by Judy Duarte
Mark nodded his head. “Yeah, it’s a shame your father can’t come with us.”
He was surprised to hear a laugh escape her lips. “I mean about the setup.”
He opened the passenger door for her, but was careful not to take her hand. “Setup?”
“Yes, my father thinks he’s playing Cupid. He’s not sick.” Wrapping the shawl a little more tightly around her shoulders, she got into the car. “He just wants us to go out together, and I’m afraid he’s being very, very obvious.”
“Not that obvious,” Mark admitted, closing her door for her. “I bought it.”
To which Brooke could only shake her head. Men could be so dense sometimes. “Like I said the other day, you’re very sweet.”
He really didn’t know about that.
Champagne was not his drink of choice, but he’d been nursing the contents of the flute for the past hour or so. Mark looked around the small, packed gallery with its illusion of space and intellect.
It seemed longer.
He touched the rim to his lips, pretending to take a sip. There was no doubt about it. He felt out of his element here, the way he had whenever Dana had made him attend one of those gatherings of “creative people” as she liked to refer to them, where everyone else was talking about technique and motivation and things that he couldn’t begin to fathom.
It was a little like being in a completely foreign country.
They’d come to a new showing of someone named Waller Kerr, an artist of some renown if he was to believe the flyers put out by the gallery owner. It could have been an exhibition put on by a plumber for all he knew. But for Brooke’s sake he made the appropriate noises and, for the most part, faded into the background. It was what he was good at. Observing.
Brooke, on the other hand, was very good at being, if not center stage, then stage left or stage right. She seemed to know half the people at the gallery. At least, it appeared that half the people there extended greetings her way.
Or maybe they just wanted to know her, he thought, allowing himself to once again take in the way she looked in her dress.
When she turned her head in his direction, he pretended to be studying the painting directly in front of him.
He had no idea what he was looking at.
Excusing herself from the man who was talking to her, Brooke crossed the small distance to Mark. She stood beside him for a moment, watching him take in the painting, then inclined her head toward him, her voice low so that only he could hear.
“You don’t like this very much, do you?”
It was a large, rectangular canvas that seemed angry at the metallic dots that were spread over it like a horde of incoming warrior ants. “I might if I could understand what it was supposed to be.”
“What do you think it is?”
He said the first thing that had come to mind when he’d seen it. “Someone drying off their paint brush by flicking it across the canvas.”
She hid her mouth behind her hands, but he could tell she was laughing. Holding on to his shoulder, she rose on her toes and whispered, “Me, too,” in his ear. Then, withdrawing her hand slowly, she said, “I’ve had enough, how about you?”
“Don’t have to ask me twice.” And then he stopped. Everything he’d learned about her told him she loved these kind of things. “You’re doing this because you think I’m bored, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m doing this because I know you’re bored. But that’s all right,” she assured him, “it’s not like this is my very first gallery opening.” She took his hand and began to thread her way to the front entrance. It wasn’t easy. “I’ve been to dozens. Dad likes to make sure I have a steady exposure to culture, and between the gallery shows and the readings at the store, I say I’m probably set through the next decade.”
He was reluctant to take her away. “So you don’t mind leaving?”
“I’d mind staying, knowing you were counting the moments to your escape.”
For a moment she stopped and looked around for the gallery owner. It would be polite to bid the woman goodnight, but at the moment she was unavailable. The owner of the trendy gallery appeared to be deeply embroiled in a conversation with one of the more affluent patrons. Diamonds were winking on both hands as gestures were being exchanged.
“Wanda’s probably trying to haggle up the price,” Brooke mused. Making up her mind, she forged ahead. “Let’s go.”
Leaving the shelter of the air-conditioned gallery was a shock to the system, but their successfully executed getaway was a relief to the soul as far as he was concerned.
For San Francisco, the streets appeared to be fairly empty. He placed his hand against the small of her back, guiding Brooke into the parking structure where he’d left his car.
“Your father might be disappointed if I take you home this early.”
Her heels clicked rapidly along the concrete as she hurried beside him to the vehicle. “There’s a solution for that.” Stopping beside his car, she waited for him to unlock it. “Don’t take me home. Not yet,” she tagged on.
Mark said nothing in response.
Buckling up, Brooke waited until he had rounded the hood and gotten in on his side before making another stab at conversation. She changed topics. “So, how’s the book coming along?”
This topic made him no more comfortable than the last one did. “It still has a long way to go,” he told her evasively.
It was exciting to her to be there at what seemed like the beginning of the process. “Have you found a focus for it yet?”
Mark slowly began to inch his way out of the bowels of the structure.
“I thought I did, but…”
He let his voice trail off as he shook his head. He figured the less he talked about his excuse for being at the shop, the less there was to trip him up. This would all be over with soon. He had his proof, what he was still looking for was his opening.
She settled back in her seat, hoping she didn’t appear as nervous to him as she was. She was still hoping that he would take her to his apartment.
“I’m sure it’ll come to you,” she told him with confidence. “And, if you need a fresh pair of eyes, I’ve got two at your disposal.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He eased the car out of the half-filled parking structure and up onto the street level. He’d come out on the side that gave him the option of going left or right. Back to Mill Valley. Or his place.
The latter shouldn’t have even been a consideration, he told himself. And yet he couldn’t quite get himself to bank down the desire. “So, where do you want to go?”
She looked at him, the answer in her eyes if not on her lips. “I’ll let you choose.”
If he had half a brain in his head, he’d take her to another coffee shop, or for a long stroll. Anything but to where he was thinking. “When do these things normally end?”
She glanced at her watch. “We’ve got at least two hours before we would be labeled one of the early departees. Three, four hours if we want to seem decadently carefree.” This time the smile she gave him was slow as it filtered its way to her lips and into his soul.
For a second, as his breath caught in his throat, it felt as if the world stood still. It wasn’t until he heard someone beep a horn behind him that he realized he’d allowed his mind to wander. In fields he had no business trespassing.
Making a quick decision, he turned right. “And why,” he asked, playing along for the moment, “would we want to be decadent?”
She shrugged, her shawl slipping from her shoulder. She left it there. “I don’t know. You’re a writer, we just came from a gallery opening, it seemed like the word to use.”
She was letting her imagination run away with her, he thought. “I’m a nonfiction writer,” he reminded her. Decadence didn’t enter into that world.
Brooke seemed to weigh his protest. “Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe you need a little fiction in your life.”
She’d lost him. “Come again?
”
She dug into her subject with enthusiasm. “Maybe you need to pretend that you’re this gay—”
His mouth dropped opened. “What?”
“Sorry, I’m old-fashioned, I meant happy. You need to pretend you’re this happy-go-lucky guy without a care in the world. Someone who lives just for the day. The moment,” she amended. She twisted in her seat, hampered somewhat by the seat belt that insisted on executing a death grip on her. “If you could be that guy, what would you do? Right at this moment, what would you do? Where would you go?”
All right, what was the harm? He supposed he could indulge her and pretend. As long as it was only for the moment. “I’d take the most beautiful girl at the opening to my apartment.”
Her mouth suddenly felt dry. Beautiful. He’d called her beautiful. “Fine. Except there’s one thing wrong with that.”
Well, at least one of them had sense, he thought, relieved. “What?”
“You said girl. You meant woman. The most beautiful woman at the opening.”
The smile he gave her was indulgent. She could feel herself balking. She wanted him to think of her as a woman, not a child.
“You’re twenty-three.”
“And at the turn of the last century,” she said, “I would have been thought of as some lamentably poor spinster. At twenty-three I wouldn’t be a woman, I’d be an old woman, over the hill, someone the other women would talk about behind their fans and pity.” She smiled at him brightly as they came to a stop at a light. “Which means that for this century, I’m just right.”
He laughed softly as he shook his head. By now he should have learned. “Anyone ever win an argument with you?”
“Not that I recall.” She looked at him for a long moment, her heart suddenly climbing up into her throat. “Play your cards right and you might be the first,” she whispered.
Again he found himself a prisoner of her eyes, of the moment. And again someone leaned on their horn behind him, breaking the spell.
Coming to, he drove through the intersection just as the yellow light turned red again. He could almost hear the man in the car behind him cursing.
“You know, this keeps up, I’m going to wind up with a ticket tonight because of you.”
He glanced at her as he heard her laugh. “I’m not sure, but I think that’s one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever gotten.”
Against what he would have, until recently, termed his better judgment, he took Brooke to his apartment. After he parked the car in the street, he led her into the venerable old brick structure and then pointed out the stairs to his second-floor apartment. The building had no elevator. Until just now, he hadn’t given that much thought.
Following her up, watching the way her hips swayed with each step, he began to rethink the wisdom of bringing her here.
He told himself he did it so that he couldn’t arouse her suspicions by repeatedly putting her off. A part of him had even been prepared for this. He’d gone through his apartment and hidden everything that might have given away his true purpose for being at her father’s bookstore.
“It’s not much,” he warned her, unlocking the door.
Brooke walked in ahead of him. She moved about the small living room slowly, like a detective absorbing the scene of the crime, he thought, watching her.
And then, as if she’d made her decision about the apartment, she turned toward him. “Your friend, you said he’s an actor?”
“Yes. He’s been cast in a television pilot shooting in Canada.” He’d read a story in the Sunday entertainment section about a new series that was about to begin filming in Canada because of the reduced production costs. It sounded plausible enough.
“He’s very self-contained for an actor.”
He felt as if he was treading on shaky ground, trying to avoid quicksand. “What do you mean?”
Glancing around the corner, she saw a small kitchenette. “Well, outside of the appliances, there doesn’t seem to be anything that shows he lives here.” She indicated the near-empty shelves and the nude walls. “No books on the theater. No photographs of productions he’s been in.”
That was a mistake, but since there really was no friend, there was nothing he could have done about it—other than have given this phantom a different occupation to begin with. “He’s a minimalist.”
She seemed perfectly willing to accept the excuse. “Oh. Like you.” She crossed back to him. “Is that why the two of you hit it off?”
“I don’t know about ‘hit it off.’” He didn’t want to have to go into any elaborate fabrications about a friendship. This was already beginning to trip him up. “I met him in New York. He knew my wife.”
Something tightened within her when she heard him refer to the woman. Jealousy? She wasn’t sure. If it was, it wasn’t the kind of green-eyed monster she’d heard about, merely envy that someone had won his heart and now he kept it on ice. Out of reach.
“I see.” She turned around. “And you ran into him out here?”
“Yes. No.” He should have had a story more securely in place. Another oversight. But as he tried to think, nothing came to mind. Why was he blanking out like this? Why did the room seem smaller, more intimate, now than it did when he was in it by himself? “Look, I really don’t want to talk about him or the past.”
“Fine.”
She turned so that she was before him, her body a whisper away. Her dress brushed against his arm. He could feel his body heating as he just stood there, looking at her, letting his mind entertain thoughts it shouldn’t have.
When had he turned down this road? When had desires suddenly risen up and seized him by the throat, demanding release?
Her eyes rose to meet his. Her breath felt like seduction along her skin. “What do you want to do?” she asked softly.
Chapter Eleven
Mark didn’t remember taking her into his arms.
One moment he was envisioning holding Brooke, the next, she was there. Giving, supple, breaking down his walls of defense faster than if it had been created completely out of ice and she was a tropical heat wave sweeping over him.
The walls buckled, melting in her path until they evaporated, leaving only puddles behind to give testimony to ever having existed at all.
She felt fragile in his arms, and yet she held his entire life in the palm of her hand.
He felt as if he would disintegrate, fade completely out of view, if he couldn’t have her. If he couldn’t keep on kissing her, holding her, feeling her body mold against his.
He was stealthily slipping into her life under false pretenses, deliberately burrowing into it so that someone would pay him money for a job well done.
That was the bottom line.
He was using her for money.
Guilt chewed chunks out of him, leaving the rest to be ravaged by desire.
How had it gotten this complicated? He wasn’t supposed to have turned down this road. He wasn’t supposed to allow his attraction to take the governing seat and rule him like this.
But he couldn’t push her away. She was making it too difficult.
She was too warm, too giving, too eager. Even as he tried to draw his head back, to somehow find the strength to break away before this got completely out of hand, Brooke didn’t allow him to gain the space he needed. He moved, she moved and he couldn’t find it in his heart to push her away.
Not when he wanted her this much.
She was purity and light and everything he had once believed he could attain if he just tried hard enough.
Before he knew better.
Dana’s suicide had robbed him of his dreams, his beliefs, his future, but Brooke, with her bright eyes and quick smile, made him think that, just for one night, all that and more could be within his grasp.
He could hold his dreams in his hand for just a few timeless moments.
She was on fire.
Everywhere he touched her went up like a torch until she felt as if she was standing in the middle of an
inferno and only he could put it out.
And yet he was the source of it all.
It made her head spin.
Brooke didn’t want to think, didn’t want to untangle anything except this dress that was holding her back from him.
Her mouth still sealed to his, she reached behind to get at the zipper. His fingers were there a heartbeat before hers. She shivered in anticipation as she felt the long line of soft nylon teeth part, exposing her flesh to the air.
To his touch.
Her breath caught in her throat as she felt him slip the straps from her shoulders, as she felt the material sigh away from her body, momentarily pausing at the swell of her breasts before slipping down further.
Bypassing her hips, the dress sank in a pool around her feet.
She moaned as he kissed her.
The very sound echoed in his brain, driving him crazy, fueling the hunger that was growing almost too large to contain.
He had to look at her. Just for a second he needed to see her, here in his home.
With him.
The knot in his belly tightened, threatening to cut off his air supply.
She wasn’t wearing a bra, just tiny black lace underwear that revealed more than it hid.
Very slowly he slid the tips of his fingers along her torso, pausing at the rim of her panties. He heard her sharp, inviting intake of breath.
He felt as if his gut was going to snap in two.
What the hell was he doing? Struggling with the fragments of a conscience already frayed, Mark told himself to back off, issuing ultimatums that burned away in the heat of his desire.
Pulling her to him, he sealed his fate. And hers.
Mark couldn’t stop caressing her, couldn’t stop touching her as his lips slanted over and over again against her mouth, her throat, her tender part along her neck.
And with each sigh he heard, with each sharp intake of breath that escaped her lips, his own excitement grew to proportions he hadn’t known were humanly possible.
He felt like a man possessed.
And throughout it all, he knew he was doomed. A man whose soul had been plunged in darkness and would be again, once this was over.