by Nancy Martin
Outside, rain pelted against the windows and an occasional flash of lightning made Dixie look up from her food. But most of the time, she found herself mesmerized by Flynn’s face. He listened and watched, laughing and sometimes questioning her further. He paid close attention to her tales, but Dixie sometimes wondered if his mind was totally on the subject at hand.
She caught him glancing at her bare legs once in a while, and he seemed to find excuses to lean close to her—like choosing another pickle or opening a second bottle to quench his thirst.
It was cozy and fun, Dixie decided as the evening gathered outside. During her stay in New York, she hadn’t had time to get close to anyone. And here was Flynn—attractive and protective and—well, he’s the best thing to blow into your life in a long time, honey.
He had a sexy mouth, she decided. And an observant gaze. When she found herself admiring the breadth of his shoulders, he knew what she was looking at. Dixie blushed, and his response was a quick smile that he tried to hide.
There was something else on his mind, however. She knew he wasn’t just thinking about sex, but she was afraid to ask. The light in his eyes was full of humor, yet thoughtful and speculative, too. Flynn was unlike the men she’d been with before. Compared to him, they suddenly seemed like boys. Although Flynn had a playful side, there was a darker corner of his soul that Dixie hadn’t quite figured out.
“Dessert?” he suggested when the sandwiches were demolished. The bed looked as if the entire Confederate army had marched through.
“I couldn’t!” Dixie sighed, and lay down among the pillows. She stretched, satisfied. “I’m stuffed—unless there’s chocolate, of course.”
Flynn tore his gaze from the length of her body and peeked into the last remaining container. “It’s chocolate,” he confirmed. “Cannoli.”
Dixie groaned. “I can’t possibly—”
But when Flynn drew one of the luscious pastries out, she weakened. “Oh, maybe just a bite.”
He leaned down on one elbow and held out the cannoli. Dixie tried to take a judicious nibble, but she ended up laughing and dribbling whipped cream down her chin.
The most natural reaction in the world was to tilt her chin upward so Flynn could lick off the cream.
He did. Slowly. And watching her eyes with his during every sensuous moment. His tongue was rough as a cat’s and just as careful.
Meeting his warm gaze, Dixie didn’t have to swallow the bite in her mouth. Instead it melted down her throat with silky smoothness.
Next thing she knew, Flynn was kissing her deeply. The pastry, forgotten, slipped from his hands as he ran his fingers into her hair and toppled Dixie back into the pillows. His chest collided with hers—solid and warm. The rest of his body was suddenly aligned with hers. His knee rode gently between her two softer ones. The bedclothes made a soft squishy sound as they gave beneath the weight of two bodies easing down among them. Flynn tasted hot and delicious. Dixie’s head swam.
This is crazy, cried a far-off voice inside her head. You’ve only known him a few days—barely long enough to decide if you like him!
Oh, but she liked him. A lot. Not just the way he kissed or touched her or the way he listened and protected her. There was a kinship underneath all the banter. A connection Dixie couldn’t describe.
But she responded to it. Tentatively, Dixie slid her arms around his neck. She played her fingertips in the swirl of hair at the back of his head. Growing bolder, she parted her lips and tasted his tongue as it swiped hers with agonizing sweetness. She released a sigh of longing.
Flynn kissed her mouth a long while, then traced his lips along her cheek, her temples. He blew a breath along her hairline. Dixie began to tremble and held on tighter.
“Flynn, this is—it feels so good, but it’s against all my rules.”
“Some rules ought to be broken.”
“But I’m— I’ve got to be careful. So many men— In this city, everybody wants me. I’m the flavor of the week in the tabloids—”
“You’re the most delicious flavor I’ve ever tasted.” He nibbled her earlobe, sending electric shivers down her nerve endings.
“But—”
“You want me, too. I can feel it.”
He must have felt her hard nipples straining through her clothing. Or maybe he heard the thunder of blood rushing in her veins. “I do,” she said, voice shaking. “But this is too fast for me.”
“I thought,” he murmured, pressing more soft kisses down the column of her throat, “this was nice and slow.”
Dixie quivered all over, knowing she should resist, but finding herself totally weakened by his love-making. It was very slow, all right. Slow like a long fuse. Dixie could feel a huge explosion building up inside herself.
“Flynn—”
“Okay,” he breathed, halting the deliberate strand of kisses he’d been bestowing on her goose-bumped skin. Propping himself on his elbows, he said, “Okay, we’ll stop.”
“Good.”
“As long as you’re sure—”
“I’m sure.” Dixie sighed.
“Uh, Dixie?”
“Mmm?”
“You have to let me go.”
Dixie smiled, but kept her arms locked around his neck to prevent Flynn from abandoning her just yet. “I know,” she murmured. “I will. Let’s talk first.”
“First?”
“Tell me your biggest secret.”
“My—” For once, he seemed truly puzzled.
“There’s something you’re keeping from me. I can feel it.”
He shook his head. “Dixie, I—”
“Have you got a deep, dark secret, Patrick Flynn?”
He was quiet so long that Dixie opened her eyes and looked into his face. But Flynn looked far away at that moment. As if wrestling with a thought.
Still soft, Dixie said, “I want to know you, Patrick. Not about your family or your neighborhood or your motorcycle. But you.”
He gave her a ghost of a grin. “My motorcycle is important to me.”
“So I’ve noticed,” she said wryly. “But I mean—”
“I know, I know. But the Harley is—well, it’s a lot of things to me. My brother helped me pick it out in the first place. And he helped me rebuild it. It’s taken me forever, but now...”
Dixie didn’t speak. She waited.
And Flynn began to tell her haltingly about his brother Sean.
About Sean as a boy, Flynn’s little brother who tagged along with the big boys. About Sean who got mediocre grades in school, but loved football and cars. And motorcycles. About how he’d started hanging out with bikers and joined a gang—not a bunch of whiskey-drinking hell-raisers, but a group of guys who rode together and worked on their machines by the hour.
Then about how Sean had ended up in a store during a late-night holdup. It was an accident. One of those random tragedies that rendered an innocent bystander into a cripple.
“His shooting,” Flynn said finally, “was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I felt so helpless, so responsible, so—oh, damn, I don’t know. It’s been my whole life for almost a year. But now, suddenly you’re here and—I can’t explain it. Now things are changing. I feel like I’m coming out of a tunnel.”
Dixie stroked the dark hair at Flynn’s temples, trying desperately to memorize the expression on his face, in his eyes. This was it—the look she’d first seen when she’d run out of the church and found exactly what she’d been looking for—a man with a heart. A man with feelings that ran deep.
“You can’t feel guilty forever,” Dixie murmured.
Again the unhappy smile crossed his mouth. “That’s what Aunt Jane says.”
“Aunt Jane is a smart lady.”
Flynn’s eyes lightened. “She told me to come over here tonight and seduce the hell out of you. She even bought us dinner.”
Dixie smiled. “Did she, now?”
“She thinks you’re pretty.”
“What do you thi
nk?”
“I think you’re beautiful,” Flynn whispered. “Without your wig and all that makeup and the Wild West outfits. I’ve never seen a more beautiful woman than the one who’s with me right now, Diana.”
He eased down again, taking Dixie’s very willing mouth with his once more. They coupled with greater understanding than before, and greater passion. Dixie felt a lavalike heat overflow inside herself as she arched to fit her body against his harder frame.
She longed for the kissing to go on forever.
But gradually Dixie became aware of a telephone. The persistent ring finally penetrated her brain. Flynn stiffened an instant later.
“Phone,” Dixie whispered.
“I better get it.”
“If it’s Aunt Jane, say thanks for the dinner. I loved every bite.”
Reluctantly, Flynn eased himself off Dixie and reached across the bed for the insistent telephone. He picked up and dragged the receiver down onto the pillow with him. He said only, “Flynn.”
A male voice at the other end began to talk. Flynn listened without moving, but Dixie sensed at once that his mind had suddenly left her.
She crept out of the bed and gathered the remains of their picnic. Carrying the mess to the kitchen, she cleaned up and then let herself into Flynn’s bathroom. She could hear him answering questions with monosyllabic responses.
Closing the door and turning on the light, Dixie looked at herself in the mirror. She looked the same, but she felt monumentally different.
Adults don’t always play by rules, Dixie told herself.
Dixie always had. It was safe to keep her behavior within a certain framework. Granny Butterfield had known that long ago when she’d been in the Ziegfeld Follies. A woman who didn’t know her limits then was doomed to get herself into big trouble.
But those days were gone, Dixie thought. Women could be more than beauty queens with no assets but their faces and pretty legs. So maybe it was time Dixie grew with the times, too.
She’d always known who she was. Always known what she wanted out of life.
Now, she wanted Flynn. Even if it ended up being for one night, she wanted him.
And basically, she was an impulsive person. She liked to act instead of do a lot of thinking. Better to make a mistake than do nothing, had been her motto—except when it came to matters of the heart.
Maybe it was time to be impulsive there, too.
She certainly hadn’t had much luck in love before.
In the bedroom, Flynn heard the bathroom door close quietly, and he finally let himself pay full attention to his caller.
“Sergeant,” he said, keeping his voice down, “she’s here right now. I had to get her out of the theater today because Torrano was raving like a lunatic. I was afraid he might harm her.”
“She’s at your place?” Kello demanded, disbelieving. “Now? This minute?”
“She’s out of the room at the moment, but—”
“Flynn, are you insane? This is a mobster’s girlfriend we’re talking about! What you’re doing is completely against police procedure!”
“I had to do something. I didn’t want her to get hurt—or worse. Torrano was insane with jealousy.”
“Jealousy? Exactly what are you doing with his girlfriend, Flynn?”
“Looking after her safety. I brought her here because Torrano doesn’t know me from Adam. She’ll be all right here—at least, safer than she is dancing on a Broadway stage. You have a better idea?”
“No, no, I suppose not. You had to improvise.” Kello blew an irritated sigh. “Okay, what have you learned so far? Anything we can use?”
“There’s a restaurant in Brooklyn I think we ought to look into.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Flynn gave his sergeant the name and address he’d found on the matchbook left in Dixie’s apartment. “It may be nothing,” Flynn said, “but I seem to remember reading the name of this restaurant in a report a while back. Maybe there’s something to be learned there.”
“You could be right. I think I remember the name, too. I’ll ask the rest of the guys what they know. Okay, what else?”
“There’s a smoke shop near the theater where Dixie’s show is playing.”
“Dixie?” repeated Kello. “I thought she was Miss Davis during the first half of this conversation?”
“Whatever. About the smoke shop.”
“Yeah?”
“It was closed today before the matinee, so I didn’t go inside. But I thought we’d better check it out—see who owns the place, what goes on in there. Maybe there’s something.”
“What do you think is going on?”
“The Mexico connection. I think we ought to explore it. If we can’t get Torrano for all the other stuff he’s done, maybe we ought to nail him for the illegal aliens he’s got working all over the city.”
Sergeant Kello mulled that over for a while and finally murmured, “The way Eliot Ness and his boys got Capone for tax evasion?”
“Either way, he goes to jail. That’s what we want, right?”
“Right.” Kello considered the idea for several more moments. “Okay, what’s your plan?”
“We need some help from Immigration.”
“I know a lady over there. She’s good, too.”
“Ask her to share what they’ve got on Torrano. Maybe we can put our heads together and come up with enough evidence.”
“In the meantime, you’re putting pressure on the Davis woman?”
The bathroom door opened, and Flynn looked up in time to see Dixie slip into the bedroom. His mouth went dry and he couldn’t respond to the sergeant.
She was naked.
And if the sight of America’s favorite showgirl completely dressed was enough to make men crazy, Dixie naked was a sight to paralyze the strongest man on earth.
“Flynn?” asked Sergeant Kello. “The Davis woman. Are you learning anything about Torrano from her?”
Flynn opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.
“Flynn,” said Kello testily, “are you there?”
Dixie turned off the light and advanced toward the bed—bold as brass in the half-light. Her skin was creamy white all over. Her legs were endlessly long. Her breasts were perfectly symmetrical, gracefully blending into a slim waist and flaring gently into the curve of her hips. Her smile glimmered. Frozen on the bed, Flynn couldn’t have answered the sergeant if his life depended on it.
“Flynn? Flynn?”
At last, Flynn made his voice work. “Gotta go,” he rasped, and then he dazedly handed the receiver into Dixie’s waiting hand.
She took the receiver and cradled it gently, hanging up on Sergeant Kello without taking her smoldering gaze from Flynn’s. When the phone was hung up, she said, “I couldn’t wait any longer.”
She climbed onto the bed and straddled Flynn’s motionless frame, pinning his hips to the bedclothes by gently clasping them with her exquisitely shaped thighs. She put her hands on his chest. “You don’t mind, do you?”
Flynn slid his hands along the slender length of her arms. “Mind?”
“I want to make love,” Dixie whispered. “All night.”
“Dixie—”
“I’ve thought about it. I don’t do this kind of thing, you know. I’ve never slept with any man I wasn’t married to.” Slowly, she slid Flynn’s pullover over his belly and ran her hands under it to caress his chest. “Didn’t I tell you?”
“Yes, but—” He tried to concentrate on what she was saying, but Dixie’s feather-soft touch was causing short circuits in his nervous system. The reality of such a beautiful woman in his bed was almost more than he could handle.
“My first marriage was a high school thing.” Dixie ran her fingernails along the ridge of Flynn’s collarbone. “I did love him, and he loved me. But it wasn’t forever. We were kids.”
“And...and the second?”
“An older man,” Dixie said with a smile. “He was thirty, and I was twenty-five. I
know now he was looking for a trophy wife. We only lasted a few months. Since then—for two years now—I’ve kept my heart under lock and key.”
“It’s been two years?”
“Since I’ve been with a man, yes. So, Flynn—”
“If you ask me to be gentle, I think you’d better know right now it may be impossible.”
She laughed, and her thighs tightened around his hips. “No, that’s not it. I just—I want you to warn me now if you think I’ll regret this.”
“I thought Dixie Davis never regrets anything.”
“True,” she murmured thoughtfully.
“I can’t make promises,” he said after a moment. “Not unless I’m sure I can keep them. But I want to protect you, Diana. I want you to be safe.”
“I think I am with you.”
“Is that enough?”
“Maybe,” she whispered, sliding down to kiss him with her smiling mouth. “I hope so.”
It was a soft kiss, nothing more than a graze, really. But instantly her lips rekindled the desire Flynn had managed to fight back since the phone had rung. He flattened both hands on her shoulders and smoothed down the curves of her back. Her bottom felt smooth as marble, but as warm as if she’d just walked off the beach.
Her naked breasts pressed against his bare chest caused the most erotic results. Suddenly his whole body was on fire. Then her tongue slipped into his mouth and worked a fiery magic, too. His blood seemed to boil. Flynn moaned deep in his throat, and pulled Dixie more tightly against himself. Surely she felt how hard he was. She seemed to weaken with unspoken desire.
Don’t break her heart, warned his conscience. Don’t hurt this woman, Flynn. If you make love now and walk out of her life tomorrow, she’ll never forgive you.
Worse, he thought dimly, you’ll never forgive yourself.
But he couldn’t stop. She was too perfect, too sensual. The slender lines and full curves of her body combined with a certain sweet vulnerability in her soul—a combination Flynn couldn’t resist.
“I want to touch you everywhere,” he murmured when her lips slid from his and traveled slowly down his neck and chest. He writhed beneath her, clutching Dixie hard when she licked his flat, male nipples.
“Then do,” Dixie whispered back.
