Cat still wasn’t ready for her “date” two hours later when the doorbell rang. She was burying one last hairpin in the magnificent mop of mahogany she’d piled on top of her head.
“I’m coming!” she called, grabbing her high heels off the bed. She tried to get them on as she dashed for the door, and her run-and-hop gait shook several strategically placed hairpins loose. Passing the clock mirror in the hallway, she caught a look at herself. A wild woman on the run. Swell, she thought, slipping on the last shoe as she clutched the door handle. She’d wanted to look cool and beautiful and sophisticated when she opened the door.
What Blake saw when Cat opened the door was a bombshell. She was flushed pink with excitement and dark curls were flying every which way. The oversized cowl neckline of her dress had drooped off one shoulder, and her hemline was hiked up on one sleek thigh. She looked like a woman who, if she hadn’t just come from a man’s bed, ought to be heading there directly.
Blake thought that was the best idea he’d had all day.
Cat thought he was one of the stormiest, sexiest men she’d ever laid eyes on. Every time she saw him, he was more compelling in some indefinable way. This time it was his gray eyes with their mesmerizing darts of quicksilver. And his mouth! Along with the tiny laceration, the set of his mouth held a message that Cat tried to decipher with the quickening beats of her heart. It was about how much he wanted her—and how there was going to be hell to pay if he didn’t get what he wanted.
“Do I get to come in?” he asked.
She stepped back and felt the wake of his energy field as he walked past her. Lord, I’ll bet he’s a tiger in the sack, she thought, then felt her neck go steamy red. What was the matter with her?
He turned as soon as she shut the door, his voice low and sexy. “I don’t care if we ever get to that fund-raiser, do you?”
“Not go?” Her hands wobbled as she tried to reinsert a dangling hairpin. “Well, I—I really ought to put in an appearance. It is for the center. And you—aren’t you supposed to say a few words, or something?”
“How about if I say them to you instead . . . ” He walked to her and slowly took the hairpin from her hand, then he pulled another from her hair and another . . . until a breathtaking swirl of mahogany tumbled around her face.
“Give all your money to the youth center, folks,” he said, his voice husky, “because it has a beautiful counselor-in-training who believes in kids and shoots marbles. And because she looks so deliciously half-disheveled right now that I want to finish the job . . . ”
He hesitated, curving his palm to her throat. Cat felt her legs go weak as he rode her lower lip with his thumb, just as he’d done on the dock. It was poetry, his touch. Erotic poetry. It shocked the senses and aroused the nerves.
“ . . . in bed.” His jaw muscles tautened and his thumb bit sweetly into the softness of her lip. “Let me take you to bed, Cat,” he said, his eyes flashing irresistibly. “Let me take you and take you . . . until you’re soft and wet and sighing from the bliss.”
He brought her fingers to his lips and kissed their trembling tips. And then he drew her forefinger into his mouth just long enough to make it warm and wet. “Let me take you like this,” he said, “slowly, tenderly.”
Cat fell up against the wall, limp as a baby. She was speechless with shock, immobilized. Her heart hammered inside her like some crazy intruder, and the gush of desire in her depths drained the strength right out of her body. Seconds later, as she looked up at him, there was a kind of pain in her facial muscles. It was need, she realized, pure, unadulterated physical need.
“There you go again,” she said, pressing her fingers to her throat, “rushing things.”
He smiled quietly. “Yeah, it works, doesn’t it?”
She sighed, despair laced with desire. “Blake, we can’t do this. We’ll never get to the party.”
“That’s exactly why we have to do it.” He brought her fingers to his mouth again and sent a shiver of pleasure through her. “I have to do it.”
She could so easily have given in to him, in a second, without a whimper of protest. Her fantasies were telling her it would be the most incredible experience of her life. She wanted to give in. But she couldn’t, not yet. There were doubts in her mind, niggling little concerns that crept back into her awareness whenever he turned off the heat and gave her a moment to breathe. They thrived inside her, those concerns, like a troop of tiny security guards, patrolling, watching, warning her that there were too many unknowns, that he hadn’t proved himself yet.
Proved himself . . . ?
“I’m in love with this mouth,” he said, his thumb caressing her lip line with a sensitivity that made her stomach clutch. “Crazy about it.”
“Blake . . . take me to the party.”
“Really?”
“Yes, I’d like to go.” I need to go, she thought, staring up at his strong, handsome features. I need you to take me and show me that Blake Wheeler and Cat D’Angelo can be together at a civic function. Suddenly it was crucial that he prove to her that she was good enough for him, that he wanted her with him, right beside him with Cameron Bay’s elite looking on. “I think we should, don’t you?” It was a test, she realized.
“Sense of duty, huh?” A smile touched his eyes as he tried to look stern. “Okay, but we’re not staying long.”
She was pleased that he acquiesced so easily, with hardly any hesitation at all. Round one, Wheeler, she thought, smiling back at him radiantly. He had passed with flying colors.
The fund-raiser was in full swing when Blake and Cat got there. Gwen rushed over to greet them, two flutes of champagne in her hand. Cat took hers gratefully.
“How do I look?” Gwen asked, twirling for them. “The old party dress. I took it out of mothballs.”
“You look beautiful,” Cat assured her, admiring the older woman’s graceful carriage and sea-green gown.
Gwen accepted the compliment with a pleased smile. “You, too, sweetheart, très chic.”
Apparently Blake agreed. At any rate, he chose that moment to give Cat a look that was hot enough to peel the community center’s wallpaper. “Been here long enough?” he murmured.
Cat blushed.
Gwen blinked at them both in surprise. “Uh . . . have fun, kids,” she said, excusing herself to welcome some other late arrivals. The hospital auxiliary league was hosting the event, but Gwen, as director of the center, was the official greeter.
Blake pressed his hand to Cat’s shoulder blades as though to guide her into the room. Feigning a glance behind them, he gave her a thrill of surprise as he rode his thumb down the track of her zipper. “When do I get to take this dress off you?” he asked, sotto voce.
Cat nearly dropped her evening bag. Her eyes widened as a ripple of shocked pleasure followed the path of his thumb. She shot him a warning glance and fixed a smile on her face. She had enough trouble with her image without having Cameron Bay’s DA unzipping her right there in front of everyone. “Behave,” she said.
A smile flickered, and Blake took a swallow of his champagne. He unbuttoned his jacket and slipped a hand into his pants pocket. “For now.”
Cat breathed a sigh of relief. He seemed to be resigning himself to his white-knight role, if only temporarily. He looked rugged and suave in his double-breasted suit, a man of consequence. Evidence of a heavy beard shadowed his features despite a close shave and his burnished gold hair. He was a handsome, sexy devil, Cat thought, with the emphasis on devil.
With some difficulty Cat turned her attention to the crowd. Everyone of note had arrived, she quickly realized, and no one seemed to have noticed Blake’s outrageousness yet. Cat even thought she recognized a couple of fellow classmates from Bayside High as she scanned the crowd for familiar faces.
Sam Delahunt, the mayor, spotted them as they entered the buffet area. “Blake? How are you, son? We’ve been expecting you.” He strolled toward them, glancing at Cat with open curiosity. “Do I—uh, do I know thi
s young lady?”
“Catherine D’Angelo,” Cat said before Blake could speak.
A flicker of recognition crossed Sam’s face. “Oh, yes, I believe my daughter, Linda, mentioned you. Vince D’Angelo’s daughter?”
“Yes, that’s right. I’m up from Berkeley, working at the center this summer.”
He arched an eyebrow thoughtfully. “Yes, yes—Johnny Drescher’s one of your clients, isn’t he? I hope you can talk some sense into that young roughneck.”
“Roughneck?” Cat was as startled by the mayor’s awareness of her work with Johnny as she was to hear her client referred to in such a manner.
“Excuse us, Sam,” Blake said, claiming Cat’s arm. “I want to introduce Ms. D’Angelo around.”
Blake spirited Cat away. Negotiating Cameron Bay’s well-heeled and influential set, he courteously put off any and all guests who attempted to engage him in conversation. Cat was acutely aware of the stares directed at them, and the whispering, but if Blake noticed it, he didn’t let on. Moving purposefully, he guided her around potential roadblocks and out onto a terrace redolent of spring lilacs and fresh night air.
Blake found a private corner and drew her into his arms without any preamble whatsoever. “You’ve got five minutes,” he said, lifting her chin. His breath was warm against her mouth, fragrant with champagne.
“For what?”
“To come up with an excuse to get us out of this party.”
“What happens when the five minutes are up?”
“I may have to start right here, lady. Have you ever had a district attorney lift your sweet little skirt and take you in a flower bed?”
That time Cat did drop her purse. “You’re dangerous!”
“You’ve got that right,” he said.
“If seduction were a crime, Wheeler, you’d be doing a life sentence.”
Their laughter took the edge off Blake’s ultimatum, but he had no intention of letting things get too relaxed. He wanted her dizzy and hot and off balance. He wasn’t crazy. Not unless sexual urgency was a certifiable condition. He’d never been saner or more laser-focused in his life. He wanted a woman. This woman. Tonight. Her dark eyes and wide, sexy mouth made him knot up with desire. He was tight all over, primed as a twelve-gauge shotgun, to quote one of Sam Delahunt’s expressions.
“I’m usually a fairly articulate man, but there aren’t too many ways to say this.” He drew a finger down her throat, hesitating on the chaotic pulse point. “I’m on fire, lady. And I think you’re a little warm yourself.”
Her body stiffened deliciously. “I am . . . warm,” she admitted, her cheeks aflame.
The twelve-gauge cocked explosively inside Blake. “What are we doing here?”
Cat’s heart surged wildly as he caught her hand and led her across the terrace. She went without protest, more convinced than ever that she was the crazy one, not him. He knew what he wanted. She didn’t know anything except that she was too weak with colliding desires to fight anymore.
She didn’t realize until they reached the front door of the community center that she’d left something lying on the brick floor of the terrace.
“Go on out to the car,” she told Blake in a whisper. “I left my bag. I’ll be right there.”
The purse was exactly where she’d dropped it. Breathless, she scooped it up and dusted it off. Her heart was pounding so hard she almost didn’t hear the murmured comment that drifted through the wrought-iron latticework of a trellis to her left.
“Who the hell is she, anyway?”
It was a hushed question, a man’s voice. Curious, Cat peered through the arabesques of the ironwork and noticed the small group of men clustered on the other side. Perhaps it was something about their clandestine manner that alerted her, or the low pitch of their conversation. Whatever it was, she stopped for a moment to listen.
“She’s got a record, doesn’t she?” one of the men asked.
Cat had never seen him before, but she did know the man who answered. It was Sam Delahunt, the mayor.
“Juvenile,” Sam said, “her file has probably been sealed. It was car theft if I remember correctly.”
“Car theft?” one of the others scoffed. “What in hell would Blake want with a woman like that?”
A strange sort of immobilization took over Cat’s muscles as she realized they were talking about her. She was panicky about being discovered, and even more apprehensive about what she was going to hear, but she couldn’t leave until she’d heard it.
Laughter erupted. “What does any man want with a woman like that—a quick tumble.”
“This could play hell with our plans for running him next year,” Sam muttered. “I’ll have a talk with him.”
One of the men snorted. “No—let him get it out of his system. She’s a hot little number, and he knows it. The boys down at the courthouse have a pool going that he beds her before the week’s out.”
Cat had stopped breathing seconds before. Now her stomach slid with queasiness.
“You think he’ll drop her?” Sam’s voice was uncertain.
“Of course,” the other man said. “His interest in this D’Angelo woman extends to her body. It’s the conquest that turns on Blake Wheeler. That’s why he’s such a damn good DA, gentlemen.”
Male laughter wafted toward Cat in the dimness.
A shudder gripped her, and the next thing she knew she was rushing out the back door of the center, clutching her purse to her stomach and fighting off a rising need to be sick.
The alley she ended up in was steeped in dirty-yellow light from the back windows of the community center. The air was suffocatingly still for a Cameron Bay night, and a pungent muskiness drifting off the bay permeated Cat’s nostrils and set off her queasy stomach.
The past welled up, swamping her in shame and helpless fury. All her life she’d felt like cheap goods—the kid from the wrong side of the tracks, the “wild child.” Now, with a few whispered words, she’d just been reduced to that vile category again. She couldn’t go back inside. She couldn’t face those filthy old men, the bastards. Or Blake either.
She stumbled through the alley’s loose gravel in her high heels and cut across a vacant lot to the main drag. Music and laughter poured from a passing car. Hurriedly, she began to walk toward the city center. The only thing on her mind was getting home. She was absently aware of buildings as she passed them, the high school and the courthouse, but not of movement. Despite her feverish pace she had the nightmarish feeling of walking and walking and getting nowhere, a treadmill in hell.
She regressed steadily, her thoughts jammed with bitterness and finally self-loathing. Maybe the old bastards were right. Maybe she would ruin Blake’s career. Their claim that he was after sex was certainly true. Maybe that was all he was after from a “hot little number” like Cat D’Angelo.
Hurt stung through her jaw muscles like acid. One more degradation at the hands of Blake Wheeler. It was becoming a form of self-abuse. Why did she subject herself to it? Did she care so little for her own personal dignity?
Cars passed her infrequently, and she didn’t bother to turn as she heard one pull up to the curb alongside her.
“Cat?” Blake called her name and honked. “What are you doing here? Why did you leave without me?”
She stumbled and swore. “Leave me alone,” she said, forcing him to brake as she cut across the street in front of his car. “Just leave me alone, dammit!” She was too full of outrage to deal with him now. She would either rail at him for his contemptibility or blubber like an idiot.
“Cat!”
A horn sounded, and she stopped in the stream of his headlights, confused. She craned around but saw no other traffic. The city park loomed ahead of her, just beyond the curve of the road. It looked dark and impenetrable. She started for it with a vengeance, praying she could disappear in its shadows.
Blake wheeled the car out and pulled up alongside her again, pacing her as she strode up the street. Her hair had com
e loose on one side and was streaming behind her. The slim dress she wore rode up with the swing of her legs, and there was an awkward, angry grace in the height of her head. She looked like a beautiful, spiteful banshee. But what was she so furious about? he wondered. And where the hell was she going?
Beyond Blake’s confusion there was the frustration. Lady, you sure put a kink in the plans for tonight, he thought, glancing at the tight switch and sway of her posterior.
“You can’t walk on the streets at this time of night, Cat.” He stopped the car and opened his door. “Get in the car.”
She shook her head, freeing more mahogany hair from its restraints as she jogged ahead of the car. “I can walk anywhere I want! This is still a free country.”
Blake jammed the Corvette into neutral and swung himself out of the bucket seat. “What’s going on, Cat?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, all right? Leave me alone!”
“Hold up, dammit. Cat!”
He returned to the car, watched her storm off, and without thinking, spiked the gas pedal with his foot. Still in neutral, the Corvette’s engine roared and spit fire like an angry dragon, and Blake took unexpected pleasure in the sound. Cat D’Angelo was beginning to make him angry.
Moonlight flashed off her white form as she disappeared into the darkness of the city park. Blake pulled the car to the side of the road and ripped his keys from the ignition. Mariner’s was a big park. If he didn’t catch up with her quickly, he’d lose her altogether.
He moved silently through the trees, listening for her footfall and catching a glimpse of white here and there. By the time he got a fix on her, she was a wisp of silvery smoke heading across the park toward the waterfall. She made him think of forest nymphs and dryads.
She’d stopped by the river when he caught up with her. He came to a halt several feet away, struck by the sight of her in the iridescent light. Her shoulders were heaving as though she’d been running for her life, and she looked like a frightened deer who might bolt into the river to escape him.
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