It had been a long time since she’d felt like that about a man.
“Let me take you back to the hotel.” His voice in her ear was coaxing now. Ronnie liked that. She snuggled closer.
“Maybe,” she said. “After we dance.”
“Ronnie …”
It was the first time he had called her by her given name since the day she had met him. Usually he didn’t call her anything at all, just shot “suggestions” at her. When he had to address her as something, it was as Miz Honneker, in an ironic-sounding southern drawl that increasingly made her want to hit him. Ronnie rewarded him now by stroking the nape of his neck with a forefinger. He stiffened.
His hands were still on either side of her waist. They tightened. His fingers dug into her middle. She got the impression that he was trying to work some space between them.
Not a chance, buster, she told him silently, and tightened her arms around his neck. Her hips pressed against his. She discovered that he was as affected by her proximity as she was by his.
He’d found her attractive from the beginning. She had experienced the admiration of too many men not to recognize the signs.
“Tom.” She purred his name. It felt right on her tongue. Just as he felt right in her arms.
“We have to go.” He was talking in her ear again.
“Go if you want. I’ll find somebody else to dance with me.”
They were barely moving now, just swaying in time to the pulsing beat. The fine tropical wool of his suit felt scratchy against her bare arms and legs. The sensation was erotic, as though she were naked in his arms while he remained fully clothed. Other couples pressed against them on all sides, limiting movement. Not that anyone seemed to care. Ronnie discovered that they had somehow worked their way into a dark corner not too far from a door discreetly marked Exit. Though there were people all around, the sense of being alone with him was intense.
Her arms wrapped tighter around his neck. Her fingers stroked the warm skin of his nape. His broad shoulders were curved protectively around her, and her breasts snuggled against his chest. Her hips brushed his hips, her thighs pressed his thighs. The last holdout against a totally enveloping embrace were his hands on either side of her waist.
If he had asked, she would have told him that resistance was futile.
She pressed closer, until every inch of her body from shoulder to knees was in contact with his. Letting go of his neck, she slowly slid her hands over his shoulders and down his arms to his wrists. Tugging, she removed his hands from her waist and pulled them around her body. He did not fight her, though she got the impression that his capitulation was reluctant. Too bad, she thought, luxuriating in the feel of his arms around her as her hands slid back up to lock behind his neck. A faint, satisfied smile curved her lips, and she rested her head on his shoulder.
“Do you realize it’s after three a.m.? You have to give a speech at nine in the morning.” He was scolding now, but she didn’t mind: His breath was warm on her ear. As if to give the lie to his tone, his arms were wrapped securely around her body, holding her close against him.
“Maybe,” she said, looking up at him with a tiny smile. The hard angle of his jaw was just about at the level of her nose. It was dark with stubble, and enticingly male.
“What do you mean, ‘maybe’?” He sounded tense as he spoke in her ear again. His face brushed her cheek; his unshaven jaw felt abrasive against the softness of her skin.
“Maybe I’m not going back.” She tilted her head, rubbing her cheek against that hard masculine jaw. It smelled faintly of—what? Some sort of shaving cream maybe? Something with a hint of menthol. It was also, she discovered when she tasted it with her tongue, a tad salty. She turned the taste into a kiss, pressing her lips against the bristly skin just beneath his jawline.
He made an inarticulate sound, and his head jerked back, putting the spot she’d kissed out of reach of her mouth. His hands returned to either side of her waist, gripping firmly, and this time he succeeded in putting a little space between them.
It seemed to take him a minute to get beyond that. Ronnie watched him take one deep breath, then another. Dark and unreadable, his gaze met hers, and held for an instant. His jaw hardened. Then he leaned forward to speak in her ear again. There was a kind of forced jocularity to his tone that tickled her funny bone. Try though he might, he wasn’t fooling her. He was as turned on by her as she was by him.
“No more of that, now, you hear? Look, you’ve had a hard couple of weeks, I know. So you went out tonight to blow off a little steam. I understand. Tomorrow everything will look different. Let me take you back to the hotel and—”
“And what?” This time she kissed his ear, drew the lobe into her mouth, and bit down lightly. Where his jaw had been hard and bristly, his earlobe was soft and tender.
“Damn it, Ronnie, stop it!” He jerked his ear out of reach and pulled his head back to glare down at her. Which simply left his neck exposed. She smiled, and ran her mouth down the warm brown column.
“How much have you had to drink?” His voice was rough, and his body felt taut as a coiled spring against her. His fingers dug into her waist so hard they almost hurt. Ronnie could feel the pounding of his pulse against her lips.
“Not that much,” she rose up on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. Tightening her arms around his neck, she explored the delicate whorls with her tongue. He shuddered.
“That’s it. We’re out of here.” There was steely determination in his voice, and in the hands that came up to pull her arms from around his neck.
“I don’t want to go,” she said, resisting as his hands shackled her wrists and pulled them down. Her arms were imprisoned between them, his hands circling her wrists, hers pressed flat against his chest, creating a small degree of space between their bodies. She met his gaze. “And I’ll make the biggest scene in the world if you try to make me. If you don’t want to play, fine. I won’t have any trouble finding someone who does.”
“Is that what you want? To play?” He was standing still now, no longer making any pretense of dancing. His eyes gleamed at her through the darkness. He looked flushed, ruffled, angry.
Ronnie smiled up at him, a small, deliberately seductive smile. And nodded.
His gaze held hers for an instant. His face was hard, his jaw set. Then he muttered something under his breath that sounded like “damn.” His hands tightened around her wrists, and his mouth came down on hers.
Chapter
14
RONNIE HAD FORGOTTEN what it felt like to be kissed like that. His lips were hard and hot and angry—and hungry. She opened her mouth under his and kissed him back and felt her body rev up with all the excited, searing passion of a horny seventeen-year-old.
He pulled his mouth from hers and looked down at her. She smiled up at him with dreamy anticipation. His hands tightened around her wrists. His eyes were hooded, restless, gleaming. His jaw was tight.
“That’s it. That’s all the playing I’m prepared to do on a public dance floor with a reporter lurking somewhere around. You’re coming with me.”
“Where to?”
“Where do you think? Back to the hotel.” He sounded savage.
“Goody.” Ronnie was smiling as she let him pull her toward the exit. “Back to the hotel” was ripe with possibilities.
The exit he chose was the one nearest them, a rear door that opened onto an alley. He kept one hand locked on her wrist as he propelled her around the building, then across the street to the parking lot, which was dark except for the yellow circles of illumination provided by security lights in each corner. As he walked he kept glancing around, obviously on the alert for something. The reporter he kept talking about? Ronnie didn’t care.
There were other couples there who were also apparently in the process of leaving the Yellow Dog. Several had paused at various spots between the parking-lot entrance and their cars to embrace. Ronnie eyed them enviously. Her lips still tingled from Tom’s kiss.
He pulled her around the rear of a pale-blue sub-compact, opened the passenger door, pushed her down into the seat, and reached over her to secure the lap belt. Ronnie took advantage of his proximity to run her hands over his chest beneath his suit coat. The white shirt felt cool and smooth; his body beneath was warm and muscular.
The seat belt clicked into place. His gaze met hers. Then he kissed her mouth, quick and hard. Ronnie didn’t even have time to respond before he withdrew and slammed the car door shut.
Ronnie settled into her seat, watching him as he walked around the front of the car.
He got in beside her, shut his door, fastened his lap belt, and sent her a grim glance.
“Tom.” She tried out his name again, smiling at him. Her head rested against the seatback, and her face was turned toward him.
“Ronnie,” he said in not nearly as loverly a tone as she had used. Then, “Do you have any idea what that’s going to look like if anybody in there was taking pictures and if those pictures hit the papers?” He inserted the key into the ignition and started the car.
“You mean when you kissed me?” His profile was really very handsome, she decided. He was very handsome. Especially his mouth, which was sensuous in a way she had hitherto failed to notice.
“That, and the rest of it.” He shot her a glance she couldn’t read, and reversed out of the parking space.
“If they print a picture of you kissing me, it’s going to look like we’re having an affair,” she said. “The rest of it was only dancing.”
“Is that what it was?” Tom’s voice was dry. “Luckily I don’t think a photographer could take recognizable pictures under those conditions. Damn it, Ronnie, one more scandal will sink this campaign.” He shifted the car into drive and headed for the parking-lot entrance.
“I don’t care.”
He glanced at her again. His face was harder now, his gaze more dispassionate. She had the impression that he was exercising tremendous self-control. “You will in the morning. When the booze wears off.”
“I told you I didn’t have that much to drink.”
He pulled out into the street. His answer was derisive. “That’s what you told me.”
“Don’t you believe me?”
“No.”
“You think I’m coming on to you because I’m drunk.” Her words were measured.
“Something like that, yes.”
“Are you drunk?”
“I had one beer.”
“So you’re not drunk?”
“No.”
“You kissed me. Twice.”
The look he sent her way should have made Ronnie cringe in her seat. Instead she crossed her long, bare legs very deliberately at the knee, and smiled at him.
“Look, Miz Honneker, here’s the situation: This campaign is just coming back from the brink of being derailed by a sex scandal. The voters seem willing to overlook your husband’s lapse, they are liking you better because of the way you’ve handled it, and all in all things are looking pretty good. The key now is not to blow it. Your going barhopping falls under the category of blowing it. There are reporters everywhere, and you can take it as gospel that one of them is going to spot you. In fact you were spotted. The reporter just wasn’t one-hundred-percent certain it was you. But you can bet your bottom dollar that the guy who thinks he saw you in the Yellow Dog will be at your nine-o’clock speech to see if you look like you got a good night’s sleep or were out partying till four a.m. Unless he’s already somehow managed to positively ID you, which means he’ll have a nice lead for tomorrow’s paper and the campaign is gone to hell.”
He turned left at an intersection. Tugging at the hem of her shorts, which had ridden up to nearly the tops of her thighs, Ronnie shifted her legs again. The movement earned them a searing sideways glance.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” Ronnie asked, not the least bit interested in the possible ramifications of her night out at the moment.
“What? Why?”
“I just wondered, that’s all.”
“Did you hear anything I just said?” He sounded exasperated.
“I heard every word. And I asked you a question: Do you have a girlfriend?”
His eyes narrowed. “Asking for Thea again?”
Ronnie shook her head. “This time I’m asking for me.”
His hands tightened around the steering wheel. His lips compressed. Ronnie got the impression that he was weighing several options before replying.
“Yes, I have a girlfriend.”
“What’s her name?”
He hesitated, shooting her a hooded glance. “Diane.”
“Is she local?”
“She lives in De Kalb, near my mother.”
“Why haven’t I met her? You’ve practically lived with us for the past three weeks.”
“Because I like to keep my private life separate from my professional life, that’s why.” His reply was short.
“Don’t they ever get mixed together? Your private life and your professional life?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“What happens if you can’t help it?” Her question was soft, with an almost baiting quality to it.
“I can help it.” His voice was grim.
There was a pause as he stopped at a four-way light and waited through the changes. A police car on their right cruised past them, and then it was their turn.
“Is she pretty?”
“Who?”
“Your girlfriend. Diane.”
“Yes, she’s pretty.”
“As pretty as me?”
He glanced at her, clearly exasperated again. “No, she’s not as pretty as you. Who is? Now, would you please shut up and let me drive? All we need is to get pulled over.”
His voice was rough. Ronnie smiled and was obediently silent. This late at night, or early in the morning, really, the streets were practically deserted. The business establishments were dark and empty as well, except for an all-night gas station cum minimart. As they drove past it, Ronnie saw the multistory rectangle that was the Hyatt. It stood on the next corner.
“We’re here,” she said.
“Thank God.”
“You sound like you want to be rid of me.”
“I’ll be glad to get you safely back to your room.” He pulled into the Hyatt’s parking lot, found a spot near a side entrance, stopped the car, and got out. Ronnie waited while he came around to open her door. When she didn’t move but simply sat looking up at him with a small smile, he gave her a very hard look, leaned in, and undid her seat belt.
No kisses on his part. No touches on hers.
“Let’s go,” he said, straightening, and catching her hand.
“Don’t you kind of feel like a warden escorting a prisoner back to jail?” Ronnie asked wryly as she let him pull her from the car.
“No, I feel like a very lucky political consultant who has just managed to head off one hell of a scandal by the skin of his teeth. I hope.” He shut the car door and turned to face her, still holding her hand. Surprised to find that she was slightly unsteady on her feet, Ronnie leaned against the side of the car. The place he had chosen to park was a good distance from the nearest security light and was consequently thick with shadows; overhead a blue-tinged moon floated high in a sea of stars. A warm breeze blew a strand of her hair across her mouth. Ronnie pulled it free. He watched her, his expression suddenly intent. Their gazes met. His fingers tightened around hers at the same time as his lips compressed.
Before Ronnie could say anything, he turned away, pulling her after him as he headed toward a dimly lit side door.
“Why are we going in this way?” It was really very hard to walk fast in three-inch heels, Ronnie discovered.
“In case anybody’s had the bright idea of staking out the lobby. To catch you coming in from your night on the town.”
“I never t
hought of that.”
“Apparently not.”
Tom used the key card to his room to open the side door and ushered her through it. It closed behind them with a soft click. The long corridor in which they found themselves unfurled through a double line of closed doors. Semicircular sconces glowed dimly against beige-and-green wave-patterned wallpaper. The forest-green carpet underfoot muffled their footsteps. A deep hush lay over everything, reminding Ronnie irresistibly of Sleeping Beauty’s castle after the Wicked Fairy cast a spell over everyone in it. She and Tom might as well have been the only two people alive.
Tom held her hand as they walked down the hallway. Though there was nothing romantic about his grip—Ronnie got the feeling he was hanging on to her for insurance, just in case she should get it into her head to try to run away—she curled her slender fingers around his larger, broader hand and was content.
She wanted him, and she meant to have him. His mind might temporarily resist, but his body was already hers for the taking. She knew as well as she knew that it was hot in the summer in Mississippi that he burned for her just as she burned for him.
The hotel’s main elevators rose in a central core off the lobby. Secondary elevators were positioned near the back of the hotel, one in each of three wings. Tom stopped in front of one of these and pushed the button. Seconds later the door slid open with a ding. He stepped inside, pulling Ronnie with him, and pressed the button for the sixth floor.
“My room is on seven,” Ronnie protested as the door shut and they started to rise.
“We’re going to walk up the last flight. Just in case. It wouldn’t be real hard for a good reporter to get your room number. I don’t want somebody surprising us as we get off the elevator.”
“Careful, aren’t we?”
“You better believe it.”
The motion of the elevator affected her balance, and she staggered a little. His grip on her hand tightened, steadying her.
“So you didn’t have that much to drink, eh?” The question was sarcastic. Ronnie shook her head stubbornly, hanging on to his hand for dear life; her head was starting to swim.
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