Silk Scarves and Seduction (10 page)

He lowered his head and caught that lip that had been tempting him to distraction, biting it just like he had been wanting to. Then he lingered to kiss her teasingly. When she sighed into his mouth, he pulled away.

“I’m going to go run you a bath. And you’re going to get in there and relax while I fix supper. Lasagna, I think. Then after we eat…I’m going to tie you to the bed and fuck you silly, until you stop worrying about other people and start paying attention to me,” he murmured, reaching down and cupping her breasts in his hand, nudging his cock against her back.

Tessa gasped and arched into his touch. “Ummm…that sounds…pretty good.”

Chapter Nine

Valery lifted her hand to bang on Tessa’s door a third time, her mouth puckered in a scowl. Damn it, she knew her friend was in there. Was she so damned mad at her she was ignoring her? Both cars were there.

Hell, they were probably twisting on the sheets. Valery felt her mouth start to tremble and a streak of jealousy shot through her. Just before she banged on the door a fourth time, it opened and Caleb was there, a rag tossed over one shoulder, a tomato in one hand, an eyebrow lifted.

When he saw her, a smile spread over his mouth and he pushed the door wider. Sympathy sparked in his dark eyes and reached out, brushing a corkscrew curl out of her eyes. “I’ve got Strawberry soaking in the tub,” he said, cocking his head to the side. “I’m tempted to go run another bath in the spare room and put you in there. You look even sadder than she does. But I don’t think I can fix what’s wrong with you.”

“Tessa has a key to Marc’s house. I want it,” she said, lifting her chin.

“No, she doesn’t,” Caleb said amicably, turning and walking into the kitchen, laying the tomato down and stirring the pot on the stove.

Normally, the scents on the stove would have had her salivating, but she was too frustrated, too nervous. “The hell she doesn’t. You all take care of his mail, and water his garden and the houseplants when he goes out of town for conferences. I want the key. I’m not going over there to trash things. Give me the key—I’ll talk to Tessa later, I promise, but I need the key,” she said, reaching up and grabbing a fistful of curls, shoving them out of her face as she met his eyes and waited.

“Well, yes, we have a key, but it’s mine,” Caleb said, crossing the room and reaching into a basket, pulling a key ring out and fishing a key off of it. He tossed it to her, his mouth canting up at one corner. “You realize, don’t you, that if you do something that’s going to cause me problems, Blush, I’ll never hear the end of it. That means neither will you.”

She flung herself across the room at him and planted a loud smacking kiss on his lips before running out of the house without saying a single word.

Caleb licked his lips and grinned, glad Tessa wasn’t in the room to see the male appreciation that lingered in his eyes for a moment.

The house was empty when she got there.

Good.

She did, after all, have a plan. It would be easier to get it done if she had some time before he threw her out. She stripped out of her clothes and stashed them, toting her camera equipment in, setting up her photo printer and the laptop in the spare bedroom. Judging from the looks of the dust in there, it hadn’t been used since his sister had last come to visit.

Then she started with the pictures.

At the front door, on the steps, on the bed, in the shower…all the while running back and forth between her shots and the door, watching for him. Where in the hell was he? She started printing them off. And left them where she took them.

She left the final one on his bed. With a letter. She didn’t exactly know what to say, so she just wrote,

You seduced me, too. But I started loving you a long time ago. Will you forgive me?

After pacing the house naked for a while, Valery started feeling stupid, so she got dressed. It was past midnight now.

Damn it!

Where was he?

He had to work tomorrow. Had he forgotten that?

Finally, at three a.m., she gave up and left, sighing as she locked the door behind her, throwing her camera bag over her shoulder, her eyes gritty with fatigue, her heart heavy with worry and grief.

She got home at nearly four a.m. and fell face first on the couch, still clothed.

After sleeping restlessly, the phone ringing at seven woke her and she attacked it with a vengeance. “Marc?”

“No. It’s Wyatt. Damn it, where have you been, sweets? We got a date today at the airport, in like four hours, remember? Scotland? Yo?”

Shit, shit, shit, shit!

“I don’t know—”

“You don’t know? It’s a little late to back out now, darling. I’m counting on you. It’s only two weeks, Val. Come on, get your fine ass out of bed, take a shower and get your passport! Get moving!”

Fuck! Calendar shoot. Haunted castles. Wyatt had gone out on a limb for her, helping to get her on this shoot. If she backed out now…I can’t. “Look, I need to make some phone calls,” she said tiredly, reaching up and rubbing her eyes.

An hour later, she was packed. But she still hadn’t gotten hold of Marc. She had left numerous messages at his house. She had called Tessa, but Tessa, once she finished apologizing, didn’t have a clue where he was. She did give her his pager number, but she couldn’t do anything else.

“Look, I’ll leave his key here.”

“That’s fine,” Tessa said softly. “So this is big? You have to go?”

“Yeah. May not make much money, but it’s big exposure. That counts for a lot,” Valery said softly. “And Wyatt went out big time to get me this. I can’t back out on him now. It’s only two weeks. But…”

“Timing sucks,” Tessa said succinctly.

“Yeah. I…I, uh, left some stuff at Marc’s. If you see him, tell him…tell him…hell. Don’t tell him anything. If he can’t figure it out, I guess there’s nothing there for us,” she said sadly, reaching up and rubbing her hand over her aching heart.

She hung up the phone and grabbed her stuff, heading out to meet the taxi just as it pulled up her long driveway. Valery slid her shades up her nose and refused to let the tears building in her eyes fall.

Chapter Ten

Marc stormed into the house, ignoring the ringing of his cell phone.

He was tired. He was heartbroken.

And he needed a shower.

He had spent the night taking call for another doctor instead of coming home and had ended up getting puked on by a squeamish new dad, then the baby started having breathing problems. Once he filched some scrubs from OR, he had crashed in the doctors’ lounge and slept there, instead of coming home and dreaming of Blush.

Then he had to go to the office and dodge Tessa, cutting her off, walking into rooms to avoid talking to her, and outright ignoring her.

And several messages from Blush were on his pager.

Now, finally, he had some peace and quiet.

He could sleep—

There were pictures in his house.

Blush had been here.

He could smell her.

The soft scent of her body lingered, faintly. Very faintly. But she had been here. Fuck. Rubbing his gritty eyes, he walked to the stairs and studied the portrait-sized photo of her lounging naked on the stairs, staring into the camera’s eye, her heart in her gaze for all the world to see. But maybe he was hoping too much to see it there.

A few steps up, there was another.

This one had a tear streaking down her face.

In the hall, she was lying on her side, her cheek pillowed on her hand, her eyes dark and shadowed—lonely eyes—and she looked every bit as hurt and lonesome as he felt.

More large prints. Every one added to the lump in his throat.

Damn it. Why in the hell hadn’t he come home last night? He grabbed the phone from the clip at his waist and dialed her number. It rang and rang as he followed the trail into his bedroom.

The letter on his bed had him hanging up the phone. He’d just drive out there.

You seduced me, too. But I started loving you a long time ago. Will you forgive me?

The wording…he narrowed his eyes, thinking of something else. The gifts from the spa, in particular. The card…

Taking the note, he folded it and tucked it into his pocket as he jogged back down the stairs. He was already out the door and hadn’t even glanced at his answering machine, totally unaware of the messages that had been left from the airport.

It was nearly an hour later when he got to Charlestown from Anchorage, Kentucky. Her truck was in the drive and a few lights were burning, although he didn’t see anybody moving. With the key he still hadn’t returned to Tessa, he let himself into the house, licking his lips nervously.

But the total stillness of the house told him within seconds she wasn’t there.

With a scowl, he pulled out his phone again and buzzed her cell phone.

Out of service.

So he called Tessa and Caleb.

“Hey,” he said without preamble when Caleb answered. “It’s Marc. You have any idea where Blush has disappeared to?”

“Ahh…last I heard, she was disappearing to your house. That was last night,” Caleb said slowly. A hidden laugh was in his voice and Marc could all but see the mirth in the man’s eyes as he asked, “She didn’t trash it, did she?”

“No. No…lemme talk to Tessa.”

“Hello?”

“Tessa, where is Blush?” Marc demanded.

“Why, hello, Marc. I’m wonderful, and you? It was a rather demanding day, wasn’t it? Yes…I enjoyed a wonderful relaxing dinner with my husband and he was in the middle of a delightful back massage when you called. And now that you mention it, it has been a few hours since I heard from Val…but no, I’m not worried. I know exactly where she is. And if you had but listened to me, you’d know where she is too!” Tessa chirped into the phone.

But Marc heard the underlying stone in her voice. He winced. Okay, so maybe he had been a little rude to her at work. “Look, Tessa, I’m sorry. I know I was rude. I apologize.”

“Hmm. Well, have a good night!” And the phone slammed down in his ear.

But he wasn’t about to let it go that easily. Resolutely, he dialed the number again. She pleasantly said, “You know, I tried six times, to tell you something about Valery. Do you know that? Six times! She may have been a stubborn idiot, but considering what she was dealing with, sometimes I don’t blame her.”

“Tess, honey, just tell me where she is,” Marc pleaded, reaching up and rubbing his eyes. “I just need to see her. I need to talk to her.”

Maliciously, Tessa purred, “Scotland.”

Scotland.

The phone was making that annoying out of service noise in his hand by the time Tessa’s words finally made sense in his head.

Scotland.

Blush was in Scotland.

Marc fell back on the couch and flung an arm over his eyes, a moan of abject misery rising in his throat.

Scotland.

Scotland called to her. It always had. She trudged up the stairs to her room, her bag heavy on her shoulders, muffling a yawn behind her hand. A week left.

And then it was back home.

She had talked to Tessa three days ago. And Valery was proud of herself. She hadn’t mentioned Marc. But damn it she had wanted to. Did he hate her? Did he still love her?

Had he forgiven her?

But Valery was the one who needed to ask him those questions. Then there was the fight that still lingered between her and Tessa. The apology had been made, but Valery had behaved badly and until she was back in the States, and could throw her arms around Tessa…well, it just felt unresolved.

And Tessa had acted…odd on the phone.

Was she still mad at her for how she had behaved toward Marc?

She slid the old-fashioned key into the lock and turned it, shoving with her hip at the same time. Oh, yeah. Her employer had really gone all out on the digs with this hotel. Actually, though, it wasn’t that bad. So what if it took a little body language to get the doors to open?

And it took some more body language to get the doors to close—and then sometimes the water didn’t want to come on without a lot of swearing and cursing.

And then there was the couple next door, newlyweds, who had to fuck every night. That just added to the ambiance.

But it was a decent hotel.