Читать книгу More Than A Mistress - Сандра Мартон, Sandra Marton - Страница 9

TRAVIS paced the floor of his home on the beach at Malibu.

He was angry, restless—and frustrated.

What had made him think he owed Alexandra Thorpe an apology? Okay, he’d called her something pretty lousy but, dammit, it was a name she more than deserved. And what had made him behave like such a jerk? He’d acted like a monkey on a stick all night, jumping in whatever direction she’d wanted. Turn him on, turn him off…

“What does she think I am?” he muttered. “A light switch?”

He paced some more, opened the glass sliders that led from his bedroom to the deck and glowered at the Pacific Ocean.

The whole thing was ridiculous. The auction. The bidding. Her behavior, his behavior…

He swore and stomped back into the bedroom. He tugged off his boots, yanked off his tie, dumped his tux and everything that went with it on the floor and kicked the entire mess into the corner, in the process stubbing his toe on the corner of the bed.

“Bull-spit,” he roared, and danced around the room on one foot. He limped to the dresser, took out a pair of running shorts and a Texas Longhorns T-shirt and pulled them on. His toe still hurt but he didn’t much care. Pain was a part of running, anyway, he told himself grimly, and set out for a hard five miles on the packed sand.

He was panting when he got back, and sweat-drenched. But he felt better. Most definitely better.

“Goodbye, Ice Princess,” he said as he dumped his shorts and T-shirt on the tiled floor and stepped into the shower.

He loved this shower. Sybaritic, Slade had said, the first time he saw it, and yeah, it probably was. An overhead spray. Two side sprays. A marble bench. And room enough for two…

For two. For Alex, and for him. Travis closed his eyes and imagined what it would be like to soap that beautiful body. To cup her naked breasts. To bend his head and taste them, to hear her breathy little sighs as she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips, to pin her back against the glass wall while the water beat down like warm rain as he buried himself deep inside her slick heat…

He groaned, looked down at himself in dismay and turned the shower to icy-cold.

Dressed again, this time in jeans and a white T-shirt, his feet bare, Travis went into the kitchen and took a can of Coke from the refrigerator. It was late. Or early, depending on your point of view. The glass walls of his house looked out on a beach silent and deserted in the early morning.

Damn, he still felt restless. He needed a cigarette, but he’d given them up five years ago. He needed a cold beer or a glass of decent wine, but there was no beer in the fridge and he wasn’t in the mood to check the wine rack. He needed to talk to one of his brothers, but what would he say to them? That he was furious and frustrated, and pacing the floor like a teenage kid?

What he needed was a woman. One who wouldn’t turn him on and off like a faucet, who wouldn’t drive him crazy. Who’d be honest about wanting to share his bed. That would put Alex Thorpe out of his head, once and for all.

Travis reached for his address book and thumbed through the pages. He’d met a gorgeous brunette just last week and said he’d call her. She’d probably be surprised to hear from him at this hour but he’d invite her to breakfast on the beach. Champagne. Caviar and scrambled eggs…

Who was he kidding? Dammit, he thought, and tossed the book aside. He didn’t want a substitute for the Ice Princess. He wanted her.

Where was she now? He didn’t even have her address or her phone number. What was she doing? Was she sleeping, dreaming of him? Or was she going crazy, the way he was, remembering…

The doorbell rang. Travis had never been so glad to have his train of thought interrupted. He went to the door, opened it and found a kid in an olive-drab uniform on the porch.

“Morning, sir. I have a delivery for Mr. Travis Baron.”

“Great,” Travis said briskly, signed his name to a receipt and took five bucks out of his pocket. “Thanks.”

He shut the door, shot a puzzled glance at the package the kid had handed him and tore it open. A small vellum envelope, with his name elegantly scripted across the front, fell out.

Travis picked it up, frowned, examined it. He raised it to his nose and sniffed, but no perfume scent clung to the paper. What was inside? Something formal. An invitation? A thank-you? It might be either one, if Alex Thorpe…

Man, he was really losing it! No way the Thorpe babe would write him a note. The only envelope she’d send him would probably blow him to smithereens the second he opened it.

Smiling, he opened the vellum envelope and took out a note-card.

“Oh, hell,” Travis said, and groaned.

Your presence is requested at

The eighty-fifth birthday celebration

Of Mr. Jonas Baron

Saturday and Sunday, June 14 and 15

At the Baron Ranch

“Espada”

Brazos Springs, Texas

RSVP

The script was handwritten and elegant but the message was a bummer. The sender knew it, too. The note, scrawled beneath the RSVP, made that clear.

“Yes, Travis,” it read, “this means you!”

The words were followed by a bold capital C, and the drawing of a tiny heart.

He laughed. Caitlin. His little stepsister was some piece of work. Hard when she had to be, soft when she wanted to be. And, just now, she was going to be tough. This was no invitation, it was notice of a command performance. Just what he wanted, he thought wryly.