by BETH KERY
* * *
After another couple hours on the road, he found himself glancing over at Gia’s hands again. She had a restless habit of moving her fingers on her thighs in little squeezing movements. He found her short fingernails scraping against the denim—and imagining her firm, supple thighs beneath the fabric—highly distracting.
He wished like hell he were one of those people in the diner who had been fooled by her skillful acting and his makeup. Having prior knowledge of what was under those slouchy jeans and the shapeless shirt was like a splinter under his skin. Something about covering up Gia rubbed him the wrong way. The idea of ripping through the disguise to the real woman kept creeping into his mind, unwelcome.
The fact was, the stupid fantasy of exposing the real Gia underneath the very disguise he’d engineered was turning him on, and that irritated him a lot.
“What do you suppose the weather will be like in—what did you say the name of the place where we’re going was?” she interrupted her own thought abruptly.
“Vulture’s Canyon.”
“Weird name for a town.”
“It’s a weird town, so it’s fitting,” he assured her. “And we probably won’t go into the town itself much. We’ll be pretty isolated at John and Jennifer’s house. It’ll probably still be warm. October stays warm there, although there might be some cool fall days.”
“You sound like you’ve been there a lot.”
“I have. Remember—”
He halted abruptly.
“What?” Gia asked, sitting forward. She’d caught his mistake. He’d been about to mention something they’d talked about during their first meeting. That, in turn, had reminded him of something else that annoyed him. He felt her gaze on his cheek. “Seth? Were you going to say something about that night?”
“Yeah,” he admitted gruffly after a tense pause, requiring no further clarification as to which night she meant.
“Do we really have to tiptoe around it?” she asked, sounding a little exacerbated. “We slept together. It’s not the end of the world.”
“Yeah. You’re right. Just forget it.”
“No,” she said. He exhaled irritably, tightening his hand on the wheel.
“I thought you just said it wasn’t the end of the world, and we should just forget it,” he said.
“You said we should forget it. I just asked if we had to walk on eggshells about it. What were you going to say?”
He frowned at the road. The sun was starting to dip behind them, giving the pavement and the surrounding desert a rosy tinge.
“Fine. I was going to say, ‘Do you remember when you asked me if I’d ever worked with the director Rill Pierce?’ I hadn’t then, but I have now. That’s who I visit a lot in Vulture’s Canyon. He’s married to Katie Hughes, who is the sister of Everett Hughes, who married—”
“Joy. Your niece,” Gia finished for him, her voice sounding thoughtful all of a sudden . . . tentative. “I knew you did Razor Pass and Keeping It Light with Pierce since we met a couple years ago,” she said, mentioning two of Rill’s recent films.
“And I know now that the person whom you mentioned knowing that had won the Pierce scholarship to UCLA was you,” he said.
Her hands moved on her thighs as if she was trying to dry them.
“You were a theater major at UCLA, not a history major. Why’d you have to lie about that, in addition to everything else?” He gave her a hard glance. She was watching him, but he couldn’t read her expression with her makeup and sunglasses. “Never mind,” he said when she didn’t respond immediately. “It doesn’t matter.”
She made a sound of disgust.
“What?” he asked sharply. What right did she have to be annoyed? He was the one lied to, not her.
“I was a double major in history and theater, for your information. I wasn’t lying about loving history. At the time I met you, I was doing an adaptation of Nine Days a Queen and was playing Lady Jane Grey.”
His annoyance swelled at her uptilted chin and regal manner. She was such a damn riddle box. Only Gia could suddenly make him bizarrely imagine Lady Jane Grey being portrayed by the beach-bum teenage boy sitting in the passenger seat.
“I often choose historical roles,” she continued. “As for Rill Pierce, his scholarships are for theater and film students. I didn’t want you to find out I was an actress back then. If I’d told you I was the one who had won a Pierce scholarship, you would’ve asked me which scholarship I’d won. And in case you’ve forgotten, we’ve already established that I knew at the time you possessed this unreasonable prejudice against actresses,” she finished with force.
“Unreasonable to you, maybe.”
“Tell me why it’s reasonable to you.”
“You’ve worked in this business a while now. You must realize that it’s common for makeup artists to avoid actors and actresses. There’s often a clash between us.”
“That’s a lame reason to judge people without knowing them.”
“But why did you have to mislead me when it came to the scholarship? I felt like an idiot when Rill happened to mention that the blazing comet of the film business—Gia Harris—was a recipient of his scholarship.”
“Is that what this is really all about? You don’t like having the wool pulled over your eyes? Ex-intelligence operative and Hollywood special effects–artist bigwig doesn’t like being out of the loop.”
“Nobody likes being misled. Why should it have mattered if I took a dislike to you that night?”
She made a sound of bitter disgust and crossed her arms above her waist. “You are such an idiot,” she breathed out as she turned away from him, mutely staring out at the stark desert landscape.
He simmered in the silence for the next several minutes, undoubtedly grinding some enamel off his back teeth. Curse him for having the idea of driving to Illinois. True, he thought it was a better idea for security, but the memory of Gia lighting up as she’d told him about the cross-country trip when she’d been sixteen might have nudged his decision a little, as well.
Nothing good ever came from being sentimental.
Gia lowered her seat to a full reclining position. When she squirmed to get comfortable, while still keeping her back stubbornly to him, his attention was caught. She’d scooted up the chair and pulled her knees up onto the seat. The seat belt lowered over her hips, the seat strap pressing against her loose, low riding jeans and cupping her ass.
As if a guy would ever have an ass like that. Arousal tickled the root of his cock. She wiggled impatiently, still struggling for a comfortable position. This time, lust roared instead of whimpered. He hardened with vigor.
With effort, he jerked his gaze off the appealing sight of her ass.
This trip with Gia was going to be a trial all right. In more ways than one.
* * *
Maybe she slept. He thought she did, not only because of her stillness but also because the anger and tension that had seemed to pulse in the air between them seemed to slowly dissipate. Seth started to feel guilty for taking his irritation out on her. He didn’t want to reveal his frustration; it just seemed to pop out of him at times.
Best to face the fact. His sexual attraction to Gia Harris had been—and still was—uncommonly strong. He’d been more disappointed than he’d cared to admit when he discovered she was something different than he’d been led to expect that night years ago. He’d thought her a fresh, sexy surprise, one of those moments in life when you think, Jesus, what did I do to deserve something like this? Realizing she was a twenty-two-year-old ingénue with the flame of fame burning bright within her had made him more bitter than he already was.
And he’d been pretty damned cynical on the topic even then.
But Gia wasn’t the one responsible for his original jadedness when it came to actresses. She didn’t deserve the weight of his experience
and history.
Admitting that made him feel steadier. Almost as if the landscape were mimicking his calming mood, they entered the environs of Flagstaff. He turned the heat on to low as the temperature plummeted in the refreshing mountain oasis. Gia squirmed a little in the seat next to him and turned over on her other hip, facing him. Her lip paint had nearly faded away. She yawned widely, the glimpse of her pink, full lips and red mouth making him want to stare at her instead of the road. For a full moment, he sensed her studying his profile, but neither of them spoke. He felt it for the first time since that night two years ago, that ephemeral, magical spell settling on his tingling skin.
“Where are we?” she murmured sleepily, her low, smooth voice causing his forearms and neck to roughen.
“The outskirts of Flagstaff. Do you need a break?” he glanced at her as he came to a stop at a light. It had grown overcast as he wound up the mountains to Flagstaff. He’d taken off his sunglasses, and so had she. Her eyes were like a clear spring day.
“Yes, please. I’m sorry I called you an idiot,” she added quietly.
He nodded. “I’m sorry for getting irritated at you for something that happened a long time ago.”
Her gaze flickered over his face. She started to speak but then hesitated.
“What?” he prodded.
“It doesn’t really seem like a long time ago,” she murmured.
“No. It doesn’t,” he agreed, studying the sublime curve of her jaw and the sweet target of her mouth.
A horn honked loudly. He cursed and drove through the green light. Neither of them spoke for the time it took him to pull into the parking lot of a roadside log-cabin restaurant and gas station that had Route 66 memorabilia and signs plastered all over it. The charged atmosphere didn’t dissipate though. He whipped the SUV into an empty spot at the side of the building. Slowly, he twisted the keys in the ignition.
“Do you need to retouch me before I go inside?” she asked.
Her words struck him as potently sexual. Naturally. Everything was striking him as sexual, ever since he’d seen Gia sitting in that conference room yesterday. He wanted to touch her all right, and retouch her, and squeeze her . . . and consume her. He looked over at her. Her lips parted beneath his stare. Prodded by instinct and simple, unmitigated lust, he gave up the fight for the moment. He leaned toward her.
“I need to do something first,” he rasped before he covered her mouth with his own.
He knew the moment her warm breath rushed against his lips and her mouth softened beneath his kiss it wasn’t just for a moment though. She was under his skin, and good. He’d wondered if he had fooled himself into thinking that being with her was much, much better in memory than in reality.
No. He’d had it right from the first.
He heard her soft whimper as he slicked his tongue along her lower lip and felt her inner heat. Right here, right now, only the naked truth existed. He dipped his tongue between her lips, the act of piercing into her sweetness striking him as intensely erotic.
He knew he should stop. But he couldn’t. Especially when she slid her tongue against his, and her flavor fully penetrated his brain. He framed her face with his hands and delved his tongue between her lips hungrily. When she gripped his hair and her short nails scraped against his neck, his cock jerked viciously.
He wanted inside her again, and his craving was sharp and cutting.
He tore his mouth from hers, grimacing at the harsh depravity. Sitting up, he inhaled, straining to clear the fog of lust from his brain.
“Sorry. I don’t know why I did that,” he said, scraping his hair out of his face in a frustrated gesture.
“Yes, you do,” she replied softly.
Seven
For a few seconds, he just stared at her.
“Things are different now than they were then,” he said.
“Because you know the ugly, horrible truth about me?”
“Because of the circumstances. We shouldn’t make this situation any more complicated than it already is,” he growled softly, pulling the keys out of the ignition and avoiding her stare. He twisted around and found his makeup kit.
“Maybe it would be best if I showed you how to do your mouth,” he said quietly as Gia started to raise her seat.
“Yeah, maybe it would be.”
Damn. He knew by her cool tone he’d offended her.
* * *
Gia applied her lip makeup as Seth had instructed her, trying to ignore the potent combination of anger and lust simmering inside of her.
So what if what Seth said was true? The reasonable thing to do would be to rein in this teeth-grinding attraction they had for each other. She knew that. But that didn’t make it any easier to hear him say it. Instead, it just brought back all the reminders of why he’d never called her to begin with.
You had my number as well.
The memory of his saying that this morning popped into her brain, unwelcome. She irritably shoved the thought aside. He’d been changing the subject to derail her.
She knew she shouldn’t care what he thought of her. But no one liked being stereotyped, being seen as something they weren’t. Being seen incorrectly by Seth Hightower especially grated on her already raw nerves.
“Go on inside. I’ll follow you in a minute,” she told him coolly as she painted the neutral shade on her lips.
“Gia, I only meant—”
“I know what you meant,” she said crisply, studying her reflection in the mirror. “It wouldn’t be smart for us to give in to it.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t want you like hell.”
She blinked in surprise at his harsh statement and turned to him. His face looked rigid, his eyes glittering.
“But not enough. Isn’t that right?” she asked quietly.
His mouth tightened. For a second, she thought he was going to curse. She wished he would, for some reason. It would be nice to see him lose control for once. Instead, he turned suddenly and whipped open his door, got out and slammed it behind him hard. She watched his long-legged saunter across the parking lot in the makeup mirror, her anger amplifying to a low burn.
When she followed him a minute later—perfecting her slouchy boy walk—she noticed him standing in the checkout line, holding two cups of coffee and several bottles of water tucked beneath his forearm. She hesitated outside the bathrooms, inhaling for courage before she plunged into the men’s. Thankfully, there was no one inside, and it was reasonably clean.
When she reached the parking lot after leaving the bathroom, she didn’t see him in the SUV. He must still be inside. As she approached the vehicle, however, she spotted him in the distance. There was a small playground in the back of the establishment, built to give car-confined kids an opportunity to expend some youthful energy. Seth was the only one using it today. She leaned her hip against the car and watched, openmouthed. He hung off an iron horizontal ladder, knees bent to keep him suspended, doing pull-up after pull-up, his precise, rapid strength and obvious pent-up power stunning to observe.
When he straightened, feet on the ground again, Gia turned away abruptly and got in the car. She felt rattled by the vision. It took her a few seconds to realize why. In her mind a moment ago, she’d accused him of not wanting her, of possessing annoying amounts of sexual restraint.
But the truth had just been right there in front of her. Seth Hightower wasn’t impervious. Far from it.
He was burning just as much as she was.
* * *
They didn’t talk much as Seth drove for the next several hours, and dusk slowly began to settle. What had happened in that Flagstaff parking lot seemed to hover like a dense cloud inside the SUV, making the atmosphere crackle with tension. Seth showed no sign of tiring, even when full night fell. Curiosity pierced her ruffled emotional state after they paused for gas and a quick break on the outs
kirts of Albuquerque.
“Do you miss it? Living here?” she asked him, once they were on the road again.
“Yeah. The wide-open spaces. The quiet.” He lifted two long fingers off the wheel, gesturing to the midnight dome of millions of bright stars above them. “The night sky.”
She loved the sound of his deep, rough voice in the darkness.
“I recall you mentioning college once when . . .” She cleared her throat remembering too late the circumstances where he’d mentioned it. She’d been in his arms, following a particularly fulfilling round of lovemaking, their breaths and hearts slowing. Blinking away the potent flash of memory, she rallied. “Did you go to school around here?”
“Yeah. University of New Mexico. Jake and I both went there on football scholarships.”
“Is Jake big like you?”
He nodded. “Jake’s the one who played four years though. Made Defensive Player of the Year two years in a row. I quit late in my freshman year.”
“College?”
“No, football.”
“Didn’t like it?” she asked, turning slightly in her seat, her interest caught. She could perfectly imagine Seth as a football player, given his size and athletic grace. She could imagine one big problem with the scenario, though, given what she knew about him.
“I like football okay, but it’s a game.”
“It got in the way of your art, didn’t it?”
He looked over at her swiftly. She gave him a small smile.
“Yeah. That’s the reason I jumped at the scholarship,” he agreed quietly, his eyes back on the road. “I couldn’t have studied art any other way. We didn’t have the money for school. But being an art student isn’t like being in your typical liberal arts program. It’s very demanding. I started to resent all the practice hours and travel time required for the team. So I joined ROTC and got my free ride that way.”
“I was wondering how being an artist and the whole Army intelligence thing went together,” she mused. “But I suppose military intelligence could use a master of disguise.”