She drew a deep breath and consciously tried to relax the muscles of her stomach that were knotted with tension. She was reacting to him like a teenager. She had known attractive men before whose sex appeal was just as potent as Jared Ryker's. She had recognized at once that he possessed a power and dominance that could be dangerous to any woman who couldn't respond with equal strength. She had even felt a touch of pity for Nina, who was obviously a little in love with him.
She moved briskly away from the door and crossed the room to seat herself at the dressing table. She had no doubt she had the strength to take on a dozen Jared Rykers. However, she had no desire to do so—not even to engage in a preliminary skirmish with the man. She
liked her life very well just as it was. After spending a lifetime of dancing to other peoples tunes, she was experiencing a fierce joy in playing the Piper and controlling her own destiny. She took a dollop of cleansing cream from the jar and began to remove her stage makeup. Shed had enough danger and excitement in her life in the past, and she had no need of any in the future. Let the Nina Bartletts of the world get their fingers bumed playing with the fiery and enigmatic Dr. Jared Ryker.
"It was a mistake, wasn't it?" Nina asked, as the doors of the elevator swished open at the ninth floor and Jared ushered her out. When he didn't answer but merely escorted her down the plush carpeted corridor toward his suite, she added, "My fault, I suppose. My curiosity always did get me into hot water, and I wanted to see the two of you together. I think I got more than I bargained for. You haven't spoken three sentences since we left the theater."
"Haven't I?" He roused himself from his abstraction to smile down at her. "But then, when have we ever needed words?" His hand moved caressingly down the soft skin of her forearm to the pulse point at her wrist. Nina's wrists had always been exquisitely sensitive, he recalled. He could feel the leap of response beneath the gentle friction of his thumb. "You're being a bit over-imaginative, you know."
She pulled her wrist away from his touch with a sudden force that startled him. "Stop it, Jared," she said sharply. "We both know you'll have no problem seducing me when the time comes." Her blue gaze was direct. "But I find I have a curious reluctance to being a stand-in for another woman. She really turned you on, didn't she?"
He didn't pretend to misunderstand. "Yes, she turned me on. And, yes, I'd like to go to bed with her." His gaze narrowed. "I think you expected that reaction from me, didn't you, Nina? It wasn't just curiosity that led you to introduce us."
"No, it wasn't," she agreed bluntly, her lips curving in a bittersweet smile. "I think I wanted to see you really tied up in knots over a woman." She drew a deep, shaky breath. "I wanted you to want something or someone you couldn't have." She shrugged. "I didn't suspect I'd react on such a primitive level, though."
"Do you want me to take you home?" he asked quietly.
There was a flicker of pained indecision in her expression before she smiled with a brightness that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Why should I go home? I think I have enough skill to make you forget a fleeting attraction for a pretty little ballet dancer."
They had paused before the paneled oak door of his suite. Now he unlocked it and stepped aside for her to enter. She hesitated a moment, her gaze flicking up to meet his. "Are you going to see her again?"
He shook his head. "There's no place for a woman like Tania Orlinov in my life at the moment." God knew that was the truth, he thought wearily. The next six months were going to be difficult enough without an emotional complication on the scale that the dancer represented. She had touched him in a fashion he'd never experienced before. She had aroused not only an odd protective tenderness but the most intense desire he'd ever known. Even during that brief interval in the hall he'd had problems keeping his hands off her. He'd wanted to brush those little bits of chiffon aside and hold the swell of her small breasts in his hands. He'd found himself wondering if her nipples would be as dusky pink as the flush that had mounted to her cheeks when he'd been sparring with her. He frowned impatiently. All he needed was an obsessive affair with that defiant, black-eyed pixie. "No, I'm not going to contact her again."
His hand moved automatically to the light switch on the wall to the left of the door. But the living room was already illuminated by the ivory-shaded lamp on the end table across the room, and he unconsciously tensed, his muscles coiled in readiness. Then he exhaled resignedly as he recognized the fastidiously neat figure of the man in the gray Brooks Brothers suit who rose slowly to his feet and put the crossword magazine he'd been working on face down on the end table beside him.
"Hello, Betz," Jared said as he shut the door behind him. "I don't suppose I need bother to ask how you got in. Was it bribery or forced entry?" He glanced at the lock on the door. "Bribery."
Edward Betz gave him a reproachful look. His large brown eyes had always reminded Jared of a mournful Basset hound. "You shouldn't have left the chateau, Dr. Ryker. The senator was very unhappy that you hadn't obeyed his instructions."
"The senator doesn't give me instructions, Betz," Jared said softly, a thread of steel beneath the silkiness of his tone. "He suggests politely. Very politely." He turned to Nina, who was obviously filled with curiosity. "It seems I have a little business to conduct." His hand in the small of her back urged her forward. "Why don't you wait for me in the bedroom? I won't be long."
She nodded reluctantly and slowly crossed the sitting room to disappear into the bedroom. When the door had closed behind her, Jared strode forward to stand facing Betz. Carelessly he tossed the program he'd been carrying on the end table beside Betz's crossword book and loosened his black tie impatiendy. "Okay, let's have it. Why the hell are you here, Betz?"
"I could ask the same of you, Dr. Ryker," Ed Betz said stolidly. "You know you shouldn't be here. It's not
safe for you in New York. There's no way we can give you the security that's required in these surroundings. The senator is very worried about this move of yours."
"How unfortunate," Jared said ironically, his lips twisting. "I agreed to accept Sam Corbett's hospitality for twelve weeks while he prepared the way with the powers-that-be in Washington. That doesn't mean I intend to let myself be imprisoned in his Canadian version of Neuschwanstein. I'll go and come as I see fit." He paused before continuing deliberately. "And I won't tolerate your interference, Betz. If I were you, I'd go back to Washington and tell Corbett that."
Betz shook his head, his thinning brown hair, with its precise side part, gleaming in the lamplight. "I'm not going back to Washington. The senator says that I'm to replace Jenkins as head of security at the chateau." He frowned. "This is really most inconvenient, Dr. Ryker. That leaves Mr. Corbett temporarily without a security chief in the capital. It would simplify matters enormously if you'd just agree to return to the chateau until Senator Corbett can arrange for you to be safely installed in a house in D.C."
"I regret that I'm complicating your life to such an extent," Jared drawled, "but I'm afraid you're just going to have to adjust to the situation and make the best of it." Good Lord, the man was stubborn. When he'd first met Ed Betz, he'd wondered how a man as brilliant as Sam Corbett had ever been so stupid as to hire Betz as his head of security. The man was so slow as to border on retardation, and he had about as much initiative as a slug. It hadn't taken him long to realize the qualities that Corbett had seen and appreciated in Ed Betz, however. Ed Betz was completely, almost fanatically loyal to his employer, and he possessed the obstinacy and determination of a bulldog.
That obstinacy was definitely in full flower at the
moment. "It isn't as if we haven't provided you with everything you could possibly want, Dr. Ryker," Betz persisted. "We have orders that you're to have anything you ask for. You know that."
"Yes, I know that. And I'm finding that three weeks of having everything I want is two weeks too long. I'm so damned bored I'm about ready to set myself up as a target for those Chinese you're so paranoid about, just to stir up a little excitement."
"That would be very foolish," Betz said, frowning uncertainly. "You're joking, aren't you, Dr. Ryker?"
"Yes, I'm joking. I have no intention of becoming a victim any more then I intend to tolerate having my activities circumscribed." His expression was set and grim. "And now that I've made everything crystal clear, you'll have to excuse me. I have a lady waiting."
Betz's brown basset gaze was fixed on the door behind which Nina had disappeared. "Was it the women?" he asked abruptly. "We ascertained from your dossier that you would require a woman frequently. Weren't the women we supplied you with satisfactory?"
"How could they help but be 'satisfactory?' The call girls you invited to the chateau were all beautiful, talented, and willing to do anything."
"You didn't want them to be willing?" Betz asked, his brow wrinkled in puzzlement. "If you had explained that to them, I'm sure they—"
"Oh, for God's sake, will you get out of here, Betz?"
Betz's gaze wandered once again to the bedroom door. "Does she please you more? Perhaps we could persuade her to come to the chateau."
"No!" Jared drew a deep breath. There was no use letting himself become any more exasperated. Betz was as thick as an ox. "Listen very carefully, Betz. I do not want the lady at the chateau even if she'd consent to come. And charming as she is, she couldn't persuade me to stay on your mountain top even to accommodate her. No woman could." He shifted restlessly, and his glance fell on the program on the end table. Tania Orlinovs face was gazing up at him, revealing that marvelous joie de vivre of hers, and for a moment it arrested his attention so completely he forgot what he was saying. He looked up to see Betz staring at him. "Do you understand, Betz?" he finished crisply.
Ed Betz nodded absently, his expression thoughtful. "Whatever you say, Dr. Ryker. You'll return to the chateau soon?"
"In a day or so." Jared was moving swiftly toward the bedroom. "Lock the door on your way out."
Edward Betz watched the door close behind Ryker, his expression still absorbed. He turned away slowly and picked up the book of crossword puzzles from the end table and the program Jared had seemed so drawn to. He studied it for a moment before tucking it carefully between the pages of his book and closing it. He turned out the top light, obediently locked the front door behind him, and quietly left the hotel suite.
"I love your body," Nina murmured softly, pushing the crisp white dress shirt from his shoulders. Her hands moved deftly to his belt. "It comes as such a lovely surprise every time. With your clothes on you look so civilized, almost elegantly thin, yet when I peel everything away you're hard and powerful." She pressed her lips to the whipcord muscles of his upper arms. "So strong. I like to know that strength is there." She was pushing his pants and briefs over his hips, her tongue licking at his nipple. "I like to know that you have the power to break me if you want to." Her soft hands were kneading the tightness of his buttocks.
My God, Jared thought, he should be ready to explode by now and he wasn't feeling a damn thing! He was as unmoved as a block of ice.
"It makes me so hot to feel all that leashed violence inside you."
"Violence?" he asked, frowning. "You make me sound like the Marquis de Sade. I don't recall ever using violence on you or any other woman."
"You haven't," she said, rubbing her full breasts against the hair-roughened muscles of his chest. "You never lose control, no matter how difficult I make it for you."
He had to think of something, anything, to rid himself of this blasted indifference.
"You're the perfect lover, Jared. Gentle, considerate, and so damned skilled you drive me out of my mind." Her tongue licked delicately at the pulse pounding in the hollow of his throat.
Dark hair flowing to a tiny waist, small, thrusting breasts barely covered by sheer scarlet draperies. He felt the welcome stiffening in his loins with immense relief. Then, as he realized what he was doing, he instinctively rejected it. Nina deserved better than being used as a substitute for Tania Orlinov. She was no whore, but a woman who was expecting to receive pleasure as generous as the pleasure she was willing to give him. He wouldn't think of the dancer. He'd concentrate on the act itself, feed erotic stimuli to keep desire hot for the woman kneeling before him on the bed.
"But the violence is there waiting," she whispered, "and one of these nights I'm going to break that control and drive you a little crazy too."
Nina always found it exciting to talk as a form of foreplay, and he usually had the patience to let her have her way. But if he was going to keep this urgency and provide her with the satisfaction she deserved, there must be no delay tonight.
"I had no idea you were into force, Nina," he drawled as he pushed her back on the bed. He quickly stripped away the rest of his clothes and joined her. "I'll have to see if I can't oblige you."
Her blue eyes were wide with surprise as he gently parted her thighs and settled between them without the customary preliminaries. He thrust forward into her welcoming warmth, and she gave a gasp that was half surprise, half satisfaction, before her legs curled eagerly around his hips to help him.
As always, Nina took his manhood quite comfortably. There were many women who couldn't, who had to be carefully prepared before they were able to accept him. Tania appeared so tiny, with that fragile, pixie delicacy. He'd have to be very careful not to hurt her, to be especially gentle until she was used to him. He felt himself swell in response to the thought of that tightness surrounding him, before he realized that he was doing it again. He firmly banished Tania Orlinov from his mind and concentrated on pleasing the woman beneath his body.
There was little doubt that he'd succeeded some minutes later as he held Nina gently in his arms, his hand stroking the ash-blond hair of the head on his shoulder. "I almost did it, didn't I?" she gasped. "I could feel it in you, Jared. There was something different tonight."