The Thrill of It All (11 page)

The nuns at Our Lady of Poverty didn’t approve of rock music, and the band members’ untamed hair and painted-on pants would have scandalized them, making their music only more appealing to the students. In secret, Felicity’s dormmates had poured over the liner notes, drooled over the photos, passed around the headphones, and gone headlong into puberty to the thudding pulse of songs like “One Wild Night” and “Slippery When Wet.”

Felicity had been right there alongside them—except in one respect. While her friends had been boy-crazy for the long-tressed blond beauty of lead singer Jon Bon Jovi, his pretty, almost androgynous look hadn’t intrigued her in the least. No, it was bass-player Richie who’d made her quiver. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, and smoldering Richie Sambora, who looked like he’d say and do all manner of dangerous things.

Like the things that Magee had said and done to her last night.

Felicity shot him a sidelong look. He was still in dreamland, but relaxation didn’t add a whit of little-
boy vulnerability to his features. After a night of debauchery, a sleeping Jon Bon Jovi would look lost-angel sweet. But Magee…even with his lashes resting against his cheeks, their thick bristle paired with that black stubble on his chin and around his full mouth made him an unrepentant gunslinger—passed out after a night of whiskey and women.

She had to get away from him. He threatened the image—the All-American, girl-next-door Felicity—she’d worked on for years. Conscience pricking her, she admitted to herself that she’d been overdoing the blame game. It wasn’t Richie’s fault. It wasn’t Magee’s sole fault, either. The two of them together created a synergy that stripped away her inhibitions and scratched out all her mental lists of Mr. Right qualities.

Which didn’t change the fact that she had to get away from him.

Commanding herself to stay quiet, she made a surreptitious slide and nearly yelped out loud. Her backside hurt! More gingerly, she moved again, managing to rise to her feet without a sound. In the mirror over the room’s long dresser she saw the cause of her discomfort.

She had a rug burn. Felicity Charm, the Sweetheart of Sales, had a rug-burned behind. And then there were the sore inner thigh muscles, the tender flesh between them, and…as she swung around to face her reflection, she stiffened in shock.

Oh. My. God.

Now,
this,
this
was
his fault. And she was going to make him sorry for it.

Temper flaring, she stomped to the bathroom to grab a robe, then slid it on as she marched back to the bedside table. Opening the drawer, she found what she was after. First, a thick, binder-bound guidebook. Next, an even thicker phone book. Finally, a hefty copy of the Gideon’s Bible. With a ping of Catholic schoolgirl guilt, she stacked it on top of the other two books and then strode over to stand behind the naked, depraved monster still sacked out on the carpet. Raising her arms high, she let the heavy books fall to the floor, three inches from Magee’s glossy mess of hair.

He jolted awake, his eyes wild. His attention jumped to the bedspread she’d been under and his hands patted at it frantically. “Dollface? Are you okay? Felicity!” He shot to a sitting position. “
Lissie!
Where’d you go?”

“How could you?” she ground out.

“There you are.” Sounding relieved, he twisted around, his glance sweeping past the books up to her face, then back to the books again. “What the hell happened? You smush a spider under there or something?”

When she didn’t answer, he looked up again, and stilled, seeming to take in her mood. With his gaze glued to her face, he slowly reached over and pulled the bedspread across his naked lap.

“A wise precaution,” she said.

He cleared his throat. “So. You’re mad about something, right?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Okay, okay. Give me a second, I was just rudely awakened.” He scrubbed his face with his hand and
then ran it through his hair. “You’re mad about something and it’s…it’s…is it that the in-room coffe-maker isn’t working?”

“No.”

He gave her a hopeful half-smile. “Then there’s co—?” The word broke off as she took a step toward him. “Fine, fine. No coffee. You’re mad, and what you’re mad about is…uh…uh…”

She started tapping her toe.

He started talking faster. “…is all the wasted years?”

Her foot froze. “Wasted years? What wasted years?”

“Without knowing you’re multi-orgasmic.” He had the arrogance, the audacity, to look smug.

Her vision narrowed and the edges turned red. “I didn’t need you to tell me that! I’m perfectly aware of what I’m capable of. For your information, I happen to be deci-orgasmic, milli-orgasmic! What I’m mad about—and ‘mad’ is too tame a word—what I’m
homicidal
about is this!” Aghast all over again, she wrenched apart the lapels of the terry robe, exposing her nakedness to the waist.

The smirk fell from his face, to be replaced with something else entirely. Something serious—maybe even tender. “Oh, Lissie. You’re so pretty.”

She experienced a moment of girlish softening, then, flushing, she whipped the robe back over herself. “I’m talking about the hickeys, Magee.”

Blinking, he rose to his feet, hitching the bedspread around his waist. “Hickeys? You have hickeys?”

Slapping him sounded good. “How could you have missed them? I can hide the ones on my breasts, but the one on my neck makes me look as if I’ve been making out with a junior high schooler.”

“Show me again,” he said, his voice gentle.

Though she felt more heat rush over her skin, she slowly parted the edges of the robe again. “Look. What am I supposed to do about them?”

There were five hickeys altogether. On each breast, there was one on both the upper and lower curves. And then the last one, the biggest one, was marking the skin at the side of her neck.

The rise and fall of his chest quickened as he looked her over. She felt his gaze on each of the marks in turn, bringing back searing memories of the night before. His mouth, so hot on her breasts. Her fingers, tangled in his damp hair, holding him to her as her voice begged for more.

Then Magee standing behind her in the shower, his big body curved around hers, his lips on her neck as his clever hands proved that she was—indeed—multi-orgasmic.

Now his gaze lifted from her body to her face. “I don’t know what to say, dollface. I don’t regret it, do you?”

Regret it? Of course she regretted it! She regretted everything that had happened since she’d made the impetuous decision to come back to Half Palm in order to prove something to the Charms. But the only thing she’d proven last night was that she could make irresponsible, shameless decisions like the rest of
them. What else would explain the most decadent, wanton night in her life?

Somewhere, somewhere deep inside, she must be truly depraved, too, because God, how else could it feel so right with someone so wrong?

It was anger that made the corners of her eyes prick with tears. “You’re right,” she said, spinning and then rushing toward the bathroom so he wouldn’t see them. “You’re right. I suppose I can’t regret my chance for a real thrillbang from the Master Thrillbanger himself.”

How could she make him sorry when it was so impossible to feel sorry about it herself?

The next person who brought up that thrillbanging crap was going to wish he hadn’t, Magee fumed as he drove them out of the resort. It made him sound un-principled and…and unfeeling, damn it!

He had plenty of feelings. Plenty for Felicity, too. She ticked him off, she twisted him up, she shredded him with her pretty skin and those possessive marks he’d put there.

But hell, was it his fault she bruised so easily? If he wanted to, he could make her admit that she’d loved what he’d done to her. That had been his surprise—that she’d been with him all the way.

He didn’t know why he was feeling so unsettled. The whole damn night had been for both of them to release the sexual steam that had been building up for days.

He glanced over at her. She was staring out the side window, her expression unreadable, and he wished he
could shake her up like she’d shaken him. But her posture was relaxed and calm, except for the one small hand half-hiding that truly spectacular love bite he’d managed to lay on her. Okay, so it was puerile of him, but just thinking about it made him hard.

“Stop! Stop right now!”

“Jesus, Felicity!” She was reading minds now. “I can’t help it.” He was a man, wasn’t he?

But she wasn’t looking at him. “Pull over. Right here.”

He did what she said, pulling over in front of one of the walled and gated residences so popular in the chichi desert communities. “What’s going on?”

“This is where I went to school.”

Now he noticed a bronzed sign reading
Our Lady of Poverty Prepatory Day and Boarding School
on the stucco wall. His hand rubbed over his whiskered chin. “Did you want to visit?”

She shook her head, her posture tense. “I want to remember.”

He didn’t like her new mood. “The old alma mater, huh?”

“From sixth grade through twelfth. I lived here year-round.”

“Nice place.” From the little he could see of it. The fancy desert cities subscribed to the “less is more” theory. The less you saw of a place, the more expensive it was.

“Only girls of the very finest families attend OLPP.” The way she said it sounded as if she’d memorized the phrase of a recruitment brochure.

“Did you say you lived here year-round?” Something was starting to click here.

She nodded, her gaze still trained on the iron-gated entrance and the lush grass and massive flower beds on either side of it.

“It says it’s a day school, too. Why didn’t you save a few bucks and get a ride in from Half Palm?”

“I had a scholarship.” Her head turned toward him and then she repeated that recruitment-brochure phrase again, with the same calm conviction. “Only girls of the very finest families attend OLPP.”

She said it as if it were an answer to his question, which, he was beginning to understand, it was.

Her gaze returned to the OLPP gates. “I made myself there,” she murmured.

He didn’t know why he hated the sound of that so much. “Yeah, and it’s where you started
re
making the Charms.” Because that’s what her brochure phrase made clear. She’d turned her back on her real family and chosen her hoity-toity school over Half Palm and the people who’d raised her. Felicity Charm was an image-conscious, artificial snob.

Who was obviously reminding herself that she’d been slumming by doing the nasty with someone like him.

He burned an inch of rubber off the tires getting the car back into traffic. His mood only turned darker as they left the luxury desert cities behind and neared Half Palm and the Bivy. He didn’t know why that was. He should be happy. Once he got back to the bar, he was never going to see her again.

Taste her again.

Touch her again.

“I guess this will be goodbye,” she said. “We won’t be seeing each other anymore.”

She was back to reading his mind, damn her. And he hated the way she sounded so cheerful. For God’s sake, they’d just had the best sex in memory—his memory anyway—and she was acting as if she were saying goodbye to…to some distant relative!

And then it hit him. Something he’d managed to push out of his mind for days. They might not be so distant from each other after all. He whipped into the Bivy’s parking lot, the undercarriage of the car grating against the sharply angled driveway. “I don’t know about that, dollface. We might be running into each other sooner than you think.”

That got her attention. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m moving your way.”

She didn’t even bother trying not to look horrified. “
What are you talking about?”

“That night we met, I’d just accepted a new job. In L.A., as a matter of fact.” He smiled at her. A mean, nasty smile. “I start next month.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I’m taking a job. A real, eight-to-five job in a big engineering firm. I’m going to be part of the ordinary working class, dollface. Just think, maybe we’ll be neighbors.”

Her mouth moved, but no sound came out. She looked away from him and out the window, as if try
ing to fathom this latest piece of news. Then she suddenly reached over and clawed at his arm with one hand. The other flew up to cover the hickey on her neck. “No. No, no, no, no, no.”

“What?” He followed her gaze to an unfamiliar car parked beside the Bivy’s entrance. He’d wanted to shake her up, but the expression on her face was making
him
uneasy. “Who is it?”

“It’s Drew,” she said. “Drew Hartnett, my…my boss.”

“B
oss, my ass,” Peter heard Magee mutter as he stepped around him to reach the coffeemaker.

“And a hello, how’s it going to you, too,” Peter replied, though it wasn’t clear that Magee even realized he was there, let alone was speaking to him. All his friend’s attention was focused on the other end of the bar, where Felicity was cozied up to a country-club type who had walked in a few minutes before and introduced himself as Drew Hartnett.

“Did the pretty boy say why he’s here?” Magee asked.

Peter continued to stock the undercounter refrigerator from the case of beer on his lap. “For Felicity. She told him about the place, I guess. He must be interested in climbing, because he came in with that stack of
Climber
and
Rock & Ice
magazines they’re poring over.”

“Interested in climbing, my ass. He’s too wimpy to scale a sidewalk curb.”

Peter recognized the raw edge to Magee’s voice as jealousy—and recognized the emotion, too.

“And she’s just as bad,” he went on in a disgusted tone. “Troweled on the makeup before she dared come inside. Couldn’t let pretty boy see her without the whole buff and polish job. Now look at her. It’s like she’s a different person, don’t you—”

“Ashley’s fine, in case you’re wondering,” Peter put in.

Magee froze, scrubbed a hand over his face, then looked down at Peter. “Jesus, I’d forgotten how she ran out of here last night. You found her? You cheered her up?”

He almost laughed. “I wouldn’t say that exactly.”

“Damn.” Magee scrubbed his face again. “I should have…but, see, Felicity heard from Ben. He left her a note that said he’s all right. That should make Ash feel better, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know how to make her feel better.” He couldn’t hide his bitterness.

Magee’s eyes narrowed. “What’s going on, Peter? I remember you were in a shitty mood last night, and now you look like hell.”

He felt like hell, even though he’d spent the hours since leaving the casino trying to come to grips with Ashley’s rejection. But when Magee and Felicity had walked into the bar just minutes apart, it had been obvious what they’d been up to. And now it made Peter furious. Last night, while Ashley had been turning from him, Magee had been turning to someone else.

Peter took a calming breath. “And you look like you camped out on the floor all night.”

Magee glanced at his reflection in the mirror over the bar and winced. “You’re right.” Then, at a bubble of bright female laughter, his gaze jumped to Felicity again. “So how come she looks like a fresh, dewy daisy?” he muttered.

“I’m right, then.” But perhaps he should be glad of it, Peter thought. If Magee wasn’t available to give Ashley that safety net she needed, maybe she’d decide that half a man was better than none at all. “You slept with Felicity.”

Magee shot him a sidelong look. “It didn’t mean anything.”

Another rush of acid surged through Peter’s gut, and his hands curled into fists. Oh, what he’d give to knock that cool expression off his friend’s face. How could Magee so coldly dismiss Felicity when Peter couldn’t do the same to Ashley?

“Hell, Magee, I thought you’d pledged no more danger, no more debauchery?” he demanded. Though God knew his own demons were still hovering, even closer than usual.
You’re a failure, Peter
. That voice from the past roughened his own. “I thought it was you who denounced the 3-D Club.”

“Shut up, okay?” Magee suddenly sounded angry, too. “I told you. It doesn’t mean anything. I’m never seeing Felicity again.”

Peter shook his head in frustration. “What the hell are you doing, Magee?”

“The right thing.” He poured a mug of coffee and chugged it down. “I’m going to do the right thing, okay? What I promised. I just had to get her out of my system.”

“That’s possible?”

Magee’s gaze wandered to the other end of the bar again. “Everything’s going to be all right. Believe me.”

Peter opened his mouth to protest, but at that moment Felicity called out to Magee. Peter watched his friend saunter slowly toward her. He held out his hand when he was introduced to Felicity’s “pretty boy” and even widened his mouth in a genial smile.

From the neutral expression on Magee’s face, Peter believed his friend. Magee was intent on doing the right thing, which meant not involving himself any further with Felicity. Which also meant he would be giving Ashley what she needed—a man to make her feel safe.

Peter continued stocking the cooler, the anger seeping out of him. He loved Ashley enough to want that for her, too. Her friendship would have to be enough for him.

By the time he wheeled into the storeroom for another case of beer, he could draw slow, even breaths. The last of which was startled out of him when Magee bolted into the room.

“Damn woman. She could sell camels to eskimos.”

“What? Who?”

Magee rolled his eyes. “Who? The who is that Evil Sorceress of Sales. Pretty Boy is going to the trade show with her this afternoon—apparently Felicity’s
BS about climbing as cutting-edge sparked his interest. They’ll be trolling for more products to push on the unsuspecting public.”

“So?”

“So, Pretty Boy likes what’s put out by Mountain Logic.” As if he had to work off the bottled energy inside him, Magee stalked back to the doorway and reached up to grab the bar installed across the top of the frame.

“And you’re a spokesman for Mountain Logic.”

Magee racked up two dozen pull-ups from a dead drop before he answered. “Yeah, and I’ll be in their booth this afternoon and the rest of the weekend. Damn woman knew that.” He did the next dozen with his right arm alone, and then the next dozen with his left.

“So now the three of us are having dinner tonight,” he finally muttered.

The expression on Magee’s face hinted at the rest of the story. “Whose idea was that?” Peter asked.

Magee dropped to the ground. “She wasn’t being herself, okay? It made me nuts, watching her acting all prissy and syrupy-sweet, even while she’s watching
me
as if she thinks any minute I’m going to start belching or scratching my balls. I just wanted to poke at her, that’s all. Make her squirm a little.”

“So tonight you’ll poke her again. Make her squirm a little more.”

Magee shot him a glance. “Not in the way you’re implying. I told you, Peter, it’s over. And that every—”

“—thing will be all right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Peter wheeled past him, back into the bar.

His gaze clashed with Ashley’s, who was just letting herself in the front door. They stared at each other a moment. “It’s my afternoon to work on the books,” she offered.

“Yeah.”
Everything’s going to be all right
. That reminded him of the news about Ben, but instead of telling her himself, he directed her to Magee. With a last, unreadable look for him, she headed for the storeroom.

The rest of the afternoon was quiet. Magee left for the trade show. In the office, Ashley sat at the computer to work on the books. He turned on the stereo and queued up a few CDs while he went about his own tasks.

At four
P.M
., he unlocked the doors and the usual crowd trickled in, asking for the usual drinks and working up to their usual level of rowdiness. Ashley switched roles from accountant to waitress and they fell into their usual routines.

Everything’s going to be all right
. He continued trying to believe it.

The usual gossip was passed along, too. Who was planning to tackle what climb, who would never tackle any climb rated higher than 5.10, who was likely to be too hungover the next morning to show up at the designated meeting place to go bouldering.

“Did you hear about Linc?” someone asked Peter.

He put a face to the name. Young kid, he’d carded him the first few times he’d come into the Bivy, checking over his ID carefully. Skinny and blond, he
looked a lot like Ashley’s brother Ben. “What about him?” he said, sliding the mug of beer across the bar.

“Got himself beat up.”

“What? You mean he took a fall?”

“Nope. Took a few fists. It was a group of slick, city-looking guys. Three of ’em. He came out of that bar right outside Joshua Tree. They called him over and then slugged him a few times in the parking lot. Demanded money. Said he owed them.”

Peter froze. “Does he? Owe them money?”

The guy telling the story shook his head. “Nope. They grabbed his wallet, took a look at it, then stopped whaling on him. Case of mistaken identity, they said. Gave him a hundred bucks and said they were sorry.”

“Very polite,” he murmured, remembering what Gwen had said about the men who’d come into the Wild Side. Telling himself it was just a coincidence, he still searched for Ashley among the tables.
Everything’s going to be all right
.

When his gaze settled on her, her head whipped toward him as if she felt it. Then just as quickly it whipped away.

Everything’s going to be all right
.

Magee wasn’t going to touch Felicity again.

Ashley wasn’t going to let what happened at the casino get in the way of their friendship.

Ben wasn’t in any kind of real trouble.

The floor of the trade show was open until seven
P.M
., but the crowds didn’t clear out until after seven-thirty.
When Magee managed to end his conversation with a buyer for a chain of sporting goods stores in Colorado, he turned to find Felicity sunk in one of the cushioned chairs the Mountain Logic people used during deal-making. Her head was tilted against its back and she flicked him a glance as he half-sat against its thick arm.

With her chin, she gestured to the massive wall hanging that was the focal point of the booth. “Very impressive.”

He didn’t bother looking at it. “I have six more months on my endorsement contract. They gotta make me look good.” It was a photo of him climbing Half Dome in Yosemite, with him in Mountain Logic wear, using Mountain Logic gear.

For a moment, he let himself remember the day. He’d been in a flow state, what other athletes might call “the zone,” where the difficult had seemed easy, the impossible just a handhold away. Tuned in to himself and in to the environment, he’d felt powerful, focused, unconquerable.

“Speaking of looking good,” Felicity said, flicking him another glance, “you clean up well.”

“Gee, thanks.” Apparently she thought his wardrobe consisted of jeans and questionable T-shirts, which, of course, mostly it did. But his mother had raised him right. He knew when to put on pleated slacks, polished shoes, a dress shirt. “I even remembered to brush my teeth and comb my hair. Now if only my table manners won’t embarrass you in front of your Boy Scout boss at dinner tonight.”

She waved a hand. “No dinner.”

“For God’s sake,” he bit out, insulted all over again. “I may not be a stuffed shirt like your pretty boy Drool, but I
do
happen to be aware I shouldn’t eat my peas with a knife.”

“His name is Drew, not Drool, as you very well know. And he’s gone back to L.A. Thank God.”

“Why gone back?”
And why “thank God”?

Her eyes drifted shut. “Didn’t you hear? He cut a deal with Mountain Logic. Some of their products will be part of our Spring Spotlight. We think the jackets and especially the rock shoes will be hot sellers. He needed to get back to work his end.”

Magee wondered what kind of work her boss did on Felicity. Right now it appeared as if she needed help getting out of that chair, though she looked properly Charm-ing in a champagne-colored suit that had a tight, knee-length skirt ending in a girlie ruffle. On her feet were a pair of matching needle-heeled shoes that looked sexy as hell as well as hellishly uncomfortable.

Somewhere under the high-necked blouse she wore were the hickeys he’d given her.

Though he shoved the thought from his mind, he couldn’t stop himself from running his fingertips over the feathery ends of her hair. “When are you going back to L.A.? You look too tired to drive, dollface.”

She gave another little wave of her hand. “Not tonight.”

“Good.” He played with her hair again. “So…where shall I take you to dinner?”

Her eyes opened. “You don’t need to take me to dinner.”

Of course he didn’t. Maybe he shouldn’t, but then she’d guess he’d only extended the invitation so he could tweak her in front of Drool. That petty last memory didn’t sit well with him. So he’d take her to dinner to smooth things out between them, and to smoothly say goodbye.

But just to get her goat, he leered down at her. “You’re wearing my hickeys, aren’t you? The least I can do is buy you a meal.”

That woke her up. Her eyes sparked and she straightened. “You shouldn’t remind me of the hickeys,” she said through her teeth, her fingers going to the high collar of her blouse. “But now that you have, it’s going to cost you. I haven’t eaten all day. I want Italian food. Lots of expensive Italian food.”

He grinned. “Italian food’s my favorite.” He’d take her out for a nice dinner, give her a goodbye kiss on the cheek, and then smoothly erase her out of his mind. He’d promised Peter that everything was going to be all right, and it was. It was all going to proceed as planned. New job. New wife. New life.

Friday night meant there was a line out the door of Il Calore just to put a name on the list for a table. But even from the sidewalk the smells of garlic and herbs had Felicity swooning, and they decided to wait. He used his shoulders to wedge them a place inside the packed bar, so crowded that when he tilted his bottle of beer to take a swallow, it clipped her forehead.

“Sorry.” Grimacing, he stroked his thumb over the spot. “Guess I should’ve fed you last night before I boffed you. Thursdays aren’t so crowded.”

Her jaw dropped. There was a moment of offended silence, then she squinted her eyes at him. “You do that on purpose, don’t you? You’re deliberately crude to annoy me.”

He couldn’t bite back his grin. By the end of the trade show he’d been tired, too, but three minutes in Felicity’s company gave him the energy of a schoolboy intent upon pulling a certain little girl’s pigtails. “You’re reading me like a book, dollface.”