She made him crazy when she tilted her little chin to that imperious angle. As if she were daring him to do something about it. It was a dare he couldn’t resist. He crushed her mouth beneath his, his body leaping into heated response. He was pleased to note that her eyes were glazed when he finally lifted his head, though he ruefully suspected his own held the same look. “Now what?” he grated.
“Now make love to me,” she ordered, her hands sliding boldly up his chest.
“That’s the way I like to hear you talk,” he approved with a choked laugh. And for the third time he yanked down the zipper of the now-rather-crumpled pastel dress. He left it lying in a careless heap on the floor when he lifted her into his arms and carried her to bed.
IT WAS LATE in the afternoon when they finally got around to eating lunch. Rhys played with her cat while Angie stirred together a chicken salad and hollowed out tomatoes for stuffing. He refused to call the cat “Flower,” declaring that to be the dumbest name for an animal he’d ever heard. Sitting Indian-style on the floor of the kitchen, he wiggled his fingers enticingly in front of the crouching half-grown kitten. “Pounce on it, cat. I dare you.”
“Ouch!” he muttered a moment later when several sharp little claws sank into his forefinger. Shaking the cat off his hand, he examined the two tiny drops of scarlet at his knuckle. “Damn.”
Angie laughed at him, setting their lunch on the table. Dressed now in jeans and a red cotton sweater, she was amazingly comfortable with him, not even tempted to slip into the coolly professional mode she’d tried so hard to maintain around him at the beginning. It was rather hard to act dignified when she’d just rolled all over her bed with him, she thought wryly, even as she said, “You shouldn’t have dared her. She doesn’t know she’s supposed to be intimidated by the mighty Rhys Wakefield.”
“She’s got a lot in common with her owner,” Rhys murmured, pushing himself to his feet.
“Want to register any complaints?”
Washing his hands at the kitchen sink, he shot her a look over his shoulder. “Not at the moment.”
“Good. Then I’ll let you sit at my table.”
“How gracious of you.”
She sank her fork into her chicken-stuffed tomato. “I thought so.”
He was grinning when he picked up his own fork. Angie eyed that grin through her lashes, pleased that he looked so relaxed. He needed to play more often, she decided. She’d make sure that he did—for as long as she had the opportunity to do so.
Rhys seemed in no hurry to leave after lunch, nor was Angie anxious for him to do so. He acted a bit startled when she suggested a word game, but agreed to try it.
“You’ve never played this?” she asked, setting the playing pieces on the coffee table as they settled on the floor on either side of it.
“No.”
“We try to make words at the same time from the same letter cubes.” She explained the rules, then shook the cubes. “Ready?”
He nodded. “Why not?”
She couldn’t remember laughing so much in a long time. Not during the past year, anyway. Rhys approached game playing in the same grim, single-minded manner he ran a business. The words he found in the arrangement of cubes were neatly written on his pad, most of them four-or five-letter words. Her own lists were hastily scribbled, mostly three-letter words—some of them made-up, which really confused him. “Gup?” he repeated, giving her a quizzical frown.
“I don’t suppose you’d believe it’s a baby guppy?”
“We could get the dictionary,” he suggested.
She laughed, shaking her head. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Rhys, there’s no such word. I was just being silly.”
“Oh. Well, you can still have the points if you want them,” he offered magnanimously.
The needlepoint throw pillow missed his head by inches. “Now what’d I say?” he demanded, hands on his hips as he looked at her in exasperation, causing her to go off in another peal of giggles.
“Really, Rhys, don’t you ever—”
But Rhys was distracted by a rattling noise from the vicinity of the front door, making it useless for her to finish the question. “What was that?” he demanded.
“The mailman,” she answered, rising and headed toward the door. “What did you think it was—a prowler? In the middle of the afternoon?”
He grunted. Angie wondered if men were born with the ability to express so much with one nonverbal sound or if it was a trait they picked up from other men.
A glance through her mail effectively erased her smile. Along with the assortment of bills and letters-to-occupant was an envelope bearing the return address of the prison where her father was currently residing. She stood very still, looking at it for a long time.
Why was he writing her? Hadn’t they said everything they’d needed to say the last time they’d seen each other? She’d told him exactly what she thought of his business practices and shady ethics, to which he’d retorted that she’d never seemed to care where his money came from as long as she had a closet full of designer clothes and a fancy new sportscar in which to attend her many social functions. That had stung. Mostly because it had been so true.