Authors: Jayne Castle
"I didn't...I never...!" Janna's furious defense was cut off abruptly as Adam closed the door. By the time he had circled the car and climbed in the other side she had decided not to talk to him at all, let alone defend herself. Who did he think he was to act as if the tension which existed between them was all her fault? He certainly had no right to make hateful remarks just because she had seen an acquaintance in the restaurant, either! Revenge was going to be sweet, she told herself, thinking of Nat's still-secret wedding plans. When Adam found out he had been tricked...!
Janna spent the entire trip back to her apartment imagining the satisfaction she would feel when Adam Halleck learned he had been harrassing the wrong woman while the man in question drove in thoughtful silence, making no attempt to reopen the conversation. As he pulled the car alongside the curb in a casually expert manner, Janna reached for the door handle, only to hear a sharp click as Adam locked it with a switch on his side of the car.
"I told you I didn't warn you proving your independence to me by bolting out of my car, remember?" he said evenly, turning in the seat and allowing one arm to stretch along the back of the upholstery.
The front seat of the large, luxurious vehicle suddenly seemed very small. Janna instinctively pulled herself back into her corner, but it didn't do much good. Adam still appeared to fill the entire interior, leaving no room for escape. She mustn't let him see he was frightening her, Janna told herself, lifting her chin and glaring at him with every ounce of willpower at her command.
"Well?" she demanded, "I'm waiting for you to do the gentlemanly thing, since you insist!" She watched him haughtily, not liking the steel gleam in Adam's eyes. A gleam just barely visible in the light of a streetlight. In the darkened car, he seemed very large, very menacing, janna had the fleeting thought that this was the first time in her life when she had felt physically intimidated by a man. Her own size and strength of will had acted as all the deterrent she had needed until now. What was he going to do? Kiss her? Not the woman who was supposed to be his own brother's girlfriend!
"I think," Adam began softly, the velvet thick in his voice, "That you owe me a proper thank you for the evening." Before Janna realized what he intended, her left arm was trapped against the sear by the weight of his body as he drew her toward him in a swift maneuver. She lifted her right hand, the fingers curling involuntarily into a small fist, only to have him catch it in his much stronger, callous-roughened fingers. He folded it against his chest as if in a loving gesture, ignoring her frantic efforts to wriggle free. The knowledge that she was being easily overpowered sent a shiver of genuine fear down janna's spine and her blue-green eyes widened with it as she gazed helplessly up at her captor.
"How could you do this behind your brother's back! He trusts you!" she snarled, using the only weapons she had left "Even if you think nothing of me, you must have some sense of shame about assaulting Nat's future wife!"
"If you were, indeed, going to marry him, I probably would be able to scrape up some tattered bits of a conscience," Adam whispered huskily, lowering his head until his mouth hovered just above hers.
"What do you mean? Of course I'm going to marry Nat!" Janna used the lie as a shield and wished desperately it wasn't such a flimsy barrier.
"I told you earlier this evening I would do anything I had to in order to keep that from happening." The grey-green eyes roved her face with what Janna would have sworn was a look of almost raw male hunger. But that couldn't be right! He wasn't interested in her personally, she reminded herself, only in keeping her away from Nat!
"Does that mean you would stoop to...to..." she choked, unable to speak the words.
"Stoop to seducing you?" he concluded for her, tightening his grip until Janna could hardly breathe. "Why, yes, my feisty little queen. When I want something badly enough, I let nothing get in my way. Didn't you realize that?" He swooped to take her lips, but Janna managed to turn her face into the expensive material covering his shoulder.
"Don't fight me, Janna." The steel was showing through the velvet now, Janna thought grimly, refusing to lift her head for his kiss. "You'll only get hurt," he warned her and then his mouth, nuzzling the side of her neck moved upward. Janna felt her vulnerable earlobe caught between sharp teeth and an instant later the painful nip Adam administered made her jerk her head away in an involuntary gesture. Before she could recover, his hard, bruising mouth had trapped hers.
The kiss was a fiercely plundering action, asking no response, but forcing compliance. Janna trembled beneath its impact, feeling as if her whole world was filled with Adam's physical and mental power.
"Adam! Please!" she gasped as his lips freed hers to seek out the soft areas of her throat. She hated the pleading in her words but knew she had no other defenses left.
"You have to learn," he growled softly against her skin.
"Learn?" Janna squeaked, trying and failing in her struggle to remove her arm from between Adam's rib cage and the back of the seat. "Learn what?"
"Whose woman you really are!"
The harsh, almost violently spoken words were ground out against the corner of her mouth, freezing Janna with their intensity, and then Adam's lips once again took hers.
When he finally lifted his dark head to gaze grimly down at her bruised and swollen mouth, Janna felt as if she had been branded. But it made no sense, her swirling mind protected. Adam didn't want her. He merely wanted to keep her away from his brother! How, then, could he kiss her as if she belonged not to Nat, but to himself? And why, now that she felt his hold loosen, couldn't she pull away from him? Every muscle in her body felt limp, she thought with horror, as if the physical side of her welcomed Adam's ravaging ways and had no wish to fight him. But Janna was not a weak-willed female who would tolerate the abuse and humiliation of such treatment without retaliation. Her mind knew she had been assaulted, even if her body refused to acknowledge it. With every ounce of will left to her, she swung her hand in a short, furious arc. The echo of the slap told her how hard she had struck Adam but it had been like hitting rock. Her palm stinging, she cradled it gently in her other hand, watching the harsh features for some sign of a reaction. That had been a stupid move, her brain announced chidingly. The man was quite capable of hitting her back. She should know by now he was no gentleman. But there was no place to run. The door was still locked and Adam's powerful body blocked the only exit,
For an unbearably long moment Adam simply watched her, the narrowed eyes giving no indication of his feelings. Janna waited tensely, knowing she was quite helpless if he chose to punish her. He could silence her immediately if she even attempted to scream.
"I hope," he finally said slowly, lips quirking in slight, mocking humor, "that you enjoyed that. It's the only free slap you'll ever get with me. The next one you pay for!"
"Since I won't ever go out with you again, it's highly unlikely I will ever feel the need to do it!" she retorted, her spirits returning as she realized he wasn't going to hurt her.
"Don't make rash promises that you won't be able to keep," he cautioned, the smile broadening. "I've decided to postpone my return to San Jose until Wednesday morning. I'll be here tomorrow night, Janna, and I want to see you."
"With such romantic ways about you, I don't know how I can bring myself to turn you down!" Janna quipped furiously. "But I am doing just that!"
"Even if I promise to deal with my brother for you?"
"What do you mean by that?" Confused, Janna eyed him suspiciously.
Adam shrugged. "Just that I know it will be hard for you to face him, even though it's obvious the two of you couldn't really be in love. I will explain the whole matter to him..."
"There's nothing for you to explain! What makes you so certain I'm not in love with your brother, anyway?"
"Whatever you felt for him is nothing to what I can and will make you feel for me. No woman who was deeply in love would be able to dominate her lover the way you do Nat. He didn't even blink today after lunch when you ordered him to meet you in the library. Anyone seeing the two of you together would have no doubts about who was in control. Therefore, it doesn't bother me in the least to come between you and Nat."
"If you're so convinced Nat and I don't belong together and aren't really in love, why not let things be? If you're right, we'll discover our 'mistake' soon enough!" Janna said, infuriated by his description of her treatment of his brother.
"I'm not willing to wait until nature takes it's course. There's always the chance the two of you will go ahead and do something stupid like getting married before you realize your error." Adam shook his head once in a short, adamant negative. "About tomorrow night, Janna..."
"I can't go out with you and I wouldn't if I could!" she informed him triumphantly, blue-green eyes glittering with satisfaction.
"Why can't you?"
"I'm working. Very late. Now will you open this door and let me out?"
There was a long silence as Adam studied her consideringly.
"Working, are you?" he finally asked.
"Yes!"
He moved, opening the door on his side of the car and unlocking hers in the process. Janna thought about jumping out before he could get around to her side of the vehicle, but decided against it. She had just scored a tiny point by being unavailable tomorrow night. Why risk further punishment?
Adam walked her up the sidewalk to her door in silence. In spite of herself, Janna wondered what he was thinking. As she unlocked her door and turned to face him from the other side of the threshold, he told her.
"It's going to be alright, you know, little queen," he said softly, surprising her with the conversational tone of his voice. She blinked at him, uncertain of his meaning.
"Oh, things will be a little rocky in the beginning, but sooner or later you'll realize you can't fight me and win. Then matters between us should settle down satisfactorily." He sounded so pompous, J anna thought, astounded. So sure of himself and of her!
"Adam Halleck you are an unrefined, uneducated, male chauvinist and I never, ever want to see you again!" Janna slammed the door in his face, locking it immediately. At least she'd had the last word, she thought, storming along the hall toward her bedroom. It was little enough to have salvaged from an otherwise disastrous evening!
Never had Janna been so happy to work an evening shift as she was on Tuesday. True, she was furious at the lack of personal courage which had driven her into leaving her apartment early that morning on the pretext of running several errands, but she had to admit she felt a good deal safer. There was no telling what Adam Halleck might take into his head to do, she told herself as she perched on the stool at the reference desk and awaited her first patrons of the evening. It had seemed prudent to stay away from the apartment most of the day until she left for work. The dramatic events of the previous evening were finally beginning to appear in a more realistic perspective, though, and when Nat Halleck happened by the desk, she was able to tell the tale with a touch of humor.
"At any rate," she concluded, "he's convinced you and I would make a lousy marriage and had the nerve to try a pass. Not a very subtle one, either, I might add. Tell me, does Adam have many women friends?" she added wryly.
"When he wants one, there always seems to be one available," Nat grinned, "but I don't think he treats them the way he's treating you. I always had the impression he was generous, even kind, to his female acquaintances. I've never known one to complain about his, er, passes!"
Janna winced. "Did he tell you anything about last night?" she demanded, half afraid to hear the truth.
"Oh yes," Nat assured her cheerfully. "I got the whole story, I think."
"What, exactly did that man tell you!"
"Well, I was led to believe that, although you hadn't fully realized it yet, it was only a matter of time before you belonged to him, lock, stock and degree!"
"Degree?"
"Yes, I gather you made a few unflattering references to his lack of formal education?" Nat didn't seem upset that she might have insulted his brother. In fact, he looked as if he were having a tough time keeping himself from outright laughter. "Something about turning your 'royal little nose' up at the car and concluding the evening by calling him, 'unrefined, uneducated and a male chauvinist'."
"He told you all that?" janna groaned, feeling a complete fool.
"Somewhere after he'd finished telling me that I couldn't possibly handle you and he, himself, was going to have his hands full accomplishing the feat!"
"Oh, my God!" Janna's head sank down onto her fist and the brilliant blue-green eyes closed tightly in mortification.
"Don't feel bad, janna! It's working beautifully. Adam is completely off the scent. His full attention is on you and he isn't even bothering to wonder if you might be a decoy!"
"I'm glad you're so pleased," she snapped, irritated. "I don't think I could take any more of this particular line of employment, however! He is still intending to leave in the morning, isn't he?"
"Bright and early," Nat confirmed lightly. "He has no choice, I gather. He has some business obligation to take care of tomorrow afternoon."