Remember the Dreams (2 page)

"Come on, kid." His use of the subordinate term effectively erased the last traces of the rather disconcerting moment. "I've got a flight to catch in three hours." He nudged her across the room. "That's just enough time to get you settled in and me packed and to the airport."

Toni had learned that the matter-of-fact approach always netted the best results in any given situation. Practically speaking, there was no reason why she shouldn't stay with Kyle. They were friends—platonic friends, she firmly reminded herself. Anything else she might be feeling was just a nostalgic memory of something she'd felt five years ago.

❧

Pulling her rented Pontiac up behind Kyle's black Porsche, Toni gaped at the sprawling redwood and glass structure nestled in a forest of fir trees. The road winding up the hill ended there, and there wasn't another house in sight. If Kyle had wanted a place where he could get away from everything, this was definitely it.

"I'll put your suitcases in the last room on the left," Kyle said, motioning her through the double doors and nodding toward a wide hallway off the entry. "Take a look around while I pack."

Descending the steps leading into the sunken living room, Toni's eyebrows arched approvingly. An enormous window overlooking Puget Sound comprised the far wall of the spacious, high-ceilinged room—a room her entire apartment back in New York would have fit inside quite easily. The pearl gray drapes, which matched the thick carpeting, were drawn back, exposing a redwood deck that ran the length of the house. Dusk was giving way to darkness, and over the tops of the trees, she could see the city lights glimmering off in the distance.

A curving leather sofa, in a deep gray that Toni thought matched the color of Kyle's eyes, occupied the center of the room. Moving toward it, she dropped her purse on one of the glass tables between it and a navy blue chair. Kyle had said to take a look around, and that was exactly what she was going to do.

Everything from the glassed-in pool downstairs to the panoramic views available from nearly every room in the house lent to the air of quiet luxury and relaxation. But as she returned to the main level, an uncomfortable thought accompanied her. She'd seen a couple of guest rooms downstairs. So where had Kyle put her things? Was the "last room on the left" his room?

"Toni?" Kyle's voice was muffled by the maze of walls separating them.

Telling herself that she was being ridiculous for even entertaining such an idea, she followed the sound of that deep, resonant voice. She moved down the wide hallway, peeking into rooms as she went, and stopped at the end of the hall.

Her luggage was sitting inside a large, comfortable room to her left. Kyle was standing in the one to her right.

She didn't realize that she'd been holding her breath until she let it out. At the same time, she rubbed her clammy palms down the sides of her skirt. Of course Kyle had given her her own room. What had ever made her think otherwise?

Turning, she leaned against the doorjamb to watch Kyle.

He'd taken off his jacket, and his white shirt had been pulled free of his slacks. Judging from the way its tails hung loosely around his lean hips, the front of it was unbuttoned.

"Nice place," she observed, her eyes on the suitcase he'd laid on his bed—a large circular bed that seemed to dominate the room. "Were you dating an interior decorator?"

"No," he returned, dropping several pairs of jockey shorts into the suitcase. "I hired one. Is your room ok?"

Why did the sight of that bed make her so uncomfortable? Deciding that it was less unnerving to stare at the wrinkles in his shirttail, she replied, "It's perfect. How long will you be gone?" She didn't want to talk about bedrooms.

"Four days." A stack of neatly folded shirts joined the jockey shorts. "I'm giving a training seminar in Chicago. Come on in."

He turned then, moving toward the sliding glass mirrors of his closet.

Toni's mouth went dry.

His shirt was unbuttoned. Her blue eyes riveted to the crisp black hair covering the hard contours of his broad chest. The only direction she could seem to make them move in was down, and she followed that tapering line over his flat stomach to where the swirls disappeared beneath the waistband of his slacks.

Toni had only seen Kyle in his expensively tailored suits, or, at the very least, in an open-collared sport shirt and slacks. But even her vivid imagination hadn't done justice to his physical perfection.

Good heavens, Toni, she chided herself. He's just your average Greek god, so stop staring at him like this.

Admonishment was one thing. Practicing what she was preaching to herself was another matter entirely.

There was something terribly intimate about watching him like this—with him apparently quite comfortable with her presence—and a warm tingling seemed to center in the pit of her stomach.

Kyle reached into the closet, then glanced back over his shoulder. "Come on in," he repeated, indicating a wide doorway with a nod of his dark head. "The hot tub's in there. I want to show you how to turn it on before I go."

She couldn't move. Her hands felt clammy again, and her legs didn't want to cooperate with the command her apparently addled brain was giving them.

Seeing her apprehensive expression, Kyle walked toward her. Obviously he'd mistaken the reason for her reticence. "It's not that complicated," he chuckled, taking her hand and leading her across the springy carpet. "It's just a switch and a couple of buttons."

His hand felt so warm, so strong, and Toni tried her best to ignore the staccato shocks racing up her arm. She caught a whiff of his faintly spicy aftershave mingling with the heat of his body, the scent adding a frightening awareness to her. already muddled senses.

It had to be fatigue. That was the only plausible explanation for why she should be reacting like this. Days that began at 5:00 a.m. when the exchange opened on the East Coast and didn't end until 10:00 at night after a meeting with a prospective investor were bound to catch up with her sooner or later. Rest. That's what she needed. Just a couple of days' rest.

"I think I can handle that," she smiled, feeling better now that she had analyzed her problem. "But I don't think I'll be using it."

"Why not?"

"Because my bathing suit's in storage with everything else."

He tossed her a sideways grin, his eyes traveling quickly down the length of her slender frame. "You don't need one."

Her response was little more than a faint rush of breath. There was no sense arguing the point unless it became necessary.

Averting her eyes to the placid pool of water at her feet, she almost jumped out of her skin when it suddenly sprang to life.

"This switch turns on the jets. . . ."

Toni barely heard what Kyle was saying. The image that had just formed in her mind refused to vanish. She could see him relaxing in that tub, the water swirling around that magnificent chest, his arm draped around her naked shoulders. She could almost feel his lean hardness pressing against her thighs, her breasts . . .

"And I try to keep it at around a hundred and one or so."

"Ah . . . I'm sorry," she mumbled, giving her head a visible shake to dispel the unwanted image. Not fatigue. It had to be total exhaustion for her mind to be working like this. "I guess I wasn't listening."

Kyle watched her curiously as he explained again, his eyes following the motion of her hand. She was running the pearl she wore back and forth along its fine gold chain at the base of her throat. It was a nervous habit, and an unconscious one.

A soft light crept into his eyes. Placing one hand on her shoulder, he tipped her chin up with his other. His touch, coming so closely on the heels of her erratic—and erotic—thoughts, made her legs feel about as stable as gelatin.

"You look beat, princess," he said quietly, his gaze sweeping her pale features. His hand left her shoulder to push back a whisp of golden hair that had loosened itself from its coil.

Though his fingers barely brushed her cheek, the skin there tingled with a lingering warmth.

"Why don't you go see what you can find in the fridge for dinner while I finish packing? I've got to leave in about twenty minutes."

She was sure that what she was seeing in those beautiful slate-gray eyes was only the concern one friend might feel for another. If there was any desire there, it was only the desire that she get out of his way so he wouldn't miss his plane.

"Do you want me to fix you something?" she asked as his hands slipped to his sides.

Kyle shook his head and turned into his bedroom. "I'll get something later. If you can't find what you want in the kitchen, leave a note for Madeline next to the phone in there. She'll pick up anything you want from the store."

"Who's Madeline?" All sorts of pictures were forming in Toni's mind.

"My housekeeper. She does everything but tuck me into bed at night. She'd probably even do that if I asked her to."

Toni didn't doubt that for a minute. She couldn't imagine any woman refusing Kyle Donovan anything.

She had just dropped her apple core into the trash compactor when she heard Kyle's footsteps crossing the parquet-tiled floor.

"Is that all you ate?"

"I wasn't that hungry," she replied, turning to lean against the counter. She'd left her suit jacket in her bedroom, along with her shoes. Without the benefit of two-and-a-half-inch heels it seemed that she had to look a long way up to see his face.

"You're too thin," he observed flatly, positioning himself against the counter next to her. "I thought you looked like you'd filled out a little when I first saw you, but now I actually think you're skinnier."

A disconcerted frown creased her forehead as she glanced down at the cream silk blouse tucked into her straight skirt. Skinnier? She'd gained five pounds!

"Let's see what else we can find you to eat."

"I'm really not hungry." Her words fell on deaf ears as he started to open the cupboard. "I had a big lunch."

Kyle looked down at her, one hand resting on the cupboard door. "I can only imagine what constitutes 'big' for you." A droll smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, deepening those delicious little laugh lines. "You probably had a couple of soda crackers and a few pieces of dry lettuce. Why are you women always on a diet?"

The only "diet" Toni had ever been on was to gain weight. "I'm not on one," she mumbled, taking a step back. It never used to bother her to stand next to him. Why did it now? "And I had a salad for lunch . . . with crab in it."

"Appropriate," he muttered, baiting her just as he used to. "But you need more protein. It's good for your nerves."

Her nerves could certainly use any help they could get. They'd definitely been acting a little haywire for the past few hours.

Kyle's remark about her thinness wasn't helping much either. And one of her insecurities was beginning to show.

Toni had always been self-conscious about her body. Where most women had curves, she had little dips and dents. Lanky and svelte had been her mother's charitable way of describing tall and skinny. Toni had been the only girl in her high school graduating class who had still been wearing a training bra.

Instead of withdrawing into herself, she had learned to turn a slightly aggressive cheek. Placing both hands on her "skinny" hips, she smugly met his intoxicating smile. "You don't have to play brother-protector anymore, Kyle. I think I can manage my own care and feeding." She watched his thick dark brows quirk upward over his laughing eyes. "You may not have noticed, but I'm a big girl now."

There was nothing at all brotherly about the way his darkening gaze raked over her. Still leaning with his hand on the cupboard and his tie draped loosely over his fresh white shirt, he looked every inch the male predator. Cool, calculating and very, very dangerous.

"Woman," he corrected smoothly. "And I noticed."

His visual assessment would have shaken her to her toes had she not already determined the cause of her strange reactions to him. Exhaustion. Pure and simple.

"But I've also noticed a few other things, Ms. Collins. You and I are going to have a long talk when I get back. So be sure and reserve Friday night for me."

"Which lecture am I going to get this time?" Her tone was teasing, her expression animated. "You can save your breath if you're planning on giving me the one about my 'overly simplistic' views, because, unfortunately, most of your theories have been proven right."

Toni was sure that she only imagined the slight hardening in his eyes. "Maybe I've developed a few new ones," he said.

"And I'm to be blessed with your infinite insight and wisdom?"

"Of course." He abandoned the cabinet and pulled open the freezer. "I always used to share my vast and formidable experience with you, so why should it be any different now?" He dropped a gallon of ice cream on the counter. "That's what friends are for, you know?" He placed a bowl and spoon next to the carton. "Eat this."

"Too many calories," she returned blandly, knowing that the second he was gone, she'd help herself to a healthy scoop. "I thought you said you weren't on a diet?"

"I'm not." She grinned at him then, enjoying the familiar ease of their exchange. "I'm only . . ."

"Being obstinate," he concluded for her. "You always did like to see how far you could push me."

Her expression was one of angelic innocence, except for the mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "I did?"

"You know you did." Moving past her, he headed out of the kitchen. "But I don't think you ever had any idea of how far you'd gone."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Her question was directed at his retreating back.

Following him through the dining room, she stopped when they reached the entry. Kyle picked up his jacket from the table by the front door and, tossing it over his arm, bent to retrieve the flight bag sitting on the floor.