In Serena's Web

by Kay Hooper

  Also, since her behavior had been as wayward, innocent, and troublesome as that of a child, he had been able to regard her, for the most part, in that light.

  But since her incredible decision last night, Brian had found it impossible to think of her without remembering, however reluctantly, that she was very much a woman. And with that wall breached, he was painfully aware of just how attracted to her he was.

  Attracted? he thought, with something akin to a mental groan. More than attracted. Fascinated. And she had only to smile at him to make him forget his name.

  He didn’t have to look at her to see the delicate face and mesmerizing eyes, or the slender body that her own words had stripped naked for him. Serena naked … God, he could see her that way so vividly that his entire body tensed and the blood began rushing hotly through his veins. His heart was pounding, his breathing roughening, and he fought the abrupt and primitive urge to snatch her up into his arms and …

  Realization washed over him like an icy wave. Serena wanted Joshua Long. She had asked Brian to teach her how to seduce a man because she wanted Long. Asked him to teach her how to please a man because Long wouldn’t want a virgin in his bed.

  Virgin?

  Brian felt his throat tighten, and a knot formed somewhere inside him. He pushed his plate away with controlled violence, staring at her downbent head with a gaze he knew to be savage.

  Hell, didn’t she know what she had asked of him?

  He said nothing until the meal was finished, the check signed, and they rose simultaneously in unspoken agreement to leave the restaurant. Brian didn’t dare take her arm or touch her in any way, but she remained silently beside him as they crossed the lobby and entered the elevator. And when they reached their floor, she unlocked the door to her room and preceded him inside.

  Brian barely waited for the door to close behind him, but did manage to infuse his voice with dry mockery.

  “So you’ve decided on a strategy, Rena? You plan to learn how to tempt Long into your … web, didn’t you call it?”

  Serena sat down on the foot of her bed and stared up at him. Dressed in slacks and a silky blouse, she looked like a cross between temptress and teenager, and Brian was having a hard time keeping his urges leashed.

  “I plan to learn,” she answered matter-of-factly. “If you—someone—will teach me.”

  Brian paced over to the wide expanse of windows and stared out, unable to continue meeting her steady gaze. “And just how many lessons d’you plan to take, Rena?” he snapped. “How many nights? How many times would you sleep with me before going to him?”

  “I suppose that would depend on how quickly I learned, wouldn’t it?” she replied musingly, clearly undisturbed by the harsh questions.

  He swung around to stare at her, his hands jammed in the pockets of his slacks. “Tell me something.” He forced the words out and kept his feet rooted to the floor. “Has it occurred to you that it requires a certain amount of desire between two people? I assume you want Long, but you haven’t said a damned word about wanting me.”

  Serena blinked, then said reasonably, “Well, I can hardly be sure of that, can I, Brian? You haven’t even kissed me, for heaven’s sake. But I’m sure an experienced man like you knows very well how to … turn a woman on. Don’t you?” she added anxiously.

  Brian knew that he should just leave her room. Immediately. He should have been able to treat this entire situation like the slightly amusing joke she probably intended it to be. He wanted to be able to do that. To laugh and speak lightly.

  But he couldn’t. He couldn’t leave, and he couldn’t treat this like a joke because it wasn’t one to him. And because what she was offering him was something he wanted with every screaming nerve in his body.

  There had never been a lack of women in Brian’s life. He was attractive to women, he knew, and his personality was generally pleasant. Since he avoided long-term ties, his previous relationships could be summed up accurately as brief affairs. No strings, no promises, and no regrets when an affair was over.

  So why, he wondered, was he hesitating now? Not, certainly, for the flimsy reasons he’d made up. Not because she was an enigma; that was, if anything, an inducement. And not because she was Stuart Jameson’s daughter; she was of age, after all, and Stuart was hardly the type of genius who kept his head buried in the sand.

  Brian gazed at Serena while she waited patiently for an answer to her question, and he tried to ignore the signals his body was sending urgently to his brain.

  “I won’t do it.”

  Where, he wondered, had those words come from?

  She said nothing for a moment, her delicate face still; then she nodded and rose to her feet. “All right, Brian.”

  “What … will you do?” He couldn’t leave it alone.

  “I’ll learn,” she said simply.

  “From whom?”

  “That’s my problem, Brian. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Dammit, Serena …” He was standing in front of her before he’d even realized he had moved, and his hands were gripping her shoulders tightly. “You’re going to be hurt, don’t you realize that? And sleeping with one man to learn how to seduce another—my Lord, that’s insane!”

  She met his hot eyes steadily, unflinching. “Is it? Not in this day and age, Brian. I want to learn a … talent, if you will, because I need that talent. And since I know you don’t want entanglements, it seemed to me that you’d be a good teacher.”

  “What makes you think I don’t—”

  “You told me,” she interrupted calmly. “The day we met, in fact.”

  He couldn’t recall that, but pressed on anyway. “That’s beside the point, Rena.”

  “No, it’s just the point. You haven’t said, but you might want to sleep with me; however, you don’t want more than that. And I want to learn how to please a man. So what’s wrong with the idea of you and me having an affair? Josh is leaving tomorrow for about a week, but he’s coming back, and he’ll be here for at least two weeks after that. So we could—”

  Obeying the urging of his body even as his mind continued to struggle, Brian pulled her suddenly against him. His hands slid down to the small of her back and then her hips, pulling her closer, nearly groaning aloud when her soft body curved instantly into the throbbing hardness of his own. He shook his head slightly, bewildered, wondering at the power of this newly discovered desire for her. And when he felt her arms slide around his waist and her hands stroke his back lightly, he made a last desperate grab for reason.

  “Rena,” he said huskily, “there’s nothing I want more than to lay you down on that bed and—” He broke off abruptly, his eyes closing as he fought for control; her body had moved against his, innocently and seductively, and he couldn’t breathe for the wild need she’d ignited. When he forced his eyes open finally, he found hers gazing up at him with a wondering kind of pleasure.

  “You don’t have to kiss me, Brian,” she murmured. “I know that I want you now. I knew as soon as I felt you against me.”

  Brian drew a single, harsh breath, then bent his head abruptly, his mouth finding hers. He couldn’t have stopped himself even if he’d wanted to. And when her soft, cool lips warmed beneath his, opening to him, the last tendrils of reason vanished.

  One hand slid up her spine to tangle in her thick, dark hair, holding her as close as possible while his lips slanted hungrily across hers. When his hand moved down her back to her waist, he could feel her move beneath the touch like a kitten pleasurably arching as it was stroked. That innocent movement, and the image it brought to mind, was just enough to jar him to his senses.

  Struggling against a desire stronger than any he’d ever known, he managed to tear his mouth from hers and push her away from him. He was rougher than he’d meant to be, unbalancing her with the push, so that she sank down on the bed behind her.

  He stared at her for an endless moment, trying to catch his breath, trying to ignore the enticing image of Serena flushed
and breathless, her eyes shimmering darkly with desire. Then, aware of how weak his determination actually was in the face of her unhidden response, he muttered a curse and strode from the room, slamming the door behind him.

  Serena gazed at the closed door for a long time while her breathing gradually steadied. She stretched her slender body like a graceful cat. Odd, she thought, how different she felt physically. Every nerve in her body seemed to have been transformed. Alive … aware. Deliciously aware.

  She lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, a faint frown between her brows. Complications, she thought. Nothing was ever simple, of course; the world was complicated, and people were complicated … and plans had to be complicated.

  The situation might well have discouraged another woman, especially in the face of Brian’s rejection, but not Serena. She enjoyed untangling things. Of course … sometimes it was necessary to tangle them even more before beginning to separate the various threads.

  Brian attempted to work out his frustration on the hotel’s tennis court, and succeeded at least in exhausting himself temporarily. After a shower he checked Serena’s room, to find her gone, and anxiety started gnawing at him again as he went down to the lobby. A glance through the glass expanse fronting the lobby showed him a picture that stopped him in his tracks. Joshua Long stood by a black limousine, dressed for travel in a three-piece business suit. His head was bent attentively and a crooked smile softened his hard face as he spoke to Serena.

  She had changed since the morning, Brian realized, coming to the depressing conclusion that although slacks were obviously good enough for himself, pursuit of Long demanded clingy silk dresses. And the green silk dress she wore certainly clung in all the right places … and a few wrong ones that aroused both Brian’s protective impulses and his so-carefully banked desires.

  He stood silently, something in him tightening as he waited for the dark man to kiss Serena good-bye. And he did kiss her. Brian’s blood pressure only rose a few degrees, however, since the kiss was clearly light and brief.

  The limo pulled away and Serena came back inside the lobby, a faint smile curving her lips. She saw Brian and approached him, hiding the smile, but not quickly enough.

  Brian felt savage.

  “I hope you didn’t wait to have lunch with me,” she said cheerfully. “Josh had to go into town for a meeting this afternoon, and since he’ll be gone until tonight—”

  Gesturing impatiently, Brian cut her off. He really didn’t want to hear about her lunch date. What he wanted—no, had—to do was reestablish their earlier relationship. It was either that or, he knew, become the first lover in her life. A temporary lover. A teacher. And that understanding brought a bitter bile to his throat in a reaction he didn’t care to probe.

  “We have to talk,” he told her.

  “Well, we can go up—”

  “No.” Brian caught her elbow and led her toward the corner of the huge lobby that was sometimes a bar and always a place where people could sit and relax. He found a small grouping of chairs and love seats that was deserted, and gestured for Serena to sit down. “We aren’t going to your room. Or mine.”

  Serena sat down, and watched as he took a chair at a right angle to her own. “Don’t you trust yourself, Brian?”

  For an instant, a single, fleeting moment, he caught a glimpse of the real Serena, the woman beneath all the innocent layers. It was in her eyes, something he’d never seen before but instinctively recognized. The look of a woman who knew exactly who and what she was: one hundred percent woman.

  It made him dizzy, that look, and his desire lunged on its leash with a primitive strength. She was a woman in the prime of her life gazing at a man she wanted, and he could feel the knowledge blaze through his body like a river of fire.

  And then the look was gone, and Serena’s lovely face was tranquil again.

  “You want to strangle me, I know,” she elaborated. “Don’t you trust yourself not to if we’re alone?”

  Brian knew—he knew—that Serena had deliberately changed the meaning of her question. And somehow he couldn’t let her do that. He couldn’t allow his recognition of that to pass unnoticed.

  “No, I don’t trust myself,” he said evenly. “And you know it. You know damned well what you do to me.”

  She smiled a slow, fallen-angel smile that could, Brian realized glumly, put life into the Petrified Forest. “I don’t know why you’re fighting it,” she said softly. “You act as if I’ve asked you to commit murder, Brian. I know you want me. I know I want you. So what’s the problem?”

  Brian didn’t realize that his honest thoughts were going to surface until they did. And once they did, he didn’t bother to halt them. “The problem is that it’s too damned cold-blooded,” he told her fiercely. “You decide you want to seduce Long into your bed and into a marriage, so you ask me to teach you. It’s a cold, cut-and-dried plot, and sex should never be either.”

  Serena seemed not the least insulted at the unflattering picture he’d drawn of her intentions. Instead, she chuckled, honestly amused. “Considering your track record,” she said cheerfully, “you’re the last man I’d expect to make that objection, Brian.”

  “My track—” He stared at her. “Now, just what d’you mean by that?”

  “Well, unlike Josh, you don’t subsist on a steady diet of blondes, but I’d call it a steady diet. At least according to the papers.”

  Brian gritted his teeth and objected strongly. “I’m not cold-blooded about my relationships.”

  “Aren’t you?” Her unwavering gaze was disconcertingly perceptive. “You know each … relationship … will end even before it begins. Isn’t that a bit cold-blooded?”

  He didn’t quite know how to respond to that, and it bothered him. Was he cold-blooded? “No,” he said finally. “It’s simply a firm understanding of my own goals and an … an honest attitude toward adult relationships.”

  “Neat,” she said approvingly, faintly mocking. “Covers all the bases nicely, I’d say.” Before he could explode she added softly, “Now apply those same words to my situation.”

  It stopped him, but only for an instant. “That’s—”

  “Different? Is it, Brian? Is it really?”

  Cornered, he fell back on a specific protest. “Rena, you’re planning to use sex to get Long to the altar, and if that isn’t cold-blooded, I don’t know what is.”

  “Oh, but I’m not.” Her smile was angelic. “I know sex is only a part of any relationship, and I’d certainly never use that as a weapon or reward. No, Brian, you misunderstand. I want to learn how to please Josh, that’s all. I have another plan entirely for getting to the altar.”

  “What plan?” he demanded. When she only smiled seraphically, his frown deepened. “Rena, you aren’t thinking of—”

  “Trapping him? Of course not, Brian. I happen to believe a marriage should begin with two people—not three. I’ve taken precautions.”

  “You don’t know what the word means,” he accused bitterly.

  She leaned forward, one hand coming to rest lightly on his knee with a touch he could feel through to his bones. “Stop worrying about me,” she whispered. “Look, why don’t you go on to California? I can finish the trip alone; Daddy will understand.”

  For a single instant, worried and angry, Brian considered that escape from the situation. But it wouldn’t be an escape, and he knew it. He’d go crazy wondering if Serena had gotten in over her head—which he considered an ironclad certainty—with no one on the spot to help her. The thought of her reaching California after a successful “plan” had netted her a husband was something that was strangely hurtful to him, and he was unwilling to leave her to her plots and schemes.

  “No,” he said finally. “I signed on for the duration. I stay. I promised your father I’d look after you.”

  She sat back, her hand slowly trailing from his knee. “You’ll stay, but you won’t help me?”

  “Serena, you—”

  “
I know you want me.”

  “That’s beside the point,” he managed to protest after drawing a deep, steadying breath.

  She frowned briefly. “I see what it is. You prefer to do the chasing yourself.”

  “No, that isn’t it. In fact, I’d be flattered … under normal circumstances. But this situation is hardly normal.”

  Serena didn’t appear to be listening. Musingly, she said, “Maybe I should try seducing you.”

  Leashing his urges fiercely, Brian muttered, “Lord, you’re dangerous.”

  “It’d be good practice,” she said, still musing.

  “Serena, stop it. Just stop it, all right?”

  Her smile was that of a mischievous sprite, and the gleam in her eyes definitely unnerved him. “I’ll try seducing you completely against your will. How does that sound?”

  “Like insanity.”

  “You know what they say about resistance,” she murmured. “It just makes the chase more determined. So you go ahead and run, Brian.”

  Almost to himself Brian muttered, “I thought I was assuming responsibility for a flighty kid whose worst fault was probably that she’d been spoiled rotten by her doting father. Instead I wind up with a beautiful, softhearted, ruthless woman who wants to practice the art of seduction on me so she can catch another man.” He stared at her. “I must be out of my mind.”

  “Because you’re going to let me do it?” she asked hopefully.

  “No, I’m not going to let you do it!” he practically roared. Then he glanced around at a few startled faces and lowered his voice. “I must be out of my mind because I haven’t tied you up, gagged you, and loaded you on the first plane to California.”

  “You do have a temper, don’t you?”