Love by Proxy (7 page)

“We’re all guilty of not wanting to see ugliness,” Amelia reminded her.

Jeanette smiled, and her eyes sparkled. “I suppose so. Perhaps I’ve been bitter about it, too. Connie might have been my last hope for great-grandchildren. I’m afraid Worth will never risk his heart again.”

Amelia leaned forward. “You could adopt,” she whispered.

The older woman started to laugh, the sound rich and soft and delightful in the sunny garden. “You’re good for me, child. Don’t leave.”

Amelia averted her eyes. If everything went according to plan, she would be leaving Jeanette. Fortunately the arrival of their tray in Baxter’s immaculate hands saved her from having to admit the truth, that her time here was already ending.

It was after eight o’clock and Amelia was just ready to leave when Worth came in the front door. He looked weary. He was carrying the blue blazer. His shirt was open at the throat, and so thin that Amelia could see his broad chest and the shadow of thick hair over it through the fabric. His slacks were close fitting, emphasizing the powerful muscles of his thighs. In the light of the chandelier, he looked bigger and darker than ever, and his black hair glowed with bluish highlights. He glanced up from a sheet of paper in his hand, noticing her poised in the hall with her light cotton jacket in her hand.

“Did you transcribe my notes?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Where’s my grandmother?”

“On the phone,” she faltered. “She had a light supper and went to her room, to talk to one of her friends on the phone.”

He ran a hand through his hair, and looked for all the world like Clark Gable in
It Happened One Night.
He needed a shave, and he was clearly dragging.

“I…what you asked me to do, I did,” she said, moving closer so that she couldn’t be overheard.

He stared down into her wide blue eyes for a long moment. “What?”

“I think I’ve found another job,” she said, and tried her best to look happy about it. “It’s a secretarial position in a law office. I have an interview in the morning.”

“Are you bored already?” he shot at her.

“You told me to look for something else,” she said indignantly.

He sighed angrily. “She’s gotten used to you,” he said. “I’d have hell for a month if I let you go now.”

She couldn’t seem to find the right words. She searched his weary face and wanted so much to touch him, to soothe him. He looked as if someone had already given him hell.

“Such expressive eyes,” he murmured. He moved nearer, a giant close up, and reached down with his free hand to cup her chin. “Feeling sorry for me, Amy?” he asked with a tired smile.

“You look as if you’ve been run over,” she said, and her voice was softer than she meant it to be.

“I feel it. I’ve been meeting with city officials. Try that on an empty stomach.”

“There are some cold cuts in the kitchen, left over from supper.”

He searched her eyes quietly. “Have you eaten?” he asked.

She had to swallow down a denial, because she wanted to stay with him. “Yes,” she said, and wondered if you could call the tiny salad she’d shared with her employer a meal. “I have to get home. I’m expecting a phone call.”

“All right.” He released her and watched as she walked to the door.

She stopped with her hand on the doorknob and glanced worriedly over her shoulder. He looked so alone.

His eyes went dark even at the distance, holding her to the spot. “Baxter quits at eight,” he said. “So does the maid and the yardman. Nobody lives in.” It was eight-thirty now; Amy had gotten into a long conversation with Jeanette and hadn’t been able to find a graceful way to leave.

Worth dropped his jacket and tie into an elegant wing chair in the hall and flicked open his shirt, as if the heat bothered him. In the opening, she could see a thick shock of black hair, a blatantly masculine sight that made her heart run away. “I suppose I can do without dinner,” he murmured, glancing at her.

As if he knew, she thought, turning back from the door, that her soft heart couldn’t let him go without eating.

“I can fix you something,” she said.

“What about the phone call you’re expecting?” he asked with narrowed eyes and a faint smile.

Her eyes lowered to his chest. “I didn’t want to impose.”

“You won’t be. I hate eating alone.”

He turned and she followed him into the spacious kitchen, which was done in white and pale yellow with old-fashioned overhead fans. She opened the refrigerator and took out cold cuts, quickly fashioning a meal from salad and ham and sliced bread.

She made coffee and had a ham sandwich of her own while it perked. She poured the steaming coffee into delicate rose-patterned china and watched his big fingers try to manage the dainty thing.

“You need a huge mug,” she murmured on a smile. “To fit your hands.”

“They aren’t that big,” he said, chuckling. He reached one out and caught hers in it, studying the difference in size. Her slender fingers seemed small in his, and she could feel the strength in that callused warmth. He had beautifully masculine hands, olive tan with flat, immaculate nails and wrists that were darkly sprinkled with hair.

“You’re very hairy,” she remarked without thinking as her eyes lifted to his chest, where the shirt had come open when he leaned toward her.

“All over,” he returned, watching her flush. “Don’t you like hairy men, Miss Glenn?”

She tried to draw her hand back, but his locked into it, fingers between fingers in a lazy, sensuous movement.

“I don’t know,” she faltered.

He leaned back in the chair, tugging at her hand. “Then why don’t you come here and we’ll find out together.”

Lord, he was strong! She found herself pulled out of the chair before she could protest, and drawn toward him. Arrogant beast, sitting there like Caesar, smiling confidently, muscles rippling as he overcame her resistance.

“Mr. Carson…” she began.

He tugged at her hand, landing her squarely on his lap. Under her, his powerfully muscled thighs rippled as he shifted her so that her cheek was against his upper arm, so that her view of the world ended at his face. He smelled of cologne, something musky and oriental, and he laughed like a predator at her blank stare.

“Now, feel,” he said, sliding her hand inside his shirt. He pressed it palm down into the thick tangle of hair. “Hairy as hell.”

It wasn’t fair, she thought, staring up at him. She was melting, and no amount of willpower was going to spare her. Her lips parted as she experienced for the first time in her life the powerful sensuality of touch. He moved her hand, watching her as he taught her how to stroke him.

“Yes, that’s it,” he said on a soft laugh, “I like being touched. Especially like this,” he added, his voice like velvet, and he guided her hand down toward the flat plane of his stomach.

“No!” she whispered, tugging back her hand as it touched his belt.

“How you do bristle with inhibitions, Miss Glenn,” he observed calculatingly.

“I haven’t asked for private tutoring,” she said, flustered.

“No, you haven’t, big eyes,” he admitted, searching her face with oddly patient eyes. “But I think you could use a bit, all the same.”

“I’ll hire a gigolo,” she promised. “Please let me go.”

“Why?” He drew her hand back to his chest and held it there. “I’m not asking you for anything. Yet.”

“Ever,” she corrected. “I work for your grandmother, and only temporarily. My duties don’t include satisfying your appetite.”

“I don’t think you could, Amy,” he said shockingly. “You wouldn’t have the slightest idea how, would you?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” she said irritably. “For which you should thank God. At least, I won’t be chasing after you!”

His thumb brushed across her lips and he studied them intently for a long time. “Why not?” he asked softly. “I might enjoy being chased by you.”

“Well, I wouldn’t enjoy it,” she muttered, trying to break the light but steely hold that big arm had around her shoulders. “And will you stop treating me like a new toy?”

“That isn’t how I think of you at all,” he said under his breath. “Not at all.” His hand moved up to her bun and began removing pins. She tried to stop him and only managed to pull out a few long, dark hairs in the process, so she gave up. He laid the bobby pins on the table and smoothed her hair down over her shoulders, as if he loved its silky length.

“It feels like satin,” he said quietly, stroking it. “I’d forgotten how sensuous long hair can be.”

“Been dating bald women, have we?” she said with a nervous laugh. “You’ve had your fun, now suppose you let me go home?”

His hand moved around to her face, devastating as it traced her soft skin and touched her bow of a mouth. His dark eyes were devoid of laughter now; intent and searching and curious. “You don’t look twenty-eight,” he told her. He bent his head. “I want you, Amy.”

Before she could find a sensible answer, his warm mouth was covering hers. She wanted to protest, but she liked what he was doing too much. His lips coaxed hers to part for him, to allow the slow, rhythmic penetration of his tongue. Her fingers clenched in the thick hair over his chest, and he stiffened.

“Yes,” he whispered against her lips, “yes, I like that. Do it again.”

Her eyes opened, gray as a rainy day as they searched his. Her fingers contracted and he smiled. It was a kind of smile she barely remembered from her disastrous near-engagement, a possessive and totally male look that hinted of conquest, delighted dominance. She should have resented it, but he was the kind of man who made arrogance seem natural.

She watched as his mouth came back to hers, tenderly probing, teasing. Her body reacted restlessly to the building passion, moving against his involuntarily.

“You feel it now, don’t you?” he whispered. His free hand moved to her back and turned her into his body, so that her breasts were pressed against his broad, warm chest. He kissed her, and even as his mouth began taking possession, he moved, so that her breasts were drawn back and forth against him, so that the tips became sensitive and began to harden. Her blouse and bra were thin and his shirt was completely out of the way now, and when he laughed softly, she knew it was because he could feel what had happened to her.

“This is delicious,” he whispered. His mouth slid down to her throat, and he inhaled the flowery scent of her skin while he learned the delicate lines with his lips. “You even taste like a virgin,” he breathed, drawing his tongue along the throbbing pulse under the warm skin.

Her face turned into his shoulder and hid there, because she was vulnerable now and he knew it. She had no secrets from him.

His lips touched her closed eyelids, nudging her face out of hiding. “Amy…” he murmured as he found her mouth again.

This time, there was no teasing. He arched her body against his, and the pressure of his hard mouth forced her head down into the crook of his elbow. He nudged her mouth open under his and began a devouring, expertly sensual exploration of it that made her tremble and ache in his embrace.

“I’d forgotten how exciting it could be, to kiss,” he whispered against her yielding lips. “I could get drunk on your mouth.”

“Don’t stop,” she heard herself moan.

“How could I,” he murmured, his breath loud as he bent again, “when I’m as hungry as you are?”

His arms contracted, and for a long time she fed on his mouth, liking its hard warmth, even liking the bristles where he needed another shave, her arms around his neck now, her body pressed so closely to his that she could feel his heart slamming against her through the muscular walls of his chest. She tasted him, tasted coffee and spice, and opened her mouth even more, so that he could take whatever he liked.

“If I took you,” he whispered into her mouth, “would your body open to me so hungrily?”

She moaned, and his mouth grew demanding, his arms began to bruise her against his. With unexpected abandon, she dragged her chest against his so that he could feel how wildly she wanted him, and his hand caught in her long hair as he tugged her head back to look at her face.

His eyes were narrow and glazed with passion, his jaw taut. He let his gaze move down to her breasts, and his free hand began at the top of her dress. He opened the first button, and the second, holding her eyes now, daring her to protest, to stop him.

“I’m going to bare you to the waist, Amy,” he said quietly. “And I’m going to feed on you, with my eyes and my mouth.”

She was trembling wildly now, with no thought of denying him what she wanted so desperately. Her body arched toward him, yielding, hungry. She could barely breathe for the hunger. And just as he reached the button between her lace-clad breasts, a door opened somewhere down the hall.

Without thinking, she pulled free of his arms and got to her feet, fumbling buttons into holes.

He leaned back and stared at her as she struggled to smooth ruffled hair and straighten her dress. Something dark and soft lingered in the eyes she didn’t see. He reached out and retrieved her hairpins.

“Here,” he said gently. “Don’t forget these.”

“Thanks.” She took them, meeting his dark eyes.

His fingers caressed hers as he handed over the pins. “Forget that interview tomorrow,” he said. “Stay.”

She met his eyes. “Worth, I won’t sleep with you,” she said, putting it bluntly as the footsteps came closer.

“All right,” he replied easily.

She shifted, her gaze going toward the door. “I…”

“I won’t back you into a corner,” he promised. “I can’t offer you a future, Amy. And since I can’t, I won’t compromise you. Is that word old-fashioned enough, or should I say that I won’t—” and he used the modern vernacular, and grinned wickedly when she glared at him.

“You have a horrible mouth,” she shot, brushing back her long, tangled hair.

“Yours is exquisite,” he returned, glancing at it wistfully. “I’ve never kissed anything so soft and sweet.”

“I’m going home,” she muttered. She got her purse and started out the door, almost colliding with Jeanette.

“Hello, dear.” The older lady grinned. “I thought you’d gone. Worth, Clara wants me to come over for bridge tomorrow night, will you drive me?”