2
C
ORT REALIZED IMMEDIATELY that he'd made a mistake by having Laura sit on his lap. He hadn't actually thought she'd do it. He'd read the reluctance in her gaze and had expected her to decline. She'd taken him completely by surprise when she'd refused the chair he'd offered, smiled her friendliest smile, pushed him back down and insisted she didn't mind sitting on him.
She'd lied.
She minded. She sat as stiff and still as an icicle, and her glance hadn't once strayed his way. If she could have hovered above him to avoid all contact, he believed she would. Why, then, was she sitting on his lap when she obviously didn't want to?
More importantly,
why didn't she want to?
Because she couldn't forgive his cold, hasty goodbye? Because her illusions about him had long ago fled, and she now saw him as he really was? Or simply because the years had turned them into strangers?
Ridiculous for him to wonder. He hadn't expected a warm reception from her. Hadn't really hoped for one. He could have handled a snub much easier. At least he would have understood a snub.
This, however, made no sense at all. She was forcing herself to sit on his lap. Was this her version of an olive branchâa declaration of forgiveness? A public show of her acceptance of him? A valiant effort to please Steffie?
Whatever her reasoning, the situation was awkward, tense and disturbing. Worse than that, actually. It was hell.
The hell had begun the moment her firm, rounded bottom had settled snugly against his thighs. As much as she'd changed, she still fit too nicely there. Still felt too damn good.
His blood warmed and coursed harder through his veins.
She looked different than he remembered, yes, but not different enough to give him the mental distance he suddenly needed. Her face, though slightly thinner, was the same one he'd gazed into day after day, night after night, while he'd made love to her.
From this close range, he could easily see that her light, golden skin was every bit as smooth as it had been years ago, when he'd been free to touch her. Free to slide his hands beneath her clothes and savor her voluptuous warmth and velvet softness.
With a deep, silent intake of breath, he forced his attention away from her skin...and her sweater, and all the intimate territory that had once been his to explore. Territory that was now as distant and mysterious to him as the moon.
He tried to direct his attention to the television screen, which displayed comical snapshots, but soon found himself distracted by Laura's hair. She wore it bound at her nape with a scarf. He'd been disappointed by its darker, more subdued shade of blond when he'd first seen her. But from where he sat now, every strand shone like sunlit honey, with a silky luster that made him long to free the shining mass and thrust his fingers into its fragrant heaviness.
He had to curl his hand into a fist to resist touching it.
Her scent struck a familiar chord, too. Not the light,
flowery fragrance she wore, but the elusive, personal aroma that somehow rose from the very essence of her. It reminded him of apple pie, hot and sweet, with just the right hint of spice and tartness to make his mouth water.
Mmm.
Which brought to mind the taste of her.
A jolt of heat went through him and he forced his unseeing gaze to the television. He couldn't think about the taste of her nowâher mouth, her skin, her delectable bodyânot when his arousal strained behind his zipper, only inches away from her curvaceous hip. How easy it would be to wrap his hand around her outer hip and pull her firmly against him.
He fought against a hot, red haze and finally focused on the television. He'd become spoiled, he realized. His financial success had assured him of having whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Women included. This would have to be an exception. He couldn't have Laura. Couldn't touch her.
Shouldn't even be thinking about her.
The photos flashed by on the screen, and the joking comments of the others helped to distract him somewhat. He even managed a few dry quips of his own.
But then came the snapshot of Laura and him caught in a deep, hungry kiss. And the desire kindled again in his loins, hot and insistent.
God, he'd loved kissing her. Never before or since had a woman enslaved him so completely with a simple kiss. Never before or since had he wanted anyone as he'd wanted her. They'd made love every day, every night; whenever they'd found the chance. And still, he hadn't been able to get enough of her. He'd been obsessed. He knew that now. A dangerous thing, that kind of sexual obsession.
She didn't know, of course, the effort it had cost him to break away from her. Or that even now, fifteen years later, random thoughts of her filtered through his mind whenever he became aroused. A damn nuisance at times.
Not so bad at others...
The photo of their kiss, he realized, had seemed to bother her, too. The soft smile that had been playing across her full, smooth lips had fled, and Cort sensed the tension within her coiling even tighter.
He remembered surefire ways to ease that tension. Of course, he'd have to wind it
much
tighter before he'd allow her any release.
He could start right here, at her tender nape, beneath the tie of her scarf, where wispy tendrils danced with his every breath. He would press his mouth thereâswirl his tongue just beneath her hairline, then around to her ear, until a groan caught in her throat...and her back arched... and her hips moved against him....
Thankfully, Rory's announcement interrupted the heated flow of Cort's imagination. He couldn't take much more.
Rory had said something about the action segment of their production. Before Cort could entirely divorce himself from the seductive images in his head, a very different set of images moved and laughed on the screen.
Video. Lifelike action, color and sound. Snatches of life in the Hays Street houseârollicking parties, sleepy Sunday mornings and surprise attacks on the unsuspecting, catching each of them in embarrassingly candid situations and conversations.
Interspersed throughout this “slice of life” were shots of Laura and him. Kissing, usually. Or running their hands over each other in long, scintillating paths. Gazing with passionate absorption into each other's eyes. Slow-dancing
at a party in some private corner, moving together in blatantly sexual synchrony.
A muffled sound rose from Laura's throat, and she shifted forward to rise from his lap.
Cort acted without thinking. He caught her to stop her from leaving. He sensed her distress, and wanted to comfort. To soothe. To hold.
He gripped her hip and thigh, and anchored her to his lap.
Her gaze swung to his, her eyes wide with surprise. And reproach. And something he couldn't quite read. They glimmered the color of sweet, hot cocoaâthe exact shade he remembered from the first time he'd undressed her. Color blazed in her skin, matching the warmth that simmered in his.
His attention dipped to her mouth.
Her delectable mouth . . .
“Let me go,” she said in a tremulous whisper.
He did. Immediately.
Â
LAURA HEADED BLINDLY toward the back of the house, barely noting the rooms through which she passed, needing to find a place where she could be alone. She veered through the first escape hatch she sawâsliding glass doors that led to an outside deck. Heedless of the cold and the tiny snowflakes drifting around her, she leaned against the side railing and stared up at the murky night sky.
She needed a few moments alone to collect herself. A few moments would do it, she was sure. She breathed in deeply of the frosty mountain air, letting it cool her. It would take a good deal of cooling to bring her temperature into line. She felt flushed with heat. From embarrassment, mostly. And anger.
Yes, embarrassment and anger.
She'd wanted to leave the room immediately when the video segment had begun. But for some unfathomable reason, she couldn't tear her eyes from the screen. A form of self-punishment, she supposed.
How humiliating it had been to see herself so obviously infatuated, so wretchedly besotted, with a man who hadn't really cared in the least about her. He'd simply taken what she'd been so happy to give. He probably could have made love to her right then and there, in front of their whole group of palsâwith the camera rollingâand she wouldn't have noticed anyone but him.
What a damn fool she'd been.
The humiliation of watching herself with Cort on the screen had been bad enough, but when the pressure in her chest had grown too great and she'd attempted to leave, he'd had the unmitigated gall to stop her. The very idea filled her with rage.
What made him think he had the right to touch her in any way, let alone to detain her against her will? Why in heaven's name had he wanted to? To prove that he could? To show that he still had the power to melt away her common sense?
Never had she been more enraged at a person in her life. Not even when he'd said those hateful things before he'd left her. She hadn't been angry at all back then. Only hurt. Grievously hurt.
But she was indeed angry now. At him. Entirely at him.
Filling her lungs with the much-needed coolness, she stared out through the falling snow and concentrated on calming herself. Once the initial surge of anger had abated, she admitted that maybe some of the angerâa very small portionâmight have been directed at her.
And that maybe not all of the heat had been due to anger, or even embarrassment.
As vexing as the truth was, she had to face it. She'd been ensnared once again by his nearness. His gaze. His silent but palpable interest in her. She'd felt the heat gathering in him, the rhythm of his heart quicken, and she'd responded. Oh, not in a way that anyone else could detect. Only with a secret warming of her blood and rushing of her heart.
Worst of all, when his strong hands had gripped her hip and thigh and pressed her down onto his lap, her pulse had leaped with a fierce, sudden longing. She'd wanted to stay in the controlling grip of those hands. To turn herself around on his lap, move against his muscle-hard body, revel in the erotic pleasure of his enticing heat.
She gulped in another huge lungful of air and raked her trembling fingers through her bangs. Good Lord, she'd put that kind of nonsense behind her long ago. Erotic pleasure. Enticing heat. Who needed any of it?
Shaken by feelings she'd almost forgotten existed, she struggled to put it all in perspective. She'd simply been influenced by the nostalgia. Rory and B.J.'s photos had carried her back to a crazy, passionate time in her youth, and she'd responded to the memoriesâ
not
to the man himself. That was an important distinction. She had grown far, far beyond her teenage infatuation with Cort Dimitri.
A chill finally pervaded her bulky sweater, and she wrapped her arms around herself to retain some body heat.
She heard the quiet
whirrr
of the glass door sliding open behind her, and bit her lip in dismay. She really did need a few more moments alone to collect herself. Turning around to reluctantly greet whoever had joined her, she felt her dismay drastically deepen. Her heart paused.
Cort Dimitri stepped out onto the dimly lit deck and closed the door behind him.
Like her, he wore no coatâonly an expensive forest-green sweater that stretched neatly across his broad shoulders, and a pair of gray gabardine trousers that reminded her of the long, lean, muscular thighs she'd been sitting on so recently. A few snowflakes caught and glittered on his ebony hair and lashes, while his midnight-blue gaze pinned her against the railing.
“Laura, I'm sorry.” His deep, quiet voice filled the night. “I was out of line when I tried to stop you from leaving.” The sincerity on his dark, arresting face kept her still and breathless. One end of his mouth turned up in a slight, wry smile. “I don't know what I was thinking.”
Something about the soft gruffness and hint of irony in his last statement suffused her with warmth.
Damn him! Damn him for gazing at her with that intensity, and for daring to corner her alone, and for having the decency to apologize. As much as she wished it weren't so, she knew his apology was sincere, and found that she couldn't quite hold on to her anger. Couldn't he have left her at least her anger?
She did, of course, have her pride. “Forget it.” She lifted a negligent shoulder. “You surprised me, that's all.” Leveling him a meaningful stare, she added, “Just don't let it happen again.”
He held her stare, looking rather surprised himself. Squinting at her through the snow, he pursed his lips and studied her. “Don't let
what
happen again?”
“Don't . . .” Laura swallowed against a sudden fluttering in her throat.
Don't touch me, or hold me, or make my heart pound
. “...manhandle me.”