Mixed Messages

“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 two bottles of wine cooler and a couple of glasses. Taking a seat beside Carly on the cushiony sofa, which was upholstered in mauve suede, he opened the bottles and poured.

Carly figured she had about as much chance coming out of this with her virginity intact as she would have escaping a sheik’s harem. 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 OK.”

Carly let her forehead rest against his chest and slid her arms around his waist. “God help me,” she whispered, “I want to stay.”