by Nora Roberts
Silly, Summer told herself while she arranged éclairs on two Meissen plates. She wasn’t a teenager who delighted in fluttery feelings. Nor would she tolerate being informed she was about to become someone’s lover. Affairs, she knew, were dangerous, time-consuming and distracting. And there always seemed to be one party who was more involved, therefore, more vulnerable, than the other. She wouldn’t allow herself to be in that position.
But the little twinges of nervous excitement remained.
She was going to have to do something about Blake Cocharan, Summer decided as she poured out two cups of coffee. And she was going to have to do it quickly. The problem was—what?
As Summer arranged cups and plates on a tray, she decided to do what she did best under pressure. She’d wing it.
“You’re about to have a memorable, sensuous experience.”
Blake glanced up at the announcement and watched her come into the room, tray in hand. Desire hit him surprisingly hard, surprisingly fast. It warned him that if he wanted to stay in control, he’d have to play the game with skill.
“My éclairs aren’t to be taken lightly,” Summer continued. “Nor are they to be eaten with anything less than reverence.”
He waited until she sat beside him again before he took a plate. Very skillfully done, he thought again as her scent drifted to him. “I’ll do my best.”
“Actually—” she brought down the side of her fork and broke off the first bite “—no effort’s required. Just taste buds.” Unable to resist, Summer brought the fork to his lips.
He watched her, and she him, as she fed him. The light slanted through the window behind them and caught in her eyes. More green now, Blake thought, almost feline. A man, any man, could lose himself trying to define that color, read that expression. The rich cream and flaky pastry melted in his mouth. Exotic, unique, desirable—like its creator. The first taste, like the first kiss, demanded more.
“Incredible,” he murmured, and as her lips curved, he wanted them under his.
“Naturally.” As she broke off another portion, Blake’s hand closed over her wrist. Her pulse scrambled briefly, he could feel it, but her eyes remained cool and level.
“I’ll return the favor.” He said it quietly, and his fingers stayed lightly on her wrist as he took the fork in his other hand. He moved slowly, deliberately, keeping his eyes on hers, bringing the pastry to her lips, then pausing. He watched them part, saw the tip of her tongue. It would have been so easy to close his mouth over hers just then—from the rapid beat of her pulse under his fingers, he knew there’d be no resistance. Instead, he fed her the éclair, his stomach muscles tightening as he imagined the taste that was even now lying delicately on her tongue.
She’d never felt anything like this. She’d sampled her own cooking countless times, but had never had her senses so heightened. The flavor seemed to fill her mouth. Summer wanted to keep it there, exploring the sensation that had become so unexpectedly, so intensely, sexual. It took a conscious effort to swallow, and another to speak.
“More?” she asked.
His gaze flicked down from her eyes to her mouth then back again. “Always.”
A dangerous game. She knew it, but opted to play. And to win. Taking her time, she fed him the next bite. Was the color of his eyes deeper? She didn’t think she was imagining it, nor the waves of desire that seemed to pound over her. Did they come from her, or from him?
On the television, someone broke into raucous laughter. Neither of them noticed. It would be wise to step back now, cautiously. Even as the thought passed through her mind, she opened her mouth for the next taste.
Some things exploded on the tongue, others heated it or tantalized. This was a cool, elegant experience, no less sensual than champagne, no less primitive than ripened fruit. Her nerves began to calm, but her awareness intensified. He was wearing some subtle cologne that made her think of the woods in autumn. His eyes were the deep blue of an evening sky. When his knee brushed hers, she felt a warmth that seeped through two layers of material and touched flesh. Moment after moment passed without her being aware that they weren’t speaking, only slowly, luxuriously, feeding each other. The intimacy wrapped around her, no less intense, no less exciting than lovemaking. The coffee sat cooling. Shadows spread through the room as the sun went down.
“The last bite,” Summer murmured, offering it. “You approve?”
He caught the ends of her hair between his thumb and finger. “Completely.”
Her skin tingled, much too pleasantly. Although she didn’t shift away, Summer set the fork down with great care. She was feeling soft—too soft. And too vulnerable. “One of my clients has a secret passion for éclairs. Four times a year I go to Brittany and make him two dozen. Last fall he gave me an emerald necklace.”
Blake lifted a brow as he twined a strand of her hair around his finger. “Is that a hint?”
“I’m fond of presents,” she said easily. “But then, that sort of thing isn’t quite ethical between business associates.”
As she leaned forward for her coffee, Blake tightened his fingers in her hair and held her still. In the moment her eyes met his, he saw mild surprise and mild annoyance. She didn’t like to be held down by anyone. “Our business association is only one level. We’re both acutely aware of that by this time.”
“Business is the first level, and the first priority.”
“Maybe.” It was difficult to admit, even to himself, that he was beginning to have doubts about that. “In any case, I haven’t any intention of staying at level one.”
If she were ever going to handle him, it would have to be now. Summer draped her arm negligently across the back of the sofa and wished her stomach would unknot. “I’m attracted to you. And I think it should be difficult, and interesting, to work around that for the next few months. You said you wanted to understand me. I rarely explain myself, but I’ll make an exception.” Leaning forward again, she plucked a cigarette from its holder. “Have you a light?”
It was strange how easily she drew feelings from him without warning. Now it was annoyance. Blake took out his lighter and flicked it on. He watched her pull in smoke, then blow it out quickly in a gesture he realized came more from habit than pleasure. “Go on.”
“You said you knew my mother,” Summer began. “You’d know of her in any case. She’s a beautiful, talented, intelligent woman. I love her very much, both as a mother, and as a person who’s full of the joy of life. If she has one weakness, it is men.”
Summer folded her legs under her and concentrated on relaxing. “She’s had three husbands, and innumerable lovers. She’s always certain each relationship is forever. When she’s involved with a man, she’s blissfully happy. His interests are her interests, his dislikes her dislikes. Naturally, when it ends, she’s crushed.”
Again, Summer drew on her cigarette. She’d expected him to make some passing comment. When instead, he only listened, only watched, she went further than she’d intended. “My father is a more practical man, and yet he’s been through two wives and quite a few discreet affairs. Unlike my mother, who accepts flaws—even enjoys them for a short time—he looks for perfection. Since there is no perfection in people, only in what people create, he’s continually disappointed. My mother looks for elation and romance, my father looks for the perfect companion. I don’t look for either of those.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you look for then?”
“Success,” she said simply. “Romance has a beginning, so it follows it has an end. A companion demands compromise and patience. I give all my patience to my work, and I have no talent for compromise.”
It should have satisfied him, even relieved him. After all, he wanted nothing more than a casual affair, no strings, no commitments. He didn’t understand why he wanted to shake the words back down her throat, only knew that he did. “No romance,” he said with a nod. “No companionship. That doesn’t rule out the fact that you want me, and I want you.”
“No.” The smoke was leaving a bitter taste in her mouth. As Summer crushed out her cigarette she thought how much their discussion sounded like a negotiation. Yet wasn’t that how she preferred things? “I said it would be difficult to work around, but it’s also necessary. You want a service from me, Blake, and I agreed to give you that, because I want the experience and the publicity I’ll get out of it. But changing the tone and face of your restaurant is going to be a long, complicated process. Combining that with my other commitments, I won’t have time for any personal distractions.”
“Distractions?” Why should that one word have infuriated him? It did, just as her businesslike dismissal of desire infuriated him. Perhaps she hadn’t meant it as a challenge, but he couldn’t take it as anything less. “Does this distract you?” He ran his finger down the side of her throat before he cupped the back of her neck.
She could feel the firm pressure of each of his fingers against her skin. And in his eyes, she could see the temper, the need. Both pulled at her. “You’re paying me a great deal of money, to do a job, Blake.” Her voice was steady. Good. Her heartbeat wasn’t. “As a businessman, you should want the complications left to a minimum.”
“Complications,” he repeated. He drew his other hand through her hair so that her face was tilted back. Summer felt a jolt of excitement shoot down her spine. “Is this—” he brushed his lips over her cheek “—a complication?”
“Yes.” Her brain sent out the signal to pull away, but her body refused the command.
“And a distraction?”
He took his mouth on a slow journey to hers, but only nibbled. There was no pressure but the slight grip he kept on the base of her neck with fingers moving slowly, rhythmically over her skin. Summer didn’t move away, though she told herself she still could. She’d never permitted herself to be seduced, and tonight was no different.
Just a sample, she thought. She knew how to taste and judge, then step away from even the most tempting of flavors. Just as she knew how to absorb every drop of pleasure from that one tiny test.
“Yes,” she murmured and let her eyes flutter closed. She needed no visual image now, but only the sensations. Warm, soft, moist—his mouth against hers. Firm, strong, persuasive—the fingers against her skin. Subtle, male, intriguing—the scent that clung to him. When he spoke her name, his voice flowed over her like a breeze, one that carried a trace of heat and the hint of a storm.
“How simple do you want it to be, Summer?” It was happening again, he realized. That total involvement he neither looked for nor wanted—the total involvement he couldn’t resist. “There’s only you and me.”
“There’s nothing simple about that.” Even as she disagreed, her arms were going around him, her mouth was seeking his again.
It was only a kiss. She told herself that as his lips slanted lightly over hers. She could still end it, she was still in control. But first, she wanted just one more taste. Without thinking, she touched the tip of his tongue with hers, to fully explore the flavor. Her own moan sounded softly in her ears as she drew him closer. Body against body, firm and somehow right. This new thought drifted to her even as the sensation concentrated on the play of mouth to mouth.
Why had kisses seemed so basic, so simplistic before this? There were hundreds of pulse points in her body she’d remained unaware of until this moment. There were pleasures deeper, richer than she’d ever imagined that could be drawn out and exploited by the most elemental gesture between a man and a woman. She’d thought she’d known the limits of her own needs, the depth of her own passions…until now. Barely touching her, Blake was tearing something from her that wasn’t calm, ordered and disciplined. And when it was totally free, what then?
She found herself at the verge of something she’d never come to before—where emotions commanded her mind completely. A step further and he would have all of her. Not just her body, not just her thoughts, but that most private, most well guarded possession, her heart.
She felt a greed for him and pulled away from it. If she were greedy, if she took, then he would too. He still held her, lightly enough for her to draw back, firmly enough to keep her close. She was breathless, moved. As she struggled to think clearly, Summer decided it would be foolish to try to deny either.
“I think I proved my point,” she managed.
“Yours?” Blake countered as he ran a hand up her back. “Or mine?”
She took a deep breath, expelling it slowly. That one small show of emotion had desire clawing at him again. “I’ve mixed enough ingredients to know that business affairs and personal affairs aren’t palatable. On Monday, I go to work for Cocharan. I intend to give you your money’s worth. There can’t be anything else.”
“There’s quite a bit else already.” He cupped her chin in his hand so that their eyes held steady. Inside he was a mass of aching needs and confusion. With that kiss, that long, slow kiss, he’d all but forgotten his strictest rule. Keep the emotions harnessed, both in business and in pleasure. Otherwise, you make mistakes that aren’t easily rectified. He needed time, and he realized he needed distance. “We know each other better now,” he said after a moment. “When we make love, we’ll understand each other.”
Summer remained seated when he rose. She wasn’t completely sure she could stand. “On Monday,” she said in a firmer voice, “we’ll be working together. That’s all there is between us from this point on.”
“When you deal with as many contracts as I do, Summer, you learn that paper is just that: paper. It’s not going to make any difference.”
He walked to the door thinking he needed some fresh air to clear his head, a drink to settle his nerves. And distance, a great deal of distance, before he forgot everything except the raging need to have her.
With his hand on the knob, Blake turned around for one last look at her. There was something in the way she frowned at him, with her eyes focused and serious, her lips soft in a half pout that made him smile.
“Monday,” he told her, and was gone.
Chapter Five
Why in hell couldn’t he stop thinking of her? Blake sat at his desk examining the details of a twenty-page contract in preparation for what promised to be a long, tense meeting in the boardroom. He wasn’t taking in a single word. Uncharacteristic. He knew it, resented it and could do nothing about it.
For days Summer had been slipping into his mind and crowding out everything else. For a man who took order and self-control for granted, it was nerve-racking.
Logically, there was no reason for his obsession with her. Blake called it obsession, for lack of a better term, but it didn’t please him. She was beautiful, he mused as his thoughts drifted further away from clauses and terms. He’d known hundreds of beautiful women. She was intelligent, but intelligent women had been in his life before. Desirable—even now in his neat, quiet office he could feel the first stirrings of need. But he was no stranger to desire.
He enjoyed women, as friends and as lovers. Enjoyment, Blake reflected, was perhaps the key word—he’d never looked for anything deeper in a relationship with a woman. But he wasn’t certain it was the proper word to describe what was already between himself and Summer. She moved him—too strongly, too quickly—to the point where his innate control was shaken. No, he didn’t enjoy that, but it didn’t stop him from wanting more. Why?
Utilizing his customary method of working through a problem, Blake leaned back and picking up a pen, began to list the possibilities.
Perhaps part of the consistent attraction was the fact that he liked outmaneuvering her. It wasn’t easily done, and took quick thinking and careful planning. Up till this point, he’d countered her at every turn. Blake was realistic enough to know that that wouldn’t last, but he was human enough to want to try. Just where would they clash next? he wondered. Over business…or over something more personal? In either case he wanted to go head to head with her just as much—well, almost as much—as he wanted to make love with her.
; And perhaps another reason was that he knew the attraction was just as strong on her part—yet she continued to refuse it. He admired that strength of will in her. She mistrusted intimacy, he mused. Because of her parents’ track record? Yes, partially, he decided. But he didn’t think that was all of it. He’d just have to dig a bit deeper to get the whole picture.
He wanted to dig, he realized. For the first time in his life Blake wanted to know a woman completely. Her thought process, her eccentricities, what made her laugh, what annoyed, what she really wanted for and in her life. Once he knew all there was to know… He couldn’t see past that. But he wanted to know her, understand her. And he wanted her as a lover as he’d never wanted anything else.
When the buzzer on his desk sounded, Blake answered it automatically with his thoughts still centering on Summer Lyndon.
“Your father’s on his way back, Mr. Cocharan.”
Blake glanced down at the contract on his desk and mentally filed it. He still needed an hour with it before the board meeting. “Thanks.” Even as he released the intercom button, the door swung open. Blake Cocharan, II strolled into the room and took it over.
In build and coloring, he was similar to his son. Exercise and athletics had kept him trim and hard over the years. There were threads of gray in the dark hair that was covered by a white sea captain’s hat. But his eyes were young and vibrant. He walked with the easy rolling gait of a man more accustomed to decks than floors. He wore canvas on his sockless feet, and a Swiss watch on his wrist. When he grinned, the lines etched by time and squinting at the sun fanned out from his eyes and mouth. As he stood to greet him, Blake caught the salty, sea-breezy scent he always associated with his father.
