More than a Mistress(8)

He clasped her hand and brought it to him. She groaned and curved her  fingers around him and he felt the blood begin to pool in his loins.

"Alex," he said harshly.

Please," she whispered, "oh, please, please, please..."

He knew he could have her, now. Right here, right in this doorway. All  he had to do was unzip his fly, rip away that bit of lace, bury himself  deep inside her...

Someone laughed. Alex heard it, and froze. Travis did, too.

"Oh God," she whispered.

He put his arms around her. She was trembling. "Easy, he said softly.

The laughter came again, good-natured and distant. He realized it had  nothing to do with them. It was coming from somewhere up the street,  though it had gotten closer. And then the haze that clouded his brain  cleared and he realized that he was standing in a doorway with a woman  he'd met less than two hours ago, and there were cars passing by and  pedestrians on the sidewalk and he was-he'd been about to-                       
       
           



       

She must have realized it, too. "Let me go," she whispered frantically, and began struggling to free herself of his embrace.

Travis held her tighter.

"Damn you, let me-"

"Hold still!"

It was a command, not a request. And a logical one. People were coming;  Alex could hear them. With luck, if neither she nor Travis moved,  whomever was approaching would pass by without noticing them. So she  stiffened in his arms and tried not to think about what this-this  stranger had been doing to her, seconds ago, what she'd been letting him  do.

And for what? To prove that Carl was wrong? That she wasn't-wasn't a frigid little rich bitch?

Alex's stomach took a tumble. She closed her eyes. All right. She'd  proved it, in the most humiliating way possible. Proved it to herself  and to this man she didn't know, a man who surely hadn't turned her on,  who'd simply been in the right place at the right time when she was in  desperate need of pretending she could feel desire...

The footsteps and voices were just beyond the doorway. Alex trembled.

"It's all right," Travis whispered, and drew her against aim.

And she let him do it. Let him stroke his hand up and down her spine,  until she felt boneless. Let him thread his fingers into her hair and  gently bury her face against his throat. Against the hot, masculine skin  she'd tasted and wanted to taste again. Against that swift-beating  pulse that mirrored hers. Against that hard, powerful body she yearned  to explore, against that terrifying, exhilarating, exciting arousal...

A sound broke from Alex's throat and she tore herself from Travis's arms.

"I'm sure the women you usually keep company with enjoy this sort of thing, Mr. Baron."

Travis blinked. "What?"

"The-the primitive approach. It must wow them, back in-in Little Rock. Or-or Dallas. Or wherever it is you come from."

His eyes narrowed as they focused on her icy features. "Hey, babe, take  it easy. I don't know what your problem is, but don't take it out on  me."

"Probably sweeps them off their feet, in cow country. But this is Los  Angeles, sir. And I'd appreciate it if you'd just get out of my way."

Travis's mouth thinned. "Get out of your way?" he said, slowly and softly.

"How nice to know you don't have a hearing problem, Mr. Baron. Yes. Get out of my way. Now."

His vision grew dark. He felt the surge of his blood as the most primal  of instincts took over, urging him to do what he longed to do to Alex  Thorpe, what any man would want to do, and teach her a lesson she'd  never forget.

"There's a name for women like you," he said. "And I'm sure you've heard it many times before."

He watched her face go white, braced himself for the sting of her hand  against his jaw ...but it didn't happen. She simply stood very still,  her body as rigid as a marble column. Then, to his amazement, she  smiled.

"Believe me," she said softly, "I've been called worse."

Her voice quavered on the last word but she kept smiling. It was that  brave, sad smile that defeated him, made him wish to God he could call  back the ugly words he'd used but it was too late. Alex Thorpe stepped  past him, onto the sidewalk just as a cruising taxi came by.

"Alex," Travis called, "Princess, wait..."

She stepped into the cab, the door shut and the taxi roared off into the night.





CHAPTER FOUR




TRAVIS paced the floor of his home on the beach at Malibu.

He was angry, restless-and frustrated.

What had made him think he owed Alexandra Thorpe an apology? Okay, he'd  called her something pretty lousy but, dammit, it was a name she more  than deserved. And what had made him behave like such a jerk? He'd acted  like a monkey on a stick all night, jumping in whatever direction she'd  wanted. Turn him on, turn him off...

"What does she think I am?" he muttered. "A light switch?"

He paced some more, opened the glass sliders that led from his bedroom to the deck and glowered at the Pacific Ocean.

The whole thing was ridiculous. The auction. The bidding. Her behavior, his behavior...

He swore and stomped back into the bedroom. He tugged off his boots,  yanked off his tie, dumped his tux and everything that went with it on  the floor and kicked the entire mess into the corner, in the process  stubbing his toe on the corner of the bed.

"Bull-spit," he roared, and danced around the room on one foot. He  limped to the dresser, took out a pair of running shorts and a Texas  Longhorns T-shirt and pulled them on. His toe still hurt but he didn't  much care. Pain was a part of running, anyway, he told himself grimly,  and set out for a hard five miles on the packed sand.

He was panting when he got back, and sweat-drenched. But he felt better. Most definitely better.                       
       
           



       

"Goodbye, Ice Princess," he said as he dumped his shorts and T-shirt on the tiled floor and stepped into the shower.

He loved this shower. Sybaritic, Slade had said, the first time he saw  it, and yeah, it probably was. An overhead spray. Two side sprays. A  marble bench. And room enough for two...

For two. For Alex, and for him. Travis closed his eyes and imagined what  it would be like to soap that beautiful body. To cup her naked breasts.  To bend his head and taste them, to hear her breathy little sighs as  she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips, to  pin her back against the glass wall while the water beat down like warm  rain as he buried himself deep inside her slick heat... .

He groaned, looked down at himself in dismay and turned the shower to icy-cold.

Dressed again, this time in jeans and a white T-shirt, his feet bare,  Travis went into the kitchen and took a can of Coke from the  refrigerator. It was late. Or early, depending on your point of view.  The glass walls of his house looked out on a beach silent and deserted  in the early morning.

Damn, he still felt restless. He needed a cigarette, but he'd given them  up five years ago. He needed a cold beer or a glass of decent wine, but  there was no beer in the fridge and he wasn't in the mood to check the  wine rack. He needed to talk to one of his brothers, but what would he  say to them? That he was furious and frustrated, and pacing the floor  like a teenage kid?

What he needed was a woman. One who wouldn't turn him on and off like a  faucet, who wouldn't drive him crazy. Who'd be honest about wanting to  share his bed. That would put Alex Thorpe out of his head, once and for  all.

Travis reached for his address book and thumbed through the pages. He'd  met a gorgeous brunette just last week and said he'd call her. She'd  probably be surprised to hear from him at this hour but he'd invite her  to breakfast on the beach. Champagne. Caviar and scrambled eggs...

Who was he kidding? Dammit, he thought, and tossed the book aside. He  didn't want a substitute for the Ice Princess. He wanted her.

Where was she now? He didn't even have her address or her phone number.  What was she doing? Was she sleeping, dreaming of him? Or was she going  crazy, the way he was, remembering...

The doorbell rang. Travis had never been so glad to have his train of  thought interrupted. He went to the door, opened it and found a kid in  an olive-drab uniform on the porch.

"Morning, sir. I have a delivery for Mr. Travis Baron."

"Great," Travis said briskly, signed his name to a receipt and took five bucks out of his pocket. "Thanks."

He shut the door, shot a puzzled glance at the package the kid had  handed him and tore it open. A small vellum envelope, with his name  elegantly scripted across the front, fell out.

Travis picked it up, frowned, examined it. He raised it to his nose and  sniffed, but no perfume scent clung to the paper. What was inside?  Something formal. An invitation? A thank-you? It might be either one, if  Alex Thorpe...