Hard to Handle

by Diana Palmer

  Kirry’s friends were social climbers, high society. Alexander himself wasn’t comfortable with them, and Jodie certainly wouldn’t be. They were into expensive cars, European vacations, diamonds, investments, and they traveled in circles that included some of the most famous people alive, from movie stars to Formula 1 race car drivers, to financial geniuses, playwrights and authors. They classified their friends by wealth and status, not by character. In their world, right and wrong didn’t even exist.

  “You’re not going to like this crowd,” he said aloud.

  She glanced at him. “I’ll be in the kitchen most of the time,” she said easily, “or helping serve.”

  He looked outraged. “You’re a guest, not the kitchen help!”

  “Don’t be absurd,” she murmured absently, “I haven’t even got the right clothes to wear to Kirry’s sort of party. I’d be an embarrassment.”

  He set his coffee cup down with muted force. “Then why the hell did you come in the first place?” he asked.

  “Margie asked me to,” she said simply.

  He got up and went out without another word. Jodie was going to regret this visit. He was sorry Margie had insisted that she come.

  The party was in full swing. Alexander had picked up Kirry at the airport and lugged her suitcases up to the second guest room, down the hall from Jodie’s. Kirry, blond and svelte and from a wealthy background was like the Cobbs, old money and family ties. She looked at Jodie without seeing her, and talked only to Margie and Alexander during lunch. Fortunately there were plenty of other people there who didn’t mind talking to Jodie, especially an elderly couple apparently rolling in wealth to judge by the diamonds the matron was decked out in.

  After lunch, Kirry had Alexander drive her into town and Jodie silently excused herself and escaped to the kitchen.

  She had a nice little black dress, off the rack at a local department store, and high heels to match, which she wore to the party. But it was hidden under the big apron she wore most of the evening, heating and arranging canapés and washing dishes and crystal glasses in between uses.

  It was almost ten o’clock before she was able to join Margie and her friends. But by then, Margie was hanging on to Kirry like a bat, with Alexander nearby, and Jodie couldn’t get near her.

  She stood in a corner by herself, wishing that Derek hadn’t run from this weekend, so that she’d at least have someone to talk to. But that wasn’t happening. She started talking to the elderly matron she’d sat beside at lunch, but another couple joined them and mentioned their week in Paris, and a mutual friend, and Jodie was out of her depth. She moved to another circle, but they were discussing annuities and investments, and she knew nothing to contribute to that discussion, either.

  Alexander noticed, seething, that she was alone most of the evening. He started to get up, but Kirry moved closer and clung to his sleeve while Margie talked about her latest collection and offered to show it to Kirry in the morning. Kirry was very possessive. They weren’t involved, as he’d been with other women. Perhaps that was why she was reluctant to let him move away. She hated the very thought of any other woman looking at him. That possessiveness was wearing thin. She was beautiful and she carried herself well, but she had an attitude he didn’t like, and she was positively rude to any of his colleagues that spoke to him when they were together. Not that she had any idea what Alexander actually did for a living. He was independently wealthy and people in his and Margie’s circle of friends assumed that the ranch was his fulltime occupation. He’d taught Jodie and Margie never to mention that he worked in Drug Enforcement. They could say that he dabbled in security work, if they liked, but nothing more. When he’d started out with the DEA, he’d done a lot of undercover work. It wasn’t politic to let people know that.

  Jodie, meanwhile, had discovered champagne. She’d never let herself drink at any of the Cobb parties in the past, but she was feeling particularly isolated tonight, and it was painful. She liked the bubbles, the fragrance of flowers that clung to the exquisite beverage and the delicious taste. So she had three glasses, one after the other, and pretty soon she didn’t mind at all that Margie and Alexander’s guests were treating her like a barmaid who’d tried to insert herself into their exalted circles.

  She noticed that she’d had too much to drink when she walked toward a doorway and ran headfirst into the door facing. She began to giggle softly. Her hair was coming down from its high coiffure, but she didn’t care. She took out the circular comb that had held it in place and shook her head, letting the thick, waving wealth of hair fall to her shoulders.

  The action caught the eye of a man nearby, a bored race car driver who’d been dragged to this hick party by his wife. He sized up Jodie, and despite the dress that did absolutely nothing for her, he was intrigued.

  He moved close, leaning against the door facing she’d hit so unexpectedly.

  “Hurt yourself?” he asked in a pleasant deep drawl, faintly accented.

  Jodie looked up at the newcomer curiously and managed a lopsided grin. He was a dish, with curly black hair and dancing black eyes, an olive complexion and the body of an athlete.

  “Only my hard head,” she replied with a chuckle. “Who are you?”

  “Francisco,” he replied lazily. He lifted his glass to her in a toast. “You’re the first person tonight who even asked.” He leaned down so that he was eye to eye with her. “I’m a foreigner, you see.”

  “Are you, really?”

  He was enchanted. He laughed, and it wasn’t a polite social laugh at all. “I’m from Madrid,” he said. “Didn’t you notice my accent?”

  “I don’t speak any foreign languages,” she confessed sadly, sipping what was left of her champagne. “I don’t understand high finance or read popular novels or know any movie stars, and I’ve never been on a holiday abroad. So I thought I’d go sit in the kitchen.”

  He laughed again. “May I join you, then?” he asked.

  She looked pointedly at his left hand. There was no ring.

  He took a ring out of his slacks pocket and dangled it in front of her. “We don’t advertise our commitment at parties. My wife likes it that way. That’s my wife,” he added with pure disdain, nodding toward a blond woman in a skintight red dress that looked sprayed on. She was leaning against a very handsome blond man.

  “She’s beautiful,” she remarked.

  “She’s anybody’s,” he returned coldly. “The man she’s stalking is a rising motion picture star. He’s poor. She’s rich. She’s financing his career in return for the occasional loan of his body.”

  Her eyes almost popped out of her eyelids.

  He shook his head. “You’re not worldly, are you?” he mused. “I have an open marriage. She does what she pleases. So do I.”

  “Don’t you love her?” she asked curiously.

  “One marries for love, you think.” He sighed. “What a child you are. I married her because her father owned the company. As his son-in-law, I get to drive the car in competition.”

  “You’re the race car driver!” she exclaimed softly. “Kirry mentioned you were coming.”

  “Kirry.” His lips curled distastefully and he glanced across the room into a pair of cold, angry green eyes above the head of Kirry Dane. “She was last year’s diversion,” he murmured. “She wanted to be seen at Monaco.”

  Jodie was surprised by his lack of inhibition. She wondered if Alexander knew about this relationship, or if he cared. She’d never thought whether he bothered asking about his date’s previous entanglements.

  “Her boyfriend doesn’t like me,” he murmured absently, and smiled icily, lifting his glass.

  Jodie looked behind her. Kirry had turned away, but Alexander was suddenly making a beeline across the room toward them.

  Francisco made a face. “There’s one man you don’t want to make an enemy of,” he confided. “Are you a relation of his, by any chance?”

  Jodie laughed a little too loudly. “Good Lord, no.�
� She chuckled. “I’m the cook!”

  “I beg your pardon?” he asked.

  By that time, Alexander was facing her. He took the crystal champagne flute from her hands and put it gingerly on a nearby table.

  “I wasn’t going to break it, Alexander,” she muttered. “I do know it’s Waterford crystal!”

  “How many glasses have you had?” he demanded.

  “I don’t like your tone,” she retorted, moving clumsily, so that Francisco had to grab her arm to keep her upright. “I had three glasses. It’s not that strong, and I’m not drunk!”

  “And ducks don’t have feathers,” Alexander replied tersely. He caught her other arm and pulled her none too gently from Francisco’s grasp. “I’ll take care of Jodie. Hadn’t you better reacquire your wife?” he added pointedly to the younger man.

  Francisco sighed, with a long, wistful appraisal of Jodie. “It seems so,” he replied. “Nice to have met you—Jodie, is it?”

  Jodie grinned woozily. “It’s Jordana, actually, but most people call me Jodie. And I was glad to meet you, too, Francisco! I never met a real race car driver before!”

  He started to speak, but it was too late, because Alexander was already marching her out of the room and down the hall.

  “Will you stop dragging me around?!” she demanded, stumbling on her high heels.

  He pulled her into the dark-paneled library and closed the door with a muted thud. He let go of her arm and glared down at her. “Will you stop trying to seduce married men?” he shot back. “Gomez and his wife are on the cover of half the tabloids in Texas right now,” he added bluntly.

  “Why?”

  “Her father just died and she inherited the car company. She’s trying to sell it and her husband is fighting her in court, tooth and nail.”

  “And they’re still married?”

  “Apparently, in name, at least. She’s pregnant, I hear, with another man’s child.”

  She looked up at him coldly. “Some circles you and Margie travel in,” she said with contempt.

  “Circles you’d never fit into,” he agreed.

  “Not hardly,” she drawled ungrammatically. “And I wouldn’t want to. In my world, people get married and have kids and build a home together.” She nodded her head toward the closed door. “Those people in there wouldn’t know what a home was if you drew it for them!”

  His green eyes narrowed on her face. “You’re smashed. Why don’t you go to bed?”

  She lifted her chin and smiled mistily. “Why don’t you come with me?” she purred.

  The look on his face would have amused her, if she’d been sober. He just stared, shocked.

  She arched her shoulders and made a husky little sound in her throat. She parted her lips and ran her tongue slowly around them, the way she’d read in a magazine article that said men were turned on by it.

  Apparently they were. Alexander was staring at her mouth with an odd expression. His chest was rising and falling very quickly. She could see the motion of it through his white shirt and dinner jacket.

  She moved closer, draping herself against him as she’d seen that slinky blond woman in the red dress do it. She moved her leg against his and felt his whole body stiffen abruptly.

  Her hands went to the front of his shirt under the jacket. She drew her fingers down it, feeling the ripple of muscle. His big hands caught her shoulders, but he wasn’t pushing.

  “You look at me, but you never see me,” she murmured. Her lips brushed against his throat. He smelled of expensive cologne and soap. “I’m not pretty. I’m not sexy. But I would die for you…!”

  His hard mouth cut off the words. He curled her into his body with a rigid arm at her back, and his mouth opened against her moist, full, parted lips with the fury of a summer storm.

  It wasn’t premeditated. The feel of her against him had triggered a raging arousal in his muscular body. He went in headfirst, without thinking of the consequences.

  If he was helpless, so was she. As he enveloped her against him, her arms slid around his warm body under the jacket and her mouth answered the hunger of his. She made a husky little moan that apparently made matters worse. His mouth became suddenly insistent, as if he heard the need in her soft cry and was doing his best to satisfy the hunger it betrayed.

  Her hands lifted to the back of his head and her fingers dug into his scalp as she arched her body upward in a hopeless plea.

  He whispered something that she couldn’t understand before he bent and lifted her, with her mouth still trapped under his demanding lips, and carried her to the sofa.

  He spread her body onto the cold leather and slid over it, one powerful leg inserting itself between both of hers in a frantic, furious exchange of passion. He’d never known such raging need, not only in himself, but in Jodie. She was liquid in his embrace, yielding to everything he asked without a word being spoken.

  He moved slightly, just enough to get his hand in between them. It smoothed over her collarbone and down into the soft dip of her dress, over the lacy bra she was wearing underneath. He felt the hard little nipple in his palm as he increased the insistent pressure of the caress and heard her cry of delight go into his open mouth.

  Her hands were on the buttons of his shirt. It was dangerous. It was reckless. She’d incited him to madness, and he couldn’t stop. When he felt the buttons give, and her hands speared into the thick hair over his chest, he groaned harshly. His body shivered with desire.

  His mouth ground into hers as his leg moved between hers. One lean hand went under her hips and gathered her up against the fierce arousal of his body, moving her against him in a blatant physical statement of intent.

  Jodie’s head was spinning. All her dreams of love were coming true. Alexander wanted her! She could feel the insistent pressure of his body over hers. He was kissing her as if he’d die to have her, and she gloried in the fury of his hunger. She relaxed with a husky little laugh and kissed him back languidly, feeling her body melt under him, melt into him. She was on fire, burning with unfamiliar needs, drowning in unfamiliar sensations that made her whole body tingle with pleasure. She lifted her hips against his and gasped at the blatant contact.

  Alexander lifted his head and looked at her. His face was a rigid mask. Only his green eyes were alive in it, glittering down at her in a rasping, unsteady silence of merged breathing.

  “Don’t stop,” she whispered, moving her hips again.

  He was tempted. It showed. But that iron control wouldn’t let him slip into carelessness. She’d been drinking. In fact, she was smashed. He had his own suspicions about her innocence, and they wouldn’t shut up. His body was begging him to forget her lack of experience and give it relief. But his will was too strong. He was the man in control. It was his responsibility to protect her, even from himself.

  “You’re drunk, Jodie,” he said. His voice was faintly unsteady, but it was terse and firm.

  “Does it matter?” she asked lazily.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  He moved away, getting to his feet. He looked down at her sprawled body in its disheveled dress and he ached all the way to his toes. But he couldn’t do this. Not when she was so vulnerable.

  She sighed and closed her eyes. It had been so sweet, lying in his arms. She smiled dreamily. Was she dreaming?

  “Get up, for God’s sake!” he snapped.

  When her eyes opened, he was standing her firmly on her feet. “You’re going to bed, right now, before you make an utter fool of yourself!”

  She blinked, staring up at him. “I can’t go to bed. Who’ll do the dishes?”

  “Jodie!”

  She giggled, trying to lean against him. He thrust her away and took her arm, moving her toward the door. “I told Francisco I was the cook. That’s me,” she drawled cheerfully. “Cook, bottle-washer, best friend and household slave.” She laughed louder.

  He propelled her out the door, back down the hall toward the staircase, and urged her up it. She was
still giggling a little too loudly for comfort, but the noise of the music from the living room covered it nicely.

  He got her to the guest room she was occupying and put her inside. “Go to bed,” he said through his teeth.

  She leaned against the door facing, totally at sea. “You could come inside,” she murmured wickedly. “There’s a bed.”

  “You need one,” he agreed tersely. “Go get in it.”

  “Always bossing me around,” she sighed. “Don’t you like kissing me, Alexander?”

  “You’re going to hate yourself in the morning,” he assured her.

  She yawned, her mind going around in circles, like the room. “I think I’ll go to bed now.”

  “Great idea.”

  He started to walk out.

  “Could you send Francisco up, please?” she taunted. “I’d like to lie down and discuss race cars with him.”

  “In your dreams!” he said coldly.

  He actually slammed the door, totally out of patience, self-control and tact. He waited a minute, to make sure she didn’t try to come back out. But there was only the sound of slow progress toward the bed and a sudden loud whoosh. When he opened the door again and peeked in, she was lying facedown in her dress on the covers, sound asleep. He closed the door again, determined not to get close to her a second time. He went back to the party, feeling as if he’d had his stomach punched. He couldn’t imagine what had possessed him to let Jodie tempt him into indiscretion. His lack of control worried him so much that he was twice as attentive to Kirry as he usually was.

  When he saw her up to her room, after the party was over, he kissed her with intent. She was perfectly willing, but his body let him down. He couldn’t manage any interest at all.

  “You’re just tired,” she assured him with a worldly smile. “We have all the time in the world. Sleep tight.”

  “Sure. You, too.”