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Did that story relate to the President or Mrs. Merritt or the death of Robert Rushton Merritt?

He was convinced that Fripp didn't know; otherwise he would have bragged about it. At this point Spence didn't know, either. But finding out was his top priority.

"Well I'm glad you're glad, Mrs. Gaston.... No, I'm certain Mrs. Merritt will be pleased with my choice .... Good. Now, as to the arrangements for tomorrow, a car will come for you at six-thirty. I know it's early, but . .

. Okay. Very good. I'll look forward to seeing you then. Good night." Dr.

George Allan's hand was still on the telephone receiver, and he was staring at it thoughtfully, when his wife came in carrying two steaming cups of coffee. She set one in front of him on the desk and took the other with her to the leather chair facing the desk. "Who was that?"

His home office was on the second floor of their stylish yet comfortable residence just off the section of Massachusetts Avenue known as Embassy Row. George Allan sampled his coffee. "Boys in bed?"

"In bed, but I gave them an extra ten minutes before lights out. Who was that?" Amanda asked again, indicating the telephone.

"A private nurse I hired for Vanessa. To say that Mrs. Gaston is excited over her new patient would be a gross understatement. She can't believe she's going to look after the First Lady."

"Vanessa needs continuous care?"

The Allans had known the Merritts as struggling newlyweds. "Only as a precaution," George replied. "David thinks she should have a medically trained person with her at all times."

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"I thought she was just resting."

"She is."

"If she requires constant medical care, shouldn't she be in the hospital?"

"Stop interrogating me, Amanda." George came out of his desk chair so fast, it rolled backward on its casters and bumped into the wall. He went to the liquor cabinet for a decanter of brandy and poured some into his coffee.

"I wasn't interrogating you," she said softly.

"Like hell you weren't. Every conversation we have these days evolves into a cross-examination."

"That's because you're so defensive," Amanda shot back. "Even the most innocent question strikes a nerve."

"Your questions are never innocent, Amanda. They're probing and suspicious."

"And you're paranoid," she shouted. "What is David holding over you that makes you afraid of everything, even me?"

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"I know that since you accepted this job, you've become a different person."

"You're wrong, Amanda!"

"Dad?"

George whipped around to see his two young sons standing in the doorway.

They looked extremely sweet and vulnerable in their pajamas, their faces scrubbed shiny. At the sight of them, his anger evaporated. "Hey, guys.

Come in."

They hesitated on the threshold until the older one took the first bold step into the hostile arena. His younger brother tagged behind him. George returned to his chair, pulled each of them onto a knee, and hugged them close.

They smelled of soap and toothpaste and shampoo. They smelled like cleanliness. He'd almost forgotten how

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good clean smelled. He hadn't smelled it on himself in a long time. "I got an A on my math paper," the older one told him proudly.

"The teacher called on me to read out loud today. I knew all the words,"

the younger chimed in.

"That's great! You both deserve a reward. How about this weekend? A movie?

Or an arcade? Something special."

"Mom too?"

George glanced at Amanda. "Sure, Mom too. If she wants to come along."

"Do you, Mom?"

She smiled at her sons. "What I want right now is for you two to get into bed."

Following another round of hugs and other delay tactics, she shooed them from the office and down the hallway to their bedroom.

Amanda was in the master bathroom when George caught up with her a half hour later. She was brushing her hair, which she still wore in the same sleek, chin-length bob she'd had when he met her. Like her eyes, her hair was the color of rich chocolate.

She was ready for bed, wearing only panties and a soft tank top. George stood in the doorway for a moment and watched her. He'd fallen into instant lust with her when they were introduced at a Fourth of July party. They began dating, but it took him six months to work up enough courage to ask her to sleep with him. She'd said yes, and wanted to know why he had waited so long. They were married before the next Fourth of July.

She had never resented the demands his profession placed upon them. She was accomplished in her own right and had her own interests. In addition to making a lovely home for their family, she taught art history at Georgetown

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University. She was a volunteer counselor at a battered women's shelter. On the tennis court she was capable and competitive. She hosted great parties and had a fair command of several languages. She knew how to dress tastefully and how to comport herself in any situation.

He loved her. God, how he loved her.

He watched the graceful movements of her slender arms as she continued brushing her hair. One hundred strokes a night, as she'd been taught by her Virginian mother. It was an endearing habit. The rise and fall of her breasts entranced him. Her nipples made small impressions against the soft cotton of the tank.

"I'm sorry I lost my temper," he began in a quiet, contrite voice.

Amanda's dark eyes swung up to meet his in the mirror. "I don't want an apology, George." She turned to face him. "I want my husband."

He came to her, placed his arms around her, drew her close. "You have me."

Even though she clung to him, she shook her head no. "David has you. He's taken you away from me and from the boys."

He set her away and slid his fingers up through her glossy hair. "That's not true, Amanda."

"Yes, it is. I'm afraid I'll never get you back."

"I'm not going anywhere," he whispered against her lips. "You and the boys mean more than life to me. I couldn't bear to lose you."

She peered intently into his eyes. "You are losing us, George. Every day you slip farther and farther away. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to reach you anymore. You keep secrets. You're becoming a stranger." Her voice cracked and tears formed in her eyes.

"Please, don't cry. Don't." He kissed her prominent 86 Sandra Brown

cheekbones, then her trembling lips. "Everything is all right."

He was lying. Furthermore, he knew that she knew he was lying. He could tell by the way she clutched him to her. Her kiss was more than ardent, it was desperate.

She brought that desperation to their bed, responding to his lovemaking with unbridled passion, as though fierce sex might conquer David Merritt's influence over him. By the time he entered her, each was delirious with need.

Then, sexually replete, naked and damp, they held each other close and whispered professions of eternal love and devotion.

But both knew that George's devotion to the President was just as absolute

. . . and far more demanding.

Zarrie came awake to find the barrel of a rifle pressed against the underside of her left breast.

Curbing the impulse to jump and run, she moved nothing except her eyes.

They followed the length of the rifle up to a pair of eyes that were colder, bluer, and more unyielding than the steel gun barrel.

"It had better be good."

She tried to swallow, but was literally scared spitless. "What?"

"Your reason for being inside my house." He nudged her breast, lifting it slightly with the rifle. "Well?"

"I arrived last evening. You weren't here, so I waited for hours on your porch. It got dark and cold. I was sleepy. The door was unlocked. I didn't think you'd mind."

"Well, I do."

"My name is Barrie Travis." His eyes narrowed fractionally. She would have sworn that he recognized her name, although he didn't acknowledge it. "I came all the way from Washington, D.C., to see you."

"Then you've wasted a trip." He swung the rifle up to 88 Sandra Brown

his shoulder. "Since you know where the door is, you can see yourself out."

He moved aside so she could stand up.

Barrie slowly uncoiled and came meekly to her feet. Then she hauled off and slapped his cheek hard. "How dare you point a gun at me! Are you crazy?

You could have killed me."

His jaw knotted. "Lady, if I'd wanted to kill you, you'd be dead. And I wouldn't have made a mess on my couch in the process."

In one smooth motion, he bent down and picked her satchel off the floor and flung it at her. "Get out, and take your lousy reading material with you."

Before leaving Washington, she had compiled a library of all the tabloids carrying banner headlines about his rumored affair with the First Lady.

They were junk, but it made her angry that he'd helped himself to the contents of her satchel. "You went through my bag?"

"You're the trespasser, not me."

"That's not my reading material of choice, Mr. Bondurant. It's research.

I'm a reporter."

"All the more reason for you to get out."

Assuming she would do as he'd ordered, he turned and went into the bedroom.

Barrie welcomed a moment to collect herself. She'd had some pretty harrowing experiences in her lifetime, but she'd never before been held at gunpoint. Certainly not at point-blank range. Gray Bondurant was as frightening as she'd been led to believe, although she didn't think he would have shot her.

It had been a scare tactic, nothing more. He'd hoped to frighten her into leaving. Well, she wasn't yet ready to wave the white flag.

She smoothed her hair, straightened her clothing, and cleared her throat.

"Mr. Bondurant?" His failure to respond EXCLUSIVE 89

didn't discourage her. She stepped into the open bedroom doorway. "I-Oh!"

He had removed his shirt. Body fat, zero. Everything else, ten. A definite ten. Hair grew in a V shape across his chest and down his tapering torso.

There was a nasty but intriguing scar on one of his ribs.

All the tabloids had printed the same grainy snapshot of him, apparently the only picture that was available. His dark aviator sunglasses had comprised most of it. A granite chin and jaw, a narrow slash of a mouth, windblown hair off a high forehead, and the sunglasses. That was it. Those two-dimensional features in the photograph were quite something else when seen in the flesh. She tried not to stare. "Mr. Bondurant, I've waited hours to see you.

"That's your problem."

"The least you could do-"

"I don't owe you anything."

Stalling, she asked, "What time is it?"

"Around four." He tugged off one boot and sock and let them fall where he stood.

"In the morning?"

"Did you come all the way from D.C. to ask me the time, Miss Travis?" Off came the second boot and sock.

"No, I came all the way from D.C. to talk to you about Vanessa Merritt."

That arrested him. He fixed a hard-as-diamonds glare on her. "You've come a long way for nothing."

"It's vitally important that we talk."

He unbuckled his belt, unfastened his jeans, and, when he stepped out of them, he was naked.

Obviously he expected her to scream and run. Barrie refused to show any reaction-although she definitely experienced one. "You can't shock me, Mr.

Bondurant."

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"Oh, I bet I can," he said softly. He moved past her toward the bathroom.

Then he turned suddenly and pulled her against him.

Either the sudden contact with his chest, or profound astonishment, knocked the breath out of her and rendered her speechless and unable to move. His eyes held her spellbound as his hands groped beneath her sweater.

The sleeves of it were wide enough for him to push the straps of her camisole off her shoulders. Even then she didn't move. Not until she felt his rough palms on her breasts did she move, and that was to stagger backward into the wall, dragging him with her.

As his mouth descended on her breast, she arched up to meet it, shamelessly eager to feel his lips, his tongue on her flesh. She felt as though every cell in her body were awakening to a blaring reveille.

Surging through her was a rush of passion, of life, that could not be contained or even disciplined. She had never experienced anything like it, this assault of carnality, this all-encompassing, overwhelming, primal, unconscionable instinct to mate-soon, quickly, now!

Together they stumbled blindly toward the bed. She drew her sweater over her head, in the process ripping one of the straps of her camisole and exposing her breast. They fell laterally across the rumpled bed, where caressing became a wrestling match with no rules or boundaries. Reaching beneath her skirt, he removed her panties.

Then he touched her.

Deeply. Inside.

His touch was like a lightning bolt, all sizzle and heat. Moaning with pleasure, she readjusted her hips to accommodate his caresses. His lips moved against her stomach, kissing it lightly. Flicking her skin with his tongue, he nibbled his way back up to her breasts. She laid her hand against

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his hard cheek and was delighted by the sandpapery texture of it against her palm.

His caressing fingers were so erotic and suggestive, and so well placed, that the orgasm was upon her almost before she realized it. Too enraptured to be embarrassed, she flattened her hand over his, pressing it deeper into her, grinding her body against it, squeezing it hard between her thighs.

When the waves receded, she lay like a victim of a shipwreck-damp, spent, eyes closed, stomach rapidly rising and falling. When she finally opened her eyes, he was gazing directly into them. He took her hand and guided it to his sex.

"Tell me now," he said thickly. "Is there anything you won't do?" Her lips parted on a startled breath. She swallowed dryly. "What do you have in mind?"