This Perfect Kiss (20 page)

And maybe he even understood a little her fear of emotional mistakes.

He stalked toward the suite’s front door, kicking his tuxedo jacket out of the way in frustration. Really, he should have seen this whole thing coming. He
had
seen it coming. But she was just so damn difficult to stay away from.

“Um, Rory.”

He paused. “What now?”

Her voice was soft, apologetic. “Well, if you need to…if you want me to do something for you…”

Hell
. He kicked his tuxedo jacket again and continued on his way to the door. “Gee, thanks, but no.”

“Where are you going?” Jilly asked.

He didn’t spare her a glance. “To find the ice machine.”

Jilly squinted against the afternoon glare coming through the Mercedes’s windshield, then slid a
glance at the man driving. Despite Rory’s quasi-calm exit the night before and his current impassive expression, she could feel his annoyance. He’d spoken only two words since emerging from his bedroom this morning, one being “come” and the other being “on,” as a way of telling her it was time to leave for the airport to catch their flight home.

Now on the way to Things Past from the L.A. airport, she squirmed in her seat, wishing for something to break the monotonous, ominous quiet besides the subdued hum of the luxury car. She cleared her throat.

Rory didn’t take his gaze off the road ahead.

Jilly couldn’t stand the silence, and the tension, any longer. “Aren’t you going to say
something
?”

There was a long pause. “Like what?” Only his mouth moved.

Jilly made an impatient gesture. “I don’t know. You could say you understand. You could accept my apology. You could yell at me. Something.
Anything
.”

“Maybe I’m still trying to take it all in.”

She didn’t believe that for a minute. He’d taken it all in last night, every word. He just didn’t get it. “Can you understand what I have to prove? When I said I was going to take over my mother’s business, my grandmother tried to prevent me from leaving her house by saying she loved me and that she needed me. When I still insisted, she instantly predicted all sorts of vile things. Utter failure. Abject poverty. That I’d turn into a tramp
like my mother and end up back on her doorstep, pregnant.”

Oh, she’d recognized the desperation in her grandmother’s words. The old woman knew she was losing Jilly. But in the name of “love,” she had kept Jilly’s mother from her and then tried to control her life. This was why Jilly had broken all ties with her grandmother. And why she’d had a private chat last night with Uncle Fitz to make sure that no one in the Blue Party would try to reconnect them.

“There are ways to prevent pregnancy and disease, Jilly,” Rory pointed out.

“I know that.” But there were some lessons not easily undone. After years of nun-training, she couldn’t abruptly enter into a casual sexual relationship.

He shook his head in disbelief. “And in the last four years you’ve never been tempted?”

“Never,” she answered emphatically. “My friend Kim and I took the vow of celibacy together. Sure, it started out as a pathetic giggle over a cheap bottle of wine, but there was a rightness to it the next morning. And all the days after. No, I can honestly say I’ve never been tempted.”

“What about last night?”

Oops
. She couldn’t quite figure out a way to explain last night…and all the other times with Rory.

“You let me undress you,” he reminded her. “You undressed
me
. And then you let me—”

“Okay, okay! I remember it perfectly well.” His clever mouth on her breast, his lean cheeks hol
lowing as he took that part of her inside him. His too-wise fingers finding, touching, pressing, creating perfect pulsing waves of delicious, heated pleasure.

She squirmed against the soft leather of the seat and cleared her throat again. “It must be an allergic reaction or a nutritional deficit.”

Okay, so that explanation sounded goofy even to her ears, but she had to say something to return their relationship to a less intimate footing. “Maybe I need more leafy green vegetables. Would you mind a quick stop at the whole-foods store so I can stock up?”

There was an astonished pause, and then he muttered under his breath.

“What was that?” she asked innocently.

“Just a prayer. That as soon as I’m out of L.A. the Big Quake hits and dumps this half of the state straight into the Pacific.”

She made a face at him. “You don’t mean that.”

“Sweetheart, you don’t
know
how much I mean that.”

He sounded so sure, and so surly, Jilly scooted closer to her window and welcomed the silence that followed. She needed to get away from him. With her nose to the cool glass, she wished for light traffic and a quick trip home.

Rory turned up the Mercedes’s air conditioning and tried to muster up some contrition over needling Jilly about the night before. But, dammit, the sex-free package of sensuality beside him deserved a little discomfort for what she’d done to him. Despite all her La-La Land celibate
looniness, and even after the roller-coaster ride of the past twenty-four hours, she had a way of insinuating herself into his blood.

And then turning him upsidedown. Insideout. Though he’d grabbed control of his life ten years ago, it took only this one woman with her wacky curls and even wackier lifestyle to loosen his grip. God, he had to find a way to deal with her before his entire life spun out of control.

Even now he could feel the sleek heat of her skin against his fingertips and taste her berried nipples against the roof of his mouth.

bap bap bap bap

Rory cursed. The car had drifted to the left and was riding the lane bumps. He quickly jerked the wheel, steering into the lane’s center.

Inhaling a calming breath, he checked the rearview mirror. A battered Chevy was riding the Mercedes’s butt. Glancing to his left, he switched lanes, then checked the rearview mirror again. The Chevy had changed lanes, too, and was practically kissing his bumper. “Damn,” he muttered.

Watching the cars around him closely, he speeded up and switched lanes again.
“Damn it all to hell.”

He could feel Jilly’s gaze on him, but he didn’t want to take his focus off the traffic. Another car—a Dodge truck—gained on the right, keeping level with them. “We’re being followed,” he said.

“No!”

“Yes. My guess is they picked us up at the airport.” Freelance photographers were known to stake out LAX, hoping to catch surprise shots of
surprised celebrities. Rory gritted his teeth and pressed on the accelerator. The late Sunday afternoon traffic was thickening and he didn’t like the way the Chevy and its buddy the Dodge were boxing him in.

“The guy over here is gesturing for me to roll down my window,” Jilly said.

“N—” But smoggy L.A. air poured into the car before he could get out the word.

The Dodge veered dangerously close to Jilly’s side. Rory’s gut clenched, but with the Chevy behind him and the traffic in front of him, he had no place to go. “Dammit, Jilly. Roll up your window!” He didn’t dare take his hand off the wheel to use the driver controls.

“They need to get out of our way,” she said over the wind. “My exit is coming up.”

The Dodge inched even closer. Rory’s leg muscles tensed. If the asshole driver caused an accident, if something happened to Jilly, he’d break the guy in two. Rory was counting on the chance to strangle her himself.

She leaned out the window. “What do you want?” she shouted.

Oh, Christ
. Rory’s heart bucked in his chest. The driver was taking photos with one hand while steering with the other. Without thinking, Rory grabbed Jilly’s arm and hauled her close. “He wants to get us killed, you idiot. Now
roll up your window
.”

“They’re going to make us miss the exit,” Jilly insisted. “We
can’t
miss the exit.”

Rory gritted his teeth again. “To hell with the
exit. You’re going to Caidwater with me anyway.”

“I want to go home!” But she leaned over to lever up the window and it was suddenly quiet in the car. “I need to go home,” she said again.

Rory’s gaze flicked from the Chevy behind him to the Dodge on his right. The damn paparazzi weren’t giving up. “No,” he said. If the photographers followed them to Things Past, Rory could guarantee only one thing. “If we all end up there, at least one of those bastards will get a camera in
his
face. Right after my fist.”

At Caidwater, at least, he could put some locked gates between them and Jilly.

Something—the threat of violence, maybe—shut her up after that. It gave him time to concentrate on maneuvering through the traffic. The back of his neck ached with coiled tension as he tried to ditch the cars following them as safely as possible. But the photographers drove so recklessly that several times Jilly gasped, echoing his own fear.

She grabbed his thigh when he made a last-minute lane change to exit the freeway. They lost the Chevy, but the Dodge found its way behind them.

“Damn,” Rory muttered. Thinking quickly, he made a fast left. “Say a prayer, honey.”

Holding his breath, Rory sped through a stale yellow light. The blare of horns and the squeal of brakes behind him clearly indicated the other car had tried to follow.

“He didn’t get through,” Jilly said. Rory
instantly checked the rearview mirror. Cars were stopped in the middle of the intersection. The Dodge was blocked from following them.

Jilly’s head fell back against the seat and she closed her eyes. “I think I aged from twenty-five to eighty-five in the last half hour.”

Rory couldn’t begin to say what the car chase had done to him. Driving more slowly now, he looked at Jilly again and reached out a shaking hand to stroke her hair. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Fine.” Her fingers caught his. “You?”

Something inside Rory’s chest twisted, wringing out a strange mix of relief and tenderness. He couldn’t speak.

“Rory?” She turned her head and opened her eyes. “Are you all right?”

At her impossibly sweet, impossibly concerned expression, his mouth went dry. He swallowed. “I’m fine, too. Thanks for asking.” Not many did.

Still gripping his hand, she drew it down her soft, warm cheek. “I think someone knotted every one of my muscles.”

Each one of his was kinked, too. “I know just what you mean.” He shot her another sidelong look. Her face was pale and her mouth was set in a strained line. She’d obviously been clenching her teeth. He could kill those bastards.

“How about a soak in the hot tub when we get back to the house?” he said suddenly.

“Rory…”

He gently disentangled their hands, hating the way his continued to tremble at the thought of Jilly in danger. “Just the hot tub,” he assured her.
“And just long enough to make sure those photographers get tired of waiting for you at home.”

He forced a grin he didn’t much feel, because she needed to relax as badly as he did. “You don’t need to worry. I’m not interested in older women anyway.”

She looked blank, then laughed and slapped his arm. “Oh, fine. You talked me into it. We eighty-five-year-olds don’t get such invitations every day. Hot, bubbly water sounds blissful.”

And the hot, bubbling water felt blissful, Rory thought half an hour later, leaning against the tile. He sighed, and the sound echoed in the cavernous room that housed the hot tub. It was dark outside now, and running along the eastern wall of the room were windows that reflected the adjacent Olympic-size pool and the soft glow of the few lights he’d turned on.

The patter of footsteps made him look up. Jilly was wrapped in a voluminous bath sheet, though he could see the strap of a bathing suit tied around her neck. “Did you find something to fit you in the changing rooms?”

She cleared her throat. “Well, um, yes. One thing.”

Her obvious nervousness put Rory on instant alert. But he’d promised an unthreatening, uneventful soak, so he dropped his head back against the tile and pretended to close his eyes. “Come in, then.” Through his lashes he watched her hesitate.

After a moment she dropped the towel, then dropped instantly into the hot water.

Unfortunately, the “instantly” wasn’t quick enough. The image of Jilly in a tiny black string bikini burned itself into Rory’s brain. He stiffened and sat up. “What the
hell
are you wearing?”

She slid lower into the bubbles. “I thought you weren’t looking!”

He forced himself back, trying to relax, though the water had just jacked up forty degrees. “I wasn’t looking, I just happened to see.” Liar.

“It was the only suit that fit me,” she said defensively. “Believe me, it wasn’t my first choice.”

Rory muttered under his breath, every thought, every promise of relaxation quickly evaporating.

“What?”

“I said you
must
be my curse.”

Even in the dim light he could see her eyes widen. Then she glared at him. “Well, I think you’re my curse, too.”

“You curse me worse than I could possibly curse you.”

She slid along the underwater bench, closer to him. “I doubt that. I really doubt that.”

“Think about it.” He pointed his finger at her gold-dusted nose. “That damn camera of yours forced me into kissing you.”

The mouth he’d kissed—so well, and so many more times than once—turned down. “Well, I was forced into accepting that kiss.”

“And now, now I’m engaged to you.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

She blinked, and slid even closer. “
What
? Well, I’m engaged to
you
. That’s an even bigger curse.”

Lost in their argument, Jilly had apparently forgotten the brevity of her bikini. She was sitting up straight, and the tops of her plump breasts were wet but completely exposed to his eyes. Rory’s shaft stiffened as he watched the bubbles tickle at the nipples barely covered by the small black triangles of fabric. He remembered all that beautiful flesh filling his mouth and, groaning, closed his eyes.

“I’m cursed by wanting a woman—wanting her so bad that I ache—who’s celibate. Beat that.”