Reckless Seduction

скачать книгу бесплатно


She accepted the pastrami on whole wheat sandwich. “I bet if you tried hard you could come up with another one. I mean, the head of EIS is a clever man, isn’t he?”

“Listen, you temptress, try to remember not to goad me. I may surprise you.”

“Yes, but we’ve already established that you’re a gentleman. You don’t beat women, and you want to find out what kind of person I am. Agreed?” He nodded. “In that case, I can be myself. And in case you haven’t noticed, I love to flirt.”

His eyes widened. Suddenly, he began to laugh. Then the laugh phased into a cough. She slapped him on the back several times.

“Are you all right?” she asked him. “I mean, are you choking?”

He swallowed some wine, cleared his throat and stared at her. “You’ve got more sides than an octagon, and I want to explore every side and every facet of you.”

She thought about that for a long minute. “Then why were you laughing?”

“Frankly, the joke was on me. I realize that in you I might have met my match, and that would be a first.”

He poured wine into their glasses and raised his. “I’m going to do everything I can to make you care for me.”

She tilted her glass of wine and drank every drop. “At least you have the grace to warn me.”

“Seems to me that when you drank that you just gave me license to pull out the stops.”

She put her empty glass on the green grass beside her, leaned over and stroked his hair. “I’m counting on your good judgment.”

“Be careful, Haley. I’ve made mistakes, and because I’m still human, I may make some more.”

“Not to worry,” she said, still stroking. “I’ll keep you out of trouble.”

“Yeah. Just like you did the other night when we went to dinner.” She stretched out beside him, and he needed no further invitation. For the first time, she looked up into his face while lying supine, and frissons of heat plowed through her.

“Kiss me. Open your mouth and kiss me.”

She sucked his tongue into her mouth and gripped his shoulders, asking for more, wanting him and relief from the tension stirring in her. Almost immediately, he broke the kiss.

“No more of that.” He took her hand and locked her fingers through his. “I haven’t felt this content in years. I love being with you, Haley, and I want us to spend as much time as possible together. Can we?”

“I enjoy being with you, Jon, but let’s take it one day at a time.”

“If that’s all you can give me now, I have to accept it. But I want more. Much more.”

That night, after wrestling interminably with the sheets on her bed, trying to fit the images of Jon into a safe place outside of her heart, Haley got up and made coffee. Maybe if she worked she’d stop thinking about him. She took her briefcase and files to bed and completed the Brayton-Rogers proposal. She was satisfied that she’d done the best possible job on it. Spencer had produced an excellent report on all three school systems, and her own and her mother’s on-site visits had provided material for a first-rate proposal. She went to shower, but as she reached the bathroom, she paused. What was she going to do about Jon?

She’d promised them a chance, but could she risk rejection again? She wanted him. No, she was crazy for him. In her life, she had never before felt as she had in his arms. He was big, strong and… Oh Lord, he was so tender. The way he’d kissed her, hungry, hot, telling her without words that she was desirable. And sweet. He was so sweet and gentle. And he had tried not to let her know what was going on with him, how hard he was. If he’d taken her right there in her foyer, she would probably have let him.

Thank God he hadn’t pushed it further. She had thought only about his arms tight around her, his velvet tongue in her mouth and his hard penis pressed against her belly. And when he’d gazed down at her face as she lay on her back in Central Park, letting her see how deeply he felt for her, she had wanted to wrap her arms and legs around him and make love with him.

Later that morning, as she entered her outer office, where Amy sat, she stopped. What on earth was Jon doing here at nine o’clock in the morning?

“Hi.” She was disconcerted at seeing him when her mind had been full of him since long before daylight.

“Morning, Haley.” He never said good morning or good evening. She loved his low, sonorous baritone, the slow lilting cadence of his speech.

“Come on in,” she said, haltingly, not knowing the purpose of his visit and instinctively sensing some kind of a confrontation. Amy brought two mugs of coffee with sugar and cream on the side.

“Mrs. Birch, this is Jon Ecklund. Mr. Ecklund is president and cochairman of Ecklund International Syndicate.”

“I’m pleased to meet you in person, Mr. Ecklund. I watch your news channel all the time.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Birch?”

Amazed, Haley watched as Jon winked at her secretary.

“I’m delighted that you use our news service. We strive for accurate and comprehensive reporting,” he said with a grin.

“That’s the impression we all get, too,” Amy replied as she left the room smiling. Haley knew that Amy wanted more than anything for her to find a man who would fill the void in her life.

She and Jon gazed at each other quietly, as if words were unnecessary, as if it were enough that they were together. He smiled again, and she felt as if her heart were in her throat. She wondered if he had ever seen himself smile.

“You’re ruining my life,” he teased. “I can get along without sleep and without food, but it seems I can’t go one day without seeing you.”

She stared at him.

“And if you don’t close your mouth,” he went on, “I may have to kiss you.”

Was he teasing her?

Rising to the bait, she opened her mouth wider but, filled with mirth, couldn’t keep the pose, and a grin broke out over her face. He didn’t hesitate—just pulled her out of the chair and hugged her. She looked up at him in wonder, her gaze settling upon his sensuous lips. Then she looked into his eyes and gasped. In that split second, he’d unclothed his soul, and all that he felt, all that he longed for, all that he feared was mirrored in the light of his eyes. She stared, mesmerized, until he bent his head and brushed her lips with his own, ever so lightly, before crushing her mouth with all the longing that she had seen in his eyes. She wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed his cheek.

“I’m going home for six months. Will you be here for me when I get back?”

She pulled away a bit. “When did you decide that?”

“Last night. I have to sort out a lot of things before I can carry this relationship further. No, there is no other woman and there won’t be, but I need to figure some things out.”

He needed answers, and he had decided that after all the years of pain and hurt he wanted to be whole. He wasn’t giving up this woman without an honest effort to deal with his problem. He would begin with his parents. It had occurred to him that they might have answers. He had always been able to discuss anything with his parents, but he wasn’t sure about this.

“Tell me, Haley, do you feel that you can wait for me?”

“I told you that there is no one else. I care for you. Is that enough?”

“It will have to be. Knowing that you care for me means everything.” He folded her close to his body. “I’m going to leave tomorrow night. Will you have dinner with me this evening?”

“Yes, I will. How shall I dress? Are you going ‘black tie?’”

“Yep.” She lifted an eyebrow and nodded assent. She’d been joking, but he clearly had not.

Back at his office, Jon spoke to Maxine through the intercom. “Tell DuPree I want to see him right now.”

“Right.”

“And, Maxine, I’m transferring you to HR as of this morning. Tell Catherine to send the senior pool secretary to see me in about an hour.”

“But, Jon—”

“That will be all, Maxine.” He didn’t have time for Maxine’s brand of male mind bending. She could pout and raise her skirt for the next decade, but he didn’t want to put up with it any longer.

“Morning, Jason. I hope I didn’t drag you away from something urgent. This is the situation. I’m going to Oslo tomorrow night, possibly for as long as six months, and you’ll be in charge here. If there’s anything that you need, you know where to call. Any questions?”

Jason DuPree had been with EIS for five years and knew every aspect of its operations. He was also a widely respected journalist and had earned his credentials on the battlefields of Vietnam, as well as AU’s School of Journalism. He was a big man physically and wasn’t known for tolerating nonsense or disloyalty on the job. He was also a compassionate man who knew how to be a friend.

“Morning, Jon. Yes, you interrupted something. And yes, I have a question.”

Jon narrowed his eyes and leaned forward.

“What have you decided to do about Hyfelt?” Dupree asked.

“I’m going to postpone his retirement by sending him over to broadcasting. His scripts will be written for him, as they are for everyone else. He’ll have no need to feel as if he’s being discriminated against because of his age.”

“Couldn’t agree with you more. What about Maxine?”

“She’s being transferred to human resources after lunch today.”

“Excellent idea. I don’t like working with her. What about you? Is everything alright with you? I don’t mean to pry.”

“I’m okay. I’ll be working out of the head office during this period. It’s just that I need to straighten out a few things back there. I’m glad you’re on my team, Jason.”

“Me, too. All the best. And keep in touch.”

“Will do.” Feeling better about his life and his future than he had in years, he cleaned out his desk, left the office and walked out of the building and into the morning sun.

Haley arrived at her Riverside Drive apartment at half past five and wasted no time getting ready for her last evening with Jon. Six months. She wouldn’t see him for six months. She knew that she would miss him, and she also knew that the time was not yet right for their joining as man and woman. He had intimated as much, and she had her own demons to lay to rest. But she refused to allow such thoughts to spoil her time with him that night.

She filled the tub with warm water, dropped in half a cup of French perfumed liquid soap, got her worn copy of Barrett Browning’s poems and stepped in for an hour of luxurious self-indulgence.

After her bath, she toweled dry and sprayed her body with perfume. Then she put a pair of red silk bikini panties beneath a red silk chiffon strapless evening gown that hugged her tightly from her bosom to her hip line and then fell straight to her ankles. A slit from the hem to her right thigh completed the daring image. She wore sapphire earrings and placed her maternal grandmother’s sapphire brooch just at her cleavage. Then she donned black satin elbow-length gloves and black satin sandals, picked up a matching evening bag, threw her sable capelet on her arm and headed for her living room. She reached it just as the bell rang.

The man who stood at her door nearly took her breath away. He looked good enough to eat in his black tuxedo and tucked white silk shirt. They smiled at each other. She opened the door, and he entered slowly, as if at war with himself. He looked at her for a minute, smiled, took her in his arms and hugged her but didn’t kiss her.

“Stunning hardly describes what I…what I see right now.”

It amazed her that this man who always seemed in command now groped for words. Then she realized that the evening was as overwhelming for him as it was for her.

“Perhaps I’d better bring my Colt .45 along,” she said to lighten the mood.

“Whatever on earth for?”

“I want to be sure that you bring me home tonight and not some other woman. And I’m serving notice that, like my forebears before me, I’m fully capable of protecting my interests.”

He was perplexed for a second and then gave that rare full-throated laugh that she enjoyed so much.

As the car pulled away from the curb, Jon pressed the lever that revealed the bar, opened a bottle of champagne and filled two crystal champagne glasses. He handed one to Haley.

“To a really lovely woman,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said and sipped her drink.

“Nels wouldn’t tell me what your background is,” he said, looking intently at her. “He just said that it is very intriguing. I’ve done some guessing, but I want you to tell me.”

“I’m twenty-eight. My father was African American from North Carolina, and my mother is Native American. Our tribe is Comanche, and most of our people are out in Oklahoma, though they are not on reservations. My parents lived and worked in Washington, DC, where my mother still lives. We lost my father twelve years ago.”

“How’d your parents get to Washington, DC?”

“They both went to college there, so that’s where they settled.”

He nodded very slowly. “I see. Were you happy growing up?”

“Yes. We had love to spare. I have one brother who’s a few years my senior. I’ve known two of my grandparents. My paternal grandfather used to visit us often when I was little, and he always spoke about our heritage. He was such a wonderful man, and he loved my brother and me so much that we used to say he just wrapped us up in love as if it were a blanket. I’ll miss him as long as I live.” He refilled their glasses.

“Are you like your mother?”

“Well, I look a bit like her, but I have my father’s disposition, more or less. Why?”

“Oh, I just want to know as much as possible about you.” He took her hand, stroking it gently. Without realizing it, she moved closer to him, feeling a comfort, a peace that she didn’t think their relationship warranted. She sighed.