Cloud Waltzer Page 8

  “You never did answer my question,” he said. “What is it about you that attracts me so powerfully? And remember, we’ve already eliminated your beauty as a factor.”

  Meredith laughed nervously, feeling as if she’d somehow managed to fool Archer into believing she was pretty and, for the first time, regretted how desperately important it was that he never learn the truth about her, about the Meredith he couldn’t see. The Meredith she must never let him see. “It must be that new mouthwash I used. Or maybe you’re just trying to butter up the press.”

  “Butter? For the press? Margarine is too good for the swine.”

  “Swine?” Meredith echoed with a laugh.

  “No, you’re right, it must be the mouthwash. But I’d better run a quick test, just to be certain.”

  Still standing at Meredith’s back, he bent down, his hands moving to cradle her chin and tilt it upward to receive his kiss. The moment their lips met, Archer’s jest was at an end. They were lost again in the same urgent intensity of their first kiss. Every nerve ending along Meredith’s back, from her ankles, up along her spine, to the nape of her neck, came alive as Archer edged closer to her. His hands stole in beneath the cloaking folds of the cape to span the length of her delicate rib cage. Then, as if taking possession of a great treasure, Archer cupped her breast in his warm hand. His thumb and forefinger found the hardened nub of her nipple thrusting up against the sheer fabric of her gown. Like a master locksmith, he rolled and fondled it until he’d found the combination that unlocked the response Meredith had kept so guarded from all others.

  She felt her head fall against the firm support of his shoulder. The hungry urgency of his kiss fanned fresh flames through her. She swept back the cape to raise a hand to his face, delighting in the barely perceptible rasp of hours-old whiskers against her sensitized palm. As his mouth left hers, they heard one another’s passion-hoarsened breathing. Each shallow inhalation testifying to the ferocity of their desire and building it to an even more unendurable peak. His lips found a nerve-rich strip of skin along her neck and left a trail of nibbling, inflaming kisses along it from the lobe of her ear to the scooped-out hollows of her collarbone.

  A moan escaped from Meredith’s lips and she felt her head pressing in helpless ecstasy against Archer’s unyielding shoulder. Just as surely as Archer had led earlier on the dance floor, Meredith now set the tempo and Archer picked it up. Mindlessly, he responded to the quickening rhythm she had set, pressing her to him ever more tightly until the bold outline of his thrusting need was clearly engraved against the flesh of her lower back. The cyclone spinning through Meredith described an ever-narrowing circle as Archer’s hand kneaded insistent messages along the tops of her quivering thighs and belly. The circle of delight constricted gradually until Archer found the center of her most intimate pleasure and began a narcotizing massage. Meredith had a fleeting image of herself melting, running like pudding down his shirtfront, but she was powerless to halt the voluptuous rapture.

  “Meredith, Meredith.” Her name was an insensate rumbling against her ear as Archer turned her to face him. With a drugged awareness, he realized that they were sinking, and he reached up and opened the burner. In the propane flame, Meredith saw the face of a thoroughly shaken man and knew that Archer was just as powerfully affected as she. After a brief roaring, the balloon bobbed back up to the end of the tether and they were isolated again in their floating crow’s nest of dark and splendid privacy.

  Facing her now, Archer parted the cloak and stepped inside until they were both wrapped in its enclosing warmth. Meredith clung to him as heated waves of longing buffeted her. She reached up and drew his head down, his lips covering her eager mouth. Locked together high above common concerns, trembling from the force of a mutual bewitchment, Meredith felt all her moorings slip loose. The choking ties that had bound her could no longer hold her captive up here, not with Archer’s arms twined around her. For the first time in her life, she wanted a man with a desperate urgency she hadn’t known she was capable of. That desire raked through her with a fierce ache that found the promise of relief in Archer’s parched words.

  “God help me, Meredith, I want you as I’ve never before wanted another person or thing on this earth. Stop me if you . . .”

  But all Meredith had the power to stop were his words and the doubts they brought. Her answer was dictated by a relentlessly driving need. Haltingly, then with a growing courage, she reached out and began to unbuckle the turquoise-studded clasp on his belt. It was her sign to Archer that her need was every bit as strong as his, that it was a tempest that could not be denied.

  The gesture snapped the straining bounds of Archer’s control. With a low, primitive growl, his hands became unleashed creatures that roamed with a blind will. His fingers stroked a trail of fire against the bare skin of her thighs. The only barrier they encountered were a pair of thin panties easily stripped away.

  The whisper of a zipper accompanied the uncharacteristically bold movements of Meredith’s hands. The weight of the turquoise-laden belt pulled the suit pants down. They came back together with the sinuous fluidity of two people lost in a foggy dream, neither one knowing what to do or expect, yet each one moving in flawless synchronization with the other as though through a well-rehearsed routine. Beneath the cape draped over Archer’s shoulders, the rock-steady crook of his arm came around Meredith to scoop her up. With artless precision, her legs parted to encircle his lean waist and the aching emptiness within her was filled. Archer, his large hands on her buttocks, guided her into a thrusting rhythm that was both her own and more than her own. It seemed it would go on forever, but she knew that life could not support such perfection, and driven by her crescendoing need, she was forced to dictate its culmination. The rhythm accelerated, hurtling them both to the act’s completion.

  Meredith’s release rocketed her to a high plateau beyond any she had previously known. There, on those exquisite heights, everything was obliterated. She was scoured of past, problems, fears, even her self was gone. She was both reduced and elevated to a state of gasping ecstasy.

  Archer’s arms were quivering as he tenderly replaced her on the wicker floor of the balloon. Wordlessly, he bent down and retrieved the fallen underpants, holding them up for her to step into like the Prince with Cinderella’s glass slipper. Meredith was unbearably touched by the simple, eloquent action. He stood.

  “Archer.” Her voice trembled. “I have so much to say to you, to ask you.”

  “I know. I do too. But before we begin, before words and reality and the rest of the world come crashing in on us again, hold me, Meredith Tolliver. Just hold me.”

  Meredith clasped Archer to her in a fierce embrace. They were still holding each other when the balloon, its cargo of air cooled by the night air, came gently back to earth.

  Chapter 5

  Please, come home with me, Meredith. Stay with me. Let me love you properly.” Archer’s plea was delivered in the parking lot of the Convention Center. He’d pulled the roadster in next to Meredith’s car to try one last time to keep Meredith from disappearing into the night.

  Huddled beneath the cape, Meredith shivered with a chill that she couldn’t seem to dispel. Once the balloon had touched earth, all the ghosts she had jettisoned during the shattering flight returned to haunt her. She was assailed by regret and apprehension. Fearful that she had made an irrevocable mistake, Meredith worried that the overriding impulses she had given in to might forever alter the course of her relationship with Archer. That their new intimacy might in fact doom it to a premature end. Her instincts now told her to run, to hide herself. She had exposed too much already.

  “I really do need to be getting home,” she said, hating the hard artificiality of the words she was forced to speak.

  “At least let me see you home,” Archer urged. “I’ll have someone deliver your car to you first thing in the morning.”

  Meredith was touched by his sincerity and, for a moment, almost relented. But n
o, she couldn’t afford to let Archer get that close. Not yet. Maybe not ever. “Oh, don’t bother.” She tossed off her reply in a tone that belittled the intensity of his emotion and mocked the awing power of what had passed between them.

  Archer’s shoulders slumped momentarily, then he stiffened them with a steely resolve. When he spoke, his voice was as defensively brittle as hers had been. “Have it your way, then, Ms. Tolliver. I imagine you would anyway, so I won’t offer any more resistance.”

  Feeling something unutterably precious slipping away, Meredith scrambled to recapture it. “How about the interview? When do you want to get started?”

  Archer turned his head and glowered.

  Meredith could feel the weight of his annoyance and disappointment and wanted to pour out all the unnamed fears that held her in thrall, that prevented her from sinking into his arms, his bed. But she couldn’t. Instead, she had to bear the burden of Archer’s mistaken impression of who she was, of what she felt.

  He sighed out his exasperation and resignation. Massaging the bridge of his nose, he said, “I’m booked solid tomorrow until eight or nine. Would you like to go out for a late dinner? You can bring your recorder and dive into the sordid life of Archer Hanson then, if you aren’t afraid of what it will do to your digestion.”

  Delighted to hear the return of his humor, Meredith answered with a buoyant laugh, “I think I can handle the combination.”

  “Good. Tell me where you live and I’ll come by for you when I’m done.”

  An icy stab of irrational panic lacerated Meredith. “No, no, don’t bother. I’ll meet you wherever you choose.”

  “Meredith, my girl, you do try a man, don’t you? Come on, let’s drop this cat-and-mouse game. Why am I not allowed near your home? I doubt that you’d have much trouble guessing the explanation I’ve already come up with.”

  The full force of his suspicion hit Meredith with a delayed impact. “That I’m married?”

  “Or living with someone. Or otherwise engaged with someone you don’t want me to see or be seen by.”

  “Oh, Archer, no.” Meredith was stunned, though, of course, Archer’s reasoning made perfect sense. Feeling her back to the wall, Meredith groped for an explanation. The truth, if she had the courage to reveal it, would seem far more unbelievable than any fiction she could fabricate. With the tenacity that only illogical fears can generate, Meredith clung to the conviction that the more of herself she exposed to Archer, the more he might learn how unlovable she felt. About how in Chicago she had turned her body into a brittle bundle of bones.

  “Level with me, then, Meredith,” Archer demanded. “There’s not time enough in the world for me to spend any of mine with another man’s woman.”

  “Another man’s woman,” Meredith echoed testily. “You make me sound like an assignable commodity. If you must know, I live with my aunt Adrianne.” The lie slipped as easily off her tongue as if she had rehearsed it. “Actually, she’s my great-aunt. My grandmother’s sister.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that to start off?” Archer asked, obviously relieved.

  “Living with an elderly maiden aunt doesn’t exactly lend itself to an air of independence and glamour, does it?” Meredith asked. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized that she’d overlooked a tremendous loophole: Phil. Not only was he her next-door neighbor, he also worked for Archer. “Not that Aunt Adrianne is at all interfering,” she continued, trying to patch up the tale she’d concocted. “She’s bedridden and prefers not to see strangers. Why, even Phil hasn’t met her.”

  “I . . . I didn’t realize,” Archer started off haltingly. “I apologize for my accusations. They were unfounded and uncalled for.”

  Archer’s gracious apology made Meredith wince under another spear of guilt.

  “It must be a strain on you, caring for her,” he continued.

  “Not really.” Meredith had no choice but to embroider on the lie. “Both my grandmothers died when I was quite young and Aunt Adrianne took their places. I could always go to her with any problem I had and she was endlessly understanding and always, unconditionally, on my side. It meant a lot to me when I was growing up and not terribly secure, to have someone who absolutely accepted me for what I was.” The hollowness inside Meredith at the place where the fictitious and all-accepting Aunt Adrianne might have been seemed even emptier than ever.

  “My grandfather sort of filled the same role for me,” Archer confided. “I suppose parents are too close to their children to be able to love them for what they are. From day one, I was, first and foremost, an extension of the redoubtable Gunther Hanson. He was always taking me out of school so I could drive out with him to his oil fields or construction sites. As far as education went, it was better than any business degree in the world, but it made it hard as hell just to be a little boy.”

  Meredith understood more than she could ever say. She felt the depth of emotion in Archer’s simple admission flow around her with the force of an ocean current.

  “Well, maybe someday I can meet the reclusive Aunt Adrianne,” he said with a hastily manufactured peppiness. “Until then, I bow to your judgment in making whatever arrangements you like for us to be together. Just be sure,” he said, bringing her hand to his lips, “that we do get together.” Looking into her eyes, Archer turned her hand in his and inscribed a message of longing on her palm with the tip of his tongue.

  Meredith’s starchiness melted into a warm, running torrent that coursed through her anew. She ached to succumb to the maddening invitation. To spend the night wrapped in Archer’s arms. To wake to his kiss. Those desires battered against the wall of defenses imprisoning her. The wall held fast. “My aunt will worry if I don’t get back soon.” So shaken was she that her hand quivered as she withdrew it.

  “My secretary accidentally threw away the scrap of paper with your phone number scribbled on it, so . . . ?”

  “Oh, sure, I’ll just send it to you,” she said, punching his number into her phone and attaching her contact information.

  Archer’s phone chimed and he read over the message. “M. J. Tolliver? How formal. What’s the J stand for?”

  “Julianna. It’s my mother’s name.”

  “Pretty name.”

  “I never cared for it much.”

  “You’re right,” Archer laughed, “it’s hideous. But you’re beautiful, M.J., and I can’t seem to keep my hands off you.” His grin flashed with a Viking radiance that mesmerized Meredith as his hands smoothed over her shivering shoulders. She felt the titanic pull of his attraction urging her to lean forward, to taste his lips again, to abandon herself to the oblivion she had found in his arms. Abruptly realizing how dangerously close she was to succumbing, Meredith jerked away, fumbling for the door handle.

  Reaching across her, the iron bar of his arm pressed against Meredith’s belly, Archer easily found the handle and flicked it open. But his arm remained where it was, branding a searing stripe of heat across the sloping valley of her pelvis. In that instant, Meredith knew the full measure of his power over her. She would be a willing captive if he chose to keep her. She could struggle no more. Her surrender was clear. As clear as Archer’s recognition of it. With his gaze locking on hers, Archer slowly removed his arm. When she came fully to him, it would be of her own volition or not at all. Meredith was condemned to freedom.

  Feeling like an addled bird, she hopped from the car. “Hasta lumbago,” she joked weakly, cringing at the sound of the trite syllables issuing from her mouth. Unable to bear hearing Archer’s response, she jumped into her battered Volkswagen.

  Archer listened to the car sputter crankily to life as conflicting emotions churned against one another inside him. On one hand, he wanted to follow Meredith home. To watch over her and make sure that her wreck of a car didn’t die on some darkened street. On the other hand, he was tempted to drive fast and far in the opposite direction. He wanted to flee the overload of feeling that had ambushed him. The instincts that serv
ed him so well in business now reasserted themselves, warning him that Meredith Tolliver was even more complex than she appeared.

  When he looked up, the taillights of her VW had become tiny pinpricks of red in the inky black night. He engaged the clutch, then paused. With a decisive swiftness, he put the Porsche into reverse. He’d turn around and follow her, follow the mystery to its source. He’d confront her with his doubts and eradicate them before they had a chance to flourish beneath her infuriating reticence. Then, angrily discarding that adolescent notion, Archer rammed the gearshift into first and began the long drive home.

  * * *

  Sleep was impossible. Meredith lay in bed watching the lighted numerals on her bedside clock slither into a new shape as each minute passed. Alternating currents of joy and despair wracked her. One second she was hugging herself with sheer happiness. The next, she was mourning the inevitable passing of a relationship she would never be able to sustain.

  Finally, around seven, she abandoned the charade of sleep and succumbed to Thor’s yowling demands to be fed. She lingered over a mug of tea and the morning paper. As usual, the copy desk had peppered her column with typos that made her look as if she’d used a Serbo-Croatian dictionary to check her spelling. Forcing herself to focus on preparing for her interview with Archer, she sat down with a stack of back issues of Enterprise magazine. She analyzed all the profiles she could find, tearing them apart to study how they were put together so that she might use them as models for her piece on Archer.

  Archer Hanson.

  Time and again the name derailed her industrious train of thought, leaving her tangled in the sweet tentacles of fantasy. She would shake them loose long enough to jot down a question for the coming interview, then images from the night before would overwhelm her. If it were not for the extraordinary aliveness she felt deep within her, Meredith might have believed that the whole evening had been a fevered dream. Surely no woman had ever been loved as she had except in her wildest dreams.