One Night With You (4 page)

Her lashes flew up at last, her wide-eyed blue gaze meeting the melting brown of his. "I'm not embarrassed," she said softly, almost on a whisper.

And she wasn't, not anymore. The heat of her face and body was no longer generated in any part by embarrassment. She had gone past that, somehow, when he'd touched her. It was fueled now only by desire, sweet burning desire. Unchecked, unembarrassed and totally revealed in the darkening blue of her eyes as she stared up at him.

"No," he said then, taking in the message written so clearly in her face. "No," he repeated softly, incredulously. "I can see that you're not."

He still held her chin lightly, her face turned up to his, and his thumb moved to touch her full lower lip, pulling it down slightly, opening her mouth a tiny bit. Instinctively, her eyes still holding his, the tip of her tongue snaked out and delicately touched his thumb.

She felt him stiffen and gasp under his breath. His fingers tightened their grip, for just a second, against her rounded chin, and his eyes went from melting to smoldering as she watched. He seemed suddenly to be consumed by the same flame that had fired her, and she thrilled in feminine triumph at his reaction to her unintentional boldness. Deliberately his thumb stroked her lip again and, just as deliberately this time, her tongue flickered out to meet it in a brief, blatant caress.

They both seemed to hold their breath as questions were being silently asked and answered, and then Jake nodded decisively, just once. His hard long-fingered hand released her chin and traveled down the slim column of her throat to find the madly beating pulse at the base of her neck. Desi's eyes closed again, unable to bear the sudden scorching heat of his gaze without reaching out to touch him, too. She wanted, very badly, to touch him. But, despite her earlier boldness, she didn't quite dare to reach out for him.

Instead her head fell back a little to more fully expose the delicate line of her throat to his questing fingers, while her own hungering hands curled into fists on her lap. She managed, just barely, to stifle the excited, frustrated little moan that rose to her lips.

"Excuse me." Desi heard the stewardess's voice through a hazy fog as Jake's hand dropped reluctantly from her throat. "Would you like a drink, Mr. Lancing? Or coffee?"

"A drink?" he said, and Desi thought she heard a note of vague confusion in his deep tones as if he, too, had forgotten exactly where they were. As if, like her, he had completely lost touch with their surroundings and with time, and was as surprised as she was to suddenly realize that the plane was already airborne. But he seemed to recover himself quickly. "Yes, a drink would be fine. Brandy, if you have it."

"Certainly, Mr. Lancing. And you, miss?"

Desi looked up blankly, a little slower to return to reality than Jake had been. It had been such a beautiful dream that she had been indulging in with him—beautiful and all too brief. She was loath to let it go.

Jake's hand touched her arm lightly. "Would you like anything?" he asked.

Desi smiled at him, a soft, sleepy child's sort of smile, wholly charming and unconsciously inviting. "Yes, please, Jake," she said, and they both knew that she wasn't talking about a drink. "A Bailey's would be nice. On the rocks."

"You obviously know who I am," Jake said, turning to her when the stewardess had moved off down the aisle to take drink orders from the other passengers. "But I don't know who you are." His hand came up to gently tug at a wayward curl that had escaped from the knot on top of her head. "What's your name, pretty lady?" he asked, twining the coppery curl around his finger.

What do you want it to be,
she wanted to say.
I'll be whoever you want, whatever you want
.

"Desiree," she said, not even aware that she had given him her full first name.

She was Desi to almost everyone else, she realized later, for him she wanted to be special and different.

"Just Desiree?" he asked. He released her curling tendril of hair and let his fingers travel lightly down her shoulder and along the length of her arm to the pale hand still clenched against her thigh. He lifted her hand in his as if to examine it.

The fingers were long and slender, the nails kept short and unpolished but buffed to a glossy sheen, so that they glowed like smooth flat pearls on the tips of her fingers. He touched each nail softly, almost wonderingly, and then turned her hand over in his and drew one hard brown finger slowly across her sensitive palm.

"No last name?" he said, still looking down at the slender hand in both of his.

"No," she said, "no last name."

This whole thing was
still
a dream, she thought. The stewardess hadn't succeeded in waking them up after all. To give him her last name, even though she already knew his, would somehow break the spell. She didn't know how it would, exactly, but she superstitiously didn't want to take the chance. To tell him that she was Desiree Weston might lead to talking about Zek, and from there to "oh and do you know so and so" and to the movie industry in general and all the mundane things that two people meeting for the first time would normally talk about.

But this meeting wasn't mundane or ordinary. It was fate, she suddenly realized. They were meant to meet like this. Strangers, instantly and fiercely attracted to each other. The way she had always secretly dreamed it would be.

"No last names, not tonight." She smiled up at him and her smile, soft and teasing, was like a promise. "Just Jake and Desiree."

He nodded again, that single characteristically decisive movement of his head. "Jake and Desiree," he agreed, and brought her hand to his lips.

His brown eyes held hers as he bent his head to kiss the palm, and he looked at her through the fringe of his short dark lashes.

What a beautiful man he is
, she thought,
more beautiful than any man has a right to be
. Her eyes roamed hungrily, in open desire, over his face.

Those melting brown eyes with their thick lashes were dangerously seductive and knowing. The straight dark brows above them were marred, and thus made infinitely more interesting, by the tiny crescent-shaped scar slicing through the right brow. His nose was classically straight, his jaw strong and square with a hint of arrogance, his chin determined. His was a strong face, just saved from harshness by the softening effect of his dark hair, which was the color of rich, brown sable and so thick and shiny that Desi knew that she would need a whole hour just to run her fingers through it.

And his mouth, she told herself solemnly as she continued her painstaking inventory of his familiar face, his mouth was his best feature. It was an exciting, masculine mouth, rather hard and clean-edged, as if it had been chiseled by a sculptor. The bottom lip was just slightly fuller than the top, hinting at a softer, more tender and sensual side to his nature.

The side that he was showing to her now as those firm lips caressed her palm and kissed the tip of each slender finger. His eyes continued to hold hers, sending her silent, secret messages of his desire, so that she couldn't have looked away, even if she had wanted to. He was making love to her with his eyes, holding her a willing and eager captive in their bottomless brown depths.

Neither of them seemed to be aware, just then, of the people seated all around them in the dim, softly lit interior of the plane. People in front and in back and to the side, blocked out by the high seats and the curve of Jake's right shoulder as he sat turned toward her. It was almost as if they were alone. Almost, but not quite.

They were not nearly alone enough, she thought. And she wanted, more than she had ever wanted anything, for them to be really alone. We wanted them to be somewhere where Jake's kisses could go beyond her hand.

It didn't occur to her that this was their first meeting. That, in reality, she hardly knew him and that she should not be allowing or encouraging his caresses. She felt as if she had known him all her life, wanted him all her life. As if his lips, moving so warmly against her palm and fingers and the tender inside of her wrist, had touched her before and would touch her again.

In a way it
had
happened before—countless times—in her deepest, most secret dreams. Dreams hidden even from herself, for Desi could never remember them in the morning, except for the feeling that they had been wonderful and the nagging wish that they had gone on just a little longer.

She was reminded now of the sweetness of those half-remembered dreams, and she wanted the completion that she had never found in them. She wanted his lips to travel from her hand up to her shoulders and the pale line of her throat, across the curve of her cheek to, finally, claim her mouth. She wanted, desperately, for him to kiss her. And she knew, looking into his smoldering eyes, that it was what he wanted, too.

But the stewardess came back then, bringing their drinks. Jake didn't completely release her hand but instead placed it firmly on his thigh, pressing it down a little, as if to make sure she would leave her hand there while he was busy with lowering the tray table.

His action was unnecessary because Desi couldn't have moved her hand even under the threat of dismemberment. It felt as if her fingers were glued to his hard thigh by a strong current of electricity and, like someone receiving a tingling shock, she couldn't let go. Not that she wanted to anyway.

Jake handed her drink to her then, and his free hand came down to cover hers on his leg as if he, too, couldn't bear to break contact, even for a minute.

They touched glasses silently, toasting each other with their eyes, and sipped at their drinks. Jake reached up a long arm and switched off the overhead light, banishing their fellow passengers to formless shapes and surrounding the two of them in a cocoon of intimate darkness. With long hard fingers he deftly tore open the small foil package of smoked almonds that the stewardess had left with their drinks and popped one into Desi's mouth. She accepted it greedily, giggling softly from pure giddiness and anticipation.

They huddled together in the soft darkness, speaking of nothing in particular, neither seeming to feel the need, at least not then, to know any more about the other. They whispered and held hands and took turns feeding smoked almonds to each other, one by one, slowly and tantalizingly, filling up the time until they could be alone.

The cabin lights came on unexpectedly, making them blink like two sleepy children, and the stewardess's voice came over the loudspeaker, advising them to extinguish all smoking materials and to fasten their seat belts for the descent into the San Francisco International Airport. Since neither of them had any more than carryon luggage they were able to bypass the sleepy irritable crowds around the baggage-claim carousels and go directly outside to hail a cab.

With a part of her mind Desi registered the looks that they—or, rather, Jake—received but no one came up to ask for his autograph. Maybe they thought it was too late, she speculated idly, or maybe they were warned off by his purposeful stride and the way he looked neither to the left or right but only at her.

"Hungry?" Jake asked as they waited for the cab to pull up to the curb.

Instinctively Desi knew that he was offering her the opportunity, if she wanted one, to leave him without awkwardness, to keep from happening what they both knew was surely going to happen if she went with him. If she said yes, she was hungry, then he would take her somewhere very public for a midnight snack, but if she said no...

Desi didn't even hesitate. The thought of refusing or hedging never even crossed her mind. And if it had, she would have dismissed it without a second thought. She
wanted
what was going to happen, wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything.

"No, I'm not hungry," she said as they settled into the back seat of the cab.

He put his arm around her in the cab, holding her willing body close to his side. But he didn't kiss her, not yet. And she knew, again instinctively and with certainty, he was waiting until they were alone.

It didn't seem at all unusual to her that she should know so surely what he was thinking and feeling but she did. Or, at least, she felt that she did.

She snuggled against him, feeling warm and secure and totally wonderful. She was in no hurry at all at this point, content just to feel his strong arm around her and his hand resting possessively on her shoulder. The subtle spicy scent of his after-shave, the rich aroma of his leather jacket under her cheek, the faint trace of brandy on his warm breath all combined in her mind into one exciting sensation. The essence of man. Jake. Forever after, those smells, separately or together, would invariably remind her of this man and this magical night.

He let go of her briefly to pay the cabbie when they pulled up to the porticoed entrance of the hotel. A bellman snapped to attention when he recognized Jake, hurrying forward to help with the luggage. Jake waved him away with a smile and a brief, "No, thanks, we can manage."

Jake took Desi's hand again, leading her onto the escalator that transported them to the lobby of the hotel. She followed him passively, almost like a sleepwalker, as if her actions were all taking place in a dream, and stood docilely and completely unembarrassed by his side as he checked in. A tiny disinterested part of her mind noticed the looks they were getting—a bellman standing near the escalator who was looking their way, the surprised double takes of some of the hotel's other guests, the desk clerk's knowing smile as she handed Jake his key—but Desi put it down as attention paid solely to Jake Lancing, the actor, and in no way connected with herself.

In a way she was right. Jake Lancing would attract attention wherever he went. He was, after all, an internationally famous, Oscar-winning actor. But she failed to take into account the attraction of her own flaming beauty and, more importantly, the soft love-struck expression on her face as she gazed up at the man at her side.

It was enough to make even the most hardened cynic smile a little to watch them as they walked toward the glass elevator; the tall, strikingly handsome man in tailored tan slacks and a black leather jacket possessively clutching the hand of the slender red-haired woman at his side. A woman who looked fragile and almost childlike in her fashionably funky clothes, with her huge blue eyes fixed firmly on her companion. Romance seemed to spiral around their heads like a beacon, unmistakable to even the most casual observer.