CHANCE COULD almost hear some of the synapses in his brain disconnect. There wasn’t much chance of making a snappy comeback when that happened. He heard his heart skip one full beat and then begin to pound until the noises of the party—the chatter, the clink of glasses, the music—all of it faded to a hum. And all the while, he simply couldn’t take his eyes off of her. As if the combination of cherry-red lips and startlingly blue eyes weren’t lethal enough, she now had a slew of very improper pImages** flooding his mind. Thoroughly fascinated by this side of Natalie, he could barely wait to see what she would do next.
She filled in the silence by taking the fingers that were still at her ear and raising then to her mouth. He felt the warmth of her breath, then the cool brush of her lips just before the heat scorched through him. Even after she released his hand, he felt as if the skin had been singed by a candle.
“Where are you staying?” she asked.
“The Meridian,” he said.
She ran one finger from his tie down the front of his shirt, stopping at the waistband of his pants. Then she traced the buckle of his belt. “You know, the moment I saw you, I thought to myself—when was the last time I made love with someone just for the fun of it? And I couldn’t remember.”
She was seducing him in the middle of a crowded party. And he wasn’t doing a thing to stop her. He wasn’t even taking over the task. He didn’t want to. In some dark corner of his brain, Chance recalled that he’d come to this party with a job to do and that he was on a deadline. But none of that seemed to matter anymore.
Her fingers had slipped below his belt and were resting lightly on his erection. “Am I moving too fast for you? I have a tendency to do that.”
“I think I can keep up.”
She smiled at him. “Good. I’m only in town for a few days, and I’d hate to waste my time here.”
“Time management just happens to be my specialty.” Chance took the hand that was toying again with his belt and linked her fingers with his. “Let’s go.”
By the time he’d led her through the gate and down the alley to where he’d parked his car, he’d organized his thoughts a little. At least he thought he had. But when they reached the sleek red convertible, Natalie turned so her body brushed against his, and his brain seemed to switch off.
“You know, we’re about to go off and have a bout of hot, wild sex,” she said. “At least I hope we are. But we haven’t even kissed yet. Maybe we ought to try it to see if we have the right chemistry.”
Oh, they had the right chemistry all right. The luscious red lips were only inches away, and he was sure he could smell his synapses frying again. He had to get some kind of handle on his response to her.
He had not come to Sophie Wainwright’s party to seduce Natalie Gibbs. He’d come to convince her to come to Florida with him. He needed her help, and what he was about to do might blow his chances of ever convincing her to help him catch Carlo Brancotti.
But from the moment she’d looked at him through those baby-blue contact lenses and told him that she wanted to do something a lot more fun than exchange life stories, he’d been unable to think about anything else. He might be about to make the biggest mistake of his life, but he wanted this Natalie just as desperately as he’d wanted the woman who’d haunted his dreams for the past three months.
But that didn’t mean “Rachel” was going to have it all her way. Two could play the little game she’d started. He moved forward, just enough to push her back against the car and bring his body into full contact with hers. The quick hitch of her breath gave him a great deal of satisfaction. “If I kiss you now, really kiss you, I won’t stop,” he murmured, bringing his lips to within a breath of hers, “until I’m inside of you.”
He saw the quick flash of heat in her eyes, felt it in the way her body melted against his. He rested his mouth against hers, just long enough to sample the yielding softness. Then he drew away. His words had conjured up in his mind a very clear image of what it would be like to take her right there on the hood of his car. He was ready. He’d been ready since he’d first spotted her on the balcony. And he could very easily find out if she was ready. All he had to do was slip his hand beneath the hem of her dress and up the satiny softness of her thigh. He had no doubt that she would be hot and wet and welcoming. The alley was deserted right now, and the party was in full swing. The sounds of string music and muted laughter carried clearly on the still night air.
When she looped her arms around his neck, and pulled his head just that little bit closer so that his lips were brushing hers again, he nearly gave in to the temptation to taste her. Later he would thank the blast of music from a car driving past the alley for saving them both. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he drew back. “We could get arrested.”
“Arrested?” The cloudy mix of desire and confusion in her eyes nearly snapped his control.
“Yeah. Mug shots, fingerprints, one phone call. It could really take all the fun out of the evening.”
“Yeah.” She gave her head one quick shake to clear it, then pushed her hair behind her ear. Though he couldn’t have said why, he found the nervous gesture endearing.
“I’ll take a raincheck on that kiss,” he said.
“Ditto.”
He managed to get her into the car without touching her again. That was the easy part. The hard part was the drive to his hotel. They’d no sooner pulled out of the parking lot when she scrambled onto her knees and began to loosen his tie.
“Rachel, getting into an accident is another way to take the fun out of an evening.”
Her laugh was quick and breathless in his ear. “I’m just trying to save us time. You did say you were into time management.”
“Yeah.” His tie was off, and her fingers were already slipping beneath the buttons of his shirt, leaving a trail of ice and heat on his skin. “Two rules. You keep your hands above my belt, and I’ll promise to keep both of mine on the wheel.”
Laughing, she closed her teeth around the lobe of his ear. “Deal. But don’t they say rules are meant to be broken?”
NATALIE HADN’T convinced him to break the rules, but it had been a close call. She could tell by the quick way he handed the car keys over to a valet and drew her with him into the hotel. The Meridian was one of D.C.’s more posh accommodations for travellers. Many of the rooms boasted a view of the Washington Monument and the Mall, though she didn’t think that she and Chance were going to spend time looking at either. She could feel heat radiating through her body from where his hand was pressed at the small of her back.
His touches, his kiss, had been tame so far, and she was beginning to crave him. When his body had brushed against hers in the parking lot, it had been hard, solid. In the three months since she’d last seen Chance, she’d spent some time imagining exactly what that body would feel like pressing into hers. Natalie, of course, had pushed those fantasies out of her mind. Rachel, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to make those fantasies and more come true. Had Rachel always been living inside of her? That was something she would consider later. Right now, she was going to focus all her attention on Chance.
She said nothing until they were in the elevator and the doors were sliding shut. Then she turned to him. “Are you ever really going to kiss me?”
“Soon.” He settled his hands at her waist, but instead of pulling her close, he turned her instead, so that she could see