Power and Seduction

by Joan Hohl

  One pithy expletive said it all before Dirk slammed the receiver onto its cradle.

  Leaning back into the soft leather of his desk chair, Dirk smiled slowly as his thoughts replayed the phone conversation he’d had with Beth Harkness less than an hour ago.

  “Well, of course she’s still here,” Beth exclaimed. “Where else would Tina be, for heaven’s sake?”

  “I’d thought, perhaps, that she’d returned to the city,” Dirk dissembled, a grin of sheer relief softening the forbidding line of his lips. “To take care of business or something.”

  “No.” Beth paused, then went on. “She did confiscate the cordless phone from your room yesterday to call the shop, but she said nothing about the need to go back. Apparently that manager, or stylist, or whatever he is, is handling everything at the shop for her.” Again she paused before offering, “Would you like me to call her to the phone?” Before Dirk could reply, she added, “I’m really surprised that she’s not up and out by now. She was back from her jog by this time yesterday.”

  Dirk was intrigued. “Tina jogs?”

  “Yes.” Beth chuckled. “Like a fanatic! She was sweating like a workhorse when she came in yesterday morning ... ate like one too.”

  A vision of Tina, her long, elegant limbs gleaming with exertion-drawn moisture, sent a zinging shaft of fire to Dirk’s loins. Gripping the plastic receiver with suddenly slippery palms, he drew a silent breath into his aching chest.

  God, he wanted her. At that moment, all the longing that he’d endured for the past five years culminated into one throbbing ache that spread to every cell in his body.

  “Dirk?” Beth’s confused tone cooled the rush of Dirk’s hot blood. “Are you still there?”

  Hanging on by my teeth, Beth. Dirk smiled derisively at the explanation he silently gave the innocent woman. Aloud, he gave her reassurance. “Yes, of course. I was ... ah ... thinking.” The grin doubled in size, lending his austere face the glow of recaptured youth. “You said Tina talked to Ram-beau?”

  “Yes. For quite a while, at that.”

  Dirk’s smiling lips flattened with displeasure. If that bogus excuse for a Frenchman has had her, I’ll break his fingers! Dirk promised himself grimly. Then we’ll see how great he is as a mincing stylist!

  “I see.” Dirk’s smooth tone betrayed none of the emotions churning in his guts.

  He was about to go on when Beth exclaimed, laughingly, “I hear her moving around now. Do you want to hold on until she comes down?”

  “No!” Then, more calmly, “No. It won’t be necessary. I’ll see you both soon.”

  Now, anticipation growing in his mind and body, Dirk sighed with the realization that he would be seeing Tina within hours. Breathing steadily in a bid to slow the racing beat of his heart, Dirk mentally set a seal on Tina’s future. She was his first. She’d be his again. There wasn’t a power on earth strong enough to take her away from him this time. Tina could run her little mercenary heart out, but she couldn’t run fast enough or far enough to outdistance him. She had played at life and love long enough. It was time to face the real world... and him.

  As Dirk’s thoughts coalesced into concrete determination, the breath that had seemed to be permanently constricted inside his chest eased out through nostrils flaring with passion.

  Revitalized, Dirk shot to his feet. He was through screwing around! Enough is damned well too much, he decided harshly, silently issuing the order that set him into dynamic motion.

  Go get her. No matter what it takes, make her yours.

  * * * *

  Tina’s running shoes slapped rhythmically on the wet sand. Her breathing ragged, she mentally dodged the ramifications of her enlightenment of the night before. This morning, Tina was dodging ineptly.

  She would not, could not, love him. She had hated Dirk Tanger for years ... nothing had changed the situation between them. She was still financially dependent upon his less than benign guardianship. He was still a ruthless bastard.

  Status quo. Everything the same. Nothing changes, especially not Dirk.

  Tina should have listened to her own thoughts.

  On reaching the end of the beach, where tall sea grass swayed to the eerie tune of a fresh rising breeze, Tina flung her depleted body onto the sand. Drawing her legs up, she encircled them with her arms, rested her chin on her knees, and tried to sort out her tumultuous thoughts by staring at the undulating sea.

  More tired from the racing of her thoughts than the punishment she’d meted out to her body, Tina was simply not up to keeping memory barred from her conscious mind. Taking control as completely as the encroaching waves took over the beach at high tide, remembrance swept her emotions, drowning her resistance in their swirling eddies.

  Dirk had loved Tina through what was left of that long-ago afternoon and into the blackness of midnight. Seemingly insatiable in his hunger for her, he’d brought her to ultimate pleasure time and time again.

  Perhaps the very fact that Dirk had given the appearance of never wanting to let her go made his abrupt rejection of her the devastating blow that it was.

  “I can’t go back to school now,” Tina had cried, reeling from the adamant tone in his voice.

  “You can, and you will.” Dirk’s bright sapphire eyes were shuttered, concealing whatever feelings—if any—he had. “And I have to go back to Germany,” he continued flatly.

  “Back to Germany?” Tina closed her eyes in fear of revealing the anguish he was causing her. “Dirk, please.” She choked. “Please take me with you.”

  “I can’t do that, and you know it.” Unmoving and immovable, Dirk stood before her, coolly beating her girlish dreams of a forever-love to death with his hard tone. “You have to finish college. I have conferences to attend.”

  His gaze swept her stricken face and for a moment his tone softened. “Last night was a mistake, Tina. A mistake that, at my age, I should have avoided. I came to you to offer comfort.” For an instant his tone faltered. “And stayed to steal the most precious gift you had to give to a man of your choice.”

  Very slowly, Dirk drew in his breath, as if girding himself for the hardest blow he’d ever have to bear. “I made you a woman.” His lips twisted—with what? Tina had always wondered. Disgust with her or self-reproach? “Whether you were ready to become one or not. The damage can’t be undone.” Dirk’s voice roughened. “But I can make damn sure it doesn’t happen again before your maturity catches up with your body!”

  Dirk stared at her through eyes gone dead, all expression drained from his features, leaving a stranger to observe her reactions. “Go back to school, Tina. Go do whatever it is young girls do at your age. I’ll take care of all the school costs and send you an allowance.”

  “Dirk! No!” That was all the time he allowed her to protest.

  “What happened last night was an accident,” he went on, as if she hadn’t breathed a word. “An unfortunate but understandable accident. Tina, we’re both grieving and needed to share that grief. Now it’s time to go on with our lives as planned.”

  Dirk’s final words slashed into Tina’s heart like a rapier: “I won’t be returning to Cape May next spring.”

  At that moment, had Tina not blinked repeatedly against a rush of tears, she’d have seen the lines of intense pain etching Dirk’s face. But Tina had blinked, fighting to restore at least a part of her pride by refusing to weep or beg him to change his mind.

  By the time Tina returned to college, she had her tattered pride repaired and firmly in place. But gone was the laughing, outgoing teenager who had attended the school mere weeks before. In that young girl’s stead was a woman with coolly assessing, sherry-brown eyes who bad learned how to make exquisite love and how to hate with a vengeance.

  During the two years that followed what Tina would secretly think of as her mental breakdown, she absolutely refused to respond in any way to overtures, written or phoned, from Dirk. She spent the money he sent her freely, carelessly, and made frequent, imperiou
s demands for more. Dirk supplied the additional funds, and then one day she stood before him during his one and only visit to her at school; she coldly stared through him, blatantly refusing his attempt to reach her.

  “Tina, please try to understand.” Dirk had finally shaken her to center her attention. “I did what I had to do. You weren’t ready for me two years ago. Hell! You weren’t ready for a boy, let alone a full-grown man with an overactive libido!”

  Dirk had not been attempting humor ... which was just as well, for Tina wasn’t amused. Narrowing her eyes, she allowed him a glimpse of the glittering hatred she held for him. The glittering hatred of a mature woman.

  Stepping back, Tina shrugged out of his grasp. “You will never touch me again. Is that understood?” Her voice was as brittle as tiny shards of glass. “You rejected me once.

  Rejected the friendship of our past, and the might-have-beens of our future. You will never get the opportunity to do that again, either. Is that understood?”

  “Oh, Tina.” Dirk sighed deeply, smiling with infinite sadness; Tina refused to hear or see. “I did not reject you, our past, or our future. I had to let you go, give you time to grow to the point of making an adult decision, not an emotional one.” There was a long pause, then he sighed again. “You’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you?”

  Lifting her head regally, Tina smiled at him as if he were a stranger ... as indeed she thought him.

  “Go to hell, Tanger.” Turning gracefully, Tina walked away from him, not to see or hear from him again until that first tune she was forced to go to him to appeal for money. By the time that meeting materialized, Dirk no longer heard or saw her.

  Adrift in the ebb and flow of memory, Tina was unaware of the changing tide until the first wave lapped at her running shoes. Startled out of introspection, she jumped to her feet with a muttered “Damn fool!”

  Unwilling to decide whether her foolishness was connected with her reminiscence or with her nocturnal acceptance of her love for Dirk, Tina pivoted and ran back to the safety of the house and Beth. The scene that greeted her as she rushed into the kitchen was decidedly not one of safety for her.

  Dirk was sprawled on a kitchen chair, a steaming cup of coffee clasped in his hand, a relaxed smile curving his lips into lines of shattering attractiveness. Tina felt every muscle in her body tense at the heart-wrenching sight of the only man she had ever really loved. Felt it and denied it at the same time.

  “Well,” she drawled with what she considered commendable sarcasm, “home is the hunter, home from the hills ... and the banker back from the ... whatever,” she paraphrased dryly.

  Sapphire-blue eyes pinned Tina where she leaned with deceptive ease against the frame of the doorway. Crossing one ankle over the other, she angled her chin at him defiantly while cautiously swallowing the wad of dust that appeared to have lodged in her throat.

  “Feisty this morning, aren’t we?” Dirk’s glance slowly raked her indolent form, then came back to drill directly into her eyes. “What have you been feeding this hellcat, Beth? Rusty nails and pieces of wrecked boats?”

  “Now, Dirk, don’t tease,” Beth scolded laughingly. “Tina is probably starving.” Beaming at Tina, Beth invited, “Come have some coffee before you go up to shower, dear. You must be exhausted. How in the world anybody can run for two hours is a mystery to me.”

  “Yes, Tina, come tell us all about the benefits of running one’s, ah, tushy off.” Dirk’s tone was heavy with mockery.

  “I think I’ll pass.” Smiling sweetly through gritted teeth, Tina strolled out of the room, calling over her shoulder, “Give me ten minutes, Beth.”

  The minutes required for Tina to both bathe and prepare herself for whatever Dirk had in store for her—and she didn’t deceive herself for an instant that his reason for being there was strictly relaxation—tallied up to thirty-five. And during the entire time, she taxed herself to near distraction over what he was up to.

  Dirk had sought her out, coolly and deliberately. That fact was obvious. But why? And why now? Those were the considerations that had Tina gnawing on her lower lip. Fortunately, for that lip and her peace of mind, she finally forced herself to return to the kitchen, minus answers, but with a myriad of related questions. It was enough to stir an urge to walk sideways and bury herself in the sand exactly like a crab did when frightened.

  The urge intensified as Tina reentered the kitchen to discover Beth missing and Dirk at the stove.

  Actually sidling into the room, Tina eyed Dirk warily. “Has Beth gone somewhere?” A silent groan rang in her head at the edgy sound of her voice.

  “It’s Thursday.” Dirk made the pronouncement without turning away from the stove.

  “Thank you, Mr. Answer Man,” Tina snapped, beginning to feel surrounded even with six feet of tile flooring separating them. “Has Beth gone somewhere?” she repeated.

  “Beth quilts with a group of friends every Thursday.” Turning slowly, Dirk pierced her with a mocking glance. “I assured her I would be more than happy to prepare your meal.”

  “What are you cooking?” Tula mocked back. “Toadstools and holly berries?”

  The smile that curved Dirk’s lips sent a panicky shiver skittering down Tina’s spine.

  “Don’t need ‘em,” he murmured. “Before too many days have passed, Tina, I just might decide to love you to death.”

  * * *

  Chapter 6

  “Close your mouth and sit down, love. You’re in no immediate danger.”

  Tina’s jaws came together with a snap that shattered the bemused trance Dirk’s earlier taunt had locked her into. The jolt also brought awareness of her surroundings with it, the pale sunlight slanting through the window over the sink; the wind-tossed dance of barren branches on the trees beyond the glittering glass; the sizzle and spit of bacon frying in the black pan on the stove; the happy gurgle of coffee perking; the soft thunder of her own life-force rushing wildly along her veins. And centered in that awareness, the instigator of her chaotic condition, his burnished hair reflecting sparks of sunlight, his tall body seeming to quiver with anticipation, his jewel-like eyes riveted to her arrested, incredulous face.

  “Lord!” Dirk’s mocking drawl shuddered through Tina’s bones all the way to her toes. “I’m glad no part of my hide was under those snapping teeth!”

  Poised for flight, tension shimmering the length of her nervous system, Tina delved desperately into her reserves for composure. Surprisingly, she found some.

  “You have a rather bizarre sense of humor, Dirk.” Raising one delicately arched eyebrow, Tina slid into the chair she had been hanging on to for dear life. “Bizarre, and a trifle dark in color.”

  His bleached brows arching every bit as elegantly as Tina’s, Dirk gave her a crooked grin before turning back to the stove. “An integral part of frustration,” he rejoined, only half jokingly.

  Tina frowned at his broad, neatly tapered back. He was a fine one to talk about frustration, she sneered inwardly. She could easily write a thousand-page tome on the subject— with Dirk Tanger as the main cause!

  “In the mood for an omelet?”

  Tina blinked her eyes to refocus her attention, sheer amazement flooding her face and mind. Was Dirk serious about cooking for her? Obviously, he was, for he was already beating eggs in a spotted blue-and-white mixing bowl.

  “Ah... an omelet will be fine, thank you.” Tina’s reserves of composure went on strike. “But it really isn’t necessary for you to make it.” Pushing the chair back, she scrambled to her suddenly less-than-graceful feet. “I’ll do it!”

  His back to her, Dirk slowly poured the egg-and-milk mixture into an omelet pan. “Sit down, Tina”—he didn’t even bother to turn his head—”before you trip over your own feet and break one of those gorgeous dancer’s legs of yours,”

  Ridiculously flustered by his left-handed compliment, Tina subsided into the chair, watching his competent movements as he sprinkled chunks of onion, green pepper, h
am, and mushroom into the pan as he slid it rhythmically over the gas jet.

  “You really do know what you’re doing there,” Tina murmured, a hint of respect in her voice, “don’t you?”

  As her question had been uttered rhetorically, Tina was not expecting an answer, and certainly not the one Dirk sardonically tossed over his shoulder.

  “A man foolish enough to marry a butterfly has absolutely no reason to be surprised if she refuses to risk singeing her wings by fluttering too close to the stove.”

  “Is that your abstract way of telling me your wife couldn’t cook?”

  “Not at all.” Finally, he turned to her; his contemptuous expression made Tina wish he hadn’t. “It is my direct way of telling you my wife adamantly refused to cook.” A derisive smile slashed his face. “She did give me a choice, though,” Dirk went on dryly. “She said I could either hire a professional cook or learn to cook for myself.”

  Before Tina’s amazed eyes, Dirk folded the mixture over, held the pan motionless an instant, then gently slid the golden brown omelet onto a plate. A satisfied smile softening his harshly drawn lips, he placed the perfect omelet in front of her.

  “That’s beautiful,” Tina smiled, genuinely impressed.

  “It’s an egg.” Turning from the table, Dirk walked to the counter to fill two heavy mugs with coffee. “Surely even you can cook an egg?” he taunted.

  Tina sampled her first bite of the fluffy mixture chewing appreciatively. “Hmm.” She nodded, swallowing. “Delicious!” she pronounced before answering him directly. “Actually, I’m a very good cook. I took a course on gourmet cooking as an elective in my junior year of college.”

  “Your junior year.” Dirk regarded her from darkened eyes. “The year I made my one and only visit to your school.”

  Tina wet her lips nervously. She could see Dirk’s expression settling rigidly with the memory of that bitter visit, could feel the anger tensing his body. She watched warily, all the nerves in her body knotted, as Dirk placed the mugs on the table, then dropped onto the chair beside her.