Free Mexican Nights by Jeanne Stephens Page B

unbutton her dress.
    She blinked at him. "What are you doing?"
    "Sit up," he commanded, jerking her into a sitting position. "I'm putting you to bed. Obviously, you're not capable of doing it yourself." He took hold of the hem of her dress and pulled it over her head. Then she sat on her bed in her half-slip and bra, her hair tousled and falling into her face. She lunged for a pillow and held it in front of her.
    "Your research assistant is a—a lecher!" she flung at him.
    "Hardly!" he retorted scornfully. "He merely acted upon the signals that he claims you'd been throwing out all evening."
    "That's a lie!" Then, overcome with the giggles again, Terri fell back across the bed, clutching the pillow to her breast. "You should have seen him, Derek. I hit him, and he looked so surprised!"
    Muttering darkly, Derek tugged off her shoes and began to remove her panty hose.
    Too exhausted and tipsy to care very much, Terri lay like a limp rag and rambled. "No, you're right. Jack isn't really a lecher. He just had a little too much to drink. Did you ever notice that cute little dimple in his chin? Actually, he's kind of sexy—" She giggled as Derek jerked at one leg of her panty hose. "Why are you looking so grim, Dr. Storm? You aren't jealous, are you?"
    With a growl, he ripped the clinging panty hose off her feet, twisting one of her ankles painfully in the process of freeing that foot from the hose.
    "Ouch!" Furiously, Terri kicked out and, since he was bending over her, her foot landed in his chest.
    Flinging the panty hose aside, as well as the pillow she was clutching, Derek grabbed hold of her, pressing her back against the bed. "You little vixen!"
    Suddenly frightened, Terri squirmed futilely in his hard grip. But he had her effectively immobilized, one knee pinning her legs down, his hands holding her arms above her head.
    A sob of frustration caught in Terri's throat. "I—I wish I'd let Jack seduce me. He—he, at least, is gentle and knows how to treat a lady."
    "When you start acting like a lady," Derek snarled, "maybe you will be treated as one."
    Then, with a harsh cry, his mouth came down on hers in a merciless assault that sent an electric shock sizzling through her body, all the way to her toes. In her mind she fought to resist him, but her wayward body was flooded with a tide of sensations that was stronger than her will. She felt herself being pulled along by the undertow that was like the rush of a collapsing dam.
    With a despairing capitulation, she returned his kiss, her mouth opening, inviting, her arms closing around his neck to pull him nearer, her slender half-naked body shuddering in his arms.
    He lifted his head to ask huskily, "Do you still wish you were with Jack?"
    "No," she admitted in a weak haze. She had smiled, talked, drunk, played her part in the desperate pretense that her evening with Jack was the beginning of a romance—but all the time there had been one thought at the back of her mind, the memory of the moments in Derek's arms that afternoon. Her flirtation with Jack—for she knew that she
had
flirted— had been a frantic attempt to cover up more dangerous thoughts.
    It was one thing to vow, when they were apart, never to allow Derek to touch her again; it was quite another to resist him when he held her in his arms. The fierce independence she had cultivated so carefully during the past three years was a weak opponent for the sensual hunger that drove her now.
    Staring at her with desire-filled eyes, he said, "I promised to teach you about passion at the right moment. We have all the time in the world now. I've been waiting for hours for you to come back to the hotel."
    "You go out in the evenings, why shouldn't I?" she asked, looking at him through her lashes, her senses stirring at the smoldering hunger in his face.
    "Only you almost went too far tonight, didn't you, Terri?" he asked mockingly. "You deliberately led Jack on." His eyes blazed. "Were you trying to get back at me?"
    "Why