Read Online Miss Greenhorn by Diana Palmer - Free Book Online Page B

on fire with the need to bury himself in her. “You can stop playing. You don’t have to ply me with virginal wiles. I want you like hell.”
    â€œIt isn’t…playing,” she said. “I’m a virgin.”
    He laughed coldly. “At your age? The way you look? Like hell you are!” He bent to kiss her again.
    But she turned her face away. “I didn’t always look like this! Nate, I’ve never…done this!” she said frantically. “You don’t understand!”
    â€œDo you expect me to believe that?” he demanded, jerking her face back to his furious eyes. “My God, you’ve teased and flirted and had one ‘accident’ after another to get my attention. You’ve thrown yourself at me ever since you got here, so why act shocked when I make a move on you? You want me. I’ve known that from the first.”
    She bit her lower lip, so horribly embarrassed that she could hardly get the words out. He still had her pinned and now his arousal was becoming a terrible punishment.
    â€œYes, I wanted you,” she confessed miserably. “But I thought… I thought you felt something for me.”
    He glared down at her, furious with her and with himself for what she was doing to him. “Felt something?” He laughed coldly. “Can’t you feel what I want?” he asked with cruel mockery and moved his hips deliberately against her, watching the flaming color come into her face. “Yes, you know what that is, don’t you? Why pretend it’s such a shocking experience?”
    â€œBecause it is.” She swallowed and closed her eyes, wishing she could just disappear. Her hands clenched on his shoulders. “Until a week ago, I looked like somebody’s old maid aunt. I got my hair done and bought new clothes and…and revamped my personality. I thought for once in my life, I’d try to be like those women I admired on television. You know, the independent, sophisticated, outgoing women that men…that men want.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I didn’t know, didn’t realize, that I’d be mistaken for a…for a tramp!”
    Her voice broke and it finally got through to him that he was treating her like one.
    His lean hand jerked her face back up to his while his body throbbed in anguish over hers. “Are you serious?” he asked curtly. “Are you really trying to convince me that you’re a virgin? That you’ve never been intimate with a man?”
    â€œNobody ever wanted to be intimate with somebody who looked like I did,” she whispered, her voice shaking as she met his accusing dark eyes. His weight was formidable and she just wanted to get away from him. He looked as if he hated her. “I was just a dull little dishwater blonde. I had my hair lightened and my face done, I bought new makeup and new clothes and forced myself to try and be outgoing. I thought…” She closed her eyes. “I thought maybe if I were pretty, men might notice me. I’ve been alone all my life. I just wanted somebody to love me,” she whispered in a fever of embarrassment.
    His jaw clenched. It sounded too genuine to be a lie, but he hated her for what he was hearing. “Love is a rare commodity,” he said tersely, easing his body away from hers. “I don’t have any to give. All I wanted was one night with you, Christy, not happy ever after. I’m thirty-seven. If I wanted to be married, believe me, I could be.”
    â€œYes, I know that,” she said. She heard him move away and she managed to sit up without looking at him, embarrassed at her disheveled clothing, at the way she’d responded to him. Her trembling fingers gathered the fabric to her taut, swollen breasts. She could still feel his mouth on them, like a brand.
    â€œI can’t believe a woman could be that green,” he said, his voice cutting as he glared down at her, trying