THIS PERFECT KISS Page 4

  Kim cleared her throat once more. "Well?"

  Jilly blinked, then looked at the image again. In the other bubble was Rory Rory's face.

  "When I was doing my Web research, I ran across his photo."

  Kim's explanation floated past Jilly's ears as everything about the real Rory Kincaid burst in her mind, in vivid and unsuppressible living color.

  "So, um." Kim waved her hand to break Jilly's trance. "What do you think?"

  I'm thinking I'm in real big trouble. Because it was getting harder and harder to ignore that funny little fantasy that was sparked by the mere mention of his name. She couldn't figure out why a woman like her would even have such a fantasy, but she couldn't seem to get rid of it. Even now it flowered—

  No. She couldn't, shouldn't, go there. This craziness she was experiencing just had to be due to some kind of vitamin deficiency.

  She looked at Kim. "Broccoli," Jilly said urgently. "Do you have any broccoli?"

  Kim frowned. "Are you okay? What happened to you out there?"

  Jilly swallowed. She barely noticed that, instead of the platform floor, she had stepped off the ladder and into the tub. Even though she was up to her thighs in faux bubbles, it hardly made a dent in her consciousness. Maybe Kim could help her make sense of what was going on.

  She lowered her voice. "I don't know if I'm okay. It's the weirdest thing and I can't seem to understand it. I went there expecting Bill Gates"—she closed her eyes and pictured broad-shouldered, lean-hipped Rory Kincaid striding across the driveway to meet her, the otherworldly magnificence of Caidwater the backdrop behind him—"and instead, I met a blue-eyed, dark-haired desert prince."

  "A prince?"

  "It gets worse." Her eyes still closed, Jilly swallowed again, hot shivers crawling over her skin. "But maybe you can explain it to me. For some odd reason, this daydream keeps playing in my mind. Every time I think of him, I see a desert prince. A sexy, hot-eyed desert prince who leads me into his Moorish castle—a luxurious fortress, actually—where he vows to keep me as his prisoner until he no longer desires me. Next he…"

  Another shiver ran its heated course down Jilly's back. But then a strange, choked sound caused her eyes to snap open and she looked at Kim. Kim, who appeared one giggle away from peals of laughter. On a wave of embarrassment, Jilly closed her mouth, as a sudden and undeniable realization finally pierced the slave-girl veils she had been about to describe herself as wearing.

  Oh. My. God.

  With a groan, she slid down into the tub, avoiding Kim's knowing, amused gaze by burying her hot face in the mounds of tickling, plastic bubbles. This was Rory Kincaid she was fantasizing about. Rory Kincaid, who had stared at her like she was nuts, and who stood between her best friend and her best friend's daughter.

  And she didn't need her best friend to explain what was going on after all. Moorish castles! Hot-eyed princes! Goose bumps, prickly scalps, an awareness of her body she'd never experienced before.

  She, Jilly Skye—raised by a Puritan and educated by nuns—lusted after Rory Kincaid! Lust. A totally wild and completely inappropriate lust that was no longer a secret.

  Even from herself.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  « ^ »

  The rattle of Jilly Skye's mode of transportation—Rory hesitated to term it a "car"—pierced the morning air and even penetrated the thick plaster walls of Caidwater. He squeezed the receiver of the cordless phone he was holding to his ear and peered through the library window.

  He must have groaned out loud, because the man he was supposed to be listening to, his mentor, California's current U.S. Senator, the Honorable Benjamin Fitzpatrick, broke off in the middle of what he'd been saying. "What, son? Is there a problem?"

  By then she'd braked that red monstrosity to a halt and stepped out. "Everything's fine, sir. You were saying?"

  Oh, but there was a problem. A big problem. Yesterday's evening-gowned woman hadn't turned tall, flat, and conservatively dressed overnight. Not even close. Today, Jilly's curvy cupcake body was poured into flower-child revival wear—a white, peasanty blouse and a pair of jeans gaudily overdecorated with multicolored patches and intricate embroidery He automatically clapped his free hand over his shirt pocket, feeling for his sunglasses. It hurt to look at the garish, peacock-hued pants.

  Worse, even the fact that the blouse's gathered folds hid her heavenly endowments, even though she'd contained her riotous mass of tendrils with a large clip, his mind could vividly detail every inch of her lushness and his hand still tingled from the enticing tickle of her hair. On top of that, now his fingers itched to trace the bright red peace sign on her back pocket and the daisy chain winding around her thigh.

  And he had a meeting at Caidwater this afternoon that demanded his undivided focus.

  "Rory? Rory? Son, are you there?"

  He jerked his attention back to the senator. "Yes. Yes, sir. Right here. I'll be expecting the team at two o'clock."

  The older man's voice filled with satisfaction. "Good. You've been stalling far too long."

  Rory shifted restlessly. He still thought it was premature to meet with the Blue Party's strategic team about the concrete details of his election bid. "You know I'd prefer to wait until my candidacy is formally announced."

  "That's just for show, and you know it. For all intents and purposes, you already are our candidate." The senator droned on, going over once more the meeting's agenda.

  Rory listened with half an ear. That's me. The Blue Party candidate, he thought, waiting for, expecting, a surge of satisfaction. Then he waited some more. In vain.

  He frowned. Knowing that the senator believed Rory's own integrity and character were strong enough to overcome both his grandfather's and his father's lifetime of scandals should have him soaring. But instead, unease gripped the back of his neck like a cold hand.

  His trepidation didn't make any sense. Last year, when he'd been appointed to a federal committee investigating e-commerce fraud, he'd been pleased when his service brought him to the attention of Senator Fitzpatrick. He'd immediately liked the man and had always admired his politics. They'd moved easily from a professional relationship to a friendship Rory valued highly.

  At loose ends due to the recent sale of his software company, Rory had been more than flattered when the older man started talking up the new Blue Party and the Senate candidacy. Not that Rory saw Washington, D.C., through rose-colored glasses. He knew there were egos and power-mongers at work there, but he also believed that with his family background, he was more suited than many to sniff them out.

  Yet what had appealed to him most about the whole idea was that the Blue Party aimed to make over politics just as Rory wanted to make over the Kincaid name. The Blue Party and Rory wanted to bring honor back.

  In the Senate candidacy, it seemed that Fate had crafted an opportunity made precisely for him.

  He gazed out the window, watching Jilly Skye bend over to pull a satchel out of her car. Those worn jeans of hers cupped her sweet, rounded rear end as tightly as a man's palms would. He bit back another groan. Fate, the wily wench, had crafted the opportunity to meet the tempting Jilly, too.

  His cheerless mood was all her fault, dammit. Just like yesterday, seeing her made him want to cover his head and duck, waiting for that proverbial other shoe to drop.

  Rory cleared his throat, unable to completely tamp down his panic. "Excuse me, Senator, but I have to get off the phone now." With the momentous meeting this afternoon, the one where he'd face the Blue Party's new campaign director for the first time, it wasn't too soon to get the delectable Jilly behind the barricades of his grandfather's collection. With luck, Rory could lock up his mind's devilish thoughts with her.

  "Just don't let Charlie Jax spook you, son."

  "What? Spook me?" Rory's attention refocused on Senator Fitzpatrick. "What's that mean?"

  The senator's chuckle didn't sound all that reassuring. "He's an excellent asset to the Blue Party, even
if he is a trifle forceful."

  Rory groaned. "Senator, your 'trifle forceful' is everyone else's 'will flatten you like a steamroller.'"

  Senator Fitzpatrick chuckled again. "You'll be able to handle him. You swore you were up to new challenges."

  Rory groaned louder, resisting the urge to look out the window again. "It's at moments like this that I'm convinced my real challenge is to make you run for another term."

  Still chuckling, the senator hung up on the thought.

  With the call ended, Rory hurried from the library and opened the door before his nettlesome nemesis could press the bell. Her eyes widened as she took in what he hoped was a forbidding expression.

  "Come along," he said. With no more greeting than that, he grabbed the leather bag she carried and led the way toward the eastern wing of the house.

  "Hello to you, too, Mr. Kincaid," she murmured. "Yes, indeedy, it is a fine morning."

  He frowned and slanted her a glance.

  She peeked up at him from curly, curly lashes and smiled. In the creamy skin of her left cheek, something he hadn't noticed before flashed.

  Dammit!

  A dimple. This midget-sized bar of sex candy had a dimple! It was the kind of disarming decoration that could make some men forget today's flower-power wear and yesterday's sequins and everything else that proved she was just another example of L.A.'s weirdest and wackiest.

  He tried to convince himself he wasn't "some man."

  Then he came to a stop at the head of a long hallway, standing in front of one of several closed doors on either side. With a speculative glance he eyed a massive refectory table against a nearby wall. If he removed the tall Oriental vases collected there and solicited help from the gardeners, maybe—once he got Jilly down that hall—he could tip the table on its side and shove the thing across the opening. Locking her up sounded good.

  A slightly gothic idea, true, but Jilly Skye with a winking dimple in her left cheek and an embroidered begonia on her ass was as seriously dangerous to his "true-blue" Blue Party ambitions as a mad wife locked in the attic.

  He gestured in the direction of the doors. "You can start here," he said. The ten rooms should keep her out of his hair for at least several days. In a hurry to return to his office, he waited impatiently for her to move forward. There were notes to make and schedules to consider. Begonias and dimples to forget.

  But Jilly Skye wasn't moving at all. "Here?" she said, looking at the closed doors.

  Rory stepped forward again. Just to get her started, he told himself. He brushed past her and opened the first door, and then he kept walking down the hall, leaning from one side to the other, opening door after door after door.

  Jilly still didn't move.

  Rory walked back toward her, frowning. Her eyes were wide as they took in the sight of the rooms, filled with rows of clothing on freestanding racks. "Damn," he said. "I should have shown all this to you yesterday. Do you want to back out?"

  The fact that he suddenly hated the idea was merely because it would mean additional hassle, of course.

  Jilly's feet unfroze, carrying her slowly into the first room. Her fingers caressed the wool sleeve of a man's suit hanging on the nearest rack. "No," she said, sounding dazed. "I don't want to back out."

  "Are you sure?" he asked, though he was understandably relieved. "There's another set of rooms just like this one in the other wing."

  Jilly's eyes widened. "More?"

  "And even more." He raked a hand through his hair. "The stuff is everywhere, Jilly."

  She walked deeper into the room, both hands outstretched to touch the fabrics of all the suits, shirts, ties—junk, in Rory's opinion—that the old man had hung onto over the years. Suddenly she whirled, her eyes bright and that dimple of hers threatening to show itself again. "Everywhere, you said?"

  He nodded, completely baffled by her eagerness. That clinched it. She was nuts.

  After leaving Caidwater ten years ago, he'd made it a practice to avoid asylum escapees at every opportunity, so he stepped back, only to find himself pausing. "You really like this stuff?"

  "Adore it."

  He couldn't get over his surprise. "Why?"

  She caressed the black velvet of a cape his grandfather had probably donned in some old movie. "Did you ever wear a school uniform?" she asked.

  He shook his head.

  "I did," she said. "A gray-and-white uniform. I wore it for thirteen years. And my grandmother's house, it was mainly gray and white too. Come to think of it, so is my grandmother's personality. Cold white and controlled gray.

  "But this!" She whirled around again and he found himself fascinated by the energy vibrating from her small body. "Linens, tweeds, blues, greens, colors, textures." One arm lifted, as if to embrace it all.

  Then something caught her eye. She moved forward, inexorably forward, drawn like other women were drawn to powerful men. Her hand reached out to reverently stroke something filmy and crimson-colored.

  Her fingertips swept it caressingly again, and Rory's blood made a southward rush.

  "This." Her voice was just above a whisper. "This is about as far from gray and white as I can get. It represents living to me, exciting, no-holds-barred, multihued living."

  She sighed.

  With that wistful, blissful sound, Rory's blood heated again, but for an entirely different reason than a reaction to the sight of her stroking, caressing fingers. He was pissed. This was supposed to be a business arrangement and he didn't want it to include Jilly's husky and intimate little admissions about school uniforms. He didn't want her making him think about his stacks of white shirts and rack of dark gray suits.

  She gently pushed aside some other clothing to get a better look at the red thing. It was a woman's ball gown, something that would have been right at home on Ginger Rogers. Hell, it probably was hers, if even one-eighth of the legends about his grandfather were true.

  Jilly traced some crystal beading with a gentle fingertip. "I didn't realize there was women's clothing in your grandfather's collection. I know he was a bachelor when he passed away."

  "Bachelor?" Rory laughed shortly. "If you can call a man with six—no, seven—ex-wives a bachelor."

  She gave him a sharp glance.

  There. That was it, he thought, cursing his own big mouth. That was his signal to leave. He never talked about his family. If forced, he painted them with the lightest of brushes, no anger or bitterness ever allowed.

  But despite all that, he couldn't take his gaze off Jilly. She was slowly drawing the crimson fabric over her arm, and he could imagine it wrapped around her hot little body like a tongue wrapped around cinnamon candy.

  Damn. His cock went hard again and his feet seemed incapable of moving.

  "So these clothes belonged to your grandfather's wives?" she asked. The skirt of the dress slid against the creamy skin of her wrist.

  "Maybe." His voice was rough. "Maybe some of my father's wives as well, though he's only had four. So far."

  She blinked and was silent for a moment. "That's eleven."

  "And she can add, too," he murmured. Eleven women had flitted in and out of this house, eleven wives, though of course there had been countless others who'd made it with his father and grandfather but hadn't made it to the altar.

  Then he smiled, an angry and bitter smile, because now he knew why Jilly ticked him off so much. She embodied all the trouble in his life. "Just some of that 'exciting, no-holds-barred, multihued living' for you," he said. It was the kind of carpe-diem crap that he detested. The kind of bullshit his family had used for decades to excuse its excesses.

  She blinked again and cut her gaze away. "Well." Her hand trailed over another rack of evening dresses. "They certainly left a lot of things behind."

  "Oh, my father and grandfather were expert at finding women who didn't mind leaving things behind." He crossed his arms over his chest. "You name it, they left it. Clothes, shoes, hats." He paused. "Even kids."

  There
was another charged silence. "Oh. Well. Um. But Iris's mother—"

  He made a rough gesture. "Bugged out like the rest of them."

  Jilly shivered and he was sure it was due to the chilliness in his voice. But he didn't care anymore about hiding his bitterness. Let her know how it really was.

  Exciting, no-holds-barred, multihued living! What a load of L.A./La-La Land rationalization for irresponsibility.

  She cleared her throat. "I, um, guess your grandfather and father had some bad luck when it comes to wives, then."

  "Oh, yeah. You could call it bad luck." Rory chuckled humorlessly and backed away from her. "The truth is, all the Kincaid men have made disastrous choices when it comes to women we've wanted to marry."

  * * *

  Hanger hook squealed against metal bar as Jilly transferred a l930s-era man's suit from one clothing rack to another. She checked the number on the colored tag she'd clipped to the sleeve, then reached for her notebook to catalog the item number, description, and recommended dispensation. Her hand cramped around the pencil and she sighed, looking up as she massaged her stiff fingers. Tomorrow she'd bring her laptop and enter the information directly into a database.

  A thump in the hall outside the room made Jilly grab her pencil again and refocus diligently on her record sheet. Even though the entire morning had passed, she didn't want to talk to Rory again quite this soon.

  He was too big, too attractive, too … bitter.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. Obviously Rory wasn't a big fan of the women who'd married into his family.

  All eleven of them.

  She brushed that disturbing thought away and focused on Kim. With Rory thinking it had been Kim's choice to leave Iris behind, there was work to be done. Jilly didn't exactly know what kind of work it was, but the reaction to Rory that she'd tried so hard to deny yesterday still remained a huge hindrance.

  Kim had decided it was a great big joke, but after another round of Rory Kincaid's company, Jilly wasn't laughing. Something about the man's exotic looks—that black hair, olive skin, and blue eyes—set her fantasy world spinning.