Tender Triumph

It seemed to take Katie forever to unbutton her blouse because her hands were trembling, and Ra­mon never stopped kissing her. When the last one was finally undone, he pulled his mouth from hers and whispered unsteadily, "I want you to take it off for me."

Katie's heart began hammering as she pulled her arms from the sleeves, letting the white silk slide through her shaking fingers. Ramon's gaze dipped to her lacy bra. "That, too."

With fire racing through every nerve in her body, Katie unclipped her bra and slowly slid it down her arms. The ivory globes of her breasts swelled proud­ly beneath his possessive gaze, her nipples slowly hardening as if his fingers, rather than just his eyes, were touching them. Ramon watched them, his eyes burning with passion, his voice rough with it. "I want to see my baby at your breast."

Katie's embarrassment over her body's obvious response to him was eclipsed by the violent yearn­ings surging through her. Drawing a quivering breath, she said, "Right now, I would rather see you there."

"Give it to me, Katie."

An uncontrollable inner excitement shook her as she curved a hand around his nape, pulling his dark head down and simultaneously lifting her breast, of­fering her nipple to him. When Ramon began to suck on it, she almost screamed with the raw plea­sure. By the time his lips released her, desire was running through her veins like molten steel. "Give me the other one," he ordered thickly.

Katie tremblingly cupped her other breast and lifted it to his mouth. The moment his lips covered it, flames shot through her. "Please stop," she cried softly. "I need you, I can't stand any more."

"You can't?" he breathed, swiftly lowering her to lie on the sofa, his mouth exquisitely exploring her ear, the curve of her neck and cheek, as he lay down beside her. Lost in a frenzy of rampaging desire, Katie felt his hands sliding up under her skirt, pull­ing the elastic lace band of her panties down from her hips to her lower thighs.

Ramon groaned softly as his fingers traced be­tween her thighs. "You want me," he corrected. "You want me but you do not need me yet," he breathed, plundering her mouth with demanding in­sistence.

Katie was almost sobbing with desire for his pos­session, her hands feverishly rushing over the taut muscles of his back and shoulders. "I need you," she whispered fiercely, crushing her parted lips to his. "Please—"

Ramon raised his head and said almost gruffly, "You do not need me." Taking one of her hands from around his neck, he pressed it tightly against his rigid arousal. "That is need, Katie."

Opening her desire-glazed eyes, Katie focused on his strained face as he said, "You want me when I take you in my arms, but I need you every moment of every hour. It is an ache that never leaves me; a longing to make you mine that ties me into knots." Abruptly he asked, "Do you know what fear is?"

Bewildered by his sudden change of subject, Katie searched his handsome somber features, but did not attempt to reply.

"Fear is knowing that I have no right to want you, and knowing that I cannot stop myself. Fear is dreading the moment when you will see the small cottage where you will have to live and decide you do not want me enough to live there."

"Don't think that way," Katie pleaded, her fin­gers smoothing the short hair at his temple. "Please don't."

"Fear is lying awake at night, wondering if you will decide not to marry me, and wondering how I will bear the pain." Gently, he brushed away the tear that trickled from the corner of Katie's eye. "I am afraid of losing you, and if it makes me 'unrea­sonable' and bad-tempered, then I humbly apolo­gize. It is only because I am afraid."

Melting with tenderness, Katie laid her hand against his jaw and gazed deeply into his dark eyes. "In my whole life," she whispered, "I have never known a man with enough courage to admit he's afraid."

"Katie...." Her name was a hoarse groan that tore from his chest as his mouth came down hard and hungry on hers, his lips and hands fiercely urgent now, guiding her toward the peak of fulfillment, driving her as close to the edge as she was de­liberately driving him. And then the doorbell rang.

"Don't answer it!" Katie implored when he im­mediately pulled out of her arms and sat up. "They'll go away."

Slanting her a rueful smile, Ramon combed his hand through the side of his thick hair, restoring it to order. "No, they will not. In the…excite­ment… I forgot to tell you that your parents were coming over to help us pack and then have dinner with us."

Katie jackknifed to her feet, scooping up her clothing as she dashed to the bedroom. "Hurry and let them in or they'll guess what we were doing," Katie told him when she saw that Ramon was merely standing near the sofa, his hands on his hips.

"Katie," he said with a wicked grin, "if I let them in too quickly, they will .see what we were doing."

"What?" she asked, standing in the doorway to her room, her perplexed gaze sweeping over the sofa for incriminating evidence, then the floor, then over Ramon. "Oh!" she said, blushing like a schoolgirl.

Katie pulled off her clothes in mad haste, telling herself that she was being absolutely absurd. She was twenty-three years old, she had been married before, and she was going to marry Ramon. No doubt her parents assumed they had already made love many times. After all, her parents were modern, sensible people. Very modern and sensi­ble—except where their children's behavior was con­cerned.

Exactly four minutes after the doorbell rang,

Katie strolled out of her room wearing tan slacks and a soft cream jersey turtleneck, her hair brushed into a shining mantle around her shoulders. She managed to give her mother a cheery greeting, but her face was still slightly flushed, her eyes suspiciously languorous, and inwardly she was trembling with lit­tle aftershocks of desire.

She found Ramon, who appeared to be feeling none of her sensual sensitivity, fixing drinks for the four of them in the kitchen, laughing about some­thing with her father. "I'll bring these drinks into the living room," Ryan Connelly said, picking up two glasses. Turning, he discovered his bemused daugh­ter staring at her fiancé’s profile. "Honey, you look radiant," he said, planting an affectionate kiss on Katie's forehead. "Ramon must be good for you."

Hot color ran up under Katie's cheeks as she smiled helplessly at her father. Waiting until he vanished into the living room, Katie turned to Ramon who was putting ice into two more glasses. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Without looking at her, he said, "You are blushing, querida. And you do look radiant."

"Thank you," Katie said in exasperated amuse­ment. "I look as though I've been ravished, and you look as though you've been reading the newspaper! How can you be so calm?" She started to reach for the drink Ramon had just fixed her, but he put it on the counter beside his. Turning, he drew her tightly into his arms for a long, drugging kiss. "I am not calm, Katie," he whispered against her mouth, "I am starving for you."

"Katie?" her mother called from the living room, causing Katie to pull awkwardly out of Ramon's embrace. "Are you two coming in here, or should we wait out on the patio?"

"We're coming in there," Katie answered hastily. With a laughing look at Ramon, Katie said, "I once read a novel where every time the man and woman began to make love, the phone rang; someone came to the door; or something happened to stop them."

Ramon's grin was lazily amused. "It will not hap­pen to us. I will not permit it."

CHAPTER TEN

Sunlight glinted on the big jet as it streaked southeastward, thirty thousand feet above the earth.

Careful not to disturb Katie who was asleep, her shining head resting against his shoulder, Ramon reached across her and pulled the shade down over the window, shielding her beautiful face from the glare of the sun. The flight had been extraordinarily rough, and many of the passengers were showing distinct signs of alarm. But not Katie, Ramon thought with a tender smile at her sleeping form. Beneath her delightfully soft, feminine exterior, Ramon was discovering that she possessed tr

emen­dous courage, strength and determination.

Even yesterday and today, when her parents' ob­vious sadness over her impending departure had placed a terrible burden of guilt on Katie's slim shoulders, she had borne their unhappiness with calm understanding and smiling resolve, despite the emotional strain Ramon could see she was feeling.

On Friday night Katie's parents had volunteered to handle the subletting of her apartment and to pack the rest of her belongings for shipment to Puerto Rico. Then they had insisted that she spend the weekend at their home instead of her apartment.

Although he had also stayed there over the weekend, Ramon had not had either the opportunity or the ex­cuse to be alone with her since Friday.

As the hours had passed, he had watched Katie's tension mounting, bracing himself for the time when she would weigh her uncertain future with him against the love and security her parents and job still offered, and tell him she had changed her mind about going to Puerto Rico. Selfishly, he had longed to get her back to her apartment and into his arms where, with time and privacy, he knew he could make her passion overwhelm her mind. Yet, even without the physical stimulus of desire, Katie hadn't wavered in her brave resolve to leave with him.

Her long curly lashes made shadows on her creamy cheeks, and he pleasured himself with the sheer beauty of her profile. He was glad he had booked first-class seats for them because they were roomier. Katie had mistakenly assumed that the rea­son they were "lucky enough" to fly first class was that the airline had oversold the coach seats and had automatically offered them vacant first—class seats for the same price, and Ramon had let her believe it.

Bitterness seeped through him, hardening his jaw, and Ramon turned his head to stare out the window across the aisle. A few months ago he could have taken Katie to Puerto Rico in Galverra Interna­tional's private Boeing 727 jet, with its splendid bedroom, dining room and spacious living room, all furnished in magnificent antiques and carpeted in white. Katie would have enjoyed that, Ramon thought. But she would have been more thrilled with his own sleek Lear jet, which he had flown into St. Louis and which was now in a hangar at the St. Louis airport.