Chapter 4

 

They had to park around the corner from the North Beach restaurant, in a small lot with one light pole and uneven pavement. A short, poorly lit alley ran between the buildings to the street. Matt used the less-than-perfect conditions as the perfect excuse to touch Susannah, cupping her elbow to guide her around a pothole and then, a moment later, sliding his hand to the small of her back, ostensibly to guide her in the direction of the restaurant.

Smooth move, thought Susannah, making no protest when his hand moved from the small of her back to gently ride the curve of her waist. It wasn't as if he could actually feel anything through the heavy fabric of her coat, anyway. And his hand did feel good there. Warm and, well, just...good. His arm behind her back made her feel oddly sheltered, as if he would protect her from any dangers lurking in the shadows.

Not, she assured herself, that she actually needed any protection. Once they were through the alley and out on the sidewalk, the footing was perfectly even and safe. And there were so many people around that it was hard to avoid being jostled by them. The worst that could happen was that she might get her purse snatched.

But she still didn't move away from his touch.

* * *

"Do you like Chianti?" Matt asked a few minutes later, without even opening the leather-bound wine list the waiter had handed to him.

Susannah barely glanced up from her menu. "Chianti's fine," she said, her mouth already watering at the descriptions of Italian delicacies listed on the menu.

"Two glasses of the house wine," Matt ordered, handing the wine list back to the waiter. "And an order of bruschet—" he broke off and glanced across the table. "Do you object to garlic?"

Susannah raised an eyebrow. "In Italian food?"

Matt smiled, acknowledging her point. "An order of bruschetta to start," he said to the waiter. "Then I'll have the eggplant parmigiana. Susannah?" He waited until she looked up at him again. "Are you ready to order?"

Susannah closed her menu, giving in to temptation without a fight. "Three-cheese lasagna with white sauce," she said, promising herself she'd only eat half of it. She handed her menu to the waiter with a smile of thanks.

"Very good," the waiter said approvingly, as if they had ordered exactly what he would have chosen himself. He took the menus and the wine list and disappeared.

It was very quiet at the small cloth-draped table after the waiter left. Too quiet. Unnervingly quiet. A veritable haven of quiet in the busy little restaurant. They smiled at each other across the candlelit table, suddenly uneasy, oddly hesitant.

Susannah moved her spoon a millimeter closer to her knife and tried desperately to think of something to say.

Matt positioned the saltshaker more precisely on the tablecloth and wondered what had happened to his savoir faire.

They both reached for their water glasses at the same time.

Susannah took a sip of water.

Matt took a sip of water.

They put the glasses down at the same instant and chanced another fleeting glance at each other, another nervous smile.

Susannah looked down and adjusted the napkin in her lap.

Matt reached out and plucked a slender bread stick from the container sitting in the middle of the table. He broke it in half between his long fingers. "Bread stick?" he asked, feeling like a fool. He hadn't been this tongue-tied around a woman since junior high school.

"Yes, thank you," Susannah said gratefully, reaching for it as if he'd offered her a lifeline.

They nibbled in silence for another long few seconds.

"Good bread sticks."

"Yes, they are."

More silence.

"How did you—"

"How is—"

They gazed at each other for a full five seconds, and then, mercifully, burst out laughing at their adolescent silliness. It broke the tension, freeing them from the stilted, unnatural silence.

"You go ahead," Susannah invited graciously.

"Ladies first," Matt insisted gallantly.

"I was only going to ask how your campaign is going."

Matt shrugged. "According to the Examiner, I'm ahead in the polls. According to the Chronicle, I'm behind. Which means it's way too early to be making any predictions. Especially when you realize that over half the people polled have absolutely no idea who I am in the first place. District judge isn't one of those positions most people know, or care, anything about," he explained with a shrug.

"What does your campaign manager think about your chances?"

"Harry says if I get out there and campaign hard for the next five months, I'm a shoo-in come November. Provided I don't make any really stupid mistakes in the meantime, that is."

"You don't sound as if you agree with him."

"Oh, I agree with him. I think I stand an excellent chance of winning my father's old seat on the bench. I just don't like the idea very much, that's all."

"You don't like the idea of what?" Susannah's expressive eyebrows rose. "Winning your father's old seat?"

Matt gave her a look that said she should know better than that. "Campaigning," he said dryly.

Susannah shook her head. "And you call yourself a politician," she chided playfully.

"I call myself a lawyer," he corrected. "And I can't be a lawyer and campaign the way Harry expects me to at the same time."

"Then why are you running for district judge? You had to know what it would involve before you agreed to it."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?"

"Are you saying you didn't know?"

"Oh, I knew," he admitted. "On some basic level, anyway. I just didn't expect the process to be so..." He fell discreetly silent as the waiter returned to set their wine and appetizer on the table. "All-encompassing," he finished when the waiter was out of earshot again.

"All-encompassing how?"

"Campaigning tends to take over your life," Matt said. "And it can easily become a full-time job, if you let it. I can't afford to let it. I've got a court calendar that's backed up from here to last Christmas. The Delaney murder trial is scheduled for August and one of my key witnesses has suddenly changed her mind about what she saw. The conviction in the Mendoza drug case is up for appeal." He shook his head. "Despite what Harry says, I can't be running around to every pancake breakfast and Rotary Club luncheon to shake hands and make speeches. I have more impor—" He broke off suddenly and stared at her across the width of the small table. She was leaning slightly forward, chin balanced on her fist, head tilted, listening raptly to every word he said. "So this is how you get your clients to spill their guts," he said, more than a bit discomforted to realize he'd been spilling his. He wasn't usually so forthcoming. "Very sneaky."

Susannah ignored the teasing comment. "It sounds to me as if you're not completely committed to the campaign," she said, her expression serious and thoughtful. "Are you sure you want to be a judge?"

Matt stared at her for a second, nonplussed. No one had ever asked him that question before, not directly. He hadn't even asked it of himself. "Of course I want to be a judge," he said lightly. "I've wanted it my whole life."

Just not yet.

He hastily pushed the traitorous, unwelcome thought aside and reached for his wineglass. Holding it aloft, he waited until Susannah echoed his gesture and lifted hers, too. "To romance," he said, deliberately changing the subject.

"Romance?" Susannah murmured, disconcerted by the abrupt change of topic.

"My mother's," he clarified, smiling innocently at her over the rim of his glass. His savoir faire, he was happy to note, was firmly back in place. The nerves were gone. And thoughts of whether he did or didn't want to run for district judge were best left for another time. "The one she's going to have as soon as you find her a suitable date."

"Oh. Yes, of course," Susannah agreed. It was the reason they were having dinner together. "To romance." She took a small, quick sip of her wine and put it down. "I think you'll be pleased to know that, after meeting her tonight, I think I have the perfect man."

"Oh?" He lifted a thin slice of bruschetta—grilled garlic bread coated with a mixture of chopped tomatoes, onions, garlic, capers and herbs—and placed it on a small plate in front of Susannah before taking one for himself. "Who?"

"I don't think you'd know him. He hasn't been in California long." She picked up her bruschetta between two fingers. "Ever hear of Carlisle Elliott?"

Matt shook his head.

"He's a widower. Sixty-four. Average height. Average weight. Very healthy and active. And quite attractive, too. He looks a little like Cesar Romero, only shorter. Anyway, he moved out here six months ago after selling his nursery business in Iowa." Susannah took a bite of the single slice of bruschetta she'd already determined was all she was going to allow herself, pausing for a moment to savor the sublime mixture of tastes. "He lives over in Sausalito," she said, after she had swallowed. "On a houseboat."

"He lives on a houseboat?" Matt's savoir faire deserted him again for a brief moment as he watched Susannah lick a bit of crushed tomato off the side of her finger with the tip of her little pink tongue.

"Now, don't be a snob, Matt," Susannah advised him, completely misinterpreting the strangled note in his voice. "Your mother certainly isn't. And she's the one who'll be going out with him."

* * *

"So your grandmother left you the house and a trust fund. That still doesn't tell me how you got from County Social Services to The Personal Touch," Matt said, handing her an extra fork so she could share his cannoli. Although she'd declined to order a dessert for herself, she'd looked at his as if it was the Holy Grail and the Hope Diamond combined. "From what I know of you so far, I'd have expected you to open a halfway house or a shelter for battered women or something along those lines. Not a dating service."

Susannah looked at him, surprised that he'd pegged her so accurately in such a short time.

"I thought about it," she admitted. "I even did some preliminary leg-work in that direction. But the area isn't zoned for that kind of establishment. And, to be honest—" she shrugged, still feeling a little guilty for taking the easy way out "—I was tired of all the misery and suffering I saw every day in my job as a social worker. I wanted to do something that would help people make their lives happier, without making myself unhappy in the process." She smiled ruefully and took a minuscule piece of cannoli onto the tip of her fork. "Dottie, my supervisor at County, always said I got too personally involved with my cases."

"No kidding?" he said, amused.

"Yes. Well..." She slipped the tiny portion of dessert between her lips, closing her eyes for a second to savor the taste. "Anyway," she said, opening her eyes again, "it seemed to me that running an old-fashioned dating service would be the perfect thing. And it is. I love what I'm doing now. And I'm good at it. I have a very high success rate," she told him. "It's one of the best in the business."

"Yet you're still involved in social work."

"How do you figure that?"

"Judy Sukura," Matt said. "And that other woman you have working for you, the older one who doesn't like men."

"Helen Sanford."

He nodded. "Helen. I'll bet she just didn't answer a want ad for a secretary," he said shrewdly.

"Well, no," Susannah admitted, and helped herself to another tiny bite of his cannoli. "I was introduced to her through a friend who runs a support group for displaced homemakers. You know, women who suddenly find themselves in the workplace with no skills or experience?"

"I know," Matt said, watching as she carefully licked the tines of the fork to get the last bit of whipped cream. "I also know there are organizations to deal with the problem. Programs to teach those women the skills they need before they go out into the workplace."

"Yes, there are programs," Susannah admitted, "but not nearly enough of them." She put her fork down to avoid further temptation. "And Helen actually has plenty of skills, anyway, because she ran her husband's home-based plumbing business for twenty-five years. As so often happens, though, that kind of experience doesn't seem to count in the real world."

"So this friend who runs the support group conned you into hiring Helen to give her some experience."

"I wasn't conned into anything," Susannah objected. "With Judy taking on more hours at school, I needed a full-time assistant and—"

"And Helen was the best person for the job?" he said, his skepticism plain on his face.

"Yes," Susannah lied.

"Uh-huh," he commented, a knowing gleam in his eye. "I'll concede that she might have the technical skills you were looking for, but I seriously doubt her personality is exactly what you had in mind. Here—" he said, lifting his cannoli-laden fork to her mouth  "—have the last bite."

Susannah had to open her mouth or end up with whipped cream and sweetened ricotta all over her chin. She opened her mouth, accepting the rich dessert with ill-disguised eagerness.

Matt watched her lips part to accept his offering, watched them close over the creamy sweet on his fork, watched her eyelids flutter down as she savored the taste. He withdrew the fork slowly, so that she could get every last bit of the whipped cream, deliberately letting the tines slide against her bottom lip in a sensual caress. "Good?" he murmured huskily.

"Mmm," she sighed ecstatically as the flavors melted on her tongue.

Matt shifted on his chair as his body responded to her unthinking provocation. She was such a contradiction, sitting there across from him: the prim black dress, so striking against her pale, creamy skin, the ladylike pearls, gleaming wantonly at her throat and ears, the sedate chignon, just begging to be released from its pins. Behind the relentlessly refined, implacably genteel exterior she'd presented to him tonight was a warm, passionate, vibrant woman—the same woman who'd melted into his kiss like honey on hot biscuits. "You have no idea how much I want you," he said softly.

Susannah's eyes flew open. "What?" she whispered.

He met her wide-eyed gaze head-on. "You heard me."

Something about his unwavering directness inspired the same unflinching honesty in her. "Yes, I heard you," she said. "And it's crazy. I know it's crazy. But I want you, too."

* * *

"So," he said as he pulled onto the apron of concrete in front of her narrow garage door. "Are you going to invite me in for coffee?"

Susannah caught her lower lip between her teeth and stared straight ahead. "I shouldn't."

"Probably not," Matt agreed. He stretched his arm out, resting it along the back of the seat, and reached out to twine his finger in the curling tendril of hair that lay against her cheek. "But are you going to?" he asked, tugging lightly to make her look at him.

Susannah turned her head toward him. "It would only be for coffee," she warned him. "I meant what I said about—" she took a quick little breath as he lightly stroked her cheek and down the side of her throat with the back of his finger "—about wanting you. But I haven't decided if I'm going to act on the feeling. I don't think it would be a good idea to rush in when I'm not sure where it will lead."

"When," he said.

"What?"

"You said if you decide to act on the feeling. Be as honest as you were in the restaurant, Susannah. It's only a matter of when."

"All right, when," she admitted. "I haven't decided when." Her gaze was earnest and sweet and serious in the dim light. "But it won't be tonight, Matt. I don't know you well enough, for one thing. And I'm not entirely sure about this....this feeling, for another." Her hands fluttered up and then back down into her lap. "It kind of snuck up on me when I wasn't expecting it. I have to give this whole situation some serious thought before I decide what I'm going to do."

"Okay." Matt nodded, manfully hiding his disappointment. "I can understand that. Tonight is out." He stroked her cheek again, gently, delicately, reveling in its warmth and softness. "But I'd still like that coffee."

* * *

Matt found the interior of Susannah's house to be as much of a dichotomy as she was. Downstairs in the public rooms he'd already seen, the mood and decor were cozy, elegant, and reassuringly conventional. The colors were soft and soothing, a mix of pale yellows, soft green, and robin's-egg blue. The furnishings were mostly French and English antiques in light, delicate woods. The computer terminal on the desk in the reception area had been rendered unobtrusive, half-hidden behind a large, lacy Boston fern. It didn't take a genius to realize that everything downstairs had been deliberately designed to put her customers at ease, to make them feel as comfortable as if they were part of a more genteel era, when people first glimpsed their future spouses over tea in great-aunt-somebody's front parlor instead of at a bar during Happy Hour.

Upstairs, in her personal quarters, it was very different. Oh, it was still delightfully cozy. And undisputedly elegant. But nothing about her private space would ever be called conventional. Matt thought whimsically that stepping through the heavy wooden door at the top of the stairs was a little bit like stepping into a parallel universe… instantly recognizable but, somehow, just slightly off kilter.

The high ceilings and distinctively detailed crown moldings matched the ones downstairs. The tall, narrow windows were duplicates of those in the front parlor, right down to the fireplace between the two facing the street. The floors were made of the same beautifully polished hardwood. Everything else was delightfully different.

Most of the walls had been knocked out, creating one large room out of several smaller ones. Those that were left were painted a deep, rich amethyst, the color defined and intensified by the stark white moldings and woodwork. The windows had been draped and swagged in layers of gauzy white fabric that pooled on the gleaming hardwood floor. The original oak mantel had been removed from the fireplace, replaced with a larger, less ornate one made of pink-veined white marble. The three sofas arranged in a U-shape in front of the fireplace were oversized, overstuffed and low to the ground, designed with the sensual, rounded lines reminiscent of the art-deco period. They were upholstered in deep teal blue and piled high with plump pillows in shades of purple, lavender, and rose pink. The only other major piece of furniture in the room was a massive French armoire with pink silk tassels dangling from the door handles. The occasional tables were Art Nouveau reproductions. The wall sconces and lamps were made of frosted glass, shaped like open fans or gracefully drooping lilies, respectively. The fireplace was guarded by a realistically poised and painted pair of seated leopards. One of them wore a wide choker of sparkling rhinestones around its regal neck. The other sported a black satin bow tie and rakishly tilted silk top hat.

"Have a seat," Susannah invited, gesturing toward the sofas. "The coffee will only take a minute." She moved toward the back of the room, quickly, shrugging out of her camel-hair coat as she went. She tossed it over the padded seat of one of the six high-backed stools surrounding the freestanding, white marble counter that served as her dining table and separated her kitchen area from the rest of the room. "I can make espresso or cappuccino, if you'd rather," she said from behind the counter. "I have a machine."

"Espresso sounds good." Matt followed her into the kitchen, drawn to her like metal filings to a magnet. He came up behind her as she reached out to open the refrigerator, coming close enough to lean down and sniff the back of her neck. "That's not the same perfume you were wearing the other day."

Susannah gave a muffled shriek and whirled around, nearly bumping into him in the process. The refrigerator door banged shut. "What?"

He took the bottle of springwater from her and put it down on the counter next to the espresso machine. "Your perfume. It's not the same one you were wearing the other day."

"No, it isn't." She edged away from him, trying to be casual about it, and began filling the water receptacle on the machine. "It was a gift."

"This or the other?"

"This."

"I'd get rid of it," he advised, jealous of whoever had given it to her. "It isn't you."

"Oh?" she said, turning her head to look at him. He was much too close. She turned her gaze back to the espresso machine.

"It's much too flowery and sweet," he said in answer to her hasty look. "I like the other better."

"I'll try to remember that." She flipped the lid down on the water receptacle and sidled down the counter, reaching up to open the cupboard where she kept the coffee.

Matt's hand closed over hers on the white ceramic knob, as if he had inadvertently raised his hand at the same moment. "Can I help?" he asked innocently.

Susannah swallowed nervously. She slipped her hand from under his and backed away a step, coming smack up against the refrigerator door. "Why don't you go and put on some music?" she suggested. "My audio system is in the armoire." She lifted a hand, gesturing toward the living area.

Matt caught it in his. "Are you afraid of me, Susannah?"

"No, of course not."

"Nervous, then?"

"No," she lied.

He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand, slowly, as if testing its softness—and her veracity.

"Okay, maybe." She gave a noncommittal little shrug, trying to be blasé about the warm tingles of sensation zinging up her arm. "A little," she admitted reluctantly, then gave him a stern look. "But only because you're crowding me."

Matt laughed softly. Triumphantly. He took a half a step back. "There's no need to be nervous," he assured her, and lifted her hand to his mouth. "Not tonight, anyway," he added, and pressed a warm kiss into her palm.

It took all of Susannah's considerable willpower to keep from curling her hand into the heat of his kiss.

His blue eyes gleamed wickedly, as if he knew just how much self-control it was costing her to appear unmoved. "Tonight, I'm on my best behavior."

Susannah couldn't help but smile at that. "And I'm Mother Teresa," she said dryly. She pulled her hand out of his grasp. "Go put on some music and let me make the espresso."

He hesitated a moment, just long enough for her to wonder if he was going to be difficult. And then he sighed, theatrically, like a small boy who had been denied a longed-for treat, and went to do as she'd bid him. Susannah was still smiling as she measured coffee into the stainless-steel filter. She'd often heard that good trial lawyers were part actor. Now she believed it.

"What would you like to hear?" Matt asked a few moments later. "Rod Stewart, Unplugged? Frank Sinatra, The Columbia Years? Or Willie Nelson's Greatest Hits?"

Susannah lifted two delicate demitasse cups down from the cupboard. She dropped a brown sugar cube into each one. "You choose," she said and pressed the start button on the espresso machine. It rumbled and thumped and hissed noisily, finally spewing forth a stream of thick rich coffee into the waiting cups. When the cups were full and she finally turned the machine off, her ears were filled with the sound of Ol' Blue Eyes crooning love songs from the Big Band era. Great. "Lemon peel?" she asked, raising her voice to be heard above the music.

"Sounds good," Matt said.

Susannah took that to be a reference to the lemon peel and not the music swirling through the room. She gave the tiny piece of lemon a deft twist and dropped it into his cup. Placing it on a tray next to her own, she took a quick breath, picked up the tray and sailed into the living area with as much aplomb as she could muster.

"Here, let me help you with that," Matt said, standing up to take the tray from her as she rounded the corner of the sofa.

Some of her aplomb abruptly faded away. While she'd been busy preparing the espresso, he'd been busy making himself right at home. He'd switched on the gas fireplace so that firelight flickered cheerily off the marble mantel and struck flashing shards of light off the leopard's rhinestone choker. He'd found the brandy and placed two oversize snifters side-by-side on the pale pink lacquered surface of her coffee table, with two fingers of amber liquid in each. He'd located the dimmer switch that controlled the frosted sconces and turned down the lights to a soft glow against the amethyst walls.

He'd also found the time to take off his suit coat and tie, leaving her to stare at a broad chest and shoulders that looked at least a yard wide under the soft white cotton of his custom-made shirt. The hands that reached out for her tray were strong and tanned, bared to the white shirtsleeves rolled halfway up his forearms.

Do men do that on purpose? she wondered peevishly. Do they all know what the sight of a pair of strong, hair-dusted forearms does to a woman's resolve? I'll bet he opened those top two buttons on his shirt on purpose, too, she decided, just to show off that tempting wedge of chest hair.

"I'm going to punch the next man who dares accuse women of using their sex appeal to get what they want," she muttered as Matt put the tray on the coffee table and sat down.

He lifted an eyebrow. "Beg pardon?" he said, glancing up at her from the sofa. Somehow, just sitting there like that, looking up at her, he managed to appear innocently adorable and dangerously, irresistibly sexy at the same time.

Susannah decided that she absolutely had to assert herself before things got out of hand. Or more out of hand than they already were. What on earth had she been thinking of to let him come in for coffee?

"I meant what I said about nothing happening between us tonight," she said firmly, letting her gaze sweep over the cozy little scene he had set. "I'm not about to let myself be seduced." No matter how sexy and adorable and irresistible you are.

"And I meant what I said about knowing nothing was going to happen tonight," Matt said, pretending affront that she would doubt him. "I have no intention of seducing you." He broke eye contact, deliberately letting his gaze make the same sweep hers had before bringing it back to her again. "Although I did kind of hope we might indulge in some heavy necking," he said, laughing out loud when her mouth fell open. "Relax, Susannah." He reached out and grabbed her hand. "I promise I won't do anything you don't want me to do."

Oh, that's a comfort, she thought, as she bounced down on the cushy sofa beside him.

He picked up one of the cups of espresso on the tray and handed it to her. She took it with an automatic murmur of thanks, eyeing him warily despite his promise.

His lips turned up in a wicked grin. "I also promise I won't make love to you tonight, even if you beg me."

* * *

She almost begged him.

They had finished the espresso and were sipping on the brandy when he leaned over and kissed her. It started out as a gentle kiss, meant to be teasing and playful. But they both caught fire the instant their lips touched and the kiss went from playful to heated in a heartbeat.

Matt put his free hand on the back of her head to bring her closer, to taste her more deeply, to hold her mouth pressed to his as he experimented with the limited pressures and angles possible to them as they sat there on the sofa, knowing they could go no further while they both held brandy snifters. It went on for long, endless, frustrating minutes. Hot, sweet kisses that made him ache like a teenager in the back seat of his father's car, until, finally, he could take no more and raised his head with a ragged sigh.

Susannah stared up at him, her soft brown eyes liquid and warm with wanting, her lips wet and shiny from his. "More," she murmured, as heedless and greedy as a child in a candy store. "Kiss me again, Matt."

It was the way she said his name, all soft and breathy and aching with need, that cracked his resolve. He pulled just far enough away from her to take the brandy snifters and put them on the coffee table. And then he cupped his big hands on either side of her head, cradling it, tilting it back, and took her mouth with his. His lips plucked at hers, sliding over them, wetting and warming them, teasing them, until, helplessly, she opened her mouth as wide as he wanted and invited him in. He took unhurried, undisputed possession. His tongue plunged between her lips, a welcome invader, thoroughly plundering her sweetness, asking to be plundered in return. Susannah obliged him eagerly and they engaged in a heated duel, sharing the dark flavor of espresso, the tang of lemon, the heady taste of brandy warmed by passion's intemperate flames.

They nibbled and nipped, licked and sucked, changing angles and pressures, pulling apart to taste each other's cheeks and chins, ears and eyelids and the soft underside of a jaw, then coming together again in a kiss deeper than the one before.

His hands tangled in her wayward curls, freeing them to fall in glorious disarray over her shoulders. Her fingers threaded through his silky blond hair, holding him to her when he pressed his lips to her throat in a hot, open-mouthed kiss.

"This is madness," she whispered raggedly, pulling him closer.

"Insanity," he agreed with a low growl as he lifted his hands to her nape, seeking the tab of the long zipper that ran down the back of her dress.

She bowed her head against his wide chest and reached up with one hand, brushing her hair aside to make it easier to find.

Neither one of them gave a thought to her misgivings or his promise as he slid the tab down to her waist.

He moved his hands back up the open V and grasped the loosened bodice of the dress. She straightened as he drew it forward, allowing him to bare her throat and shoulders and the soft swell of her breasts, barely contained in a purple satin demi-bra trimmed with black lace. The straps were halfway down her arms, caught by his fingers as he pulled the bodice of her dress down.

Matt sucked in his breath at her delicate beauty. He leaned down and, very softly, pressed a kiss into the top of her cleavage.

Susannah whimpered. "Absolute madness," she moaned.

The words sobered him.

If he pulled the dress the rest of the way down, if he took off her bra and bared her breasts, there would be no stopping him. Not that she would ask him to stop. Not now. Not with her heart pounding and her body trembling, and passion wreaking havoc on her better judgment. She wouldn't even remember the promise he'd made her until later, when the passion had cooled and she'd had time to consider what she'd done in the searing heat of the moment. He told himself that Susannah was a fair woman, an honest woman, and she wouldn't blame him for what they'd both done.

But she might regret it.

And, damn it, he'd promised.

Matt closed his eyes and his hands clenched on the fabric of her dress, hard, as he fought not to pull it the rest of the way down.

"Matt?" she said uncertainly, her voice trembling almost as much as her body.

He shook his head. "Give me a minute," he rasped. "Just one minute." He took a deep breath and pulled the dress back into place on her shoulders. It was the hardest thing he'd ever done but he made good on his promise.

He just hoped she appreciated it.

She took a deep steadying breath, and then another, struggling to bring her rampaging emotions under control. She wanted to scream and beg, to demand that he finish what they had started. She eased herself away from him, instead. "Thank you," she whispered.

He was just pulling up the zipper on her dress when they heard the downstairs door creak open.

"Are you expecting visitors?"

Susannah frowned. "No, I—"

Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs. "Suse?" a voice called softly. "You awake up there?"

Susannah's hands flew to her hair. "Oh, goodness, it's Heather."

"Heather?"

"Heather Lloyd. She's staying with me for a while, in the efficiency apartment downstairs."

A light knock reverberated through the room. "Suse?"

Susannah jumped up from the sofa. "Yes, I'm up," she called. "You can come in."

The door opened to reveal a slender teenager dressed in the height of grunge street fashion: torn jeans, baggy faded sweater hanging down from beneath a worn and studded leather jacket, heavy, black motorcycle boots and short blond hair that looked as if she'd styled it herself with pinking shears. She stood in the doorway for a moment, taking in the scene. "Oh, jeez, Suse. I didn't know you had company." She started to back out the door. "I'll go."

"No, it's all right," Susannah said brightly. "Matt was just leaving." She scooped his jacket and tie off the sofa as she spoke and handed them to him without looking at him, trying to pretend her cheeks weren't blazing red. "Weren't you, Matt?"

"Looks like it," Matt said, standing up to slip into his jacket. He wadded up the tie and put it in his pocket, then reached out and caught Susannah's chin in his hand, turning her face up to his. "We'll finish this later," he said in a low voice, his eyes intense and predatory as they stared down into hers. "And that's another promise you can count on."

Heather stepped back as he approached the door, watching him warily out of shadowed green eyes. "I don't suppose you want me to, like, call you a taxi or something?" she said hopefully.

Matt paused to look down at her. "No, thanks," he said lightly, realizing she wasn't more than sixteen, if that. What had a kid her age been doing out so late? "My car's parked right outside."

Heather grimaced and hunched her shoulders in protective reflex action. "It wouldn't happen to a navy-blue Lincoln Continental, would it?"

"Yes." Matt nodded slowly, sensing he was about to hear something he wouldn't like. "Why?"

The girl lifted her chin defiantly, causing the multiple earrings dangling from each of her delicate earlobes to sway against one another. "I, like, put an illegal-parking sticker on your windshield," she said, her posture daring him to do something about it.