His One-Night Mistress(13)

"It's too late to check your wastebasket."

His green eyes blazing with anger, Seth put his arms hard around her and  dropped his mouth to hers in a kiss that was an impressive mix of rage  and lust. Lia dug her fingers into his nape and kissed him back.

Fiercely she welcomed the first thrust of his tongue, greedy for more.  Her hat tumbled to the floor. Her hands probed his damp hair, the taut  line of his throat, the bump and curve of bone under his wet T-shirt,  memory flooding her and casting aside caution.

Her response shot through Seth's body. He dragged the shirt from her  shoulders, flinging it to the floor, then tugging the straps of her  swimsuit down her arms. His mouth plummeted to find the sweet, bare  curve of her breast. Her skin tasted of salt and sunlight, her nipple  tight as coral. She gasped his name, throwing her head back, her  heartbeat racing beneath his cheek.

He'd never wanted a woman as he wanted this one. And now he'd found her again.

She was yanking at the hem of his shirt, pressing her belly to his, her  hips writhing. His arousal had been instant, fierce and imperative. He  put one hand to her buttocks, jamming her against it, and kissed her  again, tasting her, laving the slick heat of her mouth. Knowing he  couldn't wait much longer, he lifted his head long enough to say  hoarsely, "Let's go to the bedroom."                       
       
           



       

The bedroom … her photo of Marise.

She couldn't possibly allow Seth in her bedroom.





CHAPTER SEVEN





LIA went rigid in Seth's arms; he might as well have thrown a bucket of  cold water in her face. "What's wrong with me?" she cried. "I'd have  done it all over again-gone to bed with you and not a thought for-"  She'd been about to say the consequences. In sheer panic she bit back  the words. "Not a thought for tomorrow," she stumbled. "We don't know  each other, we don't trust each other and yet we'd fall into bed?"

"You're the truest thing that's ever happened to me," Seth said harshly,  and heard the words echo in his head. "Come to bed with me, Lia. Let me  make love to you again. And this time I'll be able to see your face and  call you by name … "

The intensity in his green eyes made her belly ache with longing. But  she wasn't going to surrender to it. Or to him. How could she tell him  about Marise when she couldn't condone his long silence? She said  jaggedly, "Why didn't you answer my letters? Did you have another lover  by then? Tell me, Seth. Tell me the truth! I swear I'll do my best to  understand."

"Lia, I never got them," he said forcibly. "Do you think I wouldn't have  answered? It took me nearly two years to replace you in my bed,  and-hell, what am I saying? I've never been able to replace you, and  that's the God's truth."

A truth he'd never intended sharing with anyone.

Lia gazed up at him. He was lying. He had to be. Two letters couldn't  just disappear off the face of the earth. If only the stakes weren't so  high, so impossibly weighted by the simple fact of Marise's existence.  "Then what happened to them?" she demanded.

Ever since Lia had told him she'd sent one to the Hamptons, Seth had had  his suspicions. But they were only suspicions, and a huge part of him  dreaded for them to be proved true. He said flatly, "As soon as I get  back to Manhattan, I'm going to find out. But I have to do it  face-to-face."

"You're saying someone might have interfered with your personal mail?  Someone at work? Or one of your parents? I can't believe that!"

His jaw an inflexible line, Seth said, "I don't want to talk about it until I have the facts."

"Well, I'm not going go to bed with you until I know. The letters are too important. Too basic."

He let out his breath in a frustrated sigh, moving away from her to pace  up and down the room again. Like a caged tiger, she thought. She'd  always hated zoos. Then he turned to face her. "You don't trust me."

"Of course I don't! Why should I?" His wet hair curled around his ears,  his green eyes pinioning her like the butterfly she'd been. Stabbed with  need, her whole body aching, Lia hugged her arms around her chest. "I'm  cold," she said in a low voice. "You'd better go, Seth."

"So are we going to avoid each other for the next three days? Pretend we've never met?"

"If we're smart, that's exactly what we'll do."

Her head was downbent, and there were goosebumps on her bare arms.  Stabbed with compunction-or that's what he chose to call it-Seth said  impulsively, "Have dinner with me tonight, Lia. Just dinner." He added  with a crooked smile, "We could call it a date. Seth meets Lia, they're  attracted to each other, and he asks her out. You'll be quite safe-we  won't make love on the floor of the Reef Room."

"I wouldn't bet on it, and the answer's no."

Seth came closer, deliberately running a finger down her cheek and  watching her tiny shiver of response. "Eight o'clock in the Reef Room.  In the meantime, have a hot shower …  Lia, I'm sorry about the letters,  more sorry than I can say. It must have hurt you when I didn't  answer-typical guy, he has a one-night stand, gets what he wants and  crosses you off the list. It was never that way, and I swear I'll find  out who interfered with my mail."

Torn between the sincerity in his voice, and her own knowledge of just  what it was she'd said in those letters, Lia struggled to find her  bearings. Either he'd received at least one of her letters, in which  case his sincerity was nothing but a ruthless ploy to get her in his bed  again; or someone had destroyed both of them: a scenario she couldn't  begin to encompass.

"I won't have dinner with you, Seth, it's playing with fire," she said  evenly. "I don't trust a word you're saying-that's objection number one,  and it's huge. There's more, though. Today was like a repeat of that  masked ball-when I get within ten feet of you, I want to rip the clothes  off your body and jump your bones. But I'm eight years older now, and  I've learned a thing or two. No more one-night stands, for starters."                       
       
           



       

He opened his mouth to protest, and shut it again. Having found her for  the second time, he'd been overwhelmed by his compulsive need to take  her to bed again. But what then? He hadn't even thought about the  consequences. If he went to bed with Lia in the warmth of a tropical  island, could he walk away from her? Drop her, as sooner or later he  dropped all his women?

Marriage was out, and he'd never wanted children. What did he have to  offer but an affair? A six-week stand, he thought with a grimace.

She deserved better than that.

What was he going to do?

He said curtly, "Tomorrow then. Let's meet for breakfast. No risks attached."

"Your middle name is risk."

"So you've turned into a coward in the last eight years?"

"I'm being sensible," Lia cried. Wanting nothing more than to put her  head down on the nearest pillow and weep her eyes out, she added,  hearing the thread of desperation in her voice, "Please go."

"Nine o'clock tomorrow," Seth said in a steel voice. "The Reef Room. They do dynamite scrambled eggs."

"I hope you enjoy them. All by yourself."

"You'll turn up. I know you will. Because I've heard you play, and that woman doesn't know the meaning of cowardice or caution."

Two days ago, she would have agreed with him. Lia walked toward the door  and pushed it wide, her fingers gripping the cool wood. The first thing  she was going to do once he'd gone was hide the photo of Marise in the  depths of her suitcase. She said with icy emphasis, "Stay away from me,  Seth."

He brushed his lips against her cold cheek and heard himself say, "No … I'm too happy to have found you."

What did that have to do with a six-week stand?





For the second night in a row, Seth scarcely slept. This time, it wasn't nightmares that kept him awake. It was Lia.

Or rather, Lia's absence.

He hadn't laid eyes on her yesterday after he'd left her cottage. The  knowledge that she was within a few hundred feet of him every minute of  the day was a constant and powerful irritant. Unable to settle to  anything, he went to bed at eleven, planning to make up for his lack of  sleep the night before. But at 4:00 a.m. he was wide-awake and staring  up into the darkness. It wasn't her absence that was the problem, no  matter how empty his bed felt without her. It was her presence.

She wanted nothing to do with him. According to her, in those weeks  after Paris she'd sent him two letters that he'd never bothered  answering. A cold-blooded philanderer, that's how she saw him.