September Morning (7 page)

“Like Dick,” she told Phillip and Kathryn, “I'm beginning to feel my age a little. Good night, children.”

Phillip challenged Kathryn to a game of gin rummy after Maude went out the door, but she protested.

“You'll just beat me again,” she pouted.

“I'll give myself a ten-point handicap,” he promised.

“Well…just a couple of hands,” she agreed finally.

He held out a chair for her at the small table by the darkened window. “Sit down, pigeon…I mean, partner,” he grinned.

She smiled across the table at him. “Why can't Blake be like you?” she wondered absently as he shuffled the cards. “Friendly, and easy to get along with, and fun to be around…”

“He used to be, when you were younger,” he answered, and his warm brown eyes twinkled. “It's only since you've started growing up that you think he's changed.”

She stuck out her tongue at him. “I don't think, I know! He growls at me all the time.”

“You light the fires under him, my sweet. Like tonight.”

Her face closed up, like a fragile flower in a sudden chill. “I don't like her.”

“And the feeling seems to be mutual. I don't think attractive women ever really like each other.” He studied her unobtrusively. “But I have an idea that her dislike stems from your own. You've hardly been friendly toward her.”

She drew in a defeated sigh. “You're right, I haven't,” she admitted.

“Trying to get back at Blake?” he persisted.

“My arsenal is limited when it comes to fighting your brother,” she sighed.

He laid down three cards in sequence and discarded. “That goes for all of us.”

She held the cool cards up to her lips absently while she drew a card, looked at it, grimaced, and laid it down on the discard pile. “I don't see why I can't have an apartment,” she said. Her full lips pouted against the cards. “I can get a job and pay for it.”

“A job doing what?” he asked politely.

She glared at him. “That's the problem. Finishing school didn't prepare me for much of anything. I know,” she said, brightening. “I'll advertise to be a rich man's mistress! I'm eminently qualified for that!”

Phillip buried his face in his hands. “Don't you dare say that to Blake when I'm in the room! He'll think I suggested it!”

She laughed at the expression on his face. Phillip was such fun, and such a gentleman. She was fonder of him than she liked to say. He was truly like the brother she wished she'd had. But Blake…she turned her attention back to her cards.

She was so caught up in the game of gin rummy that she forgot the time. She was one card short of winning the game when all of a sudden she heard the front door open and she froze in her seat.

“Oops,” she murmured weakly.

Phillip smothered a grin at the look on her soft features. “Sounds like they're home,” he commented, as Vivian's high-pitched voice called good-night from the staircase.

Before she could reply, Blake, looking big, dark and formidable, came in the door. He glanced at the tableau they made as he slung his jacket onto a chair and tugged his tie loose, tossing it carelessly onto the jacket.

“Have a good time?” Phillip asked slyly, his sharp gaze not missing the smear of lipstick just visible on Blake's shirt collar.

Blake shrugged. He went to the bar and poured himself a jigger of whiskey, neat.

“Uh, I think I'd better get to bed,” Phillip said, gauging Blake's mood with lightning precision. “Good night, all.”

“I think I'll go up, too,” Kathryn began hopefully, rising as Phillip made his hasty exit and disappeared into the hall.

Kathryn was only a step behind him when Blake's curt voice stopped her with her hand on the doorknob.

“Close the door,” he said.

She started to go through it.

“From the inside,” he added in a tone that was honeyed, yet vaguely threatening.

She drew a steadying breath and went back into the living room, closing the door reluctantly behind her. She leaned back against it, flashing a nervous glance at him.

“Did you have a nice drive?” she asked.

“Don't hedge,” he growled. His angry eyes slid down her body in the velvet dress with its side slits and plunging neckline, and she felt as if his hands were touching her bare flesh.

“Dick's gone to bed. He's very nice,” she murmured, trying to postpone the confrontation as long as possible. She'd seen Blake in plenty of bad tempers, but judging by the control she read in his face, this one was formidable. The courage she'd felt earlier, in company, dissolved now that she was alone with him.

“So is his daughter,” he replied. “Not that you've taken the trouble to find out.”

She shifted against the cold wood at her back. “She bites.”

“So do you, honey,” he replied, lifting his glass to his lips. “I want the truth, Kate. Did Phillip buy you that dress?”

She felt weary all of a sudden, defeated. Blake always seemed to win. “No,” she admitted. “That is, he signed for it because I don't have a charge account, but Maude said herself that I needed some new clothes,” she added defensively.

“I said the same thing. But I hadn't planned on your dressing like a Main Street prostitute.”

“It's the style, Blake!” she shot at him.

“Almost exactly the same words you used after the Barringtons’ party,” he reminded her. “And I told you the same thing then that I'm telling you now. A dress like that raises a man's blood pressure by five points while it's still on the mannequin. On you…” He let his eyes speak for him, dark and sensuous as they caressed her.

“Vivian was wearing less,” she replied weakly, feeling the heat in her cheeks. “I could almost see through
her
dress.”

“Throwing stones?” he asked. “Your breasts are barely covered at all.”

Her face went hot under the words, and she glared at him with outrage in her sparkling green eyes. “Oh, all right, I'll never wear the silly dress again, Blake! But I can't see what difference it makes to you what I wear!”

His eyes narrowed, and his hand tightened on the thick glass. “Can't you?”

She squared her small shoulders. “You're just being a tyrant again,” she accused. Her hands slid down the sensuous burgundy velvet over her hips as she lifted her face defiantly. “What's the matter, Blake, do I disturb you?” she challenged. “Would you rather I wore my gym suit from high school?”

He set the glass down on the bar and strode toward her deliberately, his eyes blazing, his face harder than granite. She saw the purpose in his eyes and turned with a feeling of panic, grabbing for the doorknob. But the action was too late. He caught her and whirled her around with rough, hurting hands to hold her, struggling against the door.

Chapter Five

S
he stared up into the face of a stranger, and her voice caught in her throat. “Blake, you wouldn't…!” she burst out finally, frightened by what she read in his dark eyes.

He moved, and his big, warm body crushed her against the door. She felt the pressure of his hard, powerful thighs against hers, the metal of his belt buckle sharp at her stomach. There was the rustle of cloth against cloth as his hands caught her bare arms and stilled her struggles.

“Oh, wouldn't I?” he growled, as his eyes dropped to her tremulous lips.

Stunned by the sight of his dark, leonine face at such a disturbing proximity, she looked up at him helplessly until he suddenly crushed her soft mouth under his, forcing her head back under the merciless pressure.

She kept her mouth tightly closed, her body trembling with sudden fear at what Blake was asking of her. She stiffened, struggling instinctively, and his mouth twisted against hers to hold it in bondage, his teeth nipping her lower lip painfully.

A sob broke from her tight throat as she yielded to the merciless ardor that was years beyond her few experiences with men. Nothing that had gone before prepared her for the adult passion she felt in Blake, and it sparked a response that was mingled fear and shock. This was no boyfriend assaulting her senses. This was Blake. Blake, who taught her to ride. Blake, who drove her to cheerleading practice and football games with her friend Nan. Blake, who was a confidant, a protector, and now…

He jerked his head up suddenly, surveying the damage in her swollen, bruised lips, her wounded eyes, her wildly flushed cheeks and disordered hair.

“You're…hurting me,” she whispered brokenly. Her fingers went to her drooping coiffure, nervously, as tears washed her eyes.

His face seemed to harden as he looked down at her. His breath came hard and fast. His eyes glittered with unfathomable emotions.

“This is what happens when you throw that sweet young body at me,” he said in a voice that cut. “I warned you before about flaunting it, and you wouldn't listen. Now, maybe I've managed to get through to you.”

She drew in a sobbing breath, and the tiny sound seemed to disturb him. His eyes softened, just a little, as they wandered over her face.

“Please let me go, Blake,” she pleaded in a shaken whisper. “I swear, I'll wear sackcloth and ashes for the rest of my life!”

His heavy brows drew together and he let go of her arms to lean his hands on either side of her head against the door, pushing back a little to ease the crush of his powerful chest and thighs.

“Afraid?” he asked in a deep, lazy voice.

She swallowed hard, nodding, her eyes mesmerized by his.

He let his eyes move down to her swollen, cut lip as he bent toward her again. She felt his tongue brushing very softly against it, healing, tantalizing and she gasped again—but this time, not in pain.

He drew back and caught her eyes. The expression he found was one of curiosity, uncertainty. She met that searching gaze squarely and felt the breath sigh out of her body. Her heart went wild under the intensity of it. She wanted suddenly to reach up and bring his dark head back down again, to feel his mouth again. To open her lips and taste his. To kiss him hungrily, and hard, and feel his body against the length of hers as it had been, but not in anger this time.

His jaw went rigid. His eyes seemed to burst with light and darkness. Then, suddenly, she was free. He pushed away from her and turned to walk back to the bar. He poured himself another whiskey, and paused long enough to dash a jigger of brandy into a snifter for her before he moved back to the door where she stood frozen and handed it to her.

Wordlessly, he caught her free hand and drew her back to his desk with him. He perched against it, holding her in front of him while she nervously sipped the fiery amber liquid.

He threw down his own drink and put first his own glass, then hers, aside. He reached out to catch her by the waist, drawing her gently closer. He stared down at her flushed face for a long time before he spoke, in a silence heady with new emotions.

“Don't brood,” he said, in a tone that carried echoes of her childhood. Blake's voice, gentle, soothing her when her world caved in. “The tactics may have been different, but it was only an argument. It's over.”

She pretended a calm she didn't feel, and some of the tension went out of her shocked body. “That doesn't sound very much like an apology,” she said, darting a shy glance up at him.

One eyebrow lifted. “I'm not going to apologize. You asked for that, Kathryn, and you know it.”

She sighed shakily. “I know.” Her eyes traced the powerful lines of his chest. “I didn't mean to say what I did.”

“All you have to remember, little innocent one,” he said indulgently, “is that verbal warfare brings a man's blood up. You can be provocative without even realizing it.” He shook her gently. “Are you listening?”

“Yes.” Her dark, curious eyes darted up to his for an instant. “You…I didn't think that you…” she stopped, trying to find words.

“There's no blood between us to protect you from me, Kate,” he said in a deep, quiet tone. “I'm not in my dotage, and I react like any normal man to the sight of a woman in a revealing dress. Phillip could have lost his head just as easily,” he added gruffly.

She felt her heart pounding and caught her breath. “Perhaps,” she whispered. “But he would have been…gentle, I think.”

He didn't argue the point. His big, warm hand tilted her face up to his quiet eyes. “Another of the many differences between Phillip and me, young Kate,” he said. “I'm not a gentle lover. I like my women…practiced.”

The flush made bright banners in her cheeks. “Do they get combat pay?” she asked with a hint of impudence and a wry smile as she touched her forefinger gingerly to her cut lip.

His lips turned up, and his dark eyes sparkled. It was as if there had never been a harsh scene to alienate them. “It works both ways, honey,” he replied musingly. “Some women would have returned the compliment, with interest.”

Her eyes looked deep into his. This, she thought dazedly, is getting interesting. “Women…bite men?” she asked in a whisper, as if it was a subject not fit for decent ears to hear.

“Yes,” he whispered back. “And claw, and scream like banshees.”

“I…I don't mean
then
,” she said. “I mean when…oh, never mind, you just want to make fun of me. I'll ask Phillip.”

He chuckled softly. “Do you really think he's ever felt that kind of passion?” he asked.

She shrugged. “He's a man.”

“Men are different,” he reminded her. His eyes dropped to her mouth. “Poor little scrap, I did hurt you, didn't I?” he asked gently.

She drew away from him, and he relaxed his hold to free her. “It's all right,” she murmured. “As you said, I did ask for it.” Her eyes glanced off his. “You're…very sophisticated.”

“And you're a delicious little innocent,” he replied. “I didn't mean to be so brutal with you, but I do want to impress on you what you invite from a man with a dress like that.” He smiled drily. “I've got a low boiling point, Kate, and I do recall warning you.”

“I didn't think you were serious,” she said with a sigh.

His dark eyes swept over her again. “Now you know better.”

“And better,” she agreed. She turned, almost knocking over Maude's priceless porcelain vase on its marble-topped table on the way out. “I'm taking back every dress I bought while there's still time.”