Ridge: The Avenger

“Thirty minutes, just thirty minutes so we can get to know each other better,” Tom said in a voice Ridge thought was ten percent desperation, twenty percent seduction, and seventy percent slime.

Either Tom was being deliberately obtuse, or he had the sensitivity of an alligator. Ridge withheld a sigh. There was no way he’d let Dara alone with that guy. They still hadn’t worked out a password. He stepped forward and pointed toward the front door. “The limo’s here, Dara. Remember, you have an early start tomorrow.”

Dara glanced at Ridge in confusion. “Actually, I was planning to sleep—”

“And the doctor said to make sure you got your rest,” he interrupted. “I’m sure you understand,” he said to Tom as he ushered her toward the car.

“You’ve got my card,” Tom called to Dara. “Give me a call.”

“Thank you again, Tom.” She shot Ridge a look of disapproval as he tried to stuff her into the limo. “Will you wait one minute? I don’t want to be rude.”

“It’s part of my job to cut down on your exposure time,” Ridge explained. “We’re on a public street.”

Dara rolled her eyes and slid into the car. When Ridge started to close her door, she shook her head and crooked her finger. “I believe we need to talk.”

As soon as he joined her, she turned to him. “Don’t do that again. I won’t have you acting like some overgrown nanny. I had no intention of extending the evening with Tom, but you have no rights over my private life.”

“It’s my job to protect you no matter who you’re with,” Ridge corrected, and could see she was gearing up for a fight.

“And what if I want to go out for a date? Just where do you draw the line, Ridge? Is it part of your job to come into my bedroom, too?”

He narrowed his eyes at that last remark. At another time, in another life, he corrected himself, her insinuation might have prompted a full range of responses, some more satisfying than others. If he were in Dara Seabrook’s bedroom, he sure as hell wouldn’t just be watching her. Ridge ruthlessly stuck to the facts. “According to your file, since you’ve been campaigning, you haven’t begun a romantic relationship or brought a man back to your room to stay the night. Your file—”

Dara’s indignant gasp was more effective than a scream. “My file!” Even in the dim light of the limo, he could see the color in her cheeks deepen. “Who in hell gave you that kind of private information about me? Who—”

“It’s standard procedure.” Ridge kept his voice neutral, recalling that the file had also said Dara cursed only when extremely upset. “The information is gathered so I don’t walk in cold wondering what your habits are.” She looked like she wanted to hit him, and Ridge couldn’t decide if he was irritated or amused. “If you want to see it, I’ll show it to you.”

“You’re damn right I want to see it, but that’s just the beginning.” Her gaze met his, and Ridge felt the punch of her feminine determination clear down to his bones. “If I’ve got to be with you day-in and day-out for the next four weeks, I want to see your file, too.”

Two

For a second, Dara wondered if she’d gone too far. The little sensation unfurling in her stomach told her she had.

Ridge stared at her with both masculine challenge and pity for her heated demands. Leaning back in the seat opposite her, he unbuttoned his suit jacket so that it slid back to reveal the stark contrast of his black leather holster and gun against his white shirt. It was enough of a mix of civilized and uncivilized to make her uneasy. His dark trousers stretched taut against muscular thighs spread wide in a typically male pose that somehow made her think of him in anything but a typical way.

“Tell me what you want to know,” he said in that velvet-and-steel voice she was becoming more and more familiar with.

She could imagine him using that same tone with a lover. Only then he would say, “Tell me what you want, baby.” Her stomach tightened.

Dara scolded herself for her outrageous thoughts. Playing with a man like Ridge would just get a woman like her burned. If she were prudent, she’d say forget it and fold her hand of cards with this little skirmish. More than her feminine pride, however, was on the line. She sensed that any shred of autonomy she could maintain during the next four weeks hung in the balance. Pushing back fear and another more vague emotion, Dara straightened in her seat. “Age,” she said crisply.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Thirty.”

“How long were you in the service?”

“How do you know I was in the service?”

She shrugged, gaining back her equilibrium. “Your manner, the way you walk.” She glanced at his feet then back to his face and smiled slightly. “Your well-shined shoes.”

“Ten years, a marine.”

She nodded. “I guess that means you’ve been a bodyguard for—”

“Two years as a civilian. I worked on special assignment in that capacity for four years when I was a marine.”

Dara hesitated only a second. Her natural impulse was to respect another person’s privacy. “Family?”

His gaze turned cool. “None. My mother and grandparents are dead.”

No wife. No mother. No children. No business of hers. “You don’t like answering questions about yourself, do you?”

“I’ve learned that you have to reach a meeting of the minds with your clients. It makes the job work more smoothly.” He glanced away. “Most clients aren’t interested in me, though. They just want me to do my job.”

Dara pictured Ridge’s usual client—a businessman, perhaps a rock musician, someone from a foreign country. They probably all treated him like he was part of the woodwork. She laughed at the ridiculous notion.

He looked at her curiously.

“I guess I’m not like most of your clients, am I?”

His gaze skimmed over her. “No.”

Lord, he was stingy with his answers. She sighed. “What else do you know about me?”

He cocked his head to one side.’ “The regular stats. You graduated with a Liberal Arts degree three years ago and went to work for Montgomery. I’ve been briefed on your close contacts and some of your habits—you don’t last much past midnight if you’ve gone full-speed all day. You’re not usually demanding, but you prefer to feel like you have some say over your situation. I’ll have to agree with that one,” he said, his voice dry.

“And if you were in this situation, would you be any different?”

“No,” he admitted, but he looked as if he would like to argue the point. He loosened his tie. “The file said you have a lot of friends, but you’ve put those relationships on the back burner because of the election. You stay in touch with your mother. You’ve been out with a dozen men in the last several months on outings while you campaign for your godfather, and you’ve politely turned them all down when they asked for another date.”

“And you really wonder why?” she asked. Thus far, Ridge had been incredibly perceptive. She was surprised he hadn’t figured out her reasons on his own.

Ridge shrugged. “The only lethal thing about that guy tonight was his line.”

Dara laughed and shook her head. “Oh, I don’t think so.”

“Right,” he said, his voice full of skepticism.

“I get this all the time. I’m given an escort to most of these functions. It’s part of the job, but these men are all the same. They all want the same thing—and it’s not my heart, not my soul. Or my body.”

Ridge’s gaze flicked over her, lingering on her legs, as if he seriously doubted that last statement.

Dara smoothed her hand over the hem of her dress. “They all want a closer connection with Harrison, and they’re hoping they can get it through me.”

Understanding flickered across his face. “And you want?”

Dara hesitated, wondering how the conversation had meandered back to such a personal topic. “Wasn’t that in my file?”

He held her gaze, shaking his head slowly.

Fighting an urge to fidget she thought she’d conquered years ago, Dara sighed. She still felt a pinch when she remembered how she’d fallen hard for one man’s line, only to learn that what he’d really wanted was an association with her godfather. The experience had made her gun-shy. “It sounds corny,” she said quietly, “but I just want to be wanted for me. I want someone who, for the most part, doesn’t really care that I’m Harrison Montgomery’s goddaughter.”

Dara resisted her need to look away from Ridge although she was too aware of him, of how close his knee was to hers, of how his musky male scent mingled with her perfume, of how curious she was about him when she shouldn’t be. Taking a deep breath, she instinctively turned the conversation away from herself. “And what about you? What do you want?”

A charged silence stretched and tightened between them. Ridge leaned forward and placed his hands on either side of her legs. His teeth flashed in a slow, big-bad-wolf grin. “Are you making an offer, Miss Seabrook?”

Her heart hammered against her rib cage. Heat and confusion tangled inside her. “I, uh, I—”

“Because if you are…”

Panic won over excitement. “No!” She pressed her back against the seat. “I was just wondering—”

“I’m wondering, too,” Ridge interrupted in a voice threaded with intimacy. “I’m wondering what’s going on in your mind when your eyelids flutter.”

Her mouth desert dry, she stared at him.

He slid his thumb just under the hem of her dress on the outside of her thigh and her breath hitched in her throat. Watching her with his compelling, golden eyes, he moved his thumb in one slow stroke that made her feel branded. “I wonder a lot more, but if you’re concerned that I’ll take advantage of you, don’t worry. It’s my job to guard your body, Dara, and that’s what I’ll do, even if it means protecting you from me.” Ridge removed his hands and eased away from her. “I make it a policy never to get involved with a client.”

Heaven help her if he changed his mind! She’d been about as threatening as a wet noodle. She should have slapped his inquisitive hands. Next time she would. This time, she just wanted an ice cube. Dara searched for her breath and finally found it. “Good,” she managed to say, nodding emphatically and wishing her hands would stop trembling. “Very good. I think that sounds like a… uh—” She cleared her throat and wondered why she felt like a bomb had gone off inside her. “A wise policy,” she finished, and breathed a sigh of relief when the limo pulled to a stop outside the hotel.

“Here they are. Just what you ordered.” Wearing a dubious expression, Clarence handed the bag to Dara.

Sitting on the plush sofa of her hotel suite, Dara glanced inside the bag and gave a weak smile. “Thank you. They look fine. Did you find anyone who can coach me?”

Clarence adjusted his bow tie. “I asked a couple of people at the local campaign headquarters, discreetly of course, but none of them had any, uh, experience with, uh, rollerblades.”

Ridge watched the interplay between the two of them curiously.

Dara sighed and tucked a lock of her damp hair behind her ear. Fresh from a morning shower, weaning blue jeans that cupped her well-shaped rear end and revealed tantalizing hints of bare flesh from strategically placed tears, along with a Mickey Mouse T-shirt that stretched across her breasts, she looked more like a college coed than the current darling of the press. Her face and feet were bare. With all the polish rubbed off of her, she still exuded a subtle but provocative energy that lured his attention and held it.

The only thing that proved, he told himself, was that his hormones were in working order.

“I don’t want to sound vain,” she said, “but this is something I really don’t want to see on the evening news for the rest of my natural life.”

Clarence nodded sympathetically. “Forrester should have asked you first, but you know how he is when he gets going. I suppose we could attempt to cancel,” he said, his voice full of doubt.

“It would be easier to die.”

Ridge tried to put the pieces of the conversation together. He knew Drew Forrester was Montgomery’s cracker jack media specialist. “Cancel what?” he finally interjected.

Both heads turned toward him. Reservation shimmered in Dara’s eyes. She’d deliberately ignored him since last night. Ridge wondered if that was a result of his actions, and felt the slightest sting of regret. He’d intentionally made her uncomfortable because he’d seen that reckless glint in her eyes, the womanly curiosity. Perhaps he could have let it pass if he hadn’t felt an answering flicker of restlessness inside him. But, hell, the last thing he needed was for Montgomery’s goddaughter to spin her feminine wiles around his head and seduce him.

“Cancel what?” he repeated.

Clarence cleared his throat. “Well, it seems that Mr. Forrester accepted an invitation for Miss Seabrook to participate in an athletic event for the purpose of promoting Mr. Montgomery’s campaign.”

Dara threw Clarence a long-suffering glance. “What Clarence means is that Drew promised the three major television networks and the rest of the free world that I would skate in a parade next week.” She pulled the pair of hot pink and black in-line skates from the bag and spun one of the wheels. “I’m surprised this wasn’t in my file, too,” she muttered darkly under her breath, then tossed Ridge a look of defiance. “I can’t skate, can’t ski, can barely dance. It took me a long time to get used to high heels.”

Her confession amused him, but he restrained himself from laughing. “And you can’t cancel,” he said, confirming her earlier statement.

“Drew doesn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘no,’” she said glumly.

“Quite true,” Clarence agreed. He paused, assessing Ridge. “I don’t suppose you know how to—”

“Absolutely not,” Dara said, rising from the sofa. “It’s not in Mr. Jackson’s job description to teach me how to skate. Besides, I’m sure he hasn’t spent the last few years whizzing around on in-line skates, so—”

“I could teach you,” Ridge casually intoned. “I’ve been on rollerblades a few times. And a fair portion of my misspent youth,” he added cynically, “was spent on skateboards.” There’d been so much darkness when he was a teenager, that sometimes all he could recall of that time was his mother and her addictions. He was surprised by the faint glimmer of his fond memory. “I even won a ribbon once.”

“That doesn’t mean—” Dara began.

“What size skates do you wear?” Clarence asked.

“Eleven.”

Clarence was already on his way out the door when Dara called after him. “Clarence!” She ran to the door. “Wait! I don’t want—” She groaned in exasperation when the door closed behind the campaign coordinator. “Oh, Lord, save me from controlling men.” She turned around to face Ridge. “You really don’t know what you’re getting into. You may carry a gun and know how to go hand-to-hand with the bad guys, but you are really out of your league on this one. This is going to take more than patience.”

Ridge had to confess that Dara was turning this into the most interesting job he’d had in years. “I’m a patient man,” he said in a mild voice.

She waved her hand dismissively. “This is going to take more than skill.”

“I have plenty of skill.”

“You don’t understand. This is going to take a miracle. We are talking about a woman who gets dizzy walking across the beginner’s balance beam. I never could balance a book on my head for my finishing school class. I’m not a balanced kind of person.”

Complete silence followed. Ridge cleared his throat to cover the chuckle he couldn’t contain.

Dara narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” Ridge agreed, but couldn’t keep his amusement from his voice.

“I meant that I have a problem with keeping my balance.”

“Right.”

Dara gave him a withering glance. “If I hear you make one crack about my being unbalanced, I’ll—” Tossing her head, she glared at him, obviously trying to come up with a suitable threat. “I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’ll do something rash,” she promised, all heat and bluster.

Something rash. Ridge irreverently wondered what that would be. He’d love to see it. “I haven’t said a word.”

“Yes, you have,” she muttered. “You just didn’t say it out loud.”

Three hours later, in a quiet little park, Dara’s rear end came into intimate contact with concrete for the twentieth time. “That’s it!” She began tugging at the laces to her skates. “I won’t be able to sit down for a whole week.”

“You’re quitting.”

Dara heard the surprise in Ridge’s voice and glanced at him. “I wish. No. This is just a temporary retreat. I’ll try again in a couple of days.” She turned her attention back to the laces and felt her own jolt of surprise when Ridge’s strong, warm hand covered hers.

“One last try,” he said, leaning down beside her. “This time I’ll pull you.”

Dara had rejected this suggestion every time he’d made it. She could handle the instructions, and though he hadn’t made any jokes, she could have handled them, too. She just didn’t want him touching her. He made her feel flustered. “We’ve been over this. You won’t be able to pull me in the parade. I need to be able to do it myself.”

“And you will. This is just one of the steps m learning. C’mon.” He gently urged her to her feet.

Immediately feeling her feet roll in opposite directions, she grasped for Ridge. “I’m going to fall again,” she said, half warning, half plea. “I’m going to—”

Ridge pulled her flush against the front of him. “No, you’re not,” he growled, his voice full of determination, his body a wall of rock-solid strength.

Struggling for a sense of balance that was depressingly elusive, she looked up at him and shook her head. “You’re taking this personally and you really shouldn’t. I warned you it would take a miracle. I told you—”

Ridge’s hard gaze met hers and Dara bit her tongue. “You will learn to skate. I’ll make sure of it.”

She had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Have you always been this strong-willed?”

Something flickered in his eyes, perhaps a memory, Dara thought, because his expression relaxed slightly.

“Yeah, I guess I have,” he said. “What about you?”

She was surprised by his assessment. Most people didn’t remark on her will. For the most part, Dara thought she kept that quality well hidden. She glanced down. “No. As a matter of fact, I haven’t.”

“Make your skates face forward,” he told her. “And hold on.”

“Don’t worry,” she murmured, concentrating on her feet.

“Look up. If you watch your feet, you’ll end up tripping. You have to watch where you’re going.”

He started skating backward, pulling her gently along. “So when did you develop your stubbornness?”

“I thought we used the term strong-willed.” Keeping her gaze trained over Ridge’s right shoulder, Dara tried not to think about the warm, bulging biceps she was clinging to, the way Ridge’s hands curled around her waist, and the brush of his spearmint-scented breath over her face as he chuckled.

“Okay,” he conceded. “Strong-willed.”

Their speed picked up the slightest bit and Dara tightened her grasp. “My mother raised me, and she was sick a lot when I was growing up. I guess you could say it was a case of what doesn’t destroy us makes us stronger.” She felt his gaze on her and looked up at him to find him regarding her intently. “What?”

He paused. “My mother was sick a lot, too.”

She felt a wave of understanding and saw the same emotion mirrored on his face. In that one moment there was a link between them, a shared experience that had shaped and hurt and left its imprint.

In some corner of her mind she heard a bird chirping and felt the October breeze brush over her, but her senses were dominated by the man who held her in his arms. As she clung to him, she sensed they’d both stepped onto a tiny piece of common ground, and for the first time in months she didn’t feel alone. “How long was she sick?”

Ridge slowed, and the distance between their bodies dwindled from inches to centimeters. “From the time I was born until the day she died. She was a drug addict.”

She heard the grief, and again, identified with it. His gaze flickered between her eyes and mouth, and Dara held her breath. His eyes were tawny, nearly topaz. She’d always thought of them as unusual, and now she knew why. They reminded her of a lion’s eyes, compelling and a bit untamed. A ripple of awareness quivered and quaked inside her.

His closeness was an emotional and sensual seduction more powerful than anything she’d ever experienced. It scraped off the layer of poise she’d hidden behind for months, leaving her bare. His chest was no more than a breath away from her breasts. Her heart pounded, and she didn’t know if she should stop the spell or make it last. But another need surfaced, the need to be known.

“My mother is mentally ill,” Dara confided quietly. “She wasn’t diagnosed for a long time. When she stays on her medication, she does well, but sometimes she forgets.” She took a deep breath. “I always thought it would have been nice to have my dad around, but he wasn’t.” She shrugged, suddenly wondering if she’d revealed too much. “What about your father?”

Ridge’s gaze turned turbulent. “He wasn’t in the picture, either.”

“My father died. He-”

“Mine might as well have,” Ridge said, his tone flat, his eyes giving away the anger.

Dara sensed an immediate distancing from him, and felt upset. It was as if he had teased her by opening the door a crack, then slamming it quickly. Stiffening in distress, she looked down and immediately stumbled, the movement throwing her against Ridge’s chest again. “Oh! I’m sorry. I think-”

“You looked down again,” Ridge said in a low voice that made her too aware of how close his mouth was to her forehead.

Desperately struggling for her equilibrium, she shook her head. “I know, I know. It’s a terrible habit, isn’t it? I think the lesson has lasted long enough.” She pushed ineffectually at his chest. “This sidewalk’s done enough damage to my rear—”

Ridge swore. “Stop pushing me away. You’ll fall again.”

Falling was okay, Dara thought. Falling was easier than being held by Ridge. “Then I’ll just sit down so I can get out of these skates,” she announced, immediately bending her knees.

“Let me help—” Ridge began to kneel.

“No!”

Ridge stared at her.

Dara winced. She lowered her voice and managed a small smile, but she didn’t even attempt looking at him. “I appreciate it, but I can do this much myself. Really,” she insisted when he sat beside her. “You’ve done too much.”

Dara meant that last statement with all of her heart. In more ways than one, and in every way that counted, Ridge had done entirely too much.

After they left the park Ridge gave Dara a wide berth, as much for himself as for her. Quiet and guarded, she kept her conversation with him to a minimum. It was so different from the openness she’d exhibited that he felt a strange sense of loss. He wasn’t totally sure what had happened back there, but he knew it shouldn’t happen again. There was one thing he was sure of, though.

He had wanted to kiss her.

Not just a gentle, friendly brushing of their lips. What he’d really wanted was to taste her, to slide past her lips and teeth and take her breath and let her take his. He’d wanted the tangle of her sweet tongue with his. And if he were honest, he would admit that he wanted to join more than his mouth with Dara.

Stifling an oath, Ridge decided honesty was definitely overrated. He needed Dara for one thing, and it wasn’t sex. He needed her to get to Montgomery.

When they returned to the hotel suite, Dara flipped through her messages and frowned. “I’ve got some calls to make. My mother and Drew,” Dara said, looking worried. She headed for her bedroom.

The expression on her face gnawed at him. “Is she okay?”

Dara glanced over her shoulder, meeting his gaze for the first time since they’d left the park. Caution and need smoldered in the blue depths of her eyes. Ridge wondered how he’d ever thought of her as cool and superficial. “I don’t know,” she said, and hesitated for a moment. Then her lashes swept down, shuttering her eyes from him. “Thanks for asking.”