The Heartbreaker

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  “That sounds innocent enough.”

  “On the surface.” Beth sipped from her water goblet.

  “But her tone was so eager, Mike. I could tell the way she said it that she can hardly wait to see you, and I know she’ll build a whole scenario around the two of you finally realizing you’re meant for each other.”

  He reached across the table and laced his fingers through hers. He’d been dying to touch her ever since they sat down. “Right scenario, wrong woman.”

  She glanced down at their interlaced fingers. “Every time I think about her reaction, I get chills.”

  “That’s why we’re not going to think about it any more tonight. There’s no way this can turn out the way Alana wants.” He hesitated, but knew he had to say it. “Of course, you still have the option of telling me to get lost. I won’t say anything to Alana, and neither will Ernie, if I ask him not to.”

  Beth glanced up with a faint smile. “Ready to make a noble gesture again?”

  “Hell, no. But as I’ve said before, I want this to be a decision you can live with. And I won’t pretend the next few days will be easy on any of us.”

  “If I wanted to keep our relationship a secret, I shouldn’t have agreed to sit holding hands with you on the balcony of the Copper Queen. Half the town passes by here every night. And there’s that little matter of our public kiss two nights ago, and the one in the car this afternoon. I’m sure the word is out.” She took a deep breath, which drew his attention to the drape of silk over her breasts. “The die is cast, as they say in dramatic movies. Oh, and speaking of drama, I might as well tell you what happened with Colby Huxford.”

  He tensed. “What about him?”

  “After you left his afternoon, he told me I was throwing away the opportunity of a lifetime. At first I thought he meant with the cutter, but when I realized he meant with him, I’m afraid I...laughed.”

  Mike smiled. “You have no idea what that does for my ego.”

  “It didn’t do much for his. He made some crude remark about you getting there ahead of him, and before I knew it, I’d slapped him. Only I forgot my keys were still in my hand, so the edge of one cut his cheek. It was more damage than I intended to do, to be honest.”

  “Not half as much as I intend to do if I ever catch that slime-bucket talking to you again.”

  “I don’t think he’ll be asking me out anymore, but he was predicting that my plan for the cutter is doomed and he’d get it, after all.”

  “Well, he’s wrong. We missed a day today, but well make it up. I also called the guy from Sierra Vista and apologized about not meeting him at the shop this morning like we’d talked about. I offered to pay him anyway, so he’s happy. He’s coming back tomorrow and bringing a friend, so I expect production will really pick up.”

  Beth frowned and cleared her throat. “Look, I want to help pay these extra people, Mike. Things are slow for me right now, but soon I’ll—”

  “Hey,” he said softly.

  “What?”

  “My dad’s put me in charge of his shop, to run it as I see fit. The charge to you for the cutters will be the same as it’s always been. However, if you want to talk business sometimes, I’d like to buy into Nightingale-Tremayne, Inc.”

  She looked astonished. “You mean invest in our company?”

  “That’s right.” He brought her hand up to his lips. “I like the looks of it. This Nightingale woman seems to know her stuff.” He slowly kissed each of her long, slender fingers and thought of what pleasure they would bring him tonight.

  “Aren’t you automatically part of the company, being Ernie’s son?”

  “No. Years ago I foolishly told him I didn’t want to be listed on any of the partnership papers, so now I’m forced to buy in. Serves me right.”

  “I wouldn’t know what to do with an investor, that’s for sure.”

  He couldn’t help grinning as he gazed across the table at her. God, she was beautiful. “I have a few suggestions for what you could do with this one.”

  11

  WHEN MIKE HAD TOLD BETH they were having dinner at the Copper Queen, her first thought had been that she’d prefer somewhere more secluded than the primary watering hole for the entire town. Yet she discovered as the meal continued that she lost all sense of what was going on around her. Except for the occasional person who called out a greeting from the street, or the necessary interruptions of the waiter serving them, she narrowed her focus to Mike, and he’d seemed totally concentrated on her, as well.

  For the first time in her life, she flirted outrageously. She slipped her foot from her shoe to rub her stocking foot against his calf and delighted in the way his eyes darkened. She asked for a taste of his meal and held his hand steady while she took the morsel slowly and sensuously from his fork into her mouth. She dipped her finger into the tiny bowl of ranch salad dressing and then licked it off. She made certain he was watching her before she swirled the tip of her tongue over a drop of moisture that was running down the side of her water goblet.

  That maneuver brought a muffled groan. “I’ve created a monster.”

  “I never realized teasing a man could be so much fun.”

  “I never realized it could be such torture.”

  “You asked me to do this. You said it would make you feel like a king.”

  “I did and it does.” He lowered his voice. “The downside is that the family jewels are in severe distress.”

  She gave him a mischievous grin. “That’s a shame. Are we staying for dessert?”

  “Not on your life.” He signaled for the check.

  “Then maybe we should stop for an ice cream cone on the way home.”

  “Nothing doing,” he muttered under his breath. “I’m not giving you a chance to play any more games until we’re someplace where I can play, too.”

  “Are you inviting me to come over to your house to play, Mikey?” she asked with a seductive glance.

  “That about sums it up.” He tossed some bills on the table next to the check and came around to help her out of her chair. “We’ll start with spin the bottle.”

  “I don’t think there will be much challenge in that, with only two of us.” She deliberately brushed against him as she moved away from the table.

  “Think again.” He took firm possession of her arm and guided her back through the indoor section of the restaurant. A couple of diners waved to them and tried to engage Beth in conversation. “Sorry, can’t talk right now,” Mike said through clenched teeth as he propelled Beth out the door and down the steps of the Copper Queen.

  “You certainly are in a hurry,” she said as he grabbed her hand and practically tugged her up Main Street. “Don’t you think it would be a nice time to windowshop?”

  “Nope.”

  “A nightcap in Brewery Gulch?”

  “Nope.”

  They were walking very fast as they left the commercial section of Main and continued up the road into a residential area where trees arched over the uneven sidewalk. As she skipped along beside him and noticed the grim set of his jaw, she was having a hard time keeping herself from laughing. She’d never seen him in such a mood, and all because of a few well-chosen tactics on her part. “Perhaps you’d like to drag me to your house by my hair.”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  “Oh, but that’s exactly what you told me to do.”

  “How did I know you’d be so damned good at it?”

  As they left the main road and headed up the side street that led to the Tremayne house, she was breathing hard from the exertion. “Mike, stop a minute. These little red pumps weren’t made for cross-country. I have to catch my breath.”

  He stopped immediately and turned, his expression concerned. “I’m sorry, Beth. I...” His voice trailed off as his gaze traveled to her heaving bosom and he groaned. “Do you have to breathe like that?”

  “I’m afraid so.” But she was gasping a little more dramatically, just for his benefit. “My heart is
pounding. Just feel it.” She placed his hand against her breast.

  He sucked in a breath and pulled her hard against him. “You are out of control,” he muttered just before his lips came down on hers.

  And so she was. The rustle of the silk dress as he crushed her against him brought back everything about that summer night eight years ago, when she first discovered the woman deep inside her, the woman who wanted to give herself to a man, this man. That woman had seemed to disappear, but perhaps she’d only been hoarding her gifts until they could once again be spread before the only one who could appreciate them. And now he was back.

  His mouth moved from her lips to her throat and down to the cleft between her breasts. “God help me, I want to undress you here on the street. I’ve never thought of doing anything like that in my life.”

  “Never?” she murmured.

  “Okay, once before.” He lifted his head and gazed down at her, his expression shadowed. “And it was you that time, too.”

  “And instead you ran away.”

  “It would have torn us all apart then.”

  “And now?”

  “I won’t let that happen.” With an obvious effort he backed away from her and took her hand again. “Come on, before I embarrass us both in the streets of Bisbee.”

  In a few moments they were inside the familiar surroundings of Mike’s house, where Beth had played as a child, where she’d done homework assignments with Mike and Alana, where they’d watched hours of television, shared untold cans of soda and countless bags of chips. And where, ultimately, the celebration had moved after Alana and Mike’s wedding rehearsal dinner at the Copper Queen. Ernie had strung the trees surrounding the little Victorian house with hundreds of tiny lights, but there had been one darkened corner of the yard where the lights hadn’t reached, and there Mike and Beth had kissed for the very first time.

  Mike had left a soft light burning in the kitchen toward the back of the house, but the rest of it, the small living room, the dining nook, the two bedrooms, all of which Beth remembered in perfect detail, were cast in shadow. The air was scented with roses. Beth wondered if the fragrance came from an open window next to Ernie’s fabled rose garden.

  “Oh, Mike, the memories that are in here,” Beth said.

  “I know.” He took her in his arms. “But they’ll be with us forever. We might as well make them a part of loving each other now.”

  “In your bedroom?”

  “That’s right”

  “On the bed we used to pretend was a dugout going down the Amazon?”

  “We can still pretend that.” He held her tightly, his body taut and aroused. “I never admitted this to myself, let alone you, but I wanted to take you deep into the jungle with me back then. And remember how we used to wrestle? Even when we were teenagers?”

  She moved seductively against him. “I loved wrestling with you,” she murmured.

  “I know you did. You loved having me touch you, and I loved doing it, but we pretended to ourselves it was just fooling around.”

  “Because we had to pretend that.”

  “We don’t have to pretend anymore.” His kiss teased her mouth open and his tongue set up a lazy rhythm that soon had quickened her breathing and weakened her knees. Gently he released her. “Stay here a minute. I’ll be right back for you.”

  She stood in the darkened living room surrounded by the old familiar furniture Ernie had never replaced. In the dim light she couldn’t see how worn the cushions had become, or the stains from all the snacks eaten there. She waited for her conscience to chastise her for shamelessly agreeing to spend the night making love to Mike in this house. Instead she felt only a warm certainty that she was where she belonged.

  Mike returned and led her into the bedroom where she’d spent so many make-believe hours as a child. She stepped forward into a different sort of fantasy world. The tropical mural still took up one wall, but tonight the flickering candles set on every available surface gave the jungle panorama a dark, mysterious cast. The muted rhythms of a drum and flute created a sensuous tribal beat, and the covers on the bed were turned back to reveal snowy sheets...strewn with rose petals. So that had been the reason for the sweet scent.

  Standing close behind her, he pulled her back toward him and nuzzled her ear. “I wanted orchids, but roses will have to do.”

  “Roses are wonderful.” She surveyed his handiwork once again. The magical scene appealed to the sensual nature that had made her an artist. With her newfound courage, she decided to embellish this fantasy he’d begun. When he started to unzip her dress, she stepped away from him and held up her hand. “Not yet.”

  His voice was thick with desire. “I want you, Beth.”

  “And soon you’ll want me even more.” She took the pins from her hair and dropped them to the floor. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders. “I love your crazy sense of adventure,” she murmured. “I always have.” Then she reached behind her back and slowly drew down the zipper of her dress. “You’re impulsive. That excites me.”

  “Underneath, you’re just as wild as I am.”

  “You’re the only one who seems to have figured that out.” She allowed the red dress to slide from her shoulders. The fabric was light and it took a long time to slip over her breasts to her waist, and over her hips. Finally she stood in a scarlet pool of silk, revealing bits of red lace and silk that barely covered her, and a red garter belt. “I took pains to make sure nobody knew how I craved excitement.”

  Mike didn’t move a muscle as she unveiled her secrets, but his breathing grew more labored.

  “But my wild streak needed an outlet,” she continued. “I bought all this to go with the dress.”

  His voice sounded strained. “That’s what you had on underneath your dress that night?”

  “Yes.” She slid both hands up her ribs and over her breasts.

  His hungry gaze followed.

  “And it made me bold for the first time in my life,” she continued. “I got what I’d always secretly wanted, too. I saw you watching me all night, and when we walked into the shadows, I knew what would happen.”

  “If Ernie hadn’t called to us,” he said fervently, “I would have found out what you had on under that dress. I went crazy.”

  “So did I.” She unfastened her gold necklace and let it drop to the floor along with the dress. “Some part of me couldn’t stand the thought that you were marrying Alana. Some primitive instinct made me want to be seductive that night. I told myself it was your fault and the champagne’s fault that we kissed, but that isn’t true.”

  “Thank you for telling me that.”

  “Ah, but I’ll tell you more.” She unhooked the front clasp of her bra and shrugged it from her shoulders as he drew in a sharp breath. “After you left town, sometimes I’d pretend that you’d come back and climbed in through my bedroom window.” She cradled one breast in her hand and lightly circled the nipple with her finger. “I imagined you were touching me like this.”

  He made a low, indistinct noise in the back of his throat.

  She continued to tease him with the caress. “Did you ever imagine that?”

  “Yes.”

  She released her breast before the stimulation caused her to throw herself into his arms and end the game. As his arousal grew, so did hers. Fine tremors shook her as she leaned down to unhook her stockings. Stepping out of her shoes, she eased each stocking down in turn. When she glanced up at him, his jaw was set and his hands were clenched at his sides. The raging passion in his eyes provided her reward.

  She slid the garter belt over her hips and let it fall to the floor. “And sometimes, I’d imagine you were touching me like this.” Holding his gaze, she slipped her hand beneath the scrap of silk to the moist channel waiting for him.

  He groaned. “Beth...”

  “You were my fantasy lover.” She shivered as her fingers came in contact with the pulsing center of her passion. As she dared to caress herself while he watched, her hear
tbeat thundered in her ears, and she knew her control was nearly destroyed. The game must come to a close. Slowly withdrawing her hand, she pushed the panties down and kicked them away.

  At last she walked to the bed and lay back on the petal-strewn sheets. The velvet texture of the roses caressed her bare skin, and the scent of crushed petals filled the room as she gazed up at him. “Make my fantasies come true, Mike,” she whispered.

  Releasing a long-held breath, he pulled away his clothing in rough, jerky movements.

  “Easy, my sweet lover,” she murmured.

  His movements slowed, but not much. Taking a packet from a table beside the bed, he sheathed himself quickly. Yet when he eased onto the bed, he didn’t pull her into his arms, as she might have expected from the intensity in his gaze.

  Instead he lay propped on his side, not touching her. Scooping up a handful of rose petals, he dribbled them slowly over her breasts and down her body, allowing them to trickle between her thighs.

  She quivered as the cool petals drifted over her heated skin.

  Picking one from her breast, he used it as if it were a feather. He brushed her mouth, her throat, her nipples, the valley between her breasts, until she began to whimper with unfulfilled need. He continued to caress her, drawing the rose petal over her flat stomach and along the inside of her quivering thighs.

  “Please,” she begged, twisting in the velvet nest of rose petals. “Please.”

  He released the petal and moved over her to kneel between her thighs. “In your fantasy you imagined me touching you here,” he murmured, capturing her breast and leaning down to take her nipple in his mouth.

  “Yes.” The firm suction made her gasp and arch upward into his caress. “Oh, yes.”

  Shifting to her other breast, he pleasured her for long moments, as the tension mounted within her.

  At last he lifted his head to gaze down at her. “And here.” He slipped his hand between them, pushing aside rose petals as his fingers tunneled through the triangle of curls between her thighs to massage the slick nub that ached for him.