“Why did you go in there and twist your hair up?” he asked as his impatient fingers went foraging for the hateful pins. “I told you I liked it loose.”
“Ellen looked so tidy and I looked so—”
“Yes, and she had on tight jeans and a shirt bursting at the seams, and you got all uptight and defensive and paranoid as we both know you are inclined to do.”
“I did … do … not,” she denied.
“You wilted right before my eyes. Your animation drained away. When I touched you, you tensed, even though just a few minutes earlier you were climbing all over me.”
“That’s vulgar!” she cried, sitting up and pushing away from him.
“And you love it.” He brought her right back, crushing her against the wall of his chest. “That’s what’s wrong with you, Miss Ashton. Not nearly enough men have talked vulgarly to you. They’ve been frightened off by this ice palace you’ve constructed around yourself. Well, I’m too hot-blooded for your green eyes to freeze. I don’t give up easily, either. I saw you and I wanted you. I’m going to have you.”
With each word his lips had descended closer, until the final word was spoken directly into her mouth. His hands splayed on her back as he drew her to him. Her breasts were flattened against his chest and her nipples flared to life at the igniting touch.
He lowered her down into the cushions in the corner of the sofa. “Would you like some wine?” he asked, his lips sipping at hers.
“Wine?” she asked as though she’d never heard the word before. “No.”
“You would love some.” He lifted himself from her long enough to fill half a glass with the red wine. He brought it to her mouth and tilted it just enough for one ruby drop to fall upon her lips. Then, before she could drink it, his tongue was there to lick it up. He poured more against her mouth and again he lifted it from her lips and chin with his velvet-rough tongue.
They became intoxicated. Not with the wine, but with each other and the wine-flavored kisses. In his haste to drain the glass, the last bit of wine he dripped onto her lips overflowed and trickled down her cheek. His finger caught it and wiped it away. He was about to lick clean his finger when Hailey captured his hand and lowered it to her mouth. Watching him with half-fearful eyes, she closed her lips around his finger. Her tongue scoured the fingertip, while she sucked on it rhythmically.
“Hailey,” he rasped and buried his face in the scented hollow between her breasts. “Do you know what you’re doing? Do you have any idea of the passion that hides behind your cool facade?” He placed a hand over her beating heart and her nipple flowered in his palm. His fingers finessed it into a firmer bud.
“Unbutton my shirt,” he urged softly. The muscles in his arms bulged as he held himself over her while she carried out the task. When she was done, he rolled to his side so that they were lying face to face on the narrow sofa.
“I want you to get to know me, Hailey. I don’t expect you to make love to a stranger.”
As if sensing her shyness, he kissed her. His mouth mated with hers in a consciousness-stealing kiss. Imbued with his confidence and strength, she was constrained to put aside her timidity and let her senses direct her.
She started by sifting through the hair lying against the loose collar of his shirt. Then she explored his ears with a touch of her fingers. She pulled away from his kiss to smooth his brows, which seemed to be in a perpetually ruffled state. His eyes remained closed as she traced the patrician length of his nose to his upper lip. He kissed her fingertips in turn as they skated across his lips.
Adjusting her gentle curves to his hard body, she kissed his throat, bravely letting her tongue investigate that deep triangle at its base. Her fingers combed through the crisp hair on his chest and marveled at the mysterious mounds and ridges beneath his warm skin.
Accidentally her fingers brushed across his nipple. His sharp intake of breath and the sudden stiffening of his body alarmed her. She snatched her hand away. He lay perfectly still, in an attitude of breathless anticipation.
As though drawn by a magnet, her fingers returned to that place on his chest. Hesitantly, she touched it with her middle finger. Ring finger. Index finger, circling him slowly. The turgid skin grew tighter. She circled it again.
“Oh sweetheart,” he groaned and tilted her head back to kiss her with unleashed passion. Recklessly, he sought the hem of her top. His anxious hands drew it over her head and flung it away. His mouth worked its way down her chest. He pulled one black satin strap away and rained deliciously damp kisses on her shoulder. Lower. And lower still.
Just when she expected him to rid her of the camisole, he smoothed the lace over her breasts with gentle hands and pulled it taut. The heat of his eyes licked her like live flame as he savored the picture of her nipples straining against the black lace. He could have been photographing her, so intense was his look.
Then he kissed her. His tongue raked across her nipple with a delving motion that the veil of lace only intensified. His lips surrounded her and squeezed her gently. Reflexively, her hips ground against him, feeling his growing desire.
“Oh yes, Hailey, my love. Yes.”
His hand on the curve of her hips held her against him for long moments while their bodies pulsated together. Slowly, painstakingly, his hands slipped between them, found the fastening of her slacks, and unzipped them.
He pressed his palm over her navel and rotated it in time to a sensual cadence. His fingers smoothed down the naked skin of her abdomen until he encountered the lacy band of her panties. Hooking his fingers under it, he dared to discover what lay beyond.
His touch was all the more hypnotic for its featherlike lightness. Unbearable heat consumed her as she experienced his persuasion. Heartbeats thundered through her veins and between her thighs until she arched against the hand that had brought on this blissful malady.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered when his fingers found her pliant and moist. Then he touched her in such an erotic, forbidden way that she went rigid with shock.
“Tyler,” she cried in dismay, pushing away from him with frantic hands. It was a revealing reaction, as astonishing to him as his touch had been to her.
He raised himself over her. His gray eyes bored into her wide, frightened green ones, silently asking if the unbelievable were true. “Hailey?” His little finger lifted a disobedient curl from her cheek and replaced it in the mass that spread out behind her head like a fan. “Am I the first?”
Unable to meet his penetrating stare, she squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head away, pressing her cheek against the cushion of the sofa. “I’m a freak. I tried to tell you I wasn’t made for this. You wouldn’t believe me.”
Touched by the misery in her voice, he raised his index finger to stroke her cheek as one does an infant’s, with tenderness, almost in fear of bringing unintentional pain. “No. You are not a freak. You are a very special woman. So special that I’m humbled and to no small degree awed by you.”
She opened her eyes, but hadn’t the courage to look at him. She couldn’t believe she had heard him correctly. Ridicule, rebuke, perhaps even laughter were what she had expected. She hadn’t expected the low, reverent gentle quality in his voice.
“Don’t attach any mystical importance to this,” she said defensively. “It only means that no one has wanted me before.”
He did laugh then, a deep rumbling sound in his chest that never quite made it to his lips. “You’re a virgin in more ways than one, Hailey. You’re terribly naive about how men see you. And I for one am damned glad. I won’t have to be constantly fighting them off.”
She found the courage to look at him. The corners of his mouth were lifted into a tender smile. His eyes were warm as they scanned her face. “You still want me?” She didn’t consider the irony of the question. Whereas before she had insisted they would never be lovers, now his answer to her question was of utmost importance to her.
He dropped a light kiss on her lips. “I want you more than ever. So much that I ache,” he said ruefully. “But I would never hurt you, Hailey. I would never distress you in any way. Tonight, you’ve been put through several major emotional upheavals. Not very conducive to making love. When the time is right, we’ll both know it. I go after what I want. I usually get it. But I’ve found that the longer I have to wait for something, the more I value it.”
He drew her into a sitting position, helped her refasten her slacks, and pulled her top over her head. As he was buttoning his shirt he said, “The park closes Sunday night. Early Monday morning, you, Faith, and I are going on a vacation.”
“What?”
“We’re going to get away from it all.”
“I can’t leave the day after the park closes. There are a million things that have to be done.”
“You are Director of Guest Relations. When all the guests are gone, who are you going to relate to?” She took a moment to admire his mouth as he smiled, then she forced herself back to the subject.
“I have group tours to book for next season. Promotional campaigns to outline. Brochures to lay out. Tickets—”
“All of which can wait awhile. We’re going. I have a cabin on Fontana Lake. Be ready early Monday morning.”
“I’m not going, Tyler.”
I
’m not going, Tyler.”
“We’ll pick you up at eight. And if you’re not out of bed, I’ll come in and drag you out.”
“I’m not going, Tyler.”
“You sound like a broken record.”
Indeed, she did. All week she had been repeating the words and all week he had been dismissing them. Ever since he had first mentioned the trip to Fontana Lake in North Carolina, she had been telling him that she wasn’t going. Excuse after excuse had been offered, but he had negated them all with the glad-heartedness with which he was doing everything these days.
The last week of Serendipity’s season was a hectic one for each employee. Adding to the general chaos, Tyler was a visible force in the park. He showed up at the oddest times, in the most unusual places, making supervisors nervous and anxiety-ridden. However, he seemed pleased with the park’s operation. One evening over dinner he confided to Hailey that he and Faith had come to the park many times.
“Until we ran into an ornery bee, I was treated like any other guest. Since everything seemed to be running well, I didn’t interfere with Sanders’s management. However”—his eyes shone with devilish glee—“it never hurts for the boss to make his presence known.”
Hailey was busy taking questionnaires and computing the results. The comments were generally favorable at this time of the year, for the crowds had thinned out considerably, and each guest could enjoy the park at a more relaxed pace.
During the winter, she would compile a thorough report from the questionnaires taken throughout the summer and submit it to Harmon Sanders. From this official report, each department could analyze its performance and concentrate on the trouble spots.
She was grateful for the work she had to do that week in conjunction with the park’s closing. Were it not for that to occupy her mind, she would have had to deal with her conflicting feelings concerning Tyler Scott.
He spoke with her several times a day on the telephone, and it alarmed her to realize that she began to look forward to those intrusions. He was continually popping into her office on one pretext or another. Hailey hoped that his attention wasn’t being noticed, but apparently it was. She was barraged by questions.
“What’s Mr. Scott going to do about enlarging the parking lot?”
“What’s Mr. Scott going to put in that area they’re clearing out?”
She always knew the answers, too, and that in itself was a clue as to how interwoven their lives had become. He often used her as a sounding board for his ideas. Her opinion was valued. He asked for her suggestions and weighed them carefully.
She had dinner with him and Faith every night. It had almost become a matter of form. One night, after an especially arduous day, they treated themselves to a swim in the pool at the Glenstone. One evening they cooked hamburgers on Hailey’s outdoor grill. Another night they stayed in the park until it closed and, under duress, Hailey rode the Sidewinder for the first time.
Much to Hailey’s relief, Tyler wasn’t as overt in his sexual pursuit as he had been. Or was she relieved? Each time she caught him watching her, the flame of desire in his eyes was all too evident and never failed to kindle a response in her.
Yet he treated her like a friendly companion. He touched her often and openly, but courteously, not sensuously. She denied the vague disappointment she felt each evening when he kissed her good night with brotherly fondness and nothing more.
Only once during the week did he let her know that, far from cooling, his desire was simmering dangerously close to the surface.
He had called her office early one morning and asked her to meet him at the Cave. “Hurry, before the park opens. I want to tell you about an idea I have.”
She rushed through the employees’ compound and within minutes was at the turnstile of the popular ride. Round wooden tubs took a water route through a man-made cave in which animated characters cavorted, frightening and entertaining spectators. The Cave was well-frequented during the summertime because it provided a respite from the heat. And it was especially popular with teenagers because its cool interior was dark and conducive to romance.
Tyler was waiting for her at the entrance of the ride, chatting amiably with the young woman who was operating it. “Good morning, Miss Ashton,” he said, tongue-in-cheek, when she approached.
“Good morning, Mr. Scott,” she replied. “What did you want to see me about?”
“I have an idea that needs your sound judgment. I’ve told Linda not to let anyone in until we come out.” Instead of getting into one of the tubs that were towed by underwater cables through the shallow canal, he opened a camouflaged door to let them into the interior workings of the ride. He switched on a flashlight as he pulled Hailey through the door.
“Do you know where you’re going and what you’re doing?” she asked warily as he led her into the stygian darkness.