Total Package (9 page)

She crossed her boots that were resting on the arm of the couch and considered her next move…. Any number of assignments waited for her, but memories of Danya kept interfering with clear thinking. On impulse, she unlaced her boots,
stripped off her socks and wiggled her toes, still painted with dark red polish.

The unfamiliar sensual moment drew her thoughts to Ben. Compared to Danya, Ben had never seemed primitive during sex—or as thorough. Mr. Rabbit was only concerned about one thing; Danya seemed to have other motives and definitely had been a very thorough lover.

But then, they’d met on a very high cliff doing the midnight moody thing, and missing his wife, he was getting ready to end it all.

Transference was a potent motivator, and she just might have been the object Danya had transferred to—if so, he did it very well. Picking through the logical pieces of what had happened between them was easy, and on a whim, Sidney decided to call Danya. Uncertain how to best reach him, she left a message on the Stepanov Building Company machine, then settled back to mentally script her talk with him—if he returned the call.

She’d promised to take the Stepanov family pictures, and there would be no way to do that without interacting with Danya.

Well, okay. If she went back to Amoteh, and Danya seemed okay with it, they could have very satisfying, earthshaking sex.

That is, if he hadn’t made complete emotional transference from missing his wife to Sidney.

On impulse, Sidney stood up and walked into a bedroom she seldom used for anything other than storage of her work. She tugged off her clothing and considered herself in the full-length mirror.

Danya’s earrings caught the light, sparkling in her reflection. She’d been right, when howling at the moon on Strawberry Hill and talking with the chieftain entombed there: She did have all the basic equipment, which was now sensitized and aching and lonely. She glanced at her bed, heaped with boxes of her work.

If she had Danya on that bed right now, she’d—

The telephone rang and Sidney waited until Danya’s deep voice came into the room. “I miss you,” he said simply and the line clicked off.

Sidney quickly redialed the Stepanov Building number and Danya answered. “Hi,” she managed breathlessly.

“Hi.”

“Sex with you wasn’t so bad,” she said, surprising herself and knew instantly that Danya had the power to bring things to her mind and lips that would never have previously escaped.

There was a long pause before Danya murmured dryly, “Thanks. You weren’t so bad either.”

Now that was real encouragement, coming from a romantic sort of guy. “I’m wearing your earrings…um, just thought you’d want to know. I’m taking really good care of them.”

Danya cleared his throat, his tone uneven as he asked, “Anything else? Are you wearing anything else?”

He was the first man to be interested in what she was wearing. Sidney held her breath as she answered, “Not a thing. Nope. Just those earrings.”

Then it seemed appropriate to ask, “So what are you wearing, guy?”

“Skin.”

Sidney thought of Danya’s smooth skin covering all those powerful muscles and deep within her that clenching ache began. She turned to the full-length mirror and remembered when Danya had stood behind her at the Amoteh Resort, his open hands pressing her close. The image was sensual and standing without clothing, she could easily remember Danya’s hard body against hers. “Oh.”

“Your skin is very soft. I love to taste it—all over.”

She forced a swallow down her dry, tight throat. “Oh.”

Tit for tat, she thought and searched for equal footing in whatever was going on between them. She wanted to be held tight against him, to lock him to her, flying through pleasure and heartbeats and that passionate storm at the end. “Your butt is cute.”

“Thanks. So is yours.”

“I’m overweight now. Fat grabs on to my butt and my chest.”

“You’re perfect, Sidney…curvy and feminine. If you were here right now, I’d be in you, making love to you. I’d be waiting for those sounds you make, like purring and then like hunger.”

That shocked her, that a man would speak so openly. “Hey, what?”

“In you, making love,” he repeated slowly, softly, and Sidney’s heartbeat kicked up, her body started trembling. “I’d cherish that little scream at the end. But the next time, don’t bother to try to hold it in.”

“Now that is just plain offensive. You’re saying I’m noisy.”

Danya chuckled on the other end of the line. “Sweetheart, I’m saying I like it. Good night.”

After the call ended, Sidney debated the word “sweetheart,” as applied to her specifically. “The guy is a real romantic and he’s lonesome. I saved him from jumping—though he’s not admitting it—and he’s got a little transference thing from his wife going on. He’ll get over it.”

But would she?

Would she ever be able to forget Danya?

Sidney placed the telephone on a stack of brochures for the Cayman Islands. She’d taken the pictures, done the scuba diving shots, and had picked up a nice little fee. Taking photos of the Amoteh Resort wouldn’t take long, and taking pictures of the Stepanov family would let her experiment with portraits of children and those faces with a few lines of experience, like Fadey and Viktor. It would be all light and shadow and beaches and sky and—and Danya.

Sidney decided that what had happened with Danya wasn’t finished and taking those jobs would be the perfect time to see more of him—on a friendly basis. Nothing permanent, of course. Because eventually he’d find someone who matched the wife and children and home picture he should have. Everything was about pictures when you really came down to it, she decided. Some compositions fit and others just didn’t.

She’d seen him over one rough spot, after all, she justified, and she couldn’t just desert him.

On the other hand, she couldn’t use him as a toy boy, either.

Not that Danya was a boy, of course; he was very much a full grown and very hot male. And not her type.

With a sigh, Sidney took a folded sheet from her linen closet, wrapped it around her and went to lie on her couch. She’d be worthless on a photo shoot if she couldn’t focus and that was her problem right now.

She needed to complete her Danya-assignment, needed closure to her uneasiness, and then life would move on as it had.

Sidney removed an earring and lifted it to the light, studying it. Glittering in the shadows, it represented Danya and too many unseen dangers. She couldn’t be what he needed; Ben had made it quite clear that she wasn’t appealing as a wife. “You’re okay, Sid,” Ben had said. “But I love Fluffy. You understand why a man would want a woman like her, want to settle down, right? Thanks, Sid, I knew you’d understand. You’ve always been a good buddy.”

She didn’t want to be Danya’s “good buddy,” and she didn’t want to hurt him either.

She reached for the telephone and dialed his number. Someone picked up, and Sidney’s heart beat quickly as she waited for Danya’s voice. “Sidney?”

All of her fears and thoughts came rushing out. “I’ll get someone to do your family portraits. Someone really good, who specializes in that—I don’t. I just took the gig at Amoteh because I didn’t want to run into Ben, but now I don’t have to worry about that as he’s not leaving Fluffy—she’s pregnant, you know. They’re raising ducks in Wisconsin. I like duck
a l’orange,
but I wouldn’t want to murder one to feed myself. I’ll send the earrings and insure them. They belong to your family and I don’t know why you would give them to me, or why I would take them. We had sex. It was good. I don’t need payoff for that. Consider the account closed. You’re okay now and you don’t owe me anything. I don’t want to be your some
times-on and sometimes-off. You should marry someone and have that family. I’m not coming back. Bye.”

She waited for Danya to end the conversation and the silence at the other end of the line stretched with her every heartbeat. Finally, Danya spoke and every word was wrapped in cold, tight anger. “Okay, Sidney…if that’s the way you want it. But I never thought you were a quitter or a coward. Goodbye.”

“Listen, guy. I am not a quitter or a coward—” She looked at the telephone which had just clicked and was buzzing with an empty sound. She redialed, because Danya wasn’t getting the last word. The telephone rang several times before she hung up. “I am not a quitter, Mr. Danya Stepanov. I just think someone else would do a better job of the portraits, that’s all.”

But that wasn’t the issue, and Sidney knew it. Something wove between Danya and herself, and it terrified her.

She should run, not walk to the nearest exit.

But could she?

D

On the first of July, it had been just over two weeks since he’d first met her on Strawberry Hill; he was beginning to wonder if Chief Kamakani’s curse on Amoteh wasn’t a legend, but that truth was wrapped in one irritating woman who thought Danya had given her those earrings as payment for sex.

At five o’clock, the Stepanov Furniture Shop was filled with blaring Russian folk music and the sound of various sanders and saws. His brother, Alexi, his cousins, Mikhail and
Jarek, his uncle Fadey and father Viktor had all met in the shop earlier. Periodically Fadey and Viktor yelled “Hey!,” hooked arms and with their free arms held high, danced around each other. Perhaps it was only because they were worried about him and had come to keep him company, because they understood that he was brooding about his love—
Danya’s irritating, stubborn, take charge, terrified woman who actually thought he would gift her with his mother’s earrings as payment for sex.

But then Sidney was still brooding about Ben, and certain that Danya was looking for a woman like his deceased love.

If he had Sidney in his hands, he’d make certain she knew that she belonged to him. Danya inhaled deeply; he wasn’t an impatient man, or a possessive one, but Sidney had changed him. He smoothed the walnut surface and tested the slide of the drawers on either side of the knee hole—Sidney had beautiful knees, strong thighs, and little feet that pressed down when she—

He closed the drawer too suddenly and Alexi came to stand beside him. He handed Danya a raspberry-filled cookie. “It’s been over a week since you spoke to her on the telephone. You could make the first move.”

“I could.”

“Killing you not to, right?” Alexi asked knowingly.

“She’s frustrating and irritating and yes, it is killing me not to call her again.”

“That’s saying a lot—you’re hard to irritate and as your older brother, who’s done a lot of tormenting you, I should know.” Alexi considered the small vanity. “Good lines. Sturdy, not too feminine. You’ll have to be careful of the drawer pulls, not too ornate. She’ll like that. Any woman would.”

Danya met his brother’s eyes, as blue as his own. “Sidney isn’t any woman.”

“You realize what a piece of personal furniture might mean to a woman who has traveled all over the world and who doesn’t stay in one place long enough to collect—”

“Me? Yes, I realize. She’s scared and running now. This might make it worse, but I have to have something to do, other than our remodeling.”

“How well I know. I did the same thing when Jessica was trying to make up her mind about me—I made her a desk.”

Their father came to stand beside them; Viktor placed an arm around each son and considered the unfinished vanity. “Good for a woman. Hey, Fadey, come see what my son is making for his woman.”

Fadey and his sons, Mikhail and Jarek, came to consider the vanity. “Good work. I could use you here in my shop,” Fadey said as he passed around the plastic container of his wife’s raspberry-filled cookies. In the crowded corner of the shop where Danya had been working, the men settled on unfinished chairs, tabletops and low coffee tables, all built in the sturdy Stepanov style. They ate cookies, considered the type of hardware for the vanity’s drawers and Fadey said, “My wife makes these for me. Don’t eat too many. They are mine,” he teased.

“You know, our women have decided to contact Sidney, if she doesn’t return soon,” Fadey added. “They may use excuses, but it is really because they want to help you with courting your woman, boy. Perhaps my sons can give little bits of advice.”

Viktor placed his open hand on Fadey’s broad chest and pushed lightly, teasingly. “Brother, my son knows how to please a woman—look what he is making, a gift of the heart, is it not?”

Fadey smiled widely. “That it is—”

The shop’s door opened and Sidney, dressed in a ball cap, a photographer’s vest over her T-shirt and cargo pants, her camera-gear bag slung over one shoulder and a sleeping bag over the other was silhouetted in the doorway.

The stack of chairs in front of the men provided a view of Sidney, but prevented her from seeing them clearly. She slung the sleeping bag onto a door braced over two sawhorses and
plopped the camera bag on top of it. She scanned the shop, turned off the music and yelled, “Stepanov! Get your butt front and center.”

Seated on an unfinished table top, Danya grimly finished his cookie. He should have known that Sidney would skip any advance notice. “Hark. The voice of my angel,” he murmured darkly.

Jarek chuckled, Mikhail smothered a grin and the elder Stepanov males smiled widely. “We could hide,” Alexi whispered in a staged fearful tone. “She didn’t say which Stepanov butt.”

Danya scowled at his brother and called coolly to Sidney, “I’m over here, my darling.”

He knew exactly how the endearment would hit Sidney. If she didn’t think that his family knew that they were lovers, she was very, very wrong. She stopped scanning the expansive shop, and tilted her head to look around the stack of chairs. She stared at the men for a moment.

“Oh, hello,” she said lightly, as if she were trying to cover her surprise.

“Don’t anyone move. I may need you for protection,” Danya murmured dryly.

“But she is so small and cute,” Viktor returned in a whisper. “Perfect for a bride. She is small like your mother…she could wear your mother’s wedding dress—”

“One word of that and she’ll be off and running.”

“Run fast after her,” Alexi advised softly as Sidney made her way around furniture until she came to them.

She nodded to men, seated on various furniture. “I didn’t know you all were here. Jessica said that Danya was working over here and I somehow thought he would be alone—Oh, hi, Danya.”

Fadey reached for Sidney, enveloped her in a big hug that left her slightly dazed, and then Viktor hugged her, waggling her slightly from side to side. “Welcome back, Sidney. We missed you.”

Released from the affectionate but powerful hugs, Sidney braced her hand onto one table and shook her head slightly as if trying to find her balance. She took the cookie that Fadey pushed into her hand and stared at it. “Thanks.”

Danya had been frustrated for eight long days, waiting for her call, a word, anything that said she felt something for what had happened between them, for what could happen. There was just that brief kiss-off phone call in which she stated everything on her mind, and now she just turned up?

She actually thought he’d given her the earrings as payment for sex? For making love with him?
Now that Sidney was near and within reach, he wanted to yell at her. But he wouldn’t—because no matter how much she irritated him, he was not a yeller. “Hi,” he returned coolly as he took the cookie from Sidney and ate it slowly. “What’s up?”

“I—I came back…uh…to take the portraits of your family…uh…maybe of the resort, you know, for the new brochure?”

Perhaps it was his brooding Russian blood, but Danya had to have more. “Where are you staying tonight?” he asked too quietly, because she had wounded him deeply.
They had become lovers and she had left him so easily, had suggested that he would pay her for lovemaking, and hadn’t contacted him.

She had come back to Amoteh to take pictures of his family and his cousin’s resort. But she had not said anything about returning to him.

Sidney’s brown eyes widened and blinked. “Huh?”

He’d had to have something to salve his pride, and now she was blushing and looking panicked and helpless. Viktor nudged Danya with his elbow, and Alexi shook his head slightly, warningly, but Danya didn’t move. “Stay where you want,” he said finally with a light shrug, hoping that she would choose him.

Had he no pride? She had insulted him in several ways and now he was feeling as if he were a brute, kicking a kitten. She’d done that to him, too—made him feel as if he were in the wrong—
and he wasn’t. His mother’s earrings for sex?
That was an insult to his honor. But then, what did Sidney know of a man’s honor? She just tramped through her own life, hitting and running, leaving him with sleepless nights and an aching heart.

Now Sidney was frowning and moving in close, her hands on her hips and Danya knew she was set to argue. He wasn’t the kind to argue either, but right now, with Sidney pushing him, he just might.

“I don’t need permission from you for anything, Stepanov,” she stated.

The other men had backed slightly away, leaving Danya to fend for himself. He caught his father’s disapproving scowl; he had been taught better manners in dealing with women—but then Sidney wasn’t any ordinary woman, and Danya was feeling bruised and nasty. “In some things, you do, my darling.”

Her lips tightened and her eyes narrowed, indicating that the reminder that he wouldn’t be available to her as she wished, but that their lovemaking needed joint approval had sunk home.

Sidney’s hand shot out to grip the shirt at his chest and she breathed heavily as if controlling her temper. There was only one way he knew how to deal with Sidney as she stood, scowling up at him. He stood, reached for her, tugged her against him and holding her tight, and fastened his lips to hers. There was just that breath of surprise and then she melted sweetly, slightly against him. Her fingers went to his hair, holding him tight and she stood on tiptoe to meet that hard demanding kiss, serving it back to him with a hunger that said she had missed him, too.

“That’s all I wanted to know,” he said as he stepped back, studied Sidney’s slightly dazed expression and bent to place her over his shoulder. Danya straightened, glanced at his family who were grinning widely. He nodded grimly, and walked toward the door with Sidney who had started to squirm.

She was fast and she was evil and she was sweet and she was the woman he wanted.

All he had to do was to make sense of her and untangle his emotions—no simple thing.

The best thing was to keep walking down to the beach, carrying her on his shoulder, because if he didn’t—if he didn’t, Danya wasn’t certain what combustion could occur between them. He hadn’t lost his temper in his life, but this one woman could make him so angry—

“Now you’ve made me mad, Stepanov. You can’t just haul me around like some—some….” Sidney stated in a low warning tone. “Just wait until I get my hands on you.”

Danya kept walking until he reached his beachfront home. He shifted Sidney from his shoulder down into his arms. While she was dealing with that sudden change, he opened the door with one hand and eased her through the doorway.

He placed her on her feet, latched one hand to the waistband of her cargo pants and said, “You were saying? Something about getting your hands on me?”

“You’re just not nice, Stepanov,” she said quietly, dangerously after giving up on prying his grip away from her pants. “People think you are, but you aren’t. Not really. You’re bossy, irritating, and…and well, something else, too, but right now, I can’t think of any more to say, because I am so mad at you.”

“That’s good. Let it all out,” he ordered grimly. “It’s been one week since that little kiss-off call, and days before that there was nothing. Not a word from you. Did you think for one minute that might have bothered me?”

Sidney blinked several times and then in a very small voice, she said, “No?”

Well, this wasn’t going well at all, Sidney decided as Danya loomed over her, his big fist gripping the waistband of her pants.

“You didn’t think that remark about my mother’s earrings as payment for sex would insult me?”

Sidney did that stunned, blinking and blank expression that said she hadn’t considered that she might nick his honor. “No?” she questioned again in a very small voice.

Danya was on a roll and he wasn’t stopping. Like it or not,
in a lover-situation, Sidney needed to know that she couldn’t just waltz off with his heart and not suffer the consequences of hearing what she had done. “So you just thought you would dip into Amoteh, take a few payback pictures, because you’re obligated, et cetera, and return the earrings to me, right?”

“Um…sort of.” She wasn’t too certain what her plan had been, other to take photographs of the Stepanovs and maybe sneak one of Danya that she could keep and remember him when she was far, far away and crying over him and thinking of how he had made long, sweet love to her. She’d planned to complete her obligation to Ellie for sewing the lovely gown so quickly, and she’d needed to see that Danya was safe and not thinking of cliffs and jumping.

Sidney changed her mind—yes, she did know what her plan was, and it was for closure in both their lives.

“Get this: I never planned to jump off any cliff, and I’m not Ben,” Danya was saying darkly.

“You’re telling me,” Sidney returned hotly. “
He
would never have been so—so rude.
He
would have never yelled at me, or packed me around in front of everyone. And he sure would never have planted that—that kiss on me that made me forget everything I’d planned to do. He would have never, ever have done anything so—so—I still can’t place just how awful that was, to just flat out show your relatives that we—that we had one…uh…occasion, a you-know-what. Ben was a gentleman,” she finished adamantly.

“I never yelled at you, though the urge is there. You could make anyone yell.”

“You did the same as yell. You had that too quiet tone and you looked dangerous, like some pirate or something. Yes, that’s what you acted like, a dangerous pirate carrying me about like some—how medieval, how neanderthal. Men just don’t do that anymore. You’ve got all these old-fashioned ideas that no one has anymore.”