by Alicia Scott
An experiment, the voice at the back of her mind whispered. Just to see if two nights ago in the library had really happened. Then his lips came down abruptly and she wasn’t thinking anymore.
His lips were as hard as she remembered, hungry and demanding. They slanted over hers harshly, demanding her participation even as they dared her to step back. His tongue plunged into the warm recesses of her mouth, caressing her deeply as she sagged against him. Her arms wrapped around his strong shoulders for support, her fingers finding the silky spikes of his midnight hair. He tasted like brandy, fiery and beguiling. She pressed closer, wanting to feel more, to taste more.
Dimly, she became aware of his hands on her bathrobe, pushing the terry cloth aside until his hands could plunder inside. They curled around the small of her waist, then caressed up her back to press her closer. She was still gasping from the impact, when his palm stole forward to cup her breast.
She gasped, her eyes turning black with desire as they fluttered open to meet his gaze. His eyes were no longer cold, she thought hazily, but seemed to burn with a fierce need that sent more tingles down her spine.
And she desired him with an intensity that suddenly scared her. She wasn’t ready for this, wasn’t ready to feel anything quite this powerful. But even as she began to draw away, he pulled her closer.
His lips claimed hers once more, but this time they were no longer demanding. Instead, his tongue delicately outlined the lush fullness of her lips as if it had all the time in the world. He tasted one corner of her mouth, and even as her lips parted with breathless anticipation, he ignored the offering with keen discipline. He dipped his tongue into the other corner of her mouth, hearing her light moan. She was sweet and exquisite, at once bold and bashful. Slowly, he penetrated her mouth with his tongue, tracing the line of her teeth, then finding her tongue to tangle with his own.
Her knees gave out under the slow onslaught, her senses overwhelmed by the sheer sensuality of his kiss. But he held her up easily, his fingers strong and warm on her waist. She had never felt so tiny and feminine....
His tongue probed deeper, and her arms tight around his neck, her breasts aching and heavy against his chest. He licked the inside of her mouth languorously, delving slow and sure, seeming to relish each voluptuous movement.
She moaned again and he felt it in every burning cell of his blood. Slowly, relentlessly, he pulled away.
It took her a good sixty seconds to realize he wasn’t coming back. She had to bite her lips to keep herself from moaning in loss. Her eyes fluttered open, the lids heavy with the desire. At once, she became aware of his gaze hard upon her face. His eyes no longer looked at her with raw passion. Instead, they glittered with a dark combination of rage and reluctant hunger.
“Do you want me to stop?” he growled softly.
The words doused her passion as quickly as a cold shower. She became aware of her compromising position, of how long they’d been kissing. A dull flush crept up her cheeks, and her hands scrambled to pull her robe back together. Richard watched her movements with cynical eyes.
“You’re too old to play the virgin,” he said mockingly.
She stiffened, and for one moment, she was tempted to hit the man. But then she tightened her robe with the rigid control and pride she’d learned from growing up with four mercilessly older brothers. She looked him straight in the eye, her midnight gaze not giving an inch.
“My apologies,” she said curtly. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I can assure you, it won’t happen again.”
This time Richard stiffened, his pale eyes growing even colder as they homed in on her. Slowly, he reached out and touched her cheek, no expression crossing his face as she flinched.
“Only fools make promises,” he said softly. He knew why she was turning away, he remembered that look of horror in her eyes after their last kiss. She didn’t trust him, she was afraid of him. Fine then, he sentenced himself savagely. Perhaps it was better this way. God knows he would have done better with Alycia if she’d ever had the slightest bit of fear.
He let his eyes fall to her lips one last time, taking in the full, bruised softness of their form. Then his gaze swept up, full of mocking intensity.
She swallowed heavily under that stare, her mind filling with too many sensations—the feel of Richard’s kiss, the intensity of his gaze. Then she remembered Nick. Sweet Nick, down on the ground with so much blood—
Her control wavered, her shoulders folding forward as the first sliver of pain washed through her. For one instant, she swayed on her feet, the exhaustion and mental strain almost too much.
Richard saw her waver, and his eyes narrowed with new and sudden puzzlement. He’d seen the pain in her eyes, her face was so damn open. It was the same sharp sliver of emotion he’d seen that first day when she’d sat in his office. He didn’t understand it, and he didn’t like things he didn’t understand.
But that didn’t stop him from suddenly reaching out a hand to steady her elbow. Her midnight blue eyes swept up, and he saw gratitude. It made him feel like an absolute lout.
“You should get some rest,” he said forcefully, hating the way she tied his insides into knots when he knew better than to be manipulated by a woman. For all he knew, this was some grand charade on her part to keep him off balance. God knows, Alycia had performed similar tricks in her lifetime. Though, over time, he’d come to realize her China blue eyes never completely lost their hard, metallic glint.
Liz simply nodded, steadying herself. The worst of the anguish passed, as it usually did. Now she was just left with the feeling of emptiness and vulnerability. Sometimes, she hated that more, especially when looking at this dark, unreadable man before her.
“Thank you,” she whispered simply, and before her control completely gave out, she pulled away and disappeared inside her room.
Richard let her go, swearing one soft, succinct word under his breath. But it was aimed as much at himself as at the situation. He didn’t understand her. And he didn’t understand himself when he was around her.
He scowled as he stormed to his own room, and even in the light hours of the morning, sleep was a long time coming.
* * *
Liz rose at nine to the sound of movement from Andrew’s room. Rousing herself completely, she set about getting ready for what indeed would be a busy day. She didn’t allow herself to think about last night, or the kiss, or Richard’s reaction. She was attracted to the man, she would allow herself that much—even if it did fill her with a twinge of guilt. Sooner or later, this situation, her being attracted to someone, was bound to occur. All she needed was more time. And someone less formidable than Richard Keaton.
Well, she’d meant what she’d said last night. She had no business cultivating his kisses, not when she barely knew the man, and not when she still felt unsure about him. From now on, except where Andrew was concerned, she was going to stay clear of him.
She had no sooner stepped out of her room than she walked straight into Blaine, who was standing in the middle of the hall, still dressed in his clothes from the night before. He gave her a startled look.
“What were you doing in there?” he asked her sharply.
She looked at him blankly. “That’s my room.”
He appeared genuinely shocked. “So that’s the way it is. I guess I should have known. One doesn’t exactly hire a nanny of your years for her ‘experience.’”
Liz looked at him with wide eyes, outrage immediately bristling at the blatant insinuation. “And just what do you mean by that?” she demanded.
“Oh, come on,” Blaine said with a careless gesture of his hand. “You can’t tell me you’re staying in the room adjoining Richard’s and you’re not involved with him. But honestly, you could have just admitted it straight out. I wouldn’t have thought any less of you.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Liz told him firmly. “My room doesn’t adjoin Richard’s, it adjoins Andrew’s. And speaking of Andrew,
I have an appointment with him to make brownies. So if you will excuse me—”
“Wait a minute,” Blaine said sharply, grabbing her arm as she tried to push past him. “Let me get this straight. Are you telling me that Andrew has the room adjoining this one?”
“Of course,” she informed him, her voice prim.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Blaine breathed to himself, relinquishing his grip on her arm. “Richard actually went ahead and did it. He talked of it for the longest time, but I hadn’t realized he’d actually done it.”
“Done what?”
“Changed the rooms,” Blaine explained slowly. “You, my dear—and Andrew—are now living in what used to be the master suite. Split rooms, of course. You have to remember just how old this house is. After the accident, Richard talked of moving out of the suite. For a while, he even muttered about boarding the whole thing up. But I guess he went with a little redecorating instead. I wonder where the old boy is holed up now.”
“Wait a minute,” Liz echoed this time, a frown furrowing her forehead. “You’re telling me that I’m in Alycia’s half, and Andrew is in Richard’s half?”
“Yes. That’s it.”
She couldn’t help herself; she shivered. She had a six-year-old waking her up in the middle of the night because a “she” ghost was in his room, and now she learned that she was occupying the rooms of a woman who had been murdered.
Oh, she was definitely a long way from Maddensfield now.
“What was she like?” Liz found herself asking suddenly. “Richard’s wife, I mean.”
“Alycia?”
“Yes.”
“What? You’ve never asked him about her?”
She gave Blaine a narrow look. “It’s hardly a simple thing to bring up. Besides, I’m just the nanny, and it’s really none of my business. I’m only curious, that’s all.”
“She was beautiful,” Blaine said abruptly, and his eyes were no longer looking at Liz, but peering back into the past. “She was the most beautiful woman you’d ever seen.”
“How so?” Liz prodded.
“Her hair was exactly like Andrew’s,” Blaine said. “Her eyes, too, that delicate China blue color. She had perfect, refined features, with just a hint of vulnerability. Men are real suckers for that kind of thing.”
His lips curled a little with the last words, and Liz couldn’t miss the undertone of self-loathing. She looked at him intently, trying to picture this woman. “So all men really liked her?” she said slowly.
“Oh, yeah. When she debuted, every man went after her.”
“But Richard won?”
Blaine only nodded.
“She must have really been something,” Liz said after a bit, “to pull Richard away from his work.” And on the heels of that thought came a thin streak of what seemed suspiciously close to jealously. She pushed the emotion away.
“She did in the beginning,” Blaine was saying. “Hell, you wouldn’t have recognized Richard back then. He actually cut back to forty-hour work weeks. He had a single yellow rose sent to her each and every day. He recited poetry, he danced, he romanced. It was truly amazing. I’d never seen him like that. Never have since, for that matter.”
Liz just nodded, feeling the prickles run uncontrollably through her. Danced? Romanced? She couldn’t even get the man to carry on a conversation.
“He must still miss her,” Liz said shortly. “What a shame.”
Blaine looked at her sharply then. He laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Miss her? I honestly doubt that. Richard might have picked out the most beautiful woman for himself, Liz, but he also chose the most ill-suited. Alycia was an outgoing sort of girl. She liked attention, she liked the social scene. She liked to see and be seen. And, well, Alycia liked men. All kinds.” Once more, bitterness laced his words, and the smile that twisted his face looked out of place after seeing his earlier, flirtatious ones. “Richard never was a good judge of women,” he said flatly.
“And you are?” Liz quizzed with an arched eyebrow.
“Hey, I wasn’t the one holed up in a book for all of childhood,” Blaine told her. “One of us had to have a life.”
“If you’re so experienced, why didn’t you marry Alycia?”
But Blaine backed off the suggestion with a wave of his hands. “Marriage? Me? I don’t think so.”
Yet there was something in the way he said those words that made her look at him again. So he wasn’t the marrying type, she could buy that. But let the challenge of the most sought-after woman slip by? She definitely couldn’t see that. And all at once she wondered just how deep the sibling rivalry between Blaine and Richard ran. One brother was bookish and hardworking. The other was a playboy and fun-loving. But the bookish one had gotten the girl, at least, temporarily. Somehow, she just couldn’t see that sitting well with Blaine. God knows, if last night’s dinner had been anything to go by, there was tension between the two.
“I really need to get downstairs,” she said finally. “But thanks for the conversation.”
Blaine nodded, his eyes moving past hers to stare at the door she’d closed behind her. He frowned. “Fine, fine,” he said almost absently, then he looked down at his clothes. “I ought to be getting to bed myself.”
Liz’s eyes widened at the apparent indication he’d just returned from last night’s revelries. He and his gang were definitely a fast crowd. Shaking her head, she brushed past him and continued down the hall. When he called out behind her, she turned. “Liz, since your room does adjoin only Andrew’s, I take this to mean that you and Richard aren’t involved, correct?”
She managed a small smile. Involved? No. They were only two strangers who were drawn to the library by firelight, two strangers who had shared a kiss or two that had made matters worse.
Richard had once danced, and romanced a woman. The words came to her unbidden, taunting her. Underneath that steely reserved man lay the heart of a romantic. She wanted to know that man, she thought suddenly, her forehead furrowing once more. She wanted to know what made his features so grim at night. She wanted to know what kept him awake in the early-morning hours.
And she wanted to know what thoughts crept into his mind when he looked at his sleeping child with such heartrending yearning.
She wanted to know the real Richard Keaton.
Blaine was still looking at her with expectant eyes.
“No,” she said slowly. “We aren’t involved.”
She continued her way downstairs.
* * *
Promptly at two, Liz led Andy to the left-wing tower with the promised plate of brownies in hand. For all of Andy’s previous enthusiasm to see his father’s lab, now that the moment had finally arrived, his face was tight with tension. He’d been silent all morning, dark circles rimming his eyes from the long night before. Liz had actually begun to wish he would rattle off his incessant statistics, anything other than this strained silence.
“Are you excited?” she asked him now.
He nodded, but the look on his face negated the gesture.
“Come on, Andy,” she tried. “We’re visiting your father in his lab. You can see what he does, where he works. It’ll be great.”
In point of fact, she wasn’t so sure. Given the family’s conversational abilities, she had already figured out that it would be a long afternoon for her. But she was determined to get the two to interact. There was still Richard’s threat of sending Andy to a boarding school, something that she believed more than ever would be disastrous for the child. The father and son needed to become better acquainted. From what she’d seen, both were brilliant. They ought to fit together perfectly.
They were nearing the top of the three stories of long winding stairs. Chilly drafts swept by them every now and then, but for the most part, the old tower was better lit and heated than the rest of the house. The carved stone steps were worn in places, an indication, Liz figured, of how much time Richard spent going to and from his lab.
At the
top of the stairs was a solid wooden door. Giving Andy one last reassuring look, Liz raised her hand and knocked. Abruptly, the door opened.
Richard stood there, dressed in dark blue slacks and a blue and white pin-striped shirt. His face, while as controlled as ever, seemed extra tense. Liz had the sneaking suspicion he was probably just as nervous as his son.
She smiled a friendly, easy smile, and thought her face might split from the effort.
“Good afternoon. Here we are. Oh, and, of course, the brownies.” She handed him the plate with hands that were only trembling mildly. He looked at it dully, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Then, seeming to collect himself, he stepped back, motioning them to enter while he set down the plate on a nearby table. Taking a deep breath, Liz led Andy into the room.
It certainly wasn’t what she’d expected. Somehow, in her mind, she had pictured something scattered and random like a mad scientist’s lab filled with bubbling test tubes and Bunsen burners. Instead, laid out before her was a very efficient, well-organized work area. The circular expanse of the room had been broken into three main areas. On the right was a large desk on top of which sat a sizable and modern-looking computer, as well as a phone and a fax machine. Straight ahead was a long white table covered by large equipment that sported a multitude of dials and long dangling attachments. To the left of it sat a huge wooden table that was covered with reams of paper. Along the wall a curved shelf system held jars filled with various materials and oils, while what looked to be rocks were scattered throughout the room.
The biggest surprise, however, was the full nautilus system and the StairMaster directly next to the door. Liz found herself sneaking a look at Richard’s well-toned physique with new insight. Unbidden, her eyes drifted down to his hands, all sorts of thoughts—thoughts she’d sworn not to have after last night—flitted through her head. She cast them off viciously. When had she become such a fool?
She looked over to see Andy taking in the lab with huge eyes.
Turning to Richard, she forced her shoulders to relax and the smile to reappear on her face. Another minute longer, and they would be able to slice up the tension in the room and serve it with side orders of stark nervousness.