MacKenzie put her arm around Dakota’s shoulder. Suddenly remembering that she was there, Dakota glanced at her and saw concern in the woman’s face.
“Are you okay?” MacKenzie asked.
“Yeah.” She was a lot better than she could have been, Dakota thought humbly. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. “Just a little thrown, that’s all.”
MacKenzie took her hand in both of hers and examined her knuckles. “That’s going to bruise,” she predicted.
“It’ll give Albert someplace new to apply makeup,” Dakota quipped.
Looking over MacKenzie’s head, she frowned at the gathering. Camera flashes kept popping, coming from all directions. Exasperated, she covered her face, but there seemed to be no place to turn in order to get away from the persistent photographers.
MacKenzie’s expression told her that her best friend knew exactly what was going through her mind. “Look at the bright side, at least you’ll have something to tell the audience tomorrow.”
“Yeah, right. They’ll probably read it in the entertainment section of the Times first,” Dakota muttered.
As she sunk her head in her hands, she thought she heard something. Listening, she detected the wail of sirens in the background, cutting through the noise at the club. The music had stopped, but the lights continued to swirl, casting wild rainbows into every darkened corner of the place. The sirens grew louder. She looked at Ian and guessed he’d been the one to call the police.
Ian placed his body between her and some of the more eager photographers. “You want to wait in the car?” he suggested to her.
“No,” she countered, “I want to go home.” And she did. As much as she’d wanted to get out before, that was how much she wanted to leave now. But she knew it was impossible.
She thought she saw a hint of compassion on Ian’s face, but that could have been a trick of the lighting. “Right after the police take your statement.”
Restless, edgy, she didn’t know what to do with all the different emotions running through her, struggling for domination. In an unbridled moment she looked at Ian accusingly. “You know, this never happened to me before I went out with you.”
“You two dating now, Dakota?” A voice from somewhere behind all the flashes called out the query.
“He’s my bodyguard.” The response came without thought. God knew she didn’t want to be painted as paired off with anyone.
“Lucky for you you’ve got one,” a girl with tinted pink hair and serious eyes said to her as she leaned back against the bar.
“Yeah,” Dakota muttered, feeling anything but that. “Lucky.”
It felt like a century instead of three hours since she’d left the apartment. She flipped on the light and kicked off her shoes. The policemen who had arrived in response to Ian’s call had been polite and tried to hurry things along, but even so, she’d had to take a ride to the police station in order to give her full statement. Ian came along not just as her bodyguard but to add his piece of the story. Only MacKenzie had been free to go home. From her vantage point, the other woman hadn’t actually witnessed anything other than the haymaker Ian had awarded the would-be rapist.
Checking the lock, Ian turned toward her. “You really should get that security system installed.”
“Right.” She sighed, not wanting to get into yet another discussion about safety. She blew out a breath. “I guess I should thank you.”
He wasn’t in it for the thanks. Had he been independently wealthy, he still would have gotten into this line of work. It needed doing.
Ian shrugged carelessly. “Like you said, you can take care of yourself.” And then he looked at her knuckles, which were slightly swollen. “You’d better get some ice on that.” Even as he said it, he began walking into the kitchen to fetch the ice. “That’s a nice right cross you have.”
She flushed at the compliment as she followed him. “One of the stuntmen on Grandpa’s show gave me a few pointers the summer I turned sixteen.” That had been the summer she’d suddenly blossomed—a late bloomer, her mother had called her. Her grandfather worried that boys would try to take advantage of her and insisted she learn a few moves to keep her from harm.
Sliding onto a chair, she placed her right hand on the table. Ian brought over two ice cubes wrapped in a paper towel and gently applied them to the bruised area. She tried not to wince as the wet paper came in contact with her skin.
She raised her eyes to his.
Why did this feel so intimate? It was just ice. He would have done the same thing for a wounded puppy, she thought. And yet…
“I wasn’t going to let him pick me up, you know,” she heard herself saying.
“Uh-huh.”
“I wasn’t,” she insisted. “I just wanted to get out for a little while, but I’m not an idiot.” His expression remained unchanged. Her voice rose a little. “I don’t believe in looking across a crowded room, making eye contact and hearing violins.”
With ice leaking on one side, he flipped over and placed that side against her knuckles. “Doubt if you could in that place.”
Dakota frowned. “You know what I mean.”
Yes, he knew what she meant and he didn’t want to know anything else. The less he knew about her personally, the better chance he had of keeping this on a professional level. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”
“I’m not explaining myself,” she snapped, then shut her mouth as she took a deep breath. “Okay, I am explaining myself, but only because I don’t want you thinking—”
He headed her off before she said something that might embarrass them both. “What I think doesn’t matter.”
The interruption only served to annoy her. “Will you please stop contradicting me? You are the most perverse human being—”
“You know, it’s not necessary to have everyone think well of you.”
“It is if I can help it.” How had he known that about her? she wondered, irritated. “Damn, you have me all tied up in knots and confused.” A pin fell from her hairdo, and she put it on the table. “This is all your fault in a way, you know.”
“How so?”
The expression on his face was mild. He was humoring her. Dakota felt like beating on him with her fists, but that would only aggravate her bruised knuckles.
“If I hadn’t been so intent on getting some space between us—”
“You would have had eyes in the back of your head?” he guessed. “That was how that creep slipped that substance into your drink, just before he put his arm around your waist. The drink was on the bar behind you.” And had there not been a mirror set at such a angle that he saw what the man was doing, Ian thought, he might not have been able to save her.
Both she and MacKenzie were to have daiquiris. There was no guarantee she would have had the one on the end. “He could have wound up drugging MacKenzie,” she realized, horrified.
Ian nodded, shifting the wrapped ice cube pack yet again. “The guy took a chance. But from his point of view, he had nothing to lose.”
She intended to be at the man’s arraignment bright and early tomorrow. “He will if I can help it. Scum like that shouldn’t be allowed to roam free.” Rising, she flexed her knuckles. They felt stiff and achy already.
Ian stood and tossed the partly melted ice cubes into the sink. He nodded at her hand. “That’s going to feel worse tomorrow.”
She’d gotten more than one fracture as a tomboy and knew what to expect. “Not as bad as I would have felt if that creep had gotten away with what he was trying to do.” Rather than leave the room, she crossed to him and impulsively brushed a kiss against Ian’s cheek. “Thank you.”
The words, softly uttered, hung between them as Ian looked at her. She’d caught him completely off guard. Those same stirrings that had been invading and haunting him these last few days increased in magnitude, threatening to overwhelm him. He’d banked them down before, but this time they proved more difficult to hide away.
/> Impossible, actually.
Especially since, after kissing his cheek, Dakota didn’t retreat, didn’t even stop balancing on her toes, moving out of range.
Her lips were very close, very accessible to his.
The next happened as if it had been scripted somewhere. But not by him. He wasn’t given to impulse, not unless he was on the job, covering his partner’s back, reacting by instincts. Just the way he had while watching Dakota tonight in that nightclub, he realized. Then gut instincts had completely taken over.
Like now.
His hand spanning so that it partially framed her cheek, he cupped it ever so lightly as he brought his lips down to hers. He did it even as something inside of him ordered Stop!
He didn’t listen.
The noise from the nightclub was still partially throbbing in his ears. But not so loudly that he couldn’t hear the pounding of his heart.
Or maybe he just felt the rhythm so acutely it seemed he was hearing it. All he really knew was that kissing her felt wonderful.
Blood rushed through his veins the way it did whenever he entered an area blindly, unsure of the outcome. Every single nerve ending in his body was at attention. And absorbing the exhilarating pleasure that flooded every part of his body.
Wow. Oh, wow.
The refrain echoed through Dakota’s brain as the kiss he’d started deepened, taking possession of her, sweeping her off her feet at lightning speed. Without thinking, she leaned her bottom into his. Almost sealing it to his. Heat and warm thoughts came rushing at her from all directions, making her yearn.
Making her want him to want her.
Making her want him.
Almost outside her own body, she twined her arms around his neck, letting herself go further than she would have expected. Her whole body was quickening.
Waiting.
And then, suddenly unsure of herself, afraid of what she could be getting into, Dakota drew back. She pressed her lips together, tasting him. Tasting desire and feeling fear mingle in with it. She’d been here before, in this land of lightning bolts and tidal waves. Been here and then been cast adrift.
“Um, hold it a second. This is happening a little too fast. I—”
Rather than press, she was surprised to have him follow her lead. “My fault,” Ian acknowledged, backing away.
It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. A prisoner of confusion and scrambled emotions, she could feel irritation mounting. “No, damn it, it’s not your ‘fault.’” Did he think she was some kind of child, to be swept away by any man’s will? She was her own person, not some man’s puppet. “There you go again, making it seem as if I’m some kind of helpless little dolt—”
Without thinking, Ian touched his fingers to his lips. Unaware of what the simple action did to the woman watching him. “No, I wouldn’t call you a helpless little dolt.”
“You didn’t take advantage of me or the moment,” she insisted.
“Okay.”
The single word only served to inflame her further. “I wanted to kiss you as much as you wanted to kiss me.” She watched a corner of his mouth rise ever so slightly. He was still humoring her. She wasn’t getting through to him, damn it. What did it take? “Nothing happens to me that I don’t want to happen.”
He raised his hands in mock surrender. “Got it. You’re independent.”
“Damn straight I am.”
And then, as if to prove it, she threw away the life preserver that was securely around her. For all the world, Dakota felt as if she was on some kind of roller-coaster ride and couldn’t find a way to get off. She’d never behaved like this around anyone else, never felt like this around anyone else. Just what kind of buttons did this man press with her?
Desperate to prove her independence, she stepped back into the ring of fire.
This time she kissed him. Kissed him as if she was executing some kind of payback.
The moment she did, she immediately lost herself. She was free-falling. It was as if she’d opened a door and, rather than stepping out onto a balcony, found nothing beneath her feet except space. The air in her lungs backed up as she went plunging down a ravine.
Dakota held on for dear life as she felt her blood surging through her veins, heard some kind of wild rushing noise in her ears. She was hotter than she could ever recall outside of the one time she’d had the flu that first spring in college. But even that fever had been mild compared to the one consuming her right now.
Ian could feel his body priming, could feel himself wanting her. He never crossed this kind of line with a client. Ever. He was supposed to behave professionally, not like some smitten idiot fresh out of a monastery.
Which, in a way, he was.
He’d kept himself so busy with work, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d made love with a woman. No one had to tell him that having his wife walk out on him had left a devastating mark. Part of him had thought he could do without women.
That part stood corrected.
But it couldn’t be this woman. This woman was vulnerable, and no matter what she said to the contrary, if he pressed, if they wound up making love the way every bone in his body was begging him to, he’d be doing nothing short of taking advantage of her.
Like that scum cooling his heels in the holding pen at the police station.
Hands on her shoulders, Ian drew his head back and gently created space between them. It cost him more than he’d thought it would. But honor didn’t come cheaply.
Her lips looked slightly swollen. Something quickened inside of him, urged him to give in. He held fast to his position, even as it threatened to slip out of his hands.
“I think maybe it’s time to go to bed.”
Dakota wanted him to take her, to kiss her again until she was utterly mindless. She wanted him to carry her off so that she could pretend—to herself—that she wasn’t really to blame. That it was just one of those things that happened between a man and a woman. She didn’t want common sense intervening.
She took in a breath and looked up at him. Her mind was as clear as the harbor when a low-lying fog crept in. “What?”
Adorable. Now, there was a word that hardly ever crossed his mind, he thought, but it was applicable when used to describe the expression on her face. Adorable. “Separately.”
“Oh.” Disappointment crashed in on her. She blinked, trying to focus. The clouds in her brain remained. “Right.”
Stung, hurt, afraid of saying anything that might give her feelings away, she turned and walked away from him on shaky legs.
And slept not at all the entire night.
Chapter Ten
Awkwardness was not within her normal repertoire, yet that was what she felt the moment she went into the kitchen the next morning. Ian was there on the phone, making breakfast while he spoke in low tones to someone on the other end of the line.
Who? she wondered as she stopped in the doorway. His partner? Or some woman? Was the latter the reason he didn’t want to follow the natural path that was laid out for them last night?
Straining and holding her breath, she found she still couldn’t hear.
My God, I’m jealous. Jealous about some bodyguard cloned out of rock.
She really had fallen over the edge, Dakota thought, annoyed with herself. Damn it, it didn’t matter who he was talking to. Why should she care? In another week, this man with his piercing glance would be out of her life and this ridiculous charade would be over.
She nodded curtly at him as she took the coffee he’d prepared. She tried to wrap herself up in everything but thoughts of him.
Of course, it didn’t work.
It was a long day, made longer by the fact that she’d gotten next to no sleep the night before. Added to the irritation caused by sleeplessness had been her audience’s glee over the story featured not only inside the entertainment section, but also on the front page of the local news section. MacKenzie had brought it to her attention just before they’d gone on the air. The capt
ion had read: Talk Show Hostess Does More Than Talk and it had featured a photograph of her decking the creep who’d slipped the drug into her drink.
The second she’d emerged on the set, wild applause exploded. It escalated until she found herself the recipient of a standing ovation.
She’d glanced back to see Ian’s reaction, but as always, he looked stoic. That, too, irritated her. Didn’t anything register with this man on a personal level?
Had he felt nothing at all when they’d kissed last night?
She’d forced herself to push the question away.
The question-and-answer segment of her program threatened to take over the whole show if she didn’t call a halt to it. The audience’s disappointment could be felt in the first few minutes of the day’s major interview.
That hadn’t been the worst of it.
Members of her family called the minute they’d read the story on the West Coast. Her cell phone was constantly ringing. First her father, who’d gotten the heads-up from a fellow newscaster, then her mother. That call was followed by her grandfather, who read about the incident in the paper. It made her grateful that she didn’t have a large, extended family the way some people did.
Her brother, Paul, had been particularly testy because, in a fit of desperation, she’d shut off her cell for a while. That had apparently been just when he had begun trying to call her. Of them all, Paul was the one who was a little straitlaced. It occurred to her as she listened to him that he and Ian might hit it off very well if they ever met each other. Which they weren’t going to do, she reminded herself.
“I thought you were above that kind of thing.” Paul’s voice had been nothing short of accusing. She knew he hated being embarrassed. Her older brother probably figured their free-spirited mother was his only liability in that department. Surprise.
Still, she’d expected support from her sibling, not an upbraiding. “Some guy tried to slip a drug into my drink. It could have happened to anyone.”
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