Deceptive Love (15 page)

He never gave her a chance to think, to protest. Each deep, probing kiss sapped her will to resist further. His
t
ongue touched and tasted, sipping the nectar of her mouth like a honeybee dipping into a fragrant flower. He sucked her lower lip gently into his mouth and caressed the pouted fullness with a gentle, questing tongue tip. The corners of her mouth, the line of her upper lip, all were traced and teased until her mouth was softly swollen, aching for his further possession.

When he lifted her, positioning her across his lap, Keri merely looped an arm behind his back and sank again down the ladder into the deep well of passion, for the third time, without a murmur of complaint. As he whispered, "Oh, God, you're beautiful, Keri, darling," she stroked the hard line of his jaw, enjoying the beginnings of his beard, a texture which didn't scrape, but felt excitingly masculine.

She wondered... and then she felt the drag, sensuously rough, of his cheek across the tender skin of her breasts. She was supported by his left arm, stretched out across his lap, and his right hand had been stroking the warm skin of her throat. With an unhurried motion. He stroked down beneath the loose top to cup her breasts, and his mouth followed in hungry pursuit to capture the pink-brown crest of the ripe mound his fingers so lovingly molded. The crawing pressure of his lips sent an electric tingle shooting down into the pit of her stomach where it arced and flared into a deep, burning holocaust. He started to slide the sleeve of the dress down her arm.

She whimpered, a sound of mindless acquiescence. She was his for the taking . . . and the phone began to ring. "Leave it," he whispered, lifting his head slightly and then returning to his preoccupation. She tried, but the insistent summons began to pull her up, rung by painful rung, back into the air of sanity. The waters of passion receded slowly, but he could feel the altering character of her response.

Keri struggled to surface. "Dain, the phone. I must . . ." She sat up dizzily, and he sighed. With reluctant fingers he helped her adjust her dress and boosted her up
off
his lap.

"Next month don't pay your phone bill," he ordered her half fiercely.

Keri walked unsteadily to the kitchen and lifted the receiver. She held it to her ear and said, "Hello?" in a husky croak. Her throat didn't seem to be working properly.

She turned back to look at Dain, a bewildered expression on her face. "There wasn't anyone there. They hung up." She held the receiver in her hand as though not quite sure what to do next. Her mental processes were laborious, still hazed by her deep submersion in passion. She shook her head slightly, as though to clear it.

"Hang up the phone, Keri," he ordered softly. "Come back here to me."

Keri's brain was clearing fast. She hung up the phone, but she didn't go back into Dain's waiting arms. She wasn't sure of much right then, but the one thing she did know was that if she got within five feet of him she was lost. Now that sanity was returning she wasn't sure that she wanted to be lost. She might never find her way again.

"Come here, darling," he repeated softly. She was so
lovely,
the soft folds of her long gown swirling gracefully down to the floor and her eyes huge and still drowsy with the lingering remnants of desire. The scent of her perfumed skin still drifted around him, but it was poor substitute for the satin warmth of her body.

"No, Dain. No and no." Her voice was stronger. She
was
regaining control rapidly. "I shouldn't have . . . we shouldn't have I won't come back. And you stay right where you are!" But he showed signs of coming to her instead.

He sank back on the couch, a rueful smile creasing the corners of his mouth. "All right, Keri. Remind me to sell my AT&T stock tomorrow."

She grinned slightly at this sally and managed to retort, ' Really? I planned to buy more. Marvelous invention, the telephone. I wouldn't be without one."

"Point taken, Keri." He looked very serious and said quietly, "Don't call Charles for a while, Keri. Promise me that you'll wait and that you'll talk to me before you start pulling strings. Give me a little time."

"Time for what, Dain?"
Time to complete what you just started?
she questioned herself silently.

"Time for you to learn to trust me, Keri. You don't now, do you?"

He still lounged at ease on the couch, across the room from her, but the tension was starting to build between them again. She could feel the caress of his eyes and she knew that if she didn't get him out of her apartment right now, she would soon have good reason not to trust him.

"No, I don't trust you, Dain," she admitted candidly.

But may it comfort you to know that, after this episode, I don't trust myself either." There was no reason not to admit it, because she truly couldn't deny her willing participation in the events of the past minutes. She certainly hadn't struggled wildly for her virtue!

"And now, if I'm to learn to trust you, I suggest that it's time for you to go."

"Have I your promise?" he insisted as he rose obediently to his feet.

"I don't know, Dain," she replied in a troubled voice. "If I give it, it will only be a conditional promise at best. I can't promise not to talk to Charles, but I will promise not to do so just on the basis of whatever gossip is currently being circulated about us."

"So I'm to be put on my best behavior," he said grimly.

"If you want to call it that," she agreed stiffly. "I prefer to see it as a desire not to see the situation at work exacerbated further."

"Damn it, Keri, it's my company!"

"Damn it, Dain, it's my reputation!" She continued. "You may own the company, but you don't own the employees' tongues, nor can you control them. It isn't practical to fire everyone who gossips about us. I prefer to give them nothing damaging to gossip about"

"I refuse categorically to call you Miss Dalton at work," he protested, but she knew she'd won.

"I shall call you Mr. Randolph, however," she said firmly.

"All right, Keri. In the office. But I'll make the rules out of the office," he promised darkly.

"You can try," she said demurely and then grinned wickedly. "Go on home, Dain, and let me get some rest."

He gathered up his coat and said formally, "Thank you for the meal, Keri. It was delicious ... all of it"

She blushed, delightfully he thought, and opened the front door. "Out, Dain!" He stopped before her and tipped up her chin with a long forefinger. "I'll see you tomorrow, Keri." He kissed her lips gently, making no demands.

"I don't suppose you'd like to go back abroad and buy another company, would you?" she asked a trifle wistfully.

"Certainly," he agreed promptly. "When can we leave? I'll even let you pick the company and the country. I've never bothered to travel with a secretary before. I can tell it would be a great convenience . . . dictation taken at all hours of the day and night."

She threw up her hands in despair and shoved him out the door. She heard his chuckle as she closed it firmly behind him and locked the deadbolt. He was finally locked out of her apartment but he wasn't easily banished from her thoughts, and, she suspected ruefully, from her dreams.

Keri cleaned the kitchen for the second time and as she was drying her hands, the phone rang again. This time she got to it by the second ring.

"Hello?"

"Where have you been? I called earlier."

"None of your business, Schyler. I'm not accountable to you." She was short with him, but not as short as she might have been because she owed him. How delicious to know that it had been a call from Schyler that saved her from Dain.

"I've been in New York, but I'm back now. I want you to go out with me this weekend. I have tickets for the Kennedy Center for Saturday night, and we'll have dinner a: the Tavern in Georgetown." He sounded supremely confident.

"I shall send you a hearing aid because you are obvious
ly
hard of hearing.
I
am not going anywhere, anytime with
you,
Schyler." She nearly screamed into the phone.

"I'll pick you up at seven thirty, Keri," he said, ignoring her angry exclamation completely. "Good night, my darling." He hung up.

Keri threw the phone receiver back into its rest. "I hate men! All men, in every shape, size and form. I . . . hate . . . men!" That outburst did little to relieve her feelings. She flounced off to bed.

The next morning she went to work spoiling for a fight. She couldn't find any opponents, however. Elise was still out with "flu" and Dain called in to say that he would be away from the office until mid-afternoon. Since Bridget Covey declined the honor of manning the outer office, it fell to Keri, little as she desired it.

The morning passed quietly and Keri calmed somewhat. She no longer desired the head of
any
man who crossed her path, served up on a plate. She would be content with just Schyler's, well garnished with parsley. Talk about people who couldn't take a hint . . . Schyler wouldn't know a hint if it blew up in his face.

When the door to the outer corridor opened, Keri looked up from her typing with a politely welcoming smile smoothed on her face. The woman who confronted her didn't return the smile. She regarded Keri much as she might have regarded a large horsefly swimming in her borscht. With disgust.

Keri's smile faded. She was tempted to glance behind herself to see if perhaps the woman was looking at someone else. No one had ever looked at Keri with that expression. Keri didn't like it.

The woman was beautiful. Keri had to admit it. She was also beautifully and expensively dressed. Her hair obviously had the benefit of the services of the finest beauti
cians
,
because what Keri judged to be the normal warm
b
rown
color had been artfully tipped and highlighted, dramatizing what would otherwise be a pleasant but not exciting hue. Her eyes were hazel and hard. She exuded wealth, assurance, and arrogance. That gave Keri a clue to her identity.

"May I help you?" Keri questioned politely.

"I doubt it," was the totally uncivil reply.

Keri was nonplussed. Active hostility radiated from the woman and Keri was at a loss to understand why. To the best of her knowledge she had never seen . . . no, that wasn't strictly accurate, Keri realized. She had glimpsed this woman before, but where? Ah-ha, she had it!

The woman had been with the group of people who had walked past her at the time she had seen Schyler again for the first time in six months. He had been part of that group, had, in fact, been at the side of the woman who now faced her. Keri had noticed her in passing only, but her memory for faces was excellent. She was also afraid she could put a name to the face.

"I'm Denise Randolph. I've come to have lunch with my brother." The tone said, I don't have to explain a thing to you, peasant.

Denise started to sweep grandly past Keri. Keri said quietly, "I'm sorry, Miss Randolph, but your brother isn't
in
his office. He hasn't come in at all this morning. Was
he
expecting you?"

"I don't have to make appointments with my brother, Miss Dalton," Denise sneered. "Where is he?"

Keri wondered how Denise Randolph knew her name. Surely Dain hadn't discussed her with his sister. And from what Bridget had said when describing the less than charming manner Lady Denise displayed toward her brother's wage slaves, Denise wasn't the type to go out of her way to learn the names of salaried workers just to make a good impression. She certainly wasn't trying to make a good impression on Keri right now.

"Mr. Randolph called a while ago to say he was lunching in D.C. with Senor Villarreal. I believe he plans to return to the office by mid-afternoon." Keri's voice was smoothly neutral.

"Where are they lunching?" Denise snapped.

"I'm sorry, Miss Randolph, Mr. Randolph didn't say."

"Would you like to leave a message?" Keri called softly to Denise's retreating back. "I guess there was no message," Keri answered herself as the door slammed behind Denise.

"Did I hear the dulcet tones of la belle Denise?" Bridget inquired, coming into Keri's office.

"You certainly did," Keri grinned. She shook her hand, as one might when one's fingers have encountered hot metal. "Madame was not pleased. Brother not available to pick up tab for lunch. Madame departed in high dudgeon."

"A not unusual condition for Madame," Bridget asserted dryly. "The only time she's civil is when Brother is with her, or if she's accompanied by some other male she's trying to impress. I've never seen her with a female friend."

"I'm sure she has many," Keri asserted piously. "They just won't be found working for a living." She wasn't generally catty, but Denise's attitude, added to Keri's previous problems, rankled unwontedly, causing normally buried feline instincts to surface. She made a face at Bridget, "Miau, pfft, pfft."

Bridget laughed. "Are you ready for lunch, Keri?"

"Ravenous. Infighting always gives me an appetite. Are we eating in or out today?"

"I'll leave that up to you," Bridget said cautiously.

"Oh, in, I think. I might as well see how well yesterday's intervention has worked. If there's too much headturning and subdued whispering, I might have to call Elise. Besides it's never good strategy to procrastinate when faced with a painful necessity. As Dryden said: 'All delays are uangerous in war.'"

Keri notified the switchboard to handle all calls to Dain's office, then she and Bridget sallied forth.

All things considered, it wasn't too bad. There were some whispered conferences, to be sure, but well within the range of what Keri considered normal. She also took careful note of the attitude of the various men they en- countered. There was admiration but very little salacious speculation that she could detect. Had she been irrevocably branded as Dain's mistress, Keri knew that her reception would have been considerably different. Most men in the cafeteria would have looked at her with a certain knowledge, the knowledge that she had her price and, for the present, Dain was paying it. They would have been wondering if they, too, could afford her price when Dain had ceased to pay.