Rivals (15 page)

Then she lifted her gaze to the clump of cypress ahead of them, their gnarled trunks gracefully bowed by the wind. At the base of the nearest one stood a man in a tan windbreaker, smoking a cigarette and…watching them. She was sure of it. Abruptly he dropped the cigarette, briefly stepped on it, then swung away and started walking in the same direction they were going. But when he'd turned, his hawklike profile had been clearly outlined.

It was the waiter with the brown shoes, the same man who'd delivered that message of warning last night. Stunned, Flame faltered slightly, breaking the ambling rhythm of their steps and throwing Chance offstride as well.

“Careful.” His arms tightened in support as if he thought she had stumbled over something. She felt his glance move to her and quickly tried to eliminate the look of shock from her expression. But obviously not quickly enough. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

“No.” She couldn't very well tell him that some man had followed them all the way to Carmel—especially if, as she suspected, it turned out to be Malcom who was paying this man to tail her.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.” She gave him a wide smile. But she wasn't sure he believed her.

10

I
n
the dimly lit lounge, a small combo played a dreamy ballad, all soft and bluesy with longing. A handful of couples moved slowly around the handkerchief-sized dance floor frequently described as intimate. Flame fully agreed with the description as she danced with Chance, not a breath of space between them, their feet moving indifferently to the rhythm, their heads bent together, with Chance now and then turning his mouth against her temple or cheek in discreet caresses.

Idly, she ran her fingers along the corded muscles at the back of his neck, letting them glide into the clipped ends of his black hair. There was a wonderful forgetfulness in his arms that allowed her to block out the memory of the dark green sedan that followed them back from Carmel three cars behind—and the memory of the same car parked at the corner when Chance had picked her up. None of that had any place here, not with his arms around her and the dreaminess of the music drifting through her.

As his mouth lightly rubbed against her forehead, Flame smiled. “Walks along the beach, candlelit dinners for two, orchids by the jungleful, soft music, soft lights, and cheek-to-cheek dancing—I have the feeling that I'm being very thoroughly romanced,” she whispered, and felt his mouth curving into a smile.

“It couldn't possibly be because you are,” he murmured dryly, the huskily low pitch of his voice as caressing as the hand on her back.

“Then you admit it?”

“When subtlety fails, bold moves are required.”

“And you know how to move boldly, don't you?” The teasing lightness of her voice was simply a part of the verbal game they played—a way of masking the mounting tension, a tension that was both exciting and stimulating. “I do believe you're trying to take advantage of me, Mr. Stuart.”

“Wrong.” His head moved faintly in denial. “I'm trying to persuade you to take advantage of me.” Drawing back to watch her reaction, Chance studied the strong, pure lines of her face, knowing how the mere sight of her moved him, a feeling intensified by the softly rounded shape of her body pressed so easily against him.

For the first time, he saw no wary hesitation shadowing the green of her eyes. They looked back at him bright and clear, shining with a promise that nearly broke through his restraint. He managed to check the impulses that pushed at him, and obeyed, instead, the instincts that had warned him from the beginning that this wasn't a woman who could be forced into giving or swayed by lavish compliments and passion-filled kisses.

He was a man of the land. He always had been. And land taught a man patience, a virtue necessary to give something the time it needed to grow and ripen. Not even buildings sprung up overnight.

“That's an intriguing thought,” she murmured softly and his glance fell immediately to her lips, faintly parted. Today, at the beach, he had come close to tasting the fullness of their response. And Chance knew that he'd never be satisfied with anything less than all of it. “Taking advantage of
the
Chance Stuart.”

“Interested?” He raised their linked fingers and lightly rubbed his mouth over hers.

She watched him, a half smile forming as if secretly amused by some thought that had just occurred to her. “There's this little voice inside my head that keeps saying, ‘Take a chance.'”

“I like that voice. Maybe you can persuade it to speak a little louder.”

“I don't need to. I want to take a chance.” She raised her head to him, her upturned lips seeking his mouth.

He had barely tasted the honeyed gloss of her lips when the band stopped playing and a scattering of faint applause broke around them. Chance pulled back slightly, breaking the contact but not letting her go. “Why don't we continue this at a place that's less crowded and infinitely more private than here? Like my suite.”

“I think that's an excellent idea.”

Chance unlocked the door to his suite, then stepped back to let Flame precede him. Without hesitation, she walked by him and wandered into the sitting room, then paused and turned back to him with a model's grace, the tiered flounces on the skirt of her slim black silk dress briefly flaring out. The collar of her fur jacket was high around her throat, the sooty black of it contrasting sharply with the copper-gold of her hair.

Deliberately she looked around the room, then brought her glance back to him, something playful about the soft line of her mouth. “I thought I might find a room full of orchids waiting for me again. Or, at the very least, peach champagne on ice.”

He went to her, a smoothness inside him that wouldn't last any longer than it took to touch her. “We don't need those props, Flame,” he said, his hands gliding along her jaw and into the hair behind her ears. “Not when we have this.”

He kissed her with a long, slow warmth that gradually took possession of both of them. For him, he knew there could be no orchid half as fragrant as the perfumed scent of her hair, and no wine half as intoxicating as the taste of her on his tongue.

This time there was no hesitation, no testing to see if the ground could support what was being built. Instead it was a meeting of two forces, each strong in its own right, and in the silent probing of the other's strength, uncovering feelings that didn't require passion to achieve intimacy.

As she leaned into his kiss, Chance felt the heaviness of her body settle against him, the thickness of the fur preventing him from feeling the womanly shape of her. Reluctantly he straightened, his hands sliding down to slip the jacket from her. He gave it a toss onto the closest chair, his gaze never leaving her face, all the while highly conscious of the nameless feelings that surged through him, powerfully aroused yet oddly tender, too.

For an instant, he searched for something to say, but all of it had been said before—in some other hotel room, to some other woman. He didn't want to use those same words with Flame. There was a flicker of surprise at the realization that he wanted it to be different with her.

But there was a pattern to things that couldn't be changed, and he recognized that, too, as he picked her up, cradling her in his arms, and carried her into the bedroom. There, he set her down and kissed her again, rediscovering the earthly and stimulating pressure of her lips.

When he pulled back to loosen his tie, she held his gaze with an eloquent ease and raised her hands, reaching behind her neck to unfasten the top hook of her dress. Leaving his tie half undone, Chance turned her around and slowly slid the zipper all the way down to the base of her spine, watching with interest the back of her dress separate and reveal the creamy white of her skin and the lacy black of her teddy. He slid the dress off her shoulders and down her arms, stimulated by the silken texture of her skin. As he bent to nibble at the white bareness of a wide, straight shoulder, the dress fell the rest of the way to the floor in a rustling whisper.

While his fingers edged the thin straps of her teddy off her shoulder, his mouth followed its ridge to the base of her neck. Her head was thrown back and to the side, allowing him to explore at length the rapidly pulsing vein in her neck. He was conscious of the disturbing, shallow breaths she took, and the faint tremors she tried to contain. He wanted more, so much more.

He turned her into his arms and found himself confronted with the rest of the racy nothingness of her teddy. “Black lace,” he murmured, gazing at the wispy pattern of dark threads that so thinly veiled the slow but agitatied rise and fall of her breasts.

“You said black lace on a woman did things to a man's blood.” There was a disturbed edge to her voice that reached out to him. “And I wanted to affect you that way.”

“You do.” His own voice vibrated from some place deep inside him.

With infinite care, he dispensed with the fragile garment, prolonging the moment to heighten the anticipation for both of them. Anticipation became realization as she stood naked before him, pooled in the light coming from the doorway to the sitting room. For a moment it was enough just to gaze at the picture she made, her lips faintly parted, her eyes on him, the light shining on the rounded contours of her body and shadowing its hollows. Then he had to touch and prove that this statuesque figure was real.

He started at her neck, his fingertips gliding down the slender arc of her throat to the hollow at the base of it. Separating, his hands moved along twin paths to the jutting roundness of her breasts, their fullness a wondrous and lusty surprise to him as they spilled over the cup of his hands. He felt her breathe in sharply, deeply, then hold it, her lashes fluttering down. He rubbed his thumbs over the erect points of her nipples, drawing a tremor from her, followed by a sound that fell half way between a sigh and a moan, a purring quality to it that matched the way she arched her body toward him. He let his hands trail lower, onto the flatness of her stomach, muscles contracting inwardly at his touch. Then he spread them over the cradling protrusion of her pelvic bones and around, onto the firm cheeks of her bare bottom, and drew her to him.

There was no more doubt now. She was very real, the outline of her rounded breasts pressed firmly to his chest, the sensation of them penetrating through his clothes. She was all heated flesh moving under his hands as she came to him, her lips seeking his and breathing their drugging sweetness into his mouth. He gathered her in, briefly giving way to the pressures inside. Her lips parted under the stroke of his tongue, her own mating with his, hot and soft, tasting of wine and some other intoxicating flavor uniquely her own. At last, he set her away from him and his own clothes made a pile on the floor next to her, her admiring eyes watching him all the while, their look heavy-lidded with desire.

As he lifted her for the last time, her arms wound themselves around his neck. There was silence between them, their eyes, their hands, their bodies communicating much more eloquently than mere words could have done. Chance carried her to the bed, the covers already turned invitingly back. The mattress dipped under his weight centered on the point of one knee as he laid her down, then followed after her.

She rolled to him, her slim hand gliding across his bare chest, and running its fingers through the curling hairs, then sliding up to the back of his neck. The pull of her parted lips brought his mouth down to them, open and hot, eating at him with need.

He slid a leg between her thighs and instantly felt her push against it as he cupped a breast in his hand and played with its nipple, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger and marveling at its high erectness. Shifting his attention from her lips, he explored the perfumed hollow behind her ear. Taking her delicate lobe between his teeth, he nipped at it gently, then nibbled his way down the long cord in her neck. She was all motion against him, her hands running over his shoulders, neck and back, her body straining toward him, her hips arching in a rubbing rhythm until he was surrounded by heat, pressure pushing at him from inside as well as out.

With the thigh he had wedged between her legs, he lifted her higher in the bed, bringing her luscious breasts within easy range. Her fingers tangled with his hair, digging and flexing as his mouth moved from the hollow of her throat to a tautly erect nipple and traced its round tip with his tongue. Her back arched, her body urging him to take all of it, but he needed no such coercion as he drew it in. Aroused by the deep-throated sounds that came from her and the quickened rate of her breathing, Chance let his hand move lower, abandoning its fondling of her other breast to wander over the flatness of her stomach, pausing to investigate her navel then finally sliding into the silken nest of auburn-gold hair pressed so tightly against his thigh.

He wanted her. God, how he wanted her—right now—this minute. He almost let himself be swept away by the force of that need, then finally controlled it. This was their first time together and he wanted it to be theirs, together. He didn't question the why of it—not now—and concentrated instead on prolonging the pleasure for both of them and reveling in the taste, the touch, the smell, the sound—the sight of her in his bed.

When the pressure became an agony neither could endure, he shifted onto her, his weight briefly pinning her. With no barrier to break, he was absorbed into her and she was all tight and warm around him. He brought his mouth down, slanting it across her lips as he lifted her hands high above her head and linked her fingers with his. The need to hurry fled. This was a moment to be enjoyed to the fullest. He moved slowly, making each thrust long and deep, and feeling the rise of her hips match each stroke.

As the tempo increased, seemingly on it own, there was only sensation—the feel of her tongue licking away the beads of perspiration that had formed on his upper lip, and the rake of her teeth across his shoulder before she bit into his muscle, smothering the moaned cry of his name, the urging press of her hands running over his back and buttocks, and the soft, wild suppleness of her body melded so completely with him. There was an illusion of the world spinning and he wrapped his arms tightly around her, not letting her go anywhere without him.