"Yeah, I know. You don"t need anybody."
"I"m glad you finally got the message. Now you can stop pestering me all the time."
"You don"t like my company?"
"Not particularly. You"re overbearing. I don"t like aggressive men."
"You don"t like it when I kiss you?"
"No."
"You don"t like it when I caress you?"
"No," she cried, hoping the strident sound of her voice would drown out the questions he asked in a soothing tone.
"When I touch and kiss your b.r.e.a.s.t.s?"
"No! " "You"re lying again, Blair."
He was right. Even now her body was quivering with remembrance of his embraces. She longed to feel again the silky caress of his mustache on her flesh. But she"d be d.a.m.ned before she"d say that out loud to him.
Forcing the sensuous thoughts from her mind she faced him, her whole body crackling with anger. Again he was too quick for her. He turned the tables.
"Relax, Blair. I"ve never forced myself on any woman. If my caresses are repulsive to you, then I won"t touch you as a lover again.
However, I see no reason why we can"t be friends. I"ll pick you up just before eight. In the meantime, as a friend, I recommend you rest your legs." Then he was gone before she was able to utter one word of objection.
The sounds of loud conversation and laughter reached them as they walked up the sidewalk to the Delgados" house. "I guess the party is already in full swing," Sean said.
"I guess so."
He had arrived at her door just as he had said, a few minutes before eight. She was ready except for her jewelry. He waited inside the threshold as she put pearl studs in her ears and misted herself with fragrance.
She couldn"t have criticized his manners. They were above reproach.
Glancing at him surrept.i.tiously in the mirror, she saw that he wasn"t looking at her, but was fiddling with the bra.s.s doork.n.o.b. "This is loose. Remind me to fix it," and "That"s a pretty dress," were spoken with the same degree of emotion.
"Thank you." The white eyelet halter dress fit tightly through the bodice and waist to swing full and loose to just below her knees. With it she wore a pair of strappy gold sandals that wrapped around her ankles. Both the hemline of the skirt and the sandal straps around her ankles accented the perfect formation of her calves.
If his fingers touched her bare back as they descended the stairs, she was certain it was only for courtesy"s sake. He ushered her into the Mercedes and then launched into a tale about Andrew racing across the beach with a sack of nails. When he tripped in the deep sand, the nails went flying and it had taken him and Sean a half hour to sift through the sand to see that all were picked up.
"I only hope we didn"t miss one and someone finds it for us with his heel," he said.
Blair was laughing when she replied, "So do I. Was he worth the dollar you paid him?" sean."
"I had to give the little con man two dollars. By the time they pulled in front of Pam"s house, she had relaxed her guard.
Apparently Sean had taken her at her word. He was behaving as a good friend and not as a would-be lover.
Pam greeted them with warm, effusive hugs. "The guest of honor is here," she called to the other guests who were milling around the hors d"oeuvre trays strategically placed around the cluttered room.
They were swarmed by those wishing to be introduced to Pam"s friend whom many of them considered a celebrity. Blair gave Pam an l-don"t-believe-this look when she realized her friend had colored her successful career to sound more grandiose than it was. She was aware, too, of Sean being greeted just as enthusiastically as she. The women simpered, the men spoke deferentially.
Amidst all the confusion, Blair stooped to kiss each little pajamaed Delgado before he was aimed in the direction of the bedrooms with a stern command to go to bed.
"Those kids! " Pam exclaimed when the last was seen disappearing into the hallway. "They"re enough to make me want to abstain."
Just then Joe Delgado, wearing his perpetual grin and a chef"s ap.r.o.n with "This Cook Knows How to Sizzle" printed on it, came up to them and encircled his wife with his arms just below her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "Well, not completely abstain . .." Pam said suggestively to Blair and winked lewdly. The two women laughed.
"Did I miss something?" Joe asked good-naturedly and greeted Blair with a kiss on the cheek and Sean with a hearty handshake. He was as lean and wiry as his wife was plump and soft. "The room is coming along great, Sean. We can"t wait."
"What room?" Blair asked, now feeling that she"d missed something.
"Sean"s adding a playroom onto the back of the house. Did I forget to tell you?" Pam asked.
"Yes," Blair said, stealing a glance up at Sean who stood as close as he could without actually touching her.
"Oh, we can"t wait for it to be finished. I"ll show you later.
First there are a dozen people wanting to meet you.
For the next few minutes Blair fielded the myriad questions hurled at her. Had she ever danced with Baryshnikov? Was a ten-year-old too young to start pounte? Did she adhere to any special diet to stay so thin? How much did she weigh anyway? Was it true she and Pam had once taken cla.s.ses with Juliet Prowse? Were her nails real or were they sculptured?
Would she even consider auditioning the players for the PTA benefit talent show?
Over that question, she stammered a polite promise to think about it.
She almost jumped when large hands cupped her shoulders. "What would you like to drink?" Subconsciously, only for a precious moment, she leaned against the tall, strong frame behind her. The bare skin on her back met the texture of his navy summer weight sportscoat and the smooth coolness of his pale blue cotton shirt. She wasn"t even aware that she tilted her head to the side to better feel the mustached lips against her ear.
"White wine on the rocks," she whispered, trying unsuccessfully to listen to the lady from the PTA expounding on the value of their talent show. Blair"s shoulders were squeezed lightly before Sean moved away.
Minutes later he was back with an icy gla.s.s of sparkling wine. The woman"s incessant chatter hadn"t flagged for one moment.
"Blair, I think Pam"s looking for you. She"s in the kitchen."
"Excuse me," Blair said graciously before letting Sean steer her away from the woman.
"Thanks," she said out of the corner of her mouth.
"That broad would bore a statue," he said, leaning down to whisper in her ear. "She pulled the same thing with me a few years ago. Since I was Irish she thought it would be so nice if I"d sing Danny Boy" in their talent show."
Blair nearly choked on her sip of wine. Tears of mirth filled her eyes.
"You"re kidding," she said on a laugh.
l wlsn l were.
"And did you sing Danny Boy"?"
He scowled darkly, lowering the thick brows over his brilliant eyes.
"I bought her off with a hundred-dollar check."
They were laughing when they entered the chaos of the kitchen. Pam was taking bowls of potato salad and cole slaw from the refrigerator. "Oh, I"m glad you two wandered in. Sean, go show Blair the new room."
"Don"t you need any help?" Blair asked.
"Not this minute. Go on. Have a good time."
They exited through the sliding gla.s.s door leading off to the patio.
The aroma of charcoaled meat wafted toward them. Joe was flipping large slabs of steak on the grill.
"You look like you know what you"re doing," Sean said teasingly.
"Rare, medium rare, well done," Joe enumerated, pointing out each section of the grill with his longp.r.o.nged fork, then taking a large gulp of beer.
"Lay off the beer until my steak"s cooked," Sean said. Joe saluted him with the fork. They laughed and strolled to the other end of the patio.
"Watch your step."
Sean guided her through the skeletal wooden framework of the new room.
"This is going to be a playroom?" Blair asked, her eyes scanning the bare concrete foundation.
"Yes. Over there will be a fireplace. Here, bookshelves and a built-in desk, should any of the children ever feel inclined to study,"
he said, smiling. "We"re even going to install a small refrigerator along with a television set.
"Sounds terrific."
"I"m going to skylight it," Sean said, gazing up at the uncovered rafters overhead. "That"ll save electricity, because I don"t think the kids will be conscientious about turning off lights. I"m going to use"
He broke off and turned to her suddenly. "You really aren"t interested in this, are you ? " "Yes I am." She was. She discovered that she liked the enthusiasm in his voice when he spoke about his work. His hands, gesturing descriptively, were eloquent. They had felt so warm on the bare skin of her shoulders. Rea.s.suring. Comforting.
"The kids are going to love it."
"I think Pam and Joe will too. Theoretically with all the kids in here, it will give them some privacy."
"I can imagine that their moments of privacy are few and far between."
He chuckled. "They couldn"t be too hard to come by or there wouldn"t be so many kids."
She joined his laughter as she looked up at him, and then suddenly, at the same time, their laughter broke off. The moment had become intensely intimate. Moonlight streamed in through the rafters overhead, casting his face in deep shadows as he looked down at her.
She couldn"t discern his expression, she only knew that he was studying her.
The moonlight that crowned his light colored hair bathed her face with a silvery glow. Sean longed to run his fingers over the glossy strands of her hair sleeked back into a cla.s.sic ballerina"s bun on her neck.
His lips were starved for a taste of her mouth, moist and pink in the shimmering light. They longed to roam to her dainty ear with that beguiling pearl that almost matched the luminescence of her skin.
His eyes traveled the path of the moonlight until it disappeared into the shadowy cleft between her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Imagination placed his tongue there and he could all but taste the warmth he knew he would find.
Fantasies filled his head. He could see again the sh.e.l.l-pink crest of her breast. He could feel again its velvet-b.u.t.ton texture against his tongue. He could hear again her throaty purrs of pleasure as he had indulged his hunger for her taste.
In years, he didn"t remember wanting a woman as he"d wanted Blair from the first time his eyes had encountered hers. Since then he had been single-minded in his daydreams.
His body ached for hers. That made no d.a.m.n sense at all. She wasn"t the type he usually preferred. Because of his own size, he had commonly dated taller women, with generous figures. To him Blair seemed like a doll.
But a doll that lived and breathed and moved and was capable of quenching the fire in his loins that constantly mocked him.
It was all wrong and he knew it. Once, he had made grave errors in judgment and they had cost him everything. He had come away with a sounder insight into life"s priorities and had managed to re-establish himself. He was now successful in all but one area of his life. He had no one to share it with. So far he"d found no one he"d risk sharing his life with. Love was so often dependent on things going right. When something went wrong . . .
Blair Simpson had her own problems to cope with. She was undergoing a crisis that she would have to confront. He didn"t need her in his life.
That would only complicate things. And she claimed not to need him.
Yet now, standing here in the moonlight, desire stampeded through his body. He wanted nothing more than to kiss away her insincere protests, to clasp her to him and bury himself deep inside her, begging her to relieve him of his agony.
The fierceness of his musings must have shown in the rugged planes of his face for she said his name tentatively. He shook his head to clear it, then drained the contents of his c.o.c.ktail gla.s.s. "Yeah, I, uh, guess we ought to rejoin the others."
Blair had taken only a few sips of her wine. Her fingers were stiff with cold. She had clenched them around the gla.s.s as though it were her last handhold on sanity. Sean stepped aside and ushered her back across the patio. Joe was still at the grill, deep in discussion now with a defense attorney about crime on the streets.
Pandemonium had broken out in the kitchen. Pam was listening to first one offspring and then the other as they offered conflicting accounts of a pillow fight. A third child was wailing, tears rolling down her cheeks. Pam was fishing ears of corn out of a vat of boiling water and placing them on a platter.
Despite the children"s obvious disobedience and Pam"s anxiety, Sean and Blair burst out laughing. "What"s going on?" Sean asked.
"I think they"re just too excited to go to bed." She looked down at the children threateningly. "I"m going to call Daddy and he"ll be mad."
They gave about as much credence to that warning as they had to the others. "Why don"t you let me put them to bed?" Blair offered.
"But you"re my guest," Pam protested.
"I"m your friend and you"ve got your hands full. Come on, kids, enough of this," Blair said firmly enough to get their attention. "Andrew, march," she said, pointing an imperious finger in the direction of the bedroom. "Come on, Mandy."
"I"ll get this one," Sean said, picking up little Paul and heaving him over his shoulders to straddle his head. Paul whooped in glee and grabbed a handful of Sean"s blond hair.
"I didn"t volunteer you, too," Blair said as they trooped out of the kitchen, taking the back hallway that led to the two bedrooms the children shared.
"I couldn"t let you take on the whole regiment."
As the two bedrooms were connected by a door, Blair and Sean were able to tuck everyone into their respective beds while keeping an eye on those already under the covers. The baby was the only one already asleep. He was still confined to a crib. The two girls slept in a double bed in the room with the baby. The two boys slept in bunk beds in the other. Since Andrew was the older, he had the top bunk.
"Set a good example for your little sister and go to sleep now," Blair whispered to Mandy. "Let your mom and dad enjoy their party. Okay?"
"Okay," she said, yawning. Angela, somewhere around four if Blair remembered correctly, was already drifting off. "Will you leave the lamp on?"
"Mandy is a baby, Mandy is a baby," Andrew chanted from his bunk.