Texas Proud and Circle of Gold (Long, Tall Texans #52) - Diana Palmer Page 0,62
will probably hurt.”
“I don’t...care,” she said unsteadily.
He kissed her softly, and his hand went under the band of her slacks, under her briefs. She caught his wrist, embarrassed.
He lifted his head. “You have to let me do this,” he whispered, his voice shaken. “I have to know how careful I need to be with you. Okay?”
She bit her lip. “I’ve never...”
“I know that. But you belong to me.”
She let her body relax, let the hardness of him fit against her so that it was heaven to feel. “Yes,” she said, her voice tender, her eyes wide and rapt on his taut face.
His hand smoothed over her belly and he thought of a baby who would look like her or like himself. He had something to use, but he didn’t want to use it. And he didn’t want to take her here in a rush, the way he’d taken women in his youth. She would need time, lots of time, and he couldn’t give it to her if they went too far.
His fingers moved down. She hesitated and tightened as he suddenly began to probe where she was most a woman. She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood as he explored her intimately. Even loving him as she did, it was hard to give up control to another person.
He whispered, almost groaning as he drew his fingers back and smoothed them over her stomach, “It will hurt like hell, and I’m not sure I could even get through the barrier, you understand?”
“Oh!” She winced.
“Sorry.” He rolled over onto his side and pulled her into his arms, grinding her breasts into his chest. “No, I’m sorry. I never meant to take it this far.” His arms contracted. “God, Bernie, I want to get you pregnant so badly...!”
He kissed her shocked mouth and groaned again as he pushed her hips closer to his. “I want you. I want to go inside you, so deep, so hard, that you’ll shoot up like a rocket!”
She flushed under the pressure of his hard mouth, moaning as she felt him move her rhythmically against his hips. “I’m so sorry...”
He managed a husky laugh. “Think of it as a chastity belt. It will keep me in line until we can make things legal.”
She hid her face against his throat. Make it legal. Could he mean that he wanted to marry her? She was so entranced that she didn’t even hear footsteps in the hall.
Neither did Mikey, who was kissing her as if he couldn’t manage to stop.
The hard, insistent knock on the door and the rattling of the locked doorknob broke them apart.
“Supper!” Sari called.
Mikey laughed. “Okay! We’ll be right there.”
“I have a master key, you know. It fits all the locks,” Sari threatened.
Bernie went beet-red. Mikey just chuckled. “We’re behaving, starting right now!”
There was a laugh outside the door. “Fair warning. Five minutes and I unlock the door.”
“Got it!” Mikey called.
Footsteps retreated.
Mikey took one long, last look at Bernie’s half-nude body and groaned. “I hate dressing you,” he muttered, as he refastened her bra and pulled her blouse down.
“I hate dressing you, too,” she teased as she buttoned his shirt again. “I love the way you look undressed.”
“Yeah. I feel exactly the same way about you.”
“You’re not upset by what I told you?” she asked, worried.
He cocked his head and stared at her. “I’ve done things almost as bad as your grandfather,” he said flatly. “I can’t sit in judgment on somebody else. Not my business. But now that you know what my business is,” he added quietly, “you have to decide if you can live with it. There’s no way I’ll give it up. I can’t. It’s for life.”
She was beginning to realize that even though he ran an honest gaming hotel in Las Vegas, he was firmly entrenched with a group that routinely broke the law. He could go to prison in certain circumstances. She’d have to be in the company of people who thought of crime as a way of life, an occupation. She’d be the outsider. Would the women in his organization hate her? And what about the women he’d had before her? Would they be around? Would they be like Jessie and make her life miserable?
“Deep thoughts, huh?” he asked quietly.
“Very deep.” She drew in a breath. “Mikey, I’m not like you. I don’t even jaywalk. My great-grandfather was a United States Marshal. I have a cousin who’s a Texas Ranger. Law enforcement runs through my whole family.”