Not Even for Love (12 page)

“Open the door,” was all she said.

There was a momentary hesitation, then she heard the lock being flipped up and the door swung open. He was standing behind it, out of sight.

She pushed past the door, her eyes going immediately to the bed. They found it empty, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Her back was rigid as she stamped further into the room.

“Come in,” he said dryly from behind her.

She swiveled around and confronted him, armed with righteous indignation and intent on dressing him down until he begged for forgiveness.

But Reeves didn’t fight fair. He was naked.

Tousled strands of mahogany-colored hair hung on his forehead. His hands were planted firmly on his hips in an arrogant pose. To a woman who was fighting for her life as well as combating a strong attraction to the man, he was a formidable foe.

She hadn’t considered that she might find him this way. She knew he would probably be asleep, but she hadn’t thought beyond that. Now her motivation drained from her under the destructive force of his arresting masculinity. The hair on his chest grew in a mesmerizing pattern that she traced with her eyes. It tapered to a thin silky line that disappeared into…

His legs were long and lean and hard. He exuded virile power. What a frail exercise her attack would be. How could she possibly win? To him she must appear foolish, charging in as she had done.

Even as she glared at him, he yawned broadly and politely covered it with his hand. That insouciance angered her as nothing else had and her rage came back in full force. But before she had a chance to vent it, he said, “Don’t you think you’re being rather forward? Didn’t your mother ever tell you that men like to be the aggressors?”

“Damn you!” she threw at him. “How could you do such a despicable thing? Never in my life have I known anyone with less sensitivity.”

He stared at her a moment with something akin to amusement lighting his green eyes. He walked past her, picked up his wristwatch from the bedside table, checked the time, and then sat down on the edge of the bed. “What could I have possibly done this early in the day to make you so angry?”

“Oh, please, spare me the innocent act. You know what you’ve done. Your deceit is surpassed only by your grasping ambition. I spilled my whole life story to you—” As she launched into her tirade, he leaned back against the pillows and raised one knee, resting a dangling hand on it. She averted her eyes quickly and asked unsteadily, “Would you please put some… clothes on?”

“No.”

She whirled her head back to him. “You’re wretched.”

“I?” he asked. “I? You’re the one who came barging into my bedroom at this ungodly hour. You routed me out of bed. I don’t sleep in my clothes. This is the way you found me, and I don’t feel inclined to dress at the moment.”

“You’re indecent.”

His eyes toured her figure and a lewd grin spread across his face. “So is what I’m thinking.”

She gritted her teeth, but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of honoring his provocative words. Willing her eyes away from his nakedness, she restructured her thoughts and asked, “Do you know a man named James Parker?”

He seemed surprised by her question, but he answered promptly. “Yes. He’s a reporter for UPI out of the London bureau.”

“And you called him yesterday and told him all about Helmut and me. The fruits of your labor are smeared on the third page of last evening’s
Times.
If my shop were open on Sundays, I’d sell you a copy,” she said scathingly.

He shook his head and wearily ran a hand through his hair. “Jordan, I don’t—”

“You deliberately urged me to talk about myself yesterday, prying into my private life and its history. You put on a good act, Mr. Grant. I never suspected that you were only doing your research.”

“Jordan—”

“I would have much preferred that you tell me what you were doing. I might have even been cooperative. You needn’t have wooed me with kisses. Or is that the way you do your best work? Mixing business with pleasure?” To her chagrin, tears formed deep pools in her eyes and blurred her vision. Furiously she wiped them away.

He held up his hand to halt her next words. “Let me get this straight,” he said calmly. “Jim wrote a story for the
Times
about you and Helmut and your engagement, and you think that I leaked it to him?”

“You did!”

“No I didn’t, Jordan.”

“You had to have,” she shouted. “Don’t compound my loathing for you with more lies. I’m sick to death of your duplicity.”

He sprang off the bed and had her arms imprisoned by iron hands before she could blink. “Don’t lecture me about duplicity,” he said through his teeth. “You know what duplicity is? Duplicity is a woman who snuggles and cuddles one man while being engaged to another. And all the while she claims to the poor sucker she’s cuddling that said engagement isn’t real. Don’t accuse me of playacting, Jordan. You could give Sarah Bernhardt lessons.”

She tried to extricate herself from his tenacious hold, but her efforts didn’t even serve to loosen it. “I’m
not
engaged to Helmut. You know that.”

“Do I? You say you aren’t committed to him, yet every time he crooks his finger you go running after him. That sounds pretty permanent to me.”

“I don’t want to hurt him,” she cried. “I want to be fair. But you wouldn’t know about fair play, would you? You play to win. You play for blood, and you don’t care who bleeds. All you want is a good time and a good photograph and a good story.”

He lifted her off the floor, twirled her around, and tossed her onto the bed. He followed with his own body stretched down the length of hers. His hands pinned her arms to either side of her head.

“I didn’t leak that damned story,” he said with emphasis on each word as his hands dug more deeply into the flesh of her wrists. “I didn’t.” He gave her a little shake.

Her eyes were wide with fear and disbelief, but he met them levelly. She wet her dry lips with her tongue before asking, “Then who—”

“It could have been anyone. There were fifty or sixty people there the other night when you so naively asked them not to tell anyone about your engagement. That set thrives on gossip, Jordan. They could have tipped off any dozen hungry reporters.” His hands holding her wrists were inescapable, but the truth that radiated from his eyes held her in a tighter bondage. She squeezed her own eyes shut.

“But Bill said that the writer knew so much about me,” she argued. “Yesterday—”

“Doesn’t Helmut know all of that, too? Haven’t you told him bits and pieces of your history? He could have passed them along. And so on and so on, until a gifted reporter could have built a comprehensive story around them.”

Jordan thought back over the last few months. She supposed what Reeves said had credence. Was he telling her the truth?

As though reading her thoughts, he said, “I’ll admit to being as mad as hell yesterday when we got off that boat. And I know that the evidence against me is incriminating. If I had done it, I’d take the credit—or blame, as it were. But I didn’t do it, Jordan. I swear it.”

She opened her eyes then and was awed at how green his were this close up. The freckles that seemed to appear and disappear at will were so close she could count them. “Did you sleep with that girl last night?” The question caught them both off guard. Jordan hadn’t intended to ask it. It had just slipped out.

For a moment Reeves looked puzzled, then he shook his head and laughed softly. “That dimwit?” he asked scornfully. “I haven’t lived a celibate life for thirty-five years, but give me some credit, Jordan,” he chuckled. “I picked her up here in the bar and hustled her over to the Palace. Helmut had mentioned after our meeting in his offices that that’s where the dinner party was going to be. As soon as you left, I dumped her. I’ve never heard such foul language come out of a woman’s mouth.”

“Why would you go to so much trouble?” At some point her hands had been released and were now examining that intriguing growth pattern of hair on his chest.

He shifted his body over hers and ducked his head. “Why do you think?” he asked against her ear. His lips stayed to tease the sensitive lobe.

“Because you wanted to make someone jealous?” she asked timidly.

“You got it.”

“Oh, Reeves,” she sighed. “I came here ready to scratch your eyes out and now …” Her voice trailed away under the maneuvering of his mouth on her neck. “You’re too quick for me. I can never keep up with you. You make me angry, then leave me bewildered. You’re like no other man I’ve ever met. What am I going to do with you?”

He raised his head and peered at her suggestively. “I have an idea,” he drawled.

“No!” she exclaimed, and tried to push him off. When she realized the futility of that, she tossed her head from side to side, but his mouth chased her relentlessly. “Reeves, what happened with us before—”

“Defies description.”

“Yes…I mean,
no
. It was wrong. I don’t know how I …” His mouth had caught up to hers now and was teasing it with small kisses in the corners. She tried to talk around it. “I…We can’t …We mustn’t …”

“Yes we can. Yes we must.”

“No. I don’t want to.”

“And you’re a liar. Liar.” He finally tired of the foolishness and closed his mouth over hers, trapping inside any words of affected protest.

Their mouths met with a hunger too long denied. The tip of his tongue flicked over her parted lips, tormenting them mercilessly before pushing past them into her mouth and sampling its delights.

She wasn’t idly submissive. Her lips closed around his tongue, entrapping it tightly, until he was moaning his pleasure. When at last he pulled away, it was only to allow them to breathe. She turned her head onto his pillow as his lips journeyed over her neck to her ear and paid it homage.

“Reeves,” she whispered. “I love this bed.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s still warm from your body. It smells like you.”

“Oh, God,” he grated.

He wrapped his arms around her and rolled her over until she lay atop him. With eager hands he peeled off her jacket. He found the bottom of her sweater and worked it over her stomach and breasts and shoulders, then pulled it over her head. Laughing with him, she disengaged her arms from the sleeves.

He flung the offending garment aside, riveting his eyes on her breasts, which were offered to him so enticingly. His fingertips grazed over the top curves with an almost reverent touch. “Beautiful breasts.” His voice was low and deep. His hands slipped to the undersides and cupped her, lifting her, enjoying the full plumpness that filled her. His thumbs gently skimmed cross the dusky pink nipples. “I love to watch that,” he said when they puckered prettily.

Jordan arched her back and gasped her pleasure. One hand clamped her around the neck and pulled her face down to his. Hotly, his lips sipped at hers while his other hand stayed at her breast to coax responses from it that left her breathless.

At first, she thought the sinking feeling came from the intoxicating kiss, but she realized that he was easing her onto her back once again.

When her head was nestled on his pillow, his mouth left hers and nibbled its way down her neck and chest. Her nipple disappeared between his lips. By gently flexing his cheeks, he fed on her sweetness. His tongue became a darting, flicking instrument of sensuality that brought her to a level of arousal she had never known before.

She trembled beneath him.

“Jordan. I want you. I’ve wanted you since I left your apartment early that morning after the storm. The hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life was to leave you in that bed. God, I wanted you so bad yesterday I hurt.”

He raised himself until his face was hovering over hers. His eyes never left hers as he gently nudged her knees apart and settled himself between her thighs. They fit together with a cohesion so unique that it was awesome.

“Feel how right it is,” he whispered urgently.

“Yes,” she said, and moved against that hard strength that declared his need.

“Ah, Jordan, Jordan… take me inside you.”

His lips came down on hers possessively. The metallic whisper of a zipper was the only sound in the room as he worked at the fastening of her jeans. Then his hand was sliding leisurely over her stomach, past her navel, and finally beneath the lacy band of her bikini panties. Satin skin. A downy tuft. Then…

He sighed. “So soft. So female. I need you, Jordan. And you need me. Now.”

Then he touched her with startling accuracy and involuntarily she closed around his stroking fingers, groaning her acquiescence. “Yes, Reeves. Now.”

“Jordan, you must know—”

The shrill ring of the telephone cut off his words.

CHAPTER 7

R
eeves cursed expansively when the telephone rang a second and then a third time. They froze, staring at each other. She smiled with sad resignation. He eased himself away from her and jerked the receiver from the ringing telephone.

“Grant,” he barked. His eyes swung to her as the caller identified himself. Reeves said, “Hello, Helmut.”

Jordan covered her face with her hands and rolled over onto her side. A tiny sob was the only sound she made.

“No, you didn’t awaken me,” Reeves said. “I was up.” The double entendre didn’t escape her. Nor was it meant to. The scornful tone in his voice was intentional.

She sat up and scooted to the other side of the bed, hastily picking up her sweater and pulling it on. Without looking back at Reeves, she refastened her jeans and smoothed trembling, ineffectual hands over her hair.

Reeves listened to Helmut. Jordan walked to the window and stared out unseeingly at the lake water, which now sparkled in the first sunlight. She clutched the pull cord of the drape when she heard Reeves ask, “Have you tried to reach Jordan?”

She whirled around and met his steely gaze from across the room. He was holding the telephone at his ear, pausing, silently asking her what he should say next. One look at her shattered face and he knew. In the depths of her gray eyes he saw her plea for him not to tell Helmut she was there. His lips hardened into a bitter line, but his voice remained cool as he answered, “No, she probably isn’t awake yet.”