In the Enemy's Arms (17 page)

Of their own will, his hands settled at her waist. She was curvy for a woman shy of five and a half feet, with nice breasts, a slim waist and very nice hips that led to her amazing legs. The soft fabric of her clothes padded the toned body underneath, and warmth seeped into his hands while the mix of fragrances that would forever remind him of her scented the air.

“Would you ever have imagined ninety-six hours ago that you and I would be standing like this?” he asked quietly.

“Yes. But in my fantasy, I was clawing that smug smile off your face.”

“No smugness, see?” He smiled to demonstrate.

She laughed. “You can’t
not
be smug. It’s a part of who you are. If a person gets to know you, they get used to it.”

“You want to get to know me even better?” With his fingertips splayed on her spine, he brought her closer, just until they touched, just until he could feel heat and hunger and tension radiating from her body the same as his own.

She raised one hand to stroke his jaw, her fingertips skimming so lightly it was more a suggestion than a touch. It was tempting and tantalizing, and it took all his strength not to grab her hand and press it hard against his skin. “I’m tempted.”

It was the sort of statement that was always followed by a
but.
“But?”

“Thirteen years and a couple days of hating each other, and now suddenly we’re contemplating…”

“I contemplated it before.” When her brows furrowed in a soft frown, he gave her a sly look. “I was young and stupid, and you were young and beautiful. Of course I contemplated it. But you were hooked up with Trent, and I didn’t really like you, and you really didn’t like me. But the thought still entered my mind.”

Rolling her eyes, she smiled. “Of course it did. But you know what I’m saying. Thirteen years of knowing exactly where we stood with each other. No matter what else happened in life, I could count on you to be smug, arrogant and self-centered. And you know what they say about adrenaline, danger, near-death experiences.”

He knew: heightened senses, increased vulnerability, reckless decisions. Who was to say they wouldn’t wake up in a couple of days, when all this was hopefully and successfully over, look at each other and think,
Dear God, what have I done, and how do I get out of it?

“I’ve experienced adrenaline rushes, dangerous situations and near-death experiences before, and they’ve never made me want to run out and commit to the first woman I laid eyes on.”

She blinked that slow blink that made her look cuddly as a small bird. “Did you just say ‘commit’?”

“I did.” And he made no effort to recall it. “I’m thirty-four, Cate, and I’ve been a responsible adult for six years.” He grinned at the implication of that statement. “I don’t fool around like I used to. I actually have friendships and relationships with women now. I take all of them seriously. You can’t commit to a lifetime together if you can’t commit to a relationship to start.”

She stared at him a long moment. “Wow, you’ve actually been listening to Susanna and all her psychosocial stuff, haven’t you?” Then, without warning, she leaned forward, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, hard and sweet and needy and enticing, a claiming, demanding, pushy sort of kiss that she ended too soon.

“Garbage truck is coming. We should go.” She stepped away and went to the car door, but it was obvious that she wasn’t nearly as unaffected as she pretended. Her voice was husky and her hand trembled as she opened the door. If it had taken her one second longer to slide inside, he would have bet her legs would have collapsed beneath her. When she assumed he couldn’t see her, she touched shaking fingers to her lips for a moment, then clasped her hands in her lap.

Justin breathed deeply as the racket from the garbage truck at the far end of the alley echoed from fence to building. He tried willing his body systems to settle back to normal. His lungs and heart cooperated—
grudgingly—and his temperature began cooling.

But it was going to be a while before this damn erection went away.

* * *

They pulled away from the Dumpsters ahead of the garbage truck, driving to the end of the alley, then turning into the parking lot. Cate expected Justin to head out onto the street, but instead he parked in front of a discount clothing store. Still a little shaken—and breathless—she glanced his way.

“I need clothes,” he said in response.

She would have liked to wait in the car, except that she was too scared. Climbing out, she started across the lot with him, and she gave only the smallest of jumps when he took her hand.

Because this time it wasn’t for show.

She’d never seen anyone shop as quickly as he did. Trent was the only other man she’d shopped with, and while he preferred a casual, scruffy style, like Justin, it was a very carefully put together designer scruffy. Justin, on the other hand, located a display of shorts, picked up four pairs, then grabbed four T-shirts from a rack, two packages of boxers and a pack of socks. He didn’t try anything on, wasn’t fussy about colors or styles. In less than ten minutes, they were back in the car and on their way to the airport.

She wondered if the number had any significance. Like, if he didn’t think they’d be alive long enough to need a fifth outfit. The possibility sent a shiver through her that she shook off as she dug a pair of nail clippers from her bag. “The variety of color in your wardrobe in amazing,” she remarked as she began snipping tags from the shorts—all shades of tan.

“Sorry. I didn’t think to pack my collection of vintage Hawaiian shirts.”

“I bought AJ a Hawaiian shirt once. I think his new wife burned it.”

“How could you get involved with a man who doesn’t appreciate a good Hawaiian shirt? They’re classic.” He gave her a sidelong look, actually waiting for an answer.

“I wasn’t aware of that when we started dating. That particular question was never on my checklist for potential mates.” Her tone was dry, even as she thought back to her relationship with AJ. It had been great. They’d had a lot in common; the sex was always good; they’d just flowed naturally from friendship to dating to talking about marriage.

The end had come just as naturally. She’d emerged with her heart intact. She’d loved him—still did—but she hadn’t been in love with him, nor he with her. They’d shared less passion in the year they’d been together than she and Justin had in the past few days.

That made her breath catch in her chest. She’d
loved
AJ. Was it even remotely possible that she could be falling in love with Justin?

Could she survive falling in love with Justin?

They’d reached the airport before she’d realized they had even left Grayson’s neighborhood behind, but Justin bypassed the passenger terminals for a smaller, quieter building. “What airline are we flying?” she asked as he parked in a distant space.

“Westin Air.” He waggled his brows as he cut the engine, then popped the trunk open.

The name sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place it until she was rearranging the stuff in the duffel Justin had unzipped to make room for the new clothes. Alex Westin was a friend of Trent’s, and therefore Justin’s, from college—another trust-fund kid. They’d been in the same fraternity, traveled in the same social circles and shared the same taste for adrenaline. Alex had always been hanging out when she’d gone to the frat house to see Trent, and he’d come to the wedding, too. The biggest difference between him and Justin was that he’d never tried to warn her off Trent.

And he’d never been anywhere near as sexy as Justin.

“Alex has an airline?” She neatly folded two pairs of shorts and wedged them into the bag before Justin took the sackful of clothes and crammed it inside. He packed as if he’d learned in a sardine cannery.

“Better. He has a Gulfstream.” He gestured to the tarmac behind the building, where a jet waited. Compared to the commercial plane that had taken her to and from Cozumel, this one was tiny, sleek and graceful in appearance, built for speed—and luxury, she saw, when the pilots met them inside and escorted them on board a few minutes later.

Wow.
The cabin
smelled
like money, an intoxicating mix of buttery leather and exotic woods and plush carpet. In addition to a full couch, there were another half-dozen seats big enough to curl up in, a large-screen television and an array of electronics—stereo, DVD player, computer, fax, printer.

“Wow.” This time she said it aloud. She put her bag on the couch before facing Justin. “This is amazing. Why don’t you have one?”

“Why buy when I can borrow someone else’s?” He settled into a chair and fastened his seatbelt. “For the record, everything in here is as green as it could be. Alex is big on environmental issues.”

She slid into the chair across the table from him and buckled up, then rested her hands on the surface. That made three spoiled rich kids she knew now who were passionate about making life better for others. She
really needed to adjust her attitude.

“Besides,” Justin went on, “do you have any idea how many dive trips for the kids $35 million would cover?”

Her jaw dropped. She’d learned with the Calloways to disguise her awe most of the time. It wasn’t as if she were poor. Her family had been solidly middle-class, with five daughters to raise, clothe and put through college. The Proctors had had enough for necessities, comfort and some luxuries, but a $35 million plane… “How much food and medicine,” she murmured.

“Clean water. Shelters. Doctors.” Justin’s expression was part grimace. “To be fair, Alex uses the plane for more than dive trips or dinner in Paris with his latest girlfriend. He provides free transportation to medical volunteers in Central and South America. He brings kids who need extensive care to the U.S. with their families and pays their expenses while they’re here. He makes the jet available to people on transplant lists who have to get to the transplant center on short notice, and he flies World War II veterans to visit the memorial in D.C.”

Cate gazed out the window at the activity across the tarmac. She doubted any of her family or friends did that much with their favorite charities. Of course, their efforts would be on a much smaller scale, but they didn’t even manage that. They wrote a check now and then or did hands-on volunteering from time to time, but she couldn’t think of one who was truly passionate about it.

Her own involvement was much less substantial.

As if reading her mind, he said, “Hey, you do what you can. People have jobs, responsibilities, families. Alex doesn’t have a job or any responsibility beyond spending the money he inherited.”

She was beginning to see that could be a much bigger responsibility than she’d ever wanted to acknowledge.

“Can the Wallaces track us to Arizona?” she asked as the engines revved, restless for a change of subject. What did it say about her that she’d rather think about the people holding Trent and Susanna hostage than her preconceived—and wrong—notions?

“I don’t know how. The pilots will file a flight plan, but they don’t have to report that they’re carrying passengers. The only people who know we’re here are Alex and the pilots, and trust me—” his tone turned wry
“—the pilots are well paid not to gossip.”

As he finished speaking, the intercom hummed to life with the captain announcing they would be starting to taxi out. Justin was relaxed, sprawled in his chair, head tilted to one side and gaze fixed outside the window at the scenery slowly passing. His hair was mussed, his attitude one of ease. His features were so familiar, and yet different.

The difference, of course, wasn’t in his face, but her. Instead of being the enemy, now he was a partner. A companion. Even—she’d never dreamed she might think this—a friend.

And the object of her latest fantasies. She had
kissed
him, for God’s sake. She, who had never wanted to breathe the same air he breathed, had kissed him.

She could give several reasons for it that sounded credible enough. She’d been frightened. Her emotional control had been running thin. She’d wanted the power of a touch. It was human nature, wasn’t it, to want physical contact in stressful moments. But the simple truth was, she’d wanted to. Wanted to be that close. Wanted to feel that intimate. To taste him, touch him, lean on him.

She’d
wanted.
Him.

The thought sent blood rushing to her cheeks and formed a knot in her stomach.

“What are you thinking to make you blush like that?”

His voice, throaty and amused, drew her attention back to the face she’d been staring at, and the heat in her own face climbed a little more. “N-nothing.”

Then came the smug, cocky grin that used to make her want to smack him. “Were you imagining me naked?” He raised his hands in a helpless shrug, when he was anything but. “Women usually do. Better yet, were you imagining
us
naked? Because I have been, and that sofa makes into a damn comfortable bed.” He watched her gaze flicker to the cockpit. “The pilots never come any farther back than the galley.”

Slowly she shook her head. “I don’t think so.” It was eye-opening just how tempted she was, even though there were a thousand reasons why she shouldn’t have been. It was risky. What if the Justin she loved to hate came back? What if this thing
was
just the side effect of adrenaline and fear? She didn’t treat sex lightly. She wasn’t a prude about it, but she’d never slept with a man she hadn’t thought had the potential for a long-term place in her life. What kind of potential was there between her and Justin?

Besides great sex.

He lived in Mobile; her life was in Copper Lake.

He was filthy rich—generously rich, she corrected herself; her income wasn’t shabby, but it didn’t put her in his universe. Besides, she’d visited there while she was married to Trent and wouldn’t fit in any better now than she had then.

He spent half his time elsewhere, taking chances, having fun, doing good; she liked staying at home, having a regular job, taking care of her little house and spending time with her friends who also had regular jobs and regular lives. She didn’t take chances, and her idea of fun was tame and boring compared to his. Hadn’t he reminded her just a few days ago that she’d bored Trent to tears?