by Jayne Castle
She stood rigidly beneath his hands, her head tilted with pride and defiance. “You’ve already said that sleeping with a woman isn’t reason enough to do business with her either! So why are you here, Gabriel?”
“Beats the hell out of me. Charity work, I guess. For some asinine reason, the logic of which escapes me at the moment, I had this crazy notion that you needed a little protection from people like Oakes and Buchanan.”
“Protection!” The word seemed to inflame her. “I don’t need any man’s protection! I can damn well take care of myself. Do you think I could have built up this business of mine so fast and so successfully if I was incapable of taking care of myself? Do you think I could devise a plan like that Phoenix deal if I was incompetent? Do you think I could have lured you into backing me if I was really unable to handle my own business affairs? Protection!”
He saw the slap coming but stoically stood his ground, not making any attempt to block the short, hard blow. As his face reddened beneath the imprint of her fingers, he tightened his hands on her shoulders. “Is it really such an insult to say I felt protective toward you?” he whispered harshly.
Already the remorse was filling her eyes. He saw her lips tremble slightly as she lifted her hand again to his face, this time to soothe the place she had struck. “Oh, Gabriel, damn it, I’m sorry. I always seem to be saying that to you, don’t I? But it is an insult, you know!” she went on more firmly.
“Samantha, can’t you admit that you need me in some way?”
Her face stilled, only the wide, searching gaze showing any sign of expression. And Gabriel couldn’t read the one he did see there. A sense of rising frustration made him dig his fingers roughly into her shoulders.
“I would,” Samantha said very carefully and with absolute precision as if she was just in the process of formulating the realization, “admit I needed a man in some way if he could admit he needed me… “ She let the sentence trail off into nothingness as they continued to face each other.
She meant, Gabriel knew, that she would admit to her sexual need of him if he pushed her and if he was willing to give her the same assurance. It should have been enough. But it wasn’t. He already knew he could make her want him with a passion that reached out to inflame them both. But it wasn’t enough!
“You’re so damn cautious, aren’t you? For a woman who thinks nothing of jumping headlong into everything else, you’re one hell of a coward about taking a risk on me,” he said bitterly.
Before the words were completely out of his mouth, she was impulsively crowding close, her hands sliding up his chest and around his neck. He felt the urgent, warm pliancy in her body and saw the sudden tenderness invade her eyes.
“You’re the idiot in this partnership if that’s what you believe,” she murmured. “I’ve been taking risks on you since the day your name came up in my computer! It was a risk choosing you over William Oakes in the first place. With all the information about Oakes available, he was a much safer bet as a business partner than an unknown man in California who seemed to have become quite successful without making any of the usual waves!”
“Samantha,” he began huskily, only to be silenced once more.
“And I took one hell of a chance letting you seduce me that first night. I know men don’t see it that way, but I certainly do! Most women do. Furthermore, there was that ultimatum the following morning. You could so easily have ignored it, and I knew that. Then there was the risk of continuing to have an affair with the man who’s supposed to be only my financial partner. A man who makes a very tricky partner in the first place because he keeps trying to be the one in charge. He does crazy things like saving my brother’s neck, and then he demands vague midnight promises which aren’t very dear in meaning until the chips are down and it’s too late to back out of them. Oh, Gabriel, talk about putting everything on the line for a person!”
He drew a long, uneven breath, his hands sliding up to curve around her throat. She could probably feel the way his fingers were shaking, he thought fleetingly. “I seem to have gotten a rather one-sided view of this whole thing,” he admitted throatily. “I hadn’t looked at it from your viewpoint, honey. I guess we’ve both been taking some risks lately.” It was a novel idea, he realized, this notion that Samantha had taken a chance on him. Women didn’t behave that way about Gabriel Sinclair. There was nothing particularly risky about him. But Samantha didn’t seem to know that.
That thought was almost as satisfying as the realization that she knew she would surrender in his arms. Gabriel groaned, shaping her face with his hard hands and crushing her mouth beneath his.
“Damn it to hell, sweetheart, the only time I feel as if I’m in control is when I have you lying underneath me and your legs are wrapped around mine!”
“That’s a very chauvinistic attitude,” she chided gently, but her fingers were gliding through his hair, and her mouth was soft and parted and only half an inch from his.
“I’m only a man.” He was compelled to confide that as an excuse for the elemental way he felt about her. Carefully he reached up and removed her glasses, leaving her eyes wide and strangely vulnerable.
“Your halo does tend to slip now and then,” she whispered as he nuzzled the soft skin behind her ear.
“Lord knows you provide enough provocation to keep it permanently out of alignment!” He began a pattern of increasingly warm kisses down the length of her throat. It wasn’t hard to sense that Samantha wanted to resist further, perhaps talk out some of the tensions which still hung between them. He felt her try to stiffen and pull herself back. But that was the last thing he could tolerate. Not now. Not when his body was already heavy with arousal and the desire was beginning to run like fire in his veins.
“Gabriel? Gabriel, we should talk a little more. What happened this morning was very serious.”
“Yes.” He didn’t try to deny it, but he didn’t cease his assault either. Let her talk. It would keep her busy while he was going about more important things such as undressing her. His hands found the buttons of the jonquil-yellow shirt she was wearing, and he began undoing them with great care.
“I… I don’t want you to get the idea that all of our problems can be solved in bed,” Samantha was saying urgently as he finished the last button and pushed it off her shoulders.
“No,” he agreed absently. Hell, she wasn’t wearing a bra. And she’d known he would be here this morning. She almost always wore a bra. A slow smile of raw pleasure touched his eyes. He flattened his palms above her small breasts and slowly moved them downward until the budding nipples were pressing into the centers of his hands.
“Gabriel, are you listening to me?” Her voice had a breathless quality to it, and he sensed she was having a hard time focusing on what she wanted to say. A shiver coursed through her as he slowly rotated his palms across the hardening berries which tipped her softness.
“I’m listening, sweetheart.” And he was, to the sound of her quickening breath, to the edge of desire underlining her words, and to his own instincts which told him that in a few minutes she would be moaning her need of him.
“It’s important that we understand each other. We’ve both made some serious mistakes in this partnership of ours.”
“Yes.” She sounded so intense, so anxious to get her point across. He slid his hands down the warm side of her ribs and then around to find the fastening of her jeans. Her fingertips fell to his shoulders, and she let them sink into the fabric of his shirt. It was an unconscious, kneading gesture which reminded him of a cat, and it fueled the growing heat in him.
“Gabriel,” she whispered huskily, her lashes lowering as her passion mounted, “about what you said to Drew… “
“Ummm? He had the jeans unzipped now and was pushing them slowly down her hips, loving the shape of her buttocks beneath his hands. As the denims fell to the floor at her feet, he followed, kneeling in front of her to taste the warm silk of her stomach. The rising scent of her desire told him all he
needed to know. Deliberately he pushed his hand against the dampening heat between her legs. Above him she sucked in her breath, and suddenly she was bracing herself with her hands on his shoulders as her thighs trembled.
“You shouldn’t have made it sound the way you did,” she tried to say. He could hear her struggling to get the words out properly. “You shouldn’t have… Oh, Gabriel!”
His name was a sigh as she tumbled to her knees in front of him, unable to stay on her feet any longer. He groaned as he caught her mouth with his own and pulled her naked form close to his own, opening his thighs to drag her between them.
“Don’t you understand, Samantha?” he grated fiercely, cupping her buttocks and straining her into the aching hardness of him. “You belong to me now.”
She didn’t argue. She was beyond arguing, and he took advantage of the fact to push her gently down on the frayed Oriental carpet. With one hand he traced rough patterns on her breasts and stomach while he freed himself from his clothing. She writhed beneath his touch, reaching upward to pull him to her as soon as his slacks were off
Still wearing his shirt, which he’d only managed to get unbuttoned, Gabriel came down on top of her. He knew a savage pleasure in the way she parted her legs for him, and then he felt the touch of her fingers on his manhood as she guided him to the heart of her desire.
His last coherent thought before the waves of sensual need engulfed them both was to wonder who was surrendering to whom.
***
Drew Buchanan gave the assignment to Jeff Ingram as soon as he walked in the door of the Buchanan building.
“I want to know everything you can find out on Gabriel Sinclair. Venture capitalist working on the West Coast. And I need it yesterday.”
But the information he needed didn’t come from Ingram; it came from Carol Galloway that night as she and Buchanan faced each other across a snowy tablecloth in an elegant, intimate restaurant that overlooked the harbor. Drew had only mentioned the name in passing as he gave her a brief, severely edited version of his trip to Seattle.
She sipped her Chardonnay thoughtfully as he talked, sensing the anger which lay beneath the polite facade. Whatever had occurred in Seattle had not been fully satisfactory. In a few minutes she learned why.
“Sinclair.” She took another sip of wine and frowned beautifully. “Gabriel Sinclair. You say he’s working on the West Coast? A venture capitalist?”
Buchanan watched her closely. “That’s right.”
“Not by any chance related to the Weston Sinclairs, is he? They had a son who, I believe, had a talent for money. The last I heard he’d left the family business and headed for California. That was a few years ago.”
Buchanan couldn’t believe his luck. “You know him?”
“I’m not sure. Dark, red-brown hair, a rather solid sort of build? Certainly lacking in the social graces, considering his background.”
“And with a stammer?” Buchanan realized he was holding his breath.
Carol nodded slowly. “Now that you mention it, I believe there was some speech problem.”
“What do you know about him?” Drew demanded quickly.
“Not much, really. His parents and mine were friends for a time. Weston Sinclair was in politics. We met them on the Washington party circuit. His son didn’t really fit in. But he was married to a woman who dearly loved the Washington scene, and occasionally she dragged him along to some of the cocktail parties and such. Poor dear.”
“Sinclair?” Buchanan frowned.
“No.” Carol chuckled. “His wife. She longed so to take her place in society, and all her husband wanted to do was stay at home and manage the family business. I know she was bored to tears with him. Left him, as I recall, when everything fell apart for the Sinclairs. We never saw any of the family socially after that, of course, but I do recall hearing that after he’d salvaged what was left of the Sinclairs’ business for his father, Gabriel had headed for the West Coast.”
Buchanan only had one question. “What do you mean, after things fell apart?”
Carol arched an eyebrow in surprise. “Don’t you remember all that hubbub about Weston Sinclair’s connection to underworld heavies? Ruined his political career when they came to light. One has to be so careful these days,” she added almost regretfully. “The public demands such a ridiculously high standard from its elected representatives. Once the media gets hold of some juicy tidbit, it’s very difficult for a politician to recover.”
“Tell me,” Buchanan said slowly, “about the Weston Sinclair scandal. I didn’t follow the Washington scene that closely in those days.”
“Well, I did.” Carol smiled. “Can’t help but do it when you’re raised in a political household! Let me see, what do I remember? The facts, of course, would have been in the papers at the time.”
“I’ll have my assistant start digging through the library in the morning.”
Carol nodded absently. “Now what else can I tell you?” she mused. “It’s a little difficult to remember Gabriel Sinclair. My chief recollection, I’m afraid, was that he was quite dull.”
“I assure you, at the moment, he is making my life anything but dull!” Buchanan reached for his wine and listened attentively to everything Carol Galloway could recall. Christ, he was lucky to have found her! The perfect politician’s wife.
And Carol, who had been raised from infancy to be precisely that, spilled out everything she could remember about Weston Sinclair and his family. If there was one thing a survivor on the Washington social circuit learned in a hurry, it was to have a retentive ear for gossip. Careers were made or broken on gossip in that world. She had been only twenty at the time, but her parents had trained her well.
The man sitting across from her was going to provide her with her proper place, the position she’d been groomed for since infancy. She would no longer be the daughter but would be the wife of a prominent politician. A much more powerful position.
And Daddy would see that Drew became prominent. Daddy liked Drew. Carol was astute enough to know that it was probably because the two men were so much alike.
Across from her, Drew contemplated how he would stop Samantha in her tracks, and then his imagination went farther. The little fool needed to be taught a lesson. When this was all over, he’d make sure she got it. No one, least of all an emotional little piece like her, was going to get away with trying to score off him. He’d give it a few months before he went after her. Give the relationship with Gabriel Sinclair a chance to cool off so that Sinclair wouldn’t feel obliged to come to her rescue. And that relationship was bound to cool eventually. Carol said the man was as dull as dishwater, and Samantha was anything but. She’d grow tired of him. Or else, Drew told himself with savage humor, Sinclair would grow tired of her antics.
One way or another, Samantha would probably be on her own in a few months time, and then she would be vulnerable.
Destroying her would be a pleasure. Buchanan smiled to himself. An interesting exercise in power.
Chapter Ten
“The important thing, Gabriel,” Samantha announced two mornings later as he prepared to leave for California, “is that you don’t get the idea you can control me with sex.”
“No,” he agreed in a rather vague tone as he packed his shaving kit with immaculate precision.
Samantha watched the careful process of packing as Gabriel practiced it and hid an indulgent smile. “I mean, I wouldn’t want you getting the notion that anytime we disagree you can simply march in here and… and…”
“And lay you down on your Oriental rug and make love to you until you stop arguing?” He straightened abruptly, zipped the shaving kit shut, and turned to face her. His eyes were gleaming with suppressed laughter, a laughter that was entirely too wicked for Samantha’s peace of mind. “I wouldn’t think of it!
“Darn you.” She sighed, throwing herself into his arms and blissfully letting his strength absorb the impact. “You’re impossible. And I wish you didn�
��t have to go back to California today.”
He cradled her head with his hand, holding her close. “I wish I didn’t have to go back, either. But I’ve got a couple of things which have to be watched down there. Interesting as this deal of ours has proven to be, it is not my only ongoing project.”
“Do any of your other ongoing projects involve women?” she mumbled into his shirt. She inhaled the scent of him, storing up the intimate taste of it in her mind.
“Would you be jealous if they did?” he said.
She could sense the expectant waiting in him. “Yes!”
He seemed inordinately pleased by the confession. She felt the chuckle deep in his chest. It was good to feel the laughter in him. When she’d first met him, Gabriel hadn’t been the type to laugh very often. Samantha experienced a pleasant satisfaction at being able to bring out that particular emotion.
“Samantha,” he whispered, holding her so that he could look down into her face. “There’s no one else. You know that, don’t you?”
She nodded mutely. The thing about Gabriel Sinclair was that you could trust him implicitly.
“And there’s no one else for you, either,” he concluded evenly.
She shook her head, again without saying a word.
“When I come back from California the day after tomorrow, we’ll have to talk about that,” he stated.
“Talk about what?” she demanded softly.
“Honey, I can’t keep running up and down the coast every week,” he affirmed dryly. “We need to discuss a more convenient arrangement.”
“Gabriel… ?”
“I’ve got to go, honey, or I’ll miss the ferry. If I miss the ferry, I’ll miss my plane.” He pulled her close and kissed her hard on the mouth. “And if I miss my plane, I’ll be in trouble down in California. Things are at the critical stage down there with a new computer design firm I’m backing. I’ll be back the day after tomorrow. Then we’ll sit and wait to hear from Buchanan. He should be making up his mind to play the game our way by then.”