Temptation's Kiss (3 page)

“James, for heaven's sake calm down,” she chided laughingly as he paced the room before the party began, checking this and that, pestering the hired help by constantly getting in their way.

He hugged her enthusiastically. “How can I calm down? Tomorrow I'm going to marry the most beautiful girl in the world.” She smiled, pleased, but her grin collapsed when he added, “Besides, I haven't had a cigarette in three days.”

“Oh, James, you're doing so well,” she said encouragingly. “And you promised to quit.”

“I know, I know,” he said, kissing her quickly. “I will. But if I find a smoker here tonight, I may stand beside him and breathe in real deep.”

She had tolerated his hyperactivity that night. He drank too many glasses of champagne, but she didn't scold him, knowing he was drinking to compensate for not smoking. She loved his smiling face, his exuberance, his unflagging enthusiasm for life, his boundless energy, his ambition.

She had thought the tributes he paid to the owner of the Bennett Agency a trifle overblown, but when Joshua Bennett walked into the flower-bedecked room, Megan had to admit that James's acclaim wasn't unwarranted. The man certainly made a startling first impression. Tall, slender, and distinguished in his tuxedo, he exuded confidence and charm.

She felt the first tinglings of sensation when, at James's introduction, Josh Bennett's amber eyes subjected her to a thorough appraisal. But those tinglings were only harbingers of the currents that sizzled along her nerves when he took her hand and pressed her fingers lightly. She all but jerked her hand out of his electrifying clasp.

“I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Bennett. James has told me so much about you.” Somehow she had squeezed the words past her constricting throat.

“Not nearly as much as he's told me about you,” he said in a confidential whisper. “And my name's Josh.”

If voices could have color, his would be whiskey-colored, like his eyes. His voice was husky, mellow, and rich, like the finest bourbon.

Lulled by the sound and drawn into the maelstrom of his eyes, she all but forgot James, who was boisterously greeting a group of his former fraternity brothers.

“Say, Josh, will you dance with my girl while I show these degenerates where the real booze is kept?” James asked his employer.

Panicked, Megan watched James's neglectful retreat, knowing even then that she shouldn't be alone with Josh Bennett. Strong intuition telegraphed disaster. She didn't heed it. Had she minded her instincts then, she might not have had to pay so dearly later.

“Shall we?” he asked. His brow lifted in query, and she noticed the scar for the first time.

Before she verbalized a reply, she was pulled into the circle of his arms, and speech became impossible. He maneuvered them around the dance floor with animal grace, never faltering in matching his steps to the beat of the music.

Megan could never recall afterward what tune they had danced to. Her thoughts were centered on the hand pressing, not against her lower back, where the fabric of her dress would have provided some protection, but higher, where her skin was naked and vulnerable beneath the gentle pressure of his hand. Instead of holding her hand indifferently, he had laced their fingers loosely together. His thumb lazily stroked the side of her index finger.

He didn't hold her inappropriately close, but each time she brushed against him, her body reacted shamelessly. She hoped fervently that he didn't notice the tightening of her nipples beneath the clinging gown, or the way her thigh had found it so amenable to nest between his, or the sudden rushing of her breath in and out of her body. Not daring to meet his eyes, she stared at the onyx studs between the starched pleats of his white shirtfront.

When the song was over and Josh returned her to her fiancé, she all but fell into James's arms. Had he been rescuing her from cruel, violent ravishment, she couldn't have been more relieved to see him.

But she had been violated in a far different and much more subtle way than rape. Her heart had been debauched.

She'd wanted so badly to enjoy the evening of celebration, but Joshua Bennett's presence had ruined it for her. She was tense and nervous. Every time she ventured to glance around the room, she found his eyes drilling into her. Never able to disregard their hypnotism, she stared back at him while unthinkably erotic pictures were being painted on her mind.

The next time he asked her to dance, she accepted under the duress of James's coaxing. Her fiancé's eyes were unusually bright, and Megan knew he'd made several trips to the bar with his fraternity brothers. She gave him a disappointed look when she saw the cigarette dangling from his lips.

He shrugged engagingly. “After the wedding, I promise. Now go dance with my boss. He might give me a raise.”

The band played a vigorous number that didn't require her and her partner to touch. Caught up in the drumming rhythm of the music, she smiled easily at Josh, who took to this kind of dancing with the same agility as he had the slower rhythm. Only when their hips bumped together accidentally did Megan's feet miss a beat—at the same time that her heart did. For a split second she stood stock still.

“Are you all right?” Josh asked, placing a concerned hand on her bare shoulder.

She nodded dumbly just as the band went into a slow ballad. Without asking her permission, he drew her into a warm embrace. “This is more to my liking,” he murmured. His lips moved against her hair. “I like to feel a woman's body against mine … when I'm dancing.”

Right then, then, with that first innuendo, she should have pulled away from him, politely excused herself, and not had anything more to do with him for the rest of the evening.

But she hadn't. Instead she had obeyed the imperceptible encouragement of his hand on her back and moved closer. It
did
feel good dancing body to body, especially if the other body was like this one, hard and taut, virile and warm. They swayed to the music. Megan's eyes closed languidly. Their hearts beat together. His powerful thighs moved against hers. His hips … Oh, God!

“I … excuse me,” she said hoarsely. His startled arms fell away as she slipped out of them.

With what she knew was a grotesque parody of a smile plastered on her face, she wended her way through the dim room, dodging her mother, her fiancé, and anyone else who might read her guilty expression.

She needed air. She rarely drank, and she'd had too many glasses of champagne. They had gone straight to her head and made her a little crazy. Night air would clear up her head and she'd stop having these ridiculous fantasies about the man with the dark hair, golden eyes, and magnificent body, who stirred her like no man ever had.

She reveled in the cool night breeze as she circumnavigated the subtly lit swimming pool and sought privacy in the white lattice gazebo. She sank onto the bench inside the octagonally shaped structure.

Covering her face with shaking hands, she tried vainly to get a grip on herself. If only her heart would stop racing. She felt each pounding pulse at her temples, in her earlobes, in the tips of her breasts, and in the region that felt heavy and swollen and hot between her thighs.

But her heart didn't slow. Rather, it lurched and came to a dead standstill when she heard the crunch of footsteps on the gravel walkway outside. There was no doubt in her mind who the looming silhouette in the moonlit opening of the gazebo belonged to. He passed under the arch and came to her slowly through the shadows.

Galvanized by her fear of the man and her reactions to him, she bolted off the bench and tried to slip past him, but he caught her against his solid length. “Why are you marrying James Lambert?”

“I love him,” she cried desperately.

“Do you?”

“Yes, of course. Yes.”

“You don't sound sure.”

I was. I was sure until an hour ago.
“I love him. I'm marrying him tomorrow. Now, please let me go.”

He did just the opposite. He held her tighter to him and walked her backward, until she was against the filagreed wall of the summerhouse. Moonlight seeping through the narrow slats cast waffle patterns on his features. “I want you to kiss me and then tell me that you love James Lambert.”

“I can't,” she said hoarsely. Even then she didn't know if she was saying she couldn't kiss him, or if, once she did, she wouldn't be able to tell him she loved James. She had no time to reason it through before his mouth claimed hers with heart-stopping precision.

Now, more than four years later, lying on the couch of her executive office and recalling that night, she could still vividly remember how effortlessly he'd taken possession of her mouth. His lips had been ardent but tender as they moved over her less-skilled ones. How sweetly his tongue had broken the barrier of her lips and teeth. How wonderfully thorough it had been as it explored her mouth, performing a mating dance with her own tongue.

His hands had cupped her jaw, tilting her head back for a deeper kiss, which had robbed her of conscience and scruples. His tongue left no part of her mouth intact but touched all of it, penetrating even what had until then been virgin territory.

One hand caressed her. With his thumb on one side, and his fingers on the other, he defined the underside of her breast. Lifting it slightly, he found the full nipple worthy of his attention. When his thumb began to slide along it, Megan's head fell back, and a sigh of ecstasy echoed in the night.

As his lips greedily partook of her throat, that talented thumb found the peaking desire of her breast and circled it mesmerizingly.

“Lord, you're sweet. So sweet. I knew you would be. Give me your mouth again.”

Thinking about it now, Megan's fingers clenched in self-loathing as she remembered how docilely she'd offered her mouth for his carnal pleasure. And it hadn't been only his mouth that had kissed her. His body had moved along hers in one tantalizing kiss. His hard chest had pressed against her breasts. His thighs had brushed, lingered, separated, brushed again, stayed. His hand had opened wide on the small of her back and smoothed downward to cradle her hips. Holding her that way, he'd rubbed the rigid flesh in the front of his trousers against her with the same provocative motion of his tongue inside her mouth. Some demonic element in her soul had enticed her to answer with a lifting motion of her own.

“Megan, Megan,” he had whispered. “You don't love James, when you can kiss me like this.”

His words were like an icy deluge on her fired spirit. She swatted at the hand caressing her breast and was ashamed at feeling bereft at its loss. At the same time the heel of her other hand pushed against his chest until he stumbled backward.

“You slimy … Oh, to think I … How could you do this to your
friend?
How could I … You're disgusting.”

Whirling away in a cloud of sea-green chiffon, she had wiped his kisses off her mouth with the back of her hand and run out into the darkness.

Megan sat up now, feeling all the hatred for the man she had felt that night. He had no sense of propriety, shame, or moral conscience. Selfishly he went after whatever he wanted. Not that he'd wanted her, except maybe for a weekend fling. But he'd proved what he'd set out to, that he could make James Lambert's fiancée melt beneath his practiced kisses and caresses.

“What did it avail you, Mr. Bennett?” she asked now into the empty office. “I despised you then. I despise you now, and with more cause.”

The buzzer on her intercom sounded again. Hauling herself up, suddenly exhausted and lethargic beyond comprehension, she crossed the room to answer it.

“Sorry to bother you, but Mr. Atherton called,” Arlene informed her. “As soon as you return from lunch, he wants to see you. He said it was important.”

“I'll be there,” Megan replied listlessly.

Checking her watch, she saw that she had over an hour to prepare herself for the meeting with the station's general manager. She had a fairly good idea that the important matter he needed to see her about was Joshua Bennett.

Two

M
egan's footsteps were silent on the lush hallway carpet. Here there were no constantly ringing telephones, scurrying reporters, clacking typewriters, and squawking police radios, as in the newsroom. Downstairs, engineers, who kept the television station on the air, worked in dim rooms full of whirring computers and lighted dials. Directors and producers used cubicles near the cavernous studios that were cluttered with scripts, storyboards, and timetables.

But this floor, which housed the executive offices of WONE, could have been found in any major corporation building in the country. This quiet hallway didn't even bear resemblance to the one in which Megan and her salespeople were pigeonholed. Her office was nicer than most of the others, because she had decorated it herself, at her own expense, but it wasn't luxurious like the one she now entered through double oak doors.

“Hi,” she greeted Mr. Atherton's secretary. “Is he back from lunch?”

“Back and waiting for you.” The woman smiled. “Go on in.”

Pretending a confidence she didn't feel, Megan crossed the outer office and entered the sanctum where the station manager made all the major decisions regarding the television station.

“Come in, Megan,” he said, making half an effort to stand as she took the deep, plush chair on the other side of his enormous desk. “Coffee?”

“No, thank you, Doug. I just had my daily carton of yogurt for lunch. I'd better let it settle.”

Doug Atherton, balding and paunchy, shuddered. “God, if I ate that stuff, it would never settle.” The most attractive thing about the middle-aged man was his melodious Southern drawl. Even when he was reading the riot act to an unfortunate employee, Doug's voice sounded soothing. He studied his thumbnail as he asked, “How are things in local sales this week?”

“We're above budget, I'm glad to report. I had to call Barnes in on the carpet this morning and give him a pep talk. I think—hope—he'll shape up.”

“You'd better have everyone fired up. I got word that a group of bigwigs from the parent company is coming down in a few weeks. I'm sure they'll want to increase your budget.”