Single, Sexy...And Sold!

At one point she slipped in the information that her father had died six months earlier, and the look of sympathy in his eyes made her want to snuggle in his arms, but she didn’t. Besides, the cameras still rolled, and she’d begun to resent them almost as much as Jonah did.

On the trip back, they took turns going below and changing into their dinner clothes. Jonah went first, and the whole time he was belowdecks Natalie imagined him undressing. No matter how she tried to distract herself, she pictured what he’d look like without his shirt, without his pants, without a stitch on that glorious body.

Jonah’s transformation to dinner jacket and tie made her catch her breath.

“Am I okay?” he asked as he joined her on deck.

She looked him up and down. “More than okay,” she said with a smile.

But when it was her turn to appear in her red cocktail dress, she was a bundle of nerves. She never remembered caring so much how a man reacted to her outfit. Twilight had arrived by the time she stepped out on deck, and Jonah stood at the railing gazing at the jeweled skyline of the city slipping by. He must have heard the click of her heels, because he turned as she started toward him.

He didn’t say a word as he held out his hand. She should have ignored his gesture. Touching him was a dangerous occupation, even with chaperons around preparing the yacht for docking. When she placed her hand in his firm grip, she looked into his eyes and her heartbeat quickened. There was no mistaking the message in his eyes, no matter what he had promised her or himself. He wanted her.

“Do I look okay?” There was that husky nervousness again.

“Okay doesn’t even come close to describing how you look,” he said, drawing her over beside him as he returned his attention to the sparkle of lights. He stared at the skyline as his hand tightened over hers. “If you planned to seduce me this weekend, you’re doing a hell of a job.”

“Believe me, I didn’t plan to do that.”

He glanced down at her. “Then I guess you’re just a natural.”

She looked away from his compelling gaze and swallowed. As she focused on the lights of Manhattan, she prayed she’d be able to keep her wits about her for just a few hours more. Soon she’d find the right moment to tell him about her mother’s book. Soon.

4

AN IVORY STRETCH LIMO sat at the dock, apparently waiting for them. So was another television van and a crowd of women holding signs proclaiming their love of Jonah. He winced. “Looks like we won’t be sneaking over to the heliport.”

Natalie pulled her white furry coat closer against the evening chill. “Nope, but once we’re in that chopper, we should be okay. It’ll just be the pilot and us, high above this nonsense. I have to admit it gets old fast.”

Jonah glanced at her, wondering just how much she’d like to ditch this public performance. He was forming some ideas about how they might do that. “It’ll be a zoo again once we hit the Plaza.”

“I suppose.” Natalie sighed as Eric lowered the gangplank of the Satin Doll. “When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a movie star. But if this is what it’s like, I’m glad it turned out I couldn’t act.”

Suzanne approached them. “Thank you for sailing with us,” she said.

“It was great,” Jonah said. “Thanks for letting me take the wheel for a while. She handles like a dream.”

“You’re welcome.” Suzanne hesitated. “Could I—would you give me your autograph, Jonah? It’s for my daughter,” she said quickly, pulling a piece of paper and a pen from her slacks pocket. “Her name’s Gretchen, and she just got a little black puppy. She named him Bobo, and she would be thrilled if—”

“Sure.” Jonah took the pen and paper before the moment dragged on any longer. He wrote a quick note to Gretchen and handed everything back to Suzanne. “And please tell Gretchen that you met me and I’m not seven feet tall, and I don’t leap tall buildings in a single bound.”

Suzanne smiled. “I was planning to tell her you’re a great guy, just as wonderful as she imagines you are.”

A flush worked its way up from his neck. “Uh, thanks. Well, I guess we’d better get going. Ready, Natalie?”

She glanced at him, a twinkle in her gray eyes. “Are you certain you can’t fly? It would sure come in handy right now to be able to go right over the heads of all those people on the dock.”

“Very funny.” He glanced at Eric, who had a grip on their overnight cases and seemed ready to run interference for them. “Say, Eric, where were you figuring on stashing those?” he asked.

“In the trunk of the limo,” Eric said. “Would you rather have them up with you?”

“I just want to keep this operation simple,” Jonah said. “So let’s not bother with the trunk. Just heave them in and we’ll jump in right afterward.”

“Got it.”

Jonah took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s go.” He wrapped a protective arm around Natalie’s shoulders and lowered his head against the glare from the lights as they stepped off the gangplank. “We’re not stopping.”

“Right.”

Holding her tight against him, he shouldered his way through the crowd behind Eric, ignoring the camera lenses, microphones and shouted questions. Ahead of him the uniformed limo driver opened the passenger door. Eric put the overnight cases inside and jumped back just as Jonah shoved Natalie in.

“Get in and drive!” Jonah shouted to the chauffeur, who seemed to think he had to hold the door for Jonah, too. Jonah leaped in and wrestled the door shut as someone tried to keep him from closing it. At last the locks clicked into place and he sagged with relief as the car edged away from the crowd.

“Are you okay?” Natalie sat in the far corner, looking small and vulnerable, her eyes wide.

“I’m okay.” He didn’t see any obvious scrapes or bruises on her delicate skin. “Are you?”

“Physically. But it sure messes with your head, being part of a mob scene like that, doesn’t it?”

Jonah closed his eyes and leaned back against the plush upholstery. “Yep.” He took a deep breath. “You know what’s the worst part?”

“What?”

He kept his eyes closed and willed his tense muscles to relax. “I was raised to be polite, to respond to people with courtesy when they approached me. I can’t do that anymore, because now everyone wants something.”

“I…guess they do.”

“And then I see some of the looks on the faces of those women, and my heart goes out to them. They need someone to speak a kind word to them, to smile, to ask them how they’re doing. And I don’t dare.”

He felt a light touch on his arm and opened his eyes.

Natalie had scooted over next to him and rested her hand on the sleeve of his sport coat. “That’s one of the sweetest things I’ve ever heard anyone say.”

God, she was beautiful, especially when she got that soft look in her eyes. The leather seat reminded him of the one down in the cabin of the boat, which reminded him of what she’d felt like beneath him. He wanted her in his arms again, wanted to kiss her and touch her the way he had this morning. “I wasn’t trying to be sweet. I just—”

“You just can’t help it,” she said. “You’re a decent human being, and so you just can’t help being such a nice guy.”

He sat up straighter and smiled at her. “Don’t push it. I wasn’t having such sweet thoughts about you just now.”

Her cheeks grew rosy and she glanced down at his sleeve. Slowly she removed her hand. “You know, I’m not so different from all those women you’ve been trying to stay away from.”

“You mean aside from the fact that you’re twenty times better-looking than any of them, and probably twenty times richer, and you’ve promised not to go to bed with me under any circumstance? Other than that, yeah, I guess you’re just like them.”

The blush on her cheeks deepened and she glanced away. “I am. I want something, just like they do.”

Aha. He’d been afraid from the beginning that she had an agenda. He’d hoped to be wrong, but apparently not. He wondered if it was something kinky, or illegal, or kinky and illegal. She looked innocent enough, but he’d only spent a few hours with her. How could he claim to know whether that innocence was a cover-up for all sorts of weird cravings? And damned if the idea didn’t excite him. Even straight arrows could be tempted.

As his imagination worked overtime, his question came out sounding gruffer than he’d meant it to. “What do you want?”