“Would you take off my tie, please?” Zach murmured huskily.
Cassidy nodded and stripped it from around his neck. “Is that better?”
“Yes, but could you unbutton my shirt?”
“Are you having trouble breathing?” she asked, concerned, as she hurried to do as he asked.
“Remember when you told me you had trouble breathing when I was very close?”
Her hands slowed on the buttons. “Yes.”
“I have the same trouble,” Zach confessed quietly.
“I don’t understand. Are you having trouble breathing? Do you need something?”
“Yes, and yes.” His voice grew thicker with every word. “You.” He curled his hands around her soft upper arms. “I need you to touch me.” There was something new in his eyes, she realized, and wondered why she’d been so slow to see it. The dreaminess had become focused with desire. The twinkling had changed to fire. “Zach—”
“There’s nothing wrong 'with me, Cassidy, that you can’t fix. I want you in the worst way and I have almost from the first moment I saw you,” Zach said. “Fix me. Touch me. …”
The Lady in Red
Fayrene Preston
ISBN: 0-553-44168-X
To Kay
Who is always so easy to get on the phone
One
“Who’s the lady in red?” Zach Bennett’s blue-eyed stare was riveted on the woman in the long, formfitting sheath glittering with red sequins. She stood across the room from him, shimmering like a beautiful Christmas ornament, her hair a shining ash blond, her skin a burnished gold.
Beside him, Mark Landon, the friend he had questioned, shrugged. “I’m sorry to say I’ve never seen her before. But she fills out that dress in all the right places, doesn’t she?”
Zach didn’t bother to respond. One of the most spectacular parties of the season was going on in the mansion at One River’s Edge. The party was a charity event to raise money for a new children’s wing for the hospital. Prominent chefs from the area had donated their services, and each chef presided over several tables, ladened with their specialties. There were people Zach should speak to, delicacies he should sample, but he couldn’t tear his gaze from the lady in red.
“By the way, it’s good to see you here,” Mark said. “No one expected you to be able to make it back into town by this evening.”
“I was able to wind up the meetings early. Are you sure you don’t know her?”
“Nope. But I may try to remedy that very soon.”
“Don’t bother.”
Underlying Zach’s soft tone was a note of hard determination that made Mark lift his eyebrows. “Sure. Whatever you say.”
Zach watched as a waiter offered the woman a glass of champagne. She shook her head, but then as the young man was about to turn away, she changed her mind and took a glass from his tray. She seemed preoccupied, removed from her surroundings. Not lost exactly, Zach reflected, but certainly on a different plane than the rest of the people in the room, who were laughing, talking, and eating. There was something contained about her, something mysterious.
He enjoyed mysteries. He loved Christmas ornaments. He was enticed by ladies in red. The last was something he hadn’t known about himself until this evening.
He started toward her, making his way through the crowd, nodding to some people, stopping to have a word with others. But his ultimate goal never changed, and he soon reached her.
Her back was to him. One of the sleeves of her dress had slid down, exposing the tender curve of a satiny shoulder. And the low cut of the dress allowed him to follow with his gaze her straight spine clear to her waist.
He said the first thing that came into his mind. “Red is my favorite color.”
She turned so abruptly, champagne splashed over the crystal rim of the glass and onto her hand. And when she saw him, her eyes widened. Smoke gray eyes, he noticed, that seemed solemn and serious.
Gazing up at him with surprise, Cassidy Stuart pressed a napkin to the champagne droplets on the back of her hand. “Would you mind saying that again?”
He laughed softly. “I’d be delighted. Red is my favorite color.”
His deep voice and soft laugh rippled across rapidly tensing nerves. Nerves? Where had they come from? she wondered. She had been completely calm until she had turned and seen him.
Carefully, she set the champagne glass down on a small table. “I wanted to make sure. I didn’t expect someone like you.” She moistened her lower lip, immediately regretting her inane understatement. But in truth, she hadn’t been prepared for the blatant sexuality that emanated from the man before her. He had a face that belonged on the pages of GQ and a body that belonged on an athletic field. He was six feet of hard muscle, with thick brown hair and blue eyes that seemed to dance with a humor she saw no reason for. A red silk tie and handkerchief added a touch of élan to the elegance of his dark suit. All in all, he was spectacular. Why him? she asked herself.
He smiled slowly. “I didn’t expect anyone like you either.” His gaze traced the lift of her throat, the fullness of her cleavage, and most of all, her soft, soft mouth. She made him hungry just looking at her.
She saw the heat in his eyes. The humor. And, unexpected and surprising, she saw a dreamer in those eyes. An unfamiliar tingling swept through her body, causing her to frown. She was a professional, she reminded herself, and this was strictly business. “In this instance,” she said, using her coolest tone of voice, “it doesn't matter what we did or did not expect.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No.”
His gaze flickered to her bare shoulder. Belatedly she thought to pull up the errant sleeve of the dress.
His eyes followed the motion. “I like your dress.”
She sent a quick glance around the room to make sure no one was watching them. “It’s been a lot of bother. I had to rent it, and it doesn't fit very well.”
“You rented it. Really?” He paused for the space of several heartbeats, considering the unusual information. Most of the women he knew ordered their dresses from New York designers.
She spared him a brief glance before resuming her scan of the room. “You're sadly mistaken if you think I have anything like this in my closet. What’s more, after paying the rental fee for the dress, I had the devil of a time coming up with the one hundred and fifty dollar price for the ticket to get in here tonight. I hope it’s worth it.”
“Worth it?” He shifted his stance, unconsciously balancing his weight as a fighter might. “What exactly are you expecting?”
She noticed a couple watching them. To alleviate any suspicion, she quickly smiled up at him and reached out to touch his tie. “You know very well. And if anyone approaches us, we’re old friends. Okay? Don’t try to get too specific with the details. Just say we’re old friends and leave it at that.”
She was odd, he thought, but definitely intriguing. Maybe it would help matters if he introduced himself. “Okay, then, since we're going to be old friends, I’m - ”
“Have a meatball.”
Cassidy blinked. A woman had interrupted him by thrusting a silver platter of hors d’oeuvre - size meatballs in between them. She was one of those women of indeterminate age, with brassy gold hair fixed in an elaborate bouffant style, and she was wearing a body leotard overlaid with yards of translucent chiffon.
“The meatballs are safe,” the woman said. “I made them myself.” In a conspiratorial manner, she stepped closer and lowered her lids, revealing rhinestone-lined false lashes. “Whatever you do, stay away from those little mushroom things on the toast triangles with the mystery stuffing. That chef must have studied cooking at the United States Institute for Car Care. They're pure poison.”
Fascinated more by
the woman than by what she was offering, Cassidy shook her head in refusal.
But Zach popped a meatball into his mouth. “Wonderful,” he said with sincere appreciation. The woman batted her false eyelashes at him and flounced away. Delicately licking his fingertips, he smiled at Cassidy. “You should have tried one.”
She caught herself staring at his mouth and suddenly felt like screaming. “Look, the sooner we get this over, the better. Do you know the layout of this house?”
“Uh …” Caught off guard by her question, he took a minute to think. His eyes fastened on one of several works of modern art hanging on a wall covered in taupe suede. Other walls held specially built shelves that were filled with displays of antique toys. The room was layered with vibrantly healthy plants and comfortable couches and chairs. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. Except her. “Yes, I guess I’m fairly familiar with it.”
“Good,” she said with real relief. “Then do you know a place we can go to be alone?”
“You want to be alone with me?” he asked carefully. Until this moment, he had seen himself as the aggressor in this game of flirtation.
“You don’t think we re going to do it here, do you?” Impatience laced her tone. She had never seen blue eyes that twinkled quite as much as his did and in such a sexy way. But, she reminded herself, his eyes were very much beside the point. She had to get on with the business at hand.
“No, I guess not,” he said thoughtfully, quickly reassessing the situation.
“And by the way, there will be no negotiating regarding price. All right?”
He nodded. “All right.” He loved games, but he obviously had no idea what game she was playing or the rules she was playing by. His interest soared. No one had known he would be returning tonight, or he might think she was some kind of joke his friends had set up. But he supposed she could still be a high-class call girl who had somehow slipped through the security system. He took a moment to mull over that idea and decided he didn’t like it at all. Whatever she was doing here, though, nothing changed the fact that he was still drawn to her, more in fact, with every passing moment. He had never paid for sex, but she tempted him…
She frowned at his hesitancy. “You’ve never done this before, have you?”
The last time someone had accused him of being inexperienced, he had been fifteen, he thought wryly. “I’ve done everything I’ve ever wanted.”
It was her turn to hesitate as she wondered why his statement sounded like a threat. “Are you absolutely certain red is your favorite color?”
His gaze swept over her red-sequin - covered breasts. “I'm crazy about it, believe me.”
She sighed heavily. “Let me tell you something. I went to a lot of trouble to be here tonight, so this had better be good.”
He wanted to laugh. He grinned instead. “I’ll do what I can to make sure you aren’t disappointed.”
Behind the humor and the dreaminess, his eyes held a glint that made her slightly uneasy, even though she knew this encounter could be very important to her. She tucked her arm in his. “Okay, then, lead the way. And try not to act self-conscious. I don’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to us.”
“I'll do my best,” he assured her solemnly.
In the corner of the room, a face that wore a miserable expression peered between the fronds of a palm tree and watched Zach Bennett walk away with the lady in red.
“A bedroom ,” she exclaimed minutes later, gazing around the large room, the suddenly worsening state of her nerves making her extra critical. “What are we doing in a bedroom - and the master bedroom, at that?”
His gaze was fixed steadily on her. “I thought it would be appropriate.”
“A medium-size closet would have been just as appropriate,” she said disparagingly, eyeing the electric train track that ran from under the big black iron bed to around the walls of the room.
“I’m game if you are.”
She glanced back at him, then away again. This meeting was not going as she had planned. Being with this man in a room containing a bed rattled her. The bed seemed enormous, covered by a thick, plush burgundy comforter made of finger-deep corduroy. And as big as the bed was, he seemed even bigger, filling the room with a sexual presence that stifled her breathing. Her gaze stopped at the stuffed animals lined comfortably along the pillows. There was a giraffe, a hippopotamus, a kangaroo, and a lion, each looking amazingly cuddly. The sight made her even more agitated.
“Can you imagine a grown man like Zach Bennett, who is head of a major company, keeping a menagerie of stuffed animals like that on his bed?”
He took a deep breath. “Zach Bennett?”
“Yes, and to top it off they’re weird stuffed animals. Whoever heard of a cuddly hippopotamus or a snuggly giraffe?”
“You think hippopotamuses are weird?”
“The real point,” she said in exasperation, “is what kind of man has stuffed animals on his bed?”
This was getting more interesting by the minute, he thought. “What's wrong with stuffed animals?” He strolled over to the bed and picked up the small, golden lion. “Do you have something against them?” he asked, idly combing his fingers through the lion’s mane.
It was the first time she had noticed his hands. He had big hands with long, tapered fingers and well-manicured nails. And his touch appeared gentle on the lion, unnervingly so. “No, of course not, it’s simply that this house is packed with toys.”
“You sound indignant. Zach Bennett does own a toy company, you know.”
“And the reason he does is pretty obvious, isn’t it? He's never grown up.”
He replaced the lion on the bed and strolled back to her side. “That’s a pretty interesting thing to say considering you don’t know the man.” He paused. “You don’t, do you?”
“No, and I don't want to either. Look, let’s just get on with it, okay?” She needed to get out of this room and away from this man. Her nerves had taken all they could.
“Okay,” he said slowly, “what do you have in mind?”
“That we stop wasting time, and you show me what you’ve got.”
“Excuse me?”
She made an impatient gesture with her hand. “Just give it to me, okay?”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Whatever you say, but I think I’d like it better if you came and got it.”
The peach tone of her skin darkened with a flush. “What’s wrong with you? Do you think this is some kind of game?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, “but you’re incredibly lovely, and if this isn’t a game, I think it’s time we find out exactly what it is.” In one quick, smooth move, he reached for her, pulled her against him, and brought his lips down on hers.
As soon as his mouth touched hers, alarm bells went off in her head, and simultaneously heat flooded every part of her body. Kissing a strange man in a strange bedroom in a strange house wasn't a smart move. That much was simple. What wasn’t simple was what to do about the heat. It was pervasive, debilitating, addictive. It stole her initiative and made her want to wait and see what happened next.
The penetration of his tongue was deep and shockingly exciting. He was exciting, and he made her forget the purpose for her being here. Almost.
With a gasp, she twisted away from him, instinctively crossing her arms over her breasts. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but kissing wasn’t part of this deal.”
His heart was pounding, his lower body was aching. He wanted, needed, to pull her back into his arms and continue with the exploration of her mouth, and even further. Instead, with effort, he slipped his hands into his pockets and looked steadily at her. “Suppose you tell me what was part of this deal.”
“You - ” She went abruptly silent as a fearsome cold trickled down her spine.
“You didn’t bring me up here for sex, did you?” he asked huskily.
“Sex!”
The look of outrage on her face was his answer. He couldn’t remember
the last time he had been so entertained, and that was saying a lot since he was entertained all the time.
The sleeve of her dress had once again fallen. He stroked a finger across the bare slope of her shoulder. “Suppose we start at the beginning, and you tell me why you brought me up here.”
“I - ” Her throat closed around the word, making it temporarily impossible for her to speak.
“Rather wait until later for that one? Okay, then, we'll start with something easy, like your name.”
Watching him carefully, she tugged up her sleeve, sliding it back over her shoulder, almost as if its scant covering would offer her some kind of protection from him. “You don’t know my name?” she whispered.
“And how would I know it?”
What could have gone wrong? she asked herself, glancing around the room as if she might find her answers in it. Her gaze lit on the stuffed lion, and she remembered his fingers combing its mane. The truth hit her; her eyes widened. “Good heavens,” she exclaimed, “you’re Zach Bennett!”
“Yes.”
“Good heavens. And this is your bedroom.”
“Yes.”
“Good heavens,” she said once again. “You weren’t supposed to be here. You were supposed to be lending your house for this charity event, but you weren’t to attend.”
“That’s funny. Not one single person told me I couldn’t come to the party.”
“No, no, of course not.” She put a hand to her head. “Good Lord,” she said, using a variation on her theme. Something had gone very wrong. She made a great effort to collect her wits. “I think I’d better go.”
“Now why would you want to do that?” He moved to block her, putting himself between her and the door. “We were just getting to know each other. For instance, we’ve only begun to explore why you don't like stuffed animals.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t like stuffed animals,” he pointed out gently, the twinkling of his eyes making their blue color deeper.
She shook her head. “It’s obvious there’s been a mistake.”
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