take you in my stride, either. A virgin would be something of a rarity for me. Most of my one-night stands have been the exact opposite of virgins.”

She tried not to blush, but her cheeks betrayed her.

He searched her eyes. “I wouldn’t hurt you,” he said suddenly. “And with you, it would have to be lovemaking, not sex.”

Her body felt boneless as he searched her eyes, and there was a flash of something like tenderness in the look he gave her. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Why?”

She dropped her eyes to his chest. “Because I think…I’d have liked you…for a lover.”

“Yes, I think I’d have liked you for one,” he agreed softly. He tilted her face back to his and searched her eyes. “Wrong time, wrong place. We should have met ten years ago.”

She smiled ruefully. “You wouldn’t have liked me at sixteen,” she said. “I really was twenty pounds overweight.”

He drew in a slow breath. “And I was in the early days of some pretty raw living,” he agreed. “What a pity.” He lifted her hand and kissed the soft palm, watching her face color with pleasure. “How long will you be here?”

“Four days,” she said miserably.

His teeth bit into the soft flesh. “Make some memories with me,” he whispered.

“That will only make it worse…” she began.

“We’ll keep it light,” he said. “I won’t seduce you.”

“By tomorrow I’ll probably beg you to,” she said unhappily, studying him with helpless longing. “I’m frighteningly vulnerable with you.”

His eyes went along her body and he felt himself going rigid with desire. “Yes. I’m pretty vulnerable myself.”

She had to force her eyes to stay on his face, and he smiled wickedly, knowing exactly what she was thinking.

He laughed and she rolled over onto her stomach again.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured as he stretched out beside her. “I’ll take care of you. Don’t sweat it.”

She turned her eyes toward his and searched them, and then she smiled. “You’re so handsome,” she whispered helplessly.

“You’re a knockout yourself,” he said. “Flat-chested, hell.” He laughed. “You’re dynamite!”