Double trouble (4 page)

Panting, her moans echoing his, Kayla wrapped herself around him, drawing him in deeper and deeper and holding him tightly to her, inside and out.

The combination of her impassioned response and exciting feminine aggression drove him wild. Matt couldn't hold back a moment longer. He began thrusting into her in a frenzied sensual rhythm that she met and matched. It was fast and hard and hot, and the pleasure was mind-shattering.

And then, suddenly, the heat and the tension peaked to \ flash point and erupted, convulsing Kay la as her senses exploded in rapturous white-hot waves that shook her with : pleasure.

Matt felt her climax beneath him and exultandy found his ; own release, emptying his virile strength into her.

And it happened again and again during the long, dark magical night. They came together, in a frenzy of excitement or in a drowsy, sweet surge of tenderness. Satiated to the point of exhaustion, they slept for intervals, then awakened with a hunger and need that demanded fulfillment.

They couldn't get enough of each other, they couldn't give enough of themselves. All night long there was just the two of them in their own private universe, merging again and again, separating and then fusing in a never-ending spiral of desire and satisfaction.

Kay la opened her eyes a crack. She was aware of a fierce 3 pounding in her head, as if some merciless fiend were inside it, relentlessly striking her skull with a sharp-edged mallet. And the light...it was blindingly bright. Gingerly ' she closed her eyes again, aware that even her eyelids were aching. Her mouth was dry, her tongue felt swollen. When she tried to move, muscles she'd previously been unaware of seemed to come screaming to life, making her moan with 1 discomfort.

Matt turned his head on the pillow toward the sound of the muffled cry. He'd awakened moments ago to the worst headache of his life and his mouth felt as if he'd slept with a wad of wool stuffed inside it. When he swallowed, a sick-

ening wave of nausea tore through him. The symptoms alarmed him. Had he contracted a swift, virulent case of the flu?

The small noise sounded again and through slitted eyes he saw a mane of long, li^t brown curls spread over the pillow beside him. The woman's face was very pretty but very pale. Wasn't she feeling well, either? He considered the possibility of food poisoning and tried to remember if last night's chicken had tasted odd, then realized he could barely remember eating dinner at all.

But he most definitely remembered making love with a beautiful, sexy woman. Matt tried to take a deep, calming breath. So it hadn't been a dream, it had been real. Just as the beautiful, sexy woman lying next to him was real and not a fantasy produced by an overheated imagination, inspired by a sexually deprived body. He was not sexually deprived now, not after last night

Memories tumbled through his head, too vivid and far too intense for him to cope with in his current weakened state. He relegated them to back-burner status in his mind; right now he had other things to deal with. Like what to say to the woman who was lying beside him.

What did one say in a situation like this? Matt realized how unprqjared he was, how much he was dreading the moment. He cleared his throat, a definite mistake. Just that small internal motion nauseated him.

The sound had a startling effect on the woman. Gasping, she sat up abruptly, clutching the sheet around her. ''Oh God!" It was more a desperate prayer than an exclamation. "I thought I'd dreamed it, but it's true."

Matt closed his eyes for a moment. He'd been right to dread this. It was going to turn into an emotional scene, and he was not good at emotional scenes. All the ones he'd endured with Debra had proven that. As feminine hysteria mounted, he became taciturn, withdrawn and remote. He

couldn't help it; something about melodrama made him stoic.

But he wasn't with Debra now, Matt reminded himself. Maybe things would be different today. Determinedly, he turned on his side to face his lover from last night. The mattress seemed to pitch and roll like a boat on a stormy sea. At least it felt that way to his queasy stomach.

*'I just want you to know that I don't do this sort of thing all the time," he gritted out. Each word reverberated inside his head like a gunshot. ''In fact, I've never done it before. I mean, I've never gone straight to bed with a woman I've just met."

'*Oh!" Kayla was aghast. ''What are you implying? That I'm some sort of cheap pickup who does this all the time? Are you accusing me of instigating this? Of seducing you against your better judgment? Are you saying that this is all my fault?"

"No, no!" Matt sat up. "I didn't mean that at all." A fine sheen of perspiration covered his face. He couldn't remember ever feeling worse, either physically or mentally. "Karen, uh, Kristin—" He paused to gulp. What a horribly inopportune time for his vaunted memory for names to fail him!

"Just call me Kayla," she said grimly. This was truly the worst moment of her life, Kayla decided, feeling a hot blush sweep her from head to toe. Waking up naked in bed with a stranger who didn't even know her name.

"You don't have to be sarcastic," Matt snapped, his own temper rising. "It was just a slip of the tongue. I know perfectly well your name is Kxistina."

Kristina! Kayla almost screamed. Of course, he thought she was Kristina, that had been yesterday's charade. This nightmare just refused to end. Not only had she hopped into bed with a stranger, she had done so impersonating her sister. In every state capital, in the nation's capital too, there was always gossip circulating about lobbyists who extended

their efforts into the bedroom—now Senator Minteer would classify Kristina among them!

Kay la stole a quick covert glance at Matt. His jaw, so smooth-shaven last night, was covered with a dark, sexy stubble. He looked all male, earthy and sensual, and Kayla was appalled that whatever spell she'd been under last night continued to possess her this morning. She still wanted him! If he was to extend his hand even halfway, she would grasp it...

He did not extend his hand. He bolted out of bed and headed for the bathroom, seemingly unconcerned that he was nude. Kayla knew she should avert her eyes, but they stayed riveted to his splendid male form until he disappeared into the bathroom. Last night it had been too dark for her to see him, but the morning's light revealed that he was as virile and well-built as her hands had discerned in the darkness.

Kayla trembled. He'd displayed no similar interest in seeing her, not even a whit of curiosity. He hadn't even glanced at her, he'd just stalked into the bathroom. She could hear water gushing from the taps.

The insensitive barbarian! The Neanderthal clod! Tears of humiliation swam in her eyes. He was making it obvious that he considered her to be nothing more than an easy pickup, a one-night stand that he was already eager to be rid of. Turning her head, Kayla spied the piles of clothing that Uttered a path to the bed. There was her oyster-colored jacket, the matching skirt and her rose-pink silk blouse strewn along with his shirt and suit. She saw her shoes and his, lingerie and underwear, mixed together where they'd been discarded in last night's sensuous frenzy.

Kayla went hot and then cold. What had happened to her last night? Even as she sat here naked, her body bearing the physical evidence of last night's passionate consummation, she was still having trouble believing it was true. She'd lost her head over Matt Minteer, thrown away a lifetime of

scruples to go to bed with him, a man she'd known only a few hours. They'd spent the night making love with a rapturous intensity she'd never before experienced, never dreamed herself capable of. She hadn't considered herself the type to evoke such urgency in a man. But she had, last night with Matt.

Matt had said that he'd never done this sort of thing before... Well, neither had she! Last night had been totally out of character. She was normally so cautious, so careful and controlled. She never took foolish chances—at least she hadn't until her path had crossed Matt Minteer's.

And now she was left alone to face the consequences of her actions. Choking back a sob, Kayla sprang from the bed and quickly gathered up her clothes from the floor. She haphazardly pulled them on, her ears attuned to the loud rushing of water in the bathroom. Though she badly wanted a shower, it was a luxury she would have to postpone until she arrived back at Kristina's apartment. She had to get out of here before Matt emerged from the bathroom! She simply couldn't face the cold rejection she knew she would see in his eyes.

The water was still running when she slipped from the room. Kayla bypassed the elevators and ran into the stairwell, racing down the steps two at a time. Last night's fantasy of exciting, everlasting love had turned into a chilling phantasm. In the grim light of day Kayla forced herself to face the painful fact—last night's idyll hadn't been about love at all, just lust. What was it that Penny, her stepmother, had often said? Something about love not being a risk, but a genuine hazard? Once again, it seemed that Penny's sense of doomed pessimism had been proven right.

Kayla felt as though her heart were breaking.

Back in the room. Matt emerged from the bathroom, aware that his skin was a ghastly shade of green, that he was cold and clammy and felt sicker than he'd ever felt in his life.

He had turned on the taps in both the shower and the sink to drown out the ignominious sounds of himself wretching. Bad enough that he'd insulted poor Kristina, though he certainly hadn't intended to. For her to know that he'd been dreadfully, helplessly sick would be the ultimate humiliation.

He was definitely not a cool, smooth operator with a lifestyle to match. Matt acknowledged with a moan. Undoubtedly, there were guys who woke up in bed with a woman of only a few hours' acquaintance, men who suavely called room service to order breakfast for two, but Matthew Min-teer knew he could not be numbered among them. Breakfast! Even the thought of it was almost enough to send him back into the bathroom.

No, he was not cut out to be one of those cool bachelors. He wanted to be married, to a nice loving woman who would share his Hfe and his career, who would raise a family with him.

Was that too much to ask? he sometimes wondered. His mother had been that and done that for his dad. But Debra Wheeler had rebelled and the few other relationships he'd had, hadn't worked out, either.

Which brought him to today, and waking up with Kristina McClure in his bed after an astounding night of the most spectacular sex he'd ever had. No, he amended. What he and Kristina had shared had been more than sex. The intensity, the depth of their responses, the total and perfect culmination of their desires. It had to have been much more than a casual, recreational romp.

''Kristina," he called her name softly, determined to talk things over, to overcome the awkwardness that had soured their awakening. He turned to the bed.

And saw it was empty. Kjristina was not in the bed! A swift glance around confirmed that she was nowhere in the room. Nor were her clothes. Only his littered the floor.

It was all too obvious. She had dressed and sneaked out while he was being sick in the bathroom! Matt sank down on the bed, fighting a volatile mixture of rage and gloom. She was gone. Could she have possibly made it any plainer that she considered their interlude last night exactly that, an interlude? A very temporary one. A one-night stand that was over. She hadn't even waited to say goodbye. She'd just left.

Just when he thought that it couldn't get any worse, that he couldn't feel any worse, a knock sounded at the door, a sound so loud that he covered his throbbing ears to mute the thundering echoes in his head.

"Matt, open up, I know you're in there!" his brother Luke's authoritative voice called through the door.

Matt scowled. What an abominably unlucky day this was turning out to be. Kristina had fled and now he'd been tracked down by his younger brother, the quintessential cool bachelor himself, who knew all the right moves and all the right words. Had Luke Minteer awakened to find himself in bed with a naked sensuous beauty. Matt was sure there undoubtedly would have been an entirely different outcome than the hapless scene that had just been enacted.

He groaned. No, it really couldn't get any worse than this.

Three

Still feeling nauseated, Matt picked up his clothes and put on most of them before opening the door to his brother. Luke Minteer rushed inside. At thirty, he had the Minteer coloring, dark hair and blue eyes, but his height came from his mother's side, the Hylands. He was five foot ten, the shortest of the four Minteer brothers, a fact he accepted with good humor most of the time.

Six years ago, when he'd first won the state senate seat. Matt had made Luke his chief administrative aide. He planned to do the same when he went to Congress in D.C.

*'Are you okay?" Luke frowned with concern as he studied his older brother.

'*No." Matt made his way back to the bed and sat down on the edge. ''I'm not."

Luke crossed the room to sit down beside him. *'Matt, I'm sorry I wasn't there last night. Maybe if I had been, I could have done something to stop it. Damn, I feel terrible about this!"

Matt went rigid. Obviously his brother had found out that he'd gone to bed with Kristina McClure. He sighed. The last thing he needed was a lecture from his little brother. Because even though Luke, who had a law degree, had proven himself an invaluable counsel, he was still four years younger—which made him a kid brother in certain situations. Such as this one.

*'Look, save the lecture, Luke. I know it was out of character for me, but we're both consenting adults and—"

"Consenting? Huh? What are you talking about?" Luke interrupted, staring at him.

''About Kristina and me, of course," Matt growled.

"Kristina?" Luke's eyes widened as comprehension dawned. "You brought a woman up here?" He looked around the room. "Where is she? Who is she?"

"She's not here now," Matt declared, stating the obvious. "Her name was—is—Kristina McClure." He imparted the information, reluctant but resigned. Luke was like himself when it came to ferreting out facts. Neither would quit badgering until they got them all. "She's a lobbyist for PITA," he added.