Now You See Her Linda Howard(21)

Until yesterday. He didn't know what had happened, but suddenly he had known her blinders were gone and she was aware of him personally, emotionally, sexually. God knows he had been aware of her, standing there with that red sweater molded to her breasts and those blue eyes getting wider and wider as she listened to the McMillans. He had almost been able to see some irrepressibly scathing comment welling up in her throat, because she was known for saying what was on her mind. In the world he moved in, such spontaneous honesty was so rare as to be almost nonexistent. People guarded their words and stuck to the polite, the politically correct, the inane. He knew Sweeney tried to be polite, but as she had said yesterday, her tolerance level for bullshit was really low.

She made him grin. Hell, she made him laugh. He had the feeling he could spend every day with her for twenty years and not know all of her quirks or exactly how her mind worked.



He liked her. He had dated other women since he and Candra had separated, but he had been careful to keep any relationships casual, and in fact hadn't really liked any of the women. Enjoyed them, yes, even been aroused by them, but he had never felt any of them could be a friend. Maybe that was why he hadn't slept with any of them, which Candra would never believe, and in fact he astonished himself with his reticence. He missed sex. He wanted sex. He was so horny he was going through the torments of the damned, holding Sweeney on his lap, but the truth was he had turned down a lot of opportunities.

Legally, he was still married. He couldn't forget that. The marriage was over—he could barely tolerate being in the same room with Candra—but until a judge ruled the marriage was dissolved, he wasn't a free man. It wouldn't be fair to any woman to start a sexual relationship with her knowing he wasn't able to offer more. Until yesterday, when he had met Sweeney's eyes and felt that zing of attraction, it hadn't mattered. Now it did.

Gently he touched one of her curls, picking it up and stretching it out, marveling at its length.

Straightened, her hair would reach over halfway down her back. He released the tension on the strand and it wrapped around his finger like a loose spring.

The chill she'd had worried him. The apartment's heat, added to the warmth of both her and the blanket draped over him, had sweat running down his face. Her face had been pale, her skin clammy. She had looked shocky, as if she had lost a lot of blood. Since that obviously wasn't the case, something else was wrong. Glancing down at her now, though, he saw a tinge of delicate color in her cheeks, and her face had lost the drawn look of hypothermia.

One unrestrained breast pressed against his rib cage. She was definitely braless, a detail he had immediately noted, with her chill pinching her nipples into tight little points. They had plumped out now, though, because he couldn't feel them pushing at him.

Not today, but one day soon, he would hold her naked breasts in his hands and rub his thumbs over her nipples and watch them pucker. He closed his eyes as he let himself imagine how it would feel to hold her beneath him and push deep into her. Making love to Sweeney would be a challenge; despite the startled awareness in her eyes, she was resisting doing anything about it. Part of it was scruples, yes; he understood that. But part of it was sheer stubbornness, an unwillingness to open herself up to him. She wanted her life just the way it was, without a man around to distract her. She was good at keeping it that way, too, because judging from the comments Candra had dropped over the years, Sweeney was practically a nun.

Not for much longer, though.

He closed his eyes and forced himself to relax, but as he began to doze, he remembered her charge—he would demand time and sex and things like that, he thought was the way she'd put it. She was right on the money. He went to sleep with a slight smile on his face.

In the army, he had trained himself to sleep for a specified length of time, no matter how brief, and wake up when he wanted. Now they were called power naps, but then he had called it staying alive. He shut out of his mind the uncomfortable heat, ignored it as if it didn't exist, another trick he had learned in training. When he woke half an hour later, he felt rested despite the fact that his shirt was wet with sweat. Sweeney was warm, too; she had pushed the blanket down from around her face, and her fingertips were pink. As he had expected, she began stirring just a few moments later, rather than the hour and a half she had given herself; sleep was the body's reaction to cold, and once warmth was restored, the sleepiness was gone.

He was looking down at her, so he saw her eyes pop open. Like flashes of lightning, her expression was startled, then flickered to alarm. She sat up suddenly, catching his balls beneath her and pinning them. He barely restrained a yelp and swiftly shifted her weight in his lap.

"Oh, God, I can't believe I did that," she muttered, scrambling off his lap in a tangle of blanket and coat.

"I can." Wincing, he eased into a different position.

She looked down, and her eyes widened. "I didn't mean that," she blurted. "I was talking about going to sleep in your lap. I'm so sorry" She bit her lip. "Are you all right?"

A chuckle burst through his clenched teeth. Gingerly he moved again, and the pain began to fade. "I don't know," he said, deliberately pitching his voice high.

She threw herself back against the couch, shrieking with laughter.

Richard bent over her, framed her face with his hands, and kissed her laughing mouth.

She went still, like a small animal trying to hide from a predator. Her hands came up to clasp his wrists, clever hands, the skin soft and sensitive over delicate bones. He wanted to crush her mouth with his, but he gentled his kiss, treasuring rather than taking. Her lips trembled, just a little. He opened them and sought her tongue with his. Heat roared through him, white-hot and urgent. His entire body tightened with the need to cover and enter. Ruthlessly he restrained himself, knowing she was far from acceptance.