Diamond in the Rough Read online

  “About?”

  No one asked questions in her family, even when they’d all been together. They just let things pass and never even acknowledged the silence. Uncomfortable topics were avoided at all costs.

  “About how lucky you were,” she told him. “And still are.”

  Slowing down and stopping at a yellow light he could have easily made, Mike looked at her for a long moment. “Yeah, I can think of a couple of reasons to be grateful.”

  There it was again, the heat that rose whenever she was in his company and the distance between them was less than a yardstick. The physical attraction was becoming stronger and this would cause a problem, she just knew it.

  But not if she didn’t let it.

  “I was talking about your family,” she informed him almost primly.

  Mike grinned at her, mischief gleaming in his eyes, before he pressed down on the accelerator again.

  “So was I.” Two beats passed before he added, “Among other things.”

  Among other things.

  She had a choice. She could either ask for him to elaborate or allow it to pass. The latter was the easiest. And the safest. She chose the former. Maybe she didn’t want to be safe anymore. “What other things?”

  “I’m grateful for my career,” he began whimsically, then became serious. “Grateful that I wrote the column that got you so hot under the collar.” His voice lowered just a touch. “Grateful that you’re sitting here beside me tonight.”

  Miranda knotted her hands in her lap and stared straight ahead. She couldn’t make out a single thing, her mind wouldn’t focus.

  She wasn’t going to get caught up in this, she lectured herself. There was no future. Once he was finished getting what he needed from her father, she knew that Mike Marlowe would become someone from her past, not her present. The less tangled up with him she allowed herself to get, the better off she’d be.

  “I have to be sitting here tonight,” she pointed out dryly. “You’re my ride.”

  “Why, Miranda Shaw,” he pretended to be surprised and hurt, “are you telling me that you’re just using me for your own purposes?”

  For a second, she thought he was serious. “No, I—” And then she saw the broad grin when he couldn’t keep a straight face any longer. “Do you enjoy flustering me?” she demanded.

  The grin only widened. “It has its perks.” He eyed her appreciatively before looking back at the road. “I didn’t know women still blushed.”

  “I’m not blushing,” she insisted, resisting the urge to press her hands against her cheeks.

  “Then it’s a skin condition?” Mike asked innocently.

  “Yes,” Miranda answered without missing a beat. “An allergy. I’m allergic to hotshot sportswriters who think they have all the answers. The only way I can keep it under control is if I don’t come within fifty feet of one.”

  They’d reached her apartment complex. Mike pulled his car up into the first available spot he found in guest parking.

  “Too late for that,” he told her. “Looks as if you’ve entered the ‘danger zone.’”

  She was going to ask what he meant, but she didn’t get the chance. The very next thing she knew, Mike was leaning over, moving his upper torso to invade her space.

  Then his lips touched hers.

  And all hell broke loose.

  She’d braced herself for that old familiar sinking sensation to take root. That sinking sensation usually so steeped in disappointment she could barely stand it. But if that sensation was even marginally present now, it was masked by the wild rush of her blood and the almost overpowering roar in her ears.

  Not to mention the heat. The heat was everywhere, burning into her very soul.

  However, it definitely was not comfortable, for a very simple reason. She was twisted into him and the driveshaft was between them like a short, metallic old-fashioned chaperone.

  But all that was a minor inconvenience. It didn’t drive them apart. It certainly didn’t keep her from sinking into him.

  Her head began to spin.

  Miranda realized that she’d threaded her arms around his neck and that as the kiss progressed and deepened, she tightened her hold. Although Mike’s hands were against her back, any second now, in one swift movement of his wrists, his hands would easily form a wrap around her rib cage…and her breasts.

  What’s more, she wanted him to touch her.

  Damn, but she tasted sweet. Sweeter than anything he’d ever had. But then, he suspected that all along from the first moment he saw her. Suspected, too, that kissing her wouldn’t be like kissing any of the other women who had come through his life.

  Kissing Miranda stirred a hunger inside of him that took more than a little control to tamp down. And even now, he wasn’t sure if he was doing it. She made him want to lose his head.

  To lose himself in her.

  And that was dangerous. Because to get lost in her would mean opening himself to all sorts of problems and complications. And ultimately, he would open himself up to heartache. Most matches did not work out. Most couples, at least those of his acquaintance, didn’t go on to “live happily ever after” as promised in the fairy tales. And he would never forget how alone he’d felt, how abandoned, when his mother died. She hadn’t left him by choice, but the effect was the same. And then Kate almost left because his father had hurt her, made her feel that he didn’t care about her. She hadn’t been his stepmother then, just his nanny, but he’d still loved her dearly and had formed a deep attachment to her. Thank God his father had come to his senses quickly enough.

  But for the most part, attachments, real attachments, were still difficult for him. The specter of abandonment was too great to risk.

  So what did he think he was doing now, falling into a kiss that he himself had initiated?

  No harm, no foul, he’d just step away. He wouldn’t allow himself to go down that primrose path that led to almost certain danger. He would pull back and pull away. Easily.

  In a couple of minutes.

  For now, he just wanted to savor this bit of heaven that had dropped into his lap, so to speak, before he scrambled to save his immortal soul and his somewhat more fragile psyche.

  Maybe a minute longer than that, Mike bartered with himself. After all, actual loss of control was still down the road. He could stop this in a heartbeat.

  If he wanted to.

  And he did.

  In a minute.

  In just another minute….

  Chapter Ten

  Any second now, she would melt into a puddle. Miranda was certain of it. From the heat of his mouth alone if from nothing else.

  Wedging her hands against Mike’s chest, she forced herself to pull her head back, to focus. Not an easy feat with her brain spinning out of control like a drunken top.

  She ran her tongue along her dry lips. They felt parched. She willed air into her depleted lungs. But when she asked, “Why did you do that?” she still sounded breathless to her own ear.

  Because I’ve wanted to since I picked you up this morning. Afraid of scaring her off, Mike resisted the urge to kiss her again. “I guess I just couldn’t help myself.”

  But Miranda knew better. “You’re not the type who can’t help himself. You’re the type who always stays in control.”

  With a laugh, Mike shook his head. “As flattering as that is, you’re not that excellent a judge of character.” He paused for a moment, wondering how personal he could risk getting and what it would cost him if she felt that he’d stepped over the line. Still, while he liked to make the most of opportunities that came his way, he wasn’t the type to use them to his advantage if someone would wind up hurt by his actions. It was important to him that Miranda understood that.

  His eyes held hers as he spoke. “If you think I kissed you to insure that you don’t suddenly make your father unavailable to me—”

  She could have sworn her heart stopped beating. “Yes?”

  “You’re wrong,” he
said simply. “I’m a sportswriter, not some cutthroat news journalist determined to get ahead at all costs.” He’d known a few writers like that and they were not in his circle of friends. “I like what I do and the way to keep on doing it is to earn the respect of people in the business. If you get a reputation for being ruthless, that pretty much shuts a lot of doors in your face. I like open doors.”

  She believed him. She also believed he could probably sell ice sculptures to the natives in Alaska.

  “You do have a honeyed tongue,” she told him. It wasn’t a compliment so much as an observation. It was time for Cinderella to grab her one remaining shoe and run. Drawing in a long breath, she let it out again. “I had a really great time, Mike.” Far better than I thought I would. “Thank you for inviting me.”

  “My pleasure,” he told her. Slowly gliding the crook of his finger along her cheek, he added, “Really.”

  Miranda officially lost count of how many times he’d made her breath come to a screeching halt in her throat, how many times he made her blood rush in her veins. Both seemed to be happening with a fair amount of regularity and with each time, she had less resistance when it came to Mike. Less inclination to follow the path forged by common sense, and more reasons to go with her newly surfacing emotions.

  She would regret this, she told herself. She knew that like she knew her own name. And yet, she couldn’t help herself. Couldn’t keep the words from surfacing on her tongue. “Would you like to come in for…something?”

  “Something?” Mike echoed, amused.

  When he arched his eyebrow like that, it sent tiny shivers along her spine. “Well, the Bedford police really frown on drinking and driving, so I can’t offer you a drink.”

  “You can if I wait until it gets dissipated in my bloodstream.”

  That meant he’d have to stay awhile, she thought. And every minute that he did was a minute she drew closer to complete meltdown. And surrender. “Think of everything, don’t you?”

  “It just came to me,” he countered. Getting out of his vehicle, Mike stopped for a second. “I won’t come in if it makes you uncomfortable.”

  Oh, God, did it ever. The very thought made the hairs on the back of her neck stand in rigid attention. But not having him come in made her far more uncomfortable. Or maybe restless was a better word for what she was experiencing even at this moment.

  She’d been hovering on the cusp of restlessness since she met him.

  Rather than debate it, or ask him again, Miranda turned on her heel and murmured, “Come on. You know the way.”

  He wasn’t so sure about that because his current path felt extremely rocky. Unfamiliar. But at the same time, it was exciting picking his way through heretofore unexplored terrain.

  Terrain he found himself really wanting to explore.

  Reaching the door of her ground-floor garden apartment, Miranda fumbled with her keys, dropping them once. Mike bent down to pick them up and as he came back up to her level, the journey afforded him the opportunity for a very thorough assessment of her legs and torso. A number of previously dormant impulses suddenly quickened within him.

  Damn, he hadn’t felt quite like this since he was a sophomore in high school.

  Instead of unlocking the door himself, he handed her back her keys, silently leaving the choice in her hands. He wanted her to know that she was not without power in this situation. That actually, she had all the power. She could still change her mind, still send him on his way if she wanted to. He wanted to be sure she understood that the ball was in her court and that he wasn’t about to steal a shot.

  Unlocking her apartment door, Miranda walked inside. He was half a beat behind her. Switching on the light, he closed the door and flipped the lock. Sealing them in and everyone else out.

  The sound of the tumblers falling into place echoed in her head. Miranda ran her tongue along the inner edges of her lips. Why was she suddenly so nervous? It’s not as if she’d never made love to a man before.

  “I promised you a drink,” she heard herself saying, “but I’m not sure I actually have anything.” The people she entertained—but infrequently—all drank some form of diet soda. “I can take a look in the fridge. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

  “I already have,” he answer softly, catching her hand before she could run off into the kitchen, “And you don’t have to bother rummaging around. I’m not really thirsty.” His eyes slowly swept over her face, all but making love to it. There went her air supply again, dissolving into nothingness. “Not for a drink.”

  How could he do that? How could he turn her knees into tiny melting ice caps with just a single look? What was she, thirteen?

  “What are you thirsty for?” The loaded words somehow found their way out of her ultra-dry mouth.

  This time, Mike didn’t answer her. Instead, he gently took her face between his hands and lowered his mouth to hers. And kissed her so hard and so long, she was certain that her soul came to life.

  She sighed, completely and utterly captivated, as he drew back to look at her.

  “Is that better?” he asked.

  That snapped her out of it. Miranda watched him in stunned confusion. Was he asking for an assessment of his technique? Had she misjudged him so completely? Was he one of those swell-headed men who thought they were God’s gift to the female population after all?

  “Better?” she repeated incredulously, barely contained contempt filling her mouth.

  “Yes. The first time we kissed, there was a driveshaft all but piercing your rib cage,” he reminded her. Amusement curved his mouth and she was certain that he’d read between the lines and knew what she’d just thought.

  Embarrassment came and went in the blink of an eye. It didn’t stand a chance in the face of the erupting desire taking hold of her.

  She wanted to kiss him, kiss his smile until its imprint became one with her. Until she could taste it every time she ran her tongue along her lips.

  God, she’d never felt like this before, like some moonstruck teenager clutching a picture of her idol to her chest.

  With effort, she tried to talk herself down. Tried to remember that she was on the road to nowhere. Mike kissed far better than she’d even imagined and that was a huge plus, but deep in her heart she knew that he couldn’t live up to her anticipation when it came to lovemaking. It was just going to be a bigger letdown because of the way he kissed. That just gave her false hope.

  If she had an ounce of sense in her head, she would back away now, tell him she’d made a horrible mistake and very politely ask him to leave.

  But she was fresh out of sense.

  And all she wanted right at this very moment was to have Mike kiss her again just like he had the last time. Kiss her until there was nothing and no one but him.

  It was a tall order and she knew the man couldn’t fill it.

  Until he did.

  The moment his mouth captured hers, the excitement came rushing back in spades, throwing the whole world off-kilter. Making absolutely every part of her body ache for him.

  He kissed her over and over again, his mouth effectively making love to hers until there wasn’t a single drop of resistance left within her—if there really ever had been any to begin with.

  This was happening way too fast.

  The thought beat like a faint tattoo in her brain. She wasn’t that kind of a woman, the kind who made love on the first date. This wasn’t even a date, for God’s sake, it was research. Research into his background, into the kind of person he was and into the lives of the people who were partially responsible for the man he had become.

  Reason failed her.

  It never even stood a ghost of a chance. Because all the logic in the world couldn’t effectively stand in the way of what she really wanted right now. And what she really wanted was to make love with him—even though she knew that it would be anticlimactic to the expectations that his kisses had generated.

  She kept waiting to be disappointed. And while sh
e waited, Mike effectively succeeded in rocking her world. Not once, but over and over again.

  One kiss flowered into another and, as with a teakettle that was beginning to boil, the intensity within her body just grew and grew, threatening to blow the lid off everything.

  She felt reborn.

  All the other times, even in the middle of making love, she could diagram every movement, every step. The anticipation that this time there would be starlight and magic would quickly vanish into nothingness, leaving her secretly wishing that the “event” was over with and sadly wondering what in heaven’s name was wrong with her and why couldn’t she feel what other women supposedly felt?

  She was braced for disappointment.

  It failed to materialize.

  Making love with Mike didn’t take the edge off what had been her almost involuntary heightening of anticipation, just knowing something wondrous was about to take place. A marvelous sensation flared deep within her core, telegraphing messages to every part of her. It kept growing, enveloping her in agony and ecstasy at what seemed like the same exact moment.

  And then, suddenly, an overwhelming eruption touched the sky, then poured down all around her. Her heart raced as she tried her best to keep up, to absorb every moment and make it her own.

  Miranda felt as if a tidal wave had swept over her and it was all she could so to keep from crying out his name in wonder. She didn’t want him to know she’d never been here before.

  The realization that he was feeding on her energy took Mike by surprise. Her pleasure excited him and he wanted to prolong the feeling. He couldn’t remember ever experiencing this intensity, this overpowering need that left him in awe and made him all but desperate to have this—whatever it was.

  Although he wasn’t clear how it had happened, they’d made their way from the front door to her bedroom, the path littered with clothing, both his and hers.

  He’d begun by shedding his own shirt and then tugging off hers. She’d been the one who almost fiercely unbuttoned his jeans and undid his belt. Mouth sealed to hers, he’d managed to step out of his pants, the thrill of the moment heightening with each wild, erratic beat of his heart.