Fast Courting (14 page)

“That’s a beautiful thought, Dan, but I can understand your frustration. Were you ever able to get around them?”

She’d never seen so cocky a grin. “Now…what do
you
think?”

“OK,” she smiled, “what did you do?”

“I went back to Salem myself and
bought
them a little ranch-style house in the suburbs. I stood over the workers as they installed ramps. I threw out the old wheelchair and replaced it with a motorized one. And I bought them a van, fully equipped so that they could go wherever they wanted in comfort.”

“That’s great!”

“Yeah,” he drawled grudgingly. “They still bank every blessed cent I send. But at least, when I see something they need, I know how to provide it.”

“You must feel good about that.” She beamed with pride in him.

“I do.” He smiled more gently as he met her gaze. “Now if I could only do something about those grandchildren…”

They had reached her building, taken the elevator to her floor, and now ambled toward her office with shared reluctance. Nia felt that beyond even his patience and sympathy, Daniel had given her a greater gift today. It was a little slice of himself, a slice made all the more precious by the knowledge that very few people had ever received it. She had a friend— a very bright, handsome and sexy one.

With a deep sigh and a thud of resignation she dropped her purse on her chair. At that moment the phone rang, but their good-byes had not yet been said. After that last statement of Daniel’s, a pregnant silence had settled over them. Though not awkward, it spoke of questions unasked, and so unanswered. Now Nia held up her finger to have Daniel wait while she quickly dispensed with the telephone call.

It was, ironically, a call from Thomas Reiss, a Vermont author, an “eligible easterner,” with whom she had had an appointment scheduled for the following week. A conflict had arisen. Could the meeting possibly be rescheduled?

Nia swiveled in her chair to more fully face the wall calendar. A week from the following Tuesday—one day after the Mahoney hearing. Fine. With the proper arrows from the old date to the new, she scrawled the name of Thomas Reiss in the allotted square. With a gracious “Thank you for calling, Mr. Reiss,” she replaced the receiver and turned back to Daniel.

His eyes, however, did not budge from the array of papers and magazines spread randomly over her desktop. Following his gaze, she recalled too late the photocopies of newspaper articles, the books on sports, the self-explanatory magazine issues that, between her early morning jaunt to the library and the good graces of Christopher Daly, she had amassed.

Feeling strangely sheepish, as though she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, she began to explain. “Oh, don’t mind these—” But the words stuck in her throat as Daniel’s gaze met hers. The thunder of the blood suddenly pounding through her veins was nothing compared with the seething fury of his expression.

His jaw was clenched, his entire body rigid. Nia instantly realized his misinterpretation. She knew what was coming. Yet she was frozen by the force of his wrath. Her friend— she was on the verge of losing him!

He spoke with grating slowness, enunciating each word as he coated it with rage. “You’re really going to do it, aren’t you?”

In her fear, Nia hesitated a fraction of a second too long. For, having ground out his bitter message, he turned and was gone from the doorway. Stunned, she couldn’t move. The brightness of her day had fled.

“Go after him, you dope!” Priscilla’s whisper tore Nia from her trance. Their eyes met through the fern as Priscilla repeated her message. “Go on!”

Nia went. Dashing from the office, she was in time to see Daniel rounding the corner at the end of the corridor. “Dan!” she cried, then ran after him as quickly as her high-heeled pumps would allow. She caught up with him near the elevator. “Dan! Don’t go! You’re wrong!”

His gaze clung to the horizontal panel above the elevator doors. “Oh, yes,” he sneered deeply, “I certainly was wrong!”

“It’s not that way, Dan! Let me explain!”

“Oh, you can explain all right. The question is whether I can believe you.”

“You’ve got to! I’m
not
doing the feature on you. Please believe that!”

He stared down at her with the indignance of a man who felt his intelligence had been insulted. “After what I just saw?”

“Yes!” The elevator arrived. Instinctively, she grabbed his arm to stop him from entering it. “Don’t leave yet….”

Her voice was a whisper; her eyes held gentle pleading. Daniel’s gaze shifted from the taut fingers on his arm to the expectant faces in the elevator. He stood immobile for what seemed an eternity of inner agony. Slowly the elevator door slid shut.

“Find a private room,” he growled, taking her arm into his grasp and ushering her back down the corridor, pausing only for her to check several offices that were already occupied.

“There’s a supply room,” she offered in a frantic whisper, fearful that he would change his mind and storm away. “It’s the only thing!”

“Is this it?” he asked, thrusting open one of the few doors Nia hadn’t already tried. It obviously was. Switching on the light, he let her precede him into a small room filled with reams of paper, folders, writing goods, mailing material, and a bevy of other decidedly inanimate objects. That was all he wanted. Privacy.

Turning his back on the door and leaning against it until it shut, he released her arm and crossed his own. “All right, Antonia. Talk.”

Driven by voices of desperation within her, she faced him urgently. “I’m not using you for the feature, Daniel. I’ve already told Bill that!”

“Then why the material on your desk?” he seethed. “It sure as hell looked like you were researching someone to do with basketball. With your supposed aversion to the game—”

“Those
were
about you. I stopped at the library this morning. Chris brought in the magazines. But I wasn’t researching you for my feature.”

“Then why, Nia? Do you take me for an utter fool? I’ve been used by the media before. I thought I’d learned to recognize a con job when I saw it. This one stinks!”

“Bill is already finding a replacement,” she went on, fighting the hurt that burgeoned inside. “I told him I couldn’t use you. I’ve already told you that I didn’t want to do the feature. Why won’t you believe me?”

He stood like a clay giant, rigid and cynical. “You haven’t yet given me any credible explanation for that stuff on your desk. If you’re not doing the article on me, why the research?”

Nia wanted him to know the truth, but she didn’t quite understand it herself. “I wanted to learn about you, Daniel. What more can I say?”

Pushing himself away from the door, he stalked her. She half-leaned, half-sat against a typing table, her hands white-knuckled around its edge. “You can tell me
why
, Nia!” he growled. “And don’t give me that nonsense about innate curiosity and my refusing to tell you anything. You were certainly very successful today. You got what you wanted, didn’t you?”

Pride kept her afloat before him. “Yes, damn it! You finally talked. You finally gave me a glimpse of the man behind the mask. I’m not sorry, Daniel!”

His initial anger had been gradually replaced with a fierceness that hinted at a far deeper emotion than fear of betrayal. Taking her shoulders in his hands, he brought her closer to him. “Now…what are you going to do with that information? That’s what I’d like to know.”

To her chagrin, her eyes filled with tears. “I’m going to use it to understand you, to appreciate you, to try to get to know you better.”

“But why, damn it?
Why?”

“I don’t know!” she cried back, exasperated with her own inability to understand. “I just don’t know! You keep asking questions I can’t answer! Maybe that’s what I like about you, masochist that I am. You make me face things that I’ve refused to face. Through your eyes, I see things differently. As I talk with you, things become clearer.” A solitary tear escaped to roll slowly over her cheekbone and her body trembled with emotion. His face had long since blurred in her fluid violet gaze, and she continued to lash out, ignorant of his softening. She had become a victim of emotion—an emotion she refused to face. “I didn’t ask for you, damn it! And I don’t know why I let you get to me this way! I sometimes wish I could scratch you out of my life the way I scratched you out of that feature story.
That
was the easy part!”

Breathless, she paused and slowly bowed her head. When she spoke again her own anger had been spent. Her voice was no more than a poignant whisper. “Go now, Dan. I just wanted you to know that I hadn’t betrayed you. I…like you. Having met you and spent time with you has meant a lot to me. I’m sorry if I’ve caused your anger….” Her words trailed off seconds before Daniel gently drew her against him. The hands that had so fiercely gripped her shoulders now crept around her back and pressed her into his warmth.

A low groan was the only sound that escaped his lips during those first few seconds. “Oh, Nia,” he caressed her softly, “the anger you cause me has to do only with that hard head of yours. If only you had told me all of this sooner.”

“Sooner?” she cried, pulling abruptly away from him. “Sooner? My God, I met you three days ago.
Three days ago!
And I don’t understand any of it! I don’t know why I rush home to see you give an inane interview. I don’t know why I spend my time wondering whether you’re going to call. And I don’t know why the devil I’m standing here telling you all this!”

She would have turned and fled had Daniel’s full smile not stopped her. As it always did, it reached into her, drawing her nearer. “Confession is good for the soul,” he growled, but in pleasure this time, as he enveloped her once more in the circle of his arms.

Unable to help herself, Nia buried her face deeper against him. “Oh, Daniel, why do you have this power over me?”

He forced a finger beneath her chin to tip her face back. “The power isn’t one-sided, babe. I’m not exactly immune to you, either.”

With that he kissed her. His lips offered the apology he felt, as hers returned the words in silence. Though Nia wasn’t quite sure of the limits of her feelings, she knew that Daniel’s good will and affection meant more to her right now than just about anything else, especially her immediate surroundings.

“Ooops…excuse me,” a soft voice broke in, then was gone.

Tearing his lips from the honeyed softness of hers, Daniel chuckled against her hair. “I think that was a hint. You’d better get back to work.”

“Mmmmm. Just a minute longer,” she whispered, too needful of the reassurance of his heartbeat to move. “If it takes the claustrophobic madness of a supply closet to control you for a minute, I’m not letting go so quick!” It was a mutual holding, with Daniel gently stroking her hair.

“I’ve got a game tonight, Nia. Can we spend tomorrow together?”

In response to the urgency in his tone, she looked up. “I’d like that,” she answered, knowing it was crazy to want to see him, but helpless to resist, then angry at that helplessness. But he was forceful, melting her anger with the warmth of his gaze. She blotted the last of the moisture from her eyes. “I must look awful.”

“You look lovely,” he crooned with a catch in his voice as he framed her face and kissed her a final time. “Brunch tomorrow—around eleven?”

“No practice?”

“Not until two. If you can find something to occupy you during the afternoon, we can even do something at night.”

“Is the practice an open one?” she asked tentatively.

“Yes….” he answered.

“Could I watch?”

“You’d want to do that?” He seemed pleased, and that, in turn, bolstered her.

“I might…if you behave yourself during brunch.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” he goaded playfully.

Her smile faded into an expression that was soft, yet serious. “It means that I don’t want to hear any more talk about my writing that article. I’m not doing it! That’s a vow! Will you try to trust me?”

The vulnerability she saw when she looked at him blended with his vibrant masculinity to evoke a tugging sensation from deep within her. He held her gaze with magical intensity. For a fleeting instant she wondered whether he had trusted her all along, whether he had goaded her moments earlier because of an inner need in him that was yet to be revealed to her. But then he smiled.

“I think I can do that, babe. If you’ll promise to wear old clothes to the practice.”

“Old clothes?”

“That’s what I said.”

“But…why?”

“I don’t think I can take another round with that lace-necked sweater of yours.” He referred to her outfit of that first day; even she had realized that it was out of place. “It’s far too distracting.” His hands fell from her shoulders to her waist, his thumbs very deliberately brushing the swell of her breasts in the process. “I won’t have my team drooling over you. You can save the sexy stuff for me alone. I guarantee you I’ll appreciate it.”

“Is that a threat?” She grinned, her ego very pleasantly inflated.

“You bet it is,” he rasped. “Now let’s get out of here before I decide to give you a demonstration….”

N
ia hadn’t felt so happy in years. She knew it was dumb, that their relationship could go nowhere, yet the knowledge that she’d be seeing Daniel the following day excited her. Her face had a special glow that even the thought of the Mahoney suit could not dull.

In the course of the afternoon—or what was left of it after Daniel left and she had settled back in at her desk—she tackled the usual stream of problems with unlimited patience. Only Priscilla guessed the cause of her newfound lightheartedness, but she said a very diplomatic nothing.

Fate, in the form of a long-standing dinner-and-theater date, precluded any possibility of Nia’s watching the game that night. It wasn’t until well after the final bell that she bid Barry Riccardi a platonic goodbye on the front porch of her house, then let herself in with a secret smile on her face. It had been a pleasant evening. Barry was a friend, an accountant, a lover of the theater. Yet her thoughts were on the next day.

For over an hour she lay in bed in the dark, eyes open wide. Conjuring up images of Daniel, she wondered why destiny had thrown them together in such a surprisingly short time. Given her past, he was the
last
man she should have found attractive. But the past
was
past. For the first time, she truly believed it. Had it taken a man like Daniel to exorcise the ghosts? Even the thought of his game was far less odious now.

Ironically, it was precisely that game that she counted on to be her safeguard. It would prohibit the kind of deep involvement she and David had originally thought they could capture and keep. Her relationship with Daniel would be more carefree, more casual, more tentative—and free of all confinement. Daniel would race off on his road trips; she accepted that fully. Indeed, there were no strings whatsoever attached to their friendship. Hadn’t she just spent the evening with another man? Granted, she mused, she had refused his offer of a movie date for two weeks hence, but she would surely see him again at some future time.

On an uncharacteristic whim she jumped out of bed and drew a long, hot, bubble-filled bath. It tingled her skin when she first stepped in, its heat sending goose bumps over her. Sinking deeper, she rested her head against the tub’s rim and closed her eyes.

It
had
been good talking with him today. There had been the reassurance of discussing a problem with a friend and receiving levelheaded encouragement in turn. Had she missed this over the years? Yet she had never thought of herself as a dependent person. On the contrary, willfulness had been more her style. Why, then, was the comfort of knowing Daniel so welcome?

With a hum and a smile amid the wafting steam, Nia pushed all such questions from her mind. The fact remained that he
had
come when she’d needed him and that she
had
appreciated his support. What would happen the next day …would happen.

The next day…the doorbell rang at ten, a full hour earlier than she had anticipated. Nia was in her robe, reading the newspaper over a final cup of coffee at the tall breakfast bar in the kitchen. A frown creased her sleep-rested features as she went to the front window overlooking the street. A sleek maroon Datsun. How could he do this to her?

“You’re early,” she exclaimed as she opened the door with an embarrassed grimace. “You said eleven. I just woke up. I haven’t showered or dressed.”

“So I can see.” Daniel smiled, looking her over with enjoyment. “May I come in anyway?”

Nodding, she stepped aside, feeling very self-conscious and just a little naughty as she led the way back upstairs. “Would you like some coffee? You can read the paper while I dress,” she called over her shoulder as she sought the sanctity of the kitchen to compose herself.

But Daniel was close behind her, taking in her own half-finished coffee and the open newspaper in a glance. “So this is how you nine-to-five types spend your Saturday mornings?” he teased. At this hour his voice had a deep huskiness that somehow made her all the more aware of her state of undress. Tugging her robe more snugly around her, she mustered a spirited response.

“If I was a nine-to-five type I would spend every morning this way. As it is, I only have the paper delivered on weekends because there isn’t enough time during the week to read it and still be in the office by eight-thirty. And, for your information, I rarely leave the office before six or six-thirty. So much for your nine-to-five types!”

He looked unfairly handsome in what seemed to be his uniform—slacks, a blazer and, this morning, an open-necked shirt. There was nothing sleep-mussed or windblown about him.

“I don’t know, Nia.” He shook his head playfully. “With those long lunch hours you people take…”

“You were the one who dragged me out to lunch!” she laughed back. “I would have sat at my desk through it all.”

“Yeah—you would have brooded there by yourself all afternoon if I hadn’t come along.”

A deep sigh drew her momentarily straighter. “You’re right about that, Dan. I really felt better. Thanks.”

Stepping closer before she could anticipate the move, he took her face in his hands. “It was my pleasure,” he murmured against her lips, then took them in a gently awakening kiss, the likes of which she would have loved to arise to each and every morning. Like the very first cup of coffee, it was just what she needed to set her senses astir for the day. And, like that very first cup of coffee, rich and robust and hitting the spot, the leisure of the weekend demanded a second.

Nia wound her arms about his neck and leaned more closely against him, offering her lips for the taking. He savored her slowly, draining the warmth of her mouth before nibbling his way down her neck.

“You smell so good.” His lips moved against her skin. “Why is that?”

She tilted her head to allow him freer access to the base of her neck and the hollow of her throat. “Lemon-scented bath bubbles,” she whispered. “I…couldn’t fall asleep last night…” she gasped as his lips moved lower, “…so I took a long and slightly…indecent…bath….”

Daniel had inched his way back to the bar stool and now lounged against it, his legs outstretched on either side of her. His lips did erotic things to her throat as her fingers clutched his shoulders for balance. She felt strangely dizzy.

“Daniel…I’d better…get dressed….”

“Indulge me a minute.” He spoke thickly, raising his eyes to meet hers for an instant. “You have to admit…I’ve been very…good…so far. Trust me….”

“I do,” she whispered, and he kissed her again, silencing her as his hands gently opened her robe and crept within to touch the silky softness of her body through its sheer, pale gown.

“Do you know that you’re beautiful?” he gasped. “Beautiful and sexy?”

“Funny,” she moaned in response to the fingers that traced every curve with maddening slowness, “
I
think
you
are.”

“Beautiful?”

“
And
sexy.”

“And how would you know that?” he moaned hoarsely, his breath warm against the upper swell of her breast. “You’ve never seen me undressed.”

Nia clung to his head for support—or was she simply urging him closer? “I don’t need to see you undressed to know you’re sexy,” she chided him, her uneven breathing a sign of the heat he’d loosed within her. “Besides, you’ve got…great…hands. They’re sexy….”

Those hands began to touch her in earnest, bringing soft whimpers from the back of her throat. “It’s where they touch you that’s sexy,” Dan managed to argue. “Your breasts…” His hands cupped them through their silken covering, holding their full weight in his palms as his fingers found each crested tip. “Your hips…” His hands fell lower, tracing the cinch of her waist and flaring slightly with her hips before moving behind to the small of her back and pressing her uncompromisingly against him.

“This is…getting…out of hand…” she cried, finding herself wanting him to touch her even more intimately.

“Trust me …trust me, babe….” His pleading scratch of a voice was muffled against her skin. “I just need to feel you….”

Her robe slithered to the floor without her even knowing. She was too obsessed by the long, strong fingers, less steady now as they slid beneath the straps of her nightgown and eased its bodice down. Without the support of his steel-banded thighs she might have fallen. But she wanted everything he did to her—her eyes told him so when he looked up in a fleeting question.

She was nude to the waist now, her hands still clutching his shoulders. She watched him as he looked at her, at her body, not touching, simply admiring. Biting her lip, she stifled the plea for his touch, much as she craved it. There was an odd pleasure in watching him watching her, seeing his appreciation of her softly curving femininity in his eyes. He made her feel like an alabaster goddess, worshipping her silently as though almost afraid to touch….

“Aren’t you going to… ?” she finally whispered, driven by wild fires within.

His tone was choked. “Yes, babe, in time….”

The labored rise and fall of her breasts grew more so when he finally lifted his hands, open palmed, to brush against the rock tautness of her nipples. She trembled and sighed, digging her fingers into the thickness of his hair, following it as it tapered to his nape.

“Daniel …Daniel…” she half-chided, groaning as he eased the clinging fabric of her nightgown past her navel. His fingers were feather light, sending chills of arousal through her, discovering her flesh inch by precious inch. “Daniel!” she cried, suddenly frightened by the force of her desire, “please…stop for me…I can’t …I can’t think….”

As he retraced her body upward, her nakedness flamed for him. “It’s happened too fast,” he whispered, then pulled her against him and held her trembling body so tightly that the intrusive rigidity of his buttons kept her sane.

“I’m not sure I want this,” she breathed unevenly, letting her own hands fall to rest on the muscular firmness of his thighs. No, she realized, she didn’t want
this
. She wanted him naked, as she nearly was. She wanted to touch every warm inch of him. She wanted to know the beauty of him in the most intimate way. But, of course, she couldn’t tell him
that!
Wasn’t this to be a casual relationship? Deep physical involvement would spoil all that!

Sensing her fear and feeling some of his own, Daniel slowly held her away from him to replace the nightgown he had so sensually lowered. His jaw was tight with restraint when he stood, set her firmly on her own feet, and stooped to retrieve her robe. It could have been a lush mink coat for the care he took in draping it over her shoulders. Then he bent forward, smoothed the hair from her neck, and put his lips lightly there.

“Go on and get dressed, babe,” he mumbled, tonguing her skin in a final erotic way. “There’s no rush.”

A long, long shower was in order—first cool, then hot—as she pondered his words. As was often the case, she wondered about the double meaning. Was there no rush for brunch—or no rush for lovemaking? In any case, she did take her time, needing the calming period of solitude. She emerged at last feeling pleased, if in a less physical way than when she had fled his arms.

“All set?” he asked, then widened those deep brown eyes of his. “You look great!” His voice was steady and innocently enthusiastic. After draining the last of the coffee to which he’d helped himself during her absence, he carefully folded the newspaper and put it neatly on the counter.

Nia eyed him through her thick dark lashes. “Will I do—for brunch
and
practice?” Much thought had gone into her selection of plum-hued gabardine slacks, a pink blouse and matching sweater.

“You’re still up for going?” he asked, giving her a final out.

“Sure! I’m looking forward to it!” And, oddly, she was.

“You know…” his voice was lower, “…I almost believe you.”

“Daniel,” she sighed, “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.”

“I’m counting on that, babe. I’m counting on that.” With a deep breath, he recovered the initiative. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Brunch was, as she had expected and could appreciate, with the day before’s lunch experience under her belt, at a small, very private, quaintly elegant spot in North Cambridge, an easy drive from her house. Daniel managed to go unnoticed by everyone except Nia, whose body simply wouldn’t let her forget the lingering sweetness of his touch.

Things were not much better at the practice—but, to her utter astonishment, she loved every minute of it. Every word that Daniel had spoken to her about basketball in the course of their conversations came back to add to her appreciation. The names of the players now had a familiar ring to them—Flagg, Rockowski, Fitzgerald, Jones, Watts, Barnes, Washington. Walker was still out, standing restlessly by the bench, obviously tormented at not being able to play. Other players—backups— were unidentifiable to her; she made a mental note to ask Daniel about them later.

Daniel himself was wearing the team warm-ups, looking handsome as all get-out as he tried to ignore the fact that his very private audience was slouched in her seat, trying her best to look invisible in the fourteenth row up, third seat over, center left.

Nia watched as he directed the practice, calling the plays in that deep timbre she’d come to know so well. She watched as he rounded the players in, demonstrated one point or another, even lashed out with vehemence at the continued mishandling of a particular play. She watched as he turned and conferred with his assistants, then took several minutes out to talk with a gentleman who sat in the shadows several rows up in the stands opposite Nia. Harlan McKay? Again she made a note to ask.

Almost against her will, she found something breathtaking about the demonstration of physical magic on the court. It was at the odd moments—in between practiced plays—that the best occurred, those moments when an individual player would seem to tune out the rest of the world and take off for an intimate rendezvous with the ball.

There was an exquisite rhythm to it, a sense of oneness. Hand and ball were kin, in utter understanding, almost as if connected by a transparent tendon that stretched and retracted in loving communion. At times it seemed that the ball never quite settled down, never quite left the hand, yet wove in and out of endless legs that walked, jogged and ran in succession. It was a dance, a choreographed display of starting, stopping, spinning, darting, slicing fluidly around an imaginary obstacle until, at last, in a soaring thrust, the ball was up and in.