"What would you like? Something sweet with cream, a grasshopper or a pink squirrel, perhaps?"
"I'd like a vodka Collins," she said coolly. For a moment she thought she had gotten under his skin. But his face was bland as he turned back to the bar to order their drinks.
In the semidarkness the only source of light was the decorative window, but the bar area was hardly intimate. There seemed to be people layers deep everywhere she looked, and she nearly got her toes stepped on by a woman standing just in front of her table. She pulled her feet in, crossed her ankles, and tried to relax. One high-heeled sandal caught the pedestal support of the table and started it wobbling precariously on the thick carpet. She steadied it, thinking that would be all she’d need, to have a table fall on the woman’s foot.
Ty, his dark head visible against the colored window, turned away from the bar, drinks in his hands, and elbowed his way toward her. He handed her the taller of the two glasses, and she set it with its napkin wrap on the table. At the exact same moment, a man standing in front of them took a careless step backwards and sent the table tilting once again. Her drink slid to the floor.
"Watch it," Ty said sharply, straightening to confront the stranger, who was, by now, aware that he had done something wrong and turned around.
"I'm sorry." Tall, thin, he seemed to have to look a long way to the unbroken glass and its spilled contents. “Did I do that? I'll buy you another. What was it?" He was somewhere in his early thirties, Leigh guessed, and one of the artsy crowd. He wore jeans, a flamboyant red shirt, and a cowboy neckerchief. His high-heeled boots had nearly sent the table and Ty's drink flying when he turned around.
"Nate?" Ty's voice was questioning.
"Ty? Ty Rundell?" The younger man's face dissolved in relieved recognition. "What are you doing up here?"
"Working on a new project." Ty cast a look over the other man's lanky length. "Didn't recognize you in that get up."
Nate dropped his eyes to his own clothes and smiled sheepishly. "We're doing a promo for the play at the Manchester Theater here in town. How have you been, man?" Even in the dimness, he seemed alive with enthusiasm. "It's been ages." He looked down at Leigh with a pleasant glance, but once he saw her, his eyes lingered, taking in the smoothness of her cheeks, the soft fullness of her mouth. When he raised his eyes to Ty, they were admiring, envious. "Are you going to introduce me?"
"Leigh, this is Nate Gardner. Nate, Leigh Carlow." The smile faded, was replaced with a touch of incredulity. "Leigh Carlow? Isn't your mother Claire Foster?"
"Yes." She had never denied the relationship, although she wanted to, many times.
He studied her for a moment and then said slowly, "That must be why you look so familiar to me." He shook his head. "No, that isn't it. I've seen you before, I know I have."
She waited, her breathing becoming difficult. "I don't think we've met…”
He wasn't deterred. "Wait a minute. I remember now. We were both at a beach party at Paul Lange's. That's it."
The name seared her. "I'm sorry, I don't remember seeing you.”
"You went around with him for a while after your mother died, didn't you?" he said curiously. "He was an agent then, wasn't he? I remember hearing something about you going into show business." He gazed down at Leigh curiously. "Are you working as an actress?"
Ty watched her, feeling the tension in her body as if he were experiencing it in his own. . "No," she said in a strained voice.
Nate gave her a quizzical look. "You're not? I thought since you were with Ty…" He shrugged. "Paul's in New York City, did you know? Landed a plum role in To Those We Love.”
In the peculiar yellow light from the stained-glass, her face looked ashen. "Yes, I read about it in the paper.”
Inwardly, Ty cursed himself for choosing this place. He hadn't thought about seeing anyone he knew who had known Leigh. Nate hadn't spilled much about her relationship with Lange, but he'd said enough. Deke had already called with most of the details. Here was the missing piece of the puzzle…or most of it, anyway. Nothing was worth watching her sit there and suffer like that. He knew Paul Lange. He was handsome, charming, unscrupulous, and the most self-serving son of bitch Ty had ever met.
Another far more destructive thought occurred. Suppose she was still in love with him? That was not a thought he wanted to have. He had to get her out of here, away from Nate.
“Why don't we just skip the rehash of old times, Nate, and you can order the lady that drink you owe her.”
Nate's eyes moved back to Ty. He got a cool, undecipherable gaze in return, and with an almost imperceptible lift of his shoulders, he bowed to the inevitable. "Yeah, sure, my pleasure."
CHAPTER SEVEN
When Nate turned away, Ty said in a low voice, "Would you like to get out of here?"
''Yes," she said instantly, her eyes flashing a look of intense pain mixed with gratitude that went straight to a vital center deep inside him.
Out in the cool night air, she seemed to revive a little. He held her arm firmly, feeling the slender fragility of her bones underneath her coat. She was shaking, and it wasn't from the cold. He guided her into the parking ramp elevator and when the doors closed, he took her in his arms, carefully, as if she were a child he was protecting.
“It’s all right, baby,” he said, as he held her.
“I should explain…”
“No explanation necessary.” He put her in the car. She sat huddled in the corner like a silent wraith, but when he started the car, drove out into the traffic, and took the entrance to the thruway, she took a long, shuddering breath and said “Thank you for…"
"You're welcome," he said soberly, frowning at the road ahead.
The car sped through the night. After another long silence, she said, “Nate will be left with an extra drink to pay for."
"He'll survive."
"I suppose I owe you an explanation…”
"I told you, Leigh. You don't owe me anything.”
A feeling of relief and release burgeoned through her. He wasn't going to probe and prod. "Thank you, again," she murmured.
He reached for her, his warm, masculine fingers clasping hers in an undemanding grasp. She gave him her hand willingly, knowing that his silent assurance was exactly what she needed at that moment. Tensile strength wrapped itself around her fingers, and warm human comfort flowed through their lean length. The sick wash of memories receded, and she put her head back and closed her eyes.
Still wrapped in a nebulous cloud of non-thought, she was aware of time passing, of headlights probing the darkness along the road they had recently traveled. But strangely, she felt no urgency, no need to escape. She was content to let the minutes tick by, content as long as she had that warm hand holding hers.
When she had unlocked the door of her apartment, he raised the hand he had held for so long to his lips and kissed her fingers. Then, gently, easily, he moved his mouth across the short distance to her lips, and with a firm, masculine skill that was strangely undemanding, he kissed her. It was sweetly possessive, like a kiss following a night of love with its tender reminder of intimacies shared. When he lifted his mouth, she felt deprived.
That same gentle sureness in his hands, he grasped her shoulders and moved with her into her apartment. Drowsy with the warmth of the car and the drugging sensuality of the kiss he had given her, she made no protest. He closed the door and, then, slowly, he unbuttoned her coat, watching her as he dropped it onto a chair. Unable to move, she felt his fingers traveling down her body, his knuckles brushing against the silk of her blouse. She murmured, "Ty-" Her velvet blazer went the same way as her coat.
Scooping her up in his arms, he carried her through to her bedroom. "Ty, we didn’t have dinner. You must be starving," she said, into the warm and comfortable cloud that his arms wrapped around her.
“No. I’m good.”
He was good. His name was a plea, and he knew it. He laid her down on the bed, his eyes brilliant in the soft lig
ht from the other room and followed her down, sitting beside her, his hip against hers. “It just kills me to see you hurting like this.”
His eyes seemed to pin her to the bed, and his dark head and well-shaped lips were so close to her own, they mesmerized her. She lay utterly still and waited. For a long, silent moment he studied her, his face dark and sensual, a fingertip touching her kiss-softened mouth. ‘I don’t ever want to see you hurting like that again.” He closed the distance between them and brushed his mouth over hers with tantalizing feather lightness, murmuring her name. She lay quiescent, glorying in the undemanding caresses his mouth bestowed on hers. He asked nothing in return, and because he asked nothing, a wanton willingness to give him everything beat at the walls of her heart. With each drugging pass over her lips, he wove the silken cord of seduction more tightly around her. Her arms lifted, wrapped themselves around his neck. "Ty." She sighed his name into his mouth and he took her lips more insistently this time.
"Leigh," he whispered. "Lovely Leigh. You're so soft and feminine. I would never, ever hurt you." Silk slid, and cool fingers brushed her blouse aside. In the dim light, her skin gleamed through the filmy nylon of her bra. This time, Ty didn't hesitate. With a swift deftness, he undid the clip. Cool air feathered over her skin and with it, the realization that for the first time in seven years she was glad to be a woman, glad for the gleam of pleasure that sparkled in Ty's blue eyes as the freed weight of her breasts nudged the material aside. Cupping her fullness with both hands, he worshipped her with his gaze, taking in her creamy roundness and the burgundy peaks that were already taut with anticipation. A low muffled groan came from his throat, and he lowered his head. His silky hair brushed over her skin, making it tingle with delight. His lips trailed along one rounded curve, tantalizing her with light, teasing kisses until he plundered deeper and deeper into the curving valley. "Ty-“
Her soft moan of his name made him laugh softly against her skin. His mouth discovered the full depth of the shadowed hollow and then wandered back up to the soft vulnerable place at her throat where the pulse beat. She felt each caress as if it were branded on her skin. She moved restlessly on the bed, lifting her hands to thread her fingers through his dark hair, half urging him on with her restless caressing.
"Patience, honey," he murmured. “We have all the time in the world.”
Cupping a breast with his hand, he sent his tongue on a sensuous discovery around her swelling curve in one devastating circle after another, until she thought she would explode with ecstasy. She moaned with need, and he brought his mouth up to her lips and kissed the word away. "Yes, honey, yes. Let me love you. I want you so much. Undress me, Leigh.”
He took her fingers in his warm hand and urged them toward the buttons of his shirt. She undid the first one, but as the curling masculine hairs raked against her fingertips, she grew bolder, more eager to see the skin underneath. Ty’s body radiated a heat that penetrated to her bones.
At the last button, the one just above his belt, she said, “Are you sure, Ty?”
He groaned, "Woman, you know how to torture me, don't you?" He grasped the front edges of his shirt and ripped them apart, tearing the button away, pulling his shirt tails out from under his gray pants. He put his arms under her and brought her half-naked body up to his, his mouth coming down on hers hungrily. He was all demanding male, his warm haircrisp flesh pressed against her breasts, his hand seeking and finding the sensitive hollow of her naked back. He was no longer tender, he was a passionate man determined to take possession of the woman in his arms.
He kissed her and their mouths still drinking from each other, his hands traveled down the sides of her body, seeking out the feminine curves still clothed. She moaned and he lifted away slightly. "Am I hurting you?"
"Yes," she got out on an agonized sound. He frowned and pulled away, and she shook her head. "You're torturing me."
His frown disappeared and he laughed softly. "You deserve it. You and your fingertips started this, remember."
"Ty…"
He shook his head. "You'll take your punishment, honey, for as long as I can hold out."
His hands continued their exploring path over her body, lifting her skirt to smooth down the length of her thighs, over her bare ankles to trace the sensitive bones of her arch. Sensual tingles radiated upward. She hadn't known such intense pleasure was possible from a gentle exploration of her toes. He retraced his path back up along the graceful lines of her legs, across her taut abdomen, up to the hollow of her throat. His mouth found the place where her vein pulsed close to the surface. She gasped in delight, and he chuckled low in his throat, a huskily disturbed sound of amusement. He raised his head, his smile fading.
He groaned softly. "Beautiful," he murmured, taking in the creamy perfection. "So damn beautiful." He feathered kisses over her, discovering the places where curve lifted away from bone and then wandered lower to caress the underside of her breasts. She clutched his dark head, feeling the leap of her nerve ends everywhere his mouth touched. Against her skin, he murmured, "Patience, honey. We have all night."
She made an agonized sound of protest, and his soft chuckle sent a shiver of anticipation and ecstasy over her skin. Then, as if he had at last taken pity on her, his warm mouth claimed the dark rose peak that waited for him. His tongue explored and teased, wooing one moment, possessively claiming the next. His mouth created torment and rapture, and in an agony of waiting, her body writhed with wanting. He stripped her clothes away, leaving her only in her bikini. Coolly watching her, his fingers glided under the elastic. He slid the fragile silk down her thigh, caressing her every inch of the way until the bikini was tossed aside. His blue eyes roved over her nakedness and gleamed with a hunger that sent her already accelerated heartbeat pulsing at an even faster rate through her veins. "Now," he said softly. “Your turn."
She unbuckled his leather belt, undid the snap of his suit pants and ran the zipper down, her fingers drifting over his male erection. A strange possessiveness seized her. For tonight, he was hers. He stood up and unselfconsciously stepped out of his pants and briefs. She watched him unashamedly, taking pleasure in the revealing of his male beauty. His flanks were lean and trim, his waist narrow, the sparse dark hair that covered chest, thighs, and legs crisp and curly. He was a devastating male specimen with the well-proportioned lines of a Greek statue. But when he came down on the bed beside her, his breathing pattern disturbed, his hands seeking and finding the turquoise clip and freeing her hair to spill through his hands, she knew he was very much alive and she had never been more so. He lowered his head and his tongue sought the slopes and valleys of a breast, his path of discovery taking him lower to her navel, where he tenderly and with great precision explored the tiny crevice. When she stifled a small cry of pleasure, his fingers smoothed over the flatness of her abdomen and the rounded curve of her thighs, and found the sensitive core of her desire.
She was swollen and wet and ready. Caught in a whirlwind of ecstasy, her hips moved, accommodating his fingers. "Ty-"
He covered her mouth with a warm, possessive kiss, his hand still tormenting her with its gentle, intimate caressing. His tongue slid moistly into her mouth, dancing over her own. Then it was gone, its fire moving lower, until he found her core and entered her with his tongue, seeking, caressing, making her wild with erotic sensation.
"Ty, oh, please, no more. I’m dying with wanting you."
With a low, male sound of satisfaction, he brought out the packet he’d laid on the night stand and slipping it on, he moved over her and made her his, claiming her body in the final, intimate joining.
For a spine-tingling moment, he didn't move. She savored an incredible wholeness, a welding of the physical satisfaction and the overwhelming love she felt for him. It was as if everything she had ever been and ever hoped to be was centered in this moment of belonging to the man she loved. Then he began to move, making slow, circling drives against her, claiming her with his body and hands and mouth, taking
her with him on a long, rhythmic journey of discovery that lifted her higher and higher into a rarefied world where only Ty and her own rapture existed.
He lay beside her, a finger tracing idly over her abdomen, his mouth touching her cheek. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"No ghosts?" The finger climbed the curve of her breast, wandered around its dark center.
She knew he was thinking of Paul. "No ghosts," she assured him. "From now on there will be only the memory of this night."
He leaned forward and kissed her lightly, a gentle lover's kiss. "I'm glad. Are you sleepy, baby?"
"A little," she admitted, not wanting to confess that his passionate lovemaking had made her lazily sated.
He reached down to pull the covers up over her. "Sleep, sweetheart. We still have time."
He drew her against him, and she closed her eyes. After what seemed like a long, dreamless sleep, she woke to a room completely dark except for a sliver of moonlight streaming in the narrow window above her bed and light, teasing kisses caressing her face.
His voice close to her ear had a dark, husky sound "Did I wake you?"
"Yes." She turned her head to better accommodate his searching mouth.
"Good."
He kissed her lazily in a smooth, undemanding claiming of her lips. She lay languid, relaxed under his mouth and hands, feeling his fingers glide over her like liquid silver as they took their pleasure in her curves and valleys. His intimate exploration wandered lower, grew bolder. She came awake, and her own hands found the well-muscled chest covered with crisp hair, the male nipples already taut, the flat stomach, the circle of his navel.
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