“Tell me what you want,” Daniel whispered

He took Lara’s hand. “I think you want it all.”

“You’re so wrong. All is exactly what I don’t want. Unless you mean—” she nodded toward the house “—in the bedroom.”

“Okay,” he said. “What’s your idea of a hot sexual fantasy affair?”

Lara dropped her gaze. “I already told you. I’m a…games woman.”

“And your favorite game?”

Her body brushed against his. He could feel the tight beads of her nipples through her dress and it was making him wild. Soon he was going to turn into a ravening beast and take her for pure, raw, animal sex.

“That would be tag, Daniel. Winner takes all.” She quickly tapped him on the arm. “You’re it!” She flew into the house, shutting off lights as she ran.

He rubbed his hands in anticipation. Winner take all? Suited him. He’d never been bested yet.

Dear Reader,

Picture this: A desperately excited woman runs through the forest. A dark, savage man chases her. Is the danger real? Or is it just a game?

There are some books an author can’t give up on. Playing with Fire was mine. Several years have passed since the opening chase-through-the-forest scene came vividly to life for me. I still remember holding my breath while I wrote it—very quickly. Unfortunately those pages seemed destined to languish in my filing cabinet, labeled “too hot for category.”

Until Blaze.

Brava Blaze! I’m thrilled to join its roster of daring authors. And to the readers who demanded more of our provocative stories—thank you!

All my best,

Carrie Alexander

P.S. Please look for my other books, as well, wherever they might pop up—Temptation, Duets, Superromance,. And I love to hear from you. You can write to me in care of Harlequin or by e-mail at CarrieAlexander2@aol.com.

P.P.S. Don’t forget to check out the special Blaze Web site at www.tryblaze.com.

Playing with Fire
Carrie Alexander

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Prologue

SAVAGE WAS hunting her.

Lara sensed his presence in every cell of her body—from the prickling hairs at her nape to the heat zinging through her bloodstream to the nervousness of her dancing feet. She panted shallowly, trying to calm herself. To quell the urge to flee. If she lost her head and ran without reason, it would be as easy as child’s play for him to swoop down and snap her up.

This was anything but child’s play.

Holding her breath, she crouched in the parchment leaves to listen for him. Was he near?

She heard only the normal sounds of the forest—minute raspings and tickings and scattershot scurries of tiny claws. The wind sighed, passing overhead with a scraping of bare branches and the whispered brush of evergreen boughs.

Several orangy-gold leaves drifted to the ground. Her alert gaze followed their meandering path. A woodpecker’s rat-a-tat-tat sounded in the distance, echoing the beat of her racing heart.

She bowed her head, allowing herself to slowly exhale like a leaking balloon even as she remained on edge, every sense deliciously heightened. Her instincts had never been sharper; her reactions were hair-trigger.

A pheasant flapped through the undergrowth right beside her and she reflexively jerked forward into a ready position as if under the starter’s pistol. Her pulse escalated. A frisson of fear rippled across her skin. Savage must be near! And yet there was no sign of him….

Waiting for him to pounce was unbearable. At a sudden loud cracking sound in the forest behind her, Lara sprang forward. Knowing her flight was both precipitous and foolhardy, she raced through the stand of mixed hardwoods, dodging broad trunks and saplings alike, leaping fallen logs, her loose hair streaming behind her like a lick of golden sun-fire.

“Aye-yi-yi-yi-eee!”

The barbaric howl was bloodcurdling. Lara skidded to a stop, moccasins kicking up a flurry of dry autumn leaves. Slowly she turned toward the hunter’s call.

Savage was there, silhouetted on the crest. His legs were set firmly apart, his arms hanging relaxed at his sides even though he had to be as wired as she, consumed by the thrill of the hunt as he searched the forest floor for the sight of her.

Lara licked her lips, eyes feverishly skimming the woods to plot an escape route before being drawn relentlessly back to the man who was determined to claim her as his own. Even knowing that he would soon spot her, would descend upon her—conquering, powerful male to the core—she could not move. Her skin crawled with a tingling heat.

Savage’s chin lifted. His nostrils flared.

She swallowed thickly. He could smell her.

Ohhh. Her knees weakened, as if a swoon was imminent. It was only a matter of time before—

Stop. She gritted her teeth. Slammed shut her eyes, fighting the yearning to succumb to his strong pull, his treacherous and insidious spell. From the start, something in the man had spoken to her. And she to him. Even now, hunter and hunted, they were…they were…

They were one.

She knew the instant he saw her. Her lids flew open. Her heart gave a leap. Of apprehension…and excitement.

He did not move. Instead, he watched her, his fingers slowly curling inward, the muscles of his thighs clenched in preparation.

He cocked his head. Through the slanting rays of the low sun she could see the predatory glint in his eyes. “Lara,” he called, voice low and smooth as he dragged her name out until it merged with the sighing wind. “La-a-a-raaah…”

For a moment she was frozen. Mesmerized.

Only when he started down the hill to complete her capture did she shudder back to life with a shrill yelp. She shot off through the woods again.

The forest blurred into a tapestry of golds and grays and greens. She was as fleet as a doe, her legs flying, the hem of her red print skirt bunched in either hand, bare thighs and knee-high moccasins flashing with each scissored stride. She had little trouble placing Savage now. He was crashing through the woods behind her, no longer tracking her in silent stealth. And he was gaining—rapidly.

She had the advantage of knowing the terrain better than he. Disappearing over the top of a ridge, she slid on her heels down the steep slope opposite. Taking a few precious seconds, she camouflaged her obvious trail with leaves, scooping up crisp handfuls and scattering them over the gouges she’d made in the dark, soft earth.

Temporarily out of sight on the other side, Savage whooped again. The primal sound of it sent icy fingertips tapping up and down Lara’s spine, but this time she didn’t stop.

Finding the worn path that wound around the base of the ridge, she followed it north toward home, leaving no footprints on the hard-packed dirt. Back on the hillside, Savage scuffled through the leaves over her skid marks. She knew that at any moment he’d skirt the thicket of balsam and pine and catch a glimpse of her brightly colored dress.

She left the trail, slipping silently beneath the fragrant drooping boughs of an ancient evergreen. A pinecone crunched underfoot and she froze, not even daring to breathe as she listened for her hunter.

The electric silence was a bad sign. Very bad. Lara knew she’d run out of options. The house was less than a half mile away, but she’d never outrun him. Instead she caught a vertical limb of the nearest big elm and swung, kicking her legs up in a froth of white petticoat to hook around a branch. A few moments later she was halfway up, pressed to the trunk and trying not to pant as Savage appeared on the path, only seconds behind her.

He moved as soundlessly and swiftly as an Indian scout, ducking in and out of her line of vision as he continued past her hiding place. She let out a silent breath and relaxed just the slightest bit. Perhaps for once she’d bested him.

In her head she counted out sixty seconds, then sixty more. When she was fairly certain he’d continued on, she forced herself to move away from the relative safety of the tree trunk. Cool golden leaves, gentle as a lover’s palm, caressed her face and shoulders as she inched along the sturdy branch. Holding tight to the tree’s limbs, she ducked to peer past its foliage, scanning the empty trail and surrounding wood. Savage was nowhere to be seen.

She breathed a sigh of relief, head dropping forward in a prayerful bow, eyes closed. He was gone. Another deep breath.

She’d avoided capture.

She’d won the game. Sort of.

After a minute, an uneasy foreboding began to nibble at Lara’s triumph. Slowly she lifted her face.

And found herself staring directly into Savage’s molten pewter eyes. He smiled.

Like a wolf, like the natural predator that he was.

1

Three weeks before

THE MAN WAS a hunter.

Lara Gladstone felt it in the unwavering focus of his dark, hungry gaze. His was not a piercing stare. It was a steady, mesmerizing one, so visceral she shuddered beneath it as if he’d taken her nape in his strong hand and held her just so, close against his body. Trembling, but still.

Captured.

“Captured,” Lara mouthed to herself, pausing in her restless tour of the dining room. She touched her prickling nape, feeling his eyes upon her. I will not look.

Deliberately she tilted her head back and lifted her gaze to the yellow, red and golden-brown flecks of glass glowing overhead. A different kind of self-knowledge came over her. A sense of calm. In the midst of the noise and confusion of the cuttingly hip restaurant opening, she gazed at the kaleidoscope of colored glass and let herself slowly drift away. To a dream of home—a restless, yearning sort of dream, underlaid with her awareness of the man who’d been watching her for the past fifteen minutes.

She was in the woods near her house. The autumn leaves shimmered around her, glorious colors, yellow and red and golden brown. It was quiet, but she was not alone. There was a man. A dark, hungry man. He was stalking her. She must flee. Yet even as she ran until her heart was bursting in her chest, deep inside she knew…she knew…

She wanted to be captured.

THE WOMAN WAS a tease.

Daniel liked that about her.

Absently he raised a glass of red wine to his mouth, wetting his lips as he tracked her circuitous route through the crowded restaurant. When she stepped momentarily out of view, he craned his neck for another glimpse of her. Such impatience, however limited, was unlike him.

Ah. There she was, looking up at a large piece of stained-glass artwork suspended from the ceiling on chains. She swayed ever so slightly, her shoulders moving sensuously, her hand going to her nape and lingering there for an instant before slowly slipping around to stroke her long arched throat. An answering caress sensitized Daniel’s palms, as if already they knew the feel of her moving beneath them. The warm silken glide of her skin under his fingertips.

A pretty young man approached her. He was garbed in downtown artiste de rigueur—clingy shirt and trousers, both made of thin black wool, a pair of glasses with blue lenses and heavy black frames and, for that Bohemian touch, one indiscreet piercing. In this case, a small silver hoop through the septum. Useful, Daniel decided, if the boy needed to be convinced of his impending departure.

The young man put a hand on the woman’s shoulder and whispered in her ear.

Several heads turned when she laughed. Despite Daniel’s sudden inclination to make judicious use of the nose ring, the exuberant laugh prompted an answering smile to tug at one corner of his lips. He might have known. No lockjawed, nasal hunh-hunh-hunh for this woman. Her laugh was full-bodied, natural. It revealed her zest for life.

So, he thought with a measure of self-congratulatory swagger. She had brio. She would be his match.

The lazy interest that had stirred inside him at the sight of her expanded into pervasive desire. A feeling to relish. One he’d been missing for too long. Already the thrill of the hunt was thrumming in his veins—a low, slow, steady drumbeat keeping pace with the first hot flush of stimulation.

The woman stood out in the crowd like a tawny lioness, regal and reserved among a pack of craven hyenas begging for scraps of attention. She was all in gold, from a cloud of amber hair to the sharp tips of her narrow suede sling-backs. Her dress was an alchemist’s dream—a fluid piece of fabric that skimmed her lithe curves, softening the angular edges of a trim, athletic figure.

Her head seemed a tad too small, set on a long neck above broad swimmer’s shoulders, counterbalanced by the riotous mass of her pinned-up hair. A private thought made Daniel’s smirk slip sideways, lifting the other side of his mouth into a generous smile: She had the kind of wild, thick hair that was meant to be spread across a pillow.

He saw her prone on his own bed, stretched out upon cool Egyptian cotton sheets, long, tanned limbs spread in flagrant invitation, her eyes bold…provocative…teasing.

Yes. It would happen. No question.

After another laugh and an indulgent pat on the cheek, the woman turned away from the pretty young man. Toward Daniel.

He drew a quick breath through his teeth, his chest expanding. As much as he desired the body, it was the face that was truly captivating, that continually drew him in. Her face was small and round, unexpectedly full in the cheek when compared to the lean length of her. Cherubic, he might have said, except that her mouth was wide, her nose narrow and her eyes…

Ah, her eyes were feline—aloof but curious, distant yet riveting. Sparkling with life.

They looked full of naughty thoughts.

Mentally Daniel gathered himself in preparation. Attuned to his wavelength, she responded with a flick of her lashes. Her head cocked in his direction. For the fourth or fifth time, he intercepted a surreptitious glance. Not by default. She wanted him to know that she was as aware of him as he was of her.

Without a doubt, the woman was a tease.

Her elusive gaze slid away again. With the lift of a bare shoulder, she swiveled on her heel, presenting him with her backside.

The dress, so demure from the front, was cut in a deep slash that bared her back to the very dimple at the top of a tight little bottom. A second slit traveled upward from the hem, exposing the entire length of her right leg. Daniel took his time examining the effect. He’d never devoted himself quite so fully to the erotic qualities of the curve of a muscular calf, the hollow of a knee, the tender flesh at the back of a woman’s thigh.

When he took a step in her direction, she moved swiftly away, maneuvering past a knot of hors d’oeuvres munchers. Her long, sure stride split the slashed skirt beyond daring. His heart gave an unwieldy thump. The woman was one dropped stitch away from public indecency.

Intent on following her, he set his wineglass on the thick polished slab of marble that made up the bar. The interior of the new restaurant was a marvel of look-at-me architecture—all stuccoed curves juxtaposed against sharply angled half walls of brushed steel. Exposed steel I-beams were crusted with the perfect degree of rust, in contrast to the slick black terazzo floor. At least fifty guests occupied the toothpick chairs clustered around stainless-steel bistro tables. Others jammed the padded banquettes that encircled the space. The overflow stood in clusters, nibbling at the free food, attacking the champagne and assorted wines with gusto. Taken together, it was all too pretentious for Daniel’s taste. He preferred history and age to cutting edge design.

Tamar Brand, his companion for the evening, aimed a wordless question at him as he passed. He volleyed with a shake of his head. She raised just one of her elegant black brows—a neat trick she used sparingly—her amused smile both forgiving his curtness and informing him that she knew exactly what he was up to. As always.

Daniel didn’t pause. No words were needed; after eleven years together, Tamar knew him far too well. If left to her own devices, she would, with no reproach, take a cab home and charge it to his expense account. Along with a pricey bottle of wine and take-out dinner from one of the city’s ritzy delis.

Bribery, he thought, but Tamar’s silence and skill were worth it.

He turned the corner. Only quick reflexes prevented him from walking straight into his prey. The lioness stood directly on the other side of one of the angled silver walls scattered around the main room like sculptures. No chase, then, he thought, slightly disappointed. She was waiting. For him? Of course.

He saw it first in the rounded innocence of her eyes, then in the smile ready to burst from her lips as laughter. Yet there was also a certain tension in her squared shoulders and elongated swan’s neck. He presumed that although she was confident in herself, she was not entirely sure of him. Good.

He said the first thing that sprang to mind. “Where’s your piercing?”

Her lashes widened. “Are you certain I have one?”

The voice was lovely—a contralto as rich as her laugh. He gestured at the crowd with spread hands, then dropped his arms to his sides at once, far too aware that his palms still itched to stroke her long, bare arms. To sink into her untamed hair.

He said, “Everyone under the age of thirty does.”

“But I’m thirty. Exactly. On the very cusp of your anthropological hypothesis.”

“Then your piercing must be hidden.” He let his gaze drift across the golden dress before rising again to her quirkily beautiful face. She hadn’t used cosmetics to alter her complexion. Her childishly plump cheeks were unshadowed, the pale sun freckles dotting her nose unconcealed. Only her eyes were elaborately enhanced with a muted palette of copper, bronze and green.

The painted lids lowered. “And yours?”

“I’m too old,” he said evenly.

“How old?” Without pretense, she inspected his suit, an impeccably tailored designer deal for which he’d paid a shocking amount, enough to have funded his entire school wardrobe of jeans and tees and the single off-the-rack suit he’d worn to every college function right up to graduation.

The woman’s gaze had lingered long enough to make him wonder if she was studying the suit…or the body beneath it.

He stayed perfectly still, even though his blood thundered with primal urges. “Thirty-six.”

“Married?”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“The woman,” she said, ignoring his diversion tactic, “she’s not your wife?”

He was fairly certain that the lioness had arrived after he and Tamar. She couldn’t have seen them together—they’d separated almost at once. “What woman?” he asked carefully.

Her eyes, green as a tropical sea, met his. She smiled, patient and knowing.

He conceded the point. “She’s not my wife.”

“Longtime companion?”

“No.”

“You hesitated.” A mildly playful taunt.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.” Her voice became serious; her eyes were less so. “I don’t play fun and games with married men.”

He tried not to betray his surprise. Or his conclusion, even though the odds-on possibility that she’d already made up her mind about him—about playing with him—had sent shock waves crashing through his system.

“I see.” He kept his voice gentle but suggestive, asking without actually asking if she meant what he hoped she did.

Her small nod granted the unspoken petition. She was a queenly cat. “Yes, I believe that you do.” Her head tilted. “Convenient for both of us.”

A pocket of silence enveloped them. Daniel, for once, was uncertain. Had they agreed to a sexual affair? A dalliance?

If so, it wasn’t enough. He wanted more. Suddenly he wanted more.

“A guess,” he said. “Your tongue.”

Her brows were brown, several shades darker than her hair. They drew together. He saw as her mind clicked into his place in the conversation. “Wrong,” she said, teasing again. She stuck out her tongue so he could see that it was not punctured by a metal stud. Her tongue was pink and moist, as long and narrow as the rest of her. The gesture was oddly intimate. Perhaps because he instantly pictured her licking a path down the center of his chest.

The air between them shifted, thickened.

His heated gaze zeroed in on the tight peaks of her breasts, clearly outlined against thin gold fabric. Unpierced. “Then where…?”

She folded her arms, stroked the hollow in her throat. “Not so fast, sir.” Her voice was light.

His felt dense and needy. “I had the impression you liked it that way.”

“Mmm.” She regarded him frankly. “Yes, I do. And I’ve made up my mind about you.”

His smile was all confidence, his demeanor assured.

She turned and walked away.

“IS THAT YOUR TAIL I see,” Tamar said when he returned, “tucked between your legs?”

Daniel thrust his fists into his trouser pockets and scowled. “Hardly.”

Clearly Tamar was enjoying his failure, but she knew not to take the teasing too far. She set an empty champagne flute rimmed with berry-red lipstick on a passing waiter’s tray. “Shall we call it a night? Bairstow’s already gone, so we’ve done our duty.”

“You’re free to leave.”

She shook her head at Daniel’s scowl, making the blunt ends of her hair brush bony white shoulders bared by a skimpy black sleeveless top. A matching pair of loose silk pants were secured by a drawstring knotted half an inch below her pierced navel; wide etched metal cuffs encircled her toned biceps. Tamar Brand was the type of woman who was not pretty, but whose impeccable style and confidence made other females stare through narrowed eyes as they tried to discern her secret.

“Like a dog with a bone,” she commented dryly, taking an engraved compact out of her tiny evening purse. She flicked it open and frowned at her lips.

Daniel snatched away the compact and snapped it shut. He held it out of Tamar’s reach, though she wasn’t one to reach. His thumb rubbed the engraved initials. It was familiar; after a beat, he remembered giving it to her two birthdays ago. She’d gone to Tiffany’s to select it, then had it wrapped and delivered to his office. He’d meant to pick out something personal, but as usual she’d beaten him to the punch. She was too efficient that way.

Tamar waited in silence. She could be as inscrutable as the Dalai Lama when she chose.

He dropped the compact into her open purse. “Go now.”

She sucked in her already-hollow cheeks, making a face at him. “Thanks, boss.”

“Take the car.”

They’d arrived in a hired car, a perk from his employers, Bairstow & Boone, the Wall Street brokerage house. Frank Bairstow’s dilettante daughter Ophelia was one of the partners in the restaurant’s ownership, thanks to daddy’s money. As Daniel was fresh off a promotion to junior partner, his attendance at the grand opening fete had been mandatory. He’d persuaded Tamar to be his “date.”

“You don’t need the car?” Tamar abandoned the goldfish lips. “My, my, Daniel. So the woman really did shoot you down.” She pretended to examine him for wounds. “Are you bleeding? Was it fatal, this blow to the ego?”

“My ego is fine.” His teeth gritted. Never in his life had he given up so easily, and Tamar surely knew that. She was merely trying to get a rise out of him.

“Perhaps you’re losing your skill?”

He didn’t consider himself a ladies’ man. If he’d had success in the field, it was because women couldn’t seem to resist a man who could resist them. His sights had always been set on other goals.

“I’m skilled enough for both of us,” was what he told Tamar. “There’s a guy at the bar. A trader with a hair weave and a platinum Rolex. He’s been eyeing you all evening—”

“Say no more,” she interrupted, withering with disdain. “I’m gone.” With a saucy flick of a smile, she tucked her purse under her arm and wended her way toward the industrial steel doors at the front of the restaurant. Daniel watched, curious if she’d leave alone—several men had approached her—but she appeared on the street unescorted, signaling for the car.

Daniel moved closer to the wide front window, keeping a protective eye on Tamar until the sleek midnight-blue town car glided up to the curb. The woman was an enigma, even to him. Although in some ways she was his closest friend, he knew her a fraction as well as she knew him. She was adamant about keeping her personal life out of the office. Tamar Brand’s vision was clear but narrowly focused. From the start, she’d made it clear that she did not care for questions or complications.

Perhaps that was why they got along so well—Daniel had been accused of the very same thing.

But not tonight, he thought. Tonight, he’d been struck blind. Tonight, he wanted to plunge headlong into a messy, unplanned, completely indulgent affair.

He thought of the lioness who’d refused to be his prize for the evening. And he smiled, a renewed anticipation spiraling through his bloodstream. He would have her.

A hand touched his shoulder. “You were supposed to come after me,” she said huskily into his ear, the action causing her breasts to brush lightly across his back. As if he needed the invitation.

“In another minute, I planned to.”

She made a small sound in her throat. Sexy—it shot tiny splinters of sensation under his skin. “I was always too forward for my own good.”

He didn’t turn. “There’s something to be said for cutting to the chase rather than cutting out the chase.”

“Yes, I could tell you were that type.” She leaned a little closer, resting her chin on his shoulder. He felt her breasts solidly this time, round and firm, pressed just below his shoulder blades. “All right, I’ll let you chase me,” she purred, her lips so close to his ear that his lobe vibrated. “And perhaps I’ll even let you catch me.” Perhaps she’d let him? He managed a dry chuckle.

Her hands closed around his upper arms. Long fingers, a strong grip. “Should we make it a dare?”

He was incited to a profligate degree, in mind as well as body. The latter was potentially embarrassing in such a public venue. “By all means,” he said, turning fractionally away from the banquettes beneath the front windows. The large stained glass piece she’d been looking at earlier hung directly over their heads, its myriad colors illuminated by several carefully placed spotlights. Their warmth was getting to him. A sheen of perspiration had risen on his forehead.

“I wouldn’t want to be just another of your popsies.”

He still hadn’t looked at her, but the black window reflected a pale image of her face, tilted beside his. “Popsies?” he asked, watching the dark shadows formed by the hollows of her eyes. Frustrating—he couldn’t gauge her reactions except in her voice. But she was holding on to him, forestalling his pivot.

“Lollipops.” The husky contralto hummed in his ear. “Sweet little suckers that last an hour, tops.”

“What makes you think I have a sweet tooth?”

Her grip tightened in concert with her voice. “Men like you…” She didn’t finish.

He let that one go. For now. Even though she was dead wrong. “And what is it you want?”

“Is this a negotiation instead of a dare?” She smoothed her right hand along his shoulder, switched her head over and said silkily in his other ear, “Shall we set up a list of rules, then? Would that suit your nature?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed when she reached past his shoulder and tugged playfully at his tie. Her fingertip followed the motion, flicking the bump above his collar as if chiding him for his hesitation. If only she knew. He was getting hard—so hard he had to shove a hand into his pocket and make a little room so his arousal wasn’t readily apparent. He swallowed again.

She said, drawing away, “I suppose you always follow the rules.”

“Not always.” He couldn’t turn.

“No?” She became playful. “By day, a by-the-books businessman. By night—” in the window, her head cocked “—a lawless scalawag.”

His lips compressed, withholding a laugh. “Scalawag?”

“Scoundrel, then.”

He chuckled.

“Libertine?” she suggested, stepping to his side, her eyes searching for his. “Lady-killer?”

“You’re way off base.”

She pretended to pout. “How disappointing. I was counting on your lawless streak to show me a good time.”

He turned quickly and took her by the elbows. A fleeting look of alarm passed over her face before her expression settled into an unblinking, wide-eyed stare. “You have no idea,” he said, startled by his own ferocity. His desire for her was quickly becoming rapacious. “What do you know about me? Not even my name.”

“It’s Daniel.” She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth, another small signal of uncertainty. “I heard your wife say it.”

“Tamar is my executive assistant.”

“Your assistant?” A spark lit the feline eyes. “Aha. A substitute wife. Of course. I get it now.” She placed her palms on his chest and pressed lightly as her upper body swayed toward his. “You’re one of those driven Wall Street types. No time for a family, but you’ve been with your secretary for ages. She knows your likes and dislikes better than you do. She manages both your professional and personal life with an efficiency that’s frightening. She fusses over you like a wife.”

“Tamar doesn’t fuss.” He moved his thumbs against the soft skin of her inner elbows. “Otherwise, your assessment is accurate enough to be unsettling. I wasn’t aware that I’d become such a cliché.”

She studied his face, her lips puckering ever so slightly. A half smile. “There’s more to you?”

He said “Yes” with some intensity.

Her eyes were wide, bright; they reached into his, asking a question he couldn’t decipher. Suddenly she turned away, disengaging their linked arms with a shudder so small he might have missed it if they weren’t so attuned.

“What do you think of the restaurant’s decor?” she asked in a social make-nice voice. Pressing her knuckles to the hollow of her throat, she tilted her head to study the panel of stained glass that hung above them like a misplaced church window.

Distracted by the loose tendrils that coiled against her neck, he barely glanced at the piece. He wanted to blow aside her hair and run his fingertips over the bumps of her vertebrae until he reached the hollow of her back. Her dress was so open, so provocative, he might reach inside and cup—

“Daniel?”

“Belongs in a church, not a restaurant,” he said without thought.

Her chin lowered. “Really.”

Damn. He’d said the wrong thing. Aside from a casual interest in photography, understanding Art-with-a-capital-A was a challenge he hadn’t yet set his sights on. Probably he was supposed to have used words like stunning agony or fascinating dichotomy.

But it was only a piece of stained glass.

He looked up at it. Yeah, sure, it was a nice piece of stained glass. The wood-framed panel was large, roughly five feet by three. It contained thousands of tiny pieces of glass—green, gold, orangy-brown and red predominately, with flecks of white, silvery blue and a stark, clear lapis lazuli. No rhyme or reason to the placement, that he could tell. Thinking modern art with a certain derision, he stepped back to better view the piece. The shards of colored glass coalesced into a whole.

“A forest,” he said, surprisingly moved by its beauty. “Sunlight shining through the leaves. Autumn leaves.”

It wasn’t Art Speak, but the lioness seemed pleased. “You like?”

She’d been testing him, he thought, not sure why. Although, he remembered belatedly, she had been at the center of a group of people who’d studied the piece like connoiseurs, all of them narrowing their eyes and nodding sagely. Except her. She’d looked highly skeptical.

“Yes, I do like it,” he said, his curiosity renewed.

She spoke directly in his ear once more, the sultry resonance of her voice overriding his newfound appreciation of art. “Let’s go.”

He stared into her face. “By all means.”

She threw back her head, her eyes slitted. “Perhaps not all means. Can we start with the usual one?”

Missionary? he wondered, then tried to banish the mental picture he’d conjured when it made heat surge lavishly toward his lower body.

“Walking,” she said, smiling just enough to further tease his senses.

He nodded and gestured for her to proceed. They’d negotiated the crowd and were nearly out the door when a tall man of indeterminate age broke away from a cluster of guests and hurried over to stop them. “A moment, my dear,” he called, and Daniel’s companion winced as if she’d touched a fingertip to a red-hot stove burner. By the time she turned, a pleasant expression had been plastered across her features. But he saw the grit of her teeth.

“You mustn’t leave so soon.” The other man was several inches taller than Daniel’s six feet, suited in double-breasted charcoal-black with a glossy onyx tie. His face was patrician and immobile, except for the eyes, which were avid. Freshly clipped platinum hair lay close to his skull.

“The Peytons have arrived,” he continued, with the faintest trace of exasperation. He reached for her elbow. “They are important.”

She brushed away his hand. “Another time.”

Daniel opened the door, drawing the other man’s assessment. And puzzled dismissal. He tried for her elbow again, eager to tow her back inside. “I know this sort of thing isn’t your cup of tea. However—” he drew out the word, laying it on thick as a dollop of too-sweet jam “—you did agree—”

The lioness kissed the man soundly on both cheeks, effectively shutting him up long enough for her and Daniel to slip out the door. “Hurry, hurry,” she said, taking his hand and moving swiftly along the sidewalk in a race-walk step that had to be doing interesting things to her slitted dress. Sure enough, from somewhere behind them a wolf whistle pierced the brisk night air.

“He’s not after us.” Daniel slowed, using their clasped hands to draw her in closer.

She glanced back. “I guess we’re safely away.”

“Who was he?”

“Kensington Webb.” She gave no other explanation.

“And you are?” Daniel asked.

She did not hesitate. “Camille.”

“Camille…?”

Her profile was unwavering; her eyes stared straight ahead, avoiding his. “Let’s keep it to first names for now.”

“Fine.” For now.

He was strangely enthralled by her reluctance. Nothing like a good chase, he thought as he slid his arm around her waist. Except, of course, the capture and the sweet surrender that would follow.

2

SOHO ON A FRIDAY NIGHT was familiar, but as far from home as Lara Gladstone could imagine. There had been rain earlier in the evening, enough to freshen the air and make the elaborate facades of the cast-iron warehouses gleam. An abundance of lights, pedestrians and traffic blurred together into a melange of city life, an animated stream that flowed continually along the narrow street. Its cobbled Belgian bricks glistened like fish scales, reflecting and refracting the carnival of color.

Lara looked up, forgetting that the stars weren’t visible the way they were at home; the glow of city lights hung like gauze across a patch of charcoal sky. Remembering the deep night skies and woody wet cedar smells of her home in the Adirondack Mountains made her shiver.

“You’re cold.” Daniel took his hot palm off the small of her back—he’d placed it where the open vee narrowed—and shrugged out of his suit jacket. Standing close behind her, he dropped the jacket over her shoulders. She shuddered into its warmth. His fingers brushed across her nape to gather up the loose strands of her hair. A small tug at her scalp, and he’d pulled her straggling hair free of the collar. Her head rolled to one side, like the blossom of a tulip grown too heavy for its stem. She was touched by his chivalry.

“Better?” he asked huskily, shooting sparks along her spine.

She straightened, nodding. “I had a wrap. I left it inside.”

“Should I go back?”

“No!” She gripped the jacket’s lapels, thrilled to have avoided a second round of meet-and-greet with her dealer Kensington Webb and his well-curried art collector clients. Kensington would be disappointed in her, no doubt, but she couldn’t take another minute of explaining her “vision” to the uptown elite.

There had been a time when she’d sworn to conquer that scene. No longer. If she’d had her choice, she’d have skipped tonight’s event altogether and stayed at Bianca’s to laugh and gab and eat with her real friends. But Kensington, in his subtle slinky octopus way, had worked hard to convince her to attend. And he was trying to push her work beyond craft, into the realm of museum-quality collectible art. Too many people believed stained glass belonged only in craft fairs and church windows.

In no hurry to move along, Daniel put his hands on her waist. She leaned even closer, remembering the expression in his eyes when he’d stepped back and really looked at her stained-glass panel. He’d gotten it, without her having to explain in complicated, pretentious jargon. His reaction was the kind of simple reward she cherished, more precious than the prestige of having her work selected for display at SoHo’s newest chichi eatery.

She slid her palms along his shoulders, down his arms. Her fingertips fluttered toward his. His eyes were locked on her face as he took her hands. A heated awareness of every magnificent inch of him flushed across her cheeks. He threaded their fingers, giving her a small half smile. Enchanted by the moment—the man—she looked her fill, staring like a greedy child until it felt as if her skin had grown plump and glossy with satisfaction. He was uniquely her match. She knew it instinctively.

Pedestrians continued to flow around them. Finally someone muttered, “Get a room,” and they widened their eyes and laughed, breaking apart, then coming together again. They walked to the corner with their hands linked. “We’ll go for a drink first,” he said, and she thought, Daniel, so chock-full of pleasure at the sound of his name in her head that she only belatedly wondered what came “second.” They crossed the intersection among a flurry of traffic and turned toward Mercer Street, their footsteps ringing on the metal vault covers of the loading bays.

Lara’s head was catching up to her impulses. She was astonished at her daring, but intrigued by the direction it had taken her. How far would she let it go?

Earlier, Daniel had drawn her attention as soon as she’d shed Kensington’s fawning attentions and taken a good look around the restaurant. There were other business types mixed in with the artsy uptown crowd, but only Daniel had exuded such a distinctive aura. Already feeling unlike herself in the costumey dress and out-of-use social mask, she’d decided right then to play a little game with him. At first the relationship she’d sensed between him and the pale woman with a casque of ebony hair had been disconcerting, but that had turned out all right.

She and Daniel were free, young and single—there was no reason not to follow her impulses. True, the strength of the attraction was alarming. She wasn’t sure how to curb it.

Or even if she wanted to.

He held her hand tightly as they plunged through a milling crowd of revelers who’d just emerged from one of the upscale loft buildings. She shot him an oblique glance. Chemistry like this was rare. Why not play it out?

They entered a trendy bar—was there any other kind in SoHo?—through vast glass doors, a place known for its funky pseudo-Adirondack style. It was packed with club crawlers, the black-and-white cowhide couch lined with preening fashionistas. Lara lifted her face toward the heavy log beams that spanned the ceiling, seeking a gulp of untainted oxygen. The air was thick with smoke and a constant buzz of gossip.

It was strange to think that she’d once belonged to a similar crowd, though hers had put less emphasis on designer labels and more on individuality. After a few years of struggle by day—she’d tried everything from waitressing to window dressing before her art had become self-supporting—and partying by night, she’d burned out on both and had taken herself to the country. It was there she’d found her best inspiration.

Daniel tugged on her hand. “Follow me.”

They’d been granted a tiny table for two, where they shared a brocade padded bench tucked away in a dark corner beneath a set of antlers. Two icy cold green-apple martinis arrived at the table and she downed a third of hers in one big gulp, hoping the liquor would cut through her otherworldliness. The animated stream of Manhattan nightlife was now wavering like a dream sequence; she blinked and watched the colors weave in and out.

I am light-headed. A bubble of hysterical laughter rose in her chest and she swallowed it down again.

It was because she’d been alone so much, she decided. But she hadn’t felt out of place at Bianca’s with all her old friends, even though she’d lost touch with many of their current references. What was truly odd was returning, older and wiser, to play dress-up among the glitterati of SoHo. The liquor wasn’t helping in that regard.

No, that’s not all, Lara amended in the next instant. The blame was mostly Daniel’s.

Each time he turned his sharp gray eyes upon her face, she lost touch with the principles that guided her hard-won sense of self. Her intentions—to say nothing of her caution—tumbled into the chasm his eyes blasted into her concentration and when, after several minutes, she came back to herself, she was…unrestrained. Loose all over, like butter in the sun. Oiled like a hinge. The harsh lights and vivid colors burned her eyes. She found herself saying the most provocative things.

Helpless to resist, she leaned toward Daniel, drawn by his compelling masculinity. He was as magnetic as the great Broadway actor she’d met years ago at her father’s stone farmhouse in Umbria. In a swoony Welsh accent, the notorious old goat had told Lara that he wanted to take her to his homeland, that she must see Aberystwyth and the Vale of Glamorgan. His spell was so potent she’d been all but ready to hop a boat…until he’d stuck his hand up her skirt.

Daniel was less inclined.

Thus far.

Lara laughed freely at nothing in particular, except perhaps the heady whirlwind of an attraction that was so deeply sexual it had to be more than sexual. She sensed a possibility of long-term desire…if she played her cards right, remembered her limitations and kept her cool. The latter didn’t seem likely. She crossed her legs, widening the gap in her skirt.

Daniel put his hand on her kneecap. Her nerve endings hummed with pleasure.

She buried her nose in the mahogany-brown hair that curled behind his ear. He had the ears of a satyr; she wanted to nibble on the tip, suckle at the lobe.

“Mmm, Camille,” he murmured when she licked at his ear.

The name was part of her game. It provided the mask that was her safety net. Having grown up as the daughter of a legendary Man of Arts, watching the sycophants, dealers and scholars that revolved around him, hungrily snatching at his soul, she understood the value of simple anonymity.

“Tell me about yourself.” Daniel caught her chin in his big hot hand. She wanted to feel those hands all over her, blasting their heat into every hidden crevice like a relentless Mediterranean sun. “Let me guess. You’re…an artist?”

To avoid his intense gaze, she ducked under the tumbledown mess of her hair. “Some might say so.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well. You know.” She shrugged. “It’s a man’s world. Women’s work isn’t taken as seriously.”

“It’s the twenty-first century,” he said.

She laughingly overrode him, insisting, “No, no, in the art world it’s still 1900.”

“What do you do?”

She swallowed a private smile. “I sculpt.”

“Were you one of the artists with a piece on display at the restaurant?”

“Yes.”

When he frowned, two lines intersected in a vee an inch above the bridge of his nose. His brows were luxuriously thick, but as well-groomed as the rest of him. His nose was a strong beak, matched by a granite jaw. “I’m sorry. There was a lot of art there, but I don’t remember seeing any sculpture. Did I overlook it?”

“Probably. But that’s to be expected. Auguste gets all the credit.” She puffed wisps of hair out of her eyes, amused at Daniel’s confusion.

“I’m lost,” he said, absently stroking her collarbone, sending the tempo of her pulse sky-high.

“As am I.”

“You’re being deliberately obtuse.”

She ducked under his arm and snuggled against him. “That’s the fun of it.”

“All right. I’ll play along.” He said this with such a weightiness she laughed again.

“It’s the weekend, Daniel. Forget about Nasdaq and Alan Greenspan and all the bulls and bears and other nasty beasties. Take a few hours off. Have some fun.” She crinkled her nose at him. “Do you know how to do that?”

“Oh, yes.” His baritone went right through her. “I know how.”

“I’ll just bet you do.” She gave her response equal weight, teasing him.

They skipped briefly over his career at a stuffy old brokerage house and how the world would spin off its axis if ever the market were to crash. She said that he could prop it up on his shoulders. He chuckled and nudged his untouched glass toward her empty one. She liked it that he could laugh at himself, though it was clear that he took his position as a Bairstow & Boone financial analyst—and newly minted partner—very, very seriously. There was an ambition in him that matched her own. Not a naked, greedy, soulless ambition, but the driven, meaningful, solid-as-bedrock sort.

“Harvard Business School,” she guessed, even though he didn’t seem Ivy League.

He nodded and narrowed his eyes, looking her over. “Cooper Union?”

She’d gone to Rhode Island School of Design. “I apprenticed to a sculptor in Paris,” she said, spinning her tale. “He was older, famous, domineering. He’d seduced me by the time I was twenty-one. Abandoned me some years thereafter.”

Daniel scowled, carving out another vee. “This Auguste guy?”

“That would be the one.”

“Never heard of him.”

She waved a hand. “He’s dead. But you can see his stuff in museums across all continents.”

“This is a joke?”

“It’s a universal truth.”

He looked lost again, but he was catching on. “Poor little artist,” he said. “You need a patron.”

“Oh, no. I prefer my Bohemian existence. Living day by day, scrounging in flea markets, peddling drawings for pennies, having fabulous affairs with rich, important men who grovel after every twitch of my skirt…” His opening.

The man was not slow on the uptake. “In this particular skirt,” he said, running his fingertips along her bare right leg, making her glad she’d skipped the hose, “a twitch is a mind-bending experience.”

Little did he know. Her recent garb was anything loose and sloppy—oversize shirts and elastic-waist shorts, long knit tunics paired with pajama bottoms. A by-product of having no one around to impress. Being fashionable was rather nice, for a change.

“What,” said Daniel, leaning closer so his lips were a millimeter away from touching her cheek, “are you wearing under this dress?”

“Besides a piercing?”

“Mmm.”

Her lashes dropped. “Don’t you want to find out on your own?”

“Now?”

She lifted a shoulder, challenging him with her silent acquiescence.

He reached, pressing against her. His hand curved around her bare thigh. Her breath caught short. With a placement that was devastating in its precision, he inserted his fingertips into the seam of her crossed legs from behind. Suddenly she was hot as a coal furnace, the muscles in her belly and inner thighs quivering as she squeezed her legs together. The noise of the bar receded to a distant hum; all she heard was the heavy sound of their combined breathing. Her pulse beating hard and fast. Pom, pom, pom.

“Up another inch,” she said. A dare.

His fingertips slid a tickling half inch. Pom-pom-pom.

She was molten. “Nearly there.”

His thumb brushed across the critical juncture. Pompompompompom.

“I can’t,” he said with a gust of an exhale, briefly squeezing her buttock in his hand. “Not here.” His breath was hot and lusty. “Let’s go. I’d rather grope you—” he grinned “—in private.”

She was giddy, feverish. “No one here cares.”

His voice seethed in her ear. “You little exhibitionist.”

Apparently so. Another surprise. It was this man and this man alone, she thought again, downing his drink in several long gulps, not even caring if he was trying to get her drunk. She was becoming determined to see how far they were willing to go. Probably not the wisest move she’d ever made, but she’d been cooped up alone too long, working in blissful solitude. This weekend was her chance to break free.

What she needed was an adventure.

A…game.

With no rules.

But one.

THEY SAT AND CHATTED like normal people for another fifteen minutes. Daniel’s fingertips tingled. The tragedy of the near miss. Although he had trouble concentrating, nothing Camille said seemed to make a lot of sense anyway. Airy remarks about Montmarte, the art academy and Auguste’s betrayal. Daniel believed she was toying with him. In most circumstances, he wouldn’t tolerate it. Tonight, however, her frank desire had trumped his need for control.

She’d knocked him off balance. And here he sat, nodding and happy, all because he had to know what, if anything, she wore under her dress.

Blast. She’d reduced him to pliancy, and he was never pliant. Not since his youth in the backwater of West Virginia, when he’d looked at his unenterprising parents and his good-for-nothing older brother and set his mind upon the goals that would save him: education, career, success.

No distraction had been attractive enough to stay him from his course…until Camille.

What a woman.

What a tease.

He focused on her face. The small round face with laughing green eyes. He memorized the shapes her lips made as she prattled on about Paris. He stroked her hand. Suddenly her words were tumbling over each other like upended building blocks. She stopped and caught her lower lip between her teeth, then excused herself to find the ladies’ room.

He stood to watch her legs as she walked away, only to be punched in the solar plexus by a desire so strong it took his breath away.

Where were they going with this? Unmoving amongst the push and pull of the enthusiastic weekend crowd, Daniel took a silent inventory. He was on top of his game—thirty-six, single, gainfully employed in the toughest market in the world. All his goals had been achieved. From here on out, maintenance was the key. He didn’t intend to slack off—ever—but he could finally afford a bit of…recreation.

He wanted Camille for more than a one-night stand. It was only supposition at this point, but he imagined that she might be the kind of woman who’d change his life.

“Good,” he said to himself rather fiercely, and there was such emotion in his voice that the exotic eyes of a young woman with hair like a black satin waterfall lit up with interest. She smiled an invitation, but he had already turned away and seated himself at the small round table, thinking only of Camille. He excelled at narrowing his focus to what mattered most. Tonight the lioness was in his sights.

Feeling less pliant, he removed his cuff links and rolled up his sleeves, then sat back to wait for her return. She didn’t take long. He couldn’t keep the smile off his face as she slid in beside him. Beneath his draped jacket, her body was long and lean in the matte gold dress. A sylph. “I have a humble flat on East Tenth,” he said. “Between First and Second Avenue. It’s not far.”

“Really.” She looked stunned. “The East Village.”

“We can go there,” he explained patiently. “Ah, hmm.”

He took her hand. “Come with me.”

She resisted. Out of sheer feminine contrariness, he supposed, as up to now her signals had been blatant. “Not so fast,” she said, tugging free. “You wanted terms.”

“I don’t remember asking for terms.”

She traced a blunt unpolished fingernail through the hair on his arm above the wide band of his steel wristwatch. “Let’s strike a deal.”

He froze. Was she a professional? Surely not.

Then again, how many men got so lucky without there being qualifications?

He assumed his fiercest analyst’s expression, good for facing down squirrely traders and instilling confidence in wishy-washy clients. “Money,” he suggested, heavy on the dubious connotation. Money was a commodity he valued. Money was both straightforward and negotiable. He valued it less for the lifestyle it bought—although he could appreciate that—than for its clear-cut measure of his success.

He didn’t want this to be a matter of money.

“Money?” Camille’s eyes rolled. “You have got to be kidding. This isn’t a business deal.”

“Then what is it?”

She slid her palm over his forearm, her strong fingers massaging into muscle. He felt the touch deep inside, as if she’d been granted unlimited access to the very heart of him. “It’s pleasure.”

His head inclined. “A pleasure deal?”

“A pleasure game.”

“With terms?”

She nodded. “Let’s keep this straightforward right from the start. Makes for fewer complications later.”

The feeling inside him spread fiery tentacles. As long as there would be a “later,” he’d go along with whatever rules she set. “I’m game,” he said, reaching under the jacket, still thinking about what did or did not lie beneath her dress.

She shifted, momentarily bringing her breast into contact with his hand. It was a perfect handful, firm and round, unbound by a brassiere. Every thought in his head stuttered to a halt until he realized with a jolt that she was only leaning forward to shrug out of his jacket. He removed his hand. As slowly as possible.

She stood and tossed the jacket over his shoulder, pressing down when he started to rise. “Stay here.”

Part of the game? He was ready to toss her on the nearest flat surface, audience be damned.

“But—” he said.

“Not tonight.” She leaned over him. “Tomorrow. Let’s both think this over, decide on terms, and then make a clear-headed decision about continuing.” Her peacock lids blinked. “Tomorrow is soon enough.” He opened his mouth and she plucked at his lips, giving him a soft, supple kiss that set off a few alarm bells in his head. The loose tendrils of her hair brushed his face like cobwebs. “Tomorrow,” she promised.

“But,” he said again, feeling thick and stupid with desire, “I don’t know your name. I don’t know where you—”

“Camille.” Her eyes danced. “Camille Claudel.”

She might have caught him in her web, but that didn’t make him gullible. He grunted. “Camille. Right.”

She flicked the tip of her tongue against his lip, said in a throaty whisper, “Your move, Daniel,” then turned and walked swiftly out of the bar. He stared, the subtle jiggle of her derriere smiting him between the eyes. As the crowd closed around her, he decided with a dead-on certainty that she’d worn not so much as a stitch beneath her dress the whole time. And as badly as he wanted to go after her, he found he could not move. He was stone. Dank, dense stone. His face was hot; sweat beaded on his upper lip.

Eventually his brain began to clear. The jacket slid off his shoulder. He caught it, reaching absently for the fancy silk square that Tamar had folded into the pocket right before they left the office.

The swatch of fabric was pressed beneath his nose before he realized that it wasn’t a pocket square at all. The scent…

Pure enticement.

He lowered his hand, watching in stupefaction as Camille’s tiny silk panties blossomed like a golden lotus across his leaden fingers.

“CAMILLE CLAUDEL,” Tamar said with her usual crisp efficiency the next morning. Daniel always worked on Saturdays, but Tamar did not. She’d met him at the office by personal request. “Lived 1864 to 1943. She was an artist—a sculptor. The apprentice, collaborator and mistress of Rodin.”

“Auguste Rodin,” he said, wishing he’d taken that college course in art history.

“Best known for The Thinker and The Kiss.” Tamar handed him printouts of the famed statues, still warm from the printer. “Rodin, that is. Claudel’s work sank into obscurity until revived by a fairly recent interest. There was a movie, Camille Claudel, starring Isabelle Adjani. Shall I get you the DVD? And the screenplay?”

He was usually thorough to the smallest detail in his research. This once, as the project pertained only to his personal life, such lengths weren’t necessary. He wasn’t evaluating a multinational conglomerate—just outfoxing one naughty little seductress.

“Yes,” he blurted anyway. The stakes were high. He’d barely slept.

And the lioness had dared him to make the next move.

“Tamar?” he asked, stopping her in the doorway. “I hope you enjoyed the party at the restaurant. Did you get home okay?”

Tamar blinked. Since she was so circumspect about her personal life, he’d learned not to ask. “It was fine,” she said, her dark red lips moving in a deliberate manner. “Enjoyable.”

“No hardship to come in this morning?” He studied the photos of Rodin’s sculpture, keeping one eye on his assistant, who was taking too long to answer. “I didn’t disrupt any of your plans for the weekend?”

Her head tilted. “Certainly not.” She waited a beat. “Daniel?”

He looked up. “Yes?”

Tamar didn’t answer, but her right eyebrow rose to Alpine heights. Two times in two days, he’d provoked her into impatience.

“See if you can track down a man called Kensington Webb,” he said, reverting to form. “I believe he’s an art shark. Last night there was a piece of stained glass on display at the restaurant. Get the artist’s name from Webb. And, uh, situation. Any information he’ll provide, in fact. I want—”

“To buy it?”

“No. Maybe.” Not like him to be equivocal. He turned away from Tamar’s frank stare. “Say whatever it takes to get the goods. I want the artist’s address. A phone number, at the least.” He thumbed through the sheets of Camille Claudel’s biography. Her father had been an esteemed figure in French literature. “A bio might be helpful.”

“Yessir.” Tamar’s voice was arch.

He waved the papers at her. “Go on. And shut the door.”

“But of course.” She exited silently, followed by a soft thunk.

Daniel went to the window and its view of the bleak gray canyon of Wall Street. The memory of the lively color and sound of SoHo on a Friday night made him admit that a degree of sameness, even stodginess, had begun to infect his personal life. By concentrating on his climb up the financial ladder, he had neglected other concerns.

Not to say that he was ready for the monastery. He had a social life outside the office. Still, his career dedication seemed to annoy the women Tamar wrote into and then crossed out of his date book. They started out praising his success. After a month or two, they were peeved by his neglect. They wanted weekends in the Hamptons; he wanted to work. They eventually wanted to discuss commitment; he wanted to work.

Success was a fine thing. A regimen of all work and no play was something else. Had he been so determined to avoid ending up like his parents that he’d become a drone instead?

Maybe that was why his reaction to “Camille” had been so volcanic. Or maybe it was only that she’d aroused his primal instincts, then disappeared, setting him off in hot pursuit.

Who was she? He closed his eyes and inhaled, remembering every detail with perfect clarity. The fake name had been only a part of her game, not an escape plan. Surely she knew he’d run her to ground.

Daniel smiled. The lioness had left a small but crucial piece of her lingerie in his possession. If he needed an excuse—and he doubted it—he could always say that he wanted to return the panties.

She would laugh, he knew. Already he relished the thought of it. Her boisterous laugh would be his congratulations for a deed well-done.

Yes, he decided as he swung around to his teakwood desk, I need this.

I need her.

It was nearly a minute before the statement rebounded inside his head.

He needed her? That was new.

He’d learned not to need his parents by the time he was eight. They were well-meaning but essentially useless. Lovable layabouts, going from one menial job to another, doing only enough to pay the rent and put tuna casserole and hot dogs on the table. They had no ambition beyond that which provided a steady stream of cigarettes, Mountain Dew, cable wrestling matches and bingo cards. Purchasing lottery tickets was their lame attempt at bettering themselves. Their sons were treated with benign neglect.

Jesse, the older brother, had gone one route—fast living and easy money, scams and petty crime, occasional jail time. Daniel had gone the other—hard work, long study, strict discipline. All on his own. While his parents had proclaimed their pride in him, they’d also arrived late to his high school valedictory speech because of a flat tire, and had missed his college commencement altogether. Now he visited them once a year, at Christmas. They were always happy to see him, but no more and no less than the check he sent monthly.

Daniel dismissed family connections.

Then…did he need his job? Yes and no. It was completely intertwined with his self-image. Yet he was certain that he could always get another. Probably a better one. He had offers all the time.

So, no, he did not need this job.

He caressed the fine leather that banded his desk blotter, readily admitting to himself that he needed Tamar. They’d been a team since he’d landed at Bairstow & Boone fresh out of Harvard, M.B.A. in hand. She was one or two years his senior—perhaps—of mysterious origins, rarely emotionally forthcoming. But she was an executive assistant extraordinaire—smart, efficient, dependable. Although Daniel’s career could survive without her, he wasn’t eager to test the theory.

Counting Tamar as a friend was trickier. Despite his best attempts, their relationship was mainly a one-way street—certainly not his idea of a proper give-and-take friendship.

None of the guys from the office could be counted as close friends, either. They were co-workers, occasional off-hour buddies. Likewise the tenants in his building: a middle-aged woman who holed up in the third-floor attic apartment, claiming to be a writer; the gay couple on the second floor who used his garden in return for their decorating expertise. Educating Daniel’s eye was their ongoing project.

Daniel liked them all; he did not, even remotely, need them.

But, suddenly, he needed the lioness?

That was definitely new. And a mighty strange sensation.

Particularly as he still didn’t know her name.

With a certain triumph, he thought of the silk panties he’d tucked away in his own underwear drawer for safekeeping. The commingling of their intimate apparel gave him a kick.

And a kick start.

Names were not always necessary.

3

“IT WAS LIKE a fever dream,” Lara said, closing her eyes as the previous evening spun through her thoughts, a series of colorful, blurred pImages** anchored by the dark, solid presence that was Daniel. “Psychedelic. Unreal. I couldn’t grasp it.”

“Bah! You weaseled out.” Bianca Spinelli soaped her hands at the sink in her grand charivari of a kitchen. The walls were chili-pepper-red, the cabinets guacamole-green, the clay tiles on the floor and countertops all the wonderful variegated umber shades of a sunbaked Mother Earth. Folk painting in primary colors formed a border around the room. Numerous pieces of stained glass glittered in the only window. For Lara the gaudiness was both welcoming and inspiring.

“I didn’t weasel out,” she said. “It was—well, it was happening too fast.” She sat on a tipsy stool beside the breakfast bar, on the opposite side of the cheerfully crowded living area that had been fashioned out of the back half of Bianca’s art-glass studio. Double swinging doors divided the front from the back, though not so anyone would notice. The entire space was an unofficial Grand Central Station for every glass artist and creative type on Avenue B.

Lara put a black olive between her front teeth, bit it neatly in half and swallowed the salty pieces whole. Daniel lives in the East Village. Only a few streets away. The coincidence was disturbing, especially after she’d pegged him for the stuffy five-thou-per-month Central Park condominium type. Aware that he was taking shape for her, becoming more than just the prize in a sexual game, she wondered what else there was to discover about him.

“Too fast? Eh. You never were the slow-lane type—” Bianca shot her a sour look “—until recently.”

Lara grimaced. “All right, it’s true. I got scared.” By my own daring…and his.

Wiping her fingers with a napkin, she paused to admire the way she’d arranged an immense platter of antipasto. There were plump mushrooms, eggplant and tomato slices, zucchini flowers and sticks, roasted bell peppers, several varieties of sausage and thick creamy chunks of mozzarella, mortadella and provolone cheese. In addition, she’d sliced up a sweet, juicy melon and started a pan of leftover risotto warming on the stove.

Friends and customers—one and the same, in Bianca’s book—would soon begin dropping in for a nosh, a cup of wine, good conversation or a rousing debate. Mornings were reserved for Bianca’s solo studio time; afternoons, she opened up the shop, taught classes and ran what Lara referred to as either the salon or, for those times when the music was loud and the wine was truly flowing, the cantina.

Bianca had returned to scrubbing her hands free of traces of the chemical solvents used in glasswork. “You see?” she said, shaking her black wavy hair over the sink. “Moving to the upstate wilds has done you no good, Lara. Remember the days when you kept a string of men on call as need demanded? You had no qualms about…um…managing them.”

“Daniel’s different.”

“Oh? How so?”

“He’s a grown-up.” Lara unhooked her feet from the rungs and drew them up so she sat cross-legged, perched atop the stool like a stork. “Me, too. In those good old days you mention, I was newly graduated, ready to take the Manhattan art world by storm, or so I believed. I was young and crazy and rebellious. I thought independence equaled indiscriminate adventure.” In fact, she’d been trying to imitate Bianca, her mentor. “Now that I’m thirty, I’ve outgrown casual sex.” Despite their accelerated attraction, she knew that sex with Daniel would not be casual. It would be cataclysmic.

“A shame.” Bianca grinned. “Casual grown-up sex is even better.” She flung her expressive hands in the air, sending droplets flying. “Dio mio! Until a man is forty, he knows nothing about how to please a woman in bed. You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“I’m not celibate,” Lara argued, laughing. “I just didn’t want to rush. And Daniel’s thirty-six.”

“Bosh. You’re a fool to pass up such chemistry.”

“I have not passed it up. Merely postponed it.”

“Chemistry, chemistry,” Bianca sang, doing vigorous battle with a hand towel. “Good chemistry is like catching lightning in a bottle. Don’t miss out because of this silly game of yours.”

Lara smiled. “Daniel found the game provocative, I’m certain. I did tell you about the surprise I left in his pocket.”

Bianca enjoyed her own laughter so much it was contagious. “Yes, that was good.” She chortled. “And so naughty of you. I’m proud, chica. My Jennifer Lopez dress works every time, even when you insist on wearing it backwards.”

A huge smile broke across Lara’s face. “After that stunt, he’s sure to find me.”

Bianca sobered. “But how?”

“Oh, I’m sure he has resources. He met Kensington, so he might think of asking at the gallery.”

“Would they send him here? Ai-yee, I hope so. This man, I must see.”

“I don’t know. It depends how persistent he is.” Very, she thought. If she knew anything about Daniel, that was it. The intense ray-gun heat of his eyes was not characteristic of a laid-back man. “The gallery doesn’t hand out information to every guy off the street. And I go home tomorrow. Daniel may have to continue the hunt there.”

“The hunt?”

Lara wiggled her hips; the stool rocked. She grabbed the tiled edge of the counter. “Yes. He’s a hunter.”

“And you…?”

“Blame it on the chemistry,” she said with a lick of her lips. “I am dying to be caught.”

“But not encaged, hmm?”

“Nor engaged,” Lara said drolly. Bianca scowled.

Lara squared her shoulders. “You know how I feel about that.” She’d decided early on that she was the go-it-alone type. She couldn’t see subordinating her independent desires for the security of a marriage ring, as her mother and sister had done.

“Lovers, yes. Love, no. Marriage, never.” Bianca leaned her elbows on the breakfast bar, put her chin on her hands and stared broodingly into the spirals of food Lara had arranged in the pattern of a nautilus shell.

Despite the glum expression, Bianca looked as beautiful and exotic as a bird of paradise. Bright clothing, plenty of makeup, gold hoop earrings large enough to touch her shoulders. Lara had been strongly influenced by her mentor’s style and attitude, and was grateful for that. She might have turned out like her sister otherwise.

“Bianca?” she coaxed. “You’ve always agreed that I am smart to guard my freedom.”

“In your experimental twenties, yes.” Bianca pulled on her lower lip. “But one grows up and begins to appreciate the advantages of settling for stability.”

“You’re forty and you haven’t settled.”

“Forty-one. And I have become an old woman.” With a groan, she banged the heel of her palm against her forehead.

“Ha!” Lara had done her best to acquire a portion of Bianca Spinelli’s zest for life. It was a matter of attitude, not age. Of finding your bliss, to be Oprah-ish about it.

“There’s nothing like an energetic eighteen-month-old to make a woman feel ancient,” Bianca said, hoisting her daughter off the floor. She plopped little Rosa into a high chair, buckled her in and scooped a handful of crayons off the floor. “Try the yellow one, cara mia. In this house, we don’t need the dingy old grays and browns.”

Rosa gurgled happily, reaching for the stubby crayons.

“You adore being a mother,” said Lara.

“Of course.” Bianca took a dozen bright blue and pink and green ceramic plates of various sizes from an open cabinet. Nearly every item in her house and studio was colorful and handmade; she bartered with an extensive circle of artsy-craftsy friends. Lara had followed the cue in her own home, though she preferred earthen shades.

Bianca petted her daughter’s curly crop of flame-red hair. “Listen, don’t tell the bambina, but there are nights I miss my club-hopping escapades. My soul still yearns to dance even when my feet are dragging.” Suddenly she picked up Rosa, chair and all, and swung her around the kitchen. Crayons flew. “Once I was Queen of the Discotheque. Now, I dance barefoot in the kitchen with my little bay-bee-yeee!” Rosa giggled in delight.

Lara played along as Bianca danced, laughing and clapping to encourage the frivolity that was so dear to her heart.

Fourteen years ago, she’d wandered into Bianca’s little shop as an aimless teenager, having been harshly disabused of a childish notion that she could become as great a painter as her father. The flamboyant older woman had welcomed Lara with open arms, soothed her wounded pride and started her on a beginner’s pattern of stained glass that very day. The resulting piece was uneven and bumpy and amateurish, yet it still hung in Bianca’s kitchen window. Whereas the crayon drawings Lara had executed at her father’s feet were dissected for line, perspective and color sense, then discarded.

Staggering, Bianca set the high chair beside Lara’s stool. “You see? I’m out of breath.” She put her hands on her hips and bent slightly, panting. “I’ve become an old woman.”

“You need a lover, is all. A new romance would perk you right up again. And soon restore your stamina.”

“A man is easy enough to find.” Bianca waved a hand in casual dismissal. “It’s the reliable baby-sitter that’s a tough get.”

“Ooh-lo-lo,” Rosa burbled. She waved a chubby hand, looking so like her mother despite the Titian hair, that Lara had to plant a kiss on the child’s forehead.

“Ah, the mother’s eternal lament,” she said. “Listen, Bianca, why don’t I stay home tonight with Rosa?” She snapped her fingers for the little girl’s amusement. “You go out and have a good time. The bambina’s stuffy nose seems to have cleared.” Rosa had been congested the evening before, putting the kibosh on their plans to attend the restaurant opening together. For all her casual ways, Bianca was a devoted mother.

“Oh. I don’t know.” Peripherally, Lara glimpsed her friend’s covert calculations. “What about your hunter?” Bianca asked ultracasually.

“He probably won’t show. You may have the entire evening to go out and find yourself a dashing young lover. I doubt it’ll take even that long.” Men of all ages were attracted to Bianca. She oozed a warm sensuality that was like honey to bees.

For a woman who’d just complained about slowing down, Bianca was strangely hesitant to take Lara up on the offer. Lara, guessing why, aimed her knowing smile at the toddler. There had been a time when her mentor was indeed the Queen of the Discotheque. In fact, they’d both taken Manhattan nightlife by storm. Bianca’s single motherhood and Lara’s rededication to her art and the resulting move out of the city had altered them both.

“Unless you’ve already made plans?” Lara cooed at Rosa, abandoning finger snaps for patty-cake.

“No plans.” Bianca spun away. “You know how I feel about being pinned down by schedules. I go where the wind takes me. Rosa was born with a kite string instead of an umbilical cord.”

Lara didn’t let herself be distracted. “What about all that talk of settling and stability?”

“Achh. Did I say that?”

“You did.”

“Then I didn’t mean it.”

“We are both getting older.”

“Mature,” said Bianca, reaching for a bottle of red wine.

“Perhaps you should…” Lara hesitated. How could she convince Bianca it was okay to fall in love and marry when she herself had no intention of doing either? The assurances would be hypocritical, and Bianca would know it. She’d seen Lara through too many gripe sessions about the constriction of women’s role in marriage and the perfidy of husbands to be fooled now.

Bianca pulled a corkscrew out of an earthenware pot. Her glance was sharp. “Perhaps, what?”

Lara swallowed. “You could admit you’re already in—”

The shop doorbell chimed. “Buon giorno!” a male voice with a bad Italian accent called from the storefront, and Bianca’s face lit up like the Rockefeller Plaza Christmas tree. Total admission, Lara thought, if only Bianca had been looking in a mirror to see it.

Eddie Frutt came through the swinging doors, holding a bunch of sunflowers in one hand and a square envelope in the other. A large, shambling, redheaded man, he possessed a rapidly enlarging bald spot that he’d been passing off as a receding hairline for one too many years. Bianca called him Old Baldy, but kissed the top of his head every time she passed his chair on her way to the kitchen.

Eddie, who owned a shoe store across the street, greeted Bianca with a smooch. He did a sloppy Fred Astaire twirl and handed the flowers to Rosa, then waved the envelope at Lara. “I ran into a courier out front. This is for you. I want a hug in return.”

“Of course.” Lara went to him and was enveloped by his big, cushy body and strong arms. He smelled of leather and the peppermints he kept in a brandy snifter by his register. “It’s been too long.”

“Enough, Eduardo,” Bianca complained. “You’re smothering the girl.”

Eddie whispered, “She’s jealous,” to Lara, then stretched out an arm and snared Bianca into the embrace, snuggling them to his chest until Rosa yelled, “Frower!” and smacked her tray with the bouquet. Exclaiming in spicy Italian, Bianca ran to rescue the flowers while Eddie turned aside, muttering over the corkscrew. Amidst the chaos, Lara ended up with the envelope. It was inscribed across the front with her name.

Unsuspecting, she tore it across the flap and took out a plain card with an embossed border. It read, “Tonight.”

And that was all.

Daniel’s face flashed before her. He was smiling in invitation, and his eyes were the color of pussywillows, velvety with seduction. The man was pure temptation. Sex incarnate.

All the blood drained from Lara’s face.

Tonight, she thought, strung taut with anticipation.

One word was enough.

“THERE’S A LIMO,” Eddie Frutt bellowed from the storefront. “A limo for Lara!”

“A limo, a limo for Lara,” echoed the group gathered around the long farmhouse table. The elegant white-haired woman stationed by the bedroom door passed on the word. “Your limo has arrived, Miss Gladstone.” Genevieve peered through her half-moon glasses and gave a small shake of her head, looking appalled. “No. Not the red leather. Try the plain black shoes with the chains. You’ll look like an S and M Holly Golightly.”

“Did Daniel come to the door?” Lara said, hopping on one foot as she changed shoes. Bianca’s bed was occupied with onlookers. Getting Lara ready for her big date had turned into a neighborhood event.

The question was relayed to Eddie, who guarded the front door like a concerned father. The answer made its way back via Genevieve, who had once been an editor at Vogue and now ran a vintage clothing store in Little Italy. With an unerring fashion instinct, she’d supplied Lara’s dress.

“No Daniel. Just the chauffeur.”

“Ooh, a chauffeur,” said one of the gang on the bed. “How bourgeois,” chimed another voice. “But fun,” said a third.

Bianca handed over a silver beaded purse, another loaner since Lara hadn’t come to New York expecting to be swept off her feet. They embraced. Lara said, “You’re sure it’s okay for me to leave after I offered to baby-sit—”

Bianca grabbed her face and smacked a kiss upon both cheeks. “Go. Have a good time.” She pushed Lara toward the door, clearing discarded shoes and trampled scarves with a sweep of her foot. “Gah, I feel just like a mother sending her daughter to the prom!”

A smattering of applause broke out when Lara was paraded through the living space. Eddie enveloped her in another of his big hugs when she reached the studio. “But something’s missing,” he said worriedly, holding her out to look her over. “Little black dress. Gloves. Pearls. Bow in the hair. I know. The sunglasses. I might be balding and middle aged, but I saw Breakfast at Tiffany’s too, ya know.”

“Sunglasses at night? That’s overkill,” Bianca said. “You have no subtlety, Eddie.”

He made a comical face. “Isn’t that the point?”

“I knew it.” Lara tore the silly black silk bow out of her hair, leaving in the rhinestone pins. “We’ve gone over the top.”

“No, no, leave the gloves,” Bianca urged as Lara went out the door, tugging at them.

The chauffeur waited at the curb, holding the door open on a long black limo. Lara stopped. Her stomach did a flip. She turned back to Bianca and Eddie, who were watching arm in arm from the lighted doorway, along with the crowd pressing behind them and up against the studio windows.

I can’t back out with everyone watching, Lara thought, bolstering herself. The front of the glass studio was painted with bright, boisterous graffiti that distracted from the chipped cement and gritty windows. The place was on the shabby side of humble, but it was her safe home in the city, far more comforting than her parent’s expensive town house in Gramercy Park.

“I don’t know this guy from Adam,” she blurted. “I don’t even know his last name. What am I doing, getting into his limo? This is crazy.” She offered up a smile, recognizing the drama. “Crazy, I tell you!”

Eddie’s brows knitted. “Maybe she’s right….”

“Savage, ma’am,” said the driver. “Daniel Savage. I have his address for you. He said you might be concerned.”

“Oh. That was thoughtful of him.” She took the card and stepped over to press it into Bianca’s hand with a hollow laugh. “In case I disappear, you’ll know where to start looking.”

“This is romantic,” Bianca reassured her. “Don’t look so worried.” She pinched one of Eddie’s love handles so he’d stop frowning. “You’re going off with a chauffeur, not a white slaver.”

Lara muttered, “Uh, yeah, thanks for bringing that up,” but she allowed the driver to escort her into the car. It was luxurious, with a tastefully done interior of soft gray leather and burled walnut. As the limo slipped away into traffic, she turned and waved to Bianca and Eddie and all the rest, who were cheering—or jeering, given their individual levels of cynicism—as they watched her go. She stripped off the gloves as soon as she was beyond Bianca’s scope.

All well-equipped limos had ice buckets. In this one, a freshly opened bottle of champagne nestled into a bed of crushed ice. A thin trail of vapor curled from the bottle’s neck, inviting her to partake. Lara reached for the crystal flute, then decided that she was tipsy enough without aid. Tonight she’d need her wits about her.

A florist’s paper cone rested on the seat beside her. She picked it up and peeled back foil and tissue. Calla lilies. Beautiful. They were strong flowers, sleek and smooth and assured.

“Me, too,” she said, stroking a lily, glossy on one side, soft on the other. “For tonight, me too.”

A minute later, she realized that the limo wasn’t leaving the East Village. She’d expected to rendezvous with Daniel at an expensive restaurant, but instead they were pulling up to an area of typical side-by-side row houses, the fronts flushed a rosy gray in the dimming light. The process of gentrification had recently struck. Or possibly stalled out. Most of the houses were nothing special—grimy two-and three-flats, showing their age. Several had been renovated and upgraded with freshly painted trim and handsome matching urns at the stoop.

The limo circled twice, looking for a parking spot. A flotsam of vehicles clogged the streets. Even the illegal spots were taken, though the fire hydrant would soon be clear because one unlucky soul’s car was being towed.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry,” the driver said at last, giving up on his only possibility—six empty feet between an oxidized red Trans Am and a rusty Buick. “I’m going to have to let you out on the street.”

“That’ll do,” Lara said, smiling at her pretentions. So much for Cinderella’s stylish arrival at the ball. “Just point me in the right direction.”

“I’ll do better than that.” Disregarding traffic, he put the limo in park and stepped outside. Lara hurriedly scooted across the seat as horns blared.

“Move the effing car,” yelled a burly, tattooed guy, obviously practiced at leaning on his horn and flipping the bird simultaneously. Not a talent singular to New Yorkers, but one they’d clearly perfected.

Despite the increasing chorus of complaint, the chauffeur insisted on escorting Lara past the trash at the curb and up the steps of her destination. He rang the doorbell, muttered an apology, then raced back to the limo just in time to shoo away a wino with his eye on the silver ice bucket.

Which was why Lara was laughing when the door opened.

Daniel—Daniel Savage, she thought with pleasure—smiled at her, his eyes burnished like pewter in the soft glow of the entry light.

“You came,” he said. “I’m so pleased.”

She sobered, puckering her lips into a flirtatious moue even though she was kinda sorta awestruck inside. “What girl refuses a limo?”

“And you’re so very beautiful,” he continued as if mesmerized, “I think I’m forced to kiss you.”

Her eyes widened, but in the next instant she was in his embrace and his lips were on hers, kissing the pucker right out of them. It happened too fast for her to react. No time to savor the flavor of his warm mouth. No time to absorb the woodsy, masculine scent of him. No time to appreciate the sensation of being pressed against his wide, hard chest.

He kissed her quickly but fully, and then he was drawing her inside the close, dim entry of the brick row house and she was looking around, gaze darting like a chickadee, landing everywhere but on his face. The dark woodwork needed refinishing. A jagged crack ran though the only window—a small, square, stained-glass panel near the door. The limited space was crammed with mailboxes, crumpled takeout flyers, inline skates, hats, jackets and a bike frame that had been stripped of its wheels.

“You live here?” she said, incredulous, his kiss burning on her lips.

“A humble abode, but mine own.” To one side was a long narrow staircase that turned back on itself when it reached the second floor. On the right a door opened off the foyer, emanating light and warmth and cooking smells. Daniel shut the front door and herded her toward the open one. “Let’s take our kisses privately for a change, shall we?”

She arched her brows. “I’m making no promises.” But her body said otherwise. It had reacted instinctively to his.

He put his hand on her shoulder, pausing her at the threshold. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

That’s just it, she thought. I want to do it. I want to do…

She looked into Daniel’s molten eyes. Everything.

“Then no dishes for me,” she joshed, her throat too dry to laugh.

His hand skimmed to her waist. “I never make my guests do dishes.”

“Even if they stay all night?”

“Hmm…” He smiled slightly. “If you’re planning to stay all night, then I guess you can help me.” His mouth lowered to her ear and with a flick of his tongue against her lobe he set her teardrop earrings swinging. “To make the bed.”

She shivered, sliding him a provocative glance beneath lowered lids. “If that’s to be the case, Daniel, I’d much rather help you unmake it.”

4

LARA’S CAPTOR SLIPPED a blindfold over her eyes, instantly turning her titillation to raw vulnerability.

She shifted toward the warmth of the fire, curling tighter, her arms twined over her naked breasts. The sensory deprivation was startling—electrifying. Her pulse drummed in a frantic rhythm. She mustn’t allow this. The man was a stranger. All she knew was his name, and the ease with which he’d seduced her with a long look, a single, coaxing caress.

But she didn’t know if she could trust him.

Was that why she was so excited?

“LARA?” Daniel said, not for the first time. “Your drink?”

She looked at him quickly, dragging her unfocused gaze away from the tame flickering of flames in the gas fireplace. “Yes, thanks,” she said, taking the glass of sherry. His eyes lingered on her face—curious, contemplative, but knowing.

Then he was way ahead of her. She truly had no idea what to expect next. I don’t know him, she thought, finding the lack of familiarity deeply intriguing. He could be anyone. He could do anything.

Exactly.

She smiled to herself as she turned away to survey the modest apartment. It was small, made even smaller by the bookshelves that lined opposite walls of the…library? Living room? She wasn’t sure. There was no window or sofa, only two big, deep armchairs, upholstered in an amber leather so old it was finely crackled and worn at the seams. A pair of starkly modern copper floor lamps, tilted at cranelike angles, were positioned beside the chairs. A nubby rug and a low round table of dark mahogany filmed with dust and stacked with multiple editions of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Garden Design completed the seating arrangement.

She did a double take. Garden Design? Other than a potted orchid constructed with a bamboo trellis and a crinkled tie of raffia, there were no plants in sight. But there was a lot of stuff—running shoes, balled-up socks, an open briefcase, a small terra-cotta urn filled with rocks, a spilled pile of spare change. Camera lenses were scattered over the bookshelves like objets d’art.

Daniel saw her looking. “Maid’s day off,” he said, plucking a pair of fingerless gloves and a roll of masking tape off one of the chairs. “Make yourself at home. Hope you don’t mind clutter.”

She’d pegged him as a neat freak. Wrong again. “Unless you go for minimalist design, it’s hard to keep a small place uncluttered. I know—I lived in a Chelsea broom closet for nearly two years.”

“A broom closet?”

“Seemed like.” The chair creaked beneath her. “How much space do you have?”

Daniel cocked his head to indicate a closed door behind them. “There’s the bedroom and connecting bath. Heading toward the back, we have the dining room slash foyer and kitchen. None of them larger than twelve by fourteen.”

“Then you’re not claustrophobic….”

“One day I might knock down a few walls and convert the building to a single-family living space, but for now I rent out the two upper-floor apartments. I’m a bachelor with modest needs. This suits.”

“You own the building?” And you foresee yourself with a family? she silently added, sipping the smooth sherry to distract herself from a distinct sinking feeling. If Daniel was looking for Miss Right, he’d soon find out she was only Miss Right Now. “Yes.”

Her gaze caught on his hands. She imagined them on her body, on her thighs, opening her with a sure touch. Miss Take Me Right Now.

“I have a country house,” she said. Awkwardly.

“I know.”

“How…”

“Did I track you down?” He leaned back in the chair, his legs, clad in black trousers, outstretched and crossed at the ankles. He looked completely relaxed yet ready to spring into action at her slightest movement.

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