Private Dancer (7 page)

“No,” she said quickly, shaking his hand away.

“That’s a serious gap in your education. Lace.”

Before she could think of an argument, he’d picked her up by the waist and set her on the countertop. The chill from the tile penetrated the fabric of her slacks, and she reacted as though it were some kind of warning. She locked her legs together, shielding her breasts with her crossed arms.

“I’ve always thought the kitchen was the sexiest room in the house,” he said, ignoring her defensive posture. “There’s something basic and earthy about all the food, the stove, the sink ... the
water
.”

He reached around her and turned on the faucet, letting warm water bubble, trickle and run in a slow stream. Bev felt her stomach turning to liquid as she listened to it. Did he know she couldn’t resist running water? She closed her eyes, trying to ward off the answering warmth that was stirring inside her. “You’re not playing fair,” she complained faintly.

“I’m not playing.”

He ran his thumb nail slowly down the outside seam of her slacks. Bev felt her skin heat and blood race to the surface. A thrill of anticipation shot through her.

“Open your legs for me, babe,” he said softly. “I want to get close.”

Even the thought of opening her legs touched off an aching tightness in Bev’s thighs. She could hardly move for the sudden, debilitating effect it had on her muscles. It was crazy what he did to her. He put her in a trancelike state every time he got near her. Her mind went into neutral and her body went into fifth gear. She was all raw nerves and stripped-down senses, vibrantly tuned in to her surroundings on some primal level. She could feel his hand resting near her knee, she could smell the crisp tang of lemon and hear the warm tap water running slowly, whirlpooling in the sink before it gushed down the drain.

He covered her knee with a hand large enough to completely engulf it. “What’s it going to be, Lace? Are you going to unlock these beautiful legs anytime soon? Or are you waiting for me to do it?”

“
No
,” she said, forcing herself to meet his eyes and push his hand away. “Nobody’s unlocking these legs.” The effort it took to resist him drained every last bit of strength right out of her. His features were so mesmerizingly dark, so demonically handsome, she couldn’t have rallied the energy to hold him off again if she’d wanted to. She half expected him to pry her legs open himself and have his way with her right there in her kitchen. And maybe she half wanted him to! She didn’t know what she wanted anymore, or even what she should want. Her thoughts were scattered and confused and she was shaking with excitement. All the fight had gone out of her. Surely he could see what he was doing to her?

Whether he could see it or not, Sam didn’t act on it.

He shifted back, his hands still on her knees, and stared at her with powder-blue eyes that said he didn’t know what the hell to make of women in general, this one in particular.

“You want it too, don’t you?” His voice was as rough as sandpaper, the same whiskey rasp she remembered from their first meeting in the bar.

“I don’t know,” she said, completely sincere. She lifted a trembling hand to her throat. “Look at me, I’m shaking, I can hardly breathe. Maybe you should take me to a hospital.”

“There are places I’d like to take you, babe, but a hospital’s not one of them. Come here,” he said, reaching for her.

Bev’s arms shot up to stop him, but the rest of her body betrayed her. Her legs went tingly and weak as he hooked her by the back of the knees and brought her forward. She watched helplessly, knowing what was about to happen. A soft moan caught in her throat as he pressed into the V of her thighs and her legs opened automatically to accommodate him.

Cool air burned her warm, damp skin, and the sudden intimacy of the situation sent a shock of desire through her. She wanted desperately to slow him down, to regain some semblance of control, but she was dazed by the stormy excitement of it. The feelings intensified with every brush and jolt of his body against hers. And then, as his hips forced her legs to open even wider, the sensations became so sharp and exquisite, all she could do was gasp.

“God ... you
are
sweet.” He cradled her face in one of his huge hands, his fingers combing her hair as he bent to kiss her. Bev closed her eyes and felt his lips meld with hers in a throb of contact that deepened quickly into something heavier, hungrier. In the heat of the kiss he cupped her hips with his hands and scooped her forward. A low growl of pleasure came out of him as he brought her close, nestling her softness against his own burgeoning hardness.

Bev felt a shock wave roll over her. It flared up from that tender place where he was rocking against her, and then it ricocheted along her spine like the tremors of an earthquake. The sensation was fierce and dazzling, unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. It was pure, raw, physical sensation, and she lost touch with everything else but the staggering pleasure. She hadn’t known that a physical sensation could seize hold of a woman so completely. No one had ever told her that the touch of a man’s clothed body could sap a woman of willpower and drug her with the need for more.

“Dance with me, babe,” he said softly, rocking against her. “Be my private dancer.”

He slid his hands up her thighs, and the stimulation was so intense that Bev nearly fainted. She felt herself swaying backward, heard her own throaty laughter as he caught her by the arms and jerked her forward. Her head fell back, exposing her throat, and she knew instinctively that it was a sign of surrender.

“Dance with you?” she whispered, crazy for the sting of his lips on her throat. A strange urgency gripped her as she felt the pressure of his hips against her legs, felt the sweet, hot ache of her own thighs. Each thrust of his hardened body promised a deeper, more vital connection. She yearned for that connection; she burned for it.

Bev understood what was happening to her now. Finally she understood it completely. The sheer intensity of her responses to him had swept away any confusion. Trapped in an unresponsive body, her physical needs had broken free. They’d taken control of her senses, demanding nothing less than total abandon. She was making up for lost time, for years of denial and deprivation.

“Yes, dance with me,” she breathed. “Now, here, wherever you want.” She wanted him to tear off her clothes and make urgent, violent love to her, on the countertop, on the table, the floor....

“Easy,” he said, gripping her arms and holding her back. “One thing at a time, Lace.”

Bev stared at him, confused. Her thoughts were spinning out of control. Had she been talking aloud? Had she actually said any of the things that were stampeding through her brain?

“The floor looks a little uncomfortable, but if you insist ...”

His voice was stripped raw with desire, and his eyes seemed like black pools rimmed with silver. Taken altogether, he was the sexiest thing that Bev had ever seen. She felt a clutch of fearful excitement in her stomach, and she might easily have spun out of control again if it hadn’t been for the faint smile pulling at his lips. Did he think this whole thing was funny? Was he laughing at her?

“I didn’t actually mean the floor,” she said, averting her eyes. “One tends to use figures of speech when one gets ... carried away.”

He brought her chin up, forcing her to look at him. “I like it when you get carried away.”

The smile was gone, and his mouth was very near hers. For one fleeting second Bev wanted that fine, sensuous mouth on hers again—She tore her eyes away before the thought could take hold.
On the floor
? She’d begged a near stranger to have sex with her on the kitchen floor? Two naked people, writhing on her newly waxed linoleum? That wasn’t possible.

The absolute certainty she’d felt in the throes of wanting him were drummed into submission by the guilty jolts of her heart. The urgent heat of her passion was cooling rapidly, leaving her shaken at what she’d done, and increasingly bewildered by why she’d done it. She stared into his turbulent blue eyes and felt as though she were sinking in a quagmire of confusion again. She barely knew who he was. She barely knew who
she
was.

“What are we doing?” she said breathlessly. “I met you only yesterday.”

“Damn, I knew this was going to happen.” The smile tugged at his lips again, and his voice went husky. “Lace, baby ... don’t go decent on me now.”

“But I
am
decent.”

“Yeah, but not too decent. You’ve got a wild streak in you, and I love it.”

His fingers hardened on her face, refusing to let her turn away as he bent and brushed his lips over hers. “You wanted it, Lace,” he whispered against her mouth. “You wanted it wild. And you wanted it from me.”

Muscles pulled tight in the deepest reaches of Bev’s body. It was true, everything he said was true. Dear God in heaven, she could hardly believe she’d let things get so far out of control. She’d barely lifted a finger to stop him. He probably thought she was leading him on.

That was then
, she told herself.
This is now
. She’d lost control in the heat of the moment. It could happen to anyone—and probably did, all the time. But it had never happened to her before. Bev Brewster didn’t beg men to make love to her on the floor. She didn’t even date!

“I’d like you to move,” she said abruptly.

“Why?”

So she could close her legs!
He was still lodged between her thighs and she couldn’t bear the way it made her feel. “This position. It’s a little awkward for talking.”

“Who wants to talk?” He touched her face, trying to seduce her again, with his ex-smoker’s voice and his baby-blue eyes, but she wasn’t having any of it.

“I do!” She caught him off guard with a mighty shove to his midsection, and as he stumbled backward, she slid off the countertop and made a dash for it.

“Now, just get that private dancer stuff out of your mind,” she said, darting to the opposite side of the kitchen table from him. “Because you’ve got the wrong idea about me.”

“I don’t think so.” He approached the table, blue eyes flashing. The prospect of a game of kitchen-table tag obviously appealed to him.

“Stop right there, Sam!” She had to find a way to deter him. “This isn’t right. It’s ... wrong.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that.”

“All right, then, it ... it’s unethical.”

“Unethical?”

“Yes,” she said, realizing she’d hit on something. “Yes! It’s unethical! You represent Mrs. Greenaway and I represent her husband. They hired us to investigate their spouses, and now here we are, kissing and stuff. That’s a conflict of interest, don’t you see. It’s like ... consorting with the enemy!”

He looked skeptical.

“I’m serious, Sam. Think about it. If either one of them found out, they could report us, pull our licenses.”

He folded his arms, staring at her from under lowered brows. “Wasn’t it you who said the Greenaways didn’t need detectives?”

“Yes, but it isn’t official yet. We haven’t spoken to our clients, so we’re still representing them.” She pulled a deep breath, stood taller, and generously shouldered the blame. “I should never have brought you here, Sam. It was a serious error in judgment, and I’m going to have to ask you to leave now. Immediately.”

He shook his head, an I’ve-heard-everything-now expression on his handsome face. “You’ve made your point,” he conceded. “In fact, you’ve driven it through my heart like a stake, but don’t kid yourself that this has anything to do with ethics. Even if you’re right about the Greenaways, that isn’t why you want me out of here. “

Bev stared at him for a long time, her heart pounding. “I’ll call you a cab,” she said finally.

“Don’t bother. I’ll thumb.”

She quickly darted past him, not allowing herself to glance back as she walked to the front door and opened it. A moment later she waved him through the door, immensely relieved as he left without further struggle.

“I don’t think there’s any need for us to see each other again,” she said, shutting the screen behind him. “Our business is finished.”

He swung around and grinned at her, a tornado of sexy virility. “I have a need, babe.” His pale blue eyes held an even more explicit message. They told her that as soon as he had his client squared away, he was coming back for more.

A geyser of bubbles erupted in Harve’s water glass as he tried to smother a chuckle and drink through the straw at the same time. He set the glass down, his wiry eyebrows bristling. “So this guy you clobbered yesterday? He turned out to be a private eye?”

Bev nodded, relaxing a little in the molded plastic chair. She was relieved Harve was taking the mixup in the Greenaway case so well. She’d kept the details to a bare minimum, leaving out the part about what had happened at her house afterward.

“Was he local?” Harve asked. “I may be laid up, but I still know everybody in the business. What was his name?”

Bev was eager to put the matter behind her. She had a meeting with one of the agency’s most important clients the next morning, and she wanted to get some background information from Harve. Still, she knew he wasn’t going to be content until he’d hashed over the Greenaway case to his satisfaction.

“He carried about twenty different IDs, but he called himself Sam Nichols.”

Harve sat forward, his eyes lighting up. “
Sam
? Sam ‘The Wild Man’ Nichols? Hellfire! You’re kidding me, aren’t you, B.J.? I haven’t seen that son of a gun in five years!”

“You know him?” Bev asked cautiously.

“Know him? He was my contact on the L.A.P.D. Hell of a good cop.” Harve heaved a sigh and settled back on his pillow. “Shame he got shot up so bad. He left the force about six months after they released him from the hospital, just walked out one day and never came back. I heard the brass tried to clip his wings, make him a desk jockey. They never did like Sam’s style.”

He drifted off for a moment, smiling, obviously dwelling on better days. “Who’s Sam working for?” he asked finally, leveling a glance at Bev. “Did he say?”

Bev shook her head. She couldn’t imagine Sam Nichols working for anyone. “What did you mean when you said he got shot, Dad?”