The Greatest Risk (19 page)

“We were just getting started,” he protested.

“Want to switch to Trouble?”

“Only if it's half as good as it sounds.”

“Oh, believe me, it is.” The new Maggie, bold and beautiful, took his hand and led him to the closed door of her bedroom.

“I'm giving you the Monopoly,” she said.

“You won't be Sorry.”

They cracked up laughing, and somehow that was as she had hoped it would be, light and laughter-filled, so that he would never have a clue how rarely she played this particular game in her life.

But even as she led him through the door, her laundry piled on the bed tried to remind her she might be in Jeopardy.

That she was being impulsive and that she might indeed be Sorry after all.

But she didn't want to worry about after. For once in her life, Maggie Sullivan was determined to embrace the
here and now, to take what was being offered to her without questioning and analyzing and spoiling everything.

She tossed the laundry on the floor and fell backward on the bed, holding out her arms to him.

“Whoo boy,” he said and toppled on top of her, holding some of his weight back with braced arms.

She traced the line of a taut arm muscle and smiled. “Has anyone ever told you you're a Masterpiece?”

“I didn't have a Clue.”

Their laughter mingled until he lowered himself and his chest was pressed hard against the curve of her breast. He took her lips again. “Speaking of masterpieces…” His hands found the elastic that bound her hair. “You look better like this.”

He gently unraveled the fastener and her hair cascaded down over her shoulders. He buried his face in it, breathing deeply.

“I think you mentioned something about Trouble,” he reminded her huskily.

“Time to use up that other
B,
” she said.

And he did, flicking open the next button of her blouse and finding the delicate skin with his tongue.

Soon the buttons were all undone and her blouse was open.

He gazed at the red bra, all lace and film, that she had bought to go with her red dress, and drew in his breath sharply.

“It's almost too pretty to take off,” he whispered. He touched the lace with his thumb, rubbed it slowly and erotically across the peak of her breast.

The fabric barrier between his hands and her skin was sharply, beautifully sensual.

She tried to twine her hands around his neck, to pull him to her, to feel his shirt on the bareness of her skin, but he smiled and pinned her arms on either side of her head.

“Not so fast, Maggie. This is a game of brains. I have to think very carefully about my next move.”

Still using both his arms to pin hers, he lowered his head to where his thumb had played seconds before.

He breathed, deliberately, slowly, the heat of his breath penetrating the silk of the undergarment. She wriggled against him.

“Uh-uh, my turn isn't finished,” he said. He ran his tongue between her collarbones, let it dance in the hollow of her throat, moved lower, his tongue blazing a trail of fire between her breasts.

Then he flicked with his tongue underneath the boundary of that brassiere. Slowly, taking his time, he explored those boundaries, checking out his limits with fiendish delight, raising his eyebrows wickedly at her gasps and sighs. Then, when he could go no further, he reached behind her and loosed the clasp of her bra, opening new and unexplored territory.

“Risk,” he explained to her. “I've just taken over new territory.” He lifted the bra, tugged and it fell away. “To the conqueror go the spoils.”

He was very silent for a moment, and very still. His eyes drank in what he had revealed, and then raised to her face.

“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he whispered hoarsely, and then the talking was done.

He lowered his head once more, let go of her wrists.

She put her arms around his neck, pulling him closer as his tongue did its dance of fire.

“How many turns do you get?” she finally panted.

“I'm a poor sport,” he admitted, his voice gravelly.

“It's my turn,” she insisted, and he stopped what he was doing and knelt above her, his knees forming a V around her rib cage.

She reached up and slid her hands underneath his shirt, tugged at the hem of it. He ducked his head, and the shirt came off. She cast it away and stared.

She looked her fill of him—the cut of muscle and bone, the hard beauty of a man. And then she touched him. His skin was warm, the contrast of its softness over the uncompromising steel of his muscle glorious to touch.

He leaned back over her, and his mouth took hers.

There was more urgency to the way he removed her slacks, and she his shorts.

They were naked together on top of all that white eyelet, the sultry July breeze cooling skin that was becoming sweat-beaded.

He touched her and kissed her in ways and places that made her feel as if all her life she had only pretended to be a woman.

Now, finally, she was finding out what it truly was to want with insane hunger, to feel with feeling so deep and hard it crossed pleasure with pain, to desire joining her body with his in so primal a way it was as if nothing of Maggie existed except that single ragged, raging want.

Everything she had been up until that moment—a social worker, a daughter, a college graduate, a spurned woman—each of those things that she had used to define herself was erased.

Her history was obliterated by the look in green eyes
gone dark as night. Swept away by hands that stroked and stoked, feathered and fondled, commanded and cradled.

“Maggie,” he said hoarsely, poised above her, a fine tremble in his voice and in the corded muscles of his arms, “are you sure?”

She was sure.

And she answered him by opening to him like a moon-flower to moonlight, by pressing herself so close to him the lines between them blurred, and they became one.

She answered him by taking his lips with hers with a wanting so primal it shook them both.

He accepted her answer and entered her with the surging power of the incoming tide. She rose to meet him, rock to rogue wave. And the union was just as spectacular, cataclysmic.

She was drowning in sensation, rising toward fulfillment, drowning again.

And then she was there—at that place where body meets soul and mind meets spirit, and all things melt into one.

She was there with him, crying out, sobbing her joy and rapture, clinging to him, wanting the waves of pleasure to roll on forever.

She looked at him, deeply, and let go. Sensation such as this could never be captured. Could never go on forever.

But she had seen what she needed to see in his eyes.

And if it was not forever, then there was no such thing.

 

Luke had one arm under his neck, the other around Maggie. She was fast asleep and he watched her curtains jig with the wind, felt the touch of the breeze on the salt of his skin.

He had lived a life where he chased the unexpected. He loved nothing more than surprises, the unpredictable.

But nothing in his experience had prepared him for the utter surprise of Maggie.

The woman was red-hot.

Under that cool, composed Miss Maggie Mouse exterior was the woman every man dreamed about and fantasized about. She was playful, joyous, giving, curious, bold.

Add to that what she was outside the bedroom: intelligent, compassionate, thoughtful, funny.

Miss Maggie Mouse was the perfect woman.

And he was pretty darn sure if he wasn't in love with her already he was going to be before he knew it.

Love. The last thing he'd been looking for in his life.

Truth be told, he wasn't sure if he cared for what love did to people, making them grasp at each other, try for control, try to own.

But maybe his mother had been right at lunch the other day. Maybe Luke just had all the wrong ideas because he had been raised in a home where security had masqueraded as love, and where love had been held out with a price tag.

If you behaved in such and such a way, then you earned love.

It had never been given freely to him. Not in his entire life, beginning with his mother, but not ending there.

There had been dozens of relationships that had looked promising, and that had always ended much the same way.

Women wanted to change him. The qualities they first found exciting—his love of adventure, his hair-
straight-back approach to life—ended up scaring them, threatening their security.

He remembered Maggie that day at the dirt bike track.

Worried about his back. Or worried about how his hurt back might affect her?

He got up restlessly. Her room was a mess. There was clean laundry in a flattened heap on the floor. They had made love on top of that once. There were take-out food boxes from Flying Pie Pizzeria. The Scrabble board, moved in from the kitchen sometime during the night, was turned over and there were tiles everywhere.

All in all he couldn't remember having a more satisfying night.

He wished it was not ending with these questions and doubts.

He watched the sun peep up over the horizon, then turned and found his clothing somewhere in the heap.

He'd go get breakfast somewhere and bring it back for her.

And then?

Then he was putting her to the test, before he got into this thing so deep there would be no pulling back.

An hour later, they had both called into work to say they would be late.

She nibbled on a croissant and sipped the frothy flavored coffee he had brought her.

Her eyes were hungry and full of promise, and she looked sexy sitting at the table in his shirt and nothing else.

“Want to go back to bed?” she asked.

“Maggie, you are showing every sign of being a very bad girl.”

“I know,” she said so happily that he had to laugh.

Get it over with, he thought miserably. He took out the piece of paper he had retrieved from the saddlebag of his Harley on the way back from the corner bakery.

“I'm entering this,” he said casually.

She looked at the paper with curiosity.

Across the top in huge bold red letters, it said: Death Defiers: The Most Challenging Moto-Cross Race in Oregon.

Leo held it every year. It was an excellent off-road motorcycle course. Each year Leo added new obstacles and new challenges.

She read the entry form through thoroughly. She did not miss anything. He knew the exact moment she read the disclaimer saying that racing dirt bikes was an extremely dangerous sport, that death and serious injury could occur.

He watched the blood drain from her face. He hated himself.

But that was who he was. A death defier. An adrenaline junkie. He could not change that for her.

“Luke, this race is a week away. You are just barely out of the hospital.”

Here it came, then.

“I know,” he said breezily. He took a big bite out of his croissant.

“I don't think you should do this,” she said. She looked at the paper again, shoved it across the table to him and wouldn't look at him.

“Because I'm just out of the hospital?”

She nodded.

“So, when would you think it was okay for me to enter a race like this?”

Her eyes met his, and he saw the answer in them.
Never.
It was never going to be okay with her.

“Maggie,” he said softly, “it's part of who I am. I am entering this race.”

“I have to get ready for work,” she said dully.

She didn't even finish her croissant. She went to her bedroom and shut the door, a certain finality in the click.

He wasn't sure what to make of that. She was supposed to scream and yell and try to get her way. She was supposed to want to talk about it. Women always wanted to talk.

He went to the bedroom door. “Hey, can I have my shirt?”

The door opened a crack and the shirt hit him with some force, midchest.

“Do you want to talk about this?”

“No.” The door closed.

“I'll call you later.”

He pulled on his shirt. She was sure to change her mind. She'd have gathered all her arguments and be ready to talk then.

But she didn't answer through the closed door. He glared at it. He wondered if he was really willing to risk the joy he'd found in her arms for the temporary thrill of revving engines and sky-rocketing adrenaline.

The stubborn male in him answered immediately, yes. He stomped down the hallway and through her kitchen. He didn't pick up the entry form from where it lay on her table. He left it there to remind her, when all the fun and games were over, he was still who he was. He wasn't changing. He wasn't sure he could, even if he wanted to.

Which he didn't.

W
hen Maggie emerged from her bedroom, Luke was gone. He'd left his entry form for the race on her kitchen table, but she knew it was too much to hope that it might mean he was going to reconsider.

She was sorry he was gone. He really should see her like this. Maggie had dressed very primly in an outfit nearly as inspiring as her porridge-colored one, this one as gray as a Portland winter day.

The truth was she wanted to disguise that thing she had released in herself last night. The tigress had to be put back in her cage.

But just thinking of last night, she felt that weakness in her belly that made her wonder just how much control she had. Once you had let a force like that out, something so powerful and untamed, could you really lock it back up?

Or did you become one of those people who kissed shamelessly and wantonly on public staircases and in little booths at the back of pubs?

She understood that kind of behavior better than she ever had before, and her understanding perturbed her.

In defiance of it, she crossed her kitchen, picked Luke's entry form off her table and crumpled it. She tossed it in the garbage. “Death defiers be damned,” she said.

She had always known the sad truth. Even before Darnel, she had been the girl most likely to take the safe way, least likely to have any kind of adventure. She was the one who should live in Boring! Maggie liked predictability, stability, routine, safety.

After Darnel, that longing for the world to be a safe place and a predictable place had intensified.

A woman who harbored a passionate longing to be safe could not be with a man like Luke, a man who flirted with danger and danced with death. She could not, rationally, be with a man who took such a cavalier attitude toward his own life.

If Darnel's leaving had hurt her deeply, left her feeling shattered, what was it going to do to her if something happened to Luke? The hard truth of the matter was she had not had nearly the intensity of feeling for Darnel that she had for Luke. And she'd only known Luke such a short time. Her feelings for him would grow stronger, if she allowed them to, and the pain he was capable of causing her could worsen.

If Luke died, even now, after this short acquaintance, Maggie was not sure she could survive the pain of it.

She was not even sure she could survive the pain
of his desire to pursue activities that were billed as death-defying.

Death would only be defied so many times before it claimed its prize.

Luke had been in the hospital seven times in five years. If he was a cat that would mean he was using up his lives rather rapidly.

Maggie did not really want to go to work this morning. In the days after Darnel had abandoned her she had taken to her bed and cried until she had no tears left.

It had not, she reminded herself firmly, solved anything.

What had saved her had been her return to work. There was always so much to do there; she always had a feeling of impacting lives in such a positive way. And so she was going there now. To lose herself, not even to think she was being abandoned again, in quite a different way.

She went to the office. Maggie worked and worked and worked. She worked until long after everyone else had gone home. It was not nearly the balm she had hoped it would be. At odd moments she became aware she was staring off into space, reliving the night before, wanting that feeling again so badly. It felt as if the tears were bottling up inside her, too much rainwater adding to an already full dam. Her head ached from it, and it felt as though it would only be a matter of time until all that feeling burst out of her, overflowing the walls of that dam. Still, she worked harder trying to hold off the catastrophe of feeling too deeply.

Finally, she put away her papers, exhausted and numb. She came out of her office building to find Kristen just coming up the front walkway. They met on the steps.

“I was just coming to find you. Did you forget? It's our last Bold and Beautiful seminar tonight.”

“I didn't forget. I'm not going.” Maggie's voice sounded wooden and so far away, disconnected from her person.

Kristen looked at her closely. “Oh, God,” she said with pleasure. “You are so in love.”

“I am not.” If this was love—all this angst and pain and doubt, and wanting things you couldn't have or that came at too great a price tag—then Kristen could have it!

“You are. Up one day, down the next. Up, down. Up, down. It's the roller-coaster ride, and, Maggie, it's the greatest ride on the face of the earth.”

The tears pushed against the back of her eyes. “Nonsense,” she said with stiff control. She was saved from Kristen's all-seeing scrutiny by the throaty sound of a large motorcycle. She and Kristen both turned to look, but Maggie was willing to bet only one of their hearts had begun racing a mile a minute.

Luke was pulling up to the curb on the Harley. He looked so extraordinarily handsome in his black leather, big, self-assured, faintly dangerous. Maggie reminded herself that it was that dangerous part that was the whole problem. Damnably attractive, but problematic.

He pulled off the helmet, tucked it under his arm, shook free his hair, which was adorably spiked from being under the helmet. He hooked a leg over the saddle.

Maggie felt that old swooning feeling coming over her and stiffened her spine. She had to be strong.

“Hey, pretty lady, I've been calling your place. I thought I could talk you into a game of Scrabble. Or a moonlight ride on my motorbike.”

Maggie shot a glance at Kristen. Her mouth was hanging open. She glanced at Maggie and mouthed her astonishment.
This is him?

It reminded Maggie sharply that no one, not even her best friend, expected Maggie Mouse to be invited on moonlight motorbike rides with a man like this. It reminded Maggie she had bitten off way more than she could handle with Luke August.

“Isn't that the bike from the movie
Terminator?
” Kristen asked, going to the curb and running a polished fingernail over the Harley symbol on the gas tank.

Maggie watched as her friend tossed her head of red corkscrew curls and grinned her irresistible grin.

Why hadn't she thought of that before? Her best friend and Luke would make an astounding match. They were both beautiful people.

But the very thought of surrendering Luke to anyone was very upsetting. Didn't she have an ounce of gumption, an ounce of fight?

Confusion overwhelmed her. Why would she fight for a man who had a death wish? With whom she had made the firm decision she was not pursuing a relationship?

How could a decision like that be firm in the face of this? He was so close! She wanted to run down the steps and throw herself into his arms, kiss him all over, ride away into the moonlight with him forever.

Except that was the problem. Luke August was constantly challenging the concept of forever. He would make Maggie into a mess of jangled nerves. She'd spend her life wringing her hands and developing those worry wrinkles on her forehead.

Kristen was extending her hand to him. Maggie no
ticed he took Kristen's hand briefly and then sent Maggie a pleading “rescue me” look. What kind of man preferred Maggie to Kristen?

The kind of man, she reminded herself, who took his life in his hands as a matter of course. Who had no consideration for the feelings and sensitivities of others.

But superimposing themselves over that very rational conclusion were memories of last night, flooding her with heat and wanting. She had to get rid of him, and quickly!

“I can't go for a motorbike ride,” Maggie said stiffly. “It's my last Bold and Beautiful seminar tonight.”

She noticed that she did not close the door completely. She did not tell him to ride off into the sunset without her for good.

For good, now that the concept had entered her mind, seemed like an unbearably long time without him.

He kicked the stand under the bike, got off it and strode toward her. Kristen was barely more than a speck to him as he brushed by her.

“You don't need any lessons in being bold or beautiful,” he told her gruffly. “You have both those qualities in abundance.”

“Apparently not enough to convince you to stop taking ridiculous and unnecessary risks with your life!”

“Maggie, this thing between us is not about you telling me how to live.”

Put like that, she almost thought maybe he was right and she was wrong. But then that was what a man like this did—knocked all your compass headings off kilter so you didn't know anymore what was up, what was down, what was right, what was wrong.

“I'm going to the seminar,” she said. Maybe she would hear something that would help her get her bearings, sort through this chaos of feeling and confusion within her.

“I think we need to talk,” he growled. Unless she was mistaken, he was giving her an order! Oh! How dare he be so sexy and masterful? It made it all the harder to stand her ground.

But stand her ground she did. “I can't tonight.”

Again, she noticed she had not closed the door completely, and it wasn't totally because she did not want to humiliate him in front of her friend.

Humiliate him.

Miss Maggie Mouse humiliating him. It seemed so absurd she thought for a moment she might laugh, but then realized it was nerves.

Having him stand so close to her, his scent masked only faintly by leather and motorcycle smells, Maggie was awash again in memories of last night, the primal and erotic beauty of the time they had spent together. How could a woman think straight under these circumstances?

“What time are you done with your class?” he asked. He reached out and touched her hair. The gesture was tender and possessive, as if he was saying to all the world, and the avidly watching Kristen,
This is my woman.
Maggie felt a shiver down to the bottom of her socks.

“Not until late,” she said. “Too late.”

Disappointment clouded the green of his eyes. His hand dropped back to his side.

Kristen had materialized beside her and gave her a sharp dig in the ribs with her elbow. “Don't be an idiot,” she hissed and pushed Maggie none too gently toward Luke.

But Maggie dug in her heels and folded her arms over her chest.

Luke eyed her shrewdly, put his helmet back on, gave her a slow salute, and then sauntered over to his bike, all loose-limbed grace, and swung a long leg over it. The engine started with a throaty, powerful purr, and then he was pulling smoothly into traffic, leaving her.

For good?

Kristen whirled on her. “Have you lost your ever-loving mind?”

Maggie had, but that was last night.

“No,” she said, but she was not so sure. She knew she was losing everything, not just her mind, but everything that mattered somehow.

“Was he serious? Scrabble?”

“Possibly.”

“Maggie, he's a perfect ten! He's like a movie star, only ten times better. He's rugged and real and about the sexiest thing I've ever seen. He wanted you to go with him!”

“Yes,” Maggie said.

“Did you see the look on his face when he touched your hair?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“That man is crazy in love with you.”

Crazy in love with her. Maggie digested that. Could it possibly be true? She had to remind herself, firmly, that he was not so crazy in love with her that he wanted to live instead of die.

“Oh, I could just strangle you sometimes,” Kristen said.

“Well, today would be a real good day if you plan to do it.”

“Oh, come on,” Kristen said. “Let's see if Dr. Richie can talk some sense into you.”

“Actually, I have come to my senses.”

Kristen snorted. “I don't think so,” she said dramatically.

She paused in the door of the class, and her annoyance at Maggie evaporated. “Maggie,” she said excitedly, “look over there.”

Maggie looked at a beautiful woman standing off to the side as the rest of the class took their seats. The woman was tall and willowy and masses of red curly hair haloed her extraordinarily stunning face. It was a face that would not be forgotten, once seen, and Maggie had a vague sense of knowing who the woman was.

“It's the film star,” Kristen whispered, awed. “Cynthia Reynolds.”

“It is not,” Maggie said, but she could see Kristen was convinced. She felt a moment's gratitude that at least it was taking her friend's mind off their encounter with Luke.

“I'm going to ask her,” Kristen said.

Maggie looked back at the woman. Despite her great beauty, or maybe because of it, she looked like she might enjoy her privacy, but Kristen was generally not sensitive to such subtle vibes. There was, in fact, no talking to Kristen once she got that look in her eye. Thank goodness that look was now being directed at someone else!

Kristen came back a few minutes later, breathless. “It
is
her!”

Maggie tried to look suitably awed. The truth was Brad Pitt could run through the room naked right now and she could barely make herself care about it.

Glumly, she took her seat while Kristen looked around for something to have the film star autograph.

“Not a piece of paper,” she muttered. “Something that could become a collectible.” She leaned forward to the woman in front of her. “Do you think I could buy your scarf from you? That's Cynthia Reynolds over there, and I'd like her to sign something for me.”

The woman looked over where Kristen was pointing, and leaped up. Moments later, Kristen was watching with narrowed eyes as the woman had Cynthia sign her scarf.

“Of all the nerve,” Kristen muttered.

Dr. Richie came in. He didn't make any fuss over the new member of the class, though he was obviously very aware she was there.

Maggie wondered if this was her fate now: would every man be compared to Luke and found wanting? Because she found herself looking at Dr. Richie and seeing things she had not seen before. She was very aware that he was subtly preening for Cynthia Reynolds and smiling nervously, like a person with stage fright. Maggie was willing to bet the star had asked him not to introduce her or draw attention to her. She was also willing to bet he desperately wanted to do just that.