Vixen 03 Part 3

As the last strands of sleep receded, Pitt found himself faced with his first decision of the day: whether to allow his eyes to bask in the majesty f the scenery or to feast them on the smoothly contoured body of Colorado congresswoman Loren Smith, who sat naked on a quilted rug, engrossed in yoga exercises.

Pitt discerningly opted for Congresswoman Smith.

She was sitting cross-legged, in the lotus position, leaning back and

resting her elbows and head on the rug. The exposed nest between her thighs and the small tautened mounds on her chest, Pitt decided, put the granite summits of the Sawatch to shame.

"What do you call that unladylike contortion?" he asked.

"The Fish," she replied, without moving. "It's for firming up the bosom."

"Speaking as a man," Pitt said with mock pompousness, "I do not approve of rock-hard b.o.o.bs."

"Would you prefer them limp and saggy?" Her violet eyes angled in his direction.

"Well ... not exactly. But perhaps a little silicone here and a little silicone there ..."

"That's the trouble with the masculine mind," she snapped, sitting up and brushing back her long cinnamon hair. "You think all women should have balloon-sized mammaries like those insipid drones on the centerfolds of chauvinist magazines."

"Wishing will make it so."

She threw him a pouting look. "Too bad. You'll have to make do with my thirty-four B-cuppers. They're all I've got."

He reached out, wrapped an iron arm around her torso, and dragged her half on, half off the bed. "Colossal or pet.i.te"-he leaned down and lightly kissed each nipple-"let no woman accuse Dirk Pitt of discrimination."

She arched up and bit his ear. "Four whole days alone together. No phones, no committee meetings, no c.o.c.ktail parties, no aides to ha.s.sle me. It's almost too good to be true." Her hand crept under the covers and she caressed his stomach. "How about a little sport before breakfast?"

"Ah, the magic word."

She threw him a crooked smile. " 'Sport' or 'breakfast'?"

"What you said before, your yoga position." Pitt leaped out of bed, sending Loren sprawling backward onto her sculptured bottom. "Vhich way is the nearest lake?"

"Lake?"

"Sure." Pitt laughed at her confused expression. "Where there's a lake, there's fish. We can't waste the day dallying in bed when a juicy rainbow trout lies in breathless antic.i.p.ation of biting a hook."

She tilted her head questioningly and looked up at him. He stood tall, over six foot three, his trim body tanned except for the white band around his hips. His s.h.a.ggy black hair framed a face that seemed eternally

grim and yet was capable of providing a smile that could warm a crowded room. He was not smiling now, but Loren knew Pitt well enough to read the mirth in the crinkles around his incredibly green eyes.

"You big conceited jock," she lashed out. "You're putting me on."

She launched herself off the floor, ramming her head into his stomach, shoving him backward onto the bed. She wasn't fooling herself for a second with her seemingly super strength. If Pitt hadn't relaxed and accepted her momentum, she would have bounced off him like a voile yball.

Before he could fake a protest, Loren climbed over his chest and straddled him, her hands pressing against his shoulders. He tensed himself, circled his hands behind her, and squeezed her soft cheek bottoms. She felt him grow beneath her and his heat seemed to radiate through her skin.

"Fishing," she said in a husky voice. "The only rod you know how to use doesn't have a reel."

They had breakfast at noon. Pitt showered and dressed and returned to the kitchen. Loren was bent over the sink, vigorously scrubbing a blackened pan. She wore an ap.r.o.n and nothing else. He stood in the doorway, watching her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s jiggle, taking his time about b.u.t.toning his shirt.

"I wonder what your const.i.tuency would say if they could see you now," he said.

"Screw my const.i.tuency," she said, grinning devilishly. "My private life is none of their d.a.m.ned business."

" 'Screw my const.i.tuency,' " Pitt repeated solemnly, gesturing as though he were taking notes. "Another entry in the scandalous life of little Loren Smith, congressional representative of Colorado's graft-ridden seventh district."

"You're not funny." She turned and threatened him with the dishpan. "There is no political hanky-panky in the seventh district, and I am the last one on Capitol Hill who can be accused of being on the take."

"Ah ... but your s.e.xual excesses. Think what journalistic hay the media might make out of that. I may even expose you myself and write a best-selling book."

"As long as I don't keep my lovers on office payroll or entertain them on my congressional expense account, I can't be touched." '

"What about me?"

"You paid your half of the groceries, remember?" She dried the pan and set it in the cupboard.

"How can I build a business out of being kept," Pitt said sadly, "if I have a cheap screw for a mistress?"

She put her arms around his neck and kissed his chin. "The next time you pick up a h.o.r.n.y girl at a Washington c.o.c.ktail party, I suggest you demand an accounting of her financial a.s.sets."

Good lord, she recalled, that awful party thrown by the Secretary of Environment. She hated the Capital social scene. Unless a function was tied in to Colorado interests or one of her committee a.s.signments, she usually went home after work to a mangy cat named Ichabod and whatever movie was playing on television.

Loren's eyes had been magnetically drawn to him as he stood in the flickering light of the lawn torches. She had stared brazenly while carrying on a partisan conversation with another Independent Party congressman, Morton Shaw, of Florida.

She felt a strange quickening of her pulse. That seldom happened and she wondered why it was happening now. He was not handsome, not in a ' Paul Newman sort of way, and yet there was a virile, no-nonsense aura about him that appealed to her. He was tall, and she preferred tall men.

He was alone, talking to no one, observing the people around him with a look of genuine interest rather than bored aloofness. When he became aware of Loren's stare, he simply stared back with a frank, appraising expression.

"Who is that wallflower over there in the shadows?" she asked Morton Shaw.

Shaw turned and gazed in the direction Loren indicated with a tilt of her head. His eyes blinked in recognition and he laughed. "Two years in Washington and you don't know who that is?"

"If I knew, I wouldn't ask," she said airily.

"His name is Pitt, Dirk Pitt. He's special-projects director for the National Underwater and Marine Agency. You know-he's the guy who headed up the t.i.tanic's salvage operation."

She felt stupid for not having made the connection. His picture and the story of the famous liner's successful resurrection had been headlined everywhere for weeks by the news media. So this was the man who had taken on the impossible and beaten the odds. She excused herself from Shaw and made her way through the crowd to Pitt.

"Mr. Pitt," she said. That was as far as she got. A breeze shifted the flames of the torches just then and the new angle caused a glinting reflection in Pitt's eyes. Loren felt a fever in her stomach that had come Only once before, when she was very young and had a crush on a professional skier. She was thankful the dim light shaded the flush that must have tinted her cheeks.

"Mr. Pitt," she said again. She couldn't seem to get the right words out. He looked down at her, waiting. An introduction, you fool, she yelled inside her mind. Instead she blurted, "Now that you've raised the t.i.tanic, what are you planning for your next project?"

"That's a pretty tough act to follow," he said, smiling warmly. "My next project, though, will be one with great personal satisfaction; one that I shall savor with great delight."

"And that is?"