Breath of Magic

  Tristan darted after Arian only to find himself plunged into a nightmarish whirl of motion and noise, underscored by the bass throb of Michael Jackson's "Thriller." In his absence, the party had disintegrated into an orgy of revelry. The writhing shadows robbed him of the advantage of recognition, forcing him to shove and elbow his way through the mob, two steps behind Arian's determined strides.

  They were still separated by a wall of seething flesh when Eddie Hobbes shifted his cigar to the corner of his mouth and called out, "Change your mind, honey? Come on over to my place. I'll show you a few tricks if you'll treat me real nice."

  Tristan lunged forward, his hands curled into fists, just as Hobbes's cigar exploded in his face. Arian never broke her stride, never spared the man so much as a disdainful glance. The reporter blinked, his startled eyes pools of white in his round, blackened face. His companions thumped him on the back and howled with laughter. Tristan might have found the effect comical as well if icy beads of dread hadn't just broken out on his brow. For a dangerous moment, he had allowed himself to forget that Arian was perfectly capable of defending herself.

  "Arian!"

  He shouted her name, but his hesitation had cost him precious seconds. She was already several feet ahead of him. He prayed some irresponsible janitor hadn't left a mop out. He could only shudder to imagine her soaring between the chandeliers, cackling her wrath like the Wicked Witch of the West. He was less afraid of the havoc she was capable of wreaking than of exposing her extraordinary gift to the media.

  "Hey, Miss Whitewood, how about one last head shot?" As if invoked by Tristan's fears, a freckled photographer thrust his camera into Arian's face.

  Tristan winced as the camera sailed out of the young man's hands, then went darting back at him, its shutter clicking with wild abandon. The photographer recoiled, blinded by his own flash. Howling with alarm, he stumbled over his own feet and went crashing into a table full of astonished guests.

  From the corner of his eye, Tristan saw Sven snap to attention, alerted by the commotion. He gave his bodyguard a terse signal, one also witnessed by Copperfield, who began to work his way toward Arian from the opposite corner of the ballroom.

  As Arian sailed past the frozen witch, a network of cracks shot through the ice sculpture, widening until the thing cracked open like an egg, eliciting new trills of alarm from the crowd. The champagne fountain was similarly afflicted by her approach. A golden geyser shot straight toward the ceiling, drenching the shrieking guests. Ducking beneath the effervescent spray, Tristan made a mental note to rent the film version of Stephen King's Carrie for Arian to watch if he made it out alive.

  As she stormed through the nearest exit, Sven closed in on her from the left, Copperfield from the right. But Tristan was the only one near enough to sprint through the double doors before they could slam shut in Sven's startled face.

  Tristan skidded to a halt on the marble tiles, realizing that if he didn't act quickly, Arian might soar right out of his life without so much as a backward glance. "Has anyone ever told you you're cute when you're mad?"

  Arian shuddered to a halt before swinging around to face him across the chasm of the deserted foyer. "No," she bit off.

  He allowed a mocking smile to curve his lips. "Good, because they would have been lying through their teeth."

  Actually, Tristan was the one not being completely honest. With her eyes darkened to volatile lakes of brimstone and her delicate chin squared in defiance, Arian was not cute. She was breathtaking. But if he had any hope of shaming her into compliance, he couldn't afford to let her know it.

  He jerked a thumb toward the ballroom where the shrill screams and panicked cries were being underscored by the bass thump of fists hammering at the door. Sven's, he suspected. "That was quite an impressive performance back there."

  Tristan noticed for the first time that Arian was methodically squeezing her necklace in her pale fist "I'm delighted that you enjoyed it, sir, but it wasn't intended for your benefit."

  He cocked an eyebrow. "Oh, wasn't it? I was most definitely under the impression it was my head you wanted to dunk in the champagne fountain." Tristan rested his hands on his hips. "Why don't you stop punishing those innocent people, Arian? Why don't you turn me into a warthog or fry me to a crisp with one of those lightning bolts of yours?"

  As Tristan faced her, the taste of another woman still on his lips, Arian's eyes narrowed to glittering slits, making him believe she just might give him cause to regret his careless challenge.

  He pressed his tenuous advantage, crossing to her, stopping near enough to watch the pulse flutter in her throat, to smell the tantalizing fragrance of her hair. "Go on, Arian. Do it. After all…" He gazed down into her eyes. "I'm the one you want."

  Her hand slowly uncurled from the necklace. She lowered her lashes, but not before he caught a glimpse of raw longing followed by a flicker of despair that only succeeded in shaming him instead of her.

  The ballroom door behind them shuddered beneath a massive blow. Sven would probably call for a battering ram if the door refused to give way beneath his shoulder.

  His anger rekindled by the impossible situation, Tristan seized Arian's wrist and dragged her toward the fire exit. "They all think I'm a sadistic bastard anyway. Let's get the hell out of here before they decide this was anything more than just a nasty Halloween prank."

  As Tristan shoved Arian into the waiting limo, the Plaza's lobby doors burst open, spilling out a torrent of dripping, irate partygoers. Arian caught a brief glimpse of Sven's frantic face before Tristan slid into the plush seat opposite her and slammed the door.

  "Drive," he snapped.

  "Where to, sir?" replied the startled driver, shoving a carton of Chinese take-out beneath the seat.

  "Anywhere. Just drive until I tell you to stop." Tristan leaned over to jab a button, insinuating a wall of opaque glass between the front and back seats.

  They rode in frigid silence, Tristan gazing out the tinted windows as if the murky streets beyond represented his only escape from her. Arian stole a glimpse at his averted profile, her misery increasing with each revolution of the limousine's sleek wheels. Her temper had bested her once again, making her behave more like a harpy than a witch. She clutched the tiny gold purse in her lap, but both the million-dollar bank draft and the Forbes clipping seemed to have faded to insignificance the moment she'd seen Tristan kissing another woman.

  I'm the one you want.

  Arian nibbled on her lower lip, haunted by the damning echo of truth in Tristan's smoky taunt. The vehicle sped up, crossing a bridge to leave behind cramped city streets for rolling countryside.

  When Tristan opened the refrigerator to pour himself a generous Scotch, Arian reached past him into the freezer, her fingers closing instinctively around a frosty tub of Haagen-Dazs.

  Cherie's svelte figure fresh in her memory, Arian rejected a teaspoon in favor of a tablespoon. She dug into the frozen treat, spitefully hoping the stuff would make her fat. So fat Tristan would have to pry her out of the limousine.

  He loosened his tie and downed the Scotch in a single swallow before shifting his gaze to her face. His eyes glittered like diamonds of frost in the shadowy interior.

  Unnerved by his predatory silence, Arian spooned a ribbon of chocolate courage into her mouth. "Why don't you just shout at me for ruining your clever plan?"

  "And risk being turned into a weasel? I don't think so."

  Arian's appetite vanished. She shoved the ice cream back into the freezer, hating him more for spoiling even that simple pleasure. "Don't be ridiculous. You're not afraid of me."

  His eyes lost their mocking light, going as hard and flat as a winter sky. "Oh, but that's where you're wrong. You scare the bloody hell out of me, Arian Whitewood. You have from the first moment I laid eyes on you."

  Arian's bravado faltered. "But I would never harm you…"

  "You already have. You cut me to ribbons every time you look at me with those big, brown eyes o
f yours and tempt me to believe in magic, in innocence, when I know in my heart that they're nothing more than a cruel illusion. A petty trick. Just like love."

  To her horror, Arian felt tears well in her eyes. "I never asked you to believe in love. I only wanted you to believe in me."

  He closed the distance between the seats, capturing her shoulders and giving her a savage little shake that dislodged the tears from her lashes. "Well, I don't. You're nothing more than a beautiful figment of my imagination, no more real than the Loch Ness monster or the Holy Grail." His accusing gaze dropped to her parted lips. "If I were to kiss you right now, you'd probably go up in a puff of smoke."

  Arian did not stop to ponder the consequences of winning this argument. She simply twined one arm around Tristan's neck and drew his lips down to hers. He accepted her invitation with a hoarse growl that was half plea, half warning, but the taste of her fallen tears soon gentled his kiss.

  Arian's senses were consumed by the rough velvet of Tristan's tongue probing her mouth, the smoky, bittersweet blend of Scotch and chocolate, the powerful purr of the motor beneath them as the limousine shot through the night, hurtling them toward some dangerous precipice.

  As Tristan coaxed her tongue into mating with his, it wasn't Arian who melted to vapor, but every other woman he'd ever kissed. Every woman he'd drawn into his embrace and beneath his body. Every woman who wasn't Arian.

  He enfolded her in his arms, content for the moment just to breathe her sighs and try to translate the soft, broken words she murmured against his mouth. He longed to entice other French words from her lips. Tender words. Erotic words. Pleas, demands, and promises he would be helpless to resist.

  "Do you still believe I'm only a figment of your imagination?" she whispered, her eyes luminous in the darkness.

  "I don't give a damn if you are," he replied, realizing it was true.

  He no longer cared where she came from or what unusual powers she possessed. He only wanted to hold her, to revel in her warmth and substance, to nuzzle her throat and inhale the bewitching scent of cloves from her hair. He stroked one finger down the creamy valley between her breasts before filling his hands with their plush warmth. Her nipples pebbled beneath the sleek taffeta, beguiling him anew with their responsiveness to his touch.

  The shock of Tristan's hands claiming her breasts should have offended Arian, but she could only gasp with wonder at the unexpected rightness of it. His tapered fingers eased the gown from her shoulder, his seeking lips following their path. The chill of the air-conditioning puckered her breast an instant before the heat of Tristan's mouth closed over its turgid peak.

  Arian's halfhearted protest melted to a moan of raw pleasure as he drew her nipple into his mouth, suckling fiercely, not as a child, but as a man – with a man's formidable hungers and undeniable needs. Nectar surged between her thighs in an invitation she had not planned to offer, but was helpless to rescind. Her hands caught at his hair, although whether to hinder or prolong that terrible delight, she could not have said.

  "You're so sweet," he said thickly as he took her mouth again. "So damned sweet."

  He continued to sample the honeyed softness of her lips while his hands wandered beneath her skirt to shackle her ankles with irresistible tenderness. His palms drifted over the gossamer silk of her stockings, caressing her calves, lingering to stroke the sensitive skin behind her knees. Arian felt them fall open, betraying her without so much as a twitch of moral outrage.

  Perhaps if he would only stop kissing her with such tender ferocity, she could catch her breath, gather her wits long enough to…

  But when he sought to draw his mouth from hers, she was the one who beckoned him back with a wanton flick of her tongue. Shuddering with reaction, he caught the backs of her thighs and drew her beneath him on the broad leather seat. A pang of mingled fear and longing tightened Arian's belly. She had succeeded in shattering Tristan's shield of frost only to risk being incinerated by his hard, hungry heat.

  "Are you trying to bewitch me?" he whispered hoarsely, tracing her earlobe with feather-soft kisses before thrusting his tongue into the delicate shell of her ear.

  Arian moaned. He was the one casting a spell of sensual languor over her. A spell woven tighter with each kiss, each caress. But as he eased his weight to the side, she realized it was not his own pleasure he sought, but hers. Even as he fondled her breasts with one hand, teasing each peak to an aching bud between thumb and forefinger, his other wandered farther up her skirt, sliding past the naughty lace of her garter to pet the tingling skin of her inner thigh. Each deft stroke brought his fingertips nearer to that part of her that was melting and throbbing in anticipation of his touch.

  When his fingers finally brushed her through that illicit scrap of fabric, Arian arched off the leather seat with a sharp cry. The damp silk seemed to dissolve beneath his hand, making the shock more intimate than if he'd touched her naked flesh. Her knees drew inward in instinctive shyness.

  "It's all right, angel," he murmured against her lips. "Just close your eyes and open your legs. I swear I won't hurt you."

  Arian buried her burning face in the crook of his throat, whimpering a denial, but her traitorous body refused to deny itself the indulgence he was so unselfishly offering. She stole a peek downward. Her skirt still clung to its pretense of modesty, only making what Tristan's hand was doing to her beneath it more irresistibly carnal.

  Her head fell back and she gasped with delight as his thumb and forefinger slipped beneath the silken barrier to part her nether curls. Never in her wildest fantasies had she dared to contemplate a sin so dark, so sweet, so deliciously wicked as the play of Tristan's fingertips over her swollen flesh. A spool of raw need unwound from each skillful flick of his thumb as he teased and tormented the fragile bud he found there to throbbing delight.

  His thumb continued to apply that exquisite friction, even as his long, slender fingers dipped lower, probing gently until Arian's moans melted to sobs and her body began to shudder with wave after wave of primal ecstasy.

  Arian slowly became aware of Tristan kissing the tears from her cheeks. Still lost in a haze of pleasure, she pressed against him, sending her forgotten purse tumbling to the floor of the limousine with a jarring jingle.

  Even for Lennox, a million dollars is a lot to pay for a whore.

  Don't be ridiculous, Lily. You're not the sort of woman a man marries.

  Arian stiffened as a murky current of shame began to seep through her delicious languor.

  Everyone knows the French are more vulnerable to the attentions of Satan because of their dark and sinful natures… their insatiable hungers…

  The Reverend Linnet's voice joined the damning chorus, paralyzing her in her compromising position – fingers tangled in the wheaten silk of Tristan's hair, breasts bared and flushed with satisfaction, thighs spread in wanton invitation, the hollow between them aching to be filled. She could feel the fierce nudge of Tristan's need through the fine linen of his trousers. That uncompromising ridge of male flesh made her realize that Tristan would have to give her more than his kisses to get her with child. Much more.

  "Kiss me, Arian," he urged, smoothing her sweat-dampened hair from her cheeks.

  Arian closed her eyes and turned her face away from him, wishing fiercely that she were still Catholic. That her sins could be absolved with nothing more than a mumbled Gloria Patri and a dozen mea culpas. How many times had she seen her mother go to confession the morning after she'd given herself to another lover and beg forgiveness from some faceless priest?

  If she gave herself to Tristan, she would be no better than what those men at the party had said she was, no better than her poor misguided mama. She might have no pride where Tristan Lennox was concerned, but she still had her virtue – a tarnished treasure she was beginning to despise.

  "I can't…" she whispered, knowing he must think her the worst sort of hypocrite to take her pleasure, yet offer him nothing in return. A hot, bitter tear squeezed p
ast her tightly clenched lids.

  Tristan was nearly wild with the urge to press Arian back against the butter-soft leather and finish what they'd started, but instinct warned him that her mind wasn't as deliciously prepared as her body.

  "Don't cry, sweetheart," he murmured, brushing a gentle kiss over the tip of her nose. "I know it can all be a little overwhelming. Especially the first time. There's no rush. We've got all night." He chuckled softly. "The limo even has an extra gas tank."

  "You don't understand," she said fiercely. "I can't."

  "If it's getting pregnant you're worried about, you don't have to. I'll take care of that." He reached around to his back pocket for his wallet and the insurance he always carried there. Insurance against bringing any more "mistakes" like himself into the world. "I'll take care of you."

  "Like you take care of Brenda? With a sneer of contempt and a monthly allowance?"

  Tristan frowned, feeling suddenly chilled. Arian pushed at his chest, making him feel like some sort of sleazy date rapist, but he couldn't quite bring himself to let her up.

  "Arian, please…" He realized with a shock that he would beg for this woman. Would go down on his knees for her even if his only reward was to taste the honey his touch had coaxed from her body, to make her cry out his name and weep with pleasure again. "Please, Arian. Let me love you."

  "No," she whispered.

  As his own plea echoed through Tristan's head, the chill spread. Why in God's name hadn't he said, "Let me make love to you"? Why had he trusted her with his most shameful secret, a secret he'd hoarded since childhood – that he needed someone to love more than he'd ever needed someone to love him?

  He shoved ramsett away from her and settled in the opposite seat, watching her struggle to rearrange her clothing with dispassionate eyes.

  He shouldn't have to ask why. Arian obviously didn't want him. Not like he wanted her. He closed his eyes against a wave of pain, surprised that another verse of that old familiar song could still cut so deeply.

  "Why?" he asked anyway.