P.J. wrote the number down.
She knew he wanted to talk to her, to try to convince her he didn't want to have sex with her in an attempt to dominate and put her securely in her place as first and foremost a woman. No, his feelings of desire had grown out of the extreme respect he had for her, and from his realization that gender didn't matter in the work she did.
Yeah, right.
Of course, he might have asked her to call so he could give her some important work-related information. Kevin's message meant there was bound to be some news.
As much as she didn't want to—and she didn't want to call Harvard, she told herself—she was going to have to.
But first she had more important things to do, such as checking in with the weather channel, to see if Mr. Murphy was going to send a tropical depression into their midst on the days they were scheduled to battle the steely-eyed Lieutenant William Hawken and his merry band of mock terrorists.
The phone rang before she'd keyed up the weather channel with the remote control.
P.J. hit the mute button and picked up the call. "Richards."
"Yo, it's H. Did you just page me?"
P.J. closed her eyes. "No. No, not yet. I was going to, but—"
"Good, you got my message, at least. Why don't you come down to the bar and—"
P.J. forced herself to sound neutral and pleasant. "Thanks, but no. I'm ready for bed—"
"It's only twenty hundred." His voice nearly cracked in disbelief. "You can't be serious—"
"I'm very serious. We've got some tough days ahead of us, starting tomorrow," she told him. "I intend to sleep as much now as I possibly—"
"Starting tomorrow, we've got two days of leave," he interrupted her.
Of all the things she'd expected him to say, that wasn't on the list. "We do?"
"We'll be boarding a plane for Southeast Asia on Thursday. Until then we've got a break."
"Southeast Asia?" P.J. laughed, tickled with delight "Kevin really came through, didn't he? What a guy! He deserves something special for this one. I'm going to have to think long and hard."
On the other end of the line, Harvard was silent. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded different. Stiffer. More formal. "Richards, come downstairs. We really have to talk."
Now the silence was all hers. P.J. took a deep breath. "Daryl, I'm sorry. I don't think it's—"
"All right. Then I'll be right up."
"No—"
He'd already hung up.
P.J. swore sharply, then threw the phone's handset into the cradle with a clatter. Her bed was a rumpled mess of unmade blankets and sheets, her pillow slightly indented from her late afternoon nap.
She didn't want to make her bed. She wasn't going to make her bed, damn it. She'd meet him at the door, and they'd step outside into that little lobby near the elevators to talk. He'd say whatever it was he had to say, she'd turn him down one more time, and then she'd go back into her room.
He knocked, and P.J. quickly rifled through the mess on the dresser to find her key card. Slipping it into the pocket of her shorts, she went to the door. She peeked out the peephole. Yeah, it was definitely Harvard. She opened the door.
He wasn't smiling. He was just standing there, so big and forbidding. "May I come in?"
P.J. forced a smile. "Maybe we should talk outside."
Harvard glanced over his shoulder, and she realized there were people sitting on the sofa and chairs by the elevators. "I would prefer the privacy of your room. But if you're uncomfortable with that..."
Admitting she had a problem sitting down and talking to Harvard in the intimate setting of her hotel room would be tantamount to admitting she was not immune to his magnetic sexuality. Yes, she was uncomfortable. But her discomfort was not because she was afraid he would try to seduce her- that was a given. Her discomfort came from her fear that once he started touching her, once he started kissing her, she wouldn't have the strength to turn him down.
And God help her if he ever realized that.
"I just want to talk to you," he said, searching her eyes. "Throw on a pair of shoes and we can go for a walk. I'll wait for you by the elevator," he added when she hesitated.
It was a good solution. She didn't have to change out of her shorts and T-shirt to go to the bar, but she didn't have to let him into her room, either.
"I'll be right there," P.J. told him.
It took a moment to find her sandals under the piles of dirty clothes scattered around the room. She finally slipped her feet into them and, taking a deep breath, left her room.
Harvard was holding an elevator, and he followed her in and pushed the button for the main floor of the big hotel complex. He was silent all the way down, silent as she led the way out of the hotel lobby and headed toward the glistening water of the swimming pool.
The sky was streaked with the colours of the setting sun, and the early evening still held the muggy heat of the day. A family—mother, father, two young children—were in the pool, and several couples, one elderly, the other achingly young, sat in the row of lounge chairs watching the first stars of the evening appear.
Harvard was silent until they had walked to the other side of the pool.
"I have a question for you," he finally said, leaning against the railing that overlooked the deep end. "A personal question. And I keep thinking, this is not my business. But then I keep thinking that in a way, it is my business, because it affects me and..." He took a deep breath, letting it out in a burst of air. "I'm talking all around it, aren't I? I suppose the best way to ask is simply to ask point-blank."
P.J. could feel tension creeping into her shoulders and neck. He wanted to ask a personal question. Was it possible he'd somehow guessed? He was, after all, a very perceptive man. Was it possible he'd figured it out from those kisses they'd shared?
She took a deep breath. Maybe it was better that he knew. On the other hand, maybe it wasn't. Maybe he'd take it-and her-as some kind of a challenge.
"You can ask whatever you want," she told him, "but I can't promise I'm going to answer."
He turned toward her, his face shadowed in the rapidly fading light. "Is the reason you've been pushing me away—"
Here it came.
"—because of your relationship with Kevin Laughton?"
P.J. heard the words, but they were so different from the ones she'd been expecting, it took a moment for her to understand what he'd asked.
Kevin Laughton. Relationship. Relationship?
But then she understood. She understood far too well.
"You think because I have Kevin's home number, because I have direct access to the man when he's on vacation, that I must be getting it on with him, don't you?" She shook her head in disgust, moving away from him. "I should've known. With men like you, everything always comes down to sex."
Harvard followed her. "P.J., wait. Talk to me. Are you saying no? Are you saying there's nothing going on between you and Laughton?"
She turned to face him. "The only thing going on between me and Kevin—besides our highly exemplary work relationship—is a solid friendship. Kind of like what I thought you and I had going between us. The man is married to one of my best friends from college, a former roommate of mine. I introduced them because I like Kevin and I thought Elaine would like him even more, in a different way. I was right, and they got married last year. The three of us continue to be good friends. I've spent time at the beach house on Pawley's Island with the two of them. Does that satisfy your sordid curiosity?"
"P.J., I'm sorry—"
"Not half as sorry as I am. Let me guess—the whole damned Alpha Squad is speculating as to how many different times and different ways I've had to get it on with Kevin in order to get his home phone number, right?" P.J. didn't give him a chance to answer. "But if I were a man, everyone would've just assumed I was someone who had earned Kevin Laughton's trust through hard work."
"You're right to be upset," Harvard said. "It was wrong of me to think t
hat way. I was jealous—"
"I bet you were," she said sharply. "You were probably thinking it wasn't fair—Kevin getting some, you not getting any."
She turned to walk away, but he moved quickly, blocking her path. "I'd be lying if I said sex didn't play a part in the way I was feeling," Harvard said, his voice low. "But there's so much more to this thing we've got going—this friendship, I guess I'd have to call it for lack of a better name. In a lot of ways, the relationship you have with Laughton is far more intimate than any kind of casual sexual fling might be. And I'm standing here feeling even more jealous about that. I know it's stupid, but I like you too much to want to share you with anyone else."
The edge on P.J.'s anger instantly softened. This man sure could talk a good game. And the look in his eyes was enough to convince her he wasn't just slinging around slick, empty words. He was confused by having a real friendship with a woman, and honest enough to admit it.
"Friends don't own friends," she told him gently. "In fact, I thought the entire issue of people owning other people was taken care of a few hundred years ago."
Harvard smiled. "I don't want to own you."
"Are you sure about that?"
Harvard was silent for a moment, gazing into her eyes. "I want to be your lover," he told her. "And maybe your experiences with other men have led you to believe that means I want to dominate and control—as you so aptly put it the other day. And while I'd truly love to make you beg, chances are if we ever get into that kind of... position, you're going to be hearing me do some begging, too."
He was moving closer, an inch at a time, but P.J. was frozen in place, pinned by the look in his eyes and the heat of his soft words. He touched the side of her face, gently skimming the tips of his fingers across her cheek.
"We've played it your way, and we're friends, P.J.," he said softly. "I like being your friend, but there's more that I want to share with you. Much more.
"We can go into this with our eyes open," he continued. "We can go upstairs to your room, and you can lend yourself to me tonight—and I'll lend myself to you. No ownership, no problems." Harvard ran his thumb across her lips. "We can lock your door and we don't have to come out for two whole days."
He lowered his head to kiss her softly, gently. P.J. felt herself sway toward him, felt herself weakening. Two whole days in this man's arms... Never in her life had she been so tempted.
"Let's go upstairs," he whispered. He kissed her again, just as sweetly, as if he'd realized that gentle finesse would get him farther than soul-stealing passion.
But then he stepped away from her, and P.J. realized that all around the pool, lights were going on. One went on directly overhead, and they were no longer hidden by the shadows of the dusk. Harvard still held her hand, though, drawing languorous circles on her palm with his thumb.
He was looking at her as if she were the smartest, sexiest, most desirable woman on the entire planet And she knew that she was looking at him with an equal amount of hunger in her eyes.
She wanted him.
Worst of all, despite her words, she knew she wanted to own him. Heart, body and soul, she wanted this incredible man for herself and herself alone, and that scared her damn near witless.
She turned away, pulling from his grasp, pressing the palms of her hands against the rough wood of the railing, trying to rid herself of the lingering ghost of his touch.
"This is a really bad idea." She had to work hard, and even then her voice sounded thin and fluttery.
He stepped closer, close enough so she could feel his body heat but not quite close enough to touch her. "Logically, yes," he murmured. "Logically, it's insane. But sometimes you've got to go with your gut—and I'm telling you, PJ, every instinct I've got is screaming that this is the best idea I've had in my entire life."
All her instincts were screaming, too. But they were screaming the opposite. This may well be the right man, but was so the wrong time.
Those treacherous, treasonous feelings she was having—the crazy need to possess this man—had to be stomped down, hidden away. She had to push these thoughts far from her, and even though she was by no means an expert when it came to intimate relationships, she knew that getting naked with Harvard Becker would only make things worse.
She had to be able to look at him, to work with him over the next few weeks and be cool and rational.
She wasn't sure she could spend two days making love to him and then pretend there was nothing between them. She wasn't that good an actor.
"Daryl, I can't," she whispered.
He'd been holding his breath, she realized, and he let it out in a rush that was half laughter. "I would say, give me one good reason, except I'm pretty sure you've got a half a dozen all ready and waiting, reasons I haven't even thought of."
She did have half a dozen reasons, but they were all reasons she couldn't share with him. How could she tell him she couldn't risk becoming intimate because she was afraid of falling in love with him?
But she did have one reason she knew he would understand. She took a deep breath. "I've never been with... anyone."
Harvard didn't understand what P.J. meant. He knew she was telling him something important—he could see that in her eyes. But he couldn't make sense of her words. Never been where?
"You know, I've always hated the word virgin," P.J. told him, and suddenly what she'd said clicked. "I came from a neighbourhood where eleven-year-old girls were taunted by classmates for still being virgins."
Harvard couldn't help laughing in disbelief. "No way. Are you telling me you're—" Damn, he couldn't even say the word.
"A virgin."
That was the word. Turning her to face him and searching her eyes, he stopped laughing. "My God, you're serious, aren't you?"
"I used to lie about it," she told him, pulling away to look out over the swimming pool. "Even when I went to college where, you know, you'd expect people to be cool about whatever personal choices other people make in their lives, I had to lie. For some reason, it was okay to be celibate for—well, you name the reason—taking time off from the dating scene, or concentrating on grades for a while, or finding your own space—but it was only okay if you'd been sexually active in the past But as soon as people found out you were a virgin, God, it was as if you had some disease you had to be cured of as soon as possible. Forget about personal choice. I watched other girls get talked into doing things they didn't really want to do with boys they didn't really like, and so I just kept on lying."
She turned to face him then. "But I didn't want to lie to you."
Harvard cleared his throat. He cleared it again. "I'm, um..."
She smiled. "Look at you. I've managed to shock Alpha Squad's mighty Senior Chief."
Harvard found his voice. "Yes," he said. "Shocked is a good word for it."
She was standing there in front of him, waiting. For what? He wasn't quite sure of the protocol when the woman he'd been ferociously trying to seduce all evening admitted she'd never been with a man before.
Some men might take her words as a challenge. Here was a big chance to boldly go where no man had gone before. The prospect could be dizzyingly exciting—until the looming responsibility of such an endeavour came lumbering into view.
This woman had probably turned down dozens, maybe even hundreds of men. The fact that she clearly saw him as a major temptation was outrageously flattering, but it was frightening, too.
What if he could apply the right amount of sweet talk and pressure to make her give in? What if he did go up to her room with her tonight? This would not be just another casual romantic interlude. This would be an important event. Was he ready for that? Was he ready for this woman to get caught up in the whirlwind of physical sensations and mistake a solid sexual encounter for something deeper, like love?
Harvard looked into P.J.'s eyes. "What I want to know is what drives a person to keep one very significant part of her life locked up tight for so many years," he said. "An incredible, vib
rant, passionate woman like you. It's not like you couldn't have your pick of men."
"When I was a little girl, no more than five or six years old," she told him quietly, "I decided I was going to wait to find a man who would love me enough to marry me first, you know? I didn't really know too much about sex at the time, but I knew that both my grandmother and my mother hadn't waited—whatever that meant. I saw all these girls in the neighbourhood with their big expanding bellies—girls who hadn't waited. It was always whispered. Priscilla Simons hadn't waited. Cheri Richards hadn't waited. I decided I was going to wait.
"And then when I did start to understand, I was all caught up in the books I read. I was hooked on that fairy-tale myth—you know, waiting on Prince Charming. That carried me through quite a few years."
Harvard stayed quiet, waiting for her to go on.
P.J. sighed. "I still sometimes wish life could be that simple, though I'm well aware it's not. I may never have been with a man, but I'm no innocent. I know that no man in his right mind is going to be foolish enough to marry a woman without taking her for a test drive, so to speak. And no woman should do that, either. Sexual compatibility is important in a relationship. I do believe that. But deep inside, I've got this little girl who's just sitting there, quietly waiting." She laughed, shaking her head. "I see that nervous look in your eyes. Don't worry. I'm not hinting for a marriage proposal or anything. Being tied down is the last thing I want or need. See, as I got older, I saw more and more of the pitiful samples of men my mother collected, and I started to think maybe marriage wasn't what I wanted. I mean, who in her right mind would want to be permanently tied to one of these losers? Not me."
Harvard found his voice. "But not all men are losers."
"I know that. As I got older, my scope of experience widened, and I met men who weren't drug dealers or thieves. I made friends with some of them. But only friends. I guess old habits die hard. Or maybe I never really trusted any of them. Or maybe I just never met anyone I've wanted to get with." Until now. P.J. didn't say the words aloud, but they hung between them as clear as the words in a cartoon bubble.
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