by Lori Wilde
“That’s my middle name.” Her eyes met his gaze and held it, but she did not stop massaging him.
“Cassie … you’ve been drinking.” He forcefully took her wrist and removed her hand from his body.
“So? You’ve been drinking too, and we’ve only had one shot of schnapps, so it’s not like we’re snockered.”
“I won’t take advantage of you.”
“Not even if I wanted you to?” She fluttered her eyelashes seductively.
“No!” he exclaimed, but she heard amusement in his voice. “Besides, I think you’re just bluffing. You don’t really want me to make love to you. You just like to tease.”
Oh, really? Is that what he thought of her? That she was all come-on and no substance?
They stared at each other, eyes locked.
Her need for him was building faster than she could have imagined. Who’d have thought she’d be all hot and horny for ol’ mismatched Harry?
But dammit, she was.
The glimmer in his eyes sent goose bumps marching up and down her arms, and she was wetter than a Slip’N Slide. Need for him, for his kiss, his touch, was a wild thing inside her, sending her heart thrashing wildly against her rib cage, throwing out all common sense.
“You think you have me figured out?”
“I do, or at least as much as anyone will ever have you figured out, Cassie Cooper.”
“Go ahead. Get it off your chest. Let’s hear it.” She jutted out her chin, daring him.
“You sure you’re ready for this? You might not like what I have to say.”
“Go ahead.” She raised a hand. “I’m all ears.”
“Remember, you asked for it.”
“Just shut up and analyze me.”
“Here goes. You act like you’re not afraid of anything. You hide behind your charm and your sex appeal and your gregarious talk. You have a hopscotch mind that often gets your body in trouble.”
“Oh yeah?” she said, because she did not know what else to say. It was true.
“Yeah. But in spite of your plucky personality, you really have a fear of exploring anything too deeply. You keep everything on the surface, which you mask by a fascination with many subjects. Your flirtation with pleasure is actually a flight away from pain. Ergo, your attempts to get me into bed are in reality nothing but a bluff.”
“‘Ergo’? Who in the hell says ‘ergo’? It’s little wonder you get called Poindexter.”
Cassie knew she was being defensive, but she was unnerved that he had figured her out so easily. Not even her own twin sister, Maddie, understood her motivations the way Harry did. It was amazing and a little disturbing.
She didn’t appreciate being dissected so accurately, and she wasn’t going to let him get away with it.
Cassie knew it was impulsive. She recognized that she was tipsy and that she was still vulnerable over her apartment breakin. And yes, maybe she was using pleasure to cloak her fears. She was on the verge of not only losing her job but potentially going to jail for the theft of a priceless artifact she didn’t even steal.
But something deep inside her whispered that this time was different. Harry was an impulse worth acting on.
“Go ahead,” she teased, reaching for the hem of her long-sleeved T-shirt. In one swooping motion she pulled it over her head. “Call my bluff.”
CHAPTER 12
Put your shirt back on.” It took every morsel of self-discipline Harrison possessed to say the words, but he had to stop Cassie’s insane seduction.
He tried not to look at her breasts, but damn him, they were so there. The thin material of her skimpy black-lace bra barely supported them, and from where he was sitting they looked solely God-given, not bestowed by a plastic surgeon.
“What’s the matter, Harry?” Cassie gave him a deadly wink. “Scared?”
Oh, hell yeah. His knees were knocking and his heart was rocking, but he wasn’t about to let her know.
She reached out and walked two fingers over his arm. “See anything you like?”
What didn’t he like!
Cassie had been blessed with full, round curves, a thick head of blonde hair, and luscious lips just made for kissing. She was the richest truffle at the confectionery, the fastest car on the showroom floor, the poshest vacation resort in the Caribbean.
Whereas Harrison ate low-carb, drove a ten-year-old Volvo, and when he’d visited St. Lucia, he had camped out in a pup tent on the beach.
She was uninhibited about her body and quite obviously sexually experienced. He was outclassed and out of his league, and he knew it. His last few relationships had been with colleagues. Calm, studious women who could either take sex or leave it, with no particular feelings about it one way or the other.
The gleam in Cassie’s eyes told him she cared about sex and cared deeply. How could he ever hope to measure up to her expectations? Or to satisfy her? She flourished on thrills and excitement.
Face the facts, you’re not an exciting guy.
Besides, he had been studying her over the course of the past ten days, and he was slowly starting to figure her out. If he made love to her after her apartment was ransacked, he would just be feeding into her habit of using pleasure in order to avoid dealing with a painful experience.
Ha!
Look who’s talking, accused a voice in the back of his head that sounded a whole lot like Adam. You hide your fears behind the acquisition of knowledge. How come it’s okay for you to cloak your fears, but it’s not okay for her? That sounds like a double standard to me.
He had to stop thinking about this. They had no future together whatsoever, and he wasn’t a one-night-stand kind of guy. And there was the time crunch. Even if he could bring himself to let go of all his doubts, he simply couldn’t afford the distraction.
“Put your shirt back on,” Harrison croaked.
He picked up the long-sleeved T-shirt she’d dropped on the floor and handed it to her. He was careful to keep his eyes averted from those mesmerizing breasts.
“Are you that prudish? Or are you just not attracted to me?” Cassie asked.
“How on earth could you possibly believe that I’m not attracted to you?”
“You’re not taking advantage of a primo opportunity. There’s gotta be a reason why. Is it me?”
“Are you that insecure?”
“Well, if it’s not me, I don’t get what it is with you.”
“Woman, I have a Godzilla-sized boner and sweat is dripping off my forehead.”
“So, what are you waiting for?”
“I just can’t handle this right now, okay? I’m worried about my brother. Imagine if it was your twin sister who was missing.”
“Oh. I see your point.”
That was good, because if she didn’t cover up soon he didn’t know what he was going to do. The pressure was building inside him, low and scorching hot. His penis ached and throbbed. If he wasn’t so adept at detaching from his emotions, he would already be pumping into her.
And getting yourself tangled in an intimacy that you can’t handle.
Cassie, with her verve and her zest for living, would quickly drain him of his resources. If he couldn’t even master his own libido, how could he hope to master anything else? If he lost control with her, he risked losing control in other areas of his life.
And if he lost control in other parts of his life, he would end up looking incompetent, useless, and incapable.
He couldn’t take that gamble. He had to stay emotionally distant and mentally on top of things. His ability to disconnect from his feelings had served him well for thirty-two years. No point mucking around with success at this stage of the game.
Cassie, however, was not cooperating with his plan for self-domination. Not only was her chest still bare, but she was audaciously undoing the snap on her pants.
Whoa!
“What are you doing?” he exclaimed. If she took off those Cadillac pants right here in his living room in front of him, he was done for
.
“Oh, settle down, Harry. I’m merely headed for the bathroom. I’m just going to take a shower and then pop into bed.”
“Really?” He opened one eye, feeling both relieved and disappointed.
“I’m not going to jump your bones. I just unsnapped my jeans to scare you. You can stop sweating. I get the message loud and clear. Your body might want mine”—she flicked a sly smile at his crotch—“but your brain won’t let you do the wrong thing, no matter how much fun we might have in the process.”
“I … I …”
“No need to explain.” She shrugged, hopped off the daybed, and reclaimed her backpack from the floor. “Long as you know, it’s your loss.”
“Button-pusher,” Cassie mumbled into the darkness as she lay on Harrison’s sofa. “Instigator, rabble-rouser, agitator.”
But she wasn’t talking about herself and the way she had tried to provoke Harrison into making love to her; rather, she was thinking about the way he had inflamed her without even being aware of what he was doing. The man was chock-full of untapped potential. If he ever decided to intentionally use his masculinity to his advantage, heaven help her.
He’d gotten to her so thoroughly, she’d wanted him so darned badly, she’d brazenly ripped off her shirt in front of him. She’d never done anything that inflammatory—and she’d done a lot of inflammatory things.
But she hadn’t lit his fire. At least not all the way.
Just thinking about her behavior made her cringe.
She’d stared him right in the eye and practically begged him for sex, and he’d turned her down cold. What was the matter with her?
Or rather, what was the matter with him? Most guys would have been octopuses. But not Harry.
He’d been a complete gentleman. Drat him.
In her mind’s eye she saw him as he’d looked, perched stiffly beside her on the couch. The man was graced with a razor-sharp mind, dark intelligent eyes, and an enigmatic way about him that commanded her attention. He was the trustiest horse at the stable, the wisest insurance policy at the agency, the calmest lullaby in the songbook.
Whereas she rode motorcycles, carried only liability insurance, and when she sang, she belted out rock and roll.
He was smart and quite obviously grasped concepts she would never understand. Half the things he said whizzed right over her head. She’d never been with a man more in touch with his mind than his body. He was brilliant. She could never keep up with him. He thrived on intellectual challenges.
And she was not a scholar.
She should forget all about what had not happened here tonight. She should ignore her body, still flushed from the excitement of kissing him. She should deny the ache low in her belly.
Frustrated, Cassie dug her fingernails into her palms. Just go to sleep.
But she couldn’t.
She flipped. She flopped. She couldn’t stand the torture. If she was going to get any sleep at all, she needed something to take the edge off.
Heave-ho went the covers. Her feet hit the floor. She retrieved her backpack and dug around inside until she found what she was looking for.
Ah, yes. Sweet relief.
Harrison couldn’t sleep.
Instead of mellowing him out, the peppermint schnapps had revved him up. Although he was probably giving too much credit to the peppermint liqueur and not nearly enough to Cassie’s inherent sexiness.
It was easier to blame the schnapps.
After twenty minutes of fighting the sleeping bag, he decided to get up and take a crack at trying to decipher the scroll. Just one problem. The scroll was still locked in the glove compartment of the Volvo. He would have to creep through the living room, tiptoeing past Cassie snoozing on his couch.
Knowing her, she probably slept in the buff. Without the benefit of covers.
He lay in the darkness a little while longer, but then curiosity got the better of him. He had to take another look at those hieroglyphics. If his brother—who was not the sharpest trowel at the dig site—had been able to decipher the Minoan hieroglyphics, there was no reason he shouldn’t be able to figure them out too.
Except that ancient Egypt had been Harrison’s only field of focus, whereas fickle Adam went on jags. He pursued whatever subject interested him at the moment. He had dabbled in everything from Egyptian to Greek to Mayan cultures. Grudgingly, Harrison had to admit his brother’s versatility might have given him an advantage. Or maybe Adam’s modern sensibility, his very edginess, had lent him the edge.
And, speaking of edgy.
Harrison felt as if he was hiking way too close to a steep canyon drop-off whenever he thought about Cassie. There was something compelling about her. Maybe it was her indomitable optimism that countered his natural pessimism. Even in the face of her ransacked apartment she had quickly rebounded. He wished he possessed such an elastic temperament.
I thought her exuberance got on your nerves.
Well, maybe he’d judged her a little harshly. Harrison had discovered his opinions often mellowed when he was in private. Maybe it was from growing up with a strong, domineering mother; maybe it was his instinctive loner tendencies; maybe it was just that when he got off by himself he really had time to contemplate. But it seemed his real enjoyment of being with other people came when he was alone. When he had adequate time to sit back and reflect on the interactions.
Alone, he could match up his memory with the feelings and try them on without the confusion and clutter of being expected to react in a certain way.
He thought of Cassie’s winning smile, her saucy wink, the sexy sway of her hips, and he got a soft, warm feeling in the dead center of his chest.
Okay, stop thinking about her. Focus on what’s important.
Resolutely, he turned his mind to the enigmatic hieroglyphics and his missing brother in order to keep it off his lovely houseguest.
But his resolution didn’t last long. Cassie was the most—and he was being crude here, but no other word truly fit—doable woman he’d ever had the pleasure to kiss.
Which was exactly the quandary.
He wanted her. He couldn’t have her. She was all wrong for him, and he was all wrong for her. He didn’t do runaway lust, and she didn’t do commitment.
He was just experiencing a physical reaction. Chemistry. It meant nothing.
You have a brain, Standish. Use it, for godsake, and keep your dick in your pants.
His dick, however, had a whole other agenda.
He tried to tell himself it was purely an intellectual pursuit that drove him from the sleeping bag, and not the insistent throbbing in his penis. He bought into his own line of bull. He would simply sneak into the kitchen without turning on a light, slip out the door, retrieve the scroll from the glove compartment of his car, and hightail it back to his office. He would not, under any circumstances, even glance over to see if Cassie did indeed sleep au naturel.
Two steps down the hallway and then he heard a soft, feminine moan.
Was Cassie dreaming? Or having a nightmare?
What if she was awake?
He almost pivoted on his heel and fled back to his office, but then she moaned again. It was a low, helpless sound.
Was she in pain? What if she needed his help?
He took a step forward but stopped, not sure what to do next. If she was asleep, he didn’t want to wake her; but then again, if she was having a nightmare, she might appreciate being awakened
The moaning deepened, grew more frantic.
She had to be in distress.
Then he heard another sound. It was odd, out of place. A strange buzzing rattle. A shiver played down his spine like fingers on a keyboard. He’d heard that sound before.
On a dig. In the desert.
Rattlesnake.
But how could a rattlesnake have found its way into his apartment?
Harrison froze. His mind spun. He thought of Cleopatra and Cassie. Of asps and rattlesnakes. Of regal women and poisonous vipers.
The rattling buzz grabbed him by the ears and shook violently. Trouble. Danger. Someone had stabbed a guy in a mummy suit. His brother was missing, an ancient amulet stolen, an enigmatic papyrus found. Someone had ransacked Cassie’s place. That same someone could have dumped a deadly serpent in his apartment.
“Harry.” Cassie called his name in a rough, achy whisper. “Harry, Harry, Harry.”
Had she already been bitten?
She must have heard him in the hallway. She was snakebit and calling out to him for help.
Galvanized, he rushed into the living room and flicked on the light.
And that’s when he learned that Cassie was neither sleeping nor bitten by a snake.
She was in the middle of his bed, murmuring his name as she pleasured herself with the most sophisticated rattling, buzzing sex toy he’d ever seen.
“Cassie!” Harrison’s scandalized voice broke through the sweet fog of her solo sexual adventure.
What? He had never seen a woman masturbating before? From the shocked expression hanging on his face, she deduced probably not.
“Good God, woman!” he exploded. “Have you no sense of personal decorum?”
Truthfully, Cassie was mortified to have been caught playing with the Rattler, but she wasn’t about to let Harrison know that she was anything but honest, open, and straightforward about her sexuality. She tugged the covers over her waist and blinked at him in the bright light.
Oh God, this was the most humiliating thing that had ever happened to her.
“Well,” she said matter-of-factly, totally ignoring that her body was burning up with embarrassment. “What did you expect? You turned me down.”
The Rattler buzzed and vibrated beneath the sheets, and Harrison’s gaze was fixed on the spot where it danced. “I … I … ,” he stammered.
Cassie blew out her breath. It wasn’t the first time she’d left a guy speechless, but it was the first time she’d ever had so much trouble collecting her thoughts. There was only one way to deal with this obloquy—turn it back on him.
“Come on, Harry. We’re both adults here. It’s okay to tell the truth—didn’t seeing me like that turn you on?”
“No!” he denied, but when his gaze, quick and furtive, fell below her waist, she knew he was lying.