“I could get used to this,” he said, standing behind Carly and slipping his arms around her waist. His lips were warm and tantalizing against her neck.
Carly pretended to bristle, though the fact was that she wouldn’t have protested if Mark had hauled her off to bed right then. “You’re a chauvinist, Mr. Holbrook.”
“I know,” he said, lifting her hair to kiss her lightly on the nape.
She was trembling when she turned in his arms and gazed into his eyes. She had to tell him she’d read his play now, while things were so good between them. “Mark, I—”
He silenced her by laying an index finger to her lips. “Later,” he told her. “Whatever it is, please save it until after the food, and the loving.”
During the meal Carly and Mark didn’t talk about Nathan, or Mark’s trip. Instead they discussed some of the funnier letters Carly had received and the answers she’d been tempted to give.
They laughed, and the sound of it healed injured places deep inside Carly. Once, tears came to her eyes because it felt so good just to be sitting across the picnic table from Mark, watching the changes in his face as he talked or listened.
He was rinsing their dishes and putting them into the machine when Carly told him the advice column might be discontinued. She watched closely for his reaction, then felt relief when he grinned and said, “They’ll probably find a place for you.”
Carly drew a deep breath and leaned against the breakfast bar. “Actually,” she said, “they already have, sort of.”
Mark looked at her curiously. “Don’t keep me in suspense, Scoop—are they sending you on assignment to the White House or what?”
She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. “I’m probably going to be working with you,” she answered, “on a piece about fathers’ rights. Mr. Clark wanted a woman’s view on the subject.”
He sighed, slammed the dishwasher door closed and shoved one hand through his hair. “Great.”
Carly went to him and laid her hand gently on his arm. “Mark, I’m not Jeanine,” she said in a quiet voice. “I don’t have any axes to grind.”
He drew her close and buried his face in her hair. “I missed you so much,” he said hoarsely.
CHAPTER FIVE
MARK KNELT IN front of the fireplace, adding wood to the blaze, while Carly sat on the couch, her legs curled beneath her. The white wine in her glass sparkled and winked like a liquid jewel.
“Things are happening pretty fast between us,” she said.
He looked back at her over one shoulder. “Is that a problem?”
Carly thought, taking a leisurely sip of her wine. “Yeah, when you consider we don’t even know what it is.”
Mark joined her on the couch, taking her wineglass from her hand and setting it beside his on the coffee table. “Don’t look now, Barnett, but I think it’s passion,” he said, easing Carly down onto the cushions and then poising himself over her.
He was so incredibly brazen, but Carly couldn’t find it in her heart to protest. She wanted to feel his weight pressing down on her, wanted to lose herself in the multicolored light show his lovemaking would set off in her head.
Mark drank the wine from her lips, then shaped her mouth with his and delved into her with his tongue. Carly felt as though he’d already taken her, and an electrical jolt racked her body. With a whimper, she flung her arms around his neck and responded without reservation.
Mark was gasping when he broke the kiss and slid downward over her body. Carly raised her T-shirt and opened her bra of her own accord, and his groan of pleasure at the sight of her naked breasts vibrated under her flesh.
She cried out in acquiescence when he caught one of her nipples in his mouth and grazed it lightly with his teeth, and dug her fingers into his muscular back.
Before, Mark had taken his sweet time loving her, but that night there was a primitive urgency between them that would brook no delays. While he drank from her breast, Mark was unsnapping her jeans and pushing them down.
She kicked off her shoes, and Mark relieved her of the jeans. She lay before him in just her underpants, with her bra unhooked and her T-shirt bunched under her armpits, and for all the indignity of that she felt beautiful because his brown eyes moved over her with reverence.
“Take me,” she whispered, letting the backs of her hands rest against the soft material of the couch on either side of her head.
He bent his head and nipped at her lightly through the silky fabric of her panties until she was moaning softly and beginning to writhe.
Then his clothes were gone as quickly as Carly’s. He knelt between her legs, hooking his thumbs under the waistband of her panties, drawing them downward.
“Don’t think you’re going to get off this easy, Scoop,” he teased, finding her entrance and placing himself there. His eyes glittered with desire as he gazed down into her face. “I plan to keep you busy for a long time.”
Carly groaned as he gave her an inch then she clawed frantically at his bare back. “Please, Mark—don’t make me wait—”
His response was a long, fierce stroke that took him to her very depths. He cupped his hands beneath her bottom, lifting her into position for another thrust.
“Faster,” Carly fretted.
He chuckled. “Does this mean you missed me?”
“Damn you, Mark Holbrook!”
After that, he loved her in earnest, with fire and fever, and when the hot storm broke within her, she sobbed his name.
He covered her face with light, frantic kisses as he climaxed, his mouth on her eyelids, her cheeks, the underside of her chin. In those treacherous moments, Carly felt cherished as well as thoroughly mastered.
When it was over, he fell to her, taking solace in her softness in the age-old way of men. His breath came hard and his words, spoken against her cheek, were labored. “If this gets...any better... I’m going to need...respiratory therapy.”
Carly laughed softly and laid her hands to either side of his face. “Look at me, Mark. I’ve got to tell you something before I lose my courage.”
He raised his head, his brown eyes mischievous. “You used to be a man,” he guessed.
Carly’s delight erupted in another burst of amusement. “Wrong.”
“You have a prison record.”
She couldn’t let the game go on any longer. “I read your play, Mark,” she blurted out. “I found it and I read it.”
He studied her somberly for a long time, then thrust himself upward and reached for his clothes.
“Mark?”
“I heard you, Carly.”
“I don’t blame you for being angry—I shouldn’t have snooped. But it was fabulous—really fabulous.”
He got back into his jeans and stormed across the room to his desk.
Carly dressed awkwardly while he wrenched open the drawer, found the screenplay and flung it toward her, its fanfold pages spreading out over the floor. “Mark—”
“You like it?” he rasped. “It’s yours. Take it. Line bird cages with it!”
“What is the matter with you?” Carly demanded, snapping her jeans. When he didn’t answer, but just stood gazing out through the dark windows, she knelt and gently gathered the play up from the floor. She handled it like the broken pieces of something she’d cherished. “Do you know what I’d give to be able to write like this?”
He turned around then, and to Carly’s relief he was much calmer. “You’d have had to feel the pain,” he said. “Believe me, the price is too high.”
She held the manuscript to her breast like a child as she stood. “I did feel the pain, Mark—that’s what makes it such a wonderful piece of work—”
“Look,” Mark interrupted sharply, “I don’t give a damn that you read it, all right? But it represents another part of my life and I can’t talk about it—I don’t want to be r
eminded.”
“I can keep it?” Carly ventured cautiously. “I can take it home?”
“Do whatever you want.”
Carly was filled with sadness as she carried the play across the room and tucked it into her briefcase. She should have known Mark would be angry; she’d been trespassing in the deepest reaches of his soul.
“Carly?”
She felt his hands, strong and gentle, on her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Mark,” she whispered.
He turned her to face him. “No,” he said huskily. “I’m the one who was wrong. I apologize.”
She managed a broken smile. “We both knew this wasn’t going to work, didn’t we?” she asked.
He gave her a slight shake. “Of course it’s going to work,” he argued. “It has to.”
She prayed she wouldn’t cry. “Why?”
“Because I need you, and I hope to God you need me, that’s why. Because I think maybe I love you.”
“You ‘think maybe’?” Carly asked, hugging herself. She felt shaky and confused. “What the hell kind of statement is that?”
Mark caught her by the belt loops at the front of her jeans and hauled her toward him. “I’m doing the best I can here, Carly, so how about helping me out a little?” he said, his face very close to hers. “I don’t know if this feeling is love—I don’t even know if there’s any such thing as romantic love—but damn it, I feel something for the first time in ten years and I don’t want it to stop!”
Carly drew a deep, shaky breath. “You’re probably just horny,” she said in a tone of resignation.
Mark laughed like a comical maniac, hoisted her up over one shoulder and gave her a sound swat on the bottom. “You may be right,” he agreed.
“Put me down!” Carly gasped. “I’m about to throw up.”
“I love these romantic moments,” Mark answered, carrying her toward his bedroom in exactly the same position. “I feel like Errol Flynn.”
“You’re an idiot!”
He hauled her up the steps to his bed and flung her down on the mattress. “Will you lighten up, Scoop? Something poignant is happening here.”
“Like what?”
Mark stretched out beside her. “Damned if I know, but like I said—I sure don’t want it to end.”
Carly didn’t know whether she was happy or sad, whether she wanted to laugh or cry, but tears filled her eyes and she said, “Hold me.”
The next morning, she was careful to go to work in her own car, hoping no one at the newspaper would guess what was going on between her and Mark. But that night she went back to his house, and he cooked spaghetti.
They laughed and talked and made love, but they didn’t discuss Mark’s play. Or the assignment they might be sharing.
Friday was hectic. The decision to end the advice column had been made, and Carly felt responsible for its demise to some degree. After all, there had been the “Frazzled in Farleyville” incident.
She still had her office, however, and Mr. Clark announced in a special staff meeting that she and Mark would be working together for the time being. Carly could not have been happier, but there was something disturbing about the remote look she saw in Mark’s eyes when he looked at her.
“We’ll start working on the story tonight,” he announced peremptorily, when everyone else had left the conference room.
Carly swallowed. “I can’t.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You can’t?” he echoed, with a maddeningly indulgent note in his voice. “Why not, pray tell?”
Carly dragged in a deep breath and let it out with a whoosh. “I’ve got a dinner date. Jim Benson, remember? Channel 37?”
Mark walked over to the door and calmly pushed it shut. “Break it,” he said.
Hot pink indignation throbbed in Carly’s cheeks. “I beg your pardon.”
He was glaring at her. “You heard me, Carly.”
Carly had no feelings for Jim Benson one way or the other. She just wanted to establish contacts, to “network” the way other people in the media did. She struggled to stay calm. “Look, it’s no big deal. Besides, when I made this date, there was nothing going on between you and me.”
“And now there is,” Mark pointed out evenly.
Carly laid her hand on his arm. “It’s only dinner,” she said, and then she left the conference room.
Mark didn’t follow.
Back at her apartment, as she showered and dressed, Carly decided it would probably be a good thing if she saw other men. After all, whatever it was that had flared up between her and Mark had come on fast, and she’d had little or no chance to distance herself from the situation.
The other side of that coin, of course, was that Mark would have just as much right to date other women. And the prospect didn’t appeal to Carly at all.
Jim Benson arrived promptly at seven. He was tall and handsome, with dark hair and streaks of premature gray at his temples, and bright blue eyes. He took in Carly’s soft yellow dress with obvious appreciation.
As she and Jim were leaving the apartment, they encountered Janet, who stood there in the hallway, clutching a grocery bag and staring at them with her mouth open.
Carly knew there would be a message on her answering machine when she got home. “My best friend, Janet McClain,” she explained as she and Jim descended in the elevator.
Jim laughed. “When people gape like that, I get this overwhelming compulsion to see if my fly’s open.”
Jim’s car, a sleek sports model, was waiting in the parking lot, and he chivalrously opened the door for her. He turned out to be a very nice guy, the kind of man Carly might have gotten serious about if she hadn’t met Mark first.
When they’d reached the restaurant and were settled at their table, Jim said very companionably, “You must know Mark Holbrook, if you work at the Times.”
Carly nodded thoughtfully. “Sometimes I wonder how well,” she murmured.
“He and I have been good friends for a long time,” Jim went on. “I hope you won’t mind that I invited him and his date to join us for drinks later.”
Carly had been sipping ice water, and she nearly choked at this announcement. “Tell me the truth,” she said when she’d composed herself. “You didn’t invite Mark—he invited himself.”
Jim grinned. “Well...”
Carly had picked up her table napkin during her choking spell; now she tossed it down angrily. “Why, that sneaky—”
“Am I missing something here?” the newscaster asked politely.
Carly sighed. Jim was too nice; she wasn’t going to play games with him. “The truth is, Mark and I have been seeing each other, and something’s going on. I don’t know whether it’s love or not, but it’s pretty heavy, and he was upset when I told him I was keeping my date with you.”
A grin spread across Jim’s face. “So he just wants to unsettle you?”
“I’m afraid so,” Carly said with a nod and another sigh. “I’m sorry, Jim.”
He shrugged. “No reason we can’t be friends.” He picked up his menu and opened it. “The shrimp scampi is good here.”
Carly had no appetite at all now that she knew Mark was going to show up at any minute, but she ordered the shrimp and did her best to eat.
She and Jim were in the lounge, later, when he said, “Don’t look now, but your partner just walked in. Let’s dance and give him a thing or two to think about.”
The idea sounded good to Carly. She smiled warmly and allowed Jim to lead her onto the small dance floor. Even though it nearly killed her, she didn’t look to see who Mark was with.
“Is he watching?” she asked.
Jim chuckled and drew her closer. “Oh, yes. If that expression in his eyes were a laser beam, he’d be doing surgery on me. The kind you don’t recover from.”
Carly laughed. “And the woman?
”
“Weatherperson from Channel 18. Very cute.”
Before Carly could maneuver into a position where she could get a look at Mark’s date, he walked right onto the dance floor. Carly was pulled from Jim’s arms into Mark’s long before he took the trouble to grind out, “May I cut in?”
“No,” Carly answered, but when she tried to pull away, he restrained her. “This is ridiculous.”
He arched one eyebrow. “All right, I admit it—I’m jealous as hell.”
Carly smiled acidly, her eyes widening in mock surprise. “No!”
He gave her a surreptitious pinch on the bottom, and she gasped and stiffened in response. “You’ve made your point, Barnett—I don’t have any rights where you’re concerned. But you’re going to have to give up dating other guys, unless you want me tagging along.”
“Why should I?” Carly asked. “Give up dating other guys, I mean.”
“Because I l-like you.”
“Well, I l-like you, too. Maybe I even love you. In spite of the fact that you’re acting like a badly trained baboon tonight.” The music stopped. “How about introducing me to your date, Mark?”
He cleared his throat, took her hand and started toward the table where Jim and the weatherperson were sitting, already deep in conversation. “I told you he was a lech,” Mark whispered.
“And he told me you were his friend,” Carly scolded.
“I was, until he made a move on you,” Mark responded, still talking under his breath.
Jim stood when he saw Carly, and an unreadable look passed between the two men. Mark pulled out Carly’s chair for her and, when she was seated, sat down beside the weatherperson.
“This is Margery Woods,” he said. “Margery, Carly Barnett.”
The young woman’s brown eyes were round with admiration. “Miss United States—”
“Let’s not talk about me,” Carly broke in.
“But I saw your pageant—I recorded it. I record all the pageants.”
Carly looked to both Mark and Jim for rescue, but neither of them offered it. In fact, they both looked amused, as though they’d set up some tacit conspiracy. “That’s—that’s nice,” she said. “Have you been dating Mark long, Margery?”
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