Page 20 of Prime Time

“Andy, you’re not involved with

Les Trapper?”

“Only as a co-worker and friend. I’m not involved with anyone. Haven’t been since Robert.”

He lifted his head to peer at her closely, looking for signs of mendacity lurking in the golden pools of her eyes. “I want to believe you.”

“Do. It’s true.”

“Why do you want to interview my father?”

His question genuinely puzzled her, and her bewilderment showed in her face. “For the reasons I’ve already told you. Do you think I have some ulterior motive?”

“No. I guess not,” he said slowly. “So many have tried for years to invade his privacy. He didn’t want the world he had created for himself, my mother, and me to be disrupted. Perhaps if he had consented to give interviews years ago, he wouldn’t have been the object of so much speculation.

“The reasons for his reclusiveness are personal. Up until you came he had resolved to go to his grave without ever having to answer a question about himself in order to satisfy the public’s curiosity. On the one hand, I’m glad he didn’t throw you out.” He smiled and ducked his head to kiss her collarbone. Then his eyes grew grave, and he stared fixedly at her earring. “And on the other, I’m afraid for him.”

She brushed back a strand of disobedient dark hair that lay damply on his wide forehead. “Why, Lyon?” She gloried in the sound of his name spoken aloud by her own lips and repeated the question just to hear it again. “Because of his health?”

“That and—” His fascination with her earring waned, and he found her eyes much more intriguing. “Never mind.” He kissed her. “You’re very beautiful, Andy,” he murmured against her open lips.

She had experienced a moment of panic as Lyon voiced his private thoughts. Had Les’s uncanny ability to sniff out a secret been confirmed again? Was there something about his father that Lyon didn’t want known? No! Please God, don’t let me uncover something that would have to be made public. Conflict of interest was the curse of every reporter who strove for objectivity. She forced the troubling thoughts from her mind and concentrated on the feel of Lyon’s lips against hers.

His tongue tickled the corner of her mouth before his lips skimmed along her cheek to play with the earring he had found so interesting before. With one arm clamped firmly around her shoulders, holding her tight, the other hand stroked down her chest. At the upper edge of her top he paused, absorbing the cadence of her heartbeat with his palm.

“Andy?” Permission sought.

“Lyon.” Permission granted.

His hand closed over her breast. It was a talented hand, unerringly touching what throbbed with the need to be touched. The damp cloth that clung to her skin only enhanced the friction between his inquisitive fingers and her nerve endings.

“From the moment I saw you sitting on that stool at Gabe’s, I wanted to touch you.” His whisper in her ear was a caress in itself. “You’ve been blessed in this department.”

“I’ve always been self-conscious about my size.”

He chuckled softly. The exploration continued, became bolder, heightened the tumult building inside her. “You shouldn’t be. My adolescence was spent fantasizing about figures like yours.”

“And it was fantasizing adolescent boys like you staring at me all the time who made me self-conscious.”

“Touché.”

“What was your first impression of me when you saw me in Gabe’s?”

“That you had gorgeous eyes and a terrific pair of—”

“Besides that!”

“Oh, then you’re asking for second impressions.”

“Lyon, I’m serious.”

He laughed. “So am I.” Then he did become serious as he lifted his hand from her breast to sift his fingers through her hair, which was still damp with rain. “I thought that you were a very attractive woman whom I would very much like to take to bed.”

She swallowed around the knot of emotion in her throat. “And now?”

“Now I think you’re a very attractive woman whom I would very much like to get to know better and then take to bed. The first impulse was based solely on lust. The second on something I can’t yet put a name to, but the ultimate goal is the same.” He held her chin firmly between his thumb and forefinger as his eyes beamed straight into her brain. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Tremulously, half-fearfully she said, “I think so.”

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