She tried to keep her thoughts from Adam, from what he was doing in Anchorage. Would he visit a woman friend? Would he get in touch with her cousin, Donna, while he was there? She deliberately turned down the volume on the CB radio so she wouldn’t be listening for the sound of his voice. In spite of all this, her ear was tuned to catch the first sound of his plane as it passed over the house.
Long before she expected him she freshened herself and put on a blue dress with a pencil slim skirt that made her look inches taller. Then she sat down on the couch to knit on the sweater she was making for one of Evelyn’s boys. The rhythmic movement of her fingers was soothing to her nerves.
When the plane went over the house and began its descent to land on the lake, Molly’s heart began to beat erratically, but she forced herself to remain seated. She was curled comfortably on the couch when she heard his steps on the porch. Their eyes met for a brief moment as he hesitated in the doorway and in that instant she was conscious of every detail about him. He looked big, masculine, and angry. It was difficult to comprehend what he was saying when he spoke to her.
“Why in the devil didn’t you answer me when I called on the CB?” He walked over to the radio and saw the volume had been turned down. “What do you think went through my mind when ten miles out I couldn’t raise you on this damn thing?” To her astonishment he was very angry. “One of the last things I told you was to keep the radio tuned.” He came to stand in front of her with his black eyes blazing and his hands on his hips. Molly was too stunned to say anything. “Molly!” He practically shouted her name.
She sought about wildly for something to say. Then she lifted her head in sudden defiance, angry with him because he was treating her like a child.
Was that it? Was this the way it was going to be?
She would not stand for it! She was an adult and would be treated like one.
“You’re pretty bossy all of a sudden, Adam. I don’t have to account to you for everything I do. I can look after myself without any help from you.” She sputtered recklessly because he was watching her with those hard black eyes and she didn’t like the way he was doing it.
“Like hell!” he sneered. “I won’t leave you here alone and have you deliberately disobey my instructions. I couldn’t imagine what had happened to you or why you didn’t answer. You answer every other Tom, Dick, and Harry that calls you.” Her eyes were abnormally bright and his lips narrowed. “Well?” He said the word with sardonic emphasis.
“Why are you so angry?” Molly blurted. “Why am I, suddenly, so unreliable I can’t be trusted to spend a few hours alone? I’ve spent many days and nights alone here with Dog and Tim-Two while my father was away.”
Adam shook his head. “Listen to me, Molly—”
“You listen!” she flung, flushed and excited. “You think I’ve no brains at all! I’m an encumbrance to you! Something you have to put up with in order to take advantage of my father’s work. Well, I’m sorry I’ve intruded into your life. I didn’t want to, you know!” She knew she was being unreasonable, but couldn’t help herself. Her eyes flared bitterly at him.
Adam reached out and with a cruel and painful grip on her forearms, jerked her to him.
“Now, you listen to me!” he grated between clinched teeth. “You’ve got to understand—”
Molly tried vainly to free herself. “I understand very well, mister,” she exclaimed fiercely.
With a muffled curse, he pulled her up against him, his muscled strength holding her there, stilling her struggles. He pressed her head against his shirt. At close quarters his masculine strength had a hypnotic effect on her. She wanted to lean forward and let her whole weight rest on his chest. She felt a sense of unreality at what was happening. His maleness made her legs feel weak. She melted against him. In the circle of his arms and hearing the heavy beat of his heart, she was conscious of a change in his breathing. It quickened.
He must have sensed her sudden, abject surrender. From somewhere far away she heard him say,
“Molly . . . Molly . . . ,” the words sounded like a groan.
She felt his hand in her hair tugging her head back and before she could speak or move his mouth came down over hers in a hard, angry kiss that took her breath away. There was no gentleness, no tenderness. He kissed her savagely and thoroughly. She struggled and a little whimper came from the back of her throat. Then she arched against him, not yet understanding the strange new emotions that he had awakened in her body. She was only conscious of the pressure of his mouth and his long legs as his hands pulled the entire length of her body tight against his. Without knowing why, or what she was doing, her arms went up and around his neck and clung there.
Somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind she thought,
so this is how it feels?
This need, spreading through her loins, was making her incapable of feeling anything but this intense desire, and not understanding this sensation, she knew only that what she needed was him.
He pulled his mouth away from hers and looked down at her.
“Oh, Christ,” he said in self-disgust. He looked at her lips beginning to swell from his kiss, and at her eyes wide and questioning. He hadn’t meant to touch her, much less kiss her. He turned on his heel and went to his room, closing the door behind him with more force than was necessary.
Molly stood where he had left her. Her breath was still catching in her throat and her hands went up to touch her burning, flushed cheeks. She sank back down on the couch. She couldn’t believe this had happened to her. The memory of the way she had clung to him brought waves of hot color to her cheeks and she wondered, unhappily, what he must have thought of her wanton behavior. She dreaded the moment when she must face him again.
The moment she dreaded came sooner than she expected. Adam came out of his room and stood looking down at her, his face considerably softer. Her body tensed and her heart began to beat erratically again as she withstood his dark gaze.
“I’m sorry I frightened you, Molly, but you did provoke me!” He took a small package from his pocket and tossed it into her lap. “A gift from Dad. He remembered he hadn’t given you a wedding present.”
Molly’s troubled gaze went from him to the package in her lap and realizing he was waiting for her to open it, untied the wrappings with shaking fingers. Lifting the lid of a small jewelry box, she saw, nestling on a bed of dark velvet, a pair of exquisite diamond earrings. She gave a small cry of surprise.
“I couldn’t possibly accept these. They are far too valuable.” She closed the lid on the box and thrust it toward him.
“Dad wants you to have them.” He hesitated. “They were my mother’s.”
“Your mother’s?” She flushed to her hairline.
“Yes,” he answered brusquely.
She couldn’t help herself. Her eyes were swimming with tears.
“Your father has paid me a great compliment and for his sake I’ll be honored to wear your mother’s earrings. But only for the year we’re together. After that I’ll insist you take them back.”
“You’re to keep them. They’re not a loan.”
“I couldn’t do that, Adam, they should belong to your permanent wife,” she whispered huskily with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“I’ll probably not marry again and Dad gave them to you,” he said stubbornly.
“I wish we didn’t have this shadow of deceit hanging over us,” she said softly. “Your father is too sweet to be deceived this way.”
“It’s rather late to think of that now,” he said dryly. “In any case, what’s done is done.” Then, as his eyes mocked her, “Is that a chocolate cake on the table?”
“It’s for you and Tim-Two. He likes cake, too, and any flavor will do.”
Not knowing what else to do, she took the earrings from the box and attempted to attach them to her ears. Adam watched her.
“Here let me do it.” He reached down his hand to pull her to her feet.
She felt a tremor in her throat as his warm breath fell on her face. He fastened first one earring and then the other to her ears, before taking her by the forearms and holding her away from him. He tilted his head first one way and then the other as he gave her careful scrutiny. Her pulse was beating very fast. She was sure he had noticed, because he looked from her ears to her eyes, to the mouth he had so recently kissed, and to her throat where the pulse was beating.
“Very nice,” he said, smiling, “very, very nice.” She smiled back at him, and he added softly, “Am I forgiven?”
Silently she nodded her head. “Then let’s have dinner . . . hmmm? I want to tie into that cake.”
Molly caught him looking at her often during dinner. For the first time he helped her clear off the table when they were finished. Afterward he put records on the player and turned down the gaslight. When Molly went to sit in front of the fireplace, he went to his room, then returned with a pipe and a sack of tobacco before sinking down on the couch and filling the pipe. Using tongs, he lifted a coal from the fire bed, held it to the tobacco, and sucked on the pipe. When he sat down again, he was puffing gently.
“You’re full of surprises,” Molly said and breathed in the good tobacco smell. “I didn’t know you smoked.”
He looked at the pipe in his hand. “I seldom do, but sometimes I like one after dinner, if you don’t mind.”
“I rather like it. Dad always smoked a pipe after supper.”
The familiar scratching on the back door sent Molly to let Dog in. He followed her to her chair and laid his big head in her lap. She caressed the soft fur on top of his head and scratched his ears, all the time aware Adam was watching. Soon Dog returned to a far corner of the room, away from the heat of the fire. He sprawled in the corner, his neck stretched out, his heavy jowls flat on the floor.
“How long have you had him?” Adam asked.
“About four years. Jim brought him to me. He was just a bounding puppy then, all ears and feet.”
“Is he the only dog you have here?”
“Yes. He’s been a faithful friend,” she said wistfully. “You know a dog responds to kindness, regardless if the person that gives it is rich or poor, skinny or fat, pretty or ugly, dumb or smart, I could go on and on . . .” she said with a laugh.
“Yes, that’s true,” Adam said, as the clock on the mantel sounded the hour. He got up to wind the clock. “Are you about ready to call it a day?” He was still facing the mantel.
Molly looked at the clock, it was half past ten! Embarrassment drew her to her feet. He wanted her to leave the room so he could go to his, but was too polite to say so! That was the reason for the small talk, biding his time until she went to bed. How stupid of her not to realize that. She went to the kitchen and turned down the lamp. Looking back, she saw him rubbing his eyes and his temples. He showed no sign he knew she had left the room. Calling Dog to her, she put him out the back door.
“Do you have a headache, Adam?” she asked in a calm voice which gave away nothing of what she was feeling. “I can get an aspirin for you.”
“I would appreciate it,” he said, going back to the couch.
She took two tablets from the bottle on the shelf and drew a glass of water from the hand pump. She carried them to him and waited for him to drink.
“Thanks.” He put the glass on the table, took her hand, and pulled her down beside him on the couch. She was so taken by surprise that she offered no protest, even when he put his arm around her and drew her close against him. She was terribly conscious of the hard muscles in his arm as he cuddled her, turning her so that her breasts were against the side of his chest and her head on his shoulder. He stretched his long legs out to the fire and leaned his head back.
“Each night when we sit here, I’ve wondered what it would feel like to hold you like this,” he said tiredly.
She was stunned into silence. She felt his fingers at the nape of her neck and at the top of her head feeling for the pins as he pulled them out of her hair. Heavy, silken, and bright as gold it cascaded down over her shoulders. He brought a big handful forward over her breast.
“I’ve been wanting to do this, too,” he said huskily, twisting a large rope of it around his hand.
Molly turned her face into his shoulder and nuzzled his warm flesh. The crackle of the fire and the ticking of the clock were the only sounds she heard above the beating of his heart. Her arm went around his waist and she held him, feeling the tension of the muscles in his long back.
He turned and buried his face in her neck, pushing back her hair and letting his free hand travel over her as if he were blind and trying to know her through his fingertips; over her arms, down over her breast, lingering there, then to the narrow waist and on to her rounded hips where he molded her full length to his.
“Molly . . .” he whispered, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep my bargain not to touch you.”
He raised his head to look at her. He was so close she could see every little detail of his face: the dark, smoldering eyes; the strong nose; the sensual curve of his mouth; the darkened cheekbones; the brown column of his throat. She could smell the warm smell of his body and the tobacco smell of his breath. She had never been in such an intimate position before and an aching stirred inside her.
She saw his mouth, the firm lips slightly parted, then it was against hers, rough and demanding with an insistence that sent her blood thundering through her ears. His hands were moving everywhere, touching her hungrily, fondling, an urgency in their movements. Naked desire mounted in her head leaving her trembling in his arms. She slid her fingers inside his shirt so she could touch his skin, some inner femininity giving her the knowledge of how to caress him.
Adam was breathing heavily. He tore his mouth from hers and his lips traveled over her face and then, as if compelled, back to her mouth. Unskilled as she was and although she clung to him with her hand on his bare chest feeling the trembling of his body, she sensed he was not getting satisfaction from her inexperienced lips. He drew back and kissed the violet eyes closed, smoothed the damp hair from her forehead, fondled the small ears, and gazed at her upturned face.