Rivals (16 page)

Unable to sleep, Flame carefully eased Chance's arm from her and slid noiselessly from the bed. She paused to look back and make sure she hadn't wakened him. In sleep, there was even more strength in his features, a kind of hard pride that was usually masked by a smile. She stared for a moment, remembering again that absolute rawness of emotion, so powerful and so beautiful…much more than excitement, much more than exquisite release.

She turned from the sight of his face and the clean, male lines of hard muscle and flesh. At her feet lay the white of his dress shirt. She hesitated briefly, then picked it up and put it on, smiling at the sleeves that were much longer than her arms. She rolled back the cuffs to her wrists and padded silently into the darkened sitting room, fastening two of the front buttons along the way.

She drifted over to the window and gazed at the night lights of San Francisco that gleamed back at her from the inky darkness. Absently, she turned up the collar of his shirt and buried her face in it, breathing in the heady fragrance of his masculine cologne.

When she'd come to his suite, she hadn't known one moment of doubt. She'd wanted him to make love to her. She'd wanted him, and she'd had no desire to hide those feelings. For too long she'd kept her own natural passion suppressed.

But she'd never expected his lovemaking to unleash this torrent of feeling. It was a little frightening—this depth of feeling she had for him now. She shied from the word
love
. To use it would mean he had the power to hurt her. But, dear God, if she didn't see him again after tonight, that would hurt, too.

“There you are.” As his voice came to her from the darkness, Flame stiffened, suddenly sensing that he was very near. When she felt his hands settle onto the looseness of the shirt's sleeves, she turned before they could actually close around her arms. There was a lazily possessive look in his eyes. “I was beginning to think I dreamed you.”

“I couldn't sleep.” Seeing him standing there with that look in his eyes, she felt that swell of incredibly tender feelings again. As his hands curved onto the sides of her waist, she smoothed her own over the hard, flat muscles of his chest, the contact reminding her of his strength—and his gentleness. “Chance, I—”

But he cut in before she could explain the cause of her sleeplessness. “It's scary as hell, isn't it?”

Stunned that he could know exactly what she was thinking, she offered no resistance when he drew her closer, cradling her hips against his. “How—”

“—did I know?” He finished the question for her and smiled. “Do you think you're the only one it happened to? In case you've forgotten, I was there, too.”

“You very definitely were,” she admitted. “But I didn't know if it had the same impact for you.”

“It did.” He gathered her the rest of the way into his arms and rubbed his cheek and mouth against her hair. “Tomorrow is going to come whether we like it or not, Flame. And when it does, I'll have to leave.”

“I know.” Pride kept her from clinging to him.

“We'll both have our share of nights to sleep alone. I don't want tonight to be one of them.”

There was no mocking inflection in his voice, no teasing, no making light of it; he was completely serious. Moved by that, Flame gazed at this man who fit her as comfortably and warmly as a second skin.

“Neither do I,” she said, certain now that getting through the lonely nights ahead would be less difficult as long as she had the stirring memories of this night to keep her company.

“Then come back to bed with me.”

The urge was strong to say something ridiculously romantic, like “I'd go anywhere with you.” Instead Flame shifted slightly in his arms and curved an arm around the back of his bare waist to turn him toward the bedroom, letting her actions say what would have sounded too foolish coming from her lips.

Back in the bedroom, Flame slipped out of his shirt, and turned to the bed. Chance was already there, his long frame stretched out full length on the mattress, the covers down around his waist revealing the male torso that was all hard, flat muscle and bronze flesh. She paused for an instant, knowing that he was looking at her and knowing, too, that he liked what he saw.

As she climbed into bed, Chance rolled onto his side and reached out to snare her and draw her firmly to his side. His face was inches from her. She watched his gaze idly follow the track of his hand as it glided over her rib cage to cup the underswell of her breast, giving rise again to those initial stirrings of desire.

Then his gaze came back to wander over her face in a thoughtful study. “I can't seem to make up my mind,” he murmured.

“About what?” She ran her hand over his arm, feeling the bunched muscles.

“If this is where you belong—or where I belong? There's a part of me that wants to put a brand on you and claim you as my private and very personal property,” he said, then paused. “And there's another part of me that feels very humble. And
that
is a feeling entirely new to me.”

“For me, too,” she whispered.

“Flame.” That was all he said before his mouth opened on her lips taking them whole and devouring them with a bold sensuality that she easily matched. That intense hunger was something she understood too well, and she returned it with equal aggression.

This time when they made love, she was struck by the wild harmony of it, like the fury of a storm that comes, unleashes its torrents, then passes, leaving in its wake the earthy and invigorating feeling of clean, fresh air.

11

C
hurch
bells pealed the call to morning worship as Chance pulled up in front of her flat. At the same moment, Flame saw Ellery coming down the steps of the Victorian mansion. She waved briefly to him, and ignored his halt of surprise as she turned to Chance.

“There's no need to walk me to the door.” She didn't want to prolong the goodbye that had to be said.

“I'll call you.”

And with Chance, that wasn't a line. He never said anything he didn't mean. She'd learned that about him, as well as many other things. “If you don't reach me the first time, don't give up. Wherever I am, I'll be back.”

“I don't give up on anything.” His hand tunneled under her hair, cupping the back of her neck and pulling her to his mouth. Flame responded to the heated kiss that was packed with feeling and promise. When he released her, she felt warm all the way through. The glittering darkness of his blue eyes added their own promise to the kiss as he murmured, “Till next time.”

“Till next time.” She echoed the phrase that had become almost a talisman to her, then reached for the door handle.

When she climbed out of the sportscar, she was faintly surprised at how clear-eyed she felt, with no sting of tears, no painful tightness in her chest. All because of that wonderful certainty that there would be a next time. Leaving the car she crossed the base of the steps, then turned to watch Chance drive away.

“Since you're so terribly overdressed for church, this is obviously the morning after a glorious night before.” Ellery came down two more steps to stand behind her.

“What makes you think it was only the night before that was glorious?” She was a little surprised by the lightheartedly smug feeling that prompted her to tease him back. It had been so long since she'd been in love that she'd forgotten how good it could make a person feel.

Ellery drew his hand back, his eyes widening slightly and that eyebrow arching as she turned to climb the steps. “We are feeling a little cocky this morning, aren't we?—if you'll excuse the expression.”

His remark didn't immediately register, her attention distracted by the sight of the dark green sedan that pulled into the empty parking space on the opposite side of the street. “Ellery, without being obvious, take a look at that dark green sedan—a Ford, I think—parked about halfway down the hill. Can you see the driver?” She kept her back to the street—and the sedan—and pretended to look through her evening bag for the door key.

“Not very well,” Ellery said after a brief pause. “Why?”

“Do you remember that waiter with the brown shoes at the DeBorgs' party last week? He had a big hooked nose.”

“I remember.” A silent question remained in his voice, waiting for an explanation for all this.

“Look closely at the driver and see if it's the waiter.”

“He's too far away. All I can see is the shape of a man's head on the driver's side.”

“Never mind.” She shrugged in irritation and took the key from her bag. “Let's go inside.”

Frowning, Ellery glanced one last time at the car, then followed Flame as she ran lightly up the steps to her door. “What's this all about? Why would you think that's the waiter?”

“Because he's the sender of that nasty note—or more correctly the deliverer of the note.” She inserted the key in the deadbolt lock and gave it a quick turn, then pushed her weight against the door to open it.

“How do you know that?”

“Because—” She breezed into the foyer, leaving Ellery to close the door behind them, then paused at the door to the hall closet and slipped off her fur jacket. “—he had another message for me at the opera Friday night. That one he delivered in person.”

“Another message?”

“Yes. The gist of it was the same as the first—stay away from him. Only this time there was an added warning that if I didn't, I'd be sorry.” She was conscious of the brittleness beneath her offhand manner, but she couldn't pretend anymore that it didn't bother her. “On top of that, he followed me everywhere I went all weekend.” Stiffly she draped the jacket onto its shouldered hanger and hung it in the closet.

“Everywhere?”

“No, not everywhere—thankfully.” In spite of her tension or maybe because of it, she glanced at Ellery and laughed, again conscious of her newfound feelings. “And don't raise your eyebrow at me, Ellery Dorn.”

“Would I do that?” he declared in mock innocence.

“You do it all the time.”

“At least now I know why I wasn't able to reach you all weekend. Although I must admit at the moment I'm more interested in finding out who the
him
is in the ‘stay-away-from' messages. Was the second more enlightening than the first?”

“No,” she admitted. “But it has to be Chance.”

“And the sender?”

She hesitated as she briefly let her glance lock with Ellery's. “I think it's Malcom. Who else is there? Initially I thought it might be Lucianna, but she strikes me as the kind who would come at me with her claws unsheathed if she thought I was taking her man.” She paused, her shoulders sagging in vague discouragement. “After that…disagreement…I had with Malcom the other day, I know he isn't above making threats. And this business of having me followed—it could be his way of impressing me with the lengths he'll go to for what he wants.”

“What are you going to do abut it?” This time Ellery was just as serious as she was.

“I know what I'd like to do. I'd like to threaten him with a sexual harassment suit.”

“But you don't dare,” Ellery guessed.

“Not if I want to continue as a vice-president of Boland and Hayes.” A wry smile pulled at one corner of her mouth. “Besides, a suit like that would do more damage to my reputation and career than it ever would do to his. What agency would want to hire me after that kind of headline? And what client would want to work with me? None. So…I don't have any choice but to tough it out with him and show him that I won't be intimidated, not by him or anyone else.”

Ellery set his attaché case on the floor, freeing his hands to applaud her mockingly. “Marvelous speech, darling. Stiff upper lip and all that.”

She threw him a look of mild exasperation. “If you're quite through, you can tell me what you wanted to see me about. This obviously isn't a social visit or you wouldn't have brought that along.” She gestured at the leather case by his feet.

“My timing may be questionable, but I have with me some new ideas for the Powell holiday ads.” His mouth twisted in a ruefully apologetic line. “I thought it would be a good idea if we went over them privately, then, if you shoot them down the way you did before, you won't completely demoralize my staff.”

“You're right, Ellery. Your timing is very questionable.”

“If you'd rather wait—”

“No. Just give me a few minutes to shower and change—and to forget that without a great deal of effort I could learn to heartily dislike Malcom.” She started down the hall to her bedroom, adding over her shoulder, “Feel free to make some coffee.”

The aroma of freshly brewed coffee permeated the air when Flame came out of her bedroom, dressed more casually in a pair of brown slacks and an oversized beige sweater. She hadn't bothered to dry her hair, instead slicking it back from her face, the wetness of it bringing out the red lights. She found Ellery in the living room with all the roughly sketched layouts and storyboards spread over the coffee table.

“I poured you some coffee.” With a wave of his hand, he indicated the cup sitting on the glass top of the occasional table.

“Thanks.” Retrieving it, she sipped at the steaming hot liquid, the smell and the taste of it reminding her of the breakfast she'd shared with Chance in his suite mere hours ago. She'd eaten most of hers while sitting on his lap, all because she had tried to decline any food, insisting that she couldn't eat in the mornings. Chance had taken it as a challenge, pulled her onto his lap, and proceeded to feed her bites of a pineapple Danish. In retaliation she had done the same to him with a raspberry one. Before it was over they had ended up licking the filling from each other's fingers and kissing it from the other's lips, the flavors of raspberry and pineapple mingling together in the process. It had been the most enjoyable breakfast she'd ever had.