“When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. Didn’t your daddy ever tell you that?”
“Only when life gives you sugar, too!” she retorted in exasperation.
He stopped. There was a moment of silence, followed by rich, male laughter. Then he looked over his shoulder at her.
“As long as you’re around, sugar will be no problem at all.”
Chapter Five
“Let me,” Cain said.
Automatically Shelley started to refuse, but then thought better of it. After the lush coolness of her house, a long motorcycle ride in the hot sun had made the safety helmet an oven. Even worse, the chin buckle was as stubborn as cement.
As soon as she lowered her hands, he went to work. She stood patiently while his long fingers coaxed the stiff leather free of the buckle. The clean fragrance of lemon oil drifted up from his hands, filling her nostrils. She barely stilled a quiver of pure sensual pleasure.
He hadn’t bothered to use a juicer on the fresh lemon. He had simply squeezed liquid out of the fruit with a speed and power that had startled her. She didn’t consider herself a weakling by any means, but his strength kept taking her by surprise.
So did his smile.
“Almost done,” he said.
“I wasn’t complaining.”
“I know. That’s another thing I like about you.”
He eased the helmet from her head, brushing aside silky strands of her hair as he went. He could have done the job more quickly, but he enjoyed the texture and warmth of her hair sliding over his hands.
He inhaled deeply. Mixed with her understated perfume was a haunting drift of lemon fragrance. The lemonade she had drunk so eagerly had left a pale line along her upper lip.
He smiled, knowing that if he licked the silver residue, it would be sweet. Sugar-sweet, and tasting of woman.
A glitter of sensation went over Shelley when she saw Cain’s smile.
I’ve got to put a stop to this, she thought. I’m letting him come too close too fast.
Yet a deep part of her only wanted to be closer and then closer still, as close as a man and a woman could be.
Abruptly she stepped away and rummaged in her purse for a hairbrush. When she glanced up once more, he was hanging her helmet next to his on the handlebars.
For a moment she stared, struck by how out of place the black bike looked parked next to Brian’s silver Mercedes 450 and the scarlet Ferrari that belonged to JoLynn. There was nothing sleek or polished about the motorcycle. Its tires were large and rough, designed for off-road as well as highway use. Cutaway fenders and the absence of chrome added to the outlaw effect.
Like the man, the bike was honed down to basics. Its power, endurance, and speed didn’t need any flashy decorations.
Cain turned away from the bike and stretched. Then he looked around curiously. He rarely came to Beverly Hills. Overpriced goods and overdressed women didn’t appeal to him.
He glanced from the elegant storefront of The Gilded Lily to the equally elegant woman whose hair was as dark and satiny as melted bittersweet chocolate. He envied the brush that was sliding through the gleaming strands.
“Is this where you gild my lily?” he asked.
“A bike like that doesn’t need gilding. It is what it does—beautifully.”
For the space of a breath he was too surprised to speak. When he did, his words startled both of them.
“I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”
“You should have tried Architectural Digest,” she said, putting away her brush. “I’m a regular advertiser.”
He laughed, enjoying her quick tongue. Instinct told him that his frankly male interest made her uneasy. Instinct also told him that there was nothing specifically personal in her wariness of him. In fact, he suspected that he had gotten inside her defenses more than any man in a long time.
What happened to you, Shelley Wilde? he thought. Who taught you to mistrust yourself and men?
But the questions went no further than the silence of Cain’s mind. He sensed that he had pushed her as far as she was going to go at the moment. If he pushed any more, she would simply smile professionally and slide through his fingers like sunlight, leaving only darkness behind.
He followed her to the glass-fronted shop that looked more like an art gallery than a store. She put in the key and began working the stiff lock.
“I should have thought of that sooner,” he said.
“What?”
“Checking the ads in Architectural Digest. I would have enjoyed L.A. a lot more.”
She concentrated on the lock.
He looked away from her clean, naked fingers to the electronic burglar system that protected the shop. The windows had a nearly invisible border of hair-fine wires and glass thick enough to survive a determined hammer. Elegant calligraphic script announced the name of the shop. Beneath the name was the discreet warning: By Appointment Only.
The lock gave way with a faint, definite click.
He followed the gentle swing of Shelley’s hips into The Gilded Lily. Inside, various pieces of fine and decorative art were displayed throughout the area much as they would have been in a private home. The furniture, too, suggested a residence rather than a commercial establishment, with casual conversational groupings that invited relaxation.
When she turned to say something, she saw that Cain was looking at the shop with the same intensity he had her home. Silently he went from one display to another, pausing over soapstone carvings of birds from Baffin Island and a Landsat photo of the Sahara.
The photo showed the desert reduced to its essence, a purity of line and light and shadow that was almost surreal. He studied it for a long time.
Other displays received little more than a glance from him. Minimalist art didn’t hold his interest, nor did the more avant-garde experiments in mixed media or warring colors. Such works drew little more than a cool glance from him.
Just when she had decided that he didn’t like abstract art, he stopped in front of a large, free-form wood sculpture. The surface of the wood was intensely smooth. It had a soft satin gleam rather than a hard lacquer finish. The grain showed in a series of long, darkly curving lines.
The shape of the sculpture was utterly abstract, resembling nothing in the real world. Yet the flowing curves and satin texture somehow cried out to be touched.
For several moments Cain did just that, running his fingertips from one fluid curve to the next. Finally he let his palms smooth lightly down the sculpture’s satin sides.
The sheer sensuality of his reaction made Shelley’s breath catch. She had seen many people stroke the sculpture. This was the first time she envied the sleek wood.
After another slow tracing with his hands, he looked down and saw the title of the sculpture: “I Love You, Too.” He threw back his head and laughed with delight.
The sound of his laughter pleased her as much as his appreciation of the sculpture. The piece was one of her personal favorites, a combination of sensuality and humor.
“Is this for rent?” he asked.
She hesitated, for the sculpture was very useful to her in assessing clients’ reactions. Many of her people had specifically requested it. She had always refused and substituted another touchable sculpture. Yet she was reluctant to disappoint Cain.
“I usually keep it here,” she said. “It requires a lot of petting. That’s the source of its special glow.”
The corners of his mouth turned up in a slow smile. His sun-streaked chestnut hair gleamed as he bent closer to the inviting, polished curves.
“Like a woman,” he said, smoothing his palms over the sculpture again.
“Are you saying men don’t like to be petted?” she retorted.
“You’re a woman, you tell me.”
She bit her tongue and didn’t say the words that were choking her.
My former husband didn’t want to be petted. At least not by me. Busty barflies were a different matter entirely.
>
With the ease of long experience, Shelley concealed the painful memories beneath an expression of cool indifference and an equally cool tone.
“You’re asking the wrong woman, remember? I’m the one who can’t hold a man.”
His head snapped up. He stared at her as intently as though she was a sensual sculpture waiting to be appreciated.
At the moment, she looked more like ice than warm flesh. Her hazel eyes were distant, as watchful as a cat that has known more curses than kindness.
Not for the first time, Cain regretted the cutting remark he had made to Shelley when they met at JoLynn’s house. Unfortunately, his temper had been tested past its limits already that day. Several times.
Damn JoLynn anyway. That female would try the patience of twelve saints.
“And I’m the man who can’t hold a woman, remember?” he asked.
“I doubt that you ever wanted to.”
She turned away, dismissing the subject.
And him.
With a long step he closed the distance she was trying to put between them.
“Have you?” he asked.
“What?”
“Ever wanted to keep a man.”
“Once. The cure was quite effective.”
“What cure?”
“Growing up.”
There was an edge of savagery in her voice and in the metallic gleam of gold in her eyes.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
She turned sharply and faced him. “It means that I am my own person now. I have furnished my home and my life to suit myself.”
“And there’s no room in it for anyone else, even on a temporary basis?”
“Especially on a temporary basis. Rented rooms, rented people, rented lives. No thank you, Cain Remington. I’m not for rent.”
“Are you for sale, then?” he asked politely.
“What?”
“Marriage. An outright purchase until death do you part.”
“Or divorce, whichever comes sooner. And we both know which comes sooner, don’t we?”
“So that’s it. Your husband dumped you.”
“Tactful to the core, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Did he?”
“Did he what?”
“Dump you.”
“Like a handful of dirt. Satisfied?”
“No.”
Cain’s expression changed as he looked at the taut, angry lines of Shelley’s face and the curving feminine lines of her body, a living sculpture crying out to be stroked.
“I’m not satisfied at all,” he said.
“I’ll find JoLynn. I’m sure she comes with a money-back guarantee.”
A large hand wrapped around Shelley’s wrist, holding her in place. “I don’t want JoLynn. I want you.”
“You can’t afford me,” she said in a clipped voice.
“Name a price.”
She listened to the cold, confident tone and felt anger uncurl hotly. Her former husband had been confident, too.
And he, too, had been wrong.
“Love, not money, Mr. Remington.”
Emotion showed for an instant on his hard face. Then all expression faded into a polite mask.
“Love is an elusive commodity,” he said.
“So that’s it,” she said mockingly, echoing his earlier words. “You loved a woman and she dumped you.”
“Tactful, aren’t you?”
“To the core.”
Pointedly, she looked down at the large hand wrapped around her wrist.
“Excuse me,” she murmured. “I have a lot of work to do.”
“So do I. Your husband burned you but good, didn’t he?”
As Cain spoke, he caressed her inner wrist with the ball of his thumb.
The combination of his hard fingers and gently caressing thumb took the heat out of her anger, leaving only the hurt beneath. She swallowed and wanted to look away from his too-knowing eyes. Pride wouldn’t let her.
“My ex-husband taught me the price of sharing my dreams.”
“Disillusionment?”
“Was that what happened to you?”
“You could say that I was disillusioned.” Cain’s voice was mild, but his eyes were the color of winter ice. “You could also say that I was mad enough to kill.”
Her eyes widened. She had the distinct feeling that she wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of this man’s unbridled rage.
“Did you?” she asked before she could stop herself.
“I was mad at myself, not her. She wasn’t worth killing for.”
Another question came to Shelley’s lips, but she said nothing aloud. Beneath his anger she had seen a flash of old pain that reminded her all too much of her own.
“Neither was my husband,” she admitted.
She touched Cain’s arm where sun-bleached hair gleamed over tanned skin.
“I’m sorry,” she said simply. “I had no right to pry.”
He gave her a wry smile.
“I had it coming,” he said. “I’ve been chipping away at your civilized veneer ever since I saw your cynical little smile when you looked from JoLynn’s cleavage to me.”
“Was I that obvious?”
“Only to a man watching you very closely.”
“The way you are now?”
He smiled and her heart hesitated. His thumb moved over the inside of her wrist with slow, gently searching strokes.
“The way I am now,” he agreed.
“Why?” she asked, curious. “I’m not the sexy kind of woman who makes men stop and stare.”
“Like JoLynn?”
“Yes. She’s drop-dead gorgeous.”
“She’s drop-dead boring.”
“But—”
“When I saw you pick up that snake and hold it as carefully as a kitten, I wanted to know you. I wanted to know how a woman who spends her life surrounded by the finest products of civilization had learned to handle snakes and lonely children.”
Shelley didn’t know what to say. Even if she had, she wouldn’t have been able to talk. The sensations radiating up from Cain’s caressing thumb had stolen her voice.
His smiled widened and became even more gentle.
“And then you calmly stepped onto my bike in your silks and stylish shoes, carrying a pissed-off boa constrictor in a Spanish lace pillowcase.”
His warm thumb kept up its slow, hypnotic rhythm against the pulse beating beneath her soft skin.
“When I walked into your house, your civilized and deeply wild home, I realized that I had to know you. But you kept retreating.”
“Cain, I—”
“You’re still retreating. Don’t. Please. I don’t want to hurt you or frighten you. I just want to know you.” His clear gray eyes searched her face. “Truce?”
She felt the tug of his words on her mind as deeply as she felt the lure of his sensuality on her body. She had no doubt that he was telling the truth. Hurting her was the last thing on his mind.
“Truce,” she agreed softly.
He lifted her wrist and pressed his mouth against the soft skin his thumb had been caressing. The feel of his lips and the silken brush of his mustache awakened every nerve ending in her body. She discovered nerves that had slept for a long time. Nerves that she had forgotten.
Nerves that she had never suspected existed.
He caressed her wrist again. The soft, startled parting of her lips and her pulse accelerating beneath his mouth sent a shaft of pure hunger through him.
“What do you want to eat for dinner tonight?” he asked. “Seafood or French food? Portuguese? Thai? Indian? Mexican? Chinese?”
“Cain, I don’t—”
“Eat?” he interrupted smoothly. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you eat.”
“But—”
“Besides, how else are you going to find out how to gild my lily? I’ll tell you right now, I won’t tolerate the museum crap that JoLynn has. I want something that suits me, not some decorator?
??s idea of ancient or modern home fashions.”
“Do you really have a house that you want me to work on?”
“Of course. What did you think I meant when I said I wanted you to gild my lily?”
Shelley caught herself just before she would have apologized for mistaking Cain’s business proposal for a very different kind of proposition.
There he stands, calmly kissing my wrist and at the same time acting indignant over having his intentions misunderstood.
The man is lethal.
The fact that he had almost gotten away with it told her just how easily his particular brand of charm slid past her defenses. He was indeed what she had called him. A renegade.
A very seductive one.
Cain’s expression of injured innocence gave way to a wickedly appealing smile as he saw the flush climbing beneath her skin.
She tried to ignore him. It was impossible. She gave up and laughed out loud.
“Then you’ll do it?” he asked.
“How can I resist gilding a renegade lily?”
Like her eyes, her voice was vibrant with laughter and challenge and the feel of his lips against her skin.
His smile changed, more intimate now, as warm as the slow pressure of his mouth sliding over her pulse.
“I’m usually quite well behaved,” he said. “You and your half-civilized smile have a disastrous effect on my temper.”
“You and your sharp tongue have a similar effect on mine,” she retorted.
“Sharp? Are you sure?”
Delicately he ran the tip of his tongue over the veins of her wrist. Then he lifted his head to see her response.
The intimacy of the moment and the gesture disturbed her more than she wanted to admit to anyone, even herself. Especially herself.
“Cain, if you don’t stop, the truce is off and so is the lily gilding.”
He saw the determination and fear that lay beneath her quiet words. His long fingers opened, letting her hand slide through his in a release that was also another kind of caress.
“Have you decided where you want to have dinner yet?” he asked calmly.
“It isn’t necessary.”
“You’re wrong.”