"Only if you were thinking straight," Adam said.
"Absolutely not. Martina Logan has just fallen into my lap, and I may not be in the best condition, but I plan to take full advantage of the situation. If I have anything to say about it, she won't be leaving."
Adam helped Noah around the corner to the bedroom. He rubbed his face with his hand and looked at Noah with an expression that mixed admiration and pity. "If she's gonna stay, you'd better get that house finished. The boys won't know what to do with a pregnant woman in the house. A Logan at that."
* * *
Martina spent the day bringing Noah beverages, encouraging him to stay away from the computer, intercepting telephone calls and telling him to rest. Before today, she'd had no concept of how busy his plans for the ranch and trading on the stock market kept him. Keeping him from the computer and the phone presented an ongoing tug-of-war. By afternoon, she was tempted to spike his drink with a sleeping pill.
She glanced at the clock – 11 p.m. – and gazed again at Noah. He was the most driven man she'd ever met in her life. All that passion drew and excited her at the same time that it repelled her. The thought struck her that he was so hard-driven, so much harder on himself than anyone else, that he could use a soft woman in his life.
In that case, Martina wryly thought, he didn't need her. She couldn't help but notice that the Coltrane home needed a woman's touch the way a flower needed rain, but adding a woman's touch to a bunch of rogue brothers in West Texas had never been her life's aspiration. Martina had always prized independence, respect and autonomy. In secret moments in the dark, she had wished for a special love with a man, but she'd never been able to meld her need for independence with her longing for love.
Looking at Noah with his mussed dark hair, black eyelashes against his tanned skin, and broad shoulders, she was struck anew by how complex he was. He was so strong it was difficult for her to imagine him needing anyone, especially her.
She lifted her hand to touch his forehead, then thought better of it and lowered her hand to her lap.
His eyes flickered open, and for a moment she wondered if he'd read her thoughts.
"You're supposed to be asleep," she whispered.
He glanced at the clock. "So are you."
"What do you want to drink with your pain medication?"
"No … " he began, and his lips twitched. "Just water."
Martina filled his glass in the bathroom that adjoined his bedroom to hers and brought it to him. He grimaced as he turned, but quickly downed the pills and water. "Thanks. Did you get anything to eat?"
"Yes, your brothers kept bringing me sandwiches. It was almost as if they thought I was a hungry animal and I'd get nasty if I didn't get fed."
His lips twitched again. "Can't imagine where they got that impression."
Realization hit Martina. "What did you tell them about me?"
"Just that feeding you tends to keep you in a good mood. You gotta remember we haven't had a woman around for a long time, so they don't really know what to do with you."
"You didn't seem to have that problem." The comment heedlessly popped out of her mouth.
His eyes darkened with sensual awareness. "I always thought it was important to learn what gives a woman pleasure."
"That sounds like you've had quite a bit of practice," she said.
"I've had a few relationships," he conceded. "No woman got me anywhere near the altar. Except you."
Martina opened her mouth to remind him of the very obvious point that the reason he wanted to get married wasn't that she had bowled him over. It was that she was pregnant with his child. He still had circles under his eyes and she could tell his ribs were hurting, so she didn't want to argue with him. He needed to sleep.
"I wasn't your first, either, Martina," Noah said quietly.
She closed her eyes, torn between revealing the truth and keeping her mouth shut.
"You didn't love me like a virgin would."
His assumption irritated her. She opened her eyes and looked at him. "How many virgins have you been with?"
He paused, rubbed his chin, then narrowed his eyes. "None."
"Then I guess you wouldn't know, would you?"
He looked at her in disbelief. "I can't believe you made it into your twenties without having a lover."
"Well, you might be forgetting my two older brothers, who pretty much threatened to cut off the genitals of any man who dated me longer than a month. I graduated from a women's college and I like my independence."
"But you made love to me like a woman who knows how to please a man."
"I didn't want you to know how inexperienced I was."
"Why me, then? Why me for your first lover? A man your family would hate. A main you couldn't share a future with."
"I think knowing I couldn't share a future with you was part of it. It made you safe. You wouldn't want to marry me any more than I would want to marry you."
He pinched the bridge of his nose as if his head was aching. Concerned, Martina touched his shoulder. "Do you need some headache medication?"
"No, I just want to make sure I understand this. The entire reason you got involved with me was that you knew we wouldn't get married?"
Martina pulled away. "Well, no. That wasn't all of it. I was very attracted to you. I was probably even fascinated," she grudgingly revealed. "I loved the way your mind worked."
He glanced at her with a predatory glint in his eye and tugged her down onto his bed. "Still very attracted?"
Martina's heart stuttered. "You need to go to sleep."
He skimmed his finger down her bare arm. "You didn't answer my question. Still very attracted?"
She felt a shiver. "You really do need to rest."
He leaned forward, his lips a breath away from hers. "If you love the way my mind works, why do you fight me so much?"
Martina's mouth went dry and she tried to swallow. "You're a little overwhelming."
"Not for you," he said, rubbing his mouth against hers, creating a delicious buzz. "You're strong, sweetheart. You can take me anytime you want, so why don't you?"
Martina's stomach tightened. His mouth played over hers, teasing, taunting and inviting. He lifted her hand to his shoulder, as if offering his smooth skin and hard muscle for her pleasure.
He made it so easy to touch him and to want him unbearably. He made it so easy to believe at this moment that he would not deliberately bend her will to his.
He slid his hands to the underside of her breasts and gave a sigh that mixed desire and frustration. "I want to make love to you."
A dozen yes and no replies stuck in her throat. She swallowed hard. "You're still recovering. Your ribs are broken, your lung-"
"You could have a healing effect on me," he murmured, his thumbs moving closer to the tips of her breasts.
Martina shook away the thick cloud of wanting. "That's a ridiculous line," she whispered.
"Maybe we should stop talking."
His thumb glanced over her nipple and Martina felt herself begin to melt. She fought it. "Maybe we should start thinking," she said, and forced herself to push away from him.
Standing, she resisted the urge to fan herself. She felt hot from the inside out, and she knew the air conditioner was running full blast. Filled to the brim with such wanting, she feared she would turn into a pillar of salt if she dared even to look at him.
"I've dreamed of making love to you in my bed."
Martina looked at his big bed with the golden oak headboard and royal-blue coverlet. It was easy to visualize him naked and wrapped around her. She squished her eyes closed and banished the images from her mind. "Go to sleep, Noah. You need your rest."
And Martina needed her sanity.
* * *
By the following Friday, Noah wanted to fight. Cooped up in the house with his ribs hurting, sitting up in bed every night, blowing into that damn lung machine every hour and having Martina in his house but not in his bed and not to stay made him want to kick down a few doors. To make matters worse, he couldn't even engage his brother Gideon in a good frustration-reducing fencing match because he wasn't supposed to raise his arms.
Martina appeared at his bedroom door with lemonade and more painkillers. He shook his head. The painkillers might fool him into thinking his ribs didn't hurt, but the inactivity they induced wasn't worth it.
"I'm not taking any more," he said, rising from the bed.
Martina gaped at him. "But-"
"But nothing. I'm not taking any more of those pills during the day." He bent down to pull on his boots and bit back a grimace.
"Wait a minute," she said. "I can help you-"
"I can put on my own boots," he told her.