LITMIR.BIZ

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frighten a person like that?” she huffed, not in annoyance, but in pulsing anticipation. “It’s downright sadistic, the way you suddenly appear. Where did you leave your date?” She blanched, realizing that she had given herself away, but pretended aloofness. She didn’t want him to know that seeing him with an attractive woman had affected her.

       He cocked an eyebrow. “I helped Miss Hunt get a taxi, and she went back to her office.”

       “Why are you telling me that?” she asked, as if he hadn’t merely answered her question. “It isn’t my concern.”

       “I didn’t suggest otherwise. Are you okay?”

       “Of course, I’m okay,” she managed to reply, and turned her back so that her quivering lips wouldn’t betray her. “How did you get here?” It was barely a whisper.

       “I followed you. When you passed my table immediately after your lunch was served, you seemed distressed. I wanted to be sure you were all right.”

       He walked around her in order to face her. “I was surprised to see you lunching alone in that posh place. I only go there because Angela, my agent, loves to be seen there. She says it’s good for her image.”

       Intense relief washed through her, and she gasped from the joy of it. Her mind told her to move back, to remember who she was and that she had reasons to avoid a deeper involvement with him, but her mind and heart were not in sync, she learned.

       Oblivious to the squirrels that were busily hoarding for the winter, the blackbirds chirping around them, and the wind whistling through the trees, she stood with her gaze locked into his, shaken by her unbridled response to him. She was barely aware of the dry leaves swirling around them and the wind’s accelerated velocity as they continued to devour each other with the heat in their eyes, neither of them speaking or moving. Feeling chill-like tremors, she rubbed her arms briskly, letting her gaze shift to his lips.

       His sharp intake of breath as he opened his arms thrilled her, and she walked into them, her body alive with hot anticipation. He had lost his war with himself, and she gloried in his defeat. She felt him sink slowly to the turf, clasping her tightly. He lay with her above him, protecting her from the hard ground. She knew, when he immediately helped her to her feet without even kissing her, that their environment alone had stopped him. Blatant desire still radiated from him. She didn’t remember ever having encountered such awesome self-control.

       “Chicken sandwiches and ginger ale taste about the same as grilled salmon and salad,” she told him, when they finished.

       “Something like that occurred to me, too.” He smiled.

       They stood at the curb, near her parked car, neither speaking nor touching, just looking at each other. She hadn’t noticed that he’d shortened his sideburns or that he had a tiny brown mole beside his left ear. And in the sunlight, she could see for the first time that his fawnlike eyes were rimmed with a curious shade of brownish green. Beautiful. A lurch of excitement pitched wildly in her chest. Back off, girl, before you can’t! Without a word, she turned blindly toward her car, but he grabbed her hand, detaining her, and forced her to look at him. Then he brushed her cheek tenderly with the back of his closed fist and let her go.

       She drove slowly. She could stay away from him, she thought, if he wasn’t so charismatic. So handsome. So sexy. So honorable. And oh, God, so tender and loving with his kids. He was a chauvinist, maybe—she was becoming less positive of that—had a trigger-fast temper, and was unreasonable sometimes. But he made her feel protected, and he was the epitome of man. Man! That was the only word for him and, if she were honest, she’d admit that she wanted everything he could give a woman—his consuming fire, his drugging power and heady masculine strength—just once in her life. But most of all, she wanted the tenderness of which she knew he was capable. Naomi laughed at herself. Who was she kidding? Well, her grandpa had always preached that thinking didn’t cost you anything; it was not thinking that was expensive. She mused over that as she drove, deciding that in her case, both could cost a lot. Once with him would never be enough, she conceded, wondering how he was handling their…encounter.

       Rufus steered into his garage and forced himself to get out of his car. He walked around the garden in back of the house, sat on a stone bench, absently turned the hose on, and filled the birdbath. Why couldn’t he leave her alone? It had taken every ounce of will he could gather to stop what he’d started down by the Tidal Basin. He couldn’t pinpoint what had triggered it, and he wondered how he managed to appear so calm afterward when he actually felt as if he would explode. And why had he felt obligated to ease her mind about Angela? He’d never even kissed her, thought he’d just come pretty close to it. Besides, he and Naomi spent most of their time together fighting. He had been discussing a three-book deal with Angela when Naomi had passed their table; one look at her face, and he knew she’d seen them. He had immediately terminated the discussion and followed her. Get a grip on it, son! He noticed two squirrels frolicking in the barbecue pit, walked over to the patio, and got some of the peanuts that he stored there for his little friends. He went to the pit, got down on his haunches, and waited until they saw him and raced over to take their food from his hand.

       Why couldn’t he leave her alone? Nothing could come of it. The question plagued him. And another thing. Good Lord! She was jealous of Angela. Jealous! How the devil was he going to stay away from her if she reciprocated what he felt? They didn’t even like each other. Scratch that, he amended; only fools lied to themselves. He went up to his room, changed his clothes, and went to get his boys from Jewel’s house.

       Naomi sat at her drawing board that afternoon and wondered whether she could do a full day’s work in two hours. She was way off schedule, and she didn’t have one useful idea. “Oh, hang Rufus,” she called out in frustration. “Why am I bothered, anyway? Why, for heaven’s sake, am I torturing myself?” She dialed Marva, who answered on the first ring. Naomi always found it disconcerting that Marva’s telephone rarely rang a second or third time. She would almost believe her friend just sat beside the phone waiting for a call, but Marva was too impatient.

       “Are you going to One Last Chance this afternoon?” she asked her. “I think we ought to firm up the plans for our contributions to the Urban Alliance gala. If we don’t get a bigger share of the pot this time, OLC will be in financial difficulty.”

       “I know,” Marva breathed, sounding bored, “but it’ll all work out. You ought to be concentrating on who’s going to take you and what you’re going to wear.” Suddenly, Marva seemed more serious than usual. “Someday, Naomi, you’re going to tell me why a twenty-nine-year-old woman who looks like you would swear off men. Honey, I couldn’t understand that even if you were eighty. Don’t you ever want somebody to hold you? I mean really hold you?”

       Caught off guard, Naomi clutched the telephone cord and answered candidly. “To tell the truth, I do. Terribly, sometimes, but I’ve been that route once, and once is enough for me.” Well, it was a half-truth, but she knew she owed her friend a reasonable answer, and she would never breathe the whole truth to anyone.

       She changed the subject. “Guess what happened while you were gone, Marva.”

       “Tell me.”

       “Well, Le Ciel Perfumes saw the ad I did for Fragrant Soaps and gave me an exclusive five-year contract. I get all their business. Girl, I’m in the big time now. Can you believe it? I talked to them as if I could barely fit them into my tight program. Then I hung up, screamed, and danced a jig.”

       “You actually screamed? Wish I’d been there.”

       “But, Marva, that’s what every commercial artist dreams of, a sponsor. I treated myself to a new music system. My feet have hardly touched the ground since I signed that contract.”

       “Go, girl. I knew you had it in you. We’ll get together for some Moët and Chandon; just name the hour.”

       On an impulse and as casually as she could, she asked Marva, “You know so many people in this town, do you happen to know Rufus Meade?”

       “Cat Meade? Is there anybody in

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