by Diana Palmer
He laughed. “Not at all. We’ll stay the night and fly back tomorrow.”
“Cannon has a suite at one of the hotels there,” Victorine volunteered. “He spends a lot of time in New York on business, you know. It’s quite comfortable, and the food in the dining room is delicious!”
“And there’s a lock on the bedroom door,” Cannon murmured, watching her hunted expression and laughing wickedly when the others started chuckling.
“Don’t you dare seduce her,” Victorine informed her eldest, her face haughty. “I refuse to have my friend become just another of your conquests.”
Cannon grinned at his mother, looking devilishly handsome in a tailored gray vested suit that made him look darker and larger than ever. “She’d never be that,” he said, and his expression changed, softening, intensifying, when he looked at Margie.
Victorine saw the look and dropped her eyes, smiling into her coffee.
* * *
Margie sat quietly beside Cannon in the cockpit, watching his deft hands work the controls as the small jet darted up into the clouds.
She’d thought after Larry’s death that she could never bear to fly in a small plane again, but flying with Cannon was an experience. He was careful and confident, and she felt safer with him than she’d ever felt with another human being. It was odd how comfortable they were together, despite the fact that her pulse rate never seemed to slow down around him. She watched him handle the plane and wondered if he’d handle her as gently, as confidently. She was almost sure that he would, and she was more afraid than ever of what lay ahead.
Cannon’s hotel suite was deliciously luxurious, but Margie barely had time to put down her suitcase before she had to rush out and catch a cab to her agent’s office. She left Cannon in the suite with a convincing story about having to discuss some legality with her husband’s attorney. She hated the lie even as she was telling it, and she decided then that she was going to have to find a way to tell him the truth.
Her agent, Jim Payne, was waiting in his office for her, all smiles as he guided her to a seat beside Gene Murdock, who was half her agent’s size and twice his age and full of enthusiasm for the project of converting her bestselling saga of the Revolutionary War to film.
The discussion took a long time, but by the end of it she was convinced that Murdock would do a good packaging job. More important, Jim was convinced of it. They agreed on a contract, which would provide her with an advance that would make her future relatively secure. She shook hands with both men and got into the elevator in a daze.
One thing was certain, she realized: she was going to have to tell Cannon the truth quickly. The publicity would be out any day, and Silver McPherson would become even more notorious than she already was. She couldn’t bear it if Cannon found out from a third party. It would make her look even more guilty.
She went back to the hotel to find him on the phone, his dark brows drawn together, his lips making a thin line as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the receiver.
“No,” he said curtly, glancing toward Margie as she came in the door. “No, that’s not going to work. I told you, my attorney advised me to have that clause changed, and I’m not signing a damned thing until it’s done. Can I what? Oh, hell,” he growled, sighing roughly. “All right, where? What time? I’ll be there.” He hung up the phone with a bang.
“Trouble?” she asked.
He studied her, his hands jammed into his pockets. “Nothing I can’t handle. Unfortunately, it looks as if it’s going to take the rest of the day. I had a lot planned for us to do together.”
She shrugged. “I understand about business,” she said, smiling. “It’s all right.”
“It most damned well is not,” he ground out, moving toward her. He took her by the shoulders and pulled her slowly, sensuously, against his powerful body, his breathing suddenly as unsteady as her own. “Now, is it?” he challenged, and his hands caught her hips, urging them against his taut thighs in a lazy, disturbing motion.
She caught his hands, but that didn’t even slow him down.
“That’s it,” he murmured, his parted lips descending to her mouth. “Help me…”
She caught her breath as he moved, and she felt the hunger in him even before his mouth coaxed hers to open for the hot, hungry penetration of his tongue.
She moved, too, rocking with him as the magic of being in his arms worked on her, melted her. Her fingers went to the buttons of his shirt and tremulously opened the top four.
“Do you want to touch me?” he breathed into her mouth.
“Terribly,” she admitted in a stranger’s husky voice. Her fingers eased the fabric aside so that they could tangle in the thick hair on his warm chest.
He drew back a little, his breath catching as he watched her hands on his bare chest. “Lie down with me,” he said gruffly. “Let’s do it properly.”
She looked up and took a deep, steadying breath. “You’ve got a meeting.”
“I could miss it,” he said shortly.
“But you shouldn’t,” she murmured, reading his eyes.
He sighed heavily. “No,” he admitted.
She bent forward and touched her lips gently to his chest before she started buttoning buttons again, feeling him shudder at the light caress.
“I’d better buy a deadbolt for your bedroom door while I’m out,” he suggested gruffly. “And you’d better pile furniture against it.”
“I’ll dig a Burmese tiger trap at the doorway while you’re gone,” she promised, but her eyes were adoring.
He bent and kissed her, very gently. “I’ll be back as soon as I possibly can,” he promised. “Will you miss me?”
“I already do,” she said, and it was no lie.
He smiled, touching her cheek before he turned and went out the door.
* * *
They had supper at the hotel restaurant, and Margie found that she had a great appetite, fostered by the incredible happiness she felt by simply being with Cannon.
He was unusually attentive. His eyes never left her, straying constantly to the low neckline of her silver gown where it clung lovingly to every soft curve. He was a dish himself in evening clothes, so handsome that other women openly stared.
“If that redhead doesn’t stop ogling you,” she murmured over her dessert, “I’m going to take this delicious wine and pour a glass of it over her head.”
He laughed softly. “What a waste of good wine,” he said. He lifted the bottle and poured her another glass. It was an aged burgundy, very smooth, and she’d had more than enough already, but she was ignoring her own conscience. It might be the last evening she’d ever spend with him, because tonight she was going to tell him the truth about herself—if it killed her.
“Are you trying to get me drunk?” she murmured demurely.
“Not at all,” he replied, watching her over the rim of his own glass. “Just… relaxed.”
* * *
“You aren’t really drunk, are you?” he asked when they were back in the suite. Watching her closely, he shed his jacket and tie and flicked open the buttons of his shirt.
“I’m only relaxed,” she promised him. Feeling provocative and bubbling with happiness, she went to him and put her arms around his neck. “Very, very relaxed.” Her eyes clouded. The smile faded as she met his searching gaze. “And very, very much in love,” she whispered, the words slipping out so smoothly that she hardly realized she’d spoken aloud.
“Oh, God, honey,” he murmured, bending. His mouth took hers in a new, sweet way. She moved closer, hungry for him, loving him, needing him…wanting him!
His hands found the tiny straps that held her dress in place and eased them aside so that his mouth could brush softly across the soft, scented flesh of her shoulders, her neck, her throat—and lower, to the high, rounded curves of her breasts. He made an impatient sound deep in his throat and she felt the coolness of the room on her bare flesh as the dress fell suddenly into a sparkling pudd
le around her silver high heels.
Her eyes opened and she started to protest, but his mouth was taking possession of the curves he’d uncovered, his tongue teasing pink peaks into hard, sensitive points. His hands found new softness, touching, probing, faintly abrasive against silken skin, so confident and careful, so expert….
She moaned, arching against him, encouraging him, deaf to the tiny voice at the back of her mind that urged caution and restraint. She was so lost in sensation that she could hardly breathe at all. Her body belonged to him, and it was telling him so in every nerve, every cell.
She felt him lift her up in his hard, sure arms, and put his mouth gently, tenderly to hers.
“I’m too old for careless encounters,” he breathed into her mouth, “and so are you. If you let me have you, it’s going to mean a commitment. Do you hear me? It won’t be just sex.”
“I love you,” she whispered back. “I love you….”
“I’ll never let you go, Margie,” he vowed as he carried her down the long, dark hall. “Not as long as I live.”
“Don’t hurt me,” she whispered, a last tiny surge of fear trembling through her.
“Sweet treasure,” he murmured huskily, “that’s the one thing I’m not going to do….”
She clung tightly, her mouth lovingly tracing the hard lines of his face as he carried her into his own bedroom and closed the door behind them. The bed was soft under her back, and his formidable weight rocked her gently as he settled onto it beside her.
“The light, Cannon,” she whispered.
“Don’t you want to watch?” he murmured just above her mouth. “I do.”
Her heart pounded furiously. She lay still against the pillows, watching him as he sat up and gazed long and intently at the length of her silken body, clad only in her panties. She knew she was blushing, but she couldn’t help it. Larry, the only other man who’d seen her like this, had never cared for the sight of her “skinny body.”
“If I weren’t such a jealous man,” Cannon said finally, his voice unsteady, “I’d have you painted like this. But I couldn’t bear to have an artist see you this way. No other man. Only me.” He bent and touched her mouth tenderly with his own. His fingers traced a sweet, abrasive path around one perfect breast with an expertise that was shattering.
“Are you mine, Margie?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. She reached up to draw him down against her. “Always. As long as I live…longer….”
He slid his hands under her bare back, lifting, his palms warm against her silken flesh as he brought her up to him and kissed her softly. He eased his weight down on her yielding body so that she could feel every hard contour of him, the fabric of his clothing rough against her bareness. She moaned gently.
“You see how good it can be?” he whispered. His lips brushed hers, his teeth ardently catching and pulling the lower lip. “Here, darling,” he murmured, drawing her hand to the buttons of his shirt. “Open it.”
With a deftness she was unaware of, her fingers coaxed the buttons open and slid the silky fabric away from his broad, tanned shoulders, feeling the warmth and power in them with awe. She liked the way his skin felt under her fingers, the hardness of muscle, the sensuous maleness of the thick carpet of hair that made a wedge across his broad chest. She stroked it, tugging gently at the tangle of it, and smiled when she elicited a harsh groan from the mouth that was ardently crushing her own.
“You little witch,” he ground out, raising himself up to look at her smiling face, at the green eyes shimmering with raw excitement. “That was deliberate.”
“Accidental,” she murmured. Her hands slid onto his shoulders, his neck. “Larry never liked me to touch him,” she recalled, and her smile faded with the memory. “He didn’t like to touch me either, or look at me….”
“Stop looking back,” he said softly, holding her gaze while his fingers moved expertly down her body and made it go taut with desire. “You’re with me now, and I want to touch every inch of you.”
“I may disappoint you….”
“Never,” he said quietly. “You make me feel whole. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted in a woman, all the secret dreams a man hoards of his ideal. In no way could you ever be a disappointment.”
Tears blurred his image. She reached up to touch the long, masculine curve of his mouth. “Oh, I love you so!”
He moved, so that their bodies were touching at every point, her soft breasts crushed against the mat of hair on his chest, her legs brushing his, mingling with them as they strained together.
“It’s going to happen,” he whispered shakily as they kissed more intimately, the hunger they felt for each other overpowering. “I can’t stop.”
“I don’t want you to stop,” she moaned, arching. “Love me. Love me, make it stop aching!”
“Oh, God, what a sweet ache,” he breathed. His mouth was careful with hers, so tender that she could have cried. His hands gentled her, tracing slow patterns, preparing her for him.
“I’ve never wanted…anyone before,” she confessed as he pressed her back into the pillows. “I never loved…until now.”
“Be quiet, darling,” he whispered. “Lie still, and do what I tell you….”
“How wicked,” she said, trembling, waiting to be overwhelmed, possessed, taken….
“Not half as wicked as what I’m going to do to you now,” he promised with a triumphant smile when his hands moved and she cried out. “Yes,” he said breathlessly, watch-ing her. “Oh yes, that’s it, darling, welcome me….”
His hand went to his belt a wild minute later, then froze as the sudden sharp buzz of the doorbell burst into the silence like a bomb blast, shattering the silver intimacy into a thousand ragged shards, bringing back ice-cold sanity. And Cannon cursed like a drunken sailor, his face terrible.
“I hope whoever’s at that damned door has his life insurance paid up,” he said under his breath as he sat up and fought to calm his rapid pulse and ragged breathing.
“Oh, God…!” he groaned. His shoulders shuddered as he buried his face in his hands for a minute, his body rigid.
“I never would have stopped you,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
He drew in a harsh breath and eased his shoulders back. He glanced down at her with lingering regret as she pulled up the covers to her chin.
“What a shame,” he said softly, “to cover up such beauty.”
She managed a strained smile for him. “I’ve only just realized where I am, and why,” she confessed with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “You heartless seducer…”
“Me?” he burst out in mock outrage, standing up to find his shirt and tug it back on. “Like hell. You dragged me in here and tried to seduce me!”
“I never!” she retorted. She sat up, tossing back her dark, disheveled hair. “A gentleman…” she began, stressing the word.
“I’m not a gentleman,” he reminded her, glaring toward the hall where the doorbell was being repeatedly jabbed. “And you damned sure wouldn’t love me if I were, would you?” he added with a grin.
She peeked up at him through her lashes. “I’ll let you know when I’ve had several hours to think about it. You’d better see who it is. Maybe somebody called the police when they saw you bring a sweet young thing like me into your evil lair.”
“You’re sweet, all right,” he murmured, going toward the door. “If you’ll stay just as you are until I get rid of our company, I’ll express that a little more physically.”
“Oh, I’ve had my excitement for tonight, thanks,” she said. “I think…I’d like to do a little more thinking.”
He looked back at her, but he wasn’t angry—or even impatient. He smiled. “We’ll go at your pace, honey. I want you, but I’m not going to force you. See you in the morning.”
She nodded. “’Night.”
He winked as he went out.
* * *
The intruder was a business associate of Cannon’
s who wanted to discuss the contractual agreement he’d been working on all day. Margie was secretly grateful for the opportunity to steal away to her own bedroom and lock herself in. The wine had banished her inhibitions momentarily, but the interruption had brought them back with fresh intensity. Not only had she been willing to lay aside all her principles, she’d even admitted to him that she loved him!
She put on her gown and climbed into bed, her mind still on the feel of his hands, his warm, powerful body against her own bareness, the sweet aching crush of his mouth. She did love him—that was no lie. She ached for him in ways she couldn’t have imagined before.
And while he hadn’t admitted to sharing those feelings, he’d admitted to her that she was everything he wanted in a woman.
Of course, she reminded herself brutally, men were likely to say anything when they wanted a woman, regardless of whether or not it was true. And Cannon very definitely wanted her, she remembered, blushing.
She turned out the light and pulled the covers over her. In the morning, with a clear head, she’d think about it again. But right now, her fuzzy mind was only fit for sleep, not for untangling emotional puzzles.
* * *
The following morning she awoke with a start, sitting straight up in the wide bed. She bit her lower lip as she began to remember, her eyes closing when bits and pieces of what had happened came back to her.
Her long legs swung off the bed and she went to her suitcase, dragging out a pair of navy slacks and a white blouse. She hurried into the bathroom and showered quickly, grateful for the blow dryer that restored some order to her hair. She used more makeup than usual to camouflage the shadows under her eyes, the faintly bruised mouth. Reality seemed harsher by the morning’s light than it had the night before. She was glad now that the interruption had prevented her from making love to Cannon.
“Idiot!” she berated herself. “Oh, you idiot!”
She didn’t know how she was going to face him. If only she hadn’t had all that wine. If only she’d pulled away….
She packed her suitcase methodically and gathered it and her purse, slinging her navy blazer around her shoulders. She opened the door and walked slowly down the hall.