Wild Child

by Suzanne Forster

  He smiled faintly, and Cat stepped back from the fence, her heart pounding. She was instantly afraid that she might have given something away, although she wasn’t sure what it would have been. She just didn’t want to do anything that could be construed as—interest.

  He brushed a finger along his lower lip and held the finger back, staring at the blood. When he looked up at her, there was something different in his eyes: a sharpening of focus that was silver-flecked and enigmatic. It was almost as though he knew something about her. Something he hadn’t known before.

  Cat had the oddest sensation that the ground was shifting under her feet. They weren’t close enough to touch or even to talk, but something was happening between them, and it was almost as physical as the breeze blowing her hair. A sparkle of energy filled the pit of her stomach. Cat caught her breath as it brightened inside her, glittering like a multifaceted crystal. Within seconds the sharpening sensations had forced her to look away—at her dusty sandaled feet, at anything but him!

  This is silly, she thought, this is ridiculous. But a smile warmed nervously on her lips. She could feel his eyes on her. She could feel the energy flow connecting them, and it was as intimate as anything she’d ever experienced.

  She was also aware that some of Blake’s teammates had begun to notice what was going on. Even the crowd in the stands had grown quieter. She glanced around, cutting a small, quick arc with her head. Did Blake realize that people were staring at them? He looked as though he couldn’t care less. He looked as though he were going to rip off his jersey and come after her any second!

  That was it for Cat, the end of the line. Somebody had to stop the craziness. Stiff at the joints, and without knowing where she was going, she turned and walked away from the stands.

  Moments later she was in Bessie’s tent filling a plate with baked beans and potato salad and corn, and hoping against hope that food would settle her down. Carbohydrates were nature’s tranquilizers, she told herself. She found a relatively isolated spot near an empty coffee urn and parked herself there, picking at her baked beans and glancing up every time someone entered the tent.

  Fixing a smile on her face, she checked out the room as though she were waiting for someone. She was half-expecting Blake to show up now that he’d seen her. She imagined trying to explain to him what she was doing at the picnic and couldn’t come up with anything that sounded remotely sensible. In fact, she realized, if she were going to start being sensible at this late point, she should finish her food and leave.

  But she didn’t leave. And he didn’t seek her out.

  Cheering noises outside the tent finally prompted Cat to leave her sanctuary. A laughing throng was gathered on the picnic grounds where a heavy-set man in a clown suit with a “Mr. Stitches” button was juggling apples, doing an Irish jig, and generally acting nonsensical.

  The clown completed the juggling sequence, flipped one of the apples over his head, and swung around as Cat caught it. She tossed it back to him, and the crowd applauded.

  “A big hand for my assistant!” he said, grabbing Cat’s hand and pulling her into the circle.

  Cat laughed and gently tried to extricate herself, to no avail. Mr. Stitches had no intention of letting her go.

  “Now the fun begins!” he shouted to the crowd. “Pair up for the three-legged races!” He bent toward Cat. “What’s your name, sugar?”

  “Cat,” she said, “but—”

  “Let’s get this beautiful lady a partner! Whaddaya say, fellas? Who wants to be tied up to Cat?”

  “Yo!” several men shouted. Hands went up. Whistles and shouts sailed up like last year’s fireworks.

  “No, really, I can’t,” Cat said, straining to be heard above the clamor. “I sprained my toe.” She pointed to her foot, but nobody seemed to care about her faintly purple digit. A smattering of applause broke out, which Cat thought was for her at first.

  “Look who’s here!” Mr. Stitches said, spotting someone in the crowd. “Darn if it isn’t our star baseball player. Bruised and bloodied, but unbeaten, right, Blake? Get on out here!”

  The applause built, and Cat craned her neck to see where their star baseball player was. Blake finally materialized through the crowd, looking slightly embarrassed over the fuss. The female wolf whistles started all over again as the crowd laid their eyes on him. This time the reaction seemed prompted largely by the fact that he’d pulled off his torn jersey and tied it around his waist.

  Cat saw immediately that her brief flight of fancy during the game hadn’t done him justice. The muscle definition of his upper body was worthy of calendar art. Golden hair whorled over his pecs, and the darker diamond on his abdomen crept sensually toward his gray jersey pants. It was only with the greatest difficulty that Cat was able to bring her thoughts above the belt. And even as she did, heat flashed up her neck to her scalp.

  The clown held up Cat’s hand as though he were about to auction her off. “This sweet young thing needs a partner for the three-legged race,” he said. “You up for that, Blake?”

  “Up for it?” Blake smiled.

  Cat died a thousand deaths. “My toe,” she said.

  The clown bustled Blake up front and dropped him next to Cat, then deserted them both to go off in search of more three-legged racers.

  “You’re going to regret this,” Cat whispered to Blake. “I can barely navigate on two legs.”

  Blake shot her a quick grin. “You’re talking to the guy who plays baseball on his face.”

  His eyes sparkled in the sunlight, full of male mischief, and Cat nearly got lost in the breath she was taking. This was a bad dream, of course. Like Pam Ewing in Dallas, she would wake up any minute now. She had to, because it was beyond comprehension that Cat D’Angelo was about to be bound to Blake Wheeler from ankle to thigh!

  “Relax,” Blake suggested as Mr. Stitches returned with several more hapless couples, “this could be fun.”

  “Fun for who?” Cat murmured darkly.

  “Here’s your rope,” the clown said, passing out soft white cords to each pair. “Go tie yourselves up.” Cat knew better than to say what came to mind as Blake turned to her. His expression suggested he was employing restraint as well. There would be no more bondage jokes.

  They found a quiet spot and avoided each other’s eyes for an awkward moment or two. Blake fingered the ropes in his hand. “I guess we’d better do this,” he said.

  “Yes, I guess we’d better.” Cat took the initiative and went to stand alongside him. Pressing her leg to his, she felt the warmth of him immediately. It penetrated the jersey fabric of his pants along with another sensation, the soft prickle of his body hair. That’s when they discovered her hips were half a foot lower than his. “We don’t fit,” she said.

  Blake’s quiet smile said he wasn’t going to touch that line either. “Sit down,” he suggested. “Let’s try it that way.”

  Resolving not to say another word, Cat sank down next to him on the grass. An uneasy silence prevailed as Blake tied a cord around their ankles first. Even he seemed to realize there was no possibility for safe conversation.

  He hesitated with the next cord, and Cat realized he was waiting for her to open her legs. He was going to tie their thighs together! “Do you have to?” she asked.

  “Have you even run a three-legged race?”

  She must have, but she couldn’t remember it.

  “I have to,” was all he said.

  She drew her leg up, forcing him to draw his up, too. “Proceed.” She sounded like someone who’d just finished her last cigarette and was facing the firing squad.

  He proceeded, his fingers brushing her leg in ways that made her feel dizzy. He seemed to be taking care not to touch anything he shouldn’t, but the soft friction of his skin against the inside of her thigh was wildly suggestive nonetheless. Muscles tightened automatically, but the sensation inside her was anything but tight. It was pooling warmth and darts of light. She was melting like the butter dripping off B
essie’s corn! Somehow she resisted the urge to squirm. It wasn’t until he’d finished that she realized she could have tied the ropes herself. She had two hands!

  The rope-tying was the least of it, Cat realized as they faced their next challenge: standing up. They managed it finally, but not without getting embarrassingly experimental. By the time they were upright, Cat had discovered that the hair under his arms was reddish gold and that he had a sexy little mole near his fifth rib. She didn’t want to think what he might have learned about her!

  “This is a crime against nature,” she said half-seriously as they were struggling to get back to the picnic area moments later. “People weren’t meant to tie their bodies together for the entertainment of others.”

  Blake might have agreed with her except that their tied bodies were entertaining him immensely. She was forced to cling to him to keep from falling, and the soft crush of her breasts against his ribs was arousing his pulse beat, among other things. Every awkward attempt at navigation crowded her breasts into a soft shimmer of décolletage. To a man who’d never seen her in anything but buttoned-up-to-the-chin blouses, it was the sensual equivalent of Disneyland.

  Their appearance brought a rousing cheer from the spectators as they arrived at the start line. Blake gave Cat a few pointers while the clown organized the other racers. “Start with your free leg first,” he told her, “then swing out the tied leg—and hang on to me. Got that?”

  Cat nodded. Free leg first. Swing out. Hang on to him. When the whistle blew, she gave it everything she had.

  By some miracle, they surged off the starting block together and chugged down the course like a well-oiled machine. Pounding, panting, gripping each other fiercely, they were one mind, one goal. They were actually pulling into the lead when Cat rocked down on something hard with her sprained toe. Not again! she thought as pain rocketed through her foot. She moaned and lurched forward.

  “Hang on to me!” Blake shouted.

  She clung to him as he lifted her right off the ground, hauling her with him for several seconds before gravity and forward momentum got the best of them. They went down like acrobats, rolling and tumbling like loose logs.

  “Heads!” someone bellowed as spectators leapt out of their way. Fortunately for everyone concerned, the thick green grass made a perfect tumbling mat. Blake and Cat ended up in a heap near a refuse barrel, their ropes untied except for the ankle cords.

  They were instantly surrounded by concerned spectators. One teenage wise guy suggested CPR, his eyes on Cat. Someone else wanted to call an ambulance.

  “We’re fine,” Blake assured everyone. “Really, go back to the race.” Finally, at his insistence, the crowd dispersed to cheer on the winners.

  “Are you okay?” Blake asked, staring down at the gasping woman beneath him. She was flat on her back, and he felt a twitch of concern when she couldn’t seem to catch her breath.

  “Can you move your toes?” he asked.

  “M-maybe,” she got out, “ . . . with help.”

  That’s when he realized she was laughing, a soft squeak of a sound that made him want to gather her up and kiss her. It was the sexiest laughter he’d ever heard. It was breathy and infectious, with a husky quaver that made the hair on his arms stand up. Kiss her, hell, he wanted to roll around in the grass with her and make passionate love to her right there in the park. Pleasure knotted inside him, intense and then diffuse. He could feel the heat in his groin, the pressure. And then another sensation welled up with it . . . laughter.

  “Told you I couldn’t navigate,” she said, breathless.

  “That’s true, but you hang on good.”

  With some effort they eventually got themselves calmed down, untied, and retired to the shade of a maple tree.

  “Blew the baseball game and the three-legged race,” Blake said, rolling onto his back to stare up at the sky. “My political career is over before it’s started.”

  “Bet you never thought it would be me who’d bring you down.” Cat plucked yellow fuzz off a dandelion and avoided his eyes.

  “Sure I did. It had to be you.”

  Her fingers stilled on the flower. “Great little song title,” she said. She stared at the dandelion until finally she had no choice but to look at him. He was gazing at her like a man with something unspeakably sexy on his mind.

  “Why do you say things like that to me?” she asked. “Why do you look at me like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Intimately.”

  “Is it a problem?”

  “Yes, it’s a problem. We’re not even friends, Blake.” “Right”—his voice cracked slightly—“we’ve got to do something about that.”

  She held off for a long time in the hope that her breathing would return to some sort of normalcy. “Is that what you want then? To be friends?”

  “No, not just friends . . . lovers.”

  Cat dropped the flower.

  He rolled to his side, propped a fist against his jaw, and gazed at her intently. There was enough wattage in his eyes to singe the clothing off her body. Cat caught her breath. Her voice was a whisper. “You can’t talk to me like that.”

  “How would you like me to talk to you?”

  “Normally, for heaven’s sake.”

  “That’s a tall order.” He picked up the flower and plucked at it slowly—she loves me, she loves me not. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Yes, a normal question.”

  He plucked one last petal and smiled at her. “Are you angry at me because I want us to be lovers? Or because you want it?”

  “I don’t want it—”

  Instantaneously Cat’s body made a liar out of her. Her pulse ripped out of control, and her throat went dry as cotton. Her internal thermostat was going crazy! She was hot on the inside and cold on the outside. Everything felt shuddery and steamy inside, and she was damp in embarrassing places.

  She pressed a hand to her throat and felt the truth of her burning flesh, her stitching pulse. All right, yes! She did want to be with him. She wanted his huge hands all over her! She wanted to do all the unspeakably sexy things his eyes suggested.

  “There may be things I want,” she said at last, her voice shaking like water. “But I don’t have to like wanting them.”

  “Is one of them me?”

  She hugged her legs to her chest and mumbled something into her knees.

  “Was that a yes?”

  Her headshake said no. But his fingers caught her chin and drew her face around to him. His eyes were so incandescently silver, she could hardly look at him. “What if it was?” she said.

  “Say it. Let me hear you say it.”

  “No.”

  “Say it, Cat,” he said. “Don’t drive me out of my mind.”

  There was something taut and male and obsessive in his voice. It frightened her. It thrilled her and sliced through her self-control like a gleaming knife blade. She whispered the word he wanted to hear and felt his hands tremble slightly on her face. Before she could breathe, he was in front of her, kneeling, holding her shoulders.

  He stared into her eyes a long time. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  “No . . . I can’t do this so quickly.”

  “All right then, soon. There’s a party for the center this Friday, a fund-raiser at the community center. Let me take you there.”

  “I don’t think so—”

  “Then I’ll take you home afterward. I’ll do it any way you want it. but I want you with me. That’s as long as I can wait for you, Cat. I won’t make it past Friday.”

  He was desperate, and a little wild. The very idea of Blake Wheeler’s needing anything that badly astonished her. It startled her lips into a smile. “Have you gone crazy?”

  “Crazy?” He considered the possibility. “No, this feels like one of the saner things I’ve done in a while.”

  He was crazy, she thought, her heart rocketing. Her skin registered the heat of his hands, the iron will of his finge
rs, and she knew in her heart that it was all over. She had lost the fight, if that’s what it was. She didn’t know how or when or where it would happen between them, but it was going to happen.

  Eight

  CAT HAD NEVER PREPARED with such feverish intensity for anything in her life. She scooped her hair up, took it down, pinned one side back, considered ironing out the curl, and even toyed with the idea of tinting it another color. I’m crazed, she thought, bobby pins poking out of her mouth as she stared at herself in the bathroom vanity. She rescued the drooping strap of her teddy and removed the pins from her mouth before she accidentally swallowed one. Maybe a side part with a Lauren Bacall pageboy? She actually wanted to look sexy and desirable tonight, and she hadn’t wanted to do that for a man in years.

  She tried the side part and blew hair out of her eyes. Too sexy, she decided, it had to go back up. She began pinning again with the sneaking suspicion that all the frantic activity might be a way to keep her from thinking too much about the evening ahead. Even Gwen had been startled when Cat told her the news. “You’re going to the fund-raiser with Blake? You two certainly mended the fences quickly!”

  Cat’s head was swimming with the suddenness of it all. She felt like a body surfer caught in a riptide with no recourse but to ride out the dangerous current. She didn’t understand the forces working on her, but they were powerful. It had something to do with Blake’s belief that they had to be together. He was irresistible in his certainty, as spellbinding as a prophet. And she seemed nearly helpless in the face of it.

  But there were other factors, too, the most significant of which was her honesty about her feelings after all these years. She’d been in love with him once, puppy love, but what she felt now had that same fierce quality of longing.

  She stared into her own eyes and asked the question forming in her mind. The answer came back on a flash of panic. No way! She was not in love with him. That was absurd. She couldn’t be in love with someone she’d virtually hated for the past ten years. And yet she knew about love and hate, about their interchangeability. Emotions were quixotic things that could transform on you in a flash. She was confused, she was sure of that if nothing else. There was so much turbulence inside her—edgy, riveting sensations that had as much to do with fear as they did with sexual attraction.