Carrie Alexander - Playing With Fire

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.

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.