Can’t Say No

Chapter Seven

Still seated on the ground, Hart wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes. Leaning back on his elbows, his mouth twisted in a lopsided grin as Bree hovered menacingly over him. “Honey, you’re talking!”

She was so mad she was shaking, words tumbling out like spilled rusty nails. “How many women do you have up there anyway? Thousands? If you think you’re camping out here again tonight, you’d just better not count those chickens, Manning. You wouldn’t be welcome here if I were a ninety-year-old virgin. I’ll sleep in the same room with you again when hell freezes over. You wouldn’t know a moral if you were painted with them. You-”

“Keep it up,” Hart encouraged. “You’re doing terrific, Bree.” He leaped to his feet, grinning hugely. Upright, he let out one more exultant whoop of laughter and started stalking toward her. “Honey, you’re talking!”

Bree was not to be diverted. “You wouldn’t know a principle if it shot you between the eyes. You have the sensitivity of an ox. Insensitive? Dammit, you’ve been cruel. You’re cruel and you’re pigheaded-”

“You did it, honey! You finally did it!” With another bellow of laughter, Hart tugged off his jacket, balled it up as if it weren’t the most luxurious Italian linen Bree had ever seen and hurled it at the moon.

She lost a little of her momentum, having completely run out of breath and being slightly stunned to see his expensive jacket decorating a bush at the edge of the woods. When she glanced back to him, her eyes narrowed warily and she folded her arms protectively across her chest. He was advancing very slowly, with a devilish grin that boded trouble for her sanity. She backed up a step. And then another. “Hart. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but don’t.”

“You, lady, owe me a thank-you.”

“A thank-you!” she sputtered incredulously. “All you’ve done since I’ve met you is interfere and order me around and act like a patronizing, chauvinistic-”

“Hey. You’re talking, aren’t you?”

Actually, she was still retreating, until the back of her skirt rubbed against the porch step. Her tormentor continued to stalk. She put out her hands in a gesture pleading for mercy that would have made a hardened criminal turn chivalrous. Hart kept coming. “Now just listen-”

He raised his arms, clearly with every intention of snatching her. She ducked before he could and, grabbing her skirts so she wouldn’t trip, darted out of his reach and down the porch steps. She lost a boot in the process. Feeling like a perfect fool, she raced across the grass and promptly lost the other boot. She had more speed barefoot, but when she glanced over her shoulder, Hart was gaining on her. “Listen. We’re two grown people, for heaven’s sake. You behave-”

“You stand still.”

Maybe when it snowed in June. Bree ducked and circled and dodged, moonlight streaming through her hair and her heart pounding. Hart might be a powerhouse, but she was faster. The chase sent an exhilarating high through her blood; she felt as if she’d just showered in champagne. It was so silly, so childish…

And when Hart snaked an arm around her waist from behind, she collapsed on the grass-not because he’d used any force, but because she couldn’t continue to run, she was laughing so hard.

They lay sprawled within feet of each other on Bree’s haphazardly mowed grass. Hart’s chest was heaving as hard as hers; his roars of exultant laughter filled the night. His husky chuckles were catching-worse than chicken pox, Bree thought wildly, but he was so crazy, and she felt such deep, endless relief that her speech had returned, and the night was sultry and warm, with no one around-

And she was totally unprepared when Hart’s hands sneaked across and grabbed her. One minute she was flat on the grass, and the next she was sprawled in an ungainly mass on Hart’s belly.

The sudden midnight gleam in his eyes filled her vision, and then cool, smooth lips rubbed at first gently on hers, then settled in like a famished man for a Christmas feast.

Bree made a muffled, startled sound. Hart ignored it. Silence suddenly vibrated through the night. Then in the distance, an owl hooted and the wind restlessly whispered through the new green leaves, but there was really just Hart, the sound of his uneven breathing. The sound of hers.

A dozen things made it difficult for her to regain her common sense. The grass, for instance. The sweet smell of grass and earth surrounded her. And other things also interfered with her mental functioning. Hart’s breath smelled like peppermint-she could taste it. She could taste the whispers in the woods. Really, she could. And her hair was all tangled in Hart’s hands, curling around his fingers, and her eyelids were suddenly too heavy to stay open. And his mouth…his mouth was the real reason she couldn’t move. His lips were slanted over hers, greedily sapping her common sense, making tender, wooing, teasing promises…

All blood drained to her toes and was replaced by warm whipped cream.

“So sweet, Bree…so sweet.” Shards of moonlight gleamed in Hart’s eyes as he tilted his head back. He just looked at her.

Only the way he looked at her made her skin flush. And her skin was already so hot she was plenty flushed. “Listen,” she said vaguely.

“Not just this minute, honey.” He bent to place a row of kisses, a very neatly aligned row, from the tip of her ear, down the vulnerable cord of her throat. Along the neckline of the peasant blouse. One finger slipped the blouse off her shoulder. His other hand was sliding up the calico skirt, from calf, to knee, to thigh, to…

“Hart.”

“Busy,” he murmured.

An understatement. Bree’s fingers tangled in his hair when his chin nudged the peasant blouse on the swell of her breast. She sucked in a shallow breath. Hart…knew what he was doing.

A rush of sheer hot-blooded lust cascaded through her bloodstream. Lust was just the kind of feeling that Bree had always avoided. Lust was sort of an animalistic craving; it was depraved, immoral, don’t-care-about-tomorrow, wicked.

Exactly the way she felt. Good old responsible Bree was deserting ship, and the waters were very deep, very dark, lusciously inviting. It was really all Hart’s fault. By rights he should have been a selfish, take-her-quick kind of lover. Instead, he was clearly trying to make her believe he’d never encountered a breast before.

He traced with a fingertip. He explored with his lips. Then his tongue. He fitted the orb in his hand; he rubbed the tip with his thumb; he took the tip in his mouth and sucked and lapped until-for absolutely no good reason, except that she’d never considered doing it before-she ducked her head and softly bit him on the neck.

Hart chuckled. “You like it just a little bit rough, Bree?”

Before she could breathe, he’d wrapped his arms around her and they were rolling, over and over, down the slope of the spongy lawn. Grass caressed her back, then caressed his. Moonlight played in her eyes, then his. Even as they tumbled, his lips claimed hers with a fierce, sweet pressure; their legs tangled and for seconds at a time she felt the intimate weight of him, the power of him, the man of him.

She breathed in that scent of danger, but there was no time. Roughly, swiftly, his hands were possessively traveling over spine and bottom and thighs; her heart was racing, racing…A shocking little tap on her bottom was followed by a soothing circular rub of apology. Breathless, they suddenly rolled to a stop. Bree was on top of him, her breasts crushed against his white shirt. She was breathless and dizzy and as on fire as she could ever remember.

And Hart’s eyes were open, a half smile on his lips. “And sometimes do you like it just a little bit soft, Bree?”

He pressed a kiss on her forehead, as soft as a butterfly and slower than a languid awakening from sleep on a winter’s day. Two more kisses settled on her eyelids, closing them effectively. Hart shifted, cradling her as he turned her on her side, his lips moving in slow motion, tenderly teasing, savoring. Very gently, he claimed her hand and coaxed it down to his thigh. Very gently, his palm glided over her stomach and ribs, pausing to cover and knead a breast, treating the swollen flesh as though it were infinitely fragile, infinitely precious. Very gently he kissed her nose, her lips, her hair, and traveled down to the nape of her neck. Her heart pounded, not gently at all.

“Tell me,” he murmured gruffly. “Tell me, Bree.”

She buried her face in the column of his neck, pressing kiss after kiss in the open throat of his shirt as she unbuttoned it. Her fingers were awkward, trembling still from the intimate contact with his hard manhood, sheathed not very effectively in his suit pants. Rock would have been softer. And the thought of him inside her sent shivers of anticipation up her spine.

Maybe she was stark raving out of her mind. But if she was…it had to be with Hart. No one else. Not like this. Ever, ever, ever…

“Tell me,” he repeated.

She felt as if he were depriving her of life, when he shifted back from her and stood up. With a small smile, he tugged at her hands and drew her up in front of him. Not the wisest of moves. Her legs were Silly Putty. And her leaning up against him didn’t make removing her blouse any easier for him. Seconds later, the delicate fabric lay in a soft white puddle on the grass. Warm night air whispered over her bare skin. Hart dipped down to taste her moonlight-bathed shoulders. And neck. And throat. She tossed her head back restlessly.

“Now, Bree.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

“It isn’t rational,” she said desperately, her eyes raised to his. “You want me to pretend there haven’t been moments when I…” Her voice broke. “I’m not sure I like you, Hart.”

“Honey.” There was patience in his tone, but his voice was strained, and husky to the point of hoarseness. “You’ve got…maybe…ten seconds to tell me what you want.”

“I…”

“You want me to walk away, Bree?”

He would; she could hear it in his voice. And Bree knew exactly what he wanted to hear. She’d sent him all the yeses in body language; it wasn’t enough. Hart just wasn’t the type to settle for stainless when he could have sterling.

Really, he was despicable.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Can’t hear you.”

“Yes,” she whispered more clearly.

“Can’t hear you.”

“Hart, I want you!” she yelled irritably. “Do I have to shout it from the rooftops?”

Hart leaned back and offered her a very quick, very wicked grin. “Yes,” he whispered.

An instant later, he swung her up into his strong arms; his lips stayed crushed on hers as he carried her across the yard to the porch. The citronella candles flickered; she remembered that later. She remembered the look of Hart as he shed his clothes, as he fetched the sleeping bag from the grass where she’d thrown it earlier. She remembered the terrible attack of trembling she had when he finally stole all of her clothes. It wasn’t…that simple. She’d never played around.

You’d think he knew.

He was flame to her fluttering moth. He tempted her with the light, with the warmth, with the fire, never pressing. It was her choice, to mold herself closer to him. Her choice to touch him, to open for him, to invite him intimately inside her, to risk the aching fear that he would take her high but no higher. It was Hart’s choice to make intimacy natural between them, to ensure that she didn’t come back from the skies until she was exhausted, and sated, and flushed, and damp all over, and…so exhilaratingly well loved that there were tears in her eyes.

The two candles flickered in the darkness. Beyond their corner of the porch, there was another world, ominously black, filled with leaf rustlings and shadows and the occasional shine of small eyes in the woods. On the porch, wrapped up in Hart’s arms with the sleeping bag for a mattress, bare as a baby and utterly safe, lay Bree, her cheek resting on his shoulder.

Hart wasn’t sleeping, but his eyes were closed. Bree kept stealing glances up at him. His chest hair was a wiry blond mat, circling his navel and stretching up over his heart. His shoulders were golden; strong ribs, flat stomach…his thighs were muscular, and when the composite was put together, the label was man. A very powerfully built man, and even an exceptionally handsome man, but still just…man.

There was nothing to explain why that specific body next to her had turned her into a wanton, wild creature of the senses, capable of intense, uninhibited pleasure. Or why she felt comfortable with him now, when she knew darn well she should be reading herself a riot act of guilt, reproaches, shame and disgust.

Thoughts whirling in her head, she spread a hand on his chest and watched the long blond strands of hair curl around her fingers. “Hart.”

“Hmm.”

“I don’t want an affair.”

His lips brushed her forehead. “Your voice is still coming out a little rusty, but it’s sexy as all hell. Or is it always that way?”

She cleared her throat deliberately. Hart chuckled. “I mean it,” she said firmly.

He shifted to his side, nuzzling his lips sleepily around the shell of her ear, letting one hand run lazily down the length of her. “You know, I was beginning to worry about you. On the nontalking business. I figured maybe when you ran out of plates to throw, you’d have to come through with a little verbal exchange, but you were so stubborn…”

“Stubborn? I only came here because I was supposed to get heaps of rest and recuperation-”

“Who said?”

“After five million doctors said…don’t, Hart.”

“What do they know?” Paying no attention to her batting hand, he leaned over to run his tongue over the raspberry tip of her breast. He watched as the nipple responsively hardened and tightened before his dark eyes traveled back up to hers. “They know nothing that matters about you, honey. Nothing.”

She sucked in a little extra oxygen, her lungs seeming to need it. “You’re not listening,” she accused him.

“Sure I am.”

“I don’t just…race into relationships. And I certainly don’t-”

“Sleep around?” he supplied.

For two cents, she would have wiped the small smile off his lips with a scrub brush. Instead, she buried her head in his shoulder and closed her eyes. “It’s not as if you don’t have plenty of options besides me,” she said dryly, thinking of the harem she’d seen through her telescope. Not to mention whomever he’d worn the cream linen suit to dinner for.

“That sounds reminiscent of ‘pick on someone your own size,’” he said gravely. “Or else it’s a subtle inquiry as to how involved I am with other women at the moment. Honesty’s easier, Bree, but I’ll try to read your mind. I went to dinner with an old man named Reninger, a friend of my father from way back. He’s about four feet eleven, seventy-three if a day, and couldn’t conceivably turn me on in a bikini. I had a gift for him, some jade carvings. That should settle your doubts about this evening, but if you want a catalog of the women I’ve slept with over the years-”

“You know, I may kill you yet. Every time you open your mouth, I feel the general urge. That’s part of the problem. You don’t sleep with people you want to murder.”

“Is that a new American proverb? Maybe a potential slogan for a bumper sticker?”

“How do you want to go? Boiled in oil? Voodoo? A simple drowning?”

“Such talk. And I haven’t yet heard my thank-you for getting you to talk.”

“I beg your pardon. If you think you deserve an ounce of credit for that, when all you’ve done since I’ve met you is push and patronize and-”

“And it all worked. I want my thank-you.” He leaned over her. The pads of his thumbs caressed her cheeks; the weight of his chest crushed her breasts. He planted one heavy thigh between hers, pinning her beneath him. “I think,” he murmured, “I want you now, Bree. One of Manning’s oldest maxims-Never hesitate even a minute to go after what you want in life. And there is no question how much I want you. There hasn’t been from the moment I laid eyes on you.”

His mouth pounced…but slowly. Bree’s hands fluttered aimlessly for a minute or two, and then she gave in, her hands climbing up his arms to his shoulders, holding on. Hart was an unpredictable carnival ride. She had the terrible feeling it was useless to ask to get off halfway around.

Even worse, she knew she didn’t really want to get off. One more round of insanity, Bree…

“You’re going to have to open your eyes sooner or later, honey.”

By moving an inch and a half, Bree managed to bury the rest of her head under the pillow. Until the pillow was removed. And the comforter was slowly tugged down from her shoulders to the middle of her spine to her waist. She had to open her eyes then, to grab it.

Blinding morning sunlight made her blink as she snatched the comforter away from him and tucked it around her again, glanced at the clock on her bedside table and shook her head at Hart. “You have something against sleep, don’t you? I haven’t had one eight-hour night since I ran into you.”

“But for very good reason last night, Bree. You’re not having a hard time facing me this morning, are you?”

She opened her mouth, ready with a quick denial, then abruptly closed it. She wasn’t having a hard time facing him. She was having a terrible time facing him, which was why she’d been feigning sleep for the better part of an hour.

Through shuttered lashes, she cast a frantic glance at the wardrobe, several feet away. There was no way to get from point A to point B modestly, primarily because the sheet just wasn’t going to stretch that far and she wasn’t wearing a stitch.

Hart wasn’t either. He was standing stark naked, with one of those lazy smiles on his face…but it was the dark blue depths in his eyes that made her feel vulnerable. She couldn’t read his expression, and she was just coming to understand that Hart wasn’t at all the man he let on he was. The public Hart was a heartless, insensitive, macho-type nuisance. Now that she had her tongue back, she felt reasonably confident that she could handle that side of him. The private Hart, she was increasingly afraid, was dangerous.

He knew a lot about women, far too much about her in particular, and had a gift for making a woman feel loved-but Bree knew better.

He didn’t love her, and she couldn’t possibly love him. And if he’d been any kind of gentleman, he would have stolen away at dawn so she could now face alone the mountains of guilt and self-reproach for her abandoned behavior the night before. You don’t sleep with a man you barely know. You don’t start relationships with womanizers. You don’t play with a man you’re not even absolutely sure you like…but seem to have embarrassingly fallen in love with.

“One does get the feeling you’re not used to waking up with a lover in your bed,” he said mildly.

“Nonsense. I’ve done this hundreds of times.” Making up her mind to put a good face on the lie, Bree bounced airily out of bed, her eyes staring at the wardrobe so she wouldn’t have to look at him. How did other women face these mornings after the night before, anyway?

“Hundreds?”

A flush crawled up her cheeks. “Maybe thousands. As I’m sure you have.” Faster than the speed of light, she dragged a thin cotton robe around her and belted it. Courageously, she faced him then, and like a coward she whipped her eyes away. To be fair, he wasn’t standing there like a seductive Viking by choice; all his clothes were outside. On the lawn. Strewn. “I’m going to have to find something for you to put on,” she said flatly.

He snuck up behind her while she was leaning into the wardrobe, trying to find something-anything-he could wear. She felt his palm on her spine like the stroke of a feather, soothing and quiet. “Bree.”

“What?” she said distractedly.

“Stop being so nervous. I won’t bite. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. And nothing’s going to happen that you don’t want. Ever. Not with me.”

In spite of herself, she felt the flush on her cheeks recede. Her heartbeat even pounded out a more normal rhythm. “I’ll get you some breakfast,” she said swiftly, and bolted for the loft steps, deciding to let him worry about what he could find to wear.

By the time he came downstairs, she’d brushed her hair and teeth, had placed two bowls at the kitchen table, and had stopped yawning every third second from a severe attack of nervousness. Hart strode right by her and went outside, returning seconds later wearing his suit pants and nothing else.

There was something terribly decadent about a man wearing five-hundred-dollar pants and no shoes. Except decadent wasn’t the word. Sexy was. When he dropped to the kitchen chair and glanced up at Bree with a lazy grin, she could feel her heart plump down to her stomach, and some hot-blooded memories that she was trying to forget flooded through her. So he’d been an outstanding lover. So no one else had ever made her feel that way. So?

She plunked a spoon down in front of him.

“Are you going to let me help make breakfast?” he asked calmly.

“No help is required. You don’t think you’re getting anything more than Corn Flakes, do you?” She took a breath. “Which reminds me. I hate Corn Flakes. You can cart all of the purchases you made up to your place, and those that I’ve used up I’ll pay you for.”

“What’s wrong, Bree?”

His baritone had that…implacable tone, misleadingly gentle and coaxing. She slipped into the chair opposite him. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“The lady sounds as prickly as a hedgehog, but her fingers are trembling and her eyes have the look of a wounded fawn again.” Quietly he added, “Did I hurt you?”

She reached for the pitcher of milk. A drop or two spilled as she tried to pour it into her bowl of Corn Flakes; Hart had a napkin, waiting for her. She set down the pitcher. “Look. I just feel…” She hesitated. For an instant, she felt lost, staring into a pair of dark blue eyes that rested on hers as though they loved the fragile quality in her face. “I don’t want you to think I’m making too much of this,” she said uncomfortably. “I mean, people do this kind of thing all the time without-”

“Without what?”

“Without…” She motioned helplessly with her hands, having completely forgotten what she meant to say. “Anyway, last night is hardly likely to repeat itself. I really don’t know what got into me-”

“I do.”

She flushed to the roots of her hair. “Hart-”

“It was the most special night I can ever remember. You were beautiful, Bree. A beautiful, loving, giving, passionate woman. You’ve got spirit and humor, and I haven’t the least idea what you’ve been running from-but you don’t have to run from anything. You’ve got the strength to carry you-you just need someone to tease it out of you once in a while. And last night was not a one-night stand, so quit trying to make it sound like one.”

She was staring at him, a jumble of words jammed in the back of her throat all trying to get out at once, when there was a knock on the door.

It opened. A familiar face peered in first, a woman with faintly graying auburn hair tied back in a loose bun, a soft tentative smile and worried lines on her forehead. Behind her was another familiar face. The man was just short of six feet, with steel-and-charcoal hair and a slight paunch, and in addition to a wrinkled cotton shirt, he was wearing a scowl.

Bree lurched up from her chair. “Mom! Dad! What a surprise!” she said weakly.