“I’m serious. Remember what I said about her being an Ice Princess?”
Travis had looked squarely at Peggy. “You were wrong.”
“No. No, I wasn’t. Girl who told me the lady’s name said she’s got a freezer where her heart’s supposed to be.”
Travis had smiled. “It’s not the lady’s heart I’m interested in,” he’d said, and then he’d gone down into the crowd, barely acknowledging the slaps on the back and the cheers from Pete Haskell and the other guys he worked with, pushing through everybody until, at last, he’d reached the lobby—and saw Alexandra Thorpe.
She’d still been talking with the chairwoman. Her back was to him, and he’d treated himself to the pleasure of the view. All that golden hair, streaming over her shoulders. The straight, elegant back, naked almost to the base of her spine. The gently rounded bottom, outlined in the silk garnet skirt. And those legs, those endless legs, encased in black hose that tapered down to shoes with heels high enough to make a man’s mouth water.
He’d wondered what he’d find beneath that sinful excuse of a dress, when he took it off her later tonight. A black lace bra, with a matching garter belt? A scrap of silk that might be called a pair of panties?
Travis had felt his body tighten.
Or would there be nothing under that dress except the garter belt, and the sexy stockings?
His fingers itched with the need to find out.
He’d started toward her, then slowed his pace.
Something was wrong. It was in the set of her shoulders, the tilt of her head. He’d looked past the Thorpe woman, to the gray-haired chairwoman. She was smiling but there was no mistaking the earnest look on her face. She was making some sort of pitch.
He got closer, and heard enough to know he was right.
“It will only take a few minutes,” she was saying. “If you and your bachelor could give the TV people a few pictures and a short interview, it would be wonderful publicity for the auction.”
“He’s not ‘my’ bachelor,” Alexandra Thorpe had said. “You don’t understand, Mrs. Rhodes. I’m not staying. Really, I can’t.”
Travis had stepped up behind her and told her that she could stay, that she would stay. For some reason, he’d gone heavy on the Texas drawl that was always just a heartbeat away. “Sugar,” he’d called her, liking the way her eyes flared a little at the name. She’d been off balance, fighting something inside her—and then, suddenly, it had all changed.
It had been like seeing a woman pull a veil over her face. Or a mask. Yeah, that was it. Alexandra Thorpe had disappeared behind a mask, and it wasn’t the first time it had happened tonight. It was just that he’d misread it, before. She hadn’t gone from naked longing to confusion, she’d gone from longing to disbelief. Either she didn’t know she was capable of that kind of desire or she didn’t want to know it. Now, she was covering it with her Lady of the Manor act.
Covering, and she’d blamed him for it.
Instinct, as well as anger, urged him to take her in his arms and kiss that haughty smile from her face. With an arrogance that was more than a match for hers, he knew he could not only make her want him again, but he could make her beg him for the release only he could bring her, once she was in his arms.
Intelligence—what little he had left of it, considering the way his hormones were pumping—warned him that to do so would be a mistake. The thing to do was play along and see where Alexandra Thorpe imagined this would end.
Polite applause sprang up as she led him to the center of the dance floor. Barbara Rhodes must have seen them coming. The orchestra stopped in midbeat, and the chairwoman took hold of the microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to give you Ms. Alexandra Thorpe and her prize!”
Laugher, and more applause. Alex smiled and turned toward Travis, but her smile faltered when she saw the way he was looking at her. The orchestra began playing. The music was lush and romantic. Travis reached out and gathered her into his arms.
“Are you a good dancer, Ms. Thorpe?” he said softly. “Do you know how to let your body find the right rhythm?”
“I’m an excellent dancer. But I don’t like to be held so tightly.”
Travis smiled and drew her closer. “You seem stiff in my arms. Is it because you haven’t—” his pause was slow and deliberate “—because you haven’t—danced—enough, lately?”
Alex colored. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Maybe you haven’t had the right man. To dance with, I mean.”
Her color deepened. What pleasure it was, to chip away at that arrogant composure and autocratic veneer.
“I could lead you in steps you’ve only dreamed of, Ms. Thorpe. All you have to do is admit that you want me for your teacher.”
“That’s enough!”
Alex tried to pull back but Travis’s arm tightened around her. “Why did you pay twenty thousand bucks for me, Sugar?” He smiled through his teeth. “Your face is like an open book, Ms. Thorpe. You’re torn between wanting to sock me in the jaw and turning tail and running like a scared rabbit.”
“I never run from anything.” Alex’s voice hummed with fury. “But you’ve certainly got the first part right.”
“Either way, five hundred people are watching us. And there’s a TV camera pointed in our direction. Do you really want to make headlines, Ms. Thorpe?”
“You’re a horrible man!”
“I’m an honest one. You paid a lot of money for me, and it didn’t have a damned thing to do with charity.”
“You overestimate your charm, sir.”
“You paid it so you could go to bed with a man who’d make you feel something. And then you turned chicken.”
Alex stopped moving. Travis did, too. She looked up at him, eyes blazing. “I really, really despise you!”
Travis laughed. “Ah, darlin’, where’s all that hauteur gone to? I know that’s a mighty big word for a cowboy to use but I never said I was a cowboy, Ms. Thorpe. You were the one who decided that.”
The music changed, became a waltz. Travis began moving in time with it. There was no choice. Alexandra began moving, too.
He circled the room with her in his arms, faster and faster, holding her so that her body was pressed to his. Her breasts, her thighs…God, how he wanted her. He could almost feel the heat of her, burning his skin. Yes, hatred blazed in her eyes but he knew women, and desire. And he could see something more in those eyes, besides hatred.
“What are you afraid to admit, Alex?”
His whisper was velvet-soft. Alex felt breathless. How had this happened? How had he taken control?
“I’m not afraid of anything.” Even she could hear the tremor in her voice.
“Then tell me the truth,” he said roughly. “Admit that you want me.”
“I don’t!”
Travis laughed. “Liar,” he said, and whirled her faster and faster.
CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS a hell of a time to think of Jonas, but suddenly his father’s voice was in his head.
“So now you think you’re gonna fight for truth and justice,” he’d said, the day Travis had been admitted to the Bar. “Well, lemme tell you somethin’, boy. Only winners get justice, and liars never see the truth until