More Lipstick Chronicles

by Emily Carmichael

“You do?” she asked stupidly. Her hormones were on overload, and her brain wasn’t operating.

  He laughed. “There are some of us out west who do know how to drive horseless carriages.”

  “Oh . . . cripes! I meant . . . I don’t know what I meant.” She could almost feel his smile through the phone lines. It made her feel better.

  “Just tell me how to get to your office. I’ll pick you up.”

  She did, and after her last stupid remark, she didn’t dare caution him about DC traffic. The man had been out of Arizona a time or two.

  Dana tried to be casual when she announced that the mysterious Kieran was on his way to the Allheart.com offices. She knew her nosy coworkers had pricked their ears at every phone call she’d gotten that morning. Naturally, when noon rolled around, no one left for lunch. They hovered in their offices like vultures awaiting fresh meat. Dana hopped from task to task, accomplishing nothing, nervous as a fourteen-year-old awaiting her first date. On one hand, she was looking forward to seeing her friends’ reaction to Kieran. On the other hand, she was afraid they might snicker instead of swoon. Her friends were good-hearted almost to a fault, but they were big-city girls, and they didn’t suffer fools without a snicker or two. Dana’s memory had built a pedestal for Kieran, but was he really as she remembered? Here in the city would he seem just too freaky? Would he stand out like a sore thumb?

  Kieran showed up at Allheart an hour after his phone call. From her office, Dana heard the front door open. She closed her eyes and froze. She heard Robyn’s intake of breath all the way in her office.

  Her intercom buzzed and Robyn’s voice, somewhat shaky, queried. “Dana?”

  “Yes?”

  “You have a visitor.”

  This was It. It with a capital I.

  Dana’s first sight of Kieran almost made her melt. His gleaming dark hair was tamed neatly at his nape. His open-collared, button-down shirt, V-neck cashmere sweater, and dark brown corduroy trousers gave him the look of an amiable, extremely hunky college professor. Dana thought he looked good enough to eat, and the hungry look in Robyn’s eyes showed that she seconded that opinion.

  Kieran’s white, perfect teeth flashed in a smile. “Dana. Hi.”

  She had to breathe in and out a couple of times before finding her voice. “Hi.” Breathe. Breathe. “How was the trip?”

  “Smooth.”

  “Great.”

  The vultures were circling. Alix had drifted out of her office, coffee cup in hand—as if she were really after coffee. Lame. Carole sauntered down the hall toward the copy machine. Equally lame. Even Elyssa’s door was opening.

  “I should introduce you to everyone,” Dana said with false brightness.

  Alix closed in for the kill. “Yes, Dana. Do.”

  “This is Alix Harris, the creative genius behind our graphics. Carole Titus is advertising. If she can’t close on a sale, no one can. Robyn”—Robyn looked about ready to melt into her desk—“is my boss’s right hand.”

  Elyssa strolled out of her office and gave Kieran a smile that could have melted half of Sedona’s rock towers.

  “And this is the boss herself, the CEO-in-chief,” Dana continued. “Elyssa Wentworth, meet Kieran of Sedona.”

  Elyssa extended her hand. “We’re all so happy to meet the man who did so much for Dana.”

  Kieran didn’t seem to mind the four pairs of female eyes dissecting him. Five, counting Dana’s. “Dana did all the work herself.”

  “Well, I can see why she says you’re a phenomenon.”

  Dana clenched her teeth. She had to get him out of there.

  “She’s got all of us wanting to attend your workshop,” Alix purred.

  “It would be a pleasure to have each and every one of you.”

  “The pleasure would be all ours.” Carole nearly panted.

  “We’ve got to go!” Dana said desperately. “Or . . . or we won’t have time for lunch!” She panicked, suddenly realizing that the circling she-wolves might take that for an invitation. “Uh . . .” Once again, she lost her gift for words. What could she say to keep them at bay?

  The Allheart crew took pity on her. Elyssa’s smile looked almost sympathetic. “Go to lunch, you two, and have fun. Dana, you’ve been working awfully hard lately. Why don’t you take the afternoon off and show Kieran the local sights. Have you been to DC before, Kieran?”

  “Several times, but I’ve never had my own personal tour guide.”

  “Then take her,” she said breezily, grinning in private mischief at Dana.

  Take me! Dana urged him silently. And I don’t mean take me on a tour.

  They lunched, but Dana didn’t notice where. They buttoned up their overcoats and walked the canal path not far from the office. It certainly wasn’t a spot of tourist interest, but it was a wonderful place for a private talk on a sunny January afternoon.

  “This must be quite a change from Sedona,” Dana said. Lame, lame, lame.

  But he bought into it. “It is a change. I get spoiled with warm Sedona days. But change is good every once in a while. Otherwise we stagnate.”

  “Well, I do occasionally feel the pond scum growing on my brain.”

  He laughed. “Dana, you are a treasure.”

  “Am I?”

  “You are. You don’t really want to drag me around this tourist city, do you?”

  “Well . . . no.”

  “Have you ever been to Nantucket?”

  “No.”

  “Shame on you, living so close to such a beautiful place and never going there. My seminar doesn’t begin until Monday, and I planned to spend the weekend at my house on Nantucket. I was hoping you would go with me.”

  Dana’s heart leapt. She would have Kieran all to herself in a beautiful place by the sea. If she couldn’t work that to her advantage then she didn’t have the right to call herself a real woman. “I’d love to see Nantucket,” she said brightly.

  After she’d thrown some warm clothes in a suitcase and Kieran had suitably admired the eclectic décor of her tiny apartment, they hopped in Kieran’s rental car and drove north.

  “I wouldn’t have taken you for an antiquer,” Kieran told her.

  “I wouldn’t have taken you for someone who would rent a Mercedes SL 600.”

  He grinned. “I like the ride, and for a sports car it has a lot of room.”

  “And I like chintz and polished oak.”

  “Perhaps there is quite a bit we don’t know about each other.”

  “And here I thought in Sedona that you read minds. Everybody seemed to think that you could.”

  He laughed, but he didn’t deny it.

  They drove to the airport, where they easily found passage to Providence, Rhode Island. There they rented a car and drove to Hyannis where they loaded themselves onto the ferry to Nantucket Island. It was the last boat of the evening, and when they arrived on the island it was quite late. A cold fog made ghosts of the wharf and its buildings, and the town itself appeared only in glimpses through the shifting mist, here a shop, there a hotel, here a house that seemed to be plucked from the eighteenth century. In just a few minutes of driving, the town fell behind. The few lights they passed cast mysterious circles of white-shrouded illumination that revealed nothing but the all-enveloping fog.

  “Is your house far?” Dana asked.

  “Nothing on Nantucket is far. My house is close enough to walk into town, if the spirit moves you, but far enough away for privacy if you want to do nothing but wrap yourself in solitude with the sea.”

  “Not much sea-watching tonight.”

  “Even when you can’t see it, you can feel it.”

  That was true. The sea made itself known as a damp, salty tang in the air and a rhythmic surge that was felt more than heard. When they pulled into a long, graveled driveway and stopped, Dana felt the sea very close by. The car’s headlights shone on a white garage door surrounded by a gray clapboard garage.

  “We’re here,” Kieran announced.

&n
bsp; “So we are.” Dana’s stomach was doing flip-flops. What now? She felt like a teenager.

  Kieran had called ahead to a neighbor, who had turned on the heat in the house and left a light on by the back door. Kieran preceded her through the house, turning on lights as he went. Dana drew a breath in wonder, then smiled in satisfaction. Early American, from the beautifully crafted dining room table to hand-made oak rocking chair in the living room. The floor was hardwood warmed by thick area rugs. One whole side of the living room and dining room was nothing but glass. She ventured a guess that out there lay the sea, even though right then the view was nothing but fog.

  Kieran’s smile warmed as he noted her appreciation. How she loved his smile, when his eyes crinkled and something deep within him seemed to glow. Deep inside her, a bell chimed. Something that had been simmering in Dana had finally reached a boil. She couldn’t afford to let this minute pass.

  To hell with born-again virginity.

  “Kieran.”

  “Dana.”

  “I have a question.”

  “Do you?” The warmth in his eyes bore witness that something was cooking inside Kieran as well.

  “About this reclaimed virginity you advised me to protect . . .”

  Was it her imagination that his smile took on a wicked slant?

  “Just how do I know the right one who will come along and make it all worthwhile?”

  “The soul recognizes its mate,” Kieran said gravely.

  “You really believe that?”

  “Yes.”

  He had moved forward, and for some reason Dana didn’t understand, she stepped back, maintaining the distance between them. But the living room wall brought her up short. Kieran was close enough for Dana to see the gleam in his eye. Her heart pounded, and curiously enough, she found herself just a little bit afraid.

  “You really do . . . believe that?”

  “I do.”

  She gathered all her courage. “Do . . . do you recognize me yet?”

  He stepped closer still. In the blink of an eye Dana was caged, with a sinewy masculine arm on each side of her. “I recognized you, Dana Boyle, the moment you parked your little yellow Beetle in front of my hotel.”

  She could scarcely breathe. His face hovered above hers, and she had run out of words. Desire burned hot in the pit of her very being, anticipation thrilled along every nerve and a strangely delicious trepidation added spice to the mix.

  “I didn’t recognize you then.” She heard herself speak as if from a distance, someone else saying the words, not her. “But I do now.”

  Kieran’s mouth lowered to a mere breath from hers. “It’s about time you knew me.”

  “Yes.” She breathed him in and took his mouth onto hers. For a moment he barely touched her, lingering to savor that first, sweet contact. Then he gathered her to him and deepened the kiss. She responded, until finally they devoured each other, bodies straining with hunger long left unsatisfied. The sweet ache that had plagued Dana since she had first seen Kieran sharpened and focused into an incandescent need deep inside her. And something else, more powerful still, crystallized in her heart. She wanted to crawl inside the man and never leave, dissolve so that they were truly one. That desire was a steady pressure behind the edginess of passion, a warm background against which burned the white-hot brand of craving.

  “Would you like to see my bedroom?” he murmured against her mouth.

  Dana laughed at the politely phrased invitation. “Is this the grand tour?”

  “We can make it very grand.”

  In spite of Kieran’s light tones, his erection was unmistakable against the soft pliancy of her stomach. “Yes, then, I’m dying to see your bedroom.”

  Without further ado Kieran picked her up, like a romantic hero of old, and carried her up the stairs. She didn’t have time to take in the dark details of his room—just the fact that the bed upon which he laid her was soft and big. Outside the window, the moon played hide-and-seek in the fog, yielding just enough milky light to paint Kieran’s strong features in an otherworldly glow. His eyes burned darker than coal, and there was something almost wicked in the intensity of his expression.

  He reached down and touched her cheek with one finger. The gentleness of the gesture surprised Dana, because it was at odds with the current of sensual tension crackling between them.

  “This is not a fling.” His voice was a low whisper.

  “No.”

  With one knee on the mattress, he lowered his mouth to hers, breathing fire into the deepest recess of her being. Urgency gripped her quite suddenly. “Hurry,” she begged as they both gasped for breath. “Please hurry.”

  “Patience,” he advised. But he wasn’t patient. Straddling her hips, he deftly pulled her sweater over her head and unhooked the front clasp on her silk demi-bra. But he didn’t rush to uncover her. Instead, he drank in the moonglow on her curves. Slowly, almost worshipfully he slipped his big hands under the loosened cups until the bra gave way and his warm, hard palms covered her breasts.

  Such a current of desire shot through Dana that she bucked beneath his hips.

  “Patience,” he said again, shaking his head and giving her his perfect, mesmerizing smile. “This first time is very important.”

  “Please,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

  He leaned forward and began to nibble her breasts. She bucked again, helpless in the grip of her need.

  “Be easy, my love.”

  Dana thought she was being very easy. That was the point. But by the time he gave each of her breasts his full attention, she was past the point of thought at all. When he unhooked the waist of her slacks and slipped one hand between her legs, she thought she would die of the pure rapture. He fingered her through the silk of her panties, and her world exploded right then and there. She heard a scream without realizing the sound came from her own throat.

  Kieran didn’t pause in his attention. Before Dana’s heart could slow to a normal pace, he planted kisses in a line from between her damp breasts to her navel, then lower. Bit by bit he eased her trousers from her hips and down her legs, until only the silk of her bikini panties stood between them. He kissed her through the silk, then warmed her with his tongue. Dana’s heart jumped into her throat. She had to grab the edge of the mattress to keep from floating off the bed. Tantalizing her, he snaked a finger beneath the silk and slipped inside her. She groaned and spread her legs wider as he delved deeper.

  “You are perfect, do you know that?” he whispered in her ear.

  Once again her world came unglued. When she could once again see straight, an eternity later, he was smiling down at her.

  “You are very bad.” She sighed.

  “Am I?”

  “In a very good sort of way.”

  His teeth flashed in a moonlit grin.

  “If you expect me to just lie here and take this, you don’t know me as well as you think you do.” She pulled him down to her. Laughing, they wrestled, and Dana almost lost herself again from the feel of his fully clothed body entangled with her nakedness. But she held on. No man made Dana Boyle cry uncle without getting some of his own back. Finally, she got him where she wanted him—with a bit of cooperation from her victim. He lay on his back and looked up at her as she straddled his hips with her long, lithe legs spread wide. His eyes surveyed her with obvious appreciation, and she raised a brow at him. “I believe one of us has on too much clothing.”

  “That wouldn’t be you, would it?”

  She laughed and reached for his sweater. “Off!” she ordered.

  Obligingly, he helped her get rid of first the sweater, then the shirt. His naked chest gleamed, drawing her hands to stroke him, teasing, her fingers playing with his nipples. Beneath her, his erection blossomed.

  “Turnabout’s fair play.” She grinned wickedly.

  “You’re going to get cheated if you keep that up.”

  “You want the main event?”

  He breathed deeply, struggling
for control.

  “Maybe you should meditate on it,” Dana purred. She raised herself up just enough to unfasten his trousers and allow him to slide free of them. Graceful as a cat, she dismounted him and caught his hand in the act of pushing off his shorts. “Ah-ah! Not yet. As I said, turnabout is—”

  “Fair play,” he said with a pained sigh. The sigh turned to a groan when she peeled them down slowly, ending with a gentle swipe of her hand.

  “Enough!” The laughter in his voice didn’t hide the fact that he was dead serious as he took advantage of his vastly superior strength and flipped her on her back.

  “Oh no, you cheater!” Dana sprang up and managed to pin him down again, trying to ignore the breathtaking sight of Kieran naked. He looked like a Michelangelo sculpture without so much as a fig leaf to hide his masculine glory. Her effect upon him was truly gratifying. Dizzying, in fact. She wanted him inside her so much she could scarcely breathe.

  “Much as I would enjoy torturing you,” she groaned, “I just don’t think I can deprive myself much longer.”

  “Thank the universe.” As if by magic he produced the necessary packet and allowed her to do the honors. He pulled her down and kissed her, devouring her mouth at the same time he positioned himself to take her. Slowly, languorously, she lowered herself onto his eager erection until her self-control dissolved at the feel of him sliding inside her, stretching her, pushing a scream from the throat. He thrust upward, entering her fully. For a single moment of bliss, they were still, drunk with the sense of two halves finally coming together to make a whole. Then his big hands grasped her hips. He lifted her, then thrust again while forcing her down upon him. She cried out, “Don’t stop!”

  “Not a chance,” he murmured.

  Almost without a break in rhythm he turned her so that she was on the mattress and he rode between her legs. Again and again he thrust, his face intense as he tried to prolong their rapture. Finally he gripped her hips firmly, sealed her to him, and as she felt the pulse of his climax, Dana let herself go. Her own release joined with his to spiral them upward to a place that Dana had never before attained. As she drifted close to the clouds, Dana reflected with utter contentment that Kieran had been right. The right man had come at last, touching her spirit, her soul, her heart and body. Beneath his loving and sensuous hand, she had been truly touched for the very first time.