His thumbs rubbed her palms suggestively. Amanda felt the hairs on her neck rise. “I’m looking forward to finding out just how well-shaped you are.” He brought her fingers to his mouth and brushed his lips gently over them, his breath electrifying the nerve endings of her fingers.
“Although I have to admit,” he continued, appraising her from under thick, dark lashes, “from what I see already, you are in great shape.”
“Oh, come on, Antonio, you know you’re a good looking man…”
“Ace, you’re being too good to me. Well, maybe not too good, just yet.” The sparkle in his eyes was totally teasing, seductive enchantment. “And I’m really glad you like the way I look. Coming from a fine artist, that’s high praise.” He paused.
He was the most changeable man, Amanda noted again, as his dark eyes flickered away from her and then resolutely returned.
“But I’m a lot more concerned about what you think of me,” the mischievous grin returned, “with my clothes on. Because I think you are…”
“Well, well, well, what a pleasant surprise.”
The voice boomed down at them from the great-coated figure that suddenly loomed over their table. Whipping off the dark fedora, he revealed a handsome older face with a salt and pepper Van Dyke beard.
“David.” The young man’s voice was tight.
“Mr. Parkerson, what a surprise,” Amanda said.
“But I’m afraid you’re keeping our Miss Emerson up much too late…Antonio.” The instructor turned pleasantly toward Amanda. “Didn’t you tell me your position required you to be at work early?” Amanda had the embarrassed feeling she had just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She looked to the young model for support but his dark eyebrows were knitted tightly together as he stared angrily at the instructor.
Parkerson looked from one to the other, then began to take off his coat. “I see you’ve finished eating, perhaps we can all have a quick good-night cup of coffee and then we’ll see about putting Miss Emerson in a cab to her apartment.”
He smiled comfortably at the nonplussed couple as he smoothly slid into the booth next to the model and gestured to catch the waiter’s attention.
Chapter 4
THE APARTMENT door slammed with a crash.
“It’s after one! For God’s sake, you’ll wake the neighbors,” David Parkerson admonished.
Marc’s tone was low and deadly. “I don’t care if I wake the goddamned dead! If you ever do that to me again, David…”
“Is that how you supposedly ‘gather information'?” The instructor’s harsh sarcastic tone brought the scowling young man up short. “Is your intelligence totally located in your…”
In a flash Marc’s powerful grip seized the collar of the older man’s great coat and lifted the wearer to his tiptoes.
“Don’t you ever use that tone talking about Ace, David, or I swear…” He brandished his other fist in front of the stunned face. “Or I swear I’ll show you where my intelligence does lie.”
“Ace?” David Parkerson tried a stumbling attempt at maintaining the upper hand. “The girl’s name is Amanda Emerson. Don’t tell me you’re already into cozy diminutives. What does she call you, her ‘big and brave and handsome Romeo’? You’ve got to stop this thing now.” His voice took on a pleading, mollifying tone. “You know that, don’t you?”
His eyes flicked back and forth between Marc’s still-scowling countenance and the clinched fist. “You… you wouldn’t… really…”
With a sharp exhalation of exasperation, Marc released his powerful hold. “I haven’t in a long time, have I?” He started to turn away and then spun back. “And you deserve being knocked around now the same way you did then, no matter how much older and supposedly smarter you are now.”
He gave an irritated snort and pulled the tangle of dark curls from his head. “Sneaking around in the shadows like some tacky made-for-TV thriller all the way from Columbus Circle. Cheap theatrics.” His scrubbing fingers raised his flattened, neatly-cut, dark-blond hair released from underneath the wig.
“You knew I was following?”
“It’s my job, David. What I normally do for a living.” Marc tossed a baleful look over his shoulder as he carefully pulled the net base of the wig over a head-shaped form. “I do not normally bare my ass and everything else in hopes of routing some self-centered, self-important artist from his million-dollar lair.”
“I didn’t intend to follow you,” David expostulated, shucking his great coat. “I happened to get on the same subway car as you and Emerson. At first it was charming to see how totally taken she was with you, but then I realized you seemed to be just as smitten with her. I had this feeling in class,” he interjected, trying to suppress his accusing tone, “but I couldn’t believe you would…”
Suddenly he stopped. “From Columbus Circle? You knew I was following all along?” There was a surprised hint of additional respect for the young man’s subtle observational abilities.
“From the moment you got on the subway.” Marc’s pinched eyebrows evened out and lifted as he spread his eyelids with his thumb and forefinger and gingerly popped the dark-colored lenses from each eye, revealing clear blue irises.
And from the moment she got on the train, too, he remembered, a moment of pleasure suffusing his tense body.
He blinked, his pupils narrowing at the added light. “At least you could see. I felt like I was stumbling around Washington Square in a blackout. Okay, cards on the table time.” He placed the fragile lenses carefully away in a plastic case and went into the kitchen area off the living room. “You don’t want me getting involved on a personal basis because I haven’t exactly had a great history of handling my women as well as I do my cases.”
Marc pulled two beers from the refrigerator, snapped off the tabs of both cans and returned to place one, along with a glass, in front of the frowning instructor.
“Nothing interferes with a case, David, nothing,” he said, his voice cold. He took a deep swallow of the dark ale, gripping the cold aluminum tightly, feeling the tangy sting sharpen his taste buds and, hopefully, cut through his annoyance with himself. Something had interfered with his concentration. He had let down his guard. He didn’t need David to tell him. Her brown eyes flecked with glints of auburn and gold had shone through the color-dulling tint of the dark contacts and settled deep inside him.
He slumped into a nearby easy chair, legs wide, his finely tuned body collapsed. He remembered the rapt attention she had given to his 50-cent Village tour; the open enjoyment of what must have been his erratic company. She had seemed totally entranced and had even hinted at having a more extensive “tour” later.
He had lapped it up like a hungry dog. He had been taken in, he sharply rebuked himself, because he had wanted to be taken in, because he was so totally taken by her.
Marc sighed. His powerful shoulders sagged.
David pressed his advantage. “It’s important that we keep focused on the enterprise at hand.” His conciliatory professorial tone caused the dejected young man’s angry countenance to soften. “I don’t mean to interfere with your personal life, Marc. Yes, I know you don’t like being reminded, but we have been through this before. If the charming Ms. Emerson turns out to be our evil doer, though of course I don’t think she could possibly be, I don’t want you getting,” he took a contemplative swallow from his glass, “upset.”
Marc released a short, harsh laugh.“Upset? David, you do know how to slam a busted heart into the most innocuous cubby hole, don’t you?”
Where it will curl up and heal hopefully, he added to himself. Though there was a good chance it would curl up and atrophy. It had seemed for a brief moment that the golden brown eyes might have been able to bring him to full life again.
He stood, kicked off his shoes and began unbuttoning his jeans. “I do not need protecting, in your best Spanish duenna mode, from the clutches of a sloe-eyed seductress from Pittsburgh.” He smoothly thumbed the well-fitting denim down his muscular thighs, off his legs and onto a nearby chair, followed by his pair of heavy gray work socks. The white cotton jockey shorts remaining on his body contrasted sharply with his deeply-tanned skin.