by Diana Palmer
She shuddered, although the night was warm, hearing that rescue worker’s voice in her mind as she’d heard it for six months, “What the hell are you people, vultures?! My God, you’re making a carnival out of it…!”
“NO!” The word broke from her, and she clasped her hands around her shaking body and turned away from him, with a knife-like pain in her heart. She took a deep breath.
“What’s the matter, Meredith?” He moved closer. “Did I hit a nerve?”
She closed her eyes. “I…finished the invitation calls,” she said, businesslike and calm again. “Do you have anything in particular for me to get out tomorrow, sir?”
He drew a sharp breath, as if he didn’t like the change of subject, and turned away. He started rattling off chores, and her mind wandered briefly away to the sound of angry voices and weeping and yelled commands…
“…need that letter out first thing in the morning,” he was saying as she forced her mind back to the present. “And cancel that Rotary Club speech, I don’t have time. Think you’ve got all that, Meredith?” he asked gruffly.
She nodded. “Yes, sir. What about Mr. Samson? He was supposed to meet you for a drink after the Rotary meeting.”
“Efficient, aren’t you?” he growled, his dark eyes narrow and angry in the soft white moonlight.
“You pay me to be efficient, Mr. Devereaux,” she said primly. “What about Mr. Samson?”
“Tell him I’ll meet him for lunch Friday at the country club.”
“You can’t,” she reminded him. “You have to be in Chicago Friday to discuss the Shore contract.”
“Then Monday.”
“Yes, sir.” She turned away.
“Meredith?”
“Yes, sir?”
There was a hesitation, about the space of a heartbeat. “Walk with me.”
Confused, she turned and fell into step beside him, his behavior making her mind spin. From anger to companionship in seconds, his lightning mood changes stunned her. He wasn’t a tall man, she thought, noticing that he was barely half a head taller than she was in her three-inch heels. But he was so big, so broad and leonine, that he seemed to tower over people. Warmth and power radiated from him, a dark, strong warmth that made her want to feel the strength in his arms…She flicked her eyes toward the house, trying to ignore the buried longings that his company was resurrecting.
He took a long draw from his cigarette. “Why reporting?” he asked conversationally. “Why not fashion or advertising?”
She watched the shimmer of moonlight on the dewy grass. “Because I could write. I never wanted to do anything else. At first,” she recalled, smiling, “I wanted to be a novelist. But I found out that a lot of people wanted to be novelists, people with more talent than I’d ever have. So I settled for truth instead of fiction.”
“Truth?” he asked quietly.
She withdrew, like a child that had stretched its hand toward a warm, welcoming flame, only to have it burned. “I’m sorry.”
He laughed mirthlessly. “You cost me a fortune. And you’re sorry.”
She closed her eyes against the hurt. “I tried to tell you that I didn’t leave the word out. It was there, on my copy, when the magazine came out…!”
“Was it?” he growled.
“Would you like to hit me?” she asked, stopping in her tracks to turn her pale haunted face up to his. “If it would make you feel better, then go ahead! I’ve been hurt so much already, I won’t even feel it!”
He stopped too, his eyes sliding over her face, her throat. “What I’d like to do to you doesn’t bear telling,” he said with a soft fury in his voice. “I haven’t forgotten that sleazy character I saw you with, that bald-headed fat man you took for a lover! Damn you…!”
“I’d like to go in now, please,” she said, her voice a husky shadow of sound in the darkness. “I’m very tired.”
“What have you done to make you so tired, Meredith?” he demanded, slinging the finished cigarette into the darkness. “What have you done besides answer the phone and type letters?”
“Been slowly crucified by you!” she almost screamed, desperation in her eyes, her voice, her posture.
He moved closer, until he was within easy touching distance, until she could feel the heat of his big, vibrant body, until his dark face filled the world. One hand came out of his pocket, one dark, beautiful hand with square-tipped, broad fingers that caught her soft throat like a fleshy vise and caused her pulse to do cartwheels.
“What did you expect when I sent for you?” he asked slowly, his fingers absently caressing the silken flesh of her throat. “That I wanted you here because you were haunting my dreams, because my life was empty and cold without you in it? Did you think I sent for you out of love, Meredith?!”
She felt tremors running the length of her slender body. His nearness was as much the cause of it as fear. She could feel his warm breath on her forehead, smell the sharp, musky scent of his cologne, feel the hardness of him as if he were already holding her. She wanted to move closer, to feel him against the length of her softness, to touch that hard, dark chest with its curling mat of hair…
“I…I don’t know,” she stammered. I…I…”
“You’re stammering, little girl,” he murmured, a dangerous softness in his deep voice as his other hand went down to her waist, drawing her against his big body with a lazy tenderness that made her tremble. Her cold hands pressed patterns into the warmth of his cotton shirt over that warm, unyielding chest.
“Please don’t,” she whispered.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because it won’t mean anything,” she replied easily. The feel of that powerful driving masculinity so close against her was like a narcotic.
His thumb moved softly, gently against the softness of her mouth, his fingers coaxing her cheek against his warm shoulder so that he could look down into her eyes.
“Little girl,” he whispered deeply. “You used to sit and watch me, like some little golden kitten, while I dictated letters late at night by the fireplace. I can still see that look in your eyes—soft and curious and just a little hungry. God, you were vulnerable then! Mine for the asking, if I’d realized it…a sweet little innocent, ripe for the picking, and I was too damned blind to notice that you wanted me to pick you.”
“I didn’t!” she whispered frantically, pushing at his solid chest.
“You did, and we both know it,” he growled, his eyes narrow and flashing dark fire as his hand at her back tightened. “I never touched you,” he whispered. “Never, not one time, but I wanted to…!”
His head bent, his eyes still holding hers, his big arm tightening like steel, holding her, hurting her.
“Oh, please, Adrian, don’t do this…” she pleaded gently.
He stopped. Froze. His eyes searched her face as if he’d never seen it before. “Say my name again,” he said.
“Adrian…”
His fingers traced the soft, fluid line of her flushed cheek as he watched her in a static burning silence. “Doe eyes,” he murmured. “As lovely as a fawn. Soft and sweet and vulnerable. You’re trembling, little one, I can feel it. Do I make you hungry, Meredith? Do you want to taste me?” he whispered, his hard, chiseled mouth hovering half a breath over hers as she breathed in the musky, male scent of him, her heart shaking her with its pounding.
“Devil…” she sobbed as his hard mouth teased hers, tormented it with a whisper-light pressure that was no pressure, setting fires in her blood’ “devil…straight out of hell!”
“Do I make you burn, Persephone?” he murmured against her parted, pleading lips. “Do I make you hungry?”
“Y…yes! Adrian…!” she choked.
His teeth nipped lightly at her delicate upper lip, in a smoky, sensuous caress. Both his hands were buried in her thick, silky hair now, holding her face up to his.
“What is it, honey?” he whispered, his mouth touching her closed eyelids, her cheeks, the corner of her lips with slow, brief kisses.<
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“Oh…please…” she breathed, tears misting her eyes at the hunger he was kindling, a hunger like nothing she’d ever experienced. Her nails dug into him through the soft fabric of his shirt, though she was barely aware of the contact.
He laughed softly, deeply, “Do I make you that hungry, little cat?” he whispered. “Do you want to claw me?”
“D…damn you!” she wept.
His lips burned her in a brief, biting kiss. “Beg me for it,” he murmured gruffly.
“I hate you!” she cried, her voice breaking, tears streaming down her cheeks as she looked up into his eyes with the agony of the damned in her wide, misty dark eyes.
His hands tightened around her head, his gaze dark and quiet and shadowy. “Where’s all that majestic composure now, young Meredith?” he asked harshly. “By God, I told you I’d strip that veneer of sophistication away before I was through. Under it, you’re every inch a woman, aren’t you?”
Tears rolled uncontrollably down her cheeks and she closed her eyes against the humiliation. His hands dropped to her shoulders and he gripped them painfully and shook her. “Stop it,” he said in glacial tones. “My God, what are you crying about?”
She shuddered with the memory of her own voice pleading…“Will you let me go?” she whispered icily.
“That isn’t what you wanted a minute ago,” he reminded her cruelly as he released her and turned away to light a cigarette.
She wrapped her arms around her shivering body and took a deep, shuddering breath. The tears were like tiny ice trails down her cheeks where the breeze hit them.
“Hail the suffering heroine,” he taunted. “Why pretend, Persephone? These virginal displays don’t affect me one way or the other, we both know that illusion of innocence doesn’t go any deeper than your integrity.”
“You don’t know anything about me, Mr. Devereaux,” she said with what dignity she could muster. “Not anything at all.”
“I know you’re easily aroused,” he said.
“That isn’t hard for any man who’s experienced, is it?” she asked bitterly. “And you obviously are.”
“Could he make you burn that easily?” he asked in a voice that cut like a whip.
“He?” she echoed.
“Your lover! The man you’re supporting!” he threw at her.
“I’m not supporting any man, and I’ve never had a lover in my life!” she all but screamed at him. “Did you take lessons in cruelty, Mr. Devereaux, or does it come naturally to you? Why don’t you just cut me into little pieces and be done with it!”
He took a draw from the cigarette he’d just lit and watched her narrowly. “When you’re through having hysterics, I’ve got another letter to dictate.”
Hysterics! She raised a trembling hand to her face, brushing away the tears. Her heart felt like a dead weight in her chest. She wanted to lie down someplace quiet and just die.
He was behind her suddenly, his big hand outstretched with a soft white handkerchief. “Dry your eyes, little girl,” he said, and his voice was almost kind.
She took it wordlessly and dabbed at her eyes, blowing her nose. She clutched it in her hand like a lifeline.
“I’ll get my pad,” she said, raising her face proudly, her red-rimmed eyes meeting his levelly.
He watched her walk into the house, her spine as straight as a slide rule, her carriage faultless. With her back to him, she didn’t see the look that was carved on his dark face.
Four
The drive up to Devereaux’s cabin on Lake Lanier took barely an hour, even in the weekend traffic, but to Dana and Lillian it seemed much longer.
“I hate riding,” Lillian confided as Frank helped them unload their preparations from the sleek Lincoln. “I like being there and being back, but I hate the in-between.”
Dana only laughed, her eyes on the redwood cabin, so spacious and majestic in its woodsy setting on the lakefront. It boasted huge picture windows and sliding glass doors and a fireplace that must have been heaven to sit by in winter.
It was the perfect setting for a party, with the wide pier on the lake and the boat dock next to it, and the beautiful clean silence of bark and grass and brown earth.
Dana paused on the wide front porch overlooking the lake and let the cool wind tear at her loosened hair. She’d stood here with him once, at night, and listened to the sound of dogs baying in the distance. And listened to his deep voice as he told her about the old days when he hunted the Georgia mountains with his father in the fall, while he was growing up in Chicago.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Lillian sighed, pausing beside her. “Peace and quiet and birds and wind rustling the trees. This place keeps the Mister sane, I’ll tell you. It’s his refuge.”
“Why does he want to ruin it with a houseful of drunk people?” Dana wanted to know.
“Still a teetotaler, are you?” Lillian teased. “Baby, you just can’t understand why people drink, can you?”
Remembering last night, Dana felt a shudder run through her. “Oh, I’ve got a good idea. Lillian, do you think that band’s reliable?”
“Sure they are. Don’t worry, now, everything’s going to be just fine. Trust me. Nothing’s going to go wrong.”
Sure, Dana thought to herself when the band leader called fifteen minutes before he was due to arrive with his group and told her there’d been a car wreck. Fortunately, no one was hurt badly, but they wouldn’t be able to perform.
That was just the tip of the iceberg. She’d forgotten to get a bag of ice, and there was none in the refrigerator. The ham she’d wrapped so lovingly flew out of her hands as she tripped on the steps and went rolling down into the lake.
She sat down on the front stoop, her face in her hands, with ten minutes to get everything ready before Devereaux and his party arrived.
“Dana, what are you doing?” Lillian called, her apron waving in the wind.
“I’m having a nervous breakdown?!” she replied.
“Where’s the ham?”
Dana pointed toward the shore, where the lake was lapping gently around the lovely huge party ham.
“And the band?”
“They were in a wreck and they can’t come. They’re very sorry,” she added.
“My God!”
“It’s all right,” Dana told her reassuringly. “He’ll only drown me once, you know.”
“What will we do?” Lillian was muttering to herself, as if she could hear the funeral dirge being played slowly in the distance.
Dana got up. “I’ll fix it. Reporters,” she told the older woman, “are resourceful. Or they get barbecued by city editors.”
She got on the phone and called an old friend at the local daily paper. From her, she got the name of a good local band, which could be had, fortunately, on the spur of the moment, and the address of a good local deli. She sent Frank for cold cuts, called the band and in five minutes had everything wrapped up.
“Magic,” Lillian murmured, shaking her head in awe.
“Unicorns,” Dana laughed. “I believe in them, you know.”
She stayed in the kitchen with Lillian when the guests began to arrive, every one of them late, and the band was already winding up its first number by the time Adrian Devereaux arrived—with the dragon.
Fayre Braunns was the perfect foil for Adrian’s satanic darkness. She was blond, petite, with eyes so big and green that they seemed to dominate her sharp face. She was wearing a white lace pantsuit that clung like skin to her slender figure, contrasting violently with the dark brown silk of Adrian’s open shirt and white slacks. They made the perfect couple, Dana had to admit, feeling an emptiness in the region of her heart as she watched the blonde cling to him.
She hadn’t dressed for the occasion, wearing faded denims and a blue and white checked knit top, but the sweep of her blond hair gave the old clothes an elegance she wasn’t aware of.
She was finishing another tray of bacon-rolled dates for canapes when she heard the door open behind
her.
“I’ll have this batch ready in a jiffy, Lillian,” she said cheerfully, arranging parsley around the edges of the tray.
“Hiding, Meredith?”
She tensed at the sound of that deep voice, her muscles contracting when she felt him move closer, felt the warm vibrancy of his powerful body just behind her, almost touching.
It was the first contact she’d had with him since the argument, and she didn’t want it at all.
“Lillian and I thought it would be better if we shared the kitchen chores while we were here,” she murmured.
“Did you?” His big hands slid onto her waist, drawing her gently, slowly back against him so that she could feel the hard muscle of his thighs, his flat stomach, his chest. His breath was warm beside her ear.
“What are you making?” he asked.
“They…they’re date and bacon rolls,” she whispered.
“What do they taste like?”
Impulsively, she picked up one of the tasty morsels and, turning slightly, held it to his chiseled mouth. He took it, his lips brushing her fingers as he savored it.
“Not bad,” he said with a grin, his eyes washing over her soft, flushed face. “Did you make them, Persephone?”
“Yes.”
“And some mushrooms in hemlock gravy?” he teased.
She smiled at him. “Only as a side dish,” she replied.
His eyes held hers, narrowing, glittering, as the smile left his mouth. His big hands tightened on her waist in a hungry, painful grip.
“Why don’t you turn around?” he murmured in a deep, lazy tone. “I’d rather taste you than the canapes.”
She blushed to the roots of her hair. “I…I have to finish these,” she protested breathlessly, tugging at his big, warm hands.
His open mouth ran up and down the softness of her neck in a sensuous, slow caress. “You smell of spring buds opening after a soft gray rain. No heavy perfume. No stiff hairspray and layers of makeup. You make me hungry, wood nymph.”
She drew a deep, slow breath. “Would you like another canape?” she asked, trying to make a joke out of it.
“Come outside with me,” he murmured at her ear, his teeth lightly nipping the lobe, “and let me make love to you.”