Keeping Company (15 page)

While he plundered her mouth, she explored his body. Her fingertips traced over the ridges of his chest, testing the softness of the dark curls there, then following the line of hair to the silky patch that spread across his quivering belly. Without the slightest hesitation her hand slid lower, popping open the button on his jeans and tugging down the zipper that was strained by the evidence of his passion. A groan of carnal satisfaction rolled up from deep in his chest as her fingers slipped his briefs down and closed gently around his shaft. He was hot and full in her hand, throbbing with a
need that echoed in her own body, a need that cried out in them both as they stroked each other.

Dylan pulled away from her for just a moment, just long enough to shed the last of his clothes. When he returned, there was nothing between them but desire. Alaina offered herself to him, offered her love, though the words never passed her lips. Dylan hadn’t asked for love from her, but she would give it now, silently, because her heart was overflowing with it.

She took him into her body, a soft moan parting her lips as he entered her and sank as deep as he could. Dylan braced himself above her, watching her face as the tightness of her rippled around him, adjusting to his intrusion. She was like hot silk embracing the most masculine part of him. Then her legs were embracing him as well, winding around him as he had dreamed they would, smooth and strong around his lean hips.

He raised one hand to touch her cheek, to brush his thumb across her swollen lower lip, to caress the tip of her dusky nipple that was still wet from his mouth. He drew his hand lower, over the downy softness of her belly to the tangle of dark
curls at the juncture of her thighs, and he touched her as he had before—his thumb seeking out the hidden bud. As he caressed her she moved restlessly beneath him and around him.

The only word spoken was his name, whispered softly when Alaina opened her eyes and reached up to him. Dylan lowered himself into her arms, and she held him for a long moment before passion swept them both into a whirlwind.

They moved frantically then, reaching for something they both knew instinctively had been beyond their grasp before. Dylan’s movements were strong and rhythmic. He drove deep, trying to give Alaina all the pleasure he could. Alaina clutched at him, lifting her hips into his, digging her fingernails into the straining muscles of his back. They rolled across the bed, tangling in the coverlet. Pillows flew in every direction. The bed creaked beneath them as they sought leverage and angles that rewarded them with sensations unlike any they’d ever known.

So this was what it was like, Alaina thought dimly as the pleasure crested on a wave that took her breath away and filled her with rapture. This
was what it was like to make love. This was what it was like to be in love.

It was an emotion she had doubted and derided, feared in a way because it had never really touched her life. It was touching her life now. For one brilliant moment she knew a completion of body and soul that transcended words. As Dylan groaned and stiffened against her, finding his own release, Alaina held him and wondered how she had managed to live this long without him.

And when he left her body, the cold emptiness that filled her made her wonder how she would live beyond this moment.

She was in love with Dylan Harrison, but that had definitely
not
been part of the deal.

“The deal is off,” Alaina said decisively. “I think you’ll have to agree with me when I say it simply isn’t working out. Eventually our friends will see through the ruse, and we’ll have to deal with them. I see no point in delaying the inevitable, do you?”

Her reflection didn’t answer her. She stared at herself in the mirror above the sink in her tiny office bathroom, imagining Dylan nodding in agreement, looking grave but sensible.

“Of course he’ll agree,” she muttered as she leaned toward the mirror, studying her hair with a critical eye. She reached up and yanked out a gray
one. “Just because we had fantastic sex doesn’t mean he’ll be blind to reason.”

Her fingers sought out another silver thread among the brown and snatched it out with a practiced flick of the wrist.

Butterflies executed a wild barrel roll in her stomach. She hoped to God Dylan would see reason. After he’d gone home she had sat up in bed most of the night thinking and had come to the conclusion that she didn’t want to keep up the pretense of feeling nothing for him when she was feeling something very special and he was not.

For a few moments she had allowed herself the luxury of thinking it might work out between them. She had pictured herself as Dylan’s wife, as the mother of his children. In this picture they had been a happy, loving family. It was a nice picture, one she yearned for and feared to reach out for all at once.

“Too good to be true, that’s what it is,” she muttered, fighting down the ache of tears in her throat.

She had been a fool to let her feelings run away with her the way they had. Really, she couldn’t
quite understand what had gone wrong. Her emotions never ran as close to the surface as they had yesterday. It wasn’t at all normal for her to go around openly yearning for a husband and children. In fact, she seldom allowed herself to think such thoughts at all.

“Must be PMS,” she grumbled, pulling out another gray hair.

It wasn’t prudent for her to be in love with Dylan Harrison, so she just wouldn’t be. Simple. All she had to do was call him and tell him the deal was off.

“No sweat,” she said, sounding far more certain than she felt. “I got an A-plus in confrontation.”

A sharp knock sounded on the door, and it was pulled open before Alaina had a chance to say anything. Marlene filled the doorway, half-glasses sliding down her nose, a load of mail and paperwork cradled on one flabby arm. “Quit pulling out the gray ones, you’ll go bald.”

Alaina planted her hands on her hips, outraged at the intrusion and embarrassed at being caught. “Is no part of my life private from you, Marlene?”

“I doubt it. I’m clairvoyant, you know.”

Grinding her teeth, Alaina stepped into her office and went to sit behind her table to page through a stack of papers. “So you’ve told me. Well, if you’re reading my mind now, you’ll know you’d better have something valid to say, and then you’d better run like hell because I’m contemplating the relative merits of homicide.”

Marlene ignored the warning. She shuffled toward the desk, browsing through the mail. “You got an invitation to the California Bar Association annual bash in San Francisco. They want to know if you’re going and who you’re going with. What do you want me to tell them?”

The Bar Association dinner dance. Alaina stared down at the page in front of her, not seeing a word of the print. How many times in the last few days had she pictured herself attending the gala on Dylan’s arm, Dylan decked out in a tux and herself wearing a fabulous, though appropriately understated, dress, the two of them whirling around the dance floor. It was a silly thing, really, but the thought of missing out on that depressed her nearly to the point of tears.

“I know this podiatrist in Gualala,” said Marlene.

“I don’t need a podiatrist.”

“You need a date. He doesn’t mind lawyers, though he stated on his match application he would prefer a pedicurist. Interesting guy. He’s got an extra little toe on his left foot. Has to have all his shoes custom-made. I’ll call him—”

Alaina grimaced. “Over my dead body!”

Marlene waved a hand in dismissal as she moved toward the door. “You’ll thank me for it.”

“I’ll thank you to mind your own business, Marlene,” Alaina said tartly. She held out a hand. “Leave the invitation with me; I’ll take care of it myself.”

“If you take Dylan, you’ll have to put him on a leash. He can’t stand lawyers—present company excluded, of course,” she said, her grating voice lacking the proper enthusiasm.

Alaina’s stomach sank like a lead weight. She took the engraved invitation from her secretary’s hand and stared at it. Maybe she’d just skip the damn thing. Once upon a time events like the gala had been important to her. It had seemed essential
to see and be seen in a crowd of that caliber. It was the kind of atmosphere where contacts were made, where sharp talent jockeyed for position to climb up the ladder of success. Her ambition for such things had gone out. The only reason she had wanted to attend was to go dancing with Dylan.

She swore under her breath. What was this sudden thing she had for dancing? Dancing! Silly, romantic nonsense.

Heaving a sigh, she pushed the thoughts away and cloaked herself in cool professionalism as she looked up at her secretary. “What do I have scheduled for today?”

“You’ve got a prospective client coming in at ten-thirty about a civil suit.” Marlene made her Deputy Skreawupp face and shook her head. “You’re not going to like him; he’s an Aries.”

“Marlene!” Alaina groaned as she lifted her hands to rub at the dull ache that had settled in her temples. “Say you didn’t ask him!”

The woman shrugged a heavy shoulder. “It came up in the conversation.”

Not trusting herself to say another word, Alaina waved her secretary away. When the door
to the outer office clicked shut, she picked up the telephone receiver and dialed Dylan’s number.

“Moose Lodge,” a cheery voice answered, “Bullwinkle speaking.”

Alaina gave the phone a wary look as if it must have goofed up the number itself. Hesitantly she said, “Dylan?”

“Alaina?”

A heavy silence weighed the line between them. On his end, Dylan sat at his worktable in his underwear, enjoying Mrs. Pepoon’s day off, which also happened to be his own day off. The kids had left for school with their usual Monday-morning commotion. His intentions had been to spend the morning working on the model of the shuttle craft
Galileo
he and Sam were going to add to their Star Trek collection. The half-finished model lay before him like an open clam shell, waiting. So far he had spent his time eating Oreos and wondering what to do about Alaina.

He was in love with her. It scared him more than a little bit, and he had a feeling she wouldn’t be too wild to hear the news herself. She had been drifting off to sleep when he’d slipped out of bed
and gotten dressed. He’d left her with a kiss and a promise to call in the morning. Now she’d beaten him to it, and he still hadn’t figured out what to say or do.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, hoping he would come up with a strategy by the time she finished answering.

“Fine.”

Damn. He hadn’t counted on her being stingy with words; she was a lawyer, after all. He passed a hand over his tangled hair and cleared his throat. Alaina cut him off at the pass before he managed to form a thought.

“Listen, Dylan, the reason I called is—ah—I think it would be best if we called the deal off.”

All the air left his lungs in a rush. His jaw dropped. “What?”

“It’s not working out the way I thought it would, and—um—” Smooth, Alaina, real smooth. Where was that levelheaded woman she had faced in the mirror? Where was that calm, nerves-of-steel woman who had mowed down opposing attorneys and torn their witnesses’ testimony to shreds in the courtroom? Elsewhere.

While she hemmed and hawed and stuttered, she picked up a pen and quickly jotted down every reason she shouldn’t go on seeing Dylan, leaving off the only one that mattered—she was afraid of getting her heart broken. A huge lump swelled in her throat, and just as quickly, she crossed all the reasons off. She wasn’t going to get through them without choking on them, so what was the point?

“Alaina,” Dylan murmured, staring blankly at his plate of Oreos. “I don’t understand. I thought everything was going really well.”

“Right.” She gave a derisive half-laugh. “So far I’ve managed to make a fool of myself, alienate your friends and children, and inflate to twice my normal size. Things are going just peachy, Dylan.”

“Well, aside from those … minor incidents …” He winced. No woman considered swelling to twice her normal size a minor incident. New tack, Harrison. “After last night—”

“I don’t want to talk about last night,” Alaina said, panic slamming into her full force. “To borrow a phrase from you, last night was an accident.”

Lord, how it hurt to hear those words, even from her own lips. Making love with Dylan hadn’t been accidental. It had been wonderful. It had been special. Too special.

“Look,” she whispered because she didn’t trust her voice. “I just think it would be best if we didn’t see each other anymore.”

It took her a split second to realize the soft gasp she’d heard hadn’t come from Dylan. Her eyes rounded in horror then narrowed in fury.

“Dammit, Marlene, are you listening?” she demanded.

The silence that answered her question was absolute. Maybe she was just being paranoid. Maybe she had made the sound herself. Maybe she was losing her marbles.

Dylan heaved a sigh. “Princess, don’t you think we should talk about this? So there were a few unforeseen glitches in the plan. We can work it out.”

He sounded so sincere, so sweet. She couldn’t help but think of how tender he had been last night, what a good friend, what a wonderful lover. But it had all been part of the deal for Dylan. No, they couldn’t work that out. “I don’t think so,” she
said, just managing to get past the tears in her throat. “I’ve got a client coming. I have to go now. Good-bye, Dylan.”