Flash and Fire (12 page)

Amanda’s eyes pinned him. “How about to your five nieces and nephews?”

He could almost read her mind.
Nice try. I don’t trap that easy, Mandy.

“I take them to the park instead. They don’t sit still long enough for stories.”

He smiled at her beguilingly. It was the look he used when he was working to disarm the defenses of people who were initially disinclined to talk. He’d discovered that it generated confidence. But Amanda appeared to remain unmoved. A challenge.

“C’mon, Mandy, I brought you a magnum of champagne. Can’t you find it in your hard Yankee heart to spare me a little water?”

For a moment, she remained exactly where she was. Finally, with a sigh, Amanda stepped back, reluctance evident in the very set of her shoulders. Something was urging her to let him in. Maybe it was just idle curiosity. Or maybe it was that reckless element that exists in people, the one that makes them want to leap in front of oncoming subway trains and jump from roofs.

Amanda closed the door behind her. “You know, for an investigative reporter, you don’t have your facts very straight. I’m originally from California. That doesn’t exactly make me a Yankee.”

He stuck his hands in his pockets as he walked in and looked around. Nice. Simple, but elegant. Her house made him think of her.

His eyes flickered over her as he followed her to the kitchen. “I’m from Georgia.” Pierce’s drawl intensified. “To me, everyone’s a Yankee.”

Amanda took a glass from the cupboard and turned on the faucet. She wasn’t going to let him engage her in conversation. Just drink and go. “Yes, well, if I get you that water, will you leave?”

“Drink and run?” he asked, amused. “Southern boys are never rude, Mandy.”

Yeah, right
. “Obviously a lesson they left out of your education.”

The water spilled over her fingers as she filled the glass. Amanda thrust the glass into his hand. “Here.”

As he accepted it, his fingers brushed against hers.

Her hand was trapped in his. “This isn’t a joint venture, Alexander.” She glared at him, attempting to shut out a fresh wave of warmth. “I’d like my hand back.”

“Sorry,” he murmured, entertained.

Distance. She both needed and wanted distance from him. Amanda turned away and began unpacking the gro
ceries as slowly as she could, willing him to leave.

As she shoved boxes into the pantry and packages into the freezer, she tried to ignore the fact that he was just standing there, mutely watching her. It was like trying to ignore a fire beneath her feet.

Pierce leaned a hip casually against the counter. “You know,” he said, contemplating the inside of the glass, “champagne might taste a whole lot better.”

She was certain that Alexander would just love that, getting her too intoxicated to realize that he was taking advantage of her. She closed the refrigerator door with a loud slam.

“It might, but it’s too early in the day to drink, at least for me.” She folded the grocery sacks, punching them into submission. “Way too early.” Shoving the bags into a drawer next to the sink, she then slammed that. “Don’t you have anything to do?”

He noticed that the little line was forming between her brows again. “Can’t think of a thing. I’m not due at the studio until ten-thirty tonight.” He went through the motions of looking at his watch to appease her. “And there’s nothing breaking for me to investigate.”

"Have you called in?"

"No. I was in such a hurry to find you, I forgot my phone."

She sighed, sorry she had ever opened the front door.

“Then how would you know?” She gestured toward the front of the house, urging him out. “You’re here, your phone’s home.”

“Ever hear of a beeper?” Removing it from his belt, he held it up for her to see.

She looked at the small black object, surprised. “I can’t picture you wearing one of those.”

Owning a beeper made him seem far too responsible, almost tame. But there was something in his eyes that told her Pierce wasn’t the type who could be tamed. He was the type to establish his own rules and play the game on his own terms. Men like Alexander didn’t wear beepers.

His fingers curved around the beeper as he hooked it onto his belt.

“Seems like you can’t picture me in a whole lot of ways.” He took a step toward her. She felt exceedingly uncomfortable. The closer he was, the more she realized how tall he was. It was disarming.

He slid his finger along a lock of her hair and watched, fascinated, as the pulse in her throat jumped. “I’m a multisided person, Mandy.”

She hated herself for her weak reaction. It was probably just what he was expecting. Yet instead of standing her ground, Amanda took a step away from him. “Multi-sided or multi-faced?”

Something flashed in her eyes, and her sudden wariness surprised him. “Who set you on edge this way, Mandy?”

“You.”

But he knew better.

“Uh-uh, the job was done way before I came onto the scene.” And she wasn’t about to tell him who. Not now. He could see that. But she would.

She frowned. “You’re not on the scene except in a very cursory way.”

His smile unnerved her. “That can change.”

“Not anytime soon.” She was about to add, “Not in this lifetime,” but somehow the words never formed.

“I’ve got time.”

She whirled on her heel, turning her back on him. “Well, I don’t.”

He didn’t take her answer the way she had intended. “In a hurry? Fine with me.” He took her arm, causing her to face him. “I’ve got to admit I’ve been curious about this for a long time now.”

What was he talking about? And why did she suddenly feel so threatened? But she didn’t voice her question, or demand that he release her. It was hard to think, let alone speak, with Pierce standing so close to her.

The hell with waiting, he decided. The opportunity might not present itself to him again anytime soon. His eyes holding hers, he drew Amanda into his arms.

As their bodies touched at all the volatile points, the air seemed to just whoosh away from her lungs. She thought about kicking him, about bringing her knee up and landing a blow to his vanity and his crotch.

But Amanda couldn’t have moved if her life depended on it.

And maybe, in a way, it did.

He brought his mouth down on hers. She could have sworn that she felt it a second before it made contact, hot and hungry as it pressed against hers.

It was a spontaneous combustion. Hungers and needs exploded within her. She had hoped, in vain, that she was submitting herself to the acid test and that he would come up lacking. She had fervently hoped that when he kissed her, she would discover, once and for all, that he was all flash, all smoke and no substance, just as she had believed. More than anything in the world, she wanted the feel of his mouth to leave her cold.

Not hot.

Not hot like an untended forest that had been set on fire.

But as his lips moved methodically, gently, softly over
hers, she found herself responding. She was losing her train of thought, her sense of balance, her very hold on reality. She could taste flavors, dark, dangerous, on his lips. Dangerous and so tempting. And in tasting them, she could sense doom. Her own. But she couldn’t pull away.

Not when something was rising up within her to meet this swirling feeling.

With a cry that melted into his mouth, Amanda dove her fingers into Pierce’s hair and held on, her body pressed urgently against his.

She knew she was going to be sorry, very sorry, but that was for later, not now. For now, for this single moment in time, she wanted to pretend she didn’t know the things she did—that there were no fairy tales, no happy endings, that men who kissed like this weren’t made of sterling and didn’t plight undying love. Men who kissed like this were womanizers who would tear her heart to shreds and rake it over the jagged rocks of grief.

All she wanted to do was lose herself in the mindless delight he evoked in her.

Chapter Thirteen
 

For one brief moment, blood pounding through his veins, Pierce thought of carrying Amanda to her room and satisfying this urgent need that held him captivated, that held him without mercy.

But something else kept him in check, something that promised him the wait would make it all worth his while. The wait would make it sweeter.

His hands roamed her back, pressing her to him. It had been a long time since he’d felt this kind of passion, a long time since he had wanted a woman this much.

He reminded himself that he wasn’t an animal who gave in to lust for its own sake. At least, not often. And not with a child a few feet away. There were some rules to the game, after all.

Pierce had had no idea, when he began to kiss Amanda an eternity ago, that he was going to be sucked into a vortex. The breathless realization had all but knocked control over his own actions out of his hands. Pierce struggled to hang on.

The cool woman who put him down with such obvious relish and aplomb had turned out to be a sizzling wildcat, whether she realized it or not.

He had suspected it from the first, just by looking into her eyes.

Pierce trailed his lips over the hollow of her throat, and the familiar action reminded Amanda too much of Jeff. It was something he had been fond of doing because it aroused her so; Jeff had always enjoyed exercising his power over her.

Common sense came rushing back to Amanda as she remembered who she was, what she was doing. She was giving Jeff another chance to undo her.

With a strangled cry, Amanda wedged her hands between them and pushed Pierce away from her. She tossed back her head, as if that could clear the last bit of delirium from her brain.

“Satisfied your curiosity enough?” Each syllable was dipped in bitterness.

There was anger in her eyes. And hurt. A well of hurt. Why? Except for her back, he hadn’t even touched her. He had refrained, though he had ached to curve his hands around the swell of her breasts. But he knew that for Amanda, the bridge from here to there, from stranger to lover, was one constructed out of fragile rope that would break if stressed too quickly. Pierce hadn’t wanted to behave like an adolescent, fumbling in the backseat of his father’s car.

If his father had had a car.

If he’d had a father.

Because he wanted to touch her, he trailed his fingertips against her cheek. Amanda jerked away, just as he knew she would. And desire flashed for a moment in her eyes. He had known that would happen too.

“Mandy, I haven’t begun to satisfy anything yet.”

She spoke in a slow, measured cadence. “Too bad— those are all the samples that are being given out. Ever.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from touching her again. “Lady, do you have any idea how lethal you are?”

If he meant to flatter her, he didn’t. Those were just
empty words. Amanda pressed her lips together and tasted
him. There was a surge within her, warm and insistent, that had nothing to do with common sense. She fought it back.

“No, but I have an idea how annoyed I am. I also know that I’d like you to leave right—“

Amanda saw a movement in the doorway and turned
to look. She blew out an angry breath. Carla was standing
on the threshold. Red-nosed and sniffling, her house
keeper was staring at Pierce with huge, worshipful eyes.

“What is it, Carla?” She asked the question a bit too sharply.

Pierce grinned at Carla as he placed his hands on Amanda’s shoulders. Amanda shrugged him off, her eyes on Carla.

“I was making my call. . .” Carla’s voice trailed off as she returned Pierce’s smile.

“Yes?” Amanda prodded. “What about your phone call, Carla?”

Carla blushed and stammered. “And that call-holding thing beeped. I got it right, finally.” Timid triumph glowed on her face.

Carla was always losing incoming phone calls. Amanda tried not to lose her temper.

“And—?”

Carla lowered her eyes. She couldn’t think coherently with Pierce looking at her like that.

“It’s that man again.” She stopped, trying to remember
the caller’s name. Her sinus attack and this blue-eyed man made everything fuzzy. “Whitney Granger. He says he wants to talk to you. Should I tell my mother to hang up?” Carla looked a little put out.

“Yes, tell your mother to hang up. You can call her back later. I’ll take my call in the den.” Amanda was aware that Pierce had become very attentive to the conversation at the mention of Whitney’s name.

Too bad, you’re not coming anywhere near this one, Alexander.

Carla hurried from the room.

Pierce’s casual stance didn’t deceive Amanda. “Why would Whitney Granger be calling you?” he asked.

His own sources had told Pierce that there was something up at Contemporary Vehicles, something that couldn’t bear the light of day. Was Amanda doing a little legwork on her own? He knew that unlike the other
anchors, who were satisfied just to read copy someone else
had written, Amanda enjoyed doing fieldwork whenever possible. He’d heard that she claimed it kept her fresh.

He’d drink to that.

The last thing in the world Amanda wanted was to have Alexander sticking his nose into this. He was first and last an investigative reporter. There’d be no compunction about snatching this story away from her and making it his shining scoop. He’d do it in a heartbeat, with no more thought than he had put into kissing her.

Less.

“He’s an old family friend,” she said easily. Amanda
began to edge her way out of the room. “He’s probably just calling to invite me over for a barbecue. He does that a lot.”

There was more to it than that; he’d bet his reputation on it. But what kind of more? Was she seeing Granger professionally? Sleeping with him? Granger appeared to be a family man, but those were usually the most predatory types.

“I didn’t know you knew Granger.” His voice was casual as he toyed with the fringes on one of the decorative kitchen towels.

“Why should you?” What business did he think he had in her private life? “I wear a size five shoe; you didn’t know that either.”