by Kay Hooper
He thought hard. “I distinctly remember offering you my kingdom if you’d marry me. You laughed.”
“Forgive me,” she said solemnly. “But before that, you’d offered your kingdom for a horse; you told everyone you wanted to slay dragons for me. You also bet the kingdom in the arm-wrestling contest.”
“I didn’t sign anything, did I?” he asked warily.
“No, but you bought everybody drinks. I finally took control of your money clip before you could buy the tavern.” She nodded to the nightstand. “There’s quite a bit left, mainly because Jake was horrified at the way you were throwing money around and helped me get you into a cab before you could bankrupt yourself.”
He gazed at her elegant face in which warm violet eyes shone cheerfully, and felt his heart lurch in the almost-painful manner it had so lately learned. “If you won’t marry me,” he said urgently, “then live with me! I’ll convince you to marry me later.”
She blinked. “You know, you slept more than ten hours, so I have to assume it isn’t liquor talking. And even if that knock on the head gave you a concussion—”
“I didn’t hit my head,” he protested.
“—you should be better by now. So either you aren’t better, or you’re mad as a hatter. I don’t know whether to call an ambulance or a padded truck.”
Josh balanced his cup and saucer on his lap long enough to run a hand through his hair. It struck him somewhat belatedly that he probably looked just dandy for marriage proposals; hung-over, bare-chested, morning stubble, and hair flying every which way. Not to mention having clearly convinced her last night that he was either concussed or suffering from lunatic delusions. He tried to think of some way to combat all these deficiencies.
“Raven,” he said finally, keeping his voice as level as possible and meeting her eyes steadily, “I am cold sober, not concussed, and perfectly sane. I’m thirty-five years old, which means I generally know my own mind. The moment I saw you, I knew I wanted to marry you. I am not joking about that. I’m not handing you a line.
“I am also aware that you barely know me. My mind tells me that I should, therefore, not expect you to marry me immediately.”
She started giggling.
Pained, he stared at her. “All right, I know it sounds arrogant. After knowing me better, you could well decide you’d rather join the Peace Corps or the Foreign Legion.”
“Or go into a nunnery,” she said, entering into the spirit of things.
He frowned at her. “Anyway, what I’m saying is that I would appreciate it very much if you’d take me seriously.”
Raven took his empty cup and rose to her feet. “This tea usually helps a hangover. Why don’t you have a hot shower, and I’ll fix a late breakfast.”
Josh considered food, and found that his stomach didn’t reject the idea outright. “Well, but—”
“The bathroom’s through there,” she said, gesturing toward a doorway. “There’s a razor in the top left-hand vanity drawer, and your clothes are on that chair. If you don’t want to parade around in a dinner jacket at ten in the morning, check the closet; you might find something to fit. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
She left.
Moving carefully, Josh took a shower and shaved, then returned to the bedroom to check the closet. What he found sent him immediately to the kitchen of the small apartment wearing nothing but a towel and holding black murder in his heart. Not for her, of course. For the owner of the clothing.
“I hope you have a brother,” he announced with what he vaguely realized was inordinate ferocity, waving a handful of clothing at her.
She turned from the stove and stared at him. After a moment, she said dryly, “No, I don’t have a brother. I also don’t have a lover. This isn’t my apartment; it belongs to a friend. The clothes belong to her husband.”
“Oh,” he said. Black murder gave way to sudden curiosity. He recalled a thought that had occurred to him in the shower. “Where did you sleep?”
“On the couch. Go get dressed.”
Josh retreated.
Turning back to the stove, Raven automatically continued preparing breakfast. Looney Tunes, she decided, smiling. The man was obviously Looney Tunes. But he was, at least, an amiable lunatic; other than a fierce glare at his opponent in the infamous arm-wrestling match, he hadn’t once lost his temper during the previous evening.
And he’d been flatteringly attentive—except when he’d gotten some story into his head and insisted on telling it to everyone. He’d been indignant when the wooden Indian hadn’t laughed.
Raven swallowed a giggle.
No, she decided, all in all the evening had been fun. She didn’t even regret missing the party, in spite of whatever consequences might develop. She should, of course, have regretted missing it, and reminded herself of that. There would be questions. A distant, shrewd part of her mind began formulating answers, examining each for flaws.
The rest of her mind concentrated on him. And she wondered what she was going to do with her lunatic. He’d seemed reasonably rational this morning—but then, he’d sounded rational last night. Sort of. His voice had been oddly husky whenever he spoke to her, but his tone had been perfectly reasonable, his enunciation clear, no confusion or forgetfulness; it was just that he’d kept proposing and laying his kingdom at her feet.
His imaginary kingdom … or so she supposed. Granted, the man had certainly thrown money around with abandon. And he was well dressed. But when a stranger started offering a woman Learjets and Hope diamonds, it was, thought Raven, time to be wary. Amused, but wary.
Raven knew very well she was no victim of the Cinderella complex. She neither expected nor desired some handsome prince to sweep her off her feet and into a life of leisure. In the first place, twenty-eight years of life had convinced her that princes, handsome or otherwise, were in short supply in the circles in which she often found herself. In the second place, a life of leisure would drive her mad within a week.
Reluctantly, then, she remembered Josh Long clad only in a slipping towel. Tall and lean, his broad-shouldered and muscled frame spoke convincingly of a busy, physically active life. And his strikingly handsome face, with its sensual mouth and warm, vivid blue eyes, had been designed for women to stare at.
There was about him an aura of confidence and power that had not been lessened in the least by inebriated proposals, comical one-sided discussions with wooden Indians, and a fiercely competitive arm-wrestling match. Drunk or sober, he moved like a cat … or a king—gracefully, proudly, powerfully, deceptively unhurried. He was the kind of man whom others would instinctively make way for.
Raven shook her head bemusedly. Impossible to ignore the man. If he wasn’t a prince, he was certainly every woman’s image of tall, dark, and handsome. And she had to admit to being flattered that even in his concussed and/or demented state he’d focused the power of those warm blue eyes on her.
The bacon was burning. Swearing, Raven turned the strips.
However, she simply hadn’t the time or energy to cope with a lunatic suitor with delusions of grandeur, no matter how handsome and charming he was.
His straightforward charm, though, was what she would most regret losing. Granted, she favored blue eyes and dark men, and she was woman enough to fully appreciate handsome men, but it was his charm she found so intriguing. The men who peopled her own world tended to have little charm, and the games they played were dangerous ones.
Games. Deadly serious games.
Raven sighed and put visions of intensely blue eyes out of her mind. There was no time, just no time for personal wishes.
Sighing, Raven arranged the bacon on paper towels to drain.
And, having decided to put unproductive thoughts out of her mind, she promptly began musing once again on his behavior of the night before.
She was a tall woman, yet he was taller and certainly much stronger; he hadn’t used that strength in order to get what he clearly wanted—she’d seen desire in men’s eyes
before, and had recognized it in his intense gaze. He had proposed countless times in various ways, chased her playfully around a table or two, and told anyone who’d listen that she was going to marry him. By turns grave and comical, he had gotten everyone in the tavern to cheer him on.
But at no time was his pursuit in any way clumsy or crude. If he swore, it was mildly and with no heat. Far from making any physical pass, he had touched only her hand—and that with a curious kind of courtly deference and restraint that had been strangely moving and had made her oddly aware of restraint. Not a single vulgar word or crass joke had escaped his lips. And in spite of her amused rejection of his proposals, he had remained amiably determined.
All that—and he’d been quite wonderfully drunk.
“Marry me.”
He didn’t seem to be much different sober. Raven turned and surveyed his tall, dark, and handsome self as he stood in the kitchen doorway. Jeans, she decided, suited him admirably. In fact, if they’d suited him any more admirably, he’d have gotten mobbed in the streets by rabid women.
Raven ignored her weak knees just as she’d ignored them when he had appeared in a towel. “Coffee’s over there,” she said, gesturing. “Help yourself. Breakfast is ready.”
Josh headed for the coffee, apparently undisturbed by this continual rejection. “Do you need coffee to start the day?” he asked with interest. “I do.”
Setting two filled plates on the neat oak table, Raven murmured, “Then maybe you’ll be rational in a little while.” She didn’t sound very hopeful.
“I’m rational now,” he said, holding her chair.
Disconcerted, Raven sat with more haste than grace. She’d met men with manners, yes, but at breakfast?
He set coffee before them both, then took his own chair. “So tell me why we’re in an apartment that isn’t yours,” he said chattily.
Raven gazed into his warm blue eyes for a moment, then began eating. “We are here,” she said, “because I’m staying here while my friends are back east. You’re here because the only identification you were carrying last night didn’t name a Los Angeles address. You don’t even carry a driver’s license with you—just business cards with your name and a phone number.”
Josh didn’t tell her that he rarely needed any other identification. “I’m visiting,” he explained, digging in to his own meal with every sign of enjoyment.
“From where?” she asked, wondering at her own curiosity. Was it because she wanted to get rid of him? Or because she wanted to understand this strangely intense, completely charming man?
“I spend most of my time in New York. How about you? A native of Los Angeles?”
“No,” she said. “Where are you staying?”
“A hotel. Where are you from, then?”
“Back east. Which hotel?”
“Downtown. Where back east?”
Parry and thrust.
Raven bit back a giggle. Placidly, she said, “I was born in a Gypsy caravan in Romania, except that really I was the child of a baron, stolen by the Gypsies. He’d thrown them off his land, you see, so they decided to get revenge by stealing me. But they already had too many mouths to feed, so they sold me to an Irishman who needed a dancer in his tavern. Then one day while I was dancing on the bar, a Greek shipping tycoon wandered in and offered me a job being the target for a knife thrower in his circus. The Irishman wouldn’t sell me, so the Greek bought the tavern with all contents included—meaning me—and spirited me away to London, then to the States. For a year I dodged knives, until the knife thrower pierced my left ear by mistake and I ran away. I ended up on a Mississippi riverboat, where a dissolute gambler taught me how to cheat at cards and look good in feathers. But it turned out that I was allergic to feathers and my nose quivered revealingly whenever I stacked a deck, so I left there and became a guide taking tourists to the floor of the Grand Canyon on muleback. After three trips I became a victim of vertigo, so that ended that job. I then hopped a freight train, headed west, and fell in love with Los Angeles at first sight. There didn’t seem to be much demand for tavern dancers, targets for knife throwers, untalented gamblers allergic to feathers, or mule riders, so I ended up being a computer programmer at IBM.”
Josh burst out laughing.
Raven, who had talked very quickly as she’d spun the tale out of thin air and a vivid imagination, took a deep breath, a sip of coffee, then asked gently, “And how was your life?”
“Boring, compared to yours,” he told her.
“You mean you’re not going to give me any of the details?” She was incredulous. “After I bared my soul and past to your cruel laughter?”
“I’m trying to entice you with my mystery,” he explained gravely.
“It isn’t working.”
“Well, dammit, you seem to be above bribery; you were hardly impressed by the offer of my kingdom. An aura of mystery isn’t getting me anywhere. My bare and manly chest obviously didn’t affect you; you removed half my clothes last night and apparently felt not one pang of lust, and when I paraded before you clothed only in a towel, you never so much as blinked.”
Raven choked on a laugh.
“I see I haven’t been going about this the right way.” Purposefully, Josh rose from his chair, came around the table, and took her arms to pull her up from her chair. “Clearly, what is needed here,” he said sternly, “is a little old-fashioned persuasion.” And he bent his dark head to hers.
TWO
CAUGHT OFF GUARD, Raven didn’t have a chance to struggle. And, bewildering though the thought was, she wasn’t at all certain that she would have struggled, given the chance. His lean, handsome face filled her vision, his arms closed around her, and Raven found her body swaying toward this stranger as though drawn by an irresistible magnet.
Even remembering his exemplary behavior of the night before, she half-expected an onslaught, a passionate demand. But when his lips met hers, it was with a gentle, seeking, almost tentative touch, soft and warm. Her body, braced for abrupt shock, found instead an insidious sweet warmth, and she felt her bones melting. Seduced, her mouth opened to his and her arms lifted to encircle his lean waist.
His head lifted a moment later, and Raven gazed rather dreamily into blue eyes that were hot now instead of warm. “This,” she said, “has got to stop.” Something told her the statement should have emerged more forcefully, and she tried again. “I mean it. I don’t kiss strangers. Especially first thing in the morning.” Not much better, she decided critically.
Josh smiled very slowly and his head bent again. And this time the demand came, hot and urgent. His lips slanted hungrily across hers while his hard arms pulled her so close she could feel the strong male contours of his body imprinting themselves on her own quivering flesh. Her senses exploded in a violent burst of inner sparks, the stark possession of his tongue and the pressure of his body against hers igniting something red hot and powerful deep inside of her.
She made a soft sound in the back of her throat without meaning to, her hands clutching his back, moving unconsciously to press herself even closer.
For a moment it seemed as though he would accept her mindless invitation. His mouth grew even more fierce, his arms tightening around her—and then he suddenly lifted his head and stared down at her with feverish blue eyes. “That doesn’t happen between strangers,” he said roughly. “Marry me, Raven.”
There was nothing playful or amiable about him now, nothing to be taken as an amusing jest; he was utterly and completely serious, and she knew it. Within two seconds she also knew she was in trouble. The distant cool part of her mind began working with its hard-won logic, presenting one problem after another to her with depressing clarity. And there was no time … no time at all. She carefully dropped her arms and stepped back away from him, gathering the threads of control tight until her breathing steadied and she could trust her voice.
“Sometimes it does,” she said, and made it sound like a statement of experience. “They call it chemi
stry. Finish your breakfast, Josh.”
He sat down as she did, but didn’t seem perturbed. “I’ll convince you,” he said easily. “I’m a patient man, and I’ve got all the time in the world.” He wondered, on some dim and distant plane of his mind, how on earth he could sound so calm. His heart was pounding, and every thudding beat of it urged him to take her in his arms again and finish what he’d started.
Raven wanted to tell him that he might have time, but she didn’t. However, experience had taught her only too well the dangers of confiding in anyone. She made her protest a dry and commonplace one. “I’m afraid I have little spare time,” she told him. “I have to earn my living, which demands the bulk of the day.”
“What do you do?” he asked casually.
“I’m a secretary.” She had long ago stopped crossing her fingers while saying that. It no longer bothered her to lie. “A temporary secretary; I tend to have odd hours, and I take jobs within a three-hundred-mile radius of Los Angeles. What do you do?”
He grinned suddenly, his expression peculiarly amused. “Told you. I run a kingdom.”
“Oh, right.” She shook her head with the air of someone who’d forgotten some tiny detail. “You did tell me that. Is it an international kingdom, or domestic?”
“Domestic mostly,” he explained in a conversational tone. “But I do own most of an airline, and it’s international.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You don’t believe me.”
She smiled gently. “How often does a woman meet a prince?”
He chuckled. “Well, it doesn’t matter. You aren’t the kind of woman to be impressed by money or power.”
Finishing her breakfast more by rote than any sense of hunger, Raven rose and carried her plate to the sink. Along with all the other violent emotions tangling inside her, she felt vaguely uneasy. Josh Long didn’t strike her as a braggart, and his talk of wealth was just a bit too matter-of-fact to be a delusion. Still, she told herself, it hardly made any difference. He’d be out of her life very soon now.
