"Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to give you Ms. Alexandra Thorpe and her prize!"
Laugher, and more applause. Alex smiled and turned toward Travis, but her smile faltered when she saw the way he was looking at her. The orchestra began playing. The music was lush and romantic. Travis reached out and gathered her into his arms.
-"Are you a good dancer, Ms. Thorpe?" he said softly. "Do you know how to let your body find the right rhythm?"
"I'm an excellent dancer. But I don't like to be held so tightly."
Travis smiled and drew her closer. "You seem stiff in my arms. Is it because you haven't-" his pause was slow and deliberate "-because you haven't-danced enough, lately?"
Alex colored. "I don't know what you mean."
"Maybe you haven't had the right man. To dance with, I mean."
Her color deepened. What pleasure it was, to chip away at that arrogant composure and autocratic veneer.
"I could lead you in steps you've only dreamed of, Ms. Thorpe. All you have to do is admit that you want me for your teacher."
"That's enough!"
Alex tried to pull back but Travis's arm tightened around her. "Why did you pay twenty thousand bucks for me, Sugar?" He smiled through his teeth. "Your face is like an open book, Ms. Thorpe. You're torn between wanting to sock me in the jaw and turning tail and running like a scared rabbit."
"I never run from anything." Alex's voice hummed with fury. "But you've certainly got the first part right."
"Either way, five hundred people are watching us. And there's a TV camera pointed in our direction. Do you really want to make headlines, Ms. Thorpe?"
"You're a horrible man!"
"I'm an honest one. You paid a lot of money for me, and it didn't have a damned thing to do with charity."
"You overestimate your charm, sir."
"You paid it so you could go to bed with a man who'd make you feel something. And then you turned chicken."
Alex stopped moving. Travis did, too. She looked up at him, eyes blazing. "I really, really despise you!"
Travis laughed. "Ah, darlin', where's all that hauteur gone to ' I know that's a mighty big word for a cowboy to use but I never said I was a cowboy, Ms. Thorpe. You were the one who decided that."
The music changed, became a waltz. Travis began moving in time with it. There was no choice. Alexandra began moving, too.
He circled the room with her in his arms, faster and faster, holding her so that her body was pressed to his. Her breasts, her thighs... God, how he wanted her. He could almost feel the heat of her, burning his skin. Yes, hatred blazed in her eyes but he knew women, and desire. And he could see something more in those eyes, besides hatred.
"What are you afraid to admit, Alex?"
His whisper was velvet-soft. Alex felt breathless. How had this happened'? How had he taken control?
"I'm not afraid of anything." Even she could hear the tremor in her voice.
"Then tell me the truth," he said roughly. "Admit that you want me."
"I don't!"
Travis laughed. "Liar," he said, and whirled her faster and faster.
CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS a hell of a time to think of Jonas, but suddenly his father's voice was in his head.
"So now you think you're gonna fight for truth and justice," he'd said, the day Travis had been admitted to the Bar. "Well, lemme tell you somethin', boy. Only winners get justice, and liars never see the truth until you rub their noses in it."
For the first time, Travis decided Jonas might be right. There was only one thing to do, and he did it. He danced Alexandra Thorpe into a corner, bent her over his arm, and crushed her mouth beneath his.
He heard the insulted hiss of her breath, felt her first frantic struggles... and then, with a little sigh, she parted her lips and let him in.
He whispered her name, drew her up, gathered her into his arms. Her heart raced against his; her slender arms were cool as she looped them around his neck. She tasted like honey; she smelled like springtime. God, how he wanted her. How he needed her...
A cheer. A smattering of applause. Appreciative, pleasant laughter.
He heard them, but he didn't give a damn. Alex did. She tore her mouth from his, dropped her arms and flattened her palms against his chest.
"Stop it," she hissed.
He lifted his head and gave her a sexy smile that said the kiss was only the beginning. And why wouldn't he? Alex shuddered. She'd been kissing him the way she'd never kissed a man in her life, but he had no way of knowing that. Kissing him right here, in front of all these people.
He smiled into her eyes. "It's going to be one hell of a weekend, Sugar."
His voice was low, rough, and filled with promise. He was still holding her, his hands at her waist, which was a good thing because she felt boneless. Dizzy. She felt-she felt...
"Alex? Travis? Could you look this way, please?"
Alex swung around blindly. The TV camera was pointed at her; a smiling reporter poked a microphone into her face. She had always thought it was horrible, how intrusive reporters could be. Now, she welcomed the woman as if the microphone were a lifeline.
"Yes," she said brightly, and stepped free of Travis's grasp. "certainly. We'd be delighted."
The interview went on for what seemed to be hours, though Travis knew it could not have been more than a few minutes.
He didn't like reporters. There'd always been somebody poking a nose and a camera where it didn't belong when he was growing up on Espada. His father relished being the center of attention but neither Travis, his brothers nor his stepsister enjoyed it at all.
Tonight, Travis found himself welcoming-well, almost welcoming-the stupid questions and the phony smiles.
Alexandra Thorpe was doing most of the talking. She made it sound as if their kiss had been a clever piece of theatrics, hinting, with smiles and girlish laughter, that the two of them had planned it while they'd been talking in the lobby.
Whatever spin she wanted to put on it was fine with him. If she could come up with something clever, amen. Hey, he wasn't thinking at all. Near as he could tell, his brain had ceased to function as soon as he'd taken his first look at her.
He liked women, liked to come on to them. The delicacy of their bones. The subtlety of their scent. The way they laughed, and smiled. He enjoyed their company, their conversation. And making love with a woman was the closest to paradise a man could come.
The thing was, though, he never made love with an audience watching.
What was the sense in kidding himself? He wasn't just brain dead, he was being led around by the part of his anatomy that was the least reliable, to do what he'd been doing to Alexandra Thorpe, right in the middle of the dance floor. That kiss had been as erotic as anything he'd ever shared with a woman in the privacy of a bed.
Be honest, Baron. Some of the things he'd done in bed hadn't been as erotic as that kiss.
It had been that way for her, too. He knew what that sexy little moan had meant, knew from the feel of her in his arms that she'd been as ready as he'd been. He understood the touch of her tongue against his, the gentle pressure of her teeth...
"...Mr. Baron?"
He blinked. The ditzy reporter was talking to him, holding out her mike as if it were the Holy Grail.
"Excuse me?" he said, and she smiled even more brightly and repeated her question.
He smiled back. Yes, uh-huh, he'd had a great time tonight. No, of course he hadn't been nervous. Who could be nervous, when it was all for charity?
They were going to love this interview, at Sullivan, Cohen and Vittali.
Now it was Alexandra's turn. The reporter turned her painted-on smile in her direction.
"And what brought you here this evening, Ms. Thorpe?"
Alexandra hesitated for a second, then began talking about her lifelong commitment to charity. Travis pretended to listen, and smiled like an idiot. If she wasn't lying, he was a monkey's uncle.
Whatever had brought her here tonight didn't have anything to do with charity. He'd seen the look on her face, the wildness in her eyes. Something had driven her to this auction, and he needed to know what that something was.
But what had made her bid on him was easy to figure.
It had been desire. A desire that raged so fiercely within her that he'd felt its force on the stage. The same desire that had made her melt in his arms moments ago when he'd kissed her.
That first rigidity of her body, and then the way she'd shuddered and come alive in his arms. The feel of her breasts, pressed against his chest. Her lips, parting to give him access to the honeyed essence of her mouth. The whisper of sound that had spoken of surrender...
He knew he'd never forget it. There was no point pretending he didn't have a long history with women. Still, that kiss, that incredible kiss, was different from anything he'd ever known.