She swished around in the bubbles. "But you have other references, right?"
"Why?"
"Well…" She floundered. "I'd feel bad if I thought because of Ann or—or me—you might not get the job, that's all."
His expression shuttered. "You don't think your old boyfriend is dipping into your account?"
Val stared down at the scummy dishes in her sink. Admitting Con to her bed was one thing. Letting him into her past was something else entirely.
She temporized. "You said it would be hard to prove."
"And you don't trust me to prove it," he said flatly.
It was her own heart she didn't trust, and her growing obligation to this man. If he was willing to put his future on the line for her, what exactly would he expect in return?
"I'm just not sure what you're hoping to accomplish."
He set his beer bottle down precisely on the counter. "Did your father tell you I was fired, is that it?"
She gaped at him. "What?"
"The sudden lack of confidence. Is it because I screwed up my last job?"
She was appalled that by protecting her own feelings she'd led him to think that way. Wiping her hands, she turned to examine the hard, handsome face staring back at her: the intelligent forehead, the stubborn jaw, the bump in the bridge of his nose.
"I don't think you're the kind of man who makes mistakes." Or forgives yourself for them, she thought. "What did you do? Punch out the boss?"
He hesitated. When she only waited, he shrugged and said, "I made one bad call. Millennium was approached for a loan by a start-up software company—a couple of kids working out of their dorm room with an idea for a new video game."
He reached again for his beer, turning the bottle around in his hands. "I liked the idea, liked the guys, liked the game. But before the board voted on approval, they asked me if the probable return outweighed the risk of investing in an unproven business. I had to tell them no."
Val pulled the plug from the sink, letting the dirty water escape. "And?"
"And the kids made a fortune selling the idea to someone else, Millennium lost the chance to make a bundle, and I got canned."
Indignation swirled inside her. "But it wasn't your fault."
"It was my account. My mistake." He took a swallow from the bottle and set it back on the counter. "So, now you know why I'm down here working for your father."
"And why you want to go back. To prove yourself."
"A comeback. Yeah."
"Well, you don't have anything to prove to me." She smiled, hoping to melt the frightening frost from his eyes. "For a bean counter from Boston, you've done a wonderful job balancing my books."
"Any halfway decent accountant could have done the same."
"You don't think I'd let just any accountant into my business."
He raised his eyebrows. "Not anyone, no. Just someone forced on you by your father."
"That has nothing to do with it. Well, all right, it did, but it doesn't anymore. I trust your judgment." Even as she said the words, she acknowledged they were true. She did trust him, his integrity, his fundamental decency, his honor. "I trust you, Con."
He pushed away from the counter with both hands. One finger tipped up her chin. "Maybe you shouldn't."
His cool blue eyes were molten now. Sensual awareness flooded her, and with it the recognition of her own emotional danger. Standing barefoot in her kitchen in her thin green robe, she felt naked. Vulnerable. This man, his moods and his motives and his approval, were rapidly becoming too important to her.
Blindly, she reached behind her for the drainboard, for support, and missed. Her hand landed on the pile of cutlery stacked to dry by the side of the sink, and pain lanced her finger.
She jerked it back. "Ouch."
"What is it?"
"Nothing. I pricked myself."
"Let me see."
"No, I—"
Disregarding her denial, he took her hand, twisting it for his inspection. Blood welled up, a small, dark jewel on the pad of her thumb.
She tugged against his grasp, embarrassed by her outcry, discomfited by his possession. "It's nothing."
"You're right," he said, but he didn't let her go.
Instead, he held her hand tenderly, so tenderly her breathing got confused.
His dark head bent over their clasped hands. His warm mouth closed over her thumb. Gently, he sucked at the tiny wound. She felt the pull in her breasts and the hollow of her stomach. Need uncurled, warm and urgent, inside her, escaping her throat in a muffled cry. Val pressed her lips together, disconcerted and yet excited by the sound.
Con straightened and looked her in the eye. "Dixie, you can make all the noise you want."
She put up her chin. "I do not make—"
His mouth took hers. She tasted beer and the dark, sweet flavors of her blood and his hunger blended on his tongue. Desire shuddered through her. She'd told herself she could handle this, could handle him. She'd never expected the craving Connaught MacNeill evoked from her blood and her bone. She wasn't prepared for the crash of her defenses.
Breathless, she wrenched her mouth from his. The wall clock swung wildly in her line of sight.
"Con … it's getting late."
He lifted his head from her throat. "I want to spend the night," he said bluntly. "I want to sleep with you."
She tried to distance him with humor, to cool the fire that sparked through her at his possessive tone. "You just did."
"Not have sex. Sleep here, in your apartment, in your bed."
She wet her lips. "I don't think that's necessary. Rob's not coming back."
The polite, precise way she spoke alerted Con to trouble. She'd tried on that tone at their first bank meeting, like a lady of the Ascendancy explaining English rule to some thickheaded, thick-handed Irish peasant No way. After mind-numbing, body-flooding, heart-stopping sex, after baring all his professional dreams and failures, he'd be damned if he'd let her exclude him now.
Her unexpected encouragement after his confession had been like getting a gold star on his math homework or a promotion, validation on a level he hadn't sought or known he'd needed. He wanted more of it. More of her. Wanted to possess, to claim.
"Cross has got nothing to do with it," he growled, and purged his frustration in another kiss.
Her mouth was hot and slick. Sweeter than the tea she drank, with a kick like eighteen-year-old whiskey. He flexed his hands in the glorious coils of her hair, holding her still while he devoured her.
This wasn't her idea, Val thought dizzily. Maybe it wasn't a good idea. Did she trust him enough to let him seduce her? Did she trust herself enough to be seduced?
His hands unfisted in her hair. His long fingers skimmed the curve of her jaw, the line of her throat. She could feel her blood beat beneath his touch. She swallowed.
His eyes were dark with desire and almost bewildered. "You are so beautiful," he said hoarsely. "I don't think I've ever seen anything so beautiful."
Against the nakedness of his voice, it didn't matter anymore whose idea this was. Nothing mattered but Con and the way he felt against her, solid and strong, and the way he made her feel.
Beautiful.
She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back. It wasn't enough. Her bare toes climbed the tops of his feet, and she felt him swell against her. She nipped his earlobe.
He jolted. She wrapped one leg around him, moving, sliding, reveling in the friction. His neck was corded, his shoulders rigid, his desire hard against her belly. He reached down and around with both hands and cupped her bottom. Bracing, he lifted her. That was good. She wiggled, trying to find a fit between her heat and his hardness.
"Not here." He bit out the words. "I'm not making love to you on the kitchen table."
"I don't mind," she answered honestly.
She felt his chest expand with his breath. "The bed," he said tightly. "I can make it to the bed."
She clung to him as he strode with her down the hall. Her heel
grazed a wall. Bumped off balance, he laid her against the cool plaster and ravished her mouth. She cooperated, grabbing at his shoulders, tugging at his hair. Need spiraled inside her. Heat climbed between them. He hauled her up, staggered to her room and fell with her onto the mattress.
Beautiful. Con's heart stopped at the look in those candid gray eyes. Her lips were swollen from his. Intimacy quivered between them as she lay all open beneath him, pink and beautiful, warm and vulnerable. His.
He framed the perfect oval of her face with his hands, drawn to seek an affirmation it seemed only she could provide.
"Now can I spend the night?" he asked, deliberately provocative.
He felt her infinitesimal resistance to his challenge. She closed her eyes, closed him out. "I'll have to think about it."
"Fine," he said silkily. "Don't mind me. I'll just … occupy myself while you're thinking."
Her brows twitched together, but she didn't open her eyes. She would, he promised himself.
The rich dark robe, spilling to both sides, framed her rose-and-cream torso like a work of art. Bending his head, he kissed the soft underside of her breast and the pretty pouting nipple.
She shifted, shrugged. Undiscouraged and intent, he opened his mouth wider, feasting on the feel and the scent and the taste of her. She wanted him earlier, he would swear. She'd practically begged.
He pushed the uncomfortable thought away. Valerian Darcy Cutler wasn't a woman used to begging.
"Like honey," he muttered against her flesh. "You are so sweet."
Her nipple was hard under his tongue. When he felt the rhythm of her breathing change, he raised himself on one elbow and softly, warmly kissed her mouth. Her lips were hesitant answering his. He nipped slightly on the lower one and followed her indrawn breath with his tongue.
"Sweet," he whispered.
He probed the corners of her mouth like a kid searching for the last taste of candy. He rubbed his mouth over hers, tasting her response, tangling with her velvet tongue. She smelled like nutmeg, like cotton sheets and sex. Her breathing was erratic now. He shaped her breasts with his hand, making a sound of rough pleasure at the tight little points pressing his palm.
"Yeah," he whispered. "I like that."
He took another kiss, warm and full-bodied, while his hands rubbed slow circles on her breasts. "Do you like that?"
He plucked at the sensitive tip. She made a choked sound in the back of her throat, and her hands came up off the mattress to curl into his shoulders.
"Yeah, you like it, too." His hand slid down her belly, flirting with her navel, before it found its way between her thighs. "How about this? You like it here?"
She arched. She liked it, all right. He stroked her, his touch firm, satisfaction burning up in his own building desire. And all the while his fingers worked her body, his tongue plied her mouth. Her legs moved restlessly to capture his. Her head tossed from side to side against the pillows. He shifted her against the crumpled covers, positioning himself between her thighs.
For an endless moment, he hovered over her, snared by the sight of her taut, flushed body, enmeshed by her scent, trapped by that exquisite little catch in her breath. So beautiful she could lure a sailor from his ship or the sun from the sky or a man from his purpose. So beautiful, and his.
Her eyes were still closed.
He shifted again, sliding down her silky slick body to the sweet heat between her thighs.
"I love this," he rasped, and put his mouth on her.
She almost came off the mattress.
She struggled, not against but toward him, close, closer, moaning now, moving. It wasn't enough. He wanted more of her. He wanted everything she had to give, every nuance of response, every hidden corner of her heart. He felt her muscles clench beneath him and around him, her hands fist in his hair. He drove her up, up, until he felt her topple, and caught her shuddering descent.
He was almost crazy for her, desperate, and hotly, heavily aroused. Dragging himself over her body, he laced his shaking fingers with hers.
"Open your eyes," he commanded. "Damn you, look at me."
Her eyes opened. Wide. Dark. Stunned.
He joined with her in one possessive stroke, staking his claim with his body. He took her. And she took him just as fiercely, as deeply and completely, seducing his senses, stealing a part of his soul. He was greedy. She was insatiable. When her inner shock waves began again, they carried him away like burning branches swept up in a flood.
* * *
Chapter 13
«^»
"Good morning."
Con MacNeill padded in from the bathroom, a fluffy pink towel hitched around his waist and another draping his shoulders. He should have looked silly. He didn't. He looked good. He looked great, in fact, lean and dark and male, confident as a runway model with his broad hairy chest and her pink towels.
Val's insides pinched with wanting him and with doubt. What had she gotten herself into here?
"Sleepy?" His voice was deep with satisfaction.
She stretched between the wrinkled sheets, taking cautious inventory. Just looking at him made her blood flow thick and slow as molasses. And yet … and yet he'd certainly made himself at home in her apartment. Had he left her any hot water?
She rubbed her face with one hand. "What time is it?"
"Eight o'clock. I called your dad already. I'm going in to the bank today."
"You called him at home? From here?"
His eyes narrowed. "Why not? Does he trace his calls or something?"
"No. No, of course not." Feeling foolish, she started to fold back onto the pillows and then sat up again. "Do you want me to go with you?"
"Why?"
"Well, I … it is my business."
"It started as your business. If someone at the bank is falsifying bank records, it's gone beyond that now."
"But—"
He raised an eyebrow. "Need to keep an eye on me, Dixie?"
"Maybe I'm just trying to watch your back."
He smiled appreciatively, and some of the coolness left his eyes. "I'll handle it. I've got some paper to chase and some people to talk to. I'll give you a report at lunchtime."
Prowling to the bed, he sat on the edge of the mattress. The towel parted high on one side, exposing the pale skin of his upper leg, solid with muscle and dusted with rough hair. She yanked her gaze back to his face. Even relaxed from sex and sleep and steam, it was an intimidatingly intelligent face. Focused. Hard. The face of a man who would demand as much from any woman who loved him as he did of himself.
Recalling the way he'd evoked her response in bed last night, she shivered.
"Cold?" he asked silkily. "We could do something about that…"
He leaned in to kiss her, a long, sweet kiss. She could smell her shampoo on him and wanted him hot. She wanted him sweaty. She wanted to know she could get to him the way he got to her. Maybe the earth had moved for her last night. That didn't mean the ground rules had changed. She didn't want her objections brushed off with a kiss.
"I'm fine, thank you," she said politely.
"Can I get you something? Coffee?"
She tried to appreciate his consideration, tried not to feel like a guest in her own home. "I don't think I have any. Would you like a soda?"
She felt his faint, unmistakable recoil. "In the morning?"
Sylvia Cutler had always disdained her daughter's soda habit as lower-class. Val shrugged and anchored the sheet under her armpits. "It's caffeinated."
Con's look said clearly that there were more important considerations than caffeine.
She lifted her chin. "I could make tea."
He stood, adjusting the towel at his waist. "I'll put the kettle on for you. I don't do tea."
"Or there's beer," she drawled.
That earned her a sharp look. And then the mattress sank beneath his weight again as he sat beside her.
"D'you mind letting me in on our problem this morning?"
Sh
e pleated the top sheet. "Sorry. I just… All this just takes some getting used to."
He swore softly, tipping her chin up. "I knew I should go easier. Are you okay? Sore?"
His instant concern eased her chagrin. What was the problem, anyway? A lover most women would die for was sitting half-naked on her bed, and she was obsessing over beverage selections. It was possible her past experiences with men had made her a little too sensitive. Not to mention unfair.
"No. Maybe. It was— You were wonderful." She gave up fussing with the sheet to meet his gaze directly. "It's not having a man in my, my bed. Though' you're right, I'm not used to that, either. It's having you in my apartment. My space." She disliked the sound of her own voice, prim and breathless, and forced a smile. "I'm not fit for company in the morning, I guess."
Con thought of the way Val had opened her home to Ann and Mitchell, the way her restaurant welcomed all comers, and struggled not to feel offended. "Well, I'll be out of your hair in a minute."
"No." She laid her fingers on his arm, detaining him with a touch. "It's not having you here. It's having you—" she pressed lightly "—here."
Con absorbed that.
Hell. She'd told him she wasn't in the market for a boyfriend. If she wanted to keep this thing between them on a purely physical level, he could do that. He could… His gut constricted. No, he couldn't. Whatever last night had meant to her, it had mattered too damn much to him to write it off as terrific sex.
"You're sorry I spent the night," be said at last, flatly.
"It's just going to take some getting used to, that's all," she repeated.
She made being with him sound like adjusting to braces or living with a debilitating disease.
"Thanks a lot."
"I'll buy coffee," she offered.
He stood and paced across the room. "I can buy my own damn coffee."
"I know."
The elegant dresser brought him up short. In the beveled glass he could see Val's reflection watching him doubtfully from her bed. The bed he'd carried her to. The bed he'd made love to her in.
His competitive streak and his pride demanded that he have this out with her now. Remembering the way her barriers had shattered at his touch, he was tempted to force the issue. Two fails out of three. Winner take all.
THE COMEBACK OF CON MACNEILL Page 15