CARLY DIDN’T SEE Mark the next day, but another message appeared on her computer screen late in the afternoon, just as she was getting ready to go home.
“Nice coverage on the food contest,” it said, “but telling ‘Frazzled in Farleyville’ to get a divorce was truly cavalier. Who the hell do you think you are, Dr. Phil?”
Carly sighed. All her life, her view of the world had been pretty clear-cut: this was right, that was wrong; this was good, that was bad. Now she was faced with a man who could melt her bones one moment, and attack her most basic principles the next.
She poised her fingers over the keyboard for a few minutes, sinking her teeth into her lower lip, then typed, “If you don’t like my column, Holbrook, do us both a favor and stop reading it.”
Mark’s response took only seconds to appear. “That’s what I like,” it jibed. “A rookie who knows how to heed the voice of experience.”
“Thank you, Ann Landers,” Carly typed succinctly. “Good night, and goodbye.” With that, she shut down the system, gathered up her things and left the room.
Somewhat to her disappointment, there were no computer messages from Mark the next day or the one after that, and he didn’t appear in any of the staff meetings, either.
Carly told herself she was relieved, but she was also concerned. She worried, at odd moments, about Mark’s undercover assignment with the police. A thousand times a day she wondered how soon word would leak out if something went wrong...
A full week had passed when she encountered Mark again, at a media party in the ballroom of a downtown hotel. He was wearing jeans, a lightweight blue sweater and a tweed sports jacket while all the other men sported suits, and he still managed to look quietly terrific.
His eyes flipped over Carly’s slinky pink sheath, and instantly her nipples hardened and pressed against the glimmering cloth. “Hi,” he said, and the word was somehow intimate, bringing back Technicolor memories of the incident on her kitchen counter.
Carly’s cheeks went as pink as her dress, and she folded her arms in self-defense. “Well,” she said acidly, “I see you survived the crack raid.”
Mark took hold of her elbow and gently but firmly escorted her through the crush of television, radio and newspaper people toward the lobby. “We need to talk.”
Carly glared at him. “I think it would be best if we just communicated through our computers. Better yet,” she added, starting to move around him, “let’s not communicate at all.”
He captured her arm again, pulled her back and pressed her to sit on a bench upholstered in royal-blue velvet. He took a seat beside her and looked into her eyes, frowning. “What did I do now?”
She straightened her spine, drew a deep breath and let it out again. “That has to be the most obtuse question I’ve ever heard,” she said stiffly.
“I doubt it,” Mark retorted, before she could go on to say that she didn’t appreciate his criticism and his nonchalant efforts to get her fired. “Considering that you’ve probably been asked things like, ‘How do you walk without your tiara falling off?’ and ‘What contribution do you think tap dancing will make to world peace?’”
Carly leaned close to him and spoke through her teeth. “I’d appreciate it, Mr. Hotshot Pulitzer Prize Winner, if you would stop making comments about my title!”
His wonderful, damnable brown eyes twinkled. “Okay,” he conceded, “just answer one question, and I will.”
Carly was cautious. “Fair enough,” she allowed huffily. “Ask away.”
“What was your talent?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“In the pageant. When the other semifinalists sang and danced and played stirring classical pieces on the piano, what did you do?”
Carly swallowed and averted her eyes.
Mark prompted her with a little nudge.
“I twirled a baton,” she blurted out in a furious whisper. “Are you satisfied?”
“No,” Mark replied, and even though he wasn’t smiling, his amusement showed in every line of his body. “But I’ll let the subject drop for the time being.”
“Good,” Carly growled, and sprang off the bench.
Mark pulled her back down again. “Lighten up, Barnett,” he said. “If you can’t take a little ribbing, you won’t last five minutes in this business.”
Carly’s face was flushed, and she yearned to get out into the cool, crisp May evening. “So now I’m thin-skinned, as well as incompetent.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “I never said you were incompetent, but you’re damned cranky. I can’t figure out which you need more—a good spanking or a very thorough session on a mattress.”
That was it. Carly had reached the limit of her patience. She jumped up off the bench again and stormed back into the party.
She would have preferred to walk out of that hotel, get into her car and drive home. But she knew contacts were vital, and she wanted to meet as many people as she could.
She stayed an hour and a half, avoiding Mark, passing out and collecting business cards. Then she put on her shiny white blazer and headed for the parking lot.
She had unlocked the door and slid behind the wheel before she realized that Mark was sitting in the passenger seat. Surprise and fury made her gasp. “How did you get in here? This car was locked!”
He grinned at her. “I learned the trick from Iggy DeFazzio, a kid I interviewed when I was doing a piece on street gangs.”
Carly knew it wouldn’t do any good to demand that he leave her car, and she wasn’t strong enough to throw him out bodily. She started the ignition and glared at him. “Where to, Mr. Holbrook?”
“My place,” he said with absolute confidence that he’d get his way.
“Has anybody ever told you that you are totally obnoxious?”
“No, but my teenage niece once said I was totally awesome, and I think she meant it as a compliment.”
Carly pulled out into the light evening traffic. “You must have paid her.”
Mark spoke pleasantly. “Pull over.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t grovel and give directions at the same time,” he replied.
Wondering why she was obeying when this man had done nothing but insult her since the moment she’d met him, Carly nonetheless stopped the car and surrendered the wheel to Mark. Soon they were speeding down the freeway.
“So,” he began again brightly, “when you were twirling your baton, were the ends on fire?”
Carly reached out and slugged him in the arm, but a grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Is this your idea of groveling?”
He laughed. “Meet anybody interesting at the party?”
“Two or three TV newscasters and a talk-show host,” she answered, watching him out of the corner of her eye. “I’m having dinner with Jim Benson from Channel 37 Friday night.”
Mark’s jaw tightened for just a moment, and he tossed a sidelong glance in her direction. “He’s a lech,” he said.
“If he gets out of line,” she replied immediately, “I’ll just hit him with my baton.”
Mark cleared his throat and steered the car onto an exit. “Carly—”
“What?”
“We got off on the wrong foot, you and I.”
Carly folded her arms. “Whose fault was that?”
He let out a ragged sigh as they came to a stop at a red light. “For purposes of expediency,” he muttered, “I’ll admit that it was mine. Partly.”
“That’s generous of you.”
The light changed, and they drove up a steep hill. “Damn it,” Mark bit out, “will you just let me finish?”
Carly spread her hands in a motion of generosity. “Go ahead.”
He turned onto a long, curving driveway, the headlights sweeping over evergreen trees, giant ferns and assorted brush. “I have a lot of respect for you as a person.”
“I haven’t heard that one since the night of the junior prom when Johnny Shupe wanted to put his hand down the front of my dress.”
The car jerked to a stop beside a compact pickup truck, and Mark shut off the ignition and the headlights. “I get it,” he snapped. “You’re mad because I only took you part of the way!”
Carly wanted to slap him for bringing up the kitchen-counter incident, even indirectly, but she restrained herself. “Why, you arrogant bastard!” she breathed instead, clenching her fists. “How dare you talk to me like that?”
He got out of the car, slammed the door and came around to her side. Before she thought to push down the lock, he was bending over her, his lips only a whisper away from hers. “This is how,” he replied, and then he kissed her.
At first, Carly resisted, stiffening her body and pressing her lips together in a tight line. But soon Mark’s persuasive tongue conquered her, and she whimpered with unwilling pleasure, sagging limply against the back of the car seat.
Presently he took her arm and ushered her out of the car and into the house. By the faint glow of the porch light, Carly could see that it was an old-fashioned brick cottage, with wooden shutters on the windows and a fanlight over the door.
In the small entryway he kissed her again, and the sensations the contact stirred in her pushed all thoughts of their differences to the back of her mind.
“It looks like there’s one thing we’re going to have to get out of our way before we can make sense of what’s happening to us, Carly,” he said when the kiss was over. He smoothed away her blazer with gentle hands.
Carly, who had been an avowed ice maiden in high school and college, was suddenly as pliant and willing as a sixteenth-century tavern wench. Her body seemed to be waging some kind of heated rebellion against the resolutions of her mind.
She knew she should get into her car and go home, but she couldn’t make herself walk away from Mark.
He led her into a pleasantly cluttered living room where lamps were burning and seated her on the couch. Carly watched as he lit a fire on the hearth, then shifted her gaze to a desk facing a bank of windows. A computer screen glowed companionably among stacks of books and papers.
“I do a lot of my work at home,” Mark explained, dusting his hands together as he rose from the hearth. “You can’t see it now, of course, but there’s a great view of the river from those windows.”
Carly was still trying to shore up her sagging defenses, but the attempt was largely hopeless. Mark’s kisses had left her feeling as though she’d been drugged.
He left the room briefly and returned with a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses. Taking a seat beside Carly on the cushiony sofa, he opened the bottle and poured.
Carly figured her chances of coming out of this with her virginity intact were slim—and getting slimmer. The crazy thing was, she didn’t want to leave.
Mark handed her a glass, and she took a cautious sip.
“I’m really very bright, you know,” she said, feeling defensive. “I got terrific grades in college.”
He smiled, set his goblet on the coffee table and swung her legs up onto his lap. “Umm-hmm,” he said, slipping off her high-heeled shoes one by one and tossing them away.
Some last vestige of pride made Carly stiffen. “You don’t believe me!”
Mark ran a soothing hand over her right foot and ankle, and against her will she relaxed again. “I’d be a fool if I didn’t,” he answered quietly. “There were over a hundred applicants for your job at the Times, and all of them were qualified.”
Carly was pleased. “Really?”
Mark took advantage of the sexy slit on the side of her pink dress to caress the back of her knee. “Really,” he said.
She put her glass aside, feeling as though she’d already consumed a reservoir full of alcohol. On the hearth the fire crackled and snapped. “I really should go straight home,” she said.
“I know,” Mark agreed.
“I mean, it’s possible that I don’t even like you.”
“I know that, too,” he responded with a grin.
“But we’re going to make love, aren’t we?”
Mark nodded. “Yes,” he said, and then he stood and drew Carly off the couch and into a gentle embrace. He kissed her lightly on the tip of the nose. “If you really want to go home,” he said, “it’s okay.”
Carly let her forehead rest against his chest and slid her arms around his waist. “God help me,” she whispered, “I want to stay.”
He put a finger under her chin and tilted her head back so he could look into her eyes. He moved his lips as though he meant to speak, but in the end he kissed her instead.
Again, she had the sensation of being swept into some kind of vortex, where none of the usual rules applied. When Mark lifted her into his arms, she laid her head against his shoulder.
He carried her up a set of stairs, along a hallway and into a room so large that Carly was sure it must run the entire length of the house. She noticed a fireplace, the shadowy shapes of chairs and, finally, the huge bed.
Made of dark wood, it stood on a U-shaped ledge, dominating the room. It was a place where a knight might have deflowered his lady, and Carly was filled with a sense of rightness, as well as desire.
Mark carried her up three steps and set her on her feet. She stood still as he unfastened the back of her dress and then lowered it to her hips.
The moonlight flowing in through the long windows that lined the opposite wall gave Carly’s skin the translucent, pearly glow of white opals, and she felt beautiful as Mark stepped back to admire her. His eyes seemed to smolder in the dim light of the room.
After a while, he bent to kiss the pulse point at the base of her throat, and Carly trembled. She felt as though she’d been created for this moment, as though she’d worked toward it through not just one lifetime, but a thousand.
“Mark,” she whispered, and that one word held all her confusion, all her wanting.
In slow, methodical motions, he took away her slip and bra and panty hose and laid her, naked, on his bed. “So beautiful,” he said hoarsely, and Carly raised her hands over her head in unconscious surrender as she watched him shed his clothes in the shadows.
“I’ve never—”
He interrupted her with a soft, reassuring kiss. “I know, sweetheart,” he said. “I’ll be as gentle as I can.” And then he lay on his side on the mattress, caressing her breast with his strong hand, toying with the straining nipple, tracing the lines of her waist and hip.
“Mark,” Carly moaned. He had kindled a blaze within her that night in her apartment, and now it burned so hot that it threatened to consume her.
He bent to suckle at her breast, and she whimpered in welcome, entangling her fingers in his rich, glossy hair. He allowed her to fondle him for a time, then caught both her wrists in his hand and lifted them above her head again, making her deliciously vulnerable.
With his other hand he made a light, fiery circle on her belly, sweeping lower with each pass until he found the core of her womanhood.
Carly’s flesh pulsed against his palm as he made slow, steady rounds, and she felt herself grow moist in response. She arched her neck, her breath coming in shallow gasps, and instinctively spread her legs.
And still Mark suckled her breasts, first one and then the other. Her nipples were taut and wet from his tongue, and she was sure she would die if he didn’t satisfy her.
She began to plead, and he left her breasts to position himself between her thighs. As he had once before, he clasped her ankles and set her feet wide of her body, holding them firmly in place.
By the time he burrowed through to take her into his mouth, the rest of her body was as moist as her hard, jutting nipples. She pressed her heels deep into the mattress and gave a lusty cry as he feasted on her womanhood, and her hips writhed in concert with the teasing parries of his tongue that came later.
She flung her hands wildly, first clawing at the bedspread, then gripping his shoulders, then delving into his hair. The short tendrils around her face were dewy, clinging to her forehead and her cheeks as she strained for the relief only nature could provide.
Passion racked her violently, and her body quivered as she thrust it upward to meet the teasing strokes of Mark’s tongue. “Finish me,” she pleaded without breath. “Oh—Mark—finish me!”
He complied fiercely and wrung a sobbing shout from her, cupping his hands under her bottom, holding her high, supporting her until the storm raging inside her body subsided. When the tempest had ceased, he lowered her gently to the mattress, where she lay trembling and filled with wonder.
“Mark,” she wept.
Slowly he kissed her moist forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks. He drank from her breasts again, sleepily at first, and then with growing thirst. When he mounted Carly, parting her legs first with a motion of one knee, she welcomed him, though she knew he was about to change her forever.
She moved her hands up and down his muscle-corded back while he drew at her nipple and, finally, she could wait no more.
She clasped his buttocks in her hands and pressed him to her, and he submitted with a groan.
His entry was slow and careful, and every inch he gave Carly only made her want more. There was a brief, tearing pain as he passed the barrier that had sealed her depths to all but him, but in some strange way it made the pleasure keener.
Moaning when he was inside her to the hilt of his manhood, Mark dragged the pillows down from the head of the bed and stuffed them under her so that she was raised to him, in perfect alignment for pleasure.
His second thrust was gentle, but when she urged him with soft, fiery words, he delved deeper.
Carly encircled his waist with her legs and clenched as if to crush him, and the coupling became a tender battle. Near the end, when they were both wild with need and trembling with exhaustion, he caught hold of her hands and thrust them high above her head. While she cursed him with words of love, he held himself still inside her for a long moment, then made a final lunge.
Carly flung back her head and gave a low, guttural wail as her body spasmed around him. He answered with a shout of amazed ecstasy and filled her with his warmth.
They lay like stone for a long time, neither able to speak or move, and then Mark got up from the bed and lifted a still-befuddled Carly into his arms. He carried her into the bathroom and set her, dazed, on the edge of a deep marble tub.
His body was lean and agile as he adjusted the spigots and fetched two enormous white towels from a shelf. He set them close at hand, then eased Carly gently into the water. When it reached a certain depth, he flipped a switch, and powerful jets made the warmth swirl and bubble around her.
Mark turned off the faucets, then got into the tub behind Carly, his powerful legs making a boundary for hers, his arms resting lightly around her waist. He bent to kiss her bare shoulder.
She tilted her head back and looked up at him, only then able to speak. “If I’d known it felt that good, I’d have been promiscuous,” she said.
Mark laughed and then nibbled at her nape. “Me, too,” he said, and that made Carly twist to look up at him, a broad smile on her face.
“Come on,” she said. “You’re not going to tell me that was your first time. Even I’m not that naive.”
He shook his head, and his wonderful eyes were sparkling at her naïveté. “No, babe—you were the only virgin in attendance. But I can honestly say I’ve never felt exactly that way before.”
Carly settled deeper into the water, leaning back against his hairy chest. “I bet you say that to everybody.”
He chuckled and moved his lips against the back of her head. “Wrong again,” he replied, and then he dipped a hand into the swirling, soothing water and bathed Carly’s breasts, one by one.
It was another beginning.
Soon he was caressing her, and she was surrendering, wanting to melt into him again.
When she had to confront him with her need or perish from it, she shifted so that she was facing him and kneeling between his legs.
“You like being in charge, don’t you?” she crooned, taking a fresh bar of soap from a brass dish, dipping it into the water, turning it between her hands until they were slick with suds.
Mark leaned back, resting his head on the edge of the tub, and grinned insolently. “You didn’t seem to mind it a little while ago. In fact, my guess would be that it beat twirling a flaming baton all to hell.”
Slowly, sensuously, she began to lather his broad chest, making soapy swirls in the down that covered it, teasing his nipples with a mischievous fingertip. “There must be some symbolism in that,” she conceded huskily. “But I don’t quite see it.”
He tilted his head even farther back and closed his eyes with an animal sigh of contentment, and it struck Carly that even surrender required a kind of confidence.
“Think, Barnett,” he teased. “Think.”
Carly didn’t want to think. She wanted to bathe this man, and then turn him inside out, just as he’d done to her. And because of the things he’d taught her, she had a pretty good idea how to go about it.
She took her time washing him, and he submitted, but then he claimed the soap and everything was turned around. Soon every inch of Carly was scrubbed to a delicate ivory pink, and she was limp as the cloth Mark had used to cleanse her.
He got out of the tub, lifting her after him, and flipped off the jets under the water. Then he pulled the plug and wrapped one of the huge towels around Carly like a sling, using it to draw her close to him.
She felt his staff rising hard and insistent between them.
“Oh, Mark,” she whispered sleepily, “I can’t—not again.”
“That’s what you think,” he replied, his lips against her forehead. And he took her back to his bed, where he dried her and laid her out on the sheet like a delicacy to be enjoyed at leisure.
He joined her beneath the covers, knelt between her legs so she couldn’t close them to him, and slid his hands under her bottom to lift her to his mouth.
“I mean it,” she whimpered as he placed her legs over his shoulders. “I can’t—”
He disciplined her with a few flicks of his tongue, and she moaned as heat surged through her tired body, giving it new life.
Mark chuckled against her hardening flesh. “That’s what I thought,” he said, and he held her firmly in place while she rode helplessly on his lips, her head twisting from side to side in delirium.
He was ruthless. Carly was drenched with perspiration within minutes, and she locked her heels behind his head when he brought her to climax.
After that she begged him to take her and then let her sleep, but he wouldn’t. He put her in a new position and made her perform again, and he granted her no quarter until the last shuddering tremor had been drawn from her and her cries of pleasure had died away in the darkness.
Finally she gathered the strength to take revenge. She fell to him, like a starving woman would fall to food, and began to consume him.
At last, Carly had found the way to prevail in the age-old war of lovers, and she was no more merciful to Mark than he had been to her. He groaned like a man in fever, and the sound aroused Carly as much as his caresses and kisses had.
When he could bear no more, he lifted her head and held it from him, gasping as he struggled to catch his breath. Then, ever so gently, he pressed Carly back onto the mattress and took her in a long, slow stroke.
Because his pleasure had excited her so much, she immediately began to convulse, the lower part of her body buckling wildly as he made love to her. Through a sleepy haze she heard him rasp her name, and she felt him stiffen upon her in final release. Then they both were still, and the night rolled in like folds of black velvet and claimed them.
In the morning Carly awakened to the sound of a man whistling. Her aquamarine eyes flew open in alarmed chagrin as she remembered where she was and how she’d behaved in Mark Holbrook’s arms.
She sank her teeth into her lower lip. It was morning, and she was going to have to go home in her slinky pink evening dress.
Just then Mark came out of the bathroom. He was wearing a towel around his hips and there was a toothbrush jutting out of his mouth. He gave Carly a foamy grin, opened a drawer, took out a striped pajama top and tossed it to her.
She scrambled into it, using the blankets to hide behind, and he laughed and went back into the bathroom.
Carly needed a shower, but she wasn’t about to pass Mark to get one. Knowing a house that large must have at least one more bath, she hurried out of the room. She found what she sought at the opposite end of the hall and, after locking the door, stepped hastily under a spray of hot water.
When she was clean, she put on the bra, panty hose and slip she’d worn the night before. She was about to shimmy into the dress when a knock sounded at the door.
“It’s early, Carly,” Mark said cheerfully, as though this were a perfectly ordinary morning. “I’ll go over to your apartment and get your things if you’ll give me the key.”
She pressed her cheek to the door panel, embarrassed to be sending a man for such personal items as clothes and underwear and makeup, but she named off the things she wanted. When she was sure he was gone, she stepped out into the hallway, only to find Mark leaning against the opposite wall, grinning at her.
He moved his gaze slowly, possessively, over her figure. “Like I said,” he told her in a voice that was as effective as a kiss or a caress, “it’s early.”