LITMIR.BIZ

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was it! She hadn’t come back because of him. This was about her infernal determination to be independent of him. To stay single.

      Not that he cared.

      “So you still want to travel?” he whispered, making his voice both insolent and admiring. “To see the world?”

      “To be free,” she agreed, but her tone was low and urgent as if this really was important to her, as if making him understand mattered.

      “Sexually free?”

      She turned red again. “Is that all you ever think about?”

      “That does seem to be a burning issue when you’re around.”

      “Which is why I wanted to get as far away from you as I possibly could!”

      “To have more of your little adventures?”

      Her eyes blazed. “You don’t get me at all. I should’ve known better than to try to talk to you. You wouldn’t understand.”

      He understood, all right. She teased him. Did she want real adventures with other, wilder men, who weren’t so predictable, who didn’t bore her—as he did?

      “You might get into trouble. I worry about you.”

      “Well, don’t.” Her eyes smoldered. “This isn’t about you, North.”

      Something cold coiled around his heart, and then he saw that she was trembling.

      “You’re right, of course,” he forced himself to agree. “We broke up. Or rather, you broke up with me. You said we’re—”

      “Finished. And you said—” Her voice was tight and sad, and he realized his parting shots had hurt her, too.

      He’d said she was doing him a favor.

      She was right. They were finished. It was what she’d wanted, what he wanted, too. He was a rancher, born and bred—traditional to the core. He couldn’t change that. He couldn’t—not for her, not after everything she’d done.

      Even so, the thought of other men touching her…of her touching them…

      That shouldn’t have bothered him. But his stomach twisted, and a bleak, lonely wave of despair washed over him as he considered working his ranch, dating other women, even Maria—while Melody had romantic adventures.

      “I—I guess I’ll go and get dressed,” she said after an awkward spell.

      When she left him, North’s gaze followed her. Her waist was slim, the flare of her hips and thighs enticingly sweet. That short red silk thing made her look leggy and coltish. He couldn’t seem to move till she disappeared from his view.

      Then he adjusted his collar and raked his hand through his hair. So what if he had to endure one miserable night with her?

      They’d catch up on old times. Then he really would forget her. He’d see Maria on Saturday, and maybe he’d find a bad girl on the side to sleep with. From now on, he’d drown himself in other women instead of work.

      The only reason Miss Melody Woods was getting to him tonight was that she’d burned him so bad, he’d avoided all women since her.

      Until Maria, he reminded himself. Maria was perfect for him. At least Jeff said so.

      Could he help it if Melody looked good enough to eat, and that he was starved?

      One night with her.

      What could possibly go wrong?

      Smile. It’s the second best thing you can do with your lips.

      Why did those infernal words keep repeating themselves like a broken record? Why did he keep imagining her mouth on his body?

      He didn’t like the heat those images brought.

      One night.

      That was all.

      Three

      Vegetarian alert: Take a flying leap!

      —The Plants

      The bumper sticker tacked to her mirror was the first thing Melody saw when she raced into her room. North had given it to her as a joke after she’d become a vegetarian. She’d kept it, even when he’d dated Claire. Just like she’d kept all her pictures of him, those framed and those not, at the bottom of her underwear drawer.

      She was shaking as she studied the skimpy red, one-piece bathing suit she’d grabbed from her mother’s drawer, shaking when she thought of wearing it outside with North there.

      She shut her bedroom door and sank against it. For a second the wood felt cool against her hot skin after her steamy backyard.

      After North.

      Uncertain, conflicted, she threw the suit on the floor. She hated red, more than any color in the world, hated the sexy style cut high over the thigh her mother had chosen. And yet…

      Mother had said it was so hot, that they should swim before supper. When Melody had mentioned she hadn’t unpacked and didn’t know where her suit was, Dee Dee had said, “I have a brand-new one in my top drawer you can borrow.”

      Stripping off her T-shirt and shorts, Melody moved past the piles of suitcases and boxes toward her flamboyantly red flowered bed, only to be upset not by her mother’s gaudy decorating, but by her own reflection in the long mirror beneath the bumper sticker.

      The frightened girl with those rosy cheeks in the push-up black bra and thong panties reminded her of that other queasy girl she’d seen in North’s apartment mirror six months ago when she’d been trapped between boundless love and desire and sexual despair.

      She’d called him an animal.

      His hand had been inside her when he’d muttered, “An animal? I love you, Melody. This is what men and women who love each other do together—in private. Someday, you’re going to grow up. You’ll come running home, for this, darlin’, but I won’t be here waiting. I’m sick and tired of waiting.”

      Then he’d let her go and had lain on the bed beside her for a while, staring up at his ceiling fan that had spun lazily above them. Finally, when they’d both recovered a little, he’d balled her black lace panties and bra in his brown fist and thrown them at her, saying she’d come back, begging for more of the same. Saying that even if she crawled, he’d tell her he was done with a tease like her for good.

      “I’m sorry,” he’d said after he’d dressed, apologizing for what he’d done to her in bed and for some of what he’d said.

      “I’m sorry, too.”

      From the door he’d lashed her with rough words that had smashed her heart. “I’m sorry I ever met you.” He hadn’t slammed the door. It had clicked so softly; she’d barely heard him leave. Still, a cold chill had run down her spine at the utter finality of his retreating footsteps.

      Desolation had overpowered her just as fear had gotten a grip on her when he’d started making love to her, and she’d just felt so scared and helpless and had wanted to get away.

      She hadn’t been able to face her true feelings that night much less try to tell him. But over time, when he hadn’t called, she’d begun to miss him terribly. Some inner resilience had lessened her sense of shame and intensified all the other inexplicable needs that had made her unable to forget North.

      He’d been so wonderful to her in so many ways. So kind and patient, especially in those early years. But he was a man, and he needed a woman.

      “I want a grown-up woman, a real woman, who knows how to love.”

      “You mean you want sex.”

      “Now that you mention it—yes. That would be a great start.”

      And here she was, home again, and more confused than ever about everything, including

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