Any Man Of Mine

CHAPTER TWO

HER TOES TINGLED. She’d never felt such a wild surge of emotion and it came up suddenly, stunning her.

Nicholas began to chuckle, the deep sound of it faintly irritating.

“My God, what an expression,” he murmured, leaning back against the seat with a heavy sigh. “I thought that would get your attention.”

She glared at him. “Now that you’ve got it, what are you going to do with it?” she asked grumpily.

He glanced at her. “Get you back to the present. I loathe self-pity. Wait until I’m in Paris. I’ve got enough problems of my own without your dragging new ones from the past.”

“What kind of problems?” she probed.

His lips compressed. “Maria.”

Maria was his mistress. Keena had read about the relationship in the gossip columns long before Nicholas had introduced the two of them. It shouldn’t have bothered her. He was, at forty, an active, virile man, and it would have been absurd to expect him not to have women. But one evening soon after he’d picked up the volatile brunette, Keena had seen them together in a popular night spot dancing so close that the fabric between them seemed to burn. And she’d begged her escort, a harmless young man who’d only lasted one date, to take her home. She couldn’t bear the sight. She’d hated the surge of jealousy, but it had persisted until even now she could hardly bear to hear Maria’s name.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

“She won’t believe it’s over,” he said curtly. “She’s calling me in tears twice a day, moaning over the lonely life I’ve condemned her to. Lonely, my foot, with two diamond necklaces, a new Porshe and an ermine coat!”

“Maybe she really does miss you,” she muttered, able to be generous now that she knew he’d lost interest. She felt strangely relieved.

“She misses the Rolls, honey, not me.” He laughed shortly.

“Was it good in bed?” she asked, tongue in cheek, and darted a glance at him.

“The Rolls or me?” he replied, refusing to be ruffled.

“I imagine she misses the warmth,” she retorted, grinning at him.

His dark eyes smiled at her. “Do you think I’d be warm?”

“Like a blast furnace, I’d imagine,” she said demurely. “Is that why you’re going to Paris, to escape Maria?”

“It isn’t funny,” he said, the smile fading.

“No, I don’t suppose it is, to you.” She shot him a teasing glance. “But your love life is like one ongoing adventure to me. I really think you should assign the girls numbers or something so you can keep things in order.”

“I’m delighted that my private life amuses you so,” he said in a chilling voice.

“You could always tease me about mine,” she said grandly.

His dark eyes cut around toward her. “You don’t have one,” he said. “Not a love life, anyway.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “What makes you so sure?”

“I keep a sharp eye on you, little one,” he said with a somber tone that startled her. “Sharper than you know. You don’t sleep around.”

She glared at him. “Maybe I should hire a private detective of my own!”

“What do you want to know?” he asked with a wicked grin. “Go ahead, ask me. I’ll tell you.”

She glared at him again. “I’d just love to ask you something so personal it would embarrass you to the roots of your hair.”

“Dream on, honey,” he returned with a smile.

She sized up his muscular, imposing physique. “I’ll bet you crush them,” she murmured absently.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Is there only one position?” he asked in all innocence.

The blush started at her hairline, worked down into her cheeks, seeped into her throat and down into the plunging neckline of her dress. And he sat there and watched her and laughed softly, lazily, as if the sight delighted him.

“Instead of the theater, I’d better start taking you to some X-rated movies,” he murmured. “Your education is sadly lacking.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could manage a retort, he picked up her hand and pressed her palm to his lips. It was unexpected, and the sensation it caused made her heart turn over wildly. He caught her eyes, holding them in the dim confines of the car until she felt as if she’d never get her breath again.

He drew her forearm against his lips, sliding it past his rough cheek, holding her eyes the whole time, studying her like some rare and beautiful thing he’d captured.

“I use my elbows,” he whispered, drawing her imperceptibly closer, his voice caressing, seductive. “And I’ve never had a single complaint. Would you like me to prove it?”

Her heart was hammering wildly in her trembling body. She stared at him and couldn’t look away, and she was suddenly afraid.

“Little coward,” he murmured, watching the expressions chase each other in her eyes. “Are you really afraid of me?”

She cleared her throat. “I’m hungry,” she lied.

“For me?” he asked humorously.

She tore her hand out of his grasp and edged back into the corner by the door, glaring at him like some fierce little animal.

“You’re priceless,” he chuckled. “Did you think I was going to make a pass at you in front of Jimson?”

“Jimson is trained not to look,” she reminded him, her voice strangely breathless. “And it’s not kind of you to make fun of me.”

“I can’t help it. You rise to the bait so sweetly.” He cocked his head at her, his eyes watchful. “Haven’t you ever wondered in all these years what kind of lover I’d be?”

She averted her eyes then dropped them. “Yes,” she said finally, because she’d never made a habit of lying to him.

“Well,” he prodded. “What did you think?”

She glanced at him with unfamiliar shyness. “That you’d be heavy,” she grinned.

He laughed softly. “And what else?” he persisted.

She shrugged. “Tender,” she said softly. Her eyes met his across the space. “Patient. A little rough.”

“Not demanding?” he asked quietly, and there were deep undercurrents in the conversation.

“Are you?” she asked involuntarily.

“It depends on the woman,” he replied. “But I can be patient. And tender, when I need to be.”

“How...how do you like a woman to be?” she asked breathlessly.

He stared at her, his eyes darkening, his face hardening with emotion, and there was an electricity between them like nothing Keena had ever experienced.

“The Palace, sir.” Jimson’s pleasant voice interrupted their wordless communication as he stopped the car in front of the exclusive restaurant.

Keena drew in a breath in relief, wondering what had gotten into her to make her ask such an intimate question. It must be my age, she thought wildly, waiting for him to come around and open her door.

“I think we’re going to have to do some talking when I come back from Paris,” he said on the way inside, “I’ve got something in mind that might benefit us both.”

“You want me to design you a wardrobe!” she said with mock enthusiasm. “Something suitably flashy, but elegant, to go with this car. Frankly, I don’t think the job’s for me, but...”

“Damn you!” He burst out laughing in spite of himself. “Come on and feed me before I take a bite out of you!”

It was impossible not to notice as they made short work of filet mignon and lobster, buttery rolls, a salad and rich red wine that he was paying more attention to Keena than he was to the food.

She stopped in the act of lifting a piece of steak to her mouth, staring across the white linen-covered table at him. “Why are you watching me so closely?” she asked with a faint laugh. “Afraid I’m going to try to walk out with the silver?”

“You remind me of a pixie,” he murmured absently. “Mischievous little face, teasing eyes slanted just a bit at the corners, perfect little mouth. You look as if you’re out of place in this setting, and I’ve only just noticed it.”

“I’m twenty-seven,” she reminded him, “and I’d hardly fit under a leaf in somebody’s forest.”

“Twenty-seven,” he echoed quietly. His dark eyes narrowed. “And you barely seem half that to me.”

“It’s because you’re so old,” she told him with mock seriousness. “Entering the golden years, where your bones creak and your eyesight is slowly dimming...”

“Damn you,” he growled harshly. “Shut up!” His tone was venomous, so controlled that it seemed to shudder with sudden rage.

It was unexpected, and it silenced Keena immediately. She’d always teased Nicholas, from the beginning, and often about his age. He’d always laughed. But tonight she’d caught him on the raw for the first time, and he wasn’t laughing. His face had snapped closed like something untamed. His eyes were the only things in his broad, hard face that seemed alive, and they were blazing with menace. She’d only seen Nicholas this angry once, when one of her coworkers had gotten miffed when she refused his advances. Nicholas had intended to surprise her in the office that day and had come in on them unexpectedly. Keena was sure that she could have subdued the young man without any help. But Nicholas, summing up the situation with a glance, had not stopped to ask for an invitation to rescue her. She’d learned later that he’d broken the young man’s jaw. And ever since she’d carefully avoided antagonizing him.

Until now. And it hadn’t been deliberate. “Nicholas, I was only teasing,” she said softly.

That didn’t calm him a bit. He picked up his wineglass with a grip that threatened to snap the slender stem and drained it in one huge gulp.

“Nicholas, please,” she whispered, shivering a little in the face of his white-hot anger. “Don’t be angry with me.”

He set the wineglass down with slow, deliberate movements before he pinned her with his eyes. “I’m forty, not eighty, and all the parts still work. If you don’t believe that, ask Maria,” he added icily.

She chewed on her lower lip. She hadn’t meant to pull the lion’s tail, but he was reacting in a way she’d never expected. Amazingly, she felt tears prick at her eyes and that was new, too. She hadn’t cried for years. But she felt tears damming up in her eyes now.

She put her napkin down very gently, avoiding Nicholas’s blazing eyes. “Uh, if you don’t mind, I’ve an early start tomorrow,” she managed in a shadow of her normal tone.

“Would you like dessert?” he asked with glacial courtesy.

She stared at him with a brave but trembling arch in her chin. “Only if I get to pour it over your head,” she managed with dripping sweetness.

For an instant, amusement vied with anger in his face, but it was quickly subdued. “Let’s go, then,” he said.

She preceded him out of the restaurant after he’d paid the check, walking quickly, her slender legs rippling the sensuous velvet of her dress, her head held as regally as a princess’s.

“Careful you don’t sprain your neck,” he chided.

“Your temper’s more in danger of a sprain than my neck is,” she countered coolly. “If you’d rather brood for a while, I can get a cab back to my apartment,” she added. “I’ve had a pretty rotten day so far, and tonight isn’t making up for it.”

“Stop it,” he growled, nodding to Jimson as they reached the car. He opened the door for Keena as Jimson got in under the wheel and cranked the engine.

“I didn’t start it,” she returned, avoiding his hand as she got into the seat that he was holding the door open to. She moved as far away from him as possible when he got in beside her and closed the door.

“Don’t pout, for God’s sake,” he shot at her with a hard glare.

She returned the glare with interest. It was the first major argument they’d had, and it was beginning to set records for antagonism.

“I’ll pout if I damn please!” she flared up, hunched in her corner. “Why don’t you go find Maria if you want a sparring partner? I didn’t try to lure you into my bed and then refuse to let you go when you were tired of me.”

“You wouldn’t know what to do with me if you got me into your bed,” he returned with malice.

She started to make a smart remark back, but she was suddenly too tired to make the effort. It had been a perfectly horrible day; and it was just getting worse. Now her only friend was furious with her, and she wanted to wail.

They rode in a tense silence until Jimson pulled up at the curb in front of her apartment house and sat looking straight ahead while Keena reached for the doorknob.

But a big, warm hand got there first, holding hers where it rested on the handle.

“Not like this,” he said heavily, his tone strained. “I can’t leave for Europe tomorrow with a sword between us.”

“Why not?” she countered, not looking at him. “I’ve seen you walk away from worse—and laugh.”

“Not you,” he said quietly. “Never you.”

The tone of his voice more than the words calmed her. She turned slowly and looked up at him. He was closer than she’d realized, his dark eyes only inches away, the warmth and fragrance of his big body permeating her, drowning her in sensation.

“I don’t think you’re old,” she whispered unsteadily, affected by him as she’d never been before. “I’ve never paid any attention to the age difference. It never mattered.”

His dark eyes searched hers with a scrutiny that made her nervous. “Tease me about my size, or my money, or my temper. But leave birthdays out of it from now on.”

She swallowed. “All right, Nicholas.”

He removed his hand from hers as if it burned him. “I’ll see you when I get back. It may take two weeks to close this deal, so don’t expect me before the middle of February.”

Two weeks without him. The bleak winter was going to move even slower until he returned, and she was just realizing how empty her life was going to be without those unexpected visits and phone calls. He’d been away from the city for long periods before and it hadn’t bothered her. But suddenly it did, and she looked up at him with a curious frown above her pale green eyes.

“You look strange,” he remarked.

“We haven’t argued in a long time. In fact, I don’t really think we ever did,” she said gently, her eyes troubled.

“Perhaps we’re more aware of each other now,” he said, his voice unusually quiet as he looked down into her eyes.

“Aware?” she whispered.

His breath came hard and quick as he looked down at her soft mouth with an intensity that made her heart race. It was as if he was kissing it, and her lips parted involuntarily, her eyes half-closed at the intensity of the gaze.

“I can almost feel your mouth under mine. Do you know that?” he murmured in a voice like deep velvet. “Your lips trembling, your breasts swelling against me...”

“Nicholas!” she burst out, half gasping, half angry, at the intimacy of it.

“If Jimson wasn’t sitting up front trying not to see us, I’d give you a damned sight more than words to remember me by,” he growled harshly. “I’d wrestle you down on the seat and teach you things about your body you’ve never dreamed it could feel. And you want it,” he added with a level gaze that made her knees melt. “Don’t you?”

Her body was trembling madly. She gaped at him, hating her own reactions, hating him for sensing them.

“You’re my friend,” she choked.

“I’m going to be your lover,” he replied curtly. “Think about that while I’m gone.”

She got out of the car quickly, almost tripping in her haste while Nicholas sat there and watched her with unholy amusement, his eyes glittering with triumph. He knew how he affected her. He had too much experience, damn him, not to know.

“Maybe I won’t be here when you get back,” she cried with a pitiful attempt at self-preservation, at pride.

“You’ll be here,” he said, and closed the door.

“You’ll be lucky,” she muttered as the elegant taillights of the Rolls disappeared into the night. She didn’t realize how prophetic the words were. The next morning her father’s doctor called to tell her that her only surviving relative had been found dead in his bed. Her father was gone.

* * *

THE FUNERAL HAD been harrowing, and Keena was grateful when it was over at last, when her father’s few well-meaning friends had gone and the house was finally peaceful.

She thumbed through the documents on his desk with a faint smile. It had been so like him to leave everything neat, in order. It was almost as if he’d expected the massive coronary that had taken his life.

The will was just as straightforward as Alan Whitman had always been. It left the house to Keena, along with pitifully few possessions. It saddened her that the entire estate barely amounted to the profits her business realized in one day.

She got up from the desk and stood at the window. Her father had never allowed her to give him any money to provide him with even a new car. He and his daughter had been close, but like her he valued his independence. He wanted nothing that he hadn’t earned himself, although he was pleased with her success and frequently told her so.

She looked through the window at the narrow road that ran by the front of the house to the small town beyond. How many of her old classmates would know her now? she wondered. In adolescence she’d been a gangly, painfully shy girl with clothes that always seemed to hang on her, and an eternal slump. Most of the other students had laughed at her, boys and girls alike, and had made fun of the way she dressed, the walk that they said had the grace of a pelican running. She was as out of place in the small town as a sparrow would have been in a den of hawks. Alan Whitman had moved here from Miami, settling in this pleasant section of south Georgia with a mind toward starting his own business. But illness had slowed him down, diminished his resources, and he’d had a daughter to support. So he’d taken a job at the local textile mill, just until he could get on his financial feet again. But he’d been trapped by house payments and car payments and doctor bills into keeping the hated job, and he’d found all too soon that there was no way out. He was stuck.

His spirit was all but broken by the long hours, and there was no laughter in the big house he’d spent his life savings on. He had dozens of get-rich-quick schemes that fell through quickly. He spent his life looking for the rainbow, but all he found was the pants line of the manufacturing company.

Keena sighed bitterly at the irony of life. Her father had gotten poor making clothes, while she’d gotten rich. Even now she looked the part of the wealthy career woman in her chic designer jeans and wide-sleeved silk blouse. The emeralds on her ears and her wrist were real, not the paste ones she’d loved to wear as a poor teenager.

How long ago it all seemed now, those brief, secret meetings with him in the woods, the first few kisses that led a naive Keena to an apartment owned by one of James’s friends. Tall, dark-headed, with vivid blue eyes under thick black lashes, James Harris had been the darling of the social set, a young attorney with promise. Keena had known that it was disastrous to care about him, but her heart had ignored her mind and gone end over end every time it saw him. She couldn’t begin to look at another boy, or even Larry Harris, who worshipped her.

If only she’d realized that he had never had any intention of marrying her. She’d been too blinded by her own feelings to realize that James was keeping his relationship with her a secret from everyone. He’d never even stopped by the house to see her, or pick her up there for one of their few dates, and he was careful to stay away from public places. They spent long hours in his car at the local lover’s lane, necking, until one night when the kisses grew suddenly longer and slower and deeper, and he suggested that they go to his friend’s apartment to have a snack before he took her home. They both knew why they were going, and it had nothing to do with food. Keena, young and naive and with her first passion for a man in full bloom, went trustingly.

She was expecting all the fiery passion and tenderness of every romantic novel she had read. But James, for a supposedly practiced lover, was carelessly intent on his own satisfaction. He hadn’t even bothered with taking time to study the softly curving young body he’d taken so quickly and roughly.

“Get your clothes on fast,” he’d said the minute he was through, leaving Keena confused, frustrated and ashamed of her easy capitulation. He didn’t even look at her as he dressed. “Hurry!” he’d called over his shoulder. “Jack could come in any minute. He told me I could only have the apartment for an hour.”

She’d dressed hurriedly, tears streaming from her eyes, her body feeling bruised, violated. She’d expected a loving word or two, but there had been none of that.

She’d followed him to the door, and he’d taken her back to the end of her driveway, careful to stop the car in the privacy of the alley so that no one would recognize it.

“Sorry I had to be so quick,” he’d said with a half smile. “Next time it will be better. I’ll find another place.”

There wasn’t going to be a next time, and she’d told him so, her voice shaking with disappointment.

“Well, what did you expect, rose petals and fireworks?” he’d burst out. “I thought you cared about me.”

“I did,” she’d wept.

“I don’t want any part of your fears, Keena. There are too many willing girls.” And he’d driven away.

Keena had sweated out the next few weeks, and she hadn’t relaxed until she knew she wasn’t pregnant. But her love for James hadn’t eased. She watched for him; she listened for the phone. But he didn’t even try to get in touch with her. In desperation she accepted his brother Larry’s invitation to a party at the Harris home, hoping for just a sight of James, a sign that he wasn’t really through with her. It had just been an argument, after all. He’d talked about marriage, about an engagement. Perhaps he was giving her time to think. Of course, that was why he hadn’t called. And all that gossip about James and Cherrie was just that—gossip. So what that Cherrie was the daughter of a prominent local attorney, and a voluptuous blonde? It was Keena whom James really cared for.

She accepted Larry’s invitation, wondering if he knew how she felt about his brother, if that might account for that odd, vague pity she often read in his eyes. In later years she’d wondered, because Larry had seemed to wait deliberately until she was in earshot to talk to James the night of the party.

She’d worn a dress of white crepe, which she’d made from material bought with money she earned working in the local grocery store at the checkout counter. Even then she’d had a flair for fashion, creating her own design. The dress had caused a mild sensation, even on a mill worker’s daughter. But James had only spared her a sharp glance when she’d walked in on Larry’s arm. He hadn’t asked her to dance or greeted her. Neither had his father or mother, in fact, unless those cold smiles and curt nods could be classified as such.

She’d been only a few feet away when she heard Larry ask James, “Doesn’t Keena look like a dream tonight?”

“I hadn’t noticed,” came the terse reply. “Why in hell did you have to invite her here tonight? Mother may play Lady Bountiful to the workers, but she won’t care much for her son dating one,” James reminded him with a short, cold laugh. “Keena’s father is, after all, just one of our spreaders. He isn’t even an executive.”