by Anne Stuart
“Or men?”
“I like men just fine. In their place,” she added with a trace of wickedness.
“And where is that? As far away as possible?”
“Depends on the man,” she said. “Do you want a beer?”
“I want…”
The ring of the cell phone stopped him midsentence. She picked it up, crossing her bare legs and leaning forward.
It was Jasmine, sobbing. “Sam!” she wailed on the other end.
“What’s wrong?”
“Aaron and I had a fight. He left me up here, all alone!”
“Where are you?”
“Up in the mountains. The house in Santa Ina—you remember. You came here for the Fourth of July. I’m all alone here and I don’t think he’s coming back!”
“Jerk!” Sam muttered.
“What?” Jasmine exclaimed.
“Aaron, not you,” Sam clarified. “I’ll come and get you. Just calm down, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“You don’t have a car. It’s in the shop, remember?” Jasmine started sobbing even harder.
Sam glanced over at Gideon. He was concentrating on scratching Rags’s head as it lolled blissfully against his leg. “I’ll borrow one,” she said. “Give me three hours and I’ll come get you. Okay?”
“Okay,” Jasmine’s voice was watery. “But come soon.”
Sam disconnected, rising to her feet with one fluid movement. “I need your car,” she said flatly.
“Forget it. You’re not getting it. Not without me.”
“If you think I’m going to sleep with you just to borrow your car…”
He laughed. “Who said anything about sleeping with me? Since it’s a rental, I don’t want anyone else driving it. If you need to go someplace, I’ll drive you.”
She couldn’t blush, but she could mentally kick herself. Why in hell had she said something like that? She had no idea whether Gideon Hyde wanted to get her in bed or not. Most men did, but she’d already discovered that Gideon wasn’t most men. He was far more interesting. Dangerously so.
“I need to drive up to a cabin in the mountains near Santa Ina and pick up Jasmine. Apparently she had a fight with Aaron and he left her there.”
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go.” He rose, and he was her height. She needed her shoes on again. She needed her hair and her makeup and her uncomfortable clothes.
“Give me a minute to change.”
“I thought we were in a hurry.”
She looked at him. It was an odd sensation—he was picture-perfect, she was the slob. “Let me see your eyes,” she said abruptly.
“You want to see if I’m on drugs?”
“No. I want to see whether I can trust you.”
He reached up and took the dark glasses off, looking directly into her eyes, and for a moment her heart stopped. His eyes were so dark they were almost black, and they were slightly tilted, exotic-looking, deep and unfathomable. And all she could do was look into them wordlessly, falling into some deep, velvet tunnel.
“Now you,” he said, keeping her trapped in the watchfulness of his gaze.
“This isn’t strip poker.”
“Take them off.” His deep, liquid voice was almost hypnotic, and she took off her sunglasses.
“I’m not wearing my contacts,” she said. “You’ll be a blur.” But she could see him quite clearly. See his eyes, feel them. It was almost physical and totally unnerving. Her skin felt hot, prickly, and she wanted…
She didn’t know what she wanted. She put her glasses back on hurriedly and stepped away. “Satisfied?”
“Not yet. What about the dog? Will he be all right alone?”
No man had ever expressed concern about any of her dogs. “He’ll be fine. My housekeeper is coming over later to feed him—if I’m not here she’ll just take him home with her. He’s used to her.”
“Then let’s go.”
“I need shoes.”
He smiled. Another danger—with his dark, unreadable eyes and that half smile he was disturbingly attractive. And she didn’t want to be attracted to him. “You could wear the ones I brought back. Unless they’ve already served their purpose.”
“What do you mean?”
“They put me in my place. I think you can comfortably get away with flats now. I know you’re above me.”
She almost put the damned shoes on just to spite him. She had a pair of well-worn sandals by the pool—she shoved her feet in them instead.
“Purse?” she said. He tossed the tiny jeweled swan to her, and she caught it. It held nothing but a hundred dollars cash, her driver’s license and her ATM card, but it would do. “I’m ready,” she said, not sure if she was.
The black Mercedes was parked in her driveway, the same car he’d driven the night before, of course. “I don’t suppose you’d change your mind about letting me drive?”
“Not in this lifetime. Do I open the door for you or will you hit me?”
He’d managed to surprise her again. Had he read her mind last night? Impossible. “I can open my own doors.”
“Then what’s stopping you? Get in.”
She hesitated for a moment longer. For some reason she kept thinking it was the point of no return. Once she stepped into that car her life would be changed forever.
And then she shook away the odd superstitious thought and climbed in. Jasmine needed her. This was no time for her to give in to her overindulgent imagination.
This wasn’t the river Styx, and he wasn’t Charon, taking her down into hell. She wasn’t Persephone, she wasn’t Cinderella, she wasn’t anyone but Sam going to rescue a friend, forced into the company of a fascinating stranger.
She’d survive. She always did.
CHAPTER FOUR
SO MAYBE REFUSING to do Ralph’s bidding was the dumbest idea he’d ever had in his entire life, both before and after death. She’d been beautiful and desirable with her go-to-hell shoes and her perfect hair. In cutoffs and a T-shirt, and with her hair yanked back in a ponytail, and no makeup, she was close to irresistible. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and he sent a silent thank-you in Ralph’s direction for that benefit. No, he probably wasn’t going to be able to resist her. He’d just have to hope her will was stronger than his.
She had the prettiest eyes. Pretty wasn’t a word most people would have used when they thought of Samantha—striking, gorgeous, beautiful were even too mild. But when she took off her dark glasses and looked at him, without the artificial shield of contact lenses, she’d looked vulnerable and almost…sweet. So sweet that he knew if he touched her he’d hurt her. So sweet that he knew he was going to have to try.
He glanced over at her in the passenger seat. She was clutching that ridiculous little purse in her beautiful hands, and he tried to wrench his mind away from what those hands could do, what those long, smooth legs would feel like wrapped around him.
“Why the swan?”
“I collect purses.”
“But the swan wasn’t just a random choice, was it?”
She looked at him. “No.”
“So were you too tall and gangly as a child and always felt like an ugly duckling and now you identify with the swan?”
“You’re not nearly as smart as you think you are,” she shot back. “I’m a swan who’d rather be a duckling. But you take what you’re handed and deal with it.”
“Ah, poor baby. It’s a curse being beautiful,” he said lightly.
She stared at him. “Go to hell.”
He laughed, resisting the impulse to say, Been there, done that. “Sorry. I’m not being suitably reverential.”
She pushed her sunglasses up on her forehead to look at him, and once more he got the full force of her eyes. “I don’t have the right nature to be beautiful,” she said. “But I also don’t like to waste things. I was given a certain gift, and I’ll nurture it and sell it for as long as I can. When it’s over I’ll take my money and move as far away from L.A. as I can.”
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br /> “And what will you do then?”
“Anything I damned please. So what do you do? I expect you’re in advertising like Aaron.”
“You really don’t like me much, do you?” he said.
“You really haven’t given me any reason to like you, have you?” she countered.
He racked his brain, but his mouth was already coming up with an answer. “I play piano.”
“For a living?” She sounded dubious.
He shrugged. “I write music. Soundtracks, some stuff for television. It keeps me relatively solvent.” It sounded oddly right even as he made it up on the spot.
“And you do all this someplace farther south and a lot hotter?”
He’d forgotten he’d said that. She must have been paying closer attention than he realized. “No, that’s just where I came from. Right now I live on a small island in Puget Sound. Fortunately I get to work long-distance.” He changed the subject. “So you don’t like being a model?”
For a moment he thought she was going to blow him off. But instead she put the sunglasses back on, and he could see a little of the tension leave her body. “It has its good points,” she said. “I make a great deal of money and I get to play dress-up. I was always into fantasy when I was a kid, probably because I was an only child. So now I get to dress up like a thousand different women and pretend I’m them, and then I get to go home and be me.”
“And who do you prefer?”
“Me,” she said with absolute certainty.
“So do I.”
“What?”
“Prefer you to the thousand different women. When you’re not trying to scare the hell out of me.”
“I don’t think anyone could,” she said, sounding slightly aggrieved. “So why did you agree to bring me up here? Surely you must have better things to do if you’re just in L.A. on a visit.”
“Nothing better to do. Besides, I like you.”
He’d really managed to astonish her. “You like me?” she echoed. “Men don’t like me. They want to sleep with me, use me, fall in love with me, but they don’t like me.”
“Oh, I want to sleep with you. But then, I only sleep with women I like.”
She looked uncomfortable, but she was the one who’d brought up the subject. “Isn’t it better to sleep with women you love?” she asked.
“Maybe. But it’s a little soon for me to be in love with you. If you want I can make the effort…”
She laughed then. “You’re being ridiculous. Besides, I know why you really agreed to drive all this way with me.”
“Do you?”
“I’m more observant than you think. You have a thing for Jasmine. I watched you with her last night—you were paying far more attention to her than you were to me.”
“You made it clear you could take care of yourself. Did it bother you?”
“Not at all. I love Jasmine, and you’d definitely be an improvement over Aaron. The two of you might…”
He’d been driving fast on the secondary road, and he hit the brakes a little too hard, so that the tires spun as they slid to a stop on the shoulder. “I don’t have a thing for Jasmine,” he said firmly. “I have a thing for you.” And because he couldn’t wait any longer he caught her face in one hand and kissed her, unbuckling his seat belt with the other hand.
Her mouth was cool, shocked beneath his, and she slid back against the leather seat as he leaned over her, letting him kiss her but not contributing in any way. He felt a moment’s grievance—her total passivity was enough to cool any man’s desire. No wonder she’d managed to stay a virgin for so long.
But he had no intention of starting the car again, of doing anything, until he could get her to kiss him back. It wasn’t a matter of obeying Ralph’s orders, it wasn’t a matter of pride. He just had a sudden, desperate need for her to kiss him.
He put his tongue against her lips, tasting them, then pulled back, looking into the opaque darkness of her sunglasses. “You don’t like kissing?”
“Not much,” she said coolly.
“Then you haven’t had the right man kiss you.” He put his lips against hers, softly. He made no demands, he was in no hurry, just small, lazy kisses against her soft mouth, clinging for a moment, then releasing, touching her with his tongue, then brushing the side of her mouth.
She wasn’t as cool as she had been. He put his mouth against the side of her neck and he could feel her pulse moving fast beneath his tongue. He moved his mouth up again, to her lips, and he pushed her mouth open with his, just a little bit, nudging her, teasing her, as he could tell her breathing was growing more labored. Maybe he was just taking her breath, but he didn’t think so. He would have given ten years off his life to touch those small, perfect breasts beneath the thin T-shirt, but then he didn’t have any years left. And her mouth was enough for now.
Particularly when he felt her lips move beneath his, just slightly.
He pressed a tiny bit harder. She opened her mouth for him, and he couldn’t stand it anymore—he had to use his tongue.
She jumped, and he could almost feel her try to reach for that Zen-like passivity, but he was having none of it. He knew how to kiss, and it had been too damned long since he’d kissed a woman. And he didn’t know if he’d ever wanted to kiss a woman as much as he wanted to kiss Sam.
The tiny noise she made was almost enough to make him explode. It was the unmistakable, delectable sound of desire, coming from deep inside her, half a moan, half a growl, and he wondered whether he could manage to get her out of those raggedy cutoffs and into the back seat.
Her hand came up and touched his face, just as he was about to reach for her seat belt. Her skin was cool, her fingers trembled, and the touch was the merest hint of a caress.
It was enough. He drew back, breathing hard, to stare into her opaque sunglasses. “Not Jasmine,” he said. And he started the car, pulling out onto the empty road without looking.
SAM TRIED TO SLIDE down further in her seat, but her legs were too long—there was no more room in front of her. She crossed her arms over her chest as she realized in sudden horror that not only was she not wearing a bra, but her nipples were hard and sticking out against the thin cotton.
She wanted to wipe her mouth. No, she wanted to touch her mouth, to see if it felt any different. She kept her arms tightly crossed over her chest, hugging herself, shaken and unsure.
She glanced over at him as he drove down the highway. He didn’t look as if he’d spent the past five minutes kissing her into a puddle of mindless need. Unless you looked at his mouth, and she certainly didn’t want to be doing that, because she couldn’t look at his mouth without wanting to feel it against hers again.
The silence between them was making it even worse. She summoned her coolest voice. “You kiss very well,” she said. “You must have had a lot of practice.”
He glanced over at her, a faint smile drawing her eyes to his mouth again. “And you haven’t had much at all.”
She wasn’t quite sure how to react to that. “Are you saying you don’t like kissing me?”
“Oh, no. I like kissing you very much indeed. You make it very interesting.”
He wasn’t improving things all that much. “I didn’t think kissing was supposed to be merely interesting.”
“If you want me to pull over again I can demonstrate just how intense interesting can be.”
“No!” She sounded panicked, and she didn’t care.
“All right,” he said calmly. “We can play later.”
“We cannot!”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t! Ever!”
“Never?” he murmured.
He couldn’t know. No one could really know—most people thought she had a secret lesbian lover stashed somewhere, or else they thought she was so kinky her sex life was clouded in mystery. No one knew that not only did she not have a lover, but that the only thing deviant about her sex life was that she was still a virgin.
; No one would believe her if she told them. And why should she? She had no intention of having sex with anyone right now, and when she decided to she planned to have plenty of time to get to know the guy first and give him advance warning that she hadn’t done it before. The last thing she was going to do was hop into bed with a stranger she’d known less than twenty-four hours.
Even if, inexplicably, she wanted to.
None of this made any sense. She liked big, capable men, not slender, elegant ones. She needed a long time to get comfortable with a man, and this man put her in a strange, restless state that was unnerving. That made her wonder what his skin would feel like against hers.
She had nothing against sex, premarital or otherwise. She’d come close a couple of times, years ago, but in the end had backed out, much to the disgust of the boys involved. By the third time she decided not to let it get to that point, not unless she was absolutely certain, and she hadn’t even been tempted in God knew how long.
She wasn’t tempted now—that would be insane. It was just that he knew how to kiss. But it was just a talent like any other, like playing the piano or painting or playing tennis. One that improved with practice. He must have kissed a lot of women to be that good, and she didn’t need to start having feelings for a man who used women like that.
But if he kissed that well, what would sex be like with him? Anyone who could put that much sensuality into the touching of mouths would likely be quite extraordinary when it came to actual intercourse.
But then again, she didn’t know what ordinary intercourse was like, so why bother fantasizing about anything else?
She pushed her sunglasses up on her forehead and squinted into the bright afternoon. She was moderately nearsighted—she could do without her glasses but it made life more complicated. The leaves overhead dissolved into a gentle blur of green against the blue sky, and the highway stretched out as a gray expanse in front of them. She glanced at her companion, but he was close enough that she could see him clearly. Far too clearly.
She’d been in various stages of dress and undress with some of the most beautiful men in the world, both gay and straight, and she’d never been so fascinated by someone’s face and body. His skin was a faintly golden color, not really tanned, more a natural pigment, and his long black hair was silky straight against his neck. He had high cheekbones, a narrow nose and the most beautiful mouth she’d ever kissed. But beauty had never been that valuable a commodity as far as she was concerned. She knew just how ephemeral it could be, and how utterly random, a simple combination of genes and luck. It was ridiculous to be swept away by an accident of nature. She thought of all the men who’d wanted her over the years, simply because she looked the way she did. She’d never understood it. But she couldn’t keep from looking at Gideon. Wondering what it would be like to…