Catherine Spencer - Mistress on his Terms

Fortunately she came fully equipped with hand-milled French soap, body lotion, salon formula shampoo and conditioner and, praise heaven, toothbrush and paste. She wasted no time putting them all to good use.

From the feel of them, the pillows were stuffed with peanut shells, and the mattress wasn’t a whole lot better. But it beat a marble slab in the nearest morgue, which was where they’d almost certainly have wound up if he hadn’t spotted the washed-out bridge when he did.

He’d been rattled, and he didn’t mind admitting it. But her reaction had been over the top! Jumping out of the car like that and racing off without the first idea where she was headed pretty much proved his first impression had been right: the woman spelled nothing but trouble. Still, he hadn’t been able to help feeling sorry for her. She’d been trembling like a leaf when he finally caught up with her, and the way she’d felt when he’d picked her up…

Best not to dwell too long on how she felt—or looked. His mandate was to deliver the goods, not sample them! Which reminded him Hugo would be expecting them to show up at the house anytime now.

Jamming a pillow behind his head, he stretched out on the mattress, pulled the top sheet up to his waist and reached for the phone.

Hugo picked up on the first ring. “Sebastian?”

“How’d you guess?”

“I saw the weather report on television. The whole county’s under siege with this rain. You’ll never make it up here tonight.”

“I’m way ahead of you, Hugo. We checked into a motel about an hour ago.”

“Thank God! So both you and Lily are safe?”

No point in regaling him with their close call. No point, either, in entering into a debate about the dubious wisdom of daughter and stepson spending the night together. “We’re safe.”

“So tell me, how do you like her, now that you know her a bit better?”

“She’s…” Nosy. Annoying. Too smart-mouthed for her own good. And, he was beginning to realize, sexy as all get-out! “Hell, you know me, Hugo. I don’t jump to conclusions until I’ve got all the facts.”

Hugo laughed. “Just once in your life, could you try not to behave so much like a lawyer?”

And do what? Take advantage of the situation and put the moves on her? Better stick to being a lawyer! “It’s who I am, you know that.”

“I want the two of you to get along. We’re all family here, Sebastian.”

“Which is precisely why I’m being cautious. You’ve always been like a father to me, Hugo. Now it’s my turn to act like a son and protect your interests.”

“You’re worrying about nothing. Lily doesn’t have any ulterior motives for seeking me out.”

“Uh-huh.” No point in stating the obvious: that she was her mother’s daughter. Even if genetics weren’t a factor, her role model had been a woman without conscience or moral rectitude. All that being so, who could say what motivated her actions? Only time would reveal that.

“Is she as pretty as she looks in the photo she sent?”

Just then, the bathroom door opened and Lily emerged on a cloud of steamy, flower-scented air. Her skin was flushed—and he ought to know. Enough of it was showing.

“Sebastian?” Hugo’s voice came from a great distance. “Are you still there?”

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat and dragged his gaze away from the hem of the pale blue nightshirt, which barely covered her backside. How come she didn’t smell of cheap motel soap, the way he did? How come she looked as if she’d been polished with moon dust? Why was her damp hair so lush and lustrous-looking that he wanted to take handfuls of it and let it slide through his fingers?

“Well? Is she?”

Dry-mouthed, he said, “Is who what?”

“Is Lily as pretty as her picture?”

She came to the foot of the bed and stood with her hands behind her back, looking for all the world about fifteen years old. Well below the age of consent! “Shall I wait in the bathroom until you’ve finished your call?” she whispered.

“No,” he said, answering them both at once. The photo Hugo was referring to had been a snapshot taken at a distance and had revealed only sketchy details. Addressing his stepfather again, he added, “I’d say ‘different.’”

“Better?”

“Different,” he said firmly. “Look, Hugo, I’ll call you in the morning, once I’ve checked the road report. Sleep well and don’t worry about us. One way or another, we’ll make it home tomorrow.”

“Why didn’t you say it was Hugo on the line?” she started in, the minute he hung up. “I’d have liked to speak to him.”

“He knew I was calling from a motel room.”

“So?”

“I didn’t think you’d want him to know you were sharing it with me.”

“Why not if, as you claim, it’s an unavoidable and perfectly innocent arrangement?”

“Because I’m not so sure it is innocent. If it were, you wouldn’t be parading around half-naked.”

Her pupils flared and she heaved a breath that set her breasts to bouncing gently beneath her nightshirt. “You’ve got some nerve! What about you flaunting nothing but a towel?”

He jerked aside the sheet and rather enjoyed the way she reared back in alarm. “You’ll notice I’ve exchanged it for a perfectly decent pair of swimming trunks.”

Which fit snugly enough to discourage untoward activity in his nether regions!

“I wondered what you had hidden in that sports bag,” she said, recovering quickly.

“Now you know.”

“And are swimming trunks all you’re planning to wear to bed?”

“Afraid so. I forgot to bring a top hat.”

“Very funny, I’m sure!”

He shrugged. “I aim to please.”

She gave a huffing little sniff, which told him exactly what she thought of his pathetic sense of humor. “Move over to your own side. You’re on my half of the bed.”

“I thought you said you wouldn’t sully your body by laying it on this mattress?”

“Upon consideration, I’ve decided the bed’s safer than the floor.”

She wouldn’t want to bet money on it, if she knew the direction his thoughts kept taking!

She turned back the top sheet, using only the tips of her fingers as if she expected something to leap out and bite her. “This isn’t exactly the kind of place I expected to be spending the night.”

“Relax,” he said. “I already chased away the bed bugs.”

Her eyes, large and luminous to begin with, widened to saucer size. “Is that another of your feeble jokes?”

“Hell, no! They were marching heel to toe over the pillow, big as fighter jets, some of them—but they didn’t hold a candle to the cockroaches tap dancing on the floor.”

She yelped and leaped onto the mattress. It creaked ominously, formed an even more pronounced sag in the middle and sent her rolling toward him. One minute, he was lying there keeping his distance, and the next, she was pressed up against him with nothing but her abbreviated nightshirt coming between them.

She smelled even better, up close. As for the way she felt…! Silky, smooth as cream, soft. The way nature intended a woman to feel, with just enough meat on her bones to turn her angles into sweet, alluring curves.

Intending to shove her back where she belonged, he closed his hands over her shoulders and managed to choke out, “You’re trespassing.”

But that’s as far as he got because he made the mistake of looking at her face. Her features were delicate as porcelain, her brows finely shaped, her lashes so long and thick they looked artificial. And her eyes…

He fought to breathe normally and tried to look away. A man could lose his soul staring into those eyes.

“If you don’t like it—” she began, sounding as if she, too, had just run a marathon.

“I don’t!”

“Then let me go.”

Easier said than done! He didn’t trust her and he didn’t like her, but underneath his lawyerly facade he was still only a man and there were some things beyond his control. Such as his hands, one of which slid from her shoulder to her jaw and from there to her hair, while the other stroked over her bare arm. And his mouth, which suddenly itched to taste hers. And not to be outperformed, an uprising from that singular component of the male anatomy which most definitely sported a mind of its own.

Show a little decency and move away, for crying out loud! his mind commanded.

But beneath the drooping veil of her lashes, her eyes had turned dreamy. Her lips had fallen softly apart. The hard points of her nipples pressed against his chest. Her thighs nested warmly against his.

We’re all family, Sebastian…I want you to get along….

But not quite this well!

She was the one to break the spell, if that’s what it could be called. “I told you this wasn’t a good idea,” she said faintly.

“So you did.”

“Perhaps now, you’ll believe me.”

Masking his reluctance, he let go of her and rolled onto his back. “I never disputed the fact. But neither did I expect you’d fling yourself at me the way you just did.”

“That was a regrettable accident.”

“The way I see it,” he said, glaring at her, “the entire business of your being here at all is regrettable.”

He thought himself well-armed against her, that nothing she might say or do would breach his defenses, but the sudden hurt in her eyes stirred him to dangerous compassion. Damn her for invading his part of the world! Why couldn’t she have stayed where she belonged?

Gritting his teeth, he snapped off the lamp, folded his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. He’d hoped for utter darkness, something to erase his awareness of the shape of her lying beside him, but a floodlight on top of a pole in the parking area shone directly at the window, spearing the thin fabric of the curtains and filling the room with a dim glow.

A silence descended, oppressive with unspoken tension. Time trickled past—fifteen minutes, half an hour.

She lay ramrod straight, arms by her sides, legs held primly together. Only her breasts moved, rising faintly with her every breath, but she wasn’t sleeping. Slewing his gaze, he caught the gleam of her open eyes in the murky light, and then, to his horror, saw a tear slip down her cheek.

He pretended not to notice. No more anxious to acknowledge her distress than he was, she turned her face away and he thought the danger had passed. But then a faint sniff pierced the silence, followed by a smothered gulp.

Finally he could stand it no longer. “Why are you crying?”

“Because,” she said, after a wrenching pause, “I miss my mother and dad. Just when I think I’ve come to terms with losing them, it hits me all over again. I guess I must be overtired or something, because I seem to be doing a lot of crying lately.”

Was it her referring to her mother’s second husband as “dad” that softened him, or was he just a pushover when it came to women in distress? Whatever the reason, he found himself wanting to comfort her. “I’m sorry if I came across as an unfeeling lout earlier. I know how hard it is to lose a parent,” he admitted. “My father died when I was eight.”

Slowly she wriggled onto her back again. “It hurts, doesn’t it, no matter how old a person is?”

“Yes,” he said, not sure he liked the near-intimacy of skin touching skin the sagging mattress enforced, but not exactly objecting to it, either. “At first, I refused to believe I’d never see him again. I used to look for him in crowds. Every time there was a knock at the door or the phone rang, I’d expect it to be him. I remember the first Christmas without him, the first birthday, the first vacation, and how much I envied those kids who had both parents around to take them places and do things with.”