Teresa Medeiros (17 page)

The harsh reminder sent her scrambling to her feet to pace the elegant salon. She would do well to remember that Tristan was no longer that boy. He’d molded himself into a ruthless man who took what he wanted without apology or regret. He was no different from any of the wealthy, powerful men who had offered her mama their protection. A “protection” that had lasted only until a younger, more lovely face had come along.

Yet Arian could still feel the tenderness of Tristan’s long, elegant fingers cupping her nape, the scorching heat of his breath against her throat. Her mouth went dry with a primitive thirst. ’Twas as if he embodied every sin Marcus had ever warned her about. Every delicious temptation that had enticed her mama to give herself over to wickedness and self-indulgence. Such pleasures were as foreign to Arian as the sinuous whisper of silk against her skin.

Stifling a moan, she paused to cool her burning brow against the window. As it did every evening at this time, the encroaching darkness activated the lamp behind her, spoiling both her brooding and the melancholy beauty of the view.

She scowled at the lamp’s reflection. She was growing increasingly weary of Tristan’s uncanny magic. Having lamps flare to life and doors spring open without her assistance only seemed to emphasize her powerlessness at his hands.

Seized by inspiration, she snatched the spoon from the melting tub of cream, determined to wrest back some tiny measure of control over her destiny before it slipped out of her reach altogether.

“I need to borrow one of my ties,” Tristan said, breezing into Copperfield’s office that evening with an Ungaro suit coat draped carelessly over one arm.

Copperfield’s fingers ceased their methodical tapping on the keyboard of his computer as he studied his boss over the rim of his reading glasses. “My, my, aren’t we chipper tonight. What’s the occasion? Foreclosing on an old folk’s home?”

“Dinner date,” Tristan replied, adjusting the cuffs of his shirt with a series of expert flicks.

Copperfield rolled his desk chair over to a steel file cabinet and yanked open the bottom drawer to reveal a colorful nest of ties.

When Tristan cocked a disbelieving brow, he shrugged without a hint of shame. “Sorry. It’s a sickness.” He watched as Tristan untangled a narrow black Ralph Lauren. “So why have you been reduced to borrowing from my pathetic stash? Did your little Rapunzel flush all your others or is she weaving a rope of ties so she can bust out a window and climb down the side of the building like King Kong?”

Tristan smirked at him. “Why climb when you can fly?”

“Ah, but you don’t believe she can, do you?”

“That remains to be seen. Perhaps I can charm her into a little demonstration this evening over peach sorbet and a bottle of Dom Pérignon.”

Copperfield snapped forward like a sleek spaniel going on point. “So the enchanting Miss Whitewood’s agreed to be your dinner companion, eh? You’re taking her somewhere French, I presume? Lutèce? La Caravelle?”

Tristan suffered a distinct twinge of conscience, leaving him no choice but to squelch Copperfield’s eager grin before it could damage his resolve. “We’ll be dining in. I’m taking her to bed.”

Copperfield leaned back in the chair, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. As he’d expected, Tristan found the disillusionment darkening his friend’s eyes much easier to withstand than his hope. He’d had ten long years to grow accustomed to it.

“So are you seducing her for information,” Cop asked, “or just for the sheer greedy pleasure of it?”

Tristan steeled his expression to shield the treacherous direction of his thoughts. “Information, of course.” He shrugged. “The pleasure will simply be a fringe benefit.”

“Like dental insurance?” Cop’s smile had a nasty edge. “And what makes you think she’ll succumb to your charms? Do you find yourself that irresistible?”

Tristan blew on a cuff link and polished it on the opposite sleeve while considering his answer. The casual gesture did not betray the quickening of his pulse or the slow, hot throb of desire in his groin as he remembered the exquisite feel of Arian melting into his arms, heard her sweet sigh of surrender, and smelled that quaint perfume that clung to her hair and evoked such wistful yearning in him. But he was strangely reluctant to expose her vulnerability to anyone, even Copperfield.

“I can assure you that Miss Whitewood will have
every opportunity to resist me,” he said. “I plan to seduce her, not molest her.”

Copperfield surveyed him through narrowed eyes. “Brenda was here yesterday, wasn’t she? Isn’t that how it works? She screws you and you turn around and screw somebody else? Usually somebody who may want it, but doesn’t deserve it.”

Tristan jerked his head up. Only Copperfield would have dared such insubordination without fearing for his next paycheck. Copperfield, who had grown up in the orphanage alongside him. Copperfield, who had sworn pricking their fingers to become blood brothers forged a stronger bond than any mere accident of birth. Copperfield, who at ten years old had been adopted by a wealthy Cherokee attorney and his wife, leaving Tristan standing alone on the playground, feeling left out, left behind, and just plain left. Again.

“I find it a little ironic that you’re defending Miss Whitewood’s honor,” Tristan said. “She’s hardly some innocent victim. She only came here to fleece me out of a million dollars. And if my bumbling laboratory staff or my incompetent detectives don’t provide us with some ammunition by the end of the week, she just may succeed.”

“Well, then, I can hardly blame you for trying to get your money’s worth, can I?”

Tristan slammed both hands on the desk. “Are you quite through with your interrogation, counselor?”

Cop lifted his palms in a gesture of surrender. “The prosecution rests.” Thrusting the tie in his pocket, Tristan turned to go, but Copperfield’s tone—musing, almost pleasant—made him hesitate. “Tell me, Tristan, when you look in the mirror, whose reflection do you see staring back at you? Yours? Or Arthur’s?”

Tristan whirled around. For a furious moment, he mistook the ominous buzz in the air for the tension crackling between them. Then the fluorescent ceiling
panel flickered, drawing both of their gazes upward. The suit coat slid from Tristan’s arm, puddling on the floor.

The panel dimmed, leaving them in near-darkness, then blazed on again, twice as bright as before.

Their alarmed eyes met as they blurted out one word in the same breath.

“Arian.”

The express elevator shot toward the roof of the Tower, its sole occupant pacing its narrow confines like a caged panther.

Tristan had deliberately chosen the glass-and-steel tube, knowing it was one of only three elevators in the Tower powered by the emergency generators. He paused to glare at the rapidly escalating numbers, mentally willing the red caution lights to stop flashing.

Resuming his pacing, he ran his fingers through his hair, tormented by images of Arian flushing his fax machine or deciding the whirlpool tub might be a handy place to rewire the stereo. If she had injured herself or destroyed the entire top floor of the Tower, he had only himself to blame. If he hadn’t been ruthlessly plotting her seduction, he would never have given Sven the night off to audition for the Off-Broadway revival of
La Cage aux Folles
.

The elevator snapped to a halt. Tristan squeezed through the doors before they were half open. The night wind roared like thunder in his ears as he raced across the roof toward the red door marked Fire Stairs.

Battling the ruthless gusts, he tugged open the door, then plunged down the shadowy steps, praying the hidden passageway he’d deliberately designed in case a hasty escape became necessary wouldn’t be blocked by a piece of furniture or fallen body.

Relief surged through him as the false panel of drywall gave easily beneath his hands.

He burst into the suite’s living room only to be frozen into place by the sight of Arian perched on a chair,
holding a metal spoon poised above the empty socket of a brass floor lamp. Fear washed over him in an icy cascade he’d known only once before.

“Arian! No!” he shouted, lunging toward her in what felt like slow motion.

She swung around, her pale face framed by a dark cloud of hair. He caught only a glimpse of her wide, startled eyes before the bowl of the spoon touched the naked connection and she went flying across the suite in a sizzling arc of white-hot light.

She was dead
.

It was the only thought to penetrate the staggering numbness of Tristan’s mind.

Arian was dead
.

At first he believed the darkness and hush were inside of him, simply tendrils of the cold, black fog swirling through his brain. Then he realized the city itself had gone dark and mute, leaving a pale spill of moonlight as Arian’s only shroud.

He drifted toward her small, still form, knowing in his more rational mind that there was something he ought to be doing. Shouting for help. Dialing 911. Administering CPR. But his habit of taking command of every situation had abandoned him.

Arian’s ebony hair was spread in a shimmering fan around her shoulders, reminding him absurdly of Snow White in her glass coffin. Even in death, hadn’t the deceptive blush of life stained Snow White’s pallid cheeks? Hadn’t her rosebud lips parted as if to welcome a kiss from a prince who might never come? Hadn’t the creamy
swell of her breasts tantalized every hopelessly naïve kid in the theater into daring to believe her chest would rise just one more time?

A wistful sigh feathered the air. It took Tristan a few moments to realize it was not his own.

Then without knowing how he got there, he was on his knees, cradling Arian’s throat in a desperate search for life. He found it in the contagious warmth of her skin, the miraculous throb of her pulse beneath his fingertips.

Her eyes shot open, luminous even in shock. She blinked up at the ceiling several times, then quietly said, “I always thought getting struck by lightning might straighten my hair.”

A breathless laugh escaped Tristan. He could not resist capturing one of the sable tendrils and tickling her nose with the tip of it. “I hate to disappoint you, but I think it’s more curly than before.”

She swore softly in French. Her gaze shifted to his face. She was looking at him as she had that day in the courtyard, her eyes misty with tenderness and invitation. That curious mixture of innocence and lust cast an irresistible spell over him.

Tristan slowly lowered his lips to hers, knowing even as he did so that he should be checking her pulse … helping her to her feet … calling a doc …

His mouth brushed hers in a sweet, dry caress. An electricity more primitive than lightning arced between them, melting the neurons of Tristan’s methodical left brain to mush. Her lips parted without hesitation beneath his gentle probing, dragging a hoarse groan out of him.

He pressed his advantage, giving her his tongue and stealing hers away as he’d secretly yearned to do from the first time he’d held her in his arms. Then there had been a thousand witnesses. Now there was only the two of them, wrapped in a velvety fog of darkness that was no longer a threat, but a blessing.

Savoring the lush sweetness of her mouth, Tristan melted against her as if mere physical proximity could make them one. During his years in New York, he’d grown accustomed to women hewn only of planes and angles, with elbows sharp enough to puncture lungs and poke out eyes. But Arian hadn’t had all the softness sucked out of her by a surgeon’s wand. Everything about her was soft. Her hair, her breasts, her delectable lips.

He surrendered those lips to nuzzle the satiny column of her throat, breathing deep of her fragrance. She smelled nearly as delicious as she tasted, more intoxicating than well-aged cognac or Chanel No. 5. She smelled like kittens napping in a rocking chair. Towering cedars strung with bows and lights. Chocolate-chip cookies fresh from the oven on a snowy winter night.

It was those dreams of a home he’d never had that finally allowed Tristan to identify her quaint perfume.

Cloves
. Arian Whitewood smelled of cloves.

With a growl of mingled hunger and repletion, Tristan sank his tongue deep into her mouth, knowing he was teetering on the dangerous precipice between frustration and ecstasy. He hadn’t been this close to release without consummation since his clumsy fumblings in the back seat of a Toyota hatchback his sophomore year in high school.

Arian welcomed Tristan’s kiss with artless innocence, blissfully unaware that it was only a shadow of his darker urges. Until she’d opened her eyes to find his wintry gaze melting with concern, she hadn’t realized how badly she’d wanted him to look at her like that again. As if she were the only woman in the world who could soothe the stern furrow between his brows.

He cupped her face in his palms, holding her mouth captive for his tender possession. Deprived of sight by both darkness and desire, Arian teased up his shirtsleeves and blindly caressed his forearms. Their crisp dusting of hair thrilled her seeking fingertips.

She moaned with a disappointment that soon
melted to delight when his lips abandoned hers to feather soft, provocative kisses along her jaw and throat. He wanted more. She could deny him nothing. Even as she welcomed the delicious press of his weight against the cradle of her hips, some small, plaintive voice within her wondered if this was how her mother had felt when she’d given herself to Arian’s father. And to all the men who had come before and after him.