Punchline (10 page)

Gliding across the floor, she could feel every twitch of Darryl’s muscular legs, every shift of his hips. The cool air could no longer dispel the heat radiating from her body.

This couldn’t be her. Belle Martens did not live in a fantasy world, nor did she exude hunger and sexual excitement on a dance floor. Most of all, Belle Martens could not be falling in love with Darryl Horak.

The thought nearly stopped her, but it was too late. Her heart defied her brain, refusing to yield the magic of this moment.

Just for a little longer, she would let herself drift through an alternate reality. Just for the space of a song, Belle could fall in love.

D
ARRYL’S REASON FOR
attending this party had been to network. The entire Hollywood A-list was here.

He’d spotted an action-hero whom
About Town
had been seeking to interview for months. By the pool, a trendy new menswear designer from Italy was holding court. His latest collection ought to be a four-page spread for the April issue.

Darryl didn’t care.

Between the tall, anorexic beauties, Belle flourished like a lily among reeds. He’d felt vitality and exuberance thrumming through her from the moment they’d arrived.

Maybe it was because she carried new life. Maybe it was simply her personality. Whatever the source, it made Darryl feel as if he had stepped into a different and more wondrous universe.

From this fresh perspective, he could see that the glamour of the other ladies lay skin-deep. While they posed and preened, Belle plunged herself heart and soul into this moment, this dance.

He didn’t merely want to make love to her. He wanted to watch her response as he roused her to uncontrollable desire. His own satisfaction was no longer the goal. They had to find ecstasy together.

When the music changed to a faster but still sultry beat, he refused to relinquish her. Belle made no move to pull away, merely quickened her pace to match his.

But inevitably the dance floor began to fill up. Darryl had to focus on avoiding collisions, and then the band
switched to a raucous rock number and the spell was broken.

He and Belle wandered back to the pool house. Along the way, they chatted with people they knew, and people they wanted to know, and people who wanted to know them. Afterward, he could barely recall any of their names.

‘ It was only a quarter past eleven when Belle began yawning. Mothers-to-be needed a lot of sleep, Darryl supposed. Besides, after thirty-three years, he no longer found it unthinkable to leave a New Year’s Eve party before midnight.

As they drove away from the lights and music, the night lay quiet before them. Other neighborhoods might resound with noisemakers, but not elegant Bel-Air.

In the passenger seat, Belle leaned back, her eyelids drifting shut. Darryl wondered at her ability to stimulate him the way she had earlier. He would never understand this power a woman had, to turn a man twice her size into a lump of longing.

But he needed to get her home and let her rest. Becoming a father sometimes meant putting your woman’s and child’s needs ahead of your own. It wasn’t an easy lesson for him to master, but he was doing his best.

B
ELLE COULD SENSE
Darryl withdrawing. She told herself it was for the best, but she missed their closeness on the dance floor.

She hadn’t really fallen in love with him, of course. It had been a dream, a fantasy. But that didn’t mean she had to release the enchantment right away. She closed her eyes and imagined they were sailing through the stars.

When they arrived at the condo, her legs felt wobbly. It must be from dancing while carrying the baby’s extra weight. Four and a half months of pregnancy might not
sound advanced, but on Belle’s short frame, it felt like a lot.

In the living room, she got as far as the couch and then sank down. Unwilling to stir, she didn’t object when Darryl sat beside her and switched on the TV.

The crowd in Times Square was getting warmed up. “Isn’t there anything local?” she asked.

He flipped through the channels. On a news program, they saw shots of people arriving at Sandra Duval’s party, and Belle glimpsed the two of them, nearly lost among all those lights. Darryl looked heartbreakingly elegant in his tuxedo, she thought, and was grateful that her dark dress made her figure impossible to see.

She didn’t want the night to be over. Not that she regretted leaving. It wasn’t the glitz she missed, but that sense of entering into a special, private realm that existed just for the two of them.

Then a commercial came on, and Darryl started clicking again. They passed talk shows, reruns of “Star Trek” and an old TV-movie about a woman suffering from amnesia.

“I always thought they made up that stuff,” Belle said. “You know, about people forgetting things. But I swear I can’t remember anything that happened that night we got drugged. Can you?”

“I’m still drawing a blank.” Darryl stretched his tuxedo-clad legs across the carpet. “But I just thought of a way we might be able to recover our memories.”

“What’s that?”

He scooted closer and tipped one finger beneath her chin. “By reenacting the events,” he said. “Like this.”

His mouth closed over Belle’s, and before she could stop to think, her arms wound around his neck and she was kissing him back.

She knew this was not a good idea. She also knew that wild and previously unsuspected impulses were racing through her as Darryl probed her lips.

“Are you remembering anything?” he whispered, lifting his head.

“Not yet.” She didn’t mean to encourage him, but she had to tell the truth, didn’t she?

“I think we should pursue this in a logical manner,” he said.

There was nothing logical about the sensations tingling across her skin. “How?”

He clicked off the TV just as the fireworks exploded. They were nothing compared to what was happening in this room, she thought.

“Normally, I would begin by kissing you,” he said.

“We’ve done that,” she reminded him.

His tongue tapped the edges of his teeth as he considered. They were nice teeth, white and even, Belle thought. “Maybe we should just let our instincts take over.”

He was teasing her, of course. He didn’t care about recovering his memory any more than she did. He was just taking their intimacy on the dance floor to the next, irresistible level.

And she wanted him to. For one night, Belle ached to yield to the crazy, hopeless, overwhelming impulse to fall in love. Darryl was the wrong man for her, and this enchantment wouldn’t last any longer than star shine and dance music, but she wanted to experience every delirious moment.

This time, she knew, she would hold the memory inside her forever.

“So tell me,” she whispered. “What do your instincts tell you to do?”

He slipped one arm behind her back and kissed her again for a very long time. His other hand stroked her
cheek, then traveled down her throat to the valley between her breasts.

Belle’s entire nervous system might have been wired to those twin points of her anatomy. Her nipples grew taut and hot lava spread through her marrow.

Darryl eased the dress off one shoulder, lowering the bra strap with it. He leaned down and his tongue traced the edge of one nipple.

A moan twisted from her throat and her back arched in instinctive feminine invitation. She could feel herself losing control. It had never happened to her before—and yet it had.

Vaguely, she recalled experiencing this wild urge to join with a creature of the night. It must have been in a dream, or, rather, in a drug-enhanced state. There had been a wolf stalking her, a wolf that transformed itself into a man of mist and magic.

He was here now. He was Darryl.

As he lowered her across the couch, Belle thought she remembered the sure strokes of his hands smoothing away her dress, but she couldn’t be sure. And it no longer mattered.

S
HE ENCIRCLED
D
ARRYL
with her arms, probing the expanse of his back. His muscles rippled as her hands explored down his narrow waist and along his hips.

The man quivered, and she felt the pressure of his knee parting her legs. His tuxedo brushed over her bare skin, silky and rough at the same time.

Taking a long breath, Darryl elevated himself and tore away his garments like a feral creature casting off civilization. In the ferocity of his gaze, Belle saw wonder and joy and a deep, driving hunger.

Their mouths came together again, hers yielding, his demanding. His chest crushed her breasts, and she urged him on with long caresses.

He shifted her on the couch, positioning her to receive him. Belle knew what was coming, but she knew it from a dream, an impossible experience in which she had merged with a beast from her darkest fantasies.

Darryl entered her slowly, every inch of him a longedfor intrusion. They fused moment by moment, in an almost unbearable suspension of nature’s promptings.

Then he was deep inside her, and she could hold out no longer. Her pelvis began to rotate, teasing him until he burst into a series of hard thrusts.

Cries rasped from his throat. Belle wanted to delay, but the fierceness of his assault left no room for escape. Waves of pleasure burst through her core, and nothing existed in the world but Darryl’s conquest and her triumph.

The fire died slowly to embers. He lay half over her and half beside her, breathing heavily. “I’m still not sure,” he said.

“What?” She couldn’t grasp his meaning.

“I’m not sure whether I remember.” A smile dawned on his face. “I guess we’ll have to do it again.”

So they did.

B
ELLE WOKE UP
the next morning with a sense of unreality. She couldn’t have made love with Darryl last night, could she? It must be another of those disappointing dreams in which she started to recall their drugged night together and then awoke to find herself alone.

She rolled over and examined the figure beside her. He looked much as he had that first morning, one arm thrown over his eyes to block the light, his broad chest exposed.

It amazed her that where once she had seen only flaws and annoyances, now she found herself craving the sound of his voice and the glint of his smile. For one aching moment, Belle admitted she felt a deep bond to this man.

Never before had she cared this much about anyone. In the past, she had kept men at bay, reluctant to risk getting hurt. She wouldn’t have allowed it now, but Darryl “and circumstances had conspired against her.

He had penetrated her defenses so thoroughly, she wasn’t sure how she would recover, or if she could. His masculine scent tantalized her, and the sight of his rumpled dark hair brought back memories of exquisite pleasure.

She ran her hand lightly across his skin. This time, she wasn’t wondering how it would feel to get intimate with some male model. She was remembering every tantalizing detail of the night before.

And, just as he had that first morning, Darryl reacted with a spurt of energy. Before Belle could respond, she
found the man on top of her, his mouth on her breasts and his leg teasing hers apart.

Then he stopped.

“Go on,” Belle said.

Dazed brown eyes blinked down at her. “Pain,” he said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Isn’t this the point where you bit me?”

She chuckled. “That was then. This is now.”

Darryl gave a long sigh. “Give me a few minutes. My libido just fled in terror.”

Before it could return, however, they both decided they were hungry. After showering and breakfasting on toast with marmalade, they faced their first day as lovers.

“Is it okay if I watch the Rose Parade?” Darryl asked.

“You don’t need permission,” she said. “You live here.”

“I just wondered what
you
wanted to do.”

“The Rose Parade sounds like fun.” And it was.

Still, by the time they had seen most of the floats, Belle was getting edgy. “I think I’ll call around and see if any furniture stores are open. I’ve been meaning to get some bookshelves.”

Darryl eyed her makeshift arrangement of cinder blocks. “Any particular style?”

“Whatever catches my eye.” She pried herself from the couch. “Any suggestions?”

“I’ve been thinking of taking up carpentry,” he said. “It’s kind of a daddy thing. I could borrow a saw from my friend Jim. I mean, I took shop in school, and it can’t be that hard to build bookshelves, right?”

Encouraging the man would be a recipe for disaster. With his refusal to consult directions, he was likely to make something even worse than what she had now. “I’ll start with one of the malls, “Belle said. “The furniture
stores are overpriced but they’ll probably be open on a holiday. Want to come?”

His fingers twitched as if missing the feel of a saw and some lumber. Then he grinned. “Let’s go.”

F
OR THE NEXT
few days at work, it took all Belle’s energy just to read copy, deal with free-lancers and check over the magazine as it moved through the process of getting edited. Half the time, Tom in traffic had to remind her that she was due in a meeting, or hadn’t revised a caption.

Fortunately, Sandra continued to take the lead on polishing their megamall presentation. Belle’s contribution consisted mostly of saying “sure” and “that’s terrific” and “what?”

She tried to keep her thoughts from straying to Darryl, but it was difficult. She’d never imagined that lovemak-ing could be this creative. During the past week, they had initiated the kitchen, the hallway and the bathtub.

He claimed to keep forgetting whether they’d done it before. She pretended to believe him.

This couldn’t really be love, of course, not the kind that deepened and lasted through the years, Belle kept reminding herself. She knew better than to expect the impossible. But how many lives were touched by this kind of magic, even for a while?

New Year’s Day, when they’d gone shopping, they hadn’t bought any bookshelves, but they’d had fun looking in windows and browsing through bookstores. Darryl could be a lot of fun, when he wasn’t driving her crazy.

On the morning of January eighth, she awoke with the nervous sense that something important was about to happen. Then she remembered that she and Darryl would be going to the megamall today. Their presentations had, as Sandra’d predicted, both been scheduled for the same time.

Staggering down the hall, she saw him standing in front of the spare bedroom, gazing into it. “Is something wrong?”

“Do they make wallpaper with baseball players on it?” he asked.

Belle could feel herself starting to bristle. “I told you, I’m painting the nursery purple.”

He slanted her a grin that was much too alert for this hour of the morning. “I was thinking of a strip of wallpaper around the top.”

“Tennis might be all right,” she said.

“Really?” he asked. “You’re willing to consider a sports motif?”

“As long as there are women players, too.” Belle yawned. “How can you worry about something like this today?”

“The baby’s first impressions could be important,” Darryl said. “Hey, you’re not nervous, are you? About the presentations?”

She rubbed a sleeper from her eye. “A little, I guess.” She wondered how he would react when he discovered that his theme had been one-upped.

“What’s done is done,” Darryl told her. “We’ve got our presentations ready. Now it’s up to Ms. Lemos.”

“You sound so blasé! she teased. “I’ll bet you’re a quivering lump of jelly inside.”

“Yeah? Lump of jelly or not, I’ll bet I can get dressed before you can!”

“No fair!” she protested as he disappeared into the spare bedroom, where he still kept his clothes even though he no longer slept there. When he failed to respond, Belle slogged the rest of the way to the bathroom.

She emerged from the shower to find Darryl standing before her wearing a dark three-piece suit. He examined her body with interest “Is that how you’re going to the mall? It should make quite an impression.”

“I’m illustrating our theme,” Belle retorted. “‘Just Us: Naked As Nature Intended.’“

His hands cupped her breasts. “Now that
will
catch the public’s attention. It’s certainly caught mine.”

She angled away, laughing. ‘Too bad we both have to get to the office.”

His lips pursed speculatively. “You know, we’re expected to ride out to the desert with our colleagues, but we could drive home together. I know a romantic hotel where we could eat a leisurely lunch and have, well, a spectacular dessert.”

“That sounds like a plan,” said Belle, and shooed him out.

F
ROM THE ROAD,
the High Desert Megamall appeared as an enormous array of linked buildings, sand-colored with hints of sunset pinks and greens. Darryl could hardly tell where it ended and the sky began.

As he pulled into the unpaved parking lot, he was impressed by the sheer size of the place. By June, it would contain a thousand-seat concert hall, movie screens, arcades, a supermarket, seven major department stores and hundreds of shops, along with a hotel, a skating rink and enough restaurants to feed half of California.

He hadn’t been entirely honest with Belle this morning. Although he tried to take a fatalistic attitude, Darryl cared very much about landing this account. He was tired of the peeling paint and stained curtains at his office, and the computer equipment needed an upgrade.

On the other hand, he hoped she understood that this was just business. There was no reason this rivalry should interfere with the rapport the two of them had established.

Just the thought of her made heat flood through his veins. It wasn’t just her sensuality but the spice of her personality that excited him. Something special hap-
pened when two enemies became lovers, and he was sure it could only get better.

Nearby, Elva’s Bronco halted and she retrieved some posters from her back seat. Greg emerged from the passenger side carrying a briefcase and, like the brave band of musketeers, the three of them marched toward double glass doors crisscrossed with masking tape.

Inside, the sound of construction filled the vast arched space. Carpenters were at work everywhere, turning cavelike openings into shops.

Skirting piles of sawdust and lumber, Darryl escorted his team to a private elevator, as per Mira’s directions. It carried them to the third-floor executive offices.

They stepped into an office still lacking carpet and drapes. From the unusual layout and curving entryways, though, Darryl could see that the place would be impressive once it was finished.

A secretary waved them into a conference room. A check of his watch showed them to be fifteen minutes early, and he was pleased to see that the
Just Us
team hadn’t arrived yet. Going first meant hitting the promotions director while she was fresh and, hopefully, more receptive.

Mira popped in a moment later, her dark hair drawn back in a French twist. Shaking hands, she said, “Shall we get down to business?”

On a series of easels, Elva set out her posters. Each illustrated the theme of “Adam Brings Eve Back to Paradise,” which would be presented through fashion shows ongoing during the opening weekend.

One section of the mall would feature reggae music and a tropical garden motif; another, country music and sporting gear in an Alpine setting; and a third would present folk music, with merchandise for children displayed in a fairy-tale village. Each show, as depicted in the
posters, included a disappointed-looking serpent hissing as Adam rehooked an apple to its tree.

The key, in Darryl’s opinion, was the thematic reference to Adam and Eve. Its emphasis on masculine responsibility summarized all that was controversial and up-to-the-minute about the proposal and would make the mall stand out in consumers’ minds.

“The point we’ll be making throughout our magazine over the next few months,” he said, “is that the nineties are the years of commitment. We’ll be encouraging men to reassert their importance in the family.”

Mira studied the posters, but revealed nothing of her reaction. The absence of a response made him uneasy. If she had fallen in love with the presentation, she would surely be showing it by now.

It was almost a relief to hear voices outside and realize the
Just Us
crew had landed. He could only hope that they’d come up with something so cozy and domestic that his offering would shine by comparison.

Into the room breezed Sandra Duval, wearing a broadbrimmed hat covered with little hearts and cupids like a harbinger of Valentine’s Day. Belle and two of her staff members followed.

They were all smiling. Perversely, Darryl couldn’t wait to see them get shot down. Misery loved company, he supposed.

Then Janie Frakes’s grin disappeared as her eyes met Greg’s. The two glared briefly before averting their gazes. They must have strong feelings for each other to maintain a feud this long, Darryl mused.

Sandra finished shaking hands with Ms. Lemos while her staff festooned the room with posters. The theme, “Just Us: Together into the Future,” was about what Darryl had expected. He definitely preferred “Naked As Nature Intended.”

He wasn’t surprised by the manikin families pushing their babies through the mall. He was bored by the manikin wedding scene, although Mira studied it with interest.

At the third panel, “Just Us Tonight!” Darryl squirmed. The men and women in sophisticated evening dress were poaching on
About Town
territory.

He’d assumed all along that there would be an evening-wear fashion show but hadn’t thought to depict it. Before he could point this out, however, Sandra set up the last poster, “Just Us in Paradise.”

The scene virtually duplicated Elva’s poster of a couple in swimsuits romancing each other in a tropical garden. Worse, the pair were playing catch with apples, as if to burlesque the whole Adam and Eve theme. Darryl could almost have sworn Belle had read his notes, except that he’d been careful not to take anything home with him.