The Insiders

She was crying, and she heard his sigh b

efore he pulled her up close against him and held her with his face against her hair until, amazingly, she began to derive a kind of comfort from die warmth of his body and the feel of his arms holding her.

He let her cry until her sobs had subsided into ragged breathing, and then, almost inevitably, he made love to her again. This time he was very slow and very tender. Touching her and kissing her, but not going inside her yet, not for a very long time.

He was infinitely patient this time, waiting until she had forgotten everything but the way he made her body feel and react—forgetting who he was, and forgetting even David—forgetting herself in feeling that turned to wanting—wanting him inside her, squirming under his hands, gasping at the sensations his tongue and teeth on her nipples evoked. She was moving, opening, wanting, needing—until at last he was there, in deep, and she locked her legs behind his back, holding him there, coming up to meet every thrust of his body into hers.

Eve's head fell back, and she felt his mouth come crushing down on hers, and now there was only this, only feeling and the release she needed him to give her —now, now, now! She held him with her nails digging into his flesh, she made stifled female noises in the back of her throat, and then at last she was aware of the heat pulsing through her body, centering in her loins—the uncontrollable arching and thrashing of herself under him before the final floating back to reality, not even knowing if he had come or not, not really caring now, but feeling the indescribable peace inside her after the fire and the fierceness.

No words—there was no need for any words between them this time, nothing to say. But it was as if, in some strange way, what had just happened between them had sealed the bargain between them and Eve felt herself bound to him already—possessed and taken, afraid and yet not afraid.

He had moved so that their bodies still lay alongside each other with their legs still intertwined, and his quickened breathing was warm against her temple. There was almost—she could almost feel—and then he withdrew from her, rolling away to the side of the bed, and the ephemeral almost-thought went away and she wondered if he would always draw away afterward, and if, in time, it would begin to matter to her that he did.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

SHE MUST HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP. When Eve woke up, it was dark except for the lights of the city outside the windows—spread out all the way to the water. There were a few moments when she didn't remember where she was, and then it came back to her, along with the soft music—Mozart, this time—that continued to play.

With a smothered exclamation, Eve sat bolt upright. She had no idea what time it was, and she was alone in shadowed, half-lit darkness with only a fire to keep her company. The feeling of unreality she had fought back earlier returned, bringing with it a sense of panic. She was torn between the desire to leap out of bed and escape—or to slide back under the covers and go to sleep again.

Light shone across the bed as Brant came out of the bathroom. "Hi. Have a good sleep?"

She thought resentfully that he must have eyes like a cat. He touched a wall switch that brought dimmed lights on, and Eve saw her two cases sitting by the dresser. He was taking too much for granted, he—

He seemed to read her mind again. "You might want to make some telephone calls. Go ahead. There's no extension on the phone by the bed. What would you like for dinner? Jamison's downstairs, and he's an excellent chef."

He came to her at last, and sat on the bed beside her. He was nude, fresh from the shower, his hair still damp. She was still drowsy, her mind struggling to get used to everything she was suddenly faced with. He put his hand on her neck, under her hair, and kissed her lightly. "Eve—you'll stay?"

In the end, she did stay. She thought, Why not? And she was still tired—too tired and confused to protest or argue.

Eve tried calling Marti, but there was no answer. And if Marti wasn't back yet, she didn't want to be alone in the apartment, jumpy in case the phone should ring. She thought about calling her mother and decided not to. And she thought about calling David's number and hanging up if he answered—but what would be the point of that? David was part of the past, and she wasn't certain yet what the future would be. Time enough to think tomorrow.

Eve unpacked one case and hung her clothes in Brant's closet, noticing that it was less than half-full of clothes—those were mostly casual. He didn't have many personal possessions for a man of his wealth.

She used his big bathroom, soaking in the sunken blue-tiled bathtub—the first one she'd taken a real bath in. He offered, politely, to soap her back for her, and she refused just as politely but was surprised all the same when he didn't insist but went away, closing the door behind him.

Later, they had dinner on a covered terrace upstairs with a view almost as magnificent as that from the bedroom. Through the glass roof, Eve could see the stars and a silvered crescent moon. There was soft music even here, and die table was set with linen and silver and a heavy branched candelabrum—with crystal glasses for wine. Jamison turned out to be a thin, gray-haired man with a prematurely seamed face—as excellent and unobtrusive a waiter as he was a chef. He didn't turn a hair when Brant offhandedly introduced Eve as the young lady he was going to marry; merely inclined his head politely as he offered his congratulations, accepting with equal politeness Eve's praise of his seafood crepes.

When he had cleared the table and left them alone with their wine, Eve said, half in anger, half in exasperation, "Are you alwatjs so—so precipitate? There's a job waiting for me in New York—a whole new career. What makes you think I'm ready to marry and throw it all away?"

She noticed that he leaned forward to stub out his cigarette before he answered her. "Aren't you the one who's associating marriage with giving up your career, Eve? You see, you are an old-fashioned woman after all."

"And you're hedging!"

"All right, so I'm hedging. What is it you want me to tell you?"

A thought—really a suspicion—had been growing inside her ever since she had looked up to see him beside her on the plane.

Now she said slowly, "The job—it was all very sudden. I'd read that Joan Nelson was supposed to replace Babs Barrie on the show. And there was the way everyone seemed to be walking on eggshells around me in the beginning. Even Randall seemed to be—well, weighing me. You didn't—Oh, no! You couldn't have—"

His face was shadowed, and she couldn't read its expression.

"My grandfather believed in diversified investments, Eve. And afterward, I— Shit, for a while it was almost fun, a kind of challenge. I put money into the wildest schemes, the most unlikely to pay off—and damned if they usually didn't. Bill Fontaine is a friend of mine, in any case."

"Bill Fontaine!"

Fontaine was an almost legendary figure—head of the network, a man known personally by very few people who worked for him, but feared by everyone.

Brant shrugged. "Eve, if you hadn't been good and they hadn't thought you'd do, the job wouldn't have been offered to you. And that's on the level."