“Elbows.”
Ally blinked. “Really?” Why did the thought of Sam’s elbows suddenly seem obscene? She nodded, as if she understood what Misha was talking about.
“Like a Brazilian,” Misha added meaningfully.
“Oh. I didn’t know.” Ally still didn’t have a clue, but she didn’t want Misha to think she was too innocent and good to know about the implications of elbows and Brazilians. Something about extreme waxing? What a sicko. “But I still need to see him. I’ll watch his elbows.”
Misha cocked his head to the right.
“Or, rather, I won’t look at them,” Ally tried.
Misha stared at her, confused, then shrugged and threw up his hands, as if washing himself of responsibility for what would happen next. He mumbled something in his Slavic lilt, went back behind the desk, picked up the phone, dialed, spoke her name (Ms. Giordano, sir), nodded, hung up, and pointed to a single elevator Ally hadn’t noticed before, off to the side and apart from the main elevator bank. “Penthouse.”
“Thank you.” A disturbing sense of helplessness descended over her. She had known that Sam Carson, Mr. Carson, was rich from his tailored clothes and his eccentric manner, but in Manhattan, rich had so many not-so-subtle levels, and a private elevator to the penthouse at Seventy-second and the park was more than she had bargained for. Ally shook away her naïveté. Who knew where his money came from? Maybe he swindled his fortune from unsuspecting grannies with his waxed Brazilian elbows.
The elevator was as ornate as the lobby and had only two buttons, P and L. Guess people who lived in penthouses didn’t borrow cups of sugar from their neighbors. She practiced her speech on the way up, tripping over the words. This just sucked. The gilded elevator made her feel underdressed. Maybe Sam Carson would answer the door in a velvet dressing gown, smoking a pipe and holding a crystal snifter of brandy.
Maybe his butler would answer the door. Or his man-servant, whatever that was. Maybe he was a duke.
She pushed the lobby button frantically. This was a terrible idea. There had to be another way to get Granny to Lewiston besides begging from a man who was so despicable, his doorman tried to protect strangers from him.
The elevator kept rising. It came to a stop and the P light glowed red accompanied by a soft chime.
This was a fool’s errand. There was no way a rich, self-centered stranger like Sam Carson was going to agree to—
The doors slid open.
Hello.
The duke was insufferable. He was insolent. He was charming. And then, all at once, he was kissing her.
—From The Dulcet Duke
Chapter 9
Sam stood alone in the center of his private foyer. He wore only a pair of very nicely broken-in jeans, which he hadn’t bothered to button. After all, when you weren’t wearing underwear, which she could see the man wasn’t as his jeans rode so low, buttons were so potentially nippy. She caught her breath. No shirt. No shoes. Just the jeans. And the chest. And those toes. Even the man’s toes looked strong and powerful, well-tanned and cared for.
She looked Sam in the eye, pointedly holding her face neutral as if she were speaking to a misbehaving teenager caught in the hall between periods. She nodded curtly, not quite admitting to herself that she was, as the heroine in The Dulcet Duke too often said, stilling her heart.
Look away from the hot, mostly naked duke.
Er, not duke. Man. Oh, dear…
She pretended to admire the architecture. The small entry was white marble from floor to ceiling. A black, modern wooden table, the only furniture in the foyer, stood by an open door through which she could see the corner of a similar white marble living room filled with white leather furniture. The table held a vase packed with at least a hundred dollars’ worth of artfully arranged white tulips. What was this supposed to be, heaven? The man should live in the basement, with an entirely red apartment…
“Ally!” he said too loudly. “I told you not to come here.”
“Yes, you most certainly did tell me to—” She stopped. He was shushing her. What was he doing and why was she intrigued and why was he coming so close to her and why was it so lovely the way that swirl of black hair whorled around his belly button then tapered down into the waist-band of his jeans? She had known on first sight where his personal storm came from and now it was confirmed. A whirlpool, a vortex, drawing in unsuspecting travelers. Must remove eyes from vortex…
He was glancing back into his apartment with expectation as he closed the space between them. She stepped back, so stiff that her shoulder blades were the first part of her to hit against the now-closed elevator doors. He grabbed her elbow and leaned in. Elbows! Not that! She tried not to panic, but she could smell the warm, lovely scent of him, forest mixed with sleep and skin—and sex. “Shh. Play along,” he whispered.
“I am not here to play.” Ally inhaled, her prepared speech wiped out by the scent of Sam. “Mr.—er, Sam.” Why was she letting his lovely almost-nakedness rattle her? “I need to ask you to tell my grandmother that you’ll come to her house on Long Island. Of course, you don’t have to actually come. That would be crazy. Just tell her you’ll come so she’ll leave New York with me. I’m very sorry for the inconvenience. She’s taken an inexplicable liking to you, and, well, she won’t consent to go without you. Not that you’d have to go. Did I say that already?” She felt so flushed and awkward. “Just tell her you’ll come. That’s all. A little lie. Not that I think it’s okay to lie, but she’s very confused. I know that this is a lot to ask of a stranger.” She trailed off, unsure of what to say to his belly button.
To him. She forced her eyes to his face.
“I’ll do it.” He glanced back into his apartment.
“You’ll do it? Wait. Why?” Who cares? She studied the curve of his left shoulder, scolding herself for studying the curve of his left shoulder. She glanced down at his elbows. They didn’t look Brazilian.
“If you play along,” he hissed just as a stunning redhead appeared at the door.
“Sammy?” The redhead looked from Ally to Sam. She looked confused. And gorgeous. She must have been six-foot-two at least and maybe a hundred thirty pounds with her clothes on. Not that she had her clothes on. She was wearing a man’s button-down white linen shirt and nothing else as far as Ally could tell. Between the two of them, they almost had an outfit—if anyone was wearing underwear, which she doubted.
Sam dropped Ally’s arm and took a step back, shuffling his feet as if caught in an illicit embrace. He cleared his throat. “Um, Veronica, this is Ally. Ally, Veronica.”
“Sammy?” Veronica’s cheeks were just a shade shy of her hair color.
“Ally, I think you should go,” Sam said, moving to stand beside Veronica. “I told you it was over between us.”
“I really need to talk to you. I just need a yes or a no,” Ally said, before she realized that she sounded like a woman scorned.
“Is she—?” Veronica couldn’t form the sentence. “No way. She’s why you wouldn’t make love to me last night?”
Sam shot Ally a warning look. “Veronica.” He stopped as if he didn’t know what else to say. “I told you you could stay because the pipes were broken at your place, but that was all.”
Veronica squinted at Ally and cocked her head. “I don’t believe it. You wouldn’t sleep with me because of her?”
Ally’s jaw dropped. She straightened to her full five-foot-four, feeling the inadequacy of every inch. Her sundress suddenly seemed childish and inadequate. Her B-cup breasts ridiculously small.
Sam shrugged. “It does seem unlikely, doesn’t it? But she is”—he paused, searching—“kind. To horses. And old people. Well, not so much old people.” He paused again. “Or horses, actually.” Ally could see in his eyes that he was enjoying this immensely. She wanted to stomp on his bare foot.
“But she’s…” Veronica was at a loss. She threw up her hands. “Short,” she declared finally, the word a challenge tossed down like a gau
ntlet at Ally’s size-six feet.
Ally understood Sam’s game and she didn’t like it, but she needed his help. She raised her voice. “Samuel, I’ve decided to give you one more chance.” She struggled not to roll her eyes.
“Alexandra!” To Ally’s intense alarm, he crossed the room in two quick strides and took her into his arms. She felt her eyes widen in terror as he bent to her. And. Then. He. Kissed. Her.
This was so not okay.
She couldn’t move. Because, actually, it was pretty okay. His lips were warm and soft. His bare chest, pressed against her thin cotton dress, was warm and hard.
And she really couldn’t help but dislike Veronica, who was pouty and overdyed and insulting to the vertically challenged. That woman deserved to be one-upped by a short schoolteacher in a vintage polyester dress gotten for a steal from a hole-in-the-wall shop on Seventh Street and Avenue D.
The kiss was still going. In fact, it was growing, deepening.
Unsure of where to put her hands, Ally let them flutter about idiotically, before resolutely reaching down, as if to push Sam away. The fingertips of her right hand touched the whorl of hair at his belly button, and a rush of adrenaline swirled through her. For a split second before she regained her sanity, she swooned, blown over by a gust of lust.
Sam pulled away and met her eyes with a curious, amused stare, as if to say, Really, Ally? I had no idea.
Ally yanked her hand away, but it was too late. She would never, ever, forget the feeling of his taut stomach against her fingertips. When would she ever get the chance to touch such an insanely beautiful thing as his narrow, sculpted abs ever again in her life? To be on the receiving end of one of his wicked looks? To be kissed by his burgundy lips?
Let’s waltz, baby.
Before she could pursue the thought, Veronica had had enough. She spun around, yanked her shirt off like a man, gripping it from behind the neck and pulling it over her head. She tossed it at Sam’s feet and strode out of the room, stark naked and raving. “You are such an asshole.”
“I told you at the beginning,” he called to her. “From day one!”
Ally was still lost in the memory of Sam’s skin against her fingertips. Which came first, being a womanizing jerk or an incredible kisser with rock-hard abs? She swallowed, her throat parched as if with longing. Gah. She shook herself free from the spell of him. Not possible. She would not fall for a rake. “That was despicable,” she hissed at Sam. That was incredible.
“Really? I thought it was actually one of the nicest kisses I’ve had in a while.” He was looking at her curiously, the white shirt in a puddle at his feet, his hair a tousled mess. “I didn’t expect you to, you know—” He smiled mischievously, touching his fingers to belly button as if the touch had been mutually pleasing. “Kiss back.”
“I did not kiss back.” She sounded like one of her students. She cleared her throat again. Then again, stalling. Man, she needed water. She needed air. She needed sanity. She needed to stop thinking about dropping to her knees and putting her lips against that taut stomach and following the trail with her tongue, down, down—
“Ally?”
“Oh. Right. Sorry. So Dr. Trawlbridge said that my grandmother needs—”
“Wait.” He held up a finger, then pushed the elevator call button. “One, two, three.” The elevator doors opened with a soft ding and a softer whoosh.
Veronica, now fully dressed in a sophisticated white shift and white sandals with an enormous white purse slung over her shoulder, flew out of the apartment. Her oversized white sunglasses with giant Chanel “C’s” reduced her upturned nose to a tiny button, making her look like a child playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes. She didn’t pause to look at either of them as she strode into the waiting elevator. Before the doors shut, she was on her cell phone, saying, “Sarah, you won’t believe this asshole. Yeah, the one with the Porsche. No, the red Porsche not the yellow; that’s the other Sam, Samson McGrath, the lawyer, in Princeton…”
Then they were alone.
“Well, now that that’s taken care of,” Sam said, “come in and tell me what I can do for you.”
The duke did not suffer females gladly. Especially females of the well-bred variety. But the agitated woman in his sitting room didn’t want to be there any more than he wanted her there, and this was so unusual, he couldn’t help but be intrigued.
—From The Dulcet Duke
Chapter 10
By the time he had poured them both a glass of Perrier and settled on the couch, Sam had pulled himself together. More or less together, considering that very unexpected kiss and Ally’s very unexpected fingertips catching fire on his stomach.
He hadn’t meant to kiss her so deeply, in fact, he hadn’t meant to kiss her at all, but he had known Veronica wasn’t buying a word he said about Ally being his lover. Veronica was predatory, but she knew his type when she saw it, and Ally was decidedly not his type.
Why did he have to keep reminding himself of that?
As he buttoned his shirt—he felt somehow obliged to be fully dressed and buttoned around this woman—Ally crossed the expansive room and sat herself primly on the couch, allowing a full three-foot pillow length between them. She didn’t seem to notice his place, which he liked and didn’t like simultaneously. Most women gaped at his view of Central Park and went on and on about his imported Italian tile and his Sub-Zero refrigerator and who was his decorator (Josh Allen Lord, LLC). Ally had marched right across his living room with barely a look around, her arms crossed over her chest, her considerable wrath completely focused on him.
She behaved as she had that mysterious night in the park: impervious to her physical surroundings. Something stood between her and the rest of the world. He wanted to know what it was. Her dissociation from life fascinated him. And angered him. He couldn’t help thinking of his wife, Hana. She had died so young, no chance to live.
A trace of the taste of Ally lingered on his lips. She had shaken him in a way a whole night next to Veronica had failed to. And Lord knows, she had tried just about everything.
He secured the last button and leaned back on the arm of the couch to face her, resting one arm over the back pillow and crossing his ankle over his knee. “Before you say anything,” he said, anticipating one of her lectures, “I want you to know that I tell any woman who is willing to have anything to do with me that I’m a confirmed bachelor.” Widower, really, but that was none of anyone’s business but his own. “One month and it’s over. That’s my limit. Not that it matters a whit to me, but if I let them stay longer, they tend to grow acquisitive. I never lie. But they never believe me. Ever. At least, not once they see my place and my possessions and my—”
“I don’t want to hear what else they see.” Ally jumped up. She glanced out the window and huffed, as if the view offended her.
Now that she was in a dress, albeit an alarming, orange-green-pink floral print, he could see that her legs were well formed and her neck was long and regal, unusual in such a short person. In fact, she was graceful and solid and powerful, like a runner. If only she’d quit with the prim, ugly vintage clothes and those black granny glasses.
“We think my grandmother suffered a stroke, leaving her very confused. It’s a common side effect of mild strokes. All she wants is to go to ‘the country,’ by which she means her beach house on Long Island, and plan a ball for…” She trailed off, shaking her head as if to negate the very thought of something as distasteful as a ball. “Anyway…” She kept talking and pacing, and he took the opportunity to study her ass. Eight, maybe even a nine. Hard to tell until she got into some decent clothes.
How had he missed all this on their first meeting?
Her words began to slow, and, mercifully, after a brief explanation of the history and significance of house parties in Regency times, she stopped and sat back down.
He felt as if he had to climb out from under a huge pile of facts she had dumped on his head. He hadn’t taken in more than the
general gist of her story, but it was obviously time to respond. “So? Take the dear old lady to the country. I think that’s a great plan. Much safer there.”
That set her off on a new avalanche of words and obscure facts. The floral print on her dress was irritating him like a personal affront. In a way, it was a personal affront because it said, I am not here to turn you on. A very odd thing for a woman’s clothes to say.
And yet, he liked it. It felt like a challenge. As if the clothes were taunting him: You impress me, and then maybe we can take things further.
The dress, like her, wouldn’t shut up.
And then she did. She looked as if she intended to rip off his head. “You didn’t listen to a word I just said, did you?”
“No. Not really,” he admitted. He couldn’t get his mind around the combination of her awful dress and her not-so-awful legs. Her hot kiss and her not-so-hot shoes.
“You’re checking me out.”
“Well, yes. Of course. I am a man and you’re a woman and you are in my apartment.”
“To ask you for help, not to sleep with you, for heaven’s sake.”
“But why be so rigid?”
She looked shocked down to her pink ballet flats, and he enjoyed it immensely. “It’s fascinating,” he went on, “how you and your grandmother both ignore reality.”
“I do no such thing!”
“Of course you do. You push on as if you were made of stone, not flesh. As if the physical reality around you isn’t there. Why? Why pretend I’m not here? That you’re not drawn to me? That kiss in the foyer was—”
“A mistake!” she cried. She had turned bright red and was wringing her hands in dismay. She stood, then sat back down on the edge of the couch, barely touching the cushions almost as if levitating, her back bolt upright. “I don’t have time for this. Now listen, Mr. Carson. This is reality: My grandmother has taken a perverse liking to you.”
How to Tame a Modern Rogue Page 7