All Through The Night

“Tonight, let’s just be strangers,” she murmured

Then Nora rose up on her toes and pressed her mouth to his.

Pete’s reaction was instant and intense. With a low moan, he pressed her back against the door, covering her mouth with his and pinning her wrists above her head.

He wasn’t going to be sorry for this in the morning and neither would she—he’d make sure of that.

Slowly, deliciously, he seduced her with his tongue, moving from her mouth, to her neck, to the warm valley between her breasts. With insistent fingers, he tugged at her dress until the pink tip of her breast was revealed. He gazed at her with a hunger he’d never known, even as he told himself that she would probably soon put an end to this intimate adventure. Still…

Nora’s breath caught as he drew her nipple into his mouth, but rather than pull away, she melted into him, making him forget everything but the need to be deep inside her.

“How much further are you going to let this go?” he asked, his voice thick with desire. “Because if we continue, I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to stop.”

She looked up at him brazenly. “But what if I don’t want you to stop?”

Dear Reader,

It was a long time coming, but here it is—my first Blaze for Harlequin Temptation. Those of you who read my books regularly will be a little surprised, I’m sure. After all, I’m more known for writing humor than hot, steamy sex. But when my editor challenged me to try my hand at a Blaze, I couldn’t resist coming up with a story that was very sexy in both premise and execution. But nobody told me I couldn’t make it funny as well….

First thing, I needed a good recipe for this spicy treat. So I started with Nora Pierce, a very frustrated etiquette columnist who’s afraid she’s losing her sensuality to her alter ego, prissy Prudence Trueheart. Then I added sexy sports writer, Pete Beckett, a guy who has a way with women—and a way of showing up in every one of Nora’s private fantasies.

After I stirred in several other ingredients, such as secret identities and a one-night stand that turned into so many more, I came up with a story that I hope all of you will find sinfully delicious.

Enjoy,

Kate Hoffmann

P.S. I love to hear from my readers. Please write to me c/o Harlequin Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

Books by Kate Hoffmann

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

697—A BODY TO DIE FOR

731—NOT IN MY BED!

758—ONCE A HERO

762—ALWAYS A HERO

All Through the Night

Kate Hoffmann

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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To my editor Brenda Chin, who believes in me even when I don’t. You’re the best.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Epilogue

1

THERE WASN’T MUCH he liked about Prudence Trueheart. But he had to admit, he liked the way she moved.

Pete Beckett braced his arms along a low cubicle wall on the far side of the Bullpen, resting his chin on his hands. All around him, the employees of the Herald’s sports department rushed to make the noon deadline, frantically typing copy on computer terminals, the click of keys creating a familiar din. As a syndicated columnist, Pete met earlier deadlines, and his column was already out on the wire. And since he hadn’t decided on tomorrow’s subject, he found himself with nothing to do except ruminate on the physical attributes of the Herald’s uptight little etiquette columnist, Prudence Trueheart.

Though she always dressed in a tidy little suit and a prissy white blouse, starched board stiff, the body beneath the suit refused to comply with the outward image. To match the clothes, one might expect a ramrod-straight spine and a clipped gait, heels clicking on the floor, mouth pinched in a permanent expression of disapproval.

But the assumption would not be correct. Prudence possessed a fluid grace, her hips swaying ever so slightly with each step, her neck arched and her chin tipped up in subtle defiance. Her arms swung gracefully at her sides and her long fingers were delicately tipped in a conservative shade of cotton-candy pink.

And her mouth. Well, there was something about that mouth that made words of admonishment a waste of a pair of perfectly tempting lips. No matter how hard she tried to look like a Sunday School teacher, Pete couldn’t get past the urge to pull every last bobby pin from the knot of pale hair at her nape. Or maybe yank her into his arms and kiss her senseless. Or at least suck on a few of those pretty fingertips.

“Giving Prudence the evil eye will not get you that corner office.”

Pete turned to find Sam Kiley standing beside him, his gaze fixed on the same target. “Do you ever wonder what she’s like outside the office?” Pete asked. “I mean, does she wear those suits to bed? And is that little bun on the back of her head a permanent thing, or does she let her hair loose when she walks in the front door of her house?”

Prudence disappeared into her office, and Pete craned his neck to see inside the open door. He just couldn’t figure the contradiction. How could a woman with so much sensual presence, such an abundance of feminine appeal, be such a royal pain in the butt? This question had been bothering Pete for a long time, and though it begged an answer, he wasn’t about to get close enough to the prickly Prudence to find out what that answer was.

“If you’re really that curious, I suppose I could ask Ellie,” Sam offered.

Ellie, the former Ellen Wilson, happened to be Sam Kiley’s wife and the circulation manager for the Herald. She was also, coincidentally, Prudence Trueheart’s best friend. Ellie and Sam had met at the paper and married just a year ago.

“I’m not curious,” Pete lied, pushing back from the cubicle. He laughed dryly. “Why would I be curious about Prudence Trueheart?”

“She has a real name, you know,” Sam said.

“Pierce,” Pete murmured. “Laura—or is it Nora? Or maybe it’s Nola. We’ve had a few conversations over the years. Once when I took her parking space, and another time when she accused me of stealing her stapler. I even kissed her once at a Christmas party. And I think I’m the only one in the sports department who reads her little memos. At least, before I rip them off the refrigerator door.”

He couldn’t really blame Prudence. As the San Francisco Herald’s only other syndicated columnist, she really didn’t fit into any of the other departments at the paper. Prudence was an orphan of sorts and had been given the only available office commensurate with her salary and her value to the Herald. That office just happened to be in the sports department, though both she and Pete were coveting a huge corner office about to be vacated on the other end of the floor.

Hell, she might have had more luck with her memos in Lifestyles. Or even at the city desk. But trying to whip a bunch of rowdy sportswriters and footloose photographers into a polite group of co-workers was a near impossible task. Still, she never stopped trying. Every month, she posted a new memo about office etiquette in the lunchroom; from refrigerator hygiene to coffeepot protocol, there wasn’t a rule of polite society that Prudence Trueheart didn’t try to enforce.

But the Bullpen was called the Bullpen for a good reason. And it wasn’t populated solely by bullheaded men. The sportswriters and photographers at the Herald, male and female, were an odd lot, stubborn and single-minded in their love of any and all sports—and in their distaste for common courtesy. To some outsiders, they might seem like a bunch of arrested adolescents. But Pete liked the laid-back atmosphere and the daily games that began the moment the noon deadlines had passed. They worked hard and they played even harder.

He pushed aside thoughts of Prudence Trueheart, chiding himself for bothering to waste brain cells on her, then turned his attention to today’s competition. On Thursday, they always played baseball. Other days it was hockey or golf or basketball. The diamond was laid out among the desks in the Bullpen, and a plastic ball and bat made the competition safe for windows and other breakable objects. Today, the competition would be against Sam Kiley and his motley crew of city beat reporters, easy marks for the money that was often wagered.

Glancing at the clock, Pete headed for the lunchroom to retrieve the ball and bat from a closet. As he grabbed the equipment, he glanced over at the refrigerator. A new note on crisp Herald stationery had been posted in Prudence’s precise style. He stepped over and scanned the text. “‘Property Rights for Food Owners,”’ he muttered. Apparently, Prudence had had some yogurt that had gone missing a few days back.

Pete grabbed the paper and crumpled it in his fist. “Bottom of the ninth, game seven of the series. The bases are loaded and the winning run is at the plate. Beckett steps up into the batter’s box and the crowd goes wild.” He tossed the paper wad up into the air, then swung the bat. Prudence’s memo went sailing across the room, hit the wall, then dropped into a wastebasket.

“Grand slam home run!” Pete held up his arms and bowed before walking out of the room. By the time he reached the Bullpen, the teams had assembled and were eagerly awaiting the start of the game. He tossed the ball at Sam Kiley and stepped into the batter’s box. “Loser buys the beers at Vic’s tomorrow afternoon,” he called.

Kiley let the first pitch fly, low and away, and Pete took a swing, connecting with the whiffle ball and sending a line drive across the Bullpen—and right into the open door of Prudence Trueheart’s office. An instant later a scream split the air, and Pete dropped the bat. The guys looked at each other and then at Pete.

He winced. “Hey, I didn’t do it on purpose. That was a perfect line drive to right field. Ramirez didn’t make the catch.” He pointed at the sheepish sports photographer. “Error,” he muttered.

Sam held up his hands in mock surrender. “You hit it, Beckett. You’re the one who’ll have to apologize.”

Pete cursed softly. The last thing he needed was to be verbally dressed down by Prudence Trueheart, especially when he’d so recently fantasized about her mouth. Maybe if he just ignored his faux pas, she’d write another memo. But then, they only had one whiffle ball, and the game couldn’t continue unless he ventured inside her office to retrieve it.

“I’ll go,” he finally said. He felt the same way he had as a kid, when Sister Amalia, his Catholic school principal, called him in to her office after he’d sent yet another wild pitch through the rectory window. “If I’m not out in five minutes, send a rescue party.”

He crossed the Bullpen and slowly approached the office door. When he peeked inside, Pete expected to find a glowering Prudence, pacing her office like a hungry tiger, ready to tear him to shreds. Instead, he found her sitting on the floor next to her desk, rubbing her left brow. He quickly bent down and touched her ankle. “Are you all right?”

She looked up through watery blue eyes and blinked. The moment her gaze met his, Pete’s lungs slowly ceased to function and breathing became impossible. He’d spent a fair amount of time speculating about the woman who occupied this office, but with her hair mussed and her glasses removed, he had to admit that she was much prettier at close range. Her complexion was flawless, her profile nearly perfect. Her full lips were parted slightly and her breathing shallow. She had a mouth made to be kissed, and kissed deeply—and had she been any other woman, Pete might have given it a try at that very moment.

Instead, he swallowed hard. “Nora,” he murmured, his gaze dropping to her long, shapely legs and her trim ankles. Her name was Nora Pierce. He’d always thought of her as Prudence Trueheart, but now, with the scent of her perfume wafting through the air and the heat of her skin beneath his palm, she didn’t seem much like a Prudence anymore.

Clearing her throat, she fixed her eyes on the spot where his hand rested on her leg, where his thumb idly stroked the inside of her ankle. Her gaze narrowed, and she picked up the plastic baseball and held it out. “Mr. Beckett. I believe this is yours.”

Pete forced a smile. He snatched his hand away from her ankle, then took the ball from her fingers, feeling as if he’d just stuck his hand beneath Sister Amalia’s habit. “Thanks.”

Her eyebrow rose every so slightly, disdainfully. “And?”

“And?” His mind raced. And what? Thank you very much? Was that what she was waiting for, some kind of superlative? He scowled, then glanced from the baseball to her cool glare—and the faint bruise growing beneath her eye. “Oh. And. And I apologize,” he ventured. “I’m sorry. Truly sorry.”

Her expression softened slightly, and he bit back a massive sigh of relief. “Thank you,” she said. “Apology accepted. And maybe next time you could close my door before you begin your game?”

“Um,” he murmured, letting his gaze drift over her body, taking in the buttons of her suit. They looked as if he could undo them in just a few seconds. Somewhere beneath that drab fabric was a woman’s body, and from what he could see, it didn’t deserve to be trussed up in such a conservative outfit. Pete clenched his fists and pushed the idea aside, returning his gaze to her face.

Nora rubbed her eye, then sucked in a sharp breath. As she tried to stand, he gently pushed her back down. “Here,” he said, carefully pulling her fingers back. “Let me look at it.”

“Am I bleeding?”

He stared into her eyes, such incredibly blue eyes. Why had he never noticed her eyes before? Wide and innocent eyes. Tantalizing. Alluring. A host of adjectives tumbled through his mind. A man could lose himself in those eyes. For a moment, he couldn’t concentrate on anything else but the way her lashes fluttered, the way her honey-blond hair fell across her forehead; the soft pulse point just below her jaw that would feel so warm beneath his lips. She cleared her throat again, yanking him back to reality once more.

“No, you’re not bleeding,” he said. “It’s not so bad. Just a little black and blue. You can hardly see it.”

“Black and blue?” Nora moaned. “That can’t be.”

He shrugged, then stared at it more closely, probing at the bruise with a gentle touch. “You can put some of that makeup stuff on it, and no one will notice.”

“But—but I can’t have a black eye!”

A sharp laugh slipped from his throat before he could stop it. “Why? Do you have some hot date tonight?” When he saw the flush of embarrassment creep up her cheeks, he cursed himself soundly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have laughed.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” she murmured. “It was very rude.”

“I just never think of you…I mean, Prudence…Well, you know what I mean. I never think of Prudence as having much of a social life, beyond quilting bees and pinochle club.”

“I’m not Prudence,” she said in a soft voice, the hurt evident beneath the surface. “And—and maybe I do have a date tonight. Would that be so hard to believe?”

He let his palm rest on her cheek for a moment before he sat back on his heels. “Well, you’re going to have a nice shiner, Nora Pierce, if you don’t put some ice on that eye.” Pete reached out and took her hand, then helped her to her feet. “I’ll get something from the fridge. Why don’t you sit down? And don’t rub it. I’ll be right back.”

Nora nodded and managed a grateful smile, as he strode out of her office. The boys were gathered in a small group, ready to mount a rescue mission. But he waved as he passed, tossing them the ball. “She’s fine,” he said. “Carry on. I’m going to get some ice. I hit her in the eye.”

Fear froze the expressions of his co-workers, and they quickly scattered, heading back to work before they might be implicated in the injury of Prudence Trueheart. Pete grabbed the closest thing he could find to an ice pack from the refrigerator and hurried back to Nora’s office.

He found her leaning back in her chair, her eyes closed and her slender legs stretched out in front of her, crossed at the ankles.

“Here,” he murmured, bending over her, bracing his hand on the arm of her chair. “This should help.”

Nora opened her eyes and looked at the small package he offered. “That’s a frozen burrito.”

Pete shrugged. “Someone forgot to fill the ice trays.”

She took the burrito from his hand and carefully placed it over her eye. “Another breach of office etiquette—actually, two. Stolen food and empty ice trays.”

He covered her hand with his and adjusted the burrito over the bruise. An errant strand of hair slipped from the knot at her nape and brushed the back of his hand. He was acutely aware of how soft it felt. It probably smelled good, too. “Yeah, I guess that memo you put up must have fallen off the refrigerator already.”

“You tore it down, didn’t you,” Nora accused.

“Not me,” he lied. “But you have to admit, sometimes you are a little…”

“Pushy?” she asked. “Overbearing?”

“I was going to say ‘prissy,”’ he replied, stepping back before he was tempted to run his fingers through her hair and scatter the pins that held it in place. Actually, he was going to say “autocratic and oppressive.” But the vulnerability he saw in her eyes made him amend his opinion. Suddenly, he much preferred Nora Pierce’s gratitude to her disapproval. “Sports guys don’t like rules. The only thing that should have rules is a game.”

“Civilized society needs proper etiquette,” she countered. “If we have to live together, we have to respect each other. Good etiquette is a measure of that respect.”

“And twenty-seven rules posted on an office refrigerator tend to make us a little crazy.”

She sighed softly, tipping her head back and closing her eyes. “I don’t mean to make you crazy. I was just trying to be…helpful.”

His attention dropped to her mouth again, and he fought the impulse to lean closer and kiss away the traces of hurt he heard in her voice. He’d always assumed she was such a hard and calculating woman, an imperious force with a steel spine and ice water running through her veins. But in truth, Nora Pierce wasn’t at all like Prudence Trueheart. Sure, she was a little uptight and overly concerned with propriety. But beneath the stuffy facade, she was soft and vulnerable and incredibly irresistible.

“Maybe I could take you out to lunch,” he said. “By way of an apology.”

She sat up straight and pulled the burrito from her eye, regarding him with a suspicious expression. “Lunch?”

“Yeah, why not? That’s not against the rules, is it? Or didn’t I ask the right way. Should I have called first? Or maybe written you a note? I suppose I could have sent an engraved invitation, but my engraver is broken.”

Nora shook her head, the barest hint of a smile touching her lips. “I—I don’t think lunch would be such a good idea. After all, we work together. People might talk.”

Though it was a reputation built more on rumor than fact, Pete was known at the Herald as the resident Casanova, a fact that obviously hadn’t escaped Prudence’s notice. He didn’t put much effort into attracting women, but he always seemed to have at least two or three beautiful ladies on a string. Yet, over the past year, he’d found himself increasingly disenchanted with the women he dated—and the reputation he’d cultivated. Unfortunately, the reputation seemed to stick, and his personal life had become tasty fodder for the office gossips.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like women anymore. He still had the occasional date, but maybe he was getting too old for the singles scene. At thirty-three, he wasn’t exactly over the hill, but he’d come to the conclusion that a good relationship wasn’t only about great sex and a centerfold body. He just wasn’t sure what it was about.

Pete sighed. At the moment, he found himself wanting lunch with Nora Pierce, odd as that seemed. “It’s just a simple lunch,” he said with a grin. “What could they possibly say about you and me having a burger together?” Though he meant the question rhetorically, he saw another trace of hurt in her expression, then realized how she’d taken it. Of course, a quiet lunch with Prudence Trueheart couldn’t possibly end in anything other than dessert and separate checks. She had her reputation, too, and it was spotless. But her reaction came out of left field, and he wasn’t sure if he should apologize or rephrase.

“I—I’m not hungry, but thank you, anyway,” Nora replied, her voice suddenly cold and distant. She held out the burrito. “Here, you better put this back in the freezer. I wouldn’t want anyone to miss it.”

Pete slowly shook his head and took the burrito. For a few minutes, he’d thought he’d managed a truce of sorts with Nora Pierce—maybe even the beginning of a friendship. But after sticking his foot in his mouth, not once but twice, he realized that the woman before him would be a tough sell. If discarding his reputation meant losing his touch with women, maybe he’d have to rethink his options.

“Fine,” he murmured. “But if you change your mind, just let me know.” He walked to the door, then turned around to take one last look. She watched him from behind her desk, her blue eyes wide. He should have insisted on lunch, or at least been insulted by her refusal. But something told him not to burn any more bridges with Nora. “I’ll…see you later.”

She nodded curtly, then picked up a file folder from her desk and efficiently spread the contents out in front of her. When she’d managed to ignore him for a full ten seconds, he silently walked out of her office, closing the door behind him.

The teams had reassembled in the Bullpen, and the game had started up again with Sam Kiley’s team at bat. As he walked back to his spot in the infield, he caught a foul ball and threw it to the first baseman.

“So? What happened?” Sam asked.

“The hell if I know,” Pete murmured. “I’m usually pretty good at figuring out women, but Prudence Trueheart is one confusing lady.” He took his place as shortstop, rubbing his palms on his thighs. His mind drifted back to the feel of her skin beneath his fingertips. It wasn’t going to be so easy to write off Prudence Trueheart—or Nora Pierce, for that matter. Besides confusing and capricious and condescending, he found her incredibly intriguing.

And it had been such a long time since Pete Beckett had found any woman intriguing.

Dear Prudence Trueheart,

My boyfriend and I have been doing the nasty from the night of our first date. The sex is fantastic, but now that our wedding date is approaching, I’d like to practice celibacy to make the wedding night special. How can I convince my horny fiancé of my decision?

Signed, Steadfast in San José

Nora Pierce read the letter over again and again, crossing out the word horny and replacing it with ardent, then trying to come up with a euphemism for the nasty. But the edit couldn’t possibly change the tone of the letter. This wasn’t etiquette! This was a country-and-western song. A bad talk show topic. Beauty parlor gossip. She sighed and rubbed her forehead. When she’d taken the job as Prudence three years ago, she’d been hired to answer questions about gracious living. But all that had changed on April Fool’s Day six months ago.

On a lark, she’d answered a silly question from a cross-dresser who wanted to know whether he should ask his wife’s permission first before borrowing her underwear or whether the lingerie was community property. Her answer dripped with sarcasm and disapproval, and she’d published it to illustrate the limits of true etiquette. “The only excuse a man has for not wearing proper underwear is if he’s not wearing any underwear at all!” she’d written. “And the only places where underwear can be considered an option is in the shower and the doctor’s office.”

That single, silly column had been the end of her noble life as an etiquette columnist. The phone lines lit up and the fan mail poured in to all the newspapers across the country that carried her column. Her readers wanted more—more dirt, more trash, more sleaze. And more of Prudence’s sharp-tongued reprimands and subtle put-downs.

“Great column yesterday!”

Nora glanced up. Her publisher, Arthur Sterling, leaned into the doorway of her office, a broad smile on his face. Though he rarely descended from the twelfth floor, he’d been seen more often lately in Prudence’s vicinity. Though a more naive columnist might believe they’d become friends, Nora knew that Arthur Sterling had no friends. He had assets and opportunities. And he wanted her to agree to syndicated television spots as “Prudence.”

He chuckled and nodded his head. “Sex, that’s what sells. I just got off the phone with Seattle. They want the column. And Biloxi and Buffalo are in negotiations as we speak.” Arthur gave her the thumbs-up. “Good work! And I’m still waiting for your answer on that television deal.”

“Thank you,” she murmured. But he was already gone, on to some other profit center, some other opportunity that was going to pad his already sizable bank account. To him, Prudence wasn’t a beacon in a sea of chaos, a behavioral standard. She’d become dollars and cents. More trash meant more readers. And that meant more money for her syndicated column. Etiquette is part of the past, he’d told her. It might have been all right for the first Prudence Trueheart in 1921, but the world was changing.

If only she’d never written that April Fool’s column. Since then, Sterling had insisted she devote at least three columns a week to “modern” problems—questions on morality and relationships. Her monthly appearance on Good Morning, San Francisco, a popular television show, had turned from table settings and wedding etiquette to advice for the lovelorn.

With her sudden rise to popularity, she had become a celebrity around town. For every moment that Nora felt as if she were prying into her readers’ personal lives, her readers seemed to intrude on hers. The grocery store, the dry cleaners, even the dentist’s office—all had become venues for advice sessions. And her readers seemed to cherish Prudence’s impeccable behavior even more than she did, always watching her, waiting to catch her in a manners misstep or a moral backslide! Prudence was supposed to be pure of heart and filled with virtue.

To ensure the purity of Prudence, her publisher had even included a morals clause in her contract. Prudence didn’t curse or chew tobacco. She didn’t wear revealing clothes or frequent biker bars. And she certainly didn’t sleep around! That final point hadn’t taken much effort on her part. She could barely remember the last time she’d been with a man, in the biblical sense.

Nora groaned and buried her face in her hands, shaking her head. Her lack of contact with the opposite sex had become painfully obvious in her unbidden reaction to Pete Beckett’s touch. And since she’d been beaned by that baseball, she’d been having a difficult time keeping her mind on work, preferring, instead, to dwell on the color of Pete Beckett’s eyes and the warmth of his smile.

She thought back to their conversation, to her disturbing reaction to his touch, to the feel of his gaze on her body. She replayed the incident, trying to remember every detail and every word spoken. “‘Prissy,”’ she murmured. Is that really what he thought of her?

She silently scolded herself and snatched up another letter. Nora had always found a certain comfort in Prudence’s world, a place where there were rules and obligations, where people behaved with propriety and decorum. And where scoundrels and rogues like Pete Beckett saw the error of their ways, settled down with one woman, and lived blissfully ever after in legal and loyal matrimony.

But Prudence wasn’t going to hold her breath on that front. The paper’s golden boy, Beckett, was charming and handsome and a confirmed reprobate. He was everything Prudence Trueheart preached against: a man practiced in the art of seduction and an expert in avoiding commitment, the typical bad boy that Prudence found so troubling—and other women found so irresistible.

Though she never deliberately listened to office gossip, what she did overhear was probably mere speculation. Or pure exaggeration. But from the soft moans and furtive giggles from the female members of the staff, she had to believe that some of what she’d overheard was true—enough to spend a small portion of each day wondering just what Pete Beckett did to a woman once he got her behind the bedroom door. Not that she’d ever find out. When they did bother to communicate, Nora regarded Pete Beckett with thinly disguised disdain, and Pete regarded Nora with mocking amusement.

Still, it wasn’t hard to imagine the power he could wield over women, considering her own reaction to his touch. He had beautiful hands, long fingers and a firm, but gentle, touch. A shiver skittered down her spine, and she thought about how those hands would look as they slowly undressed her, how they might feel on her flushed skin, all the improper things he might do to her body, given the chance.