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  "How about you?" she asked uncomfortably.

  He gave her a rueful look. "No guts?" he chided. "Don't want to be seen with a naked man, even if you're married to him?"

  She flushed.

  "And you were calling me a prude." He got up, tossed the towel onto a chair and pulled on his slacks.

  "Better?" he asked when he'd fastened the belt in place around them.

  Better. She stared at him with pure pleasure, her eyes drifting over his broad, hair-covered chest down to his narrow waist and lean hips and long, powerful legs. He even had nice feet. She loved looking at him. But that was going to get her in trouble again so she averted her eyes to the bed.

  He knew why. He sat back down with a long, heavy sigh and smoothed his big, warm hand over her bare shoulder. It was cool and damp to the touch. Her face was too pale, and a little pinched.

  "Go ahead," he invited. "Look at me. It doesn't matter anymore. I suppose I told you all there was to tell last night. I don't remember too much of what I said, but I'm sure I was eloquent," he added bitterly.

  She lifted her eyes warily to meet his. She didn't say anything, but her face was sad and resigned and without life.

  He grimaced. "Barrie..."

  She burrowed her face into the pillow and gripped it. "Leave me alone," she whispered miserably. "You've had what you wanted, and now you hate me all over again. It's always the same, it's always...!"

  He had her up in his arms, close, bruisingly close. His face nuzzled against her soft throat through a cushion of thick wavy dark hair. "I love you," he said hoarsely. "I love you more than my own life! Damn it, isn't that enough?"

  It was what he'd said last night, but he was sober now. She wanted so badly to believe it! But she didn't trust him. "You don't want to love me," she whimpered, clinging closer.

  He sighed heavily, as if he was letting go of some intolerable burden. "Yes, I do," he said after a minute, and he sounded as if he were defeated. "I want you and our baby. I want to hold you in the darkness and make love to you in the light. I want to kiss away the tears and share the good times. But I'm afraid."

  "Not you," she whispered, smoothing the hair at his nape. "You're strong. You don't feel fear."

  "Only with you," he confessed. "Only for you. I never had a weakness until you came along." His arms contracted. "Barrie," he said hesitantly, "if I lose you, I can't live."

  Her heart jumped. "But, you aren't going to lose me!" she said. "I'm not going to walk out on you. I didn't really mean it. I thought you wanted me to go."

  "No!" he said huskily, lifting his head. He looked worried. Really worried. He traced her soft cheek. "That's not what I meant. I meant that I could lose you when you have the baby."

  "Oh, for heaven's sake...!" she exclaimed, stunned.

  "Women do still die in childbirth," he muttered uncomfortably . "My mother... did."

  She was learning things about him that she would never have dared ask, that she hadn't known at all. She searched his eyes slowly. "Your mother died in childbirth?"

  He nodded. "She was pregnant. She didn't want to be, and she tried to have an abortion, but my father found out and made so many threats about cutting off the money she liked to spend that she gave in. She went into labor and something went wrong. They were out of the country, on a trip she'd insisted on taking even that late in her pregnancy. The only medical care available was at a small clinic. It was primitive, there was only an intern there at the time." He sighed heavily. "And she died. He loved her, just as he'd loved your mother. It took him years to get over it. He felt responsible. So would I, if something happened to you."

  Her fingers twined around his. It was humbling to realize that he loved her that much. He didn't want to get rid of her at all. He'd gone to the other extreme. He was terrified that he might lose her.

  "I'm strong and healthy and I want this baby. I want to live," she said softly. "I couldn't leave you, Dawson," she added firmly. "Not even to die."

  He looked down into her wet eyes and his face was strained, taut. He looked so stoic and immovable that it shocked her when he traced her mouth with a finger that wasn't quite steady.

  "You'll learn to trust me one day," she said softly. "You'll learn that I'll never deliberately hurt you, or belittle you, or try to make you feel less of a man because you care about me. And our child will never be mocked or spoken to with sarcasm."

  His hand stilled on her face. "And you won't leave me," he added with a bitter laugh.

  She smiled. "No," she said gently. "I have no life without you." She took his hand and slid it under the cover to lie on the soft, bare swell of her stomach. "I'm pregnant," she said. "We have a future to think about."

  "A future." His hand flattened where she'd placed it. "I guess I'm going to have to stop living on bad memories. It's hard."

  "The first step is to look ahead," she told him.

  He shrugged. He began to smile. "I suppose so. How far ahead?"

  "To the nearest department store," she said with sudden humor. "I can't spend the day without underwear!"

  He pursed his lips and for the first time since she'd arrived, he looked relaxed. "Why not?" he asked. "Are you sore already?"

  She stared up at him uncertainly.

  "Are you?" he persisted, and his hand moved insinuatingly. "Because I want to make love again."

  "It's broad daylight," she said pointedly.

  His broad shoulders rose and fell. "It was broad daylight a few minutes ago," he reminded her. His face was solemn. "You kept your eyes closed. Don't do it again. I won't make any more snide remarks about it. I'm sorry I made you ashamed of wanting to watch something so beautiful."

  She wasn't sure how to take this apparent change in him. She searched his pale eyes, but there were no more secrets there. He wasn't hiding anything from her.

  "I know," he murmured ruefully. "You don't quite trust me, either, do you? But we'll work it out."

  "Can we?"

  The knock at the door interrupted what he might have replied. Barrie quickly slipped on his shirt and buttoned it while he let the waiter in, signed the bill and handed the man a tip on his way out.

  "Take that off," he murmured when he'd locked the door again, nodding toward the shirt.

  "I won't," she replied.

  ' 'Yes, you will. But we'll let your stomach get settled first," he conceded. He picked up the small dish of homemade strawberry ice cream and sat down on the bed, lifting half a spoonful of it to her lips.

  She was surprised, and looked it.

  "You fed me when I had the wreck," he reminded her. "Turnabout is fair play."

  "I'm not injured," she replied.

  "Yes, you are," he said quietly. "Right here." He put the spoon into the hand holding the small crystal goblet and with his free hand he touched her soft breast through the shirt. He felt its immediate response, but he didn't follow up. He lifted the spoon again to her mouth. "Come on," he coaxed. "It's good for you."

  She had a sudden picture of Dawson with a toddler, smiling just like that, coaxing food into a stubborn small mouth and she managed a watery smile as she took the ice cream.

  "What are you thinking about?" he wondered.

  "A little mouth that doesn't want medicine or spinach," she said quietly.

  He understood her. His eyes darkened, but not with irritation. He took a long breath and held another spoonful of ice cream to her mouth. Eventually he smiled. "I guess I might as well learn to change diapers and give bottles, too," he mused softly.

  "No bottles," she said firmly. "I want to nurse the baby."

  His hand stilled halfway to her mouth. He searched her eyes, shocked at the way the statement aroused him.

  She could tell from the tautness of his body and the darkness of his eyes, from the faint flush across his cheekbones what he was feeling. She felt her own breath catch in her throat. She could see him in her mind, watching as she nursed the baby...

  "You're trembling," he said unsteadily.
r />   She moved restlessly and a self-conscious laugh passed her lips. "I was thinking about you watching me with the baby," she said shyly.

  "So was I."

  She let her eyes fall to his hard mouth, tracing the firm, sensuous lips. She caught her breath as a wave of hunger swept over her body.

  "Good God." He whispered it reverently. He set the goblet aside carefully, because his hands weren't steady. And when he turned back to her, she had the shirt open. She pulled the edges aside, red-faced and taut, and watched him as he looked at her hard-tipped breasts.

  Shakily her hands went to his face and she tugged as she lay back on the bed, dragging his mouth to her breast. He suckled her hungrily, fiercely, pressing her back into the mattress with a pressure that was nothing short of headlong passion.

  "I'm too hungry. I'll hurt you," he warned off, as he gave in to it.

  "No, you won't." She drew him closer, arching under the heat of his mouth. "Oh, Dawson, Dawson, it's the sweetest sensation!''

  "You taste of rose petals," he growled. "God, baby, I don't think I can hold it back this time!"

  "It's all right," she repeated breathlessly. Her hands helped him get the fabric out of the way. She moved, fixed her body to his, helped him, guided him into sudden, stark intimacy. It should have been uncomfortable, but it wasn't.

  He felt the ease of his possession and lifted his head to look into her eyes as he levered above her, softly kissing her. "I'll let you...watch," he whispered, shivering as he felt the tension building in his loins. "I don't mind. I love you. I love you, Barrie. I love you...! "

  She watched his face tauten, the flush that spread to his cheekbones as his eyes began to dilate and the movements quickened into fierce, stark passion. He lifted his chest away from hers, his teeth clenched.

  "Look..." he managed before he lost control completely.

  Barrie went with him every step of the way. She lifted to the harsh, violent demand of his body for the satisfaction hers could give it. She opened herself to him, clung to him, as he cried out in great shuddering waves of ecstasy. Then she, too, cried out as her body exploded into pulsing shards of exquisite color, burning so high from the pleasure that the whole world spun around her.

  His voice came from far away and it sounded concerned. "What's wrong?" he asked gently.

  _ -

  176

  "I'm fine." Her eyes opened, wide and green and dazed with satiation. She traced the whorls of damp hair on his body. "I said the most shocking things," she said uncomfortably.

  "Wicked, sexy things," he agreed. He smiled. "I loved it."

  "Oh."

  He bent and brushed his mouth over hers. "There shouldn't be limits on what we can say to each other in bed, what we can do to each other," he explained gently. "I won't ever tease you about it."

  "That goes for me, too." She searched his face. "I watched you," she whispered.

  He flushed. "I know. I wanted you to."

  She smiled self-consciously. "But I couldn't really see much," she added shyly. "Stars were exploding in my head."

  "That was mutual. And I couldn't really watch you for the same reason." He chuckled. "I suppose I'm losing my inhibitions, bit by bit."

  "Maybe I am, too." She pushed back his damp hair gently. "I like being intimate with you. I like feeling you as close as you can get to me."

  He drew her close and rolled onto his back with a long sigh. "Intimacy is new to me," he revealed.

  She hit him. "Ha! Where did you learn all those things you did to me this morning? No!'' She put her hand over his mouth. "No, don't you tell me, I don't want to know!"

  He lifted her onto his chest and searched her angry eyes. "Yes, you do. And I'm going to tell you. I learned them with a succession of carefully chosen, emotionally alienated one-night stands. I learned them without any real participation except for a superficial one. No, don't look away. You're going to hear this." He turned her flushed face back to his. "I have had sex. But until I touched your body, I had never made love. That day on the floor of my study was the first time in my life that I gave myself completely and deliberately to a woman."

  She felt hot all over. "You didn't like it."

  "I loved it," he said harshly. "I didn't like having you watch it happen to me. I didn't trust you enough." His eyes calmed. "I'm sorry about that, too. We made a baby in the heat of that exquisite loving. I'm sorry I didn't make it a happier memory for you... for both of us."

  "I'm not sorry about the baby. Or about watching you," she whispered wickedly. "It was the most exciting, embarrassing thing that ever happened to me."

  "I can imagine," he replied quietly. "Because I kept my head long enough to watch you this morning, all through it." His eyes began to glitter. "And now I understand why you had to see my face."

  She eased down over his chest and kissed him softly, nibbling his upper lip. "Because you wanted to see the love in my eyes," she whispered.

  "Yes. And that's what you saw in mine, above and beyond the desire that was making me helpless, wasn't it?" he asked.

  She nodded after a minute. "I didn't recognize it at the time. But, yes it was. It was the love that you didn't want me to see," she realized.

  "Yes." He traced her nose with his forefinger, enjoying the lazy intimacy of their sprawled bodies. "I could have saved myself the trouble. You honestly didn't know how I felt until I told you in a drunken rage last night, did you?"

  "No, I didn't," she confessed with a chuckle. "And it knocked me so hard that I got on the first plane out here to see if you meant it." She glared at him. "I thought you didn't want me here."

  "I was surprised that you came, and delighted at being spared the trouble of flying right out to Sheridan to show

  178 MAN OF ICE you how completely I'd given in to my own feelings toward you."

  Her body lay open to his eyes, and he looked at her with wonder and obvious pleasure. "I couldn't even do this before, did you realize it?" he asked quietly. "It made me feel uncomfortable to see you nude, to look at you openly."

  "Then we're making progress."

  "Apparently." He traced around her taut nipple and frowned as he saw the blue veins that had become prominent. The nipple was darker, bigger. His hand slid down to her belly and he felt the thickening of her waist. A smile pulled up the corners of his mouth. "My, how you're changing."

  She smiled complacently. "I'll be as big as a pumpkin by Christmas."

  His hand caressed her. "So you will." He bent and drew his mouth gently over her stomach. "We didn't hurt him, did we?"

  "Babies are very tough," she said. She knew he was remembering the one they'd lost. "This one wants to be born," she added. "I feel it."

  He lifted his head and searched her eyes. He didn't say anything for a long time. His eyes said all too much.

  "You won't lose me," she said deliberately. "I promise you won't."

  He took a long breath and let it out. "Okay."

  She sat up, pressing close to him. "I'm sleepy."

  "So am I.I think a nap might be a good idea. Do you feel better?"

  "Oh, yes. I didn't ever feel bad," she murmured with a chuckle. "On the contrary, I felt entirely too good."

  He drew her closer. "So did I. I wonder if two people ever achieved such a high at the same time?"

  "Should we call the people at the record book and ask...ouch!"

  He'd pinched her behind. He chuckled at her outraged expression. "I'll repent. Come here. We'll sleep for a while."

  "A while?" she teased as he ensconced them together under the sheet.

  His hand cradled her belly. "Life can be sweet after all."

  "Hmmm," she murmured drowsily. Her eyes closed. She went to sleep with the sound of Dawson's heart beating softly at her ear.

  Twelve

  The phone was ringing off the hook. Barrie opened her eyes, disoriented. The phone was on the bedside table, on the other side of a broad, very hairy chest. She stared at that chest for a moment trying to get her
bearings. Then she remembered where she was.

  She smiled as she poked him in the ribs and felt him jump, coming awake immediately.

  "Phone," she said, shaking him gently.

  He reached over and picked it up. "Rutherford," he said shortly. He was quiet for a moment, then he rolled over onto his back and ran a hand through his hair. "What?" he said then. He made a rough sound in his throat. "Hell, no! Good God, man, what sort of person do you think I am?" There was the sound of hurried, apologetic conversation. "You'd damn well better apologize, if you expect me to stay here again or book my people in for another conference. You didn't? Well, that's no excuse. Yes, I should think you are! Very well." He slammed the receiver down and then started laughing.

  "What was that all about?" she asked curiously.

  He rolled onto his side to prop on his elbow and looked down at her. "It seems that the prestige of the hotel was briefly lowered when one of the guests threw a woman's dress and very skimpy underwear out of a window. Naturally I had no idea why they should suspect me of... Stop that!" He flicked her cheek with a long forefinger when she started laughing. "You have no idea who did it, either. Remember that. I spend a lot of time here when I travel, and I do want to come back again."

  "I still can't believe you threw my clothes out the window!"

  He grinned. "It seemed the best way to keep you from leaving." He lifted the sheet and looked at her with eyes as appreciative as any artist's. He shook his head. "God almighty," he breathed. "I've never seen anything so beautiful."

  She grinned back. "Lecher."

  He drew her against him and held her close with a long, lazy sigh as his legs tangled softly with hers. "Sore?"

  "Very."

  "So am I," he confessed, chuckling at her expression. "Men aren't made of iron, you know."

  "No kidding!"

  His arms tightened. "I suppose we'll have beautiful memories for the next few days, at least."

  "Several." She touched the faint cleft in his chin gently. "Dawson, I can't go back to Sheridan naked."