Playing With Fire

“What,” said Daniel, leaning closer so his lips were a millimeter away from touching her cheek, “are you wearing under this dress?”

“Besides a piercing?”

“Mmm.”

Her lashes dropped. “Don’t you want to find out on your own?”

“Now?”

She lifted a shoulder, challenging him with her silent acquiescence.

He reached, pressing against her. His hand curved around her bare thigh. Her breath caught short. With a placement that was devastating in its precision, he inserted his fingertips into the seam of her crossed legs from behind. Suddenly she was hot as a coal furnace, the muscles in her belly and inner thighs quivering as she squeezed her legs together. The noise of the bar receded to a distant hum; all she heard was the heavy sound of their combined breathing. Her pulse beating hard and fast. Pom, pom, pom.

“Up another inch,” she said. A dare.

His fingertips slid a tickling half inch. Pom-pom-pom.

She was molten. “Nearly there.”

His thumb brushed across the critical juncture. Pompompompompom.

“I can’t,” he said with a gust of an exhale, briefly squeezing her buttock in his hand. “Not here.” His breath was hot and lusty. “Let’s go. I’d rather grope you—” he grinned “—in private.”

She was giddy, feverish. “No one here cares.”

His voice seethed in her ear. “You little exhibitionist.”

Apparently so. Another surprise. It was this man and this man alone, she thought again, downing his drink in several long gulps, not even caring if he was trying to get her drunk. She was becoming determined to see how far they were willing to go. Probably not the wisest move she’d ever made, but she’d been cooped up alone too long, working in blissful solitude. This weekend was her chance to break free.

What she needed was an adventure.

A…game.

With no rules.

But one.

THEY SAT AND CHATTED like normal people for another fifteen minutes. Daniel’s fingertips tingled. The tragedy of the near miss. Although he had trouble concentrating, nothing Camille said seemed to make a lot of sense anyway. Airy remarks about Montmarte, the art academy and Auguste’s betrayal. Daniel believed she was toying with him. In most circumstances, he wouldn’t tolerate it. Tonight, however, her frank desire had trumped his need for control.

She’d knocked him off balance. And here he sat, nodding and happy, all because he had to know what, if anything, she wore under her dress.

Blast. She’d reduced him to pliancy, and he was never pliant. Not since his youth in the backwater of West Virginia, when he’d looked at his unenterprising parents and his good-for-nothing older brother and set his mind upon the goals that would save him: education, career, success.

No distraction had been attractive enough to stay him from his course…until Camille.

What a woman.

What a tease.

He focused on her face. The small round face with laughing green eyes. He memorized the shapes her lips made as she prattled on about Paris. He stroked her hand. Suddenly her words were tumbling over each other like upended building blocks. She stopped and caught her lower lip between her teeth, then excused herself to find the ladies’ room.

He stood to watch her legs as she walked away, only to be punched in the solar plexus by a desire so strong it took his breath away.

Where were they going with this? Unmoving amongst the push and pull of the enthusiastic weekend crowd, Daniel took a silent inventory. He was on top of his game—thirty-six, single, gainfully employed in the toughest market in the world. All his goals had been achieved. From here on out, maintenance was the key. He didn’t intend to slack off—ever—but he could finally afford a bit of…recreation.

He wanted Camille for more than a one-night stand. It was only supposition at this point, but he imagined that she might be the kind of woman who’d change his life.

“Good,” he said to himself rather fiercely, and there was such emotion in his voice that the exotic eyes of a young woman with hair like a black satin waterfall lit up with interest. She smiled an invitation, but he had already turned away and seated himself at the small round table, thinking only of Camille. He excelled at narrowing his focus to what mattered most. Tonight the lioness was in his sights.

Feeling less pliant, he removed his cuff links and rolled up his sleeves, then sat back to wait for her return. She didn’t take long. He couldn’t keep the smile off his face as she slid in beside him. Beneath his draped jacket, her body was long and lean in the matte gold dress. A sylph. “I have a humble flat on East Tenth,” he said. “Between First and Second Avenue. It’s not far.”

“Really.” She looked stunned. “The East Village.”

“We can go there,” he explained patiently. “Ah, hmm.”

He took her hand. “Come with me.”

She resisted. Out of sheer feminine contrariness, he supposed, as up to now her signals had been blatant. “Not so fast,” she said, tugging free. “You wanted terms.”

“I don’t remember asking for terms.”

She traced a blunt unpolished fingernail through the hair on his arm above the wide band of his steel wristwatch. “Let’s strike a deal.”

He froze. Was she a professional? Surely not.

Then again, how many men got so lucky without there being qualifications?

He assumed his fiercest analyst’s expression, good for facing down squirrely traders and instilling confidence in wishy-washy clients. “Money,” he suggested, heavy on the dubious connotation. Money was a commodity he valued. Money was both straightforward and negotiable. He valued it less for the lifestyle it bought—although he could appreciate that—than for its clear-cut measure of his success.

He didn’t want this to be a matter of money.

“Money?” Camille’s eyes rolled. “You have got to be kidding. This isn’t a business deal.”

“Then what is it?”

She slid her palm over his forearm, her strong fingers massaging into muscle. He felt the touch deep inside, as if she’d been granted unlimited access to the very heart of him. “It’s pleasure.”

His head inclined. “A pleasure deal?”

“A pleasure game.”

“With terms?”

She nodded. “Let’s keep this straightforward right from the start. Makes for fewer complications later.”

The feeling inside him spread fiery tentacles. As long as there would be a “later,” he’d go along with whatever rules she set. “I’m game,” he said, reaching under the jacket, still thinking about what did or did not lie beneath her dress.

She shifted, momentarily bringing her breast into contact with his hand. It was a perfect handful, firm and round, unbound by a brassiere. Every thought in his head stuttered to a halt until he realized with a jolt that she was only leaning forward to shrug out of his jacket. He removed his hand. As slowly as possible.

She stood and tossed the jacket over his shoulder, pressing down when he started to rise. “Stay here.”

Part of the game? He was ready to toss her on the nearest flat surface, audience be damned.

“But—” he said.

“Not tonight.” She leaned over him. “Tomorrow. Let’s both think this over, decide on terms, and then make a clear-headed decision about continuing.” Her peacock lids blinked. “Tomorrow is soon enough.” He opened his mouth and she plucked at his lips, giving him a soft, supple kiss that set off a few alarm bells in his head. The loose tendrils of her hair brushed his face like cobwebs. “Tomorrow,” she promised.

“But,” he said again, feeling thick and stupid with desire, “I don’t know your name. I don’t know where you—”

“Camille.” Her eyes danced. “Camille Claudel.”

She might have caught him in her web, but that didn’t make him gullible. He grunted. “Camille. Right.”

She flicked the tip of her tongue against his lip, said in a throaty whisper, “Your move, Daniel,” then turned and walked swiftly out of the bar. He stared, the subtle jiggle of her derriere smiting him between the eyes. As the crowd closed around her, he decided with a dead-on certainty that she’d worn not so much as a stitch beneath her dress the whole time. And as badly as he wanted to go after her, he found he could not move. He was stone. Dank, dense stone. His face was hot; sweat beaded on his upper lip.

Eventually his brain began to clear. The jacket slid off his shoulder. He caught it, reaching absently for the fancy silk square that Tamar had folded into the pocket right before they left the office.

The swatch of fabric was pressed beneath his nose before he realized that it wasn’t a pocket square at all. The scent…

Pure enticement.

He lowered his hand, watching in stupefaction as Camille’s tiny silk panties blossomed like a golden lotus across his leaden fingers.

“CAMILLE CLAUDEL,” Tamar said with her usual crisp efficiency the next morning. Daniel always worked on Saturdays, but Tamar did not. She’d met him at the office by personal request. “Lived 1864 to 1943. She was an artist—a sculptor. The apprentice, collaborator and mistress of Rodin.”

“Auguste Rodin,” he said, wishing he’d taken that college course in art history.

“Best known for The Thinker and The Kiss.” Tamar handed him printouts of the famed statues, still warm from the printer. “Rodin, that is. Claudel’s work sank into obscurity until revived by a fairly recent interest. There was a movie, Camille Claudel, starring Isabelle Adjani. Shall I get you the DVD? And the screenplay?”

He was usually thorough to the smallest detail in his research. This once, as the project pertained only to his personal life, such lengths weren’t necessary. He wasn’t evaluating a multinational conglomerate—just outfoxing one naughty little seductress.

“Yes,” he blurted anyway. The stakes were high. He’d barely slept.

And the lioness had dared him to make the next move.

“Tamar?” he asked, stopping her in the doorway. “I hope you enjoyed the party at the restaurant. Did you get home okay?”

Tamar blinked. Since she was so circumspect about her personal life, he’d learned not to ask. “It was fine,” she said, her dark red lips moving in a deliberate manner. “Enjoyable.”

“No hardship to come in this morning?” He studied the photos of Rodin’s sculpture, keeping one eye on his assistant, who was taking too long to answer. “I didn’t disrupt any of your plans for the weekend?”

Her head tilted. “Certainly not.” She waited a beat. “Daniel?”

He looked up. “Yes?”

Tamar didn’t answer, but her right eyebrow rose to Alpine heights. Two times in two days, he’d provoked her into impatience.

“See if you can track down a man called Kensington Webb,” he said, reverting to form. “I believe he’s an art shark. Last night there was a piece of stained glass on display at the restaurant. Get the artist’s name from Webb. And, uh, situation. Any information he’ll provide, in fact. I want—”

“To buy it?”

“No. Maybe.” Not like him to be equivocal. He turned away from Tamar’s frank stare. “Say whatever it takes to get the goods. I want the artist’s address. A phone number, at the least.” He thumbed through the sheets of Camille Claudel’s biography. Her father had been an esteemed figure in French literature. “A bio might be helpful.”

“Yessir.” Tamar’s voice was arch.

He waved the papers at her. “Go on. And shut the door.”

“But of course.” She exited silently, followed by a soft thunk.

Daniel went to the window and its view of the bleak gray canyon of Wall Street. The memory of the lively color and sound of SoHo on a Friday night made him admit that a degree of sameness, even stodginess, had begun to infect his personal life. By concentrating on his climb up the financial ladder, he had neglected other concerns.

Not to say that he was ready for the monastery. He had a social life outside the office. Still, his career dedication seemed to annoy the women Tamar wrote into and then crossed out of his date book. They started out praising his success. After a month or two, they were peeved by his neglect. They wanted weekends in the Hamptons; he wanted to work. They eventually wanted to discuss commitment; he wanted to work.

Success was a fine thing. A regimen of all work and no play was something else. Had he been so determined to avoid ending up like his parents that he’d become a drone instead?

Maybe that was why his reaction to “Camille” had been so volcanic. Or maybe it was only that she’d aroused his primal instincts, then disappeared, setting him off in hot pursuit.

Who was she? He closed his eyes and inhaled, remembering every detail with perfect clarity. The fake name had been only a part of her game, not an escape plan. Surely she knew he’d run her to ground.

Daniel smiled. The lioness had left a small but crucial piece of her lingerie in his possession. If he needed an excuse—and he doubted it—he could always say that he wanted to return the panties.

She would laugh, he knew. Already he relished the thought of it. Her boisterous laugh would be his congratulations for a deed well-done.

Yes, he decided as he swung around to his teakwood desk, I need this.

I need her.

It was nearly a minute before the statement rebounded inside his head.

He needed her? That was new.

He’d learned not to need his parents by the time he was eight. They were well-meaning but essentially useless. Lovable layabouts, going from one menial job to another, doing only enough to pay the rent and put tuna casserole and hot dogs on the table. They had no ambition beyond that which provided a steady stream of cigarettes, Mountain Dew, cable wrestling matches and bingo cards. Purchasing lottery tickets was their lame attempt at bettering themselves. Their sons were treated with benign neglect.

Jesse, the older brother, had gone one route—fast living and easy money, scams and petty crime, occasional jail time. Daniel had gone the other—hard work, long study, strict discipline. All on his own. While his parents had proclaimed their pride in him, they’d also arrived late to his high school valedictory speech because of a flat tire, and had missed his college commencement altogether. Now he visited them once a year, at Christmas. They were always happy to see him, but no more and no less than the check he sent monthly.

Daniel dismissed family connections.

Then…did he need his job? Yes and no. It was completely intertwined with his self-image. Yet he was certain that he could always get another. Probably a better one. He had offers all the time.

So, no, he did not need this job.

He caressed the fine leather that banded his desk blotter, readily admitting to himself that he needed Tamar. They’d been a team since he’d landed at Bairstow & Boone fresh out of Harvard, M.B.A. in hand. She was one or two years his senior—perhaps—of mysterious origins, rarely emotionally forthcoming. But she was an executive assistant extraordinaire—smart, efficient, dependable. Although Daniel’s career could survive without her, he wasn’t eager to test the theory.

Counting Tamar as a friend was trickier. Despite his best attempts, their relationship was mainly a one-way street—certainly not his idea of a proper give-and-take friendship.

None of the guys from the office could be counted as close friends, either. They were co-workers, occasional off-hour buddies. Likewise the tenants in his building: a middle-aged woman who holed up in the third-floor attic apartment, claiming to be a writer; the gay couple on the second floor who used his garden in return for their decorating expertise. Educating Daniel’s eye was their ongoing project.

Daniel liked them all; he did not, even remotely, need them.

But, suddenly, he needed the lioness?

That was definitely new. And a mighty strange sensation.

Particularly as he still didn’t know her name.

With a certain triumph, he thought of the silk panties he’d tucked away in his own underwear drawer for safekeeping. The commingling of their intimate apparel gave him a kick.

And a kick start.

Names were not always necessary.

3

“IT WAS LIKE a fever dream,” Lara said, closing her eyes as the previous evening spun through her thoughts, a series of colorful, blurred pImages** anchored by the dark, solid presence that was Daniel. “Psychedelic. Unreal. I couldn’t grasp it.”

“Bah! You weaseled out.” Bianca Spinelli soaped her hands at the sink in her grand charivari of a kitchen. The walls were chili-pepper-red, the cabinets guacamole-green, the clay tiles on the floor and countertops all the wonderful variegated umber shades of a sunbaked Mother Earth. Folk painting in primary colors formed a border around the room. Numerous pieces of stained glass glittered in the only window. For Lara the gaudiness was both welcoming and inspiring.

“I didn’t weasel out,” she said. “It was—well, it was happening too fast.” She sat on a tipsy stool beside the breakfast bar, on the opposite side of the cheerfully crowded living area that had been fashioned out of the back half of Bianca’s art-glass studio. Double swinging doors divided the front from the back, though not so anyone would notice. The entire space was an unofficial Grand Central Station for every glass artist and creative type on Avenue B.

Lara put a black olive between her front teeth, bit it neatly in half and swallowed the salty pieces whole. Daniel lives in the East Village. Only a few streets away. The coincidence was disturbing, especially after she’d pegged him for the stuffy five-thou-per-month Central Park condominium type. Aware that he was taking shape for her, becoming more than just the prize in a sexual game, she wondered what else there was to discover about him.

“Too fast? Eh. You never were the slow-lane type—” Bianca shot her a sour look “—until recently.”

Lara grimaced. “All right, it’s true. I got scared.” By my own daring…and his.

Wiping her fingers with a napkin, she paused to admire the way she’d arranged an immense platter of antipasto. There were plump mushrooms, eggplant and tomato slices, zucchini flowers and sticks, roasted bell peppers, several varieties of sausage and thick creamy chunks of mozzarella, mortadella and provolone cheese. In addition, she’d sliced up a sweet, juicy melon and started a pan of leftover risotto warming on the stove.

Friends and customers—one and the same, in Bianca’s book—would soon begin dropping in for a nosh, a cup of wine, good conversation or a rousing debate. Mornings were reserved for Bianca’s solo studio time; afternoons, she opened up the shop, taught classes and ran what Lara referred to as either the salon or, for those times when the music was loud and the wine was truly flowing, the cantina.

Bianca had returned to scrubbing her hands free of traces of the chemical solvents used in glasswork. “You see?” she said, shaking her black wavy hair over the sink. “Moving to the upstate wilds has done you no good, Lara. Remember the days when you kept a string of men on call as need demanded? You had no qualms about…um…managing them.”

“Daniel’s different.”

“Oh? How so?”

“He’s a grown-up.” Lara unhooked her feet from the rungs and drew them up so she sat cross-legged, perched atop the stool like a stork. “Me, too. In those good old days you mention, I was newly graduated, ready to take the Manhattan art world by storm, or so I believed. I was young and crazy and rebellious. I thought independence equaled indiscriminate adventure.” In fact, she’d been trying to imitate Bianca, her mentor. “Now that I’m thirty, I’ve outgrown casual sex.” Despite their accelerated attraction, she knew that sex with Daniel would not be casual. It would be cataclysmic.

“A shame.” Bianca grinned. “Casual grown-up sex is even better.” She flung her expressive hands in the air, sending droplets flying. “Dio mio! Until a man is forty, he knows nothing about how to please a woman in bed. You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“I’m not celibate,” Lara argued, laughing. “I just didn’t want to rush. And Daniel’s thirty-six.”

“Bosh. You’re a fool to pass up such chemistry.”

“I have not passed it up. Merely postponed it.”

“Chemistry, chemistry,” Bianca sang, doing vigorous battle with a hand towel. “Good chemistry is like catching lightning in a bottle. Don’t miss out because of this silly game of yours.”

Lara smiled. “Daniel found the game provocative, I’m certain. I did tell you about the surprise I left in his pocket.”

Bianca enjoyed her own laughter so much it was contagious. “Yes, that was good.” She chortled. “And so naughty of you. I’m proud, chica. My Jennifer Lopez dress works every time, even when you insist on wearing it backwards.”

A huge smile broke across Lara’s face. “After that stunt, he’s sure to find me.”

Bianca sobered. “But how?”

“Oh, I’m sure he has resources. He met Kensington, so he might think of asking at the gallery.”

“Would they send him here? Ai-yee, I hope so. This man, I must see.”

“I don’t know. It depends how persistent he is.” Very, she thought. If she knew anything about Daniel, that was it. The intense ray-gun heat of his eyes was not characteristic of a laid-back man. “The gallery doesn’t hand out information to every guy off the street. And I go home tomorrow. Daniel may have to continue the hunt there.”

“The hunt?”

Lara wiggled her hips; the stool rocked. She grabbed the tiled edge of the counter. “Yes. He’s a hunter.”

“And you…?”

“Blame it on the chemistry,” she said with a lick of her lips. “I am dying to be caught.”

“But not encaged, hmm?”

“Nor engaged,” Lara said drolly. Bianca scowled.

Lara squared her shoulders. “You know how I feel about that.” She’d decided early on that she was the go-it-alone type. She couldn’t see subordinating her independent desires for the security of a marriage ring, as her mother and sister had done.

“Lovers, yes. Love, no. Marriage, never.” Bianca leaned her elbows on the breakfast bar, put her chin on her hands and stared broodingly into the spirals of food Lara had arranged in the pattern of a nautilus shell.

Despite the glum expression, Bianca looked as beautiful and exotic as a bird of paradise. Bright clothing, plenty of makeup, gold hoop earrings large enough to touch her shoulders. Lara had been strongly influenced by her mentor’s style and attitude, and was grateful for that. She might have turned out like her sister otherwise.

“Bianca?” she coaxed. “You’ve always agreed that I am smart to guard my freedom.”

“In your experimental twenties, yes.” Bianca pulled on her lower lip. “But one grows up and begins to appreciate the advantages of settling for stability.”

“You’re forty and you haven’t settled.”

“Forty-one. And I have become an old woman.” With a groan, she banged the heel of her palm against her forehead.

“Ha!” Lara had done her best to acquire a portion of Bianca Spinelli’s zest for life. It was a matter of attitude, not age. Of finding your bliss, to be Oprah-ish about it.

“There’s nothing like an energetic eighteen-month-old to make a woman feel ancient,” Bianca said, hoisting her daughter off the floor. She plopped little Rosa into a high chair, buckled her in and scooped a handful of crayons off the floor. “Try the yellow one, cara mia. In this house, we don’t need the dingy old grays and browns.”

Rosa gurgled happily, reaching for the stubby crayons.

“You adore being a mother,” said Lara.

“Of course.” Bianca took a dozen bright blue and pink and green ceramic plates of various sizes from an open cabinet. Nearly every item in her house and studio was colorful and handmade; she bartered with an extensive circle of artsy-craftsy friends. Lara had followed the cue in her own home, though she preferred earthen shades.

Bianca petted her daughter’s curly crop of flame-red hair. “Listen, don’t tell the bambina, but there are nights I miss my club-hopping escapades. My soul still yearns to dance even when my feet are dragging.” Suddenly she picked up Rosa, chair and all, and swung her around the kitchen. Crayons flew. “Once I was Queen of the Discotheque. Now, I dance barefoot in the kitchen with my little bay-bee-yeee!” Rosa giggled in delight.