JAKrentz - Uneasy Alliance (20 page)

"Abby, will you stop feeling guilty?" Torr growled gently. "You did nothing wrong. Cynthia is aware of that." He got up and nodded at Ward. "We'll see you for dinner. Seven o'clock?"

"Fine. Laura will be in bed by then."

Torr escorted Abby out of the office before she could think of any further arguments. Actually, she acknowledged wryly, both men were right. There was no reason at all why she shouldn't be looking forward to having dinner with Cynthia and Ward. She'd enjoyed dinner with both of them often enough in the past. So why was she feeling so uncertain and upset about it?

"Are you really that nervous about facing your cousin?" Torr led her to the elevator and down to the parking garage.

"I can't explain it," Abby sighed as she let him stuff her gently into the BMW.

"Can't you?" he asked as he started the car and headed for the exit.

"Will you stop being so cryptic?" she flared, thoroughly annoyed. "What's that supposed to mean? I should think my reasons for being anxious about seeing Cynthia are obvious!"

"You just said you couldn't explain them. How can they be obvious?" Torr paused to pay the parking lot attendant and then pulled out into the stream of traffic.

"You're deliberately trying to bait me," she accused frostily.

Torr shook his head once. "No, I'm only trying to find out something."

"Then ask. Don't use devious tactics."

"Okay, I'll ask. Are you nervous about meeting Cynthia again because mentally and emotionally you're putting yourself in her place? Are you imagining what it would be like if you were Cynthia and were fixing dinner for the woman your husband tried to take to bed a couple of months ago?"

Abby drew in her breath, glaring out the window at the shops and buildings along Fourth Avenue. "Your logic is appalling."

"But is it accurate?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Maybe I'd like to know if the reason you find yourself empathizing with Cynthia is because you've gotten to the point where you might be capable of a little jealousy."

"About who?" she demanded.

"Me?" he suggested hopefully.

She turned to stare at his unreadable profile. Quite suddenly something clicked into place, sliding home in her subconscious like a knife into a sheath. "There would be no need, would there?" she whispered.

"No need?"

"I mean, I might or might not feel jealousy, but there would be no need. Not with you. Not if you had made a commitment."

He shrugged. "Maybe that's how Cynthia feels about Tyson now."

"But in her case there was a…a problem."

"Maybe they used the problem to resolve some things. Important things."

"Perhaps." Abby began to relax a bit at the thought. "Ward certainly seemed committed this afternoon."

"I don't know why you doubt your cousin's trust. You've certainly shown a lot more trust in me than most women would have under the circumstances."

Abby considered that. "And you've done the same with me."

"We'll have to pursue this interesting discussion to its logical conclusion very soon," Torr remarked as he pulled the BMW into the drive of one of the big downtown hotels.

"Why are we stopping here?" Abby glanced around, suddenly aware of their destination.

"Because, while I'm more than willing to meet members of your family, I'm going to want you to myself later." Torr parked the car and opened the door. "I'm going to check in. Be back in a moment."

Abby chewed her lip thoughtfully, watching as Torr disappeared behind the opulent glass doors of the hotel lobby. There was nothing in particular to be said. Later she was going to want him to herself, too.

She might as well face the fact that she had embarked on an affair. An affair with the man she loved. The only question remaining was how did Torr feel about her. Protective? Certainly. Attracted? Definitely. Committed? Possibly. In love?

There was no answer for that one, she realized. She wouldn't know until he said it or until he came close to saying it by asking her to marry him. Torr Latimer had been very badly burned once by marriage. He wasn't likely to risk it so soon again. What in the world was she doing considering marriage to this man? A man she had met only a couple of weeks before. A man who was demonstrating few if any of the characteristics she had once told herself she wanted in a man. Oh, he had started out all right, she thought wryly. Restrained, amenable, polite. But he had certainly shown his true colors this week and they included a tendency to dominate and overwhelm when the occasion arose.

He also had this thing about flowers.

It was the thing about flowers that Cynthia remembered. She opened the door of her Mercer Island home to them and stared straight up at Torr, blue eyes alive with fascination.

"This is the one you met in the class of Japanese flower arrangement?" she demanded of Abby.

"Yes," said Abby with a smile.

"You were right. He is a viable candidate."

Abby went red in a way she hadn't done since childhood. "Cynthia!"

Torr's arm draped heavily around her shoulders as he flashed an exceedingly wicked, rather satisfied grin. "I'm flattered. I had no idea I ranked so high in your estimation. What, precisely, am I a candidate for?"

"Never mind," Abby muttered as she stepped into the spacious hallway and allowed Cynthia to close the door.

"I've been trying to get Abby interested in someone for almost two years," Cynthia said. "Seriously interested. It's been a hopeless task. I had this wonderful vice president in mind. He works for Ward. But I can see now that it won't be necessary to introduce him to Abby."

"Not necessary at all," Torr agreed with a thread of steel in his voice. His grip tightened visibly, although his smile remained bland.

"Dear me, the possessive type." Cynthia chuckled as she led the way into the step-down living room where Ward was fixing drinks at the bar. "I didn't think Abby went for that type. Not since she had a rather nasty experience with someone a couple of years back."

"I'm afraid I haven't given Abby much choice in the matter," Torr confided.

"Can I see Laura?" Abby put in aggressively in a desperate bid to change the topic of conversation.

"This way," Cynthia told her, laughing and leaving Ward and Torr to greet each other.

Abby followed her cousin's blond artfully tousled head as she led the way to the white-and-yellow nursery. Cynthia had already regained much of her formerly excellent figure and there was a healthy glow about her that had been missing during much of her pregnancy. And the affection in her eyes when she smiled at Abby contained all of the familiar sisterly trust and love.

In silence they bent over the tiny shape in the crib. Baby Laura was sleeping peacefully, her little fingers curled beside her cheek. For a long moment Abby simply stared down at the infant, a little in awe of the small life form. There was a strange peace in the shadowy nursery that seemed to sink into Abby. When she glanced up at Cynthia she saw it mirrored in her cousin's smiling eyes. All of a sudden Abby was certain everything was all right between herself and Cynthia.

She was certain of something else, too. Torr had been right this afternoon in the car. She had begun putting herself emotionally in Cynthia's place. For the first time in her life she had known the potential for a woman's jealousy, and the man at its core was Torr Latimer.

Abby didn't kid herself. She knew that what she felt toward Torr was a form of raw possessiveness. She also knew it was illogical. She had no real right to feel that way and if she ever did obtain a genuine commitment from Torr, she would never have to worry about being given a cause for jealousy. The man could be trusted to the ends of the earth. Abby knew that with an instinct that defied description.

But that didn't negate the possessiveness she experienced around Torr. She understood now what the real thing meant. It was not the sick, mindless jealousy she had witnessed in Flynn Randolph. Instead it was a manageable, controlled emotion that was part of her love for Torr. It was all wrapped up with a woman's pride and passion. Perhaps it was the same for a man. A matter of pride and passion and love. Not at all the sick emotion of a Flynn Randolph.

"You look as if you've just had a revelation or two," Cynthia whispered with a smile as they stepped back out into the gray-carpeted hall and headed toward the living room.

"Revelations are notoriously difficult to explain," Abby murmured in response. "But I've had more than one while hanging around Torr Latimer."

"You're in love, aren't you?" Cynthia said with quiet knowledge.

"Does it show?"

"Very plainly to someone who knows you as well as I do. Have you told Torr?"

Abby shook her head. "I think he knows, though." She remembered the previous evening when he had told her he thought she could be controlled through love. He had meant that her love for him made her controllable.

"Take my advice, Abby. Don't ever depend on a man knowing of your love for him. You've got to tell him. They're a little dense in some ways."

"Men?"

"Charming creatures but not always at their brightest in the bedroom."

Abby stared at her cousin and then burst out laughing. After a moment Cynthia joined her, and the last of Abby's reserve vanished forever.

M
uch later
that night Torr held Abby while she shimmered like hot gold in his arms. His raging desire fed on the response he had drawn from her, just as it always did, and even as she cried out his name in the breathless manner he craved, he was following her over the edge of passion and down into the depths of reality.

The pale lights of the city outside the hotel-room window cast magical shadows on the wide, rumpled bed and on the naked body of the woman he held. Her eyes remained closed for a long moment while she recovered her graceful strength and Torr gazed down into her face with a sense of wonder. He had been right when he had speculated that she would be like one of her own floral arrangements in bed. Wild, feminine chaos and excitement. Undisciplined and challenging at the beginning, warm and inviting at the end.

"What are you thinking?" Abby murmured from the curve of his arm.

"That I don't seem to get tired of rearranging you."

"You still think of me as a bunch of flowers?" She giggled, stretching sensuously beside him. Her left breast moved against his bare chest and Torr couldn't resist reaching out to stroke the pink tip.

"A bunch of flowers just waiting for the touch of a master floral designer," he teased, bending over to put his lips to her throat.

"You do seem to be getting awfully skilled at it," she sighed, arching her neck for him. Her honey hair fanned out in abandon on the pillow.

"It's becoming a habit," Torr admitted, finding all the warm, vulnerable places on her throat. The scent of her body in the aftermath of lovemaking was enough to arouse him all over again. "And I think we should discuss the matter."

"The habit?"

"Ummm. Abby, when we go back to Portland, we're not going back to the slow cautious relationship we had there."

He felt her tense at the determination in his voice but he refused to back off. Some things had to be made clear now, tonight.

"What are you suggesting, Torr?"

He shut his eyes, aware of the delicious feel of her fingers in his hair. It was now or never. He'd put it off this long but he couldn't put it off any longer. "I want you to come and live with me, Abby."

As if she had been waiting for another answer, he felt her body stiffen and then go very still beneath him.

"I'll…I'll think about it, Torr."

His fingers tightened on her shoulders as he lifted his head to stare down into her face. "There's nothing to think about," he said, incensed at her hesitancy even though he had half expected it. "You're moving in with me and that's all there is to it."

She stirred beneath him. "This isn't something you can achieve by sheer force of will. I told you I'll think about it."

"It's not as if I'm asking you to marry me," he rasped.

"No, it's not as if you're asking me to marry you."

Torr stared down at her. If his very soul had depended on it, he could not have read her expression in that moment. "When we get back to Portland, I'll be staying with you in any case," he tried to point out logically. "I'll be living with you until this blackmail mess is cleared up."

"Will you?"

"Yes! Abby, we've been living together for the past week, anyway. Why the hell are you acting like this tonight? You want me. I know you want me."

"Yes," she breathed huskily, her nails sliding persuasively around his shoulders. "I want you." She pulled his dark head down to hers, opening her mouth for him in a way that forced him to respond. She was like a handful of flowers. A whole bunch of them. Lush roses, pert daisies, exotic orchids. Torr couldn't resist losing himself in the scent and feel of the petals that beckoned.

Tomorrow, he promised himself as he drank honey from her mouth and ran his hand down her body to find the honey between her thighs. Tomorrow he would make it clear that she had no choice. She was going to come and live with him.