Looking properly contrite, he said, "Can you forgive me for standing you up last night, Susan?"
"Of course I can forgive you for that, although it was a tacky thing to do."
"It certainly was. I owe your parents an apology for it, too."
"We held up dinner for an hour and a half waiting on you. We didn't eat until nine."
That would have been about the time Dovey was blowing on his knife wound, cooling his flesh, and inflaming his passions with her soft breath. Damn, it had felt delicious, stirring his body hair, fanning his skin.
"I have no excuse for what I did."
The apologetic words were beginning to stick in his craw. If not for her father's position at the bank, he'd tell this spoiled brat that he wasn't accountable to her for whom he slept with, and that would be the last she'd see of him.
He was anxious to begin his search for Dovey, and was only going through the motions of stroking Susan because it was politic to do so. He hadn't needed Chase to spell that out to him. However, he rued the day he'd asked Susan for that first date several months ago. He wanted to lash out, reminding her that he'd made her no promises, certainly had made no commitments, and that whoever he slept with, whether it be one woman or a dozen, was no business of hers. Only a reminder of the loan payment coming due forced him to squelch his mounting temper.
Hoping that she wouldn't catch the hopefulness in his voice, he said, "You'd be better off refusing to see me again."
She gazed thoughtfully at the floor for a moment, then raised her shimmering eyes to his. "I've got a more forgiving spirit than that."
Damn! Women loved to be forgiving. It vested them with enormous power over the forgiven. They thrived on the poor sucker's guilt like carrion birds on a carcass, picking it clean.
"I can forgive you for skipping dinner with us," she said. "I can even overlook your engaging in a barroom brawl, because I know you have a volatile nature. I'll admit that's part of the attraction you hold over me.
"What I'm finding very difficult to forgive…" Here, her lower lip began to quiver and her voice became tremulous. "You've humiliated me in front of the whole town. They say you couldn't be located when the fire broke out last night because you were with a whore."
"She wasn't a whore." The application of that word to Dovey made him so angry that he was startled by the intensity of his emotion.
"Then who was she?"
"A stranger. I never saw her before last night, but she wasn't a whore." Susan was watching him shrewdly. He softened his tone. "Look, Susan, I didn't set out to sleep with anybody last night. It just sorta happened." That was the truth. He hadn't wormed his way into Dovey's motel room with the intention of making love to her. He'd only wanted to provoke her as badly as he'd been provoked, get his apology, and then leave.
It wasn't entirely his fault that it hadn't quite worked out that way. He'd been half-asleep when he reached for her. She'd been fragrant and warm and soft and compliant. Her damp lips had been mobile beneath his, her body responsive. He couldn't be blamed for how naturally his body had responded to the sexy stimuli. Of course, it had been conditioned to respond.
"…understand. You left here yesterday aroused. Right?"
He blinked to clear his vision, and tried to grasp what Susan had been saying. "Uh, right."
She approached him, gazing up at him through spiky, wet lashes. Her mouth looked vulnerable. But for all her tears and sniveling, Lucky knew she was about as helpless as a barracuda.
"So you took your lust for me and spent it on a willing woman," she whispered, laying her hands on his chest. "I guess I should be flattered, though I'm still very hurt. The thought of you in bed with another woman makes me just want to die."
She looked closer to killing than dying. Her eyes, no longer bright with tears, were alight with malice. "But I can understand how when a man gets so aroused, he's got to do something about it or explode."
She came up on tiptoes and brushed a kiss across his lips. "I know the feeling, Lucky. Don't you think I want you, too? Don't you know that the only reason I'm saving myself is so our wedding night will be special? Don't you know how badly I want to make love to you right now?"
True, he had been mildly aroused when he left Susan after lunch the day before, but he had got hotter than that watching certain commercials on TV. His arousal then had been like a mild head cold when compared to the feverish delirium he'd experienced when he'd entered Dovey's giving body.
"Look, Susan," he said irritably, "all this talk about weddings—"
She laid her fingers against his lips. "Shh. I know we can't make an announcement until you get out of the mess you're in. Poor baby." She reached up with the intention of running her fingers through his hair. He snapped his head back and caught her hand before she could touch him.
"Announcement?"
"The announcement of our engagement, silly," she said, playfully tapping his chest. "And just so we can get this misunderstanding about the fire settled quickly, and to prove how much I love you, I'll say that you spent last night with me."
"What?"
"It's all over town that you woke up alone this morning and can't produce your alibi. So I'll say that I was with you. Mama and Daddy will have a fit, of course, but they'll accept our sleeping together as inevitable if I have an engagement ring on my finger. They'll be so happy we're finally making it official, they'll overlook our one night of sin."