ANNIE HAD NEVER underrated sex. Based on her fairly limited scope of experience, she’d been sure that she enjoyed it as much as the next girl. But now that she had Daniel thoroughly, perfectly naked, she realized that those earlier lovers had just been warm-up acts for the big event.
A trail of his ’n hers clothes marked the path from Annie’s front door to her living room. Daniel and she were breathing as though they’d sprinted all the way from State Street, instead of having driven. His mouth was hungry against her breasts, her stomach—everywhere he could reach. She was just as greedy, kissing and touching and marveling at how damned beautiful this man was. The skin of his throat was smooth under her lips and his gasped words were fire under her skin.
Annie let her fingertips glide down, then up, the length of his erection. Need slammed into her even harder when she imagined taking him into her body. She couldn’t believe she’d denied herself this pleasure for even a day.
Daniel folded his hand over hers and asked for more. Annie gave, but still hungered. She knelt before him and took him into her mouth, something she’d never before done without a certain amount of persuasion—okay, sometimes begging—from her partner. He allowed them only a moment of hot pleasure before drawing her upward and folding her in his embrace.
His broad hands gripped her bottom and brought her even closer to him—not that she had any intention of moving away.
“You, Annie Rutherford, are witty, wise and beautiful, and I need to be inside you now.”
He took her to the couch. Annie was too scattered to do more than stand there as he pulled away the back pillows and sent them flying. Next, her reading stack was unceremoniously relocated to the floor.
“Good enough,” Daniel said.
“Perfect,” Annie corrected, then stretched out on the soft chenille surface. She’d regretted getting sucked into the oversized furniture craze, but now it seemed to be the smartest move she’d ever made.
Second smartest, she amended as Daniel slid his hands up her inner thighs. She opened her legs, inviting him to touch more. He did, until she was pretty much mindless with pleasure. When he drew away from her, she murmured a protest.
Daniel knelt, one hand braced on the couch’s back. “Where’d I leave my wallet?”
She waved a hand in the general direction of the door. “That way…hurry.”
He was up, gone and back before she’d had time to do much more than stretch once and breathe deep, trying to get oxygen to a body working overtime.
Annie watched as he fitted on a condom, the moment oddly intimate and intrusive all at once. She held out her arms to him. He filled them, settling his weight above her. He kissed her then, deeply and with a hunger that echoed her own.
Annie reached between them, closing her hand around his erection. “Now. Please.”
“Now,” he agreed, and she guided him until he’d just begun to enter her. They pressed deeper into the cushions, and she settled her hands against his upper back. Slowly, carefully, he began to push his way in.
Overwhelmed, she gasped.
Daniel hesitated. “I’m not hurting you, am I, love?”
She arched her pelvis upward and wrapped her left leg around his hips. The action brought him the rest of the way home.
Daniel smiled. “That answers that.”
He began to move, and any initial discomfort Annie had felt was long gone. In its place was sheer pleasure.
She’d expected their first lovemaking to be a little goofy, a little awkward, but she’d been wrong. They fit together wonderfully. She wanted him too much to worry about whether she was becoming too demanding or too loud or too anything other than desperate for release. She didn’t even care that she could hear Garth pounding on the other side of the living room wall.
Daniel lifted his head, sending a distracted look in the direction of the sound. “What’s that?”
“Ignore it,” she ordered, then wrapped her legs even snugger to show that she meant business. Her breath came in little hitches, and she could feel even her toes begin to curl as Daniel flexed in and out with sure intent.
“God, Annie,” he gasped as her inner muscles began to tighten around him.
She cried his name as she reached her peak. When he came, she held him close, new waves of pleasured shock eddying through her. As they rested, exhausted and replete, Annie knew she’d been right—she’d never be able to let go of Daniel Flynn with any amount of grace.
DANIEL LAY IN THAT perfect Zen state of contentment—half awake, half dreaming, and with a mind ready to wander.
He’d made love to Annie in the living room and in her bed. Next, they’d engaged in a little food love play in the kitchen, where a now one-eared donkey pepper shaker had fallen to the floor, victim of their enthusiasm. After that had come the shower, and then her bed once again.
Somewhere along the line, the sun had left and stars had replaced it. He wasn’t sure whether it was yet Sunday or if Monday had crept up on them. His selfish and futile wish was for another month of Sundays like the one they’d just shared.
Annie lay snuggled against him, dozing. He slid one hand over the lush curve of her hip, an act that got an unexpected rise—and not out of him. She sat bolt upright, nearly knocking his jaw with the top of her head.
“Daniel, we need to go back to the pub.”
“What?”
“The pub,” she repeated, pushing her hair from her face. “Now.”
Daniel glanced at her alarm clock, but couldn’t make out the first two numbers. They seemed to be blocked by the Space Needle shaker set he’d bought her. If it weren’t so damned ugly, he’d be truly touched.
Ah, touching. Now there was a better activity to be pursued than a mad chase through dark Ann Arbor streets. He sent one hand venturing for the silky skin of Annie’s thigh.
She swatted him away. “I’m not kidding! We need to get there before the crew.”
This was pushing devotion to an employer a wee bit far. “Why?”
“I left some papers behind.”
“Then they’ll be there after sunrise, too.”
“But I don’t want anyone else seeing them. They’re kind of private.”
“Private, how?”
“You know all the other yellow notes on the dartboard?” she asked in a voice he’d describe as sheepish, except he’d never quite understood the origin of the term. It wasn’t as though sheep ever sounded sheepish.
“Mmm-hmm,” he said.
“Well, they aren’t exactly as empty as I led you to believe. They all say my bed, and I really don’t want an entire construction crew leering at me for the next month.”
Daniel laughed. And here he’d been worried about shooting blanks, so to speak. “You, Annie Rutherford, are a cheat. And I’m damned lucky you are.” He settled her against the pillows and kissed her once for her sharp ways, then once again, because she felt so damn right under his mouth.
Finally, she smiled up at him. “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”
“Stay here, love. I’ll go gather your notes.”
“You’d do that?”
“For a price. I’m expecting repayment on each and every one of them.”
She frowned. “I don’t know, Flynn. That’s a little steep.”
It took him less than an instant to see her game. “And you’re a damn poor bluffer.”
“Hey, I got you in the pub, didn’t I?”
“You did,” he admitted as he rolled from the bed. In fact, it was beginning to seem that she now had him in every way that mattered.
Daniel bent and kissed his sharp Annie one last time, then readied to go collect a plump stack of IOUs.
ANNIE OPENED THE pencil drawer of her desk and peeked at her cache of yellow slips. Ten days…ten notes. She briefly touched the top one and smiled. They were like her own little security blankie, something she could go to when the stress of the Donovan control battle made office life intolerable.
Each note brought a memory, since Daniel had been creative in his means of delivery. She’d received one in a box of Fourth of July sparklers he’d left propped against the iced tea pitcher in her refrigerator. Another had arrived attached to a checklist during the final tasting for the pub’s menu. Today’s had been in the bottom of the coffee mug she kept on her desk.
At first, she’d been concerned that he would run out of notes before they ran out of days together. Then, one evening, as he’d been writing at her kitchen table, she’d spotted the remaining stock in his laptop case. If all else failed, she could keep replenishing the supply.
Oh, she understood on a flat-out logical level that the notes weren’t what drew him to her bed, and that they had nothing to do with the passage of time. Still, maintaining the fantasy helped her stave off the sick feeling that threatened when she thought of Daniel’s departure. Or her New York trip.
Annie closed her desk drawer, leaving comfort behind. She knew she was doing the right thing, pushing ahead with these interviews. Yet it was taking every ounce of her willpower and positive thoughts to feel good about the process. Daniel had even offered to come along and keep her company, a major sacrifice considering how un-in-love he was with Manhattan. She’d refused. Having him there whispered too much of wrapping up this never-to-be repeated time in her life.
“Guess what?”
Annie glanced up to find Sasha in her doorway.
“I don’t know. What?”
Bottle of mineral water in hand, her friend strolled in, then settled into a guest chair. “While you’ve been off dabbling in intimate international relations, my life’s become a children’s book—Sasha Gets a Second Mommy.”
“No way.”
“Yup. Dad called me at home last night and told me to pencil in the third weekend in September for a wedding. Of course, being Dad and assuming everyone can read minds, that’s all he told me.” She took a swig of her water. “Since I’m not dating anyone right now, I figure he’s got to be referring to himself.”
“So it’s Rachel, huh?”
Sasha set her bottle on Annie’s desk and gave her an appraising look. “How’d you know that?”
This was why she’d make a miserable spy. She’d totally forgotten that she’d never shared the suck-face in the parking garage incident. “I, uh…kind of saw them together last month.”
“Do tell. And you didn’t mention this to me, why?”
“It was the night I met you at Armando’s. I didn’t want to put both of us off our food.”
“Right.”
Sasha wasn’t buying it, and Annie couldn’t blame her.
“I’m really, really sorry. I was just trying to be a good friend. Hey, I still owe you a grovel. Want it now?”
Sasha shook her head. “I’ll pass. But a little warning would have been helpful, you know? I just about gagged on my drink when they showed up together at Gramps’ Fourth of July bash.”
A bash which Daniel and Annie had opted out of, in lieu of a more underdressed, private celebration…complete with sparklers.
“Yeah, that would have been a shock,” she said to Sasha.
“I’m sure I’ll adjust to having a stepmom who’s two years older than I am. And in the meantime, can you be away from your Irishman long enough to go cheap-and-insincere engagement gift shopping with me tonight?”
Annie scrambled for a nonpathetic excuse. “We…I—”
Sasha laughed. “It’s okay. I understand.” She stood, and before leaving, raised her water bottle in a salute. “Here’s to true love.”
Long after Sasha had split, Annie ruefully considered one question. Out of all the words her friend could have chosen—say, lust, for example—why did she have to pick love?
DANIEL WASN’T SLEEPING well, and hadn’t for days. Tonight, after making love to Annie in celebration of yellow note fourteen, he simply lay there and watched her sleep, one more image to tuck away in his memories. His contract with Hal expired in a matter of weeks, and though the older man had made noises about extending it, Daniel had no desire to do so.
Annie would be leaving for her New York interviews tomorrow after work. He had no doubt that she’d interest one employer or another. He also had no doubt that once an offer came, she’d take the job. He did doubt that she’d be happy.
Still, he couldn’t blame her for grabbing at the chance. Continuing employment with the Donovans would be about as appealing as marching barefoot across a field of broken glass.
Daniel crossed his hands behind his head and gazed up at the darkness. It was time to consider what he’d do next. Perhaps a few months in Clifden would suit him well. And after that, there was always helping his friends get a start in Belize, or even some travels for no particular purpose—once his favorite reason of all. Nothing appealed, though. No place seemed more tempting than one close enough to smell the flowers-and-vanilla scent of Annie’s hair.
She stirred, then sighed, wriggling farther under the covers. He tried—and failed—to imagine her living out of a tent or traveling by decrepit bus on a South American mountainside. She knew herself well, his anchored Annie, and now he was the one having trouble letting go.
MONDAYS WERE GENERALLY ugly, but one glimpse at the morning paper had told Annie that this particular one was going to be hideous. In fact, her flight to New York this evening would be a regular day at the spa when compared to what she faced now.
She and Daniel walked the march of the doomed into the boardroom. All of the Donovans, including Sasha, were already gathered around the large table.
“Can I get you two anything?” Eva D’Onfrio asked as they passed her sentinel’s post at the door.
“A double shot of whiskey, up, would be grand,” Daniel said.
Once they were seated, she brought them each a coffee, instead. Annie cupped her mug, hoping to take some of the chill from her hands.
From his front-and-center spot, Hal stood and smacked down the Focus on Business section of the Washtenaw Press.
“Pizza Dynasty Done?” howled the headline.
Annie had already read the article, as had everyone else in the boardroom. Though specifically stated nowhere, the piece implied that Hal Donovan was no longer capable of running his empire.
“Who would like to claim responsibility for this?”
Richard cleared his throat, then said, “I will.”
Annie shot Sasha an I’m-so-sorry-your-dad’s-a-rat look and hunkered down in her bunker.
“You’ve dragged our business into the public?” Hal shouted.
“You left me no choice.” It was small comfort that Richard was mighty low on swagger-factor today.
“Bull.”
“The next step is a shareholder suit, and I’ll file. Believe me, I’ll file,” Richard said. “You’re not the only one who’s put his life into this place. I started helping out when I was fourteen. That’s nearly forty years ago, dammit. I can make this company more. I want to make it more.”
Hal started to speak, but then stopped. An odd look passed over his face. He sat down hard and gripped the edge of the table with both hands.
Duane, who was to his right, leaned closer. “Dad?”
“It’s nothing…just feeling funny.” He settled his hand over his chest and coughed. “Heart’s not beating right.”
Annie stood and grabbed for the phone in the middle of the table.
“What are you doing?” Hal asked, his usual crimson flush replaced by chalky whiteness.
“Calling 9-1-1.”
“Hang up,” he ordered, though not with his usual bullish authority. “We’re enough of a spectacle today.”
“Get over it,” she said to Hal, then asked the operator for medical help. “I think he might be having a heart attack.”
“It’s not a heart attack. No arm pain. No shortness of breath.” He stood. “Look, I’m fine.”
“For God’s sake, Hal, sit down,” Daniel said. “You’re not even a month out of the hospital for heart trouble. Do you think we’re going to let you stroll to your office and smoke a damned cigar?”
Sasha had gone to kneel beside her grandfather. She tried to loosen his tie, but he pushed her hands away.
“Heart trouble? Is this true, Gramps?”
“It was minor…not worth mentioning.”
“He had an arterial stent inserted. Eva and I were there,” Daniel said.
Color washed from Richard’s face, leaving him nearly as white as his father. “What?”
Daniel gave the Donovans the whens and wheres of the event. For once, they responded without the standard hurling of recriminations, focusing only on Hal.
Annie, on the other hand, was losing it. It was all too much for her to absorb—her fear for Hal, the running-rabbit pace of her own heart and the unsettling feeling that Daniel had played her. He’d lied about where he’d been while this surgery had taken place and failed to share the news with her later. Annie deserved to know. For all of Hal’s quirks, he was more than just an employer to her. Soon after Hal had been hauled out, complaining to the medical technicians that he could walk, she quietly slipped away.
HAL HAD GONE TO the hospital with Eva and a full clan of Donovans to watch over him this time. That, at least, was as it should be. Daniel sat in his office, waiting for the phone to ring even though he knew it could be hours yet before they had any news on Hal’s condition.
He swiveled his chair around and looked out the window at the neighboring building’s window, which simply reflected the same back at him. That caged feeling had begun to overtake him, the one that had already chased him from Tibet to the Amazon, from freelancing for magazines to standing on the working side of a bar. Frustrated, Daniel turned back to his desk and tried to think of some way to break the tension that would make a right bastard of him, if he let it.
Annie walked in, looking nearly as knotted and out of sorts as he felt.
“I take it you weren’t in Ontario in June?” she said.
No dancing about the issue for her.
“No,” he replied.
“You could have told me the truth.”
“I honored Hal’s privacy, Annie, just as he asked me to.”
She sat in a chair opposite his desk. “And doing so involved a lie.”
“Let’s talk about this later, when things have calmed,” he suggested.
“Daniel, it’s enough for me to be worrying about Hal and wondering if I should delay my trip tonight. Can’t we at least get through this?”
“Fine, then,” he said, rubbing at his hammering temples.
“Do you agree that you lied to me?”
The walls seemed to grow closer. “If you want to take the hard view of it, I suppose I did. Not willingly or happily, and knowing that it would come back to bite me.” It was a grudging admission, but what more could she expect?
“Okay. Then putting aside the hurt to me, don’t you think his family had the right to know?”
“Only if he chose to tell them. He was scared, Annie. He’s growing old and he’s never let his family see him as he really is.” Daniel rose and came around to her side of the desk. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. If he’d fallen ill or even shown the slightest sign of relenting, I would have told you and the others.”
“What would have been the harm in confiding in me right away?”
He chose his words carefully. “I’ve been watching the way Richard and his jackal brothers have been behaving. I can’t fault Hal for protecting his flank. If I’d said something to you and word had leaked, I’d be a poor friend, indeed.”
“I see,” she said in a voice so tight that it had to hurt. “So instead you decided to judge me as one.”
“You’re being unfair.”
“Am I? Or are you?” She turned her face away from him, but not so quickly that Daniel didn’t see the beginnings of tears.
Nothing like a weeping woman to make a man feel cornered. “Annie, I—”
She stood. “I’m sorry. You were right, maybe later is a better time.” She was out the door before he could object, not that he’d planned to.
He’d deal with this later. Much, much later.
Daniel returned to his desk, closed his eyes and imagined himself someplace far from the Donovan empire, someplace friendly, open and warm.
JUST PAST SIX THAT evening, Annie sat at her gate in Metro Airport’s McNamara Terminal. Her flight didn’t leave for another hour and a half, and she’d already been at the airport long enough to buy a book, stock up on junk food and pace the long arm of the building from beginning to end. Airports remained among her least favorite places, but they had pulled ahead of Donovan’s headquarters.
At midafternoon, Sasha had called Annie’s office with some good news. Hal’s heart episode had been a harmless case of tachycardia, probably brought on by stress. He was fine now, but considering his history, they were going to keep him overnight anyway. After thanking Sasha for the update, Annie had tried to get word to Daniel, but he had gone. His cell phone went unanswered, too. An hour later, Annie had left for the airport. Distracted as she was, sticking around work would have been just for show.
Annie regretted the way she’d walked out on Daniel, regretted that she’d even criticized him to begin with. Bottom line, the choice had been his to make. Weighing loyalties was no job for outsiders, and like it or not, she was on the outside of Hal and Daniel’s friendship.
In the mood to munch, Annie hauled her carry-on bag onto the seat next to her and unzipped the outside pocket. The chocolate-covered pretzel rods she’d picked up looked pretty tasty. Of course, she could always go the healthier route and try the trail mix, never mind that it was about forty percent candy-covered chocolate.
As a minor sop to her conscience, Annie settled on the mix. She dug into the bag, trying to avoid the stuff she could live without. She was about to pop the first handful into her mouth when she froze. Enough was enough. She wasn’t even hungry, dammit. Annie dumped the trail mix back into its bag, then tossed the whole thing into the trash can at the end of her row of seats.
“Better,” she said to herself. Maybe she hadn’t gotten rid of the chocolate-covered pretzels, but this was a step in the right direction.
Then Annie took her next one—doing as she wished Daniel had done. She pulled out her phone and dialed Sasha. “Three guesses where I am and what I’m doing…”
Annie laughed at her friend’s first guess. “No, it doesn’t involve a naked Irishman.”
But she sure as heck hoped that wherever she ended up once this crazy ride was over, she’d find a way to have Daniel there. And yes, nightly naked, too.