by JoAnn Ross
His words stuck in his throat and his jaw dropped as he caught sight of the stranger standing in his bedroom. “Sasha?”
The glamorous woman behind the makeup counter at Saks who had, at Margaret’s prompting, sold Sasha enough cosmetics to open her own salon, had helpfully drawn the application instructions on the sketch of a face. Sasha had followed the instructions carefully, and after numerous failed attempts, thought she’d succeeded. But the way Mitch was staring at her—as if he’d never seen her before—made her worry that she’d overdone the makeover.
“Is something wrong?” It was the eyeliner! She’d known it was a mistake!
He opened his mouth to answer, but his stunned mind could not come up with the appropriate words. All he could do was shake his head.
He’d known she was pretty. Even, on occasion, beautiful, in a sweet, natural sort of way. But never in a million years could Mitch have imagined that Sasha could be so breathtakingly sexy.
The kohl liner made her smoldering eyes look even larger and darker than usual. A deep slash of color accented her chiseled Russian cheekbones, and her lips, glistening with gloss, made him think of ripe, succulent berries.
As for that skimpy excuse of a dress... it was both strangely innocent and outrageously alluring. As the dangling crystal earrings drew his attention to her bare shoulders, he felt a sudden, almost irresistible urge to sink his teeth into that gleaming skin.
“You do not like my new dress?” Her wet, ruby-red, eatme-up mouth turned downward. Her hands ran over the sparkling scarlet fabric in an unconscious caress that made his mouth go dry. “I can change, if you’d like.”
“No!” The word came out on an explosion of pent-up breath. “No,” he repeated as his stomach muscles tightened into treacherous knots. “Don’t change a thing. I was just surprised, that’s all.” He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t expecting, I didn’t know... aw, hell.”
He dragged his hands through his hair as he continued to stare at her, wondering what, if anything, she was wearing beneath that sparkly, fire-engine-red, baby-doll dress.
It was working! Giddy with newfound feminine power, Sasha held out her arms and slowly turned on the dangerously spindly high heels. “Your sister picked it out.”
“Remind me to thank her.”
“I will do that.” She smiled at him over her bare shoulder, a slow, seductive siren’s smile that promised untold erotic delights. “Tomorrow morning.” She glanced down her bare back at her legs. “Oh, dear,” she sighed prettily, “I told Katie these stockings would prove a challenge.”
The damn stockings in question had seams, Mitch realized, slender black ones that lured a guy’s eyes all the way from her trim little ankles to where the dark lines disappeared beneath that scandalously short skirt. As she bent over to ostensibly straighten the right seam, blood rushed hotly from his head, flooding straight to his groin.
“Lord, lady.” His deep voice was strained and husky with hunger.
“Is something wrong?” she asked innocently.
He shook his head. “Not a thing.”
“I’m glad. This is your special night, Mitch. Everything should be perfect.” Satisfied, she straightened. “How is that? Are they straight now?”
Knowing how a suicidal man felt when looking over the ledge atop a skyscraper, Mitch made himself take a longer look at those amazing legs. “Perfect.” Lord, perfect didn’t even begin to describe it.
He wanted to run his hands all the way up that glistening dark silk; he wanted to roll those stockings down, centimeter by centimeter, tasting each bit of warm ivory flesh. He wanted to lick her, bite her, eat her up. He wanted her in a way he’d never—ever—wanted a woman before.
He tossed the tux in its plastic bag onto the bed, then crossed the few feet separating them and ran his hands down her arms.
“Mrs. Cudahy, I do think you’re trying to seduce me.”
His eyes were dark and dangerous. Sasha was thrilled by the desire in those stormy blue depths. “Why, whatever made you think such a thing?” she asked with blatantly feigned innocence.
“Let’s just say it was an educated guess.” He smiled, enjoying the moment. “I have an idea.”
“Last time you had an idea, I ended up getting married.” She laughed and tossed her head, causing a frothy ebony cloud of hair to drift over her naked shoulders. “I’m almost afraid to ask what you’ve come up with this time.”
The stunning metamorphosis went beyond the change in clothing and makeup, Mitch realized. Her entire personality had changed, as if someone had broken into the apartment while he’d been at the station, kidnapped his sweet, shy little bride and left this sexy vixen in her place.
“You really want to know what I’ve come up with?” He took her slender, beringed hand in his and pressed her palm against the front of his jeans. “How’s this for starters?”
Beneath the denim barrier, he was hard as a boulder. And seemingly as large. Even as she feared she’d never be able to take all of him inside her, Sasha felt herself growing warm and wet between her thighs.
“That’s a very good start.” Obviously Katie had been right about her new outfit being dangerous ammunition. It appeared Mitch was more than ready to surrender the seduction battle. “But don’t you think you should be getting ready to leave for your awards ceremony? As you said, you were late getting home and we don’t have much time.”
“How about we just stay home? Like an old married couple?”
“I would like that.” She sighed dramatically, drawing attention to her perfumed breasts. “But unfortunately, it wouldn’t be fair to disappoint so many people. After all, the dinner is in your honor. And it’s for charity.”
Her caressing fingers caused desire to pool and throb. If she kept it up, there would be no way he’d be able to walk into that ballroom without wearing his fireman’s jacket to hide his aching arousal.
He lifted her treacherous hand to his lips and touched the tip of his tongue against the slender blue vein on the inside of her wrist. “I guess you’re right.” He looked at her over their linked fingers. “I suppose, if I were to kiss you, I’d mess up your lipstick.”
“I think, Mitch,” she said honestly, “that if you were to kiss me, we would never get to the banquet.”
“True.” His sigh was rougher and deeper than hers had been.
“I suppose it was unfair of me to wear such a revealing dress when you are trying so hard to be a gentleman.” There was not a scintilla of apology in either her tone or her expression.
“A gentleman wouldn’t be thinking the thoughts that flimsy excuse of a dress inspires. And I’ll admit that I couldn’t breathe when I first walked in the door and saw you wearing it. But it’s more than that, Sasha.
“Whatever I’m feeling for you is a helluva lot more complicated than animal lust caused by a skimpy red dress and hooker heels.” His gaze skimmed down her legs. “Although they are pretty terrific.”
Despite the seriousness of the topic, Sasha laughed. “The shoes were your mother’s contribution. I’ve been worrying all day that I won’t be able to walk in them.”
“Don’t worry your gorgeous head about that little problem. I think it’s my husbandly duty to hold you up.”
He rocked forward on the balls of his feet, as if intending to kiss her on the mouth. At the last minute he changed course and touched his lips to her powdered cheek instead. “Since we have to go to this shindig, I’d better go shower and get dressed.”
An unpalatable thought occurred to her. While she’d spent a long luxurious time bathing in the perfumed water, contemplating her seduction plans, she’d completely forgotten that Mitch would be needing a shower, as well. “I hope I left you enough hot water.”
He laughed at that. “Darlin’, that’s the least of my worries.”
He went into the bathroom and stripped off his clothes, trying to prevent ruining his chances for a future family while gingerly unzipping his too-tight jeans.
A
s he stepped beneath the purposefully icy water that did nothing to lessen his desire for his stunningly alluring wife, Mitch told himself that it was going to be a very long evening.
THE AWARDS DINNER was held in a resort ballroom overlooking formal gardens and a golf course. To Mitch’s delight, amazement, and physical discomfort, Sasha tormented him all during dinner.
Under the long, white damask cloth covering the head table she slipped one foot out of her high-heeled shoe and ran her stocking-clad toes up his calf beneath his trouser leg, while her free hand stroked his thigh.
During dessert, while the introductory speaker droned on and on, she slanted him a coy glance from beneath the dark fringe of her lashes as she slowly, deliberately, licked a bit of whipped cream from her top lip. Watching her, Mitch felt his blood pressure soar through the high gilt ceiling.
“You realize,” he murmured, his own hand delving beneath the tablecloth to squeeze her smooth leg, “that you’re playing with fire.”
“Ah, but you’re a fireman, Mitch,” she responded in a lush, silky voice he’d never heard from her before. “Surely you’re capable of handling a few flames.”
“I like to think so.” His fingers were making slow, melting circles against the sensitive skin on the inside of her thighs. “The challenge is going to be, not to put the fire out too soon.”
Before she could respond, Mitch realized that the speaker had finally called his name, drawing applause from the gathered crowd below the dais.
“Later,” he murmured in Sasha’s ear as he tossed his napkin onto the table and stood.
“Promises, promises,” she murmured with a dangerous siren’s smile that momentarily wiped his mind as clean as glass.
It took Mitch a moment to recover. Then, as he looked out over the audience and saw his mother and sister seated at a front table, he remembered what he’d wanted to say.
“I want to thank the governor, the mayor, and everyone on the citizens’ council who voted me this honor,” he said. “And it is an honor. But the truth is, I don’t deserve it.” Ignoring the unified intake of breath that rippled across the room, he continued. “At least no more than any of the other fire fighters—and cops—who put their lives on the line every day.
“People have this romantic notion that we fight fires and bad guys because of some strong inner urge to help people. And that’s true. But most of all, we do it because there’s nothing—well, almost nothing—” he amended, with a quick grin toward Sasha that caused a few chuckles “—that gives a greater high than the job.
“Thirty years ago my father received this same award for rescuing three of his fellow smoke eaters from a department store after the roof had fallen in on them.”
He held the plaque in his hand and looked down at it, as if imagining that day. “I wasn’t born yet, but I was lucky enough to witness many more acts of heroism. Such as the day he showed up at the ballpark, still sooty and drenched in sweat from fighting a desert grass fire, in time to watch me pitch in a Little League playoff game.
“Or when my sister Katie had an attack of appendicitis while we were camping and he drove like a maniac while assuring us all the way down from the mountains that she was going to be okay. And we knew she would be. Because Pops promised.”
He paused again, his warm gaze sweeping over his mother—who surreptitiously wiped a tear away with the back of her finger—and his sister, who smiled back at him through moisture-bright eyes.
“Garrett Cudahy was a generous, faithful husband, a strict but loving father, and yes, a man who chose to fight fires as his life’s work because he truly loved people.
“If I can ever become half the man my father was then, and only then, will I even begin to consider myself a hero. Like my pop.”
He descended the few stairs to the floor to a standing ovation, handed the plaque to Margaret, kissed her on her wet cheek, accepted a kiss from Katie and a handshake from Jake, then returned to his seat.
“That was wonderful,” Sasha said, her own eyes bright with tears. And then, because it had been too long since she’d kissed her husband, she brought his mouth to hers, causing another thunderous burst of applause.
“That reminds me,” the governor said as he stood up again to officially end the awards portion of the evening. “It may come as a disappointment to any single ladies out there, but Mitch has recently gotten himself hitched.” He smiled at Sasha, who’d reluctantly surrendered Mitch’s lips. “Cudahy, you are not only a hero, you are a very lucky man.”
There was more laughter. Then, on cue, the band began playing, inviting couples onto the dance floor.
When Mitch held out his hand to Sasha, she didn’t hesitate. And when he gathered her into his arms and they began swaying slowly to the music, she knew that she’d never been happier.
“That was a very nice thing to do,” she murmured. “Talking about your father like that.”
“It was true.” Mitch pressed his lips against the top of her head. “Pops was the best.” He trailed his hand down her back and, unable to resist the lure of all that creamy bare skin, bent his head and kissed her neck, her shoulder.
Sasha sighed and closed her eyes as she allowed her own hands to play in his hair.
“I wish I could have met him.”
“You would have liked him.” He pulled her closer, enjoying the feel of her soft breasts pressed against his chest. As her smooth thighs brushed against his legs, he felt a resurgence of the desire he’d managed, just barely, to bank long enough to give his brief acceptance speech. “And he would have liked you.”
It was the truth. Although at first he’d mistakenly considered Sasha a victim—a poor little Russian waif in need of rescuing—he’d come to realize that the lady had a helluva lot of guts to leave her country and the only life she’d ever known, to cross an ocean, seeking a father who could turn out to be nothing but a fanciful story told by a mother who wanted her daughter to grow up believing she’d been conceived in love.
Sasha opened her eyes and tilted her head back to look up at him. “Do you really think so?”
“Absolutely.” He smiled and brushed the back of his hand up the side of her face, pleased by the soft drift of pale pink color that bloomed beneath his caressing touch. “He’d say you had gumption.”
She sighed her pleasure, wondering what it would do to Mitch’s heroic reputation to have his wife melt into a little puddle of need right in the middle of a public dance floor.
“This is good? This gumption?”
“The best.”
She thought about that, and smiled. “Mitch?”
“Mmm?” He gave her earlobe a playful nip.
A mist of arousal was drifting over her mind, wrapping her in a silvery haze of pleasure. “Did it upset you? When the governor told everyone you were married?”
Mitch smiled, amazed by the change Sasha had wrought in his life in such a short time. “Actually, if you want to know the absolute truth, I was proud.”
“Really?”
Looking down into her exquisite face, Mitch felt the hunger he always experienced when he was around Sasha meld with an easy affection he had never expected to feel for her.
“Really. Watching every male in the room lusting after a woman and knowing she’s going home with you arouses some very primal feelings.”
“Primal?” She smiled up at him. “Although your English is admittedly better than mine, Mitch, I believe the word you are looking for is possessive.”
Mitch grinned. Enjoying the evening. Enjoying her. “Guilty.” He cupped her chin between his fingers and bent his bead. His lips hovered a breath above hers, nearly close enough for tasting. “How would you like to take a little stroll out on the golf course with your husband?”
Smiling, she touched the tip of her tongue against her top lip. Then, daringly, against his. “I thought you would never ask.”
A full moon rode in a clear desert sky, shining its soft silver light over the velvety dark lawn. The perfume o
f bougainvillaea, hibiscus and roses drifted on the warm air from the nearby gardens. Fingers linked, Mitch pulled Sasha away from the ballroom terrace, across the greens, into a grove of pyramid-shaped silk oak trees.
“Alone at last,” he breathed, then lowered his mouth to hers.
Sasha had expected passion. And fire. And lightning. Instead, she was being treated to a pleasure so sweet, so sublime, it nearly made her weep. Images tumbled seductively through her mind—flickering yellow candlelight, lush red roses, she and Mitch entwined on white satin sheets.
Even as his strong hands played in her hair, she longed for them to touch her everywhere. Even as his firm lips plucked enticingly at hers, drawing her deeper and deeper into a warm, fluid passion, she wished to feel his mouth against every inch of her heated flesh.
Although urgency rose, Mitch kept the pace slow, pleasuring himself, pleasuring her. His lips took a leisurely journey over her face, brushing heat against her temples, before moving on to her closed lids.
“You’re trembling,” he murmured as he tasted the fragrant flesh behind her ear.
“I know.” His warm breath, his tender kisses, were making her knees weak. “I can’t help it.”
He pulled back and smiled into her eyes. Those wide, wonderful, expressive eyes. “Believe me, darlin’, I know the feeling.” Still smiling, he slowly and deliberately took her mouth again.
Tension twisted in his gut as he deepened the kiss, degree by devastating degree. Mitch had kissed more women than he could count, but never had a mere kiss made him ache. And never had kissing any other woman made him tremble.
She was so sweet. So soft. And she was his!
As Mitch reveled in that thought, the part of his brain that was still functioning rationally took note of a distant, familiar sound.
“Aw, hell,” he groaned just as the golf course sprinklers turned on, shooting a fountain of water into the air, drenching them both.