Tender Triumph Page 6

  A jolt rocketed through Katie's nervous system as his warm lips covered hers in a lingering kiss. When he lifted his head, he slipped his arm around Katie's waist, drew her unresisting body close to his side, and led her to the crowd of dancing couples as a slow love song began to play.

  Ramon's low voice murmured something in her ear as they danced, but Katie didn't understand the words he said to her. She was too preoccupied with the unbelievably arousing feel of his bare legs and thighs sliding intimately against hers as they moved in time to the music. Desire was pouring through her, melting her resolve. She wanted to lift her head and feel his mouth claim hers the way it had in her apartment; she wanted to be crushed in his strong arms and swept off into that same sweet, wild obli­vion he had shown her before.

  Closing her eyes in despair, Katie admitted the truth to herself. Even though she'd only known him for forty-eight hours, she wanted Ramon to make love to her tonight. She wanted it so badly that she was shaken and amazed... but at least she could understand her physical attraction to him. What she couldn't understand, and what frightened her, was this strange, magnetic pull she felt toward him emo­tionally. Sometimes, when he spoke to her in that deep, compelling voice of his, or looked at her with those dark penetrating eyes, Katie almost felt as if he were quietly reaching out to her and inexorably drawing her closer and closer to him.

  Mentally, Katie gave herself a hard shake. Getting involved with Ramon would be disastrous. They were hopelessly incompatible. He was proud, poor and dominating, while she was also proud, wealthy by his standards, and innately independent. Any re­lationship between them could only end in hurt and anger.

  Like the intelligent, sensible young woman she was, Katie decided the best way to avoid the danger of Ramon's attraction was to avoid Ramon himself. She would stay away from him as much as possible for the rest of the evening and firmly refuse to see him again after tonight. It was as simple as that. Ex­cept that when his lips brushed first her temple, then her forehead, Katie nearly forgot that she was sensi­ble and intelligent, and almost lifted her mouth up to his, to receive the stirring kiss she knew he would give her.

  The instant the song ended, Katie broke away from him. With a bright, smile pinned to her face she met his questioning look and said airily, "Why don't you mingle and have fun? I'll see you later."

  For the next hour and a half Katie flirted with every man she knew, and several she didn't. She was her most dazzlingly sociable self, and wherever she went the men followed, each one ready to dance, swim, drink, or make love, according to her slightest preference. She laughed and drank and danced.... And every moment she was aware that Ramon had apparently taken her suggestion and was thoroughly enjoying himself with at least four other women, particularly Karen, who never left his side.

  "Katie, let's get out of here and go somewhere quiet." Don's breath was hot in her ear as they danced to a throbbing disco beat.

  "I hate quiet places," Katie announced, twirling away from him and draping herself across Brad who was surprised, but not displeased, to find her sud­denly sitting on his lap. "Brad hates quiet places too, don't you?"

  "Sure I do," Brad leered. "So let's go back to my place and make noise in private."

  Katie wasn't listening. From the corner of her eye she watched Karen dancing with Ramon. Both of her arms were wound around his neck, her body swaying sensuously against his. Whatever Karen was saying to him certainly must have been amusing, be­cause Ramon, who had been grinning down at her, suddenly threw back his head and burst out laugh­ing. Irrationally, Katie was hurt by his easy defec­tion. Redoubling her efforts to be gay, she stood up and pulled a reluctant Brad to his feet. "Get up, lazy, and dance with me."

  Brad relinquished his can of beer, strolled into the dancers with his arm around Katie's shoulders, then caught her in a surprisingly crushing em­brace. "What the hell has got into you?" he de­manded in her ear. "I've never seen you act like this."

  Katie didn't answer because she was frantically looking for Ramon and Karen who, as she soon re­alized, were nowhere in sight. Her heart plummeted. Ramon had left the party with Karen.

  When they hadn't returned after thirty minutes, Katie abandoned all pretense of enjoying herself. Her stomach was twisted into sick knots and, whether she was dancing or talking, her eyes con­stantly scanned the shifting bodies, desperately searching for Ramon's tall form.

  Katie wasn't the only one who had noted Karen's disappearance with Ramon. Katie was dancing with Brad again, ignoring him entirely while she craned her neck looking for the missing couple, when Brad hissed contemptuously, "You aren't by any wild chance hung up on that spic that Karen's taken to her apartment, are you?"

  "Don't call him that!" Katie said fiercely, pulling out of his arms. There were tears in her eyes as she turned and plunged into the throngs of dancing cou­ples. "Where are you going?" an authoritative voice

  demanded right behind her.

  Katie swung around and faced Ramon, her fists clenched impotently at her sides. "Where have you been?"

  One dark brow lifted. "Jealous?"

  "Do you know," she said, almost choking, "I don't think I even like you!''

  "I do not like you very much tonight, either," Ramon replied evenly. Suddenly his gaze narrowed on her face. "There are tears in your eyes. Why?"

  "Because," Katie whispered furiously, "that stupid bastard called you a spic."

  Ramon burst out laughing and dragged her into his arms. "Oh, Katie," he laughed and sighed against her hair, "he is just angry because the woman he wants went for a walk with me."

  Tipping her head back, Katie searched his face. "You only went for a walk?"

  The laughter vanished from his expression. "Only for a walk. Nothing more." His arms tightened, holding her close as they moved in time to the music. Katie laid her cheek against the reassuring strength of his chest and surrendered to delight as his hands caressed her bare shoulders and back, then slid lower, splaying against her spine to force her pliant body into intimate contact with every hard line of his legs and thighs. One hand lifted and curved around her nape, stroking it sensuously, then tightened in an abrupt command. Drawing an unsteady breath, Katie obediently lifted her head to receive his kiss. His hand plunged into her thick silky hair, holding her captive for the driving hunger of his mouth.

  By the time he finally drew back, Ramon's breathing was harsh and Katie's pulse was racing out of control, the blood pounding in her ears. She stared up at him and shakily said, "I think I am get­ting very scared."

  "I know, querida," he said gently. "Things are happening too quickly for you."

  "What does 'querida' mean?"

  "Darling."

  Katie closed her eyes and swallowed, swaying weakly against him. "How long will you be here be­fore you go back to Puerto Rico?"

  His answer was a long time in coming. "I can stay until Sunday, a week from today, but no longer. We will spend every day together until then."

  Katie was too disappointed to even try to hide it. "We can't. I have to attend a big Memorial Day gathering at my parents' house tomorrow. I have Tuesday off work but Wednesday I have to be back at the office." She could see that he was about to argue, and since she also wanted to be with him as much as possible in the time they had left, Katie said, "Would you like to come to my parents' house with me tomorrow?" He looked uncomfortable and some sanity returned to Katie. "That probably isn't a good idea. You won't like them, and they won't like you."

  "Because they are rich and I am not?" He smiled faintly. "I may like them in spite of their wealth, who knows?"

  Katie smiled at the way he deliberately misstated the problem, and his arms tightened possessively, drawing her closer to him. He had a very engaging smile that softened his virile handsomeness and could make him look almost boyish. "Shall we go back to my place?'' Katie said.

  Ramon nodded and Katie went to collect her things while he poured Scotch into two paper cups, added ice and water, and then crossed to wh
ere she waited.

  When they got to her little enclosed patio area, Katie was surprised that, instead of going indoors, Ramon put the drinks down on the small table be­tween the two redwood lounge chairs, then stretched out on one of them. Somehow, she expected that he would try to carry on the rest of their conversation in her bed.

  With mingled feelings of disappointment and re­lief, she curled up on the other lounge and twisted toward him. He lit a cigar, its glowing red tip her only focal point in the darkness. "Tell me about your parents, Katie."

  Katie took a fortifying swallow of her drink. "By most people's standards, they're very wealthy, but they weren't always. My father owned an ordinary grocery store until ten years ago, when he talked the bank into letting him expand it into a luxury super­market. It did very well, and after that he opened twenty more of them. Haven't you passed any mod­ernistic supermarkets with the name 'Connelly's' on them?"

  "I believe so."

  "Well, that's us. Four years ago my dad joined Forest Oaks Country Club. It isn't quite as presti­gious as Old Warson or St. Louis Country Club, but the Forest Oaks members like to pretend it is, and my father built the biggest house on the club grounds, right on the golf course."

  "I ask you about your parents, and you tell me about their money. What are they like?"

  Katie tried to be honest and objective. "They love me very much. My mother plays golf, and my father works hard. I guess the most important thing to them, outside of their children, is having a gorgeous house, a maid, two Mercedes, and belonging to the country club. My dad is handsome for being fifty-eight, and my mother always looks terrific."

  "You have brothers and sisters?"

  "One of each. I'm the youngest. My sister, Mau­reen, is thirty, and she's married. My dad made her husband a vice-president of Connelly Corporation, and now he can't wait to take over when dad retires. My brother, Mark, is twenty-five, and he's nice. He isn't nearly as ambitious and greedy as Maureen, who spends her life worrying that Mark may get a bigger piece of the family business when dad retires than she and her husband will. Now that you know the worst, do you want to come tomorrow? A lot of my parents' friends and neighbors will be there, too, and they're pretty much like my parents."

  Ramon stubbed out his cigar and wearily leaned his head back against the chair. "Do you want me to come?"

  "Yes," Katie said emphatically. "But it's selfish of me, because my sister will look down her nose at you if she finds out what you do for a living. My brother, Mark, will probably go so far out of his way to show you that he isn't like Maureen, that he'll embarrass you even more."

  In the deep, velvety voice she was coming to adore, Ramon asked, "What will you do, Katie?"

  "Well, I'll—I don't really know."

  "Then I guess I will have to come with you so that I can find out." Putting his glass down, he rose to his feet.

  Katie, realizing that he intended to leave, insisted that he stay for some coffee, for the simple reason that she couldn't bear for him to go yet. She carried it into the living room on a small tray and sat down beside Ramon on the sofa. They drank their coffee in a long, increasingly uncomfortable silence, which Katie was helpless to break or to understand.

  "What are you thinking about?" she asked final­ly, searching his somber profile in the dim light of the single table lamp.

  "You." Almost harshly he asked, "Are the things that are important to your parents, important to you also?"

  "Some of them, I suppose," Katie admitted.

  "How important?"

  "In comparison to what?"

  "In comparison to this," he said in a savage whis­per. His mouth came down hard on hers, his lips moving roughly back and forth, forcing her lips apart for the invasion of his tongue, while he pulled her down on the sofa and twisted his body so that it was half-covering hers.

  Katie moaned in protest and instantly his mouth softened, then began a slow, unbearably erotic se­duction that soon had Katie writhing beneath him in wild hunger. His tongue tangled with hers, with­drawing, then plunging deep, slowly receding as she tried to hold it, until Katie was pressing her parted lips fiercely to his, lost in the soul-destroying kiss.

  When he started to raise his head she curved her hand around it, trying to keep his mouth on hers, then gasped with shocked delight as he jerked the top of her bikini down, freeing her breasts and lowering his mouth to the pink peaks. Slowly he began sucking hard on first one and then the other, until Katie was reduced to a state of mindless, aching desire.

  Ramon braced his weight on his hands and lifted slightly off her, his hot eyes restlessly caressing her swollen breasts, their nipples hardened and erect from his tongue and lips and teeth. "Put your hands on me, Katie," he rasped.

  Katie lifted her hands, slowly moving her sensi­tized fingertips over the sinewy muscles of his chest, watching them flinch reflexively and then relax. "You are beautiful," she whispered, her splayed hands drifting from the taut planes of his bronzed hair-roughened chest, along his broad shoulders, then down the corded muscles of his arms.

  "Men are not beautiful," he tried to tease, but his voice was thickened from the effect her hands were having on him.

  "You are. The way oceans and mountains are beautiful." Unthinkingly, she let her fingertips trace the narrowing vee of dark hair on his chest toward the place where it disappeared beneath the waist­band of the low-slung white trunks.

  "Don't!" he ordered hoarsely. Katie stayed her hand and looked up at his face, dark with the passion he was fighting to keep under control.

  "You're beautiful and you're strong," she whispered into his burning gaze. "But you're gentle, too. I think you are the gentlest man I've ever known—and I don't even know why I think so."

  His control snapped. "Oh, God!" he groaned. His mouth took hers with an unleashed passion that sent tidal waves of desire crashing over her. His hands sank into the thickness of her hair, holding her head immobile for the endless plunder of his lips. Katie gloried in the feel of his stiff throbbing manhood pressing intimately to her, then moaned with feverish longing when he began slowly circling his hips against her. "Want me," he ordered rough­ly. "Want me more than you want the things money can buy. Want me as much as I want you."

  Katie was almost sobbing with desire when he suddenly pulled away from her, sat up, and leaned his head against the back of the sofa, closing his eyes. She watched his labored breathing even out and, after a few minutes, she straightened her cloth­ing, ran a shaking hand through her wildly dis­ordered hair, and sat up. Feeling discarded and hurt, she squeezed herself to the farthest end of the sofa from him and curled her legs beneath her.

  "Katie." His voice was bleak and harsh. Warily, Katie eyed him. His head was still back against the sofa, his eyes still closed as he spoke: "I did not want to say this to you while you were in my arms and we were both wild with desire for each other. I did not want to ever say this to you, yet I have known from the very first night that before I left I would still be saying it… “

  Katie's heart stopped beating. He was going to tell her that he was married, and she—she was going to become hysterical.

  "I want you to come back to Puerto Rico with me."

  "What?" she whispered.

  "I want you to marry me."

  Katie opened her mouth, but it was several sec­onds before any words would come out. "I—I can't. I couldn't. I have a job here, and my family, my friends—they're all here. I belong here."

  "No," he said angrily, turning his head and pin­ning her with his gaze. "You do not belong here. I watched you the first time I saw you in the bar, and I watched you tonight. You do not even like these people; you do not belong with them." He saw the growing apprehension widening her eyes and stretched his arm out to her.

  "Come," he said soft­ly. "Now I want you in my arms."

  Too dazed to do anything but obey, Katie slid across the sofa and into his comforting embrace, leaning her head on his shoulder. Gently, he con­tinued, "There is a
fineness in you that sets you apart from these people you call your friends."

  Katie slowly shook her head. "You don't even know me, not really. You can't be serious about wanting to marry me."

  His hand touched her chin, tipping her face up to his, and he smiled into her glazed blue eyes. "I have known what you are from the moment you knocked the flower I brought you on the ground, then nearly burst into tears with shame for what you had done. And I am thirty-four years old; I know exactly what I want." His lips clung to hers in a shattering kiss. "Marry me, Katie," he whispered.

  "Couldn't… couldn't you stay in the States, in St. Louis, so that we could get to know one another better? Maybe then, after—"

  "No," he said with absolute finality. "I cannot." He stood up and Katie stood with him. "Do not an­swer me now. There is time yet for you to decide." He glanced at the small glass clock beside the lamp. "It is late. I have to get dressed and then I have work that must be done tonight. When shall I call for you tomorrow to take you to your parents'?"

  Numbly, Katie told him. "Oh, and I think my mother said it was a barbecue, so we may as well wear Levi's."

  When he left, Katie wandered around, mechan­ically picking up coffee cups, turning off the lamp, and undressing for bed.

  She lay down, stared at the ceiling, and tried to absorb what had just happened. Ramon wanted her to marry him and go to Puerto Rico with him! It was impossible, absolutely out of the question, too soon to even contemplate such a thing.

  Too soon to contemplate it? Even if Ramon gave her time, would she ever really contemplate it?

  She turned her head into her pillow and could still feel his hands caressing her with such violent tender­ness, his mouth hungry and urgent on hers. No man alive had ever made her body come to life like that, and she doubted that anyone else ever would. It wasn't just practiced sexual technique with Ramon, it was instinct. It was natural for him to make love with such demanding, dominating sensuality; he was, by birth and culture, a dominating male.

  Funny, Katie thought, she had liked being domi­nated by him. She had even felt a surge of excite­ment earlier today at the way he had ordered her into his arms with his quiet, "Come here, Katie." And yet, he was so gentle.