by Sandra Brown
The mustache tickled her lips as he brushed it across them. He moved imperceptibly closer until, for the first time, their bodies felt the complementary curves of the other.
They fit together like pieces of a puzzle. She barely reached the middle of his chest, yet they were like two halves of a whole. Her soft breasts were welcomed by his chest as though hollows had been carved out to accommodate them. His feet were on either side of hers, and when his lean, hard hips melded into the womanly softness of hers, a groan born of agony and delight swelled from deep in his throat.
His lips sipped at hers, lingering and then receding until she was tempted to clasp his head and hold it to her She garnered only the courage to raise her hands shyly to his ribs and lightly caress the muscles just above them. They were bunched and contracted in the effort of supporting him against the wall.
His breath escaped in a long, slow sigh when he felt her dainty hands touching him. His mouth ceased its provocative teasing and descended on hers, claiming it with a precision that was alarming.
Lauri didn't participate at first. Fear and caution had restrained her responses to men since her disastrous marriage. But Drake didn't countenance that halfhearted resistance. His lips fed hungrily on hers until she parted them and gave his probing tongue the access it begged for. She tried to restore order to the world, to put things back into their proper perspective, but it was impossible under his relentlessly searching mouth.
Even when they had to pause to breathe, he wasn't satisfied. He nuzzled her ear with his mouth and nipped her lobe with his teeth. His hands slipped down the wall to caress her shoulders, her arms, then back to her neck. His fingers seemed to count her pulse rate before moving up to cup her face. His thumbs stroked her cheekbones.
"Do you kiss all your leading ladies like that?" Lauri asked, smiling languidly.
She expected him to smile in return and offer a witty retort. Instead, she watched in puzzlement as his face drained of all color. The green eyes, which had been lighted by an internal fire that seemed to touch her with tongues of flame when he stared down into her upturned face, became cold, impenetrable, as though a curtain had been dropped over them.
He pulled away from her by degrees. First his hands lowered from her face. Then her chest was relieved of the hard pressure of his. When he stepped away from her, she was bereft over his withdrawal and made a motion to reach out and bring him back. But the look on his face stunned and frightened her, and she quickly brought her hands together in a tight fist at her chest. He had gone completely ashen and was staring at her as if he had seen a ghost.
"Drake, what—"
He moved his lips several times before he was able to mouth the words. "S-Susan used to say that." He paused and raked a hand over his face, pushing against his eye sockets, dispelling an image. "She said that all the time."
"Susan?" Lauri queried in a high thin voice. She knew who Susan must be, and she didn't want to hear it.
"Susan was my wife. She died."
He had said it, and with such visible anguish that Lauri was sickened. He still loved his wife! He hadn't said how she died; that was irrelevant. It was her death, not the means of it, that had taken away his love.
"Yes. I'm sorry," she whispered. It was such a lame, worthless thing to say, but she could think of nothing else, and she was desperate to fill the heavy silence that had so suddenly smothered them.
He straightened, seeming to recover from the momentary stupor her unfortunate words had induced. He ran his hands through the silver-brown hair and then said brusquely, "It doesn't matter."
But it did! Only seconds ago she was lost in an embrace that was sweeter and warmer than any she had ever known. Now the man who had made her body sing with sensations she had thought long dead was acting like a stranger – a distant stranger.
His hands were thrust deep into the pockets of his slacks as he turned away from her. When he pivoted on his heels to face her again, his mouth was set in a grim line, and his heavy brows were lowered over his eyes.
"I think it only fair to tell you, Lauri, that I don't allow any emotional entanglements in my life. Despite what you read in the celebrity magazines, I never become attached to any woman. I was married and I loved my wife. My needs are purely physical. I thought you should know that at the outset."
His words were like a brick being dropped on the top of Lauri's head that jarred her to her toes. Rage and humiliation boiled in her veins, and she bristled like a pouncing cat. She tried to control her voice, to trap the deprecations that screamed inside her and craved to be voiced.
"I don't recall asking you to become 'entangled,' Mr. Rivington." She was quivering with suppressed fury. "However, since you have broached the subject and erroneously construed my motives, I will set the record straight immediately. I have no intention of becoming 'attached' to you. In addition to the fact that it would have an adverse effect on my required objectivity, I find you deplorably conceited. I was married to an artist once – a musician – and he, like you, took himself far too seriously and expected everyone else to. You may rest assured that I want the necessary relationship we must have to be strictly professional. Thank you for dinner."
With that she whirled through the door and closed it firmly behind her. She leaned against it, breathing deeply and trying to stem the tears of rage that were already stinging her eyelids.
She heard his footsteps take him to the elevator, heard the bell ring as the doors swished open, then heard them close again.
"Fool!" she screamed to herself, stamping her foot in a reaction that reverted to her childhood. She flung her purse into the nearest chair and virtually ripped off her jacket.
"That supercilious son of a—"
Lauri didn't know whom to direct her fiercest anger against – Drake or herself. She marched to her bedroom, and after switching on the light, she flopped down on the bed and leaned down to unstrap her sandals.
"You never learn, do you, Lauri? You're a glutton for punishment, aren't you?"
As she undressed she continued to castigate herself for submitting to Drake's kiss in the first place. He was her employer. She was responsible for his child. She knew better than to allow emotional attachments to cloud her objectivity. And thinking romantically about Jennifer's father spelled destruction for the child's well-being. Getting so involved with Jennifer was threatening enough to her education. Having sexual desires directed toward the father of the child was the height of lunacy.
It wasn't kissing him that bothered Lauri, but rather the way she had felt while she was kissing him. Not even when she had been so deeply in love with Paul had she felt that helpless sinking feeling she had just experienced under Drake's kiss.
She had been sinking, and then the support had been ruthlessly and selfishly withdrawn. And to add insult to injury, he had had the nerve to suggest sanctimoniously that she had initiated the embrace!
Artists! They were all alike. They satisfied their own driving lusts, and after their bruised egos were salved, they trampled on the souls of their healers.
Lauri went into the bathroom and began creaming her face as she recalled her marriage to Paul Jackson. They had met at a party. She hadn't been living in New York long, having just secured a coveted teaching position at the Norwood Institute for the Deaf.
She was lonely, and missed her family, who seemed so far away in Nebraska. When one of the younger, friendly teachers at the school asked her to go to a casual party, she had agreed out of loneliness.
The crowd was a mixture of singles and couples – mostly nine-to-flyers – with a few dancers, musicians, and writers included. Paul Jackson was playing the piano while a leggy blonde sang in a voice far inferior to Paul's accompaniment.
He noticed the red-haired young woman who was standing on the far side of the grand piano and listening to his music with avid interest. When he took a break, he introduced himself, and they began to chat amiably. Lauri was highly complimentary about his playing, especially when h
e told her the songs were his own compositions.
It wasn't until months later that Lauri analyzed their relationship. She realized that, even at that first meeting, they hadn't discussed her work or dreams or plans. They had talked exclusively about Paul and his ambitions to make it big in the music industry. Their first conversation should have been a clue to his selfishness and insecurity.
He was handsome in a serious, studious way. His brown hair grew too long, but he rarely thought of getting it trimmed unless Lauri gently reminded him. Everything was suggested gently, for fear of offending him or pricking his inflated self-image. Perhaps what Lauri had felt for him was pity, but she convinced herself, after dating Paul steadily for months, that it was love. He needed her. He needed confidence. He needed someone to listen to his music and approve. Encourage. Soothe. Pamper.
"Will you move in with me, Lauri? I need you with me all the time." They were in his apartment, having gone to a movie earlier. They were lying on the couch in a tight embrace.
"Are you asking me to marry you, Paul?" Lauri asked, smiling. She was thrilled. He loved her. She would be able to help him, provide him with encouragement, and be an anchor he could depend on.
"No." He released her and stood up, crossing the room to the table where he kept his supply of liquor. "I'm asking you to live with me." He carelessly splashed the whiskey into the glass.
Lauri sat up and adjusted her clothing. He had asked her on many occasions to sleep with him. She had refused, and her refusal usually generated a fight, after which he would apologize sarcastically for asking her to compromise herself.
"Paul, you know I can't do that. I've told you why."
"Is it because your dad is a preacher?" He was becoming more belligerent. His eyes were vacant and glazed.
"Not just that, though my parents would be terribly disappointed—"
"Oh, please," he groaned.
"You know I want to sleep with you!" she exclaimed. "More than anything. But I want to be married to you, not just a live-in."
He muttered an expletive under his breath and tossed down the remainder of the whiskey. He set the glass on the table and stared at her for long moments before crossing the room and kneeling down in front of her.
"You redheaded bitch," he whispered, reaching up to caress her hair. "You know I can't live without this any longer." He placed his hand on her stomach and massaged it enticingly. Then he leaned forward and kissed each of her breasts through her blouse. "I guess I'll have to marry you for it."
"Oh, Paul," she cried, throwing her arms around his neck enthusiastically.
Much to her family's disappointment they were married within days in a civil ceremony, with only two musician friends of Paul's as witnesses. She moved her things into his apartment the next day.
For a month or two, things went smoothly, with Paul having only a few outbursts of temper or periods of abject depression. He was working on a group of songs that he had high hopes for. Lauri came home from work each day to find him at the piano. She cooked meals that he ate abstractedly before returning to his sheets of music.
When she went to bed, he would join her long enough to quickly satisfy his sexual needs, then go back to work while she lay alone in the darkness until she finally fell asleep. Each morning she crept out of bed and left for work without waking him.
When his songs were rejected by a music publisher, Paul went into a state of depression that was fearsome. He drank, cursed, and cried in repetitive cycles.
When Lauri tried to console and encourage him, he screamed, "What in the hell do you know about it, huh? You spend your days with a bunch of dummies who can't even hear music, good or bad. So what makes you an expert, huh? For God's sake shut up!"
He finally came out of the abyss and then went through a period of remorse that was even more irritating than his previous behavior. He cried oceans of tears while she held him in her arms and soothed him like a child. He begged her forgiveness and promised never to speak to her in such a way again. She petted him and nursed him and restored him to a semblance of a rational human being.
But it didn't last.
In the following eight months his fits occurred with increasing frequency. He drank because he couldn't write good music. And he couldn't write good music because he drank. And Lauri suffered for it.
When he was physically capable of having sex, she tolerated an act that was without warmth or affection, but born of his self-anger. She was used as a receptacle for his frustration.
She felt she had to leave him in order to maintain her own sanity and not slip into the questionable category of Paul's stability. She could no longer stand the sudden shifts of mood, the fits of temper, the ego that required continual nurturing, and the paranoia that had to be relieved.
She moved out and took another apartment. She never filed for divorce, still hoping that somehow Paul would overcome his weaknesses and they could love each other as they should.
Three months later he was dead. His current live-in girlfriend called Lauri when she found him slumped over the keyboard of his piano. The autopsy revealed a lethal amount of alcohol and barbiturates; it was ruled an accidental death. Lauri accepted that.
She shook her head sorrowfully now as she pulled the hairbrush through her auburn hair. There had only been a handful of people at the funeral. Her parents had never met Paul. They had not been able to come to New York, and he refused to journey to "a godforsaken place like Nebraska." Lauri had telephoned Paul's mother, who lived in Wisconsin but whom she had never met. The woman listened to Lauri as she explained the details of her son's death, then quietly hung up without saying a word.
At first Lauri had blamed herself for Paul's death. Had she been more understanding, more supportive; had she never left him – maybe he would have pulled himself out of the pit into which he had thrown himself.
It was only after lengthy conversations with her father and the therapeutic passing of time that Lauri stopped her self-flagellation and came to terms with her husband's death.
The marriage had left its mark on her, however. She was cautious about whom she went out with: Young executives who were more ambitious for their careers than they were their love lives were the type she consented to date. Each relationship was left impersonal, and if she felt a man becoming more than casually interested, she retreated with alacrity.
She switched out the light in the bathroom, slipped out of her underclothes, and slid naked under the sheets.
"You've got great luck with men, Lauri Parrish," she chided herself.
She had been so careful in the five years since Paul's death. Aloof and cool, she had allowed no man to matter in her life until now. This wasn't a tiny slipup; this was a headlong plunge in the wrong direction.
Not only was Drake Rivington her employer and the father of her student, but he was an actor! What could be worse than a composer except an actor? Hadn't she just seen evidence of that familiar temperament? One second he was kissing her with a passion that melted her reserves and heated her blood. The next he was cool and distant, drawing away because something she had said reminded him of his deceased wife.
Even more galling was that display of overwhelming conceit. He was accustomed to women fawning over him; panting in expectation of a look, a word, a touch. To hell with that, she thought scornfully as she stabbed a fist into her pillow.
She was launching on a project that might take years and that required – and deserved – her total powers of concentration. She didn't want or need anything, particularly a man, to cloud her judgments. Ignore his taunting arrogance. Dismiss it. Forget him. Forget that his hair sparkled silver under certain kinds of light. Forget that his eyes were the deepest green, fringed by the darkest lashes, and could pierce one with their intensity. Forget that his body was tall and lean and strong, and that he moved purposefully but gracefully.
Lauri shifted uncomfortably under the covers and ignored the fluttering of her heart as she remembered how Drake's lips felt aga
inst hers. Involuntarily her hand went up to her lips, and she touched her mouth, which still tingled from his sweet assault. Her fingers trailed to her ear and the curve behind it that had known the soft caress of his mustache.
She groaned into the pillow and turned over onto her stomach. Other parts of her body longed to be touched, caressed, but she denied them, just as she denied that, despite her resolves to the contrary, she was extremely attracted to Drake Rivington.
* * *
Chapter 4
«^»
"Jennifer. Jennifer."
The blond curls bounced as the little girl turned her head in the direction of the distorted sound she heard and recognized as her name. The hearing aid was hidden beneath the glossy curls.
"Use your napkin," Lauri signed and said as she smiled. "Is it good?" she asked. She was gratified as Jennifer signed yes and tried to speak it.
They were in a coffee shop at LaGuardia Airport, waiting for the call that their flight to Albuquerque was ready for boarding. Jennifer was attacking a dish of vanilla ice cream while Drake and Lauri watched her carefully.
"She's improved so much in these two weeks, it's unbelievable, Lauri."
Lauri's heart turned over when Drake spoke her name, but she hid her reaction. "Yes, she has," she answered with an outward calm she didn't feel. She was leaving. She wouldn't be able to see him, even on the impersonal level she had scrupulously enforced on all their meetings since the night he had kissed her.
Maintaining conversation was imperative until she and Jennifer were ready to board the airplane. An uncomfortable silence would be too much to bear. "Remember not to expect too much," Lauri warned.
"I won't," he promised solemnly.
"Yes, you will," Lauri said, laughing, and he returned her deep smile.
The past two weeks had sped by. Drake had managed everything beautifully. He bought out the lease to her apartment, though it was three months until the renewal date. He had made all the travel arrangements and kept Lauri posted on the preparations being made in New Mexico.