Man of the Hour Read online

  She smiled sheepishly. “He’s the caretaker of my apartment house. He wanted to adopt me.”

  “Good God!”

  She rested her fingers on his arms, feeling their strength, loving them. She leaned against him gently with subdued delight that heightened when his hands came out of his pockets and smoothed over her shoulders. “There really isn’t room in my life for complications,” she said sadly. “Even with you. It wouldn’t be wise.” She forced a laugh from her tight throat. “Besides, I’m sure you have all the women you need already.”

  “Of course,” he agreed with maddening carelessness and a curious watchfulness. “But I’ve wanted you for a very long time. We started something that we never finished. I want to get you out of my system, Meg, once and for all.”

  “Have you considered hiring an exorcist?” she asked, resorting to humor. She pushed playfully at his chest, feeling his heartbeat under her hands. “How about plastering a photo of me on one of your women…?”

  He shook her gently. “Stop that.”

  “Besides,” she said, sighing and looping her arms around his neck, “I’d probably get pregnant and there’d be a scandal in the aircraft community. My career would be shot, your reputation would be ruined and we’d have a baby that neither of us wanted.” Odd that the threat of pregnancy no longer terrified her, she thought idly.

  “Mary Margaret, this is the twentieth century,” he murmured on a laugh. “Women don’t get pregnant these days unless they want to.”

  She turned her head slightly as she looked up at him, wide-eyed. “Why, Mr. Ryker, you sound so sophisticated. I suppose you keep a closetful of supplies?”

  He burst out laughing. “Hell.”

  She smiled up at him. “Stop baiting me,” she said. “I don’t want to sleep with you and ruin a beautiful friendship. We’ve been friends for a long time, Steve, even if cautious ones.”

  “Friend, enemy, sparring partner,” he agreed. The smile turned to a blank-faced stare with emotion suddenly glittering dangerously in his silver eyes. His chest rose and fell roughly and he moved a hand into the thick hair knotted at her nape and grasped it suddenly. He held her head firmly while he started to bend toward her.

  “Steve…” she protested uncertainly.

  “One kiss,” he whispered back gruffly. “Is that so much to ask?”

  “We shouldn’t,” she whispered at his lips.

  “I know…” His hard mouth brushed over hers slowly, suggestively. His powerful body went very still and his free hand moved to her throat, stroking it tenderly. His thumb tugged at the lower lip that held stubbornly to its mate and broke the taut line.

  Her hands pressed at his shirtfront, fascinated by warm, hard muscle and a heavy heartbeat. She couldn’t quite manage to push him away.

  “Mary Margaret,” he breathed jerkily, and then he took her mouth.

  “Oh, glory…!” she moaned, shivering. It was a jolt like diving into ice water. It burned through her body and through her veins and made her go rigid with helpless pleasure. He was far more expert than he’d been even four years ago. His tongue gently probed its way into the warm darkness of her mouth and she gasped at the darting, hungry pressure of its invasion. He tasted of smoke and mint, and his mouth was rough, as if he’d gone hungry for kisses.

  While she was gathering up willpower to resist him, he reached down and lifted her in his hard arms, crushing her into the wall of his chest while his devouring kisses made her oblivious to everything except desire. At the center of the world was Steve and his hunger, and she was suddenly, shockingly, doing her very best to satisfy it, to satisfy him, with her arms clinging helplessly around his neck.

  He lifted his mouth to draw in a ragged breath, and she hung there with swollen lips, wide-eyed, breathing like a distance runner.

  “If you don’t stop,” she whispered unsteadily, “I’ll tear your clothes off and ravish you right here on the carpet!”

  Despite his staggering hunger, the humor broke through, as it always had with her, only with her. There had never been another woman who could make him laugh, could make him feel so alive.

  “Oh, God, why can’t you shut up for five minutes?” he managed through reluctant laughter.

  “Self-defense,” she said, laughing, too, her own voice breathless with traces of passion. “Oh, Steve, can you kiss!” she moaned.

  He shook his head, defeated. He let her slide down his body to the floor, close enough to feel what had happened to him.

  “Sorry,” she murmured impishly.

  “Only with you, honey,” he said heavily, the endearment coming easily when he never used them. He held her arms firmly for a minute before he let her go with a rueful smile and turned away to light another cigarette. “Odd, that reaction. I need a little time with most women. It was never that way with you.”

  She hadn’t thought about it in four years. Now she had to, and he was right. The minute he’d touched her, he’d been capable. She’d convinced herself that he never wanted her, but her memory hadn’t dimmed enough to forget the size and power of him in arousal. She’d been a little afraid of him the first time it had happened, in fact, although he’d assured her that they were compatible in every way, especially in that one. She didn’t like remembering how intimate they’d been, because it was still painful to remember how it had all ended. Looking back, it seemed impossible that he could have gone to Daphne after they argued, unless…

  She stiffened as she remembered how desperately he’d wanted her. Had he been so desperate that he’d needed to spend his desire with someone else?

  “Steve,” she began.

  He glanced at her. “What?”

  “What you said, earlier. Was it difficult for you,” she said slowly. “Holding back?”

  “Yes.” His face changed. “Apparently that didn’t occur to you four years ago,” he said sarcastically.

  “A lot of things didn’t occur to me four years ago,” she said. She felt a dawning fear that she didn’t want to explore.

  “Don’t strain your memory,” he said with a mocking smile. “God forbid that you might have to reconsider your position. It’s too damned late, even if you did.”

  “I know that. I wouldn’t…I have my career.”

  “Your career.” He nodded, but there was something disconcerting in the way he said it, in the way he looked at her.

  “I’d better see about the roast,” she murmured, retreating.

  He studied her face with a purely masculine appreciation. “Better fix your lipstick, unless you want David making embarrassing remarks.”

  “David is terrified of me,” she informed him. “I once beat him up in full view of half our classmates.”

  “So he told me, but he’s grown.”

  “Not too much.” She touched her mouth. It was faintly sore from the pressure of his hard kisses. She wouldn’t have expected so much passion from him after four years.

  “Did I hurt?” he asked quietly. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “You always were a little rough when we made love,” she recalled with a wistful smile. “I never minded.”

  His eyes kindled and before he could make the move his expression telegraphed, she beat a hasty retreat into the kitchen. He was overwhelming at close range, and she couldn’t handle an affair with him. She didn’t dare try. Having lived through losing him once, she knew she’d never survive having to go through it again. He still wanted her, but that was all. She was filed under unfinished business, and there was something a little disturbing about his attitude toward her. It wasn’t quite unsatisfied passion on his part, she thought nervously. It was more like a deeply buried, long-nurtured vendetta.

  It was probably a good thing that she was going back to New York soon, she thought dimly. And not a minute too soon. Her knees were so wobbly she could barely walk, and just from one kiss. If he turned up the heat, as he had during their time together, she would never be able to resist him. The needs she felt were overpowering now. She wa
s a woman and she reacted like one. It was her bad luck that the only man who aroused her was the one man she daren’t succumb to. If Steve really was holding a grudge against her for breaking off their engagement, giving in to him would be a recipe for disaster.

  Supper was a rather quiet affair, with Meg introspective and Steven taciturn while David tried to carry the conversation alone.

  “Can’t you two say something? Just a word now and again while I try to enjoy this perfectly cooked pot roast?” David groaned, glancing from one set face to the other. “Have you had another fight?”

  “We haven’t been fighting,” Meg said innocently. “Have we, Steve?”

  Steven looked down at his plate, deliberately cutting a piece of meat without replying.

  David threw up his hands. “I’ll never understand you two!” he muttered. “I’ll just go see about dessert, shall I? I shall,” he said, but he was talking to himself as he left the room.

  “I don’t want any,” she called after him.

  “Yes, she does,” Steve said immediately, catching her eyes. “You’re too thin. If you lose another two or three pounds, you’ll be able to walk through a harp.”

  “I’m a dancer,” she said. “I can’t dance with a fat body.”

  He smiled gently. “That’s right. Fight me.” Something alien glittered in his eyes and his breathing quickened.

  “Somebody needs to,” she said with forced humor. “All that feminine fawning has ruined you. Your mother said that lines of women form everywhere you go these days.”

  His eyes contemplated his coffee cup intensely and his brow furrowed. “Did she?” he asked absently.

  “But that you never take any of them seriously.” She laughed, but without much humor. “Haven’t you even thought about marrying?”

  He looked up, his expression briefly hostile. “Sure. Once.”

  She felt uncomfortable. “It wouldn’t have worked,” she said stiffly. “I wouldn’t have shared you, even when I was eighteen and naive.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You think I’m modern enough in my outlook to keep a wife and a mistress at the same time?”

  The question disturbed her. “Daphne was beautiful and sophisticated,” she replied. “I was green behind the ears. Totally uninhibited. I used to embarrass you…”

  “Never!”

  There was muted violence in the explosive word.

  She glanced up at him curiously. “But I did! Your father said that’s why you never liked to take me out in public…”

  “My father. What a champion.” He lifted the cold coffee to his lips and sipped it. It felt as cold as he did inside. He looked at Meg and ached. “Between them, your mother and my father did a pretty damned good job, didn’t they?”

  “Daphne was a fact,” she replied stubbornly.

  He drew in a long, weary breath. “Yes. She was, wasn’t she? You saw that for yourself in the newspaper.”

  “I certainly did.” She sounded bitter. She hated having given her feelings away. She forced a smile. “But, as they say, no harm done. I have a bright career ahead of me and you’re a millionaire several times over.”

  “I’m that, all right. I look in the mirror twice a day and say, ‘lucky me.’”

  “Don’t tease.”

  He turned his wrist and glanced at the face of the thin gold watch. “I have to go,” he said, pushing back his chair.

  “Are you off to a business meeting?” she probed gently.

  He stared at her without speaking for a few seconds, just long enough to give him a psychological advantage. “No,” he said. “I have a date. As my mother told you,” he added with a cold smile, “I don’t have any problem getting women these days.”

  Meg didn’t know how she managed to smile, but she did. “The lucky girl,” she murmured on a prolonged sigh.

  Steve glowered at her. “You never stop, do you?”

  “Can I help it if you’re devastating?” she replied. “I don’t blame women for falling all over you. I used to.”

  “Not for long.”

  She searched his hard face curiously. “I should have talked to you about Daphne, instead of running away.”

  “Let the past lie,” he said harshly. “We’re not the same people we were.”

  “One of us certainly isn’t,” she mused dryly. “You never used to kiss me like that!”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Did you expect me to remain celibate when you defected?”

  “Of course not,” she replied, averting her eyes. “That would have been asking the impossible.”

  “Fidelity belongs to a committed relationship,” he said.

  She was looking at her hands, not at him. Life seemed so empty lately. Even dancing didn’t fill the great hollow space in her heart. “Being in a committed relationship wouldn’t have mattered,” she murmured. “I doubt if you’d have been capable of staying faithful to just one woman, what with your track record and all. And I’m hardly a raving beauty like Daphne.”

  He stiffened slightly, but no reaction showed in his face. He watched her and glowered. “Nice try, but it doesn’t work.”

  She glanced up, surprised. “What doesn’t?”

  “The wounded, downcast look,” he said. He stretched, and muscles rippled under his knit shirt. “I know you too well, Meg,” he added. “You always were theatrical.”

  She stared at him without blinking. “Would you have liked it if I’d gone raging to the door of your apartment after I saw you and Daphne pictured in that newspaper?”

  His face hardened to stone. “No,” he admitted, “I loathe scenes. All the same, there’s no reason to lie about the reason you wanted to break our engagement. You told your mother that dancing was more important than me, that you got cold feet and ran for it. That’s all she told me.”

  Meg was puzzled, but perhaps Nicole had decided against mentioning Daphne’s place in Steven’s life. “I suppose she decided that the best course all around was to make you believe my career was the reason I left.”

  “That’s right. Your mother decided,” he corrected, and his eyes glittered coldly. “She yelled frog, and you jumped. You always were afraid of her.”

  “Who wasn’t?” she muttered. “She was a world-beater, and I was a sheltered babe in the woods. I didn’t know beans about men until you came along.”

  “You still don’t,” he said flatly. “I’m surprised that living in New York hasn’t changed you.”

  “What you are is what you are, despite where you live,” she reminded him. She looked down again, infuriated with him. “I dance. That’s what I do. That’s all I do. I’ve worked hard all my life at ballet, and now I’m beginning to reap the rewards for it. I like my life. So it was probably a good thing that I found out how you felt about me in time, wasn’t it? I had a lucky escape, Steve,” she added bitterly.

  He moved close, just close enough to make her feel threatened, to make her aware of him so that she’d look up.

  He smiled with faint cruelty. “Does your good fortune compensate?” he asked with soft sarcasm.

  “For what?”

  “For knowing how much other women enjoy lying in my arms in the darkness.”

  She felt her composure shatter, and knew by the smile that he’d seen it in her eyes.

  “Damn you!” she choked.

  He turned away, laughing. “That’s what I thought.” He paused at the doorway. “Tell your brother I’ll call him tomorrow.” His eyes narrowed. “I hated you when your mother handed me the ring you’d left with her. You were the biggest mistake of my life. And, as you said, it was a lucky escape. For both of us.”

  He turned and left, his steady footsteps echoing down the hall before the door opened and closed with firm control behind him. Meg stood where he’d left her, aching from head to toe with renewed misery. He said he’d hated her in the past, but it was still there, in his eyes, when he looked at her. He hadn’t stopped resenting her for what she’d done, despite the fact that he’d been unfaithful to
her. He was in the wrong, so why was he blaming Meg?

  “Where’s Steve?” her brother asked when he reappeared.

  “He had to go. He had a hot date,” she said through her teeth.

  “Good old Steve. He sure can draw ’em. I wish I had half his…Where are you going?”

  “To bed,” Meg said from the staircase, and her voice didn’t encourage any more questions.

  Meg only wished that she had someplace to go, but she was stuck in Wichita for the time being. Stuck with Steven always around, throwing his new conquests in her face. She limped because of the accident, and the tendons were mending, but not as quickly as she’d hoped. The doctor had been uncertain as to whether the damage would eventually right itself, and the physical therapist whom Meg saw three times a week was uncommunicative. Talk to the doctor, she told Meg. But Meg wouldn’t, because she knew she wasn’t making much progress and she was afraid to know why.

  Besides her injury, there was no work in New York for her just now. Her ballet company couldn’t perform without funds, and unless they raised some soon, she wouldn’t have a job. It was a pity to waste so many years of her life on such a gamble. She loved ballet. If only she were wealthy enough to finance the company herself, but her small dividends from her stock in Ryker Air wouldn’t be nearly enough.

  David didn’t have the money, either, but Steve did. She grimaced at just the thought. Steve would throw the money away or even burn it before he’d lend any to Meg. Not that she’d ever ask him, she promised herself. She had too much pride.

  She’d tried not to panic at the thought of never dancing again. She consoled herself with a small dream of her own, of opening a ballet school here in Wichita. It would be nice to teach little girls how to dance. After all, Meg had studied ballet since her fourth birthday. She certainly had the knowledge, and she loved children. It was an option that she’d never seriously considered before, but now, with her injury, it became a security blanket. It was there to keep her going. If she failed in one area, she still had prospects in another. Yes, she had prospects.

  The next morning, it was raining. Meg looked out the front window and smiled wistfully, because the rain pounding down on the sprouting grass and leafing trees suited her mood. It was late spring. There were flowers blooming and, thank God, no tornadoes looming with this shower. The rain was nice, if unexpected.