The Lady in Red & Dangerous Deception

by Linda Turner

  Wry humor glinted in his eyes. “You heard me. I’ve never considered myself a chauvinist, but there’s something about you that just seems to bring out the caveman in me. Logically, I know you can take care of yourself, but this doesn’t have a whole hell of a lot to do with logic.”

  “Blake—”

  “I know, it’s crazy, but there it is. So if it’ll make you feel any better, I didn’t hire Adam for you—I hired him for me. So I don’t have to worry about you when I’m not around.”

  Not sure what he was admitting to, Sabrina couldn’t seem to drag her gaze away from his. He was still smiling, but there was something in his eyes, an emotion that drizzled through her like honey, warming her to her soul and alarming her at one and the same time. With no effort whatsoever, he was slowly, bit by bit, carving a place for himself in her life, in her heart. She’d only known him for a matter of weeks, yet she was already living in his apartment, sleeping in his bed. Granted, he wasn’t in there with her, but for how long? How long before she lost her head, then her heart?

  Dismayed, she shook her head. “No,” she whispered hoarsely. “I appreciate your concern, but you aren’t responsible for my welfare. If you’re getting ideas about me just because I’m staying here, you can forget it right now. I can find somewhere else to stay.”

  She started to brush past him, but he grabbed her, hauling her in front of him. “Oh, no you don’t,” he grated. “You’re not going anywhere until we get this settled.”

  “There’s nothing to settle!” she insisted, tugging at her arm. “Let me go, Blake. I’ve got to get out of here.”

  That should have gained her her release. Instead, he drew her inexorably closer. “I don’t think so,” he murmured. “You can’t walk away from this any more than I can. Not this time.”

  Her spine ramrod straight, she didn’t bother to tug at her arm again. “Did I ever tell you that I’ve never cared much for Neanderthals?” she purred. “You might remember that.”

  He almost laughed. Lord, she was something! He watched her try to stare him down and couldn’t for the life of him look away. Or let her go. Not when he had her this close and he was aching to kiss her again. She was probably going to be furious with him, but he’d just have to risk it. Murmuring her name, he leaned down and took her mouth with his.

  Half braced for a struggle, he felt her stiffen, felt every muscle go perfectly still as her breath seemed to catch in her lungs. Her palms were flat against his chest, wedged there to push him away—with the slightest pressure, she could have won her release. Because as much as he wanted her, he would have never forced her. But instead of shoving him away, her fingers curled into the material of his shirt. It was just a faint movement, a caress that she probably wasn’t even aware of. But it told him far more about what was going on in her body than she knew.

  She couldn’t fight the attraction between them any more than he could.

  A wise man would have stopped there, content with the small victory. But the emotions raging within him had nothing to do with contentment, and there was no way in hell he could stop now. His mouth gentling, softening, cajoling, he planted tiny, nibbling kisses at the corners of her mouth, the curve of her cheek, the sweet, sensitive hollow at the base of her throat. “God, I want you, Jones,” he breathed huskily into her ear. “Can’t you feel how much? Tell me I’m not the only one going crazy here.”

  “No,” she whispered, but even as she denied it, her mouth lifted to his.

  “Yes,” he insisted in a rough growl. Swooping down, he pressed her lips open with his, seducing her with his tongue in a series of long, slow, drugging kisses that were guaranteed to drive her quietly out of her mind. He was the one, however, who felt his control slipping. His breathing ragged, he tore his mouth from hers, but he didn’t let her go. He simply couldn’t. His arms tightening around her, he held her close, his eyes locked with hers. “Tell me, honey.”

  Dizzy, the thunder of her heart loud in her ears, she couldn’t for the life of her look into those forest-green eyes of his and deny what he did to her. Not when her pulse was all over the chart and her knees had long since lost the ability to support her.

  Her arms tightening around his neck, she muttered, “Damn you, Nickels, I don’t know how you keep doing this to me. I can’t think when you kiss me like that.”

  She didn’t know another man she would have trusted enough to make that admission to. One more kiss, and he could have turned her to putty in his arms, but he didn’t take advantage. A half smile curling one corner of his mouth, he lifted a hand to her cheek and admitted thickly, “I seem to be having that problem myself. What do you think we should do about it?”

  Her senses beginning to cloud, she leaned into his hand. “Talk about it later,” she murmured, pulling his mouth down to hers. “I can’t think right now.”

  Later would be too late. She didn’t give her heart lightly, and instinctively she knew that Blake could hurt her in ways Jeff never had. But they had, by fits and starts, been racing toward and fighting this moment from that first day when he’d stepped in her path and tried to protect her from something she didn’t need protection from. She couldn’t deny it any longer. Couldn’t fight it any more. She wanted him. Here. Now. In every way a woman could want a man. Just once, she promised herself dreamily as she gave herself up to his kisses. She would have him just this once and get him out of her system. Maybe then she could sleep at night without reaching for him in her dreams.

  But if she thought they were just going to have sex, she soon discovered how wrong she was. Nothing that they stirred in each other was that simple, that uncomplicated. His hands moved slowly over her, charting every dip and curve with a touch she somehow knew as well as the beat of her own heart, and intimacy was there between them, strong and sweet and sure. The world was just outside the apartment, waiting to intrude, but all she heard was the sigh of his breath, the thunder of his heart, the whisper of their clothes as they strained against each other, wanting more as need coiled tight between them.

  “Blake—”

  His name was all she could manage, the only thought in her head. How long had she been waiting for this, for him? He scared and thrilled her and shook her with the way he seemed to know her better than she knew herself. He nuzzled her ear and smiled softly when her breathing changed. And there were her breasts. She never said a word, never indicated by so much as a gasp how sensitive her breasts were to the play of his fingers even through the cotton of her shirt and bra, but he knew. Gently, tenderly, he trailed a finger around the crest of her nipple, circling, circling with infinite slowness, until all her attention was focused just there.

  Shuddering, throbbing deep inside, she held her breath, waiting. Then, just when she thought she couldn’t stand the torture any longer, he brushed against the tight bead he had created with a touch that was as soft as the brush of an angel’s wing and heat streaked like an arrow straight to the core of her. Moaning, she turned into his hand, her breast filling his palm. Nothing had ever felt so good.

  Holding her, caressing her, Blake told himself he’d been waiting too long for this moment to rush it. But, God, she made it difficult! She was so sweet, so responsive, that it was all he could do not to strip her clothes from her, drag her down to the living-room floor and take her like the caveman she so easily turned him into.

  Tearing his mouth from hers, struggling for the control that was suddenly as elusive as a snowflake on a hot summer day, he forced himself to release her breast, but only so he could lock his arms around her and mold every soft, beautiful inch of her to him. But that, too, was agonizing. Snuggling close, her arms trapped between them, she plucked at the buttons of his shirt, undoing them one by one. Then she was touching him, running her hands under his shirt, stroking him like a cat and kissing him wherever she could reach, and in ten seconds flat, he was hotter than a two-dollar pistol.

  Even then, he might have found the strength to stop. But when he burrowed his fingers in her da
rk, wild hair and turned her face up to his to ask her if she had any idea what she was doing to him, her brown eyes were nearly black with passion and lit from within by a fire that burned just for him. Staring down at her, he felt something shift in the region of his heart, something he couldn’t control, something that swamped him with emotion and stole the breath from his lungs. His control going up in flames, he swept her up in his arms and carried her to his bed.

  The last rays of the setting sun were streaming through the blinds at the window, striping the sheets with bars of golden light, but all he saw when he laid her on the bed and came down next to her was Sabrina. Her lips slightly swollen from his kisses, her cheeks flushed, her hair spread out across his pillow, she looked like something out of a fantasy, the answer to a lonely man’s dreams.

  He hadn’t realized just how lonely he had been for her until then.

  Urgency filling him, tearing at him, he fought out of his shirt and jeans. Before they even hit the floor, he was reaching for the buttons to her blouse. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d fumbled with any kind of fastenings on a woman’s clothing, but suddenly his fingers were shaking. That should have stopped him cold, set him back on his heels, made him think, but he wanted her too badly. Swearing, he tugged at her blouse, then her hands were there to help him, as impatient as his, and in seconds, she was bare and reaching for him.

  She was beautiful. Another time, he could have spent hours just looking at her, touching her, delighting in her small, perfect breasts and slim hips and the impossible softness of her skin, but not now. Not when she pulled him into her arms, nipped at his ear and rasped softly, “Hurry.”

  As the day aged, the light shifted and mellowed and the shadows grew long. Outside, the sound of laughter from the apartment pool floated on the early evening air, but in the bedroom, the only sound was of Sabrina’s soft, fractured moan as he slipped into her. Then her legs were closing around him, her wet, hot heat welcoming him, and his mind blurred. He moved, and she was there with him, catching his rhythm, taking him deeper. And as he took her like a man possessed, and she started to come apart in his arms, his name a keening cry on her lips, his only thought was that he had finally come home.

  In the silence afterwards, their breathing was rough, the racing of their pounding hearts slowly easing. His face buried against her neck, feeling more satisfied than he’d ever felt in his life, Blake held her close and couldn’t seem to make himself let her go. Not yet. Not when he could still feel the little aftershocks that rippled through her. He was crushing her, but even when he managed to roll to his side, he took her with him, his arms twin bands of steel around her. He couldn’t stop touching her, caressing her, assuring himself she was real.

  It had been a while for him, he told himself. It was just chemistry. And loneliness. Trina had been a part of his life for a long time, and he hadn’t even looked at another woman until Sabrina had crossed his path and the sparks had flown between them. After such a long dry spell, it hadn’t taken much to light a fire. But now that they’d made love, he could get her out of his head.

  But even as he tried desperately to believe that, she stirred in his arms and dropped a kiss to his chest, and just that quickly, he wanted her again. More than before, in a hundred different ways. Shaken, he drew in the scent of her and knew he could have spent hours just exploring her, learning her secrets, loving her again and again and again, until they were both too tired to move.

  Dear God, what had she done to him? he wondered as the light outside gradually darkened with twilight. When Trina ran off with that trucker the night before he’d planned to ask her to marry him, she’d ripped his heart out by the roots. Like a damn fool, he hadn’t known that she was even seeing anyone else. And it had hurt, dammit!

  Never again, he’d promised himself. He was never going to open himself up to that kind of pain again. Especially with a woman who had made it clear that she wasn’t interested in anything that even hinted at long-term commitment. If he was going to get involved—and he still wasn’t sure that he was—he wouldn’t settle for anything less than the long haul.

  Even as his hands trailed over her, loving the feel of her, he knew he had to get out of there. Now, while he still could. He had to think, figure out where he was going, where the hell they were going, if anywhere.

  But leaving her wasn’t nearly as easy as he would have liked. His arms didn’t want to release her. His jaw clenched on an oath, he rubbed his cheek against the top of her head and said quietly, “I’ve got to go. I rushed over here like a madman when Kelly called, and Pop is probably worried sick by now thinking you’ve been murdered. You going to be okay by yourself?”

  His hard, sinewy body pressed close from shoulder to thigh, Sabrina nodded, dazed. “Mm-hmm.”

  What in the world had just happened here? She’d been married, divorced; she’d made love more than enough times to know what to expect. But nothing and no one had ever swept the ground right out from under her the way Blake just had. For the first time in her life, she’d actually felt the earth move and she didn’t know if she wanted to call AP with the news or run for cover.

  Something of her inner agitation must have shown because Blake was suddenly pulling back to get a better look at her face, a frown worrying his brow as his eyes searched hers. “You’re awfully quiet.”

  Heat burning her cheeks, she ducked away from that all-too-discerning gaze of his, afraid he could read her like a book. “Actually, I was just about to doze off,” she said with forced lightness. “You make a nice pillow, Nickels.”

  His mouth quirked, but he didn’t smile. “My pleasure,” he said gruffly. “About what just happened—”

  “We’re both consenting adults,” she said hurriedly, cutting him off. “There’s nothing more to discuss.”

  She moved then before he could stop her, dragging the covers up to her breast as she turned to face him with half the width of the bed between them. Her smile breezy, she prayed that he couldn’t see how fake it was in the gathering twilight. “Go on now, get out of here. It’s getting late. Your grandfather will be worried.”

  He should have been pleased, she thought. After all, didn’t most men worry about a woman getting the wrong idea after sex? He wanted out and she was making it easy for him, but instead of acting grateful, he was looking at her as if she’d just insulted him.

  “All right, all right,” he said stiffly. “I’m going.”

  Throwing off the covers, he rose naked from the bed and had no idea what the sight of him did to her. Her mouth dry, her heart skipping every other beat, she watched as he tugged on his clothes, the frown that wrinkled his brow growing darker with every article of clothing he pulled on. By the time he was completely dressed, he was positively scowling at her. “We’re going to talk about this tomorrow,” he warned, then stalked out.

  The second the front door slammed behind his stiff back, Sabrina wilted like a week-old rose, the need to call him back almost more than she could bear. She wanted him to hold her, to reassure her that she wasn’t the only one who’d been shattered by their loving. And that alone terrified her. What if he, too, had experienced the same free fall through space and he was just as thrown by it as she? What then? Where did they go from here?

  The possible answers shook her to the core.

  Her heart slamming against her ribs, she climbed out of bed and grabbed a robe, chiding herself not to lose her head. It was just lust. It had to be. Simple, basic desire. The kind that made fools of the women in her family and caused them to make all the wrong decisions about men and love and life. She wouldn’t, couldn’t get caught up in the wonder of it. Her mother and grandmother might love walking down the aisle so much that they were willing to risk the divorce that inevitably followed, but she couldn’t handle it. Once was enough. Some people just weren’t cut out for marriage, and she was one of them.

  Not that Blake had asked her to marry him, or was even thinking about doing such an outrageous thing, she qu
ickly assured herself. He wasn’t the type of man to get caught up in the emotion of the moment and lose his head. But he also wasn’t, she decided, the kind of philandering lowlife who jumped from woman to woman, bed to bed. According to his grandfather, his family had high expectations for him in politics and that meant nothing short of marriage to the right woman would ever be acceptable. She was not, and never would be, that woman.

  Still, there was a part of her, deep in the heart of her, that remembered his loving and cried out for more. He’d touched something in her that no one else had, stirred something in her that she’d dreamed of without even realizing it until now. She didn’t want to lose that. Didn’t want to lose him. God, what was she going to do?

  Torn, she spent the rest of the evening prowling around the apartment in search of a distraction from her own thoughts. But everywhere she turned, she was reminded of Blake. She tried reading, even television, but nothing seemed to help. She couldn’t even look out the window without being reminded that there was a man out there, watching the apartment for Blake, keeping her safe. Her head told her that her safety wasn’t his responsibility—her heart whispered that he cared.

  Frustrated, exhausted, she finally went to bed, and though she slept, she didn’t really rest. She couldn’t. Not when her heart and mind spent the hours between midnight and dawn arguing like a couple of eight-year-olds. By the time the alarm went off at seven, she knew she had to go back home. Blake wouldn’t be happy about it and neither, for that matter, would Sam Kelly, but she needed her own things around her—if only for a little while—to remind her of who and what she was.

  She called in to work and asked for a couple of hours off, then headed to her place an hour later. Not surprisingly, Blake’s hired gun followed her the whole way, never letting more than one car get between them during the drive, not even on the freeway. Scowling at him in her rearview mirror, Sabrina recognized him from Blake’s description as Mitch Hawkins—a blond surfer-type who looked like he had more brawn than brain. He’d smiled and nodded at her when she’d first emerged from the apartment, but she hadn’t made the mistake of thinking that he took his job lightly. Before coming to work for Adam, he’d been a border-patrol agent and could, according to Blake, track a scorpion across solid rock.