Can’t Say No

Chapter Ten

Talk, talk, talk. Bree had never met a man who talked as much as Hart did. From the moment she met him, there’d been only one way to shut him up. With her arms loosely around his neck, she pressed a kiss on his mouth, effectively ending his incessant, annoying chatter.

Whom do you think you’re fooling? Bree, you’re in trouble again, warned a small voice in her head. She banished the voice. As he carried her down the dark hall, her lips nuzzled his neck, trailing up so that her teeth could gently nip at his ear. Eyes closed, she let her fingers grope for the buttons on his shirt.

Hart chuckled, murmuring something approving she didn’t quite hear, and then bent down to sink smooth, warm lips onto hers. They had to stop then, because Hart leaned back against the wall, and when the kiss was over his breathing was different and his pace had quickened toward the bedroom.

Her heart picked up a murmur en route. A love murmur. If Hart thought he’d distracted her into this seduction, he was completely mistaken. She was being pushed into nothing. She knew damn well she was asking to be hurt-getting oneself involved with a womanizer wasn’t wise; he’d never seriously talked about anything permanent and undoubtedly had nothing more than a summer fling in mind. Tough. He made her laugh; he made her feel like screaming; he made her throw things; he made her feel alive, and every nerve ending now pulsed with wanting him.

But to toss out a whole lifetime of sane, rational behavior for one wild fling at love? Yes, murmured the exuberant voice in her head. Yes yes yes. What choices do you have beyond going back to being dependable old Bree again in a few more weeks? This is your chance. Hart seems to take for granted that you’re an uninhibited wanton who throws caution to the wind. Be that wildly passionate woman, just once; be wanton, just once. There’ll never be anyone like Hart in your life again…

She meant the words, she felt the emotions, she ached with the richness of freedom released in her soul…but all of her bravery dissipated in the doorway to the bedroom. Hart paused, suddenly looking down at her with dark, too-far-seeing eyes. “What’s wrong?” he whispered.

“Nothing’s wrong.” How could he have noticed that tiny lick of tension in her spine?

“Something is.” Still carrying her, he nudged her cheek with his when she tried to duck her head.

“I was just worrying that you were going to break your neck, toting me around like this.”

“Bree.” There was a lot of gentle scolding in that single syllable.

She lowered her eyes, leaning her cheek to his shoulder. “Could we…” She hesitated. “Hart, could we go somewhere else? Please?”

“You mean, somewhere besides the bedroom?”

“It’s just…king-size beds and satin sheets…it’s not my thing. I feel…” She hesitated again.

“Silly?”

She let out a breath and gave a half smile. “Inhibited,” she confessed with embarrassment. He undoubtedly did this with dozens of women. That was, of course, his prerogative, but that bedroom made her think of his dozens of other women.

“Inhibited? That’ll be a cold day in hell.”

“Hart,” she reproved.

Slowly, he released her until her feet touched the floor, but he didn’t let her go. Thoughtfully, he brushed her hair from her face and smoothed one fingertip over her cheek in a soft, silent caress. Gently, he leaned his forehead to hers. “Honey. I bought those sheets the day before yesterday. To seduce you on.”

“Oh.”

“They’re slippery, I discovered last night. So slippery they make the pillows skim onto the floor as if they’re on a toboggan run. They’re also cold. Takes forever for a body to warm them up. Even so…”

“You want to try them?”

His lips just touched her forehead, and his voice came out languid and slow. “The kitchen table’s fine by me, honey. So is right here on the hall carpet. I thought the lady might feel…luxurious. Pampered. You need some pampering, Bree.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

She sighed. Knowing Hart, he’d argue all night. “But the…”

“Water bed? Great for a bad back, but one does get the feeling that isn’t why the owner put it in.” Hart pulled her arms back up around his neck, and then dipped his head to nuzzle the curve of her shoulder. “You think I’ve set up a swinging singles scene in there, honey. Won’t wash. I just rented the place, and I outgrew one-night stands about ten years ago. Traveling-alone-can be the loneliest life there is.”

Hart’s eyes pinned hers, a dark blue that was fathomless and intense. There was a gravity to his features that begged her to trust, to believe. With a small smile, she touched her finger to his lips. “Hart, you’re totally destroying the decadent image you’ve built up.”

For once Hart didn’t smile back. “And is that an image you want, Bree?”

She stared up at him in confusion.

“I think it is,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what hurt you so badly, honey, but I think you’ve convinced yourself that all you want is a wild, free affair. A fling where there are no consequences and you only have to open up your heart so far…You’re wrong, Bree. You’re wrong as hell. But if that’s all you’re looking for, I’ll be damned if you’ll have that affair with anyone else.”

“Hart…” He was implying she was using him, and he was wrong, terribly wrong. Surely he was wrong. Hart was the one who had a harem; Bree had never been capricious. Hart had made all the first moves, never Bree. And he was the one who’d deliberately built up the decadent image…but it was a fraud; she saw now just how much of a fabrication that was. Uncertain green eyes fluttered up to his. “Look, I never…”

“Don’t talk,” he murmured. “Talk’s never as honest as touch. If you want wild, believe me I can give you wild, honey…” His mouth stole closer, and when he claimed her lips he never once let them go.

Thunder exploded in the night, and Bree instinctively curled closer to Hart’s warm body. The clock next to her ticked past three. Raindrops gushed down the windowpanes; swords of lightning dueled in the darkness outside.

She couldn’t sleep.

The pillows were on the floor. They’d slid there hours before; the satin sheets were just as slippery as Hart had said. Beneath her, the bed cradled the two of them in a cocoon of warmth and softness, and every once in a while she could see the reflection of lightning on the full-length mirror by the bed.

She kept staring at that mirror, seeing images in it that weren’t there. Images of Hart poised over her, his body dark gold and damp, the rhythm of his limbs as he made love to her. Her own image, with her throat arched back, her breasts raised brazenly for his touch; the image of a stranger, a beautifully sensual woman with slumberous eyes and a sleek, proud body, who twined around her mate with all the primitive desire of an Eve.

She’d never meant to look in the mirror, any more than she’d meant to enjoy the satin sheets. She’d felt somewhat inhibited at first, her tension sparked by Hart’s disturbing words. Only he’d stripped off her clothes and never given her the chance to think, and these…sensations…had just kept coming. And it wasn’t the sensuality of satin that set it off; it was the sensuality of the man. Hart, so fiercely passionate, teasing her and whispering and coaxing…

So beautiful. Whenever he touched her she felt so incredibly beautiful, and she wanted to say, This really isn’t me, you know, Hart. It just happens when I’m with you…

A warm palm suddenly slid under her arm, over her ribs and behind her, very sneakily, making her smile in the darkness. “Still not sleepy?” Hart scolded groggily. “Not nightmares, though, Bree?”

“Not nightmares at all,” she affirmed, and snuggled closer.

“We’ve lost our pillows.”

She chuckled softly. “You warned me about the satin sheets.”

His palm made slow concentric circles on her spine, and only gradually moved up to sift through her hair. “The lady liked the satin sheets,” he said with satisfaction. “She also liked the mirror.”

“She never looked.”

“Oh, yes, she did.” Even in the darkness, she could see the crooked smile on his lips as he leaned up on one elbow. His eyes were luminous, and suddenly there was no smile. “You trust me, Bree, did you know that?”

She parted her lips, but said nothing.

“Trust isn’t a measure of how long and how well you’ve known someone. It’s an instinct. You could have kicked me out of the cabin that first time, Bree. You could have stopped me from making love to you with a single word. Several times I made you very, very angry, but your trust was still there. We didn’t have sex, honey-we didn’t even make love.” He bent over to kiss her forehead, then her lips. “We touched the stars. A woman doesn’t give that way unless there’s a very special trust.”

“I never said I didn’t trust you,” she countered softly.

“You didn’t have to.” His thumb rubbed the edge of her bottom lip. “I want to know about your nightmares,” he said quietly. “I want to know about the haunted look that sometimes comes into your eyes. I want to know what happened that was so terrible you couldn’t talk about it. Can you trust out loud yet, Bree?”

She didn’t answer. There was a foolish lump in her throat, and her eyes blurred with the faintest glistening of tears. She couldn’t tell him about Gram; she couldn’t tell anyone about Gram, but she felt like shouting that she’d given him more than she’d given any other man. Wasn’t it enough?

He wanted too much; from the beginning he’d wanted too much. And even if she could have told him about Gram…she had to draw a line somewhere. She’d never shared her feelings easily; with Hart she felt more vulnerable than she’d ever felt before, and Hart’s nature was so clearly to capture and claim and possess…but when he moved on? When she had to go back to being “just Bree” again? “Dammit, what do you want from me?” she said.

“Watch,” he answered. His eyes gleamed down at her for just a moment before the magic started again. He seduced, with lips and tongue and the stroke of his hands. Not again, she was so sure it couldn’t happen again, but layers of civilized inhibitions seemed to peel off in that velvet darkness; the sheer power of woman rose up in her like a devilish fire.

Thunder crashed outside; wind whipped leaves against the windows. The darkness held mystery. Hart’s eyes refused to close, holding hers, even as his hands molded her breasts, slid down the warm flesh of her stomach and cupped that core of mysterious yearning within her.

Almost against her will, her own hands grew bolder. Her legs wound around him; she rubbed against him, and her lips started a ceaseless whispered trail everywhere she could reach, on his shoulders and arms, on his throat and chest, up to his lips. Such a terrible, restless heat; her body was very warm, yet the sheets were cool beneath her, cool and slippery.

“Now,” she murmured. “Please, now, Hart…” What was he waiting for?

“You want me inside you?”

“Yes.”

“Then show me,” he whispered. “Show me, Bree.” Languidly, he shifted both of them, until she was no longer beneath him but on top. “Make love to me.” He raised his head to reclaim her swollen mouth; the kiss was fierce, and his hands glided down the length of her in urgent encouragement.

Still, she felt swamped by a terrible feeling of inadequacy. She would die before she failed Hart as a lover. “I haven’t…” she whispered awkwardly.

“Show me what you want, Bree. It’s so easy. So easy to love, honey. Just reach out…”

Go after what you want. It was what he’d always said; something she’d always found so terribly hard to do, and she’d never been assertive in loving. He refused to understand how difficult it was for her. Instead, he kept murmuring encouragements she could barely hear, promising her wonderful, terrible things, and with long, soothing strokes he coaxed her body to perch over his, until she could no longer stand the long, torturous teasing. She took him inside her, trembling like a leaf, feeling the first promised rush of release as her thighs enfolded him, the hollow of her filled.

As a reward, Hart leaned forward to softly lap at her breasts, his hands cradling her hips. She went still then, content to have him take over again, but he whispered, “I’m right here with you. Go with the fire, Bree-don’t you dare stop now.”

He kept saying her name and his hands were everywhere, on her hips, on her breasts, and she started the ancient rhythm because…she had to. Because Hart’s whole body vibrated with need and because there was something incredibly exciting in watching him take fire when she moved, when she tightened her limbs just so, when he made it so very clear that she was doing everything…right.

A once-shy Bree turned exultant, bold, learning how to please him, testing the rhythms that made his eyes darken and his hips tense and his hands move restlessly over her flesh. His body was hers, for this hour. He belonged to her, and that was a heady, sweet power, purely feminine, deliciously exhilarating. She was loving him, not being loved, and for that instant it was utterly, totally enough in itself. Then, in the lushness of giving, her thighs suddenly tightened around him and her spine arched back and a sweet shower of silver flooded everywhere, within, without, all over.

Moments later, Hart tugged her down to collapse against him. His breathing was still rough, as was hers; their bodies were damp and warm. “You asked me,” he murmured, “what I wanted from you, Bree. Just that, love. For you to see, for you to shout it, that you’re a beautiful, passionate woman, capable of unbelievable giving, strong enough to demand what she wants in her life as well. Look at you,” he whispered.

She curled around him and snuggled to his chest, replete and exhausted and ignoring his utterly foolish demand. She loved him so much she hurt.

“You can stop grinning at me as if you’d won a war,” Bree scolded.

Hart lifted the spoon from his Corn Flakes bowl and wagged it at her like a finger. He hadn’t shaved, and in between the blond layers of stubble on his chin was an extremely smug grin that had been there ever since they’d awakened that mor-afternoon. “Eat your cereal, sexy. Heaven knows you burned up enough calories last night. You need your strength.”

Bree sputtered mentally, but not for long. What was the use? Hart had probably been born irreverent. Digging into her Corn Flakes, she passed him the front section of the morning paper, and buried her smile behind the lifestyle section.

Truth was, she felt the silly urge to sing this mor-afternoon. Turn cartwheels. Skydive. The mood was irrational, but there it was. Under the kitchen table, she crossed her bare feet, lifted them comfortably onto Hart’s lap and turned the page.

Hart finished his cereal. He reached for his coffee with one hand, while his other palm stole under the table to stroke her bare instep. Ticklish, she squirmed, scowling over the top of the paper at him. Hart refused to be restful this morning.

“Where we going for dinner tonight?” he asked her.

She blinked. “I wasn’t aware we were going anywhere.”

“Certainly we are. I had in mind a little steak cooked by the pond, around six. I’ll bring the steak, you bring the marshmallows.”

Unreasonably disappointed that he wasn’t proposing anything for the afternoon, Bree nodded. “All right.”

Hart chuckled. “You’re slipping, honey.”

“Pardon?”

“Even two days ago, you were still on the get-out-of-my-life kick. Do I sense a slight mellowing in your attitude?” There was a peculiarly intense light in his eyes in spite of his lazy drawl; she couldn’t read it.

Bree shrugged, returning to the paper. “I admit you’ve kind of grown on me.” Green eyes twinkled at him. “Kind of like a fungus.” Hart slid his nail down the bottom of her foot. Bree jerked, bumped her knee under the table, reclaimed both limbs and tucked them safely under her chair. “A more-trouble-than-you’re-worth fungus,” she said darkly.

He leaned both elbows on the table. “But you weren’t quite so nervous waking up next to me this morning. Notice that?”

“Do you really want an answer to that?” Swinging out of the chair, she reached for the breakfast dishes. Before she’d even carried them to the sink, he was behind her, deftly stealing the bowls from her hands and swinging her around.

“I really hate to say this,” he whispered, “but I think I’m getting through to the lady.”

“You are,” she agreed, and perched up on tiptoe to kiss him.

Her action seemed to take him back, for the brooding midnight darkness left his eyes and a crooked smile touched his mouth. “What was that for?” He sounded just the slightest bit wary, as though he’d just opened Pandora’s box and wasn’t sure what the contents were going to be.

“Honesty, Hart,” she said softly. Sincerity shone out in the vulnerability in her clear eyes. “You drive me nuts,” she admitted, “but you’ve also done something special for me. You are someone special to me. I’m not holding you to anything, Hart, I want you to understand that. You’re perfectly free when you want to be free.”

His smile abruptly died. “You’re a failure,” he murmured, “at playing it light and breezy, Bree. Don’t try.”

At the cabin, just before six, she was still trying. Her emerald-green blouse was tied at the ribs; white jeans led down to a frivolous pair of green sandals; and her hair was pulled back with cheerful green yarns. “Light and breezy” was the message-she even applied mascara with a light and breezy touch, which made the black stuff smudge all over her eyes.

Muttering darkly, Bree wiped off her smile and then the smudges, starting over again with her makeup. The crooked mirror in the loft didn’t help, mostly because it inevitably made one cheek look higher than the other, and she was fairly sure she wasn’t made that way. Picnic-type dinners didn’t call for a lot of makeup anyway, which was why she was careful to use every effective brand in her drawer, but so imperceptibly that Hart wouldn’t notice.

She didn’t want him to think she cared; she just wanted to look devastatingly casual.

Finishing up with blusher, she pulled the throat of her blouse open and generously splashed her chest with the most wicked perfume she’d created yet. Heck, the smell would dissipate in the open air anyway. Light and breezy, she echoed, as she stepped back and regarded her image in the mirror.

No good. The lady in the mirror had her heart in her eyes. Bree practiced another fake devil-may-care smile. So she adored the man. So what? So in time she would go back home like good, responsible Bree, and he would return to his harem on the hill. The trick was not to take it all too seriously, just to get into this business of having a wild affair and simply enjoy. Hundreds of women did it all the time.

A fine philosophy for a hedonist. By nature, she’d never been much of a hedonist. “You’re on the way to getting hurt very badly,” she scolded the braless gypsy in the mirror.

The gypsy practiced a careless shrug. Oh, stop it, Bree.

But Bree didn’t want to stop it. The screw that had snuck loose when Gram died? She’d tighten it up in time; she’d go back and dust her apartment and pay her bills and find a nine-to-five job and behave herself again. But not yet. Her heart thumped helplessly in her chest when she heard the rap on the door downstairs.

After running the brush through her hair one last time, she skipped down the stairs. Grabbing the bag of marshmallows from the counter, she opened the door with a winsome grin of anticipation that abruptly died.

Hart was on her doorstep, but not alone. Next to him stood Marie, her one-time boss, dressed in a simple sharkskin dress and white sandals, her blond hair sleekly pinned in a French coil. Marie was not beautiful and never would be, but she carried off the image of a self-sufficient, independent woman without effort. Because she was one.

Bree promptly felt as underdressed as an orphan. Her eyes whipped up to Hart. In navy cotton cords with a stark white shirt, he dwarfed both of them. He was looking at Marie, and they were both laughing so hard that neither of them had heard her open the door.

A sock in the gut would have been kinder.

Bree knew Marie…so well. Just as Marie had been very good at stuffing Bree in the back office for the past five years, she was an expert at taking the limelight herself. Since Bree hated limelight and had always acknowledged Marie’s unquestionably effective skills with people, for a very long time they had gotten on remarkably well. Even after Bree had handed in her resignation, there were no hard feelings between them. Bree’s boss used her, yes, but the only fault had been in Bree, for letting that happen. Marie couldn’t help who she was.

And Marie was unquestionably a self-assured, successful woman. Exactly the type that Hart had said appealed to him when they first met. Really, Bree thought brightly, Hart and Marie were a natural pair, a matched set. It was amazing that she’d ever thought he could be permanently attracted to anyone as serious and unflamboyant as good old Bree…

“Bree!” Marie turned with a startled little laugh and threw her arms around Bree in an exuberant hug. “Surprised?”

“I-yes.” Total shock was sort of a synonym for surprise, wasn’t it?

“Your dad called me yesterday, and when I heard you had your speech back, I just couldn’t resist coming! I knew you never meant to resign, Bree. You weren’t yourself, and I was just so glad that things have turned out all right for you again.” She nodded with a special smile for Hart. “I was just telling this neighbor of yours that I’d planned to take you out to dinner, so we could talk. I can’t stay-my return flight’s at midnight, and Hart says he knows this little restaurant-”

“Fine.” Bree smiled brilliantly. The sensations were all familiar, being squeezed into Marie’s self-imposed schedules.

“I was just telling him that you’re the best systems analyst in the business. And that I had to be half to blame for your taking off to this godforsaken place. You were working too hard, Bree, and I’m totally responsible for giving you a workload the size of a mountain…” Marie, turning, slipped on the wooden step.

Hart grabbed her arm. Bree’s eyes were fixed on Hart’s long brown fingers clutching Marie’s white sleeve, on the fluttering smile Marie cocked up at him, on the closeness of their two bodies and the late-afternoon sun pouring down on them. “It’s a little rustic for me around here,” Marie admitted with a little laugh to Hart. “I have to admit that I’m strictly an indoor-sports enthusiast.”

Ah, yes, Bree thought bleakly, feeling like a reluctant third as they headed for Hart’s rented Lexus. It hadn’t taken long for Marie to fall. Around Hart, it wouldn’t take any woman long to fall.

And Hart wasn’t fighting it very hard, if he’d already decided on a restaurant, if they were already on a comfortable first-name basis, if they’d been laughing like old friends after only a few minutes’ acquaintance.

“The steaks will wait for another night,” Hart murmured as he handed Bree into the car. She glanced up once at him, to glimpse a cool, unfathomable expression in his eyes that she’d never seen before. “Systems analyst, is it?” he muttered. “I’m just beginning to realize what else you were stingy about telling me. You had quite a boss, didn’t you, Bree?”

Bree ducked her head, feeling miserable. He didn’t have to say it.

“…but I wouldn’t miss this evening for the world. Get in, talkative Charlie. Let’s find out what else you haven’t told me.” The car door shut resoundingly in her ear.

Bree turned to Marie with a smile that was beginning to feel glued on. Hart was irritated with her-she didn’t have the least idea why. Marie was clearly unworried by Bree’s presence as a third party. Bree understood very clearly why-she had never been competition for Marie.

A trip to the Yukon seemed preferable to the evening ahead. Heck, Bree thought wildly, why get picky? She’d settle for Antarctica.