by Laura Moore
It was his first real glimpse of the power of big, big money. Throughout the evening, Steve was asked repeatedly to confirm the rumor floating about that Ty was Steve’s new business partner. Upon hearing his response, people became downright energized, looking at him with bright, eager expressions, firing off questions, saying they’d always intended to check out his place in Bridgehampton, that they’d be getting in touch with him directly after the National. After a few rounds, Steve learned just how long it was necessary to stay after detecting that sudden spark in the listeners’ eyes. He’d excuse himself, saying he hoped he’d be hearing from them in the near future, and move on, ready to tackle the next group. Yes, Steve thought happily. The evening, thanks to Ty, was going really well, his sense of optimism increasing with each contact he made. Even if only some of the people they talked to tonight came through, he and Ty might very well manage to get Southwind solidly in the black. A couple times Steve came real close to bungling it. But there, too, people had been unbelievably indulgent. It happened while he and Ty were still working the cocktail crowd. In the midst of a conversation, Steve caught sight of Ty across the room. That was all it took. His eyes upon her, and he was lost to the world, coming back only after receiving a discreet but nonetheless firm nudge to the ribs, and a prompting cough that pierced his desire-fogged brain. A second sign that luck was on their side this evening, for each time Steve suffered one of these spells, conscious only of his desire for Ty, he was in a group of men. The shared grins of understanding, the nudges, the hearty slaps on the back that followed, made for a true male-bonding experience.
Ty and he were placed at different tables. Naturally, Steve’s initial instinct was to try to switch cards with someone so that he could be near her. But, as it happened, Vicky Grodecki was seated next to him, and Steve was forced to shelve that particular idea. Ty would have given him hell if he’d ditched the Times reporter. Anyway, he liked Vicky. She knew her stuff and didn’t pepper him with idiotic comments the way many of her colleagues tended. They spent forty animated minutes talking about great riders and horses, about America’s chances in the upcoming Olympics. Steve realized that there were definitely worse people he could be stuck with while trying to chew his way through overcooked beef and undercooked vegetables.
But by the time the dessert of soggy angelfood cake appeared in front of everyone’s place, Steve felt he’d earned all the brownie points he needed for the coming week.
Throughout this evening, he and Ty had talked the talk. Now it would be up to him to walk the walk. He had to go out there tomorrow and all of the upcoming week and ride at the top of his form. And if it so happened that Macintosh and Gordo weren’t up to snuff, then Steve would have to use all his talent and skill to overcome that.
A few notes were launched into the air as the hired band found its way into a Gershwin tune. All around Steve, people were happily abandoning their desserts in favor of the dance floor, the women’s long dresses swishing against the polished wood. A sense of fierce anticipation surged inside him as he realized the business portion of the evening was over. A lot of time left for pleasuring Ty. Steve got up and made his way over to her table, where a strange man was speaking to her, leaning close, the sleeve of his evening jacket touching her forearm.
Steve decided on the spot that if the guy thought he was going to do business with Southwind, he could think again. This was as close as he’d ever get to Ty.
“Excuse me.” Steve could afford to be polite. Ty was his.
Ty stood, forcing the man to do so, too. “Steve,” Ty said simply. Not needing to say more. Steve’s smile spread, warming, in direct contrast to the other man’s increasingly hostile gaze.
“I thought you might like a dance before we leave,” Steve suggested, holding out his hand.
“That would be lovely,” Ty murmured, linking her arm with his, then turning to her dinner companion. “It was good to catch up with you, Edward. Best of luck with those stock options.”
Edward didn’t get a chance to reply, for Steve was already escorting Ty to the dance floor. “Want to tell me why I feel like I’ve got a knife sticking out between my shoulder blades?” Steve asked, easing her into his arms.
He moved easily over the floor, his steps graceful, as graceful as everything else he did. What a relief not to be subjected to some clunky, heavy-footed box-step. Ty loved dancing, but these days men seemed to believe it was perfectly acceptable to dance with a total lack of imagination and coordination. She’d seen people in checkout lines who moved with more vitality and awareness than some of her recent dance partners.
“So, who was that guy? He hasn’t stopped staring at us, by the way.”
“Probably not. My father tried to set me up with Edward a few years ago. Edward’s everything he’s looking for in a husband for me. Rich, ambitious, excellent family.”
Steve’s arms tightened fractionally, relaxing only when he felt her sink into him without hesitation. “Did you hit it off with this Edward?” His eyes watched hers carefully.
Ty laughed softly, shaking her head. “Not exactly. He’s simply one in a string of phenomenally boring men my father tried to foist on me. Though Edward certainly gets excited talking about mergers and acquisitions.”
Steve brushed a whisper of a kiss against her hair, inhaling the subtle trace of her perfume. “You know, I’ve been wondering about that. Mergers. How is it you’re not already married, with a passel of kids and three Ferraris in the garage? I’m assuming getting you hitched to the right man would have been high on your father’s todo list.”
Before Ty could respond, Steve saw an opening and took it, twirling her about in a perfectly executed turn. Ty gave him a smile of pure delight, and his left hand dropped, enjoying the sensation of her moving through layers of tulle and silk.
“Oh, Father had plans for several key mergers, as you call them. But I put a stop to it. One of my better moments, actually. Inspired.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense, sweetheart.” He was coming to love the light of mischief that entered those gray eyes.
“I informed him that if he kept shoving eligible men at me, I’d hold a press conference and announce that I was a lesbian. His face has only turned that particular shade of purple a couple of times that I know of.”
Steve gave a shout of laughter, Ty’s softer one joining in. Heads turned momentarily, then, recognizing the source, knowing smiles broke out, followed by handcovered whispers, hiding excited titters. Still laughing, Steve pulled Ty into a whirling spin, the lights above them blurring into gold-yellow streaks. As his feet slowed, Steve whispered in her ear, “You’re incredible, you know that?” Angling his head, his lips played sweetly over hers. “Brilliant.” From the corner of his eye, Steve saw Edward staring at them, his expression downright nasty, then Vicky Grodecki, saying something to her staff photographer. They, too, were watching Ty and Steve on the dance floor. “Feel like giving your father a new angle to worry about?”
“Would this be part of your plan to turn him into an enraged maniac?”
“Could be. If not, we can always use it as a Christmas card.” Steve locked his gaze with that of the photographer and inclined his head toward Ty. He seemed to divine Steve’s intent at once. Lifting his zoom lens, he caught Steve bending Ty over his arm, his lips capturing hers in a searing kiss. By the time the kiss ended, it wasn’t only the photographer who’d caught it. Around the dance floor, several people burst into spontaneous applause.
“You’re the hit of the evening, Ty.” The Gershwin tune had ended, but Ty and Steve continued dancing, Steve unwilling to let her go. The new song was slower; Steve held her close, their thighs brushing. She fit beautifully against him, her high heels bringing her even with his height. His body acknowledged the perfect fit, hardening, wanting an even tighter fit. Soon, he promised himself. After this last dance.
“Do you always create this kind of excitement, this kind of energy, just by walking into a shindig like this?” he mur
mured, curious.
Ty was silent for a moment, then lifted shadow darkened eyes to his. “Yes.” It was naked honesty in her voice, not vanity. “This is what I was born to do, Steve. What all my father’s careful grooming was intended for. People are attracted to the image of someone like me, not caring whether there’s anything of substance beneath it. It’s just the money,” Ty explained softly. “But I’ve learned how to use all this to some advantage. Like tonight, for instance, helping Southwind. That’s made this evening less difficult to bear than it might have been.” Her voice dropped, so he had to strain to hear it. “Without you, this would have been my world: an endless succession of people fawning over my father’s money. Take me away, Steve. Please.”
Wordlessly, his hand found hers, and he led her away from the glittering ballroom and softly flattering lights.
The drive back, nestled in the supple leather seats of the Jaguar, did much to buoy Ty’s spirits. They rode with the top down, the night air cold, the lights of the city all around them. Steve had been forced to release Ty’s hand in order to shift the gears and steer, but Ty needed to touch him the way she needed air to breathe. As Steve drove, her fingers traveled up and down the solid length of his thigh muscles. Neither spoke, the sexual hunger growing between them, its presence as palpable as the cold air on their skin.
Steve was proud of the fact that he kept his hands to himself through the endless lobby, up the interminably long elevator ride, and all the way to the door of their suite. But the effort took its toll. Afine trembling made it next to impossible to insert the electronic key into the scanner. Next to him, Ty whimpered softly as the lock resisted his efforts, an insistent red light blipping back at them.
“Steve . . .” There was desperation in her voice. He looked at her, taking in the flush of her features, the outof-focus gleam in her eyes, the moist, parted lips. Cursing fluently, he shoved the card down hard, almost breaking the door off its hinges when at last the small green light appeared. Desperation didn’t lessen, but it changed like quicksilver.
Steve’s hands moved over Ty deliberately, possessively, tugging the concealed zipper down her back by the tiniest of fractions, then pausing to touch, to kiss, to worship each area revealed for him alone. Where he was slow, Ty’s hands traveled like lightning, divesting him of his jacket, sending studs flying through the air, their landing muffled in the thick beige carpet. And when her hands at last smoothed over him, he burned for her.
Released, the tulle gown slipped down soundlessly, becoming a fabulous textured wall of cloth around her legs. Steve helped her cross the barrier, his heart pounding as he drank in the sight of her. A strapless bra and panties of black silk, thigh-high silk stockings, threeinch stiletto heels. He might never breathe normally again. A choked laugh escaped him. “Jesus, the gown was distracting enough. If I’d known what you had on underneath that sea of froth, I’d have been a drooling idiot. Thank you for saving me from certain embarrassment.”
“You’re welcome, I thought you might prefer to be surprised.”
“I could die a happy man from a surprise like this,” his tender but delightfully wicked smile causing Ty’s heart to trip.
Steve took a step backwards so he could see all of her, every wonderful, mind-blowing inch of her. A vision he would never forget. “Those shoes, were they designed by that guy, what’s-his-name, you were talking to me about?”
It took a moment to recall the conversation they’d shared that night by Fancy’s grave. It seemed eons ago.
“Yes, these are Manolo Blahniks,” she said, extending a leg encased in sheer silk. She pointed her foot so Steve could better examine the wildly patterned brocaded shoes perched atop impossibly high heels.
“Do you like them?”
“I think the man is definitely onto something: shoes as torture devices.” His eyes traveled up the length of her. “I know, they’re killing me.” Backing up, he lowered himself into a rust-colored velvet armchair, his eyes never leaving the vision before him.
“Walk this way,” he commanded softly, settling into the chair with studied casualness, as though his heart wasn’t about to bust through his rib cage. “Yeah, that’s right, nice and slow.”
A smile curved Ty’s lips as she did Steve’s bidding. The comportment teachers at her boarding school would be aghast, horrified, if they learned to what use Ty Stannard was putting her very best walk right now. And to what effect, she thought happily. With every step, molten heat pooled inside her, her body tightening around it, readying for the explosion about to rock her. Its source the fire blazing in Steve’s eyes.
She stopped. Her whole being fixed on him, on the heavy rise and fall of his naked chest, on the black waistband temptingly half unbuttoned. Her hands lifted, undoing the clasp between her breasts. The bra fell to the floor behind her. Her hands skimmed down to the edge of her high-cut panties.
“No.” His voice a dark rumble, harsh and wildly erotic. “Not yet. I need a closer look first. Come here. That’s right,” he encouraged approvingly as Ty did his bidding.
Their knees were brushing now. Steve reached out, molding his hands around the backs of Ty’s thighs, touching silk and warm flesh, supporting legs suddenly unsteady. Lazily his fingers toyed with tops of her stockings, following the elastic border around, back and forth. Above him, he heard her breath shudder. He splayed his fingers, exerting the slightest of pressure. “A little wider, love.”
The whispered heat of his words against the flat of her tummy set off exquisite shocks through her. Yet it was only the beginning. Hands, mouth, tongue joined, moved over Ty in a sensuous meandering, dipping into the hollows of her hips, her navel. Moving, always moving, until they reached hot flesh hidden by sweetly dampened silk. Once there, beginning again. With a keening cry, Ty’s head fell back, her eyes shut, submitting to Steve’s distinctive brand of torture.
28
“ E xcuse me, but you’re Steve Sheppard, aren’t you?”
Steve turned his head in the direction of the voice, interrupting his thoughts of handing Macintosh to Enrique so he could steal outside and smoke a cigarette in peace. The woman astride the massive dark bay who’d ridden up beside had him changing his mind about how much he really needed that smoke. She must have just entered the exercise ring; otherwise, he’d have noticed her. At the very least her horse.
“Yeah.” He nodded, his eyes moving appreciatively over the woman’s mount, simultaneously checking her out, too. Pretty impressive package the two of them made. “And you are?”
“I’m Cassie Miller.”
“Miller, sounds familiar . . .”
“A name more common than Jones,” Cassie Miller replied with a quick smile. “I . . .”
“No, wait,” Steve interrupted, holding up a hand. “Give me a sec. My memory’s been real shaky recently,” he said ruefully. “But Miller, Miller . . . Cassie Miller . . .” He snapped his fingers, his face clearing. “Yeah, I remember you. You were the kid who stole the show at the Classic this summer. Unbelievable performance.”
Cassie Miller blushed becomingly. “Thanks. It came as quite a shock, winning an event that big. Orion was everything I hoped he’d be—and more—that day.”
“Sure was. You beat out me and Fancy, and I’d had my eye on that prize money for the whole month of August.”
“Um, actually, that’s why I approached you. We heard about Fancy Free’s death down at our farm in Virginia, and I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am. He was a great horse. Always worth rooting for.”
Steve smiled, touched by the sincerity in her voice and the fact that she’d cared enough to approach him.
“Thanks. So, this is Orion. I didn’t see him up close that Sunday. Probably too busy sulking.” He gave a low whistle. “Nice-looking animal.” Not bothering to hide the envy in his voice.
“Yeah, he’s special. Born and bred at our place down near Charlottesville.”
“You interested in selling him?”
Cassie Miller lau
ghed, shaking her head. “ ’Fraid not. He’s been sold and resold a couple of times too often to suit my husband and me. Now that we’ve got him back, he’ll remain with us.”
Steve wasn’t terribly surprised by her answer. One would have to be frigging nuts to let go of a horse like that. “Too bad,” he said easily. “I’m in the market, and your Orion is one of the best looking horses I’ve seen in a good long while. You’ve already gone out of your way to prove to me he’s talented, too.”
“You’re looking to buy, Steve?”
Steve nodded. “I’m heading down to Kentucky with my partner after the Grand Prix.”
“And that would be Ty Stannard,” Cassie Miller supplied with a huge grin. “That was some photograph of the two of you in today’s Times. Nice to know romance is alive and well at those parties. My husband, Caleb, was dead set against attending—said there’d be way too many society matrons squeezed into bright pink sequin nightmares for his taste—but that photo had him regretting his decision.”
Steve coughed into his fist. “Yeah, well, parties are what you make them,” he muttered, still embarrassed. Though why was a mystery; he’d had hours to get used to it. Despite Steve’s having practically orchestrated the moment captured by the Times’ s photographer, it had nonetheless packed a mammoth wallop to find there, on page one of the sports section, Ty and him fused in a nuclear kiss. Must have been a really slow day for football, he’d thought dazedly, staring at the photograph.