Dance of the Crystal (2 page)

“Your prize awaits you, Crystal.” Rowena looked almost…smug. “Go on now.”

“You bid on him,” she whispered rawly. “
You
collect the prize.”

Rowena’s face took on that intimidating glare that had always cowed Crystal as a teenager. She squirmed in her seat. Clenched her fists in her lap. Uncrossed her legs. And felt one high-heeled, backless sandal fall to the floor under the royal blue-draped table.

“Don’t you start going into a tantrum, young lady, or I’ll go up on stage and show the emcee the sexy cane you bought me for my seventieth birthday.”

Crystal’s eyes widened to shimmering O’s. “I did no such—”

“Get your tushie up there! Your bachelor looks like he’s ready to come get you.”

Crystal snapped her gaze to the bachelor in question. He was doing a credible impersonation of a bull who’d just seen a swirling red cape and was building up steam to charge. “Oh God, he looks so
angry
.

Grandma, what have you done?”

“Move!”

“I can’t! My shoe…” Swallowing a building panic, she gingerly explored the area under the table with her foot, searching for the elusive shoe. And kicked it further away. In desperation, she shoved back her chair, ducked down to her knees and all but disappeared under the tablecloth.
There!
She grabbed the errant sandal and carefully began to edge backwards on hands and knees.

Suddenly she let out a piercing yell.

Huge hands had gripped her waist. She felt herself being dragged back until her head reappeared from under the tablecloth. Then she was unceremoniously yanked to her feet and twirled around. Unbalanced by the three-inch differential between a shod and a bare foot, she fell forward onto an unyielding wall of powerful male flesh.

“That’s enough grandstanding, dammit!”

The intimidating wall of flesh had a voice to match, she had time to think, right before she was hoisted up like a sack of potatoes and flung over a linebacker shoulder.

“Put me down!” With her torso hanging upside down, Crystal felt the swinging amulet hit her nose with every step her captor took, the heat of the crystal startling her. Curl after curl released its hairpin and she could feel swaths of hair tickling her face and neck as she bounced.

With mounting indignation, she pummeled whichever parts of his back she could reach—and was evilly delighted when she realized she still held her stiletto in one hand—but the juggernaut plowed through the noisy crowd without slowing down. Dimly she realized the noise was applause.

Darn it, did they think she orchestrated this?

With an effort, she lifted her bobbing head to seek out her grandmother. Rowena could be as imperious as a tsarina. Surely she’d be a match for this Neanderthal.

But when their gazes met, Rowena D’Angelo sat regally on her chair, hands tucked one atop the other on the head of the cane, looking very like the Cheshire cat in Alice’s Wonderland.

Crystal felt as though she’d fallen through the rabbit hole.

* * * * *

“Let me go, you big bully!”

Soren released the woman’s wrist and took a deep breath. Oxygen. He needed lots of it. He should have had it earlier—to regulate his brain, before he’d done something so uncharacteristic that he still didn’t believe it. Rolf had always accused him of being too buttoned-down, too rigid. And Rolf was right.

He’d kept his emotions on a tight leash ever since he was nine years old.

But when this pixie made a fool of him by hiding under the table rather than claiming her prize, something inside him snapped. Yeah, sure, when their eyes had met across that proverbial crowded room, he felt his cock snap to attention. Any red-blooded man would have done the same. She’d looked at him as though she was starving and he was a sizzling steak.

More fool he.

A slender thread of sense penetrated his wrath as he dared a glance at the woman he’d flung so cavalierly into a wing chair outside the ballroom. The four-star Ritz Carlton Hotel was not a fitting backdrop for his caveman behavior. Hell, no backdrop would be fitting for what he’d just done. It was so unlike him to lose his cool over a—

He swallowed hard. His “owner”. Her heart-shaped face was sheened with a rosy glow, like she’d just been made love to by an expert. Her curly black hair, half piled on her head and half dangling in sinuous curves around and across half her face, whispered of wild and wicked sex. Eyes the color of dark melted chocolate stared at him from under gracefully arching brows.

But what made his cock swell inside his jeans was a mouth made for sucking him, wide and soft with a cupid’s bow outlining the upper lip, stained a red as deep as her dress. He plopped down in an adjoining chair and dragged the fingers of one hand through his hair. He
never
thought of things like that. He didn’t
like
women. At least that’s what he’d told himself over the past score of years.

“Look, I’m sorry. I don’t usually—” Hell, he didn’t have a clue how to apologize to a woman.

She just stared at him, eyes wide and lower lip trembling, her hand grasping whatever it was that dangled on the end of a gold chain around her delicate neck.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you. Really.” He reached out a hand to her, tentative as an uncoordinated infant. There was something so fragile about her. Something that awakened in him a deep desire to protect her.

Crap. She probably needed to be protected from
him
.

“Would you like something to drink?” Yeah, right. As if she needed any liquor to dull her wits around the likes of him. “A glass of water maybe?”

“You…you’re the one?”

She’d said it so quietly that he almost didn’t hear her over the background hum of a busy hotel lobby.

He cleared his throat, remembering the bang of the auctioneer’s gavel that had sounded like a death knell. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

Her death grip on the object around her neck loosened. Now he could see that her long, slender fingers were caressing what looked like an asymmetrical chunk of crystal. As she breathed—deep, shivery gasps like she was a mile above sea level in rarified air—the crystal shimmered and sparkled, mesmerizing him. He barely noticed the ample cleavage below it.

Until she let go of the crystal. His eyes followed as it nestled between plump rounds of flesh so inviting he actually licked his lips before he caught himself and tore his gaze away.

Thankfully she seemed not to notice his gauche behavior. Her long, thick lashes lowered. She let out a resigned sigh then looked back up at him. “Guess we’d better get acquainted then.”

She placed her hands on the armrests as if to rise to her feet. “Oh.” She looked at the high-heeled sandal in her left hand as if wondering how it had gotten there.

“Please. Allow me.” Soren slid out of his chair and sank to his knees before her. He held out his hand, palm up.

Crystal’s gaze flicked from her shoe to the Bachelor’s face then noted his posture, like Prince Charming come to see if the glass slipper fit Cinderella’s foot, then back to her stiletto. A frisson of alarm skittered down her spine. He was actually going to…he wanted to…

No. It struck her that there was something much too intimate about a man holding a woman’s foot to slip a shoe on it, and this stranger, this man that the crystal had declared was The One, well, geez, she needed some time to absorb the enormity of the revelation.

She tried for a haughty look as she shook her head, but only dislodged the last remaining pins holding her hair up. Blowing an exasperated breath at the wayward tresses, she bent forward to place the shoe where it belonged. And heard a strangled gasp come from him.

Her peripheral vision told her a strap had slipped down her shoulder again. This time, in her forward-leaning position, the edge of her bodice had gapped enough that she could see what he’d reacted to—the tip of her dusky-rose nipple thrusting against the all-but-transparent lace of her strapless bra.

She jerked upright in the chair so forcefully that the spaghetti strap ripped from its anchor in back of the silk gown and dangled in the small space between them, gravity pulling the fabric down so that anyone nearby could see her exposed breast.

Heat spread over her cheeks, her shoulders. Mortified, she jockeyed the fabric back up to cover what it was supposed to cover, yanked the strap behind her neck and wound it around the other strap a few times, and sat back with her spine rigid against the chair. She couldn’t bear to look at him. What must he think of her? Lordy, here they were, strangers in a public place and he’d seen her
breast
! Why, he didn’t even know her name!

Her name. Yes. He would have to know who she was, so they could make the dinner arrangements.

So…she’d use an alias.

Settle down. Use Grandma’s imperious stare. Intimidate the intimidator.

Thrusting out her chin, she looked at him, still on his knees before her. “My name is Anne Dubois. I’m happy to meet you.”

He threw back his head and laughed, showing strong white teeth. Little crinkles appeared at his eyes and gave him a totally different appearance. Instead of ferocious, he actually looked…approachable.

But why was he laughing?

The Bachelor—no, wait, she had to start thinking of him as Soren if he was The One—Soren sprang to his feet. Looming over her, he reached out for both her hands and gently pulled her upright. At least he hadn’t lifted her by the waist and flung her over his shoulder again.

“Come on, Ms
. Dubois
,” he said, emphasizing the name with a chuckle, “I’m ready for some coffee.

How about you?”

“Tea, please,” she said primly. “Chamomile, if you can find it.”

“No problem,
Annie
. If they don’t have it in a place like this, the concierge will run right out and dig some up for you.”

She didn’t like the way he was saying her name—uh, alias. But she valiantly walked alongside of him, taking three steps in her slender sheath of a gown to his one. Then he slowed down. A lightbulb must have popped in his head, she thought gratefully.

They wound up in a softly lit room with a row of leather banquettes and fat lighted candles glowing on the tables. The waiter assured her chamomile tea was no problem, and would she like wild honey with it?

Soren ordered dark-roasted coffee and cognac.

“So tell me, Anne Dubois, who is Crystal D’Angelo?”

Crystal flinched, and hoped in the dim light he hadn’t seen her reaction. She flicked her unmanageable hair behind one ear and looked yearningly in the direction where the waiter had disappeared.

“Are you a writer?” he persisted.

She glanced at him from out of the corner of her eye. “What makes you ask that?”

“I thought Anne Dubois was, you know, a pseudonym. To keep your professional life separate from your day-to-day life.” He shifted closer to her on the soft leather.

She tensed. She couldn’t move away from him without being obvious.

“Here you are, ma’am, sir.” The waiter rested the tray on a corner of the table and placed a delicate china cup and saucer before her, then a matching teapot and honey jar. The cognac came in a bulbous glass set atilt in a holder over a low flame.

Grateful for the interruption, Crystal poured her tea and dribbled honey into it, then stirred. “So you were in the Marines?”

“Annie.”

She worried her lower lip with her teeth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Done what?”

Lifting her cup to her mouth, Crystal paused then set it back down. “I was embarrassed, so I made up the name.”

“A woman like you, what do you have to be embarrassed about?”

That innuendo got her back up like a cat about to unsheathe claws. “Like me?” Did he think she was accustomed to baring her breast before strangers? “What does that mean?”

“Man magnet. As beautiful as a sunset. Sexy as all get-out.”

Crystal felt her mouth drop open. “I’m afraid you need a lot more light.”

“I saw just fine from up on stage. You zapped me with those eyes. You looked like you wanted to eat me up.”

“I didn’t…I mean, Grandma told me to look at you, so of course I did. You were so big, I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. But you were The One, so…”

She trailed off at the tender smile on his face. “Funny,” he said. “I thought the same thing when you looked at me. I thought, if any dame there at the auction was going to win an evening of my time, it might as well be you.”

“Really?” Her eyes grew huge and she groped for the crystal around her neck.

He leaned closer, casually slid his arm around the top of the banquette. “May I?”

“What?” He was too close. She wasn’t ready for this! She needed some time to accept the fact that this was the man she would marry, whose bed she would share. Fighting panic, she dropped the crystal to press a protesting hand to his chest. Then couldn’t bring herself to touch him.

He reached up to her shoulder, trailed a finger to her collarbone and the gold chain. He traced its path down her chest to the hollow between her breasts. She couldn’t contain the little breathy sound that escaped her.

His knuckles brushed the warm swell of skin pushed up by her bra as he wrapped his fingers around her crystal. “This is lovely.”

Crystal swallowed. She dared not look at him. He was too close. “It-It’s been in the family for generations.”

“I noticed that you played with it while you were bidding. Made me want to see what it was.”

“Um.” She could feel the soft puffs of his breath as he spoke, smelled the hint of coffee and cognac and some elusive scent she couldn’t place. Her brain went foggy. “Now you know.”

“Crystal.”

The whisper of her real name from his tongue made her shiver. Grandma was right. She would know when she met The One. She turned her head just the slightest bit.

Just enough for his lips to graze her cheek.

“Soft. So soft,” he murmured, nuzzling near her ear.

Heat sizzled through her, heat as strong as what she’d felt from the crystal when she’d first seen him. She couldn’t help it. She leaned into him.

Soren’s cock roared to life at her capitulation. She looked so innocent and sexy at the same time. He dropped the crystal and traced his fingers over the swells of her breasts, then up her throat to her jaw.