baulked. “We can’t go down there.”
“Hush. Trust me.”
She trailed behind him as he hurried down the stairs and past the living room that he shared with Roland.
“I suppose there are etchings you want to show me?” But beneath the bite there was breathlessness.
“No etchings.” Joshua veered left toward his destination. “Come here, babe.” He didn’t bother to switch on the lights before he took her in his arms.
“But—”
He kissed her objections away. And when her hands ran over his back, Joshua groaned out aloud. He couldn’t wait for this. Couldn’t remember ever wanting a woman this much. He tore off his mask. The expensive Italian-styled dinner jacket landed on the floor, and Joshua yanked the snaps of the dress shirt open.
The touch of her fingertips on the bare skin of his chest was electric. Joshua bit back a curse of pure ecstasy. She drew her palms across his pectorals.
Joshua shuddered.
He drove his tongue deep into her mouth and shifted his hips, knowing she must be aware of how incredibly turned on he was. But she didn’t flinch. Instead her fingers teased, exploring the ridges of his abdominal muscles, brushing his lower belly.
“Woman, you’re killing me,” he said hoarsely.
She gave a little throaty laugh.
That was enough. His senses on fire, Joshua drew her to the bed and came down on the cover beside her. In the darkness he cupped her head in his hands, her hair soft and silky between his fingers. The ties of the mask tangled in his fingers and he tugged them loose. He kissed her cheeks where the mask had rested … her neck … and moved his lips to where he guessed the V-neckline of her outrageous dress would be.
She wasn’t laughing now. Her body arched beneath him, and the swell of her breasts brushed his arm.
“Alice.”
She stilled.
Then his hand closed over the fabric-draped softness of her breast. He heard her gasp out loud.
“Ah, Alice, this is going to be good. I promise.” Impatiently, he peeled the dress down over her shoulders—and discovered she wore no bra. He bent his head to taste the skin he’d exposed.
“Joshua.”
The call jarred Joshua back to reality an instant before the bedroom door burst open. He rolled in front of her, shielding her from the intruder.
Dim light backdropped the figure who stood in the doorway. Joshua snarled, “Dammit, Heath. Can’t you knock?”
Two
The bedside light clicked on. Brightness spilled into every corner of the room, hurting Alyssa’s eyes.
But she didn’t blink. She couldn’t take her eyes off the half-naked man on the bed beside her. The high, slanting cheekbones and black eyes were all too familiar. She’d studied photos of him, wondering how someone so utterly beautifully and flagrantly male could be such an arrogant swine.
Joshua Saxon.
No wonder his voice had sounded so damn familiar. She pulled her knees to her chest and yanked the bedcover over her nakedness, then buried her head in her hands, humiliation crawling through her.
“What do you want, Heath?” There was an edge to Joshua’s voice as he sat up and addressed his brother.
Through the cracks between her fingers, Alyssa peered toward the door. Heath Saxon. The younger, rakehell brother. He’d been featured in Wine Watch as a winemaker to watch. In the photo accompanying the profile, he’d been smiling, tanned. Now he hovered indecisively in the doorway. Until, a flush burning into his pasty skin, he said awkwardly, “Sorry, Joshua, but there’s been an accident.”
Joshua’s shoulders bunched under the open shirt. “An accident?”
Alyssa’s hand dropped to cover his.
“Roland’s been hurt,” Heath said. “We need to go to the hospital.”
Roland hurt? Alyssa was off the bed in an instant, pulling up the neckline of her dress.
“Roland’s my brother,” Joshua said to Alyssa. Then his focus returned to his brother. “What kind of accident?”
“A car accident.”
“What the hell happened?” Joshua asked the question before Alyssa could.
Heath shook his head. “I don’t know, but an ambulance has taken him and Amy to hospital.”
That catapulted Joshua into action. He leapt off the bed, started buttoning his shirt and trod into his shoes. “Do the parents know?”
Heath’s eyes darkened. “I told them there’d been an accident, that you and I would go see how bad it was. They’re telling everyone the party’s over.”
“Good move.” Joshua headed for the door. “If it’s necessary, they can come to the hospital later.”
Before he could disappear, Alyssa said, “I’m coming with you.”
To her relief both men were more concerned with getting to the hospital than arguing with her. Heath gave her a searching look—then glanced at Joshua and raised his eyebrows. Alyssa knew he was making assumptions—assumptions that were totally wrong. He thought she was Joshua’s lover. She didn’t bother to disillusion him.
Nor was it the time to get into lengthy discussions about her relationship to Roland … a revelation that she suspected might come as a huge shock to both men. Joshua was not to find out who she was. She didn’t need a crystal ball to know that she would be unceremoniously tossed out the house.
She couldn’t afford that. She had to find out how badly Roland was hurt.
Once in Joshua’s Range Rover, the tension became palpable. Joshua drove like a man with a lethal mission, in total silence, his hands clenched around the steering wheel. Beside him Heath made call after call from his cell phone, growing increasingly frustrated when he couldn’t get answers out of the emergency staff.
Alyssa huddled down in the back, doing her best to remain invisible lest either man question her right to be here. She prayed that Roland’s injuries were minor. Hopefully he’d be discharged tonight. It would be unbearable if, after all the waiting, she couldn’t meet with him tomorrow.
The moment the Range Rover braked outside the hospital, the three of them leapt out, hurrying for the glass doors that led to the emergency room.
Inside the smell of urgency and antiseptic injected dread into Alyssa. As Joshua’s voice rose, she heard the nurse murmuring “in surgery” and “someone will be with you soon.” Alyssa stopped a distance away. Heath asked a series of short, sharp questions and Alyssa strained her ears to hear the reply. She heard “shocked” and “will
