Renegade

He lifted the holder. “Vanilla cappuccino,” he said, waving it under her nose. “My only real weakness. Well, except for these,” he waved the sack.

“What’s in there?” Tippy asked, following him to the breakfast table she’d already set, where Rory was waiting to start eating.

“Cheese Danishes,” he said. “Sorry. I can’t give up sugar. I think it’s one of the four major food groups, along with chocolate and ice cream and pizza.”

Rory burst out laughing. So did Tippy.

“Amazing,” she said, giving his powerful body a lingering scrutiny. “You don’t look as if you’ve ever tasted fat or sugar in your life.”

“I work out every day,” he confided. “I have to. Those uniforms are sewn on us, you know,” he added deadpan, “to emphasize what nice muscles we have.”

Her eyes glanced off his biceps, very noticeable in the knit shirt he was wearing with dark slacks, as he swung his black leather jacket onto an easy chair on his way to the kitchen.

“No comment?” he taunted.

She sighed. “I was just noticing the muscles,” she murmured dryly.

Rory had excused himself to go to the bathroom. Cash caught Tippy’s long skirt and pulled her close to his chair. “If you play your cards right, I just might take my shirt off for you one day,” he purred.

She didn’t know whether to laugh or protest. He was so unpredictable.

“Not right away, of course,” he added. “I’m not that kind of man!”

Now she did laugh. Her eyes lit up, sparkling like emeralds. He grinned, too. “Here. Have a cheese Danish. I brought enough for all of us.”

She reached down into the bag, very aware of his dark eyes on her face.

“Your skin is beautiful, even without makeup,” he noted deeply. “It looks like silk.”

Her head turned. She met his eyes evenly and her heart jumped. He was very sexy.

“What are you thinking?” he murmured.

“I’ll bet you know everything there is to know about women,” she confessed huskily.

His eyes narrowed. “And you know next to nothing about men.”

Her eyes misted. “I haven’t wanted to,” she said softly. Her gaze fell to his wide, chiseled mouth.

“Careful,” he said quietly. “I’ve kept to myself for a long time.”

“You wouldn’t hurt me,” she whispered daringly, meeting his searching gaze. “I wish…oh, I wish!”

“You wish…what?” he prompted, his jaw clutching as the fragrance of her body drifted down into his nostrils. She was so close that he could see her heart beating at the neck of her blouse. He wanted to jerk her down into his arms and kiss her until her beautiful mouth began to swell.

She was feeling the same hunger. She looked at his mouth and wondered how it would feel to kiss it in tensely, the way she’d stage-kissed her fellow actor in the movie they’d made at the Dunn ranch. She could al most taste Cash’s hard mouth. Her body felt swollen, achy. It was like a thirst that no water would ever be able to quench.

Her breath caught noisily in her throat as her full lips parted. “I wish…”

The sound of the toilet flushing broke them apart. She stood up, forgetting the Danish, and went to the sink to wash her hands because she needed something to still them.

Rory came back, totally oblivious to what he’d interrupted, and helped himself to a Danish. After a minute, Tippy poured coffee for herself and orange juice for Rory, and sat down at the table as if nothing at all had happened.

THEY WENT TO THE AMERICAN Museum of Natural History first, to see the renovated dinosaur exhibit on the fourth floor. There was a long line because of the special exhibits, one that included a film and a shop concerned only with Albert Einstein. They stood in line for over an hour before they were able to get their tickets.

Rory went from one of the fossils to another, eagerly climbing a flight of stairs above the tallest skeleton so that he could look down on the massive shoulder blades and hip joints.

“He loves dinosaurs,” Tippy remarked, sauntering along beside Cash in her long green velvet skirt with boots and a white silk blouse under her black leather coat. Her hair was around her shoulders, and she was drawing attention from men as well as women, despite the very light touch of cosmetics she’d used.

Beside her Cash felt a surge of pride in her company. She really was beautiful, he thought, and it had so little to do with surface appearance. She was pure gold inside, where it counted.

“I like dinosaurs myself,” he commented. “I was here several years ago, but I missed the dinosaurs because this exhibit was being reworked. They’re impressive.”

She leaned closer to a sign to read it.

“You aren’t wearing your glasses,” he remarked.

She laughed self-consciously. “I’m a walking disaster when I have them on,” she said dryly. “I clean them with whatever’s handy. The lenses stay scratched, and I’ve already had them replaced twice.”

“They have new lenses that don’t scratch easily,” he pointed out.

“Yes, that’s the kind I got. Sadly, they aren’t fool proof.” She lifted a beautiful shoulder. “I wish I could wear contacts, but my eyes don’t like them. I get infections.”

He reached out a big, lean hand and caught a strand of her hair in it, testing its softness and bringing her close up against him in the process. “Your hair is alive,” he said quietly. “I’ve never seen this color look so natural.”

“It is natural,” she replied, feeling her knees go shaky at the unexpected proximity. He smelled of cologne and soap—clean, attractive smells. Her hands rested on his shirt, feeling the warm muscle and the faint cushiony sensation of hair under her hands. She wanted to pull the shirt up and touch him there with a fervor that made her breath catch. She’d never felt desire so torrid in her life.

“And nothing about you is artificial?” he probed.

“Nothing physical,” she agreed.

His dark eyes searched her green ones for longer than he meant to. His face seemed to clench. She knew he could probably feel her heart racing. She couldn’t help it. He was a particularly masculine man. Every thing feminine inside her reacted to his touch. “I don’t trust women.”

“You were married,” she recalled.

He nodded. His fingers curled around the strand of hair he was holding. His eyes were haunted. “I loved her. I thought she loved me.” He laughed coldly. “She certainly loved what I could buy her.”

She felt cold chills run down her spine. “There’s so much in your past that you don’t talk about,” she said softly. “You’re very mysterious, in your way.”

“Trust comes hard to me,” he told her. “If people can get close to you, they can wound you.”

“And the answer is to keep everyone at arm’s length?” she replied.

“Don’t you?” he shot back. “Except for Rory, and briefly Judd Dunn, I don’t recall ever seeing you keeping company with anyone. Especially a man.”

She swallowed hard. “I have horrible memories of men. Except for Cullen, and there was no physical contact there. He liked women as friends, but found them physically repulsive.”

“Did you love him?”