“JONATHAN?”
Jayne gazed into Zorro’s eyes, eyes partially obscured by the mask he wore. She relaxed ever so slightly when she caught sight of the familiar chocolate darkness she’d come to know so well and took a moment to examine his costume.
He was dressed all in black as befitted the legend, but he did it with style. His long-sleeved black silk shirt was fastened at his neck with a leather thong just loose enough to allow her a glimpse of the impressive breadth of his chest. With it he wore tight leather pants, a tooled leather belt and a beautifully crafted silver buckle. His features were obscured by silk, a combination mask and bandana that covered both the upper half of his face, as well as his hair, and was knotted at the nape of his neck. Knee-high black leather boots, a short-brimmed sombrero and leather gloves completed the outfit. As far as Jayne was concerned, he left Antonio Banderas in the dust.
“I am not Jonathan,” he finally responded to her inquiry. He continued to maintain his impeccable Spanish accent, his voice pitched low and soft and husky…and deliciously sexy. He moved onto the floor with an elegance and grace that caught her by surprise. A calf-length silk cape flared in a dramatic circle around his muscular form as he spun her in a dizzying circle. “Tonight I am Zorro, just as you are my Cleopatra.”
“Yours?” She lifted her chin. “I thought I belonged to Marc Antony.”
Jonathan shook his head. “He had his chance with you. Now it’s my turn to win the last and most beautiful pharaoh of Egypt.”
His knowledge of history surprised her. But then, why should it? She didn’t know him all that well. At least…not yet. She swirled across the floor with him. Maybe tonight would change all that. Maybe tonight she’d learn far more about the talents and abilities he’d kept hidden while at work.
He caught her off guard by wrapping her almost protectively within his arms, and she followed his lead, closing the distance between them. She reveled in the brush of hard masculine angles. His elegant business suits had only hinted at the power and strength she felt as they moved together. It was another delightful revelation.
“So, tell me, Zorro.” She experimented with a flirtatious smile she’d never have attempted if it weren’t for the heady camouflage of her costume. “How do you plan to win me?”
His hand slid down the length of her spine, transitioning from the filmy material of her costume to her bare back. His gloved fingertips tripped along her skin, the soft leather sending flames of desire tearing through her. “First, we will dance.”
Dance? It felt more like a seduction, as though he were initiating foreplay right here in public. “I don’t think a simple dance is enough to win me,” she lied, avoiding his gaze.
“No, señorita, you do not strike me as the type to be won so easily.” He lowered his head so that his warm breath grazed her temple. His voice dropped, filled with unmistakable urgency. “I am well aware that it will take far more than a simple dance to have what I want from you.”
“What do you want from me, Jon—” She moistened her lips. “I mean, Zorro?”
“I want everything you have to give.”
She almost melted onto the floor, right then and there. If he’d asked, she’d have told him she’d give him anything and everything, and then find more. That she wanted it—whatever it he cared to share with her—every bit as much as he did, and had for a very long time. But something held her back, a natural reticence that was such an engrained part of her personality that even buried beneath a sexy Cleopatra costume, she couldn’t override it.
She forced herself to look up at him through her mask. Coolly. Calmly. “What I have to give you is a dance.”
If her response disappointed him, he didn’t show it. “Or maybe two?” he teased.
She couldn’t help smiling. “Or maybe two.”
The next hour passed with Jayne held securely within Jonathan’s arms. One dance slipped into two and then a half dozen. She couldn’t explain how or why she felt so comfortable within his grasp. She just did. They fit together as though they were two pieces that should have been one.
At the end of the hour, the string quartet finished their selections for the evening and the band took over. Jonathan gathered her hand in his and led her toward the buffet. “I have worked up quite an appetite.” Self-deprecating humor gleamed in his eyes at the double entendre, encouraging her to laugh along. “Would you like something to eat?”
“I’m starving,” she admitted.
Continuing to display Zorro-like gallantry, he selected the choicest tidbits to fill her plate. Together, they found a table for two tucked in a small alcove beside a window that gave them a view of the slowly rotating cityscape.
“This is absolutely stunning,” she murmured. “I never tire of this city. It’s so magnificent.”
“I agree.”
He speared a sliver of duck from her plate and offered it to her. It should have struck her as practiced, but he managed to do it with such sincerity that it didn’t. “You are not originally from New York, are you?”
Instead of answering his question, she eyed him curiously. “How do you do it?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Do what?”
“Keep up the pretense with such skill? You haven’t slipped with your accent even once.”
“That is because I am Zorro.”
“Hmm. I’m beginning to believe you are.” She cupped her chin in the palm of her hand. “I couldn’t begin to fake a Greek accent.”
“Is that what Cleopatra spoke?”
“All the aristocracy did, though she was supposedly the first ruler to also speak Egyptian.” She offered a chagrined look. “I’m terrible with accents, so I wouldn’t dare attempt either Greek or Egyptian. I wouldn’t even want to try Spanish, though I took it in high school.”
“And where was high school for you? The Midwest, if I am not mistaken?”
“Yes.” She tilted her head to one side, curious. “I don’t remember ever telling you that.”
He gave a graceful shrug. “You did not have to tell me. Every once in a while I hear it in your voice.”
Satisfied, she nodded. “I can’t deny it and wouldn’t even if I could. I was born and bred smack dab in the middle of corn country. I’m a farmer’s daughter and proud of it.”
“And well you should be. Yet…” She could see the questioning look in his eyes. “You left the cornfields for the allure of the big city. Why is that?”
“I wanted more. I wanted to challenge myself. Experience all the diversity our country has to offer.” She gestured toward the window and the impressive sprawl of buildings and lights, bustle and commerce. “What could be more diverse than New York City?”
“I am in complete agreement with you. I love our city.”
“But I remember you saying you didn’t grow up here, either. Where are you originally from?”
“I grew up on a sprawling ranch outside of Los Angeles.”
He’d surprised her. “Really? I didn’t know that. I thought you mentioned something about upstate New York.”
“California, señorita, I assure you.”
Huh. She didn’t often get her facts wrong. In fact, she’d been accused more than once of having an almost perfect auditory memory. But maybe he’d lived both places and neglected to mention that fact until now. “And what were you like before you hit the big city?” she probed.
He lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug, causing his cape to stir in an opulent swirl of ebony. “I was a fair gymnast.”
“I guess that explains how you move so well on the dance floor.”
“I am also an excellent horseman, though I do not like to brag.”
A prickle of suspicion teased her and she fought back a smile. “Oh, please. Feel free to brag.”
“If you insist.” He fed her another morsel from her plate before helping himself to a succulent shrimp dipped in cocktail sauce. “But I should warn you that with most people I would rather keep my true abilities a deep, dark secret. I prefer to allow those around me to think me far less than I am, since it is safer to have my competition underestimate me.”
“And what are you?”
“I am a great marksman when it comes to pistols and have been acknowledged the best in the land with a rapier.”
“The entire land?” Jayne marveled. “That’s quite impressive.”
“Indeed.” He leaned in to confide, “I am forced to admit that I do suffer from an excess of compassion and a strong dislike of injustice, particularly when it comes to the underdog.”
“So, you prefer to champion the underdog?”
“Always,” he assured her gravely.
“Am I an underdog?”
“Only when it comes to asps, my queen.” He took her hand in his and kissed her fingertips. What should have come across as corny struck her as utterly charming instead. The more she got to know Jonathan, the more he impressed her. “From those, I will protect you with great fierceness.”
“You have my eternal gratitude. What can I do for you in exchange?” she dared to ask.
“Continue to share the evening with me.” He glanced across the room. “I see a fountain of molten chocolate. Have you saved room for a strawberry or two? I believe there is both dark and white chocolate to dip it in.”
“That sounds perfect.”
“Only if we have a glass of champagne to go with it.”
“Shouldn’t we wait until midnight?” Even as she asked the question, she wondered if she was being presumptuous. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and waited for his response.
It came with impressive swiftness. He stood and touched the brim of his sombrero with his gloved hand. “I have something else I prefer to taste at midnight.” He lowered his hand from his hat and held it out, palm up, his gaze fixed on her mouth. “I suspect it will prove far sweeter than champagne.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, she rose and linked her fingers with his. “I’d like that very much.”
The next few hours flew by. They found endless topics to discuss, some light and casual, some more serious. Jonathan continued to impress her with the depth and scope of his knowledge. It wasn’t just that he knew facts and figures, but he had insight he could offer about the various issues. Strong opinions that combined compassion with common sense.
Jayne couldn’t help but be impressed by a man she had suspected was intelligent, but a bit shallow, when he proved himself to be anything but. She also realized she was in serious danger of falling for him. And falling hard. How would that affect her ability to work with him come Monday morning?
“Where did you go?” he asked, slipping his arm around her waist.
It rested comfortably there, warm and powerful. Protective. She debated whether or not to answer honestly, then went for broke. “I was thinking about Monday,” she confessed.
“A mistake to worry about what will be,” he said with a shake of his head. “Perhaps you should consider living in the moment.”
“Worry about tomorrow, tomorrow?”
His dark eyes glittered with amusement. “Why worry at all? How will that help anything?”
Jayne hesitated, struggling to cling to the enchantment of the evening while pragmatism pounded at the door, intent on crashing the party. “Maybe I’m not as good as you are at combining fantasy with reality,” she confessed. “Not in the daylight. Not in an office setting. When fantasy and reality are forced to part ways—”
“Why do they have to?”
She swiveled so that she faced him directly. He slid his other arm around her and she pressed her palms to his chest—not holding him in check, but not quite confident enough to wrap them around his neck. “Do you really think you can still be Zorro when we meet without our costumes? Because I need to warn you, I’m not Cleopatra.”
“You are to me.”
She shivered at the warm, tender words. “But only because I chose a character diametrically opposed to my normal personality. I mean, seriously. What costume did you suggest for me? Hermione. Mary Poppins. Pollyanna. Be honest with me, Jonathan.”
“Zorro,” he was swift to correct.
She relented beneath his steely insistence. “Fine, fine. Zorro. Would you have ever seen me as anyone other than a prim and proper librarian type or do-gooder in pigtails if I hadn’t shown up here dressed as the Queen of the Nile?”
“Right now you are Cleopatra and that is all that matters.” He shot her a wicked grin. “But if at some point in the future you want to try pigtails and bloomers, I would not object.”
Picturing herself dressed like that swept away the gathering intensity of the moment. Jayne’s mouth twitched in an answering smile and she allowed herself to slip from serious to lighthearted. Jonathan was right. Why spoil tonight’s fun worrying about what would happen in the cold light of day? “And what part would you play?”
He gave it due consideration. “The schoolmaster seems too trite. I think I would choose the part of a simple farm boy wooing the schoolgirl he has had a crush on ever since he first set eyes on her cute little pigtails.”
A chuckle escaped and Jayne shook her head. “You haven’t met any farm boys recently, have you? Trust me, they’re not simple and they don’t woo. Not anymore.”
“Ah, but this is my fantasy, yes?”
She conceded the point. “True.”
“And right now the fantasy is Zorro and Cleopatra.” He captured her chin in the leather-clad palm of his hand and tilted it upward. Though the mask shielded some of her expression, her eyes were easily read. “Shall we continue the fantasy or would you prefer to end it?”
She gave it serious consideration. If she ended things now they would return to the real world and pretend this night never happened. The possibilities would slip through her fingers and vanish with the coming of the New Year. She’d return to being plain Jayne, while Jonathan found some new flowers to pollinate.
Or she could usher in the New Year with a bang in every sense of the word. Instead of playing it safe the way she had most of her twenty-nine years, she could take a huge risk. On the dawn of her thirtieth birthday she could sample the flavor of daring. Taste the wild side of life. Drink down risk and pray for a reward unlike any she’d experienced before.
All she needed to do was say one single word.
“Fantasy.” Her breath gusted out on an exhilarated laugh. “I choose fantasy.”
She saw the swift approval flash across his expression, his pleasure in her decision echoed in the warmth of his dark eyes. “Fantasy it is.” His mouth came to within a breath of her own, tempting her beyond reason. “And I promise, señorita, to give you a night of fantasy unlike any you have ever known. A night filled with unimaginable pleasure.”
Oh, God. How was she supposed to respond to that? She’d known the pleasure of men in the past, though it had been mostly their pleasure rather than her own. But there wasn’t any doubt in her mind that a night spent in Jonathan’s arms—Zorro’s arms—would be as different from those few experiences as night from day.
“Yes, please.” She breathed out the words. If she just lifted up on tiptoe a scant few inches, her mouth would collide with his and she’d finally experience his kiss.
He must have read her intent because he eased back, flashing her a teasing smile. “Not until midnight, my queen.”
She didn’t bother to hide her disappointment. “Why wait?”
“Because a first kiss should be special. And there’s nothing more special than a kiss that ends one year and begins another.”
He continued to enchant her with every word he spoke and every move he made. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that by the time she turned thirty, she would experience every pleasure she’d missed out on in her twenties.
She dared to stroke his cheek, wishing she had the nerve to do more. Maybe that would come with time…and intimacy. “Then I’m content to wait until midnight.”
“Come with me.” He gathered her hand in his. “I want to show you something.”
Jonathan led her through the crowd, giving a drunken Don Juan and the milkmaid whose tonsils he was inhaling a wide berth. He spared the couple a swift, critical look. She could understand. The charity ball was an elegant affair. Though the couples attending were flirtatious, no one other than this couple was going at each other like a pair of randy farm animals. Even Jonathan in his guise as Zorro had kept his seduction within appropriate boundaries for the venue.
He swept her through a side door leading onto a balcony that surrounded the Moonlight Ballroom. If it had been summer, the expansive area would have been crowded with people. But in December, high above the city with a blustery winter wind, they had the balcony to themselves.
Jonathan swept his cape from his shoulders and settled the flow of silk snugly around her. She felt the lingering warmth from his body and caught a hint of cedar combined with something crisp and deliciously masculine. She breathed in the scent, delighting in the tiny intimacy.
“I know it is cold,” he told her. “So I promise not to keep you for long. But I think…yes, I was right.”
She leaned back against him and watched the harbor rotate into view as the platform slowly spun. “About what?”
“Wait for it.”
As though he’d given the heavens a signal, fat, fluffy snowflakes drifted from the sky, swirling downward in a merry dance. Jayne inhaled sharply, utterly captivated. “How beautiful,” she murmured.
“Ah, but that is not the most beautiful part.”
In the next instant the Statue of Liberty swung into view, majestic and brilliantly lit. For a brief moment Jayne couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. She simply leaned into Jonathan and absorbed his warmth as she allowed herself to thrill at the sight.
From somewhere in the distance she heard people shouting.
Ten. Jonathan’s arms tightened around her, pulling her closer still.
Nine. His hands shifted from her waist up beneath the cape she wore and along her arms.
Eight. At some point he’d removed his gloves and his fingers feathered across the curve of her shoulders to the sensitive hollow at the joining of her neck.
Seven. He turned her, ever so gently, until she faced him, his hands never leaving her shoulders.
Six. He cupped her face and tilted it upward.
Five. His fingertips painted the parts of her face bared by her mask, as though to brand each curve and angle into his memory.
Four. “Jayne,” he whispered. Not Cleopatra. But plain, simple Jayne. The word came out in a soft accent, but not a Spanish one. This time his accent was one of longing.
Three. For an endless moment, he stared down at her, his eyes dark and more serious than she could ever recall seeing them before.
Two. He leaned down, the slightest of smiles tugging his mouth to one side, a mouth more tempting than any she’d ever seen.
On the count of one, he kissed her, melding fantasy with reality.
She stood on a frigid balcony, surrounded by delicious male warmth while snowflakes wept from above, glistening like diamonds against the darkness of his costume and the cape he’d draped her in. Deep thunderous booms echoed all around them signaling the start of the New Year. Her eyes fluttered closed but she could still see the flashes from the fireworks even with her lids squeezed shut.
The spectacle going on around her retreated. Nothing mattered other than that kiss and those marvelous lips working on hers. And heaven help her, could he kiss. There was a power in the taking, a sureness in the way his mouth moved on hers. A tenderness when he probed inward. The most delicious flavor when their tongues touched and mated. She could have stood there for hours, and suspected he could have, too, if the door behind them hadn’t swept open. The drunken Don Juan spilled through with his milkmaid.
Jonathan whirled her in a swift, sweeping circle that had them back inside without the interlopers even noticing them. To Jayne’s astonishment the overhead balls of roses were popping open, one after the other. Red and white petals filled the air, raining down on the celebrants, along with gold and silver confetti stars. The combination caught in her hair and her mask and on the lower half of her face. Jonathan was more fortunate than she. His hat kept most of the flowers and confetti out of his face.
He laughed when he caught sight of her and pulled her into his arms once again. He brushed a rose petal from her cheek. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you look?”
“What can I say? Roses and confetti must agree with me.” This time she felt perfectly comfortable twining her arms around his neck. “Or maybe it’s your kisses.”
His laughter faded, replaced with something hard and determined. A hungry tension that caused the muscles of his face to tauten. “Spend the night with me.”
“Is that a question or a demand?”
He gave it to her straight. “A demand.”
“And if I refuse?”
“I will carry you off and have my wicked way with you.”
She stretched upward and snatched a swift kiss. “You don’t leave me any other choice, except…”
“Except?”
She offered him a smile filled with mystery and seduction. “Why, surrender, of course.”