by Jayne Castle
Lucas propped one shoulder against the wall and studied her with an expression of reluctant fascination. “I have some advice for you, Amaryllis. Nobody likes a self-appointed conscience.”
“Spoken like a talent with a classic case of prism envy.” Amaryllis reached past him to yank open the door. “Good night, Mr. Trent. Rest assured, your bill will be in the mail first thing in the morning.”
Lucas didn’t move and the door stayed closed. “You asked me a professional question. Mind if I ask you one?”
Amaryllis watched him with deep suspicion. “What is it?”
“Was it good for you, too?”
“What?” she whispered.
He appeared to be satisfied with her stunned expression. “So, it wasn’t all happening on my end. I wondered about that. I told you, I haven’t had a lot of experience with the focus link, and I didn’t know if getting sexually aroused was a common side effect or if it was relatively rare.”
Amaryllis was nearly speechless. She knew she was blushing from the top of her head straight down to the soles of her feet. “I assure you, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Just tell me how long I can expect the effects to last.”
“Effects?” she repeated weakly.
“Yeah. Effects. How long will this overpowering urge to take you to bed last?”
“Mr. Trent, please.”
“Will it disappear by morning? It’s kind of distracting.”
Amaryllis swallowed and then took refuge once more beneath the mantle of professionalism. “I don’t know how long the feeling lasts. I have never heard of any link producing sensations of the sort you’re complaining about. Furthermore—”
“I’m not exactly complaining.”
“Well, that’s what it sounds like to me.”
“Maybe kissing you would work off a few of the side effects.” Lucas tossed aside his jacket and reached for her.
“Mr. Trent. You’re a client.”
“Yeah, I know.” He wrapped her in his arms and pulled her against his chest. “Don’t worry, I always pay my bills.”
“That’s not the point.”
Amaryllis flattened her palms against his broad shoulders. She barely had time to notice that his gleaming gray eyes were as impenetrable as the dark fog that she had imagined coalescing beneath her kitchen cabinets.
His mouth came down on hers.
Chapter
5
Lucas knew that kissing Amaryllis was the act of a desperate man. He had told himself that taking her into his arms would be the quickest way to shatter the illusion of sexual desire that had held him in thrall all evening. He knew more about the nature of illusions than most people, he had assured himself. Hell, he was an expert. He knew one when he saw it.
But the reality of Amaryllis’s sweet, warm, incredibly sexy mouth did not have the therapeutic effect he had anticipated. Her lips actually trembled. A shiver went through her, sending shock waves through him.
The evidence of her response sent Lucas straight over the edge. He had a mental image of a jungle canyon full of exotic flowers, and then he was falling straight into the mass of petals. The hot, heady fragrance of desire inundated his senses.
“Lucas.” Amaryllis gave a soft, delicious cry and threw her arms around his neck. “Lucas.”
She wanted him. The knowledge was dazzling. She wanted him just as badly as he wanted her. At least this was a case of mutual sexual synergy. The link had definitely worked both ways.
He tightened his grip on her slender body until he could feel her high, firm breasts crushed against his chest. The weightless scarves of the flutter dress were no barrier to his hands. He groaned as he traced the graceful line of her spine down to the curve of her elegantly rounded buttocks.
Amaryllis shivered in his grasp. She clung to him.
Lucas tore his mouth free from hers. “So much for working off the side effects.” He scooped her up in his arms and started toward the closed door of what had to be a bedroom.
Amaryllis clutched at his shoulders as he carried her down the hall. She looked up at him from beneath half-closed lashes. Her eyes were so deep he was sure he would drown.
Somehow he got the door open without dropping her. Two more strides through the shadows brought him to the bed. Moonlight from the window revealed a prim, white bedspread.
Lucas turned and fell backward across the bed. He pulled Amaryllis down on top of him. She sprawled on his chest amid a flurry of silken scarves.
“I’ve never heard of anything like this happening,” Amaryllis gasped. “Honestly.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay.” He caught her face between his hands and kissed her heavily. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Yes, but—” She broke off and began to kiss him wildly. His mouth, his jaw, his ear. Her fingers dug fiercely into his shoulders.
Euphoria roared through Lucas. No woman had ever attacked him with such gratifying enthusiasm. He rolled Amaryllis onto her back. The pins fell from her hair. Lucas wrapped one fist in the soft tresses. It was too dark to see the color of Amaryllis’s eyes, but there was no mistaking the sheen of excitement in them.
He wedged one leg between her knees. The heat of her thighs threatened to burn through the fabric of his trousers. He covered her mouth with his own and fumbled with the scarves of the dress.
It took forever to get one breast free, but the feel of Amaryllis’s tight nipple more than compensated for the effort. Lucas scraped his palm lightly over the delicate bud and then hesitated, afraid to bruise her with his big, calloused hands.
“It’s all right.” She gripped the fabric of his shirt. “I won’t break.”
Lucas uttered a thick, hoarse sound that was half groan and half laughter. It was the second time that evening that she had assured him that she wouldn’t break under his touch.
“That’s good to know,” he said.
He bent his head and reverently took her nipple into his mouth. Amaryllis made a soft, wordless sound and clenched her fingers in his hair.
He slid his knee higher between her legs. The scarves fluttered anxiously for a moment and then parted with only token protest. He reached down and cupped the heated center of her warm body. His hand closed over panties that were already damp.
Amaryllis went rigid beneath him. Her eyes widened in the moonlight.
“You’re as ready as I am,” he breathed, awed by her response. He inhaled deeply, entranced by the searingly erotic, utterly feminine fragrance that drifted through the shadowed room. “It’s definitely not an illusion.”
“Illusion?”
“I figured that whatever it was that got me into this condition during the focus link was some kind of artificial stimulation,” he confided. “An illusion. But when I realized that you had felt it, too, I decided it didn’t much matter what had caused it. I don’t know about you, but this is real enough for me.”
“Wait a second. You’re making love to me because you were sexually aroused by the link?”
“I don’t think the reason matters much now.” He began to probe beneath the edge of her underwear.
“Wait. Stop.” She released her grip on his hair and grabbed his arms. “Stop it right now. This has gone far enough.”
“What are you talking about?” He kissed the curve of her throat.
“You heard me.” She shoved imperiously at his shoulders.
Lucas blinked, dazed by the sudden turn of events. He realized that she was trying to push him aside. “Amaryllis, what’s wrong?”
“Get off me.”
It dawned on him that mentioning the link had been a serious mistake. “Take it easy. I didn’t mean that I was making love to you just because of what happened this evening. Amaryllis, listen to me.”
“Off.”
Reluctantly, he eased himself onto one elbow, freeing her. “Just listen for a moment, will you? I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“I’m the one who should apologize,” she s
aid crisply. “I don’t know what got into me.”
“You?”
“I’m the professional here.” She crawled to the edge of the bed, slid her legs over the side, and stood. “You’re just the client.”
“Just the client.” Lucas propped his head on his hand and watched her in the shadows.
“As a qualified and certified professional prism, it’s my duty to adhere to the Code of Focus Ethics. I should never have allowed you to kiss me. It was completely out of line. You’re a client, for heaven’s sake.”
“Actually, I think of myself more as a man than as a client.”
“Well, it’s my responsibility to think of you as a client, nothing more and nothing less. It was obvious that you experienced some unfortunate side effects from tonight’s link.”
“I wouldn’t call the side effects unfortunate. Just a little unusual.”
“As a trained professional, I ought to have made allowances for the fact that the focus did not proceed in the normal manner.” Amaryllis buried her face in her hands. “I can’t believe that I allowed you to carry me in here and … and …” She dropped her hands to her sides. “I behaved in a thoroughly unprofessional manner.”
“Must be tough trying to live up to your professional code of ethics all the time.”
“It has never been particularly difficult until tonight.”
“I’ll try to take some comfort from that.” Lucas exhaled slowly and sat up on the edge of the bed.
Amaryllis scurried to the bedroom door. She dithered a moment. Lucas realized that she was trying to decide whether or not to turn on the light. She apparently concluded it would not be a good move. She edged out into the hall and turned to wait for him.
“Please hurry.” Amaryllis folded her arms beneath her breasts. “It’s quite late. I have to go into work early tomorrow morning.”
“Yeah, sure.” Frustrated desire clawed at his insides as he watched the way the hall light made her amber hair glow. “You want to get my bill in the mail.”
“Lucas—”
“I’m going, I’m going.”
He made his way down the hall with stoic determination. His jacket was lying on the floor, right where he had dropped it a short while earlier. He scooped it up and slung it over his shoulder.
Amaryllis hurried after him. “I really do apologize for my unprofessional and ethically questionable behavior, Lucas. I don’t know how I could have been so irresponsible.”
It was too much. Lucas swung around at the door and put his hand across her mouth, effectively silencing her. He gazed down into her huge green eyes. “If you apologize for your lack of professionalism one more time, I will not be responsible for my actions. Clear?”
Her eyes widened above the edge of his hand. She nodded quickly.
“Good night, Miss Lark.” He took his palm away from her mouth and opened the front door. “Go back to bed and cuddle up with your professional code of ethics. Personally, I’m going to go home and take a cold shower.”
He walked out into the night and closed the door very deliberately behind himself. He paused on the front step to take a reviving breath of chilled air, and then he went down the steps to his car. His body was tense and heavy. A deep restlessness swirled in his gut. And in his head.
The former he could deal with. But the latter did not bode well.
This was what came of dealing with prissy little prisms. He opened the car door and slid behind the steering bar. He tossed his jacket onto the seat.
For some reason he recalled the novel he had noticed earlier on Amaryllis’s bookshelf. Wild Talent, by Orchid Adams. A psychic vampire romance.
Lucas wondered what Amaryllis would say if she realized that she had come within a hairbreadth of making love with an off-the-scale talent whom most people would say fully qualified as a genuine, real-life psychic vampire.
He thought she was a prissy, sanctimonious little prig. Amaryllis sat hunched over her morning cup of coff-tea and bleakly contemplated the disastrous evening. It was not an edifying endeavor.
It had been a very long night. A glance in the bathroom mirror earlier had sent a shudder through her. The dark circles under her eyes were not especially flattering.
She had relived the farewell scene at her front door countless times, and it never got any better. She could still see the derision in Lucas’s expression as he made his exit. He thought she was a prim, stiff-necked prism who couldn’t unbend long enough to enjoy a night of mutual sexual synergy.
Amaryllis groaned. Better Lucas thought her a narrow-minded, straitlaced prig than that he learn the real truth, which was that she was an idiot.
It was the only logical explanation.
Surely only an idiot would have turned down the chance to make love with the only man who had ever made her feel such passion.
What had stopped her, Amaryllis wondered. It certainly wasn’t the Code of Focus Ethics. She had fibbed when she had told Lucas that sleeping with a client was against the code.
The truth was, the code had nothing to say on the subject of personal relationships between prisms and talents. In reality, it was not considered a problem for most people. It was only in psychic vampire romance novels that full-spectrum prisms got passionately involved with powerful talents.
The phone rang just as Amaryllis started to pour herself a second cup of coff-tea. She knew who was on the other end even before she heard her aunt’s cheery, determined voice.
“Amaryllis, dear, your picture is in the paper this morning. Have you seen it?”
“No, Aunt Hannah, I haven’t.”
“Your uncle and I are so excited. I called everyone in the family right after breakfast.”
Amaryllis closed her eyes in despair. “Wonderful.”
“You didn’t tell me that you were going to attend that museum reception with Lucas Trent,” Hannah Lark said. “He’s the president of Lodestar Exploration.”
“I know. I was focusing for him, Aunt Hannah. I was there on assignment.”
“You did say something about the evening being work related. But, dear, he’s not just any client. He’s the man who commanded the defense of the Western Islands a few years ago. He’s a hero.”
Amaryllis remembered the bleak expression in Lucas’s eyes when he described how he had buried the truth about Jackson Rye’s betrayal. She didn’t care what he said, she knew he hadn’t done it for the sake of the firm. He had done it to protect all of the people who would have been hurt. “More than you’ll ever know, Aunt Hannah.”
“And he found those weird relics, too. It says here that he’s looking for a wife. The implication is that you’re an agency date, but, of course, we know that’s impossible.”
“Right. Impossible.”
“You aren’t even registered yet.”
“I was working undercover, Aunt Hannah. It was a security job. The agency date stuff was the story we used to explain my presence at the reception.”
“Security work, you say.” Hannah’s voice sharpened. “Was it dangerous?”
“Not in the least.” Amaryllis pulled the morning paper across the counter and studied the photo of herself standing next to Lucas in front of a display case. She winced when she noticed that her mouth was hanging open. “It was a very straightforward assignment.”
“Well? Don’t leave me hanging. I promised your uncle that I’d find out everything I could about Lucas Trent.”
“What do you want to know?” Amaryllis asked warily.
“Well, under the circumstances, I think that the most important thing is to find out which matchmaking agency he’s registered with.”
Horror shot through Amaryllis. “Aunt Hannah, don’t go getting any ideas. He’s listed with Synergistic Connections, but he’s a serious talent. Class nine.”
“What a pity.” Some of the enthusiasm drained out of Hannah’s voice. “Are you certain?”
“I saw his certification papers. I worked with him last night. Yes, I’m certain.” Amaryll
is frowned at the recollection of that first surge of power through the prism. Definitely a full class nine. If she hadn’t seen his papers, she would have guessed that he was higher than a nine. But his certificate had been very specific. Lucas was a class nine stuck with the almost useless ability to detect other talents at work.
“Oh, well. It was just a thought,” Hannah murmured. “You know, I’ve heard that there have been one or two rare instances in which an agency matched a full-spectrum prism and a strong talent.”
“The instances are so rare as to be in the realm of legend,” Amaryllis said dryly. “I repeat, don’t start thinking of Lucas Trent as a possible match for me. It’s not in the cards.”
“It really is a shame,” Hannah said regretfully. “I wonder if Mr. Trent would have been a possibility if he weren’t a class nine. Just speculating, you understand.”
“Don’t bother,” Amaryllis muttered. “Even without the talent-prism problem, I can promise you that no reputable agency would have matched us. Trent is not just my polar opposite psychically, he’s also my opposite when it comes to temperament, personality, and personal philosophy of life.”
“Oh, well, all the more reason for finishing the forms from Synergistic Connections. I promised your counselor, Mrs. Reeton, that I would turn them in this week.”
“Why don’t you just send the questionnaire to me, Aunt Hannah? I’ll fill it out in my spare time.”
“No, you won’t. You’ll put it aside and never get around to it. You’ve been dragging your feet about this long enough. I blame your poor attitude on that unfortunate affair with Gifford Osterley. Sometimes I think he actually broke your heart.”
“He didn’t break my heart. Or, if he did, I’ve recovered.”
“I’m not so sure about that. You’ve been running scared of men ever since.”
“Not true.” Amaryllis fiddled with her coff-tea mug. “I’ve just been cautious.” Except for last night, she thought.
“Too cautious, if you ask me. When I was your age, I was out almost every night until I met Oscar. No offense, dear, but you’re a bit of a stick-in-the-mud when it comes to your personal life.”
