Everything but the Baby (Harlequin Superromance) (10 page)

“It sounds lovely,” Allison said, her good manners coming to her rescue. She sounded only a trifle stilted.

“Oh, yes. It is.” Janelle's smile was so warm it almost took the edge off the boutique's subzero air-conditioning. “And you'll be just perfect in that dress. It's awesome. You'll be the prettiest woman there!”

Allison demurred, but Janelle insisted. “Absolutely the prettiest!” Then she held out her hand. “I'm Janelle Greenwood,” she said. “If you guys are staying on the island, we might see each other around. I'm here for the summer.”

Mark made their introductions and he knew Allison was just as relieved as he was to see absolutely no sign of recognition on Janelle's face. Lincoln had obviously never mentioned Allison at all.

“It's great to meet you guys. I hope we run into each other again soon.”

Janelle started to turn away, but at the last minute she stopped. “Matt, could I ask a favor? I hate to impose, but I'm trying to choose between two dresses, and I need a male perspective. Would you mind helping?”

“Not at all,” he said sincerely. He would enjoy the heck out of imagining Janelle in some of these skimpy little outfits. She'd fill them out better than Allison ever could.

He turned to Allison. “Why don't you try on the blue one, too, just in case? I'll be right back.”

Allison's smile was tight. “To give me your
male perspective?
”

His antenna hummed, sensing some kind of female danger. That glint in her eyes as she watched Janelle move away from them, through the racks of clothes…

Was it possible she was jealous?

But of what? Of Lincoln's interest in Janelle?

Or of Mark's?

“Exactly,” he said. “My male perspective. Although, honestly, I'm not sure the blue one will be quite right for you. That neckline might require just a little more…”

“Silicone?”

“Actually,” he corrected with a grin, “I was going to say
courage
.”

T
HE DANCE WAS AT NINE
.
At eight-thirty, Mark's cell rang. He saved the document he'd been working on, muted the news, then flipped open the phone.

“Hello?”

“I should have bought the red one.”

He'd been expecting Warren, his right-hand man, to call with the numbers on the bank deal, so it took him a minute to regroup.

The red what?
Oh
. He leaned back in the chair and smiled. It was Allison, of course.

“Nonsense,” he said, trying to remember which dress she'd ultimately decided on. After the ninth or tenth, his mind had begun to glaze over, and he'd had to admit she probably should have brought along a female instead. He simply couldn't focus on the minute details, like whether the pleats made her rear end look too big—of course not—or whether the princess neckline was more flattering than the spaghetti straps.

Luckily, he didn't have to remember which one she'd bought. He did have a sister, and he'd once had a wife, so he knew what the correct response was.

“The red dress looked great,” he said, “but the one you got looks great, too.”

“It doesn't.” The phone rustled, as if she were wriggling it around between her shoulder and her chin. “I've got it on right now and I look like a hippo. It's way too tight across the bottom.”

“There's no such thing.”

“I'm not kidding, Mark. I can't wear this. I look like a hooker. A hippo hooker. What made me think that Lincoln wanted me to look different, anyhow? I mean, I am who I am. I can't be Janelle Greenwood, no matter how many dresses I buy, and—”

Her steady stream of nervous chatter didn't seem to need any help from him, so while she kept it up he grabbed his card-key, opened the door and wandered down the hall toward her room.

“The color is all wrong for me.” She had barely drawn a breath. “And, besides, trying to look sexy just makes me seem pathetic, like I'm trying to impress him, and I already—”

“Allison.”

“What?”

“Open the door.”

Silence. Then, “What door?”

He sighed patiently. “How many doors do you have?”

“Oh.” He heard the bolt twist, and the door inched open. She stuck her head out. He closed his phone, and, smiling sheepishly, she did the same.

“I didn't realize you were here.”

“I came to be the butt judge. I can't render verdicts
over the telephone. I need to look at the physical evidence.”

She frowned. “I already know what I—”

“You know nothing.” He put his fingertips on the door and applied just enough pressure to let her know he intended to come in. “You have only the female perspective. And an extremely nervous female, at that.”

She sighed. Obviously she knew he was right. She opened the door slowly, her hand across her collarbone, backing behind the door every inch so that she was never exposed to the hallway.

“Okay, let's see,” he said as he let the door fall shut with a click. The radio was on, tuned to some music channel that was playing softly in the background. “Put your hands down and let me look at you.”

He wasn't sure his words were penetrating her nervous haze. She breathed shallowly through glossy red lips and when she blinked, her eyes sparkled with a hint of gold glitter.

“Hands down,” he said again.

Clenching her teeth, she lifted her chin, forcing herself to submit to his inspection.

He had intended to play it out, sternly judicial. But it was hard to pull off, especially when his mouth decided to fall open and hang there like a blowfish.

The best he could do was shake his head, speechless.

“Wow,” he managed. And then again. “Wow.”

Had he seen this dress at the store? She must have tried it on after his brain went numb. How could he have forgotten something so absolutely amazing?

He didn't know fashion terms—he had no idea if the
straps were spaghetti or linguini or what. He just knew they sparkled, like tiny strings of yellow sunshine, and they made him want to bend down and kiss her bare shoulders.

Technically, it wasn't as revealing as the red dress—you saw only a hint of cleavage, just enough to qualify as torture. But the fabric clung like magic, outlining her high, rounded breasts and the narrow valley between. Wherever she curved, she caught the light. She looked wet and shimmery, as if she'd been freshly painted with melted gold.

She gnawed at her lower lip. “Does that mean you like it?”

His heartbeat was finally normalizing. “Yeah. I like it.”

“But what about the back?” She swiveled so that he could get a look. She tried to see, too, twisting her head over her left shoulder and cocking her hip to one side.

He groaned under his breath, and his whole body thrummed with appreciation. That was the most gorgeous ass he'd ever seen in his life.

“Hmm,” he said. “I see what you mean. The back is definitely a problem.”

She clicked her teeth. “I knew it! I look like a—”

“It's a problem because, in that dress, your ass is so sexy that every man there is going to have to grope it. You'll be black and blue by the time you get home.”

She hesitated, half smiling, half frowning, as if she couldn't decide whether he might be joking. She flattened the palms of her hands self-consciously over her backside. “Don't tease me, Mark.”

“On the contrary,” he said. “Tonight, in that dress, you're the one doing the teasing. You're going to drive every man in the place completely mad.”

Her eyes widened, a hopeful gleam appearing. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.” He took two steps toward her. He couldn't help himself. He put one hand on either side of her waist. He knew that his palms were hot. “Starting, I'm afraid, with me.”

She looked up at him, her green eyes shining. She was panting, just a little, her breath small wafts of sweet cherry-flavored toothpaste. Her breasts rose and fell softly, and the golden gleam undulated over them, like a subtly pulsing signal….inviting him to touch.

Somehow, in a miracle of self-control, he stopped himself from doing so. He kept his hands where they were.

“You could always come to the dance yourself,” she said. “Keep an eye on things, like you did at the restaurant the other day.”

He shook his head. “I went to The Boathouse because I wanted to see the two of you together. To be honest, I still doubted whether you could pull it off. I wanted to decide what the odds were that Lincoln would take the bait.”

“And now?”

“And now I haven't got any doubts. Tonight, the odds that any man could resist you are a million to one.”

She took a deep breath. “I wish I were that sure.”

It wasn't an act. She really was nervous about some
thing. Her shoulders were high and rigid, and he could feel the tension in her hips.

“Relax,” he said. “You're going dancing, remember? Not to the guillotine. You look fabulous. Now you just need to learn how to enjoy it.”

She shook her head. “I'm not sure I can. I feel so—”

“Try.” He tightened his hands and rocked her pelvis slightly, a slow rotation in a hint of a figure eight. In the background the music provided a soundtrack. “Dance.”

She didn't overtly resist, but her motion was stiff, like a lever that needed oiling.

“It's easy,” he said. “Let all your muscles go limp. Let your body get comfortable with itself.”

“I've never been very—”

“Shh.” He kept working, moving her gently, until her body accepted his instruction. “Shut your eyes. Let your head fall back. Listen to the music. Don't think about anything but how good it feels to use your body.”

She frowned, but after a second or two her eyes drifted shut, revealing the carefully applied dusting of sparkling shadow, the thick fringe of black lashes. After a few more seconds, her neck finally went limp, and she let her head drop to one side.

Her auburn curls slid back, exposing her shoulder and its thin band of sequined sunshine. He couldn't resist. He lowered his head and touched his lips to the satin skin that covered the delicate bone at the tip of her shoulder.

Though he'd been afraid he might break the spell, she didn't pull away. She didn't even open her eyes. She
murmured a wordless sound, and then, abruptly, he knew she had begun to feel it. He still held her waist, but the rotation finally was emanating from the inside.

“That's right,” he said. She was finding the rhythm. “Nice. It feels good, doesn't it?”

Her lips curved, that small smile his only answer. It was as if, on some level, she was no longer aware of him.

His body burned as he watched her. It was almost more than he could stand. He had to back up a step, so that she wouldn't discover how completely turned on he was. Suddenly he was acutely aware that this was a bedroom. The king-size expanse of sexual possiblity seemed bathed in a spotlight.

He wondered if making love to her right here, right now, would be such a terrible sin. They were both single, both adults. Both aroused and ready.

But then her cell phone rang. She opened her eyes and stared at him, blinking. Then she looked down at his hands.

He let them drop.

“Good,” he said. “Much better.”

Behind her, the phone still rang, but she hadn't taken her eyes off him. Her lips were soft, slightly parted. “Is it?”

“Absolutely.” He smiled with a false heartiness. “See? I knew you had a hot-bodied heartbreaker under that ice-princess facade. I promise you, Allison. Janelle Greenwood isn't even going to cross Lincoln's mind tonight.”

Finally, she smiled, too. His strategy had worked…
perhaps too well. She seemed ten times as confident as when he'd first entered the room. Her cheeks were pink, but notched with mischievous dimples, which he'd never noticed before.

“Thanks,” she said as she moved toward the bed and picked up her phone. She raised one eyebrow. “But if I jump into bed with him and sign over my fortune in a hot-bodied sexual haze, I hope you'll remember that it's all your fault.”

Oh, yes, he'd remember, Mark thought as he watched her press the answer key and speak Lincoln's name.

He had a feeling that the sight of those hips, moving to a sensual rhythm he had mapped out for her with his bare hands, was something he would never forget.

 

D
ANIEL NEARLY DROPPED
the last stack of dishes he carried to the kitchen, but somehow, with a little step he'd learned in tennis drills, he kept his balance.

“Nice footwork, O'Hara.” The Mangrove's chef was a skinny, good-natured guy named Boris. Daniel liked him. “Hey, I've got some picks for your sister. These fell on the floor, and I'd have to throw them away, so…”

“Thanks, man.” Daniel didn't understand why Flannery loved these campy plastic hors d'oeuvres sticks that The Mangrove used at parties, but she did, so he tried to bring some home when he could. Every event had a different theme—so far, he'd managed to get her umbrellas, sombreros, dice, guitars, flamingos, flowers, seashells and clowns.

Once Boris caught on that Daniel was grabbing the
unused ones, saving them just before they hit the trash, he'd begun to set some aside. It was a little thing, but it was damned nice and Daniel appreciated it.

Tonight's theme was Moonlight and Music, so these picks were topped with little G-clefs. Nothing special, but it wasn't a duplicate, so Fannie would be pleased. She was a pest sometimes, and you could hardly get her to shut up, but she wasn't all bad.

She was the one person in the family who had actually seemed to feel sorry for him when the flap had hit the fan last winter.

“So how's it going out there? Things winding down?” Boris looked at the plates, which were being handled by the dishwasher, a weird guy named Andy who never talked to anybody. “I hear somebody from your family showed up. A cousin or something. Andy says she's hot.”

Daniel glanced at Andy, not believing it. Andy never crossed to the public side. Besides, he was too bizarre and asexual to notice any woman. “Yeah, my cousin Allison's here.” He shrugged. “I guess she's all right.”

But that wasn't quite honest. Daniel had been surprised to see Allison here at all, and he'd been downright shocked to see her all blinged out in a gold dress, with dangly, yellow stone earrings hanging nearly to her shoulders. He didn't know her very well, but he had gotten the impression she was kind of…not quite stuffy but practical and matter-of-fact.

Tonight, she looked awesome. Really sexy.

A lot of the women on this island spent their lives trying to get guys hot and bothered, lounging around in
bikinis that just barely covered the business spots and batting their tarantula lashes at everybody while they sucked on cocktail cherries with their big red lips.

Allison wasn't one of those, thank God. That would be embarrassing. But tonight she sure didn't look
practical,
either. Daniel was curious about what caused the transformation, not that he cared really, not that way. She was his cousin, after all.

But then he saw her date, and he did a double take.

She was with Lincoln Gray?

That was weird. Was it good or bad? Daniel had gone back and forth all night, watching them while he worked, trying to decide how he really felt about it. They looked pretty chummy. They danced so close that, if this had been his high school, a chaperone would have marched over and broken them up.

So what did all this mean for Daniel? If Janelle, who was out of town for a couple of days, knew that Lincoln was slow-dancing and neck-nuzzling some other woman, she'd be upset, and Daniel didn't like to think of that. On the other hand, if Lincoln had moved on, Janelle might need a shoulder to cry on.

“O'Hara!” Without warning, the general manager of the hotel shoved through the kitchen's swinging doors, bellowing as he came into sight. “O'Hara! You in here?”