Just Another Pretty Face (HT 459) (14 page)

She smoothed a hand through her hair and pulled the lapels of the brown tweed jacket someone had given her closer together over the front of her borrowed blue silk robe. "Hi," she said softly, a bit hesitant about intruding. They seemed so intent on whatever it was they were discussing.

All three of them turned to look at her.

Pierce smiled as if he'd just been presented with an Academy Award. "Hi, yourself," he said tenderly, and held out his hand. "How're you feeling?"

"Like a pincushion," Nikki said as she came forward in the paper slippers one of the nurses had given her and slipped her hand into his. "I don't know why they had to take blood to check my lungs," she groused.

"Poor baby," he sympathized, and raised her hand to his lips for a brief kiss.

"We were just discussing strategy for dealing with the press," Claire said, one eyebrow raised as she exchanged a meaningful glance with Gage. "They're hovering around outside like a pack of vultures, waiting for the two of you to appear."

"How did they find out so fast?" Nikki asked, appalled. "It's the middle of the night, for God's sake!"

"Actually, it's almost dawn," said Gage. "And they have contacts everywhere. It's their job." He stood up and put his hands on the handles of his brother's wheelchair, prepared to roll it over a few toes if need be. "We might as well get this show on the road," he said grimly. "Ready?"

Claire nodded and took up her position as point man, just ahead of the wheelchair.

Pierce gave Nikki's hand a reassuring squeeze. "Ready," he said.

They moved out of the examining room and through the crowded lobby, their goal the yellow Mercedes station wagon waiting in the red No Parking zone at the curb. The reporters descended on them like hungry fish at feeding time as they exited through the automatic doors of the emergency room. Flashbulbs went off in their faces. Questions came from all sides, fast and thick, and personal. Incredibly personal.

"How long have you and Nikki been lovers?"

"What were you doing when the fire broke out?"

"Were you in bed when the fire started?"

"Were you asleep or... ?"

Nikki ducked her head, amazed and exasperated and just a tiny bit frightened by the frenzy, although she would have died before admitting it. Facing the threat of the Iraqi's SCUD missiles had been easier, she thought with a shudder.

"We're almost there," Pierce said bracingly, ignoring from long practice the shouted questions and flash bulbs.

Then, as if they had choreographed the whole thing in advance, Claire veered off to the side and slowed to answer a question, pulling most of the reporters with her just before she reached the car. Pierce came to his feet, reaching out to open the car door as Gage pulled the wheelchair out from under him and swung it around between them and the reporters. At a nudge from Pierce, Nikki slid into the front seat of the Mercedes, scooting over to the middle to give him plenty of room for his leg. Gage slammed the door closed, shutting out the shouted questions, and went around to the driver's side.

"You've done this before," Nikki said admiringly, including both of them in her statement.

"More times than I like to think about," Gage said, reaching for the ignition. The Mercedes purred.

"But what about Claire?" Nikki asked. "Are we going to just leave her there?"

"Don't worry about Claire," Pierce said, glancing at his sister in the side mirror. There was more than a hint of brotherly pride in his voice. "She's a match for any reporter."

Nikki turned her head, leaning over Pierce to look out the window as Gage eased the station wagon away from the curb. "But—" she began.

A flash bulb went off in her face, startling her. "Of all the rude people—" she sputtered, her body tensing as if she meant to crawl over Pierce and go after the reporter.

He put his hand on her leg, calming her. "Ignore them," he said. And then, suddenly weary, he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat. He kept them closed all the way home, rousing again only when Gage turned into the long driveway of the Beverly Hills mansion. His beautiful face looked unnaturally pale, thought Nikki, although that, she mused, might have been in contrast to the streaks of soot still marking his skin. She stared at him, consumed with guilt. If she'd been doing what she'd been hired to do instead of... instead of what she'd
been
doing, she thought with a blush, none of this would have happened.

"Are you sure you're all right?" she asked worriedly as they got out of the car in front of the house. "Your leg doesn't hurt too much?"

Pierce managed a weak grin. "It doesn't hurt at all," he assured her in a pained tone intended to let her know how heroically brave he was being.

"Here, lean on me," she said, unconvinced. "I'll help you to your bedr..." Her voice trailed off as she realized his bedroom was no longer in any condition to be slept in. "You can sleep in my room," she said contritely, forgetting there were at least a half-a-dozen other bedrooms in the pseudo castle.

Pierce's grin became stronger. "Oh, I intend to," he whispered into her ear as he allowed her to assist him up the wide stone steps and into the house.

His staff converged on them in the front hall, hovering around with suggestions and comments and questions, turning the trip up the wide curving staircase to the second floor into a halting procession. Nikki ignored them all, intent on getting Pierce upstairs. She didn't see Pierce's pirate grin as he waved away his brother's help when Gage came to assist him from the other side. Nor did she notice the black looks cast in her direction from more than one member of Pierce's staff.

Once inside the cozy green-and-ivory bedroom, Nikki left her injured employer to the tender mercies of his brother and the others, hurrying across the room to the open glass doors leading out to the terrace. While she stepped outside to look around and then closed and locked them, Pierce adroitly got rid of his other helpers. He assured Mrs. Gilmore that all he really wanted was a shower and a few hours in the sack, and
then
maybe he could think about breakfast; he instructed Kathy Frye to call Claire about a formal statement for the press; he thanked Lisbeth Greene for her concern.

Doing his best to help, Gage herded everyone out in front of him, pausing in the doorway only long enough to assure his brother that he would take care of calling their parents in Italy "to let them know what really happened before they read about your miraculous escape from death in the morning editions." Then he pulled the door closed behind him as he left.

Pierce leaned back against the closed door and breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief.

"Tired?" Nikki asked, the expression of concern in her eyes softer than she knew as she turned to stare at him from across the width of the room.

Pierce shook his head. "Wired." He held out his hand. "Come here," he ordered softly.

Nikki's expression turned wary. "You told Mrs. Gil-more you wanted to take a shower and then go to sleep," she said, recognizing the look in his eyes from last night.

"I told her I wanted to take a shower and then go to bed," he corrected her with a hint of his pirate's smile. "There's a difference." He wriggled his fingers at her in a beckoning motion. "Come here, sweetheart."

Nikki hesitated, her hands clutching the door handle behind her, torn between what she wanted to do and what she knew she should do. It was just this sort of thing that had caused her dereliction of duty in the first place. "Your leg..." she whispered, trying to remind herself of all the reasons why she shouldn't.

"Damn my leg," Pierce said irritably. And then he smiled again, abruptly deciding a change of tactics was in order. "My leg is fine. See?" he said, pushing away from the door to show her. He stumbled a bit. "Well, maybe not so fine," he admitted, looking at her from under his lashes to see how she was taking it. After a moment's hesitation—during which he managed to take two limping half steps—she reacted exactly the way he hoped she would.

"Don't put any more weight on the leg than you have to," she said, hurrying across the carpet to help him. "Just take it slow and easy. That's it," she crooned/ trying to ignore the way her pulse had begun to race the moment he put his arm around her shoulders. "We'll just get you into the bathroom." She maneuvered him in that direction with one arm around his waist and the other hand flat against his chest for balance. "And then I'll run down and see if I can catch Gage before he leaves." She moved to slip out from under his arm.

He tightened his grip around her shoulders, shifting it a bit so that she was standing more in front of him than at his side. "Gage?" he murmured, giving in to the urge to nuzzle her ear.

She pushed against his chest with the flat of her hand, keeping as much room between her body and his as possible. "To help you undress and take a shower," she said briskly, trying to pretend her heart wasn't attempting to pound its way out of her chest at the mere thought of him naked and wet.

"I'd rather have you help me."

I'd rather have me help you, too,
she thought. "I don't think that's a good idea," she said instead, staring at her hand on his chest as she spoke.

"Why not?"

She risked a quick glance at his face. "You know very well why not."

"Because you think one of us is going to get turned on if you do?"

Because one of us already is
, she thought.

"I have a news flash for you, sweetheart," he said, his voice warm with tender amusement. "One of us already is."

That brought her head up. "How did you—"

"I'm so turned on I can hardly stand up but—" he gave a little shrug, disarming and artless "—there's not a lot I can do about it right now."

Unable to stop herself, Nikki glanced down at the front of his sweatpants. Her expression, when her gaze flickered briefly back to his, was patently disbelieving.

Pierce smiled. "Despite all evidence to the contrary," he said, his voice solemn in spite of the look in his eyes—and the condition of his body, "I
am
temporarily disabled."
For chasing you down, anyway,
he thought, although he would if he had to. He wanted her badly enough to do just about anything. "And even if I wasn't, I fail to see the problem." He locked his hands at the small of her back, loosely, and touched his forehead to hers. "And it isn't as if you haven't seen all there is to see."

"Well, yes, I know, but..." But it had been dark last night and she hadn't really seen anything at all and neither had he and...

"I'd really like to wash off all this sweat and soot," he murmured cajolingly. "It itches." His breath was warm on her skin, as tantalizing as a kiss. "It must be making you itch, too."

"Well, yes, but..."

He nuzzled her with his nose, tickling her with the butterfly brush of his eyelashes. "Take a shower with me,Nikki."

She felt her spine begin to dissolve. "I don't think..." she began, and then forgot what it was she intended to say.

"I promise not to take advantage of the situation," he murmured, his lips just millimeters away from hers. "I won't even look if you don't want me to."

"Promise?" The breathy word was a heated puff of air against his mouth, rife with her desire to surrender.

He crossed his fingers behind her back. "Promise."

"All right." She sighed and tilted her head for his kiss.

He dropped his arms and drew back without giving it to her, smiling to himself at the look of disappointment that crossed her face. There were a hundred different strategies to the game of love and he knew them all. Teaching them to the reluctantly passionate Ms. Martinelli was going to be a distinct and thoroughly unique pleasure.

"I like the water hot," he said casually, reaching up behind his head with one hand to grab the neck of his T-shirt. He pulled it off, dropping it onto the floor, and sat down on the lid of the toilet seat to untie his shoes and remove the cast. "I hope that's all right with you."

"It's fine," Nikki said faintly, watching him yank at the laces of his shoes and the Velcro fastenings of the cast, wondering if she'd read him wrong, after all. Maybe he did only want her to help him take a shower before he went to sleep. He
had
dozed off in the car. And a hairline fracture was probably enough to cause a mild case of shock in even the strongest man. Not to mention the trauma of the fire. Maybe she was just projecting her own desires onto him and he didn't want...

And then he stood up, tugging at the drawstring on his sweat-pants so that they fell down around his ankles, and she didn't have any doubts at all about his desires. He was fully, magnificently erect. Pulsating with arousal.

Unconsciously Nikki licked her lips. Her pupils dilated to nearly twice their normal size, nearly obscuring the pale green of her irises.

Pierce caught the heated look in her eyes and almost lost it right there. He made himself look away, struggling to retain the thin hold he had on his control. "Are you planning to take a shower in your clothes?" he asked, stepping out of the pool of fabric around his ankles with credible calm, wondering if playing games had been such a good idea, after all.

1 should get a frigging Academy Award for this performance,
he thought as he limped to the oversized shower stall and reached inside to turn on the taps. Water sprayed out of two shower heads. He held his hand beneath the juncture of the twin streams, waiting for it to warm, thinking that he should probably step into it now, while it was still cold enough to do some good, instead of standing there, listening intently for the whispers of sound that would tell him she was finally undressing.

When they didn't come, he turned his head, glancing over his shoulder to see what the problem was. She was still standing there, staring at him with that fascinated look on her face, as if she were utterly absorbed by him. It humbled him and made him proud, all at the same time. "Do you want me to help you?" he asked softly, awed by that look. In all his life, no woman had ever looked at him in just exactly that way.