Mistress of Magic (11 page)

“I’m sorry! I wasn’t in the military!”

“That’s common sense,” he said flatly. “And another thing—you don’t start shrieking. You stay silent, and you stay down, understand?”

Her teeth grated. She saluted him sharply. She sank into her sweetest, softest Southern accent. “Hey, I’m just a dumb old dinosaur dreamer—”

She gasped when she found her upper arms caught by his hands, her body drawn to his. Nothing but thin strips of terry separated her bare flesh from the hot naked length of his.

Hot, living, pulsing, naked length …

Hazel-gold eyes blazed into her, amused … intense.

“Dumb, my hind side!” he exclaimed harshly. “Reggie, damn you, I’m not trying to come off as G.I. Joe here. It’s just that you are in danger. And you have to think, all right?”

She was watching his mouth move. The movement came first to her mind.

Then the words.

“Reggie!” He gave her a little shake.

She nodded. “No lights. No screams.” She was trembling. She didn’t know if she was frightened of having to walk away from him and go to her room alone. Or if she was frightened of staying.

“Good,” he said softly. He released her arms. “Are you afraid?”

“No,” she said. “Yes. I don’t know.” She took a step away. “Good night, again.” She forced herself to walk down the hallway without turning back, even though she knew he watched her. Watched her the entire distance, standing outside the doorway of the guest room.

She stepped into her room. She started to close the door. Then she left it open.

He could say what he wanted to say. She wanted him within screaming distance.

No, she wasn’t afraid.…

She forced herself to lie down. Her heart seemed to be pounding at a thousand beats a minute again. But he was just down the hall. He would never let anything happen to her; if nothing else, she felt secure about that.

She hardly knew him.

But she felt that she knew him very well.

Oh, dear Lord! She was so tempted to get up and walk down the hall. He would understand. He was angry when she risked things, but he would understand that she just didn’t want to stay here. He might be sleeping. That would be fine. She could take her pillow and curl up in the armchair and she might get some sleep that way.

But she knew damned well that she didn’t want to sleep in an armchair.

She suspected that she would want far more than security if she were to walk down the hallway.

Caleb! she thought desperately, trying to draw upon some sanity.

But evoking his name did not help. She had begun to let his memory, to let the good and the bad, the laughter, the love and the pain, come to rest. She had never, in any way, betrayed him in life or in death. Max was right. She needed more than the park. Needed more than dreams.

She had never wanted more.…

Until tonight.

Her heartbeat should be slowing by now.

The fear was fading. The sound of the explosion had died away on the night air.

Her heartbeat continued to pound. Pulsing. Sending the blood cascading through her body. Waking every nerve and fiber of her.

Indeed. She had never felt quite so wide awake in the middle of the night before.

She had never felt quite so …

Wanting?

Yes, she wanted … something.

Wes.

Damn those kids with that car! He’d almost been asleep. Almost.

Well, all right, not really.

But he might have been able to go to sleep if the fool car hadn’t backfired, if Reggie hadn’t come racing down the hallway and into his arms.

If he hadn’t touched her.

Now, he was staring at the ceiling in the muted darkness, seeing nothing but the pale sheen of the paint. No, seeing everything there, as if the white paint that caught a dim glow of moonlight were a canvas and he could play images there, as if he were a projector and the ceiling were a screen.

He still wondered how someone who resembled Max, a man, could be so beautiful. So completely feminine. So alluring. In no matter what manner of dress he conjured her. She had so much dignity in her red business suit. She’d been sleek, sharp, determined. A worthy adversary to any man, he was certain, he thought, a curl forming in the corner of his lip. But he couldn’t stay focused on that red suit.

Her clothing seemed to slip away.

He was thinking next of the brilliant red dance-hall costume, and how she had looked across the table from him at the restaurant.

Lobster shells flying.

But even that image wouldn’t remain.

The one that came again and again was of Reggie in the costume shop. The dinosaur outfit in her hands.

Tall, slim, in the muted maroon bra and panties, so much of the woman visible and so much of the woman, all of the woman, beautiful and sensual. Her build was slim, but just slightly muscled. Her calves were beautifully shaped, giving her long, tempting legs. Hips flared just slightly, evocatively. Her waist seemed as trim as Scarlett O’Hara’s, and her breasts …

He groaned and closed his eyes tightly against the images. For a moment he marveled at the way she had made him feel. Even the frustration was good.

The hunger was even better. Oh, he’d been hungry before. He’d wanted women before. He had had women before.

But it had never mattered before. Not in the long years since Shelley.

He opened his eyes again. He still didn’t like to remember.

Better to concentrate on the woman down the hallway.

Yeah, even on breasts.

They had been full and beautiful, rising over the lacy maroon of the bra. That lace had barely covered the darkened crests of her nipples. He’d have loved to reach out and touch. He hadn’t even been introduced to her then.

Excuse me, Miss Delaney, but this is making me insane. The mystery, the longing. Could I move this wisp of lace for a minute just to see …

He ground his teeth. She was Max’s sister.

Right. And like Max, she was thirty-three years old.

The hell with Max.

Max had no place in his fantasies.

But in a way, he did. Wes tried to remember all that Max had told him about his sister, Regina. Why had he never been curious about her before?

Shelley had been in his life.

And someone else had been in Regina’s life. Caleb. That had been his name. She had been engaged for years to a fellow named Caleb. Engaged. She had never married him.

Why?

Had she been too attached to her own name? Max’s name? The Delaney name?

She had loved the man. The way Max had talked, they had really been a team. Then something had happened. An accident. He tried hard to concentrate. Yes, it had been a drunk driver. Now he remembered it all, remembered Max telling him. The man had been hit by a drunk driver. He hadn’t died immediately. That had taken time.

It had been awhile ago, though. Several years, he was fairly certain.

What about her life now?

Well, she didn’t like Rick Player, that much had been pretty obvious.

Good. That said she had some sense—even if she did turn on lights when bullets might be flying. Player was smooth. He was the type most women seemed to fall for. Reggie disliked the man. She hid it the best she could, but Wes knew she disliked him.

Wes suddenly heard something from the hall. A sound, barely discernible, but there nonetheless. No one had come in the house from the outside, he was certain.

It had to be Reggie.

He pushed up somewhat, leaning against his pillow and the bedstead, watching the door. Every muscle tightened, but he didn’t make a move. His gun was sitting on the small antique oak night table at the side of the bed. If he needed it, he could reach it.

But intuition assured him that he wasn’t going to need it.

Then she appeared in the doorway. She was still in the terry robe. Her dark hair was loose, disheveled, free around her shoulders. Moonlight played upon it beautifully, beams cascading over it whitely.

“Wes? Are you sleeping?” she queried softly. Her fingers were long, elegant and delicate against the door frame. He wondered what her fingers would feel like against his skin.

“No.”

He hadn’t needed to answer her. The moon gave enough brightness to the room that they could see each other. He was almost sitting up. Sheets drawn to his waist, chest bare, eyes open.

Awake, and aware. In every sense of the word. A rising sense of heat seemed to enter the room right along with her. She stood at the foot of the bed. She hadn’t dressed to be a temptress, he thought.

Not consciously.

And yet …

She couldn’t have been more so. The frayed terry was so soft looking, the pink such a compelling color on her. The V fell open just to the rise of her breasts, and he could remember that rise when it had been so tightly clad in the maroon lace of her bra. Just as he had been enticed to see more then, he wanted to see more now. To see, to touch. He ached to touch. He didn’t dare move. Tension was knotting his every muscle.

Desire would soon make a tent of the sheet.

“I—I didn’t want to be alone,” she said. She was waiting for something. From him. An invitation? He was willing to give one!

But only if her feelings were the right ones …

“You don’t want to be alone, or you want to be with someone?” he said, watching her eyes in the darkness. They were so large. So luminous. “There is a difference. Which is it?”

He could tell that she wanted to lie. She moistened her lips to speak. He watched the movement of her tongue and lips.

“I—don’t know,” she murmured softly. “Is there such a difference?”

He pushed himself farther up with his hands. His knees bent as he rested his elbows on them, watching her. “A tremendous difference. Are you afraid to be alone?”

“No. Yes.” She swallowed hard. “Yes, but that’s not why I’m here.”

“Then you want to be with someone.”

She hesitated. “It’s not that simple.”

“I hope not.”

“You’re not making things very easy.”

“They shouldn’t be easy.”

Maybe he pressed it a bit too far. Her body was tensing, and she was about to turn away, but he caught hold of her hand. In the moonlight her eyes were liquid. It had cost her a lot to come here. Maybe he was being ruthless.

He had to be.

“Do you just want a warm body?” he demanded.

She tugged hard to free her hand. “Let go! If you would—”

“Answer me. Did you just want a warm body?”

She tugged harder. “No! Damn it—let me go. I knew this was a mistake. You want—”

“Yes, I want!” he told her roughly. Still maintaining his grip on her, he cast his covers aside and came to his feet. Her eyes were locked with his, yet she was aware that he had been completely naked beneath the sheet, and she was struggling to keep her eyes on his face. She still fought his hold. He tightened his fingers relentlessly around her wrist and drew her hand to his body, forcing her palm against his chest. “I want,” he whispered, towering over her, his breath teasing her forehead and the soft strands of hair there. “I’ve lain here all night and thought of nothing but what I want. But I don’t play warm flesh, and I don’t do body doubles for any man. So there is a big difference to me in the reasons you might have come. Not just so that you’re not alone. And not just so that you’re with someone. Be here to be with me.”

She inhaled a ragged sob. “I’ve never done anything like this before in my entire life. And now you’re making fun of me. If you don’t want—”

He let out a soft, swift expletive. “Lady, haven’t you listened to a thing I’ve said?” To emphasize his point, he brought her palm against his heart. She felt the giant pulse of it. She nearly jumped, trying to withdraw her hand, but he wasn’t going to allow her to. He wasn’t going to give an inch. Her eyes were even wider than before. Greener, emerald in the moonlight. The tousled jet tendrils of her hair were a sensual frame to the beauty of her face. The fuzzy pink robe was coming loose. The V at her breasts was spreading. He brought their hands from his chest to hers. He laid his palm at the valley there, and felt the thunder of her heart.

He smiled.

With his free hand, he caught her body at the base of her spine and brought her hard against him. “I want you, Regina. Don’t ever doubt that I want you.”

He emphasized the point once again. This time he brought her hand to his hip, then led her lower. He brought her fingers around the hard shaft of his manhood. A shudder ripped through him and he rued his own determination as the longing constricted into something painful. Her mouth formed an O and a soft gasp escaped her. He swore hoarsely, threading his fingers through her hair and lifting her face to his. “I want you. I’ve lain here all night imagining you. With and without clothing. I’ve never encountered a woman I wanted so desperately. But I don’t want you because you’re afraid, and most of all, I don’t want you if you’re going to jump up in the morning and be horrified and want to pretend that nothing ever happened. Understand?”

Miraculously, her fingers were still upon him. That touch. That simple touch. Had he wanted her so damn badly, really, that just this subtle—and scarcely willing!—caress could send him over some brink?

No! He wanted to make love to her. Wanted to make it the best night she’d known in her life.

Had he pushed it too far again? Would she refuse to play by his rules?

He gave her a slight shake. “Understand?”

Lightning fires were shooting through his body. In about two seconds he wouldn’t give a damn if she understood or not, if she had listened to a word he had said. The want was going to be need. He would have to have her, just as he would have to breathe in the moments to come.

She blinked. To his amazement a soft smile curled her lip. “I have to jump up in the morning. I have to go to work.”

He lowered his face to hers. His lips hovered just above hers as he spoke. “You can go to work, Reggie. I’ll take you. But you can’t pretend. You can’t look through me in the hallway. And I won’t lie to anyone about this.”

She didn’t answer. He didn’t care anymore. He had put everything on the line.

And her mouth was there. Just below his. The mouth that had been made to be kissed.