Sandra Brown - Low Pressure

“Roger that.”

“Is that all? If so, it’s late.” She gestured toward the open door behind him, but he didn’t take the hint.

“Did you talk to Olivia?”

“No change.”

“That’s good.”

“I suppose. Did you speak to Gall about your airplane?”

“He tacked at least another two weeks on to how long the repairs will take.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

Then for the next several moments, neither of them spoke or moved. She swallowed, hearing the gulp herself and knowing that he probably had, too. “I’m going to say good night now, Dent.” Again she gestured toward the gaping doorway.

“I haven’t asked my question yet.”

“You’ve asked several.”

“But not the main one.”

“I’m exhausted. Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“Was your heart broken?”

Of course she knew what he was referring to, and she figured he wasn’t going to give up and go away until she answered him. “Over losing the baby, yes. Very much so. Over losing him, no. The breakup was an inevitability. Long before the documents were filed, he and I were already separated emotionally.

“His plans to remarry were announced even before our divorce became final. He and his intended relocated to Dallas. I moved to New York and started outlining my book. There were no blowups, no fireworks. It was all very civilized.” As an afterthought, she added, “Just like the marriage had been.”

At some point during the telling, he’d shortened the distance between them. She had retreated from the intensity of his eyes by lowering hers, and now found herself talking to that enticing triangle that provided a view of soft brown chest hair.

His voice low, he said, “A shame about your kid.”

She only nodded.

In her peripheral vision she saw him raise his arm, and a second later the clip holding up her hair was released. He caught the tumbling strands and combed his fingers through them.

“Dent? What are you doing?”

“Getting out of line.”

Then his arm curved around her waist and he lowered his head. His lips caught the startled breath that escaped hers, and the shock of the contact brought back the vivid memory of the first time she’d ever seen him.

She and Susan were at a Sonic drive-in. He’d pulled up beside their car on his motorcycle and had looked past Bellamy in the passenger seat to Susan, who was behind the wheel.

The lazy smile he’d sent her sister caused curls of sensation deep inside Bellamy’s twelve-year-old body. It was an awakening that, even from her inexperienced point of view, she had understood was sexual. The stirrings had intrigued and thrilled her, but the mind-stealing strength of them had frightened her.

It still did.

She put her hands against his chest and tried to push away.

“You didn’t scream,” he whispered against her lips as his brushed back and forth across them, barely glancing them on each pass. At first. But when she still didn’t scream, or even murmur a protest, he cradled the back of her head in his palm, his mouth claimed hers, and the kiss became deep.

As a virginal preteen, and as a woman who’d taken lovers, she had daydreamed about kissing Denton Carter. While writing her book, specifically the sex scenes between him and Susan, it hadn’t been her sister he was kissing, caressing, and taking with adolescent fervor. It had been her. The fantasies had left her aroused, but irritated with herself. Surely her imagination embellished how good lovemaking with him would be.

But now she realized that her daydreams had actually been tepid. His kiss was delicious and darkly erotic. It delivered. It promised more. And the substance of what it promised made her wet, feverish, and needy.

His hand moved over her hip and into the loose waistband of her pajamas, where it applied pressure to her ass, drawing her forward, lifting and securing her against him.

“Damn,” he groaned. “I knew you’d feel good.”

His mouth scaled down her throat, then lower, leaving her T-shirt damp where he planted kisses as he moved toward her breasts, which were so tight and tender she realized she had to stop this now.

“Dent, no.”

She gave his chest a forceful push. His hand snapped free of her pajama bottoms and he fell back, cursing when his spine came up hard against the edge of the open door. “What the hell?”

“I don’t want to.”

“No?” He looked down at her nipples so obviously peaked against the thin fabric of her T-shirt. “Then want to explain—”

“I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“Well, you kinda do. One minute you’re kissing me back like there’s no tomorrow and whimpering make-me-come noises. The next, you’re shoving me into doors. Forgive my confusion.”

“Well, we can’t have you confused, can we? I don’t want to have sex with you. Is that clear enough?”

His body was rocking slightly, like he was furious, on the brink of losing his temper. She actually flinched when he whipped the tube of toothpaste from his pocket and pitched it onto the bed. “I lied. I don’t need anything from you.”

Then he backed into his room and slammed the connecting door closed.

When Bellamy stepped off the elevator and into the hotel lobby a few minutes before the appointed time, she saw Dent seated in an easy chair reading the sports section of the newspaper. He stood up as she approached. “Braves lost last night.”

“I don’t follow baseball until the World Series.”

“And then there’s this.” He passed her the day’s edition of EyeSpy . “The headline speaks for itself. In the article, I’m the ‘ruggedly handsome stranger later identified as Denton Carter,’ boyfriend of your slain sister.”

With a sinking stomach, Bellamy scanned the front page, which was dominated by Van Durbin’s column. The text was accompanied by a snapshot of her and Dent. She realized the shot had been taken yesterday outside Lyston Electronics. “His photographer was hiding and used a telephoto lens.”

“Not my best side,” Dent said, scrutinizing the grainy photograph. “Pretty good of you, though.”

She stuffed the newspaper into her shoulder bag. “I can’t read this now or I’ll throw up.”

Traffic along Peachtree Street was at a crawl due to construction. They got stuck at an intersection where they sat through three cycles of the traffic light. Dent swore under his breath and played an impatient tattoo on the steering wheel with his fingertips. Yesterday’s chambray shirt had been replaced by an oxford cloth, the color of it close to the mossy green of his eyes. It was tucked in. His jeans were belted.

“Where did you get the shirt and belt?” she asked.

“Ralph Lauren store in the mall across the street from the hotel. I was there when it opened. Dammit! If that moron would pull forward into the intersection to make his left turn…” He finished on a string of oaths, then once again the light turned red before they could get through the intersection.

“You’re not mad at the traffic or other drivers. You’re mad at me.”

He looked over at her.

“This visit with Steven could be awkward. It won’t help if you’re pouting over what happened, or didn’t happen, last night. There. It’s out. Let’s not make it an unsightly wart that’s there but no one acknowledges.”

“Don’t sweat it, A.k.a. I asked, you—”

“Funny. I don’t recall you asking.”

“Maybe not in so many words, but, just FYI, in a crotch-grinding embrace, when a man’s got his tongue in your mouth and his hand on your ass, it’s a pretty safe bet on what he has in mind. I asked , you said no.” He shrugged with supreme indifference and returned his attention to the traffic. He lifted his foot off the brake. The car rolled forward only a few yards before he had to brake again.