“London, where are you? Come on now…it’s time for bed. Oh, there you are!” Katherine sidestepped a group of men, her practiced smile well in place. Waving her fingers as she passed, she tracked down her wayward daughter with the precision of a bloodhound.
“No!” London cried as her mother approached.
“Come on, sweetheart, it’s nearly ten.”
“Don’t care!”
“You’d better do what she says,” Zachary offered, his gaze flicking slightly to his stepmother’s. He knew what the old man saw in his young wife. Katherine Danvers was probably the sexiest woman Zachary had ever met. At seventeen he understood about unbridled sexual desire. Hot and thundering, it could roar through a man’s body and turn his brain to mush.
“Come on.” Katherine leaned down to pick up her daughter. The silk stretched across her shapely rump and her breasts seemed to bulge a bit, as if they might fall out of her plunging neckline.
“I’ll get her into bed,” another woman, London’s nanny, Ginny Something-Or-Other, offered. She was a small, plain woman in sensible shoes and a drab olive-green suit. Next to Katherine she looked frumpy and old, a dowdy matron, though she was probably just over thirty, not much older than Kat.
“I don’t want to go to bed,” London insisted.
“She’s being a brat.” Katherine looked up and noticed one of the waiters motioning toward her. With a sigh, she turned back to her daughter. “Listen, honey, it’s almost time to bring out the birthday cake. You can stay up and watch Daddy blow out his candles, then you have to go upstairs.”
“Can I have some cake, too?”
The corners around Katherine’s mouth tightened, though she said, “Of course, darling. But then you go with Ginny upstairs. We’ve got a special room for you, right by Daddy and Mommy’s, and we’ll be up later to tuck you in.”
Mollified somewhat, London headed back to the party and Katherine straightened, smoothing her dress over her hips as Ginny followed her wayward charge.
Zach hoped that Katherine would hurry to the bandleader and order the musicians to strike up “Happy Birthday To You,” but she inched her chin up a fraction and eyed her stepson. Zach was three inches taller than Kat. Nonetheless, she had a way of making him feel small. “Stay away from the booze.” She plucked his empty champagne glass from the dirt and twirled the stem between her long, slim fingers. Even while reprimanding him, she was sexy as hell. As if she knew her power over him and any man who wasn’t blind, she puckered her lips sweetly, then waggled the glass under his nose. “We wouldn’t want anything to spoil this party for your daddy now, would we? If you were to get caught with one of these, there could be trouble.”
“I won’t get caught.”
“Don’t think you’re so smart, Zach. I saw you swilling champagne, and I don’t think I’m the only one who was looking in your direction. Anyone else could have seen you, including Jack Logan. You remember—he’s with the police department. I think you two have met before.”
Zach’s teeth clamped together. Hot embarrassment climbed up the back of his neck. “As I said, I won’t get caught.”
“You’d better not, because, if you land your cute little butt in jail or end up in the juvenile hall again, Witt won’t bail you out. So”—she smiled sweetly—“use your head.”
As she sauntered away, mingling with one group of guests after another, Zachary seethed. His blood boiled through his veins and he fantasized about wrapping his fingers around her neck and shaking some sense into her, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her ass and the way it shifted beneath the shimmering black silk of her dress. She moved slowly, as if each step were a deliberately sensual movement designed to make him squirm. The rose petals were crushed beneath her heels. Her smooth back, visible to the curve of her lower spine, was unblemished and supple, and he imagined it would arch perfectly beneath the right man.
He felt an erection beginning, and turned away from her image. Half the time he thought she put on a sexual show for him intentionally. Other times he told himself that it was his imagination, that he was finding sexual overtures in the most innocent of gestures.
To cool his blood he placed his head against the window. Steam fogged the inside of the glass. The room was so hot he felt that he was suffocating and his blood still pounded at his temples. At seventeen he was still a virgin, which wasn’t a big deal, unless he had to spend any time alone with Kat, something he tried to avoid.
Stuffing one hand into his pocket to hide the swell in his pants, he walked to the nearest tray of filled glasses, grabbed one and downed it quickly, all the while staring at his stepmother. She didn’t seem to see him. Buoyed by his newfound source of rebellion, he sauntered over to another unattended tray, snatched another glass, and downed the champagne in one gulp. A few drops drizzled along his chin but he didn’t care.
The room began to get warmer still and he loosened his tie. A flush stole up his face and he felt a little light-headed. He was definitely getting a buzz. Well, good. He didn’t want to be here anyway. Might as well enjoy himself.
Halfway through his next drink, he felt a smooth hand close over his arm. He jumped and champagne splashed down the front of his jacket and shirt. Kat’s long fingers dug into the muscles beneath his sleeve. Her eyes were dark with rage, her full lips clenched in fury. “You just don’t know when to give up, do you?”
He shook off her arm. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
“No?” She arched an eyebrow in a sexy gesture that scared him spitless. “Mmm. We’ll see.”
He finished his drink to spite her, but she didn’t seem to mind. In fact, her face changed into a soft smile and her eyes caught the reflection of the chandelier, sparkling up at him. With an innocent grin, she linked her fingers through his. “Dance with me, Zach.”
Zach, despite the friendly cobwebs in his mind, smelled trouble. “I…I don’t dance.”
“Sure you do. It’s easy.”
“But I can’t—”
She leaned closer to him, put her lips against his ear. “People are staring. Come on.”
His throat was suddenly desert-dry. “Katherine, I really don’t want to—” But she was right. He felt the burning weight of the gazes of curious onlookers. He wanted to die. From the corner of his eye, he saw Jason staring at him, his expression unreadable. Trisha was downing champagne and God-only-knew what else. She smiled drunkenly at Zach’s discomfiture. Witt, his father, was still dancing with little London and too busy to notice that Zach was trapped.
“Really, Katherine. I don’t want to—”
“Oh, you want, Zach,” she said, leaning to him, pressing her hip against his groin. “I can tell. And I’ll let your father know if you don’t give me just one little dance.”
Guiltily, Zach glanced at Witt but the old man seemed oblivious to the fact that his son, the one who always gave him so much trouble, was being led to the dance floor like a lamb to slaughter. He couldn’t imagine dancing with Katherine, feeling her body pressed close to his. His blood was already roaring through his system. As they reached the dance floor, she turned, molding her torso to his, beginning to sway in rhythm to the music.
Her hips were pressed intimately to his and her breasts seemed crushed against his chest. “Now, isn’t this better?” she murmured in a husky drawl and he closed his eyes, fighting the lust that burned through his body, feeling his stiffening erection even as he tried to deny it.
“Let me go,” he begged.
“You don’t want to go.” She shifted slightly so that her lower abdomen was hugging his. God, she had to know that he was hard. “I can tell.”
“Don’t—”
Holy Christ, his right hand was on her bare back, feeling the silky texture of her skin, the sleek movement of her muscles. Was it his imagination or did she make some low sort of wanting sound deep in her throat?