Sheer Pleasure

by Patricia Rosemoor

  “Like what?”

  “Like get you some old-fashioned justice.”

  Annie didn’t want to know the details. There was a side of Nick that scared her sometimes. Not that she ever thought he would hurt her. But in addition to disappearing for days at a time, he never spoke about his past. What dark shadows lurked there? she wondered. For all she knew about his background, he might have been born on that first day of college when they’d met.

  “I’d better get back to the shop,” she said. “Thanks for listening.”

  Doing an about-face, Nick gave her a thumbs-up. “Hey, what are friends for, anyway?”

  Not that it made Annie feel any better.

  Stalked… How had that happened to her? Whose fantasies had she inspired? Other than Nate’s…

  Helen walked with her. “Want to catch a movie tonight?”

  Annie forced away the negative thoughts. “Saturday night and you’re free?”

  “As a bird.”

  What in the world was the matter with John Riley? Annie wondered. Why didn’t the gallery owner have Helen tied up for the night? Or was it Helen herself? While the café owner wasn’t into hookups any more than she herself was, Helen certainly avoided long-term relationships with the numerous men who flitted in and out of her life.

  “I wouldn’t mind a movie,” Annie said, “but I have this dinner I promised to attend.”

  Helen narrowed her gaze. “Nate again.”

  “No, Nathaniel. It’s a business dinner. He’ll be in his lawyer mode.”

  “Oh, Annie.” Helen appeared to be in pain. “I’m really wondering about your judgment. So many things happening to you or your store in the past month and you not involving the police. Now this.”

  This being her going out with either Nate or Nathaniel, Annie knew. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I hope so. I would hate to see you get horribly fooled by a man who was no good for you. Again.”

  “I’m a big girl, as you’ve been reminding me forever,” Annie said. “I have to take a chance sometime.” Now that she had finally opened the door to a man, she wasn’t ready to slam it in his face. “I do have needs.”

  “You’re sleeping with him?”

  “Not exactly. Not yet.”

  Helen groaned, and Annie gave her a hug before hitting the street. She only wished her friend would chill out before doubting Nate became contagious.

  When she got back to the shop, both Gloria and Chantal Williams, the part-time clerk who was a design student the rest of the week, had their hands full. Annie joined in and for a few hours forgot all about stalkers.

  But when the crowd thinned and sales slowed, there it was again, in the back of her mind. All she could think about was covering up those windows.

  “Do you two think you can handle the store alone for the rest of the day?”

  “Hot date?” Chantal asked, her thin, dark face showing her surprise.

  Reminded of the dinner with Nathaniel, Annie muttered, “Yeah, something like that.”

  “Humph.” Gloria crossed her arms and gave her a probing look. “You don’t sound properly enthusiastic.”

  “I’m just tired,” Annie replied.

  Which was true, since she’d hardly slept at all the night before.

  She left with her staff’s blessings. All the way home, she toyed with the idea of canceling the dinner with Nathaniel, but then she’d be facing a night alone. Besides, she might start out the evening with Nathaniel and end it with Nate. Just the thought of Nate’s hands on her again made her toes—and other, more vital places—curl with pleasure.

  And who knew? If she stayed home alone, some pervert might be lurking outside, peeking in. Annie shuddered at the thought. Determined to fix that, the first thing she did upon arriving at home—after feeding Rock, of course—was to hit the upper floor and the room crammed with her estate sale treasures.

  Rock followed, meowing in complaint.

  “Gonna help me?” she asked the cat, opening a few boxes.

  From one of them, she pulled out a gold tassel and dangled it before his nose. She grinned as he batted the thing with both paws. Letting him have the makeshift toy to carry around like a prize, she dug into one of the boxes filled with draperies and found exactly what she’d been looking for.

  After dragging the heavy material down to her living space, she found a hammer and a box of nails. Having no window hardware, she improvised, draping and nailing. She would have all the privacy she needed, yet would still get plenty of light from the upper windows.

  Several hours later, Annie looked around with satisfaction. All the windows with a line of sight to her living area were artfully covered with gold-shot cream cloth. In addition to improving the looks of her near barren living space, it made the lower windows impenetrable to anyone who didn’t have X-ray vision.

  X-ray vision…

  The Superman reference reminded her of Nate, and of her date with Clark Kent. Checking the clock, she saw that it was after seven.

  Just enough time to prepare herself for a date that would probably be as exciting as a funeral.

  NATE WAS DISGRUNTLED that Annie wasn’t wearing the same soft wrap dress that she’d had on the night before. All day he’d been imagining peeling it off her, this time to finish what he’d started.

  Tonight, he’d thought. Tonight he would have her.

  He’d fantasized taking her over and over again until she couldn’t think straight. He’d never met anyone like her—at least not anyone he’d been attracted to. Normally he’d hooked up with flashy women with a lot of confidence. But he’d found the ones he’d dated to be empty inside. They wore everything they had on the outside, and when you looked past that…

  Truth be told, Annie’s display windows had intrigued him from the first. People said the eyes are the windows to the soul. But in this case, Annie’s display windows told him all he needed to know about her.

  But to his disappointment, tonight wasn’t starting off the way he’d hoped. In addition to wearing a plain navy pantsuit and silk sweater, Annie just didn’t seem to be herself. Subdued and a little distracted, she wasn’t at all like the warm, passionate woman he’d experienced the night before. To top it off, he would swear she was purposely leaning away from him in the car.

  “What restaurant are we going to?” she suddenly asked, as if just now realizing they were on the expressway heading north.

  “No restaurant. My father’s home. His and Chloe’s now—that’s his new wife.”

  “Oh.”

  Annie didn’t sound thrilled. Nate could hardly blame her. For a girl who got off on a Harley and a Polish in the forest preserve, a ride in an Acura and a sedate dinner in Winnetka probably seemed tame by comparison.

  “They’re not that bad,” he insisted.

  She roused herself to give him a perfunctory smile. “I’m sure they’re not.”

  “Did something happen today?” he asked, wondering where his Annie had gone. The woman in the car beside him was a dull imitation of the one who had fascinated him for months. “Any more attacks on the shop?”

  “The shop’s fine.”

  But she wasn’t. Try as he might, Nate couldn’t get her to talk about it. And though he had an idea of what might be bothering her, he certainly couldn’t get into it or she would know.

  The moment they stepped into his father’s palatial home and crossed the marble floor to the cream-and-gilt living room Chloe had decorated, Annie shut down even more.

  “Ah, Nathaniel, darling, there you are,” his stepmother said, kissing the air next to his cheek. “You must introduce your little friend.”

  “Annie Wilder, meet Chloe Lamont Bishop. And this is my father, Eugene.” He indicated the couple on the sofa. “Frank Mancuso and his lovely friend…”

  Damn, he’d forgotten her name.

  “Cookie,” the buxom blonde piped up.

  Annie managed a polite greeting, but for some reason seemed uncomfortable. Surely she wasn’t i
ntimidated.

  As his father opened a bottle of Pinot Noir, he asked, “And what do you do, Annie?”

  “I have my own business.”

  Nate added, “Annie rents one of my storefronts over at the six-corners building.”

  “Really,” Chloe said. “You run the little coffee shop?”

  “The lingerie shop. Annie’s Attic.”

  “Really,” Chloe murmured again. Her tone altered so slightly that Nate figured he and his father were the only ones to recognize her disapproval.

  “I love sexy lingerie and so does my Frankie,” Cookie stated.

  “Got any hot new stuff we should know about?” Frank Mancuso asked. His hand heavy with gold rings, he squeezed the blonde. “My Cookie here looks good in anything…or nothing.”

  He laughed heartily, Cookie giggled, Eugene smiled and Chloe went very, very still.

  And Annie looked as if she wanted to be a million miles away from the place.

  Not that she said anything of the kind.

  But Nate knew her well enough to know that she suffered through drinks. She suffered through dinner. She suffered another half hour of inane conversation with one of the law firm’s richest clients—no questions asked about how he’d gotten so wealthy—and his dizzy if sweet Las Vegas showgirl companion.

  The client and date were the reason Nate had been summoned in the first place; he wasn’t as uptight as the rest of his family and could make any client, even a purported mobster, comfortable. Unlike his more conservative father, he’d never had a problem dealing with Frank Mancuso and whoever was on his arm for the evening. But tonight Nate was more worried about losing Annie than about some business that was a done deal whether or not he stuck around. So the moment he spotted an opening after they left the table, he made their excuses and whisked Annie out of there.

  Pulling the car away from the house, he said, “Sorry you didn’t have a better time.”

  Rather than responding to that directly, Annie murmured, “Unusual client.”

  “The only thing our law firm does for Mancuso concerns real estate, though he does have a reputation for certain kinds of unapproved activities,” Nate admitted, not wanting to use the word illegal. “Chloe certainly doesn’t approve of him. That’s the reason I was summoned—to act as a buffer between him and Chloe.”

  “Your stepmother tried to hide it, but I could tell she didn’t like him or his girlfriend.” Annie hesitated only a beat before adding, “She didn’t approve of me, either.”

  “I don’t seek Chloe’s approval about anything, certainly not about the women I date. She can be charming, but she’s also a snob. My father has to live with her, but thankfully, I don’t.”

  “Mmm.”

  A noncommittal response. Then again, Annie had been in a noncommittal mood since he’d picked her up.

  This didn’t bode well for him, Nate thought, gripping the steering wheel in disappointment.

  No Annie in his arms. No Annie in his bed. He could hardly stand it.

  Turning onto the expressway, knowing his plans for the rest of the night were already thwarted, and with no clue as to how he could salvage them, Nate sank into a dark mood of his own.

  8

  THEY WERE ALMOST BACK to her place before Nathaniel asked, “So what happened today?”

  Annie started. She’d been thinking about Mancuso, about his connection to a possible criminal. And that had somehow led her back to the photographs. And to her being alone again. Could Nathaniel read her mind?

  She tried to thwart him. “What makes you think something happened?”

  “I’m not deaf, dumb and blind, Annie,” he said tersely. “Something’s wrong. So what is it?”

  Annie sighed. Of course she needed to tell him. After all, hadn’t he come to her rescue the moment she’d called him the other night? Besides, in a roundabout way, he was involved in what the camera had captured.

  “Someone left me some photographs,” she said. “In a big envelope, no postage, but stuck in with the regular mail.”

  “At the shop?”

  “At home.”

  “So what’s so upsetting about these photographs?”

  “They’re of me,” Annie said, wondering why his voice had gone so tight. “In my underwear.” Before she lost her nerve, she went on quickly. “They were shot the other night, when you and I were on the phone. They’re a little, um…embarrassing,” she said, in lieu of a better word that fully described her feeling of violation.

  Though she noticed his hands tighten a bit on the steering wheel, Nathaniel didn’t sound particularly shocked when he said, “I knew you needed a security system.”

  “What I needed was window coverings! Now I have them.”

  Annie nearly bit her own tongue after snapping at him. He was only making suggestions in her best interests. But she did have a mind of her own, and everyone always seemed to know what she should do. Her parents. Helen. Now him.

  As an only child, she’d been overprotected. And now that she was out on her own, she wanted to feel like an adult—difficult to do when everyone was always watching out for her. She didn’t want to be left alone; she just wanted a support system, as opposed to another set of parents.

  “So you have no idea of how the envelope got into your mail?” Nathaniel asked.

  “I thought I saw someone I knew when I got out of the taxi. Harry Burdock.”

  “Burdock? Are you certain?”

  “Not really,” Annie admitted. “The guy was too far away and it was dark. But he was big and his size reminded me of your security guard.” Wondering whether she should say more, she decided to go for it. “The other night Burdock gave me a scare…and I, uh, think he kind of liked it.”

  Voice tight, Nathaniel said, “I’ll have a talk with him,” before withdrawing into a thoughtful silence.

  Feeling better that she’d gotten all that off her chest, Annie stared out the window into the dark, wondering how she was going to handle the personal stuff that was to come once they arrived at her place. After the night before, he would no doubt assume that they would get down and dirty….

  But this was Nathaniel. Straight-arrow Nathaniel. Not the guy she was having fantasies over.

  By the time they pulled up in front of her place, Annie felt tense enough to explode, and determined to avoid a sexual confrontation. Not even waiting for him to round the car, she opened her door herself and jumped out.

  “I’m really tired. Long day. Long, hard day,” she stated as she inched her way toward her front door. “We had lots of customers. And the window coverings—did those, too, remember.”

  “You sound wired,” he said, closing the car door behind her. “Maybe a glass of wine will mellow you out.”

  “No wine.”

  Though she kept inching away from him, Nathaniel moved in on her. Knowing he meant to kiss her—maybe more—Annie took a big step back.

  “It’s late,” she said.

  He hesitated, but only for a minute before asking, “Too late for a good-night kiss?”

  Not knowing how exactly to get out of it without hurting his feelings, Annie licked her lips and murmured, “Well, if that’s all…”

  His expression was odd as he closed the gap between them. “Are you sure that’s all you want?” he asked.

  “Positive.”

  Still, when he kissed her, he put his all into it, Annie noted, immediately pulling away mentally. The kiss was pleasant but not earth-shattering. Not like Nate’s kisses.

  She pushed at his chest and stepped back, not knowing what to say. We’ll do it again sometime? Well, maybe she would…with Nate. Not that she could tell Nathaniel that.

  “I’m getting the feeling that I did something to offend you last night.”

  Staring up into his face, she noted the tightness tugging at his eyes and mouth, and something in her stirred in response. “I—I wasn’t offended.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  Tho
ugh she was feeling more confused than anything, she merely said, “I’m a little freaked out over the photographs.” Which, of course, was the truth.

  “Maybe I should come in and take a look.”

  Her pulse jolted her as she thought of the conservative Nathaniel inspecting a photograph of her touching herself. “No, really. I’m tired. Some other time.”

  He stared down at her. Maybe it was the way the streetlights cast shadows across his face, but the man towering over her suddenly looked like a stranger to her. Like some guy she didn’t know at all. Not Nathaniel. Not Nate. Uncertainty curled through her and she took another step away from him, backing straight into the door.

  “You can’t run from me, Annie,” he said, stepping closer, flattening both hands on the jambs on either side of her. “Sooner or later you’re going to come to terms with what you want from me. What I can give you…”

  Her heart thundered as she said, “Now that’s a little arrogant, don’t you think?”

  “Just stating the facts.”

  The fact was he was suddenly too close to her. A frisson of something undefinable slid up her spine. Something uncomfortable, edgy and yet somehow titillating….

  Before she could think of what to do, he stepped back and she was face-to-face with Nathaniel again. Handsome, nice-guy, conservative Nathaniel.

  “Good night, Annie.”

  “Night,” she gasped, clasping together hands that suddenly trembled.

  Remembering that she had to unlock her door, she did so with him looking on from a distance. He didn’t drive off until she was safely inside…leaving her more confused.

  Annie tried talking it over with Rock later, but he wasn’t much help. He kept rolling over and giving her his tummy to scratch. At least she had a great relationship with the cat, she thought ironically, remembering the comment about Rock being the male in her life.

  The phone startled them both. The cat jumped to his feet in a crouch, and Annie felt her pulse spike.

  Hoping against hope that it was Nate—he’d had enough time to get home by now—she took a deep breath and picked up the receiver. “Hello.”