Enthralled (15 page)

"Darling, when you move
like that you make me forget everything but how good we are together in
bed." Chazz feathered her forehead with tiny kisses.

"Stop that," she
hissed, glaring up at him, cursing her blood pressure that was steadily rising.
"If I owe Rowan for those meals, then I'll pay
him.
Just make out a
bill."

"I'm Rowan's employer.
You owe
me."

"Then make out the bill," Teel
repeated.

"You couldn't afford it. But since I'm a
magnanimous—"

"Balderdash and twaddle," Teel
interrupted, taking in deep breaths, trying to keep her fury in check.
"You're a Sephardic rug merchant who intends to take me to the
cleaners."

"You got it," Chazz
agreed simply, kissing her under the chin.

"Stop that." Teel
glowered. "I'll get a loan. I'll pay you back."

"You aren't listening,
sweetheart. You couldn't afford it." Chazz leaned back on the couch,
taking her with him, keeping her pinned to his chest. "Yes, it's nice
here. I like it. And it's just a short flight from New York."

"Is that how you got
here? There wasn't another flight before or after mine." Teel's eyes
narrowed on him.

He chucked her under the chin
and kept a firm grip on her. "I flew my own plane, love."

"Oh, no!" Teel
closed her eyes. "You're disgusting."

"Love, I wish you
wouldn't call me names. Think how upset our children will be."

"We're not having
children."

"Of course we are. You're
not the kind of woman who would want to be childless. But we won't discuss it
right now, if you'd rather not." Chazz lifted her hand to his mouth and
sucked on each of her fingers in turn. "You taste good, Teel."

She took advantage of his
absorption and wrenched her body away from him. In her scramble to be free of
him she almost tumbled to the floor, but finally she staggered to her feet. She
stood in front of him, her fists on her hips. "If you think I'm going to
listen to my children bewailing the absence of a father out gallivanting with
assorted women, you're one brick short."

Chazz leaned back against the
cushions, his arms folded across his chest, a smile lifting the corners of his
mouth. "I love your expressions, angel. What did you do? Take a crash
course in archaic English?"

"Don't mock me,
you—you—international woman chaser, you." Teel sucked in a deep angry
breath.

"Angel, did you know that
your breasts look wonderful when you do that?" Chazz's voice held a soft
promise.

Teel hunched forward, suddenly
remembering that she was braless. "Don't change the subject."

"What was it?" Chazz
took off his jacket and leaned down to slip the short tooled boots from his
feet. "Ah, that's better. Courting you is exhausting. You'd think you'd
take pity on a hard-working man and not hop all over the state."

"Take a walk," Teel
said unfeelingly.

"I'd love to, but not tonight. I'm
tired."

"Then get a motel," Teel said between
gritted teeth.

"No. I'm staying here. I've already left
orders for Sibley to pack more of my things. Darby will drive them up here once
I phone and give him more specific directions." Chazz grimaced. "You
might have given me a more detailed idea of my destination."
"Leave."

"No." He met her
gaze without flinching. His voice was still bland, but a metallic glint shone
in his golden eyes.

"I'll call the
police." Teel fought down her growing panic. She had to get rid of him,
she just had to.

"Go ahead. I'm not
leaving. And if they try to take me forcefully, I'll call the newspapers and
give my side of the story."

"Which is what?"
Teel demanded, her voice hoarse.

"Only that you promised
to be mine and now you're intent on dumping me. That I'm pining with a
broken—"

"Stop that. Stop it right
now." She tried another tack. "How can you want to stay where you're
not wanted?"

"Oh, I'm wanted, love,
and by you. Shall I show you just how much we want each other?"

"No!" Teel shouted.
"You can't sleep in my bed."

Chazz shrugged. "I'll
sleep in another room if you insist."

"I don't have another
room," Teel said, triumphant. "You'll have to go to a motel."

"No." Chazz's voice
was like steel rivets. "I'm staying here." He looked around. "If
worse comes to worst, I'll sleep here, on this couch."

"You can't. You're too
tall. You'll be cramped," Teel argued desperately.

Chazz pulled up the cushions.
"This is one of those hide-a-bed things, isn't it?"

"Yes, but it's a regular
size, not a king size. Your feet will hang off the end." She watched him.
When he turned a speculative look on her, she hurried on. "My bed is queen
size. It would be too short for you, too."

"But better than the
double bed."

"I'm going to use my
bed—alone." Teel prayed he wouldn't try to change her mind. She knew she
would take very little coaxing, despite all her intentions.

"All right," Chazz
conceded. "I'll take this bed." With that he was on his feet, making
Teel jump backward like a scalded cat. He pulled the cushions from the couch
and placed them neatly on a nearby chair. "Where are the sheets?"

Teel stood staring at him, her
hands clasped into tight fists. "Well?" Chazz asked.

"What? Sheets. Yes, I'll
get them." She rushed up the narrow staircase, taking the steps as fast as
she could.

At the top of the stairs she
tried to catch her breath, feeling disoriented.
I'm
going to marry that man,
she moaned silently.
I'm not going to resist him at all,
she groaned, her teeth coming together so hard that she
wondered briefly if they'd cracked.
He's holding
me in a velvet trap! The more I struggle and yell at him, the tighter the trap
gets. Why don't I fight harder?
she grated to
herself.

Because you want to marry him,
her inner self pronounced like a death sentence.
You want him, no matter what the cost, despite
the pain.

I'll keep fighting,
she moaned to the voice.

Save your strength
for when you're married to him,
crackled the
unfeeling person deep inside her.
You'll need
it.

Teel plunged her
hand willy-nilly into the shallow linen closet, grabbing whatever she found,
tumbling several neatly folded sheets and towels onto the floor. "Damn, damn,
damn," she muttered. "He makes more work for me. And he's ruining my
health." She refolded the linens that had fallen and returned them to
their proper piles. "Why should I put up with this? I'll hire a body
guard. No, a guard dog would be cheaper. I'll get a killer Doberman," she
told the lace-edged pillow case that Aunt Tessa had embroidered for her.

Teel ran gentle fingers over
the beautifully worked lace, remembering how her aunt had told her to save the
pillow cases and sheets that she had embroidered for her own hope chest.

Teel blinked, then
grabbed two sheets, two pillow cases, and a blanket from the pile and started
pell-mell down the stairs.

Chazz's voice froze her in her
tracks. "For God's sake, Teel, be careful." He frowned up at her from
the bottom of the stairs. "Do you always come down the stairs in that
headlong fashion? You need me in more ways than I realized." A smile
spread slowly over his face. "Come down the rest of the way. Don't just
stand there."

Teel lifted her chin
defiantly. "I'm just waiting for you to get out of my way."

"Oh, is that what you're
doing?" Chazz grinned, stepped back one step, and cocked his head
inquiringly. Then he stepped back another smaller step and looked at her again.

Teel began to descend slowly,
walking in her most sedate way. When she reached the bottom step, Chazz flashed
forward and locked his hands around her waist.

"I like
this," he crooned. "Being face to face, nose to nose with you, I
mean." His grin widened as her cheeks burned. "Did you know that you
have tiny little gold flecks that ray out from the center of your eyes?"

"Yes," Teel answered
tersely.

"Did you know that the
gold flecks match those in my eyes?" he whispered, his tongue touching her
lips in a quick caress.

"What?" Teel said.

"Don't you think our children
will have beautiful eyes?" he murmured into her neck.

"Maybe."

"How many should we have?"

"The national average is two and a half, I
think," Teel answered, dazed.

"Don't you think three would be better
than two and a half?" Chazz chuckled into her throat.

Then she realized
that her head was thrown back to expose all of her throat to his swift, hot
kisses. She wondered vaguely who had pushed her head back. "Three is an
odd number," she said vaguely.

"True. Would you like
four, do you think?"

"That's a nice round number. Not too big,
not too small."

"Right."

Teel's eyes refocused. She blinked at a
grinning Chazz, her words repeating themselves in her mind. "Stop
that," she told him, pushing his hand away from her thigh. "You're a
menace," she hissed, shoving the sheets, pillow slips, and blanket at his
chest. "Here. Make up your own bed."

"Yes, ma'am. I think
that's only fair. Since we both work at demanding jobs, we should share the
chores." He shifted the bundle of linens under one arm and took her elbow,
leading her down the last step and across the small foyer into the living room.
"What days do you want me to do the cooking?" he asked, setting down
the bedding and glancing around the room. "You forgot the pillows,"
he said softly.

"Oh." She had been
thinking about what he'd just said about cooking. "I'm sure you can't boil
water." She whirled and rushed back up the stairs.

"Don't be too sure,
love," he called up after her.

She ignored him, reaching up
to the top of the linen closet to get her extra pillow. She looked at the
striped ticking without seeing it. What if he liked two pillows? She ran into
her own room, took one of the pillows off the bed, stripped the case from it,
and carried both down the stairs.

Chazz was standing where she
had left him, holding a pillow slip out in front of him. She noticed that the
sheets were already on the bed. He watched her closely as she walked toward
him. "This is beautiful work." He gestured toward the lace-edged
linen. "It looks hand done."

"It is," Teel whispered,
wondering how she had come to take Aunt Tessa's hand-embroidered pillow slips
from the linen closet.

"The sheets match the
pillow slips, but there's a tiny difference in the edging."

"Yes."
Teel stared wide-eyed at the sheets that her aunt had made so lovingly, sheets
that she intended to use only if she ever got married. She had been fairly sure
that she would never use them. Now she had given them to Chazz. She really had
to get her act together.

He grinned at her. "I'm
flattered that you let me use such treasures, darling. Are they from your hope
chest?"

"Yes—no!" she
corrected as his grin widened and his golden eyes took on a speculative look.
"They're just some old things I had around the house. I generally use them
for drop cloths when I paint," she lied, gulping a silent prayer that Aunt
Tessa would never know she'd spoken such blasphemy.

Chazz chuckled.
"Liar," he told her softly. He reached for one of the pillows,
catching it under his chin as he fitted the case to the bottom and let the
pillow slide inside. "We'll have to take very good care of these. We'll
want our girls to have them one day." "Never," Teel snapped.

"Why darling, I never
imagined that you would be selfish with our girls," Chazz reproved her,
his eyes bright with mischief.

"You know damned well
that wasn't what I meant at all," Teel hissed, her fingers curling into
fists.

Chazz yawned. "Let's not
fight now, love. I need my sleep." He looked at her sideways, watching her
gnaw at her lip. "Are you going to get my hot milk?"

"Take a jump off a
bridge!" Teel fumed, whirling and running up the stairs two at a time. She
heard him laughing as she slammed her bedroom door shut behind her.

She stood against
the closed door, her hand covering her mouth. That man! Now he was giving her
stomach trouble. She, who had an iron digestive tract, was probably getting an
ulcer, she decided as her stomach churned sickeningly.

She strode into the bathroom,
stripping off her clothes and scattering them every which way behind her. She
would take a long, hot shower. That would help her sleep.

The soothing warm water was
sluicing over her and she'd just soaped herself thoroughly when the water
turned ice cold, making her shriek.