Never a Bride

by JoAnn Ross

  Never had one man brought her to such a precipice with a single kiss.

  And never had she experienced such an ominous feeling of fear from any man.

  He was drawing out every ounce of her will with his mouth alone. Without taking his hands from her hair, he was causing her entire body to quiver.

  Because she knew this was getting too dangerous, too fast, Cait managed, with effort, to open her eyes. Realizing that her fingers were splayed against the front of his shirt—how on earth did they get there?—she pushed against his chest.

  “No.”

  His only response was a muffled groan as his lips continued their deep sensual torment. Suddenly aware of exactly how close she’d come to losing all control—in her mother’s driveway, for Pete’s sake!—Cait shoved again. Harder.

  “Dammit, I said no!”

  Sloan couldn’t think. His heart was pounding like a runaway freight train and if she’d held her pistol to his head and told him to get out of the car right now, he would not have been able to move. But that single word, spoken with such resolve, and amazingly, fear, struck home.

  Reluctantly, he released her mouth. Choking back a frustrated curse, he lowered his hands.

  Cait assured herself that the only reason she’d reacted so uncharacteristically to Sloan’s kiss was that he’d caught her totally by surprise.

  But even as she tried to make herself believe that, she secretly admitted it was a lie. Unwilling to allow Sloan to know that he possessed such power over her, she folded her arms across her chest and glared at him.

  “Is that how you kiss my mother?”

  He could still taste her. A man who refused to apologize for his appetites—whether it came to good food, fine brandy, fast cars, or beautiful, willing women—Sloan knew that one taste of Cait Carrigan would never be enough.

  She was more than he’d dreamed. And, as impossible as it seemed, she was turning out to be even more than he’d fantasized.

  Although self-restraint had never been his long suit, Sloan could, when absolutely necessary, be patient. Telling himself that there would be a next time, and soon, he managed a slow, lazy smile.

  “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”

  His easy arrogance annoyed her. As did his obscure answer. “She’s old enough to be your mother.”

  He shrugged, once again drawing her unwilling attention to his broad shoulders. “Actually, she’s not. But it doesn’t matter. Because if I wanted your mother, Cait, I certainly wouldn’t let any difference in our ages stand in my way.”

  That she believed. Cait doubted this man let anything stand in the way of anything—or anyone—he wanted.

  Sloan laughed, a rich, deep sound that vibrated through her even as she tried to remain annoyed. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re gorgeous when you’re jealous, Cait?”

  “I’m not jealous.” Her voice was a sheet of ice.

  “Whatever you say. But for the record, you don’t have to worry about me becoming your next stepfather.”

  “Are you saying you’re not interested in my mother?”

  “Of course I’m interested. I’m interested in Natalie as a friend. I’m also interested in her professionally as a surprisingly good, remarkably bankable actor.”

  A wicked light gleamed in his eyes, a sexy smile claimed his lips. He ran the backs of his fingers in a slow, tantalizing sweep up her cheekbone.

  “I also happen to be very interested in Natalie’s very delectable daughter. In the most personal way possible.”

  His low husky voice slipped beneath her still warm skin, causing every one of her nerve endings to sizzle.

  “What’s the matter,” Cait snapped, annoyed by the dizzying way he was making her feel, “am I the only female below the age of sixty in this town you haven’t lured into your bed?”

  Rather than take offense at her words, as she’d intended, he had the gall to appear amused. “There are one or two others who have escaped my attention.”

  Cait folded her arms. “Imagine that.”

  “Believe it or not,” he said mildly, as he twisted the key in the ignition, causing the Porsche to come to life with a throaty purr, “I’ve progressed beyond thinking with my glands.”

  “You’ve no idea how that relieves me.”

  The lady was definitely no cream puff. Fortunately, Sloan had always enjoyed a challenge. He threw back his head and laughed.

  “Private joke?” she asked stiffly, wondering if he was actually laughing at her.

  He shook his head and his eyes, as they slid her way, were lit with a mixture of mirth and resignation.

  “In a way.”

  “I see.” Actually, she didn’t understand anything about Sloan, or even about herself whenever she was around him, but Cait was damned if she’d admit that.

  “Ah, sweet Cait, if you only knew how ironic this all is.”

  Buck Riley’s kid falling for a cop.

  Hell, Sloan figured his father must be spinning in his grave right about now.

  As for his mother...

  His slight, unconscious sigh stopped Cait’s planned sarcastic response cold. For a fleeting second, she saw the self-assured mask slip and viewed something that looked remarkably like pain move across his handsome features. Against her will, something unbidden and entirely unwelcome stirred deep in her heart.

  Instead she concentrated on directions. In order to cut her commute time down, Cait had recently moved from her funky Venice bungalow to an apartment in the Wilshire district. Following her instructions, Sloan had no trouble finding the building.

  “Nice place,” he said admiringly as he pulled up in front of the apartment house which had been painted in a soft Mediterranean pink.

  “I like it.”

  “I can see why. There are too few buildings with a past anymore in this town. The city fathers seem to have a compulsion to tear down anything even moderately historical and replace it with a parking lot. Or a mall.”

  Although she hated discovering that there was something she shared in common with this man, Cait felt exactly the same way.

  It was bad enough that the ice-cream shop across Sunset Boulevard from Hollywood High where Lana Turner had been discovered sipping a soda—despite persistent stories of the glamorous actress being discovered at Schwab’s—was now a minimall. And Cait considered the famous, original “Hat” Brown Derby being turned into part of another shopping center nothing short of heresy.

  Without waiting for the argument he knew would be forthcoming, Sloan was out of the car, intending to open the passenger door. He was not all that surprised when Cait opened her own door and was on the sidewalk before he could get around the front of the Porsche.

  “Well, thanks for the lift,” she said breezily. “But I really do have to run.”

  “I’ll walk you to your door.”

  “Really, that’s not necessary.”

  “Not only does a gentleman never kiss and tell, he always sees a lady home.”

  He’d put his arm around her shoulder in a gesture that Cait found decidedly possessive. When she went to shrug off the light touch, his fingers tightened.

  Not wanting to waste time, or draw attention by standing here arguing on the sidewalk, Cait decided to give him this one.

  “Is that something you learned from your mother?” she asked.

  “No.” A plaque on the outside wall by the arched front doorway read Bachelor Arms. Below the plaque, someone had scratched Believe the legend. “It’s not.”

  His tone was gruff. His handsome face had closed up. But that strange pain she’d viewed earlier was back. The idea that he might possibly have hidden depths only made him more dangerous.

  Her apartment was on the third floor. Neither spoke as they climbed the stairs. “This is it,” she said, stopping in front of 3-C. She turned away and slipped the key into the dead bolt lock. “Well, thanks for the ride.”

  Unwilling to let her get away quite so soon, Sloan took hold of her arm and turned her
back toward him.

  Cait opened her mouth to complain about being manhandled. But the intriguing, soft-focus look in his whiskey brown eyes stopped the words in her throat.

  “What would you say,” he asked on a husky tone that made her pulse jump, “if I asked if I could kiss you again?”

  He leaned down, his face a whisper away from hers. He was close. Too close.

  She put her hand against the front of his shirt, intending to push him away. “I’d say no.”

  He covered her hand with his larger, darker one. His other arm wrapped around her waist, hauling her against him until their bodies were touching, chest-to-chest, thigh-to-thigh.

  She thought of all the reasons why she didn’t want him to touch her. All the reasons why she couldn’t allow him to kiss her.

  And then, as his mouth captured hers, Cait couldn’t think at all.

  Unlike the first time, where Sloan had led her slowly, tantalizingly into the mists, the power of this kiss slammed into her. She was swept breathless into a raging storm. Thunder roared in her ears, lightning flashed behind her closed eyes. Her body quaked.

  There was no cool control here. No clever seduction. His mouth was hot and open and urgent, his tongue a weapon, diving deeper and deeper, not only to taste, but to torment.

  Rather than pushing him away, her arms wrapped around his waist. She strained against him, seeking to ease the dark ache building inside her.

  Sloan felt himself being sucked into the whirlwind. He felt the power, the strength, the madness. Her lips softened, but did not yield. Her body pressed against his, demanding, but not surrendering.

  He wanted as he’d never wanted before. Needed as he’d never needed. Although Sloan’s reputation was not as nearly tarnished as the supermarket rags liked to suggest, it was true he’d known more than his share of women. But never had he met one who matched his needs so perfectly.

  Sloan wanted, with a desperation that went all the way to the bone, to kick down her door and drag her inside her apartment where he’d spend the rest of the day and night ravishing every inch of her delectable, fragrant body. But because he understood, from that tense exchange with her mother, exactly how important Cait’s career was to her, he knew that it would have to wait.

  And there would definitely be, he vowed, as he felt her soft, silk-clad breasts melding against his rigid chest, another time. Hundreds of them.

  With a very real regret, and ignoring her faint, murmured protest, he lifted his head. He retrieved her hands, which were threatening to scorch the back of his shirt, and lifted them to his lips.

  It had happened again! A primitive beat sang in her blood as Cait blinked in a desperate attempt to clear her whirling mind.

  Sloan could see her pulse still pounding in her throat, and the passion still swirling in her remarkable green eyes. Soon, he promised himself.

  “You didn’t say no,” Sloan reminded her.

  Cait was grateful for the return of his easy male arrogance. This, she told herself, she could handle. “I didn’t say yes,” she reminded him.

  Her voice, miraculously, managed to sound reasonably strong and confident, belying the truth that her knees were trembling. It was going to be all right. She was going to be all right. At least that’s what Cait told herself.

  But then Sloan smiled.

  And her heart stopped.

  “Yes, you did,” he answered on that husky voice that had such a devastating way of slipping beneath her already heated flesh.

  Before she could argue, he surprised her by flicking a casual finger down her nose. “You’d better go in,” he suggested. “You don’t want to be late.”

  He gave her another smile, even more devastating than any of the others. And then he turned and went back down the stairs, taking them two at a time. By the time he’d reached the first landing, Cait could hear him whistling.

  Irritated at him for arousing her, furious at herself for being aroused, Cait slammed into her apartment, marched into the bedroom and yanked her uniform off its hanger.

  Outside on the street, Sloan’s mind was still filled with Cait. Sweet, soft Cait who smelled like a gypsy’s cache of magical spices and tasted like heaven.

  As he climbed back into the Porsche, he did not notice one of the tenants cutting flowers from the beds in front of the three-story apartment building.

  The elderly woman had watched the pair’s arrival. A veteran of the romance wars herself, Natasha Kuryan could certainly recognize passion when she saw it.

  The former beauty and onetime makeup artist to the stars smiled. Things around Bachelor Arms were about to get interesting.

  * * *

  FAMOUS AS THE WORLD’S largest man-made small craft harbor, home to seafaring vessels from Hobie Cat sailboats to sloops, Marina del Rey was a little over a mile square in area, half of which was water. Less noisy and far less crowded than most of Los Angeles, the small community boasted four parks, numerous bicycle and jogging paths and a replica of an old New England fishing town that featured jazz on Sunday afternoons.

  The mood throughout the compact seaside village was relaxed. Casual. Which worried Blythe as she circled the harbor on Admiralty Way. If Cait’s detective was as laid-back as she suspected, he wasn’t the man she was looking for.

  She’d already attempted to unearth information about Alexandra Romanov, only to find herself stymied at every turn. And apparently, Sloan Wyndham had no more luck, or he wouldn’t have suggested hiring a detective in the first place.

  No, she decided as she turned off Via Marina onto Bora Bora Way, she didn’t need to hire some easygoing Jim Rockford or Thomas Magnum clone; the private investigator she was seeking would have to be not only sharp as a tack, he’d also have to be a go-getter. And although Marina del Rey was, admittedly, one of the prettier areas in the county, she couldn’t imagine anyone with any real motivation living here.

  She followed his instructions, finding the slip without difficulty. The sloop bobbing gently at the deck was sleek and white. And expensive. Perhaps she’d misjudged Gage Remington, Blythe considered.

  Then again, perhaps not.

  As she climbed out of her racing green Jaguar and approached the sloop, she caught sight of the man sitting in a canvas chair on the deck. He was wearing a white polo shirt and blue shorts and seemed engrossed in a tout sheet from Hollywood Park.

  Although she’d spent most of her life in the high-stakes world of movie making, Blythe was not overly fond of gamblers.

  Her high heels tapped on the wooden dock. Hearing the sound, Gage put the racing form down and pushed himself out of the yellow canvas chair with a lazy grace.

  It was all Gage could do not to groan as he watched Blythe Fielding walking toward him in the brisk, long-legged stride of a woman accustomed to getting her way.

  Actresses had never been one of his favorite people. There had been times, during his days working in the cop shop, when he’d been assigned to baby-sit some hotshot movie or television star who was researching a role. As a rule, he’d found them not very bright, entirely self-absorbed and unwilling even to try to understand what the job was about.

  They came to the station, their beautiful heads filled with images born in the minds of scriptwriters, expecting daily hostage situations, homicides and shoot-outs in the downtown streets.

  They expected cops to be some impossible hybrid of Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson and Angie Dickinson, and when he unsurprisingly failed to pull off such lofty expectations, they invariably went away disappointed and ended up playing whatever role they’d been researching the same inaccurate, shoot-’em-up way it had been done countless times before.

  His first impression of the woman walking toward him on those impractical high heel sandals and wearing that flowing white silk dress that looked more suitable to some Beverly Hills garden party than hanging around on a boat was that she was no different from the others.

  Her dark hair had been piled atop her head in some artfully casual style he susp
ected had taken some chichi Rodeo Drive hairdresser hours to arrange. It gleamed like jet in the slanting afternoon sun. The designer sunglasses she was wearing kept him from seeing her eyes, but he’d seen enough of Blythe Fielding’s movies to know that they were wide and dark and thickly lashed.

  “Mr. Remington?” Her voice was every bit as lush and rich as it sounded in all those darkened theaters. Even as he felt himself responding to those full seductive tones, it crossed Gage’s mind that he also detected a taut note of disapproval.

  He pulled off his own sunglasses. “That’s me.” He gave her a faint, welcoming smile he was a very long way from feeling. Working on an undercover thoroughbred doping sting, he was due at the racetrack in an hour; she was already ten minutes late.

  His eyes were a blue so pale as to appear almost silver. A startling contrast to his black hair and deeply tanned skin, they were also looking at her as if he wished she’d driven into the harbor on her way to the slip.

  Normally irritated by the way most men tended to view her as just another pretty face or sexy body, Blythe was surprised to find exactly how disconcerting she was finding his obvious disapproval.

  Not one to reveal personal feelings, especially any insecurities she might be harboring, Blythe held out a polite hand. “I’m Blythe Fielding.”

  As if it would be necessary for her to introduce herself to any male on the planet. Not only had Gage recognized her name the moment he’d heard it on the phone, he’d also seen enough of her films to know exactly what her lush body looked like beneath that white dress.

  She was standing there, waiting expectantly. Having no other choice, Gage extended his own hand. “I know who you are, Ms. Fielding.” His fingers curled around hers. Her palm was soft, her grip surprisingly firm.

  “I’m sorry I’m late. But the traffic was horrendous for a Sunday.”

  “No problem,” he lied. “Let me help you aboard.”

  His wide palm was ridged with calluses. “Thank you, but that’s really not necessary.”

  His gaze skimmed over her slender ankles, rounded calves and firm thighs, nicely curved hips and Sports Illustrated cover girl breasts on a lazy journey to her face. “You’re not exactly dressed for climbing aboard boats, Ms. Fielding.”