The Case of the Confirmed Bachelor Page 5

  “I didn’t tell anyone that you were a pest,” he said through his teeth. “And I never knew about the crush. Maybe you don’t know that Mary Johnson had an out-size yen for me and I had to slap her down, hard. She was one of your circle of friends, I recall.”

  She stared down at her books. One of them had a creased cover. She traced it with her fingernail. “I thought she was my friend.”

  “Apparently she was jealous of you.”

  “Without cause.” She sighed. “She said you hated the very sight of me, that I was too plain and dull to appeal to you.”

  He didn’t reply to that. He was trying to take it all in. So pretty little Mary had been the culprit who’d sent Tabby running from him all those years ago, passing lies to Tabby and keeping her at bay. What a travesty. Not that it would probably have mattered, because he wasn’t any more ready for marriage then than he was now.

  “For what it’s worth, all these many years too late, I never thought of you as plain or dull. You had—still have—a keen, analytical mind and more than your fair share of intelligence.” He smiled slowly. “You’re not bad on the eyes, either. Not that you couldn’t use a few more pounds.”

  “I don’t eat much. I work hard.”

  “So do I.” He drained his glass and stared at it. “Why Daniel?”

  “Nobody else wanted me,” she said involuntarily, and then felt stupid for having said such a thing. “I have to go in now, Nick,” she added quickly. “I’ve got all this research to do for Daniel.”

  “Damn Daniel,” he said carelessly. “Come home with me. I’ve got a new blues album we can dance to.”

  “You like blues?” she asked.

  “Sure. Old-time blues, what they used to call torch songs.”

  “I like those, too.”

  “So Helen mentioned.” He put his glass on top of her car and took the books from her grasp, despite her protests. He stuffed them back into the car, retrieved his glass, caught her by the hand and led her over to his house.

  “It’s dark. I can’t,” she began, pulling against his grasp.

  He ignored her. A minute later, she was behind his closed door with him.

  “I won’t seduce you,” he promised wickedly. “Not without fair warning. Come and have a drink with me while I put on the music.”

  “I don’t drink and I’m not a good dancer…”

  He ignored that, too. He put on the music, poured her a soda with a little whiskey in it and handed it to her. While she sipped it, he pulled her against his tall, fit body and began to move lazily to the rhythm while he drank from his own glass.

  “You smell of gardenias,” he said with lazy pleasure in the feel of her body against his. “I gave you a corsage of them once, remember?”

  “When you took me to a class dance in college.” She nodded. “I was the envy of every girl there, even though you only did it because Mary got Helen to ask you to.”

  He frowned. “She didn’t.”

  “Mary said…” she protested.

  He held her eyes. “Mary lied. Haven’t you caught on yet? She wanted me. She was jealous of you.”

  “She was pretty.”

  “Plenty of women are. But I’m selective. Very, very selective. Right now,” he murmured, bending close to her, “I have a raging hunger for tall brunettes with bow mouths.”

  She turned her face away and stiffened. “Don’t tease me, Nick, please.”

  “You tasted of whiskey New Year’s Eve night,” he said huskily, his eyes still on her mouth. “You slid between my legs and moved on me as if you were born to be a siren, and I thought it was going to kill me to let you go. It damned near did. I wanted you.”

  “You didn’t!” she protested, stopping to glare up at him. “You said horrible things to me!”

  “It was that or take you to bed, and I wanted to,” he said shortly. His eyes kindled. “You don’t know how much I wanted to, Tabby. I could feel your body burning under those layers of cloth and I wanted to strip you down to your skin and make a banquet of you with my mouth.”

  She cleared her throat. “Shouldn’t we sit down? It’s rather warm in here.”

  “Isn’t it, though.” He moved her toward the mantel. Placing his glass on it, he took hers from her nerveless fingers and put it beside his. “Now,” he said quietly.

  He lifted her in his embrace as his mouth glided down to possess hers, its movements comforting, slow, encouraging a response that she’d rather have died than give him. But she couldn’t resist. He tasted of whiskey and lime and his tongue was in her mouth, probing and teasing and withdrawing like a living thing. She moaned, trying to pull back while she still could.

  “Don’t fight it,” he breathed. “Don’t fight me. Open your mouth. Let me teach you how.”

  She tried to argue, but the motion of her lips only accommodated him more. She felt her body begin to sway toward him. He took instant advantage of that weakness, his hands pulling her hips gently into the thrust of his while he kissed her more and more deeply.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered as he bent and lifted her clear off the floor, his lips touching hers as he spoke. “I won’t hurt you.”

  “Nick,” she moaned weakly. But her hands were clinging, not fighting, and her body was on fire for him. It was the old need again, only this time he was giving her what only dreams had provided before. He was loving her, even if only physically.

  “There’s…Daniel,” she tried to speak.

  “Damn Daniel,” he breathed roughly. “Make love to me.”

  She felt him place her on the long leather sofa. She felt his weight settling over her, pressing her down, consuming her. He was heavy and warm, and she loved the way he was kissing her, the way he was holding her. Daniel would never have presumed to touch her in such a way, to disregard the rules of conduct that she’d always expected.

  Nick’s hands accepted no restrictions. They smoothed over her taut breasts as if they had every right. They possessed her, made her ache with their expert caresses. His thumbs eased over the hard nipples and rubbed at them insistently, and he lifted his head to watch her reaction.

  She gasped. He liked that, so he did it again. She trembled.

  “Move up,” he said quietly. When she did, he held her eyes while his knee insinuated itself between her thighs.

  She stiffened, but he shook his head. “It’s all right, Tabby,” he said softly. “I’m only going to move a little closer. It isn’t dangerous. I promise you, it isn’t. Let me lie over you completely, little one. I can spare you most of my weight, like this…” He rested on his elbows as he eased down, and when she felt the intimacy of the movement, the arousal of his body, she cried out in mingled excitement and fear.

  “This is overdue,” he whispered unsteadily as his hips lowered. “Long, long overdue. Lie…still!”

  Her last sane thought was that she was going to lose her chastity on a sofa. After that, nothing seemed to matter except pulling Nick as close as she could get him to the raging ache in her lower body. It gnawed so that it made her ache and cry out in her need. She’d never known sensations so urgent, so violent, that they pulsed through her like fire.

  “Rock under me,” he whispered quickly. “Yes. Yes! Lift up to me, Tabby…!”

  She tried to, but her body was weak with need, with hunger. Her arms clung to him, gave in to him, while his mouth devoured hers with long, slow kisses that gave no relief at all.

  His hand went under her, to force her hips up into the cradle of his. He moved rhythmically, feeling her body jerk as she accepted the intimacy, accepted the arousal of his body in an embrace he’d never meant to offer her.

  “I want to have you,” he said into her mouth, his body stiff and unsteady. “Are you protected? Is there a risk that I could make you pregnant?”

  Risk. Pregnant. She opened her dazed eyes and looked at him. She was twenty-five and engaged to be married, and this man had already devastated her life once with his rejection. How had she managed to
forget all that?

  He moved involuntarily, and she remembered. Her face flamed as the intimacy they were sharing penetrated the delight he’d kindled in her.

  “Nick?” she whispered unsteadily.

  He lifted himself a little and looked down at her, at the position she was lying in beneath him. Her long legs were wrapped around his thighs and she was holding him low down on his back.

  He smiled through his desire. “My, my,” he said huskily. “I think you’re getting the hang of this, Tabby.”

  She followed his gaze and abruptly moved her legs, pushing at him. “Let me go!”

  “That isn’t what you said five minutes ago,” he replied lazily as he complied with her plea.

  She tore out of his arms and got to her feet. Her legs would barely support her. Her hair was askew and hopelessly tangled. Her mouth was swollen. So were her breasts. He’d touched them through the fabric and they were tender. She felt…as she’d never felt in her life, and she didn’t know how to handle it.

  She stood over him, looking down at the length of his powerful, visibly aroused body and suddenly averted her gaze to his amused face.

  “I’m not going to spare you by trying to hide it,” he said. “I want you.”

  “I’m not…in the market for a love affair,” she choked. “This isn’t why I came home with you!”

  “Isn’t it?” he asked. He sat up lazily, his eyes acquisitive as they lingered on her soft body. “Are you going to try and pretend that you didn’t feel anything?”

  “I’m not that good an actress. I expect you could arouse a rock, with your experience,” she said shortly. “But I’m not fair game. I’m engaged.”

  “Not for long,” he said, “Not after I tell Daniel what we were doing on the sofa tonight.”

  “You wouldn’t!” she exclaimed, horrified.

  “I was having a good time until your conscience reared its ugly head,” he said. “God knows why your body is living back in Victorian times when you have such a sensuous little mouth.”

  “Let’s leave my sensuous mouth out of it,” she said stiffly. “I have to go home. I’ve got work to do.”

  “You could come up to bed with me instead,” he coaxed, his eyes soft and coaxing. “I could undress you and love you all night long. By morning, you couldn’t remember Daniel’s last name if your life depended on it.”

  “By morning, I’d be suicidal and you’d have a hangover and a guilty conscience that you led me on,” she said coldly. “Just like New Year’s Eve, when you accused me of everything from seduction to blackmail.”

  “You weren’t ready for me then,” he said quietly. “Now you are. That’s the difference. I can give you something Daniel never will. I can satisfy you.”

  “I don’t want you to satisfy me, thank you very much,” she said stiffly. “I appreciate you helping me clear my name, but my body isn’t going to be in lieu of salary. I hope that’s understood.”

  “It is, but it’s a hell of a shame,” he sighed. “Money isn’t half as sweet as you are when you let yourself go, Tabby.”

  “You were kidding, weren’t you?” she asked at the door. “About telling Daniel, I mean.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. “Was I?” he asked softly.

  She got out, quickly. He watched the closed door for one long moment before he poured himself another drink and went upstairs to take a long, very cold shower. Even so, it was hours before he finally slept. He hadn’t realized just how potent Tabby would be. Now that he knew, he wondered if he was going to be able to forget.

  He tossed and turned as the sensations he’d felt with Tabby racked his body. He slept nude, and the softness of the sheets was so much like the softness of her skin that he groaned out loud.

  He got up finally and went to get himself a drink. It might not help, but it wouldn’t hurt.

  As he sipped it, he stood at his bedroom window and looked over at Tabby’s house. He smiled slowly. Her bedroom light was on, too, so apparently she wasn’t sleeping any better than he was.

  She was such a contrast to Lucy. He could finally think about her without flinching. Lucy Waverly had been small and spicy and she’d liked to take risks. She liked long lovemaking sessions on the floor of his apartment, and she knew how to use her body as Tabby had never learned. Lucy had been exciting and a balm to his wounded masculinity after Tabby’s rejection.

  But love? No, he hadn’t loved Lucy. He might have married her, just because of the excitement she gave him. But a bullet put paid to that proposition.

  He’d gone to Lucy’s funeral with dead eyes, and part of him had never been the same. He’d blamed himself for not marrying her and making her give up her job. Then, after a year, he got realistic and came to the conclusion that he could no more have deprived her of the job she loved than she could have deprived him of it.

  Lucy was gone and he had to face the world without her. But he thought about the way she’d died, and the risks of his own job. That had kept his later liaisons brief and unemotional.

  Tabby was changing all that. She was winding herself around him with her eccentric little ways and her soft, sweet mouth. She was killing him with remembered pleasure.

  He wasn’t sure what was going to happen, and he didn’t want any commitment. But he did want Tabby. If he could induct her into the modern world, and get her out of her Victorian attitudes, what an affair they could have! He had erotic visions of Tabby’s eager body in bed with him while he took her from frightened virgin to sated woman.

  The prospect was so delicious that he barely slept the rest of the night for dreaming about it.

  Chapter Four

  Nick was drowsy and out of sorts when he dragged himself from the bed. He felt hungover from frustration as well as alcohol. He, who seldom drank, had certainly made some inroads into the meager supply of scotch whisky he kept at the house.

  It was Sunday. He hadn’t been to church in some years. Now he felt the need to go again, to be with Tabby. That need sent him right back to bed, and he slept without interruption until midafternoon.

  Eventually he drank enough black coffee and took enough aspirins to get his mind back together. He phoned Helen to see if she’d had time to find out any morsel of information. He half hoped she hadn’t. He didn’t relish the thought of seeing Tabby after the fool he’d made of himself the night before. He seemed to have this crazy compulsion to lead her on, when he had nothing, not a damned thing, to offer her. He didn’t want her permanently. Why couldn’t he manage to leave her alone? It would be in her best interests, and certainly in his. But every time he thought of her, his toes curled.

  He really wouldn’t tell precious Daniel what they’d done together the night before, but it did serve to keep Tabby guessing when he threatened it.

  She’d been so sweet wrapped around him like that. He remembered her long, silky legs sliding against his and his body violently protested the memory.

  He got up and paced the floor, trying to calm the heat in his loins. Nothing seemed to work. Bedtime finally came. He’d wasted a whole day being miserable. He wondered if Tabby had, too, or if she’d had other things on her mind. He noticed a strange white car in her drive way for most of the afternoon and knew without being told that it had to be Daniel. Damn Daniel, he thought as he went up to bed. The man was driving him crazy.

  So was Tabby.

  He got up early the next day and went over to Tabby’s kitchen, knocking on the door as soon as he saw the lights go on.

  Tabby opened the kitchen door sleepily. She was so sleepy, in fact, that she didn’t seem to realize she was standing there in a thigh-length soft cotton nightshirt that revealed every line and curve of her body. With her hair long around her shoulders and her face flushed from sleep, she was enough to arouse a statue—which Nick wasn’t.

  She realized suddenly what she’d done, but it was too late. Nick moved toward her with intent.

  Quickly she got a kitchen chair between them and held it there, bl
ocking him.

  “Now, Nick,” she said, laughing nervously. “You just remember that you’re a confirmed bachelor. Repeat it several times.”

  “I have. It doesn’t help. Move the chair, Tabby,” he said huskily.

  He did look sexy with his shirt half unbuttoned, his sleeves rolled up. His hair was just disheveled enough to give him a rogueish look. His dark eyes twinkled with amusement and frank desire as he tried to go around the chair.

  She blocked him again. “No good, Nick,” she commented. “I’m a dried-up spinster living in the cobwebs. Isn’t that what you told Helen after you left here at New Year’s?”

  He stopped dead. “She wouldn’t have said that to you,” he began.

  “She thought she was doing me a favor, actually,” Tabby replied, and she looked faintly wounded. “I’d cried all night long and she thought I was going to die eating my heart out for you, if she didn’t tell me the truth. In the long run, it was best, Nick.”

  “I never knew how you felt about me when you were in school,” he said, his voice deep and quiet in the kitchen. The only other noise was the faint whirr of the washing machine on the utility porch. “You ran the other way so much that you bruised my ego.”

  “I’m sorry. I was shy of you,” she said. “Much too shy to do anything or say anything blatant.” Her face lifted proudly. “But that’s all in the past, Nick. I’m engaged to Daniel. I’m going to be married.”

  His dark eyes narrowed. “You don’t love Daniel.”

  “I respect and like him,” she said. “At my age, that’s no bad thing. I can live without passion. It’s like flashfire—easily kindled and just as easily put out.”

  He got the message at once. “And what you felt with me on my sofa last night was just flashfire?”

  She nodded, schooling her face not to give her away. “Just that. Overdue passion, a residue from my hero-worshiping days. I wanted to know how it would feel if you made love to me. Now my curiosity is satisfied.”

  “Not completely,” he said, his face arrogant and hard. “Why don’t you go to bed with me and get a complete picture?”