Mixed Messages. Linda Miller Lael

in the office, or just hers. In the end it didn’t matter, since it was late and most everyone else had already gone home. “No, thanks,” she typed resolutely. “I never dine with traitors.”

      “I’ll explain if you’ll just give me the chance.”

      “How are you doing this?”

      “Trade secret. Do we have a date or not?”

      “No.”

      “Will begging help?”

      Carly shut off her computer, filled her briefcase with letters and left the office. She walked to the department store where Janet was employed and found that her friend was still working.

      After consulting a schedule, Carly caught a bus back to the apartment building and was overjoyed when the manager, Mrs. Pickering, greeted her with the news that her car and furniture had been delivered.

      “I made sure they set up the bed for you,” the plump, middle-aged woman said as Carly turned the key in the lock.

      The living room was filled with boxes, but the familiar couch and chair were there, as was the small television set. The dining table was in its place next to the kitchenette.

      Carly set her briefcase and purse down on the small desk in the living room, then lifted the receiver on her telephone. She heard a dial tone and smiled. Her service was connected.

      Feeling unaccountably domestic, Carly thanked Mrs. Pickering for her trouble and set out immediately for the parking lot. Her blue Mustang, one of the prizes she’d won as Miss United States, was in its proper slot.

      Taking the keys from her purse, Carly unlocked the car, got behind the wheel and started the engine. She drove to the nearest all-night supermarket and bought a cartful of food and cleaning supplies, then came home and made herself a light supper of soup and salad in her own kitchen.

      She dialed Janet’s number and left a message on her friend’s answering machine, then called her father, knowing he’d be up watching the news.

      Don Barnett picked up the telephone on the second ring and gave his customary gruff hello.

      “Hi, Dad. It’s Carly.”

      She heard pleasure in his voice. “Hello, beautiful,” he said. “All settled in?”

      Carly sat down in her desk chair and told her father all about her apartment and her new job.

      He listened with genuine interest, and then announced that Reggie was engaged to a nurse from Topeka.

      “It didn’t take him long, did it?” Carly asked. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected—maybe that Reggie would at least have the decency to pine for a month or two.

      Her father chuckled. “Having a few second thoughts, are you?”

      “No,” Carly said honestly. “I just didn’t think I was quite so forgettable, that’s all.” They talked a little longer, then ended the call with promises to stay in touch.

      Carly was feeling homesick when a knock sounded at her door. She had never been very close to her mother, despite the inordinate amount of time they’d spent together, but her dad was a kindred spirit.

      She put one eye to the peephole and sighed when she saw Mark standing in the hallway.

      She opened the door to the length of the chain and looked out at him uncharitably. “Aren’t you supposed to be participating in a crack-house raid or something?”

      He flashed one of his lethal grins. “That’s tomorrow night. May I come in?”

      The living room was still filled with unopened boxes, and Carly was wearing her pink bathrobe. Her hair was probably a mess, too. And this man had tried to get her fired just that morning.

      Despite all these things, Carly unfastened the chain and opened the door.

      Mark was wearing jeans and a navy-blue football jersey with the number “39” printed on it in white, and he carried a bouquet of pink daisies.

      Carly eyed them with a certain disdain, even though she secretly loved daisies. “If you think a few flowers are going to make up for the way you sandbagged me this morning—”

      Mark sighed. “I was trying to get Clark to move you to another assignment.”

      “I’ll be lucky if you didn’t get me booted out instead,” Carly replied. Grudgingly she took the daisies, carried them to the kitchenette and filled a glass with water.

      When she turned around, she collided with Mark, and, for several excruciatingly sweet moments, her body seemed to be fused to his. She was possessed by a frightening and completely unexpected urge to bare herself to him, to feel his flesh against hers.

      She shook her head as if to awaken herself from a dream and started to step around him.

      He pinned her against the counter, using just his hips, and Carly felt heat rise from her stomach to her face as he took the daisies and set them aside. His voice was a low, rhythmic rumble.

      “I’m not through apologizing,” he said, and then he bent his head and touched Carly’s lips tentatively with his own.

      She gave a little whimper, because she wanted so much to spurn him and could not, and the kiss deepened. He shaped her mouth with his, and explored its depths with his tongue.

      Even with Reggie, the man she’d planned to marry, Carly had been able to withstand temptation easily. With Mark, things were startlingly different. He had overridden her resistance, stirring a sudden and brutal need within her with a simple kiss.

      Carly found herself melting against her kitchen counter like a candle set close to a fire. She had a dizzy, disoriented feeling, as though she’d just stepped off some wild ride at a carnival.

      With a little chuckle, Mark withdrew from her mouth only to nibble lightly at the length of her neck. He cupped her breast with his hand, and beneath the terry cloth her nipple pulsed to attention.

      She moaned helplessly, and Mark lifted her onto the counter. Then he uncovered the breast he had aroused and began to suck gently on its peak.

      Carly drew in a swift breath. She knew she should push him away, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do that. What he was doing felt entirely too good.

      He traced her collarbone with kisses and then bared her other breast and took its pink tip boldly into his mouth.

      Carly gave a strangled groan and let her head fall back against the cupboard door. With one of her hands, she clutched Mark’s shoulder, and with the other she pressed the back of his head, holding him close to her.

      She clasped his waist between her knees, as though to keep from flying away, and when she felt his hand move down over her belly, she could only tremble. When he found her secret, and began to caress it with his fingers, she started and cried out softly.

      “Shh,” he said against her moist, well-suckled nipple. “It’s all right.”

      Carly, who had never given herself to a man before, sought his lips with her own, desperate for his kiss. He mastered her mouth thoroughly, then went back to her breasts. He continued his gentle plundering, and Carly’s heels rose to the counter’s edge in a motion of abject surrender.

      Mark kissed his way down her belly and wrung a raw gasp from her throat when he took her boldly into his mouth. He gripped Carly’s ankles firmly, parting her legs until she was totally vulnerable to him.

      A fine sheen of perspiration covered her body as he attended her, and her hair clung, moist, to her forehead and her cheeks. She writhed and twisted, murmuring nonsense words, while Mark drove her toward sweet damnation.

      She cried out at the fiery tumult shuddering through her body, surrendered shamelessly to the searing pleasure. And when it was over, tears of confusion and relief trickled down her cheek.

      Gently Mark released her ankles so that she