Fire And Ice (12 page)

Margie turned over, her eyes smarting from the early morning sun, her head hurting. “Yes,” she mumbled. “A movie contract.”

“A movie!” Jan burst out. “What kind?”

“For television,” she managed, dragging herself up. “What time is it?”

“Six, and what do you mean, glowering like that?” Her sister laughed. “You’re going to be famous!”

“I don’t want to be famous,” she grumbled. “I wish I’d never written the first book. I wish I were in China!”

Jan stared at her. “Huh?”

“Never mind.” She lowered her face to her drawn-up knees. “How in the world am I going to explain to Cannon why I’m going to New York?” she moaned.

Jan sobered at once. “Now I understand. He’s gotten to you, hasn’t he?”

Margie laughed weakly. “That’s one way of putting it.”

Jan moved closer and put a comforting arm around her. “Oh, Margie, and I’m the idiot who begged you not to tell him about Silver McPherson.”

“It’s okay,” Margie said softly. “It will all work out somehow.”

Jan drew back, her eyes speculative. “Are you in love with him?”

The question, put into words, was devastating. Margie felt herself color, her eyes glowing with the answer.

Jan only nodded. “It was so obvious yesterday. He could hardly take his eyes off you, and you were looking at him as though he were the best part of the menu….”

“He wants me,” Margie corrected, studying her drawn-up knees. “And as we both know, I have quite a problem in that respect.”

“No, you haven’t,” Jan argued gently. “Not if you love him. It will all come naturally, you’ll see.”

“It means a kind of commitment that terrifies me, though. Don’t you see?” Margie ground out. “I’m not the type for one-night stands; I’m not built for them. I can’t give myself just to satisfy a craving!”

“You little old Victorian, you,” Jan teased softly. “Believe me, if you love him the way I think you do, you won’t be able to say no. Sad, but true.”

Margie lifted her eyes, and everything she felt was in them. “He snuck up on me.” She laughed. “Oh Jan, I love him until it hurts!”

“I’m very glad,” her sister said. “I was afraid you were going to make do with writing all your life. It would have been such a terrible waste, Margie.”

“But how am I going to explain to him what I do for a living?” Margie sighed. “It’s such a mess!”

“And you’re a worry-wart.” Jan got up. “Come on, you’d better get a move on. Margie…can I ask you just one big favor—the last one, I swear?”

“You know you can.”

Jan shrugged. “Would you kind of mention to Cannon that, well, that Andy and I would even be willing to wait a few months—to be away from each other that long—to show him that we’re sure of each other?” She smiled. “And maybe butter him up just a little…?”

“You wicked child,” Margie accused. She threw back the covers and stood up, stretching. “But, yes, I will talk to him, if he’ll listen.”

“Ask him when you’re dressed like that,” Jan suggested, indicating the see-through gown. “He’ll listen.” She grinned, and had barely gotten out of the room before the pillow was flung at her.

Cannon was at the breakfast table with the rest of the family when Margie came in with her suitcase and purse in hand. She put them down inside the doorway, tingling as she felt his eyes take in the immaculate white linen suit she was wearing with a beige blouse and beige accessories.

“I hear we’re going to New York,” he murmured with a faintly wicked smile that was meant for her alone.

“I…I could always get a commercial flight,” she stammered, sitting down quickly in the chair he drew out for her.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “We’ll take in the sights while we’re there.”

She glanced at him shyly, reading all kinds of secrets in his dark eyes. “If you’re sure you don’t mind?”

He laughed. “Not at all. We’ll stay the night and fly back tomorrow.”

“Cannon has a suite at one of the hotels there,” Victorine volunteered. “He spends a lot of time in New York on business, you know. It’s quite comfortable, and the food in the dining room is delicious!”

“And there’s a lock on the bedroom door,” Cannon murmured, watching her hunted expression and laughing wickedly when the others started chuckling.

“Don’t you dare seduce her,” Victorine informed her eldest, her face haughty. “I refuse to have my friend become just another of your conquests.”

Cannon grinned at his mother, looking devilishly handsome in a tailored gray vested suit that made him look darker and larger than ever. “She’d never be that,” he said, and his expression changed, softening, intensifying, when he looked at Margie.

Victorine saw the look and dropped her eyes, smiling into her coffee.

* * *

Margie sat quietly beside Cannon in the cockpit, watching his deft hands work the controls as the small jet darted up into the clouds.

She’d thought after Larry’s death that she could never bear to fly in a small plane again, but flying with Cannon was an experience. He was careful and confident, and she felt safer with him than she’d ever felt with another human being. It was odd how comfortable they were together, despite the fact that her pulse rate never seemed to slow down around him. She watched him handle the plane and wondered if he’d handle her as gently, as confidently. She was almost sure that he would, and she was more afraid than ever of what lay ahead.

Cannon’s hotel suite was deliciously luxurious, but Margie barely had time to put down her suitcase before she had to rush out and catch a cab to her agent’s office. She left Cannon in the suite with a convincing story about having to discuss some legality with her husband’s attorney. She hated the lie even as she was telling it, and she decided then that she was going to have to find a way to tell him the truth.

Her agent, Jim Payne, was waiting in his office for her, all smiles as he guided her to a seat beside Gene Murdock, who was half her agent’s size and twice his age and full of enthusiasm for the project of converting her bestselling saga of the Revolutionary War to film.

The discussion took a long time, but by the end of it she was convinced that Murdock would do a good packaging job. More important, Jim was convinced of it. They agreed on a contract, which would provide her with an advance that would make her future relatively secure. She shook hands with both men and got into the elevator in a daze.

One thing was certain, she realized: she was going to have to tell Cannon the truth quickly. The publicity would be out any day, and Silver McPherson would become even more notorious than she already was. She couldn’t bear it if Cannon found out from a third party. It would make her look even more guilty.

She went back to the hotel to find him on the phone, his dark brows drawn together, his lips making a thin line as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the receiver.

“No,” he said curtly, glancing toward Margie as she came in the door. “No, that’s not going to work. I told you, my attorney advised me to have that clause changed, and I’m not signing a damned thing until it’s done. Can I what? Oh, hell,” he growled, sighing roughly. “All right, where? What time? I’ll be there.” He hung up the phone with a bang.

“Trouble?” she asked.

He studied her, his hands jammed into his pockets. “Nothing I can’t handle. Unfortunately, it looks as if it’s going to take the rest of the day. I had a lot planned for us to do together.”

She shrugged. “I understand about business,” she said, smiling. “It’s all right.”

“It most damned well is not,” he ground out, moving toward her. He took her by the shoulders and pulled her slowly, sensuously, against his powerful body, his breathing suddenly as unsteady as her own. “Now, is it?” he challenged, and his hands caught her hips, urging them against his taut thighs in a lazy, disturbing motion.

She caught his hands, but that didn’t even slow him down.

“That’s it,” he murmured, his parted lips descending to her mouth. “Help me…”

She caught her breath as he moved, and she felt the hunger in him even before his mouth coaxed hers to open for the hot, hungry penetration of his tongue.

She moved, too, rocking with him as the magic of being in his arms worked on her, melted her. Her fingers went to the buttons of his shirt and tremulously opened the top four.

“Do you want to touch me?” he breathed into her mouth.

“Terribly,” she admitted in a stranger’s husky voice. Her fingers eased the fabric aside so that they could tangle in the thick hair on his warm chest.

He drew back a little, his breath catching as he watched her hands on his bare chest. “Lie down with me,” he said gruffly. “Let’s do it properly.”

She looked up and took a deep, steadying breath. “You’ve got a meeting.”

“I could miss it,” he said shortly.

“But you shouldn’t,” she murmured, reading his eyes.

He sighed heavily. “No,” he admitted.

She bent forward and touched her lips gently to his chest before she started buttoning buttons again, feeling him shudder at the light caress.

“I’d better buy a deadbolt for your bedroom door while I’m out,” he suggested gruffly. “And you’d better pile furniture against it.”

“I’ll dig a Burmese tiger trap at the doorway while you’re gone,” she promised, but her eyes were adoring.

He bent and kissed her, very gently. “I’ll be back as soon as I possibly can,” he promised. “Will you miss me?”

“I already do,” she said, and it was no lie.

He smiled, touching her cheek before he turned and went out the door.

* * *

They had supper at the hotel restaurant, and Margie found that she had a great appetite, fostered by the incredible happiness she felt by simply being with Cannon.

He was unusually attentive. His eyes never left her, straying constantly to the low neckline of her silver gown where it clung lovingly to every soft curve. He was a dish himself in evening clothes, so handsome that other women openly stared.

“If that redhead doesn’t stop ogling you,” she murmured over her dessert, “I’m going to take this delicious wine and pour a glass of it over her head.”

He laughed softly. “What a waste of good wine,” he said. He lifted the bottle and poured her another glass. It was an aged burgundy, very smooth, and she’d had more than enough already, but she was ignoring her own conscience. It might be the last evening she’d ever spend with him, because tonight she was going to tell him the truth about herself—if it killed her.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” she murmured demurely.

“Not at all,” he replied, watching her over the rim of his own glass. “Just… relaxed.”

* * *

“You aren’t really drunk, are you?” he asked when they were back in the suite. Watching her closely, he shed his jacket and tie and flicked open the buttons of his shirt.

“I’m only relaxed,” she promised him. Feeling provocative and bubbling with happiness, she went to him and put her arms around his neck. “Very, very relaxed.” Her eyes clouded. The smile faded as she met his searching gaze. “And very, very much in love,” she whispered, the words slipping out so smoothly that she hardly realized she’d spoken aloud.

“Oh, God, honey,” he murmured, bending. His mouth took hers in a new, sweet way. She moved closer, hungry for him, loving him, needing him…wanting him!

His hands found the tiny straps that held her dress in place and eased them aside so that his mouth could brush softly across the soft, scented flesh of her shoulders, her neck, her throat—and lower, to the high, rounded curves of her breasts. He made an impatient sound deep in his throat and she felt the coolness of the room on her bare flesh as the dress fell suddenly into a sparkling puddle around her silver high heels.

Her eyes opened and she started to protest, but his mouth was taking possession of the curves he’d uncovered, his tongue teasing pink peaks into hard, sensitive points. His hands found new softness, touching, probing, faintly abrasive against silken skin, so confident and careful, so expert….

She moaned, arching against him, encouraging him, deaf to the tiny voice at the back of her mind that urged caution and restraint. She was so lost in sensation that she could hardly breathe at all. Her body belonged to him, and it was telling him so in every nerve, every cell.

She felt him lift her up in his hard, sure arms, and put his mouth gently, tenderly to hers.

“I’m too old for careless encounters,” he breathed into her mouth, “and so are you. If you let me have you, it’s going to mean a commitment. Do you hear me? It won’t be just sex.”

“I love you,” she whispered back. “I love you….”

“I’ll never let you go, Margie,” he vowed as he carried her down the long, dark hall. “Not as long as I live.”

“Don’t hurt me,” she whispered, a last tiny surge of fear trembling through her.

“Sweet treasure,” he murmured huskily, “that’s the one thing I’m not going to do….”

She clung tightly, her mouth lovingly tracing the hard lines of his face as he carried her into his own bedroom and closed the door behind them. The bed was soft under her back, and his formidable weight rocked her gently as he settled onto it beside her.

“The light, Cannon,” she whispered.

“Don’t you want to watch?” he murmured just above her mouth. “I do.”

Her heart pounded furiously. She lay still against the pillows, watching him as he sat up and gazed long and intently at the length of her silken body, clad only in her panties. She knew she was blushing, but she couldn’t help it. Larry, the only other man who’d seen her like this, had never cared for the sight of her “skinny body.”

“If I weren’t such a jealous man,” Cannon said finally, his voice unsteady, “I’d have you painted like this. But I couldn’t bear to have an artist see you this way. No other man. Only me.” He bent and touched her mouth tenderly with his own. His fingers traced a sweet, abrasive path around one perfect breast with an expertise that was shattering.

“Are you mine, Margie?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said without hesitation. She reached up to draw him down against her. “Always. As long as I live…longer….”

He slid his hands under her bare back, lifting, his palms warm against her silken flesh as he brought her up to him and kissed her softly. He eased his weight down on her yielding body so that she could feel every hard contour of him, the fabric of his clothing rough against her bareness. She moaned gently.