Shattered (30 page)

What's wrong with you? You know what a flirt she is.

He might know, but he didn't have to like it.

He probably would have stayed out there longer if he hadn't spotted a couple of lawyers he knew, walking with their partners up from the golf course, on a rough collision course with the area near the practice range, where he lurked. One thing he knew: He was in no mood to indulge in casual conversation at the moment.

Ducking back inside the tent, pondering the possibility of pleading work or a headache or anything to end the evening before he totally lost his cool, he ran smack into Lisa. From her direction, she must have been coming from the ladies' room. He saw her only at the last minute, just when they were about to bump into each other in the shadowy darkness at the far corner of the tent. To forestall a collision, he caught her upper arms just above the elbows.

"Oh!" It was a little sound of surprise. She looked up at him, her eyes widening as she recognized him. "Scott."

From the corner of his eye, he saw Peyton bearing down on them. That he'd spotted them, and that Lisa was his target, Scott had no doubt.

His hard-won perspective dissipated, just like that.

"Dance with me," he said.

It wasn't a question, and he didn't wait for an answer. Instead he pulled her out onto the floor and into his arms.

22

The truly maddening thing
about it was that in Scott's arms was just exactly where she wanted to be.

They closed hard and strong around her, pulling her against him without giving her a chance to protest. Because he was Scott, she didn't want to. She relaxed in his embrace, her hands flattening on his chest so that she could feel the firm resilience of the muscles there beneath the smooth cotton of his shirt. Having the freedom to touch him like that was a luxury, and she reveled in it. Moving with him, and the music, she enjoyed the solid contours beneath her palms as she breathed in the scent of him: crisp and clean, as though he'd just come in from the outdoors. He was wearing his charcoal suit with a white shirt and pale blue tie, the one that matched his eyes. She'd been thinking all evening how handsome he looked in it, and how consequential. The hunky former farmhand was still hunky but now unmistakably a VIP. Through his clothes she could feel the heat of his body, and it lured her closer. Sliding her hands slowly and with deliberate sensuality up to his shoulders, she curled her arms around his neck and nestled against him, acutely conscious of how unyielding his chest felt against her breasts, experiencing the instant reaction of her nipples to the contact with a stir of pleasure. His hips were so close that she could feel the brush of his lower body against hers; his belt buckle was a small, hard rectangle just above her belly button. His legs felt long and powerful as they moved with hers. The fine wool of his trousers grazed her bare knees and calves.

Her heart was suddenly beating way too fast. Her pulse was tremulous. Her stomach seemed to quiver. Everything about him, from the square angle of his clean-shaven jaw just above her eye level to the breadth of his shoulders to the sturdy warmth of his neck beneath her fingers, appealed to her. She liked the confident way he held her. She liked how big and muscular he felt. She liked that there was no trace of alcohol on the warm breath that just feathered her cheek.

Swaying with him to the slow, throbbing beat of the music, her body started to throb most pleasurably in turn. Smiling slightly, she tilted her head back and opened her eyes to look at him. His face was in shadow because of the ceiling of tiny white lights that twinkled like a thousand stars overhead, but as he met her gaze she could tell one thing for sure: He wasn't smiling back at her.

"Do you deliberately
try
to turn men on?" His low voice had a definite edge to it. "Or is it something you just can't help?"

His tone might be disagreeable, but his body language--the way his head bent close to hers, the possessive splaying of his hands across her back, the intimacy of his movements--told her that he was as much a prey to the heat flaring up between them as she was. The difference was, he was fighting it. As usual.

She gave a little gurgle of laughter. "Wait a minute. Are you
admitting
I'm turning you on?"

"Of course you are. You know it, too. And you're loving every minute of it, aren't you?"

"Maybe. All right, yes, I am loving it. And so are you, underneath all your bullshit. You think I can't tell what you're thinking? I can."

"Baby, if you knew what I was thinking, you'd run for the hills."

Slowly she shook her head. "I wouldn't run."

There was the briefest of pauses. "Now that's a hell of a thing to say to me."

"At least I'm honest about what I want."

Smiling at him, she pressed deliberately closer yet. He hadn't been kidding: The proof of his arousal was right there between them now, impossible to mistake. He knew she felt it: His lips thinned and his jaw tightened even as he slanted a glinting look down at her.

"Just so you know, this isn't going to happen."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, yes, you do. You and me. No way."

She lifted her brows at him teasingly. "You could try relaxing and enjoying it."

"I might--if I wanted to wind up as one more notch on your bedpost."

"Now, that's insulting." Her tone was untroubled rather than angry or reproachful. Her arms tightened around his neck as he swung her around in a movement of the dance. His body was absolutely, unmistakably masculine, and she loved that it was. He was holding her so close to him now that she could feel his body heat radiating through his clothes, feel the slide of his shirt over his skin, feel the rigid length of him pressing solidly against her. Far too close for her to have any doubt that he wanted her badly, although she could also sense resistance in every tense muscle. "I'd be willing to bet anything you like that your bedpost has a lot more notches on it than mine."

Another brief pause. "Touche."

"I thought so."

His arms were taut around her. His hips and thighs molded her own. She could feel the tangible proof of his desire with every move they made. That pleasurable throb inside her turned into something that was hotter and more liquid, and her mouth went suddenly dry. Moistening her lips with her tongue, she met his gaze.

"This is nice, you have to admit."

" ' Nice ' isn't quite the word I'd use." But the sudden huskiness of his voice gave him away. He was as turned on as she was.

"What word would you use, then?"

"Dumb."

"You don't always have to be smart, you know. Or in control." She deliberately stroked the warm, smooth skin at the nape of his neck, her touch light and teasing. His lips firmed. His eyes darkened. His hold on her tightened. He swung her around again, and she clung to him. Her breasts snuggled against his chest. Her hips moved seductively against his. Her thighs pressed his thighs.

Her heart was drumming. Her bones were melting. Deep inside, her body quaked and burned.

"Are you sleeping with Peyton?" The question, growled into her ear, was abrupt, almost angry.

She tilted her head back to look at him. "What do you think?"

His fingers sank deeper into the firm flesh of her back. "I don't know. That's why I'm asking."

His eyes glinted at her, pale and hard as aquamarines. Nearby, other couples danced, some so close that a random wrong step would cause a collision. She got a whiff of some other woman's too-sweet perfume, heard laughter and the murmur of conversation rising and falling beneath the pulsing music, and was glad that they had somehow wound up near the center of the floor because of the relative privacy it afforded them. Even though it was supposed to be air-conditioned, it was too hot in the tent, or at least she was too hot. But probably, she thought, that had more to do with the way Scott was looking at her than the actual temperature.

He was looking at her as though he wanted to take her to bed.

"None of your business," she said sweetly.

His face hardened. "He had his hands all over you tonight."

"
Really
none of your business."

"Damn it, Lisa . . ."

A muffled boom interrupted. The band stopped playing with a flourish. Somebody yelled, "Fireworks!" and everybody stopped dancing and began to move off the dance floor en masse. She and Scott stopped dancing, too, and looked around in some surprise, having been too caught up in each other to pay much attention to anything else. But she made no move to free herself, and he wasn't releasing her.

"Lise, there you are!"

Joel was coming toward them to the accompaniment of another loud boom, threading his way through the crowd that was exiting the tent. As his genial expression turned into a frown, Lisa realized that she was still wrapped in Scott's arms, still pressed up against him as snugly, as if they were glued together, still all gooey and shivery inside from the electricity they had generated together.

Still weak at the knees with wanting him.

She knew instantly when Scott saw Joel. The arms around her hardened to iron. The expression on his face turned ugly.

"Scott, let me go." It was a quiet order, issued as her arms slipped from around his neck. He didn't budge. "Scott."

At that he glanced down at her, then let her go. As his arms dropped, she moved away from him to join Joel. Behind Joel, she saw, came Nola, with Alexis and Ben and Macy and Thornton trailing after.

If there was any kind of scene here--and from the way Scott was looking at Joel, she feared there might be--news of it would fly all over the county within the hour. Not good for any of them, and especially not good for Scott, with the public office he held.

"Come on, we're missing the fireworks." Catching Joel by the arm, she all but dragged him away from Scott toward the outdoors. With a single wide-eyed glance at her, Nola went past them, toward Scott, Lisa thought, but she didn't look around to make sure. Fireworks were exploding over the golf course one after the other now,
boom, boom, boom, BOOM,
flashing lightning bolts of color across the interior of the tent.

"Do you have something going on with that guy?" Disbelief tinged with outrage in his voice, Joel looked at her askance as they emerged into the darkness. A slight breeze had arisen, carrying the scent of gunpowder from the fireworks on it. Despite its acrid smell, she welcomed its cooling breath against her overheated skin.

"No more than I ever did," Lisa said shortly. This was a subject she didn't feel like discussing, not right now, not with Joel. Her fingers dug into his arm through the sleeve of his natty summer suit to hurry him toward where the assembly sat on specially provided blankets or chairs or stood to watch the fireworks. "We've known each other forever. He gave me a job. Right now he's my boss. That pretty much tells the story."

The sound Joel made was practically a snort, and it conveyed a considerable degree of skepticism, but he didn't say anything more, for which Lisa was thankful. She was thankful, too, that Scott, now in Nola's hands, kept his distance. Nola wasn't so reticent, however. When they were all out on the golf course staring up at the bright bursts of pinwheels and rockets and umbrella-like cascades exploding against the black velvet sky, Nola left Scott's side--he stood on the edge of the group, watching the display silently, his hands in his pockets, his profile looking as if it had been carved from stone--and came over to her.

"Sweetie, I'm releasing our friend back into the wild, so if you want to go after him, feel free." Nola was practically whispering in her ear.

"What? Nola . . ."

"You should totally go for it. He couldn't take his eyes off you all night. And that thing you two did on the dance floor--that was hot."

"We
danced.
"

"Uh-huh."

Lisa gave up on trying to act as if she didn't know what Nola was talking about. "Anyway, nothing's going to come of it. I practically invited him to sleep with me, and you know what he said? 'You and me. No way.' "

"Sounds like a bad case of wishful thinking on his part." Nola gave her arm a sympathetic squeeze. "I know what I saw, believe me. That man's got it going on for you big-time."

Suddenly conscious of how many interested parties were standing nearby, Lisa rolled her eyes at her friend but didn't say anything more on the subject, preferring to steer the conversation in a more general direction just in case the multiple explosions overhead weren't ear-splitting enough to cover their voices.

After the fireworks ended in a final Technicolor display that lit up the sky, the party broke up, with each couple going their separate ways and without her saying another word, or so much as exchanging a glance, to Scott. As Joel drove her back to the hotel, Lisa thought of how unlikely it was that she would get any appreciable sleep alone in her hotel room with Katrina in the closet and thoughts of unknown assailants, white SUVs, etc., in her head. Then she thought of a possible remedy for her problem--i.e., not sleeping alone in her hotel room--which would involve having Joel spend the night, which, knowing him, he was already thinking about trying to make happen. Finally she acknowledged something else that she'd known in at least part of her mind for some time: The thought of sleeping with Joel left her cold.

It was never going to happen.

That being the case, it was time and past to face up to it and move on.

Half an hour later, Joel dropped her off at the hospital's well-lit main entrance, roaring away in his Porsche without even waiting to see if she'd made it safely inside.

Grimacing as she looked after the car, Lisa decided she couldn't blame him, especially since he had no idea in the world that she might actually be in any kind of danger. Hurrying inside, glad of the security guard on duty in the lobby and the number of people moving around the halls even though it was nearly one a.m., she slowed her step as she headed for the elevator, then took a deep breath as she joined the few people waiting for one to show up. When an elevator finally came, she rode up to the fourth floor with a janitor pushing a cleaning cart and an elderly couple who giddily announced to both Lisa and the janitor that their granddaughter had just had a baby. Smiling her congratulations at them, Lisa got off the elevator with the intention of telling Robin, who was spending the night in Martha's room, that she would sleep there instead and Martha could go ahead and leave. In the morning, she would take a taxi back to the hotel. She just couldn't face being in that room alone tonight.