Satin Pleasures (19 page)

She looked down at their intimate position with a naughty little smile.
“And a good morning to you, too.”

“It is now.” He pulled her into a searing hot kiss that demanded as well as coaxed her conscious response.

Minutes passed until the crashing storm outside could barely be heard over the thunderous beat of his heart. “I could devote the entire day to kissing you,” he groaned hoarsely, “from head to toe and everywhere in between.”

Moving her hips slightly, her eyes widened when he grew inside her. Her whisper was a throaty surrender against his mouth. “What an awfully tempting offer, especially that part about in
betw
—”

She glanced in the general direction of the bedside table and stiffened like she’d been doused with ice water. All color drained from her face as she gasped.
“Sweet mercy!
Is that the time?” Without warning, she scrambled off him and leaped out of bed.

Paralyzed by her abrupt abandonment, Dan was left watching her dash naked around the room picking up articles of clothing. It took him a full minute to find the presence of mind to snag her wrist as she made a pass close to the bed and yank her back on top of him, her bundle crushed between them.
“Honey, slow down.
A few extra minutes aren’t going to hurt now.”

Tess stared at him like he’d suddenly sprouted horns. “Do you realize
it’s
eight o’clock?” She glared at the skylight above them. “It’s too dark to be eight o’clock!” Her palm pushed firmly against his chest. “I should have been at work by six. Why didn’t you wake me?”

At the sound of her
unloverlike
tone, Dan let her go so fast she fell back on the pillows. He worked to control a flash of temper that had as much to do with his regret for the sudden loss of their intimacy as her righteous indignation. “First, I never bothered to look at the time because I thought it was early, too.”

He rolled to his feet. “Second, I didn’t set my alarm because I’m putting Aunt Mary on a plane back to Chicago this afternoon. My assistant manager is holding down the fort so I don’t intend to go to work at all today.” Good thing, too. He’d been far too wrapped up in Tess all weekend to think about anything as mundane as reality. “It wasn’t my priority.”

“Well, it sure in hell is mine!”

Guess that tells you where you fit in the scheme of things, Danny Boy.

A cold knot developed in his stomach. “That says it all, doesn’t it?”

She tossed his shirt at the wall of his chest and climbed off the far side of the bed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, sifting through the remaining clothes.

He watched her set each piece in a straight line on the bed, in order, from the skin out, the bustier he’d stroked off her only last night on the far left, ending with the pants he’d peeled off on the right. For some reason, it was this purposeful distraction which finally ignited his temper.

“I’ll tell you what I’m talking about! You’re entirely too linear. It’s no damned wonder you’re stressed out all the time. Your priorities are not only skewed and unrealistic, but non-negotiable. There’s no room for mistakes, for modification, for living.”
For him.

“You want to talk about mistakes and priorities that are skewed and unrealistic?” Tess glared back. “Try looking a little closer to home, Dan.”

He was having a hard enough time looking past her fists propped on her naked
hips,
however, he didn’t think she’d appreciate hearing him say it. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I didn’t learn a damned thing ten years ago!” Tess rolled her eyes and began to dress. “
Nooo
...I have to go and get involved with another man like Evan. No half-measures with me!”

Dan listened to her vent as she picked up the bustier, slipped it on, and began to hook it up. As he watched the tender skin at her waist disappeared, followed quickly by her luscious breasts. When he saw the last hook slip into place, he had a sudden urge to pull her down on the bed and set her free again.
Physically
and
emotionally.
He blinked when a portion of her tirade registered. “Is that the weasel that didn’t deserve you?”

“Who?”
Tess stopped dressing with only one arm tucked into her wrinkled blouse.

“Evan. You know, the fiancé who wasn’t man enough for you.” At the time he overheard the conversation yesterday, he’d taken great satisfaction in knowing Michael Emory liked him better than his daughter’s choice of mate. But, that was before Tess started comparing him to the weasel.

Every visible inch of her flushed beautifully. “You were eavesdropping!”

“We weasels tend to do that.”

She shrugged on her blouse and buttoned it, her head ducked over her task. “I never called you that.”

Dan refused to be mollified. “Maybe not, but I’m being painted with the same brush. What did this fiancé of yours do to get dumped? Did he interrupt your sacred schedule? Demand you come home for dinner at a reasonable hour? Tell me Tess, why’d you dump him?”

Tess’s head snapped up. “You think I dumped
him
?” The shocked expression on her face revealed as much as the hurt that lined her voice.

Uh-oh.
If she didn’t throw the guy out on his ear, did that mean she still carried a torch for him? Dan ran both hands through his hair to corral the unruly thought. “What the hell am I
s
upposed to think? Until yesterday, you’d never mentioned him.”

“I never mentioned him yesterday either,” she reminded him. Staring at the bedroom window, she frowned when a gust of wind slammed at the double-paned glass. “Look, Dan, this will have to wait until later. I have to get to my office.”

Later would never come, he thought grimly. “You can’t go to work unless I take you.” He crossed his arms over his bare chest, suddenly feeling the chill in the air.

Calling his bluff, Tess walked toward the bedroom door.
“Fine.
I’ll walk.”

“You can’t be serious. You’ve looked outside!”

Her shrug was stiff. “I won’t melt.”

“Tess, honey, you’re not being reasonable. Forget, for a minute, it’s too far to walk. It’s raining hard enough to chew up the coastline. You’ll be blown off the cliff before you take two steps out the door.”

She looked over her shoulder at him, her dark eyes glittering. “So I’ll call a cab.” She reached for the knob to open the door.

Stubborn woman! His irritation grew when he realized she’d not only turned the tables and thrown him on the defensive, but neatly maneuvered him away from the original topic under discussion. “I’m willing to bet the pink slip on my new boat, I know exactly why the engagement was called off,” he growled under his breath.

He regretted voicing his frustration before he saw Tess’s back stiffen. Walking around the German shepherd who’d jumped to his feet when the door opened, she scratched behind his ears. “The next time you get anywhere near your
master, Colby,” she said with a catch in her voice, “bite
him in the ass.”

***

It had been more than a week since that horrid Monday morning when Tess’s hurt pushed her through the bedroom door. She’d drawn on her anger to buck her up on the silent, thirty-minute drive to her office after Dan insisted on personally delivering her to her destination. Self-reproach had been her constant companion since he disappeared into the downpour.

She’d thrown herself back into her familiar schedule with a vengeance. No matter how many hours she worked or how exhausted she became, however, she couldn’t escape her regret. After all that had happened between them that weekend, after all he’d done for her, she’d behaved abominably.

Before getting out of the truck, she’d told him she needed time to think, time to focus on the demands of her new marketing strategy. She stopped short of saying she couldn’t see him again because that would be too final. For the longest time, she didn’t think he’d heard her, but then he reached out to pull her across the seat. His kiss was hard, brief, devastating. It drew her neglected emotions from that lonely place in her heart where she’d hidden them successfully for so many years, and kissed them goodbye.

When he drew away, his somber green eyes searched hers. “Honey,” he murmured, “someday you’ll learn the world won’t topple off its axis if you loosen the reins a little. Just don’t wait until it’s too late.”

Without another word, he’d driven away. He no longer met her in front of his store when she made her rounds each morning. There were no more teasing smiles. No more inane jokes to make her laugh. The one time she passed his store on her way to one crisis or another and their eyes actually met, he’d turned away.

He was now simply another
Thorgram
Group tenant, which was exactly what she’d told herself she’d wanted all along. She’d thrown away her lover and lost a friend in the process. She didn’t know which one she missed most.

Shoving her regret back into the mental closet she’d never successfully locked down this week, she turned her attention back to the proof of
Fancy Footsteps
’ new lease, the one she’d despaired of reacquiring without a successful summer program. Thanks to a few casual lunches with the owner of a certain lingerie boutique, Don West had decided not to delay signing on the dotted line for another five years of
Thorgram
tenancy for his shoe store.

A sound at her office doorway drew her gaze to where her secretary was standing. “If that frown on your face is any indication,” Emily said with a long-suffering sigh, “you must have found pages and pages of typos. I’d better fire up the computer again.”

Tess threw the paperwork down and rubbed her burning eyes. “I haven’t found one, so stop hovering.”

The woman walked in the room and sat down in one of the chairs in front of the desk. “I haven’t hovered for at least an hour.”

She’d only read two paragraphs in that time? “Oh.”

“You ready to talk about it?”

“I have to finish reading it first,” she pointed out reasonably.

“I didn’t mean the lease. I’m referring to whatever it is that’s been bugging you this past week.” Emily hesitated. “I’ve worked for you ever since you came to
Thorgram
and I’ve never seen you this...distracted. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m not distracted.”

“Yeah?
When was the last time you ran headlong into a merchandise display on your rounds?”

Never...until this morning.
If she’d been watching where she was going instead of looking over her shoulder to catch another glimpse of the voluptuous blond hanging on Dan’s every word as they debated the sex appeal of demi-cups versus push-ups....

“You heard?”

“This shopping center may fall apart at the seams thanks to our cheap, but illustrious leaders, but the grapevine is sturdier than ever. The story of one hundred spools of sewing thread making a run for it across the commons has all the makings of a legend.” She grinned.
“They’ll be gleefully retelling this tale until every last spool is found, which might take weeks if my sources are correct.”

Tess felt the heat in her face. “It will take me at least that long to show my face again.”

“So, we’re talking man troubles here.”

The heat spread downward. “How did we get from tales of horror to man troubles?”

“There are those who would argue they kind of go together.” Emily smiled. “Not me, though. I happen to love my husband to distraction.

“
Which brings me back to your man troubles.
Since I haven’t seen our sneaky knight, I’m assuming I’m either too good at guarding the keep or my lady has jousted him on his ironclad—”

“Emily!” It had been so long since she and her secretary had shared a joke she’d forgotten Emily’s penchant for eyebrow-raising remarks.

“—
tush
.”

Tess laughed at her unrepentant grin, and then sobered. “Jousted, I’m afraid.”

“And you can’t find a reason to run straight out of this office, track down the elusive undies man, and make it up to him with crazy monkey sex?”

That about summed it up.
Colorfully.

The only thing that kept her rooted to her chair thus far was the knowledge she didn’t know whether she’d throttle the man or kiss him silly if she got near him. Her emotions were too unpredictable to trust. It was like he was a magnet and she the filing. Keep enough sand between them and she could hold her own. Get her the least bit close and she was bound to crawl under the man’s skin.

Dan’s continued support behind the scenes, despite her abysmal behavior, only added to her confusion. Had she really had the audacity to compare him to her ex-fiancé?

The two men were in no way alike. When Tess first met Evan at college he’d been cool and confident, controlling everything he did, right down to his lovemaking. She’d admired his strength of purpose, his ability to concentrate on his goals. She’d thought she was the focus of that attention until he turned his back on her in her father’s hospital room. It wasn’t until their paths diverged that she understood the man was incapable of loving anyone besides himself. Not once, could she remember her fiancé supporting her, putting her needs first.
Neither professionally nor personally.