Against the Odds

by Donna Kauffman

  “What—what about your seminars?” Her throat was dry and a bit tight. Perhaps that was an appropriate reaction when one was about to embark on a sexual liaison with a stranger. An entirely different sort of stranger than the professionals she’d come seeking. She looked down at their joined hands and couldn’t seem to summon up any moral outrage over her decision. Impatience, that was the uppermost feeling she was having at the moment. “I’d hate to think I was taking you away from your classes.”

  “Some of the most important things I’ve learned have come from just doing them.” He flashed that grin at her. The grin that told her he’d learned quite a few things in a “hands-on” fashion.

  And right now all she wanted was those hands on her.

  “No better teacher than experience,” she murmured in agreement. It was why she’d come here, after all. She’d read the books. Hell, she’d written some. And the only thing that had made her an expert was in knowing what she wanted. And what she wanted done to her. But turning that into a reality?

  He pulled her hand up to his mouth just then, and kissed her palm, just a warm press of his lips, then he drifted those lips to the inside of her wrist, and kissed her there as well. She almost swallowed her tongue.

  “Your turn,” he said, lowering their still-joined hands.

  “What?” she choked out.

  “That’s how this works, right? I try something, then you try something? How else are we going to discover what we like?”

  “Right,” she said, suddenly unsteady. Her turn. “Okay then.” She supposed she could simply mirror his actions, kiss his palm.

  But this wasn’t just about pleasing him, it was also about learning what she was capable of. She didn’t want to copy him. She wanted to do things, try things she’d never tried before, things she’d only written about. So. What would she honestly like to do to him right now? That could be done in the back of a taxi, that is.

  She shifted closer to him, then a bit closer still, until she was pressed up against him from shoulder to thigh. He watched her, but said nothing, made no move to anticipate what she was about to do. With her free hand, she reached up and softly stroked the side of his face.

  His eyes flared, but he remained still. “Soft skin,” she murmured, “for such a hard face.” His jaw and cheekbones were prominent. “Close shave,” she went on, rubbing her fingertips gently across his chin.

  “I rarely have to. Blessing of my ancestors,” he said, barely moving his lips. And what lips they were, looking almost carved from the smooth planes of his cheeks and jaw…and yet that bottom lip held just a hint of fullness in the middle, a hint of seduction….

  Her breath grew the slightest bit ragged, but she continued her exploration. “Who are your ancestors?” She traced her fingers across his other cheek and along the dark slash of his eyebrows. Thick lashes framed dark, exotic eyes.

  “Apache,” he said, his voice a bit tense, his jaw flexed.

  She glanced into those eyes, so black. Even this close up it was hard to determine where iris ended and pupil began. “So fierce,” she said softly, then finally drew her fingertips to his mouth, running them along his lips, so chiseled, so seductive.

  “So hard,” he corrected, then turned his face from her still-questing fingers.

  She let her hand drop away, but couldn’t help the smile. “Still interested in lunch?”

  He shot her a direct look that made her pulse skyrocket. “My hunger is building by the minute.”

  Christ but the man made her wet. “Then why—”

  The taxi pulled to the curb just then. “We are here,” the cabbie announced.

  Tucker looked out the window at the small café. “So we are.” He opened the door and all the tension that had mounted between them slid out with him. He kept possession of her hand as he helped her out.

  “Wait, let me take care of the meter,” she said.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  She would have argued with him, but she was already on the sidewalk. She wasn’t looking to be taken care of. At least not in that manner. When the cab pulled away and Tucker turned back to her, she got right to it. “I am perfectly capable of—”

  Tucker palmed her hips and tugged her forward until her body came flush up against his. There was no mistaking how aroused he was. “I’m perfectly aware of your capabilities. Remind me not to play games with you while using public transportation.”

  “Oh,” she said, unable to respond more clearly, because her body was busy doing all the responding at the moment. She went to step back, but his arm slid around her back, keeping her right where she was.

  “Come here,” he said, moving them away from the entrance to the café. He let go of her then, shot her that boyish grin when she gave him a questioning look. “I need to not touch you for a couple of minutes. Let things settle down.”

  Smiling, Misty decided she rather liked this femme fatale stuff. Perhaps she should have tried it sooner. And maybe she would have if she’d met the right man. The ones she’d dated, behavior like this would have seemed silly, forced. With Tucker…well, it was all she could do not to whistle for anther taxi and drag him back to her room.

  However, she was beginning to see the attraction of drawing things out a bit. Who knew foreplay could begin so far outside the bedroom? Well, she did, of course. In fiction, anyway.

  “What’s going on behind that very wicked smile?” he asked.

  “Wicked is it?” Her smile grew. “Well, perhaps that’s apt, as that’s how I’m feeling at the moment. Can I share something with you?”

  “I’m rather hoping you’ll share a lot with me,” he said, his attempt at her accent so laughable it was cute.

  She merely gave him a look, then said, “Despite the manner in which we met, and despite my occupation as well, this sort of thing isn’t my…shall we say, forte.”

  “I’d never have guessed.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  He gestured for her to go ahead of him into the café and didn’t answer until they were seated at a small glass-and-wrought iron table placed at the outside corner of the eating area.

  He took her hand again, over the table, and toyed with her fingers. She decided she didn’t care what he meant, as long as he kept touching her.

  “You have this interesting duality,” he said.

  “Duality? Now there’s a word.”

  He shrugged. “It was the best I could come up with, but it fits.”

  Intrigued, she asked, “What are these dual attributes then?”

  “On the one hand, you are a woman who writes of the intricacies of passion between men and women.” He smiled. “It is heterosexual fiction, right?”

  She laughed. “You would be correct.”

  “Okay. And then there is the manner in which we first met. And I will admit to being very curious about why you were there, whether it was personal or just professional research.” He traced his fingers along hers. “But all that is the writer you, the professional you. The you that put Ted so perfectly in his place. You’re absolutely confident about what and who you are as a writer.”

  “You got all that from a brief conversation at a police lab?”

  “No, I mostly got that from the way you conducted your own interrogation of Faulkner and Riggins.”

  “Ah. I’d forgotten you eavesdropped on that.”

  He just smiled. “I am an investigator.”

  She slowly withdrew her fingers from his. “And the other part of me? I suppose that would be the obvious novice in the actual practicing of those intricacies you spoke of earlier. Was I so transparent then?”

  “No, not at all. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been so turned on by a woman touching my face.” He let that sink in for a moment, then said, “What I meant was that you project a certain ‘hands-off’ attitude. Maybe it’s that British stiff upper lip thing. Or maybe you just have to put up that wall, for the very reason that what you write p
ossibly encourages men to assume a familiarity you don’t appreciate. You never once gave the impression that you made a habit of devouring whatever man caught your eye. But I never doubted you could.”

  She had no idea what to say to that.

  “You intrigued me,” he went on. “Fascinated me, as I told you when we met. In fact, I can honestly say no woman has ever caught my attention as squarely as you did.”

  She smiled then, surprised at how easy it was to relax with him, especially considering the extremely personal nature of their conversation. “I daresay meeting a woman when she is fully naked and posed on a bed of silk pillows might warrant a bit of attention.”

  “Perhaps,” he conceded easily. “But it was watching you with the detectives that really worked me up.”

  She was saved from immediately responding when the waiter approached with their menus. He recited the specials and they both ordered quickly, almost obliviously it seemed to Misty. Right now the menu they were most interested in perusing wasn’t the one with food listed on it. Once the young man had walked away, Misty turned her attention back to Tucker. “I will tell you why I came to Blackstone’s, but first it’s my turn for confession.”

  Tucker lifted his hands. “Tell me everything.”

  Her lips curved and she paused. “I’m not so sure I should. Confidence is something I don’t think you ever lack.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “How so?”

  “When you went back into the office last night, to contact your director, I was honestly torn on whether or not to follow you.”

  “Which you didn’t. Were you honestly afraid of rejection?”

  He shook his head. “Not afraid. Although I’ll admit, I’m not usually in the position where I have to chase. At least, not with any great effort anyway.”

  “Really,” she parroted, “I never would have guessed.”

  His grin was tempered with a self-deprecating laugh. “The town I’m from isn’t all that big, so—”

  She waved a hand. “I’m quite sure that wouldn’t matter. So, you didn’t follow me because I wounded your ego when I didn’t immediately fall at your feet, begging you for a wild, four-day fling?”

  “Not at all, although I admit to extreme disappointment. But I didn’t follow you because, if I had, you’d have turned me down flat.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “I came on pretty strong, our initial meeting not being what you’d call remotely typical, and you’d just been through an interrogation by police investigating a homicide.” His grin surfaced again, only this time that shade of cockiness had returned. “I’m somewhat self-aware when it comes to what kind of effect I have on a woman, but there are things even I can’t overcome.”

  She had to laugh. He was truly incorrigible. “I’m surprised the women of your hometown ever let you leave it.”

  “They’re not so impressed with me. Most of them have known me all my life.”

  She’d bet the women back home were plenty impressed. For all his attitude and assuredness, he was quite gentlemanly and cordial. It was a power punch combo.

  “Is that why not one of them has managed to snag you?”

  He laughed. “I’ve known most of them all their lives, too. After so many years, that kind of history has a way of rendering them all family of sorts.”

  Yeah, she’d just bet that’s how they saw him. Like a brother. She managed to refrain from a rather unladylike snort.

  “I could ask the same of you. A big city like New York, filled with men from all over the world. Money, power, polish. And yet you remain unsnagged as well.”

  She conceded his point. “Not because of any familial feelings, I assure you. It simply hasn’t happened.” She didn’t want to talk about her dismal track record with men, although boring would be a better term. She was anything but bored at the moment. In fact, she couldn’t ever remember feeling so entirely engaged. And they were just eating lunch. She couldn’t imagine what this intensity would feel like in bed. “So,” she said, pausing to take a sip of her water, cool down her suddenly heated…everything. “You were just going to let me walk away then? What if I hadn’t come to your hotel today? Easy come, easy go?”

  “I thought I could let you walk away,” he said, suddenly serious. “I’m here to learn and this murder investigation is an opportunity like no other.”

  “Back to learning by doing.”

  “Exactly.” He pierced her with that black gaze of his. “Except, when I went back to my hotel last night, the only thing on my mind was you. I called Blackstone’s first thing this morning, prepared to do whatever I had to, to get you to have lunch with me today. Only you’d already checked out.”

  Misty laughed. It was that or fan herself, his attention was so hotly focused on her. “I certainly feel better about showing up unannounced at your hotel, then.”

  “And yet, when I gave us an out to not go with Ted, you didn’t pick up on it. I know you understood what I was trying to do. Why back down?”

  “I was already having second thoughts in the elevator. As I said earlier, I’m not in the habit of baldly pursuing a man I find attractive. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more nervous I became. I second-guessed everything from my hair to my clothes and was stabbing the lobby button as the doors opened. In fact,” she laughed wryly, tugging her hand from his to cover her neck, “I’m getting splotchy again just talking about it. Cursed English skin.”

  He leaned over, tugged her hand away. “I’m very attracted to your English skin. The rest just makes you human. You’re already intimidating enough, being perfect would simply be too much.”

  She laughed more honestly. “Outrageous flattery will get you everywhere.”

  “Not so outrageous as you think, but I’ll keep that in mind.” He toyed with her hand again. “You were ready to leave the lab without me, too. Why didn’t you?”

  She smiled. “You mean besides the fact that you pursued me out into the hall? Well, that actually brings us back to why I came to Vegas in the first place.”

  “To Blackstone’s.”

  She nodded, then paused, wanting to explain this clearly, but not so that he’d think she was some sort of sexual charity case. “I’m not inexperienced.”

  “I never believed you were.” He held up a hand. “And so there is no confusion, I say that in a flattering, you-knock-my-socks-off kind of way.”

  She laughed again, amazed at how easy this was when it should be so incredibly awkward. “Well done,” she told him.

  He merely nodded in an “I try” sort of manner, and gestured for her to continue.

  “Okay then, we’ve covered the fact that I don’t fling myself at men, but that I have been flung, so to speak. However, there are certain things that I’ve yearned to do…” She trailed off, then realizing that, for heaven’s sake, she’d come this far, she might as well meet the rest head-on. So she held his gaze squarely and said, “And there are things I’ve yearned to have done to me. Yet, I’ve never managed to meet the man who I felt comfortable enough with to pursue those wants.”

  “And that’s where Blackstone’s came into play?”

  “Yes. I came here for me. As a woman, but also as a writer,” she explained. “A writer who must rely on a vivid imagination to put together all aspects of her stories. Not just the sexual, mind you. But, I’ve been at this for some time, and the well, as they say, is running a bit dry.” She smiled then, mostly at herself. “Both personally and professionally, as it were.”

  “I love it when you get nervous.”

  “Am I stammering?” She touched her neck. “Splotchy?”

  “Neither. But your accent goes from a casual sort of thing, to this amazingly polished yet edgy kind of tone. Frankly, it turns me on.”

  She studied him, surprised by his observation. “I suppose I’ll have to remember that. For later.”

  Now he laughed. “Please do.” He took her hand in his and pulled her forward until they
were both leaning across the table. “Can I interrupt and tell you how glad I am you decided to stay?”

  She grinned, feeling ever so much the same way. “Why yes, yes you may.”

  “And can I also tell you that I’m flattered and at the same time a bit nervous.”

  Now she sat back. “You? What on earth do you have to be nervous about?”

  “Well, you’ve checked out of Blackstone’s, your quest unfulfilled. But you’ve opted to stay…and sought me out instead. I can only conclude that the things you wanted to explore at Blackstone’s, you’re hoping to explore, at least to some extent, with me.”

  She supposed she should be embarrassed to have her desires put in such bald terms. But she’d already come to the conclusion that he was her best bet if she was to indeed do some carnal exploring. “You seemed willing enough to take on an adventure.”

  “Yes, but then I wasn’t aware of your agenda.”

  “I don’t have an agenda.”

  “What exactly was it you’d signed up for at Blackstone’s?”

  Now it was her turn to tease and she enjoyed that it came so naturally. With him. “You’ve been dying to learn that little tidbit since you found me in that room, haven’t you?”

  He shrugged, unrepentant. “I am human.”

  “And an investigator. You didn’t ferret out that little bit of information with your innumerable skills?”

  “I don’t know how innumerable they are,” he responded with a wolfish grin, “but no, I’d never pry into your privacy like that.”

  And she knew he was absolutely sincere. “I detect a bit of shining armor there.”

  Now he laughed. “Oh, there’s nothing noble about the fun I had imagining what package you signed up for, trust me.”