Private Passions

by JoAnn Ross

  She doubted he’d shaved since the night of the charity auction—the night he’d kissed her and stirred dark and dangerous feelings she’d been unable to put out of her mind.

  The night he’d made her want him with a need that was almost as terrifying as it was unrelenting.

  “You look like hell.”

  The bald, unflattering statement hit too close to home. Roman felt as if he’d been given a first-hand glimpse of hades lately. And the view was anything but comforting.

  “Thanks for the compliment.”

  She refused to allow his acerbic tone to get under her skin. Something was very, very wrong here. And although she’d tried her best to tell herself that she didn’t care about Roman Falconer, the truth was he’d touched something deep inside her. Even before that devastating kiss.

  “You don’t need compliments. What you need is a bath, a shave, a haircut and a decent meal. When was the last time you ate?”

  He leaned one hand against the door frame, looming over her in a way designed to frighten her back to her television station. Where she belonged.

  Where she’d be safe.

  “Is that an offer to cook me dinner?”

  “Obviously someone has to.” She was as surprised as he by the words that had sprung uncensored from her lips. But now they were out, she refused to retract them. “Move out of the way, Falconer. And let me see if you’ve got anything besides ice cubes and soda water in your refrigerator.”

  “I drink my whiskey straight. Without ice.” God help him—and her—he found himself stepping back, allowing her entry into his home. And, he feared, his life.

  “Aren’t you the macho one,” she said with dry sarcasm. She glanced around, taking in the layer of dust that covered everything. It was even thicker than it had been four days ago. “You need a maid.”

  “I had a woman who came in once a week. She quit a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Scared her off, did you?” When she headed with uncanny instinct in the direction of the kitchen, Roman had no choice but to follow. “I’m not surprised.”

  “You don’t seem to be running in the opposite direction.”

  “I don’t scare that easily.”

  “I’m beginning to figure that out for myself.”

  “It’s good to know that all that whiskey you’ve been drinking hasn’t killed off all your brain cells,” she retorted.

  The kitchen looked every bit as bad as its owner.

  “I take it back,” Desiree said, eyeing the fast-food bags, foam containers and paper wrappings that littered the counters. “What I said about not scaring easily.”

  “I don’t recall inviting you in.”

  Her chin flew up at his sarcastic tone. Her slender hands settled on her hips. “You bought a date with me, Falconer. And I’m damn well going to live up to my promise. Since you don’t seemed inclined to go out, we’re eating in. As soon as I shovel out some of this trash.”

  She took off her lightweight white wool coat, tossing it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. She was dressed in the same clothes she’d worn on the earlier broadcast—a pink angora sweater that proved an attractive foil for her auburn hair, and a cream wool skirt that ended midthigh.

  “I don’t suppose you have an apron anywhere around this dump?”

  “Sorry.”

  “I figured that was asking the impossible.” She breathed a frustrated sigh. “If I ruin this sweater, you’re buying me a new one.”

  “That sounds more than fair.” He glanced around, viewed the kitchen through her eyes and decided that the lady definitely had guts. “Are you always this impulsive?”

  “That depends. In my work I tend to be detail obsessive. As for my life—” she shrugged “—I prefer to go with the flow.”

  Reluctantly intrigued by the forceful, take-charge aura surrounding a female who looked as delicate as Irish crystal, Roman decided that there was something to be said for going with the flow. “Why don’t I help?”

  She turned and gave him a long, judicious perusal, from the top of his shaggy dark head down to his bare feet. “You can help by getting out of my way and going upstairs and taking a shower. And while you’re at it, get rid of that stubble. It may have worked for Don Johnson, but the eighties are over, you can only watch Miami Vice on cable in the middle of the night and I prefer my dates clean shaven.”

  When his grizzled face felt as if it were about to crack, Roman realized that once again Desiree had managed to do the impossible. She’d made him smile.

  “Anyone ever tell you that you can be a real bossy little thing?”

  “All the time. Most recently just today, as a matter of fact.” She tossed her head. “And for the record, I’ve always considered it a compliment.”

  Damn the man! Even though he looked like death warmed over, and although she’d never been one of those women drawn to darkly tormented men, just being in close proximity to Roman made her blood hum distractingly in her veins.

  The faintest of smiles hovered at the corners of his mouth, making her wonder whether if she went up on her toes and kissed him—really kissed him—she could make that smile move to his deep, unfathomable eyes.

  Roman watched the questions swirling in her eyes. And the unwilling desire. He lifted his hand to her face, skimming back her rich, tawny hair, cupping her jaw with his palm.

  “I don’t know if I have what you need.”

  His deep voice was soft and rough at the same time. His guard dropped momentarily, giving her a glimpse of an edgy, masculine hunger. And something else. Something that appeared to be genuine concern.

  Roman Falconer confused her.

  He frightened her. Just a little.

  He also fascinated her.

  Understanding that he was not talking about the state of his pantry, Desiree decided that now that she’d come this far, she may as well follow through on her impulsive behavior.

  Putting her hands on his shoulders, she turned him around and pushed a palm against his back. “Go clean up, Falconer. While I see if I can keep the health department from declaring this place a toxic waste site.”

  Even as he told himself that he was a selfish son-of-a-bitch for not sticking to his plan to keep away from Desiree, Roman left the kitchen, heading upstairs to do as instructed.

  Unsurprisingly, Roman’s refrigerator was not exactly a treasure trove of culinary delights. A quick glance revealed a six pack of Dixie beer, a half-empty bottle of catsup, a quarter pound of butter with toast crumbs scattered across one end, some Dijon mustard and a wedge of moldy green cheese. Fortunately, she had better luck with the freezer.

  While she whipped together some mustard and butter to top the lamb chops that, after thawing in the microwave, she stuck under the broiler, Desiree asked herself what on earth she was doing, cooking for a man she wasn’t even sure she liked. A man whose haunted dark eyes reminded her of a Gothic hero. Heathcliffe, perhaps, who’d been doomed from the beginning to a life of torment and despair.

  Oh, yes, there was too much about Roman Falconer that mirrored Emily Brontë’s savagely dark character, she mused as she opened the bottle of merlot she’d discovered and poured herself a glass. And although Desiree liked to think of herself as a charitable person, she’d never considered herself much of a caretaker, let alone a savior of tortured souls.

  Yet for some reason she could not comprehend, here she was, cleaning counters, cooking lamb chops and digging through cupboards searching for spices she could sprinkle on the pasta she’d decided to make as a side dish.

  Thinking back on the other night, when he’d saved her from that cretin by paying an outrageously inflated price for a night on the town, Desiree reluctantly admitted Roman could be charming.

  “But,” she reminded herself under her breath as she stirred the pot of fettuccine bubbling away on the top of the stove, “that’s what they say about the devil, too.”

  “Did someone call my name?” a deep voice asked from the doorway.


  Turning around, Desiree realized all too well what she was doing here. Like it or not, although it made not a lick of sense, she was drawn to Roman in some mysterious way that was too powerful to resist.

  His hair, which was still too long for conventional standards, gleamed like jet in the overhead light. His shaven face revealed a firm, square jaw. Experiencing a sudden, inexplicable need to touch that deep cleft in his chin, she tightened her fingers around the stem of her wineglass.

  “You know what they say,” she said with a casualness she was a very long way from feeling. She took what she hoped would be a calming sip of wine and eyed him over the rim of the glass. “Speak of the devil and you’ll see the tip of his tail.”

  Her voice, schooled for television, remained smooth and steady. But the edgy emotion in her too-wide eyes gave her away.

  “Is that really how you see me?” When he crossed the room to her, Desiree unconsciously took a few steps backward until she ran into the counter. “As a devil?”

  She was quite literally trapped, the hard, cold ceramic tile against her back a striking contrast to the disturbingly male body just inches away. A body that radiated warmth and tightly controlled tension.

  She stiffened as he reached out. Held her breath as his fingers tightened in her hair.

  “I don’t know. Are you?” She’d tried for flippancy and failed.

  “I don’t know.”

  He plucked the glass from her stiff fingers, turning it until the faint pink smear of lipstick on the crystal rim was facing him. With his dark, fathomless eyes on hers, he lifted the glass and drank.

  Watching that firmly cut mouth intimately embracing the same place her lips had touched was enough to make Desiree tremble.

  Roman, who never missed a thing, put the glass down on the tile counter she’d recently scrubbed and began running his hands down her arms in a way she found anything but soothing.

  “Are you cold?”

  Far from it. She was burning up. From the inside out. “No,” she managed to murmur, her voice just decibels above a whisper.

  “Then you must be frightened.”

  He ran that treacherous hand down her arm again, linking their fingers together as he had the other night on the dance floor. When he brushed his lips across her knuckles, Desiree felt herself going weak in the knees. No man, she thought desperately, should possess this much sexual power.

  “I think I am,” she admitted in that throaty voice that had made her so popular among male viewers. A silky voice that slipped beneath his skin, tantalized him in ways that had him thinking of all the things he wanted to do to her. With her.

  “Of me?” He turned their joined hands and pressed a light kiss against the inside of her wrist, rewarded when he felt her pulse leap.

  “No.” Strangely, it was mostly the truth. The way he was looking at her, hard and deep, as if he could see all the way inside her to the passionate secrets lurking in her soul, kept Desiree from trying to get away with the convenient lie. “Well, perhaps just a little,” she amended.

  “That’s probably wise.” When he touched the tip of his tongue to the sensitive flesh his lips had warmed, Desiree drew in a quick, sharp breath.

  “I suppose so.” Perhaps he was the devil, she considered wildly, as fire flashed through her veins. “But most of all, I’m afraid of us.”

  “Us?”

  The scent emanating from her skin was distracting Roman, making him forget that while standing under that streaming hot water in his shower, he’d sworn that he was going to come downstairs, thank her for her troubles and send the lady on her way.

  “You.” She lifted a hand to his shoulder, branding him through his shirt with her tender touch. “And me.”

  Unconsciously, she leaned toward him, her lips parting ever so slightly, her eyes gleaming with a gilt-edged, feminine invitation that Roman found nearly impossible to resist.

  “Us together,” she said softly.

  Her lips were a silken lure, entrapping Roman in the grip of something as powerful as it was primal. He could have her. Here. Now. Before either of them had time to consider all the reasons why it would be wrong.

  “Believe me, sweetheart, I know the feeling.”

  The air around them grew thick and heavy and sparked with electricity.

  This is crazy, Roman told himself yet again. Control. It was imperative that he regain control. Not just of his body, but of this potentially perilous situation.

  Even as he told himself that, as he gazed down into her exquisite face, Roman found himself wanting to drag her to the brick floor, strip her naked and bury himself inside her, to feel her hot and tight and wet around him.

  This is insane, Desiree told herself through her swirling senses. Her mind, usually so organized and efficient, was reeling with images, all of them erotic, all of them having to do with Roman.

  She imagined his mouth on her throat, her breast, could feel the scrape of teeth against her nipple. She envisioned his jet hair skimming across her breasts, his hot breath heating her flesh, trailing a fiery path down her body, until...

  No! She shook her head in stunned disbelief and made a desperate attempt to deny the sexual desire that had risen, unbidden, like a fever in her blood.

  Once again time seemed suspended as they each fought private, internal battles. A fist tightened in her stomach. Then lower. And although she’d always believed such a notion to be impossible, Desiree could feel herself going weak in the knees.

  Roman lowered his head until his lips were a whisper away from hers, watching as her eyes drifted shut in anticipation of his kiss. It would be so easy. So wrong.

  He paused, a desperate man caught on the edge of a jagged, treacherous cliff. One more step and they’d both go tumbling off into space. But perhaps the fatal fall would be worth it, he mused, tracing the shape of those ripe pink lips with the roughened pad of his thumb.

  He reminded himself that he’d always been known for the ability to shut himself off from all emotions. He knew the nickname he’d earned during his years as a district attorney, and while some men might have found the description unflattering, Roman had always been vaguely proud of having earned it in the first place.

  For five years he’d maintained an unprecedented conviction rate by keeping a cool head in the courtroom while prosecuting the perpetrators of the parish’s most heinous crimes. And just as it had been vital back then, some cold-blooded logic was definitely in order right now.

  At the last minute, a conscience he’d not been aware of possessing until recently, when the rapes had begun occurring, kicked in, and he managed to pull back. Both physically and emotionally.

  “Are those lamb chops?”

  “What?” Desiree blinked like a woman coming out of a trance. Her mind had been drifting in some floaty, warm place, prepared for the voluptuous pleasure she sensed he could bring to her. Instead, his casual, matter-of-fact statement brought her crashing back to earth.

  What kind of man was Roman Falconer? she wondered, to be able to turn from hot to cold with one blink of those dangerous midnight eyes? She sagged against the counter, feeling as if she’d been put through an emotional wringer.

  Roman viewed the disappointment in those lovely, liquid eyes and felt an answering regret deep inside him. “Are you broiling lamb chops?”

  “Oh.” She glanced around blankly at the stove, as if seeing it for the first time. “That was the plan.”

  Although he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, the aroma drifting from the oven, along with the clouds of steam rising from the boiling copper kettle, made Roman suddenly realize that he was famished. And not just for Desiree, although that hunger had not abated in the least.

  “And a great plan it is, too.” Unable to resist one last touch, he ran his palm down her hair, undeterred when she jerked away. “Thank you.”

  She was furious at him. Furious at him for toying with her emotions. Furious enough to want to cry. That had to be the reason she felt th
e hot sting of tears behind her eyelids, Desiree assured herself. She would not allow herself to care about a man who couldn’t even care about himself.

  It was one thing to lie to him about her unruly, confused feelings. That was, given the circumstances, only prudent behavior. The problem was she’d begun lying to herself as well.

  The truth was that she did want him. Worse yet, she cared about him. Too much for comfort.

  “I enjoy cooking.” Her tone turned as casual as his. “Unfortunately, with my hours at the station, I don’t have much time for it.”

  He could feel her distancing herself from the situation, from him, and realized it was for the best. “Well, whenever you find yourself feeling domestic,” he suggested, turning away to pour a glass of wine for himself, “feel free to drop by.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” When hell froze over. If she actually managed to escape from here tonight with her heart intact, she wasn’t ever coming back.

  That was, she admitted, as she watched him lift his wineglass to those harsh, masculine lips, another lie. For someone who’d always had a very strong sense of where she was going, where she wanted to be, Desiree realized that somehow, when she wasn’t looking, she’d lost control where Roman was concerned.

  As he watched the unwilling emotion flood into her eyes, Roman took a long gulp of the merlot. It was, he decided, going to be a very long evening.

  Somehow they managed to keep the conversation going over dinner. By mutual, unspoken consent, they did not discuss the French Quarter rapes. Instead they shared selected bits of biography.

  Although they’d both grown up in the exclusive environs of Audubon Place, they’d never met, due to Roman being six years older and Desiree having spent most of her youthful years in boarding schools in New York, Arizona and Switzerland.

  “I met your grandmother once,” Roman revealed. “At one of my parent’s dinner parties.” He frowned as he thought back on that evening, wondering how such a grim-faced harridan could possibly be related to this warm, emotional woman. “She was a rather formidable woman.”

  “Yes.” Desiree’s fingers tightened around her fork. “She was that.”