Promises in the Night: A Classic Romance - Book 2 (11 page)

It was hard to be Alex Jakobs, Ph.D., when you were wearing a white silk shirt cut down to the navel and a gold hoop earring.

He parked his car in Larkin’s driveway, secured his mask, and walked over to Roger’s yard, where fluorescent orange balloons bobbed from the bare branches of the oak trees and an enormous ghost in designer sheets menaced the flagstone path, Larkin had told him to meet her at the party because she would be helping Roger set things up. The door was open and he went inside, where Dolly Parton, in a beaded red gown, gave him an outrageous wink.

“Glad you could make it, honey,” Dolly said sounding a hell of a lot like Roger Lacey. “Hang your sword in the closet and join the party!” Dolly waved in the general direction of the music and tottered away on her red wedgies with her backfield in motion.

The scene in the enormous living room was a cross between Walt-Disney-meets-Federico-Fellini and
Gone with the Wind,
and Alex felt uncomfortable until he remembered that he was no longer a respected psychologist but the villainous Alex the Blackhearted, whose goal in life was to pillage and hijack and wench.

Scarlett O’Hara swirled by in a cloud of perfume. For a second, Alex thought she was Larkin, but quickly he saw she lacked Larkin’s grace and line.

A tall blonde dressed as an eighteenth century tavern wench sidled up to him. “Aye, ye’re, a fine laddie,” she said. “Where would ye be stayin’ the night?”

Obviously there was a whole new world of role-playing out there that his colleagues knew nothing about.

“The Merry Widow
is in port, lass, and I with her,” he said, calling upon his memory of old Errol Flynn movies. “And she’s a fine ship, she is.” He could almost swear he felt the salt air against his face; then he remembered Roger’s home was on the water.

She was a fine wench, but he excused himself, saying he had to seek out his first mate. He elbowed past three more Scarlett O’Haras, two geriatric Cabbage Patch Kids, and a formidable Cleopatra. The party overflowed from the living room into the dining alcove, and points east, and he searched the crowd for Larkin, but she was nowhere to be found.

He slipped out the back door and was about to cross the moon-swept yard toward Larkin’s house when he heard a soft rustle from the deck that overlooked Great South Bay.

Her long amber hair swirled around her delicate face as she turned and looked at him. Wisps of diaphanous cloth shot through with silver and gold covered what was essential and promised everything else. She met his eyes and smiled at him, and he felt as if he were spontaneously combusting right there in the middle of Roger’s Halloween party.

She was every moonlight fantasy he’d ever had, every dream he’d ever entertained in the darkness. But she was real, and he knew beyond doubt that she would be his tonight.

H
e was
the most glorious male apparition Larkin had ever seen.

Even her wildest leap of imagination would have fallen far short of the reality of Alex as he walked toward where she stood on the redwood deck. Why on earth had she ever thought things were cooling between them? The fever in her blood burned hot and fierce as he moved closer to where she waited for him.

The golden hoop in his ear glittered in the moonlight. “I like your earring.”

His dark grey eyes traveled her body, then lingered at her navel. “I like your emerald.”

She glanced down at the enormous fake jewel in her belly button. “It’s cold and it’s uncomfortable,” she said. “It took two tubes of eyelash glue to make it stick.”

The look in his eyes made her tremble with excitement. “You have to admit it’s effective,” he said.

She gave a little shimmy and the glittering veils brushed gently against his arm. “Glad you like it.”

“I do.” His white teeth flashed against his dark beard as he smiled. “Very much.” He moved away from her and brandished his sword with a flourish. “What do you think of Alex the Blackhearted?”

I think you’re the most exciting man I’ve ever seen.
“Have you been studying old Errol Flynn movies? You look as if you were born to the piratical life.” Reckless and hungry and more than a little dangerous.

“You’ll dance for me later.” It was a command, not a request.

The sound of his voice made her tremble with longing. “I’ll dance for you now,” she said. They had moved away from the noise and lights of the house, and in the moonlit darkness she began to sway, her torso and hips beckoning him with age old promises of delight. Alex leaned against a silvery willow tree. His arms were folded across his chest, and his lean hard muscles rippled against his silky shirt. His mask dangled from one finger.

In her mind were ancient rhythms, which she recreated with the zills, the tiny cymbals held between her fingers. The sheer skirts helped hide her legs and the hard work the dance entailed; all that showed was sinuous, enticing movement, movement meant to invite even as it kept her just beyond reach.

A stiff wind blew up from Great South Bay and whipped her hair around her face, tangling it in the filmy costume. She felt as wild and free as the wind, as if the untamed weather matched something equally untamed inside her soul. She had chosen not to wear the heavy belt of gold coins; instead, a delicate necklace of tiny silver bells rested between her breasts, adding its music to the sound of the wind and the water and the pounding of her heart.

Alex’s eyes never left hers as she danced, her hips lifting higher and higher to the rhythm inside her, her arms tracing graceful patterns in the night. She was acutely aware of the sway of her breasts, the feel of the October air against her bare skin, the weight of her hair as it moved with her. She was filled with a female power, an inexplicable pagan sense of strength that radiated from her and heightened every movement she made with a sensuality she never knew she was capable of experiencing.

Suddenly Alex moved closer. With the tip of his sword he gently drew one layer of her shimmering costume away from her body, then another layer and another. She stopped dancing and stood, legs apart, breasts heaving, her breath coming hard and fast.

“I feel as if I don’t even know you,” she whispered.

“You
don’t
know me,” he said, drawing closer. “Tonight you don’t know me at all. Tonight everything is new.”

She shivered with pleasure. “You sound like a dangerous man.”

“Around you, I am.”

She leaned her head against his chest; his flesh burned against her cheek. His scent made a luscious hunger rise up inside her body. His powerful hands slid down over the curve of her back and cupped her rounded buttocks, pulling her up against his own rising excitement.

A sound began to form in the back of her throat—whether a gasp of pleasure or surprise she would never know because he swept her into his arms and, without a word, carried her across the wide and silent yard to her house.

L
arkin had left
a light burning in the hallway, so it was easy for Alex to find the bedroom. Magic and illusion were so much a part of the moment that he would have hated to ask for anything as mundane as directions to her room.

“Alex?” Larkin’s voice was a husky whisper as he put her down near the bed.

He spotted a Victorian brass candle holder on her night table. She handed him matches from the drawer, and a second later the flame cast their shadows against the wall. He ripped the white shirt off his body and tossed it to the floor. She reached behind her, and layers of gossamer drifted to the carpet. He went to pull her toward him, but she eluded him, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

She began to sway once more to some internal rhythm. The bottom part of her harem costume dipped low across her pelvis, accentuating the womanly curves of her body. The chain of tiny silver bells nestled between her breasts, its sound lost against the pounding of his blood. Through the long, sheer skirt he could see the parting of her thighs. His mind turned to flame.

He knelt before her and ripped the skirt from her body with his teeth. Her gasp of surprise became a moan of pleasure as he ran his tongue lightly across her abdomen. The flesh was firm, and it quivered at his touch. Her hands fumbled with the zipper on his tight black pants, and he gently pushed her away and stripped off his boots and trousers.

She watched every movement he made, those beautiful green eyes of hers caressing the muscles of his thighs, the line of his torso, the throbbing desire between his legs. His looks had never meant anything to him before; now he gloried in his ability to excite her as she had excited him.

And then she came to him and they fell to the bed; and everything he’d ever known about making love proved a poor substitute for what he found in the arms of Larkin Walker.

“
Y
ou are dangerous
,” Larkin whispered. “You’re a dangerous man.”

She lay atop him, her breasts grazing his muscular chest, her breathing still harsh and ragged from their fierce coupling of a few moments ago. The sheer male force of his passion had torn away her reserve, much as he had torn away the filmy costume shielding her body.

It had taken nothing more than the sight of him, naked and gloriously aroused, to send her crashing over the edge of reason. How easy—how terrifyingly easy—it was to disappear before a force as irresistible as desire.

And how easy it was to glory in this simple act made complicated by the power of the human heart.

Alex’s large hands spanned her waist, then lifted her, repositioning them so that she lay beneath his body. His mouth found hers as he moved slowly within her. For an instant, she wanted to stop, to pull back from madness, but then he whispered her name and gladly she stepped over the edge.

H
e knew
it belonged to the dark-haired man, for he’d memorized the license plate weeks ago. Funny how the damage no longer showed.

He’d listened by the window for the sound of her voice. If she’d cried out, he would have smashed through the glass to save her. But there had been no sound at all, and the pain in his gut grew sharp and strong.

Red-hot images of her tangled in the arms of the dark-haired man brought bile to his throat and he fought down the urge to vomit.

Early sunlight washed over the spot where he hid. He was still cold, and he turned up the collar on his leather jacket. It was almost time to come out from the shadows.

I
nstead of awakening
in Alex’s arms, eager for him, Larkin found herself leaving the warm bed not long after dawn. She showered and dressed, then went in to prepare breakfast, seeking some time and space for herself.

Her body still tingled from their passion of the previous night; she would never forget those first shattering moments when there was nothing in the world but pleasure. Total surrender was something she equated with the young girl she once had been, and the fact that she lost control so completely with Alex last night made her question her hard won independence.

The shower in the master bathroom clanked on. Last night she had wanted to curl inside his heart and stay there forever. This morning the house seemed too small to contain the two of them and all they brought into the relationship.

She had found it easier to share her body with him the night before than she was finding it to share her home with him that morning. An unpleasant fact, but true, nevertheless.

She was dipping thick slices of challah into batter for French toast when Alex appeared, barefoot and in his pirate costume, in the doorway.

“This isn’t quite as effective in the daylight, is it?” His thick chestnut hair was damp and it fell over his forehead in a very attractive manner. Larkin wished he would comb it back.

“You need the boots,” she said. “Pirates never go barefoot. It’s not good for the image.” She put two slices of bread on the griddle and they sizzled.

“I thought the sword was supposed to be the focal point.”

She shook her head, pushing aside bawdier images. “It’s the boots,” she said, turning the French toast so it could brown on the other side. She wished he had his boots on because she couldn’t remember the last time she’d washed the kitchen floor.

He pushed his damp hair off his face.

`There’s a blow dryer in the guest bathroom.”

“I don’t use blow dryers,” he said. “Never got the hang of them.”

He walked barefoot to the kitchen table. His white silk shirt, slashed to the waist, looked incongruous at her suburban breakfast table. He was probably the only pirate in existence who carried a beeper.

She realized that there was a definite need for a course on “Dealing with the Morning After.” She’d have to ask Patti for a few pointers.

“You’re smiling,” he said, “Anything I should know about?”

She shook her head. “There’s coffee, if you want some.”

Alex poured them each a mug. Larkin worked in silence. She wanted to turn on the radio but felt the gesture might seem rude. Was it possible that she had spent the most intense hours of her life in the arms of this man? At the moment, simple conversation seemed beyond their ability. Even the ordinary act of carrying a plate of food to the table took extraordinary effort.

“You’re a good cook,” Alex said. “This is terrific.”

“Breakfasts are my specialty. I used to help my mother when I was growing up.”

“That’s right. You were the only daughter, weren’t you?”

She poured milk into her coffee. “That I was. I never left the kitchen until I was thirteen.” Why on earth had she said something so stupid? She made it sound as though she’d been used as the Walker family charwoman, which was far from accurate. “What I mean to say is, my mother believed a daughter should know her way around the kitchen.”

“The way to a man’s heart?”

“Precisely, although I never fully believed a pot roast was the key to happily ever after.”

Alex’s laugh was forced, unnatural. “Lasagna, maybe,” he said. “Not pot roast.”

Another silence.

“I get
The New York Times
delivered,” she said. “If you’d like to read it or tackle the crossword puzzle, I—”

He shook his head. “Thanks, anyway. I don’t think clearly until noon on the weekends.”

She was desperately searching for another topic of conversation when the phone rang and she leaped up to answer it. She didn’t have to be an aging prizefighter to understand the meaning of the words “saved by the bell.”

I
f Alex thought
he felt stupid wearing his pirate getup at the gas station the night before that was only a warm-up for the way he felt sitting at Larkin’s breakfast table that morning. Everything between them last night had been blessed by a touch of magic; their elaborate costumes only enhanced the illusion.

Today, however, he felt like a first-class fool sitting there at her kitchen table like a barefoot Sinbad the Sailor. The only way it could have been worse would be if he still had his earring on.

When the phone rang and she jumped up to answer it—despite the fact that she usually relied upon her machine--he abandoned all pretense of eating and listened to her chat and laugh with Roger Lacey about the party last night.

Alex had almost forgotten that there had ever been a Halloween party at Roger’s house. All he could remember was the reality of Larkin in his arms, the heady scent of her perfume, the sound of her voice murmuring his name in his ear.

When he had awakened that morning and heard her bustling around the kitchen, he’d been filled with elation—an elation he’d last known when Rikki was alive. He knew Larkin wasn’t Rikki—he didn’t want her to be—but the sense of joy he felt thinking about her was the same joy he’d felt during his marriage.

He’d been on his way into the kitchen to lure Larkin into the shower with him when he spotted a copy of
People
and an issue of
Star
on top of her dressing table. Vladimir Karpov’s splendid face looked up at him from both covers, and Alex had to exercise the utmost control to keep from flushing them down the john.

Jealousy had been an unknown emotion to him before meeting Larkin, and he wasn’t proud of the things he wondered about, the questions he’d like to ask her about Karpov. So Alex showered alone and tried to rein in his conflicting emotions for the time being.

Apparently, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it, because at the moment he even resented Roger Lacey’s place in her life.

“Sorry I took so long,” Larkin said as she came back into the kitchen and sat down. “Roger loves to do a postmortem on all his parties. I had to cut him short halfway through his guest list.”

“Did he have anything to say about me?” The question came out before he could stop it.

She gave him a funny half-smile. “He liked your earring, and your boots were to die for.”

He refilled his coffee cup then topped off Larkin’s. “He should be glad he doesn’t have to wear them in broad daylight.”

Once again the conversation fell dead. They ate in silence until his beeper sounded.

“Busy morning,” he said. “May I use the phone?”

“Use the one in the bedroom,” she said. “More privacy.”

F
ive minutes
later he was standing at her front door, in full pirate regalia, saying goodbye to the woman he was falling in love with as if she were no more than a casual acquaintance.

“I’m sorry to be leaving so abruptly,” he said, fishing his car keys out of the pocket of his tight black pants. “I never expected an emergency to pop up today.”

“Don’t apologize. Emergencies rarely pop up on schedule. I understand.”

She more than understood. Alex had seen the look of relief on her face when he told her he was needed by a patient. She seemed as eager for him to leave as he was. “My weekends usually aren’t work-oriented,” he said.

“Mine are,” she said.

Morning sun reflected in her eyes as they stood in the doorway, and he was hard put to interpret what he saw there. He stepped outside to the top stair.

“Drive carefully.”

He grinned. “The patient’s in Rhode Island.”

“You’re flying today?”

“Want to come?” Hell, why not take one last stab at breaking through the barriers between them.

“Sorry. I have some work to catch up on at the school:”

He reached out and touched her cheek. “Thank you, Larkin.” Her beautiful green eyes looked away, but his intensity drew them back to his. “Last night was special.”

She placed her finger on his mouth. “I know,” she said. “For me as well.”

He wanted to tell her that he, the psychologist, understood what was going on, that what had happened between them had been so volatile, so potentially shattering to their future—both separately and together—that they needed time to step back and reevaluate.

Unfortunately, the psychologist wasn’t in love with Larkin Walker; the man was, and at the moment, the man was at a loss for words.

L
arkin hated
the Learning Center on Saturdays.

All the Saturday classes were held in parks and museums and other points of interest, and the school itself seemed about as lively as a ghost town. Today, however, the isolation suited her just fine. She had a lot of paperwork to contend with surrounding Vladimir’s upcoming workshop, and even her dreary, deserted office was preferable to sitting at home alone with her confusion.

Where had the magic between her and Alex disappeared? It had been there when she fell asleep, cradled in his arms; yet, by the time she awoke it was gone. He had seemed to blot out everything with the sheer power of his masculinity, and the ease with which she had surrendered unnerved her.

Retreat seemed the wisest course.

So she sat at her desk through the long afternoon, trying to come up with a glamorous way to publicize a glamorous star. Vladimir expected a great deal of free publicity in return for speaking at the Center, and Larkin was hard put to come up with something glitzy enough, yet still within her operating budget. She came up with ideas for dinners and black-tie receptions only to reject each idea out of hand.

At the moment she really didn’t give a damn if the whole event ever came off at all.

Despite the large breakfast she’d eaten a few hours earlier, Larkin was hungry again around noon, and she killed two hours by searching around for a deli with the perfect tuna salad sandwich. She had a yen for an almond bar—more emotional than biological, this time—but she decided to exercise her willpower and refuse to give in. If she kept eating like this, her relationship with Alex Jakobs would put ten pounds on her before she knew what hit her.

Finally, at around four o’clock, she decided that Vladimir would simply have to accept newspaper publicity and a direct mail blitz and let word of mouth take care of the rest. If his ego needed more stroking than that, let his publicist deal with it. She was too tired, too cranky and too cold to care.