[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
“I haven’t made love like this since I was sixteen,” he murmured against her hair.
“But…I mean, isn’t this usually…” she tried to put the question into words foggily.
He chuckled tenderly. “If you were any other woman, I’d have half your clothes off by now,” he said
matter-of-factly.
“Russell Currie!” she gasped.
“Relax,” he whispered, amusement making his voice sound like silk. “Just relax. It’s not going that far
with us. I can’t risk it. A few kisses, little saint, that’s all I want. It would make vacations here
unbearable if we went any further, and you know it.”
“Would it?”
He took her face in his big hands and held it while his mouth explored hers in a long, slow, hungry
kiss that never seemed to end. The tenderness in it brought tears to her eyes when she opened them
and looked up at him.
“Russ,” she whispered brokenly, drowning in the anguish of leaving him, of loving him.
“Oh, Russ, I love you so much, so very much! I…”
He pressed a long, hard finger against her lips and something in his eyes flashed like brown lightning.
“Don’t say it,” he said tightly. “Not like that!”
“But, I do, I…” she whispered feverishly.
He dragged himself away from her and stood up, pausing to light a cigarette as he stared down into
the flames. “I know,” he said finally. “I’ve known for a long time. It’s one reason I’ve kept ripping at
your temper, little girl. I told you once before there was no future in it, and I wasn’t kidding.”
She stared down at the softness of the shag rug, clutching it with her fingers as she felt her pride fall
away. “I didn’t know about Lisa, if that’s why…”
“Good God, I knew that!” he exploded. “I knew it the moment you saw her. Nothing you said could
have disguised that look in your eyes. No, Tish, it’s not Lisa. Not directly anyway.”
His eyes swept over her where she lay on the rug, and he tore them away with a muffled curse. “Will
you please, for God’s sake, sit up?” he growled.
The whip of his voice brought her into a sitting position, snapping at her frayed nerves. “I’m sorry,”
she murmured. “I…I guess I had too much to drink, I didn’t mean to…”
“There are fifteen years between us, damn it!” he said harshly, his eyes narrow and hot and hurting,
although she didn’t see that with her eyes downcast. “Fifteen years, Tish—a generation. You’ve been
a baby until this year, and you’ve only grown up because of what I’ve taught you to feel. But that isn’t
the kind of love you need from a man; it’s not even love, Tish, it’s just…”
“Don’t,” she whispered, sick with embarrassment, humiliation.
He shrugged. “Well,” he sighed, “you get the drift, don’t you? You’re not old enough or sophisticated
enough for me, little one. It wouldn’t work. You just…want me.”
She got to her feet. “I’m sorry if I’ve embarrassed you,” she said with what quiet dignity she could
muster, her voice soft with hurt. “It won’t ever happen again.”
Her eyes misted as she went to the door, knowing that if she forgot everything else, she’d never get
over those minutes in his hard arms when her age hadn’t seemed to matter to him….
“Tish…” he said in a strained, tight voice.
“It’s all right,” she managed in a calm voice. “Like you said, it was just…physical. Good night,
Russell.”
“God in heaven! Tish!” he called after her.
But she was out the door and running, and she didn’t stop until she got to the head of the stairs.
Life in the dorm was chaotic, but Tish shuffled back into the routine with a brittle fervor.
And if her eyes looked haunted or her thinness gave away the sleepless nights, her friends put it down
to the pressure of hard work.
Lillian wanted to know all about Frank, all about the farm, all about the vacation, and Tish answered
her petite blue-eyed roommate with quiet enthusiasm.
Lillian had a new boyfriend who played the bagpipes in a band and worked at a restaurant off
campus. It made Tish even lonelier at night when she studied while Lillian was out. Even the friendly
banter of the other girls and the nonsense that was constantly being carried on didn’t soothe her
lacerated feelings.
She could still see Russell the way he’d looked when she left that morning: dark-eyed, quiet, vaguely
angry. She hadn’t met his eyes. That hadn’t been possible. She said the conventional words, ignored
Lisa’s tears as she hugged the child, and rode away toward the airport in a fog of pain.
Baker, Mindy, and Eileen seemed to sense that something was very wrong between her and Russell,
but they were kind enough not to pump her.
The weeks had passed quickly, despite the killing hunger that hadn’t given her a day’s peace. Mindy
wrote, but her letters conspicuously didn’t mention Russell. And when Tish wrote back, she didn’t,
either. She hadn’t given any indication that living without him was like walking around dead, although
it felt like it. If only she could forget…!
“There’s somebody downstairs,” Lillian broke into her thoughts.
“What?” Tish asked, looking up from her English composition book.
“A man,” Lillian said excitedly. “And what a man! Tish, you’ve been holding out on me! If I’d known
Frank Tyler was that good looking, I’d have gone to the coast with you!”
Frank? Here? With a dejected sigh, Tish closed the book, pulled off her gown and threw on a pair of
slacks and a white sweater. She paused to run a brush through her long hair, leaving her face bare of
makeup, and went downstairs. She couldn’t imagine why Frank would come all this way, unless he
was in town on business and just dropped by to…
Her gasp was audible. She was at the foot of the stairs, and he was the only one in the living room.
But he wasn’t Frank. He was too tall, and his shoulders were too broad, and his hair was too black.
He turned and looked with eyes she could barely meet, so brown and dark and strange that they made
her heart run away.
She forced her feet to move and joined him in the spacious living room, stopping several feet away.
“Hello, Russell,” she said in a tight, polite voice. “How nice to see you.”
His eyes studied her wan face and grew narrower by the minute. He looked older, himself.
And different, somehow. Lonely…
“Lisa misses you,” he said quietly.
“I miss her, too.” She swallowed nervously. “Would you like to sit down…”
“Oh, God, Tish,” he whispered huskily, “come here!”
His arms caught her roughly, slamming her against his hard body, his head bending to hers,
“Tish…”
His mouth opened on hers, hurting, bruising, his arms cruel as he stilled her feeble struggles, his
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]