"I'd like to keep it small by dropping it."
Rourke stood and looked at his watch. "I'm due at a meeting down-
town. I'm sorry we can't agree on this; I'd like you to give it some more thought."
"I will, but I don't see a reason to change my mind." "Peace and harmony," Rourke said with a smile. "If it's good enough for Tucson, it's good enough for Rourke Enterprises. Congratulations again on that job, Matt; I'm proud of you. Come to dinner on Saturday; a couple of governors are in town; it might be an interesting evening. Bring Nicole; then if it turns out to be dull, you won't be bored." He put his hand lightly on Matt's shoulder, one of those gestures he made with no one else, setting Matt apart as a kind of favored son. Matt felt the familiar pleasure it always gave him. But this time it occurred to him that there was more than warmth in Rourke's touch: there was also pressure.
The jazz was soft and slow at Birdwatcher's, curling around their table as Nicole's hand rested briefly on Matt's. "Feeling better?"
"Much. I'm already forgetting the kind of week it was. You couldn't have picked a better place." Idly, he pulled the flickering candle closer to them, looking at her in its light. "Or looked more beautiful. What have you done to your hair?"
"Rearranged it. The dress required something dramatic."
The dress was black; in the dim light it seemed to Matt to be made of floating layers. Luminous against it, a single strand of pearls wound once around Nicole's neck, then hung to her waist. Her hair was pulled back and coiled at the back of her head. Amused, Matt said, "When are you less than dramatic?"
"When I wake up," she replied. "Drama requires an alert mind and in the mornings I am languid and slow. All feeling; no thought."
In his mind Matt saw the image of Nicole in bed, long legs and slender arms stretching lazily between smooth sheets. Languid, slow, all feeling. A wave of desire swept him. And Nicole knew it. Looking up, her eyes caught his before he could look away, and she smiled. "You have a wonderful face, Matt; so much more alive than most men's. Don't you ever pretend? Haven't you even once tried to look like the stalwart ship's captain, stern and undaunted, single-handedly bringing your passengers safely through a fierce and terrible storm?"
Matt laughed. "Not once. And neither has anyone else I know."
"Oh, I'd wager they have. You don't see it because they only put on their masks for women—to impress us and pique our curiosity. Who can resist the challenge of finding out what a man is really thinking behind that stern look of perfect control?"
"You don't sound impressed by it."
She tilted her head and studied him. "No," she said. "Masks bore me, and the fearful men who wear them bore me even more. I prefer a revealing face."
"But there's no challenge to it," he said.
"Oh, indeed there is."
He waited.
Nicole shook her head. "Not now. Ask me again. If it's the right time, I'll tell you what it is."
The musicians finished their set and casually accepted the applause of the crowd before putting down their instruments and leaving the small stage. The room filled with conversation, the clink of ice in glasses, the scraping of chairs. Matt finished his vodka and looked at Nicole's glass. "Do you want to stay?"
"If you don't mind. Let's hear at least one more set. I like to feel it build."
He ordered two more drinks and sat back, wondering what it was that Nicole liked to feel building: sexual desire or the intensity of jazz. She was still setting the pace, controlling their times together, choosing where they went, what they did, what they talked about, and he went along because she was undemanding and intriguing, and because she never judged or competed with him.
But tonight she'd done more than set the pace. Tonight she had aroused him, then made him laugh, then engaged him in conversation that kept his desire under control. / like to feel it build. And so do I, Matt thought. After weeks at the center of Rourke Enterprises where he could not let down his guard, it was a luxury to let something build gradually, to savor anticipation. For the first time it was as exciting to slow down as to speed ahead.
Clever woman; to make herself as unpredictable and desirable as any dream I might pursue.
The musicians returned; once more the music coiled about them; and Nicole plucked a conversation from an hour earlier, continuing it as if nothing had intervened. "Do you truly think you and Keegan disagree on important things?"
"I don't know," Matt said shortly, unwilling to talk about work.
"I wondered how much it might change your feelings about him, and working here, if you do find you disagree."
"Not much. I admire him; I think he admires me. ..."
"He does. You know he does."
"Then we can get along. Two people can't work together without occa-
sional disagreements; I don't mind giving in when it's important to him if he does the same for me. We'll work it out."
"Keegan has very definite ideas," Nicole said thoughtfully. "But frequently he doesn't make them clear. He likes to do things in roundabout ways. It pleases him to keep people at a distance; make them guess what he's up to."
A memory caught at Matt. A long time ago—in Aspen?—Elizabeth had described Rourke in almost identical words. "Maybe that's the mask he puts on for women," Matt said. "I don't see him that way."
"Oh, my dear," said Nicole. "Keegan is a man who wears masks for everyone, men and women alike. Though not for me, which is why he doesn't bore me. But, Matt"—she put her hand on his—"don't change your mind about him. Even when you discover things you don't like, stay with him; let him open doors for you. I know you could do it on your own; you're as brilliant as he is; you could go as far on your own as he has, and equal his power and wealth, but if he can make it easier and faster, do let him. He had help, you know: all those oil wells that sprouted like weeds on his father's land."
She saw Matt's quick frown. "No one ever told you that? His father bought hundreds of thousands of acres all over the South in the early 1900s, at absolutely bargain prices. He was building a house somewhere in Arkansas and got terribly annoyed because when he tried to pump underground water into his new swimming pool it kept streaking with filthy black oil. He spent thousands to get a nice clear swimming pool. Poor man; he died before he knew what he had. Keegan knew. And he built an empire from it. You would have done the same, Matt."
Her hand had been lying lightly on his as she talked. She sat back and picked up her glass. "Now that's enough of Keegan for one night. I know I brought him up, but now I'm banishing him. We don't need him at our table."
"We don't need anyone. You have a way of making everyone else seem unnecessary."
The clarinet reached a high note and drew it out, long and sweet. Nicole caught her breath. "May I propose a toast to a most wonderful companion?"
"We'll drink to each other. And to Maine."
"Why Maine?" she asked curiously.
"Because it relinquished you. No lobstermen came to drag you to your island when you decided to spend the summer in Houston—even though, as we know, no one does."
She laughed softly. "I believe in experiencing everything, at least once.
I do thank the Lord daily for air conditioning, but otherwise I seem to have struggled through to mid-August in fairly good shape."
"Fairly good," he repeated gravely.
Her laughter rippled again. "Thanks to you. You're the only person who could keep me here, and in good shape at that. I'm grateful for you, Matt." Her amber eyes held his; her voice curled around him like the long notes of the clarinet; and Matt wanted her with a force that stopped his breath. The room blurred behind her; the music reached a high syncopated pitch that worked its way into his blood. He pushed back his chair. "But I have a favor to ask," she said suddenly, breaking the mood. "I want to choose the evening's entertainment."
Matt let out a long breath. A few minutes ago, he reminded himself, he'd been amused and intrigued by her unpredictability. "I thought you already h
ad. You chose jazz. And Birdwatcher's. And a black dress."
"And I want more," she said. "May I choose again?"
"Whatever you want."
She put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her clasped hands. "I'd like to play a game of Ping-Pong. If I recall correctly, you once claimed to be an expert."
Momentarily silenced, he said after a moment, "You want to follow jazz and vodka and simple desires with Ping-Pong?"
She nodded, her smile challenging him.
Finally the absurdity caught him and he chuckled. "Why not? What else could I have wanted to do? Is it important that I haven't been an expert since the prehistoric era of my college years?"
"Not at all. It simply means I shall win."
"Possibly." He put his hand on the gossamer fabric molding her shoulder. "Shall we go?"
"If you like."
By the time they reached her house, none of the past week's corporate infighting remained in Matt's thoughts. There was only Nicole's beauty beneath the white light at her front door. "Of course I don't want to force anything on you," she was saying as she turned her key in the lock. "We can change our mind, if you'd rather not play."
"I said you could choose."
He caught her small, pleased smile as he followed her through the silent house to the playroom. She switched on a hanging light over the Ping-Pong table, leaving the rest of the room in shadows, and slipped off her shoes. "Ties are not allowed in the playroom," she said. "Shoes are optional."
Matt took off his jacket and tie and unbuttoned the neck of his shirt.
r~M
He left his shoes on. Hefting the paddle at his end of the table, he flexed his wrist. "Do you want to warm up first?"
"I thought we'd been doing that for the past three hours."
He laughed, feeling boyish, reckless, free. At the other end of the table, lit from above, Nicole's beauty was subtly changed, shadows making her cheekbones seem higher, the line of her neck longer, her breasts barely outlined beneath layers of black lace and chiffon. She picked up the small plastic ball and looked inquiringly at Matt. "Ready," he said, and she sent the ball smashing across the table.
She played the way she drove: fast, aggressive, daring. She played to win. It took Matt a few minutes to get accustomed to the small paddle and table after years of tennis, and a few minutes more to recall the tricks he'd known in college. They all came back, and he used them all, but Nicole had her own tricks, and an uncanny ability to anticipate him: time after time she stepped back and slammed the ball across the net in an impossible return.
"Volley for serve?" she asked after ten minutes. "I think we ought to be keeping score."
"I thought we'd been doing that for the past three hours," Matt said.
She burst out laughing. "I asked for that. And I didn't see it coming. Would you like something to drink before we begin a game?"
"I would. I seem to need all the help I can get."
Smiling, she went to the refrigerator built into a cabinet along one wall. "Napoleon?"
"Fine."
She poured the cognac into two snifters and brought him one. "Does the winner get to choose the prize?"
"Of course." He took a drink, then put the glass on a counter behind him as Nicole walked around the table. "Where did you learn to play like that?"
"From two older brothers who thought female meant inferior. They allowed me to watch them at everything." She picked up the paddle. "I memorized what they did, practiced in secret, then challenged them to a game. They lost. It went on for years. They never caught on that they were my teachers. Ready?"
They volleyed until Nicole missed a shot and Matt served. They were very fast, beginning to know each other's moves, whipping the ball between them. It was only a few minutes before Matt tossed Nicole the ball so she could take over the serve. "Three-two," he said. "You watched your brothers at everything?"
"Everything." She served a slicing shot that caught the corner of the
table. "Three-three." As Matt retrieved the ball from the shadows she said, "There was a maple tree outside their bedroom windows. I'd been climbing trees since I was five. And when I was ten they began sneaking girls into their rooms. Are you going to serve?"
He played for a few minutes in silence. When it was her serve again, Matt said, "So you learned from girls, too."
"I learned not to giggle and not to pout."
"That's all?"
"That's all. The rest I learned from my brothers. To know what I want, to go after it, to make sure I'm satisfied. Don't you see? They had it all. I sat outside, looking through a pane of glass at their power, their smug confidence, their maleness. Do you remember those picture books that showed Atlas holding up the world? I thought of my father and brothers that way: chests out, muscles bulging, holding up the world. They had it all."
"They didn't have your beauty."
"Beauty is a weakness. May I have the ball? I believe it's my serve." He tossed it to her and she served again, giving the ball a treacherous spin. But Matt had seen it coming and he returned it with an opposite spin, making it bounce sideways, past her. "Ten-eleven," she said. "I didn't know you could do that."
"Neither did I. I've never done it before. Why is beauty a weakness?"
"Because people believe it's all a woman needs. If she has beauty, no one wants to waste time teaching her anything; what could she need, since she already has the greatest treasure of all? Everyone wants beauty; everyone thinks it will bring fame, fortune, happiness, whatever anyone could want. A lie, of course, but try making people believe that. Tell them beauty is an obstacle to power and they'll tell you you're just being coy."
She served again and they played in silence: fast, furious, concentrating. "Twenty-all," Matt said at last, taking over the serve. "You're a formidable opponent."
She smiled. "When I choose to be."
He studied her. "You could have minimized your beauty."
"I was afraid to. I didn't know how good my other weapons would be."
Struck by her honesty, he paused, still studying her. The amber of her eyes darkened; the tip of her tongue touched her upper lip. He took a step toward her.
"Matt," she said softly. "The game isn't over."
"It's barely begun," he said, but he stepped back and served the ball, and in another few moments Nicole won on a lazy return that sent the ball just over the net and off the edge of the table.
"Yours," Matt said with a laugh. "I should have guessed you'd pull something I hadn't seen before."
"I practice doing that." She picked up the bottle of cognac. "You're wonderful, Matt. Your eyebrows get fierce and your mouth determined. ..."
"I'm pretending to be a ship's captain getting you safely through a storm."
She gave a small laugh. "I'd trust you to do that."
Matt went to her as she filled their glasses and took the bottle from her hand. His arm circled her shoulders and his other hand covered her breast. Nicole leaned against him and raised her face. "Of course," she said, the words barely audible as her arms came up and circled his neck. "You did say the winner gets to pick the prize." Her mouth was full and soft beneath his, opening to let their tongues twist together; then, turning within his arm, she pressed the length of her body against his.
She held the kiss before slowly pulling away. Holding his hand on her breast she led him past the swing set and dart board, past stuffed animals and a hopscotch diagram on the floor, past jump ropes and pick-up-sticks and Lego sets, past the corner where he had once watched her shoot marbles, to a deep couch at the far end of the room. She drew him with her into the depths of its cushions. "If you knew how I've wanted you," she murmured. "Since that first night, at my party, when you looked wide-eyed at every room. ..."
"But tonight you chose Ping-Pong," he said, his lips against hers. He was above her as she half-lay against the arm of the couch; his hands moved from her breasts to her smooth skin and the long line of her throat. "All those damned games.
..."
Her eyes were closed, but her lips curved. "Everything is a game, Matt. Different names, different ways of playing, but it's always a game."
"And this?" His mouth came down on hers with a kind of fury at the passion pounding inside him while she talked of games. He raised his head. "Was that another one?"
"The best of all. Dear Matt, you play so beautifully, we're so well-matched, we'll be wonderful together. I promise. Whatever you want, however you want to play it. . . ."
Roughly he turned her and pulled down the thin zipper that reached her waist. The dress seemed to float off her shoulders, and he ran his hands over her bare skin, sliding them around her to cup her breasts, the nipples hard and pointed beneath his fingers. She made a low sound, like a long purr, and raised herself against him so he could pull off her dress and pantyhose, and his hands moved over her, discovering the taut lines
of her body, as lean as his, before they reached the silkiness of her thighs and the soft darkness between them.
He felt a slow shudder through her body, then she curved above him like a reed floating free in the water. "Your turn, dear Matt," she murmured, and bent her head to run her tongue along his neck, taking small bites while her quick fingers opened his shirt.
Her tongue followed her hands, the pointed tip licking small circles down his chest. He felt her warm breath as she reached his belt buckle and zipper and then her tongue moved down in long strokes as her hands slid off his clothes. Four months, he thought; no one for four months . . . But the words dissolved beneath Nicole's tongue; his hands held her breasts as her fingers curved around him, and then she took him deep into her throat, sending desire surging through his veins like a flood of molten silver.
He had to take her; the rest, the slow playing, would have to wait. He pulled himself out of her mouth and began to turn her so he could lie on her. But with a smile, as if it were still her serve, she stayed above him, moving smoothly, sinuously, upward, along his body. He saw the faint light reflected in her amber eyes; he saw the luster of her long pearls against her breasts; he watched her firm white body cover his darker one. His burning skin felt the marble coolness of hers, and fleetingly he thought of the strangeness of that, but then she was astride him, lowering herself onto him. Her breasts were above his face; he brought one and then the other into his mouth. He heard her say his name in a long whisper, like a breeze lifting their locked bodies, and then the playroom, like the past, disappeared.
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