by Sandra Field
Lise tugged at his sleeve and Jared struggled to pay attention to what everyone was saying. But, in spite of himself, his thoughts kept marching on. When he met a new woman, one he desired, he always felt very much in control of the situation. He knew all the moves: they’d never failed him. He always got what he wanted, and he got it on his own terms.
He could have Lise on his terms. Any time he liked.
Maybe that was why he didn’t want her.
Despite the fact that they’d been dating for the last couple of years, he’d never once gone to bed with her. There’d always been a reason for delaying that particular move—a sudden trip to inspect a resort in Kenya, a crisis in the Canadian oil fields, a slump in the stock market. Excuses, he thought savagely. Excuses to hide the uncomfortable truth that what was so easily achieved wasn’t worth having.
He could remember very clearly the night Lise had made her move. What instinct had warned him that she’d be as adept and passionless in bed as she was manipulative out of it? He didn’t know. But she’d been so sure of seducing him that his refusal to become her lover had shocked her. She’d recovered fast; he had almost been able to watch her inwardly balancing the Holt millions against sexual rejection, and opting for the money. Broadway fame was fickle, and she had no aptitude for movies. Lise wanted the security—both financial and social—that his fortune would bring her. So now she was biding her time: waiting with supreme confidence for him to change his mind.
Since he’d met Devon, it seemed highly unlikely he would. Devon wasn’t easy, like Lise. Devon had a fiery temper that she didn’t bother to hide and a tongue that could scour splinters from teak.
A body to die for.
She’d told him she didn’t want his money.
Sure, he thought. No one, but no one, was immune to the amount of money at his disposal.
The sooner he forgot about Devon Fraser, the better.
With new determination he danced with Lise and all the other women in their party; he made sure a large bundle of tin cans was tied to the bumper of the limo that was to take Benson and Alicia to Toronto for the night, and he waved goodbye as they left. Letting his eyes slide over Devon as if she were just another guest, he bent his head to listen to Lise.
“Darling,” she was saying, “would you mind if I stayed here overnight? I dread the drive back with the Westons; he’s such a bore.”
Jared said easily, “Better not, Lise. I’ve got to be up with the birds in the morning. I’m taking the early flight to Tokyo.”
For a moment he would have sworn he saw pure fury in her pale blue eyes, but with the tiniest of pouts she replied, “Whatever you say. But we see so little of each other…”
“I’ll be back in four or five days.”
“Dinner at the Plaza on Friday,” she said, “our usual table,” and stood on tiptoes to give him a lingering kiss on the mouth.
He felt absolutely nothing. A big fat zero.
What the devil was wrong with him? Any number of men would give their eye teeth to be kissed by the beautiful Lise Lamont of Broadway fame. But all he felt was a ferocious impatience for her to be gone.
It took him ten minutes to maneuver her and the Westons into their Lincoln and see them off down the driveway. Then several other guests cornered him. Jared detached himself as quickly as he could and found himself jogging toward the dance tent. The band was playing hard rock and the remaining guests were settling in for the duration. Devon was nowhere to be seen.
He stood very still. His heart was pounding in his chest and his gut was churning. Neither of these symptoms had anything to do with his jog across the grass. Was it lust he was suffering from? Rage that she should have disappeared? Or an ugly combination of the two?
Patrick and his buddies looked as though they were set for the rest of the night—Patrick tended to party hard on his rare visits to civilization. Jared went up to him. “Have you seen Devon?”
Patrick looked around vaguely. “Last I saw she was dancing with Gerry. Sorry, ol’ man.”
Jared made the rounds of the other tents, knowing as he did so that his search was hopeless. Devon had had almost no sleep for the better part of two days and the wedding was virtually over. She’d gone to her room. And why should she bother to speak to him first? They’d done nothing but fight since the moment they’d met.
Stray cats had nothing on him and Devon.
He was damned if he was going to knock on her door like a lovesick adolescent. Besides, if she was on the other side of it, he’d want to knock it down.
Maybe she’d gone back to Toronto. Away from “The Oaks” altogether. After all, she’d said goodbye to him on the dance floor. Goodbye. As if it had happened only moments ago, he could remember how her blue eyes had blazed like the opal on her breast.
He ran for the front door, his palms ice-cold. Her red Mazda was still parked in the driveway. For a moment Jared leaned his hand on the smooth red hood, as though the contact could tell him something about its owner. Then, with a gesture of self-disgust, he stripped off his bow tie and took the front steps two at a time.
CHAPTER FOUR
DEVON blew her nose on a tissue she’d found in the pocket of her jeans, scrubbed the tears from her cheeks on the sleeve of her ribbed shirt and gave the mare’s forehead one last rub. “Thanks, old girl,” she whispered. The mare tossed her head, then nuzzled at Devon’s fingers.
At the barn door Devon said a soft word of thanks to the security guard, who’d let her in due to her status as Benson’s new stepdaughter. “Goodnight.”
“Night, miss.”
She could still hear the echo of music from the garden. For a moment she leaned on the fence, gazing unseeingly at the neatly raked show ring. Ever since her mother’s third marriage, to Bertram, the British earl, Devon had found true comfort in the company of horses. Those were the years she’d been sent to that horrible day school, where her Canadian accent and her lack of sophistication had made her the target of everything from teasing to ostracism. But in the evenings the earl’s head groomsman had taught her the intricacies of dressage and the sheer joy of showjumping, both of which she’d taken to by instinct. More importantly, he’d taught her to treat each horse as an individual with something to say to her.
It was the horses who’d kept her sane those four years, until the earl had dumped her mother for a Swedish heiress and she and Alicia had moved to Texas to live with the oilman. There she’d learned a very different style of riding. But the horses had been the same, offering her companionship in the face of what she now realized had been a long-term, crushing loneliness.
Tonight, after she’d left the tent, too exhausted to think of sleep, she’d stripped off her turquoise dress, changed into jeans and fled to the stables for the simple comfort of the scent of hay and the touch of noses sleek as velvet. She didn’t know why she’d cried.
It was everything to do with weddings and nothing to do with Jared.
She straightened, knowing she was still too restless to go indoors. But she wasn’t going to start thinking about Jared Holt. No way. So what if his sexual expertise had dissolved all her defences? Not to mention her knees. His attitude toward women in general, and toward her mother and herself in particular, gave her the creeps. Shoving her hands in her pockets, she wandered toward the rose garden, whose clustered blooms scented the air seductively. A few more minutes of solitude and she’d be ready to settle for the night.
“So there you are.”
Devon whirled, watching a man detach himself from the ancient rhododendrons that flanked the white-painted barn. Jared. Of course. Still in his black trousers and crisp white shirt, now minus tie and open at the throat. A light from the end of the barn illuminated his sculpted features. She said sharply, “I’m tired…I’m going indoors.”
“You’re going the wrong way.”
She hated the mockery in his voice. “Jared,” she said carefully, “do you ever see a woman as a person?”
“Turning al
l touchy-feely on me, Devon?”
“Not very likely.”
He stepped closer. “You’ve been to the barn.”
It was her turn for mockery. “Do I smell of horses? Sorry about that…I’m sure Givenchy is more to your taste.”
He was standing so close to her now that she could have reached out and touched him. He said roughly, “You’ve been crying.”
“I haven’t!”
He suddenly looked murderous. “Did someone do something to hurt you?”
She said shrewishly, “Your father married my mother. Isn’t that enough?”
“I wish to God you’d drop this holier-than-thou attitude that you’ve got a soul above money!”
“And I wish you’d look further than your bank account! Or do you depend on it to prop up your masculinity?”
“Lay off, Devon,” he said with menacing quietness.
She tossed her head. “Hitting too close to home?”
He ticked off on his fingers. “We both know how you responded to me on the dance floor. You despise my money—or so you say. Therefore in your eyes my so-called masculinity must be separate from my bank account. Come on, Devon, you can’t have it both ways.”
“Oh, logic,” she said irritably. “You and the Greeks. Come to think of it, you and Aristotle share much the same opinion of women. Animalistic airheads.”
To her annoyance, Jared was laughing at her. “So much for the greatest philosopher who ever lived. I’ll tell you one thing—you don’t bore me.”
“Gee, thanks.”
He looked younger and devastatingly attractive when he laughed, Devon thought uneasily, and was seized with the sudden desire to make him laugh again. Subduing it, she heard him say, “I’ve got an idea—a perfect antidote to too much wedding.”
She said moodily, “Fifth time lucky? I wonder what the odds are?”
“Is your mother the reason you have a job that doesn’t allow for commitment?”
“Do you turn into a shrink after midnight?”
He laughed a second time, his teeth very white. “You didn’t ask what my idea was.”
“I’m scared to,” she said, scowling at him.
“It’s very simple. I’m starving. Too much puff pastry and wedding cake—I could do with a good old-fashioned hamburger. What do you say we raid the kitchen?”
Her lips quirked. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He took her by the hand. “Come along.”
Devon liked the feel of his palm against hers, and in the leather thongs she’d bought in a bazaar in Delhi she was much shorter than he, which also filled her with an obscure excitement. But she wouldn’t get into any trouble making hamburgers. There was something very asexual about ground beef.
He led her past the barn through a side door of the house, then down a passageway into a kitchen that was like an elaborate warehouse for fancy equipment. “Your mother,” Jared said, “plans to put up frilly curtains.”
“My mother loves frills,” Devon responded gloomily. “You should have seen Dunton Castle by the time we left.”
“Lace on the portcullis?”
“And gingham on the dungeon door… You know what? I’m hungry, too—where do you keep the onions?”
The hamburgers were delicious. Jared, like herself, liked them smothered with relish, peppers and ketchup, and dripping with melted cheese. Devon took her last bite and gave a sigh of repletion. “My cholesterol count’s probably hitting the roof and I feel a great deal better.”
Jared had splattered grease on his shirtfront. Somehow that made him a lot more human. And he hadn’t once tried to touch her in the last hour. So Devon just grinned when he reached over with a piece of paper towel and said, “Hold still—ketchup on your chin.”
“Only ketchup?”
His eyes intent, he scrubbed at her jaw. Then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he ran his finger along the soft curve of her mouth. “You’re so beautiful,” he said huskily.
Now was her chance to run, Devon thought wildly, and mumbled, “I had five minutes to pack—these are my oldest jeans and my hair’s a wreck.”
Taking his time, Jared looked her up and down. Her hair was indeed falling out of its pins. Her ribbed sweater hugged her breasts and her high-arched feet were bare in their worn sandals. He said, “You could wear a feed bag and you’d look ten times better than anyone else at the wedding.”
“When you look at me like that, I melt…just like the cheese,” Devon said unsteadily.
“You taste much better than cheddar,” he said and pulled her to her feet, kissing her until she whimpered with pleasure in his arms and any thought of running away had vanished, lost in the flames of a passion she’d never known she was capable of. She kissed him back, feeling him cup her breast under her sweater, longing for the more intimate touch of flesh on flesh. Then, suddenly, Jared swung her up into his arms and pushed his way through the kitchen’s swing door.
Against her right knee she could feel the thudding of his heart. She had, instinctively, put her arms around his neck; the hair at his nape was as silky as she’d thought it would be. Fighting back the urge to stroke it, she sputtered, “Jared—put me down.”
He was now climbing a set of stairs she hadn’t seen before. “Watch your elbows,” he grunted.
“Put me down, I said—where are we going?”
“Where do you think? To bed.”
“We can’t do that!”
“We sure can. What’s to stop us?”
She wriggled in his grip, feeling as impotent as a fish on a hook. “For starters, we don’t like each other.”
“You’ll like what we do together,” he said confidently.
He was now striding down a long hallway, lined with a set of old hunting prints. It must be a different wing of the house, Devon thought confusedly. “We aren’t going to—”
“Nearly there,” he said, fumbling with the handle of the end door. It swung open onto a suite of rooms that overlooked fenced meadows and the black bulk of the distant forest. Jared pushed the door shut and put her down, sliding his hands down her arms and searching out her mouth as though he could brook no delay. He kissed her with an intensity that made Devon’s head swim, his tongue dancing with hers, his hands traveling the length of her spine, up and down, in a hypnotic rhythm that filled her with pleasure.
Unconsciously she arched toward him, looping her arms around his neck. He whispered against her lips, “Tell me you want me, Devon.”
Very slowly, she drew back. Standing tall, she said, “Of course I want you. But—”
“I want you, too…more than I can say. Tonight is for us, Devon. No yesterday. No tomorrow. Just tonight.”
Slowly Devon let her eyes wander over his face, wondering if she looked hard enough, deeply enough, she could somehow fathom this man who compelled her toward him yet was so much an unknown, frightening, and hostile quantity. He bore her gaze steadily, without smiling, giving nothing away.
Go to bed with him, a little voice whispered in her ear. What better way to get to know a man?
Run a mile, said another voice. You swore off intimacy seven years ago, and Peter didn’t make you change your mind. Okay, so Jared’s a hunk and your blood’s in an up-roar. Hormones, Devon. Estrogen meets up with testosterone. Nature’s way of making sure sex never goes obsolete.
Jared’s hands were still resting on her shoulders, their warmth spreading irresistibly through her body. He was standing so close to her she could count his individual lashes; she found him utterly desirable. When had she ever felt such a storm of passion from one kiss? Such raw hunger, such desperation? Despite all her travels, she’d lived—her eyes widened at the insight—very safely ever since Steve had so grievously deceived her. No risks. Always in control of her sexuality. Never letting anything—or rather, anyone—get out of hand.
Peter would certainly agree with her. She’d never gone to bed with Peter.
But Jared Holt had broken through all those bounda
ries.
As though he was impatient with her silence, Jared said forcefully, “I’ll be good to you, I swear.”
“And if I choose to leave right now, will you try and stop me?”
“Force has never been my specialty.”
If he’d been any other man, Devon would have sworn she’d hurt him with her question. But the idea was ludicrous with someone as well armored as Jared. She said with stubborn pride, “I am not after your money.”
The pulse throbbing at the base of his throat, Jared said, “This is about sex, Devon. Nothing more than sex—I meant it when I said there’ll be no tomorrow—but certainly nothing less. I think Aunt Bessie hit on something—we strike sparks in each other. I don’t know why. I don’t really care. But believe me, I’m not usually this unsubtle.”
With a flicker of unwilling respect, because he was being brutally honest, Devon stood very still. She could choose. That was what he was saying.
He was like the tiger she’d seen padding through the shadows in the jungle near Bengal: untameable, calling to her in some elemental way. One thing he was not, and that was safe.
Somehow she knew she had her answer. She was sick to death of safety. It had taken a meeting with a man with hair as black as night to show her that truth.
Devon reached up and with her fingertips very deliberately traced the hard jut of Jared’s cheekbones, the taut line of his jaw, the warmth of his lips; her face was intent as she allowed the astonishing intimacy of this exploration to heat her blood. Then, burying her hands in his hair, she drew his head down and kissed him with a boldness she hadn’t known was hers.
For a moment she felt his utter stillness, as though at some profound level she’d taken him by surprise. Then he took her in his arms, fiercely and possessively, like a man who’s waited too long to fulfill a need as basic as food or air. Their kiss deepened as they strained toward each other, Devon making tiny sounds of pleasure deep in her throat as she opened to him with a generosity that, she dimly sensed, she’d trammeled for years.