Heaven's Price Part 3

The hot water had weakened her and she realized that she hadn't eaten anything all day. She dried, noticing that her skin was smooth and fragrant with the residue of the lotion that Sean had ma.s.saged into it.

Starting to pull on her oldest and most comfortable robe, she paused to reconsider. What if he carried out his threat to come get her when she didn't show up at his back door at the appointed time? Cursing him and her own culpability, she sacrificed the robe for a pair of jeans and a tank-top T-shirt, both old and well-worn if not as comfortable as the robe she'd intended to wear.

The package of chocolate chip cookies had been virtually demolished, but the rest of the groceries Pam had brought by way of a housewarming gift lined the shelves of the cupboard and refrigerator. Blair was inspecting them when she heard the first footfall on the stairs.

"It can't be," she whispered. Her eyes flew to the clock and the digital readout told her it was 8 grew ominously louder as they neared the top. "He won't bully me," she swore to herself as she marched across the living room with a militant stride. As soon as he knocked on the door, she flung it open, ready to do battle if necessary.

Her scathing refusal to join him for dinner died on her lips. He was anything but menacing. Instead he looked like a boy calling for his first date. He was dressed in a pair of jeans and a sport shirt. It was opened to the middle of his chest, revealing a carpet of curling golden hair over coppery skin. His hair was well brushed and picked up the glow from the soft porch light Blair had switched on earlier. His cheeks shone with a recent shave. His cologne was elusive but potent and did nothing to alleviate Blair's lightheadedness due to hunger and the hot bath. In his hand he carried a green paper wrapped bouquet of daisies.

"Hi."

"Hi." Her voice didn't sound like her own. The word was forced out of a throat swallowing convulsively.

"This is a peace offering for what I did this afternoon. Will you forgive me?" he asked penitently. She didn't answer, only stared at the flowers he was extending to her. "They really should be put in water," he said gently. He stepped forward and, like someone in a trance, she moved aside and allowed him to enter the room. His arm lightly grazed her breast. "Do you have a vase?"

"In . . . In the kitchen . . . I think," she stammered and went to the cabinet where she had put incidentals. There she found a slender clear gla.s.s vase, filled it with water, and carried it into the living room to set on the coffee table.

He unwrapped the flowers and carefully arranged them in the vase with hands that looked too large to undertake such a delicate enterprise.

But then Blair knew just how tender those hands could be.

"There. That looks terrific," he said, wadding up the green paper.

He casually went to the pantry in the kitchen, opened the door, and dropped the ball of paper into the garbage can he'd correctly guessed would be there. "Everything's shaping up," he said as his eyes surveyed the room.

The lamp's soft glow camouflaged some of the areas that hadn't come under her attention yet, and Blair had to agree that the room had a certain ambiance.

The walls were painted a soft beige, while the woodwork of the window frames, door frames, baseboards, and moldings around the ceiling were painted white. The windows were tall and wide and shuttered with white louvers.

"Have you tried the bed yet?" Sean asked, indicating the sofa.

"No," Blair said, shaking her head. "I made it up this afternoon, but I haven't uh, I . . . lain down on it."

"I hope it's comfortable," he said, ignoring the bed and studying her mouth. "When I bought furniture for this apartment, I wanted things that were simple and comfortable."

"Everything's fine."

They stared at each other for an endless moment, then both looked away awkwardly. "I really am sorry about this afternoon," he said after a while. Only when Blair lifted her eyes to meet his gaze again did he continue. "I want you to understand that I'm not sorry it happened, or that I saw you that way, or that I touched you." His voice had the stirring ba.s.s vibrations of a fine cello. "I'm only sorry that you were embarra.s.sed. It was a low trick I played on you and you had every right to be angry.

She tried to banish the words about his seeing and touching her and concentrate on his deception and her anger. Why had he approached her this way? She had built up an a.r.s.enal of rebukes, of condemnations, but she couldn't use them now that he was so meekly apologetic. He had robbed her of the one weapon she hadanger. That was another low trick.

"You're right. I was furious."

"I promise the next time I give you a ma.s.sage, it will be with your full consent."

She was never allowed to tell him there wouldn't be a next time.

"That's a strange print," he said, looking over her shoulder.

She turned to see that he was looking at Harvey Edwards's HanSa.

"You're looking at it from the wrong angle," she said. She went to the bra.s.s-framed print that was leaning vertically against the wall and turned it horizontally. "It goes this way. I haven't had time to hang it yet."

"Oh, I see," he said, nodding. "Interesting, isn't it?"

"I love it, as I do most of his work." They studied the photograph that captured the arched torso of a ballerina being supported by a pair of masculine hands that defined strength, yet intimated sensitivity.

"He photographs dancers.

That's one of his, too." She indicated another print of a pair of well-worn faded pink toe shoes against a solid background of black.

"It's called Shoe "Big on t.i.tles, isn't he?" Blair was intrigued by the way the lines around his eyes crinkled when he smiled. "Do you have a pair of shoes like that?"

She laughed. "Several hundred."

"How do you ever learn to wind those ribbons around your ankles and make them stay?"

"Practice. And the ribbons have to be sewn on just right."

"The shoes don't come with them already on?"

"No, you have to do it yourself. And it's bad luck for anyone but the ballerina to sew on her ribbons."

"I didn't know that."

During this whole inconsequential exchange there was an important battle being waged. Their eyes competed against each other to see whose could take in and register the most information about the other in a given amount of time.

Her eyes noted the way his hair molded so nicely, yet disobediently, to his head, the way his mustache curved over his upper lip, the way the cleft in his chin punctuated the total masculinity of his face like a small exclamation point.

His eyes recorded the number of times her tongue nervously wet her lips, the way her hands moved in their own special ballet when she gestured, and how long her dark lashes were when she lowered them in an unconsciously seductive manner.

"Hungry? " The question was so abrupt that Blair was ripped from her dazed inspection of him and brought back to the subject at hand. As though she'd been shot from a can non, it took her a moment to orient herself, to gather her wits about her enough to say, "Mr. Garrett, I don't think it's a good idea for me to have dinner at your house. I appreciate your invitation but I.."

"Don't want to be obligated to your neighbors," he finished for her.

"Well, yes. That and.."

"You're afraid that I'll do something underhanded like I did this afternoon and put the make on you."

"No."

"You're afraid I won't put the make on you?"

"No!" she fairly shouted in exasperation. His piercing blue eyes were unnerving her. They kept wandering in the vicinity of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Why hadn't she put on a bra, or another top? "I'm not afraid of anything," she stressed, "but,"

"Gossip? Are you afraid that our having dinner together would jeopardize our reputations? You're right that in a town this size everyone knows everyone else's business, but I a.s.sure you I have more to lose than you. I'm known here. You're not. If I'm not concerned about gossip you shouldn't be."

"I'm not," she said, finally losing the tenuous grip on her temper.

"I'm a grown woman, Mr. Garrett, who has lived alone for many years in New York City. I can take care of myself and I don't give a d.a.m.n what the busybodies in this town think of me or what I do." She paused to heave in a breath.

"Then there's no reason for you not to have dinner with me. Are you ready?"

"Haven't you heard one word I've said?"

"I've heard them all and they're so much hot air. Are you ready?"

She threw up her hands in defeat. "All right," she shouted. "I'll go eat your dinner."

"Now see how easy that was?" he said with an amiable smile. "Come on."

He ushered her toward the door.

"Just a minute. I need to comb my hair."

"No you don't. It looks good just like that."

"Well at least let me put some shoes on."

"Feet that have worn out that many pairs of toe shoes deserve one night off. Go barefoot." very well, she said, giving in.

"Just a minute. There is one other thing," he said as she turned toward him, a questioning frown on her face. "You forgot the light.

I'm paying the utility bills, remember? " He switched off the lamp on the table at the end of the sofa, plunging the room into darkness except for the glow of the porch light filtering through the shutters.

Blair's hand was on the doork.n.o.b when she felt his hands settle lightly on her shoulders and turn her around. Her heart began beating in an irregular tattoo that affected her breathing as well.

"We have some unfinished business, Blair."

"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Gar.."

"Dammit! If you call me Mr. Garrett one more time, I'm going to remind you just how familiar we are," he warned on a low growl.

The darkness didn't obscure the fire burning in his blue eyes. Each emphatic word caused a warm puff of breath to strike her face.

The fingers wrapped around her upper arms were like velvet bonds, possessive and strong but warm and soft.

She swallowed. "What business, Mr. G . . . Sean ? " "This." His hands dropped from her shoulders to slide under her arms and close around her back. Spreading his fingers wide, he pulled her to him, pressing her against the rigidity of his large frame. "G.o.d, you're so tiny I feel like a child molester holding you this way," he murmured into her hair. He moved against her in a way that demonstrated a shocking insight into how to arouse her. "But I know that every inch of you is woman. I could almost encircle your waist with my hands, but it curves into the most feminine of hips." His large hands slid down the slender mounds, appreciating their firmness. "Your b.r.e.a.s.t.s are small but beautifully round and full. They respond to me. I've seen their response and now I can feel it against my chest." He peered down into her face.

She knew that her eyes were wide and unblinking. She knew that her lips were softly parted in disbelief. She knew that her expression showed how mystified she was that this was happening, that she was being held in the arms of a fiercely virile man. Most perplexing of all was that she wanted to be held.

"You're so small you make me feel like a bungling giant. I'll never hurt you, Blair. I promise. You'll tell me, won't you, if I ever hurt you?"

She could only nod dumbly. His mouth was teasing hers with feather-light kisses that barely qualified as such. She'd never been kissed by a man with a mustache and the masculine feel of it against her mouth was like an aphrodisiac that injected her with desire.

As his mouth grew more demanding and his tongue boldly glided along her lips, she resisted.

"Blair," he whispered urgently against her lips, "let me taste you.

Open your mouth."

"No," she cried.

"Yes," he said adamantly and this time brooked no arguments. His mouth slanted over hers as he pulled her ever closer into him. Her back arched to mold her femininity against what it had been created to complement.

Harmonizing sighs of gratification spiraled above them. Hands that had made futile attempts at extrication, now linked behind his neck.

Softness conformed to hardness.

He conquered with tenderness and she yielded. He tickled the corners of her mouth with the tip of his tongue until her lips involuntarily relaxed. When he pushed it between her lips, his tongue didn't plunder, but persuaded. It flicked over her lips, her teeth, then gently pushed past that last barricade to explore the interior. He caressed with loving strokes each delicious discovery. He flirted with the tip of her tongue, then delved deeply. More than a kiss, it was an act of love.

When at last he pulled away, she leaned against him weakly. His hand smoothed over her hair and she thought it might be trembling slightly.

Their breathing was that of two people who had climbed to a high alt.i.tude.

"I think we're doing things in reverse," he said. She felt his smile against her cheek. "We're having dessert before dinner."

"When I bought the house, the porch was here, but it wasn't enclosed.

I thought it would make a nice garden room. In the winter, I can weather secure it by sliding panes of gla.s.s into those frames."

"It's wonderful."

"Come see the rest."

His evident pride in the house was justifiable. As he walked Blair into the kitchen she caught her breath. Never having had more than a one- or two-room apartment in the city, she was aghast at the s.p.a.ciousness of the room.

"I converted that old wood-burning stove so it could re Jpol2Je to him, Blair avoided Sean's eyes as he escorted her down the outdoor stairs.

She dreaded having to face him in full light once they reached his house across the brief expanse of lawn. The moment she entered the back door he held for her, though, her self-consciousness was swept away by enthrallment. His house was exquisite.

"Sean," she exclaimed, "this is beautiful."

"Do you like it?" he asked, obviously pleased by her reaction .

"Like it," she said, "what an understatement." He had led her into a screened back porch that was filled with wicker furniture, potted plants, and plump cushions piled onto the quarry tiled floor. Two ceiling fans with cane blades rotated overhead. The cushions on the natural wicker seats and on the floor were in a bold blue and brown print.

use gas.

The freestanding appliance was black iron and trimmed with bra.s.s.

It matched a huge baker's rack of the same materials that covered another wall. Its shelves were loaded with bra.s.s and copper utensils, cooWbooks, and plants.

"Did you decorate this yourself?" she asked.

"No. I only do the structural work. Then I turn the houses over to clients and they hire their own decorators. A friend helped me with this one."