Lady Love (8 page)

She paused in the doorway to the living room. Cameron spotted her instantly and stopped dead in the middle of the dance floor with Delle in his arms.

Merlyn nodded at them and continued to the buffet table where Lila was busily filling a plate.

“Darling!” she said as Merlyn came up beside her. “That gown! Tracy Mills, isn’t it?”

Merlyn laughed softly. “Yes. Sharp eyes.”

“Even if they are old,” Lila murmured. “What a knockout you are. And so poised. Merlyn, you’re deceiving us or I’m a has-been.”

“Deceiving you?” She was breathless.

“You’re not what you appear to be,” the older woman clarified. Her sharp eyes narrowed.

“The gown is borrowed,” Merlyn whispered, pretending for all she was worth. “I have a friend with clout, if you know what I mean.”

Lila glanced sideways toward the band.

“Exactly.” Merlyn grinned. “He has a sister just my size,” she confided. Well, it was sort of the truth. Except that Dick’s sister was still in high school and wore a size 18 dress.

“Oh,” Lila said and smiled. “Well, you look lovely.”

Cameron and Delle joined them. “My, my, what a pretty dress,” Delle said, staring at it.

“Thank you,” Merlyn said graciously.

“And the pearls—they look so real! Isn’t it amazing what they can do with costume jewelry these days,” Delle continued, not even meaning to be malicious.

Merlyn lifted an eyebrow and smiled. “Yes, isn’t it?” she replied, looking pointedly at Delle’s gaudy sapphire necklace. “Paste?”

Delle flushed wildly. “Well…I mean, you do realize that the original is quite too expensive to wear in public!”

“Oh, I’m sure it is,” Merlyn said with a cool smile. “By the way, dear, these pearls are quite real. They’ve been in my family for three generations, and if you’ll take a close look, you’ll see that they’re perfectly matched.”

Delle looked flustered. Merlyn was amazed at her own temerity. Usually she just let snobs be snobs, but the girl had hit a nerve. There was no real reason for her to dislike Delle, but she did. She disliked her almost as much as she felt sorry for her.

“Would you like to dance, Miss Forrest?” Cameron asked with a cold smile. He took her hand before she could protest and nodded at a stunned Delle as he pulled Merlyn onto the dance floor.

“You’re pushing your luck,” he said bluntly, glaring down at her. “Stop chewing on Delle, or I’ll try my teeth on you.”

“How protective, Mr. Thorpe,” she drawled sweetly. “Lucky Delle.”

“Those pearls
are
real, aren’t they?” he asked, staring at them. “Were they really your grandmother’s?”

“Yes, they were. The one good piece of jewelry I possess, and I dislike having them laughed at by little girls with no manners,” she said curtly.

His eyebrow went up. “Such hauteur for a working girl,” he murmured.

“Even working girls have pride, Mr. Thorpe,” she returned, her eyes glittering at him.

He pulled her closer, bringing her breasts against the front of his dark jacket. He glanced down, peeking past the satin to the warm, white slopes of her breasts. “What an enchanting gown,” he murmured. “Just made to tempt a man’s eyes. Is that why you chose it?”

She hadn’t honestly contemplated this complication. She tried to draw back, but he wouldn’t let her.

“Stay where you are,” he said quietly. “You look good enough to eat.”

“Thank you,” she muttered, glaring up at him.

His hand spread out against her bare back, and she felt fire where his hard fingers touched and probed. “Silk,” he murmured. “Silk and satin and velvet. A dangerous combination.”

“Delle is staring at us. And I’m very hungry,” she returned.

“Let Delle stare. You ate lunch.”

“I’m hungry again.”

“A woman of large appetite,” he said, searching her eyes. “I have a large one of my own, Merlyn.”

Her face flamed and her eyes flashed. She stopped dancing. “If you’re going to make crude innuendoes…”

“I’ll reform, if I must,” he murmured dryly, drawing her back into the slow rhythm.

“Poor little thing,” she said, glancing past him to Delle, who looked very young and lost and frightened.

“Who, Delle?” He laughed. “Here comes Mama. She won’t be lost for long.”

Merlyn noticed the older woman entering the room. Mrs. Radner’s sharp blue eyes picked out Cameron, widened when she saw Merlyn, and glittered when they found Delle all alone. She lifted her head like a spirited thoroughbred and made her way to the buffet table.

“She reminds me vaguely of a race horse,” Merlyn said absently. “One with its ears back.”

He chuckled deeply and pulled her hard against him as he executed a graceful turn. “You remind me of a nervous filly,” he said, bending so that his breath brushed her ear. “Your body feels like a board. Why don’t you relax?”

“It would be suicide,” she said without thinking.

“Would it?”

Chapter Five

T
he tone of his voice was like velvet, and it made her feel liquid in his big arms. His hand pressed harder against her back. “Would it, Merlyn?” he repeated softly.

“Yes,” she whispered, peeking up at him through her dark lashes.

She’d expected the coquetry to make him smile, but he didn’t. If anything he looked more formidable than the night they’d met. He held her tight as he whirled her around, and she couldn’t seem to break the hypnotism of his gaze.

“You smell of gardenias,” he said quietly, “and I could get drunk on the feel of your skin. Your name suits you. Merlyn. Magic.”

She felt hot all over. With an effort, she looked away from him. Things were getting out of hand. “Could we stop?” she asked in a high-pitched little voice. “Delle must want to dance with you, she’s glaring at us.”

“Delle can wait,” he murmured.

The waltz ended abruptly, but he didn’t let go, and the band immediately began a lazy, bluesy tune that invited closer contact.

“Please, I don’t want to,” she said softly.

He only shook his head, folding her back into his arms. He moved lightly, gracefully, amid the throng, while Delle and her mother looked daggers at them. There was going to be trouble there, Merlyn thought with resignation.

“Stop worrying,” he said, bending closer. “We’re only dancing.”

But it didn’t feel like only dancing, and his big, warm hand on her bare back was doing the most fascinating things to her pulse rate. She was leaning against his broad chest with no idea of how she got there, and he was holding her close enough that her thighs brushed his when they moved.

Merlyn wasn’t a child. She’d been engaged, and although she hadn’t experienced it herself, she knew how potent a man’s lovemaking could be. But what Cameron Thorpe was doing to her had never happened before, certainly not with Adam. He was making her tremble with every touch of his body. She could feel its warmth all the way up and down her own. She could smell the clean, spicy scent of his skin and sense the growing hunger in him.

It shouldn’t be like this, she told herself. I shouldn’t be reacting to him this way. But even as she began the silent lecture, his hand dropped down to her waist and pressed her closer, and she trembled even more.

He stiffened as he felt it. His hand froze and then pressed urgently. His dark head bent so that his breath was at her ear as the couples dancing around them nudged them even closer.

“You’re potent, Jane Eyre,” he growled in her ear. “Can you feel what you’re doing to me?”

She could and it was embarrassing. She shifted quickly, smoothly, and wouldn’t look at him. “Delle is watching,” she threatened, although she couldn’t see the woman. There was pure panic in her voice, and he recognized it.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he whispered deeply, his voice as dark as his hair, as sensuous as his muscular body close to hers. “Don’t start looking for exits.”

His fingers moved slowly along her spine, exciting, enticing, and she reached around her to try to stop them. It was just the opening he wanted. He caught her wrist and, using it as a lever, arched her body into the contours of his.

Her eyes met his searching gaze, and the people around them vanished. The world narrowed to his dark, broad face and the intense hunger she read in his eyes.

“Your heart is beating like a wild thing,” he whispered huskily. His chest rose and fell heavily.

“Let me go, Cameron,” she whispered back, shaking.

“You make my name sound like a moan,” he breathed, turning suddenly so that she was intimately pressed to him for an instant. “I could make you moan, Merlyn. I know all the tricks, all the ways.”

That was what she was afraid of. She wanted to pull free and run, but he was like a narcotic. Her eyes melted into his, and she wanted nothing more at that moment than a room where they could be alone. She wanted to know the possession of that hard, chiseled mouth.

His nostrils flared as he caught her gazing at his lips, and he seemed to take the thought out of her mind. “I want that, too,” he said in a rough whisper. “Your mouth and mine, tasting, hurting…God, let’s get out of here!”

He stopped dancing with a hard jerk, oblivious to the other couples, and pushed her ahead of him in the general direction of the punch bowl. She felt alive as she never had before in her life. Her mind tried to stop her, but her body wanted him. She went where he guided her, past the punch bowl, through the milling guests and into the hall toward the study. But there were people there, too. He held her hand tightly in his, his eyes flashing wildly, his body looking as taut as her own felt. Finally, his eyes turned to the big hall closet and he tugged her hand.

He opened the door while the hall was temporarily clear and put her inside, turning on the light as he closed the door firmly behind them.

“Now,” he murmured gruffly, reaching for her. He pulled her against him, unfastening his jacket and vest with an impatient hand before he pushed her arms under them, and around his broad chest. “Now, Merlyn,” he whispered. “I’ve gone hungry for you long enough.”

Her lips parted even as his mouth touched them. It was just as she’d imagined it would be. He tasted of brandy and smoke, and his mouth was every bit as hard as it looked. It did wildly sensuous things to hers, teasing and lifting, teasing and brushing, until she ached for completion. His hands smoothed over the bareness of her back above the dress, his fingers caressing.

“Harder,” she whispered huskily, her voice faintly pleading.

His breath drew in sharply. “How hard?” he breathed back, biting her mouth. “Like that?”

“No,” she moaned, stretching on her tiptoes. “No, like this…!”

Her mouth opened, coaxing his, inciting it, and her tongue traced the broad, hard line of his lips in ways she’d never liked with other men. But with him it was sweeter than wine, hotter than fire. Her kiss dragged a moan from his throat, and caused his hands to move low on her hips and grind them into his.

“Oh!” she burst out.

He lifted his head to look down at her. His eyes were blazing, and his jaw was taut and rigid. The eyes he looked into were softer than the velvet of her dress, half-closed, lazy with ardor. “Enough?” he asked mockingly.

She made a soft little movement with her head, and her hands slid around him, to his chest, to the buttons of his shirt. Her eyes opened as they searched his.

“Go ahead,” he said quietly. “Just don’t excite me too much. The closet isn’t the place for what we’re building up to.”

She realized that, of course she did. But they were in a world of their own just for these few minutes, and she was wildly, excitingly curious about him. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons until she had them open halfway down his chest. He didn’t bother with undershirts apparently, and she smiled when she saw the broad expanse of hair-roughened skin.

His chest was rising and falling with his ragged breathing. She slid her fingers under the edges of the shirt and let him go rigid. She touched the hard muscles slowly, caressingly.

He muttered something faintly violent, and all at once his hands went to the back zipper of her dress and slid it down to her waist.

“Cameron…!” she cried in a wild little whisper.

“I have to,” he ground out, bending to her mouth. “Help me,” he whispered against it. “I think I might die if I can’t feel you against me this way!”

His mouth was making a slave of hers, and she was helpless to stop his practiced hands from pulling the dress to her waist. He brought her inside his shirt, groaning when he felt her bare skin uniting with his own, soft pink flesh melting into bronzed muscle.

Her throat ached with the tiny cry she made, and her hands lifted to his thick dark hair, tangling in it, holding her mouth to his as his body rippled against hers. She felt his hands move to her sides, caressing her in slow, bold sweeps that eventually led him to her high, taut breasts. She moved back a little, just enough to let his hands find her, and she moaned harshly at the unfamiliar, unexpected pleasure of letting him explore her so intimately.

He lifted his head to look at her while his thumbs rubbed with maddening leisure against the hard nubs. “You’re exquisite, Merlyn,” he whispered. “Magic and madness and silk to touch. And if there was a lock on this door, I’d have you right here on the floor, you know that, don’t you?”