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  Funny that he hadn't let himself remember those words until today. Barrie was pregnant and she'd cried that she'd had to marry Dawson because of it. If she hadn't said that, he'd never have gone out the door. Ironic that her own mother had said the same thing about her, he thought, recalling what she'd told him in Tucson. Maybe women didn't really want babies at all except as a means of torturing men and making them feel guilty. He wondered if that thought was quite coherent.

  He sprawled on the luxurious sofa in the sitting room, remembering other things, remembering Barrie's soft skin under his, her sweet cries of passion as he drove her into the carpet beneath the heated thrust of his body. He groaned aloud as the memory of the ecstasy she'd given him poured into his mind and made him shiver. Could he live without ever again knowing that pleasure, regardless of the price?

  His eyes closed as he lay back. He could always turn out the lights, he thought with dry humor. Then she couldn't look at him. It wouldn't matter if she heard him. He'd hear her, too. She was none too quiet when they made love. His eyes blazed with feeling as he recalled her own shocked pleasure that morning on the carpet. She'd known only pain from him before. He'd taught her that she could expect far more than that.

  She'd said she loved him. Good God, how could she love him, when he kept pushing her away? Why couldn't he accept her love, why couldn't he accept his own addiction to her? She was pregnant, and he'd left her in Sheridan on their wedding day out of nothing more than cold fear because he... because he...

  He opened his eyes and took a slow, painful breath. Because he loved her. There. He couldn't admit it to her, but he couldn't hide it from himself. He loved her. He'd loved her since she was sixteen, since she'd given him a silver mouse on his birthday. He'd loved her in France, hated himself for taking advantage of what she felt for him in an attempt to deny that love. But it had grown and grown until it consumed him. He couldn't get rid of it. He couldn't stop. He couldn't give in to it. What was he going to do?

  Well, he thought as he managed to get to his feet, there was one thing he could do. He could have a drink, and then he was going to call Barrie and set her straight on a few things!

  Barrie was surprised when she heard Dawson's thick voice on the telephone. She hadn't really expected him to call after the furious way he'd left. She'd spent the rest of the day alternately crying and cursing, while Corlie did her best to comfort and reassure her. She'd gone to bed early, sick and disappointed because her new husband couldn't even stand to be in the same house with her. And after the tenderness she'd felt in him in Tucson, too. It had been utter devastation.

  Now, here he was on the phone trying to talk to her, and unless she missed her guess, he was blind, stinking drunk!

  "Did you hear me?" he demanded. "I said, from now on, we're only going to make love in the dark!''

  "I don't mind," she said, confused.

  "I didn't ask if you minded," he muttered. "And you can't look at me while we do it."

  "It would never occur to me," she said placatingly.

  "And don't say you own me. You don't own me. No woman is going to own me."

  "Dawson, I never said that."

  "You said I belonged to you. I'm not a dog. Did you hear me?"

  "Yes, I heard you." She smiled to herself at his efforts to enunciate properly. The anguish and disappointment of the afternoon had vanished as he poured out his deepest fears without even realizing it. It was a fascinating glimpse at the real man, without the mask.

  "I don't belong to you," he continued. He felt hot. He pushed back his hair. He was sweating. Maybe he should turn on the air conditioner. If he could only find it. He bumped into the table and almost upset the lamp. In the tangle, he dropped the phone.

  "Dawson?" Barrie called, concerned when she heard the crash.

  There were muttered, half-incoherent curses and a scrambling sound as he retrieved the receiver. "I walked into the table. And don't laugh!"

  "Oh, I wouldn't dream of it," she assured him.

  "I can't find the air conditioner. It must be in this room somewhere. How the hell can they hide something that big?"

  She almost lost it then. She had to stifle a burst of laughter. "Look under the window," she instructed.

  "What window? Oh, that one. Okay."

  There was another pause and some odd sounds, followed by a curse and a thud. "I think I turned on the heat," he said. "It's hot in here."

  "You might call housekeeping and ask them to check," she said hesitantly.

  "Check what?"

  "The air conditioner."

  "I already checked it," he muttered. "It's under the window."

  She wasn't going to argue. "Did you see the bull?" she asked.

  "What bull?" There was a pause. "Listen, there's no bull in here, are you crazy? This is a hotel!"

  By now, Barrie was rolling on the floor.

  "Are you laughing?" he asked furiously.

  "No," She choked. "I have a cough. I'm coughing." She coughed.

  There was another pause. "I was going to tell you something," he said, trying to focus. "Oh, I remember. Listen here, Barrie, I can live without sex. I don't even need it."

  "Yes, Dawson," she agreed gently.

  "But if you want to sleep with me, you can," he continued generously.

  "Yes, I would like that, very much," she said.

  He cleared his throat. "You would?"

  "I love sleeping with you," she said softly.

  He cleared his throat again. "Oh," he said after a minute.

  The opportunity was too good to miss. He was talking to her as if he'd had truth serum. "Dawson," she began carefully, "why did you go to California?"

  "So I wouldn't make love to you," he said drowsily. "I didn't want you to see... how much I wanted to. How much I cared."

  Her heart began to swell, to lift, to soar. "I love you," she whispered.

  He sucked in a sharp breath. "I know. I love you, too," he said drowsily. "Love you... so much. So much, Barrie, so much, so much...!" He swallowed. He couldn't quite talk.

  Which was just as well, because Barrie was as speechless as he was. She gripped the receiver like a life jacket, staring into space with her heart in her mouth. "But I don't want you to know it," he continued quite clearly. "Because women like having weapons. You can't know how I feel, Barrie," he continued. "You'd torment me with it, just like your mother tormented George because he wanted her so much."

  She felt the pain right down to her toes. She'd never known these things about Dawson.

  "Listen, I have to go to bed now," he said. He frowned, trying to remember something. "I can't remember why I called you."

  "That's all right, darling," she said softly. "It doesn't matter."

  "Darling," he repeated slowly. He took a heavy breath. "You don't know how it hurts when you call me 'darling.' I'm buried inside myself. I can't dig my way out. I miss you," he whispered, his voice husky and deep. "You don't know how much. Good night... sweetheart."

  The line went dead. Barrie stayed on it, waiting. After a minute the switchboard came on the line. She heard the operator's voice with a sense of fate. She smiled.

  "May I help you?" the operator repeated.

  ' 'Yes, you may. Can you tell me how to get to your hotel?"

  Corlie muttered all the way to the airport in Sheridan, but she was smiling just the same. She put Barrie on the commuter flight to Salt Lake City, Utah, where she caught the California flight. It was tiring and she was already fatigued, but it seemed somehow the right thing to do, to get to her reluctant husband before he sobered up completely.

  She arrived at the hotel very early the next morning and showed the hotel clerk her marriage license. It didn't take much persuasion after that to coax him into letting her have a key to Dawson's room.

  Feeling like a conspirator, she let herself in and looked around the suite with a little apprehension. But timidity hadn't brought her this far; courage had.

  She opened the door to what mu
st be the bedroom, and there he was, sprawled nude on the covers, as if he'd passed out before he could get under them. Not that he needed to. Bread could have been baked on the floor, judging by the temperature.

  Barrie went to the air conditioner and found the switch turned off. She clicked it on high and cool air began to blow in. She stood there for a minute, because she was feeling a little nauseous from the heat. As the cool air filtered up to her face, she began to breathe more easily.

  There was a sound and when she turned, Dawson was propped on one elbow, watching her through bloodshot eyes.

  Eleven

  "Goo d morning," she said, shy now that she was actually facing him after their extraordinary conversation of the previous night.

  "Good morning." His eyes searched over her body in jeans and a tank top with a lined jacket over it. Her long hair was a little disheveled, and she looked flushed. He still wasn't certain that she wasn't a mirage. He scowled. "What are you doing here?"

  "Turning on the air-conditioning," she said. He cocked an eyebrow. "Pull the other one." She lifted her chin and colored a little as her eyes registered his blatant masculinity. He wasn't only nude, he was already aroused, and apparently not the least shy anymore about letting her see. "I'm getting educated."

  He smiled mockingly. "We're married. If you don't want to look at me, nobody's making you."

  She glared at him. The wall was back up. She'd come all this way on hope, exhilaration that he'd finally admitted his feelings for her, only to find that she'd overstepped her limit again. He wasn't going to admit anything. He was going to go right on keeping her at a distance, refusing to let her see into his heart. The baby wouldn't make any difference. They'd live together like strangers with the child as their only common ground. She could see down the long, lonely years of loving without any visible return of her feelings for him, without hope.

  "I came to tell you that I'm going back to Tucson," she said coldly. "That's what you want, isn't it?" she added when he looked shocked. "That's what this trip is all about. You married me because you felt you had to, but now you're sorry and you don't want me around. I make you lose control, and you can't stand that." She straightened. "Well, no more worries on that score. I've got my bags packed and I'll be out of your house by tomorrow!"

  He threw his legs off the bed and got up. Nude, he was more than intimidating. He moved toward her and abruptly lifted her up in his arms, turning to carry her back to bed.

  "Put me down!" she snapped at him. "What do you think you're doing?"

  "I'll give you three guesses." He tossed her onto the bed and followed her down, catching her flailing hands. He pressed her wrists into the mattress and poised there above her, his eyes pale and steady and totally unreadable.

  "I hate you!" she said furiously. Her eyes stung with unshed tears as he blurred in her vision. "I hate you, Dawson!" she sobbed.

  "Of course you do." His voice sounded almost tender, she thought through the turmoil of emotions. But surely it wasn't. His hands slid up to melt into hers, tangling with her fingers as he bent and drew his lips softly, tenderly, over her mouth. His chest eased down, his long legs slid against hers in a silence that magnified her ragged breathing and the sound of his body moving against hers.

  He drew her arms around his neck. His hands slid under her, disposing of catches and buttons and zippers. In a melting daze, she felt him undressing her, and all the while, his mouth was making her body sing. He nuzzled her breasts, tasting their hard tips, suckling them, while he removed the layers of fabric until she was as nude as he was. The thick hair on his chest tickled her skin at first, and then made her body tauten with desire.

  He never spoke. He kissed her from head to toe, in ways he never had before, his hands touched her with a mastery that would have made her insanely jealous of the women he'd learned it with if she'd been able to think at all. His mouth teased and tempted and finally devoured hers. And all the while, he caressed her as if her pleasure was the most important thing in the world to him. He kindled fires and all but extinguished them over and over again until she was on the edge of madness, sobbing aloud for relief from the tension his expert caresses built in her.

  But it was a long, long time later before he finally eased down between her legs and very gently probed the dark, sweet mystery of her body, covering her mouth with his just as he pushed softly and felt her open to absorb him.

  She stiffened just a little, but there was no resistance at all to his passage, and he shifted just enough to make her gasp and cling to him before he probed even deeper. All the while, he was tender as he'd never been in the past, slow and quiet and utterly loving. Loving. She didn't open her eyes once. She didn't try to look at him. She lay drowning in the pleasure each slow, soft movement of his hips created, sobbing rhythmically under the exquisite throb of pleasure that grew deeper and deeper, like a drum beating in her body, beating, beating...

  With maddening precision he built the pleasure to a crescendo that left her whimpering like a wounded thing, clinging fiercely, whispering things to him in her need that would shock her minutes later. But for now, there was no future, no shame. She pleaded helplessly, her whole body rising, shivering in a painful arch, a silent plea for fulfillment. And recognizing the end of her endurance, he moved sharply, suddenly, into complete possession in a slow, deep, endless rhythm that sent her spinning right up into the sun. Her nails bit into his back helplessly as she shuddered, sobbing under his mouth, crying out in anguished delight, tears raining down her cheeks as she endured the most incredible ecstasy she'd ever felt, so deep and throbbing that it was almost pain.

  Only then, only when he felt her body convulse in the final spasms of completion did he drive fiercely for his own fulfillment. It was as before, spasms of aching pleasure that built and built and suddenly blazed in his taut body in an explosion of heat and light, making him mindless, shapeless, formless. He was part of her, as she was part of him. There was nothing in the world, only the two of them. Only... this...!

  He saw the ceiling without seeing it. He was lying on his back, still trembling from the violence of his satisfaction. He could hear Barrie breathing raggedly. He could feel the dampness of her body where it lay so close and so far from his.

  "They say that muscular contractions that violent could break bones without the narcotic of ecstasy to make them bearable," he remarked drowsily when he had his breath back.

  She didn't say anything. She was lying on her stomach, half-dead with pleasure and so miserable that she wanted to hide. Sex. Only sex. He hadn't said a word, all the while, and now he was treating her to a scientific explanation of sexual tension.

  He rolled over onto his side and looked at her. She averted her face, but he pulled her against him and tilted her chin up.

  "Well, do you still want to leave me after that?" he asked. "Or would you like to try and convince me that all those outrageous, shocking things you whispered to me were the result of a bad breakfast... Barrie!"

  She'd torn out of his arms in a mad dash for the bathroom, and only barely made it in time. She knelt there, her heart breaking in her chest, her eyes red with tears, while she lost her breakfast and everything in between. The monster! The monster, taunting her about a response she couldn't help! And where had he learned such skills anyway, the licentious, womanizing...!

  While she was thinking it, she was saying it.

  Dawson wrapped a towel around his waist and with a resigned sigh, he wet a facecloth and knelt beside her. When the nausea finally passed, he bathed her face and carried her back to bed, tucking her gently under the sheet.

  "I want my clothes." She wept. "I can't leave like this!"

  "No problem there. Because you aren't leaving." He picked up her clothes, opened the window and threw them out.

  She lay in a daze, watching him perform the most irrational act of their long acquaintance. She actually gasped out loud.

  He calmly closed the window. Below there was a loud squeal of brakes.
He cocked an eyebrow at her. "That lacy bra probably landed on some poor soul's windshield and shocked him into panic," he mused. "You shouldn't wear things like that in your condition, anyway. It's scandalous."

  She held the sheet tucked against her while she struggled with the possibility that Dawson's mind had snapped.

  He laughed softly as he stood over her, the towel just barely covering his lean hips. Her expression amused him. "What's the matter?" he asked.

  Her hand clenched on the cool cotton fabric. "I didn't bring a change of clothes," she said stiffly. "And now even my underwear—my underwear, for God's sake! —is out there being handled by total strangers! How am I supposed to leave the room, much less the hotel?"

  "You aren't," he replied. His eyes slid over her soft, faintly tanned shoulders and he smiled. "God, you're pretty," he said. "You take my breath away without your clothes."

  She didn't say anything. She wasn't sure it would help the situation.

  He sat down beside her with a rueful smile. "I guess I can't expect you to understand everything at once, can I?" He smoothed back her hair and his eyes were tender on her pale face. "While you're struggling with your situation, I'll have them send up something to settle your stomach. How about some strawberry ice cream and melon?"

  Her favorite things. She hadn't realized that he knew. She nodded slowly.

  "And some hot tea."

  "The caffeine..."

  "Cold milk," he amended, smiling.

  She nodded again.

  He picked up the phone, punched room service and gave the order. Then he went to his suitcase and pulled out one of his nice, clean shirts and laid it on the bed within reach. "I don't wear pajamas," he said. "But that will make you decent when room service comes."