Remember the Dreams (5 page)

Madeline? Sweet, motherly, sixtyish Madeline?

"About what?" Madeline asked, frowning at the pot. "I thought I asked you to stir these."

Sheepishly Kyle handed Madeline the spoon he'd abandoned on the counter. "I forgot. And I just offered to rub the cramps out of Toni's legs, but she doesn't trust my expertise."

It wasn't Kyle's expertise Toni mistrusted. It was herself. "Oh, he's really quite good," Madeline chirped, busying herself at the stove. "I've got a bad spot in my back," she waved the wooden spoon in the general direction of her shoulder blades—"right here. Any time it gets tight, all Kyle has to do is work at it for a couple of minutes and the kink's gone. I've paid chiropractors a small fortune to do what he does for nothing. If you've got a tight muscle, he'll get rid of it for you."

Toni doubted that seriously. If he so much as touched her, every muscle in her body would constrict.

Seeing Kyle's suspicious grin, Toni began moving toward the door. Retreat and run seemed to be the best course of action at the moment.

"Hold it." Kyle had snagged her arm as she reached for her jacket and was now pointing to the chair. "Sit down. It'll only take a minute."

She wasn't about to subject herself to this torture. And that's exactly what it would be. The thought of his strong hands touching her. . . "I've really got to get to work," she mumbled, struggling into her jacket. "You aren't going to the game with Kyle?" Toni barely had one arm in the sleeve when Madeline's question, and the feel of Kyle's hands on her shoulders, stopped her. Before she could open her mouth to protest Kyle's actions, or ask Madeline what she was talking about, Toni had been pushed down into the chair.

"She doesn't have time today." Kyle's words were directed to Madeline as he lowered himself to the floor at Toni's feet. "It takes a while to get organized when you take over an office. And it's easier to get your paperwork done when you don't have a dozen people around asking a bunch of questions. We'll try for the game next weekend." He tipped his head back and met Toni's blank expression. "Pull your pant leg up." She just sat there and crossed her arms over her chest.

Had he actually defended her to Madeline with the same argument he'd used against her not ten minutes ago? Was he really going to massage her legs? What game?

Seeing that she wasn't going to cooperate, Kyle shrugged and slipped his hands beneath the hem of her slacks. In one smooth movement, he bunched the fabric around her knee, then proceeded to do the same with the other. Toni's eyes widened. Kyle's mouth curled in a satisfied smirk. Madeline started humming to herself.

"You probably should have sat in the spa for a while when we got home last night," Kyle said to Toni. His hands cupped her left calf, and he was kneading the knotted muscle with gentle, rhythmic motions. "The heat would have soaked some of the soreness out. Oh, Madeline"—He continued his businesslike massage, never missing a stroke, which was what Toni felt like she was about to have, and little tingles were racing madly from her toes to her thighs—"that cocktail party I'm having in a couple of weeks? There's another eight people coming, so be sure to fix enough food. And I'll be bringing a few of the guys back here after the game today."

"Don't worry about the party," Madeline returned, busily chopping an onion. "I'll put some sandwiches together and leave them in the fridge before I go."

Kyle may have been talking to his housekeeper, but his eyes were following his hands. One of them slipped up behind Toni's knee then traced a too-light path down to her ankle. "Nice legs," he mumbled under his breath, then spoke to Madeline again. "Since I'll be home all of next week ..."

The easy banter between Kyle and the woman who seemed more like a dear aunt than a housekeeper continued. But Toni was hearing little of it. He might as well have been kneading bread for all the attention he was paying to Toni. Toni, on the other hand, was aware of nothing but Kyle and the way his long fingers alternately punished and then caressed her soft skin. He slipped her shoe off, still talking to Madeline, and began working the pads of his fingers in small circles over the sole of her foot.

The knots in her legs were slowly dissolving, but the one in her stomach wasn't. She hugged her arms tighter around her middle, her eyes glued to the top of his dark head. The towel still hung around the corded muscles of his neck, and the morning sun slanting through the skylight made his shoulders look like hammered bronze.

Kyle had repositioned himself and was now sitting cross-legged on the floor. He laid her foot against his thigh, working methodically on each of her toes.

The chaos he was creating with her senses had made it impossible for her to speak. The tightness in her throat seemed to be building in less specific places.

This is all perfectly innocent, she told herself, and tried to ignore the tingling that had spread through her whole body. "What..." She cleared her throat and tried again. "What game are you two talking about?"

Kyle pulled her other foot onto his lap and began massaging her other calf. "A bunch of us guys get together on Saturdays to play football. That's all." His kneading now resembled more of a caress. "You used to work with some of them—Jerry Andrews, Todd Ruger. They bring their families sometimes. I just thought you'd like to see them again. You'll see 'em at the party though."

"You mean I'm invited?" Why did her voice sound so husky?

He glanced up at her, his gray eyes narrowed. "Of course you are. You'll know half the people there anyway, and they'd shoot me if you didn't show up."

"What's the party for?"

"Carol Gray's being transferred to Denver. It's sort of a combination promotion-farewell party." Toni barely knew Carol. She had joined Kyle's company just before Toni left, and at the moment, Toni was hard pressed to remember what the woman even looked like.

Wanting a diversion, any diversion, Toni tried to formulate some conversational question about Carol. But what Kyle was doing now stopped her cold.

His index finger lay lightly on her kneecap.

Slowly, he traced a feathery path over the curve and down her shin. Reaching her ankle, he shackled it in the loop formed by his finger and thumb. Her ankle looked so tiny compared to his large hands.

The strange intensity in his expression vanished with his lopsided grin. "That wasn't so bad now. Was it?" Giving her calf a squeeze, he pulled himself to his feet. "And in return for that favor, I'd like you to do me one." He caught the ends of his towel with both hands, drawing it tighter over the back of his neck. "Wear a dress to that party. You really do have a great pair of legs, Collins."

With that, he strolled out of the kitchen, calling back to Madeline that he'd be leaving right after he took his shower.

Toni shoved her pant legs back down and took a couple of deep breaths. Forcing herself to think of nothing other than the mechanics of putting herself back together, she slipped her shoes on and smoothed the lapels of her jacket. One thing she'd never been very good at was blanking her mind. She tried, but her rational brain was working furiously to overcome the assault of less logical thought. She felt a little shaky because she needed another cup of coffee. The only reason she was flustered was because she was already behind schedule. The heated points of fire that still burned her legs where Kyle had caressed them were just muscle cramps. And Kyle had just been his usual omnipotent, teasing and exasperating self. All good, sound, rational . . . excuses.

"Well," she said to Madeline, enormously pleased with her split-second analysis. "I . . . ah, guess I'd better get to the office and see if I can get something accomplished."

"Oh," Madeline smiled gently, drawing the word out a little. "I'd say that quite a bit's been accomplished already."

The cherubic little woman turned back to her task, completely ignoring Toni's puzzled frown.

K
yle glanced down at the raven-haired woman whose fingers were deftly working at the knot in his tie. Her warm lips were pressed to the side of his neck, working an expert pattern upward to nibble seductively at his ear.

Why couldn't he respond to her? Maggie had always excited him before. So what was wrong now?

Muttering an inaudible profanity to himself, he took Maggie by the shoulders and gently pushed her away. He grabbed his snifter of brandy from the coffee table. Wanting only to end this ridiculous charade, he stood up.

Confusion was reflected in the woman's huge brown eyes. Her hair was tousled, but Kyle thought that it just looked messy rather than beguiling. Instead of finding the results of his handiwork provocative—her slightly smeared lipstick and the swell of her full breasts revealed by her unbuttoned blouse—he felt only disgust with himself. And oddly empty.

Maggie tugged at her skirt as she rose from the sofa, not bothering to fasten her top. "What's the matter?" she asked sulkily. "You seem a little preoccupied tonight."

She reached for his arm, but he moved away before she could touch him.

His jaw clenched tightly as he stood at the mantel, pretending interest in a small figurine.

A little preoccupied was a gross understatement. Ever since he'd returned from Chicago, he'd been able to think of nothing but Toni. Toni leaning against the kitchen counter, her hair wrapped in a towel and wearing that soft blue robe and still sleepy-eyed as she drank her morning coffee. Toni as she rushed past him an hour later, looking every inch the no-nonsense executive in her severely tailored suit. Toni teasing him while he tried to help her when it was her turn to cook dinner. Toni frowning in concentration as she sat at the table with the files she always brought home from the office.

He'd offered to go house-hunting with her on Sunday, wanting nothing more than to spend the day with her. But she'd just leveled those beautiful blue eyes at him and said that she already had plans to go with Greg. Kyle had been quite pleased with his bantering comment about "going after the rich doctor," though something very unpleasant had twisted inside him. It couldn't possibly have been jealousy. She had certainly done nothing to encourage anything other than the friendship they already shared. And Kyle was trying desperately to act the same way he always had toward her. He had become obsessed with the thought of her, though. He wished that it had been Toni's lips that had so passionately returned his kisses just a short while ago. Did she touch Greg the way Maggie . . . ?

That uncomfortable knot constricted in his gut again. Thinking about Toni in another man's arms was doing nothing for his mood. His inability to respond to Maggie had put him in a lousy frame of mind, and hadn't done a thing for his ego.

Cripe! he thought, raking his fingers through his hair. Here I am with a gorgeous woman who wants nothing more than for rhe to take her to bed, and I'm as limp as hay after a rainstorm. What in the hell are you doing to me, Toni?

Glancing over at the beautiful foreign correspondent he'd been seeing off and on for the past several months, a self-deprecating smile hung on his lips. Maggie Sherman was worldly and sophisticated. And, more importantly, no more interested in a commitment than he was.

"Sorry, Maggie," he said, chaining his brandy. He handed her the empty snifter and dropped a quick kiss on her forehead. "I know I've been rotten company tonight. Give me a call when you get back from wherever it is you're off to this time, and I'll make it up to you."

Kyle wasn't accustomed to walking away from a willing woman. He couldn't believe that he was doing it now.

❧

It was well past midnight when Kyle slid his key into the lock and pushed open his front door. The lights in the living room were on, but the house was quiet. Toni was probably already asleep.

She was. But not in her bed. Kyle's hand stilled as he reached over to turn out the table lamp, his eyes frozen on her sleeping form.

She was lying on the sofa, one arm curled beneath her head and the other still grasping the edge of the Wall Street Journal, which had fallen partway to the floor.

Kyle's eyes moved slowly from the thick lashes brushing her cheeks, then to her softly parted mouth. Taking advantage of her oblivion, his eyes moved measuringly down the length of her body.

Beneath her silky white caftan the tantalizing swell of her tiny breasts rose and fell with her rhythmic breathing. The slenderness of her hips was revealed by the loose folds of the satiny fabric, and her long legs were bent slightly, betraying their lithe shapeliness. He remembered well the feel of her skin when she'd reluctantly submitted to his massage the other morning.

A glint of self-mockery slipped into his eyes. The shower he'd been in such a hurry to take then had been a cold one. He'd nearly turned blue waiting for the feelings she'd unknowingly elicited to go away. Feelings that were being resurrected now.

His gaze traced its path back to her serene features. Sleep erased the unfamiliar aggressiveness he saw when she was awake. Now she looked more like the innocent snow princess he'd once known. But she wasn't an innocent anymore, he reminded himself, recalling the conversation they'd had when he'd met her at the University Club. He didn't know why that disappointed him so. Maybe it was just that he hated the thought of her becoming like Maggie— like all the other women he associated with.

Why did it hurt to know that he'd lost something he'd always told himself he never wanted?

The dull ache that had formed in his loins escalated to a demanding throb. He drew in a shuddering breath and clenched his hands. He had no idea how she would react, what damage he might do. But his need to touch her—just touch her—was overriding logic.

Slowly his hand moved toward her cheek.