Storm Over the Lake (5 page)

“You did, and we both know it,” he growled, his eyes narrow and flashing dark fire as his hand at her back tightened. “I never touched you,” he whispered. “Never, not one time, but I wanted to…!”

His head bent, his eyes still holding
hers, his big arm tightening like steel, holding her, hurting her.

“Oh, please, Adrian, don't do this…” she pleaded gently.

He stopped. Froze. His eyes searched her face as if he'd never seen it before. “Say my name again,” he said.

“Adrian…”

His fingers traced the soft, fluid line of her flushed cheek as he watched her in a static burning silence. “Doe eyes,” he murmured. “As lovely as a fawn. Soft and sweet and vulnerable. You're trembling, little one, I can feel it. Do I make you hungry, Meredith? Do you want to taste me?” he whispered, his hard, chiseled mouth hovering half a breath over hers as she breathed in the musky, male scent of him, her heart shaking her with its pounding.

“Devil…” she sobbed as his hard mouth teased hers, tormented it with a whisper-light pressure that was no pressure, setting fires in her blood' “devil…straight out of hell!”

“Do I make you burn, Persephone?” he
murmured against her parted, pleading lips. “Do I make you hungry?”

“Y…yes! Adrian…!” she choked.

His teeth nipped lightly at her delicate upper lip, in a smoky, sensuous caress. Both his hands were buried in her thick, silky hair now, holding her face up to his.

“What is it, honey?” he whispered, his mouth touching her closed eyelids, her cheeks, the corner of her lips with slow, brief kisses.

“Oh…please…” she breathed, tears misting her eyes at the hunger he was kindling, a hunger like nothing she'd ever experienced. Her nails dug into him through the soft fabric of his shirt, though she was barely aware of the contact.

He laughed softly, deeply, “Do I make you that hungry, little cat?” he whispered. “Do you want to claw me?”

“D…damn you!” she wept.

His lips burned her in a brief, biting kiss. “Beg me for it,” he murmured gruffly.

“I hate you!” she cried, her voice breaking, tears streaming down her cheeks
as she looked up into his eyes with the agony of the damned in her wide, misty dark eyes.

His hands tightened around her head, his gaze dark and quiet and shadowy. “Where's all that majestic composure now, young Meredith?” he asked harshly. “By God, I told you I'd strip that veneer of sophistication away before I was through. Under it, you're every inch a woman, aren't you?”

Tears rolled uncontrollably down her cheeks and she closed her eyes against the humiliation. His hands dropped to her shoulders and he gripped them painfully and shook her. “Stop it,” he said in glacial tones. “My God, what are you crying about?”

She shuddered with the memory of her own voice pleading…“Will you let me go?” she whispered icily.

“That isn't what you wanted a minute ago,” he reminded her cruelly as he released her and turned away to light a cigarette.

She wrapped her arms around her shiv
ering body and took a deep, shuddering breath. The tears were like tiny ice trails down her cheeks where the breeze hit them.

“Hail the suffering heroine,” he taunted. “Why pretend, Persephone? These virginal displays don't affect me one way or the other, we both know that illusion of innocence doesn't go any deeper than your integrity.”

“You don't know anything about me, Mr. Devereaux,” she said with what dignity she could muster. “Not anything at all.”

“I know you're easily aroused,” he said.

“That isn't hard for any man who's experienced, is it?” she asked bitterly. “And you obviously are.”

“Could he make you burn that easily?” he asked in a voice that cut like a whip.

“He?” she echoed.

“Your lover! The man you're supporting!” he threw at her.

“I'm not supporting any man, and I've never had a lover in my life!” she all but
screamed at him. “Did you take lessons in cruelty, Mr. Devereaux, or does it come naturally to you? Why don't you just cut me into little pieces and be done with it!”

He took a draw from the cigarette he'd just lit and watched her narrowly. “When you're through having hysterics, I've got another letter to dictate.”

Hysterics! She raised a trembling hand to her face, brushing away the tears. Her heart felt like a dead weight in her chest. She wanted to lie down someplace quiet and just die.

He was behind her suddenly, his big hand outstretched with a soft white handkerchief. “Dry your eyes, little girl,” he said, and his voice was almost kind.

She took it wordlessly and dabbed at her eyes, blowing her nose. She clutched it in her hand like a lifeline.

“I'll get my pad,” she said, raising her face proudly, her red-rimmed eyes meeting his levelly.

He watched her walk into the house, her spine as straight as a slide rule, her car
riage faultless. With her back to him, she didn't see the look that was carved on his dark face.

T
he drive up to Devereaux's cabin on Lake Lanier took barely an hour, even in the weekend traffic, but to Dana and Lillian it seemed much longer.

“I hate riding,” Lillian confided as Frank helped them unload their preparations from the sleek Lincoln. “I like being there and being back, but I hate the in-between.”

Dana only laughed, her eyes on the redwood cabin, so spacious and majestic in
its woodsy setting on the lakefront. It boasted huge picture windows and sliding glass doors and a fireplace that must have been heaven to sit by in winter.

It was the perfect setting for a party, with the wide pier on the lake and the boat dock next to it, and the beautiful clean silence of bark and grass and brown earth.

Dana paused on the wide front porch overlooking the lake and let the cool wind tear at her loosened hair. She'd stood here with him once, at night, and listened to the sound of dogs baying in the distance. And listened to his deep voice as he told her about the old days when he hunted the Georgia mountains with his father in the fall, while he was growing up in Chicago.

“Beautiful, isn't it?” Lillian sighed, pausing beside her. “Peace and quiet and birds and wind rustling the trees. This place keeps the Mister sane, I'll tell you. It's his refuge.”

“Why does he want to ruin it with a houseful of drunk people?” Dana wanted to know.

“Still a teetotaler, are you?” Lillian
teased. “Baby, you just can't understand why people drink, can you?”

Remembering last night, Dana felt a shudder run through her. “Oh, I've got a good idea. Lillian, do you think that band's reliable?”

“Sure they are. Don't worry, now, everything's going to be just fine. Trust me. Nothing's going to go wrong.”

Sure, Dana thought to herself when the band leader called fifteen minutes before he was due to arrive with his group and told her there'd been a car wreck. Fortunately, no one was hurt badly, but they wouldn't be able to perform.

That was just the tip of the iceberg. She'd forgotten to get a bag of ice, and there was none in the refrigerator. The ham she'd wrapped so lovingly flew out of her hands as she tripped on the steps and went rolling down into the lake.

She sat down on the front stoop, her face in her hands, with ten minutes to get everything ready before Devereaux and his party arrived.

“Dana, what are you doing?” Lillian called, her apron waving in the wind.

“I'm having a nervous breakdown?!” she replied.

“Where's the ham?”

Dana pointed toward the shore, where the lake was lapping gently around the lovely huge party ham.

“And the band?”

“They were in a wreck and they can't come. They're very sorry,” she added.

“My God!”

“It's all right,” Dana told her reassuringly. “He'll only drown me once, you know.”

“What will we do?” Lillian was muttering to herself, as if she could hear the funeral dirge being played slowly in the distance.

Dana got up. “I'll fix it. Reporters,” she told the older woman, “are resourceful. Or they get barbecued by city editors.”

She got on the phone and called an old friend at the local daily paper. From her, she got the name of a good local band, which could be had, fortunately, on the
spur of the moment, and the address of a good local deli. She sent Frank for cold cuts, called the band and in five minutes had everything wrapped up.

“Magic,” Lillian murmured, shaking her head in awe.

“Unicorns,” Dana laughed. “I believe in them, you know.”

She stayed in the kitchen with Lillian when the guests began to arrive, every one of them late, and the band was already winding up its first number by the time Adrian Devereaux arrived—with the dragon.

Fayre Braunns was the perfect foil for Adrian's satanic darkness. She was blond, petite, with eyes so big and green that they seemed to dominate her sharp face. She was wearing a white lace pantsuit that clung like skin to her slender figure, contrasting violently with the dark brown silk of Adrian's open shirt and white slacks. They made the perfect couple, Dana had to admit, feeling an emptiness in the region of her heart as she watched the blonde cling to him.

She hadn't dressed for the occasion, wearing faded denims and a blue and white checked knit top, but the sweep of her blond hair gave the old clothes an elegance she wasn't aware of.

She was finishing another tray of bacon-rolled dates for canapes when she heard the door open behind her.

“I'll have this batch ready in a jiffy, Lillian,” she said cheerfully, arranging parsley around the edges of the tray.

“Hiding, Meredith?”

She tensed at the sound of that deep voice, her muscles contracting when she felt him move closer, felt the warm vibrancy of his powerful body just behind her, almost touching.

It was the first contact she'd had with him since the argument, and she didn't want it at all.

“Lillian and I thought it would be better if we shared the kitchen chores while we were here,” she murmured.

“Did you?” His big hands slid onto her waist, drawing her gently, slowly back against him so that she could feel the hard
muscle of his thighs, his flat stomach, his chest. His breath was warm beside her ear.

“What are you making?” he asked.

“They…they're date and bacon rolls,” she whispered.

“What do they taste like?”

Impulsively, she picked up one of the tasty morsels and, turning slightly, held it to his chiseled mouth. He took it, his lips brushing her fingers as he savored it.

“Not bad,” he said with a grin, his eyes washing over her soft, flushed face. “Did you make them, Persephone?”

“Yes.”

“And some mushrooms in hemlock gravy?” he teased.

She smiled at him. “Only as a side dish,” she replied.

His eyes held hers, narrowing, glittering, as the smile left his mouth. His big hands tightened on her waist in a hungry, painful grip.

“Why don't you turn around?” he murmured in a deep, lazy tone. “I'd rather taste you than the canapes.”

She blushed to the roots of her hair.
“I…I have to finish these,” she protested breathlessly, tugging at his big, warm hands.

His open mouth ran up and down the softness of her neck in a sensuous, slow caress. “You smell of spring buds opening after a soft gray rain. No heavy perfume. No stiff hairspray and layers of makeup. You make me hungry, wood nymph.”

She drew a deep, slow breath. “Would you like another canape?” she asked, trying to make a joke out of it.

“Come outside with me,” he murmured at her ear, his teeth lightly nipping the lobe, “and let me make love to you.”

“Mr. Devereaux!” she whispered shakily.

Soft, deep laughter was muffled against her neck. “You sound like an outraged virgin, something we both know damned well you're not. Stop pretending.”

She strained at his imprisoning hands. “Whatever I am is none of your business!” she spat over her shoulder. “Let me go!”

He started to say something but the door
opened behind them and a silky voice purred, “Adrian, if you're quite through marking time with the hired help, I'd like to dance.”

He turned gracefully for such a big man, his head tilted at an arrogant angle while he eyed the small blond intruder. “Meredith is my secretary,” he said slowly, deliberately, “not ‘hired help' as you so delicately put it. Watch those claws, little cat, or I'll trim them off to the quick!”

Behind him, peering around that broad, muscular shoulder, she saw Fayre's face go white with the shock of his cold fury. “I…I didn't mean…” she stammered.

“Get out.” He said it without ever raising his voice, but the impact was just as visible.

“Excuse me,” Fayre said weakly and turning, with a small accusing glance at Adrian, went back to where the music was throbbing in a disco beat.

Adrian lit a cigarette and stood with his back to her for several seconds before he turned. His dark eyes scanned her face quietly.

“You attack me all the time,” Dana murmured, working again on the tray. “Why shouldn't she?”

“Because,” he explained simply, “nobody touches you except me. In any way. Nobody.”

She met his level gaze and felt something inside her tremble at the dark intensity of it. It was as if he'd reached out and marked her for life, a possession that was non-physical but permanent.

“Let Lillian finish that,” he said suddenly, crushing out his fresh cigarette in an ashtray. “I've got plans for you.”

“But…”

He put an iron hand behind her back and propelled her into the living room. The lights were low, the band was playing a slow, seductive tune, the assembled couples were wrapped around each other as they shuffled their feet lazily to the beat. Nervously, Dana looked for Fayre and found her smiling up at a man a little older than Adrian, darting an icy glance Dana's way.

Before that warning glitter had time to
register, Dana found herself imprisoned in Adrian Devereaux's big, warm arms, locked to his broadness as he drew her along in a slow rhythm.

“Don't be so damned conventional,” he murmured, and, catching her hands, moved them into the thick cloud of hair on his chest. “You're not a baby.”

She swallowed nervously, and tried to draw a deep breath. “I…I haven't danced in a long time.”

“Obviously.” One big, manicured hand came up to cover her cold one where it lay uneasily on his warm body. He pressed it into the mat of hair. “Your hands are like ice.”

“It…it's a little…chilly,” she faltered, drowning in the feel of his powerful, sensuous masculinity, the musky fragrance of his cologne, the strength of his arms.

His breath, whiskey scented, filled her nostrils as he lowered his forehead against hers. “God, you're soft,” he breathed deeply. “Like silk where you touch me.” His fingers came up and brushed against her chin shifting her face against his shoul
der so that he could look down into her confused, soft eyes. His gaze dropped to her parted, pink mouth. Incredibly, he started to bend his head and she buried her face against him, the hair on his chest tickling her soft skin, the heavy thud of his pulse like distant drums in her ear.

His arms tightened around her. “Come outside with me,” he whispered sensuously.

“No!” she replied huskily. “P…please, I don't know what kind of game this is, but I…I don't want to play it! If you have to punish me, can't you do it…some other way?! Why must you be so cruel!”

He stopped in his tracks and looked down at her. The tenderness went out of him in a flash of black eyes and he released her so suddenly she almost staggered.

Without another word, he turned away and made a beeline for Fayre, taking her away from her partner and jerking her against his body. Fayre caught Dana's eyes as the younger woman started back to the
kitchen, and there was triumph in her sharp features.

The confrontation was inevitable from the very beginning, and Dana had expected it. But the venom in Fayre's face was still enough to paralyze her instantly when the little blonde tore into her bedroom as she was getting her shawl and preparing to leave.

“He belongs to me,” she told Dana without preliminaries, her cold eyes summing up the taller woman in one insulting glance. “I've held him longer than any of the others, and I've got my eye on a wedding ring. Don't think you're going to cut me out, honey. It'll take more than a skinny little innocent like you to do that. Hands off. You understand?!”

Dana eyed the bleached blonde with a schooled calmness that came from years of dealing with hot tempers in city council chambers and county commission meetings.

“I don't believe in possession,” she replied. “Not of things, or people. I work for Mr. Devereaux. Period. He wouldn't
have me on a bet, and the feeling is mutual. If you don't believe me, ask him.”

“Don't worry, I will.” She threw the shawl around her shoulders. “Cool, aren't you?”

“I'm a reporter. We have to be.”

“A reporter?!” A harsh, mocking laugh flared out of that slender throat. “And he hired you? Why, it was a woman reporter who ruined him…!”

“It was me.” Dana said it deliberately and saw the confusion in the other's expression.

“Vengeance?” Fayre sighed. “I can almost feel sorry for you. Almost. But whatever his reasons for hiring you, just remember he's committed. Body and soul,” she added deliberately. She turned and left the room with a trail of Chanel drifting behind her.

Dana mumbled something under her breath and slammed the bedroom door after the woman's retreating figure. She stayed there for the rest of the night, even refusing a final cup of coffee with Lillian.

 

The atmosphere was frigid for days after the party. Dana took dictation and planned her employer's appointments and kept his calendar with the absolute minimum of conversation. She took her meals in the kitchen with Lillian and kept out of his way every minute she could. He noticed this, and it did nothing for his black mood.