by Sandra Brown
She was the exclusive focus of the moving picture. The background of trees that lined the opposite side of the river was like a green curtain behind her body, outlining it in detail. She came out of the water with unintentional provocative grace. Her cinnamon-colored bikini almost made her appear naked. Wet hair clung to her neck and shoulders seductively, like the fingers of a lover. The water, sparkling in the sunlight, rolled down her limbs, her chest, her stomach, her abdomen, in glistening drops that looked like diamonds against her skin. On the tape, the tentative smile she had given him seemed alluring—shy, yet inviting.
The screen went blank again and a heavy silence pervaded the room. Kathleen, unable to move, continued to stare directly in front of her. The tape finally ran out and the machine clicked off. It sounded like a cannon’s boom. Still she sat motionless with her heart pounding, employing all the energy left in her body.
Erik touched her face with the back of his hand and, with sure fingers, turned her chin around to face him in the darkness.
“For my private tape library,” he whispered, and lowered his head to brush his lips across hers.
She pushed away from him in breathless caution. Standing up hastily, she took two steps toward the dais. “Your recorder…”
He came off the bench like a spring. His hand reached out with uncanny speed and clasped her around the waist. “Forget it,” he said gruffly. He swept her into his arms and against that hard, masculine body. Deftly, he released her hair from the barrette which held it atop her head and raked his fingers through the heavy skein. Entwining his fingers in it, he pulled her head back, forcing her to look at him. “Forget everything. Think only of this.”
His mouth closed over hers, assuming total possession and brooking no arguments to the contrary. But it was a gentle assault. His lips sipped at hers while his mustache tickled and teased until her lips opened in welcome. Then each secret of her mouth was discovered by the hungry exploration of his tongue.
Without her having been conscious of it, her hands had come up to caress the sides of his face. Now her fingers were weaving through that glorious blond hair and touching the strands that lay against his collar.
His hips moved against hers, and quite naturally she answered the movement and settled against his manhood. She felt, rather than heard, the breath catch in his throat, and then he moaned her name. His hand smoothed down her back, stopped long enough to appreciate her tiny waist, then moved to the soft swelling of her hips. The hand became bolder as he cupped her tenderly and pressed her tighter to him.
His mouth nibbled her earlobe and worked its way on a sensuous trail down to her neck. “What is that fragrance?” he breathed, and Kathleen groaned when she felt the tip of his tongue in the sensitive triangle at the base of her throat.
“Mitsouko,” she whimpered.
“Never heard of it.”
“No?”
“No. But I’ll never forget it now.”
His hand was on her rib cage and moving up. Oh, God, yes! Yes! His hand covered her breast. His palm fit over her as if it were made for that complementing purpose.
It began a slow, learning, rotating circle that suspended her in some euphoric atmosphere. Lowering his head to replace his hand, he nuzzled her with his nose and mouth. His breath was moist and hot through the cotton of her shirt. His lips formed her name around her nipple. She heard a sharp little cry, not realizing she had made it.
Once again, his hand was on her breast, and his thumb had taken over where his lips left off, gently raking her evertightening nipple. His mouth was at her ear, doing something delicious as he asked huskily, “Where do you want to go?”
“What?” she asked weakly, absently.
“Your cabin or mine?”
The words finally made it past that fog of sexual oblivion and doused her arousal like an icy shower. The flames of passion that were licking her body and igniting her spirit were extinguished with that one simple question.
She shoved herself away from him and fought to fill her constricted lungs with oxygen, taking several deep, uneven breaths.
“Kathleen, what—”
“I can’t… can’t be… be with you,” she said quickly, before she changed her mind.
“Why the hell not?” He broke off and looked at her for a moment before saying softly, “I’m sorry. That was an ungentlemanly thing to ask.” He shook his head ruefully and plowed frustrated fingers through the hair that was still mussed from her caresses. He chuckled without mirth. “I just wish you had told me this was ‘that time of the month’ fifteen minutes ago.”
It took her a moment before she realized what conclusion he had jumped to. Had it not been so dark, he would have seen how embarrassed she was by his supposition, but it was better to have him think she was having a period than for him to know the real reason she wouldn’t go with him.
He closed the gap between them and took her face in his hands. “Goodnight,” he said softly, and kissed her lightly on the lips, then once on her forehead.
“Goodnight,” she murmured. She had to keep herself from dashing out of the dining hall while he stood there and watched her.
Chapter Four
“I just had the most wonderful idea!” Edna exclaimed the next morning as they sat at breakfast.
“What’s that, honey?” B. J. asked, biting into a biscuit.
“Kathleen should take Erik to the Crescent Hotel for dinner.”
Kathleen’s fork clattered to her plate and she jerked her head up to see the amusement glimmering in Erik’s blue eyes.
“What’s the Crescent?” he asked the Harrisons without relieving Kathleen of his stare.
“Erik, you’d love it. It’s a hotel in Eureka Springs that was built in the 1880s and has been restored to its original Victorian elegance. Their dining room is sumptuous!”
“I don’t—” Kathleen started.
“How far is Eureka Springs?” Erik interrupted.
“About thirty miles, though it takes about an hour to get there. We don’t have super interstate highways up here.” B.J. laughed. “You really ought to go see the town. We call it the Switzerland of America. Eureka Springs is built right on top of the mountains. The houses and buildings are quaint, usually several stories. One floor might be level with the street, while the back of the house is supported by stilts thirty feet tall.”
“You talked me into it,” Erik said enthusiastically. “I’ve heard of Eureka Springs, but I’ve never been there.”
“Good. Then it’s all settled,” Edna said.
“Wait!” Kathleen fairly shouted, then flushed hotly when three pairs of eyes turned toward her. “I can’t just go off like that. I mean… the children… tonight… it’s against the rules.”
“You’re a board member. You can’t break the rules.” Edna smiled. “We need to give Erik a break. He’s not accustomed to being isolated from civilization the way we are.”
Kathleen looked at Edna suspiciously. What the older woman said had merit, and it was possible that Edna truly did want to relieve Erik of one night in the noisy dining hall, but Kathleen also thought that Edna was dabbling in some good old-fashioned matchmaking. There was no gracious way to decline the offer of a free night, so Kathleen swallowed the nervous lump in her throat and said softly, “I suppose it would be nice to get away for a while.”
“You can leave as soon as you bring the kids back this afternoon,” Edna said with the briskness of one who had accomplished a mission. “Erik, the Crescent also has a lovely, secluded club with a dance floor in the basement.”
“It’s sounding better all the time,” he said to the Harrisons, then turned his back on them and winked at Kathleen.
Oh, God, she groaned to herself. It had taken all the courage she could muster to enter the mess hall for breakfast this morning after her behavior the evening before. What had come over her? She must have taken leave of her senses. She had stopped him just in time, but still he had gone further with her than any man had eve
r been allowed to go. And she had known him only two days! Her ready reactions to him were frightening.
But, self-righteously, she absolved herself of guilt. The way his hands had roamed her body with easy familiarity was an accomplished technique. His mouth, the heat of his embrace, were all too practiced. He’d detected in her a susceptibility and had capitalized on it. He had told her a poignant story about his assignment in Ethiopia, and she had fallen for the emotional blackmail like a pioneer housewife at a medicine man’s show. How many times had he used that same story to break down barriers with a woman? The tale might not even be true!
Kathleen held herself in too high a regard to dally with casual affairs that led nowhere, relationships that did nothing to enrich one’s life but fed on self-deception, disillusionment and pain until one was left with only a feeling of emptiness. Hadn’t she fought David Ross like a tiger?
Before she had finally fallen into a restless sleep, Kathleen had resolved that the next time Erik made any sexual overtures, she would inform him in terms that left no room for doubt that she wasn’t interested in a romantic entanglement.
Now, Edna had arranged a date for them! A date that would take hours if they drove all the way to Eureka Springs on the two-lane state highway that ribboned its way through the mountains.
It was with mingled relief and regret that she learned Erik had chosen to accompany Mike Simpson’s group today as they went on a horseback trip to the other side of the mountain. It would be an all-day event. How Erik was going to carry his camera, Kathleen didn’t know, but she was sure he would manage. He is a man of rare talent, she thought sarcastically as she watched him striding across the compound with his equipment and several of the inquisitive children in tow.
The hours of the day were easily filled, and Kathleen’s group was trudging up the hill to the compound just as Mike’s group was returning. Secretly, she hoped that Erik would be tired and saddle sore, anything to prevent him from wanting to keep their date. But he was smiling and exuberant when he hailed her from across the wide yard.
“Hey, Kathleen, wait up.” He said a few words to Mike, ruffled the hair of one adoring little boy and cuffed a little girl under her chin before he jogged up to Kathleen.
His white knit shirt was soaked with perspiration, and his hair clung damply to his forehead, but he had never looked more appealing as his eyes squinted into a smile.
“How was your day?” he asked.
“Fine. The children missed you.” And so did I, dammit, she added to herself. “How was the riding?”
“I was rusty for a while, but I finally worked the kinks out.” He seemed admirably humble.
Knowing she looked about twelve years old with her pigtails and shorts and tennis shoes, she shifted uncomfortably under his perusal. Did he remember last night? No sooner had the question entered her mind than his eyes lit on her lips and lingered there. Yes, he remembered, and she felt herself blushing under her deep tan.
“How did you haul your camera?” she asked, with a curiosity she couldn’t restrain.
He smiled, his teeth creating a white slash in his dark face. “It rode in front of me on the saddle.”
“Very ingenious,” she said dryly.
“I’ve learned to improvise.” He smiled deeply again. Was that a dimple under his mustache? “When can you be ready?” he asked suddenly.
“Do you still want to go?” she demurred. “We don’t have to, you know.”
“I know. But I want to,” he leaned down and whispered conspiratorially. “Why do you think I volunteered for that damn packing trip? I didn’t think I could be with you all day, anticipating tonight, and keep my hands off you. I don’t think sex education is included in the curriculum, is it?”
What had happened to all those carefully chosen words she had rehearsed all day? Where, in her befuddled brain, were all those epithets hiding? The sound logic she had pieced together had fled, being replaced by titillating possibilities. Her tongue couldn’t function at all, much less deliver the blistering refusals she had memorized.
She couldn’t meet his gaze. It was too unsettling, too disturbing, and too hypnotic. She darted her green eyes at the trees, the flagpole where the flag hung limply in the still afternoon, and toward the straggling campers and counselors who were wending their way tiredly to their cabins. “About an hour?”
He took a tendril of hair between two of his long, slender fingers. He tugged on it gently before tucking it behind her ear. “Fifty-five minutes,” he said huskily, before he turned on his heel and strode off in the direction of his cabin.
Her thoughts were running rampant as she hastened to her own cabin. What could she wear? She didn’t have anything appropriate! With longing, she thought of her closet at home in Atlanta, where she had designer dresses, gorgeous shoes and racks of accessories, all of which she could buy at whole-sale prices because of her job.
Now, she stared bleakly at the one metal rod in the narrow closet and bemoaned the meagerness of her wardrobe at hand. The cotton print shirtwaist or the voile sundress? She gnawed the inside of her cheek. The print was soft, simple and sweet. And safe. The sundress was soft, simple and sexy. Not so safe. After her shower, she was still debating with herself.
With an impatient shrug at her own silliness, she took her sundress off the hanger. The voile felt like a cloud settling over her flesh. The bodice was cut like a camisole. Lace trimmed straps about an inch wide spanned her bare shoulders. She was saved from total immodesty because the front was tucked and pleated on either side of a row of pearl buttons that stopped at her waist. That provided two layers of the sheer fabric over her breasts. The skirt was full, but she wore flesh-toned panties and a half-slip as meager protection from its sheerness. The sea-green color accentuated her own vivid eyes and highlighted the honey-apricot tone of her skin.
She slid her bare feet into the only pair of high-heeled sandals she had brought with her. She disdained panty hose in the sweltering heat, but had shaved her legs to glossy smoothness and applied a rich lotion that made them silky to the touch.
She twisted her hair up into a knot on the top of her head and secured it with a long gold clip decorated with a nautilus shell. Small gold loops were inserted into her pierced ears. She dabbed herself liberally with Mitsouko just as Erik knocked on her door.
Instinctively, her fluttering hand flew to the base of her throat where she could feel the pounding of her pulse. Stop this! Kathleen ordered herself to no avail. She was far more nervous now than she had been on her first date when the young man had picked her up at the orphanage.
Somehow she forced her reluctant legs across the room toward the screened door. Erik’s silhouette filled the twilight tinted opening.
“Hi,” she said with affected casualness.
He made no pretense of his feelings. His mouth hung open at a ridiculous angle as he toured her body with his wide, stupefied eyes. “Are you the same girl who was in pigtails a mere hour ago?”
“Fifty-five minutes,” she corrected teasingly. His face then returned to normal and he smiled that dazzling smile that always left her feeling dizzy. She had never seen him dressed in anything but jeans. The swimsuit hardly counted as clothing. His appearance left her breathless and lightheaded. His blue shirt fitted his torso to perfection. The camel-colored slacks hugged his hips and thighs like a second skin, the straight legs broke with tailored preciseness on the vamp of polished loafers. The navy blazer was stretched over bunched shoulder muscles as he placed his hands on his hips and eyed her appraisingly.
“You, Ms. Haley, are amazing. Out there,” Erik indicated the camp with a backward jerk of his head, “you look like someone’s beautiful kid sister. Now you look like someone’s beautiful… uh…”
“What?”
“Never mind,” he growled. “What I had in mind to say could get me in trouble. Let’s go.”
He ushered her out the door and toward the Blazer, parked a few yards from her cabin. “I hope you know the way
, because I drove here with one eye on the road and one on an obsolete map.”
Kathleen laughed as she slid into the passenger side of the truck. “I do, but only after coming here for years. Only the natives truly know their way around up here.”
“I believe it,” he said. “Which way?”
She gave him directions to get them underway and then settled against the back of the seat, which was still warm from the truck having been closed up all day. A soft flow of air from the air-conditioning vents soon remedied that. “You don’t seem like the Blazer type to me,” she said musingly.
Erik laughed easily and reached for the dial of the radio. “What type am I?” he asked, amused. He found a congenial radio station, and his arm extended across the backs of the seats until his fingers brushed her bare shoulder, making her tremble on the inside.
“Oh, you know,” she said smoothly. “The Miata type. Or maybe a Corvette.”
He laughed again, deeper this time. His laugh was so natural, so easy, so masculine. It literally rumbled from his chest. “How about a Dodge van?”
“You’re kidding!”
“No. This car belongs to the television station. Actually, when I’m at home, I drive a Dodge van. Nothing fancy. No fur-covered mattresses, no quadraphonic CD systems, no murals on the outside. But very functional for hauling all my equipment.”
“I can’t believe it,” Kathleen said honestly. Then, raising her knee to the seat and turning toward him slightly, she asked, “You live in St. Louis, don’t you?” The Harrisons had told her that much about him.
“Yes. Have you ever heard the term ‘O and O’?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head.
“Well, actually you wouldn’t unless you worked in the television industry. ‘O and O’ stands for owned and operated. And that applies to television stations that are actually owned by the networks. According to FCC regulations, each network can own five VHF television stations. UBC has one in St. Louis. Really it’s only an address for me. They send me anywhere they need me.”