Deceptive Love (14 page)

Keri was afraid that she was soon going to find out just what it was! She was also pretty sure that she was going to wish that she
hadn't
found out by the time he got finished!

"Just leave the dishes, Dain. I'll do them with the breakfast dishes in the morning," Keri called into the kitchen. She really planned to do them as soon as he was gone, but she didn't fancy a cozy domestic scene where she washed and he dried in the close confines of her small kitchen. The nearer Dain got, the more dangerous he was to her peace of mind. She could still taste that kiss he had given her in his office.

Dain appeared in the kitchen door. "I am reasonably domesticated," he offered mildly, but there was a glint in his eye she disliked exceedingly. It was the same look the spider might have worn when he said the oft-quoted lines, "Come into my parlor ..."

She shook her head decisively, and said, "No, Dain." She put a lot of feeling and emphasis into that no, but when Dain smiled she knew that even if he had gotten the deeper message he wasn't going to be a man who took no for an answer.

He walked toward her. She sat rigidly in her chair, her eyes fixed on his. He didn't stop until he was directly in front of her, which meant her neck was stretched upward at an uncomfortable angle, but she couldn't seem to wrest her gaze away from his. His hand came slowly up from his side, almost unwillingly, and he ran the tips of his fingers lightly but firmly from the angle of her jaw beneath her left ear down the taut line of her neck to her shoulder.

Time's progress and her ability to breathe seemed to have ceased. His hand slid slowly, carefully, around to the back of her neck, beneath the heavy weight of her hair, and exerted a gentle but remorseless pull to bring her to her feet. When she was standing, no more than inches separated the lengths of their bodies from full and intimate contact. She could feel his nearness with the invisible sensors of her whole skin, but she could see only the compelling green of his eyes, could trace the starlike paths of lighter color raying out from the dark wells of his pupils.

"I have time now, Keri," he said deeply, his voice rising in a husky rumble from the depths of the broad chest she somehow, naturally and inescapably, swayed against.

I shouldn't... I can't
...
she thought incoherently, but she was going to.

He had time, and he took it. This was a kiss of infinite duration, slow, seductive, and thorough. The taste of his mouth was excitingly familiar as was the soft rasp of his tongue against her own in a duel of exploration.

Keri felt all her resolutions buckle, as well as her knees, but it didn't seem to matter because Dain was supporting her, his arms a living, heated bar around her waist and shoulders. When his mouth finally, reluctantly, left her own and time took up a march in tune to the heavy race of her heartbeat, Keri could only sag weakly against the support of his hard body.

"I didn't mean to do that," Dain murmured softly into her hair. Keri had been concentrating on the heavy throb of the heart pulsing in the chest next to her ear, but the sound wasn't loud enough to drown out those rueful words. Her knees stiffened and so did her spine and her arms. She shoved against him, hard. He staggered back a step or two—she didn't accomplish much because he took her with him.

Since brute force hadn't worked, she tried words next. "Since you wish you hadn't done it, perhaps you'll be good enough to release me now.' she requested in her most quelling tones,

"I didn't say I wished I hadn't done it," he corrected her mildly. "I said I hadn't meant to do it." He released her and smiled a tiger's smile. "At least not just yet. I want to talk to you." The smile died away and an echo of the grim expression he had been wearing when she opened the door to her apartment firmed the lines of his face. He looked stern and determined and in no mood for argument.

She was still tempted to give him one. After all, this was her apartment and she'd fed him and been perfectly civil
...
well, perhaps not
perfectly
civil, but still... It was just prolonging the inevitable, she recognized. He wouldn't go until he'd had his say and she was suddenly very tired.

"All right, Dain. Say what you must, and then go. It's been a long, tiring day." She was afraid to add the concomitant
and I’d like to go to bed.
He had shown himself distractible and she didn't plan to distract him right into her bedroom!

They sat down on the couch and Keri tucked her feet up beneath the full skirt of her dress. Dain didn't try to crowd her—he sat a cushion's width away—but his arm lay along the back of the couch, his hand just a touch away from her shoulder. She was uncomfortably conscious of the nearness of that hand.

"You said you'd had a long day," he said obliquely. "Would you like to tell me what made it longer than usual? When I cametack to the office to collect some files and you at five past five, you were gone. I had to draft Mrs. Covey to take notes and her shorthand is
slow.
Are you going to turn into a clockwatcher?"

Keri was cautious. His words were superficially jesting,
but the tone was probing and serious. She said carefully, "My normal hours are from 8:30 to 5:00. I hadn't been notified that you would want me to work overtime to-
night"

Dain dropped the indirect approach. "Elise Barth will get her notice tomorrow." Keri risked a sideways glance at Dain. He wasn't looking at her just then, but rather staring across the room into space. His face was set in.

"You . . . you've heard something," Keri forced through dry lips.

"Heard something? Heard something! I've heard sly snickers and veiled innuendos and Barkley even jabbed me in the ribs with his elbow."

It really wasn't fanny. Dain was furious and the situation could prove explosive. She wasn't sure just how to defuse it, but she had to try.

"How did you connect Elise with. She gestured expressively, unable to put the whole wretched situation into words.

"It wasn't hard," he replied grimly. "I'm not blind, you know. I knew she fancied me, but I didn't fancy her." Keri sucked in breath at this masculine arrogance and gave Dain a look of pure dislike. It was wasted because he wasn't looking at her. "I knew she wasn't going to take kindly to your . . . ah . . . transformation, but I thought she'd have more sense of self-preservation." He looked at her directly. "And don't quote the old saw about the
ment.
All that I asked of her was that she be a competent secretary and keep her personal feelings to herself. What

I do in my private life is no concern of hers. She meddled and she hurt you, so she has to go."

"But how did you hear?" Keri pursued.

"Barkley's secretary is evidently a crony of Miss Barth's and she passed on some choice tidbits of fallacious reasoning brewed up by my ex-secretary. Barkley was in turn merely congratulating me on my good fortune." Dain's voice was heavy with irony.

Keri wasn't listening to the irony. She was nearly beside herself with rage. She hated Dain and she hated Mr. Bark- ley and she hated the whole smug masculine assumption that, were she attractive enough, a secretary cum mistress could be considered one of the perks of an executive's job! At least Schyler had offered her marriage!

It nearly choked her, but she knew what she had to say. "You aren't going to fire Elise. If you fire her you'll only add fuel to the speculation. If everything remains the same, the gossip will die away quickly and I've already taken steps to make sure it'll go no further."

It
would
be too much to expect that he would just accept her word on the matter and not pursue it further. After
all,
she
was the injured party. Dain had started to object when a thought seemed to occur to him.

"What steps?" he questioned with evidence of great interest.

Keri wasn't going to repeat any of those conversations verbatim. "Never mind," she said hastily. "I spoke to Elise and one of her friends. I can assure you that the story
will
go no further and Elise will do all in her power to repair the damage. If you fire her, you'll lend veracity to her gossip, so just leave it alone. I promise that Elise's daws have been cut."

A belated thought struck Dain. "Elise doesn't have the
flu, does she?" He pursed his lips in a silent whistle. "You must have gotten finished with her just before I came in.

She looked wiped out." He came to a decision. "I think you're right. You won't have any more trouble with her. D'you want to take over her job and put her in with Mrs. Covey? I'd like to have you in the outer office."

Keri stared at him in disbelief. He was offering her a choice instead of merely saying "Thus it shall be." Elise's collapse must really have impressed him. It didn't make any difference. She didn't want to be in the outer office, whatever Dain might want. Elise was welcome to be front woman.

For the duration of her stay, and the probable duration grew shorter with each passing day, Keri was determined to maintain a low profile. Keri was going to have another talk with Charles in the near future. With his contacts in the State Department she could have her choice of embassies or legations anywhere in the world, and any part of the world except the Washington, D.C., area looked mighty good to her tonight. And she wouldn't go as a secretary. She'd arrange to take her Foreign Service rating exams and once she left RanCo, she'd make sure she was on the other side of the desk from now on! It had taken a long time for the lesson to sink in, but it was well rooted at last.

Dain was waiting for her answer. "No, thank you," Keri declined politely. "I don't think it would be a good idea to make any changes in the office hierarchy at this.

He snorted. "So you prefer to run my office from behind the scenes, do you? Well, all right. Just keep Elise in line. It won't be for too long anyway." She looked at him suspiciously, but his face was now
relaxed and bland. She hugged her own secret plans and agreed. "No, it won't be for long." Let him read what he would into that simple statement.

He didn't seem to like what he read. With a decisive movement he came closer to her on the couch, catching the back of her neck in a gentle but inexorable grip to prevent her escape. His fingers again wove their way into her thick hair and gently pulled, tilting her face up so that she was forced to look directly at him.

"Somehow," he mused, "I don't think we mean the same thing when we say, It won't be for long.' You wouldn't be planning to seek other employment in the near future, would you? And perhaps disappear from the area, leaving no forwarding address, hmm, my sweet?"

Keri tried to keep a look of blank incomprehension pasted over her face, but she didn't think she was succeeding. She was feeling the magnetic pull of Dain's attraction too strongly. She wished he'd go home!

"You seem to have a habit of skipping out, Keri, darling," he stated insistently and persuasively. "You wouldn't be thinking of becoming some other man's secretary, now would you?"

His fingers were now stroking firmly up and down the back of her neck. It should have relaxed the tense muscles back there, but the touch of his hard fingers was having the opposite effect. She had to brace herself against responding to the warm seduction of his expert massage. "No, Dain, I don't plan to become another man's secretary," she managed to say in slightly breathless tones.

"Now why don't I feel satisfied with that answer?" he spoke his thoughts aloud. "I think because it leaves so much unpromised, Keri," he concluded. "You wouldn't care to expand on the scope of your promise, would you?" It was practically a royal command.

Keri braced herself. "No." She refused bluntly. She hated to give so much away, but she wouldn't lie to him, nor would she make any promises she didn't intend to keep.

"Ah-ha." He didn't seem surprised. "Charles, I presume. Have you spoken to him yet? Or hasn't there been time?" Still that hand stroked gently up and down her neck.

"There hasn't been time," she admitted grudgingly. She wanted to tell him it was time for him to go home, but she didn't quite dare. A strange tension was rising between them, coiling and tightening with each exchange of words. She was afraid that one wrong word would spark a reaction from Dain which she couldn't, or wouldn't, handle.

"Any particular country in mind or are you just going to take pot luck?" Now there was a sharp bite to his question and the hand had stopped stroking gently. His hand moved down across the top line of her shoulder, exploring the bare expanse of skin before it journeyed to clasp the point of her shoulder.

Suddenly she realized that he was sitting right next to her, his thigh pressed warmly (and warningly?) against her own. She wasn't exactly sure how this had come about I —she hadn't noticed his further encroachment—but here
¹
he definitely was.

"I haven't got any country in mind," she protested a bit feebly. "I just thought that . . ."

She wasn't allowed to get another word out. "Don't think, Keri," Dain ordered. "It'll just get you into trouble." And his mouth swooped down to close off further words and thought.

When she surfaced for the first time it was to the realization that his kisses became even more devastating with increased exposure. Familiarity bred a desire for more familiarity. She sank beneath the onslaught of his expert seduction for a second time.