Wild Child Read online

  “What?”

  “Sex.”

  He laughed. “You’re the one who’s been talking it up pretty good so far.”

  Her sigh said it was hopeless. “See—see there. We can’t even have a meaningful conversation. We’re incompatible except for . . . heavy breathing.”

  “And rolling around half-naked in the grass. We’re pretty good at that too.”

  “Blake!”

  He surrendered gallantly. “I’ll make you a deal. There will be no heavy breathing tonight, or anything else that could be construed as sexual. We’ll do something meaningful, if that’s what you want.” He sat on the couch and patted the cushion next to him. “We’ll play a game. Come on over here.”

  Cat remained where she was. “Why am I sure you don’t mean Scrabble.”

  “Secrets. Ever played it? You tell me a secret—something you’ve never told anyone—and then I tell you one. It’s a great way to get to know someone.”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  His eyes turned smoky as he took in her features. “I have this burning desire to brush the tangles out of your hair.”

  She pointed a finger at him. “You promised.”

  “That wasn’t sexual, D’Angelo, that was my secret. Now let’s hear yours.”

  Ten

  “I NEVER PERMIT LIBERTIES to be taken with my hair, Wheeler.” Cat cocked an eyebrow. “Apparently not all of us have learned the lessons of history. You’ve heard of Samson? Marie Antoinette?” She tossed him a “so there” smile.

  Blake looked thoughtful. “If I remember correctly, it was Marie’s head, not her hair—”

  “Same principle.” Cat sat herself on the arm of the sofa nearest her, and this time she tossed him an imaginary ball.

  Blake caught the ball, and her meaning. It was his turn again. “Let’s see. I can balance a pencil on my upper lip for seventy-two and a half seconds.”

  “That’s not a secret.”

  “It is when you hold the city council record, and your toughest opponent is the mayor.” He shot her a wink. “Now you—quick. The game works better when you keep it moving.”

  “Okay, I read palms.” Not exactly true, but she had dreamed of being a fortune-teller when she grew up.

  “Kid stuff,” Blake said, scoffing. “I want to hear about your darkest vices, your demon of demons, the monkey on your back, if you will.”

  “Cheese puffs.”

  “Cheese puffs?” Blake’s double take became an intrigued smile. He lifted his shoulders. “We were made for each other.”

  “What? You too?” She laughed out loud. “You’re kidding! Do you have any? Here? In this house?”

  His eyes shimmered with mischief. “As a matter of fact, I do. Want to negotiate?”

  “You’re low. Wheeler.”

  Blake Wheeler was low. Nothing could convince him to produce the cheese puffs but Cat’s agreement to let him brush the tangles from her hair. And Cat, weak-willed woman that she was, agreed almost immediately. A secret she had neglected to tell him was that having her hair brushed was almost as guilty a pleasure as Ackerman’s.

  Sunk in the plush cushions of the sofa, she knew at the first touch of his fingers that she was in trouble. The man’s hands! Telepathic. Finally, sighing at her fate, she let him do what he would with her hopelessly tangled mane of mahogany.

  He sat behind her on the sofa back, armed with an antique hairbrush and a breathtakingly light touch. A man of seemingly infinite patience, he eased the worst tangles out, then he gradually increased the pressure until the brush was gliding the full length of her tresses in long, endless strokes.

  “You’ve got good hair,” he said, scooping it up from her neck and lifting the silky weight of it in his hands. “A man could die happy with this streaming over his chest.”

  “Don’t start, Wheeler,” she warned, her voice grainy.

  Cat could hardly believe what was happening to her heart as he worked and sifted through her hair. His ministrations were heaven. His long fingers were melting her neck muscles to warm syrup, and the gentle rake of the horsehair bristles against her scalp was tingly and sensual.

  It stimulated nerves in the oddest places, including the inside of her elbows and the slightly ticklish area just below her ribcage. Sometimes she felt the sensations on the surface of her skin, and sometimes they were inside, and slower, like warm fingers caressing her.

  Seduction by hairbrush, she thought, closing her eyes. Lord, it was good. How long had it been since a man had brushed her hair? Never, she realized with a start. Not like this. No man had ever cared for her like this.

  He set the brush down finally, but he wasn’t through with her. Each butterfly touch of his fingers on her temples and nape was wickedly pleasurable. “What are you doing now?” she murmured.

  “Just locating your pressure points. Relax.”

  Relax? She was so limp with pleasure by the time he located the pressure points behind her earlobes that she came dangerously close to suggesting they forget their agreement and go for another roll in the grass.

  If Blake saw the desire in her eyes, he didn’t act on it.

  “You need a bath, D’Angelo,” he said, rubbing a smudge from her chin. “I’ll run the water.”

  “We have an agreement—” It was a puny protest.

  All he did was smile. “I said I’d run the bath, D’Angelo. Not give you one.”

  Moments later, Cat was soaking in an antique, claw-footed bathtub full of lilac-scented water. She relaxed with a deep sigh and promised herself that when she had finished the bath—and the cheese puffs—she would go home.

  The languid movement of the water was hypnotic, and she was drifting off when a buzzing sound roused her. Blake’s voice, low and amused, came through the static. “I’ve got a special going on back scrubs,” he said. “Interested?”

  “Where are you?” She scanned the room and spotted an intercom grid next to the medicine cabinet mirror.

  The door opened a moment later. “I’m right here,” he said, looking casually devastating in pale blue jeans that rode low on his hips. He wore nothing else, no shirt, no shoes. His body hair was still damp from the shower he must have just taken, and burnished gold ringlets clung to the flare of his pectoral muscles and made a dizzying V down his belly. Physically, he was everything she’d ever dreamt of. And much, much more than she could handle.

  Staring at him, she realized suddenly why being in his home was so threatening. He’d been a phantom in the park, muted by shadows, a demon lover. Now he was real—warm flesh, hot blood, a man in virile, living color.

  “Back scrub time,” he said, displaying his hands to her, front and back. “These have been known to bring prayers to the lips of nuns.”

  Her laughter was soft and despairing. “I can believe that.”

  Moments later he was lathering her shoulders with slow, circling strokes. “I used to fantasize about this when I was a kid,” he said.

  “About scrubbing backs?”

  “No.” He dipped into the water and brought up a palmful, letting it stream down her shoulders. “About being the water in a woman’s bath. That way I’d get to touch and taste her everywhere.” He bent toward her and pressed his lips to her hair. “I was a horny little kid.”

  The water in her bath? Cat was instantly and acutely aware of her own body and the way the water caressed her. Everywhere. The sensations against her skin were breathtaking. She sank down protectively and liquid warmth sluiced through her thighs. Eddying rivulets welled in the curve of her belly and crested on the arc of her hipbones. The water touched her in all of the intimate places that a lover would. It was meltingly sensual. Silky ripples kissed her breasts and sent radiating thrills of excitement through her.

  “You’re shivering,” he said. “Are you cold?”

  “No,” she laughed weakly, “quite the opposite. Do that thing you mentioned, would you?”

  “What thing?”

  “Touch me, taste me . . . everywhe
re.”

  Cat had never been touched so exquisitely.

  Blake handled her as though she was breakable, a woman made of the most delicate Dresden. He dried her with fluffy towels and carried her off to his bed where ebony sheets flowed around her in cool spill streams of silk. He murmured to her and caressed her, feathering her eyebrows and the bridge of her nose and her parted lips. He drifted long fingers over her palms, then laced them though her fingers, drawing them up and down, in and out. Slowly, sensually, he stroked the insides of her wrists and elbows until she could hardly breathe for the pleasure.

  “Blake . . . if you don’t stop soon, there’ll be nothing left of me but a warm puddle.”

  His answer to that was to drop dreamy kisses along the side swells of her breasts. When he found the sensitive spot below her ribcage, and Cat told him she was ticklish there, he blew gently on the area, a slow draught of air that bathed her in warmth and the minty scent of his breath. It felt so light and exquisite, she invented several more ticklish spots. He obliged her, tracing her skin with jets so deliciously sensual, she melted under them like warm caramel.

  And finally, when she asked him if he was ever going to make love to her, he shocked her sweetly with his answer.

  “Not tonight,” he said, drawing her into his arms. “I made you a promise, remember?”

  He kissed the fluttery pulse at her temple and gathered her into the warmth of his embrace as though that was all he would ever need. Her, close. Cat was touched, shaken clear through to her heart. It was almost as though he knew that even though she’d asked for sex, what she really needed was to be cared for.

  It rained during the night. Cat awoke once to a fresh spring shower drenching the windowpane and rinsing clean the countryside. It was dawn when Blake woke her next. He smiled down on her, all golden and tousled, still drowsy with sleep. He made her heart ache, he was so beautiful to her eyes. So male and sexy and artlessly arousing.

  Moments later they were making slow, poignantly sweet love as the sun broke over the hills and the birds chirped and splashed in mud puddles outside the window.

  It was a languorous odyssey, their lovemaking, as dreamy as the mists that hung over the bay. Blake pleasured her as tenderly as he had the night before, then took the time to show her what gave him pleasure. He was a large man in other places than just his hands, and Cat felt a sharp thrill of excitement as he guided her fingers over his muscular contours. When at last he led her to the searing hardness between his legs, she swallowed a gasp.

  He shuddered as she took him in her hand.

  A short time later, lodged deeply inside her, he exhaled a male groan of pleasure. “I may never move again,” he told her. “This is where I want to stay forever.”

  She softened with a flush of sexual need. “Oh, you have to move . . . a little . . . eventually.”

  “I do?” He laughed. “How? Like this?”

  His body didn’t buck, but she felt the muscles of his thighs tighten, felt him stir inside her, deeply, rapturously.

  It set her aflame.

  She tightened and sighed, gripping his naked hips and sinking her fingertips into his flesh as he took her down the path of fire. Sweet fire. She cried out at the moment of release, tears in her eyes, her feelings so piercingly tender, her heart so crazy with life and love that it frightened her.

  Afterward, long afterward, when he left her to find them some sustenance in the kitchen, she went to the window and stared out at the drizzly, sun-misted world. She folded her arms and acknowledged the rainbow arcing over the bay with a smile. It was beautiful enough to nurture dreams in a girl’s heart. Dreams of the right man, togetherness, happily ever after.

  Her heart wavered. Her smile turned poignant.

  Lord, she was coming down with a bad case of hope.

  She turned her attention to the birds fluttering in the puddles and waited for the dangerous feelings to leave. The truth was she wanted all those things, happiness, togetherness. With him. No wonder she was scared. Some things were too good to be true. Some things were too good even to be imagined.

  Beyond that there was the problem of what had happened between them in the last twenty-four hours. The park encounter was too wild and reckless by far. This morning, too sweet. She lost some part of herself when she was with Blake, some vital element of control. She felt and thought things that would have been inconceivable even a week ago.

  He set down a tray of rolls and coffee when he came back into the room. “Am I interrupting something?” he asked, coming up behind her and encircling her waist.

  She turned in his arms. “Blake, we have to talk about this thing that’s happening between us.”

  “This thing, as you call it, is beautiful.”

  “Yes, okay, but what are we going to do about it?”

  “You’re going to stay with me, here.”

  “Here? What do you mean?”

  “The weekend. Cat, just the weekend.”

  “And then?”

  “We’ll play it by ear.”

  She couldn’t fathom his calm. She loved it, but she couldn’t fathom it. “But aren’t you frightened, Blake? Doesn’t this scare you at all?”

  His brows knit quizzically. With an unexpected wrench of despair she wondered if maybe he wasn’t feeling any of this as deeply as she was. That thought was too distressing to pursue, and she quickly turned to another line of reasoning. “They’re going to talk, Blake. The political bigwigs, even the people—your constituency. They’re not going to like this at all.”

  “Let them talk.”

  Cat shook her head. He didn’t seem to understand what they were up against. Finally she realized she would have to tell him what she’d overheard at the fund-raiser. “There’s something you need to know. It involves Sam Delahunt.”

  She recounted the humiliating story with great difficulty, unable to completely curb the bitterness in her voice as she finished. “So, of course, they assumed you’d drop me once you’d—taken me to bed.”

  Blake’s reaction was swift and furious. He left her at the window and cut across the room. “I’ll put a stop to that. I’ll tell Sam what he can damn well do with his campaign.”

  There was a phone on the nightstand. He picked it up and began to punch out buttons.

  “Blake!”

  She talked him out of his anger with some effort, appealing to his lawyerly side, finally persuading him with the irrefutable logic of simple prudence. “There’s too much to lose,” she explained. “Your political future, our credibility in this pretrial hearing with Johnny.”

  Finally he promised he wouldn’t do anything drastic, for everyone’s sake. And then he turned the tables on her. It took him the best part of the morning to convince her to stay the rest of the weekend, but when at last Cat agreed, she did it unreservedly. She would go for broke, she decided. She would ride the express train she’d boarded to the end of the track. At least for the weekend.

  They turned out to be two of the most wonderful days of Cat’s life. She walked with Blake on the rock-studded beach and they waded in the icy Alaskan currents of the bay. They fished for silver salmon and steamed the five-pounder they caught to mouthwatering perfection in a seaweed-lined pit in the sand. And of course, they made mad, passionate love and ate cheese puffs.

  Cat D’Angelo was a happy woman. She’d never felt more blissfully starry-eyed and replete with the goodness of life. It wouldn’t have taken much to convince her that she was living out a fairy tale: Cinderella and the Prince, or maybe Sleeping Beauty. Whichever fable it was, it was over too quickly. Sunday night came, and she didn’t want to go. She was convinced that the magic would be over the minute she left the compound. Over and irretrievable.

  Blake was wonderfully reassuring, even about the prospect of dealing with the slings and arrows of Sam Delahunt and his cronies.

  “Everything’s going to be all right, Cat,” he told her, swaying gently with her in his arms. “I won’t string Sam Delahunt up by his
ankles because you asked me not to. But I promise you this, nobody’s going to hurt you—or us. I won’t let that happen.”

  Safe in his arms, Cat absorbed his passionate promises. Oddly though, what resonated in her mind was a flicker of something deeper she’d seen in his expression several times over the last two days. He looked very much like a man reflecting on the quality of his life, perhaps even meditating on his needs. Needs, yes. She wanted to think it was that.

  He drove her home, and beyond the low jazz beat coming from the car stereo, it was a silent, reflective ride. Cat found herself wondering about Blake’s early years and the peculiar nature of his deprivations. Peculiar because it was odd for her to think of a Wheeler as deprived. Still, there weren’t too many other explanations for the driving hunger of the younger Blake Wheeler. He’d been opportunistic, even ruthless. Her training had taught her that both could be symptoms of emotional deprivation. Those who craved glory were often in need of something else. Love? Acceptance?

  As he pulled up in front of the Kirkpatricks’ place, she wondered if Blake would ever be able to find what he sought outside of his career. She hoped the promises he’d made that night weren’t just idle words. She wanted badly to believe that he wouldn’t let anything hurt them.

  Please, she thought, let him mean it.

  Blake hadn’t even finished his first cup of coffee before Linda paid him a visit Monday morning.

  She walked straight to the chair across from his desk, sat, and stared at him for several seconds before she spoke. “In the park, Blake? Really, couldn’t you have waited until you got her home?”

  Blake exhaled slowly. “How did you hear about it?”

  “My esteemed colleagues in the public defender’s office.” She waved a hand toward his window. “But you could walk out there on the street and ask anyone. It’s all over town.”

  “I guess good news travels fast.”

  “Sweetie”—she leaned forward, real concern in her eyes—“what are you trying to do? If this is a fling you’re having, I hope it’s good and flung, because you’re in hot water. Daddy’s not very happy—”