License to Love (14 page)

Michelle smiled. “Maybe just a little.”

“Actually, I am quoting from a self-help book. One that hasn’t reached the bestseller lists yet, but hopefully will, as soon as it’s finished. I’m writing that book, Michelle, but you must promise not to say a word to anyone yet.” “You’re writing a book! Ashlinn, how exciting!” Michelle exclaimed. “But what about your job with the magazine?”

“Oh, I have no intention of quitting,” Ashlinn said wryly. “I know enough about publishing to know that even bestselling authors ought to keep their day jobs unless they’re one of a few mega stars. I’m doing this book in my spare time. I need a creative outlet and I had this inspiration for a book that I know will be a success. There’s a crying need for it.”

“Tell me about it,” Michelle said eagerly.

Ashlinn flopped onto the sofa, her eyes shining with enthusiasm. “The title of my book is
Hooked!
The entire concept is the title. I’m compiling a collection of stories about women who’ve become sexually hooked on men, even if they’re liars or narcissistic snakes or coldhearted users or any combination of those. The last quarter of the book will deal with the women’s painful withdrawal from these men and their struggle for recovery.”

“I don’t want to put a damper on your plans, Ashlinn, but hasn’t this book been written before, under different titles? At least ten times?”

Ashlinn frowned. “Well, there’s always room for one more, especially with a high-concept theme like mine. The stories in my book are gripping—true experiences of women who are involved with men that are totally wrong for them in every way except sexually. Sex is the lure and the hook that keeps the woman helplessly trapped in the relationship. My premise is that when the sex is good between them, a woman can become so vulnerable and dependent on that man that nothing can set her free.”

“But that can’t really happen.” Michelle gulped. “Can it?”

“It most certainly can. Sexual pleasure is such a powerful reward and reinforcer that a woman finds the man who gives it to her irresistible. And neither willpower nor common sense can set her free.”

“Have you actually talked to any of these women? Do those relationships really exist or are you making it all up to sell your book?”

“I’m not making it up!” Ashlinn sounded aggrieved. “And yes, I’ve talked to a number of women who have been
Hooked!
I can personally vouchsafe for their stories.” Michelle’s eyes widened. “Has it ever happened to you? Have you ever been involved in a relationship like that?” “Of course not! What kind of a fool do you take me for? I think with my head, not with my hormones. I thought you did, too, but now I’m not so sure. Steve Saraceni is a sexual atomic bomb, Michelle. One blast and the fallout poisons your life forever.”

Michelle winced. “That’s a truly terrible analogy, Ashlinn. I hope you aren’t going to use it in your book.”

“It’s from my book, Chapter One, and I think it’s extremely apropos. I don’t want to scare you, Michelle, but I do want to warn you to proceed with caution with your latest flame.”

“He’s not my latest flame.” Michelle picked up Burton, who had begun to gnaw on a dried flower arrangement.

“But I appreciate your concern. I certainly don’t want to end up hooked.” She had to fight a smile. She’d forgotten how amusingly dogmatic and emphatic her stepsister could be when fighting her own self-styled crusade.

But as she lay awake that night on Ashlinn’s torturously uncomfortable sofa bed, Michelle’s amusement faded, to be replaced by chilling anxiety. She could make denials to Ashlinn, but she’d never been good at lying to herself. The truth was that she was in danger of falling in love with Steve.

She’d tried hard not to, but the longer she knew him, the more she liked him. He was easy and fun to talk to; he was dynamic and smart; he made her laugh. And she was so sexually attracted to him, she couldn’t even think of him without becoming aroused and breathless.

His kisses evoked such powerful exciting passions within her, feelings that could only intensify if she were to give herself to him. Which was what making love with him would mean—giving herself to him, her heart and her soul along with her body. It couldn’t be any other way for her and she knew it.

Add to that Ashlinn’s foreboding theory of sexual pleasure as a lure and a hook, and her future appeared ominous indeed. Hooked! Deeply in love, needing and wanting a man who was so allergic to permanence and commitment that he couldn’t even restrict his social life to one city. Vulnerable and dependent on Steve Saraceni, a man who didn’t want love, just a good time.

Michelle shuddered. And made herself a promise. She was not going to become a true-life contributor to Ashlinn’s book, sharing her gripping tale of hooked-on-heartbreak with anyone who plunked down the cover price.

“We had a great time this weekend, didn’t we?” Steve settled himself down on the U-shaped sofa in Michelle’s apartment, in no apparent hurry to leave. It was Sunday evening and they’d just returned to Harrisburg from New York.

Burton, delighted to be freed from his hours traveling in the cat carrier, raced manically around the apartment.

Michelle glanced at her watch. Nine o’clock. She usually took a shower and washed her hair at this time in order to get to bed early for a good night’s sleep to begin the hectic week ahead. She watched as Steve picked up the Sunday paper and began to read.

Michelle felt a civil war break out inside her. She wanted him to leave as much as she wanted him to stay. She felt obliged to be polite but longed to evict him from the premises. And overriding everything else was an aching, yearning need to be in his arms again. Sensual memories of his kisses made her throb and burn for more. She stood on the threshold of the room, paralyzed with frustration and indecision.

“Uh-oh, look at this.” Steve held up the paper for her to see. “There was a fire yesterday at the county animal shelter. Most of the animals were saved but now there’s no pla for them to go until the shelter is rebuilt.”

The story was an instant lure. Michelle swiftly joined him on the sofa and together they looked at the page of photos of the displaced cats and dogs, kittens and puppies.

“ ‘Officials are desperately urging people to adopt a pet at this time,’” Michelle read. “Hmm, I wonder how Burton would react to a kitten?”

“He might be a little testy at first, but the kitten would win him over,” predicted Steve. “He’d love the company. Cats are basically quite sociable with other cats. I bet Burton gets lonely here with you gone all day at the office.”

“I know he does. And I’d love to have a kitten...” “Tomorrow, let’s go to that warehouse where the animals are being temporarily kept. The place is open till eight. You can pick a kitten out.”

“You want to go with me?” she asked incredulously. “Why?”

Steve shrugged. “Why not?”

She had no answer to that. He reached over and took her hand in his. “It was
interesting
—for lack of a better word-meeting your stepsister this weekend.” He lifted her fingers to his mouth and meticulously kissed each tip, then skimmed the shaft of each finger with his lips. “She’s a beautiful woman and seems quite fond of you—even though she hates me.”

His sensual caresses made Michelle shiver with excitement. “Ashlinn doesn’t hate you,” she said huskily.

“She thinks I’m a cold, insincere smooth operator who’ll use you and then break your heart. She told me so,” he added as Michelle gave a small gasp of surprise, “when I came to pick you up this morning for brunch.”

“Oh-ohh!” Michelle groaned. “Ashlinn’s never been one to keep her thoughts to herself.”

“I assume she shared her opinion of me with you, as well. It explains a lot.”

“It does?” She looked at him. “Why? How?”

“You’re so elusive. You let me so close, then bam, the walls go up and I’m on the outside looking in. Like last night, after the show. We had a wonderful time, we didn’t want the evening to end, and it would’ve been perfectly natural for us to spend the night together. I know how much you want me but you won’t let yourself go and—”

“I could say the same thing about you,” Michelle interrupted. “Word for word, and it would apply.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll go to bed with you the moment you say the word. Right now, if you want.” He took her hand and laid it on his abdomen, just above his taut, straining masculinity. “I’m ready, willing and able, honey.” Michelle’s heart jumped and she pulled her hand away. She could still feel the hard warmth of his body and a tingling heat streaked through her in response. Silently acknowledging the danger and the lure of being close to him, she rose to her feet, putting a much needed distance between them.

“You’re talking about me and sex, I’m talking about you and commitment,” she explained wearily. It was so hard to keep fighting what she was coming to want most. “You’re right, I do want you but I won’t let myself jump into bed with you just for the sport of it. And you want me, but you’re just as reluctant to—to become seriously involved with me.”

Steve stood up, too. “The age-old impasse.” His eyes met and held hers. “If you don’t give me what I need, there are other women who will. Is that what you want, Michelle? For me to go to someone else?”

“That creaky, ancient line isn’t worthy of you, Steve.” Michelle folded her arms in front of her chest and gazed at him impassively. “It was around when the Old Testament was being written. Please don’t tell me that you’ve actually had success with it. Surely no woman today could be naive enough to—”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Steve cut in. His face was slightly flushed. “But you do have a point—it is a tired old line.” He grinned. “And I respect you for not buying it.”

Michelle shook her head. “You really are incorrigible, you know.”

“And you’re equally intractable, sweetheart,” he said pleasantly. He walked to the door. “Come here and kiss me goodbye, Michelle. Then I’ll be on my way.” His dark eyes were gleaming, his expression and his tone challenging.

And Michelle couldn’t resist. She went to him, stood on tiptoe and swiftly pecked his cheek.

Steve’s arms instantly encircled her, pressing her firmly against him and keeping her there. “I said kiss me goodbye and I’ll be on my way,” he repeated silkily. “But not before or until.”

Her heart was pounding very fast. “I did.” She looked up at him from beneath her lashes, her gaze seductive, her voice softly provocative. Ha- behavior astonished her. She’d never indulged in flirtatious games. How and why did they seem to come so naturally to her now?

A slow smile curved the comers of Steve’s mouth. “Try again, baby.”

Impulsively, wildly, in a move that was totally uncharacteristic for her inhibited, conservative self, Michelle’s open mouth sought his. Steve’s response was instantaneous.

He gripped her fiercely. Her mouth was warm and sweet and eager, and his body ignited like a blowtorch. Wanting her with an ever-mounting passion and urgency, he angled her closer to him, fitting the hard male planes of his body to the supple feminine softness of hers. His tongue penetrated her mouth deeply, moving in and out in excruciating sexual simulation.

Their kisses, tempestuous and passionate, from the start grew even longer, deeper and hungrier. When it was impossible to remain standing for another moment, they drew breathlessly apart. Steve had an overwhelming urge to sweep her up in his arms and carry her to bed. It was a ridiculous, quixotic and romantic gesture he’d never made before, yet it seemed natural with her, for her. He’d carried her in the snow and he’d carried her the night of the blizzard when she’d been too afraid to go into the bedroom herself.

Of course, he would carry her to bed the first time they made love.

“This—is getting dangerous.” Michelle’s shaky voice drew him from his languid, sensual reverie.

“What do you mean?” His fingers toyed lazily with the top button of her blouse.

“We’re at cross purposes. At an impasse. You said so yourself.” He wanted sex for fun and she wanted sex with love. “I don’t see a solution.” She pushed his hand away and moved out of his reach.

Steve sighed. “You’re letting yourself be influenced by your stepsister. Don’t let her opinion of me govern your—”

“I’m perfectly capable of making my own decisions, without being unduly influenced by anyone, let alone Ashlinn.”

“Okay. Okay.” Steve held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “So it’s your own idea to turn on and off quicker than a light switch. A very effective torture, I might add. I’ve taken so many cold showers since I met you that I could qualify for membership in the Polar Bear Club.”

“Why suffer the cold showers when there are all those women who will give you what you need?”

He should be angry, he should be snapping right back at her. Steve pondered the fact that he wasn’t. Michelle was spoiling for a quarrel; she was deliberately baiting him. Why wasn’t he giving her exactly what she was asking for? Maybe because he knew that what she really wanted wasn’t to send him away in anger? She wanted what he wanted—to make love. She just hadn’t realized it yet. But she would, and very soon, he would see to that.

“No fair throwing my creaky old lines back in my face,” he replied, grinning. Though she was scowling and sniping at him, he felt an inexplicable tenderness toward her that should have alarmed him. For some equally inexplicable reason, it didn’t.

“I’ll pick you up shortly before seven tomorrow night and we’ll go get a kitten. We can pick up some take-out Chinese for dinner on the way back.”

He gave her a swift, hard kiss and was gone, leaving a confused, bemused Michelle staring at the closed door for a long time afterward.

“What are you going to name her?” Steve asked, glanc?. ing at the three pound, seven-week-old calico kitten that Michelle held in her lap. Burton, crouched at the other end of the sofa, was staring at the tiny intruder, his back arched, his tail six times the normal size.

“I don’t know.” Michelle watched the kitten climb purposefully across her lap to stand on the sofa cushion beside her. “Courtney named Burton. Her first assignment for National Public Broadcasting was a piece on Sir Richard Burton, the British explorer and Orientalist, not the actor. She thought it a very fitting name for an adventuresome, Oriental cat, and I had to agree.”