by Linda Barlow
She twisted on Daniel’s lap to see his face, half-expecting him to make some sort of snide comment. But all he did was quirk his eyebrows a bit. "Gotta love gaming geeks," he said. "Colorful bunch."
"I think they may have literally saved my life after Arthur's death. I was pretty depressed and felt as if I had nothing to live for."
"In that case, I owe them big-time," he said, snuggling her close.
It turned out to be the only night they didn't make love. Daniel was so doped up on anti-allergy medication that he fell asleep almost as soon as they fell into bed.
In the morning, though, he woke her from a deep sleep and took her in the fiercely exciting manner to which she was becoming accustomed. When she cried out in ecstasy, Chester meowed worriedly at the door.
"It's all right, Chester," she called, wiping a swathe of sweat-damp dark hair out of Daniel's eyes. "He thinks you're hurting me."
There was a crash in the hall, which Kate recognized as a vase shattering under the influence of Chester's swatting tail. Fortunately, she didn't own any expensive vases.
Daniel swore. "That damn cat."
"You should be grateful to him," she laughed. "We both got some sleep for a change."
His laughter was a low growl. "You mean I work you too hard, woman? These dissolute nights getting to be too much for you? Maybe you're just out of shape. I notice you haven't been leaping out of bed at dawn to go swimming lately."
"I stop for a swim on my way to work," she informed him. "You're the one who could use some exercise. I bet you haven't been hitting the gym lately."
"I run four or five miles every day at lunchtime, and I've got some free weights at the office."
"I didn't know that." She was surprised because she already felt as though she knew everything about him.
"Thought you had an indolent layabout in bed with you, huh?" He bent his dark head and dabbed a rosy nipple with the tip of his tongue. "Maybe I'll just resign myself to being late to work this morning in order to prove my stamina."
"I thought you'd just proved it." Incredibly, his ministrations were causing that familiar tightening in her supposedly satiated body.
"I'll just have to prove it again. We wouldn't want there to be any doubt in your mind, would we?"
She shook her head. With Daniel she'd discovered that intense multiple orgasms weren't mythical.
Chapter 12
"I'd really like to interview your mother," Daniel said on a Sunday evening, the night of the final rehearsal before the official opening of the play. A Doll's House had closed, and Macbeth would open on Friday.
They were in his car on the way to the theater, but Daniel's mind was obviously still on his work. His program on surveillance had wrapped the day before. She knew he had various other projects in the works, too, so she had hoped he'd put the idea of interviewing her mother aside. "I'm still planning to do an entire hour's program on so-called psychics, and I've lined up three séance-goers, the president of some international spiritualist society, and a photographer who shoots pictures of what he claims are ghosts. All I need now is a medium. Your mother's probably the most famous."
"I said no, Daniel."
"Come on, Kate. What are you afraid of? She seemed willing enough the one time I talked with her about it."
"There are plenty of other mediums you can use."
"I want Iris Carter. Long before I knew you, I intended to have her on the show. She's the best. Exposing her as a fraud would present the greatest challenge."
Kate's felt her face darken with anger. "Is that the way you regard attacking somebody in front of thousands of people—as a challenge? You're talking about my mother."
He shrugged. "Maybe I'd fail. If she really has as much power as you claim she has, why do you fear for her? Maybe she'll turn my interviewer into a bat."
"Very funny. Why are you so down on mediums and psychics, anyway? I can understand that you're a skeptic on this subject, but why do you care if other people believe in things like telepathy and the Other Side? What harm does it do?"
"It does incalculable harm." His voice had gone cold, his blue eyes glacial.
"You claim to be the most rational of men, but you're obsessed with this subject."
"With good reason," he said darkly.
"What's your reason? You've yet to explain it to me."
But he didn't. Instead he repeated, "I want her, Kate."
"Then choose between us. Because I promise you, the day you go after my mother will be the day I break off our relationship."
Daniel pulled into a tiny parking lot behind the theater and shot her an ominous look. "You really think you can walk away? No, Kate." His voice was soft, deceptively mild. "It's too late for that."
She could feel the aura of masculine power he projected. Every now and then, he still reminded her of the Scorpio brooder he'd been on the night they first met. Hot, dark, and a little bit dangerous. "What does that mean?"
"Think about it," he suggested as they stepped out of the car. He flashed her a disarming grin. "If by any chance you're still in doubt, I'll be happy to demonstrate when we get home tonight."
She did think about it several times during the course of the evening. You really think you can walk away? It's too late for that. What did he mean? He wasn't in love with her. As passionate as his lovemaking was, he'd made no further attempt to say anything that would confirm a growing emotional bond. He'd told her at the start that he could make her no promises, and she'd accepted that.
But her own feelings for him deepened with every night that she spent at his side. The more she learned about him, the more he seemed to typify everything a man should be: strong, yet gentle; aggressive, yet kind; serious in all his purposes, yet blessed with the gift of laughter. She'd stopped comparing him to Arthur. She hadn't thought much about Arthur in days. This realization made her feel guilty. She certainly didn’t want to forget Arthur.
She daydreamed about Daniel when he wasn't with her, and she chattered about him to her friends in the cast until they all began to tease her about the new love in her life. All of them except Graham.
"Scorpio," he'd been muttering all week long. "Wait till you feel the slash of the scorpion's tail. Don't cross him, Kate, or he'll turn on you for sure."
She'd scoffed at Graham's predictions, but they made her a little uneasy.
Graham stirred her anxieties a little more that night after the rehearsal. Daniel had disappeared for a few minutes to make a phone call, and Graham snatched the opportunity to say, "Of all the men to pick, Kate—why him? I watched Facts and Fantasies the other day. They were doing a thing on child abuse. I never thought I'd feel sorry for a child abuser, but by the time D. B. Haggarty's vultures had finished with her, I actually wanted to comfort the poor woman. The people they interview on that show take more punishment than the bad guys at the end of a cop show."
"I've never actually seen the program," Kate confessed.
"You really ought to check it out. Is he still hunting witches, by the way? I hope you haven't given him any dazzling demonstrations of your psychic talents lately, luv."
"My psychic talents, if I have any, are not the stuff exposes are made of."
"I don't trust him. Sorry if I'm clucking over you like some bloody mother hen, but I have feeling he's going to hurt you. I still don't understand why you fell for him. You loved Arthur, and he was so easy-going and safe."
"I don’t really want safe anymore. I mean, the world isn’t safe, is it? You can't always count on things, or even on people. Anyway, it’s not as if everything was always one hundred percent with Arthur. That is—" She stopped, flustered, not sure what she was saying.
Graham was staring even more intently. "Were there problems with your marriage?"
"No, no, there weren't any problems. Arthur and I were happy together." She struggled as she tried to verbalize feelings she didn't entirely understand. "It’s just that, we never fought over anything. Don't you think that's a little s
trange? He was so, I don’t know, so perfect."
"I can see why he might seem perfect in comparison with Haggarty," Graham said. Then, looking over Kate's shoulder, he broke off.
"Who might seem perfect in comparison with me?" said a low, dangerous voice from the doorway.
Kate bit her lip as she turned to face Daniel. That had been a quick phone call.
He came in, his hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans making fists that bulged the already tight material. He looked from her to Graham and back. "Who's this paragon of perfection you're comparing to me?"
"Nobody."
"Arthur."
Kate and Graham both spoke at the same moment. Kate immediately turned to glare at Graham. She had learned that Daniel didn't care to hear references to her dead husband.
"Oh, Arthur," said Daniel, scowling at Kate. "We all know that no man could ever hope to measure up to Arthur."
Kate quietly put on her coat. It had been more and more evident that Daniel and Graham could barely tolerate each other, and she didn't want to see the situation degenerate into total war. "I'm ready. Let's go."
"Show a little caution for the rest of the night, Kate," Graham advised. "Venus is moving into opposition with Mars, and as for your planet, Neptune—"
"We're not interested in that drivel," Daniel snapped.
"Excuse me. The voice of reason speaks. When are you going to have a priest on your program, Haggarty, so you can mock his silly belief in the existence of God?"
"I might decide to go after an astrologer or two first," Daniel shot back. "How would you like some TV exposure, Hamilton? Or are you afraid some big Hollywood casting director might see you making a fool of yourself?"
"If astrology is such drivel, I wonder why it describes your personality so accurately. I also wonder why you're pursuing Kate. You know her background; she's her mother's daughter. What are you going to do if she goes into a trance on you someday? YouTube it for your viewers' amusement?"
Daniel stared at him without answering, but Kate said, "I don't go into trances. I might indulge in a temper tantrum, though. It’s not gonna take much more from either of you to set me off."
But Graham wasn’t finished. "You're not her type, Haggarty," he plunged on. "And I don’t get how a woman who was happy with a warm, gentle man like Arthur Kingsley could long put up with a witch-hunting devil like you."
Kate stiffened when Daniel reached out and seized her hand in one of his. Although he seemed cool enough, his palm was damp with tension. He really didn't like Graham, and the growing hostility between them worried her sometimes.
"She knew what I was from the start," Daniel said, as much to her as to Graham. "I've always been honest. She knew, and she took me anyway. Now she's stuck with me."
Kate tried to free her hand, which he was holding rather tightly. "Will you let go of me, please?"
"Never," he said darkly, releasing her hand, but putting an arm around her shoulders and steering her toward the door.
"You're all wrong for her, you know," Graham called after them. "You'll lose her, coming on like a bloody warlord."
Daniel thanked him ironically for the advice.
They drove home in silence. Kate was annoyed, and Daniel operated the car in a jerky fashion, his hands hard on the wheel, his foot pounding the clutch. When they got to her house Kate hurried inside and cuddled Chester, pressing her face into his thick orange fur and thinking that maybe her life would have been less complicated if she'd run away from Daniel Blaze Haggarty the moment she met him.
He followed her in and stood watching her, his eyes gleaming beneath his thick dark lashes. Chester was kneading her forearm. "Poor baby," she soothed the neglected cat. "Did you miss me?"
Looking up at Daniel, she said, "I should really stay here with my cat tonight. It's cruel to leave him alone so much."
Daniel reached out and scratched Chester's head. The cat paid him the unusual compliment of purring. "You ought to start giving that problem some thought. I'm fond of the beast, but I don’t think I can live with him. Chester's probably going to need a new home. Will your mother take him back, do you think?"
Kate gathered Chester even more tightly against her. "You're not going to separate me from everyone I love—my colleagues, my friends, my gaming buddies, my mom, even my cat." She hadn’t played Hunt the Night City for multiple nights in a row. Ever since she’d introduced him to her friends, Jeff, Stephen and Max had been texting and emailing her, demanding to know more about Daniel. "Good looking guy," Jeff had emailed, "so I’ll forgive you for being so out-of-touch. He’s not entirely lacking a sense of humor, though, is he?" This was so Jeff. He fretted about her.
Max had written, "Sorry about the dick remark, that was crude. But I knew it wasn’t you at the keyboard. You type about half as fast as that guy. Does he write code? Ten to one he’s done his own share of hacking in his youth."
Stephen’s contribution has also been typical: "You’d better be having a wild and crazy time, ‘cause that’s what I’m imagining for you, babe. Is he kinky? He’s got that vibe. If so, and you're feeling adventurous, call me, and I’ll hook you up with the Boston clubs." Stephen’s own kinkiness had long been a source of much teasing among his friends. It amused her to think that he might have read a similar tendency in Daniel. So far, at least, he hadn’t tried to tie her to the bed or anything (that might be interesting, she thought, getting hot at the idea), but his character could certainly be described as alpha male.
"I’m not trying to separate you from anyone," Daniel declared now, his gorgeous eyelashes flicking up and down over his burning eyes. "I just want to spend as much time with you as possible. Don’t you also want to be with me?"
"Yes, of course. I love being with you. I’m just trying to find my footing in this brave new world that my life has become."
"Brave new world—isn’t that Shakespeare? I thought you weren’t supposed to quote from the play."
"That’s from The Tempest. It’s perfectly okay to quote from Shakespeare’s other plays."
"Well, that’s a relief. Anyway, get your things together. We're going to my place."
Her eyes narrowed, and her nostrils flared. "What if I don't want to go? You'll get primitive and club me over the head, Caliban?"
He looked annoyed, too. "I have read The Tempest, you know. Caliban was a monster and a would-be rapist. I really don’t appreciate the comparison."
She was instantly contrite. "I’m sorry. It’s just that… I’m a bit off-balance with you, Daniel. You’re very intense sometimes. And you have a tendency to be controlling."
He reached out and negligently stroked the side of her neck, much the same way as she was stroking Chester. An involuntary shiver took her, and her lips parted slightly. As always, his touch unleashed floods of erotic signals. Her body made up its mind that it wanted him, and her brain went all fuzzy.
"This thing between us is intense. I don’t think either one of us can resist it, no matter how angry we get with each other." After a brief silence he added, "As for controlling, I don't mean to be. It probably comes of living alone and fending for myself for so many years."
She put the cat down and opened the basement door for him. "Can I ask you why you flip out every time Arthur's name is mentioned?"
"Nobody likes being compared with a saint."
"I wasn't comparing you. Graham was."
"He doesn't like me. He's trying to make trouble between us."
"Don't blame Graham for that," she said, recalling their earlier argument about her mother. "We seem to be able to fight pretty well without any outside interference."
He ran a hand through his hair and seemed, briefly, to be fumbling for words. "Look, Kate, you're a strong independent woman, and I love that about you, even if we butt heads sometimes." He moved closer, drawing her against the warm sinews of his body. "There's something powerful between us. I know you feel it, too. I don't want to control you, but at the same time, I don't want anyone—not
Arthur, not Graham, not your college friends, not even your mother —to come between us. Not now, not ever."
Kate's head ached slightly. He tossed around words like "ever" and "never" rather easily, but it wasn’t as if they had been dating long enough to make any sort of commitment to one another. She could sense his masculine arousal, his desire to possess her in the most ancient, basic way. But was there anything more to it than that? If so, he hadn't made his feelings clear.
"What do you want from me, Daniel?" She deliberately rocked her hips against his. "Just this? You have my body. Does it satisfy you?"
"I love your body," he said with a sudden devastating smile, "but now I want your soul."
"You're beginning to sound like the devil you resemble."
He shot a glance at himself in the hallway mirror. "I resemble the devil?"
"Not all the time." Remarkably, the mood had lightened. "Let's just say you have your moments of deviltry."
He grinned and hooked his hands on her shoulders, drawing her closer. One of his hands stroked down her spine, cupped her bottom, and pressed her against him. His head lowered, his tongue washed over her lips, preparing them for his kiss. "As you have your moments of witchcraft. It's appropriate, you know. One of the attributes of witches is that they consort with the prince of darkness. Wanna consort, sorceress?"
She laughed and rubbed herself sensuously against his hips. She couldn't help herself; he was irresistible. "Do we really need to go all the way to your place?"
"Maybe not," he conceded. But a few seconds later, he was seized with a sneezing fit, and she took pity on him. To his place they went.
When they entered his house a little while later, Daniel took her straight up to the bedroom. She recognized the glow in his eyes, and it sent her body leaping into glorious arousal.
"Get undressed," he ordered, his voice harsh and gravelly.
She felt a primordial feminine desire to tease him. She removed her clothes with maddening slowness, her eyes never leaving his. Her top had a prim line of tiny buttons down the front, and she painstakingly undid every single one while he stood stiffly facing her, a flush of barely contained excitement evident over the hard bones of his face. When she slid sensuously out of her skirt, she noticed that he was breathing rapidly through parted lips. Knowing she had the power to arouse him so much thrilled her. It also made her flirt, a little, with danger.