Page 8 of Prime Time

She wanted to come back with a scathing refusal, but she would have been speaking to his retreating back as it went through the glass door. She followed him around the length of the porch, which she learned surrounded the house, to the back, where his El Dorado was parked in a four-car garage.

He didn’t even hold her door for her but went straight to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel. He had already started the motor and was wearing an impatient, put-out look by the time she caught up with him and got in on the passenger side. She telegraphed what she thought of his manners by slamming the door hard. His reply came back clearly in the form of a stony silence. He didn’t care what she thought.

They roared out the gate and down the highway. The scenery along the roadside blurred, and she didn’t even want to guess how fast they were going. He drove with one elbow propped on the open window ledge and with his fingers tapping the roof of the car in time to a tune known only to him. The wind wreaked havoc with her hair, but she’d be damned if she’d ask him to close the window.

“That was my car,” she said as they shot past the compact still parked on the shoulder of the opposing lane.

“We’ll stop and get it on the way back. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to the

little lady.”

She treated him to a murderous look before turning her head to stare out the window. It was her fervent wish that she could keep her motion sickness at bay as she watched the landscape roll by with sickening speed.

They didn’t speak again until he braked the car within feet of the motel room door that bore the number matching the one on her key. She looked at him quizzically.

“You’re not the only one who can ask nosy questions, Ms. Malone.”

The gray eyes he leveled at her made her unaccountably nervous. What else had his inquiries about Andy Malone produced? “I’ll be right back,” she said, fumbling for the door handle and pushing her way out of the car. Even with the windows down, she’d found the confined space stifling.

Hurriedly unlocking her door, she went into her room. When the door wouldn’t close behind her, she turned to see Lyon standing in the doorway with his hand splayed wide, holding it open. “I’ll help.”

“That isn’t necessary.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

Forcing her backward, he pushed his way inside and closed the door behind him. The room, which had seemed small before, shrunk to doll house proportions once he was inside. He tossed his car keys onto the middle of the bed, which the maid had already made up, then plopped down on it himself and leaned against the headboard, stretching out his long legs so that his booted feet barely hung over the edge. When Andy just stood in the middle of the room staring at him, he said, “Don’t let me bother you.” His grin was arrogant and infuriating. It told her that he knew very well he was bothering her.

She turned her back on him and opened the suitcase lying on the rack in the closet alcove. She began furiously tearing garments from the hangers and stuffing them haphazardly into the suitcase. Several pairs of shoes were picked up from the floor and virtually thrown into her shoe bag. The drawstring popped and vibrated like a rubber band when she yanked it closed.

“Don’t forget your boots,” he said from the bed.

She whirled around. “I wouldn’t dream of it. They go in a separate box. Thank you ever so much for your help.”

He wasn’t at all perturbed by her carefully enunciated sarcastic words. “Glad to oblige.”

He smiled, and for a moment Andy was spellbound by a fantasy that was projected on her mind: Lyon leaning against the headboard of a bed and smiling at her, not with derision, but with intimacy. A strange tightness compressed her throat and forced all feeling downward to ripple across her abdomen. This sensation terrified her, and she fought vainly to stifle it.

She attacked the dressing table, heedlessly tossing her cosmetics and toiletries into her smaller suitcase. Bottles and jars rattled together, and she only hoped something wouldn’t break and spill and ruin everything else. She glanced in the mirror over the basin and saw that Lyon’s eyes hadn’t wavered. He was watching each move.

“Do you take some prurient pleasure in watching this?”

“In fact I do. In my former life I must have been a peeping tom.”

“You ought to work that out in analysis.”

“Why?” His brows arched in curiosity. “Does my watching you make you nervous?”

“Not at all.” The sardonic lift to the corner of his mouth told her that he knew she was lying. She dropped her eyes from his reflection in the mirror and crammed one last item into the carrying case.

Her hands faltered when she turned to the drawers in the dresser. It was stationed directly opposite the bed. Hastily she gathered slippery lingerie that wouldn’t be grasped by her rushing fingers. She dropped a half-slip with a wide border of lace down each side. She retrieved it quickly, but not before a swift covert look in his direction informed her he had seen it. His smile was lewd with implications.

While she was stacking her notes that were lying helter-skelter on the small table and placing them in her briefcase, he heaved himself off the bed and sauntered into the bathroom. In a matter of seconds he came out carrying a raspberry-colored brassiere and panties set. She just now remembered that she’d rinsed them out the night before and hung them on the curtain rod to dry.

He carried a piece in each hand, never taking his eyes off her as he walked to within inches of her. His eyes held her pinned to the matted shag carpet. “Don’t forget these,” he drawled. Looking down at the sheer wisps in each of his hands, he assessed them with clinical accuracy. He tested their lightness by bouncing them and letting them float back into his palms. Entranced, she too stared at the garments. Through the glossy fabric she could read each line in his palm with the clarity of a fortune teller. “Not that they’d be missed that much. There’s so little to them.”

She gasped and snatched the bra and panties from his hands. He laughed as she threw them into the suitcase and slammed it shut. She lifted it off the rack, but he surprised her by coming to take it from her hand.

“Do you need to check out?” he asked, opening the door to the room.

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