“It would help if you could tell me one thing that’s wrong. One flaw. Bad breath? Warts? Some condition that requires antifungal spray?”
“Would chest hair be a flaw?”
“Oh, yeah.” Todd sounded relieved. “I can’t stand a chest rug. You can’t see the muscle cut.”
I thought it best not to argue, even though I disagreed. There was something infinitely comforting and sexy about being held against a broad, hairy chest.
“Haven,” Todd said, sounding more serious. “Remember what I told you about him.”
“The thing about not being a simple guy? About being twisty twisted?”
“Yeah, that. I stand by my gut feeling. So be careful, sweetheart. Have fun, but keep your eyes open.”
Later I pondered what it meant to keep your eyes open in a relationship. I didn’t think I was idealizing Hardy . . . it was just that I liked so much about him. I liked the way he talked to me, and even more, the way he listened. I especially liked how tactile he was. He gave impromptu shoulder rubs, pulled me onto his lap, played with my hair, held hands. I hadn’t been brought up in a physically affectionate family — Travises put a high premium on personal space. And after my experiences with Nick, I had never thought I could stand being touched again.
Hardy had charmed me more than anyone I’d ever met. He was engaging, playful . . . but always and foremost a man. He opened doors, carried the packages, paid for dinner, and would have been mortally offended by the suggestion that a woman do any of those things. Having lived with a husband who had spent most of his time inflating his own fragile ego, I appreciated Hardy’s self-assurance. He had no problem admitting that he’d made a mistake or that he didn’t understand something, only turned it into an opportunity to ask questions.
I had seldom, if ever, met a man with such an endless reserve of energy, or such keen appetites. Privately I acknowledged my father had probably been right about Hardy wanting more . . . and it didn’t stop at money. He wanted respect, power, success, all the things he must have hungered for when the world had considered him a nobody. But the world’s opinion hadn’t crushed him. There had been something in him, a drive fueled by pride and anger, that had insisted he deserved more.
He was not unlike my father, who had also started from nothing. The thought was a little scary. I was getting involved with a man who might turn out to be as much of an ambitious, driven hard-ass as Churchill Travis. How did you handle a guy like that? How did you keep it from happening?
I knew hardy thought of me as sheltered. Compared to him, I probably was. When I had traveled overseas, I had gone with college friends and stayed in nice hotels that were paid for with my father’s credit card. When Hardy had gone overseas, he had worked on offshore rigs in places like Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria. Fourteen days on, fourteen off. He’d learned to adapt quickly to foreign cultures and customs. And it struck me that this was the same way he was approaching Houston society. Learn the customs. Adapt. Find your way in.
We talked far into the night, exchanging stories about growing up, past relationships, things that had changed us. Hardy was open about most things, but there were a few subjects he was not willing to discuss. His father, for example, and whatever he’d done to land in prison. And Hardy preferred to keep his mouth shut about his past love life, which made me rampantly curious.
“I don’t understand why you never slept with Liberty,” I said to him one night. “Weren’t you tempted? You must have been.”
Hardy settled me more comfortably on his chest. We were in his bed, a California king-sized piled with pillows stuffed with Scandia down. It was covered in acres of eight-hundred-thread-count sheets, and bedspreads of raw silk.
“Honey, any man over the age of twelve would be tempted by Liberty.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
Hardy stroked the line of my spine, gently investigating the shallow hollows. “I was waiting for you.”
“Ha. Rumor has it you were plenty busy with the ladies of Houston.”
“I don’t remember any of them,” he said blandly. “Beebe Whitney. Does that name ring a bell?” Hardy gave me an alert glance. “Why do you mention her?”
“She was bragging to Todd about having slept with you on her divorce-moon.”
He was quiet for a moment, his hand sifting through my hair. “Jealous? ”
Hell, yes, I was jealous. In fact, I was astonished by the amount of emotional poison that came from imagining him in bed with Beebe in all her spray-tanned perfection. I nodded against his chest.
Hardy rolled me to my back and looked down at me. The lamplight played over his strong features, a stray gleam catching the faint smile on his lips. “I could apologize for all the women I knew before you. But I’m not going to.”
“Didn’t ask you to,” I said sullenly.
His hand slipped under the sheet, gently sweeping over me. “I learned something from every woman I’ve been with. And I needed to learn a lot before I was ready for you.”
I scowled. “Why? Because I’m complicated? Difficult?” I fought to keep my breathing steady as he cupped my breast and shaped it.
He shook his head. “Because there’s so much I want to do for you. So many ways I want to please you.” He bent to kiss me, and brushed the tip of his nose against mine in a playful nudge. “Those women were just practice for you.”
“Good line,” I said grudgingly.
His hand covered my heart with light, warm pressure. “Ever since I can remember, I wanted to get somewhere, be someone. I’d see other sons of bitches who had it all — an expensive car, a big house, a beautiful woman. And I told myself, ‘Fuck ‘em. Someday I’ll have it all too, and I’ll be happy.’” His mouth twisted. “But the past couple of years, I finally got the things I wanted, and it wasn’t enough. I was still a miserable bastard. When I’m with you though . . . ”
“What?” I prompted.
“When I’m with you, I feel like I finally have what I need. I can relax and be happy.” He traced an idle pattern on my chest. “You slow me down.”
“In a good way, you mean?”
“In a good way.”
“I never slow anyone down,” I said. “I’m not a restful person.”
A lazy grin crossed his mouth. “Whatever you do works for me.”
He lowered over me, kissing my throat, murmuring that I was beautiful and he wanted me. I shivered as the light pelt on his chest dragged softly across my breasts.
“Hardy?”
“Mmmn?”
I put my arms around his neck. “Sometimes I get the feeling that you’re holding back, in bed.”
He drew back to look down at me, his gaze caressing. “I’m taking it slow with you,” he admitted.
“You don’t have to,” I said earnestly. “I trust you. If you show me what you want, I’ll do it. I mean, whatever you and Beebe did . . . ”
His lips twitched with rueful amusement. “Damn it all. Forget her, honey. I spent one night with her and never went back for seconds.”
“Well, regardless,” I said, filled with a competitive spirit. “You don’t have to be careful with me. I can take it.”
The hint of amusement broadened into a smile. “Okay.”
I tugged his head down. Reaching his mouth, I kissed him ardently. He responded without hesitation, searching the depths of my mouth until we were both gasping.
Hardy lifted me to my knees, facing him, his hands clasped beneath my arms in a strong but solicitous hold. His gaze was blistering, but his voice was gentle. “You want to try something new, Haven?”
I gulped and nodded, my hips riding forward in a subtle sway. He noticed. I saw how aroused he was, and it made me giddy with desire. His hands slid to my wrists. He raised my arms, and guided me to grip the top of the tall louvered headboard. My breasts lifted with the movement, the tips contracting.
Hardy stared steadily into my eyes until I was drowning in the depths of blue. His breath was hot against my lips. “Hold on,” he whispered, clamping my fingers on the headboard.
And then came scalding minutes of intimacy . . . of skillful torment that led to fever. Fever that led to sweetness. He was everywhere, all around me, inside me. Somehow I survived, but just barely. By the time Hardy had finished with me, my fingernails had dug crescents into the headboard, and I couldn’t remember my own name. I collapsed slowly into his arms, every limb quivering with release.
“Just you,” Hardy said when he got his breath back. “All I want is you.”
I felt like I was falling through clouds as he lowered me into the down pillows. Falling hard and fast. And there didn’t seem to be a thing I could do about it.
“Let me get this straight,” I said to Jack, standing at his apartment door. “You’re not going to cut Hardy any slack even though he saved my life two weeks ago? What does he have to do for you to treat him politely? . . . Come up with a cure for cancer? Save the world from an asteroid?”
My brother looked exasperated. “I didn’t say I wasn’t going to be polite. I can do that much.”
“Gee, that’s big of you.”
That night Hardy and I were going to a rigs-to-reefs party, which was being sponsored jointly by a couple of major oil companies.
Rigs-to-reefs was a program in which companies chopped off the tops of their used platforms and left them on the ocean floor to create an artificial reef. Since the entire Gulf of Mexico was mud bottom, the rigs created a supportive environment for the fish.
Despite protests from naturalists, fish seemed to like the abandoned platforms. And oil companies loved the program because it saved them millions in lieu of platform recovery. So they had donated an exhibit to the Houston Aquarium to display how much, in their opinion, rigs-to-reefs benefited the Gulf.
My family would be at the exhibit opening. And I had done my best to make it clear that not only would I attend with Hardy Cates, but I expected the Travises to behave like reasonable human beings. Apparently that was asking a lot. I had called Joe, who had informed me darkly that I was being used by Hardy, just as he had predicted. And now Jack was being stubborn. I certainly didn’t expect anything different from my father, whose opinions were as unalterable as his blood type.
That left only Gage to worry about . . . but I felt certain he would be decent to Hardy, if only for my sake. He’d indicated as much when I had talked to him after the elevator incident.
“All I said was,” Jack continued, “Cates doesn’t get extra credit with the Travises just for doing what any guy would have done. I told you before, if you’d called me or Gage, either of us could’ve gotten you out of that elevator just fine.”
“Oh. I get it.”
His eyes narrowed. “What?”
“You’re mad because you didn’t get a chance to do macho stuff and show off. You can’t stand for anyone else to be a hero. You’re the head caveman, and no one’s club is bigger than yours.”
“Damn it, Haven, quit fighting like a girl. It has nothing to do with the size of my club.” He glanced up and down the hallway. “Come inside for a minute, will you?”
“No, I don’t have much time to get ready. I’m going up to my place. I only wanted to stop by and tell you to be nice to my — ” I broke off abruptly.
“Your what?” Jack demanded.
I shook my head, disconcerted. God knew what word or phrase I should apply in Hardy. “Boyfriend” sounded so high-schoolish.
And inappropriate, since Hardy was fat from a boy. Lover . . . well, that was old-fashioned and melodramatic. Significant other? Friend with benefits? No, and no.
“My date,” I said, and gave him a warning frown. “I’m serious about this, Jack. If you’re a jerk to him tonight, I’m going to skin you like a buffalo.”
“I don’t get what you’re asking for. If you want my approval, you’re not getting it. I don’t know enough about the bastard yet . . . and what I do know isn’t consistent.”
My temper ignited at his assumption that my love life depended on his good opinion. “I don’t want your approval,” I said curtly. “Just basic good manners. I’m just asking you not to be an asshole for two hours. Think you can manage that? ”
“Shit,” Jack muttered, drawing the word out to a full two syllables. “Bossy as you’re getting, I almost feel sorry for the guy.”
The aquarium had a nice view of the Houston skyline from a third-floor ballroom lined with glass windows. There was a reception for at least six hundred people, who entered a foyer with a large cylindrical tank, went to a shark-voyage ride, and browsed past exhibits designed to imitate a shipwreck, a sunken temple, a swamp, and a rain forest.
The concerns I had over attending a reception with Hardy were gone within five minutes of arriving. He was relaxed and fun, chatting easily with people, taking me around. As Hardy introduced me to his business partners and their wives, and several other friends, I realized he was far from an outsider in this crowd. Although he hadn’t yet become part of the established circles like my family’s, he was part of a group who ran the smaller, more nimble companies that were finding new niches to fill.
Hardy and I even knew some of the same people, a few of whom laughingly advised me that he would be a good catch for a woman who could manage to keep him in line. I realized that in his deceptively lazy way, Hardy was working the crowd as adeptly as anyone I had ever seen. He seemed to know everyone’s name, and he had the knack of focusing on the person he was talking to as if he or she were the most important person in the room.
At the same time, Hardy was an attentive date, getting me a drink from the bar, keeping a light hand on my back, whispering things to make me laugh. As we stood in a group and talked, he idly straightened a kink on the gold chain of my evening bag as it dangled from my shoulder.
I had wondered how Hardy would treat me when we were with other people, if he would want me to act as his satellite. That was what Nick had always demanded. But to my surprise, Hardy didn’t seem to mind me having my own opinions. When the conversation turned to oil shale, for example. One of Hardy’s business partners, a geophysicist named Roy Newkirk, was talking enthusiastically about the possibilities of developing shale as an alternative to conventional oil. But I said I’d read that it would be as bad for the environment as open-pit mining. And furthermore, the processing of shale would dump huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which I thought was criminal. Unless one thought that global warming wasn’t coming along fast enough.