by Anne Stuart
She couldn’t pretend not to know what he meant. And suddenly she wanted what he wanted. She wanted to feel that heavy male power in her hands, wanted to know what would soon be a part of her. Running one hand down his chest, she let it slide across his taut stomach, down the crisp curl of hair. And then she touched him, the silken length of him, the satiny-smooth flesh, the heat and desire and dampness and sheer size of him. She wanted to draw away in panic, but she couldn’t, her fingers fascinated with the feel and texture of him, even as her mind panicked.
“You see how much I want you?” he murmured into her ear, as his hand still continued its inexorable invasion between her legs.
“You’re too... too big,” she whispered.
“Don’t worry. I’ll fit.”
“Mischa,” she said. “I’m afraid.”
He levered his body over hers, holding her legs apart as he settled between them, the steely power of him resting against her, dampness against dampness, heat against heat. “I know,” he said, his hands sliding beneath her to cup her buttocks. He gave her no false promises, no reassurance. “I know,” he said, and pushed into her.
For a moment she panicked, trying to push him away from her, tightening up against an invasion she wasn’t sure she wanted. “Don’t fight me,” he murmured, but she couldn’t hear him, lost in her own unexpected alarm.
The sharp pain on her shoulder startled her into a shriek of dismay. Michael took advantage of his deliberate distraction, pushing in deep, filling her with his strength and masculine power. She shuddered, accepting him, and when she looked up, her eyes were glazed with tears.
“You bit me,” she whispered.
“Needs must when the devil drives,” he murmured, running his tongue over the teeth marks on her soft white shoulder. And he began to move.
She whimpered slightly, expecting pain. But there was none. Just the aching emptiness of his withdrawal, the richness of his filling her once again. He moved slowly, letting her accustom herself to him, and as her fear faded, her tension built. She found she was clutching him, her hands clinging to him with nothing short of desperation. Something was stirring within her, some teasing, tangling twist of wanting that was building, not steadily, but in odd fits and starts, warning her of something beyond her control.
She sighed, her mind drifting in unexpected pleasure, when he suddenly pulled away, out of her body, poised just out of reach. In desperation she tugged at him, but he was maddeningly distant. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered.
She didn’t need his small smile to know that he’d won. It no longer mattered. He returned to her, thrusting deep and hard, and his voice in her ear was just a reminder of her weakness. “I told you you’d beg me not to leave you.”
Deep in her body he was holding still, and she had no choice but to respond. “You’re a manipulative bastard, Mischa.”
“Yes.” He reached down, took her legs and wrapped them around his waist. “But I’m honest about what I want. And I want you.”
She didn’t understand her body, or the shimmers of reaction that were radiating from her. She didn’t understand how he managed to make her feel this way, didn’t understand what was happening to them. She no longer cared. “Shut up and take what you want,” she said fiercely. And reaching up, she kissed him hard on the mouth.
He’d been honest. He wasn’t gentle with her. He was fierce, demanding, driving into her with a force and power that left her weak, clinging to him, longing for more. They were both slick with sweat, breathless, striving for something that Laura didn’t even comprehend. All she knew was that she wanted him, more and more and more of him, again and again, deeper and deeper. Her fingernails raked across his back, but he ignored them, his hands bruised her wrists, but she ignored them, clinging to him with her arms, her legs, her body, holding tight and reaching...reaching—
“Look at me,” he said, his voice hoarse, his muscles standing out with exertion. “Open your eyes and look at me, Laura. I want to watch you when you come.”
She opened her eyes. “I’m not going to,” she said faintly. “I’m not...”
“Yes,” he said. “You are.”
And suddenly she did, convulsing around him, shock and surprise spinning into blind sensation as she was swept away, caught in a whirlwind of dark desire that was twisting and turning her, tossing her into a night where nothing existed but sheer sensation. She felt him convulse in her arms, his body rigid, and clenched herself ever more tightly around him, wanting to scream with the joy, with the power, with the fear. For a moment she was alone, and then he was with her, and the fear was gone. Together they rode the storm, whirling in the wind, soaring through the darkness into light, into shadow, back to the wide bed with the New York City night all around them, shining through the smoky panels of the Glass House.
He pulled away from her, rolling onto his back, his breath coming in shallow rasps. She could hear her own heart hammering away at her rib cage, her face wet with sweat or tears or both, her body still trembling, shivering. Lying there she felt so alone, and yet she was afraid to say anything, was afraid to touch him.
Was he going to get up and walk away without a word? Was she going to spend the rest of the endless night alone in her huge bed, a bed that was no longer inviolate? Did he make love to her...no, call a spade a spade, did he fuck her in order to get her to give up fighting for the Glass House? Was it all part of his devious, manipulative plan?
He’d said he was honest. That he wanted her. Did she dare believe him? Now that he’d had her, did he still want her? What was she doing lying there, still wanting him, when her body hadn’t yet recovered from the power of his possession?
Very shyly, very tentatively she moved her arm across the bed, so that her fingers just brushed his arm. She was unprepared for the speed of his response. His hand gently wrapped itself around her wrist, and she was pulled up and over his body, sprawling across him, her flesh absorbing the heat and strength of him, reveling in it.
He put a hand behind her neck and pulled her down for his kiss. It was different from before, deep and careless and oddly lighthearted, and she sank into him, her bones melting over him as she kissed him back, fully, freely, for one brief moment banishing fear. There were enough things waiting to bring her down, to smash her to the pavement eleven flights below. For now she was content to ride the whirlwind.
“I DON’T believe it!” The voice was much too loud and rich with amusement. It was also far more disturbing than the bright shaft of sunlight that had been warring with Laura’s tightly closed eyelids for the past hour. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you must have gotten royally drunk last night. Did you?”
Laura had no choice. She opened one eye, taking in her mother’s tall, elegant figure as she lounged in the chair beside her bed, her long legs crossed at her perfect ankles, her beautiful, unlined face nothing short of smug.
“No,” said Laura, sitting up, pulling up the black and fuchsia Ralph Lauren sheet around her shoulders as she went. “I didn’t get drunk last night.” She cast a furtive glance around her. Her clothes were still littering the floor, but that didn’t mean anything. She’d never been a particularly tidy person. There was no sign that a male had occupied the room or the bed, no telltale depression on the pillow beside her. She doubted his head had touched the pillow during the entire, active night.
“Darling, are you blushing?” Jilly inquired solicitously. “If I didn’t know my saintly, judgmental daughter better, I’d think you’d had a night of riotous sex. But then, you’re saving yourself for marriage, aren’t you?”
As a matter of course Laura ignored Jilly’s barbs. “What time is it?”
“Eleven-thirty. I wouldn’t have thought you’d sleep so late with the wolf at your door.”
“The wolf at my door?” For a moment she was mystified.
“Dubrovnik. His bulldozers are hammering away at your foundations, and you lie here sleeping like a baby. I’m glad to see you’re taking a
more reasonable approach to the problem. After all, a man with Dubrovnik’s resources is bound to win in a fair fight.”
For a moment Laura didn’t move. Then she pulled herself out of bed, wrapping the sheet around her nude body, and stalked over to the window panel to look down at the foundations below. Sure enough, the machines were moving again. From that distance she couldn’t tell whether someone had been able to circumvent the effects of the sugar in the gas tanks, or whether Michael had simply ordered in new machines. It didn’t matter. Either way she felt betrayed.
“This isn’t a fair fight, Jilly,” she said in a stony voice as she turned and headed for the bathroom. “It’s dirty and nasty and mean. Why are you here?”
“I was going to let you take me out to lunch. We still haven’t celebrated my divorce, have we?”
“No, we haven’t. I suppose I’d better move fast, or you might get married again.”
“I’m never going to get married again,” Jilly announced. “Five times is enough for any woman.”
“Once is too much for any woman,” Laura said, looking at her reflection in the bathroom mirror as she waited for the deep marble tub to fill. It was a lucky thing that Jilly was so self-absorbed. Anyone else would have noticed the luminous expression in Laura’s eyes, the swollen lips, the whisker burns that flushed her cheeks. Anyone else would have looked at Laura and known this was a different woman from the one they’d known just yesterday. But Jilly was too busy chattering about her plans.
“I think I’ll go to Tortuga. Michael has a villa there that he’s put at my disposal. I haven’t been to the Caribbean in ages—I think a little sunlight and sea air will do me wonders.”
“It’s hurricane season,” Laura said sourly. “Michael who?’“
“Dubrovnik, of course. He’s really been quite charming to me, Laura. For a while I thought he might be interested, and I was quite torn as to how I could let him down gracefully.”
This was enough to lure Laura from her depressing perusal of the mirror. She stood in the bathroom door, staring at her mother. “I don’t think people turn Michael Dubrovnik down.”
“You have,” her mother pointed out, ignoring the evidence right in front of her. And then the famous eyes narrowed. “Darling, are those bruises on your wrists?”
Laura ducked back into the bathroom, slamming and locking the door behind her. “No,” she called back through the door, dumping her sheet on the floor and heading for the steaming, scented water of the bathtub.
“Laura!” Jilly was pounding on the door with a surprising amount of force. “Did something happen to you? Did someone hurt you? Answer me!”
Laura paused by the tub; the running water was drowning her mother’s demands. She looked down at her nude body, turning to examine it in the steamed-up mirror. Michael had left plenty of evidence of his possession. He wasn’t a gentle lover, though there was a certain savage tenderness about him. And he hadn’t been satisfied with once or twice. As one thing blended into another she’d lost count, but they’d probably made love four and a half times. Maybe five.
The bruises on her wrist were rather daunting, if one didn’t take into account how pale Laura’s skin was, and how easily she bruised. If she decided to fight him as down and dirty as he fought her, she could make the charges of assault stick. At least for a while.
All she had to do was drain the water out of the tub, send her mother away, and call Susan. Jilly would be a lousy accomplice, but Susan was always reliable. And it would be far too easy to drum up a good bout of hysterical tears.
She reached for the drain on the tub, staring down into the water for a long moment, contemplating. Deciding. Turning back, she rummaged through the shelf of crystal-bottled perfumes, picking up the Eternity she’d worn last night and dumping it into the trash. Then she took her bottle of Poison and poured half of it into the tub.
“I’m fine, Jilly,” she said finally. “You know me—if anything was wrong I’d scream about it, loud and long.”
“Perhaps.” Jilly’s voice was unconvinced. “Are you certain you’re all right? No one hurt you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Then hurry up, darling. I’m hungry.”
“So am I,” Laura said, sinking into the tub, washing the scent and feel of him from her skin. She’d thought she was as bad as Michael. As low-down and dirty, as willing to fight for what she wanted, no matter what the cost, as he was.
But she wasn’t. She couldn’t sink that low; she couldn’t lie and destroy what had gone between them last night, even if he could. Even if it had meant nothing more to him than the means to an end, a way to get her off balance while he continued his pursuit of the Glass House, it didn’t matter. Even if she’d gone to bed with the wrong man, a man who could turn around and attack what she held dearest, at least she knew that she liked it. Liked the way her body could feel, liked sharing it with someone. She only hoped that feeling could be transferred to someone a little worthier than Michael Dubrovnik.
She could feel the occasional faint tremor ripple through the building whenever the bulldozer moved too close, she could feel the pain sear through her heart in counterpoint. With the pain came anger, pure, cleansing anger, and with it her sickness disappeared, replaced by sheer energy.
She’d told Michael she would never be a victim again. And she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t let Michael’s possession of her body destroy her determination, and she wouldn’t let an anonymous blackmailer demoralize her. She was a fighter, and the battle was far from over. They might be starting the final round, but the outcome was still in doubt. And she was determined to win.
Chapter Sixteen
Michael Dubrovnik sat behind his desk on the tenth floor of the Glass House, picked up his cup of coffee, and hurled it at one of the smoked glass panels beside him. The cup shattered, the coffee spewed across the glass, covering the freshly painted walls between and dripping onto the newly installed pale gray carpet. Without moving he began to curse with great inventiveness and remarkable obscenity in English, in French, in Russian. Zach walked in on this tirade, took in the mess on the wall, and helped himself to a cup of coffee without a word.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Michael demanded furiously.
“It’s going to be a day like that, is it?” Zach said coolly, sitting down opposite his angry associate and taking a sip of coffee. “It’s not that bad, you know. You didn’t have to throw it. You could have added more cream.”
“I’m not in the mood for humor, Zach.”
“I noticed. Maybe these will cheer you up.” He dumped a thick sheaf of papers onto the teak desk.
Michael didn’t even bother to look at them. “What are they?”
“Purchase and sale agreement for the Glass House. Deed, warranty, all the papers for closing. I even filled in the higher amount you suggested last week. All you have to do is get the little lady in here and make her sign, and you’re home free.”
“All I have to do...” Michael echoed bitterly. “Hand me your coffee, Zach.”
“Why?”
“I want to throw it at you.”
“What’s got you in such a snit? Your damned machinery’s chewing away at the foundations. The Winston woman is in the palm of your hand if you just cared to use your full strength on her. All systems are go. What’s the problem?”
Michael looked at him. “The problem is that I feel like a royal bastard. A rotten, despicable snake, to quote someone of my acquaintance.”
“This isn’t like you, Mischa. You can’t afford a conscience in your line of work,” Zach chided.
Michael leaned forward, glancing at the neatly typed legal papers for a moment, then raising his eyes to Zach’s. “I’m one of the fifty richest men in the country,” he said. “Heading toward the top ten. If I can’t afford it, who can?”
“You want to drop this whole thing? Let Laura Winston have her crumbling building? That’s not the answer and you know it. If you don’t get her, time will. Or som
e other financial shark who hasn’t developed a latent case of scruples. Face it, Mischa, she’s going to lose the place, one way or the other. You may as well gain from it.”
“I intend to. I can’t drop it. Too much has gone into this project—I’m not about to terminate it and lose a bundle, just because I feel sorry for the woman.”
“This is all brought about by pity?” Zach was incredulous.
From somewhere Michael summoned up a wintry smile. “God, Zach, I don’t know. All I know is that I wish I’d never heard of the Glass House and Laura Winston.”
“Okay.” Zach knew when to leave things alone. “Did you have a good time with the model last night?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Word gets around. I hear you dragged Marita out of Maxim’s at a dead run. Connie would love to help you plan a wedding.”
“Have I ever indulged in locker-room gossip, Zach?”
“Not usually. But you’re in a damned strange mood. Are you getting married again, Mischa?”
Michael stared at him for one long, troubled moment. “Good God,” he said. “Maybe I am.”
“Let me be the first to offer you congratulations,” Zach said, rising and clapping him on the shoulder.
Michael looked up at him gloomily. “Sympathy might be more appropriate. Let’s drop my impending nuptials for the moment, okay. What’s on tap for today?”
“Have you decided what you want to do about the extortionist?”
It took Michael a moment to return to more mundane matters. “I’d almost forgotten. What was it he wanted?”
“Ten thousand dollars in exchange for the engineering report on the Glass House. The one we bought two months ago for a grand.”
“I don’t want to call the police. For one thing, I don’t want Laura to realize we have the report. I’m not sure that it’s enough to close her down, and I don’t want to waste it.”
“So what do you intend to do?”
“Wait and see. Maybe our friendly extortionist has something else up his sleeve.”