Silver Miracles (8 page)

Trinity swallowed hard. She had one more question. "No sex?"

"No sex," he agreed, maybe a little too easily. "But don’t expect me to resist kissing you."

#

And so it started—their dating. To say it was an interesting experience would have been grossly to understate the case. Chase exhibited a restless energy, leading Trinity through some of Dallas’s most expensive restaurants, finest homes and elegant clubs with a flattering attentiveness. He had been born into the exclusive world of the highly privileged, and he took it for granted.

And yet, knowing Chase as she now did, Trinity sometimes sensed that this was not the type of life Chase really wanted. She couldn’t help but feel that if one dug far enough beneath the hardness of the man, one would find a core of sadness, perhaps even emptiness.

One night after dinner, he took her to his penthouse apartment and watched her reaction to the hopelessly modern decor of the place with quiet amusement.

The apartment sprawled across the top of one of Dallas’s newest luxury condominium complexes. Thick white carpet swept toward walls of tinted glass. Ultra-contemporary pieces of smoked glass and shining chrome accentuated the clean lines of the white custom-designed couches. The room had a stark beauty that was set off by a profusion of white candles and a melange of bronze sculptures, and the neutral-colored walls provided a backdrop for the artful splashes of color in the many paintings hanging around the room.

To Trinity’s surprise, she liked it. A child couldn’t be raised with any sort of freedom in an environment like this. For that matter, she wouldn’t want to live here, either. But the room was tastefully done, and it suited what she knew about Chase, reflecting a controlled sophistication, an elegant austerity.

But his bedroom was surely the highlight—and the revelation—of the tour. The room was dominated by a massive bed set high up on a platform, with steps leading up to it. The bed was covered with a rich, soft gray suede, and the headboard was nothing but pillows—pillows piled upon more pillows, dozens of pillows in assorted sizes, shapes and hard, bold colors of vivid blues, bright reds and hot corals.

The crowning touch of the room was the large mirror on the ceiling, perfectly centered over the bed. Trinity walked around the bed, viewing the mirror from different angles. Finally, she turned to Chase, with a smile tugging at her full lips. "How do you clean it?"

His laughter, a low, throaty sound, roared around the room, making Trinity’s heart beat faster. Chase laughed so rarely that, when he did, it was a treasure to be stored up and cherished.

Pulling her into his arms, he looked down at her. "No one but you, Trinity Ann Warrenton, would think to ask a question like that."

"But it’s a very practical consideration."

"My cleaning service," he assured her, "must have no trouble cleaning it, because I’ve never heard a word about it."

"Cleaning service? You call the people that clean your apartment a ‘cleaning service’? Chase, how impersonal! You don’t even know the names of the people who clean your apartment. At least if you had a maid, you might just know her name. You know, perhaps you might have come upon her one day and asked—"

"Shut up, Trinity!" Chase advised pleasantly. Picking her up and holding her close, he fell back on the bed, and Trinity landed with a soft bounce beside him.

"What are you doing?"

"I’m about to show you, my wild, beautiful creature, the advantages of having a mirror on the ceiling," he enlightened her, lowering his lips to hers and softly rubbing them back and forth, until she had to reach up and hold his head still, pressing her lips to his in a long, deep kiss that made slow heat seep through her body, right down to her toes.

Chase unbuttoned her blouse and took it off, and Trinity didn’t protest. He ran the palm of his hand across the tips of her nipples until they stood upright and tight, actually throbbing for the moist encasement of his mouth.

But it never happened. Instead, without ever taking his eyes from hers, he unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged out of it. Then, ever so gently, he covered her with his half-naked body. The fine curling hair of his chest was a sensual abrasion against the swollen sensitivity of her breasts, and, supporting himself on his forearms, he began rocking against her.

Trinity moaned in helpless pleasure as the hard lower portion of his body ground against her at the same time that the upper half of his body barely grazed the tenderness of her skin, teasing her to a new plateau of passionate desire.

Hearing low murmuring sounds coming from deep in her throat, Trinity realized that she was arching under Chase in a provocative invitation that she had to stop.

"Chase . . . no . . ."

He moved off of her but kept his hand on her breast, gently caressing it. "Look up at the ceiling," he commanded softly. "Can you see the way my hand strokes you, the way your body strains toward mine?"

In spite of herself, Trinity’s eyes were drawn to the mirror above them, and she was captured by the erotic image the two of them made. She could see that Chase’s eyes were on her, watching her reactions. He was propped up on one elbow, one leg thrown across hers, his body nestled into the side of her.

"Do you see the way my fingers trail over your skin and up onto your breast?" His voice reached out, velvet-soft and seductively low, flowing fluidly over her. "Can you feel my touch in the pit of your stomach at the same time that you see my hand on you?"

"Chase . . ." Trinity gasped, meaning to sound a protest, but instead hearing his name come out as an aching whisper.

"I can actually feel your body quivering under my hand, Trinity. Your body responds to mine as it does to no other. Admit it."

"No," Trinity moaned.

He continued, working insidiously on her mind. "Think how we would look completely naked, the beauty of your soft body against the hardness of mine. . . . Imagine how my back would look, tensed and ready, right before I plunged into you. . . . Think how my hips would look as I moved in and out of—"

"Chase . . . don’t."

He was rolling her nipple between his thumb and two of his fingers, making her nearly crazy with a need that was becoming almost impossible to deny.

"It would be a slow motion at first, until you begged—"

"Stop it!" she cried.

"And then the movements would be very fast . . . up and down, around, in and out."

Trinity’s breath was coming in great hurtful gasps, yet she couldn’t seem to take her eyes from the mirror that so perfectly reflected back their images.

He persisted. "Can you see it, can you feel it?"

Of course she could feel it. Of course she could see it, and she knew with a great certainty that she couldn’t take much more!

The shrill ring of the telephone in another part of the apartment proved to be the distraction and the opportunity Trinity needed. She rolled out from under him and grabbed for her blouse. Holding it against herself, she gasped, "What are you trying to do to me?"

Chase sat up and reached calmly for his shirt. "The same thing you’re doing to me. Turn you inside out with wanting."

"You promised—"

"I didn’t promise anything," he retorted very definitely. The ice was back in his eyes, and the sharpness of his voice cut her like a newly sharpened knife. "What I said was that I wouldn’t try to pressure you into my bed, at least for a while." He stood up, shrugging into his shirt. "And I haven’t."

"What do you call what just happened then?"

"I didn’t ask you to let me make love to you, did I?" His tone was neutral, almost indifferent.

"You didn’t have to, Chase. The way the velvet strokes of your words paint erotic pictures in my mind is more than adequate to set my imagination on fire. It will be a long time before you get me alone again."

He gave her a lazy half-smile, a glint of humor sparkling in his eyes. "Fine. If you insist, I’ll take you to dinner in a crowd."

Which is exactly what he did the next weekend.

#

The trip into Dallas was made in the surprising luxury of the sleek jet helicopter that Chase used for transportation as casually as Trinity used her car.

Since Chase was piloting. Trinity sat up front in the cockpit with him, watching while he flew the helicopter with the same sureness and expertise as he had driven the Lamborghini. It was so quiet in the cabin that they could talk to each other in a normal voice, without shouting or using headphones. That shattered a misconception Trinity had had concerning helicopters. But then again, she knew this was no ordinary helicopter.

From the minute she had climbed the steps and set foot onto the plush carpeting, Trinity knew she was entering a world of power and wealth, where minimized travel time, combined with the utmost luxury and comfort, were all-important and money was no object.

Behind the cockpit, five seats covered in a soft burgundy leather faced one another in a club seating arrangement. The cabin featured the most up to date electronic and communication abilities, individual environmental control vents, custom cabinetry, along with fluorescent cabin lighting and large tinted glass windows—everything that money could buy for passenger comfort and convenience.

Cruising at 150 mph, they reached Love Field in forty-five minutes. "This sure beats fighting the traffic," Chase said as they landed, and Trinity had to agree with him.

Getting into a blue Cadillac that had been parked at the airport waiting for them, they drove to Texas Stadium to a specially roped-off parking area. There Chase presented a card to a uniformed attendant that allowed them to park only a short distance from the entrance. An escalator carried them high into the stadium, to the first level of the Circle Suites.

A long carpeted hallway fed the suites, and, even though the game had started, there were still people milling in and out of the different rooms. A few called hellos to Chase, but he more or less ignored them, briskly nodding his head and leading Trinity to a numbered door.

The Circle Suite he ushered her into was long and narrow and on two levels. The step-down level by the window had chairs lined along its length for viewing the game. The upper level was wider, with a fully stocked bar and several couches and chairs. In the middle sat an impeccably laid linen-covered table, awaiting their dining pleasure.

The lights in the suite were dim, but Trinity’s eyes were drawn to the immense sheet of glass covering the wide opening that looked down upon the playing field. Trinity knew that there were no glass windows in the other suites, and she had to laugh. "I believe Larry was right. You have out-Texaned the Texans. How did you ever purchase one of these suites, and on the forty-yard line, too?"

"Why, Trinity," Chase mocked. "Didn’t you know that with enough money and enough know-how, a person could own the world? Obtaining a Circle Suite was no problem, I assure you."

"No problem! I understand that these go for millions—that is, if you’re lucky enough even to get the chance to buy one. They’re a very big status symbol."

His mouth quirked with humor. "And yet, somehow, I doubt very seriously if you’re impressed."

"Is that why you brought me here? To impress me?"

"Perhaps," Chase answered her, noncommittally.

He was wearing loden-green wool slacks under a handsome herringbone sports jacket with a light turtleneck sweater. It just wasn’t fair! The man was, quite simply, devastatingly sexy. During the day, she could laugh at Chase’s blatant tactics, but at night, after he had dropped her off at her house, she frequently cried at the way her body ached for him. Trinity mentally shook off the disturbing thought.

Below them, a kaleidoscope of moving colors and a cacophony of roaring sounds swirled their way around the oval-shaped stadium and pulsated into the suite through speakers that had been set into the wall.

"Why did you put up a window of glass? No one else has."

Chase walked over to a control panel and flipped two switches. The sound was abruptly cut off. "I like my privacy."

So that night, with candles flickering intimately and soft music playing suggestively, they ate dinner amid sixty-five thousand screaming people— in total isolation.

#

The day glowed crisp and golden, and Trinity was making a halfhearted attempt to rake the front lawn clear of the newly fallen leaves. She much preferred to leave the beautiful autumn hues that nature had so wisely furnished, exactly where they had fallen. However, Tray was spending the afternoon with her and Stephanie, and she was raking the leaves into piles for them.

"Okay, who’s next?" Trinity looked around and found Tray barreling across the yard, making a real effort to land precisely, smack, in the middle of the pile of leaves. Stephanie followed, and soon both kids were rolling through the leaves, screaming with delight.

"You’re a good mother."

The quietly spoken comment came from directly in back of her, and Trinity let out a yelp, turning instinctively toward whoever had spoken.

"Chase! Good heavens, you startled me."

"I didn’t mean to be furtive." His smile was warm. "I was just enjoying watching you with the kids."

"I didn’t hear the car. Where did you come from?"

"I ran over from my place."

"Ran!" She laughed. "You mean you used your own two feet! What happened? Did the Lamborghini break down? Or did the Lincoln run out of gas? Damn! I guess the Cadillac is still in Dallas, isn’t it, but you could have flown over in the helicopter, you know."

"Trinity," Chase warned. "Don’t start."

"Well, really, Chase," she reasoned, "you could have gotten here in about a minute. Think of the time it would have saved."

"Okay, okay. Point taken." He grinned. "You think I overdo it when it comes to transportation, obviously. But my way is fast and safe, and it sure does beat that wreck you drive."

Trinity couldn’t dispute that point, because it was absolutely true. But her car was paid for, and she couldn’t afford a new one. Besides, it was too glorious a day to argue—about anything.