by Diana Palmer
She stared at him. “I’m twenty-five,” she reminded him. “I stay out as late as I like.”
He moved toward her slowly, gracefully, his eyes holding hers. “Do you sleep with him?” he asked.
She caught her breath. “Egan, what I do with anyone is my business.”
He threw back the rest of his drink and set the glass on a small table in the hall, moving toward her until she felt like backing away.
“How is he?” he asked lazily. Then he caught her by the shoulders and held her in front of him, looking down quietly, holding her eyes.
Her lips parted as she met that intimidating stare. “Egan…”
His nostrils flared. The lean fingers that were holding her tightened. “Is he white all over?” he continued in a faintly mocking tone. “City boy.”
“Well, there aren’t many cattle to herd up here,” she said tautly.
“No, but there are too damn many people. You can’t walk two steps without running into someone,” he complained. “I couldn’t survive here. Answer me. Do you sleep with him?”
“That’s non—” she began.
“Tell me anyway. Does he do all those things to you that you write about in your books?” he asked, studying her. “Does he ‘strip you slowly,’ so that you can ‘feel every brush of his fingers…’”
“Egan!” She reached up to press her fingers against his lips, stopping the words as she flushed deeply.
He hadn’t expected the touch of her fingers. He caught them and held them as if he wasn’t sure what to do with them. His eyes held hers.
“Is that the kind of man you like, Katriane Desiree?” he asked, using the full name that she didn’t know he’d ever heard.
She watched him helplessly. “I like…writers,” she managed.
“Do you?” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed its warm palm softly, slowly. His teeth nipped at her slender forefinger.
“Egan,” she breathed nervously.
He took the tip of her finger into his mouth and she felt his tongue touching it. “Afraid?” he murmured. “Don’t they say that a woman is instinctively afraid of a man she thinks can conquer her?”
She wrenched away from him like an animal at bay. “You’d be lucky!” she whispered. Was that her voice, shaking like that?
He stared at her, sliding his hands into his pockets, and the action stretched the fabric of his trousers tight over the powerful muscles of his legs. “So would you,” he returned. “But one of these days I might give you a thrill, honey. God knows, my taste never ran to virgins. And an experienced woman is…exciting.”
She felt the blood rush into her face, and she whirled on her heel. If she stayed there one second longer, she’d hit him! Boy, wouldn’t the joke be on him if he ever tried to take her to bed! Egan, in bed…
She went straight into the bathroom, oblivious that she might wake Ada, and ran herself a calming cool shower.
Chapter Three
Kati didn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she could feel the hard grip of Egan’s fingers on her shoulders, the touch of his mouth against her hand. She hated him, she thought miserably; that was why she couldn’t sleep.
She dragged into the kitchen just after daylight, with her long gold and beige striped caftan flowing lovingly over the soft curves of her body. Her tousled hair fell in glorious disarray around her shoulders, and her dark eyes were even darker with drowsiness.
With a long yawn, she filled the coffee pot and started it, then she reached for the skillet and bacon and turned on the stove. She was leaning back against the refrigerator with a carton of eggs in one hand and butter in the other when the kitchen door opened and Egan came in, dressed in nothing but a pair of tan slacks.
He stopped at the sight of her and stared. She did some staring of her own. He was just as she’d imagined him without that shirt—sexy as all get-out. Bronzed muscles rippled as he closed the kitchen door; a mat of hair on his chest curled down obviously below his belt buckle. His arms looked much more powerful without a concealing shirt, as did his shoulders. She could hardly drag her eyes away.
“I thought I’d fix myself a cup of coffee,” he said quietly.
“I just put some on,” she said.
He cocked an eyebrow. “Does that mean I have to wait until you drink your potful before I can make mine?” he asked.
She glared at him. So much for truces. “There’s a nice little coffee shop down on the corner,” she suggested with a venomous smile.
“I’ll tell Ada you’re being unkind to me,” he threatened. “Remember Ada? My sister? The one whose Christmas you said you didn’t want to spoil?”
She drew in a calming breath. “Do excuse me, Mr. Winthrop,” she said formally. “Wouldn’t you like to sit down? I’ll pour you a cup of coffee.”
“Not until you tell me where you plan to pour it,” he returned.
“Don’t tempt me.” She reached up into the cabinet for a second cup and saucer while he pulled out a chair and straddled it.
When she turned back with the filled cups, she found him watching her. It unnerved her when he did that, and she spilled coffee into one of the saucers before she could set them on the table.
“Couldn’t you sleep?” he asked pleasantly.
“No,” she said. “I’m not used to sleeping late. I’m at my best early in the morning.”
A slow, wicked smile touched his hard mouth. “Most of us are,” he commented.
It didn’t necessarily mean what she thought it did, but she couldn’t help the blush. And that increased her embarrassment, because he laughed.
“Will you stop!” she burst out, glaring at him. “Oh, why don’t you take your coffee and go back to bed?”
“I’m hungry. Don’t I smell bacon?”
“Bacon!” She jumped up and turned it just in time. It was a nice golden brown.
“Going to scramble some eggs, too?” he asked.
“No, I thought I’d let you drink yours raw,” she said.
He only laughed, sipping his coffee. “I like raw oysters, but I draw the line at raw eggs. Want me to make the toast?”
“You can cook?”
“Don’t get insulting.” He stood up and found the bread and butter. “Get me a pan and some cinnamon and sugar.”
She stared at him.
“Cinnamon,” he said patiently. “It’s a spice—”
“I know what it is,” she grumbled, finding it. “Here. And I’ve lined the pan with aluminum foil. It’s all yours.”
“Ungrateful woman,” he muttered as he mixed the cinnamon and sugar in the shaker she’d handed him. He buttered the bread and spread the mixture on top.
“Don’t get conceited just because you can make cinnamon toast,” she mumbled. “After all, it isn’t exactly duckling a l’orange.”
“I’d like to see you cook that,” he remarked.
She cleared her throat. “Well, I could if I had a recipe.”
“So could I.” He turned on the oven and slid the toast in under the broiler. “Get me a pot holder.”
“Who was your personal slave yesterday?” she asked, tossing him a quilted pot holder.
“I liked the old days,” he murmured, glancing at her. “When men hunted and women cooked and had kids.”
“Drudgery,” she scoffed. “Women were little more than free labor….”
“Cosseted and protected and worried over and loved to death,” he continued, staring down at her. “Now they’re overbearing, pushy, impossible to get along with and wilder than bucks.”
“Look who’s talking about being wild!” she burst out.
He stared down his nose at her. “I’m a man.”
She drew in a breath and let it out, and her eyes involuntarily ran over him.
“No argument?” he asked.
She turned away. “Your toast’s burning.”
He took it out—nicely browned and smelling sweet and delicate—and put it on a plate while she scrambled eggs.
“I like mine fried, honey,” he commented.
“Okay. There’s a frying pan, grease is in the cabinet. If you’re too good to eat my scrambled eggs, you can mutilate your own any way you like.”
He chuckled softly, an odd sound that she’d never heard, and she turned to look up at him.
“Firecracker,” he murmured, his eyes narrow and searching. “Are you like that in bed?”
She jerked her eyes away and concentrated on the eggs. “Wouldn’t you like to get dressed before we eat?”
It was a mistake. A horrible mistake. Because then he knew what she hadn’t admitted since he walked into the room. That, stripped to the waist, he bothered her.
The arrogant beast knew it, all right. He moved lazily until he was standing just behind her…so close that she felt him and smelled him and wanted nothing more out of life than to turn around and slide her hands all over that broad chest.
His hands caught her waist, making her jump, and eased her back against him so that she could feel the warm, hard muscles of his chest and stomach against her back. The caftan was paper-thin, and it was like standing naked in his arms.
She felt his fingers move to her hips, caressingly, and her hand trembled as it stirred the eggs to keep them from burning.
“Egan, don’t,” she whispered shakily.
His breath was warm and rough in her hair, because the top of her head only came to his chin. The fingers holding her hips contracted, and she felt the tips of them on her flat stomach like a brand.
“Put down that damned spoon and turn around,” he said in a tone she didn’t recognize.
She was shaking like a leaf, and God only knew what would have happened. But noisy footsteps sounded outside the kitchen door, and an equally noisy yawn followed it. Egan let go of her and moved away just as Ada walked in.
“There you are!” she said brightly, watching her best friend stir eggs. “I’m starved!”
“It’ll be on the table in two shakes,” Kati promised, hoping her voice didn’t sound as shaky as it felt. Damn Egan!
“I’d better get dressed,” Egan commented, winking at Ada as he went past her. “I think I bother somebody like this.”
Kati made an unforgivable comment under her breath as he left the room.
“At it again, I see,” Ada sighed wearily.
“He started it,” Kati said through her teeth. “I didn’t ask him to walk in here naked.”
“What?” Ada blinked.
Kati looked at her friend with a pained expression. “Oh, God, isn’t he beautiful?” she whispered with genuine feeling.
Ada chuckled gleefully. “Well, I always thought so, even if he is my brother. But isn’t that something of a strange admission for you to make?”
“It slipped out. Just forget it.” She dished up the eggs. “I think I’d better put something on too.”
“Don’t be long,” Ada cautioned. “The eggs will congeal.”
“I’ll hurry.”
She ran for her bedroom and closed the door just as Egan opened his. A minute’s grace! She got into her jeans, blue T-shirt and shoes, and barely stopped to run a brush through her hair. She hoped it would be a short week. She hadn’t expected Egan to have this kind of effect on her. In all the years she’d known him, he’d never even tried to make a pass at her. Now, in less than two days, he’d made more impact on her guarded emotions than any other man had in all her twenty-five years. She was going to have to get a hold on herself. She didn’t know what kind of game Egan had in mind, but she wasn’t playing.
He was wearing a brown velour pullover when she came back, one that emphasized his dark hair and complexion and the hard muscles she’d already seen.
“We left a little for you,” Egan commented as she sat down. He pushed aside his empty plate and poured himself another cup of coffee from the hotplate on the table.
“How kind of you,” she said pleasantly. She held up her cup and Egan filled it, studying her far too closely.
“What does your boyfriend do for a living?” he asked unexpectedly.
“Jack isn’t my boyfriend,” she said. “He’s a man I date. And he’s a political reporter for the New York Times.”
He leaned back in his chair while Ada bit her lower lip and looked apprehensive.
“Is he really?” Egan asked. “He doesn’t look like he gets much exercise. A little overweight, wouldn’t you say?”
She glared at him. “He works very hard.”
He only laughed, and sipped his coffee. “If I took him home with me, I could break him in one day.”
“You could break the devil in one day,” Kati said, exasperated. “What business is it of yours who I date?”
“Now, that’s a good question,” he replied. His eyes narrowed, and there was a smile she didn’t understand on his chiseled lips. “Maybe I feel sorry for the poor man. He does know what you do for a living, doesn’t he? Must be hell on him, having everything he does to you turn up in a book…”
“Egan.” Ada groaned, hiding her face in her hands.
“You overbearing, unspeakable, mean-tempered…” Kati began in a low tone. She threw her napkin down onto the table and stood up.
“You sure got up on the wrong side of the bed,” Egan commented. “Here I am a guest in your apartment—”
“I’d sooner invite a cobra to breakfast!” she burst out.
“You should have,” he murmured, glancing at the plate he’d just emptied. “He might have enjoyed burned eggs and half-raw bacon.”
She tried to speak, couldn’t, and just stormed out of the room.
She left the apartment before Ada could get out of the kitchen, and wandered around the streets shivering in her thin jacket for an hour before she gave up and went back. It was too cold for pride, anyway. All she’d accomplished was to let Egan see how unreasonably she reacted to his prodding. She’d just have to grit her teeth, for Ada’s sake.
Egan was nowhere in sight when she got back, and Ada looked apologetic and worn.
“I don’t understand him, I just don’t,” Ada groaned. “Oh, Kati, I’m sorry. If I’d realized how bad things were between you, I’d never have invited him.”
Kati was generous enough not to remind her friend that she’d tried to warn her. She sat down on the sofa with a hard sigh.
“I’ll manage. Where is he?” she added darkly.
“Gone to spend the day with some girlfriend of his,” Ada said absently. “He said he might not be back until late.”
Why that simple statement should make her feel murderous, Kati didn’t know. But something gnawed inside her at the thought of Egan with another woman.
“I wonder how much he had to bribe her?” she asked nastily.
“Shame on you,” Ada said.
But Kati didn’t apologize. And she didn’t dwell on her confused emotions, either. She wanted no complications in her life, especially with someone like Egan Winthrop.
She and Ada went shopping later in the day and ate out at a little Italian restaurant just down the street from their apartment. They watched television and eventually went to bed. And Egan didn’t come back. Not that night. Not until the next morning.
Kati was sitting on the living room floor with pages littering the area around her. They were galleys of her latest book, which had come that morning by special messenger, and she was going over them. Ada was at auditions for a new play, hoping to be home by lunch if she didn’t get held up at the theater during tryouts. That was a laugh. Most of the time, it took hours. Despite the appointments the hopefuls were given, something always went wrong. Ada had never gotten back when she thought she would, and Kati was dreading Egan’s arrival. She felt wild when she thought of his not coming in at all, and angry because she didn’t understand why. She didn’t even like the man, for God’s sake!
There was a loud knock at the door an hour later, and when she opened it, Egan was standing there looking faintly amused and as immaculate as when he’d left. Still in the
same clothes, of course….
She glared at him. “Lose your key?” she asked.
“I thought I’d better not use it, in case you were…entertaining,” he said.
She let him in, slammed the door and went back to her comfortable sprawl on the floor.
“Coffee’s hot if you want some,” she said icily. “I’m busy reading.”
“Don’t let me interrupt you. I thought I’d have a quick shower and change clothes. I’ve got a lunch date.”
Why, oh, why did she feel like smashing plates? She frowned and concentrated on what she was doing. Minutes later, he was back, dressed in a navy blue pinstripe suit with a white silk shirt and a blue and burgundy tie. He looked regal. Sexy. Unbelievably handsome for such an ugly man. If he was dressing like that in the middle of the day, he must be on his way to the Waldorf, she thought. And God only knew with whom.
“Ada didn’t worry, did she?” he asked, checking his watch.
“Oh, no. She’s used to people staying out all night,” she lied deliberately, lifting her eyes. It shocked her, the flash of reaction in his face before it was quickly erased.
His eyes ran over her: the gray slacks and burgundy silk blouse she was wearing, her feet hose-clad and without shoes. Her hair was loose, and flowed in waves of reddish gold silk down her shoulders; her face was rosy and full of life.
His scrutiny made her nervous, and she dropped her eyes back to the page she was reading.
He moved closer and suddenly bent to pick up a page. His eyebrows rose as he read, and a slow smile touched his mouth.
“You do put your heart into it, don’t you?” he murmured.
She reached up and took the page out of his hands, glancing at it. She blushed and tucked it under what she was reading. Why did he have to pick up that page? she groaned inwardly.
“Is that what you like with a man?” he continued maddeningly, his hands in his pockets, his eyes intent. “I’ve never done it in a bathtub, but I suppose—”
“Will you please go away?” she groaned, letting her hair fall over her eyes. “I don’t care where you’ve done it, or with whom, just please go eat your lunch and leave me to my sordid occupation.”