скачать книгу бесплатно
“The wine. The hors d’oeuvres.” She shuddered in a way he figured she’d spent lots of time perfecting. It made her long, straight mane of golden hair slip over her bare shoulders like water running over alabaster and her rounded breasts quiver like Jell-O beneath the couple of inches of fabric that was supposed to be a dress. She tilted her head, looked up at him through her lashes and, very slowly, trailed the tip of her tongue across her moist bottom lip. “Why,” she said, with a lazy smile, “I just don’t know what to do with myself.”
A muscle danced in Gage’s jaw. He’d been out of circulation for a while but a man would have to be dead from the neck up and the waist down not to know what the answer to that remark was supposed to be.
I do, he was supposed to say, and the gorgeous blonde with the impossible boobs would smile again, link her arm through his, and not too long after, they’d be in bed.
His body tightened reflexively at the sudden image. It was a long time since he’d thought about having a woman other than Natalie. Too long, maybe. Maybe that was just what he needed, a hot broad, a mindless tussle between cool sheets, a mutual wham-bam-thank-you-ma’ am, with no morning-after regrets, no recriminations, no commitments that would only screw up his head.
“Yes or no?” the blonde said softly, her baby blues filled with a directness Gage could admire if not accept.
He smiled, a little regretfully.
“Sorry. I’m just not…”
“That’s all right.” Her smile was regretful, too. “Another time, perhaps.”
“Sure,” he said, although he knew he didn’t mean it. Even if things ended with Natalie, even after he was free to move on, he’d be done with women. For a while, anyway, he thought, as the blonde sauntered away. A man would have to be either a fool or a liar to swear off the female of the species completely but right now, for the foreseeable future, he had no wish whatsoever to—to—
That was when he saw her, in the doorway.
His breath caught, his stomach tightened, and he knew his thoughts of a moment ago had been all lies.
He wasn’t done with women, not for tonight, not for the foreseeable future, not any way, any shape, any time.
The woman in the doorway was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.
It was wrong to compare her to the blonde who’d just moved off but the contrasts were so incredible that he couldn’t keep from doing it.
She wasn’t blonde. Maybe that didn’t seem like much but in Miami Beach, in this kind of crowd, most of the heads were golden. Not that they’d started life that way. It was just that the sun seemed to inspire a sun-kissed look.
Not for her.
The lady coming slowly down the steps into the living room had hair as black as night. She wore it drawn back from her perfect oval face, knotted high on her head; just looking at it, Gage could tell that when she let it down—when he let it down, it would flow over his hands like ebony silk.
His gaze wandered over her, taking in the wide, dark eyes, the straight nose, the determined mouth, dropped lower to skim over her simple black dress, over what he knew had to be breasts that had not been fashioned by the surgeon’s knife. She was slender, this woman, but she was all woman nonetheless, with sweetly curved hips and long, gorgeous legs encased in sheer black hose that ended in black sandals with impossibly high heels.
She was beautiful, more beautiful than any woman he’d ever seen, and she was alone. Alone, but searching the room for someone.
Gage ditched the silly canapé and sorry excuse for a drink in the potted palm. If she was looking for a man, that man was damned well going to be him.
He stepped out from the corner, his eyes fastened to her, and waited. She would look towards him; every instinct, every thump of his heart told him so.
And, at last, she did.
Their eyes met and held. Time seemed to stop; the moment stretched out between them, filled with heat. Gage could feel his blood thickening as it pumped through his veins. His body had reacted to the blonde, but not like this.
This was different. It was everything he’d ever hoped for, or dreamed.
Something flickered across her lovely face. Eagerness? Anticipation? He took a step forward…and saw something else on her face. Panic. Even fear. Hell, why would she fear him? She knew what he wanted; it was what she wanted, too, he was sure of it.
He took another step and she whirled away from him, vanishing into the crowd.
She was running from him but, dammit, he wasn’t going to let her get away. Not tonight. Not when she was what he needed, what he’d hungered for without even knowing he was hungry.
He moved quickly, knifing his way through the clots of people filling the room, his gaze constant in its search for a flash of that pale face, that silken hair.
Liz Holcomb grasped his arm.
“Gage, you gorgeous man, there you are! I want you to meet…”
“Later,” he said, and swept past her.
Hank was next, appearing suddenly in his path with a portly, smiling gentleman in tow.
“Gage, old pal, here’s the mayor of…
“Later,” he said again, and kept moving…and, all at once, he saw her, hurrying out the French doors to the patio.
She was almost running, wobbling slightly in those ridiculously high heels, those sexy-as-sin heels. Past the string quartet, down the garden steps, past the fountain where cherubs and dolphins cavorted in cascades of illuminated water. Just beyond the fountain she paused, looked back. Their eyes met again and the heat he saw in hers almost made him groan.
Still, she turned and fled. Gage quickened his pace. There was no need to run. He was faster than she was and he knew she couldn’t escape him, not out here. The garden was walled; there was no way out.
He knew, too, that she didn’t really want to escape him.
It had been there, in her eyes. The need. The urgency. The hot wanting that pulsed through her body just as it pulsed through his.
And there she was, at last. She stood in the rear of the garden, where the darkness had gathered, where the leafy branches of the trees blocked out all but the faintest hint of moonlight.
Gage stopped, inches from her.
Her eyes were wide, her lips were parted. She was breathing hard, and her breasts rose and fell quickly beneath the clinging black dress. A strand of hair had slipped free of the pins that held it and trailed down her neck. Her scent, an erotic blend of jasmine and roses mixed with the scent of the sea beyond the garden wall, filled his senses.
He reached out. She drew back.
“Are you afraid of me?” he said softly.
She licked her lips. Nothing in the way she did it was provocative, yet the simple gesture made his body harden like stone.
He came closer, so close that he knew he had only to bend his head if he wanted to brush her mouth with his.
“I won’t hurt you,” he murmured. “Surely you know that.”
“You won’t mean to,” she said. Her voice was low and husky. The sound of it seemed to dance against his skin. “But you will.”
“No.” He said the word fiercely but the hand he reached out was gentle as he tucked the trailing strands of hair behind her ear. “No,” he said again, “I’d never hurt you.”
“You will,” she whispered, “you—”
And then, with a little sob, she was in his arms.
Gage kissed her mouth, her eyes, her temples. He knew he was holding her too closely, that he might be bruising her delicate bones, but he felt like a drowning man clutching a bit of driftwood. If he held on too loosely, she might slip from his grasp; too tightly, and he might overwhelm her.
She solved the problem for him. She moaned, lifted herself to him, dug her hands into his hair and crushed his mouth to hers.
“Babe.” His voice caught and broke; he clasped her face in his hands and kissed her, deep and hard. “Oh, my sweet babe.”
Her hands swept under his jacket, her palms spreading across his chest. She felt the race of his heart, knew it matched the galloping beat of her own.
“Yes,” she said, “oh, yes, please. Please…”
She groaned when he dragged down the straps of her dress. The swell of her breasts above the lacy filigree of her bra shone like fresh cream in the moonlight. She cried out when he buried his face in her neck. Her head fell back; he cupped her breasts, bit lightly at her skin, slipped his hands beneath the bra and touched the eager flesh that awaited him.
Her answering cry tore away whatever thin veneer of civilized behavior that remained to him. He made a sound deep in his throat, drew her further into the darkness, pressed her back against the wall.
She whispered something he couldn’t understand as he thrust his hands up under her skirt. Her hips tilted towards his; he brushed his palm over the scrap of lace that covered her. She was hot, wet enough so he could feel the slickness of her through the lace; she burned like molten lava against his questing fingertips.
He groaned, and ripped the lace away. “Come to me,” he whispered…
“No!”
Her cry rose into the night, sharp and piercing as the gust of wind that had suddenly come from the sea. Gage didn’t hear it. He was lost, blind to everything but the feel of her in his arms, the taste of her on his lips. It had been so long. So long…
“No.” Her hand clamped over his; she twisted her face away from his seeking mouth. “Stop it,” she panted, “Damn you, I said stop!”
The urgency in her voice, the combined anger and fear, snapped him back to reality. He went still, his body numb as he became aware of her struggles. He blinked his eyes, like a man who has gazed too long at the sun, and looked down into her face.
“What?” he said. “What?”
She was trembling and she hated herself for that, hated herself almost as much as she did for having succumbed, for having let herself be caught up in one blind, foolish moment of passion.
“Let go of me,” she whispered.
Let go of her? Let go of her, when she’d just been coming apart like a falling star in his arms?
“Let go,” she said again, and what he heard in her voice now vanquished whatever dream had held him. Reality was her cold voice, her cold eyes…
Her contempt.
The fire inside him died. He stepped back, adjusted his tie, smoothed down his shirt. She fixed her shoulder straps, tugged down her skirt.
“That’s a dangerous game you were playing, lady,” he said, when he could trust himself to speak.
Her eyes flashed. “You were the one playing games, not me.”
“Dancing a man to the edge and then telling him to behave himself might win you applause in some quarters, babe, but sooner or later, you’re liable to do that to a man who doesn’t give a damn about the rules.”
She wrapped her arms around herself. It was hot out here in the garden, but the wind carried a chill in its teeth, or maybe the chill was inside her; it was impossible to tell and she didn’t much care. All that mattered was how close, how dangerously close, she’d come to falling into the trap again.
“I suppose you think I was the one who stalked you.”
“Stalked?”
She heard the growl in his voice, knew he was angry, but so what? She was angry, too, dammit, angry and hurt.
“Stalked,” she said. “Followed me, even though I made it perfectly clear I was trying to get away from you.”
Gage gave a bark of laughter. “Give me a break! You wanted me to come after you. I saw the way you looked at me. I understood what it meant.”
“It’s just a good thing you finally figured out what ‘no’ meant. Otherwise—”
“Otherwise, what?” A slow smile crept across his mouth. He reached out, traced a finger over her parted lips. “Be honest, baby. If I’d ignored that ‘no,’ I’d be inside you right now and you’d be—”
The crack of her hand against his cheek echoed through the silence of the night.
“You no good bastard!”
Her voice trembled. She despised herself for it, for the weakness that had sent her into his arms…and for the knowledge that he was right. For all those reasons and a thousand more, Natalie Baron lifted her chin, met her husband’s angry glare and spoke the words she’d once never imagined herself saying, the words she’d bitten back over the last endless months.
“Gage,” she said, “I want a divorce.”
CHAPTER TWO
THE sound of a lawnmower woke Natalie from a fitful sleep.
She blinked her eyes open, then shut them against the bright sunlight that poured into the room. That was a surprise. Hadn’t Gage remembered to close the blinds before he’d come to bed? It was something he always did, for her. The light didn’t bother him but she…
“Oh, God.”
Natalie’s whisper rose into the still morning air. Of course Gage hadn’t closed the blinds. This wasn’t their bedroom, this was the guest room. She and Gage hadn’t shared a bed last night.
Her throat constricted.
For the first time since the night they’d eloped, she and her husband had slept apart.
Well, no. Not exactly. Slowly, she sat up and swung her feet to the carpeted floor. Actually, they’d slept apart lots of times. More and more times, in fact, over the past year and a half. Gage was always off on business trips, exploring new sites for Baron Resorts, talking high finance with bankers from Bangkok to Baltimore, checking out the competition…
Or so he said.
Natalie pushed a fall of dark hair back from her face. She rose and made her way into the attached bathroom, trying to avoid seeing her reflection, but it wasn’t easy. The interior designer who’d “done” the bath had covered the walls with mirrors. Since the room was the size of the first apartment she and Gage had lived in, that meant lots of mirrors. Acres, or so it sometimes seemed. It wasn’t what she would have done—what woman in her right mind really wanted her reflection beaming back at her from every angle, first thing in the morning? But Gage had given the designer carte blanche.
“Everything subject to my wife’s approval, of course,” he’d said, standing there with his arm around Natalie’s shoulder.
“Of course, Mr. Baron,” the designer had replied, casting a fawning smile in her direction.
“Just don’t bother her with details,” Gage had added, with a just-between-us-guys grin. “My wife has enough to do without worrying about chips of paint.” He’d beamed down at her. “The country club tennis tournament, her charities…isn’t that right, darling?”
“Absolutely,” Natalie had answered. What else could she have said, with her husband and a complete stranger beaming at her as if she were some clever new wind-up doll?
Natalie brushed her teeth, rinsed her mouth, and winced when she looked up and saw a universe of Natalies watching her.
