Just Another Pretty Face (HT 459) (10 page)

"Oh, look, it's Pierce Kingston," someone squealed.

"I loved you in
The Promise,"
someone else hollered as he reached back into the car to offer Nikki a hand.

"Could I have your autograph, Mr. Kingston?" A small pink imitation leather book with a pen attached on a satin ribbon was thrust practically under his nose.

Pierce let go of Nikki's hand to take it.

"Sign it to Millie," the woman said, staring up at him with adoring eyes.

"Are the rumors true?" demanded a photographer as Pierce obligingly signed half-a-dozen other autographs. "Was there a secret ceremony in Las Vegas? Are you and Nikki married?"

"Not yet," Pierce said. With a warm smile, he handed a signed Spago cocktail napkin back to a fan.

"Not yet?" another photographer said. "Does that mean you have plans to get married?"

Pierce smiled as if he had a great big happy secret. "You'll be the first to know," he said, and put his arm around Nikki's shoulders to steer her into the restaurant. "Excuse us, ladies and gentlemen, but we have reservations for dinner." His smile turned deliciously wicked. "A private celebration."

"Well," Nikki said a moment later as they sat down at a corner table with a view of downtown Los Angeles, "that was certainly a masterful performance."

"Yes," Pierce said smugly. "Wasn't it?"

* * *

"NOBODY'S GOING TO BELIEVE we're sleeping together if you don't loosen up and move in a little closer," Pierce murmured into the feathery wisps of hair at Nikki's temple.

"Closer?" Nikki choked. "If I get any closer we're going to be wearing the same shirt."

Pierce grinned. "Sounds good to me." He tightened his arm around her waist, flexed his knees and swiv-eled his hips, dipping her backward with a sensual little movement that had her gasping for breath and grasping at his broad shoulders with both hands. "Now you're getting the hang of it," he murmured appreciatively, rocking her gently from side to side before he dipped down again.

They were dancing to Michael Bolton's "Save Me," their bodies plastered together on the crowded dance floor of a currently trendy Hollywood night spot. The lighting was low and intimate. The fake fog swirling around their feet was illuminated by sexy blue lights pulsating in time to the music as a man sang about being on fire with passion for the one woman who could save him.

Nikki had been struggling to think clearly from the minute Pierce took her into his arms and backed her onto the dance floor. But as his hands slid to her hips and his knee slipped between hers, she gave up the attempt as doomed to failure and gave in to pure primal feeling. Who needed to think when Pierce Kingston was crooning "'Lover, you've gotta save me,'" in your ear in a low, aching voice? Who
could
think? Certainly not her. Not when she was pressed from groin to breast to a man who had more moves than an L. A. Raider running back. Not when her heart was pounding in her ears loud enough to drown out the music and his was pounding against the aching tips of her breasts like a jackhammer gone wild. Not when she was on the verge of forgetting everything she'd ever learned about the futility of howling at the moon.

With what little was left of her mind, Nikki told herself that she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life. Bigger than yearning after unattainable football players in high school. Bigger than getting herself engaged to a hotshot pilot who was more interested in currying the influence of her father, Colonel Anthony Martinelli, than in teaching her about love.

Pierce Kingston was a rich, world-famous movie star who could have any woman he wanted. Who
had
had any woman he wanted, she reminded herself. He was spoiled and overindulged and, worst of all, he was acting.

And she
knew
he was acting.

They'd been building up to this all evening. In the restaurant over French champagne and designer pizza made of smoked salmon, caviar and
creme fraiche,
Pierce had looked at her with wicked, smoldering blue eyes and nibbled on her fingers between bites, giving the next day's tabloids something to write about. It was all an act.

So why did it feel so real? So right?

The music segued into "Now That I've Found You," the heartfelt, passionate ballad of a man who'd just found all he ever needed in the loving touch of a special woman. Nikki could feel Pierce's lips moving against her cheek, mouthing the words of the song. His hands were on her back, one low, fingers spread wide at the base of her spine, pressing her against his hardened body. The other was between her shoulder blades, under the long, sinuous strap of the small shoulder purse draped crosswise over her torso. He was rubbing his palm up and down, slowly caressing the length of her spine through the black silk of the Armani blouse he'd bought for her.

Nikki sighed and tightened her arms around his neck, threading the fingers of one hand through the thick golden hair that was inches longer than hers, and held on for dear life. They swayed slowly for a few long delicious moments more, rotating against each other, hips swiveling, melting together in the heat of the music and their own yearning bodies, melding their separate desires into one, torturing each other with a torrid simulation of the act they were both on fire for.

And then Pierce groaned, deep in his chest, and turned his head, nudging the corner of her mouth with his, seeking the taste of her. Helplessly, like a flower starved of moisture and sunlight, she turned her face up to his and opened her lips to his kiss.

They stopped dancing and stood there, an island of stillness in the middle of the crowded dance floor, kissing as if they were in the privacy of a secluded bedroom. His hands came up to cup her head. Hers fisted in his hair. Their heads tilted and turned, lips nibbling and tugging, tongues seeking. It was hot and wet and wild. And amazingly, incredibly sweet. And it went on forever, until, at last, Pierce tore his mouth away.

"Let's get the hell out of here before we get arrested," he growled, and dragged her from the dance floor.

* * *

THEY'D COOLED DOWN some by the time the car had been summoned and brought around to pick them up in front of the club. Enough so that Nikki kept her distance in the back of the limousine. Pierce sensed her nervousness and didn't press her, thinking it was the presence of the driver in the front seat that made her shy.

He didn't want her shy. He wanted her heated and avid and as hungry for him as he was for her, with no hesitation and no doubts, the way she had been those last few minutes on the dance floor. And for that he could wait. Not long, probably, he thought, looking at her shapely legs and her small breasts and the brave tilt of her vulnerable chin in the passing lights, but enough to get her into the privacy of his bedroom.

He intended to make love to her slowly, with every ounce of patience and skill he possessed. He wanted a long loving. A slow savoring. A banquet of the senses that would end with both of them sated and gasping for breath. He wanted to love her like no other man had ever loved her before. He wanted to possess her every thought and feeling. He wanted, he realized with a start of surprise, to bind her to him in the most basic way possible.

The realization came close to scaring him to death for a moment.. .until he managed to convince himself that he was allowing hormones to cloud his thought processes.

He wanted her.

Period.

There was nothing scary about that. He'd wanted dozens of women in his lifetime. Maybe not as badly as he wanted Nikki Martinelli, but it was really only a matter of degree. And the cure for that wanting was in having. Soon. He leaned over and put his lips next to her ear.

"When I get you upstairs," he whispered as the long black car turned into the driveway. "I'm going to peel you out of that sexy little miniskirt and that silk blouse and whatever else you have on, and lick every inch of those gorgeous legs of yours," he said in a low, heated voice, "starting with your toes."

Nikki turned her head sharply, looking at him with a wide-eyed, shocked expression, as if she'd never in her life heard of such a thing but thought it sounded awfully interesting. And then she blushed—a deep red blush that began under the collar of her blouse and flooded her whole face with rosy color.

Pierce was utterly entranced. "Wait until I tell you about some of the other things we're going to do together," he promised, giving her his pirate's grin. "Your whole body will turn red. If it hasn't already."

She was out of the limousine and to the top of the front stairs before Pierce had tipped the driver and sent him on his way.

"You can't get in without me," Pierce said, hurrying up the steps behind her. He held something up between his thumb and forefinger. "I have the key. Although," he added, as he fit it into the lock, "you could probably go around back and get in through the garden room. Or my bedroom. I'm pretty sure I left the glass doors open." He pushed the door open and ushered her into the dark, shadowed foyer. "I usually do."

"That's not putting your security system to very good use," Nikki chided.

Pierce smiled at her. "I don't have a security system except for the one that guards the paintings." He reached out to touch her nose with his fingertip. "And you, of course."

Nikki ducked his hand and backed away.

He dropped his hand without touching her. "What's the matter, Nikki?"

"Nothing," she said quickly. "Everything. Oh, God." She turned away from him. "I feel like such a fool."

He felt a terrible sense of foreboding. "Tell me," he said, hoping she wasn't going to say what he thought she was going to say.

But she did.

"I know I gave you the impression that I—that I wanted to make... ah... wanted to go to bed with you. And I do," she admitted wretchedly. "But I shouldn't."

"Shouldn't?"

"Because of who you are. Because of who I am. I hardly know you, really. And you're technically my boss. And what happened between us tonight was just—" she waved her hands a bit frantically "—just for show. To draw your fan out. I know that. And yet I still-"

"No," Pierce said. "It wasn't."

"Wasn't?"

"For show. I wanted you.
Want
you," he corrected himself. "I'd never pretend about a thing like that." There was a beat of silence as he looked at her. "I'd think you would have been able to tell."

"Oh, well, physically, yes, I could tell that, but..." She was blushing again. "It isn't enough."
It never had been for her,
she thought. But if he pushed at all, she might very well decide that it was. And that would be disastrous.

She waited a minute for him to push her.

"I think I'd better just go to my room," she said, at last. "Alone."

"If you feel that way, then I guess you should," Pierce said gently. He didn't have any arguments to counter her charge that it was just physical between them, because it
was
just physical. Mostly physical, anyway. Wasn't it?

"You don't mind?"

"I mind like hell," he admitted, "but it's your decision."

"Then, I guess I'll go." She backed up a few steps, her black stiletto heels clicking on the polished marble floor, then paused uncertainly. "You'll remember to close your patio doors, won't you?"

He nodded.

"And lock them."

He nodded again.

"Well," she said, her gaze skittering around the quiet foyer as she searched for something else to say to prolong the moment.

"Nikki." He waited until she looked at him. "If you're going to go to your room—alone—then I suggest you go," he said in a low, tense voice, "before I forget I'm a gentleman and take the choice out of your hands."

Her eyes widened at his tone. "Good night, then," she gulped.

"Good night, Nikki." He watched her turn and run all the way up the wide curving stairway to the second floor while he stood in the foyer below and fought the urge to throw back his head and howl with disappointment and frustration.

7

NIKKI LAY IN THE BIG tester bed under the puffy-green-and-ivory-leaf-strewn comforter, telling herself to just forget what might have been and go to sleep. After a long, agonizing hour of tossing and turning, she kicked the comforter to the foot of the bed and gave it up as a lost cause. There was no way she was getting any sleep tonight. Not as long as "what might have been" was in the very next room.

She wondered how he slept, there in the bed in the very next room. Did he curl up on his side, like she did? Or was he a sprawler? Did he pull the covers up under his chin or kick them to the floor? Did he wear tailored black silk pajamas or go to bed gloriously naked? Did he snore? Did he talk in his sleep?

And had he remembered to close and lock his door like she'd told him to?

She lay there for a moment longer, fighting the urge, telling herself it was none of her business, that he was a grown man who could sleep with his bedroom doors open if he wanted to.

Damn it,
she thought,
it is my business.
She was his bodyguard. And if he wouldn't take the few simple steps necessary to protect himself... well, it was up to her to do it for him. That's what she'd been hired for.

"I'll just get up and check," she said to herself as she swung her bare legs over the side of the bed. "That's all. I'll do a quick check and then come right back to bed."

She slid from the bed and tiptoed through the darkened bedroom, guided only by the moonlight shining in through the multipaned glass doors. Quietly, with her left hand pressed against the door frame to minimize noise, she turned the ornate, old-fashioned handle slowly until it opened with a soft snick. It sounded like a cannon shot in the dark stillness of the night. Nikki sucked in her breath and waited for something—anything—to happen. When nothing did, she slowly pulled the door the rest of the way open and stepped out onto the stone terrace.

It was a perfect night, warm and sweet, with the smell of bougainvillea and roses and night-blooming jasmine perfuming the air. The moonlight reflected off the water in the swimming pool below. A soft breeze was blowing, tugging at the hem of Nikki's extra large, marine-issue green T-shirt, making it ripple against her thighs. She tiptoed past the wrought-iron patio furniture without giving it a glance, headed toward the double-glass doors to Pierce's bedroom.