Rafferty's Wife (6 page)

She giggled, flushing again as she remembered her response on the beach. “I did. I just wasn’t interested.”

“It must have been my charming smile,” he said.

Sarah cleared her throat. “Must have been.”

“How old are you?” he asked suspiciously.

“Twenty-six.”

In mock surprise, he said, “And you’ve never exercised your feminine wiles? How long has Hagen had you sequestered in that information retrieval office, anyway?”

“Since college.” She lifted her chin and met his gaze squarely. “Before that—I told you—I just wasn’t interested.”

He removed the towel and studied the
tangled mass of her hair for a moment, then flopped the towel back over her head. “Find a brush for that,” he instructed briskly. “It looks like a rat’s nest.”

She pushed the towel back, laughing. “Thanks!” But she went and found her brush, lingering in the bedroom long enough to smooth the knots from her hair before returning to the sitting room. As soon as she came back, Rafferty spoke.

“I think it’s a good idea.”

Sarah lifted a brow at him. “What is?”

“Letting you vamp me.”

“V
ERY FUNNY
.”

“I’m serious.” He grinned at her, enjoying her startled expression. “You don’t have to start from scratch, you know. Remember the beach? By the time we finish with the assignment, I may well be putty in your hands. I’ll even up the ante.”

“How?” she asked slowly, staring at him.

Rafferty lifted his hand and brushed her cheek lightly with his knuckles. “Anything you catch,” he hesitated, “you keep.”

Sarah was smiling before she realized it. Something new within her was rising to the challenge. “Does that line work on all the girls?”

“I wouldn’t know. Never used it before. But I think we’re both going to enjoy finding out if it works on you.”

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. When his eyes dropped briefly to examine the golden flesh that was bared as the lapels of her robe slid farther apart, she felt a little flicker of warm excitement.

Rafferty cleared his throat carefully. “Let’s not start just yet,” he murmured a bit hoarsely. “I need a good night’s sleep first.”

Sarah bit her lip to hold back a sudden giggle. “Let me get this straight. Along with everything else we have to do, we’re going to play a game. The game is seduction. And you’re the prize?”

Feeling a bit reckless himself, Rafferty grinned. “Something like that. If you don’t want me, you can always throw me back, but you have to catch me first.” He went to the bar,
and fixed them both drinks. Handing one to her, he added gently, “And I intend to play hard to get.”

She sipped her drink slowly, her eyes speculative. “Why?” she asked finally.

Rafferty didn’t need the question clarified. “Oh … because we’re going to be in a serious situation and we’ll need to take our minds off it occasionally. Because we’ll inevitably get to know one another during the process. And because we’ll both enjoy it immensely.”

“You think so?”

“Don’t you?”

Sarah did. Her smile widened. “Are there any rules in this game of yours?”

“Prudence dictates. Nothing blatant. If you took me by the hand and led me in there”—he nodded toward the bedroom—“for instance, that would definitely be blatant. And since I’d feel compelled to defend your honor, don’t wear anything that’s liable to get you arrested or attacked. Subtlety is our watchword. Otherwise, it’s no holds barred.”

Fascinated, he watched the speculation grow
in her eyes, realizing that he’d willingly torment himself just to see the emergence of a siren. “And I only hope,” he muttered, unconsciously completing the thought, “that I’m not creating a monster.”

It was a game he was suggesting, Sarah told herself. A stray thought crept into her mind to cause an instant’s wavering. Once on Kadeira, his game would be impossible. But that was later. They had time for a game. Just a game. And she didn’t think he’d fight too hard not to be caught. She didn’t have to be experienced to know that Rafferty quite definitely wanted her. So why not up the stakes to make it more interesting?

That’s what she told herself. Just an extra incentive to keep Rafferty from giving in too easily. A heady recklessness seized her, and Sarah heard her own voice emerge with nothing more than faint surprise.

“You upped the ante; now it’s my turn.”

Looking into her eyes, Rafferty suddenly knew what she was about to suggest. He knew, and surrendered happily to the gleeful fate that
had pointed at Sarah and announced, “She’s the one!”

“Want to raise the stakes, huh?” He smiled slowly. “All right. I’m game.”

“You said that anything I catch, I keep.”

“That’s right.”

“I say, if I catch you, the world has to know about it.” She lifted her left hand, where the diamond and the gold wedding band glittered, and her ring finger moved gently.

“A ring and a promise?” he asked.

“No. A ring and a vow. The whole ball of wax.”

Rafferty lifted his glass and clinked it against hers. “Deal. You catch me, and we’ll make it legal.”

A part of Sarah’s mind told her that she’d passed reckless minutes ago and had now reached madness. She knew that, but she didn’t care. No matter how the game ended, she intended to enjoy it. Her common sense told her no sane man would bet his future as Rafferty had just gambled his, but she didn’t really think about that.

The new Sarah didn’t want to think at all.

Setting her glass aside, she said gently, “You know, I doubt we’ll have separate berths on the
Thespian
. So we might as well get used to sharing a bed, don’t you think?”

He glanced through the doorway into the bedroom, then lifted a brow at her. “Testing my fortitude?”

“Well, you certainly can’t sleep on the couch, and I refuse to. So it has to be the bed. I prefer the left side, by the way.”

“I can make do with the right side,” he decided. “Pillow between us?”

“Oh, I think we can trust each other not to hurry the game along. Don’t you?”

“Certainly,” he said, silently damning his own bright ideas and wondering just how long he could manage not to be caught. He’d be lucky if he lasted the night.

“It’s late. I’m going to turn in.”

Rafferty watched her go into the bedroom and turn back the covers of the king-size bed. It was then that he discovered he’d definitely been
wrong in thinking she wore nothing at all beneath the terry robe. She was dressed all right, as he saw when she removed the robe and tossed it across a chair.

Dressed in a teddy of gleaming peach silk, with a plunging neckline and extraordinary brevity everywhere else. The neckline was edged in lace, thin lace straps alone held the bodice in place, and her golden side showed beautifully through the lace there.

And Rafferty, who had seen quite a bit of seductive sleepwear in his time, watched her slide gracefully into the bed and counted to five before his heart started beating again. Sitting up, she gazed through the doorway at him and lifted a brow questioningly. “Coming?”

He tore his gaze away long enough to look down at his empty glass, then looked back at Sarah alone in the wide and inviting bed. “I think I’ll have another drink first,” he managed.

“Fine. Good night.” She reached to turn out the lamp on her nightstand, then lay back and pulled the covers up to her waist. Turning on her side, she closed her eyes, smiling.

Out in the sitting room, Rafferty fixed himself another drink. Upon reflection, he made it a double.

When Rafferty slid into bed beside Sarah, he didn’t expect to get a bit of sleep; that he slept deeply was entirely due to the fact that he had worked long hours the past week in order to accept this assignment from Hagen. So he slept.

But he dreamed. Green eyes that had been shy and nervous at first glance mocked him gleefully even as they seduced, and he kept reaching for satin skin that somehow eluded him. He felt annoyed at the elusive siren, reaching out again and again to try and draw her close. Then, finally, with a throaty murmur she allowed him to capture her, and he held her tightly.

She was warm at his side, the fragile curves of her body pressed to his. Her hair was silk and his fingers tangled among the strands possessively. His. She was his.

He woke with a start to see daylight brightening the room, and he didn’t have to look to see that his dream had become reality. She was snuggled close to his side, one leg thrown across his and her hand lying warmly on his chest.

He gazed down at the spill of bright red-gold hair that was like caged fire, and since the covers had fallen away during the night he could also see just how well the silk teddy fit her petite but richly curved body.

Rafferty knew he should get up—get away from her before he lost his head and lost the damn “game” by default. Instead, he rested his cheek against that bright silky hair and considered the night before. It didn’t take his mind off his desire, but it did help.

It occurred to him that between the two of them, he and Hagen had somehow changed Sarah. It had been, he decided thoughtfully, a joint effort. Hagen had pried her loose from her safe world and dumped her in an unfamiliar one, and Rafferty had sparked unfamiliar feelings with his own wild passion, and then
issued a challenge. He smiled a little. The result should be interesting—to say the least.

Moving very carefully, he eased away from Sarah’s side without waking her and left the bed. He stood there for a moment, gazing down at her. What kind of woman, he wondered, had been jolted to life by this situation? In spite of danger and uncertainty and the fiction of the game they were playing, Rafferty was eager to find out. Everything he felt told him that she was his woman; all that remained was for them to discover just who she was, and if she could feel the same for him.

He dressed and shaved, distracting his mind from thoughts of her by wondering if Hagen’s assignment was as simple as it appeared on the surface. Everything he knew of Hagen made him doubt that, yet there was no way to be certain. He was reasonably sure only that he and Sarah would find a few surprises waiting for them in Kadeira.

Finding her still sleeping, he went into the sitting room and closed the door, then made a
few phone calls. The first was to Zach, whom he reached on the West Coast and woke out of a sound sleep.

“You’re
what
?” Zach asked sleepily.

Rafferty, who liked to admit to folly no more than the next man, sighed and repeated himself. “I said I’m working for Hagen.”

More than three thousand miles away, Zachary Steele sat up in his hotel room and rubbed his eyes, then peered out at the blackness of predawn. “Where are you?” he demanded.

“Trinidad. And on Monday I board a yacht called the
Thespian
and set sail for Kadeira.”

Zach was silent for a long moment. “I see. My condolences.”

Rafferty winced. “Is it that bad down there?”

“It’s hell,” Zach told him, not mincing words. “No place for Americans—especially when they’re rich enough to afford a yacht. I gather that’s your role?”

“Something like that.”

“What’d Hagen do, blackmail you?”

Rafferty sighed. “Never mind. I know I was a fool. But I’m in this now, and I only have a rough idea of the situation in Kadeira. I need to know as much as possible. Can you find out a little more for me?”

It was Zach’s turn to sigh. “Sure. Just give me a few hours.”

“I’ll call back tonight.”

“Hey, be careful, will you?”

“I will. Thanks, Zach.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Rafferty cradled the receiver and sat thinking for a few moments, then made two more calls. The first was to his law partner to check on the progress of a couple of cases. The second was to Lucas Kendrick.

Sarah woke in the strange bed and sat up abruptly, staring around her at a strange room. It only took her a second to remember where she was, and the muffled sound of a male voice speaking in the next room told her whom
she was with. Glancing down, she realized she was on his side of the bed.

Frowning, Sarah rose and began dressing, but her frown faded within moments. Half afraid that the night before might have been only an interlude of insanity, she was relieved to discover that she was still of the same mind, be it sane or
in
sane; she wasn’t sure which. In all truth, she had never felt so wonderfully awake and aware, and if there would be regrets later at least she felt none now.

As she brushed her hair, she gazed at herself in the mirror, wondering what had happened to the timid creature who had walked into this hotel. She was gone, it seemed, abandoned like an old skin because the new one had grown in. Whether it would be a fragile new skin or a tough and strong one remained to be seen. Too intrigued by this new version of herself, Sarah still wasn’t prepared to question that.

And Rafferty …

She turned and headed for the sitting room, anxious to make certain
he
was still of the same mind, and simply eager to see him again. When
she opened the door she saw he was on the phone, and she hesitated a moment as his end of the conversation sank into her mind.

“You heard me, Lucas.” He was facing away from Sarah, and didn’t see her enter the room. “Well, I hope it
isn’t
necessary; you know I don’t like carrying guns. But, to be on the safe side, I think I’d better. Since you’re back in New York, you can find something suitable and ship it down here. Right. Yeah, I will.”

The menacing reminder of why they were there should have disturbed Sarah. It didn’t. So when he turned away from the phone, she said only, “Is Lucas your partner?”

Rafferty got to his feet slowly, staring at her. “No, but he works for Josh Long too. He’s a private investigator. Good morning.”

“Good morning. You’ve decided to arm yourself, then?”

“It seemed like a good idea.”

“I agree. Hagen said you were a marksman. Where did you pick that up?”

Rafferty was beginning to look a little amused. “You’re taking the situation much
more calmly today, I see. Any particular reason?”