Читать книгу Uninhibited - Candace Schuler, Candace Schuler - Страница 7

REED SULLIVAN ASCENDED the wide brick steps of his great-grandmother’s Beacon Hill mansion with nearly the same trepidation as he had shown the first time she had summoned him to share her afternoon tea.

The weekly ritual had started as a lesson in deportment, a continuation of the Wednesday afternoon torture known as Miss Margaret’s Dance Academy for Young Ladies and Gentlemen. Moira Sullivan had seemed ancient to his eight-year-old self, with her snowy hair swept up into what he now knew was a Gibson girl topknot, and her elegant afternoon suits, which he now knew were Chanels. He’d been tongue-tied and uncomfortable at first, painfully aware that he was supposed to be on his best behavior, and itching for the whole ordeal to be over as soon as possible.

His great-grandmother had graciously invited him to stuff himself with frosted petits fours without regard for how they might ruin his dinner, all the while skillfully encouraging him to vent about the indignity of actually having to put his arms around a girl and attempt to waltz her around the room in front of his giggling friends. And then she’d rolled back a corner of the Aubusson carpet covering the gleaming parlor floor, placed a small needlepoint pillow beneath her knees and beat him in a hotly contested game of ringer. He’d lost his prized Indian lutz to her, the one he’d traded two peppermint swirls and a blue clearie for.

After that, the visits to his great-grandmother became, if not the highlight of his week, then an eagerly anticipated part of it—if only because they offered him the ongoing opportunity to reclaim his Indian lutz. Even during his teen years, when girls and cars and being cool were the focus of his existence and marbles were the last thing on his mind, he still found time for the weekly visits. In the nearly two decades since then, all through the time he spent earning both a law degree and an M.B.A. from Harvard, through the long days spent toiling at his first lowly job in the family firm to the even longer days required by the high powered position he now held, through schoolboy crushes, discreet love affairs and the very public embarrassment of a broken engagement, the weekly ritual had endured. Sharing tea and conversation with his great-grandmother was still one of the highlights of his week.

They were an unlikely pair, perhaps, the oldest living Sullivan and the thirty-three-year-old heir apparent. Although they were separated both by gender and generations, with nearly sixty years of living between them, they clicked on some instinctive level that had nothing to do with experience or age. Sitting in Moira Sullivan’s front parlor, sipping tea, trading benign gossip and bits of personal news, Reed wasn’t the senior vice president in charge of international investments; he wasn’t the head of any high-profile committee; he wasn’t the heir to the vast fortune and responsibilities of the Sullivan business empire. He was simply Moira’s favorite great-grandchild. And there was nothing that great-grandchild wouldn’t do for his beloved granny.

Or almost nothing.

Lately, she’d been testing the limits of his affection and forbearance.

Well, forbearance, anyway, he amended, absently fingering the smooth Indian lutz marble in the trouser pocket of his navy, worsted flannel suit. There were no limits on his affection for her.

With a sigh, he slipped his hand from his pocket and lifted it to press a well-manicured index finger against the bell on Moira Sullivan’s front door. It opened before the sound of the chimes had drifted away on the cool September air.

“Good afternoon, Eddie,” Reed said, handing his briefcase and gym bag to the strapping young man who’d answered his summons. “Is she alone today?”

Eddie grinned and shook his head. “Got a luscious little redhead in there with her.”

Reed groaned.

“Wait till you see her before you start complaining, man,” Eddie counseled as he skillfully relieved Reed of his camel hair overcoat before Reed could do it for himself. “She’s better than the last three, for sure.”

Reed raised an eyebrow, then lifted his hand in response to the twinge of discomfort that accompanied the motion, absently smoothing the small butterfly bandage bisecting his brow with one finger as if to make sure it was still secure. “Better how?” he asked.

Eddie’s grin turned into an appreciative leer. “Big brown eyes. Soft, sexy mouth. Lots of wild, curly hair hanging halfway down her back. Killer body. She’s got style, too. Dresses real funky.”

“Funky?”

“Think Annie Hall meets Pamela Anderson,” Eddie said over his shoulder as he hung the overcoat in the hall closet. The briefcase and gym bag were neatly stowed on the floor beneath it.

“Annie Hall meets…” Reed shuddered at the thought. His taste ran toward the sophisticated Grace Kelly type. Cool, understated and elegant—that was his kind of woman. Badly dressed waifs with untidy hair, no matter how well endowed, were not his cup of tea.

“Pamela Anderson,” Eddie said helpfully as he curled his meaty fingers around the curved brass handles on the elaborately carved double doors leading into the parlor. “You know, the blond babe with the prodigiously fine hooters.” He pushed the doors open with a flourish. “Mr. Sullivan has arrived, ma’am,” he intoned sonorously, bowing slightly toward his employer, as stiff and proper as if he had never uttered the word hooters—nor even knew what it meant.

The two women sitting on the pale blue brocade Victorian settee looked up expectantly. Moira Sullivan appeared much the same as she had the first time Reed had taken tea with her, nearly twenty-five years ago. She was wearing one of her elegant afternoon suits, a deep wine-colored bouclé that was immensely flattering against her pale skin and soft white hair. A triple strand of milky pearls adorned her neck. A large, square-cut sapphire sparkled on her right hand, complement to the impressive sapphire-and-diamond wedding set on her left. But it was her eyes that caught and held Reed’s attention. Bluer than the sapphires she wore, they were full of warmth and welcome, as always, with an undisguised hint of excitement and anticipation lurking in their depths.

“Hello, Gran,” he said cautiously, his gaze shifting to the young woman who sat beside his elegant, aged, conniving relative.

The redhead’s eyes were as big and brown as Eddie had said they were, wide set and heavily lashed beneath thick, sharply arched auburn brows. Her hair was a riotous mass of corkscrew curls that tumbled well past her shoulders. Her clothes were a colorful hodgepodge of fabric and style.

More gypsy than waif, Reed decided in that first comprehensive glance.

She wore a man’s soft white tuxedo shirt with a wing collar and an intricate Celtic brooch at the throat. Fanciful earrings of twisted metal and shiny stones dangled from her ears, glittering through the mass of springy curls. Dark forest-green, velvet pants were tucked into purple suede half-boots. A knitted mohair shawl in deep, rich shades of gold, brown and aubergine slipped off one shoulder to pool on the brocade settee beside her, its soft, nubby folds spilling over the edge toward the floor. Reed couldn’t tell anything about her alleged killer body because of that shawl and the large tapestry bag she held open on her lap, but her mouth was…well, soft and sexy didn’t even begin to describe it, he decided after a moment’s absorbed reflection.

Her lips were full and beautifully sculpted, as pink and glossy and moist as if she’d just finished eating a raspberry Popsicle. It was the kind of mouth made for heated, heedless kisses and breathless promises whispered in the dark across a satin pillow. Not a waif’s mouth, but a gypsy’s.

And he didn’t date gypsies—not even gorgeous, sexy gypsies—any more than he dated waifs. He dated nice, normal, conventional, well-bred women; the kind of women the men in his family had been dating and marrying for generations; the kind of women who were exactly like the last three women he’d met in Moira’s parlor over the past couple of months. The kind of women, in fact, who were exactly like the kind of woman he thought he’d been engaged to a couple of years ago.

It had turned out that his ex-fiancée hadn’t been all that conventional, after all, when it came right down to it. After a five-year engagement, she’d more or less left him standing at the altar and run off to New Orleans to work in a friend’s lingerie shop while she decided whether or not she really wanted to get married. She decided she did—to a laid-back New Orleans hairdresser rather than Reed’s illustrious self.

He’d put a good face on it—Sullivans always put a good face on things—but it had been quite a blow. To his pride, if nothing else. And truth be told, after all the dust had settled, he’d realized it was only his pride that had suffered any real damage; his heart had remained completely unscathed. In retrospect, he realized that Katherine had been absolutely right to run out on him because what he’d felt for her—what they’d felt for each other—had been nothing more than lifelong friendship coupled with a desire to satisfy family expectations. Reed still intended to satisfy his family’s expectations, and his own, as well. Eventually.

So what in hell was his dear granny up to?

It certainly couldn’t be matchmaking, not with this woman.

Could it?

“Shall I get the tea cart now, ma’am?” Eddie asked, his voice jolting Reed out of his absorption with Moira’s flamboyant guest and the likely reason for her presence in his great-grandmother’s front parlor.

“Yes, please, Eddie.” The whisper of an Irish lilt enhanced Moira Sullivan’s voice, adding piquancy to her upper-crust Boston accent. “And remind Mrs. Wheaton that there should be plenty of scones on the tray, won’t you?” She flashed a warm smile at the young woman sitting next to her. “I promised our guest a traditional tea with scones and clotted cream and strawberry preserves.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Eddie bowed again and backed out of the room, pulling the doors closed behind him.

Moira lifted her hand, extending it toward her great-grandson. “Reed, dear,” she said, her voice overflowing with delight. “Come and meet my new friend. This is Zoe Moon.” She flashed a warm, approving smile at the young woman sitting beside her. “Miss Zoe Moon,” she added, beaming like a proud mother showing off her new baby.

Reed stifled a sigh. No doubt about it now. As unlikely as it seemed, he’d just been introduced to yet another candidate for the position of Mrs. Reed Sullivan IV. It had been almost three years since his aborted trip down the aisle, and obviously his dear old granny was getting desperate to see him take that walk again. After all, he’d be thirty-four soon and no other Sullivan male in documented history had made it past thirty unwed. For him to have crossed that benchmark still a bachelor was looked upon as not quite proper—suspect, even—by the more conservative members of the family. Which was nearly all of them.

Plastering a polite smile on his face, Reed moved across the carpet to take his great-grandmother’s outstretched hand, resigned to enduring the next two hours of her relentless matchmaking efforts with all the charm and good grace at his command.

“How are you, sweetheart?” he said, bending to kiss Moira’s cheek. He nodded at the young woman sitting next to her as he straightened. “Miss Moon.”

“Call me Zoe, please,” she said as she extended her hand to him.

The scent of violets, incongruously sweet and old-fashioned, drifted up to meet him as he reached out to shake her hand. Her palm was cool and small against his, the fingers long and tapering, delicate but not fragile. Her nails were painted a gleaming coppery color and she wore several narrow rings of various metals, some with glittering stones like the ones in her ears.

Reed had a brief, heated image of those slender, bejeweled hands on his bare back, the gleaming nails pressing into hard muscle as she arched under him and begged for more. He withdrew his hand from hers.

“Reed Sullivan,” he murmured politely, wondering if she was available for anything other than the matrimonial bliss his great-grandmother was so dead set on.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” Zoe Moon’s voice was throaty and melodious, as seductive as the rest of her. The look in her eyes as she smiled up at him was friendly, curious and just slightly speculative, as if she were sizing him up.

As possible husband material, no doubt, he thought cynically.

“Moira has told me so much about you,” Zoe Moon said.

“Really?” He shot a cool, amused glance at his great-grandmother and seated himself in the wing chair opposite the settee. A low piecrust table, its gleaming surface decorated with an arrangement of golden button mums in a crystal bowl, occupied the space between them. “She hasn’t said a word about you to me.”

“That’s because Zoe and I only just met this past Monday,” Moira informed him.

Oh, great, he thought, now she’s parading complete strangers under my nose!

“Zoe’s an entrepreneur.”

“Really?” Reed murmured, polite but not encouraging. “In what field?”

“Cosmetics,” Moira said before Zoe could answer. She gestured at the table between them. “She was just showing me a few of her wonderful products.”

Reed glanced at the table. Half-hidden behind the arrangement of mums were several small jars and bottles. At least half of them were open, perfuming the air with the faint, fresh scent of flowers and aromatic herbs. He’d noticed the fragrance when he came into the parlor, but hadn’t thought anything about it, unconsciously assuming it came from the crystal bowls of potpourri Moira always kept scattered around the house.

On the settee next to Moira were a couple of shoe boxes he hadn’t noticed before, either, and a large Betsey Johnson shopping bag on the floor between the two women’s feet. Either Miss Moon had made a stop on Newbury Street before she called on Moira, or she was carting her wares around like a well-heeled bag lady. Whichever, someone really ought to tell her how unprofessional it made her appear.

“Then Miss Moon is…what?” He arched an eyebrow, ignoring the accompanying twinge as the butterfly bandage tugged at the fine hairs. “An Avon lady?”

“No, she’s not an Avon lady. She’s an entrepreneur.” Moira stressed the word as if he might not have understood it the first time. “She doesn’t sell other people’s cosmetics. She sells her own.”

“Well, not cosmetics, exactly,” Zoe Moon demurred with a smile. “Just lotions, body oils and sachets. So far, at least.”

“They’re not just anything,” Moira objected. She plucked a slender, frosted-green-glass bottle off the table. The words New Moon were hand-lettered in elegant calligraphy across the label, superimposed over a line drawing of a pale crescent moon. “Zoe makes them herself, right in her own kitchen, using only the purest, most natural ingredients.” Moira twisted the top off of the bottle and held it across the table toward Reed. “Try this,” she ordered. “It’s the most exquisite hand lotion I’ve ever used. Makes your skin feel as soft as water.”

Zoe extended her hand and intercepted the bottle before Reed could stir himself to reach for it. “I’m sure Mr. Sullivan—” she gave him a slanting, sideways look as she said his name, both her expression and her tone letting him know she’d noticed and was…amused, he decided, by his insistence on the formality of address “—doesn’t want to go back to the office smelling like a flower garden.”

Both puzzled and just a bit disgruntled by her attitude, he watched her recap the bottle and set it on the piecrust table. As one of Boston’s wealthiest and most eligible bachelors, Reed was accustomed to a great deal of respect, even awe, from the opposite sex. Women didn’t usually laugh at him, not even silently.

“Oh, Reed won’t go back to the office from here, will you, dear?” Moira said, apparently oblivious to the byplay between her guests.

Which was decidedly odd, Reed thought. Despite her advanced age, his great-grandmother prided herself on knowing exactly what was going on at all times.

“He always heads off to rugby practice after tea.” Moira smiled in the direction of her great-grandson without actually taking her eyes off Zoe. “So I’m sure he doesn’t care what he smells like.”

Zoe Moon slanted Reed another glance, taking in the small white bandage on his eyebrow, skimming the width of his shoulders, sweeping the length of his legs beneath the worsted flannel of his navy slacks as if assessing his fitness for the sport…or something else. Only sheer strength of will kept him from squirming like an inexperienced adolescent under her frank, unabashed scrutiny. He managed to meet her gaze, when she brought it back to his, with a cool expression and an elegantly raised eyebrow, the epitome of masculine aplomb.

She didn’t even have the grace to blush at being caught checking him out so blatantly. She simply smiled and looked away, turning her attention back to her hostess.

“I don’t imagine his teammates would appreciate the scent of lavender in the middle of a…” Her gaze flickered back to Reed. “What do you call that group hug in the middle of a game?”

He scowled at the teasing note in her voice. She was definitely laughing at him! “A scrum,” he growled, all but biting off the word in irritation.

Zoe Moon didn’t seem to notice the warning edge in his tone. “A scrum. Thank you.” She nodded, smiling, and turned her gaze back on Moira.

His scowl deepened.

If she was vying to become a candidate for the position of Mrs. Reed Sullivan IV, she was sure as hell going about it the wrong way. Not that she was in the running, anyway, of course. Not that anyone was in the running. But still… Didn’t she know that bank presidents and highly placed corporate executives had been known to tremble in fear when he scowled at them?

“I don’t think his teammates would appreciate the scent of lavender in the middle of a scrum,” she said to Moira, completely oblivious to Reed’s growing annoyance. “It would interfere with the smell of fresh blood and manly sweat.”

“Well…perhaps you’re right,” Moira agreed, not seeming to notice Reed’s annoyance, either. “But, still, it’s important that he be familiar with the products, don’t you think?”

“He could look at my formulas.”

“Yes, of course. That’s a splendid idea.” Moira picked up one of the shoe boxes near her hip, removed the lid and began shuffling through the contents.

Not shoes or cosmetics, Reed noted sourly, but papers. Untidy stacks of papers, shoved every which way into the shoe box.

“Now, where are they?” Moira murmured, half to herself. “I had the one for your wonderful lotion in my hand not more than ten minutes ago.”

“Why the he—” Reed caught himself before he uttered the profanity in front of his aged relative. “Why in the world would I need to look at the formula for some hand lotion?” he asked. “I’ll look at it, of course, if you want me to,” he amended when Moira glanced up with a delicately raised eyebrow that showed their kinship more clearly than the brilliant blue of their eyes, “but why would you want—”

The parlor doors opened. “Tea, ma’am.” Eddie rolled the two-tiered cart into the room.

“Oh, wonderful.” Moira beamed at her butler. “I’m sure everyone must be as parched as I am. All this talk of business has worked up a thirst in all of us, I’m sure.”

“Business?” Reed said. Had he missed something here? “What bus—”

“Put it right there, please, Eddie.” Moira motioned to a spot in front of the Adams mantel, halfway between Zoe’s end of the settee and the wing chair where Reed sat. “You can just leave it,” she instructed when Eddie began to fiddle with the delicate cups and saucers. “We’ll serve ourselves today.”

“Very good, ma’am.” Eddie bowed himself out of the room.

Moira gestured toward the tea cart. “Zoe, dear, would you mind pouring, please? I’m afraid my wrists aren’t up to managing that heavy teapot these days.”

“Yes, of course. I’d be glad to.” Zoe shifted the tapestry bag from her lap to the floor, shrugging the enveloping shawl from her shoulders as she rose to her feet.

The question Reed had been about to ask about his great-grandmother’s supposedly weak wrists died on his tongue due to a sudden and complete lack of moisture.

Killer body, indeed.

Zoe Moon was built like a goddess…an Amazon…a Playboy Playmate of the Year…. Hell, of the decade!

She was all lush, tempting curves and intriguing hollows: high, round breasts swelling luxuriantly against the front of the mannish tuxedo shirt; an impossibly tiny waist set off by a narrow, gold leather belt; sleekly rounded hips and slender thighs lovingly outlined beneath the caress of forest-green velvet.

What was the word Eddie had used to describe her?

Luscious.

Reed actually felt his mouth begin to water as he watched her pour tea into one of his great-grandmother’s delicate Spode cups.

He swallowed.

Twice.

“Sugar? Lemon?” Zoe asked, her limpid, brown-eyed gaze fixed attentively on her hostess. “Milk?”

Moira glanced up from the open shoe box on her lap. “Oh, nothing in the tea, thank you. But I will have one of those butter cookies on the side, if you’d be so kind,” she answered. “You can just put it on the table there.” She indicated a spot on the piecrust table in front of her with a nod. “There’s a dear,” she said approvingly before returning her full attention to the papers in the shoe box. “I know it’s here….” she murmured vaguely as she rifled through them.

“Just what are you looking for, Gr—”

“And you, Mr. Sullivan?” Zoe asked, turning to him with an empty cup in her hand. “What would you like?”

You, he thought in that split second before he could censor himself. Naked. In bed. Under me. Moaning my name in mindless ecstasy.

Zoe smiled and shook her head. “In your tea,” she chided softly, as if he’d spoken his desire aloud.

Reed Sullivan IV, scion of the Sullivan empire, financial wunderkind, experienced man of the world, suddenly felt exactly the way he had the time he’d been caught by Sister Madeline Marie, trying to look up Patsy Flannery’s dress on the jungle gym during recess. Now, as then, he opened his mouth to answer, but the words got stuck in his throat. He could only hope he wasn’t blushing, too.

“Mr. Sullivan?” Zoe prompted, as she stood holding a cup of tea in one slender, beringed hand and the silver sugar tongs in the other.

He had a sudden, searing vision of her standing there naked, in exactly the same position. No…not naked. In his mind’s eye she was wearing stiletto heels and a frilly little apron made of sheer net and black lace, and—

“Mr. Sullivan,” she said sharply, as if she had read his thoughts.

Or maybe it was just his guilty conscience that made her sound so much like Sister Madeline Marie had that day on the playground.

“One sugar, please,” he croaked.

“One sugar it is.”

She bent her head to her task, using the silver tongs to pluck a sugar cube from the bowl and drop it into his cup, lifting a tiny teaspoon to stir the hot liquid and melt the sugar, tapping the spoon lightly against the rim of the cup before placing it gently back on the silver spoon rest. The back of her hand brushed against a frosted petit four and she lifted her hand to her mouth, absently licking at one knuckle.

Reed sat mesmerized, watching every precise, delicate movement. Her tongue was nearly as pink as the frosting. And probably sweeter, too…

“Your tea, Mr. Sullivan.”

He snapped out of a brief, delicious fantasy of licking frosting off of her fingers—and various other places—to find her standing in front of his chair, the cup of tea held practically under his nose. He tried not to picture her naked again—he really did—but it was a hopeless endeavor; she was the kind of woman who inspired lustful fantasies. He wondered how she’d look in one of those skimpy bits of satin and lace that graced the pages of the Victoria’s Secret catalog. Something black with garters, he thought, decorated with little rosettes the color of the frosting on the petits fours.

“I hope it’s the way you like it,” she said.

“I’m sure it is,” he managed to answer suavely, years of good manners and lessons in deportment coming to his rescue despite the lascivious pictures forming in his mind. “Thank you.”

Their fingers touched.

Heat sizzled up his arm and straight into his brain cells, frying untold millions of nerve endings and sending alarm signals to points south. Her gaze lifted to his, eyes widened, startled, as if she felt something, too. And then she released her hold on the saucer and turned away. His fingers were suddenly so unsteady he had to reach up with his free hand to anchor the fragile cup in its saucer to keep from spilling hot tea in his lap.

“Ah, here it is!” Moira’s voice was triumphant. “I knew I’d seen it in this box.”

“Seen what, Gran?” Reed asked, without taking his eyes off of Zoe.

She stood with her back to him now, calmly pouring out her own cup of tea, as if that charged moment had never happened. Her wild tumble of hair was so long it brushed against the wide leather belt encircling her impossible waist.

“The formula,” Moira said.

“The what?” he murmured, wondering how all that glorious hair would look cascading down Zoe Moon’s naked back…wondering how it would feel if he reached out and grasped a handful…wondering if the curls between her slender thighs were the same flame-hot color as the ones on her head.

“The formula I want you to look at, dear,” Moira said. “I found it.”

Reed managed to tear his eyes away from Zoe long enough to glance at his great-grandmother. “What formula is that, Gran?”

“For Zoe’s wonderful hand lotion. Haven’t you been paying attention? Reed?” Her voice rose slightly in reprimand. “Reed, are you listening to me, young man?”

“I’m sorry.” He turned his head toward his great-grandmother, refocusing his attention with superhuman effort. “You have my full attention.” Or she would when Zoe sat down beside her again so he didn’t have to strain to keep her in his peripheral vision. “What do you want me to look at, sweetheart?”

“This formula, for starters.” Moira tapped the side of the shoe box with the tip of one finger. “And the rest of the papers, too, of course.”

“The rest of the papers?” His glance darted sideways as Zoe reseated herself in the corner of the settee.

She brushed a long, springy tendril of hair back with one hand, casually sweeping it behind her shoulder, and crossed her legs—her long, slender, velvet-sheathed legs—balancing her teacup and saucer on her knee.

“What, ah…” Reed swallowed and forced himself to look back at his great-grandmother. “What kind of papers?”

“Oh…” Light glittered off the sapphire on Moira’s right hand as it fluttered through the air. “Receipts and bills and things,” she said vaguely, finally claiming her great-grandson’s attention completely.

Moira Sullivan was never vague about anything. Ever.

“Zoe brought all her files as well as her formulas.” She smiled approvingly at the younger woman. “You did bring everything with you, didn’t you, dear?”

“Everything I thought might be useful to the discussion.” Zoe gestured at the tapestry bag on the floor. “What’s not in shoe boxes is in there.”

“Useful to what discussion?” Reed leaned forward and carefully set his teacup and saucer on the little piecrust table so he could give his full attention to the conversation. He had the uneasy feeling that he’d missed something vitally important in his libidinous preoccupation with the luscious Miss Moon. “Just what are we talking about here?”

“Well, my goodness, Reed,” Moira admonished him, “haven’t you been listening? I want you to look at Zoe’s papers for me.”

“Yes, I got that part. Why?”

“Because I’m going to give her the money to expand her company, that’s why. And I want you to tell me the best way to do it.”