Into the Fire

Nate Logan clicked off his microcassette recorder and tucked it into the pocket of his black tux. Since everyone he worked with knew he always carried the thing around with him, making observations for use in columns, no one would have been surprised to see him talking to himself. Not that it mattered, anyway, since he was alone. Completely, blissfully alone.

He’d finally cut out of J.T. Birmingham’s party after enduring about twenty-five minutes of insipid conversation with colleagues who’d love to see him fall flat on his face. Grabbing a few bottles of beer from the bar, he’d slipped out a patio door and made his way around the lawn, searching for a place to sit down and drain a cold one.

Nate’s exploration of the well-manicured grounds led him to a secluded pool area. The pool ran right up to the edge of the house, and he imagined there was another section inside for bad-weather swimming. Curious to see what it looked like, he tested the handle of a nearby door and found himself inside a recreation room, complete with gym and spa. A light in a far corner illuminated some pricey workout equipment, including weight-training centers, stair steppers, treadmills, even a trampoline. The enclosed pool took up the other half of the massive chamber.

“The magazine business must be doing very well, indeed,” he mused as he moved a lounge chair right up to the edge of the pool. He took a seat, then leaned over the armrest to test the water with his fingers, liking the coolness against his skin. Damn, it was a miserably hot night, particularly for early June. The crowded party had made it that much more so.

He twisted off the cap of a bottle, took a long pull of cold beer and settled back in the chair. He would have loosened the stupid bow tie at his neck but knew there was no way he’d be able to tie it again without a mirror, so he left it alone.

All in all, the evening was proving to be a total waste. Hobnobbing with the rich and famous of Baltimore was not exactly Nate’s thing. Most of the women he’d met tonight either stared icicles or came at him with enough heat to melt iron, each thinking she might be the one to transform the sexist bad boy she knew from the pages of Men’s World.

As if that Nate Logan really existed.

Well, okay, maybe he existed to some extent. Yes, Nate’s writing style reflected his personality—a little smart-alecky, a lot tongue in cheek. But the rest didn’t. As much as readers—and female columnists—might argue it, Nate was not a sexist jerk. He didn’t dislike women. Far from it! So he didn’t particularly care to be exposed to a bunch of female readers who wanted to either smack him or seduce him.

It wasn’t as if he bashed women. He wrote a column for men in a men’s magazine. When he wrote, he pictured himself just talking to a bunch of guys. All guys—single or married, committed or on the make, young and eager or old and reminiscent—talked about women. What women did. What women said. What women wore. What women wanted. Particularly what women wanted. Mainly how the hell a man was supposed to figure out what women wanted!

He viewed his writing as a just-between-us-men, talking-after-a-workout kind of thing. Unfortunately, some women had started eavesdropping on the conversation and weren’t too happy about it. As if he, Nate Logan, had invented the concept of men griping about the opposite sex. Ridiculous, unless one also subscribed to the theory that women never indulged in man bashing. Which was, of course, complete bullshit.

This was where his startlingly sudden success in the publishing world had gotten him. A great job, a terrific salary, the freedom to express the views of the average man on the street. Oh, and a big, fat, pig-shaped target on his head.

He didn’t like his sudden notoriety. Sure, he’d had fun with it the first few months, until he realized not everyone was in on the joke. Some people didn’t see the real Nate Logan at all anymore. He found himself on guard with each person he met, judged by other people’s preconceptions. He’d begun to miss the anonymity he’d enjoyed working as a staff writer for a weekend magazine in D.C. or doing his freelance work. He’d rather be covering another corruption scandal in the nation’s capital than be stuck here, at a highbrow party, surrounded by men who agreed with every word he said—except when their girlfriends were around. Not to mention those girlfriends, who wanted him either in their crosshairs or in their beds.

To ice the three-layer cake of this particular bash, he was going to come face to face with that frigid prig Lacey Clark. Of all the people in the world with whom he didn’t want to spend an evening, including Barry Manilow and the guy who’d thought up those stupid Chihuahua commercials, she was number one on his list. After all, it was partially her fault half the world’s population—the female half—was out for his blood. She was the one who had given him the reputation of being a male chauvinist without even having to mention his name.

Earlier at the party, he’d seen one pinched-looking, severely dressed woman who might qualify as the schoolmarm he suspected Lacey Clark to be. She was tall and skinny, wearing a mannish black suit, with graying hair pulled into a severe bun. He’d asked Raul, a casual friend and co-worker, to confirm she was his nemesis.

Raul had grinned and slapped Nathan on the back. “How on earth do you do it? I mean, how can you come into a room, look at someone and immediately know who she is?”

“You mean I’m right?” Nate had asked, somewhat deflated to think this woman was indeed the one he was going to share the spotlight with later in the evening.

Raul had shrugged and lifted his hands in defeat. “What can I say? You really are a master of deductive reasoning. I think I’ll go on over and say hello to Lacey now. Don’t worry, I won’t let on to her that you picked her out so easily.”

Then the junior editor from Men’s World had sauntered away, leaving Nate to speculate about the sour-faced crone who’d made his life a living hell for months. He hadn’t been able to remain in the same room with her for ten more minutes before he’d made good his escape. He’d meet her soon enough, when the two of them were lucky enough to be congratulated for helping to invigorate the magazines they worked for.

“Here’s to you, Lacey Clark,” he muttered as he sat in the lounge chair by the pool. “Maybe you’ll get lucky tonight, meet some poor SOB with bad eyesight, get laid and get the hell off my back.” If anyone sorely needed to get laid, it was Lacey Clark.

As he lifted the bottle of beer to his mouth, Nate noticed the door at the far end of the gym opening in the semidarkness. Hoping he wasn’t about to be discovered, he slid lower in his lounge chair, willing the intruder to leave.

No such luck. The person—he could see from here it was a she—slipped into the gym and pushed the door shut behind her. She leaned against it, her body almost sagging. He imagined her sighing in relief, probably glad to have escaped the party. That was at least one thing they had in common. Then she stepped away from the door, into the light cast by an overhead fixture near the rowing machine.

“Man, oh man,” he whispered.

She was blond perfection. A teenage boy’s breathing, moving erotic dream. From the sleek golden hair falling in a wave past her shoulders to the pale throat, the soft shoulders revealed by the tight black dress and on down the centerfold curves, she was one-hundred-percent pure female temptation.

Nate suddenly found it difficult to pull another chlorine-tinged breath into his lungs. Any words he might have uttered got trapped on his tongue as he watched her toss her small handbag to the floor and bend over to tug her high-heeled shoes off her feet. Well, she couldn’t exactly bend in her tight dress, she could only lean. When she did, the shimmery fabric pulled taut across her hips and the curve of her rear. Nate shifted in his chair. As she lifted one leg and placed her foot on a weight bench to unfasten the shoe, her dress slid higher, displaying an endless length of black-stocking-clad thigh.

“I think I musta fallen into the pool and drowned, and now I’m in heaven,” he managed to whisper.

When she walked to the trampoline, then pulled herself up onto it, he knew damn well that’s exactly what had happened.

LACEY COULD HAVE walked down and sat in one of the lounge chairs by the dark waters of the pool, she supposed. But for some reason, the big round trampoline beckoned her. She’d figured no one would be in the gymnasium. If any curious or amorous guests were wandering around J.T.’s mansion, they’d more likely take refuge in one of the richly appointed bedrooms. She had this big, quiet space to herself. All she wanted was to take a moment, to strategize, to figure out how she was going to go back into the office Monday and face her co-workers knowing they’d all feel betrayed after J.T. made his big announcement tonight.

Of course, they were the absolute least of her worries. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. We’ll figure out how to handle this.”

She wondered what J.T. would think if he could see her now, but couldn’t muster up the energy to care. Bracing her palms on the padded mat covering the springs, she pulled herself up and twisted her body around to sit on the metal edge of the trampoline. Careful not to snag her dress, which had set her back a week’s salary, she slid backward onto the bouncy surface.

She giggled softly, liking the sense of freedom. Lowering herself, she stretched out until she lay completely on her back. She stared at the ceiling, again grinning at the fit J.T. would likely have if he walked into the room and caught her, in her fancy cocktail dress, lying on the trampoline.

If his latest wife, Deirdre, were with him, she’d probably faint. It already galled the woman no end that Lacey was one of the guests of honor tonight. In Deirdre’s social circle, one simply didn’t flaunt one’s mistakes in public.

On that point, she and Lacey were in complete agreement. But she still would have paid money to see the woman’s face if she happened to wander by.

The thought made her snicker, and she sat up. Carefully tugging her tight dress higher, she rose to her feet and tested the trampoline with one little bounce. She’d done gymnastics as a kid, and she itched to see if she could still do some of the tricks she’d perfected.

“Not in this dress,” she mused. Still, she tugged it higher, knowing no one could see the black ribbon covering the elastic of her thigh-high stockings. No one was around to note the lace of her panties or be shocked that they were the thong type, which left no lines in tight clothes.

Now she was really getting into Deirdre-dropping-over-in-a-dead-faint territory. Thigh highs and a thong? On sensible Lacey, she who preached true love before marriage and emotional commitments before physical ones?

Okay, she had a thing for sexy lingerie. “Sue me,” she muttered. So naughty underwear gave her a dangerous thrill. Big deal. She was the only one who ever saw what she wore under her suits and dresses. At the rate she was going in the romance department, that didn’t seem likely to change anytime soon!

Lacey suddenly remembered the blond man at the bar and wondered who he was. He’d affected her, distracted her on what was proving to be a pretty lousy night. It had been a long time since Lacey had looked at a man and felt…hot. Needy. And very curious. The wickedly provocative picture that flashed into her mind really would have given those who knew her a shock.

Rebelliously, she tugged her dress higher. Not that she lifted it all the way over her hips or anything. But as her feet moved and she bounced up and down, the dress slid up inch by inch until she could feel the cool air of the gym wisping against the lower curve of her buttocks.

It felt naughty, wicked, free and outrageous. And Lacey Clark loved every uninhibited bounce.

Her dress was certainly too tight to try any flips or maneuvers. So she jumped higher, and higher, spinning and twirling in the air, not caring when her hair tumbled riotously around her face and the sweat she’d worried about during the party dripped down her chin. Who cared? It felt good to be bad. And oh, thankfully, she was no longer bored, though she was completely alone.

Or so she thought, until she heard the yell, followed by the splash.

2

IT WAS the thong panties that sent Nate’s chair tipping over into the pool. He was no voyeur, but, damn, a gorgeous blonde jumping on a trampoline flashing him a sweet glimpse of her curvy backside with every bounce? What red-blooded American man would be able to resist that? He sure hadn’t. So he’d leaned just a little too far and gone for an unexpected swim.

The chilly water shocked him. If it hadn’t been for the chair hitting him in the head, he would likely have leaped right back out. But the plastic arm of the lounger caught him in the temple, and for a moment or two, he experienced severe disorientation. All he knew was he was in the pool, and a chair and a padded cushion, growing heavier by the second as it soaked up water, were blocking him from the air above.

Before he could move to save himself, someone was yanking him by the arm, pulling him from under the obstacle. When he broke through the surface, Nate sucked in a deep, greedy breath. His rescuer threw an arm across his shoulders and towed him, on his back, to the side of the pool.

When they reached the side, he flung his arm over the pool’s edge, as did she. She finally stopped panting long enough to look him in the face.

The blonde. The gorgeous blonde with the peekaboo panties was treading water opposite him. She’d leaped into the pool to save him, not even stopping to consider her dress, which clung to her skin like shiny black Saran wrap. She was an absolute mess. Her sopping hair drooped against her head, sending rivulets of water running down her temples. Her smeared makeup had left black streaks under her eyes. She looked like a wet raccoon. A gorgeous wet raccoon.

Finally noticing his stare, her eyes widened, flashing with something. Confusion? Recognition? He didn’t know, couldn’t place it, but he saw something change in her expression. She looked out of sorts, confused, perhaps even a little excited. Not surprising given what had just happened. But Nate had a feeling there was more to it than that.

Finally she asked, “Are you okay?”

In spite of the pounding in his head, Nate responded flirtatiously. “I think I might need mouth to mouth.”

She frowned. “You’re talking. I suspect you’re breathing.”

He puffed out his cheeks, holding his breath.

She rolled her eyes. “Lame.”

“Okay. I give up. I’m fine, thanks to you. I was getting disoriented under the water.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the chair, which still floated nearby. As he watched, the cloth-covered cushion sank, disappearing beneath the surface, probably due to the weight of the water. It descended until it rested on the bottom of the pool—right where he might have ended up, had the blow to his head been much harder.

Good grief, he could have drowned! The thought sobered him, sending any flirtatious thoughts out of his mind. “You really might have saved my life. Thank you very much.”

He stared into her eyes, which were a fine pale blue that picked up the light reflected on the shimmering surface of the water. Her lips were parted, her breath coming in audible gasps, much like his as they both recovered from the adrenaline rush of his accident.

Close up, she was every bit as enticing, though perhaps in a different way, than she’d been from a distance. Her features were softer, sweeter than he’d expected, given her killer figure. Her heart-shaped face was creamy smooth, and beneath the smeared makeup he could see the tiniest freckles dotting her nose. She looked younger than he’d thought. Definitely not as put together, calm and cool as she’d appeared when she entered the room. Yet the innocent blue eyes and freckles definitely suited the sprite who’d climbed onto the trampoline.

She stared back, looking as though she recognized him. Nate nearly muttered a curse. He waited, wondering if she’d prove to be fan or foe, if she’d coo that she’d read all his articles or tell him to grow up and get a real job.

She did neither. Instead, she sighed, again seeming to be disappointed for some reason, and said, “I didn’t see you struggling under the water so I thought you were unconscious.”

“The chair hit me in the head.”

When she immediately lifted a hand to check his brow, he said, “I’m fine. It just took me a minute to get my bearings.”

She pushed his hair back, and the touch of her hand made most logical thought disappear from his brain. Her gesture was gentle, concerned, but the feel of her skin on his felt loaded with additional sensation.

“A minute’s a long time to figure out you’re underwater.” She drew her hand away, looking at her fingers in confusion, as if she, too, had felt something unusual where flesh had met flesh.

“You’re right. Maybe it wasn’t a full minute,” he replied softly.

“It was more like twenty seconds.”

“Okay. But twenty seconds too long. I was starting to see my life flash before my eyes.”

She raised a skeptical brow. “Really?”

“Well, no, not really, but I did have the sudden thought that I need to call my mother.”

“Your mother?”

“To thank her for putting me in swimming lessons, and to wish her a happy birthday.”

“You didn’t swim,” she told him.

“I would have. Ten more seconds, tops. Maybe fifteen. Probably. But I still owe you my life. Thanks again.”

She started chuckling. “Do you always talk so fast?”

“Always. In my family, if you don’t talk fast, you never get a word in edgewise.”

“Is it really your mom’s birthday today?”

“No. It’s Monday. But while I was under there, I realized if I drowned three days before her birthday, that’d probably ruin the occasion and she’d never forgive me.”

This time she laughed out loud. “You do realize this isn’t exactly a typical conversation to be having while treading water, fully dressed, in someone else’s swimming pool,” she said, her eyes alight with amusement.

“Better than the party.”

“Yes, I saw you there earlier,” she admitted, staring at him intently. “Why on earth did you come here?”

“To hide out,” he said, greatly relieved that when she’d recognized him a few minutes ago, it had been from the party and not from his work at Men’s World. If she didn’t know him, didn’t know his name, maybe she would talk to him like the man he really was, not the man he appeared to be in print.

She hadn’t said anything, so he continued. “I couldn’t take another minute of jovial conversation with people who’d stab me in the back in a second to climb up one more rung of the publishing ladder.”

She nodded slowly, obviously understanding, possibly even agreeing. “Okay, I can buy that one. So you were just sitting here by the pool and you accidentally tipped your chair in?” Her eyes widened. “Oh, great, you were watching me, right? That’s what happened. You were playing Mr. Peeping Tom and you tipped yourself right into the pool where you could have drowned. All to get a glimpse of a woman’s underwear.”

“Well, come on, you gotta admit, that is some pretty fine underwear.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I suppose you’re an underwear expert?”

“No, not really.” He grinned. “Frankly, I prefer boxers to thongs. I’ve always thought thongs would be terribly uncomfortable. But you look like you do okay in yours, so maybe I’ll try them sometime.”

Nate almost regretted baiting her, but she had certainly provided the opening. Now, would she haul herself out of the pool and stalk away in a huff? Or did she have a real sense of humor to go with the killer curves?

Then he saw it. A heartbreakingly gorgeous grin curled her lips, her eyes sparkled, and she chuckled. He heard his own sigh of relief.

Beautiful. Sense of humor. And she’d saved his life. Could things get any better?

LACEY DIDN’T LIKE flirtatious men. Okay, well, that wasn’t quite true. She liked Raul, and heaven knew he loved to flirt. But Raul was different. As strange as it seemed, given his reputation with women, she considered him safe. Because he was her brother’s age…and her best friend.

This man, however, was far from safe. Gorgeous, sexy strangers with dimpled smiles who flirted and made her heart leap and her thighs quiver were definitely not safe.

She’d been shocked when she realized he was the man who’d caught her attention at the party. Within a few minutes she’d realized Raul had been messing with her—this guy was no bonehead. He was sexy, charming and gorgeous. She should have run for cover as soon as he made the mouth-to-mouth comment. Because that had put all kinds of interesting images in her mind!

Instead she continued to hold onto the side of the pool, wearing her sodden dress, which would probably never be free of the scent of chlorine, grinning at the mental picture of him in a thong. “I know of a site online that sells men’s thongs.”

“And you would know this because…”

“Because I bought a pair for a friend as a gag gift last year.”

He raised an eyebrow. “A friend?”

“A female friend who was getting married. She tells me if it hadn’t been for the yellow duck on the front, she might have been able to talk her husband into wearing them during their honeymoon.”

“I’m with him on that one.”

“I suppose you’d prefer your basic black.”

“It works so well for you. I’ll follow your example.”

Lacey should have felt like sinking beneath the water at the realization that this man really had been sitting here watching her on the trampoline. But she laughed again instead. “So do you make a habit out of sneaking peeks at strange women’s underwear?”

“You don’t seem strange. At least no stranger than anyone else at tonight’s gala,” he said earnestly. “Do you make a habit out of breaking into other people’s gyms during parties?”

“I was hiding out, like you,” she admitted. “I hate cocktail parties.”

“Me, too. Smiles on the lips, never in the eyes. Superficial conversations. Everybody on the make trying to find someone to hook up with who they won’t have to bump into at work the next week.”

He sounded sincere, which surprised Lacey. “That’s exactly how I feel.”

“I’d much rather be treading water in a soaking tuxedo.”

“Which is hopefully not rented.”

“It is.”

“I don’t think you’re going to get your deposit back.”

“Maybe I’ll buy it. This might prove to be my lucky suit.” Though his tone remained flirtatious, his eyes held a note of serious intensity.

He had beautiful eyes. Green with circles of gold at the center that Lacey somehow felt she could get lost in. They were rimmed by thick black lashes that were unfairly long for a man. And his mouth—that gorgeous, smiling mouth she’d fantasized about after seeing him across the room at the party—was every bit as intriguing close up.

Lacey almost wished she were a different type of person. The type of person who could lean forward and kiss a sexy stranger, because if she didn’t find out what his lips tasted like soon, she was going to lose her mind.

She wasn’t that type of person, however. She was responsible and conservative, restrained and professional. Any lapses with trampolines, thong panties or to-die-for strangers with amazing lips were genetic flukes, not the real her.

Were they?

“I guess we ought to get out and dry off,” she said, hearing a note of regret in her voice. “I imagine I’ve already been missed. I don’t exactly know how I’m going to get out of this one.”

“Can’t you just slip out, go home without saying anything?” He pulled himself out of the pool, then turned to lend her a hand, easily hoisting her up to stand in front of him on the pool deck.

Before she could reply, she watched as he dropped his gaze to her bare shoulders, no longer covered by the straps of her dress, which had loosened and fallen down her arms. She breathed deeply. His eyes followed the movement of her skin, studying her throat, then moved down to the curves of her breasts. Her heart picked up its pace, beating wildly inside her as this man touched every inch of her body with nothing but his heavy-lidded stare.