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“I’m Blaine Spencer, a friend of Ben Harper’s.” The toothsome preppy introduced himself. “And I know you’re Matthew Granger. I understand you’ll be staying at the boardinghouse while you do some scientific research here in Clover?”
“News travels fast,” murmured Matthew. He found his new acquaintance overbearing and presumptuous. He had not been slavering over Hannah Farley like some slack-jawed dolt!
“Katie filled me in when she sent this drink over to you,” Blaine replied amiably. “She said you seemed more the bourbon on the rocks than the wine-punch type.”
“Wine punch?” Matthew grimaced at the concept.
“I believe the ladies are partial to it.” Blain winked. “So, Matt, I guess Hannah wins your vote as the best shagger here tonight. Am I right, my friend?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Matthew said testily.
Blaine took no offense. “The dance is called the shag. We’re in the midst of a highly competitive contest here tonight. My partner and I have already been eliminated. The shag was a classic fixture in the beach towns during the sixties and we like to keep the spirit alive. Every kid in Clover learns the shag and passes the steps along to future generations.”
Matthew finished his drink in one gulp. “This is a very strange town.”
“We Clover natives like to think of ourselves as colorful. Originals.” Blaine grinned, seemingly impervious to insult. “Clover is a timeless place, where the past is intermingled with today and tomorrow will—”
“Are you a real-estate agent?” Matthew demanded. “You might as well save your spiel because I’m not planning on buying any property here.”
Blaine laughed. “I’m a dentist, Matt. My office is a few blocks farther down on Clover Street, near the Beauty Boutique.”
“I’ll keep that in mind if I lose a filling,” Matthew muttered. Since his new friend seemed disinclined to leave—had Katie asked him to baby-sit her new tenant?—he decided to use Blaine’s affable presence to his own ends. “So you’re a Clover native, huh?”
“Born and raised here, like my daddy and his daddy before him,” Blaine said proudly.
“I guess you know the, uh—” Matthew paused. His pulses were pounding in his ears, so loudly they almost drowned out the blare of the shag dance tunes. “The Wyndhams.” For the first time, he dared to use the name of his birth mother’s family—his family—in conversation.
“The Wyndhams!” Blaine looked pleased. “Well, I don’t know them personally, of course. I mean, I’m not in their social orbit. They’re in the stratosphere of society and my family and friends are earthbound, if you get my drift. But occasionally I see members of the Wyndham family when they come into town to shop. Good-looking people. Classy. Upper classy.”
Mention Alexandra Wyndham, Matthew silently urged himself. Say her name. He felt almost sick with anticipation, desperate to hear even the slightest bit of information about the woman who had given birth to him. And had given him up. His mouth was dry. He couldn’t get the words out.
“Hannah knows the Wyndhams,” Blaine continued. “Her family socializes with them. The Farleys are up there, too, you know.”
Matthew scowled at his frustration. He was not here to discuss the Farleys!
“You wouldn’t catch the Wyndhams or the Farleys at a party at the Clover Street Boardinghouse. Of course, Hannah is nothing like the rest of the Farleys.”
“Because she chooses to socialize with you earthbound peasants?”
Blaine laughed good-naturedly. “Hannah can mix with anyone. Say, would you like me to introduce you to her? She’ll probably dance with you if you ask. She’s very gracious.”
“Just a little Carolina belle brimming with Southern hospitality?” Matthew remembered their contentious meeting upstairs when she’d been far from gracious or hospitable. He watched her now, flirting with every guy at the party, and his face hardened. “I think I’ll pass on the privilege of doing the shag with Hannah Farley, but thanks for offering, Biff.”
“Blaine.”
Matthew took a deep breath. “Whatever.”
Three
From the corner of her eye, Hannah watched Matthew Granger talking to Blaine Spencer as the two men stood together watching the dancers. She had known the exact moment that Matthew had set foot in the living room, as if she possessed some kind of psychic radar that attuned her to his presence. She was acutely aware of him every second, knowing when he was watching her—which was almost constantly, except for those moments when he’d turned his eyes on the others.
She’d known the instant he looked at Maureen Fitzgerald, Sean’s cousin, a striking, sexy redhead whom Hannah had always liked. Until she’d watched Matthew Granger smile slightly at Maureen. Then she’d felt a disgraceful urge to dunk the other woman’s head in the punch bowl!
Hannah continued to dance and laugh and flirt, her nerves tingly and taut. She realized that she was overdoing it; her dancing, her flirting, her laughter had an almost desperate edge.
Matthew disapproved of her behavior, Hannah was certain of that. Cold fire burned in his onyx eyes. She pretended to ignore him, taking care not to glance in his direction except very covertly. He would never know that she had seen his every move, gauged his every response. His reaction to the compulsively genial Blaine Spencer almost made her laugh out loud. Matthew stood there, dark and surly and brooding, while Blaine nattered on, his smile never wavering.
“I think it’s time to announce the winners of the contest,” Katie said, lifting the needle from the record player, thus ending the music. “The best shaggers in Clover are—”
“Abby Long and Ben Harper, of course,” Hannah cried, grabbing Abby’s left arm and Ben’s right and holding them high in the air.
Everybody clapped and cheered.
“Well, hey, if you can’t win the shag contest at your own engagement party, when can you?” Blaine exclaimed happily.
He turned to Matthew, who was surveying the scene, his arms folded across his chest, the only person in the room who wasn’t clapping or laughing or even smiling.
“It was generous of Hannah to name Abby and Ben the winners,” Blaine murmured confidentially to Matthew. “Of course, we all know Hannah is really the best dancer of them all.”
“So does she,” Matthew growled. “She is fully aware that she is the most fascinating woman in this room.”
Blaine raised his brows but made no comment.
“As the official contest winners, we’d like our prize to be a slow dance,” Ben announced, pulling Abby close.
“Aren’t you even going to wait for the music?” Hannah teased.
Matthew glowered. The little flirt was irrepressible. She was even batting those long lashes at the prospective groom! And if the pretty bride-to-be didn’t seem to mind, well, Matthew minded for her!
“Hannah!” Blaine called and waved. “Come over here. There’s someone I’d like you to meet. A newcomer to our fair city.”
Blaine kept waving and calling and would not be ignored. Reluctantly, Hannah responded to the summons and joined him and Matthew, who had retreated to a dark corner of the living room. In his black clothes, he blended into the dim recess like some kind of otherworldly shadow prince. Or perhaps a gun-toting cat burglar who read about serial killers for entertainment.
To Matthew and Hannah’s mutual dismay, Blaine proceeded to introduce them to each other.
“I hope I’m not telling tales out of school but Matt was riveted by your shagging talent, Hannah,” Blaine exclaimed merrily. “You didn’t learn to dance that way at Miss Perkins’s ballroom dancing cotillion classes, did you?” he teased.
Hannah smiled weakly. Matthew scowled.
“Now I’m going to make a suggestion.” Blaine forged ahead, clearly enjoying his role as matchmaker. “Hannah, why don’t you do Matt the honor of welcoming him to Clover with a dance?”
At that moment, music sounded through the speakers, this time a romantic ballad, another classic from an earlier era. Couples began to pair up. Abby and Ben were already clinging and swaying in the middle of the floor.
Hannah and Matthew stood facing each other.
“Go on, you two, dance with each other! Don’t be shy!” Blaine insisted jovially.
Matthew caught Hannah’s hand. “Let’s get this over with.” He pulled her against him, close, very close.
Too close. Hannah gasped as he fastened his arms around her, linking them tightly around her waist. She had no choice but to raise her arms and rest them on his shoulders. ”You’re holding me too tight!” she grated.
“You mean this isn’t the way you learned to dance at Miss Pennypacker’s Ballroom Academy for Proper Young Ladies and Gentlemen?” He didn’t loosen his hold.
Hannah’s lips curved into a reluctant smile. “No, we didn’t dance like this in Miss Perkins’s cotillion classes. Poor old Miss Perkins would’ve burst an aneurysm.”
Matthew made no response. He was not in the mood for light banter.
Hannah gulped, her every nerve wired and tingling with sensual electricity. She hadn’t felt this nervous slow dancing with a male since her days at Miss Perkins’s cotillion classes. And not even then, not really. Even as a young girl, she had been socially confident, self-assured in her dealings with the opposite sex.
But being in Matthew Granger’s arms, pressed tightly against his hard body evoked a vulnerability she never dreamed she possessed. She felt intensely feminine in contrast to his unyielding masculinity. She was aware of his superior male strength in a way she’d never been before.
She had never met a man she couldn’t manage; she could charm, cajole, guide or boss every male she’d ever known. But she wasn’t sure how well she’d be able to handle Matthew Granger. He seemed to be the one doing all the handling—of her!
“Relax,” he growled against her ear. “You’re wound tight as a spring.”
“That’s because you’re holding me so close you’re practically suffocating me.” Hannah was flushed and breathless and resented him for it.
He was so close that his heartbeat seemed to echo in her own chest. Against the burgeoning pressure of his thighs, her legs felt supple and boneless, her knees weakening so quickly she wondered if they would support her. Her breasts swelled and her nipples hardened into taut buds. They were excruciatingly sensitive and she knew a wild, wanton urge to rub them against the muscular wall of his chest to seek relief. And to heighten the stimulation.
She could feel his breath against her hair, his big hands moving slowly over her back. His touch was strong and possessive. Her skin felt damp and feverish, and she knew that the warm June night and energetic bout of shagging had nothing to do with it.
Every erogenous zone in her body was on full alert and conspiring against her. As much as she’d protested his too close, too tight hold, she knew that the real problem was that he wasn’t close enough.
Her thoughts disturbed her. She drew back her head and lifted her eyes to his. “I don’t want to dance anymore,” she said in a low, husky voice she scarcely recognized as her own.
“Tough.” He held her gaze. “If I don’t dance with you, Dr. Smiley will take it upon himself to make me feel welcome again. I can’t cope with any more of his unrelenting good cheer. Even your brattiness is preferable to that.”
In the shadowy dimness, she could see the amused gleam in his dark eyes. Hannah was totally disarmed. In her sexually charged panic, the last thing she’d expected from him was humor.
Of its own volition, her body suddenly relaxed, the tautness draining from her muscles, leaving her soft and pliable. She melted against him, her soft curves flowing seamlessly into the hard, masculine planes of his body. A giddy excitement coursed through her, making her feel daring and reckless. She wanted to tease him, to bait him. To challenge him and win.
“I was a little surprised to see you deeply engrossed in conversation with Blaine.” Hannah gazed up at him from under her lashes in tried-and-true vamp style. “You two are an unlikely duo. It was kind of like watching Barney, the jolly purple dinosaur, trying to befriend a carnivorous raptor.”
“Is that how you see me? As a ferocious predator?” Matthew smiled, his even white teeth appearing even whiter in the darkness. “Are you afraid of me, little girl?” He lowered his head and took her earlobe between his teeth, biting gently.
Hannah trembled. But not with fear. Excitement ricocheted through her like a piercing bullet. But she tried to halt it, or at least tame it. “Stop calling me little girl,” she ordered firmly, seeking the upper hand. “My name is Hannah, although you seem to have trouble remembering it. In the short time we’ve known each other, you’ve called me everything but my name.”
“You don’t fit my idea of a Hannah.” He was nuzzling her neck now while rubbing his body against hers, his movements slow and subtle and arousing. “I picture a Hannah out on the prairie in her sturdy pioneer clothes, weaving cloth and drawing water from the well and hitching the oxen to the plow. A hardy frontier type.”
“My parents thought Biblical names would be proper and appropriate for us,” Hannah murmured. “My older sisters are Sarah and Deborah and my brother—”
“Must be Noah?” The tip of his tongue tickled the sensitive skin of her throat.
Hannah shifted against him. “Actually he’s Baylor Carleton Farley IV. When it came to their son, Farley tradition was considered even more proper and appropriate than the Bible.”
Her head was spinning. His lips felt cool and firm yet soft against her skin. How would they feel against her mouth? Her eyes drifted shut and she stifled a moan.
“Your name should conjure up an image that is sensuous and exotic,” Matthew said huskily. “Beautiful, like you are.” His caresses were growing bolder. One big hand slid down to audaciously knead the curve of her thigh. The other slipped under the thick curtain of her hair to curl around the nape of her neck. “If you were my creation, I’d call you Vanessa or Jacqueline, maybe Juliet or—”
“What about Alexandra?” Hannah blurted out.
Matthew went still. Then his fingers sank into her hair and he grasped a handful to pull her head back, forcing her to meet his gaze. He was not gentle. Hannah felt the pressure on the roots of her hair, but even more alarming was the hard, angry glitter in his onyx eyes. “What game to you think you’re playing, little girl?”
Hannah berated herself as a prattling fool. The name had just slipped out in an unguarded moment, and no wonder. She was still burning with curiosity about why Alexandra Wyndham’s name happened to be written in Matthew’s copy of The First Families of South Carolina. During the shag contest, she’d moved as if on automatic pilot, her footwork independent of her mind, which was focused on Matthew Granger and his probable reason for being in Clover. Alexandra’s name seemed to be a major clue.
Hannah stared at Matthew, wide-eyed.
Had she given herself away? Did he now know for sure that she’d been snooping in his things? If he was here for nefarious purposes, he wouldn’t want anyone armed with evidence against him. Would he consider her decidedly sketchy knowledge to be evidence? Her pulse raced into overdrive.
“I want an answer from you,” Matthew demanded, tightening his grip.
Hannah was alarmed, but she’d never been a meekly passive type who allowed anyone to bully her. She wasn’t about to turn into one now, either, not even with Matthew the Possible Mobster holding her by the hair.
“You’re the one playing games,” she said with a bravado she was far from feeling. “Consigning my perfectly respectable name to pioneer drudgery and renaming me Jacqueline or Vanessa. Well, I happen to have an opinion in the matter, too, and if I were to be renamed, I’m partial to the name Alexandra.”
She decided she might as well go for broke. To pretend that she knew nothing of his aspirations concerning the Wyndham estate by initiating the subject of the Wyndhams herself. It was a form of reverse psychology, and at this point she had nothing to lose.
“Alexandra is the name of one of the most attractive, elegant women in town. I think the name exudes class and style, just like she does.” Was this working? Hannah wondered nervously. Or was he planning where to stash her body before he pulled the heist. “I think Alexandra Wyndham must be close to fifty years old but she looks years younger,” she chatted on. “She has dark hair, and not even Jeannie Potts knows if she dyes it, but she must at her age, right? And of course, she has the Wyndham blue eyes. All the Wyndhams have these deep, vivid blue eyes. I don’t think there’s every been a brown-eyed Wyndham.”
Her words swirled around Matthew’s head. She was talking about his mother! A maelstrom of emotion surged through him. His body was already charged and throbbing with unslaked desire for this maddening, enticing woman he held so close, and the unexpected information about the stranger who’d given birth to him unleashed the tight reins of his control. Talking wasn’t enough for him. He had to act.
Hannah felt like a wind-up toy that had just wound down. “Well, I guess we’ve exhausted that subject, haven’t we?” She managed a shaky smile.
Her faced burned under his steady stare, and his silence daunted her more than any threats he might have made. She saw sexual intent and something else, something she couldn’t identify, flaming in his eyes.
Still holding her hair, he suddenly, firmly, cupped her chin with his other hand and took her mouth with his.
It was a rough, wild kiss, his lips demanding, his tongue rapacious as it invaded her mouth, taking possession. Hannah was too shocked to protest, and then it was too late. She didn’t want to protest.
A hot swell of excitement crashed through her, and she trembled from the force of the fast-building urgency. She was only vaguely aware that Matthew’s arms folded her deeply in his embrace, that her own arms had wound around his neck as her body surged against his.
The kiss deepened and grew more intimate, more insistent. Pure raw pleasure flooded her. Her senses were filled with Matthew, with the feel and the scent and the taste of him. His hands stroked and caressed, learning the soft, warm curves of her body, smoothing over her back and then gliding around her ribs, where his fingers stopped maddeningly, tantalizingly just below the underside of her aching breasts.
Hannah’s mind clouded. The music and the voices of the party guests receded into the hazy distance. She was aware only of Matthew and the strong mastery of his hands and his lips, of the intoxicating combination of hunger and pleasure he evoked in her.
Lost in this delicious world of sensation, she obeyed all the sensuous, unspoken commands. When he finally lifted his mouth from hers to kiss the slender white curve of her neck, she tilted her head to give him greater access. As his hands slid slowly, seductively, over her hips to cup her bottom and lift her higher and harder against him, she settled herself, snuggling into the cradle of his thighs. She wanted to be as close as a woman could be to a man. To have him full and hard, deep inside her.
“Hannah!” he groaned. Suddenly it struck him as having all the sexy, exotic appeal of Vanessa or Jacqueline because it was her name.
He opened his mouth over hers again, luring her tongue into an erotic little duel. His whole body was taut and hard with a wild urgency, the force of which he had never before experienced. When was the last time that a flash of sparkling eyes had sent him reeling? When was the last time that a woman’s kiss had shattered his iron control?
Never. This was the first time.
The raging need she evoked drove him higher. Her spicy feminine scent drugged him, and the feel of her rounded softness yielding to his frame obliterated all thought but one. To take her. To make her his own.
Hannah felt that virile power within him and sensed that his control was tentative at best. As was her own. She was dizzy with excitement, drunk on a passion she had never before experienced. She ached, she wanted...
“Wow! When it comes to amour, those two make our guests of honor look like chaste kissin’ cousins!” The loud, rather drunken male voice was followed by some wolf whistles and clapping. It was a shocking intrusion into the private, passionate world where Hannah and Matthew had retreated. Confused, slightly disoriented, they broke apart to find themselves in the spotlight. Literally. Sean Fitzgerald was shining a flashlight on them as he kept up a running commentary. “Say, Abby and Ben, you ought to watch these two and take notes. You might pick up some useful tips for the honeymoon.”
