Dangerous Attraction

by Melinda Cross

  She smiled softly. He was still trying to apologize, trying to find an acceptable explanation for what had happened between them out there in the snow. It wasn’t a bad excuse, really. They had been intoxicated, both of them—by joy, by beauty, by their own exuberance—playing like children, and then getting a little carried away and going too far in a direction they never intended, as children often did.

  It saddened her a little that he felt he needed to make excuses, that he obviously regretted what had happened. She certainly didn’t—not even that silly striptease she’d performed for an empty room. She’d seen the real Marcus Flint last night—a man as capable of a child’s joy as he was of an adult’s tenderness—and she would cherish that image forever. But, even more than that, she’d seen the real Rebecca Hutchinson, too. A naive, foolish woman certainly, but, even after all the dark years of self-imposed isolation, a woman who was still capable of giving herself in love.

  The knowledge made her smile, but it flickered only briefly on her face, then disappeared when she looked up at Marcus again.

  He hadn’t moved—he was still standing by the window, a few feet from where she crouched on the bed—and yet it seemed that he was much, much closer, as if his body had begun to radiate an energy that was eating up the distance between them.

  A trick of the light, she told herself, blue eyes wide; but her heart refused to believe, and beat faster.

  ‘Becca,’ he murmured—or had he spoken at all? She’d been looking right at him, and yet she hadn’t seen his lips move. Perhaps she’d only imagined that soft rumble of a thick, bass voice, calling her name like a command.

  ‘What?’ she whispered, fingers twisting the threads of the terry robe that covered her thighs.

  His eyes looked black now, pupils eclipsing the pearlgray to an iridescent rim. ‘There was nothing magical about this place until you came. Don’t you know that? You brought the magic with you.’

  She felt her heart hurrying to pull itself closed-quickly, quickly, like the petals of a flower folding shut to protect the fragile center from a coming storm—but then he was there, right there next to her, the weight of his knee on the bed tipping her toward him, the weight of his hand on her breast stopping her heart, holding it open.

  He was wrong. If there was any magic in her it appeared only here, only with him. She moved her mouth to form his name silently, as if that was the incantation that would draw the magic forth, precious syllables she dared not speak aloud, for fear of breaking the spell.

  ‘I want you, Rebecca.’ His breath broke upon her face, buffeting eyes she was afraid to close, because everyone knew magic always happened when your eyes were closed, and you missed it. The dove took flight, the rabbit appeared, the woman vanished in a puff of smoke, and it always happened when you blinked.

  When his hand moved on her breast she covered it with both of hers and pressed it against her. And then

  she finally closed her eyes because she was holding the magic. Now it couldn’t get away.

  She felt his mouth against her forehead, her eyelids, the tip of her nose and rise of her cheek, and then her lips parted at the hot, wet prodding of his tongue as she experienced the prelude to how their bodies would ultimately join, and gasped aloud.

  Her eyes flew open when he pulled away, then softened and simmered like two blue flames licking at his face—not last night’s face of an exuberant boy, but the powerful, tightly drawn face of a man overcome with desire.

  Don’t worry, some deep, unfamiliar instinct told her. He won’t leave you now. He can’t. For the moment, at least, he belongs to you. And although at first that thought made her lips curve upward in a sleek smile that tasted of triumph, in the next instant his hand slipped beneath the lapel of her robe to spread wide on her chest, and what had been her triumph instantly became her surrender.

  He brought his other knee to the bed, straddling her folded legs, and her head fell back on her shoulders to look up at him.

  ‘Magic,’ he whispered hoarsely, the heel of his hand pressing lightly against the rise of her breast.

  Her breath came faster, then both his hands were beneath the robe, parting it, pushing the folds of fabric down to puddle at her waist, pinning her arms to her sides.

  From the edges of her vision she saw the erratic rise and fall of her freed breasts as they danced alone in the morning light. And then under the heat of his gaze she felt the tuck and thrust of nipples, and saw Marcus’s face tighten in on itself as a dark sound rose from deep in his throat.

  He’s mine, Rebecca thought in another brilliantly hot surge of joy, but thpn as he cupped her breasts and kneaded gently and she felt her essence spill into his hands she thought, No, that’s not right. I’m his.

  Back and forth, from his hands to hers, from one mouth to another, they took turns possessing, being possessed, trading pieces of bodies and spirits that tangled together until one could no longer be separated from the other.

  The frantic shedding of clothes, the pull of his mouth at her breasts, the press of his lips to her stomach and then down to her thighs, even the tentative stroke and grasp of her own emboldened hands—all these were moments that flowed into a stream of time that blended them together, until she could no longer differentiate one act from another.

  From this extraordinary morning on a large bed in a sun-splashed room, she would take away intact only one clear memory—that ultimately she had felt herself lifted on wings of white, and that on them she had taken flight from all that had gone before and simply soared away.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THEY sprawled on the bed, tangled in covers and each other, as blissfully innocent as children exhausted by play.

  Cradled in Marcus’s left arm, Rebecca was tracing aimless patterns through the dark hair on his chest. Eventually her hand swept downward to press low and hard against the muscles of his stomach. My God, she thought, astounded that she was actually capable of such a bold gesture, thrilling to the responding shudder she felt beneath her fingers.

  ‘Careful,’ he rumbled, tightening his arm around her neck. ‘Another move like that and you’ll never get out of this bed.’

  Perfect, Rebecca thought, smiling into his chest.

  Suddenly she felt the overwhelming need to look into his eyes, to see what lingered there after the heat was spent.

  She pushed herself up on one elbow and stared down at him, awed again by the sheer beauty of his face, the softness of his eyes when he turned them on her.

  He pushed a stray hair behind her ear, smiling a little. ‘Tell me what you’re feeling, Becca,’ he murmured.

  Love, her thoughts answered instantly. Love out in the open, laid bare, unafraid.but giving words to the feelings her body had already spoken seemed impossible. There were no words big enough.

  She chuckled at the irony of a writer suddenly rendered mute, and flopped on to her back. Funny. Lying naked next to a man for the first time in her life, the things they had just done together—none of that embarrassed her. Yet the thought of discussing those sacred, fragile emotions that had brought her to this point—that left her totally abashed.

  ‘Becca?’ he prodded gently.

  She sighed and sat up, frustrated that some of her old inhibitions still lingered. She tried to make up for it with a kiss that left them both breathless.

  ‘Marcus.’ she whispered down at his face, thinking that the love in her heart had to be shining in her eyes, not sure of what she would say next. The distant, muffled ring of the office telephone interrupted—an unwelcome, startling reminder that there was a world beyond this bed. She lifted her head, distracted. ‘That’s the first time I’ve heard your phone ring.’

  Marcus’s arm tightened around her bare waist, demanding her attention. ‘Forget the phone,’ he murmured, reaching for her, pulling her down against him. ‘It rings all the time. I never answer it any more.’

  She was back in the curve of his arm, safe, warm, waiting to recapture that sense of peacefully drifting on
a sea that contained only the two of them, but there was something different—a shadow in his tone, a certain tension in the arm that held her.

  ‘When did you stop answering the phone?’

  She felt her hair stir under his sigh. ‘Right after the book came out.’ His tone was darker now. ‘There were too many calls, from reporters, cranks, that sort of thing. The phone never seemed to stop ringing.’

  ‘They still bother you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said simply, but she heard the weariness in that single word.

  She pressed her cheek close to his chest, imagining for the first time what it must be like to be the focus of a scandal, the target of crackpots and zealots and overeager reporters. Strangers calling at all hours, accusing you of things you never did, intensifying and prolonging the pain of tragedy with endless questions.

  And it will never stop, she realized sadly, until the real story is told.

  Reluctantly she lifted her head from his chest and peered up at his face. The simple ring of a telephone had changed him. The troubled furrows in his brow were back, and a pained expression clouded his beautiful eyes. Charity did that, she thought, feeling something hard and angry coiling within her, like a snake preparing to strike.

  In that moment she hated Charity Lauder more than she had ever hated anyone in her life, and vowed that if she never accomplished another thing she would somehow release Marcus from the dark web that woman had spun.

  Taking a deep breath, she sat up quickly and reached for the terry robe. ‘We have to get up now, Marcus. I have to shower and dress, and then I have to get back to work. There’s still a lot to do before I can start writing the new screenplay.’

  He said nothing for a moment. He just watched with a look of dull astonishment as she shrugged into the robe, her gestures brusque and efficient as she pulled the lapels closed and then jerked the belt tight.

  When he finally spoke there were long pauses between the words, as if he was afraid they would shatter when they fell from his mouth. ‘You don’t have to write a new screenplay, Rebecca. Don’t you understand? It just isn’t important any more…’

  Rebecca paused at the edge of the bed and looked over her shoulder at the man she loved, imagining that she could feel her heart flying backward to lie with him in the bed.

  He looked so alone there, so empty, so unspeakably sad—and only she could change that. Charity’s lies would never hurt him again. She simply wouldn’t permit it.

  ‘Oh, Marcus,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t you understand? This screenplay is the most important thing I’ll ever do.’

  She showered hurriedly, nearly stamping her feet in giddy impatience at the pelting water that simply wouldn’t rinse the soap away fast enough. The minutes away from Marcus seemed endless.

  Clutching the towel to her dripping body with one hand, finger-drying her short blonde hair with the other, she hurried back into the bedroom that seemed more than ever like a spring garden. The plush green carpet was new-grass soft under her bare feet, and the sun streaming through the windows warmed her shoulders.

  Only one change of clothes remained hanging in the cedar-sweet closet. She smiled as she snatched the hanger from the rod, mentally thanking Victor for his insistence that she pack something nice, in case they had dinner at one of Vermont’s fabulous country inns.

  With the breathless fumbling of a young girl preparing for her first date, she slipped on the cashmere dress that matched her ocean-blue eyes perfectly. The neckline swooped down to the rise of her breasts, exposing a half-moon of smooth, tanned skin. The skirt clung at the hips, then fell in soft folds to meet buttery leather boots at mid-calf. It was the one and only feminine garment she owned, and it seemed to require the complement of make-up.

  When she checked her appearance in the mirror, she took a step backward, astounded to see for the first time the lovely young woman that others had always seen.

  ‘My God, I’m almost pretty,’ she whispered, awed by the darker lashes around the crystalline blue eyes, the lips that looked fuller under the gleam of a dusky rose gloss, the way a dusting of translucent powder made her skin glow. Mesmerized by the image, she watched as her fingers touched delicately at the dress’s deep neck, at the swell of breast, and then hip.

  Look at her, she thought, bemused. This is the woman who was in Marcus’s bed.

  Her thoughts stumbled over old, painful memories of a young girl yearning to be the woman she finally saw before her now. She had wanted so badly to be as beautiful as her stepsisters, thinking that must certainly be the path to being loved. So too soon when her tomboyish body was still awkward and ill-proportioned, she had pulled on a ridiculous, lacy dress and painted her face with trembling, inexperienced hands. They’d laughed so hard at the mess she’d made of the garish lipstick, at the long stick legs poking out beneath the frills, and then they’d said there was nothing more pathetic than a sparrow trying to look like a bluebird.

  She banished the ugly memory with the more recent one of Marcus’s bed, and the soaring sensation she’d felt there. Sparrows can fly, too, she thought, rediscovering her smile.

  She tried so hard to move gracefully down the grand staircase, to hold her head erect and descend slowly, as if her narrow skirt billowed over crinolines and her blood flowed blue with generations of aristocratic dignity. But Marcus was down there waiting, and dignity and grace took much too long.

  She scampered down the last half, clutching the elegant bannister, her boots tap-dancing in time with her heart. Down the hall, past the doors she’d never looked behind, past the office, and then she stopped, facing the kitchen door, her lips working furiously to keep from grinning like a madwoman. She took a deep breath, lifted her chin, and pushed open the door. On the other side she stopped, mouth quivering in and out of a smile with joy she simply couldn’t contain, waiting for him to look up from the table and see the pretty woman who loved him.

  Oh, God, he was a masterpiece of a man, sitting there at the kitchen table, his elbows planted on the gleaming wood, his large, strong hands curled around a mug of steaming coffee. It was odd that he didn’t look up at once, but it didn’t matter. She used the seconds to feed on the sight of him, seeing the breadth of his shoulders beneath his blue sweater, remembering how golden the skin was beneath, seeing the hard ridges of his forearms beneath the pushed-up sleeves of his sweater, remembering how those arms had felt around her. Light from the windows behind him painted the tips of his black hair gold, and her fingers trembled with the tactile memory of plunging into that thick mass, disappearing in it.

  His chin lifted in stages, gradually erasing the shadow that hid his face. First the chin came into view, squarish and set, with the strong line of his jaw angling back and up; then the sculpted masculine lips with the line between them strangely straight; and then the eyes.

  Rebecca’s heart stopped and her own eyes widened slightly, her perfect vision trying desperately to correct itself so she could see what she knew was there, instead of what she thought she was seeing.

  For just an instant his eyes looked so strange—flat and empty, like hollow, sightless tunnels of gray—but then almost immediately they changed, and she decided it must have been a trick of light and shadow.

  An uncertain smile tugged at her lips, then faded when his eyes licked over her body with a guarded expression. She shivered a little and hugged her arms against a deep chill of foreboding.

  Now he was rising from his chair, gesturing grandly to the one opposite, and now he was wearing his perfect-host smile, and of course everything was all right. ‘Sit down, Rebecca. I’ll get the rolls.’

  When he turned his back to walk toward the stove, she struggled to realign her thoughts, to dispel the foolish impression that something terrible was happening here. Part of her wanted to follow him to the stove, wrap her arms around his waist and press her cheek to his back—but something about the rigid way he was holding himself stopped her.

  She took her seat at the table instead, glancing
down at a crystal bowl of melon balls centered on the tapestry mat. Drops of moisture on the green and yellow globes caught the light and sparkled, winking at her, reassuring her that everything was normal.

  The slam of the oven door made her flinch and look up. Marcus was turning an aluminum pan upside-down over a crockery plate, apparently undisturbed by the jarring sound of the oven door. When he turned and carried the plate to the table, his expression was blandly pleasant, but he held the plate in a white-knuckled grip, and the tendons in his hands stood out in sharp relief. Suddenly his blue sweater looked too soft, the color too gentle for the rigid flex of muscles beneath it.

  ‘Sweet rolls,’ he explained unnecessarily, setting the plate between them. It clattered on the wood.

  ‘They smell wonderful,’ she said carefully, watching his face.

  He nodded with a faint smile. ‘And they’re portable, if you like. You were so anxious to get back to work, I thought you might like something you could eat on the run.’

  The undertone of sarcasm clanged like a warning bell in her mind, but she felt like a blind woman trapped in the middle of a high-speed highway. She knew there was danger rushing toward her, but she didn’t know which way to jump to avoid it.

  She watched as he cut a hot caramel roll and placed it on her plate. ‘I thought we’d go to the sheriff’s office first,’ she said tentatively. ‘Then maybe back to the hospital to interview the day shift.’

  ‘Coffee?’

  She nodded wordlessly, watching the brown liquid stream into her cup.