“And what brought you here this evening, Ms. Thorpe?”
Alexandra hesitated for a second, then began talking about her lifelong commitment to charity. Travis pretended to listen, and smiled like an idiot. If she wasn’t lying, he was a monkey’s uncle.
Whatever had brought her here tonight didn’t have anything to do with charity. He’d seen the look on her face, the wildness in her eyes. Something had driven her to this auction, and he needed to know what that something was.
But what had made her bid on him was easy to figure.
It had been desire. A desire that raged so fiercely within her that he’d felt its force on the stage. The same desire that had made her melt in his arms moments ago when he’d kissed her.
That first rigidity of her body, and then the way she’d shuddered and come alive in his arms. The feel of her breasts, pressed against his chest. Her lips, parting to give him access to the honeyed essence of her mouth. The whisper of sound that had spoken of surrender…
He knew he’d never forget it. There was no point pretending he didn’t have a long history with women. Still, that kiss, that incredible kiss, was different from anything he’d ever known.
Travis shifted his weight. What was he doing to himself? Another couple of seconds, the TV camera and the crowd were going to be treated to a sight he’d never live down. It was time to take this strange little play to a private setting, where the next scene could be played out, in full.
He slipped his arm around Alexandra’s waist, his hand splaying against her hip in warning.
“Okay,” he said cheerfully, breaking into the middle of some inanity of the reporter. “Okay, folks, that’s it.”
The little knot of journalists groaned. One of them began to ask another question but Travis just kept smiling. And talking.
“Hey, guys, don’t you think Ms. Thorpe and I are entitled to a little time alone?”
“You have a three-day weekend to be alone,” one of them said, and they all laughed.
“And a weekend to plan,” Travis said. He looked down at Alex. “Right, Ms. Thorpe?”
“Right, Mr. Baron,” she said, flashing him a smile that was vaguely reminiscent of the snarl of an angry Doberman.
“I just love that old-fashioned formality,” the reporter gushed. “Mr., Ms…. So charming!”
Travis laughed merrily as he began backing Alex from the dance floor. “Well,” he said, “Ms. Thorpe is just an old-fashioned girl.”
As if on cue, the orchestra struck up another waltz. Come on, Travis thought, come on!
People surged onto the floor to dance.
Travis didn’t waste any time. He let go of Alexandra’s waist, grabbed her hand and all but sprinted for the door. She tried to tug free when they were halfway through the lobby but his fingers tightened on hers.
“Keep going,” he said, and led her out the main doors, past the doorman and down the wide marble steps. Anybody watching would figure they were making a romantic getaway. He almost imagined it, himself, until they reached the street and she dug in her spiked heels, wrenched her hand from his and spun toward him.
“Exactly what do you think you’re doing?” she said, turning her angry face up to his.
“Calm down, Sugar.”
Alexandra stamped her foot. “Kindly do not ‘sugar’ me!”
“My car is parked just up the street.”
“Do you really think I give a damn where your car is parked?” Alex tossed her head. “Listen to me, Mr. Baron, and listen well. You are, without question, the most horrible man I ever—”
Travis rolled his eyes, grabbed her wrist and tugged her down the street and into a doorway.
“Don’t you ever think before you make a scene, lady? Or do you like being in the spotlight?”
“I cherish my privacy.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve got a strange way of showing it.” He waved his hand in the general direction of the main entrance to the Hotel Paradise. “What makes you so sure that nitwit reporter and her bozo cameraman weren’t hot on our heels, huh?”
He could see her face pale a little, even in the darkness of the doorway.
“Were they?”
He leaned out and looked. “No,” he snapped. “But you didn’t even think about it before you started chewing me out. Just once, you might try thinking of the consequences before you act.”
“Me? Me, think of the consequences?” Alex threw back her head. “Ha,” she said, without the least touch of humor, “oh, ha, Mr. Baron, that is a good one! That’s really something, coming from you.”
Travis folded his arms. “I,” he said loftily, “am not the person who got us into this mess.”
And now that he thought about it, it was a mess. He’d made an idiot of himself, prancing around onstage. And then the Thorpe babe had made an idiot of herself, running away. And just now—he’d kissed her in front of a zillion people in a way he’d probably never, ever live down.
“I am the innocent party in this entire unfortunate affair, sir!”
“Hey, Sugar. Don’t you pull that Ice Princess bit on me.”
“Are you deaf, Mr. Baron? Do not call me ‘sugar.’”
“Forgive me, Ms. Thorpe!” His mouth thinned and he shoved his face toward hers. Despite herself, Alex took a hurried step back. “Princess suits you,” he muttered. “That little lady’ll never know how right she was!”
“What little lady?”
“Never mind.” A muscle knotted in Travis’s cheek. “The bottom line here is that I am tired of being the villain in this piece.”
“Are you suggesting that I am?”
“You bid on me, remember?”
Color shot into her face. “Permit me to refresh your memory, Mr. Baron. This was a bachelor auction. The whole purpose of the event was for women to bid on men.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What, pray tell, is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you didn’t have to bid so much for me that you brought the house down.”
“I don’t have to listen to this—”
Travis grabbed her shoulder as Alex tried to brush past him. “And then,” he growled, “as if you hadn’t drawn enough attention to us already—”
“I drew attention?” Alex tossed back her head and laughed. “Oh, I love that, Mr. Baron. I wasn’t up on that stage, prancing around like a—a male stripper!”
A smile tilted across Travis’s mouth. He shifted his weight so that he blocked the doorway. All Alex could see were his broad shoulders and his ruggedly handsome face, only that and the dark night that surrounded them.
Her heart skipped a beat.
They were on a street in a busy city but she suddenly felt as if they were the last man and woman on Earth. It was the same way she’d felt when, with bravado in her blood and idiocy in her brain, she’d burst into the ballroom and spotted him onstage. The same way she’d felt on the dance floor, when he’d kissed her.
“Exactly how many male strippers have you watched in your time, Ms. Thorpe?” he said softly.
“Mr. Baron.” Her voice squeaked. She cleared her throat and began again. “Mr. Baron, really. I think we should just call it a night and—” Alex caught her breath. Travis had caught a strand of her hair between his fingers. She watched, wide-eyed, as he drew it to his nostrils. “What—what are you doing?”
“I like the smell of your hair, Princess. What is that? Opium? Joy?”
“It’s—it’s just…” She stepped back again as he moved closer. Her shoulders hit the closed door behind her. “I—I don’t remember.” She didn’t, either. She couldn’t think straight. Was that breathless little voice really hers? And was she really trembling? Alex shut her eyes, moaned as Travis touched his lips to her throat. “Mr. Baron…”
“Under the circumstances,” Travis said huskily, “I really think we might move on to first names. Don’t you, Ms. Thorpe?”
Didn’t she what? Alex shuddered as his breath warmed her skin. She couldn’
t think, not while he was—while he was…
“Mr. Baron—”
“Travis.”
“Travis. Travis, really, I think—”
“Yeah. So do I.” His arms went around her. He gathered her against him, her breasts against the hard wall of his chest, her thighs against his. She put her hands out to ward him off. Instead, somehow, they curled into the lapels of his tuxedo. “I think it’s time I kissed you again, Princess, but without an audience.”
His mouth came down on hers.
“No,” she whispered, “please…”
“Let go, Princess.” He kissed her, soft, gentle kisses that made her lips cling to his. “Just let go and do what you want to do.”
His hand slid up, captured her breast, his thumb moving across the silk-covered nipple. And, for the second time that night—for the second time in her entire life—Alex did what she had never done before.
She let go.
She gave a little cry so wild and plaintive it made his blood quicken. And wrapped her arms around his neck as she rose on her toes and tilted her pelvis against his.
Travis groaned. His mouth slanted hungrily over hers, his tongue seeking and finding access to the silken sweetness of hers. He slipped his hands down her body, following the narrowness of her waist, the soft curve of her hips, and cupped her bottom, lifting her into the hardness of his arousal, moving against her as she cried out against his mouth.
“Alex,” he whispered.
“Yes,” she sighed, “oh, yes.”
He kissed her shoulder, bit the flesh, bent his head further and sucked the silk-covered center of her breast into his mouth. His hands swept up her thighs, under her skirt; she was wearing what he’d dreamed she was wearing, just those sexy stockings, a scrap of lace and nothing more. He said something she couldn’t understand, thrust his hand beneath the lace and cupped her.
She was hot. Wet. The aroused smell of her fueled him with desire. Her sobbing little breaths torched him with flame. And when she kissed his throat, sank her teeth into his flesh, he knew his need for this woman was greater than his need for breath.
He clasped her hand and brought it to him. She groaned and curved her fingers around him and he felt the blood begin to pool in his loins.
“Alex,” he said harshly.
“Please,” she whispered, “oh, please, please, please…”
He knew he could have her, now. Right here, right in this doorway. All he had to do was unzip his fly, rip away that bit of lace, bury himself deep inside her…
Someone laughed. Alex heard it, and froze. Travis did, too.
“Oh God,” she whispered.
He put his arms around her. She was trembling. “Easy,” he said softly.
The laughter came again, good-natured and distant. He realized it had nothing to do with them. It was coming from somewhere up the street, though it had gotten closer. And then the haze that clouded his brain cleared and he realized that he was standing in a doorway with a woman he’d met less than two hours ago, and there were cars passing by and pedestrians on the sidewalk and he was—he’d been about to—
She must have realized it, too. “Let me go,” she whispered frantically, and began struggling to free herself of his embrace.
Travis held her tighter.
“Damn you, let me—”
“Hold still!”
It was a command, not a request. And a logical one. People were coming; Alex could hear them. With luck, if neither she nor Travis moved, whomever was approaching would pass by without noticing them. So she stiffened in his arms and tried not to think about what this—this stranger had been doing to her, seconds ago, what she’d been letting him do.
And for what? To prove that Carl was wrong? That she wasn’t—wasn’t a frigid little rich bitch?
Alex’s stomach took a tumble. She closed her eyes. All right. She’d proved it, in the most humiliating way possible. Proved it to herself and to this man she didn’t know, a man who surely hadn’t turned her on, who’d simply been in the right place at the right time when she was in desperate need of pretending she could feel desire…
The footsteps and voices were just beyond the doorway. Alex trembled.
“It’s all right,” Travis whispered, and drew her against him.
And she let him do it. Let him stroke his hand up and down her spine, until she felt boneless. Let him thread his fingers into her hair and gently bury her face against his throat. Against the hot, masculine skin she’d tasted and wanted to taste again. Against that swift-beating pulse that mirrored hers. Against that hard, powerful body she yearned to explore, against that terrifying, exhilarating, exciting arousal…
A sound broke from Alex’s throat and she tore herself from Travis’s arms.
“I’m sure the women you usually keep company with enjoy this sort of thing, Mr. Baron.”
Travis blinked. “What?”
“The—the primitive approach. It must wow them, back in—in Little Rock. Or—or Dallas. Or wherever it is you come from.”
His eyes narrowed as they focused on her icy features. “Hey, babe, take it easy. I don’t know what your problem is, but don’t take it out on me.”
“Probably sweeps them off their feet, in cow country. But this is Los Angeles, sir. And I’d appreciate it if you’d just get out of my way.”
Travis’s mouth thinned. “Get out of your way?” he said, slowly and softly.
“How nice to know you don’t have a hearing problem, Mr. Baron. Yes. Get out of my way. Now.”
His vision grew dark. He felt the surge of his blood as the most primal of instincts took over, urging him to do what he longed to do to Alex Thorpe, what any man would want to do, and teach her a lesson she’d never forget.
“There’s a name for women like you,” he said. “And I’m sure you’ve heard it many times before.”
He watched her face go white, braced himself for the sting of her hand against his jaw…but it didn’t happen. She simply stood very still, her body as rigid as a marble column. Then, to his amazement, she smiled.
“Believe me,” she said softly, “I’ve been called worse.”
Her voice quavered on the last word but she kept smiling. It was that brave, sad smile that defeated him, made him wish to God he could call back the ugly words he’d used but it was too late. Alex Thorpe stepped past him, onto the sidewalk just as a cruising taxi came by.
“Alex,” Travis called, “Princess, wait…”
She stepped into the cab, the door shut and the taxi roared off into the night.
CHAPTER FOUR
TRAVIS paced the floor of his home on the beach at Malibu.
He was angry, restless—and frustrated.
What had made him think he owed Alexandra Thorpe an apology? Okay, he’d called her something pretty lousy but, dammit, it was a name she more than deserved. And what had made him behave like such a jerk? He’d acted like a monkey on a stick all night, jumping in whatever direction she’d wanted. Turn him on, turn him off…
“What does she think I am?” he muttered. “A light switch?”
He paced some more, opened the glass sliders that led from his bedroom to the deck and glowered at the Pacific Ocean.
The whole thing was ridiculous. The auction. The bidding. Her behavior, his behavior…
He swore and stomped back into the bedroom. He tugged off his boots, yanked off his tie, dumped his tux and everything that went with it on the floor and kicked the entire mess into the corner, in the process stubbing his toe on the corner of the bed.
“Bull-spit,” he roared, and danced around the room on one foot. He limped to the dresser, took out a pair of running shorts and a Texas Longhorns T-shirt and pulled them on. His toe still hurt but he didn’t much care. Pain was a part of running, anyway, he told himself grimly, and set out for a hard five miles on the packed sand.
He was panting when he got back, and sweat-drenched. But he felt better. Most definitely better.
“Goodbye, Ic
e Princess,” he said as he dumped his shorts and T-shirt on the tiled floor and stepped into the shower.
He loved this shower. Sybaritic, Slade had said, the first time he saw it, and yeah, it probably was. An overhead spray. Two side sprays. A marble bench. And room enough for two…
For two. For Alex, and for him. Travis closed his eyes and imagined what it would be like to soap that beautiful body. To cup her naked breasts. To bend his head and taste them, to hear her breathy little sighs as she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips, to pin her back against the glass wall while the water beat down like warm rain as he buried himself deep inside her slick heat…
He groaned, looked down at himself in dismay and turned the shower to icy-cold.
Dressed again, this time in jeans and a white T-shirt, his feet bare, Travis went into the kitchen and took a can of Coke from the refrigerator. It was late. Or early, depending on your point of view. The glass walls of his house looked out on a beach silent and deserted in the early morning.
Damn, he still felt restless. He needed a cigarette, but he’d given them up five years ago. He needed a cold beer or a glass of decent wine, but there was no beer in the fridge and he wasn’t in the mood to check the wine rack. He needed to talk to one of his brothers, but what would he say to them? That he was furious and frustrated, and pacing the floor like a teenage kid?
What he needed was a woman. One who wouldn’t turn him on and off like a faucet, who wouldn’t drive him crazy. Who’d be honest about wanting to share his bed. That would put Alex Thorpe out of his head, once and for all.
Travis reached for his address book and thumbed through the pages. He’d met a gorgeous brunette just last week and said he’d call her. She’d probably be surprised to hear from him at this hour but he’d invite her to breakfast on the beach. Champagne. Caviar and scrambled eggs…
Who was he kidding? Dammit, he thought, and tossed the book aside. He didn’t want a substitute for the Ice Princess. He wanted her.
Where was she now? He didn’t even have her address or her phone number. What was she doing? Was she sleeping, dreaming of him? Or was she going crazy, the way he was, remembering…
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