Microsoft Word - Rogers, Rosemary - The Crowd Pleasers (8 page)

There were spots of color in her cheeks that even the dim lighting in the hotel hallway couldn't hide, and her dark blue eyes looked almost black with rage as she snatched her hand away from his. Watching her, Webb Carnahan had to admit that he had given her more than enough reason for her anger. Little Annie had surprising depths to her character, and she had done a magnificent job of handling that scene back there when he and Caro had gone at each other's throats. It wasn't often that he found himself at a loss in dealing with a woman, and not for a damned long time had one so intrigued him. She was a quicksilver contradiction, not falling into any pattern he could recognize, and he felt a quick sense of regret that he would lose her before he had really found her.

They were standing out there in the hallway looking at each other warily, almost like strangers. Webb found himself wanting to touch her, to pull her closely against him, but his reason told him not to try. So he regarded her somberly, hands thrust into the pockets of his faded denim jacket, waiting for her to make the first move this time.

She made a short, angry motion of her head that tossed the shining silver silk of her hair back over her shoulders, one hand going up to smooth it. So she was nervous too. He noted it with a kind of pleasure, wondering why he continued to hold back.

"Would you mind calling me a taxi, please?" Her voice sounded distant and almost disembodied. "I think I would like to go back home now."

He made an angry, shrugging motion of his shoulders. "Sure. But they don't have phones in the hallways up here, so I'll have to make the call from my room."

"I think I'd rather go downstairs, thank you. You don't have to come with me-I can find my way perfectly well." She started to walk past him, and he let his self-control drop, grabbing her by the arms. The door behind them opened just then, freezing them both, and letting out light and noise and the smell of cigarette smoke.

Two people, a man and a woman, came out, letting the door close behind them.

Tactfully, they kept walking past Anne and Webb, the man clearing his throat before he said, "Goodnight, Mrs. Hyatt."

"Good-night." Anne felt her voice clog in a throat tight with unshed tears of rage and humiliation. And a sense of loss. Why did she have to feel that? Why didn't she pull away from Webb and ask Mr. and Mrs. Nordstrom if they'd mind giving her a ride back home?

"Mrs. Hyatt?" Now his voice was ugly with sarcasm. "Where are your rings, Mrs.

Hyatt, ma'am? Or did you get bored and come looking for some fun and games?"

His grip hurt her, and she started to struggle against it. "You haven't any right to presume to judge me! And anyway I'm-I'm separated from my husband. We're getting a divorce."

"Yeah? And who's the lucky guy? The lucky other guy; I guess I should say." He laughed, a short, unpleasant sound. "You know, for a while you really had me fooled, Mrs. Hyatt. Little innocent Annie. But I should have guessed from the fact that you and Caro are such friends, shouldn't I?"

"I don't have to answer that! It's nothing to do with you. WiII you let go of me?"

She struggled impotently against him while his hands slid down to her wrists, imprisoning them painfully behind her back. They were playing a scene of their own now, both of them lost to control.

"The hell I will! And I don't think you want me to, do you, baby? You didn't try too hard to fight me off before, did you? And I never did care for spending a night alone."

"Don't, Webb-s-don't!" But it was no use. Anne felt her own weakness as his mouth came down to capture hers-hard, punishing, hurting. She felt her teeth cut her lip and tasted the bitter-salty taste of blood before her mouth opened blindly under his. Like a spark igniting a forest fire, the flame burst out of hounds and took hold of them both.

"Damn you for a witch, Anne-damn you!" She thought she heard him whisper that against her bruised mouth before he lifted her in his arms to carry her off like some ravishing pirate. She was dizzy and dazed, hearing only vaguely the bang of the door as he kicked it shut behind them, locking her in with him.

The bed was a shambles, covers rumpled and trailing on the floor. Tanya? But she mustn't think that-didn't want to think about it as he dropped her down on it. Just like a ship, it seemed to rock under her.

"No-please, not yet, not like this ..." Anne didn't know if she said the words aloud or only thought them. Had he made love to Tanya before they had their fight? She didn't really care-and that was the most shocking thing of all. The lights in the room went off, and the blackness pressed like stifling black velvet against her eyes.

The feel of his hands came out of the darkness before her eyes grew used to it, and she felt the length of his body as he lowered it beside hers on the bed.

He was tender with her now, as he hadn't been earlier, and strangely, Anne thought she could understand why. Here, together in the dark, they could begin as if they were strangers again-not having to watch and gauge expressions, merely feeling, touching, tracing, with fingers at first, and then with lips.

She didn't know and didn't care what happened to her clothes as he took off each garment one by one. She undressed him, fingers fumbling until he became impatient and helped her. And then he held back-teasing her, tormenting her until she cried out to him, torn between anger and frustration-hardly understanding her own needs until he made her aware of them. And even more aware of the feel and the different textures of his body-roughness and smoothness, hardness pulsing in her hand, and finally motion inside her.

Just long enough to make her experience the familiar -unfamiliar eruption that came from inside again; then, while she was still gasping with reaction, he set his mouth against her like a seal, a brand of white-hot fire that took her beyond anything she had ever experienced before-his hard hands holding her thighs apart while she went from one peak to another, losing all capability of thinking, knowing only feeling, wanting, until he filled her again and she tasted herself against his roughly demanding mouth. When the world stopped spinning she fell asleep, like dropping off from a precipice into an endless dark canyon.

THIS MORNING WAS DIFFERENT from any other morning she had ever known.

Was it only yesterday that she had awakened feeling all cramped from sitting curled up in a chair all night?

Watery sunlight insinuated itself into the room through drawn curtains, falling across the bed; and the room was filled with the hunger-provoking odors of coffee and freshly fried bacon.

Anne's eyelids felt heavy-she had a sense of disorientation at first, as she opened her eyes, and then wrinkled them shut against the light.

"It's morning, love. Close to afternoon. Here-swallow these." Memory rushed back when she saw Webb's yellow-gold eyes watching her. Obediently, Anne swallowed the pills he handed her, washing them down with a drink he handed her.

"Only B-12 and E, Annie-love. No need to look so apprehensive." His voice sounded noncommittal and detached, like the look he bent on her. Trying, belatedly, not to think, the champagne-and-orange-juice drink tasted good. A mimosa-wasn't that what the combination was called? Anything to take her mind off the present. But he wasn't about to let her off easily.

"You'd better eat some breakfast too. Since you were so sound asleep I went ahead and ordered what suits me." There were eggs under a silver cover, and fresh-baked buttered muffins. The eggs were soft-scrambled and faintly flavored with dill. Sitting up in the bed as she took the plate Webb thrust at her, Anne realized suddenly that she was ravenously hungry. And if she could concentrate on eating, that would serve to postpone thinking and remembering how she had got here, and what had taken place before she'd fallen asleep-or passed out. There would be a time for regrets and for self-searching-God, what would Mrs. Preakness be thinking? Would she have sent a search-party out, or would they know already?-not now. Not yet. It was much better not to think. Take another mouthful of these really delicious eggs-bite into a crusty, buttered muffin that Webb handed to her without a word. Don't wonder what he was thinking!

He had pulled on a pair of faded, pale-blue levis, and he ate much faster than she did, pouring coffee for her after he had finished. And still she couldn't read any expression at all on his face-not even in his eyes when they rested almost imper-sonally on her naked breasts. How could you know someone so closely in a physical sense, Anne wondered, and yet not know them at all? Last night he had been half-satyr, half-man, and today he seemed nothing more than an indifferent, polite stranger, urging more food on her when her appetite suddenly waned.

"Have some more, Annie. You look like you could use feeding up."

She flushed, pushing the plate back as she shook her head, suddenly miserably aware that she wasn't nearly as well endowed as Carol, or even Tanya. Was that what he meant?

Webb wished she didn't look so vulnerable and so young, with the color coming up to stain her cheekbones-pale-red wine in a goblet of translucent alabaster. She made him feel like an executioner, and he wasn't used to the feeling. And yet, damn her innocent blue eyes, she'd been playing games all along. A better actress than anyone would have thought, to look at her. And she could even blush ... His eyes narrowed at her, and he didn't know why he felt angry. What the hell, she was fantastic in bed; there were no inhibitions under that little-girl exterior. But she was Richard Reardon's daughter. He mustn't forget that. Suddenly, angrily, he found himself wanting to strip away all the pretenses she'd surrounded herself with from the first, just as his senses urged him to strip away the sheets that were modestly draped across her slim thighs.

Reardon's daughter. Kept under wraps by her father's choice of a husband. So far as he knew, no one had ever realized that Reardon had a daughter, a vulnerable spot in his armor. Reardon the King-Maker, as one daring Washington columnist had dubbed him. But then, very few people dared mention Reardon, who was strictly a behind-the-scenes figure, head of a shadowy organization so secret that it didn't even have initials. The only reason Webb knew was because he had once been a part of it, one of "Reardon's boys," until he'd grown wise and much more cynical. One of the few to get out from under and survive, and that only because of Ria, who hadn't survived. Ria, who shouldn't have been involved at all.

Why now, of all times, did he have to remember Ria, after all the years he'd spent carefully trying to forget her, wiping her memory from his mind by using every other woman he met as just another cardboard image to hold up between himself and the clean, innocent reality that had been Ria before he'd screwed everything up and Ria had died to prove it? Even now, his mind slewed away from that thought. Reardon had been responsible. Cold-blooded, computer-minded bastard, living in a rarified atmosphere where people became pins on a map, to be moved around or discarded at will.

He hadn't let himself remember for a long time. But Anne had brought back the memories and the hatred. The time when all he'd thought about or planned was killing Reardon. And here he was with Reardon's hidden-away daughter.

What in hell was he doing, anyhow-making excuses? For Anne, or for his own mixed-up feelings for her? Anger, mostly at himself, made Webb's voice harsher than he intended it to be; almost jeering.

"What's the matter, Annie? Not hungry anymore? Or are you starting to worry about what your husband might do if he knew where you were right now?"

Her shoulders grew rigid under his sudden attack. But the color that now flamed in her face was from anger this time. "That's really none of your business. In any case, just to set the record straight, he's my soon-to-be ex-husband. Why do you keep bringing that up? I'm sure you've had more than your share of experience in playing around with other men's wives."

"Not when the particular wife also happens to be Dick Reardon's only daughter.

Christ, Annie!" Temper flaring, he stood there frowning at her, one hand running through his dark hair. "You crazy or something? I can't figure you out. What are you out to prove? Thumbing your nose at daddy in his own home town or trying to make your soon-to-be ex-husband jealous? Just another bored Washington wife looking for kicks?"

"What are you getting at? What were you looking for, Webb? Amusement to pass the time in another boring small town? An easy, uncomplicated lay? Maybe we were both looking for the same thing-and found it!" Anne stood up, not caring that she was completely naked under his suddenly intent gaze. She could feel her body shake uncontrollably with a mixture of rage and humiliation. And all she wanted was to escape from him-from his sarcastic, accusing voice and his searing amber-gold eyes.

It was hard to be distant and dignified and look for her scattered clothes at the same time. He lifted one eyebrow as she said coldly, "Thank you for breakfast. And for letting me sleep in. But I think I've outstayed my time, and I really must be getting back now. Don't you have rehearsals or something?"

"Or something ..." he said dryly. Maddeningly, he just stood there looking at her while her eyes hunted the room for any trace of the garments he'd all but ripped off her body last night.

She began to wish she'd wrapped the sheet around herself. Damn him, why did he just stand there looking at her, making her feel ridiculous? Finally, she was forced to look back at him, and found him grinning mockingly at her.

"I'm just a tidy kind of guy, Annie-love. And I didn't want the room-service waiter to have reason to gossip. Didn't think your daddy would like that. So while you were sleeping I hung your clothes up. Lots of closet space here."

So he was determined not to help her. She didn't care! "Thank you. That was considerate of you. If you'll tell me where ..."

"Annie, I wasn't being considerate. Just careful. Just making sure you couldn't escape too easily."

"You . . ." She felt as frozen as her voice sounded, standing there petrified while Webb began to strip off his levis unconcernedly, making her, here in the sunlit daytime, even more aware of his body. The lean, compact strength of him, with the muscles moving smoothly under his California-tanned skin-tanned all over; no white patches to show he'd ever worn bathing trunks. The tight curl of hair on his chest and at his groin. And-she could not help noticing too, however unwillingly, that he wanted her. Nor deny to herself that just the sight of his naked body with its beautiful symmetry could make her catch her breath with a strange sense of excitement that started in her belly and spread, liquid mercury that made her loins ache.