Every Breath You Take (12 page)

To her delighted surprise, he opened his eyes a little and gave his tail a feeble, answering wag.

“You’re going to be just fine,” she whispered, scratching his ears. “If you happen to get your strength back in the next few minutes, and if you’re a good watchdog, feel free to come outside on the terrace. I need some watching tonight, because I’m tempted to do something really stupid. Or maybe not so stupid.”

She felt a strange prickling sensation on the back of her neck and looked over her shoulder. Mitchell was watching her.

“How is he?” he asked.

Kate’s pulse edged up a notch. “He’s better,” she said, standing up. “I’ll be right there as soon as I wash this flea powder off.”

In the bathroom, Kate quickly washed her hands. As she passed through the living room, she saw the liquor cabinet, remembered the ice bucket she’d used as an excuse to get away for a couple of minutes, and she picked it up. For good measure, she swept up a bottle of brandy, too.

“I come bearing gifts,” she joked, putting the ice
bucket and brandy on the small table with the wine. “Would you like more wine?”

“I poured some for both of us while I was waiting for you.”

Kate glanced at his plate and realized he hadn’t touched his food since she left and had let it grow cold rather than eat without her. On top of everything else, the man had impeccable manners. Trying to atone for being gone so long, she picked up her fork so that he would pick up his, and she let him choose the topics and conversational pace. To her relief—and just a tiny bit of disappointment—he kept everything impersonal after that, chatting easily with her about the hotel and the climate, and telling her an amusing story about two couples who rented a sailboat for three hours in St. Maarten and were lost for three days.

At the end of ten minutes, the only significant thing Kate had learned about him was that he excelled at the art of entertaining small talk.

The musicians had either finished playing for the night or taken a break, but an occasional burst of cheerful laughter from the beach meant hotel guests were still enjoying themselves. Kate gazed into the gardens on her right, listening to the surf tumbling rhythmically onto the shore, while she contemplated ways to get him to talk about himself without appearing to pry. She was more than just curious about him; she felt a compulsive need to know and understand him. Despite his veneer of relaxed charm and indulgent affability, Kate had the growing feeling that Mitchell Wyatt was a very complex man. There was something about his unwillingness to talk about himself that struck her as guarded and detached. He obviously had no qualms about sexual intimacy, but she was beginning to wonder if he was accessible on an emotional level to anyone—specifically, her. With an inner sigh, she chided herself for thinking—
and feeling—like an infatuated, overeager twelve-year-old who couldn’t wait to find out everything she could about the object of her infatuation.

Mitchell picked up his wineglass and leaned back in his chair, content for the moment with a view of her pretty profile and a tantalizing glimpse of that romantic mouth of hers. A smile tugged at his lips as he imagined her as a seven-year-old with a riotous mop of long, curly red hair, draping herself across a kitchen table, pretending a broom handle was a microphone.

He tried to imagine her in a Catholic school uniform—probably a white blouse and plaid jumper with white socks and brown shoes, he decided. When he imagined her leaning up on her toes to write “I will not be disrespectful” one hundred times on the chalkboard, the corners of his eyes crinkled in amusement. The nuns thought she sounded like an angel when she sang in the choir, he remembered, and a new image of her instantly presented itself—that of a little girl in a long choir robe with her huge green eyes lifted heavenward as she held a songbook in her hands.

Mitchell was not a complete stranger to Catholic church choirs. In Italy, he’d lived with the Callioroso family until he was five and left to attend his first boarding school. Shortly before he was to leave, Sergio Callioroso and his wife realized Mitchell might never have been baptized, and since they were devout Catholics, they chose that religion for him. Mitchell actually remembered the July day he was baptized, because the little village church had been sweltering, and Rosalie Callioroso had starched and ironed his white shirt until it was as stiff as plasterboard. To add to his discomfort, the old priest had chosen the sacrament of baptism as the subject for an endless sermon, and as he droned on and on, all Mitchell could think about was how good it was going to feel to have a little cool water poured over his
head, the way Rosalie explained it would happen. But when the time came, the water wasn’t cool, it was lukewarm. So was the effect of the ceremony on him.

Being baptized as a Catholic didn’t make him feel holy or pious; it didn’t even instill the slightest partiality for Catholicism in him. At all of the boarding schools he attended afterward, church attendance was mandatory, so as soon as he ascertained which religious services were the shortest at that particular school, Mitchell immediately decided to “convert” himself to that religion. When he was fourteen and the only available rabbi became too ill to conduct services for the few Jewish boys at Mitchell’s school, he promptly announced his devout desire to convert to Judaism, and thus avoided attending any religious services whatsoever for nearly half a year.

Somehow, Kate had flourished despite the stifling parochial atmosphere she was raised in. He took another swallow of his wine and marveled at how natural and unaffected she was despite having a face and figure that most women would envy. Mitchell had enjoyed the company of many glamorous, clever women, and he’d known a number of plainer women who were delightfully funny and intelligent, and he enjoyed their company, too. But Kate Donovan was the first woman he’d ever known who possessed an abundance of all their best traits, along with an amazingly soft heart and a trace of amusing primness. The package was damned near irresistible—so long as she didn’t carry that parochial-school primness too far tonight.

She hadn’t mentioned her mother or the existence of siblings, and Mitchell wondered about both those things, but he didn’t intend to ask her. He knew if he questioned her further about her family, she’d expect to question him about his. And although he was prepared to indulge her with almost anything in order to get her into that
king-size bed, he was not willing to gratify anyone’s curiosity about his childhood or his family.

She was staring absently at the border of trees and shrubs at the edge of the garden—probably thinking up a list of questions for him, Mitchell presumed wryly—when she stiffened suddenly and leaned forward. “Did you see that?”

“See what?” Mitchell asked, already half out of his chair.

“Something moved in the trees, and I saw something shiny—a reflection in the moonlight, just for a second.”

Shaking his head at the outlandish reaction of a born-and-bred city girl to the presence of a harmless nocturnal animal, Mitchell decided to stand up instead of sitting back down. “A cat or dog,” he assured her, walking around to her side of the table. “Their eyes gleam when light touches them at night.”

“Then this cat or dog was close to six feet tall.”

“Because it’s in a tree,” Mitchell reasoned. When she continued to stare dubiously at the trees behind him, he added, “Don’t expect me to start searching the woods. I’ve already exceeded my annual quota of heroic acts tonight.”

Kate decided he was right about the animal being in a tree, and she fell into his joking mood. “Where’s your sense of chivalry?” she chided.

His deep voice acquired a deliberately meaningful note. “My chivalry expires when dessert is finished.”

He was standing so close that the legs of his tan trousers were touching her knees, and she had to tip her head way back to talk to him, but she did her best to appear amused and blasé despite her physical disadvantage. “We didn’t have dessert,” she pointed out.

“Let’s have it now,” he said with quiet implacability, and held out his hand.

Kate’s heart slammed into her ribs. In slow motion,
her hand reached toward his, her fingers sliding into his warm handclasp. He held out his other hand, and when she took it she felt herself drawn upward. His right arm slid around her back, forcing her breasts into contact with a male chest like a wall of rock, and as he stepped farther away from the table, his left hand clasped her right, tucking it against his chest. Expecting a kiss, Kate started to tip her head back, but he stepped sideways and turned her slightly to the left. An instant before she lost her balance and tripped on his feet, Kate realized the band at the beach was playing “The Girl from Ipanema” and he wasn’t trying to kiss her, he was trying to dance with her. The operative word was
trying
, she realized, stifling a paroxysm of embarrassed giggles, because she had to take two quick, awkward steps sideways in order to stay off his feet and two more forward steps to catch up with the rhythm.

“How’s it going?” he joked.

Moments before, she’d been afraid to touch him for fear she’d go up in flames. Now she leaned her forehead against the same rock-solid male chest that had made her breasts tingle and she laughed helplessly. “You might have mentioned that you intended to dance with me, not try to ravish me.”

“But I do intend to ravish you,” he warned quietly, his lips so close to the top of her head that his breath stirred her hair.

Kate’s laughter fled and her senses flared to life. With the sensuous samba melody pulsing in the night and his long legs shifting against hers, it was a full minute before Kate realized that he danced the way he did everything else—with effortless ease and competence. No doubt he would be just as expert in bed, she thought—just as demanding and tender and irresistibly male as he was out of bed.

Her traitorous body turned warm and pliant, and Kate
struggled against an overwhelming temptation to yield to the subtle pressure of his hand on her spine and move closer to him. What about
after
she went to bed with him, she asked herself sternly. He was so casual about sex that he undoubtedly forgot a woman as quickly and effortlessly as he seduced her. If so, then he’d find it doubly easy to forget about her. On the other hand, she was going to have a terribly difficult time forgetting him now, even if she didn’t go to bed with him. If she did go to bed with him, she might not be able to forget him for months or even years.

Trying to focus on that dampening thought, Kate stared straight ahead, but that gave her a close-up view of his tanned throat and the vee of his open white shirt, where tiny dark hairs peeked out invitingly just above a button. Hastily, she shifted her glance to the right and found herself gazing at long, masculine fingers lightly entwined with hers. He had beautiful hands with short, well-manicured nails. Strong, knowledgeable hands that would unerringly seek out and explore her body’s most intimate places if she let—

Kate surrendered to defeat. She was going to let him. Regardless of the consequences, she had to find out for herself what was waiting for her in his arms. She had to know. She had to understand why he could evoke this combustible combination of heady desire and warm friendship in her within a few hours of meeting him.

Laying her cheek against his chest, Kate closed her eyes and matched his movements as effortlessly as if they’d been dancing together forever.

Mitchell tipped his chin slightly, smiling at the sensation of her cheek resting against his chest and her body relaxing fully against his in silent anticipation of what was soon to come. Tilting his left wrist slightly, he looked at his watch and saw that it was 11:25. Within the next five minutes, the hotel’s efficient room service
staff should arrive to clear away the remains of their meal—assuming they arrived at the time Kate had specified earlier. She may have forgotten about their impending arrival, but Mitchell hadn’t, and he didn’t want another aborted kiss like the last one. Besides, he was in no great hurry now. As he’d learned from experience, anticipation of any intimate act—including a first kiss between soon-to-be lovers—was often as enjoyable as the act itself. Lately, the anticipation was frequently
more
enjoyable.

On the beach, the musicians finished playing and paused for a round of applause from their small audience. In his arms, Kate stopped moving and looked up at him with moonlight and surrender in her green eyes.

She expected to be kissed, Mitchell realized, and in an abrupt reversal of his last decision, he decided the time was right for a light, short kiss—a brief little kiss to seal what was to come.

As soon as he bent his head, Kate braced herself for some sort of demanding sensual onslaught, but his kiss was surprisingly light—merely a friendly, tentative stroke of his mouth on hers—his smiling mouth, Kate realized, and she smiled a little, too, as she curved her hands over his shoulders and returned the “get-acquainted” kiss.

And then the kiss started to change as he began smoothing his lips back and forth over hers, subtly increasing the pressure of each sliding stroke until her lips parted beneath his. When they did, his fingers shoved deep into the hair at her nape, holding her mouth locked tightly to his, and his free arm angled across her hips, clamping her against his rigid length.

Kate was so lost in the hot demanding kiss that the knocking sound she heard seemed to be coming from inside of her, until Mitchell finally pulled his mouth from hers and scowled at something over her shoulder. “Room service,” he said in a strained voice. He dropped his
arms. “You told room service to come back at eleven-thirty to clear away the remains of dinner.”

Kate finally registered what he was telling her and quickly turned away from him, heading for the door to let the waiters in.

Mitchell watched her walk away and swore under his breath, trying to get his rampaging lust under control. When the physical evidence of it wouldn’t diminish even slightly, he turned on his heel and left the terrace, forced to retreat into the darkness of the garden to conceal a rigid arousal that shouldn’t have resulted from just one relatively chaste kiss. Or six of them.