This Perfect Kiss (22 page)

“Because you haven’t screwed dear old Dad?” he said crudely.

Jilly flinched.

“But my father can’t give you what you want. Only
I
can do that, right?” He shook his head. “What a nasty game you’ve been playing, sweetheart.”

She flinched again. He thought…he thought she’d been
playing
with him. “Rory…no…”

He sneered, and the vicious expression was more frightening than any words he’d used. “I’m not going to buy any of it, sweet thing. Not anymore. Not your little celibate-virgin act, not your breathy protestations.”

Jilly closed her eyes. This was bad. Very, very bad. “It was my idea, not Kim’s,” she said dully. Reuniting mother and daughter had seemed so right, so fitting. Such a wonderful way to ease Jilly’s own regrets. “Don’t blame her.”

“What do you two want exactly?” he asked casually. “Don’t answer that. Money, right? To not sell your story to the tabloids?”

“No—”

“Two hundred and fifty thousand was the going rate ten years ago. A cool quarter million to keep out of the
Enquirer
the sordid threesome my dad and I had going. But I can’t imagine that your Kim has anything as salacious, so I’ll give you half that.”

Jilly stared at him.

Zap!
From the other end of the room, Iris had started her surgery. “Oops, Rory,” she called out. “I had trouble with your ankle bone.”

His eyes didn’t even flicker. They stared Jilly
down, flat, and oh so hard and cold. “Take it or leave it,” he said.

She swallowed. “No money. We don’t want money.”

He looked ready to sneer again, or worse, to let out another of his raw laughs, and she gripped the arms of her chair. “I’m not kidding, Rory. She wants to see her daughter.”

He went ahead and laughed anyway.
Zap!
Another sound of surgery gone awry punctuated his bitterness. A tight smile curved his mouth and he nodded toward Iris. “And I’m my aunt’s favorite nephew.”

Jilly rubbed at her throbbing temples. How had it come to this? How could she have messed up something she’d begun with the best of intentions? How had she caused pain when she’d only wanted to assuage her own?

She gazed at Rory, bandaged as if he were truly wounded. But he
was
hurt, she realized. She had hurt him by her dishonesty.

Her stomach churned. This man, this man who had rescued her from a chinchilla—twice—who had made her laugh and made her ache, whom she’d teased unmercifully about pierced tongues and secret tattoos, who had lit fire to a thousand sheik-and-harem-girl fantasies, hated her.

And she—oh, no. Her stomach churned again.

She…loved him.

But this wasn’t supposed to happen! When Jilly had finally been given her mother’s letters, she’d realized how vulnerable love could make someone. Her grandmother had used her mother’s love for Jilly to keep them apart. She’d
used Jilly’s desire to be loved to keep her under strict control.

Jilly had promised herself then and there that she would never give her heart.

And yet she was in love with Rory. She loved him for making his own way, as she had. She loved him because, despite how much he detested Caidwater, he’d taken responsibility for it. She loved him because, when his four-year-old aunt continued to be uncooperative, he continued to try to build a relationship with her.

And it wasn’t every man who could look daggers at a woman below a disheveled, unnecessary bandage.

And still make her shiver with desire for him.

Zap!
In the opposite corner, Iris cackled to herself as she tortured poor patient Rory. Jilly glanced over at the child, then stiffened her spine. She steeled herself against all the emotions, the hate, the desire. The love. She couldn’t think of it now. She certainly would never speak of it.

Only one thing mattered anymore. Kim and Iris.

“I swear to God, Rory,” she said fervently. “I swear to you that Kim doesn’t want money. She wants Iris. At least some time with her, some kind of visitation.” Jilly’s voice broke, and she took a breath to regain control of it.

His eyes narrowed. “She can’t come traipsing back into Iris’s life. I won’t let her do that. It happened to Greg and me. In and out, now and then, sometimes June, sometimes March. It’s hell.”

Jilly’s hands were shaking. Did this mean he believed her about the money?

“Enough of the histrionics. Just name your price, honey.”

Zap!
Jilly glanced at Iris, and controlled the sudden need to zap the real Rory herself. “What can I do to make you believe me?” she asked, struggling to keep her voice quiet. “How can I make you at least
consider
what Kim’s asking?”

He was already shaking his head, looking bored, so she smacked her palm on the desk to get his attention. “It wasn’t her choice to leave Iris,” she said through her teeth. “You can check that out yourself. There was a prenuptial agreement.”

Rory stared at her. “What kind of prenuptial agreement?”

“The kind that an eighteen-year-old girl would sign, not realizing it left everything with your grandfather should their marriage end. Everything. Money, houses…children.”

He leaned back against his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. One eyebrow lifted. “Maybe Roderick already knew what kind of person his seventh wife would turn out to be. He had the right to protect himself and his future progeny.”

Jilly closed her eyes, opened them. “Rory. I don’t think you’re unfair. Please listen. Please think about it.”

“I
think
you have something else up your sleeve. Another scheme.”

Tears stung the corners of Jilly’s eyes. Oh, how betrayed he must have felt ten years ago to be so bitter and distrustful now. But the honest truth was, she
had
schemed. Stupidly, stupidly schemed, not knowing what she was up against. Not think
ing how badly it might turn out. Not ever guessing in a million years that she might fall in love with him.

She swallowed. “How can I make you believe what I’m saying? What do you want from me?”

He rubbed his chin, and then a little smile played over his mouth. “Hmm…”

She was so desperate to make the situation right that just his little “hmm” had her spirits lifting eagerly. “What?” She slid to the edge of her seat. “What do you want?”

His smile widened, but there wasn’t any humor in it, just a kind of satisfaction. “You know what I want.”

“What? What?”

“You.”

Stupid
. She hadn’t seen it coming. “Me,” she repeated.

“You. In my bed.” His blue eyes glittered. “In my bed until I leave L.A. If you’re there every night—hmm, let’s make that any time I say—then, my sweet little ‘virgin,’ and only then will I look into your friend Kim’s claim.”

Jilly’s whole body trembled as she stared into Rory’s eyes. She couldn’t tell if he expected her to agree or to refuse. She could sacrifice her sexuality for her friend or she could let Rory take Iris away forever. Which choice made her the whore and which choice made her the nun?

Her head hurt. Her heart hurt. She didn’t know which to choose.

But, oh, how right she’d been to be afraid of love. Because here she was, in love with Rory and forced to yield to his control.

She gripped her hands together. Unless…unless she went into this bargain and his bed just for herself. For the opportunity to experience, truly experience, the exciting, no-holds-barred living she’d always promised not to pass up. Wouldn’t it be the thrill of a lifetime to allow herself the chance to love this man with her body the same way she loved him with her heart?

If she kept quiet about her feelings, she could even be safe from his power over her. Wouldn’t that mean victory even in surrender?

The pain in her chest eased a little.

But the words still came out slow. “All right,” she said.

His body tensed. “All right?” he repeated warily.

She nodded, just a little breathless. “Your bed. Until you leave L.A.”

He blinked.

Zap!
“Hey, Rory,” Iris crowed, “I just took out your heart!”

Then he smiled, cool and confident, his eyes glittering, glittering. Jilly shivered.

He didn’t take his gaze off her face. “That’s just fine, Auntie,” he called back. “Because I won’t be needing it.”

Jilly was able to duck any further discussion of their bargain because Caidwater was suddenly overrun with people. Party planners arrived to go over last-minute details for the Blue Party fund-raiser Rory was hosting in less than two weeks. Then the caterer appeared for a final consultation as well.

Jilly’s own responsibilities kept her busy, too. Workers from the museum that was receiving the most valuable of the costumes showed up as previously scheduled. She spent the afternoon transferring the plastic-bagged clothes onto the museum’s rolling racks, then wheeling and securing the racks in the museum’s truck.

It was dusk before Jilly waved the drivers down the curving Caidwater driveway. Blowing out a long breath, she reentered the house and heard Rory and several others—the party planners, she guessed—in the near distance.

Not yet
, she thought. She wasn’t ready to face him without a little suck-up-her-courage time. As their voices came closer, she quickly slipped through the door to Caidwater’s movie theater.

But she wasn’t alone here either, though the room was dark. An old black-and-white movie was playing on the screen, the sound turned off, and the flickering light from the film revealed Greg in the first row of the hundred or so seats.

His head turned. “Jilly Skye, come on down,” he called out softly.

She smiled and walked slowly along the gently inclined aisle between the plush velvet seats. Her smile softened when she saw that Iris was in the seat beside Greg, her head against his shoulder, obviously asleep. Jilly dropped onto the soft cushion on Greg’s other side and tilted back her head to look at the screen.

“What’s this?” she asked. Two men were apparently arguing in a tent lit by the quavering light of a lantern.

“Roderick Kincaid in
Desert Life, Desert Death
.”

“And we’re watching without sound because—?”

His palm stroked Iris’s long blond hair. “Puts her to sleep every time.”

“Ah.” She wiggled more comfortably into her seat. It
was
strangely soothing to watch like this. The lack of sound distanced her from the action on the screen, and when one man pulled out a gun and shot the other, she didn’t even blink.

“You hiding out from someone?” Greg asked.

At that moment a new character rushed into the tent, wearing the robes of a desert sheik. Jilly tensed. “Roderick?” she asked, already knowing the answer. Finally. Here was the source of all her desert-prince-and-ingenue fantasies. She must have seen this movie at one time or another, and
Rory’s face had the same stark handsomeness of his grandfather.

“They say our great-grandmother was the princess of a nomadic tribe in the Sahara,” Greg told her. “I always thought it was a load of studio-generated bullshit, but when you see the old bastard in those robes, you have to wonder.”

Jilly looked at him curiously. “You didn’t like your grandfather much either?”

“Hated him, especially…later. But he was a damn good actor, I’ll give him that.”

Nodding in agreement, Jilly slid lower in her seat and rested her head against the back of the chair. The story unfolded silently on the screen, but she hardly took it in, thinking only of how Roderick Kincaid had changed her life. She’d never even met the man, but his choices had irrevocably affected her.

Without Roderick Kincaid, she would never have met Kim. Things Past wouldn’t be the same—or maybe even a success—without Kim. And, of course, Jilly would never have met Rory.

She would never have fallen in love.

Oh, one day she might have taken a chance on some gentle, mild-mannered guy who wouldn’t try to command or dominate her, but she would never have loved such a man.

That path wouldn’t be half as scary as the one she was stepping onto now, though. What she was considering doing with Rory, what she’d already agreed to do, was going to be short-lived. It would most likely end with her heart breaking.

On the screen, Roderick Kincaid was galloping across the sand dunes on a white horse. Suddenly
he reined in the horse, slid off its back, and fell to his knees. Apparently anguished, he dug his hands into the sand, then lifted them. The camera closed in on the grains sifting through his fingers.

Jilly’s stomach clenched. That was she. Reaching for something, touching something she wasn’t going to be able to hold onto. “Have you ever felt, Greg,” she whispered, thinking aloud. “Have you ever felt like a dream is slipping away, slipping right through your fingers?”

There was a long silence and she thought perhaps, like Iris, he’d fallen asleep. But then he spoke, his voice slow and quiet. “Maybe we just need to close our hands, Jilly. Close our hands and refuse to let the dream go.”

As she turned to look at him, the door to the theater abruptly swung open. Without even cursing her cowardice, she just as abruptly slid further down in her seat, hoping whoever it was—and she knew exactly who it was—wouldn’t see her.

Greg glanced over his shoulder. “Uh-oh. I think here comes my cue to leave.”

She considered begging him to stay, but that wouldn’t change the fact that she’d made a bargain with Rory. “See you later,” she mumbled.

In the darkness she saw the white flash of Greg’s smile. “Buck up. His bark is worse than his bite.” He lifted Iris into his arms and was gone.

Her heart starting to thrum against her breast-bone, Jilly waited for Rory to take Greg’s place.

Instead, it was the seat directly behind her that squeaked as he settled into it. “Greg’s right, you
know,” Rory said, his voice dispassionate. “I actually think you’ll like my bite.”

Jilly’s womb clenched.
Oh, my God
. Just his voice in the darkness could seduce her. Swallowing hard, she mentally scrambled for some modicum of self-preservation.
Tell him you’ve changed your mind
. She’d find another way to get him to listen about Iris.
Stand up and say you won’t barter your body
.

Then he touched her, his hands light against her shoulders. He pressed his long fingers into her tight muscles, gently massaging them, persuasively working at the kinks.

Jilly tried pretending his touch relaxed her. But every second of his hands on her body coiled her tension tighter and tighter. Her breasts swelled, her nipples went so hard they ached, and between her hips there was a heated heaviness that wasn’t going to be satisfied like this.

He lifted the hair off her nape, and Jilly held her breath. Then his hot, bare palm touched the naked flesh of her neck. She almost shot off the plush velvet cushion. Biting back a moan, she tried holding onto the arms of the seat, but then he stroked her skin gently once more and she surged to her feet.

“Now, Rory,” she said hoarsely. She couldn’t take any more anticipation without exploding from the lethal cocktail of nerves and desire. “I want it to be now.”

Clamping down on his lust, Rory eased his grip on Jilly’s wrist as he led her up the stairs to his bedroom.
Now
, she’d said. Surprise, surprise, he
thought angrily. He should have known she would just want to get it over with.

He took a calming breath, forcing himself to slow his pace up the stairs. She’d used him. And when she’d been caught, she’d used her body to get what she wanted. Yeah, he was the one who’d proposed the deal, but still, she’d betrayed him.

He wanted to punish her, he wanted to ravish her, he wanted to
ish
her in every possible position until the little sex kitten had completely lost her strength to scratch. Maybe then he could sleep. Maybe then he could think of her saying, “I need to make sure Rory trusts me,” without feeling so damn sick inside.

It seemed that ten years older hadn’t made him that much wiser after all.

Once inside his room, he slammed the thick door shut behind them. Jilly jumped at the sound, but the sun had gone down and his bedroom was blacker than the theater. He couldn’t see her face.

He dropped her arm and put his hands on his belt buckle. “Get undressed,” he said.

She sucked in a breath, the sound ragged in the gloomy atmosphere.

Rory paused. His eyes were adjusting to the darkness and he could make out her outline. Her head was lifted in the direction of his bed, an outrageous affair of gruesomely carved wood that hulked in the corner like a monster from a horror movie.

Hell, the thing gave
him
nightmares sometimes.

“I call it Quasimodo,” he said.

He felt her gaze leap to him. “Wh-what?”

“Quasimodo,” he said again.

He heard her swallow. “You call your…your—part Quasimodo?”

Oh, shit. He was in trouble here. She thought he named his penis after the hunchback of Notre Dame? An urge to laugh, to cup her cheek in his palm, to kiss away the aghast expression he imagined on her face, threatened to eclipse his anger.

But she’d made a fool of him. “No, cupcake,” he corrected her wryly. “That’s what I call the
bed
.”

He could swear he heard her sigh in relief. “It
is
big.”

“And so’s the bed.”

There was another heartbeat of silence, yet suddenly he couldn’t bear for her to say anything else. Looping his arm around her neck, he drew her to him. “Jilly,” he said against her curling, tickling hair. “You’re going to kill me.”

She pressed her forehead against his shirt. Tension hummed in her taut frame. “Rory, I—”

“Shh.” He kissed her forehead, her cheek, her ear. She shivered. “Give me and Quasimodo a few minutes of your time, honey.”

He should be stripping her down, laying her flat, filling her with himself. Hell, she’d agreed to it, asked for it, and he’d been wanting to do all that, only that, since the moment she’d put her cherry-tipped toes on Caidwater land. But instead, he found himself playing with her hair and lightly brushing his evening whiskers against her soft cheek. He lingered, kissing, at that tender, scented spot behind her ear.

Her dark curls clung to his fingers and she made this sweet, uniquely Jilly half hum, half moan. His groin tightened like a fist.
Do it
, his devil prompted.
Strip her, take her, drive the ache away
.

Yet something else inside him ignored the voice and he lifted her hair so he could bend his head and kiss the back of her neck.

She shuddered, like a leaf rattled by a stiff, hot Santa Ana wind, and he closed his eyes. With as much control as he could find, he bit down.

Her body jerked and she moaned, sharp and needy.

He licked the spot. “I said you’d like my bite,” he whispered against her ear. He chased the goose bumps running down the side of her neck with his tongue.

Then he touched the tiny button at the throat of her tight, sequined sweater. “How many?” he said.

She clutched his upper arms and he knew desire spoke for her. “How many do you want?”

He squeezed shut his eyes. She was really,
really
going to kill him. “How many buttons?” By some miracle, he managed to get the words out.

And should have saved his breath. “Buttons?” she repeated dazedly.

He wanted to laugh again. To kiss her with tenderness, even though she’d deceived him. Instead, he unfastened the first button and kissed the inch of skin revealed there, right below the notch at her throat.

“Oh, God,” she said.

“Keep praying, baby.”

Beneath ten pearl-sized buttons was something of satin and lace. White. It gleamed in the darkness and he unhooked it with an easy flick of his fingers, his knuckles grazing the inside curves of her breasts.

“I want to see.” He made to move away to turn on a light.

“No!” She caught his hand and softened her voice. “Please, Rory. I like it…dark.”

He shook his head, though he curled his fingers around hers. “Hasn’t someone told you, sweetheart? You’re wasting a lot of impact with the lights out.” The men who’d shared her bed—

“Please, Rory.”

He didn’t want to think about them anyway. “Fine.” Her fingers released his.

So it was time to do it. He had her half naked, he had her permission, he had the darkness she wanted.

So why the hell was he hesitating? Annoyed with himself, he reached out and efficiently pulled the sweater off her, catching her bra straps at the same time to bare her quickly. Her clothing fell to the plush carpet with an almost soundless
thwat
.

She sucked in another nervous breath.

Rory found himself slowing again. He cupped her shoulders with his hands, palming her hot skin, then stroked down to her wrists. Her breasts were pale in the darkness, he couldn’t see them as clearly as he wanted to, but they lifted as he drew up her hands.

He ran his tongue across the bumps of her knuckles. She gasped. Lord, she was erotically charged in the most unlikely places. His erection pressed hard and tight against his pants as he thought of undressing her and discovering each one. He licked again. She gasped again. “Do you like that?” he whispered.

“I—I like what you like.”

The tiny, artful break in her voice stilled him. Then he remembered.
Dammit
. She might sound as unsure as a prom date in the backseat of her boyfriend’s car, but this was a woman built like a sex toy—and because she wanted something from him, she’d given the go-ahead to play.

Determined to keep control of the situation, he stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Strip,” he said harshly.

She looked around, a bit wildly.

“Not the wallpaper, sweet thing. Yourself. Take the rest of your clothes off.”

She shivered.

The show of vulnerability almost made him pause again.
Goddamn it
. “You’re cold,” he said, knowing she wasn’t. “I’ll light the fire.” Because
he
wanted to see her, see the body she’d bargained with, see the expressions crossing her face, he moved toward the room’s tiled fireplace. In the winter months Mrs. Mack kept a fire built and match-ready.

The scratch and hiss of a wooden match sounded loud in the darkness. As the flames started to lick the wood, he turned.

And nearly sank to his knees. His erection surged against his belly. She was naked.