by Jayne Castle
“It wasn’t you. It would have taken a little courage to go up to any of the others, too.” She was feeling comfortable enough with him now to be honest, Sabrina realized with a sense of shock.
Matt abruptly reached for her hand, turning it palm up on the table. His roughened fingers drew a random pattern on the sensitive skin of her wrist. “It’ll probably get easier, you know.”
“Talking to you?”
He shook his head. “Approaching strange men in bars. Unless, of course, you decide you don’t like taking the risks after all.” He was staring at her palm as if mildly fascinated.
“Ah, but I’m having excellent luck first time out, aren’t I?” she challenged with deliberate provocation. “Just look at how well we’re doing.” Laughter flared in her eyes. “You,” she warned, “are falling into my hand like a ripe pineapple.”
He winced. “Not a plum?”
“Nope. Pineapple. Rough on the outside but sweet on the inside.”
“No chance you’ve misjudged me?”
“I don’t think so.” She hesitated. “Matt?”
“Hmmm?”
“Will you dance with me?”
Without a word he got to his feet, tugging her up beside him. He took her willingly enough into his arms on the floor, but there was a curious stiffness to his movements. Matt danced as if he hadn’t done it often and certainly not recently. The steps he guided her into were simple and almost austere. The band was a four-piece ensemble playing the standard, torchy lounge music one could have heard in any hotel bar in the world, but Sabrina could have sworn Matt was counting the beat under his breath. The realization was somehow endearing.
Deliberately she moved closer, instinctively using her own softness to urge him to unbend. Matt’s arms tightened around her, but his body grew more rigid rather than relaxed. Then she felt his mouth brush her hair.
It was nice hair, Matt decided, inhaling the clean, fresh scent of it. A couple of shades darker than the whiskey he’d had too much of tonight. She wore it in a loose topknot, but he had a hunch that when it was free it would cascade down around her shoulders.
Not at all like Ginny’s. Ginny’s hair had been midnight-black and cut in a sleek style that framed her delicate, classically beautiful features. There was nothing all that beautiful about Sabrina Chase, he told himself, but there was an interestingly piquant charm to the expressive mouth and the lively, intelligently aware eyes of smoky green.
So she was thirty and just now starting to wander? Ginny had started earlier. Twenty-five, probably. Right after Brad had been born. It was as though she had to prove to herself that she was still a stunningly attractive woman even though she’d had a child. Had Ginny’s first affair begun this way? Had she walked up to a strange man in a bar and calmly introduced herself? Had she been tense and a little unsure of herself the way this woman was? Probably not. Ginny had never been unsure of herself that he could recall.
But after a few such encounters Sabrina Chase would soon be feeling certain of herself, too. As he had told her, it would get easier. He was sure that she was married. Why else would she have been so evasive about the question? What was she going to tell her husband when she returned to Dallas? Or did he even know she was gone? Perhaps he was out of town.
Matt knew that he himself had spent a lot of time out of town. And Ginny had gotten very good at lying. Her stories had always been carefully detailed and utterly sincere. Had she told her lovers that she wasn’t married, as Sabrina did? Probably. It made a pleasant fiction when all parties concerned could pretend that no one else was involved. Women undoubtedly lied about the matter more frequently. They wouldn’t want to scare off potential lovers with uncomfortable images of irate husbands.
The lifestyle she was choosing was going to be harder on Sabrina than it had been on Ginny. Hell, Ginny had taken to it like a fish to water, Matt reminded himself grimly. But Sabrina Chase might not find it so pleasant. There was a softness in the woman he held in his arms that Ginny had never had to suppress. His ex-wife had always been able to take care of herself.
One thing was for certain. Sabrina was still very new at this game. He could sense the unsureness beneath the flippant exterior. Perhaps all she needed was a good lesson. Maybe she wouldn’t be turned into another Ginny if she ran into more than she could handle tonight. This was his chance to play instructor, he told himself with whiskey-induced idealism. His opportunity to change the course of someone else’s life.
Matt August: wise and all-knowing guide to young women at the crossroads.
Christ! What the hell made him think he had a right to do that? So what if Sabrina was married? So what if she was bent on traveling the same path Ginny had chosen? It was her own business. If he didn’t want to be the first in a series of one-night stands for Sabrina Chase, then he should get out of the mess now.
But that was going to be easier said than done. Sabrina felt surprisingly good in his arms. He liked the feel of her small breasts lightly brushing his chest. Apparently she wasn’t wearing a bra under her outrageously gaudy turquoise Mexican dress. The bright pink sash that outlined her narrow waist emphasized the full flare of her thighs. And she had a fragrant warmth that was making him restless. Her husband was a fool not to keep her close at hand. The same kind of fool he himself had been with Ginny.
Damn it to hell. Why was he so worried about the future of one Sabrina Chase, tourist? He sure hadn’t overly concerned himself with the other occasional women who flitted in and out of his life. It beat him why he should be seriously thinking of playing guardian of the future for Sabrina. Matt’s hands tightened on her waist and she flinched in surprise before nestling closer.
He got the feeling he wasn’t the smoothest dancer she had ever encountered. Matt paused for a couple of seconds, mentally reestablishing the count. It wasn’t that he couldn’t dance. It was just that he didn’t dance all that well after several whiskeys. Matt frowned momentarily to himself as he realized that he couldn’t remember the actual number of drinks he’d had that evening. The realization bothered him. It was a bad sign.
Sabrina smiled as a relieved sense of serenity began to replace her earlier uncertainty. It was going to be all right. Everything was going to be wonderful. A romantic fantasy come true. She had selected a man who wasn’t really accustomed to picking up women in bars and who was definitely not accustomed to being picked up himself. Poor Matt seemed a little shy, and that had probably been the cause of his initial gruffness.
Maybe her instincts had focused on him because she had sensed he wouldn’t be too polished or too smooth. Being new at this sort of thing herself, it was best that she chose someone like Matt. Someone who was in her lane instead of the fast lane. She had been right to fly down to Acapulco on the spur of the moment to celebrate this major turning-point in her life.
In a very real sense tonight was going to represent the end of an era for her. The end of a lifelong caution where relationships were concerned. The end of the anger and fear that had been implanted in her in California when she’d found herself trapped in someone else’s nightmare. Tonight was indeed a celebration of the new beginnings she had been creating for herself in Dallas.
The thought made her shift slightly, seeking the reassuringly solid planes of August’s chest. Dreamily she rubbed her cheek on the crisp white cotton of his shirt and allowed her fingers to gently knead the smooth, firm lines of his back. He felt like a well-muscled stallion beneath her touch. A little restless, surely hot-blooded, and excitingly strong. Her light laughter was muffled against his chest.
“Now what?” Matt inquired huskily.
“I was just thinking that I’ve always wanted a horse of my own. That’s all.” A wonderful, spirited stallion. She smiled secretly.
The remark threw off his careful footwork. “It sounds like some kind of adolescent sexual fantasy.”
Sabrina’s mouth curved. “Perhaps it is.”
“One you haven’t outgrown?” he asked disapprovingly.
&nbs
p; “Oh, I’ve sublimated.”
“How?”
“With an Alfa Romeo GTV-6. If you ever come to Dallas I’ll give you a ride in it. Beautiful car. I love it.”
“How did you get the car?” he asked curtly. Sabrina’s languid amusement faded. “I bought it myself. Want to see the pink slip?”
“That wouldn’t prove anything, would it? If someone else bought it for you he would probably have had it put in your name.”
Sabrina hesitated a fraction of a dance beat, enough to ruin the carefully plotted rhythm Matt had established. Both of them came to an awkward halt in the middle of the floor. “And you’re thinking of him and that bothers you.”
His mouth tightened. “Of whom?”
“Someone you imagine is waiting for me back in Dallas, perhaps?” she suggested gently.
“Is there someone?”
“No.”
“Oh, hell. Never mind.” He pulled her back into the predictable pace of the dance. “Don’t say anything else. Just come here and I’ll promise to keep my mouth shut, too.”
He was worried, Sabrina decided compassionately. He was concerned about her obligation to another man. It wasn’t the first time he’d mentioned it. It was none of his business, but she found his touch of conscience endearing. Part of some male code of ethics, no doubt—no poaching on another man’s territory. She sighed. Her fingers slipped along his shoulders as she wordlessly tried to convey that he was the only one she was thinking of tonight.
“Do you want another drink?” Matt asked as the music faded. He moved Sabrina off the dance floor with what seemed suspiciously like a sense of relief. She guessed he wasn’t particularly fond of dancing. It was gracious of him to indulge her.
“No. I think I’ve had enough.” She was feeling pleasantly high, a little nervous but also rather excited. “Would you care to take a walk through the gardens?”
He shrugged but his arm closed around her shoulders and he led her out into the heavily landscaped grounds of the hotel. Moonlight gleamed on the bay, and the lights of a cruise ship anchored in the harbor sparkled brilliantly; an exotic string of jewels floating on velvet. Matt’s arm felt warm and heavy around her and Sabrina leaned languidly against his side. He was hard and strong. The flat planes of his thigh were un-yielding. She wanted to let herself glide over that hardness, feel the thrust of it against her.
“Picturing me in a saddle and bridle?”
“Never.” She laughed. Deliberately Sabrina came to a stop and turned in the circle of his arm. Their eyes met in the moonlight, and she refused to reconsider her plans. Slowly she lifted her arms to his shoulders, her fingertips finding the soft hair at the nape of his neck.
“Matt?”
“You want me, don’t you?” he breathed.
“Yes.” It was the truth and it was clear in her eyes. “Do you want me?”
“I’d be a fool to turn you down, wouldn’t I? Oh, yes, Sabrina. I want you.” He lowered his head when she used her fingertips on the juncture of his shoulders. “You’re so sure you know what you want?”
“Tonight I’m very sure,” she whispered, parting her lips for his kiss.
It wasn’t quite the sort of kiss she had been anticipating. There was no experimental sampling, no curious, delicate exploration. There was no gentleness. But there was power and a mounting passion that was infinitely exciting. Sabrina gave herself up to it after the first uncertain seconds, and Matt’s arms went solidly around her waist. It didn’t last long. She had barely begun to accommodate her lips to the overwhelming intimacy of his when he broke the caress.
“Your room?”
So soon? she wondered. Shouldn’t they linger a bit in the moonlight? Shouldn’t they take a midnight walk along the beach or something? Whisper soft, provocative words? Voices from nearby drifted through the shadows and suddenly Sabrina realized why Matt wanted to take her somewhere else. There was no real privacy here.
“Upstairs,” she answered, nodding, and allowed him to lead her back inside the hotel.
In the elevator she didn’t quite know what to say, and she assumed Matt’s silence meant he was just as lost for words. But when she mutely handed him the key to her door, he took it and shoved it grimly into the lock. She stepped inside ahead of him and he closed the door with a final-sounding clunk.
“Is reality living up to your expectations?” he whispered roughly as he caught her chin between scarred fingers and lifted her face. The only illumination in the room was from the moonlight filtering in through the open sliding glass doors.
“I think so,” she whispered with a tremulous smile. “Do you really want to be with me, Matt?” A frisson of uncertainty urged her to be sure of his mood and his passion.
“Let me show you how much.” His hand slid deliberately down her breast to the shocking-pink sash at her waist. He loosened the fabric quickly, and when it fell to the floor he found the fastening of the dress. The garment was pulled down over her shoulders and sent to the floor with a quick movement that made Sabrina step backward anxiously.
“Matt?”
“Come here, Sabrina,” he murmured. “Let me touch you.”
She drew in a long breath and then stepped close again. As soon as his palms fitted themselves to the curves of her breasts, she relaxed against him. Eyes closed, she leaned her head on his shoulder and prepared to enjoy the thrilling roughness of the pads of his fingers. They flickered over her nipples, sending the most excruciatingly delightful shivers through her. Later she would have to ask him how he’d come by such odd little scars. But for the moment … Sabrina made a small sound in the back of her throat. She felt his hands falter for a second, then tremble slightly.
The knowledge that he was both a bit uncertain and yet trembling with his own leashed passion was deliciously satisfying. Sabrina found the buttons of the carefully pressed and starched white shirt and began undoing them. Her own fingers were far from steady, she realized vaguely.
“Your breasts just fit my hands,” Matt whispered wonderingly. “You really do want what’s going to happen tonight, don’t you?” he said, feeling her nipples harden beneath his fingertips.
“Oh, yes, Matt. Yes, please …” Her voice was a choked sigh of excitement and longing. Beneath his touch her body felt warmed and beautiful. “Your hands feel so good. I’ve never felt hands like them before in my life.” She pushed off the white shirt, baring his chest to her sight and touch.
“Do you like what you see, Sabrina?” He caught one of her drifting palms and pushed it firmly against the cloud of dark chest hair that tapered down to the waistband of his slacks.
“I … Yes. Matt, you’re beautiful,” she murmured and then couldn’t resist brushing her lips over the flat, masculine nipples.
“And you’re soft and vibrant and very, very hot, aren’t you, honey?”
She ignored the faint hard edge of his words. He was aroused, and that was excuse enough for the roughness she thought she detected. Men weren’t at their verbal best when their bodies and instincts were focusing on sex. With gentle invitation in her eyes she lifted her face for his kiss.
His mouth came down on hers abruptly as if he could barely wait for her, and Sabrina tried to break the contact long enough to urge him not to rush matters. After all, they had all night. Five whole days, in fact. Hours and hours in which to get to know each other physically and mentally. And it had been so long for her that Sabrina knew she needed time tonight. Old habits and manners died hard. Her body had a long way to go before it would be fully aroused. The promise of that potential arousal was thick in the air around her, though, and she made no protest when Matt lifted her suddenly and carried her toward the bed.
He set her down on it and stood staring at her moonlit body. Only the triangle of satin and lace at the joining of her thighs remained in the way of clothing. Matt flattened his hand intimately on her stomach and then pushed his fingers under the scrap of underwear. His touch was rougher than Sabrina expected as he stripped the
panties down her legs. He straightened again and as his hooded gaze swept her Sabrina felt a disturbing chill.
“What is it, Matt?” She suddenly felt very vulnerable.
“Nothing.” He unfastened the belt at his waist. Then he sat down on the bed and tugged off the low-cut boots he was wearing. They hit the floor with a thud. He rose and unzipped the slacks, stepping out of them and his briefs.
Sabrina watched him walk three paces to the chair and lay the clothing neatly over the back with military precision. When he turned to her, she shifted uneasily at the sight of his fiercely aroused nakedness. Then the leather sheath strapped to his calf caught her eye.
“What’s that?” she demanded, sitting up and unconsciously wriggling so that she was partially covered by the sheet. Her sense of vulnerability sharpened abruptly.
“What does it look like?” he asked mildly. He planted his foot on top of the bed and bent over to release the clasp of the sheath with a flick of his fingers.
“A knife.” Sabrina stared at the object in his hand. What kind of bizarre situation had she gotten herself into? she wondered on an incipient note of hysteria.
“Ummm.” Noncommittally he slid into bed beside her and she saw him put the sheath down on the floor.
“Do you, uh, always keep it within reach? Even at times like this?” It was a relief to have the weapon out of sight. The casual way he handled it caused her to relax a little.
“Especially at times like this.” He reached for her, drawing her urgently into his arms, and Sabrina forgot about the knife as she realized how hard and taut his body was.
Her nails dug into his sleek shoulder as she tried awkwardly to push the heavy weight of his thighs a short distance away from hers. Perhaps he didn’t understand, she thought. Maybe it had been a long time since he’d been with a woman. Whatever the reason for his urgency, she needed to explain that she herself wasn’t quite ready.
“Matt, please, let’s not rush,” she begged throatily. Her eyes shimmered with anticipation even as her body began to resist the pressure of his. “I … I need a little time. It’s been so long since … Never mind. Let’s slow down. I want everything to be perfect tonight. My birthday, remember?”
