UNINHIBITED

by Candace Schuller

  Manfully, trying desperately not to let himself get distracted from the business at hand by thoughts that more appropriately belonged in the bedroom, Reed carefully, thoroughly, exhaustively, leaving no stone unturned, explained every term and clause in the contract and the accompanying paperwork, determined that Zoe should understand it completely, especially in light of her blithe refusal to hire an attorney to evaluate it for her.

  "I trust you," she'd said the first time he'd suggested she retain her own lawyer. And then those dark gypsy eyes of hers had turned teasing, flirting with him from under the extravagant sweep of her auburn lashes. "With my business, anyway," she'd added, her voice gone all silky and smooth and seductive, just the way he imagined it would when she finally invited him into her bed. Into her body.

  It had been all he could do not to shove the tidy pile of folders and paperwork to the floor and drag her up onto his conference table, then and there, and to hell with the bean counter from accounting who was acting as unwitting chaperon. It had taken every ounce of self-control Reed possessed, but he'd managed to rein himself in with the promise of later.

  And now, thank God, it was later. Almost. Just thirty minutes more, he told himself. Thirty minutes more, and the deal would be done, every i dotted, every t crossed, all the legalities satisfied, all the rules carefully preserved. Thirty minutes more and all his most carnal, hedonistic fantasies would be well on their way to coming true.

  "You'll need to sign all four copies," he said, showing no hint of his simmering impatience as he placed a thick stack of documents on the piecrust table in front of his great-grandmother. "Sign and date each one at the bottom, above the line where you name is typed in, please, Gran. And then, Zoe—" he glanced at her as he said her name, and the wolf tugged at the leash, peering out at her over the top of his black-framed reading glasses "—it will be your turn."

  Zoe felt a quick, answering tug and she flushed slightly, hastily averting her gaze to avoid the heated anticipation in his. His voice had gone all throaty and deep. His blue eyes gleamed with blatant sensuality-unadulterated lust, he'd called it—and an echo of the promise—or was it a threat?—he'd made twelve days ago, standing in the hall outside her apartment. "I'm predicting a meltdown," he'd said, in exactly the same smoky, seductive tone, with exactly the same ravening, rapacious, predatory look in his eyes.

  She glanced uneasily at Moira, wondering if the elegant old lady had picked up on any of the sexual subtext in her great-grandson's last remark. It seemed not. Although how that could possibly be, Zoe had no idea, when Reed was sitting not four feet away, his laser blue eyes radiating heat like a nuclear reactor. Meltdown, indeed! She'd be lucky if there wasn't a nuclear explosion involved, she thought fancifully, then shivered in helpless anticipation, and instinctive feminine fear.

  What on earth was she getting herself into?

  And why was she sitting here, on the cusp of having all her dreams for New Moon become a reality, letting herself get sidetracked by the possibility … okay, the probability … oh, hell, the certainty that she was going to end up in bed with the man who was most responsible for making those dreams come true? Oh, not because he was helping to make her dreams real. Never that. If she was honest with herself—and she always tried to be honest with herself—she'd have to admit she'd be just as willing to climb into bed with him even if he advised his great-grandmother against investing in New Moon.

  She wanted him that much. Pitiful, but there it was. That's what raging hormones could do to a woman, she reminded herself sternly, just as she had, over and over again, during the last interminable twelve days. Sex wasn't a game. It wasn't something to be taken lightly or indulged in indiscriminately just because two people had the hots for each other. Unfortunately, the reminders hadn't—and weren't—doing any good.

  She still wanted him.

  She meant to have him.

  So now the trick was to keep things in perspective. To remember that, as dangerous as sex was, it was still, well … just sex. If a woman kept her head, if she kept a firm lock on her emotions and her imagination, indulging her libido didn't have to mean messing up the rest of her life, or anyone else's. Compartmentalization, that was the ticket, she'd decided. Men did it all the time and it seemed to work well enough for them.

  After all, that's the way he was handling it, wasn't it? He made no bones about it, either. Business first. Pleasure later. No mixing the two. Very sensible of him. And if he could do it, she could do it, too.

  "There, now. That's done." Moira looked up when she finished signing her name to the final document and smiled at her new business partner. "A brand-new company. New beginnings. New experiences. I've never invested in a cosmetics company before." She placed the pen on top of the contracts and pushed the whole pile over in front of Zoe. "It's all so exciting, isn't it, dear? I find that I'm quite beside myself."

  "Yes, it is. Very exciting." Zoe smiled at her benefactress with real warmth and affection, then turned her head slightly, shifting her gaze to include Reed. "I'm so excited I can hardly stand it," she said, and the look in her eyes was pure female provocation mixed with undisguised sensual speculation, wrapped up in a wordless invitation no man with blood in his veins could miss … or resist.

  Reed felt the heat from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, and all points in between. His eyes all but glazed over and he nearly dropped his copy of the contract.

  Satisfied with his reaction, Zoe shifted her gaze back to her hostess. "So…" She picked up the pen Moira had offered and bent her head over the contracts. "I guess I'd better sign these before anyone changes their mind."

  "Oh, no one's going to change their mind," Reed assured her, his voice as smooth as silk, as dangerous as the growl of a crouching wolf. "Not now."

  "No, indeed," Moira agreed happily, still seemingly oblivious to the byplay between her great-grandson and her new business partner. She retrieved each copy of the contract as Zoe signed it, slipping it off of the top of the stack to reveal the next one. "There, now." She took all four copies of the document between her hands, rapped the edges against the tabletop to align them and handed them to Reed, who was already opening his briefcase to stow them away. "It's official. Almost." She gestured toward the frosted silver ice bucket sitting on the tea cart. "Reed, dear, would you do the honors?"

  "I thought you intended to have some kind of party to celebrate your new business venture." He lifted the bottle of champagne from the ice bucket as he spoke, catching the icy droplets of water with the linen napkin, and went to work on the wire muzzle guarding the cork. "I seem to recall the mention of a dinner party." He laid the tangled bit of wire on the tray and began to ease the cork out of the tight embrace of the smooth green glass. "Black tie, I think you said."

  "Oh, I still intend to have a dinner party," Moira said. "This Saturday, I think, would be perfect. Would that work for you, Zoe, or do you need more notice?"

  "Uh…" It took a conscious effort for Zoe to shift her gaze from Reed's hands to her hostess's face. She'd never paid all that much attention to any man's hands before, but the combination of brute strength, expertise and gentleness necessary to ease the cork from the bottle was suddenly quite … fascinating. "Saturday would be fi—"

  There was a soft pop, a quiet hiss, as the cork slipped free.

  Zoe gasped softly and bit her bottom hp, feeling as if the release had been coaxed from her own body. Unable to stop herself, she flicked a quick, furtive glance at Reed.

  He smiled wolfishly, as if he knew exactly what that soft gasp had meant.

  She quickly shifted her attention back to Moira. "Saturday would be fine," she said, only just a tiny bit breathless … not nearly enough for anyone to notice, she assured herself. "I'm not doing anything Saturday."

  "Wonderful," Moira said. "Then Saturday it is."

  But Reed was shaking his head. "Saturday is the charity shindig for Mass General," he reminded his great-grandmother.

  "Oh, yes. I'd forgot
ten about that." Moira's face fell for a moment, then brightened. "Well, that will work, too. We'll have cocktails here first," she said, planning as she went. "Mrs. Wheaton can make some of those wonderful crab puffs of hers and those delicious smoked salmon canapés everyone always raves about. Much easier than putting on an entire dinner on such short notice, and we ladies will still get to get gussied up, because the benefit is always black tie. Oh, thank you, dear." She accepted the glass of champagne from Reed, her mind obviously on other, more important matters. "Afterward, we can all go to the Isabella Stewart Gardner together from here. How does that sound to you, Zoe?"

  "The cocktail party sounds lovely. I certainly wouldn't want to pass up a chance to sample more of Mrs. Wheaton's cooking." She smiled at Moira to show she was only teasing about her reasons for finding the idea lovely, while, out of the corner of her eye, she watched Reed filling the other two champagne glasses. Cary Grant couldn't have done it better. "But I'm afraid I haven't been invited to Mrs. Hightower's charity benefit."

  Moira's eyebrows rose expressively. "Mrs. Hightower's benefit?" she said, with a significant look at her great-grandson.

  "We ran into Katherine in the emergency room when we took M.E. in to have her baby," Reed explained easily, his smile conspiratorial and somehow intimate as he handed Zoe a glass of champagne.

  She countered with a deliberately bland gaze over the rim of the glass, refusing to give him the satisfaction of looking away again.

  He sent her a long, smoldering glance before turning back to his great-grandmother, a glance that said you just wait until I get you alone and sent shivers down her spine.

  "She'd just come out of a meeting with the hospital administrator about the benefit," he said to Moira.

  "And she very kindly reminded me that I had to be early to stand in the receiving line." His left eyebrow lifted. "Or else."

  Moira gave a dignified little snort. "Did she, indeed? Interfering old busybody. Loves to tell everyone what to do. Puts people's backs up. It's no wonder young Kate ran off to New Orleans instead of mar— Well, that's neither here nor there, is it? And it isn't Katherine Hightower's benefit, in any case." Moira reached out with her free hand and patted Zoe's arm. "You are most definitely invited, my dear girl. Reed always buys an entire table, so there's always an extra place or two. Now, let's have that toast, shall we?" Moira lifted her glass, waiting until Reed and Zoe did likewise before she made her toast. "To New Moon," she said, turning her head to include both of them in her beaming smile. "And new friends. May this relationship be a warm and lasting one."

  "To New Moon," Zoe echoed, as she lifted the glass to her lips.

  "And new relationships," Reed said, and drained his glass in one long gulp without ever taking his eyes off of Zoe's.

  * * *

  Five minutes later, they were buckled into the front seat of the Jaguar as it headed due west on Beacon Street

  . Both of them were nervous and excited and more than a little scared by what they knew was about to happen.

  "Are we going to the bank?" Zoe asked, just to be absolutely sure they were on the same wavelength.

  "No, we aren't going to the bank."

  "Are you going to drop me off at my apartment so you can go to rugby practice?"

  "No, I'm not going to drop you off at your apartment so I can go to rugby practice."

  "Then what are you going to do?"

  He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye as if he couldn't quite believe what he'd just heard. "Do you really need me to spell it out for you?" There was a spot of color high on his chiseled cheekbone, and his large, well-kept hands were tight on the steering wheel.

  He was, she realized with amazement, just as tense and uncertain as she was. She didn't know if that made her less—or more—nervous. While it was nice to know they were on an even footing … shouldn't one of them be sure about this?

  "Yes," she said, suddenly realizing she wanted to have it spelled out. Needed to have it spelled out. There'd be less room for error or misunderstanding that way. "Yes, I think I do need to have it spelled out. Tell me."

  Reed waited until he'd braked for the red light at the intersection at Embankment Road

  before he turned his head to look at her.

  "I'm going take you to my place," he said deliberately, his voice low and husky and unbearably intimate in the close confines of the idling car. "I'm going to make sure my housekeeper has done as I said and taken the day off, and then I'm going to carry you straight upstairs to my bedroom and peel off every stitch of your clothes, one piece at a time." He held her gaze with his while he spoke, but he kept his hands firmly on the steering wheel. He didn't quite trust himself to touch her. Not now. Not yet. Not until he could keep on touching her until they were both completely, utterly satisfied. "I'm going to kiss every inch of your skin. And I'm going to touch you all over, everywhere, so that there's no part of your body I don't know. And then I'm going to lay you down on my bed and take you, over and over again, until this heat between us burns itself out or we reduce the bed to cinders, whichever comes first." He paused a moment for that to sink in. For both of them. "If that's all right with you?"

  Zoe swallowed, her slender throat working as she tried to get her heart to settle back where it belonged. That was quite a plan. Specific. Explicit. Exciting. With no room for error or misinterpretation on either side. They were going to have sex. Hot, erotic, mind-blowing sex. Well, that was exactly what she'd had in mind herself. Wasn't it?

  "Yes," she said, and paused to swallow again. "Yes, that's all right with me. Except…" She hesitated, unsure how to say what she knew needed to be said, now, before he put his plan into action and the heat they generated burned away all her good sense.

  "Except what?" he prompted.

  "Well … I didn't hear any mention of, um…" Why was it so hard to say? They were going to have sex. They were going to get naked together and roll around on his bed and he was going to know every inch of her. As she was going to know him. And if they were going to do it, they should be able to talk about … about the things the women's magazines said they should talk about before it actually happened. Besides, not talking about it was just plain irresponsible. Not to mention stupid. "The light's changed," she said, and gestured toward the traffic signal.

  Reed lifted his foot off of the brake and eased it down on the gas pedal. "You didn't hear any mention of what?" he asked, refusing to let it go.

  She stared at the burled wood of the dashboard as if she found the pattern fascinating, and hoped she wasn't about to insult him. "Condoms," she blurted, determined to get it said, despite the blush she could feel heating her cheeks … and her chest … and her breasts. It was the curse of having red hair; when she was really embarrassed, she blushed with her whole body. "I didn't hear any mention of condoms while you were telling me what you're going to do. You'll have to wear one."

  "Naturally."

  "It's not any reflection on you. On your morals or anything. It's just—" She turned her head to look at him. "Naturally?"

  "I insist on it. Always."

  "Oh. Well. Good. No problem, then."

  "It's not any reflection on you, either. On your morals or anything," he said, mocking her gently, just to see if she could turn any pinker than she already was. Her obvious embarrassment was so unexpected. And so unexpectedly charming. "I'm sure you've been as choosy about your lovers as I have. It's just that you can't ever be sure unless—"

  "I haven't."

  "Haven't what?" He felt a sliver of disappointment snake through him. Not enough to make him change his mind about what he wanted to do to her … with her … but enough to spoil some of the pleasure. "Been choosy?"

  She shook her head. "Had lovers."

  "Excuse me?" he said politely, positive he couldn't possibly have heard her right.

  "I haven't had any lovers," she said, blushing so furiously that the sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheekbones stood out like tiny gold coins
. "You'll be my first."

  * * *

  11

  « ^ »

  To Reed's credit, he didn't doubt her for a second. Another man, one less astute, less perceptive, less willing to change an opinion when confronted with new information, might have failed utterly to see beyond her spectacularly sexy exterior and breezy, bohemian attitude. Might have insisted that the bold, flirtatious way she used her eyes, the sensual banter she parried with such apparent ease, precluded the kind of innocence she'd just laid claim to. But one look at her blushing face, at the earnest, aching embarrassment in her big brown eyes, and he knew she was telling the truth.

  He'd seen the shy, uncertain schoolgirl once before, on the sidelines of the rugby field at Magazine Beach. He'd wondered about her then—that fresh-faced ingénue who'd suddenly replaced the bold-eyed gypsy—but he didn't wonder now. He could see, quite clearly, that the innocent and the seductress were part and parcel of the same woman.

  He wished, fleetingly, that it wasn't true, that he'd misunderstood what she'd said and that she wasn't a virgin, but in the very next instant, he found himself experiencing a fiercely primitive thrill, a kind of joy, almost, at knowing she was untouched. It was the kind of feeling he could never admit to, not if he wanted to retain his image of himself as a civilized, sensitive, enlightened, modern male.

  Modern men weren't supposed to care about anything so medieval as a woman's chastity. Only her fidelity was supposed to matter. He certainly hadn't cared before, or even given it much thought. As long as a woman was faithful while they were together, any previous lovers she might have had didn't concern him, except insofar as they may have affected her health. Or unless she'd stepped over that undefined and nebulous line into promiscuity, in which case he fastidiously declined to join the ranks of her lovers. He didn't care to be one in a long line of previous paramours in a woman's life; on the other hand, he'd never cared about being first, either.