The Tycoon's Virgin Bride (2 page)

But Jenessa, only a few months ago, had run away from
home, obeying every instinct of body and soul that had urged her to forge her own destiny. Why should she play it safe now? Art was about risks, and how could she take risks on a square of canvas if she never took them in her personal life? Doing her best to look cool and sophisticated, she asked, “Are you ready?”

“I have a rented car outside. Let's go.”

She glanced down at her attire. “You don't care if they see you leaving with me?”

He raised his brows. “I don't live by anyone else's rules—maybe you should know that about me.” He took her by the elbow, the warmth of his fingers on her bare skin sending ripples of heat through her body.

“Where are we going?” she faltered. “A bar would be fine, providing it's not too dark for me to see what I'm doing.”

“Oh,” he said deliberately, “I thought we'd go to my hotel. That way we won't be disturbed.”

“I want to sketch you—that's all!”

“Is it? Is it really, Jan Struthers?”

They'd left the auditorium; the corridor was deserted. Lifting his hand, Bryce traced the softness of her lips with tantalizing slowness, his fingers lingering on the silky skin of her cheek. As her eyes widened, every nerve in her body sprang to life. She swayed toward him, her heart pounding in her breast. He said softly, “Underneath all that war paint, you're quite astonishingly beautiful.”

He meant it, she realized dazedly. And already this had gone far beyond flirting. He wanted her. He, Bryce Laribee, self-made millionaire, wanted her, Jenessa Strathern, seventeen-year-old virgin.

Run for your life, Jenessa.

He was pressing the elevator button for the car park. She gasped, “I left my sketch pad at the studio by mistake. I—”

He laughed. “It was a novel approach, I must admit.”

So all along he'd thought she was lying about her desire
to sketch him…how dare he? Dragging her attention back to what he was saying, she tried to focus. “So tell me about yourself, Jan—what brought you to Columbia? It's a fine school, so you must be talented. Should I be looking out for your name in a few years?”

He'd look a long time because her name was false. With a passion that surprised her, Jenessa said, “I don't want to follow the latest trend—which is always in reaction to the trend before it. I'm not using the word fad, but it might well apply. I want to paint what's true to me. Follow my instincts, my gut. No matter if it's unfashionable and doesn't fly.” Abruptly she fell silent, wishing she'd kept her mouth shut.

“Interesting,” he said. “Do you run your love life on the same principles?”

She had no love life. Had never really contemplated the possibility before this fraught meeting with her brother's best friend.

Bryce was standing altogether too close to her in the elevator, and like a shock of cold water she wondered if all along she'd been deceiving herself about her motives for meeting Bryce, out of simple ignorance of the forces that could ignite between a man and a woman. Had it been an artistic need? Or a sexual one? Or a blend of both? Her mouth dry, she blurted the truth. “I think I wanted you the minute I saw your photo on the poster.”

“I'm a very rich man,” he remarked.

With a shocked gasp Jenessa moved away from him, her back pressing into the wall. “I'm not after your money! I couldn't care less about it.”

Narrow-eyed, he stared at her in silence for a full five seconds. “You mean that, don't you?”

The elevator doors slid open. She stayed where she was. “Yes, I do.”

Bryce took her by the elbow, jamming his foot against the door. “You'd be surprised how many women look right through me and see nothing but my net worth.”

She wasn't quite ready to surrender. “I'm not one of them.”

“Then I apologize.”

“Do you?” Jenessa flashed. “Really? Or are you just mouthing the words?”

“We're holding up the elevator,” he said irritably. “This is a one-night stand, we're not talking marriage for life. So what does it matter?”

A one-night stand. How cheap that sounded. “I'm not going anywhere with you,” she flared. “I really did want to sketch you—it wasn't a come-on.”

“Look, I've apologized.” He tugged her out of the elevator. “What more do you want?”

Anger had hardened his jawline; his energy, fierce and unyielding, called up a matching response in her from a place she refused to deny. “I don't like being called a liar.”

“I'm taking your words at face value—that you're not interested in my money. Isn't that enough for you?”

“I guess it'll have to be,” she retorted, her cheeks hot with temper.

With sudden impatience Bryce put his arms around her, pulled her to the length of his body and kissed her. His hunger, ruthless and imperious, wiped out her anger as if it had never been, replacing it with a surge of primitive passion that was utterly new to her. Drowning in it, she clung to him with all her strength. His hold tightened. Then she felt the first thrust of his tongue like the lick of fire. Instinctively molding her body to his, she opened to him; and in a rush of mingled amazement and pleasure realized that what he was demanding she was more than willing to give.

Abruptly Bryce released her, saying roughly, “The car's just outside. Let's go.”

Jenessa stumbled after him, knowing that in one brief kiss she'd learned more about the power of one man's body over her own than she could have imagined. En
thralled. Swept off her feet. Bewitched. In a way that even ten minutes ago she couldn't have anticipated.

Bryce ushered her into the passenger seat of a silver Mercedes, and without a word drove out of the lot. Soon he was navigating the noisy streets, weaving in and out of the traffic. As though there'd been no hiatus in their conversation, he said, “There's something you should know about me. I fly to the west coast tomorrow and leave for Singapore the next day. I don't do commitment and I always use protection.”

Something in his tone angered Jenessa profoundly. “Are you being purposely unromantic?”

“I'm telling you the way it is. If you don't like it, it's not too late to back out…I'll buy you a drink and no hard feelings.”

Inadvertently he'd given her an excuse to escape from a situation that was way beyond her depth. She should take it, take it and run. It was perfectly clear to her that she'd never even have gotten into his car had he not been Travis's friend, and thus known to her by hearsay.

But then she remembered the incredible power of that single kiss; mysteriously, hadn't it transformed her into a woman truly aware of her own femininity? Was she going to run away from that?

With a barely discernible quiver in her voice, Jenessa said mendaciously, “My first rule is protection.”

“Fine. And your second?”

This time she was telling the hard truth. “That no one, but no one, controls my life but me.”

“Then we're on the same wavelength,” Bryce said.

Jenessa sat back, trying to still the trembling of her limbs. Right now she was going on the assumption she'd have at least some control over whatever happened in Bryce's hotel room.

But what if she was wrong? What then?

A
S A CABDRIVER
blared his horn, Jenessa gave a nervous start. She depended deeply on her intuition in the studio; it was now screaming that the next few hours could unalterably change her life in ways far more significant than any lost virginity.

She was under no illusions: she was about to go to bed with her brother's best friend. It was a crazy plan. Plain crazy. But never before had her blood fueled her body with such an undeniable and imperative ache of desire.

She'd allow herself to be seduced by Bryce; and then she'd leave. If he ever found out who she was, she was sure he'd never tell Travis.

In that, at least, she was quite safe. And how much better to lose her virginity with an experienced man who was, however obliquely, known to her, than to any of the fumbling undergraduates who had only filled her distaste. She said coolly, “I'll take a cab home afterward.”

Not taking his eyes off the constant traffic, Bryce asked, “How old are you, Jan?”

Her lashes flickered. “Twenty-one.”

“Do you graduate next spring?”

“No…I was late applying.”

He said in exasperation, “I can't read you—you elude me. Usually women are an open book to me. But not you.”

“Perhaps open books aren't worth reading.” She gave a sudden chuckle. “Which sounds like a Japanese koan, doesn't it?”

“Mysterious? Paradoxical? You're both.” He gri
maced. “I'll be back in New York in a couple of months. Will you give me your phone number?”

“No.”

Her answer, like everything else she'd done in the last hour, had been instinctive. Bryce said flatly, “You really are into control.”

Suddenly exhilarated as much by their verbal fencing as by his physical presence, Jenessa said provocatively, “Is there any reason why I shouldn't be?”

Deliberately he took his hand from the wheel and slid it up her stockinged thigh, bared by her miniskirt. “I hope neither of us regrets this.”

“There's no reason why either of us should,” she said, as much to herself as to him; and made no attempt to hide her shiver of response.

Leaving his hand heavy and warm on her thigh, he said, “Two more blocks.”

Ten minutes later, Bryce was ushering her through the double doors of the penthouse suite in one of the city's most prestigious hotels. She gained a quick impression of gleaming parquet and opulent Chinese carpets before Bryce said with the underlying impatience she was already realizing was characteristic of him, “Do you want anything to eat? Or drink?”

The courage that had preserved her time and again in her childhood came to the fore. She slipped her feet out of her shoes and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “You and you,” she whispered.

With a strength that intoxicated her, he lifted her in his arms and carried her the width of a richly furnished living room, its tall windows jeweled with the lights of the city. His corded muscles were hard against her body; she could hear the heavy pounding of his heart, an intimacy that made her faint with longing. He pushed the bedroom door open, strode across a thick carpet to the bed and lowered her onto it. Then he straightened and yanked at the knot of his tie.

Mesmerized, Jenessa watched as he hauled off his jacket, tie and shirt. He kicked his shoes to one side. Socks and trousers followed. His watch, whose price tag would probably have paid her entire year's tuition, he placed on the bedside table. Then, wearing only a pair of dark boxer shorts, he said softly, “Take off your clothes, Jan.”

Jan,
she thought.
Jan.
Another woman, a fictional woman. When all she wanted was to be herself.

She sat up, unzipping her black jacket. Her brief camisole, skintight, joined his clothes on the floor. Her bra was also black. She eased out of her skirt and drew her stockings slowly down her legs, her eyes glued to his face; scarcely able to breathe, she murmured, “I want you to take off the rest.”

For a moment his gaze roamed the pale curves of her body. “You're so beautiful,” he said huskily.

Wondering if she could die of waiting, Jenessa opened her arms to him. He plummeted to the bed, enveloping her in the heat of his body, flicking open the clasp of her bra and tossing it to the floor. Her breasts were firm, delicately pointed. With his tongue he found the soft peak, hardening it within seconds. Jenessa gave a startled gasp of pleasure, her body arching toward him. He circled her waist, lifting her so that they fitted together as though made for each other.

Against her pelvis she felt the hardness that was his essence: proof of his desire. Then he was kissing her, plundering her mouth for all its sweetness, his hands roaming her body. She tangled her fingers in the hair that curled on his chest, wanting to delay an exploration that melted every nerve she possessed, yet driven toward a completion she could only imagine.

Glorying in her nudity, she pressed thigh to thigh, hip to hip. He sank lower, his lips tracing the swell of her breasts, the sweet concavity of her navel and belly. Then he opened her legs, plunging to find all her sensitivities.
She cried out his name, writhing beneath him, losing herself in rhythms that were sheer delight.

With a muttered exclamation, Bryce reached for the small envelope by the bed. “Wait for me,” he said roughly, “I want us to come together.”

She had been waiting for him for months, ever since she'd fled the house where she'd grown up, she thought dazedly; waiting for a lover capable of unleashing a passion she hadn't known was hers. As she opened her thighs, he thrust between them, brushing her breasts with the hard wall of his chest.

Then she felt resistance, a sudden shaft of pain; despite herself, she flinched. With a suddenness that shocked her, Bryce pulled back. He said sharply, “Jan—you're a virgin.”

“Yes. But I want you so much, I don't care if—”

He was holding his weight on his palms, his elbows taut; he looked appalled. “You've never done this before?”

“No…so what? What difference does it make?”

He said, each word falling like a stone on the bed, “You told me you were experienced.”

“I didn't!”

“Not in so many words. But that's the impression you gave me. I don't have one-night stands with virgins, Jan Struthers. It's not my style. I want a woman who knows the score.”

There was a sharp pain in Jenessa's belly; her skin was suddenly so cold that she was shivering like a half-drowned kitten. “You wanted me, you can't deny that. Experienced or not, you wanted me.”

“I'm glad you put it in the past tense,” he said savagely.

She wrapped her fingers around his arm. “Please, Bryce, don't stop now…I've waited all term to meet someone like you, someone who brings me to life and
makes me realize why I'm made the way I am. I want you to be the first to make love to me. Please.”

He picked up her fingers and removed them from his arm, as though her touch disgusted him. Then he rolled off the bed, the hall light falling smoothly over the planes of his back. Picking up his clothes, he said, “Get dressed. I'll drive you home.”

His muscles flowing like those of a jungle cat, he walked toward the bathroom. The door closed behind him with a decisive snap. Slowly Jenessa sat up.

It was over. He no longer wanted her.

With a whimper of distress she grabbed her scattered garments and pulled them on, her fingers trembling with haste. Her lacy underwear mocked her, as did her tight sweater and minuscule leather skirt. As a lover, she was a failure. As a woman, laughable.

She was fumbling with the zipper on her skirt when Bryce marched back into the bedroom, fully dressed. He said with cold precision, “So what was this really about? Were you planning a little blackmail? Well-known tycoon rapes virgin?”

She paled, her eyes huge. He was like Charles, she thought, misjudging her totally, always assuming the worst. Were all men like that? All except her brother, Travis: who was, of course, Bryce's best friend.

What was she going to do next? Collapse in tears? Or call upon the pride that had been her salvation for the last many years?

She wasn't going to cry in front of Bryce Laribee. That much she knew. Standing tall, Jenessa spat, “Don't judge me by the standards of your other women!”

“Then what did you do this for?”

“If you don't understand, there's no point in me trying to explain,” she snapped, thrusting her arms into her jacket. “I'll get a cab and you'll never hear from me again. Goodbye, Bryce. It's been instructive.”

“It certainly has. How old
are
you?”

She raised her chin, glaring at him. “Seventeen,” she said. “But still old enough to know better.”

“Seventeen?”

“That's what I said.”

“And I believed every word you told me…you should be studying drama, not art.”

She said flatly, “If you think I'm going to stand here half the night while you insult me, you couldn't be more wrong. Get out of my way.”

He seized her by the elbow. “I said I'd drive you home.”

“The only way you'll do that is with me kicking and screaming every inch of the way—is that what you want?”

“You little hellcat,” he said with reluctant admiration, “you would, wouldn't you? Have you got enough money for a cab?”

She raised her chin another notch. “You're not the only person in the world with money.”

“You're certainly behaving like some rich guy's spoiled brat.”

He couldn't have said anything more calculated to hurt:
spoiled brat
had been one of the phrases her father used to fling at her when she was little. She said steadily, knowing she had to get out of here, “Stick to your own league, Bryce—women who don't challenge you.”

“Don't tell me what to do,” he said softly.

Fear trickled like ice water down her spine. Her mind blank, she walked past him out of the bedroom, all her nerves straining to hear if he would follow her. The living room seemed endless, the green carpet as vast as a football field. Then, finally, the penthouse door clicked shut behind her. The elevator arrived, she walked in and was carried down to the lobby. Chin still high, she crossed it and let the doorman hail her a cab. It wasn't until she got into her own little rented room in a very different area of
town, the door latched and chained, that she allowed her pride to dissolve into tears of humiliation and pain.

 

Slowly Jenessa came back to the present. A hermit thrush was piping from the pines in her neighbor's lot, clear, silvery notes that brought an ache to her chest; she had, without even knowing what she was doing, weeded the entire row of green beans. Twelve years had passed since that evening, and yet her humiliating dismissal was as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. No wonder she couldn't bear the thought of going to Samantha's christening.

She got up, gathered the wilting weeds into her bucket and dumped them on the compost. The late May sun felt warm on her back; she should have put on shorts and a sleeveless top instead of her old gardening trousers and a baggy shirt.

Trying to shake off her mood, Jenessa looked around appreciatively. Her little peak-roofed house with its weathered, unpainted shingles and neat white trim, her tangled flower garden and tidy vegetable patch were where she belonged: haven and inspiration, the place where she could be herself. Five years ago, Travis had loaned her the money for the down payment; when she turned thirty, in a few months, she would receive her share of her grandfather's trust fund, and the place would really be hers.

She glanced at her watch. Another fifteen minutes weeding, then she'd head indoors and make something for supper.

Jenessa sank to her knees. Tomorrow she must start her next painting; she'd already done some sketches, although nothing about them had hardened into certainty. Idly the images began drifting through her mind, one after another, colors shifting and changing in the light…

“Excuse me,” a man's voice said, “I'm looking for Jenessa Strathern.”

That voice. That deep baritone voice. She'd have known it anywhere. And it was all too real: not part of her earlier reverie. The color draining from her face, Jenessa pushed herself upright and turned to face the intruder.

Bryce Laribee was standing on the garden path, not ten feet from her. He'd pushed dark glasses up into his sun-streaked blond hair; his eyes were still the unrevealing gray she remembered so well. Her throat dry, her cold palms pressed into her trousers, she croaked, “Who did you say?”

“I'm sorry,” he said quizzically, “I didn't mean to startle you. I called out from behind the back porch, but you didn't hear me. I'm looking for Jenessa Strathern.”

She hadn't heard because she'd just had a brain wave for the background of the painting. For a wild moment she contemplated lying to him, telling him she had no idea who Jenessa Strathern was or where he could find her. But Wellspring, the village in which she lived, was too small for her to hide. Any one of her neighbors would direct him back to the little Quaker house on the lane.

And then he'd know she'd been lying, and would wonder why.

She faltered, “I'm Jenessa. Who are you?”

He grinned down at her dirt-stained fingers. “I hope I won't insult you if I don't offer to shake hands. I'm Bryce Laribee, your brother Travis's friend.”

Through a jumble of disconnected thoughts, Jenessa gave thanks that she was in her most disreputable clothes, her curls jammed under her straw hat, her face innocent of makeup. She couldn't look more different from the spike-haired, leather-clad siren she'd been at seventeen. “Oh,” she said, “hello,” and stretched her mouth in a smile that felt completely artificial.

He was wearing faded jeans and an open-necked checked shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. At his throat she saw his tangled body hair, on his arms blond
hairs that caught the sun. As inevitably as one of her roses opening to the morning sun, desire blossomed in her belly, so impelling and ungovernable that she was terrified it would show in her face. She still wanted him, she thought with a sick lurch of her heart. Just as much as she had twelve years ago.