Desperado by Diana Palmer

prompted.
    His head lifted, but he wouldn’t look at her. “I’ve never wanted a woman so much.”
    She let go of him, but the words echoed in her mind. Not disgust. Desire. Violent desire. She’d felt it, too.
    “Is it normal?” she whispered aloud, without realizing she had spoken.
    He turned back. “Is what normal?”
    “To want somebody, like that,” she said shyly.
    “Haven’t you ever wanted a man so much that it was like torture to pull away?”
    She stuck her hands in her jeans pockets. She looked at his chest. “Only you.”
    He was quiet so long that she thought she’d insulted him. Then she noticed his chest rising and falling at a fast, hard rate. She looked up, surprised to see a hot, almost violent look in his dark eyes.
    She grimaced. “There I go again, eating my foot. Sorry. I really do want my cherry pie.”
    She opened the door and he stopped her, his hand going past her ear.
    “I’m sorry, too, sorry to ask so blatant a question, but I need to know. Maggie, have you ever had a man—besides me?”
    She swallowed hard. They were far beyond lies. “Not that way, no,” she said with quiet dignity, and without realizing her exact phrasing.
    Cord’s arm was removed, as if her answer had shocked him. Which it had.
    She went through the door and back to the kitchen. After a minute, he followed her, quiet and subdued.
     
    They were polite and pleasant to each other until the pie and coffee were consumed, but both had withdrawn from their former intensity. They avoided any personal conversation. They smiled and talked and then Cord drove Maggie back to her hotel.
    Despite her protests, he walked her to her door.
    “It’s too late for you to be roaming the halls of any hotel alone,” he said when they reached her room. “It may be a few years late, but I’m going to take better care of you.”
    She glanced at him curiously. “Don’t get into any new habits,” she told him. “I’m only in town until I find the job I’m looking for.”
    His face hardened. “And then it’s goodbye forever?”
    She couldn’t look at him and agree. “The farther apart we are, the better off we’ll be,” she said. “I’d only poison your life. Neither of us is looking for anything permanent, and I can’t even look at something temporary. I’m not meant for brief, intense affairs.”
    He laughed huskily. “That’s a joke. You, having an affair with anyone, even me.”
    She looked up, curious, with her key card inserted into the slot. “Why?”
    “You’ve got more hang-ups than you realize,” he said softly. He shook his head. “It will take a patient man to get through all of them.”
    “Something nobody would ever accuse you of being,” she replied sweetly.
    He pursed his lips. “Oh, I don’t know, I thought I was doing pretty good for a while today.”
    She got his meaning and glared at him. He was grinning, the beast!
    For the first time in memory, he gave her slender figure a speaking, sensual scrutiny. “You have a beautiful body,” he remarked. “You’re slender, but your breasts are just right…”
    “You stop talking about my breasts!” she exclaimed, folding her arms over them defensively.
    “It’s better than doing what I’m thinking,” he replied with a long, meaningful glance at them with pursed lips.
    She felt the heat go through her like a jolt of lightning. It showed, too.
    He smiled slowly. “I see you know what I’m talking about,” he chided.
    “I do not!”
    His gaze fell to her mouth. “I’d love to kiss you good-night, Maggie,” he said in a tone that curled her toes. “But I don’t think I’d ever get out the door if I did.”
    She couldn’t manage a snappy reply. He disabled all her defensive skills when he spoke in that low, velvety tone.
    He knew it. His eyes met hers, and the smile faded. “You just went on the endangered list,” he said abruptly. “I won’t come at your blind side, and I won’t pressure you. But I want