“You want me to listen to your whole lecture again?” he asked dryly.
Greer leaned forward, resting her chin in her cupped hands, wondering why some men remained uneducable. “We’re selling fantasies,” she said patiently. “The whole business of lingerie is based on people’s fondness for make-believe. We sell sinfully delicious fantasies-daydreams that don’t threaten. A woman is going to buy what makes her feel good about herself. What feels good next to her skin. Clothes that give her confidence because she does feel sexy in them. And that’s entirely different from a nightgown that shouts-”
“Sex object. ‘Promoting sexuality is inherent to the field, but it doesn’t have to be on a sex-object basis,’” Ray quoted with another of his subtle smiles, mimicking her earlier words in the staff meeting. “One of the staff can be very, very picky on that infinitesimal difference between sexy and sex object.”
“A huge difference,” Greer corrected.
“You’re full of peanuts, darling.”
Control your temper, Greer. “You voted with me in the end,” she reminded him.
“That was business. Business is a different game from life.” He stood up and stretched lazily, his opaque, hypnotic eyes fastened on her. “I really only came in to say I was shocked you didn’t have a little feminine temper tantrum over going with me to the trade show.”
“Why on earth should I?”
He shrugged. “You’ve backed out of attending every other trade show before this.”
It was true-she had. Because lingerie conventions were just like other conventions. A lone woman was a prize lamb in a meat market, something Greer would never willingly let herself in for. And the minute she’d yielded to Grant’s suggestion at the end of the staff meeting that she go, she knew Ray would offer a suggestive comment. “Love Lace always sends two representatives,” she said smoothly, “and since Marie can’t go with you this time, I don’t mind.”
“Somehow I thought you would.”
“Why?”
“You and I rather rub each other the wrong way, don’t we? On the other hand, we could probably solve that rather quickly if we took a double room at the convention.”
Greer frowned innocently, as if considering. “Sex does solve everything,” she said cheerfully, “but I doubt it would work in this instance. I snore-loudly, I’m told. You’d get crabby from lack of sleep, and then we’d never stop bickering.”
“I didn’t have in mind getting all that much sleep, anyway.”
“Would you kindly get your bedroom eyes out of here so I can get some work done?”
Ray chuckled, pausing only for another second at the door. “Are you that sassy with the men in your life, Greer?”
“Worse,” she said absently, and deliberately opened a folder on her desk. He was gone a few seconds later. Her pulse slowed down a few moments afterward. Ray inevitably ruffled the figurative fur on the back of her neck. She didn’t know why she let him do it. There was a psychological label for men who didn’t feel sexually secure about themselves unless they were aggressive with the females of the species. Whatever the term, it was her own problem that she let him continue to bother her.
She worked for an hour and accomplished precisely nothing. When the clock struck twelve, she put on her shoes, grabbed her purse and sauntered to the front door.
On the street, a soft breeze fluttered through the leaves in restless surges. The day was warm, bright with the North Carolina sun. Settling her sunglasses on her nose, she slid her hands into the pockets of her suit and simply strolled, taking in the springtime mood and relaxing.
The offices near Love Lace were well landscaped; gay rows of colorful flowers danced in the faint breeze, neat and confined within their borders and as new as the season. The smell of freshly mown grass filled her nostrils, and birds were rocking on the branches overhead, most of them in pairs. Another sign of spring.
The sun’s touch on her face felt as sensual as a caress. Her mood half lazy, half oddly wistful, Greer strolled through the business district and window-shopped. She paused before a display showing a rose-colored evening gown, and thought helplessly of the pink satin negligee. The damn thing, she was well aware, was starting to haunt her, but not because she hadn’t been right about the catalog cover.
Cream lace on pink satin…maybe every woman had a secret fantasy about color and texture and whatever it was that made her feel sultry and sexy and exotic. That negligee was Greer’s. She wasn’t the type to wear it; even the thought of wearing it raised a fleeting feeling of nameless anxiety, but she couldn’t get the thing out of her mind.
She hadn’t been able to get her new neighbor out of her mind, either. She’d woken up thinking about Ryan, and at most inconvenient times all morning she hadn’t been able to get him out of her head.
His kiss bothered her. The men who knew her would never have misunderstood a simple gesture of affection; he obviously thought she’d invited that kiss with her own behavior. Because they were going to be neighbors, she obviously had to find some way to correct a misleading impression if she’d given one.
Glancing at her watch, Greer turned around and ambled back toward work, suddenly feeling restless, unsettled. Something about her new neighbor seemed to bring on a bad case of spring fever.
She’d known and worked with a lot of men in the past five years. As a girl, she’d hid her figure in oversized clothes, but that nonsense was all past. These days she had no reason to hide, and dressed to reflect the woman she was. Gentle colors and subtle styles suited her; sexy fashions didn’t. She happened to be a naturally affectionate, caring woman, but not the type to lure out the sexual predator in a man.
Ryan-she couldn’t fathom why-felt like danger.
Greer was too sensible to let a dangerous case of spring fever get her down.
***
“Off the counter if you value your life,” Greer warned Truce. For once, the feline seemed to realize she meant business. He immediately leaped down and paced in wounded silence toward the living room.
Blowing a wisp of hair from her eyes, Greer turned the steaming bread out of the loaf pan and set it on a plate. Next to it was a luscious chocolate cake covered with two inches of seven-minute frosting. Licking her fingers, Greer stood back to survey her masterpieces with a critical eye.
They passed. They definitely passed. The loaf was tall and golden brown, and smelled…irresistible. And the cake-if she said so herself-would tempt the most determined weight watcher. Satisfied, Greer glanced at the clock, noted it was just after nine o’clock, and realized absently that her crank caller had actually left her alone for an entire evening. It seemed a good omen. Resolutely, she balanced the cake plate in one hand and the bread in the other.
Truce didn’t make the juggling act any easier by trying to wind around her legs at the door. “I’ll be right back. Promise,” Greer told him.
Turning the knob was a precarious business, but she managed, and padded barefoot across the hall. Using her elbow as a knocker, she thumped on her new neighbor’s door and waited.
No answer. Earlier Greer had heard various thumps and rattles through their shared apartment wall; she was certain Ryan was home. Chewing her lip indecisively, she tried her elbow on the bell and threatened the bread with a dire future if it toppled.
“Just open it,” Ryan’s voice finally yelled impatiently from within.
“I can’t.”
“You’ll have to.”
Hmm. Pasting an innocuously cheerful smile on her face, Greer managed to turn the knob with her wrist and push it open. “Ryan?”
Boxes and packing crates greeted her. Of course he’d only moved in a few days before, but Greer still couldn’t help smiling. He had obviously unpacked assorted tools and books as a first priority, whereas he hadn’t bothered with anything so mundane as putting up his bed-a queen-sized mattress was lying plop center on the living room carpet. Men.
“I heard that.”
“I never said a thing.�
� Greer swung around to face him-as well as she could with her arms full.
Like Greer, Ryan had tousled hair and bare feet; he was wearing jeans so old they were a soft gray-blue. But whereas Greer wore a scarf and a holey sweatshirt, Ryan was bare from the waist up.
Very bare. Strikingly bare. His chest was sun-browned, his shoulders sleek and muscular, and his jeans hung low over lean hips. Crisp, curling hair grew in an intimate line from his throat to his navel.
For an instant, Greer felt a strong, unfamiliar emotional rush, making her palms feel oddly slippery, her world tilt slightly off-balance. She tried to banish it. Certainly the rest of Ryan’s appearance was enough to bring back her natural humor. He was covered with paint. Speckles of white dotted his mustache, his chest hair and his jeans, and both hands glistened with them…partly because he was still holding a paintbrush.
Greer took a breath and then chuckled. “I can see why you couldn’t answer your door,” she said lightly. “Don’t tell me you don’t share Mrs. Wissler’s love for purple?”
“I’m glad you came over,” he said quietly. “If I’d known it was you-”
“Just bringing welcome-to-the-neighborhood offerings.” Greer rushed past him, her arms beginning to give out even before she reached his kitchen counter. Sensibly, she plopped down her peace offerings, while most unreasonably her pulse was throbbing a mile a minute. She’d heard his low, vibrant baritone, the obvious glad-to-see-you-here in his voice. “I didn’t come to stay, just to cart over the cake and bread,” she called back brightly. “I have this terrible problem when I come home from a tough day; I can’t sit still and inevitably find myself in the kitchen. Then, though, there’s this problem with calories-which I figured I could shift on to you, being the nearest unfortunate neighbor. No hurry returning the plates-”
You can stop jabbering any time, Greer. She hadn’t meant to stay, and she now found herself in a great hurry to leave once she’d deposited her gifts in his kitchen.
Wiping her palms on the seat of her jeans, she whirled for the doorway, and found Ryan’s dark shadow blocking it. Her best company smile immediately curved her lips. “Honest, I’m not staying,” she repeated.
“Did you get another phone call tonight?”
“Nope. He must be taking a vacation. Hardly ever misses a Wednesday.” It was still easy to talk to him. The only difference was the memory of a thirty-second kiss, and a feeling of sexual awareness Greer hadn’t had the day before.
She tried to shake it off, but it wasn’t that simple with Ryan standing there half-naked, a silent apartment behind him, and his soft, luminous eyes on hers. Had she really thought him ordinary-looking yesterday?
He wasn’t at all. He had the sleek, lean look of an animal in the wild, the body of a man who used his muscles to do far more than push paper around a desk. His maleness assaulted her in the suddenly intimate silence, and Greer felt totally irritated with herself. It was one thing to be unnerved by a man who threatened her, but another thing altogether to get uptight when the man had done nothing but be friendly…give or take one kiss. “I’ll be going…”
“Stay a minute and see what I’m doing.”
She shook her head, “Really, I still have a ton of things to do.”
“Just for a minute,” Ryan coaxed.
“You’re busy,” she informed him firmly.
“And if I have to face one more purple room alone, I think I’ll suffer apoplexy. Have you ever tried to outstare a dead purple wall?”
“Actually, no.” Greer took a breath, and another step closer to the door. Ryan didn’t move. She smiled engagingly at him. “Something told me you wouldn’t keep the purple walls. Honestly, though, I don’t want to get in your way.”
“You don’t have to pick up a paintbrush, I promise. Just spare me a few minutes of conversation.”
“Really, I…” She’d only come to set things straight, and in Frank Sinatra fashion, her way. If she made an act of pure uncomplicated friendship, he would have to react in kind. And since she was dressed like a bag lady, she figured he’d get the rest of the message.
Maybe he was getting the rest of the message, Greer thought dismally, but for some unknown reason she seemed to be headed toward his bedroom a few seconds later.
Chapter Four
Forty-five minutes later, Greer was perched on the fourth rung of a ladder with a paintbrush in her hand, doing her darnedest to work up a sweat. As fast as she slathered white latex on the purple corner, she was dipping the brush back into the coffee can Ryan had given her.
“I really didn’t ask you in to put you to work.” From behind her, Ryan’s tone was laced with amusement. “Do you always paint as though you’re attacking your worst enemy?”
Greer’s bare toes curled on the ladder rung, but she didn’t turn her head. “When it’s the purple villain, yes,” she said blithely. “If I had to eat scrambled eggs in the morning staring at dark purple walls, I believe I’d be able to give up breakfast.” Without turning, she added, “What are you planning on doing with the room after this, or have you decided yet?”
Ryan paused, as he dipped his roller into the paint. “Beyond getting rid of the purple, I haven’t worried about it much, knowing I’ll build my own place as soon as possible. I don’t know… At home, I had a corner fireplace in the bedroom-but this climate hardly calls for it. The stereo has to go in here; I almost always listen to music before sleeping…”
Or seducing, Greer thought darkly. Fireplaces, firm mattresses and music at midnight…it all suited him. Her paintbrush swish-swished over the wall at the speed of sound. Why couldn’t he have needed his kitchen painted instead of the bedroom? Why did these silly images keep popping into her head?
Oh, well. In a half hour, the room would be done. He’d already finished three walls and the ceiling before she came in. A little molding and one windowsill were all that remained, except for the wall Ryan was painting now. She climbed down from the ladder and started working on the windowsill.
Truthfully, she didn’t mind helping him. Facing house projects after a long day’s work was never any fun alone. And even though he was only a short-term resident, she wasn’t surprised that he wanted a fresh coat of paint on the place-not simply because he couldn’t live with Mrs. Wissler’s purple, but also because he was clearly a man who’d want to put his own stamp on a place.
Her eyes darted to Ryan. His forehead was dotted with moisture, and damp brown hair curled on his brow. An evening beard darkened his chin, and Greer found herself staring at it, then letting her eyes wander deliberately down to his bare, muscled chest.
She relaxed. No dreadful rush of sexual emotions assaulted her. These little fantasies that kept cropping up in her head were absolutely ridiculous. Ryan had done little but tease her and make her laugh. There’d been nothing to make her believe he was even seriously interested. “I should have brought Truce,” she said absently as she picked up the paintbrush again. “He’ll be howling up a storm next door. He doesn’t seem to mind if I’m gone all day, but if I leave at night I always come home to those pitiful wails.”
“A cat that needs a babysitter,” muttered Ryan.
“I take it you’re a dog man.”
“Was that meant as an insult?”
She shook her head, laughing. “No, but people always seem to go one way or the other. German shepherd?” she guessed.
“Great Pyrenees. I left her with my brother in Maine. I knew there’d be no place for her to run here.”
“I thought the Pyrenees were mountains.”
“They’re also big white dogs. Would you stop working like a Roman slave, please? You’re hitting my masculine ego where it hurts. I can’t keep up with you.”
“You poor thing,” Greer began, and dropped her paintbrush on the tarp at her feet when she heard the faint but unmistakable ring of a telephone through the paper-thin walls.
Behind her, she heard Ryan setting down his paint roller. “Your apartment’s unlocked?”
>
“Yes, but don’t. Really. I-”
He paused only long enough to grab a rag for his hands before he disappeared. Greer gnawed on her lip, then picked up her brush and dipped it in the paint can again. Dip and stroke, dip and stroke. Her heart was trying to condense into a tight, hard beating ball in her chest, yet Ryan couldn’t have been gone five minutes.
“A man named Michael,” he said briskly. “I told him you had your hands full of paint and you’d call him back when you could.”
Greer took a huge breath. “Thanks. For a minute, I was afraid it was my favorite crank call-”
“So who’s Michael?” Ryan interrupted conversationally. “Another potential heavy breather?”
Expecting him to pick up his roller again, Greer was startled when he blocked her from behind. He stole her paintbrush from one hand and a small rag from the other. For one very small moment, the backs of her thighs were cradled against the fronts of his, and Greer stood immobile as a statue. “No. Just someone I occasionally go out wi-what on earth are you doing?”
“Break time,” Ryan announced, moving away from her.
“But we could have the whole room finished in just a few minutes…” Her voice trailed off. He’d already disappeared into the hall.
“I brought Truce with me,” Ryan called over his shoulder, “so he wouldn’t start howling if you stayed a few more minutes.”
“Oh. Well, that was nice of you, but…” Greer let her voice trail off again, so he wouldn’t hear the hint of doubt. Not that saving the cat wasn’t kind, but somehow the man kept making it difficult for her to leave.
Truce sat on the kitchen counter watching both of them wash the paint from their hands, occasionally flicking his tail in disdain when water threatened to splash his way. “We’d be better off in the shower,” Ryan said.
Greer’s head jerked up. Was it only in her head that he’d just added “together”? “Yes. So I’ll just go next door, and-”
“But we’ll make do.” He tilted her chin before she’d realized he was going to, and took a small damp cloth to a white splotch on her nose and another on her cheek. She lowered her eyes the instant he touched her, and kept them lowered, her soft, dark lashes shadowing her cheeks like tufts of velvet.
Pink Satin Page 4
