Blue Clouds (32 page)

“He has to go into L. A. to buy it and I need these reports now. And the telephone company can't come out to add a new wireless router until next week. I need the DSL.”

“Fine, I'll just sit here and file my nails and watch you work.” She reached over his shoulder, opened a desk drawer, and pulled out her nail kit.

He grabbed her arm, jerked her forward, and kissed her so hard, she had to grab his shoulder to steady herself.

The little bouncing ball of affection flamed into a volcano. Pippa dug her fingers into Seth's shoulders as his tongue fanned the flames. The jelly in her spine turned to pure molten lava.

Pippa would have landed in Seth's lap in another second, but one of the workmen in the other room dropped what must have been a two-hundred-pound cannonball. They shot apart as if they'd been bombed.

Shaking slightly, Pippa pressed her fingertips to her mouth. The permanent ache she'd developed in her lower belly widened with a growling hunger she feared he could hear. He hadn't even touched her breasts, and still they tingled. With sudden insight, she realized she'd worn this V-neck dress with her laciest bra for a reason she hadn't admitted until now. That discovery alone ought to have had her running as fast and hard as she could, but instead, she stood frozen, staring down into the narrow slits of Seth's eyes as he stared back.

“I'm not Chad, Pippa. Don't push me, or I'll take you down with me.”

Going down with him sounded real fine. Pippa forced her gaze to focus on his face and not elsewhere.

“Mad, bad, and dangerous to know?” she mocked. She didn't know any other way of responding.

“You're pushing,” he warned.

And she was. She knew it. She was playing with fire, and enjoying every damned minute of it. She'd never recognized sexual power before, but she could feel it rushing through her veins now. One word, one look, and he would be on her like a tick on a dog. The image should have cured her of this obsession, but it didn't.

 
“I don't want to push,” she said tentatively. That much was the truth. He just drove her to it. “But I can't be Miss MacGregor either. I don't have it in me. Maybe it's time I left.”

Seth popped out of the chair like a jack-in-the-box and pressed her back against the desk with his arms propped on either side of her. The position was almost as intimate as if they'd been in bed, and Pippa gasped for breath as she met his gaze. She should be terrified. Seth's greater strength made him more dangerous than Billy had ever been, but she didn't think the heightened pounding of her heart had much to do with fear.

“I haven't taught you all the kicks yet. You can't leave.”

Given her current position, that was as absurd a statement as he could utter. But this evidence that Seth's convoluted mind was still at work reassured her. He hadn't turned into a mindless animal. He wouldn't physically attack her. His boundaries were just a little warped.

“I think you'd better let me go before your mother walks in,” she warned quietly.

An almost malicious gleam lit his eyes at that reminder. Deliberately, he leaned closer and nibbled at the corner of her lips. Pippa's willpower plummeted to her shoes. He could have taken her right there and then, and she wouldn't have murmured one word of protest. Maybe she was a sucker for dangerous men.

He smiled briefly and stepped back. Seth was almost human when he smiled. She wanted to stroke his mouth and stare at it forever.

“We weren't just drunk the other night, were we?”

Oddly enough, she actually followed his erratic train of thought. Inching along the desk and out of his space, Pippa tried to look calm and worldly. She wasn't used to this kind of talk. Where she came from, people didn't talk about things like this.

“We weren't drunk,” she replied with a little more calm than she could have managed while pressed against him.

“Good. And it isn't harassment if we both feel the same way?”

He sounded as if he were asking for the Fielding report. If she hadn't seen the smoke in his eyes, she might have answered in the same manner. As it was, she floundered for a reply.

“I don't think it is,” he answered for her. “You can push me as easily as the other way around. And your job doesn't rely on it either way. Desire is just something that's happened, and we have to deal with it.”

“Deal with it,” she answered stupidly. She hadn't come in here expecting to deal with it. She'd had to deal with one too many explosions lately. She'd hoped for normalcy for a change. She should have known normalcy for this household was one explosion after another.

“All right, I'll wait until I've taught you how to throw me over your shoulder, and then we'll deal with it,” he announced with the kind of satisfaction reserved for a problem solved.

“Throwing you over my shoulder right now would help.” Pippa quit retreating and sought solid ground.

In response, Seth offered a smoldering look that nearly brought her to her knees. A look that said he knew he'd almost brought her to her knees. A masculine expression of pride and power and something else, something that kept her from kicking him where it hurt, something almost possessive and affectionate and a dozen other things that whirled wildly in her imagination.

“Honesty helps,” he said flatly. “You can go ahead and say it, you know. I'm a bastard, this is a mistake, and you'll slap me silly if I come any closer. It won't change anything though.” Self-doubt flickered briefly behind his eyes.

“You're so sure of that?” she snapped.

“Actually, no.” Seth looked thoughtful for a minute, then searched her face. Apparently finding what he sought there, he shrugged. “Want to slap me and find out?”

“No,” she answered adamantly, backing away. “We won't try anything ever again. It was a mistake the first time, as you're proving now. We have absolutely nothing in common. Chad is almost well. I think I'd better start looking for a new position.”

“Let's stick with the honesty, Pippa,” he admonished, crossing his arms and leaning against the desk, giving her space. “Your boyfriend may have just tried to blow you up. Outside of these grounds, you're fair game. You're not going anywhere. You might want to send me to hell, but you're not afraid of me. You know damned well I won't do anything you don't want me to do.” He stopped and looked thoughtful again, giving her a considering look. “What you're afraid of is what
you
want
me
to do.”

“Score one for you,” she replied bitterly, then swung on her heel and stalked out.

Seth stared after her in astonishment. He'd been right. For once in his life, he'd actually been right about a woman. Pippa Cochran actually wanted him. Not his money, not his reputation, not his power. Him. Physically. In bed. For no good reason at all.

It was as if someone had come along and unlocked the door of his cage and thrown away the key. The possibilities were limitless....

No, they weren't.

His shoulders slumped as he slid back into the chair. If he had any conscience at all, he couldn't take her up on what they both wanted. This had to be the meaning of hell, given the opportunity for everything he'd ever wanted, he had to refuse it. For Chad's sake, for Pippa's sake, for his own sanity, he had to let her fly where she would, and sooner or later, it would be out of this house.

The best he could hope for—all he really wanted—was a brief affair. He could handle that. Could Pippa?

 
“Meg, this is nuts. Why do I do this to myself? Am I really that desperate?”

Meg looked worried, but she spoke in her usual reasonable tones, as if Pippa were one of her children. “Well, there's no law against having a fantasy fling. I've never had the opportunity myself, since George is the only man I've ever looked at. You're more adventurous than I am. You deserve a little fun in your life right now, Pippa.”

“Fun?” Pippa cried. “Seth isn't
fun
. Seth Wyatt and his insane asylum are a nightmare.”

Meg breathed a sigh of relief. “Then you're not nuts. You're seeing things perfectly clearly. Maybe you just need some more normal outlet for your sex drive. Taylor Morgan has a brother who's just recently come through a divorce....”

Pippa shook her head frantically. “No way, Jose. Find me an acrobat or a longshoreman, but keep me away from your country club friends and the silk tie crowd. They're all vampires. You should have seen Natalie Whatever-She-Calls- Herself-Now. I'd like to put her in a sack with Taylor and watch them go at it, fang to fang.”

Meg laughed, a real laugh and not one of those forced imitations she'd used so much lately. Pippa relaxed and tried to summon an even more dramatic characterization of Seth's ex-wife. She hated to see Meg worrying, but she was beyond helping her now. She'd already pushed Seth as far as she could without tumbling over with him. Probably into the first available bed. Pushing for the printing plant was out of the question.

“I've seen her in action,” Meg admitted. “She's taken up residence in the bed-and-breakfast down the road. Jean quoted her triple the going rate after Miss Bitch demanded silk sheets and coffee served in bed in the mornings. And Jean's rates are ridiculous to start with.”

“Natalie is staying in town?” Astounded, Pippa sat back in her chair and took a deep draw on her coffee as she contemplated this new development. “You wouldn't happen to know if she's still a rich bitch, would you?”

Meg watched her suspiciously. “What scheme are you dreaming up now, Phillippa Cochran? You can't possibly want that poor man to get back together with a viper like that, can you?”

Pippa grinned. “So Seth's a ‘poor mam' now, is he'? When did that happen?”

Embarrassed, Meg squirmed in her chair. “Well, he sent this insurance adjuster out to examine the damage to Mikey's chair. At least, he said he was from the insurance company. We didn't file any claim. We figured it was the school board's property. But the guy said Seth had liability coverage, and they'd replace the chair. The one they sent looks just like Chad's.”

The heat in Pippa's belly flamed on full force, and the damned man wasn't even in sight. Seth Wyatt was a heartless, thoughtless monster, right?

Pippa sighed and gave up that particular fight. “He's warped, that's all I can say. He hates this town and everyone in it, for no good reason that I know of. But every once in a while, just occasionally...” She drew out her hand expressively. “Sometimes, he's almost human. Almost.”

“Cracked,” Meg agreed. “He doesn't operate in a normal fashion anyway. Maybe he doesn't know how.”

“I think that's it,” Pippa said gloomily. “Which doesn't help matters any. Anyway, what I started to say was that if Natalie still has money, we could appeal to her poisonous instincts. Maybe she even has maternal ones, who knows? Pull her into your sewing circle or whatever, brag about how Seth's renovating the gym for the kids, wistfully mention his obstinacy about the swimming pool, and see what happens.”

Meg giggled. “Think she'll show her checkbook out of spite? Pippa, you're devious. You could be the best thing that's hit this town in years.”

Pippa shook her head. “Nah, I'm just new and don't know any better. Sometimes it takes someone with a fresh outlook to see the possibilities.”

“Hmpf. I bet Natalie isn't seeing any possibilities right now. But I'll call Lisa and see if she knows Natalie. I like the idea of warring factions doing good instead of evil.”

The doorbell rang and Meg started up from her chair to answer it. Pippa pushed her back down. “I can get it. You just sit here and dream up ways of bringing Lisa and Natalie together and into your clutches.”

“My clutches,” Meg snorted as Pippa headed for the front door. “If I had any clutches at all, I'd use them to wring Seth Wyatt's neck,” she muttered to herself. Pippa didn't deserve to be used and tossed away like a toy by a spoiled child. Pippa was a keeper. Any man in his right mind should know that. Of course, that was assuming Seth was in his right mind.

The doorbell continued ringing, more furiously than earlier. Puzzled, Meg glanced up to see what was taking Pippa so long.

Pippa stood in the doorway, her usually rosy cheeks paler than the low-fat cream in the pitcher on the table.

“Billy,” she whispered. “It's Billy at the door.” She sat down and let the bell chimes echo.

* * *

An hour later, Meg watched in mild astonishment as four large men paced and lounged around her very tiny living room. Or at least, one paced. The others just stayed out of his way.

She'd at least had the sense to send Pippa upstairs to entertain the children for a while. She should have the sense to do the same herself. All this testosterone raging in one confined place would rattle the plaster off the wall. But she couldn't relinquish her fascination with the curly-haired man stalking back and forth across her Berber carpet.

She'd never thought of Seth Wyatt as a particularly tidy man, but he was in a decidedly disheveled state right now. He looked as if he'd just crawled out from under a demolished house. Plaster dust sprinkled his turtleneck, and his worn jeans had a rip in the back pocket. He didn't wear socks, and his mangled docksiders flapped up and down in time to his irritated pacing. Normally, she'd think those the outward signs of a worried man who'd just run out of the house at a frantic cry for help. But Seth Wyatt emanated vibrations of anger and frustration so strong, she was surprised her walls were still standing. She checked the plaster again just to be certain.