Virgin Seduction

housekeeper, Rueben as caretaker and horse wrangler. How they'd raised eight kids in the house down by the creek, and sent every one of them to college-they'd all graduated, too, except Tony, the youngest, who was still at Texas A &M studying veterinary medicine.

While he was telling her all this, he couldn't help but notice how the glow in her eyes had grown misty, and that her smile seemed wistful, even sad. It had a bad effect on him, that smile. It made him ashamed of himself. It made him think about his behavior toward her-especially the way he'd treated her since he'd married her and brought her here, to this place so far from her home and family. God, how lonely, how homesick she must be. No wonder she'd enjoyed Rueben and Betsy's bunch so much. And she'd never once complained. He-Cade-was a jerk, a selfish, thoughtless SOB, thinking only about how he was going to get out of this marriage mess, and nothing at all about what she must be going through.

Being thoroughly ashamed of himself didn't exactly put him in a frame of mind to be sociable, so as soon as he'd finished eating, he excused himself rather abruptly and shut himself up in his study to brood. It didn't take him long to discover that being exclusively in his own company wasn't doing much to improve his mood, and that it probably wasn't going to get any better until he'd figured out a way to make it up to Leila.

Meaning to step out into the backyard for a cheroot, he found himself climbing the stairs instead. He halted in front of the closed door to the bedroom that wasn't his anymore and raised his hand, only to discover that it still held the unlit cigar. He tucked it in his shirt pocket, then knocked.

So was his heart, knocking so loudly he barely heard Leila's musical, 'Come in.'

She was sitting on the bed-his bed-half-sideways to him with one leg drawn up, giving him enticing glimpses of smooth legs that were either naturally tawny or lightly tanned. There was the promise of other intriguing secrets in the deep vee of her robe, but they were screened from his view by her upraised arms, from which the sleeves of her robe had slipped down to reveal still more of that silky, cream-with-a-dash-of coffee skin. Which was more of her skin than he'd ever seen before at one time, come to think of it. His memory chose that moment to replay the thought that had struck him down at Rueben's, the incredible fact that he'd never actually seen his wife's body.

What was more incredible was the realization that, of all the women's bodies he'd seen in his life, in all stages of sexy and alluring undress, he'd never been so turned on as he was by those tiny, half-imagined glimpses of golden-tan skin.

With all that going on in his mind, it took him a minute or two to realize that what she was doing was braiding her hair. A tortoise-shell brush lay on the bed beside her and a length of pink ribbon was draped across her lap. She looked flustered, as if he'd caught her in a private act. She murmured something he couldn't hear and struggled to bring the braid over her shoulder so she could finish the task, and he murmured something back that was meant to tell her she didn't need to rush on his account. She watched him come toward her with apprehensive eyes. He wondered if she could hear his heart thumping.

She pulled her eyes away from him. Holding the braid with one hand, she picked up the length of ribbon with the other.

'You need some help with that?' His tongue felt thick; his voice sounded furry. Her eyes jerked back to him as he sat on the bed beside her and reached out a hand to take the ribbon.

For a moment she seemed mesmerized, gazing at him without comprehension. Then she gave herself a shake and murmured, 'Oh, yes-thank you…' Her eyes dropped behind the veil of her lashes as she watched his big-boned hands tie the delicate piece of ribbon around the glossy rope of her hair. Her lips parted. She seemed to be holding her breath. He knew he was.

He tried to clear his throat. 'Just out of curiosity, how were you going to manage this before I happened along?'

She gave him a sideways, upward look through her lashes. 'Like this-' Her dimples winked at him as she demonstrated, with lips tucked between her teeth, how she would have held the braid in her mouth while she tied the ribbon around it.

He finished the task and held it up for her inspection. 'Okay-how's that?'

'That is very nice, thank you.'

For some reason he didn't relinquish the braid right away, but held it for a moment, staring at it and measuring the warm, damp weight of it in his hand. He had a sudden powerful urge to yank off the ribbon he'd just finished tying, unravel and bury his face in the soft, fragrant mass of her hair. Your hair is beautiful. He wanted to say that to her, but he didn't.

Instead, as he felt the smooth rope slide through his fingers, he cleared his throat and said, 'I've been thinking…'

With a single graceful motion the braid disappeared over her shoulder. 'Yes?' Her eyes waited, expectant, vulnerable.

He knew he should be more careful with her. He knew he ought to move away, at least. But he seemed to be drowning in those midnight eyes. For one panicky moment he couldn't remember what it was he'd wanted to say to her.

'I've been thinking,' he said firmly, and struggling against the spell of those eyes was like swimming up out of a whirlpool. 'It's been almost a week since we left Tamir. I thought you might be feeling…you know, a little homesick.' She straightened almost guiltily and gave her head a little shake, ready to deny it, but he checked her with a gesture. 'Hey, it's natural you'd be missing your family. What I thought, is, maybe you'd like to give them a call.'

She tried to catch back the cry with her fingertips, but it was too quick for her. Above her hand, her eyes were suddenly bright with tears.

'I should have thought of it before this,' Cade said gruffly. 'I guess I was just so busy… business… catching up…' He felt thoroughly ashamed of himself. 'Anyway, if you like, we can make the call right now. It would be…' he frowned at his watch '… early in the morning in Tamir.'

'I would like that…very much.' She'd turned a shoulder to him and was trying to wipe away a tear without him noticing. Then she jerked back to him, eyes wide and stricken again. 'But I do not know the number. Is that not terrible? I do not even know my own telephone number!'

'I doubt you've had reason to call it,' Cade said dryly.

'Not since school, that is true. That was so long ago.'

'It doesn't matter. I just happen to have it, right here.'

He reached into the pocket of his shirt for the slip of paper he'd written the number down on and found his forgotten cheroot there instead. Distracted, he handed the cigar to Leila while he retrieved the paper and reached with the other hand for the cordless phone on the bedside table. He dialed the number, and while he waited for the overseas connection he looked over at Leila and saw that she was still holding his cigar. Sort of rolling it between her fingers in an exploratory way, holding it to her nose and sniffing it.

Just as he was about to take it off her hands he heard the phone ringing on the other end, and immediately after that a voice saying, 'Royal palace, family residence, may I help you?'

A few minutes later Leila was laughing and sobbing joyfully into the phone and didn't even notice when Cade walked out of the room. He had a knot the size of a fist in his belly, and just about the last thing on his mind was that damned cigar.

He went straight down to his study and poured himself a double shot of bourbon. He couldn't have felt worse if he'd been torturing kittens. What kind of man am I? he wondered as he gazed morosely into the amber depths of his whiskey glass. What kind of selfish idiot was I, to have convinced myself I could marry a girl from a completely alien culture, haul her thousands of miles away from her home and family and expect her to be happy? The look of sheer joy on her face when he'd handed her the phone, her radiant, tear-wet eyes, haunted him.

I have to make it right, he thought. Somehow.

Half a bottle of bourbon later, she was still haunting him, but in a vastly different way. As the level of liquid in the bottle dropped, so, it seemed, did the focus of his thoughts. The image he couldn't get out of his mind now wasn't her eyes, or even her dimpled smile. It was those taunting glimpses of creamy skin vanishing into the shadowed slashes of her robe, one at her breasts, the other her thighs. And he kept coming back to the fact that she was his wife, and he'd never seen either of those parts of her, not to mention others even less accessible.

She's my wife, dammit And I want her.

Oh yeah, he kept coming back to that, too, like a little kid nagging in a toy store.