Improper Conduct

by Patricia Rosemoor

  “You know why.”

  “No, I really don’t.”

  And she didn’t seem inclined to enlighten him. She sat a yard away, knees drawn up, arms wrapped tightly around her legs. The candlelight flickered, picked up silver highlights in her pale hair. She looked almost…innocent. And unhappy. He held out a soft-shelled taco wrapped in paper.

  “Here, eat,” he said, pushing it toward her.

  Reluctantly, she took it and peeled back the paper. Then she took a tentative bite. “Mmm, this is good.”

  Nick grinned. The tacos were okay food, certainly not gourmet, but she was licking her lips as if they were the best thing she’d ever tasted.

  She’d always had a deep appreciation for good food, he remembered, not like other high school girls who were always driving guys nuts counting calories. He’d liked that about her.

  He’d liked so much about her.

  He’d loved her….

  Not wanting to recollect anything—not the little things that had once seemed so important, not the way he’d felt—he said, “When you’re hungry—really hungry, as in not having eaten for days—anything edible tastes heavenly.”

  Mouth stuffed with the rest of the taco, she mumbled, “Thank goodness we don’t know what that’s like, right?”

  Nick avoided answering. Instead, he handed Isabel another taco, which she attacked as greedily as the first. He watched her eat, mesmerized by the way she bit into the food, the shine of her lips and the way she darted out her tongue to get at the grease at the corner of her mouth.

  The past intruded again, leaving him wondering how he could have been so wrong about her all those years ago.

  Suddenly, he asked, “What is it you want out of life, Isabel?”

  “What?” She swallowed her mouthful of food. “You’re in the mood for a philosophical discussion?”

  “I’m just wondering what kind of a person you’ve become.”

  What kind of a person she’d been all along. For the truth was, he hadn’t known her at all.

  She stopped eating and stared at him. “You mean, am I like my father? Yes, in some ways I am.”

  “You didn’t have to tell me that. I found that out firsthand.”

  Her eyes widened. “That’s not what I meant, Nick.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “The way I broke up with you. That is what you’re referring to, right?”

  “You think that’s all I have on my mind?”

  Her eyebrows drew together, and the nerves that had overtaken her before became apparent once more. “Now…considering the circumstances…maybe.”

  “What circumstances?”

  “That we’re going to…uh…that I’m going to…well, considering the deal we made and all.”

  Forget the damn deal. Be honest with me. That’s all I want from you, he thought.

  Now who was the liar? He wanted more all right, just not the way the cards had been dealt. In the end, he wouldn’t go through with their bargain, wouldn’t use her, even if she had once used him.

  Nick knew who he was.

  “All right,” he finally said. “I admit I’ve given that last time we saw each other some thought.”

  Isabel sat very still. He imagined he could hear her struggle for breath. Imagined the glint in her eyes was not just candlelight but the sheen of unshed tears.

  When she spoke, she did so in a whisper. “I’m sorry that I was so cruel.”

  Nick started. The last thing he’d expected was an apology. “Then why were you?”

  He remembered that desperate night when he’d gone looking for her to tell her she wouldn’t see him for a while. He’d found her with her friends and when he’d tried to get her aside, she’d laughed at him, told him that he’d been an experiment—that she’d wanted to know what the other half was like—and now she was bored with him. She’d not only driven him away, she’d driven a stake through his heart.

  “Why, Isabel?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters!”

  “I said I was wrong. Isn’t that enough for you?”

  Enough for him? “No!”

  “I did you a favor,” she said, seeming unable to look at him. “We had no future together and I knew it. Hell, you knew it. I was only sixteen, too young for a serious relationship. And you were behind in school….”

  “Which your father hated.” Grayson had deemed him worthless without even knowing the circumstances. “I’m sure he talked me down every chance he got.”

  “Yes, my father did hate your being behind a year, just like he hated your disappearing acts. You can’t blame him for not wanting his daughter to be with a boy he thought wasn’t stable.”

  “Is that how you felt?”

  Her gaze slid away from his. “You were ready to graduate,” she continued, “and talking about not going on to college—”

  “College isn’t everything in life! Besides, you need money to go to college.”

  “Well, you got there somehow, didn’t you?”

  Staring at her perfect profile a moment, he finally said, “Eventually.”

  Someone with all the privileges in life had no idea what it had taken him to get there mentally. That had been the hardest part—believing in himself enough to get the education.

  “But back then you would have stuck around just for me,” she said softly.

  “I loved you!” he grated.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She was sorry? Because he’d really loved her or because of the way she’d ended things?

  “It was for the best. I let you go the only way I could think of.”

  “You let me go? You drove me away!”

  When he’d gone that night, he’d taken nothing with him but humiliation and heartbreak. He hadn’t cared what happened to him, how he got along. He’d done things to survive that she would never understand.

  He was a different man than he might have been.

  And now she was trying to convince him that she’d destroyed him for his own good.

  THE SUDDEN SILENCE CHILLED HER. Isabel felt the back of her throat thicken so that she could hardly swallow.

  Somehow, rather than appeasing him with an apology, she had angered Nick in a way that she couldn’t have anticipated. She felt it in his stare, in his body, which suddenly seemed stiff as a rock-hard wall, even from a distance. He was barely breathing, as if the air around her was tainted and he didn’t want to be poisoned by it.

  Needing an escape, if only for a few minutes, she said, “I, uh, need to use the facilities.”

  Flying to her feet, she grabbed her Maglite and whipped out of the room and to the toilet, where she closed the door for double privacy.

  She’d slipped the cell phone in her pocket and meant to make that call to her father as promised. Flushing and turning on a faucet so that Nick wouldn’t hear her, she punched out the number.

  “It’s me,” she whispered when her father answered. “No Louise yet.”

  “Can you count on Novak?” he demanded.

  “If anyone can find her, Nick can,” she hedged, while wondering the same thing herself.

  Once, she would have known the answer.

  “How’s Mother doing?”

  “I would say that your mother is holding up better than one might expect. But then, Natalie has never allowed anyone to share her feelings.”

  Did that include him, her husband? Isabel wondered. She never had understood her parents’ relationship, never remembered seeing affection between them. Cool civility was more like it. Unless they were before the cameras, of course. Then they were the consummate actors, playing at being a loving couple.

  Isabel was mulling over the cause of their personal estrangement when her father asked, “By the way, where are you now?”

  “Don’t worry. I’m fine.”

  She gave him a few particulars about the search and agreed to report back to him the next day. Only after she hung up did she realize that, tho
ugh she’d reassured him on her own, her father hadn’t actually asked about her well-being.

  Not that she was shocked. Or even surprised. As always, he simply assumed that she could take care of things—even herself.

  But Isabel wasn’t so sure of that. Not now. Not with Nicholas Novak, her Achilles’ heel.

  Why had she apologized to him? Why? And why had her apologizing made him so angry? She couldn’t even imagine his reaction if she told him the whole truth.

  And now she had to sleep with him.

  Hating the position that her father had put her in…no, be truthful, Isabel, she told herself—the position she’d put herself in…she took a deep breath, opened the door and went to face the music.

  Back in the makeshift bedroom, Nick looked at her through eyes that appeared to be dark pools in the candlelight. She felt devastated.

  She couldn’t stand it. She really couldn’t. How the hell was she supposed to have sex with a man who seemed to hate her?

  This was supposed to be a business deal. Nothing personal. At least no emotions involved. What had changed? Why was he looking at her like that and why did she feel as if she were going to explode?

  Closing her eyes for a moment, Isabel gathered her energies to do what she had to.

  Yet when she opened them and discovered Nick still staring at her, she found her voice was tight. “Aren’t you going to get undressed?”

  “I thought I would leave that to you.”

  “Will I have to pick you up and stand you on your feet so I can do it?”

  He rose. “I’ll take pity.”

  Would he? Isabel wasn’t sure. When Nick stopped directly in front of her, she wanted to hit him for confusing her so.

  And, just as much, she wanted to kiss him.

  The thought suddenly appalled her. Kissing was too personal. Too emotional. She couldn’t kiss him and then go through with it.

  Instead, she pulled his T-shirt free of his jeans. Her fingers grazed his abs, rock hard, and he quickly sucked in his breath. She felt her pulse pick up.

  “Do you have a lot of experience undressing men?” he asked.

  “Enough.”

  “I imagine the others probably wear suits, though. And ties. And shirts with little buttons that—”

  “Stop! Please.” She pulled his T-shirt up, and he lifted his arms in compliance. Even so, she had to move closer to get the damn thing over his head. “Do we have to talk?” she choked out as her breasts brushed his now-naked chest. “Can’t we just do this?”

  Ripping the T-shirt free of him, she stood back and took a shaky breath.

  He hesitated only a moment before saying, “I guess you really can.”

  Whatever that meant…

  Thankfully, one of the candles had gone out, so she couldn’t see him all that well. Doing it in the dark would help her remain dispassionate.

  But undressing a man made it hard to be dispassionate, no matter how quick or clinical she tried to be. The sound of his zipper seemed to echo throughout the abandoned building and skitter up her spine. It was especially hard when in the midst of removing his briefs, he practically sprang into her hand. At the same moment, she heard a sound issue deep in his throat.

  Her own breath caught as she surrounded him with fingers that trembled. He made another sound, but it was apparent that he was trying not to, was trying to hold back from enjoying this too much.

  She took the challenge, though, slipped her hand along his entire length with agonizing slowness until he groaned aloud. Her response was instantaneous. Her breasts tightened, the tips hardening and prodding the soft material binding them. And with each succeeding stroke to him, the sensation in her spread and deepened until her very center set on fire.

  As if he knew it, as if he could smell her heat, Nick groaned and reached for her. He unsnapped and unzipped her jeans, dipped his hand inside and tested her through her panties, which quickly became damp against his fingers.

  “You’re ready,” he whispered, tugging her jeans so they dropped to her ankles.

  She thought he might take her there like that, but he dropped to the floor and removed her shoes and socks, then freed her of the jeans, all the while making love to her calves and the backs of her knees with his hands and fingers until her legs gave and she tumbled down next to him.

  She knelt on the sheet and peeled off her T-shirt. He lay there, on his back, one knee slightly raised. She could barely see him, but flickers of candlelight showed her enough male flesh that she couldn’t help but be aroused. She was only human, after all.

  And, once upon a time, she had loved this man.

  Closing her eyes, she touched him, starting at the knees and working her way up, now avoiding the part of him she would have to satisfy.

  He touched her in return. His hand cupped her hip and moved lower until it hit her panties.

  “You forgot something,” he murmured.

  “I didn’t forget.”

  “You always did like to do things the hard way.”

  A reference to the past before they’d actually made love. She’d refused to take off her panties, so he’d first used his fingers and then his mouth on her through the material to make her come. Suddenly, just remembering, she felt trembly and a little faint.

  And oh, so wet. The reminder and his hand still on her satin-covered flesh set off her hormones, stronger than any doubts or any sense of humiliation.

  What she was feeling instead was hot and excited, and what she wanted was the satisfaction of knowing Nick as a man, allowing him to know her as a woman. They’d been little more than children before. Fumbling children who had learned about sensuality with each other. Now they had experience and the result of their making love could only be mind-blowing. She had no doubt.

  A syrupy sensation flowed through her veins, and her woman’s flesh throbbed for the feel of him hard and slipping against her.

  She closed her eyes a moment and saw it. A close-up like he might do in one of his videos. She could visualize him, thick and dark and pulsing as he slid into her, burying his shaft to the hilt.

  Taking a shaky breath, she leaned over and licked him, starting on his inner thigh, working past his cock and up his stomach. The warm, hard flesh that brushed her cheek jerked slightly and the wet heat between her own legs intensified.

  She closed her mind to her prior objections, to unfulfilled desires of the heart. She had needs gone unsatisfied for too long and she couldn’t think of anyone she would rather be with to take care of them.

  They were here.

  He was hard.

  She was ready.

  They had a deal.

  And she was going to take advantage of that for a night they would both remember.

  Slipping out of her panties, she straddled him with her back to his front. Liquid pooled at her entrance as she rolled his head between the tips of her fingers and moved her bottom so that she spread herself over him.

  His hands smoothed her naked buttocks and lightly kneaded her flesh, but other than that soft encouragement, he did nothing to force her. It was as if he was letting her make the final decision, not knowing, of course, that it was already made, that she had no choices. She couldn’t stop herself if she wanted to. And she didn’t want to.

  With agonizing slowness, she braced her hands on his thighs and eased herself down on him, taking him inside her, inch by inch. He grunted and she felt him arch into her to go even deeper.

  She remained poised with him buried inside, remembering the last time she’d been with him. The first time she’d been with a man. It had all been so different then. She had been madly, deeply in love.

  Her heart palpitated, but she told herself it was the excitement, the hot drive of the moment.

  Moving a hand off his thigh, she slipped it down under his penis and pulled up her bottom until her wet opening was barely covering his tip. Then she slid her fingers up and down his erection slick with her own moistness until the sensation forced him to move,
to try to bury himself once more. He grasped her hips and rocked up into her until she lost her sense of control.

  She simply rode him then, searching for that elusive state that would free her from the mounting tension.

  “Let me,” he urged, bringing his hand around her so that he inserted it between them.

  With the first stroke against her clit, she left it to him, leaned forward once more and grabbed his thighs just above the knees. The pressure mounted rapidly, and she shuddered deep inside. She lost the last of her inhibitions. Freed of thought, she just wanted to come. Wanted to make him shout with pleasure. But the pace was out of her control.

  It felt like a race to the finish—her riding him, him stroking her until, in a searing moment, her passion flared and she cried out only to hear his voice join hers, only to feel the gush of semen flood her as they came in tandem.

  Isabel felt as if an emotional dam had burst in her, as well, and she was too enervated to do anything but let Nick pull her off him and onto the floor, where he tucked her into his side.

  This almost felt right, she thought, curling a leg around his. Almost…if she didn’t know better.

  They’d had good sex, but that didn’t mean anything. She’d made a deal, she reminded herself. And with that she’d have to be content. Still, she couldn’t help but long for more even if she hadn’t believed in fairy tales and happy endings for a very long time.

  She couldn’t help but pretend.

  But as she lay in Nick’s arms, listening to his breathing smooth out as he fell asleep, his face in her hair, an irony hit her.

  Unlike the last time she’d been with Nick, in this situation she would have her father’s wholehearted approval.

  7

  SENATOR WILLIAM GRAYSON stared out the bedroom window into the dark Chicago night as if he could divine where Louise was hiding out.

  Damn the girl! If he couldn’t stop her, she could ruin everything for him.

  Deep in his gut he feared that some reporter would get to her before he did, and then a lifetime of hard work and devotion and sacrifice—yes, his sacrifice had been of the paramount sort—would be negated in a heartbeat. He hadn’t ever meant for her world to be torn apart, but there it was. She hadn’t been able to keep her nose out of what didn’t concern her and now she would be sorry forever.