The Greatest Risk (18 page)

“Don't tickle me,” she pleaded. “I hate being tickled.”

He was pretty sure that was because no one had ever tickled the delectable little Miss Maggie Mouse in the right place or the right way.

“I owe you a foot massage,” he said, “for the one you gave me last night.”

“Careful you don't put me to sleep!”

Oh, he had no intention of putting her to sleep. When she quit struggling, he lifted her foot to his mouth.

“Oh, don't,” she whispered, entranced.

So, of course he did. He planted a lingering kiss on her instep.

She went very still and he reminded himself to take it slow. Even so, he ran a finger down the bottom of her foot from toe to heel and enjoyed the power of making her shiver.

“Are you sure you don't like to be tickled, Miss Maggie Mouse?”

“Positive,” she said, but her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were heated as she yanked her foot away from him and stuffed it back in her boot.

“Race you,” she said.

“That's what I was afraid of.”

In moments they were back on the bikes, roaring up and down little hills, and through little hollows, around tight turns.

When he finally managed to wrest the lead from her, he did a bit of showing off. He took air, and lots of it.
He threw his legs free of the bike. He twisted the handlebars back and forth. He landed hard and running, and glanced back. She had stopped.

He went back to her.

She had taken her helmet off and was staring at him, not looking too impressed with his great show.

“Do you think that was wise?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You're just out of the hospital. What are the consequences if you reinjure your back?” Her face had that pinched, pained look it had had when she'd seen his wrecked motorcycle in the workshop.

“I didn't take that much air,” he said, but he could feel himself resenting her. One thing he did not like was being controlled. Everyone who had ever tried it had ended up being very sorry.

She must have read something in his face correctly, because without another word she put her helmet back on. But she didn't go out on the track again. She went back to the parking area.

“I think that's enough for me for one day,” she said. “I'm tired. And my nose feels sunburned.”

He tried to see if this was a continuation of the trying to control him, but she appeared utterly sincere. He looked at his watch and was surprised to see the day had dissolved.

He was sorry that it had. He did not want to say goodbye to the day, despite the small conflict that had cast a shadow on it.

“You want to barbecue steaks at my place tonight?” he asked.

“No.”

He squinted at her. If she was going to try and punish him for doing what he did best—living his life as if he was tobogganing—it was over right now. Before it started.

He felt the sharp sting of regret at the thought.

But he was granted a reprieve.

“It's my turn,” she said. “You can come to my place for dinner.”

“You can cook, too?”

“What do you mean ‘too'?”

“I meant as well as riding a motorbike. And looking gorgeous.” And feeling wonderful to wake up beside.

“No, I wasn't planning on cooking,” she admitted, looking pleased at the compliment. He knew not nearly enough men had told Maggie she was gorgeous.

“I mean I can cook simple things like cookies and cake out of a box. Things like turkey dinner are out.”

“I'm disappointed,” he teased. “I wanted you to rush home and whip up a turkey dinner in the July heat.”

“I know something better. I know where the best takeout in Portland is.”

“You're on,” he said. He knew they should sort it out right now, that thing that had happened back there. It was his life and his back, and nobody was going to tell him what to do with either of those things. To ask him not to take risks would be like asking him not to breathe.

On the other hand, it felt as if it would spoil the moment. He was not the best communicator and he would probably manage to offend her. Then she might retract her dinner invitation.

And every bachelor wanted to know where to get the best takeout in town.

D
umb, dumb, dumb, Maggie thought, hurrying along the corridor of her building and inserting her key into the lock of her own apartment.

What had she been thinking asking Luke to come here? She stepped inside and looked around. She had always loved her apartment. It was a third-floor walk-up in an historical brownstone close enough to Children's Connection that most days Maggie could walk to work. Her space was charming, with its plaster detail and oak floors and stained glass in the upper frames of the French-pane windows.

But it was an absolute mess! A spurned and depressed woman had inhabited it for several days—a woman who was sure her love life was over.

And so there was laundry unfolded in a basket on the
sofa, two empty tubs of Double Chocolate Madness ice cream on the coffee table, wool socks on the floor. In July! She couldn't help it, whenever she was under stress her feet got cold. There were unread newspapers, and magazines open to pages of thin, alluring models dressed in the kind of scanty things Maggie would never be able to wear.

She glanced at her watch. So little time, and so much to do. Thank God she had not offered to cook for him.

She whipped the apartment into shape, tossing everything onto and underneath her bed, and firmly shut the door. Then, her arms folded over her chest, she tried to evaluate her apartment through his eyes.

“Frou-frou,” she decided, too much lace and dried flowers. She thought the apartment said rather too much about her: woman alone and with no prospects.

Her bedroom was the worst—layers and layers of white eyelet linens, and pillows, even the duvet cover white and feminine and pure somehow. Thankfully, they wouldn't be using that room tonight. Oh no, her common sense had prevailed this morning at his place. As much as she had wanted to turn into his embrace in that bed this morning, her voice of reason had warned her,
Way too fast, Maggie.

She had no idea where the voice of her reason had been the other two nights when she had thrown herself at him like an unprincipled hussy, but it had, thankfully, emerged this morning in time to save her in a most vulnerable moment.

Waking up beside him, surrounded by the aroma of his skin, and swept away by the amusement in his green eyes, she was not sure how she had prevented herself from throwing caution to the wind and herself right at him.

Perhaps on those two other occasions, in a parking lot, in the front seat of a very small car there were built–in safety features. It really could, after all, only go so far in those fairly public places.

That had not been the case this morning! They had had all the privacy and all the room in the world. She shivered thinking about it, and focused on getting her apartment shipshape, dusting, vacuuming, and hiding the worst of the frilly knickknacks.

Finally, having the apartment looking good, she went into the bathroom.

Her heart sank as she regarded herself in the full-length mirror behind the door. She had wasted all that time on making her home look so wonderful, when she looked like this?

Her hair was a wind-tangled mess, her nose was very sunburned, and she was still wearing the jeans and shirt Luke had loaned her.

He hadn't had a full-length mirror, and all day she had convinced herself—partly because of how Luke was reacting to her—that she must somehow look ravishing in his clothes.

Now she saw nothing could be further from the truth. She looked like an extra for “The Beverly Hillbillies,” and not the long-legged one in the short-shorts and polka-dot crop tops, either!

To Maggie's critical eye, those two tubs of ice cream had moved directly from the buckets and glommed onto her hips. It was not a pretty sight.

She showered quickly, pulled her hair into a ponytail, and then chose an outfit not for its allure but for its disguising power. She wore black pants—slimming—
and a white tailored shirt, the shirttails hiding the worst of the bulges.

Her vial of NoWait was on the counter by the sink, and she remembered that to underscore the hopelessness of her loveless existence she had stopped using it.

“Well, I need you now,” she said. She picked it up and chanted, “A little rub on the skin, and in no time you're thin.” Only she didn't have two weeks, so she applied all four days' worth of doses that she had missed, plus an additional day for good measure.

“Work,” she muttered. She was busy trying to hide the worst of the damage to her sunburned nose when there was a knock on the door.

Luke arrived right on time. His nose was as sunburned as hers, only it looked good on him. His short-sleeved sports shirt and belted shorts showed off his lean, hard muscles.

He was a man who would never need NoWait, no matter how many tubs of ice cream or decadent desserts he devoured.

He had flowers! A beautiful summer bouquet, with a pink rose at the center surrounded by yellow and white daisies and a few carnations.

For some reason the scent of the flowers seemed extra heady to her. She leaned into the bouquet and buried her nose in it.

She peeked at Luke and felt as if her heart stopped beating. He had obviously just showered, too, and his dark hair was damp and wavy. She could smell the heady scent of cologne, and the skin on his freshly shaven jaw and chin looked somehow as if it needed to be touched.

Suddenly it was very plain to Maggie what the greatest risk of all was. And it hadn't been going to his place last night.

The biggest risk of her life would be to seduce this man!

She didn't even know where the thought had come from. It certainly had been nowhere to be found this morning when she had been in an ideal position to mount a plan for seduction.

Oh who was she kidding? He called her Miss Maggie Mouse. She was no seductress and they both knew it. In fact, she was so exciting, she reminded herself a trifle peevishly, that she had put him right to sleep last night.

Still, she leaned toward him to thank him for the flowers. The clean lines of his cheeks and jaw still beckoned to her. It was going to be a quick peck on that fresh-shaven cheek, but somehow she missed his cheek and her lips touched his lips.

A glorious feeling swept over her, warm and liquid and all-encompassing. It was as if, in her belly, a few warm embers from a fire gone nearly dead still existed. That kiss breathed on them, made them flare and sputter to life, like a dragon awakening.

She stepped back from him, could feel the dragon's breath heating her cheeks to smoldering.

“I'll just put these in water,” she said, ducking away from him. “Come in.”

He followed her through to the kitchen. “I like your place, Maggie, all warm and cozy, just like you.”

If only he knew! Right now the last thing she was feeling was warm and cozy. She was feeling white-hot and ready to go.

She had a computer center set up in a little nook in
the kitchen, a Scrabble board set up on it, next to the computer. It was a testament to the loneliness of her life for the past few years that she had come to take such enjoyment from her ongoing Internet matches. She actually kept the board set up, kept track of her moves and the opponent's, rehearsed different moves out here before she submitted them.

“Scrabble,” he said. “You'll have to show me how to play sometime.”

This was said with such an utter lack of sincerity that he might as well have said she was dull and unexciting, the eccentric spinster her apartment heralded.

She turned and eyed him narrowly. Frankly she had had enough of Luke August finding her amusing and interesting but infinitely resistible.

She dropped the flowers in the sink but made no move to find a vase for them. She moved across the floor to him with deliberation. The taste of his lips was still on her own lips, heady and as inhibition-killing as wine.

Her intent must have been in her face because he actually backed up a step. “I don't think this is how you play Scrabble,” he said.

She stopped right in front of him, felt this strange and intoxicating boldness filling her.

“First, you pick a letter,” she said, then leaned around him and pulled a tile from the box. “Oh my, it's a
K.
”

“That's a good thing?” he asked warily.

She took his shirt, wrapped it around her fist and drew him close to her.

“I believe it's the first letter in
kiss,
” she said. And then she did. She kissed him. She kissed him with a complete lack of reservation. She kissed him, releasing
all that heat that had been building up inside her, not just since she had met him, but since she had been left by Darnel. Maggie had tried so hard to extinguish all about herself that was passionate and needy and vulnerable.

She saw now she had not succeeded. She had buried, not extinguished. And everything, years of pent-up frustration and desire, had just been waiting for her to lift the lid off that buried treasure of her desire.

She kissed him recklessly, until she was dizzy from it. She released his shirt and swayed back.

“I think I might like Scrabble,” he said, dazed.

She reached back into the box and picked out another letter.

“Oh,” she said, “you got an
I.
”

“The second letter in kiss?” he guessed.

“You catch on very quickly.”

He gathered her in his arms, and his lips claimed hers, welcoming, demanding, teasing, taking. The first kiss had revealed a glitter, a hint of the treasure in her buried subconscious chest. Now the lid blew off, revealing the full intensity of what was in her, abundant, rich and beautiful.

Her apartment faded from her awareness. And so did the flowers in the sink, and the Scrabble board. She felt as though she had eaten only bread her entire life and suddenly discovered something exotic and faintly sinful, like lobster.

His lips tasted of sin and sensuality and raindrops and heaven.

“Your turn,” he said, barely lifting his lips off hers. He reached behind them and held out the game lid, full of letters, for her.

Trembling faintly, she reached back into the box.

“That better be an
S,
” he told her, setting the lid back down, his forehead leaning against hers, his chest rising and falling in ragged gasps.

She glanced at the letter. “It's not. It's an
F.
”

He reeled back from her. “Lordie, I'm scared to ask.”

“By itself it means nothing,” she said and drew another letter. “Hmm, an
R.
”

“Does it mean anything yet?”

She shook her head and drew another letter. “Oh, it's an
E.
” She smacked herself playfully on the forehead. “I should have got it sooner.”

“What?” he asked hoarsely.

“It's
French,
of course,”

“I thought you couldn't use proper nouns,” he said, but his lips were already making a trail down her face, touching her forehead, her eyelids, the tip of her nose, until they came to her lips.

“I thought you didn't know anything about this game,” she pouted.

“I'm probably mistaken.” His lips found hers, and his tongue flicked the plumpness of her bottom lip.

“You can challenge
French
if you want to,” she murmured.

“What happens if I challenge?”

“No
French.
”

“No challenge from me.” And then his tongue darted in her mouth, ran along the rough bottom edges of her front teeth, plundered her tongue.

The intimacy of the kiss was the most exquisite of tortures, delightful, painful, tormenting, teasing. The kiss was fanning that fire within her, the heat building, begging to be extinguished.

Only one thing could release this tender agony within her.

“Is that how you'd interpret
French?
” he asked her, his lips on her ear, his breath hot and sweet and sending tingles up and down her spine.

“Exactly.”

“My turn,” he gasped against her ear. He pulled a tile. “It's a
B.
”

“And?”

“It stands for
button.
This one right here.” And with his index finger he flicked open the top button of her blouse. He traced the line of her throat to just beneath where that button was, the soft swell at the top of her breast.

“How many
B
s in that box?” he asked.

“Two.”

“That isn't going to be enough.”

“You could substitute an
F,
for, um,
fastener.
”

“How many of those?”

“Two.”

“And we've already used one,” he reminded her.

“You may be out of luck, then.”

He swore softly, and she put back her head and laughed throatily, which earned her a kiss right in the hollow of her throat, followed by a white-hot flick of the tip of his tongue.

“Then again,” he said, “I could be creative. As in the letter
U
for
undo.
”

“Exactly,” she told him. “There are four of those.”

“
E
for
earlobes.
” He kissed her there. “
M
for
mouth.
Oh yeah, and
X
for
X-rated
. I really like Scrabble. Who would have imagined?”

“Not me,” she admitted. In fact, even ten minutes ago
she could not have imagined that her life was going to move in this direction.

He let go of her long enough to look at the board. “Look at all the scores on here,” he mused, and began counting the colored squares. “Good grief, you can score about a hundred times playing this game.”

“Sometimes you can double and triple score,” she told him.

He sighed blissfully. “I missed the point of this game entirely. I did play once in eighth grade. I made a mistake. I thought it was boring.”

“Actually, I'm a little bored with Scrabble now,” she said.