by Sandra Field
“I could think of several words to describe that kiss. Nice isn’t one of them.”
“Oh? Do tell.”
Hands on her hips, she glowered at him. “You’re one heck of an infuriating man, Luke MacRae…do you have a middle name, by the way?”
“Where I come from, they didn’t go in for middle names,” Luke muttered; then could have bitten off his tongue.
“And if I were to ask you where that was, you’d shut up tighter than the proverbial clam.”
He raked his fingers through his sweat-damp hair. “Supper. On the balcony. Isn’t that what we came out here for?”
She grabbed a white dish towel from the rack, waving it in front of him. “And the truce—don’t forget the truce.”
He suddenly started to laugh. “You won’t let me.”
Her lips curved in an answering smile. “You’re getting the picture. What kind of chicken did you buy?”
Fifteen minutes later they were seated on teak chairs amidst the tangle of vines and flowering shrubs on the balcony; the bay and the distant hills were topped by a pearl-gray evening sky. Luke filled Katrin’s wineglass with a California Chardonnay. “To better days,” he said.
“I’ll drink to that.” She tore off a chunk of hot garlic bread, licked her fingers and said with a sigh, “I feel much better. Let’s talk about movies and Paris and whether you’re afraid of snakes.”
“It’s spiders that do me in,” he said solemnly, and obligingly asked her what movies she’d seen lately, buried as she was in Askja. One thing led to another, until Luke found himself telling her stories about some of his jaunts into mines ranging from the Arctic to the tropics. Her questions were intelligent, her interest genuine: encouraged, he talked far longer than was his custom, revealing more of himself than he’d intended. Peeling her a ripe peach, he said, “You’re a good listener.”
“I’ve learned more about you in the last hour than since we met.” She licked peach juice from her fingers. “With the exception of when we were in bed.”
His knife skidded dangerously close to the ball of his thumb. “And what did you learn about me there?”
“How closely you guard yourself and your secrets,” Katrin said. “How passionate you can be, when you allow those barriers to drop.”
“Did I have a choice?” Luke heard himself ask; then added in true fury, “I thought we’d set up a truce.”
“Why did you leave in the middle of the night?” she said for the second time, a dangerous glint in her eye.
“You’re as bad as those reporters!”
“No, I’m not—because I care about the answer,” she retorted. “Don’t you see? You give me a glimpse of the real man, and then you run like crazy in the opposite direction…why, Luke?”
He pushed back his chair, his shoulders rigid. “I’m going to put some coffee on…can I get you more wine?”
“You’re doing it again!”
“You have a choice here, Katrin,” he said, each word dropping like a stone. “Take me as I am. Or back off.”
“That’s not a choice. It’s an ultimatum. And you know it.”
“It’s all you’re being offered.”
“No coffee. No wine,” she said, her eyes almost black in the dusk. “I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
But as she marched around a tall potted cactus, Luke took her by the waist, pulled her toward him and kissed her with an explosive mixture of desire and fury. Before she could respond, he pushed her away. “Sleep well,” he said. “I’ll drive you to the police station in the morning.”
“No, you won’t—I’ll get a cab.”
“You will not.”
“I hate domineering men!”
“I’m just being a good host,” he said smoothly. “Good night, Katrin.”
She whirled, slid open the glass doors and vanished inside the house. Luke drained his wineglass, gazing out over the brilliant lights of the city and the slick, dark waters of the bay. Whether he went to bed with Katrin or not, he was getting in deeper merely by being within ten feet of her.
Why had he invited her here? This house, even though he no longer liked it, was still his sanctuary, where he could drop his public persona and simply be himself. Be as private as he liked. Why hadn’t he listened to Ramon? San Francisco’s a big city, the burly policeman had said…you don’t have to see her.
The mood he was in, the reporters had better keep their distance tomorrow.
When Luke picked Katrin up at the front entrance of the police station late the following afternoon, the reporters were clustered around the side door. She got in quickly, and Luke drove away. She was wearing her lime-green suit without the hat, her hair in a loose knot. She said faintly, “Ramon let the word slip I’d be going out the side door. And they fell for it.”
Luke eased into the flow of traffic. “How did it go?”
“I’m finished. I can go home.”
His palms were suddenly cold on the wheel. He wasn’t ready for her to leave. Not yet. “There’s a big charity ball tonight at one of the hotels on Nob Hill, I’ve had the tickets for a couple of weeks. I think we should go.”
She sat up straight. “Are you out of your mind? The last thing I want to do is go out in public.”
“Ashamed of me, Katrin?”
“Don’t be obtuse! After the spread in today’s papers, you think I should go to a function full of people I met years ago, with a man the media are insinuating is my lover?”
The newspapers had certainly gone to town; the photo of his furious face as he’d tried to shield a beautiful woman in a wide-brimmed hat had made the front pages. No one at his office had mentioned it, they’d known better; but all day there’d been a tendency for silence to fall as soon as he entered a room. Luke said forcibly, “You’ve done nothing wrong, nothing to be ashamed of. Why should you leave here under a cloud? Blazon it out, that’s the only way to go.”
“You’re nuts.”
“We’re going to Union Square to buy you an evening gown. You can fly home tomorrow.”
“You’re also autocratic, overbearing and tyrannical!”
“I’m a very good dancer as well,” he said, stopping for a red light and smiling at her. “Do you like to dance?”
She scowled at him. “I love to. Add conceited.”
“We can trade insults while the band’s taking its breaks.”
“Have I just been coerced into doing something that I know I shouldn’t?”
He swung around a corner, then sneaked another glance at her. “Yep.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What’s in this for you, Luke? A new twist? Something to relieve the tedium of your life?”
He said flatly, “I can’t answer that. Because I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, that’s honest at least.”
“Do we have to analyze everything we do?”
“If I’m analyzing, it’s called self-protection,” Katrin said vigorously. “I’m not sure you’re aware of the effect you have just by entering a room. Every woman between puberty and senility stares at you as if you’re the best thing since sliced bread. Regrettably, I have to include myself among them.”
Heat crept up his neck. “Shove it, Katrin.”
“I’m telling the truth! You’re the sexiest man I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
Wishing he could gun the car, but forced to crawl at five miles an hour because of the traffic, Luke muttered, “You’re exaggerating and you know it.”
“I am not. Anyway, to get back to this charity ball—I can’t afford an evening gown. I’m saving to go to law school.”
“It’s a present. From me.” He took a deep breath, quelled the panic in his gut, and added, “To say I’m sorry I left in the middle of the night.”
To his dismay the light at the next intersection turned orange. He pulled up behind an SUV. Katrin said quietly, “For the third time, Luke, why did you leave?”
“Because I was afraid to stay.”
; “Afraid?”
“That’s what I said.” For Pete’s sake, he thought, fuming, why couldn’t the light change?
“Afraid of me?”
“Afraid of what you do to me,” he said shortly.
In a small voice she said, “I thought you didn’t like making love to me, and that’s why you left.”
His jaw dropped. “Didn’t like it? Are you serious?”
The driver behind him blasted on the horn. The light was green; Luke pressed hard on the accelerator. Katrin said crossly, “What else was I supposed to think? I figured I was—despite my marriage, or perhaps because of it—too inexperienced for you. Too gauche. Too unsophisticated.”
She couldn’t have been further from the truth. “I ran away because I hate losing control,” he said harshly.
Her fingers slowly relaxed in her lap. “So I’ve noticed.”
“You notice too much,” Luke announced. “I don’t know what it is about you, but I’ve told you more in the last month than I’ve ever told Ramon, whom I’ve known for years.”
“It’s my big blue eyes,” she said pertly.
He pulled into a parking garage north of the square, his mouth set. “You’re going to buy a gorgeous dress and anything else you need to go with it. Money is no object and don’t argue.”
“No, sir,” she said in a perfect imitation of her waitressing voice.
Luke started to laugh, his ill humor dissolving. “I’m beginning to think I led a very boring life until you came along.”
They left the car and walked south, the clang of cable car bells accompanying them. At the edge of the square with its palm trees, clipped hedges and massed flowerbeds, Luke asked, “Want to start at Saks?”
Her cheeks pink, Katrin said, “I don’t want you to see the dress until this evening.”
He grinned at her. “In that case I’ll find a bar, and you can come and get me when you’re ready.”
He had time to slowly drink a glass of Chablis and read the entire newspaper before Katrin reappeared. She said breathlessly, “I’ve run up rather large bills at three different stores.”
“Good,” said Luke; and half an hour later, several boxes in the trunk of the car, was driving toward Pacific Heights. They had a snack in the kitchen to tide them over until the dinner at the hotel, then Katrin disappeared to get dressed. Luke went upstairs, showered and shaved, and got into his tuxedo. He didn’t have a clue what was going on, although he was quite sure if he had any sense he wouldn’t be taking Katrin to a charity ball where he’d meet just about everyone he knew; and discovered that he didn’t care.
He felt alive. Disturbingly and wholeheartedly alive.
Which implied, of course, that he’d been going through the motions for a very long time.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LUKE was waiting in the living room when he heard Katrin on the stairs of the guest wing. He walked through to the hallway; and when he saw her, stopped dead. Her dress, sleeveless and form-fitting, was made of black fishnet adorned with intricate patterns of multicolored feathers: it was an outrageous dress, that she wore with panache. Her sandals were stiletto-heeled, her makeup dramatic, her hair a smooth sweep of gold. He said in a cracked voice, “Katrin…”
She stopped two steps above him. “Do you like it?”
“You look magnificent.”
She blushed. “It’s the dress. Very expensive.”
“It’s the woman wearing the dress,” he said. “You also look very sexy.”
Her flush deepened. “I could say the same of you.”
“A penguin compared to a bird of paradise?”
Her laughter, as always, entranced him. “Actually,” she said, “they’re dyed rooster feathers, I checked just in case they’d used endangered birds.” She descended the last two steps. “And I don’t feel at all sexy. I feel, if you want the truth, extremely nervous.”
“You don’t need to be nervous,” Luke said. He held out his arm; his voice roughened. “I’m with you every step of the way, and I’ll look after you to the best of my ability.”
Had he ever felt such a tumult of raw sexual longing and possessiveness? But that wasn’t all that was new. His instinctive need to protect her, to support her in any way he could, was something he’d never experienced with any other woman. As she tucked her arm in his, he rested the fingers of his free hand on hers, their warmth searing him with desire.
She said unsteadily, “When you look at me like that, I melt.”
“Like ice cream on a sunny day?” he said, his heart pounding under his pleated white shirt.
She glanced down at her pastiche of feathers. “Mint, cherry and blueberry mist.”
“If I kiss you,” Luke said deliberately, “I’ll get scarlet lipstick all over me.”
“You could kiss my cheek.”
Instead, his face intent, Luke leaned over and slid his mouth down her throat, her delicate perfume tantalizing his nostrils. She quivered in response, her blue eyes brilliant as jewels. “We’ll be late for dinner,” she whispered.
He stepped back, his gaze trained on her vividly expressive features. “That was the aperitif.”
“I can hardly wait for the main course.”
What did she mean—that when they got home tonight, she wanted to make love to him? “Not to mention dessert,” he said. Impulsively, he raised her hand to his lips, kissing her fingers with lingering pleasure. When he looked up, he could have sworn there were tears in her eyes. “Katrin?” he said in quick concern.
“It’s nothing…so often you take me by surprise.” Her smile as brilliant as her eyes, she added, “Let’s go. We’ll take them by storm.”
Which, Luke thought midway through the evening, was exactly what they’d done. Friends and associates of his had made a point of introducing themselves to Katrin with genuine pleasure; while old friends of hers were clearly happy to see her again. The others, gossips and rivals, he didn’t care about. Within half an hour of arriving in the elegant ballroom, Katrin had relaxed. Her poise, her dignity and friendliness, weren’t new to him; but to see her in his own setting among his compatriots had a sense of rightness about it that both pleased and alarmed him.
He was getting in deeper with every passing minute; and couldn’t, for the life of him, have pulled back. The signals between him and Katrin were unmistakable; he knew in his bones that the evening would end with her in his bed.
Where she belonged.
They were dancing a samba at two in the morning when she said, out of the blue, “Thank you, Luke.”
Her hips were swaying, all her movements so graceful that he was on fire with wanting her. “For what?”
“For suggesting we do this.” She gave him a sly grin. “Or should I say, for insisting we do this…and for taking such good care of me all evening.”
He led her through some intricate footwork. “Not exactly difficult.”
“I mean it,” she said with sudden intensity.
He said huskily, “I think we should go home.”
She looked at him through her lashes. “Because my feet hurt?”
“Because my tie’s choking me.”
“If you take off my shoes, I’ll take off your tie.”
“Best offer I’ve had all evening.”
“I should hope so,” said Katrin.
They left the ballroom amidst a chorus of goodbyes, and drove back to Pacific Heights in a silence charged with the unspoken knowledge of what they were about to do. Once in the house, Luke picked Katrin up in his arms, carried her upstairs to his room, and then, looking down at her, said, “In the movies, I’d fling you on the bed and rip the dress from your body. But, quite frankly, I don’t have a clue how to get you out of all those feathers.”
She chuckled. “If you put me down on the floor, I’m sure you can find the zipper that’s very cleverly hidden among the black zigzags.”
Instead Luke put her down on the edge of the bed, then knelt in front of her, removing her elegant sandals one b
y one. As she wriggled her toes in relief, he smoothed her arches in his hands, rubbing her heels and stroking her ankles with a slow, sensual pleasure. Then he felt her very lightly caressing his hair. As he glanced up, her beauty struck him anew, piercing him to the core. He said jaggedly, “I’m the luckiest man in San Francisco right now. Hell, in the whole wide world.”
Her response was to lean forward and find his mouth with hers, kissing him until his whole body was nothing but raw need. With awkward haste they undressed each other, the feathered dress crumpling on the carpet in a froth of color. Then Katrin’s naked body was beneath his, and Luke forgot everything but a craving to give her the most intense pleasure he was capable of. As she opened to him with an ardent generosity that touched him to the heart, he was freed of any constraint; they climaxed all too soon, their cries of satiation mingling in the darkness.
Luke lay still, his breathing harsh in his ears. He was, he realized, most passionately himself at the exact moment that he lost himself within her.
What did that mean?
He said unevenly, “Kind of a rush job.”
“We have all night, Luke.”
There was the faintest shadow of a question in her words. He said roughly, “All night. All week. All month…don’t go back tomorrow, Katrin. Stay.”
“All right,” she said.
With an incredulous laugh, Luke said, “Just like that?”
“You like what we do together in bed—don’t you?”
“Nah…I’m only putting up with it so I won’t hurt your feelings.” Then he reared up on his elbow, stroking her hair back from her forehead. “Give me five minutes and I’ll show you how much I like it. I can’t get enough of you, Katrin, you’re in my blood and my bones.”
“And you in mine,” she said in a low voice. “Make love to me, Luke. As I’ve never been made love to before…”
“My pleasure,” he said huskily, and set out to do just that.
The days and nights passed, one by one. During the days, Luke worked as hard as he’d ever worked; even though he whistled as he ran up the flights of stairs to his office, and smiled more at his staff, his focus was absolute, his efficiency unimpaired. At night, he made love to Katrin; and woke sometimes in the night to find her asleep beside him, her soft breathing so familiar, so much a part of him.
