By the Book

by Mary Kay McComas

  “It’s beautiful on you,” he said, brushing the ends of her hair back over her shoulder, skimming the skin there as he went. “It would be a real shame to waste it.” He leaned forward and dropped sweet soft kisses down the curve of her neck and shoulder.

  Little shivers raced across her skin. “But what about the way I misled you?” Her arms felt rubbery as she pushed at him. “What about the real me and the way I pretended to be somebody I wasn’t? What if you don’t like the real me?”

  “Well, first off,” he said, brushing the thin strap from her shoulder—which she promptly replaced as he spoke—“I know the real you. I love the real you. And secondly”—he brushed the strap away again—“unless you’ve told me a flat out lie about yourself somewhere along the way, you haven’t deceived me or misled me, you were just embellishing.”

  “Embellishing?” She wasn’t really asking a question, just repeating the word. He was tracing the heart-shaped contour of the gown as it crossed her breasts, and the nerve endings in her brain were shooting sparks and shorting out one by one. How could she ask questions?

  “Mmm, embellishing,” he said, his finger in the valley between her breasts. They both watched as it began a slow ascent over the next slope. “Decorating the truth a little. People do it all the time to bolster their courage when they need a little extra. Like for job interviews or for meeting new people. Is this a mole or a freckle?”

  “Um ... a freckle.” It could have been a tarantula for all she knew; her head was swimming with sensation and excitement as his fingers slid lightly over her shoulder and down her arm.

  “I like it,” he said, pressing his lips gently to hers. Soft and sweet. He kissed the corner of her mouth, then one side of her chin, her lower lip, the little dip below it, watching as her eyes closed. His hand snaked under the gown and found her ankle. “Now me,” he said, slowly sprinkling kisses and moving his hand up her leg. “I prefer the ambush approach.”

  “Ambush,” she muttered mindlessly.

  “That’s right. When I want to meet someone, I watch them through the bank window for about a month. Watch the way they interact with other people. Watch the way they sit and stand and hold their head when they’re on the phone.” Her eyes opened slowly to meet his. “I notice how kind they are to people. How nice they are when they don’t have to be and ... I fall in love with them.”

  “You do?” Her hand stopped his on her knee.

  “Yes. I spend some time thinking maybe they’re too nice for someone like me, that they might not like me, but my love is so strong, I decide it’s worth the risk. Then I have a really hard time getting their attention. I wash the shop windows till they’re paper thin, hoping they’ll notice me. I hang out in the parking lot, hoping they’ll see me and smile, so I can run up and introduce myself. I smile when I think they’re looking my way, but they don’t see me—or they pretend not to. Then one day I get lucky. Flimsy grocery bags.”

  “You did all that? You were watching me? Smiling at me?”

  “For weeks.”

  She started to laugh, looping her arms about his neck, pulling him near, closing the small distance between them. Their lips met in joy that turned swiftly to passion, their hands grasping, skin warming as blood turned to fire in their veins. He pressed her back against the railing with just his lips, supporting his weight on one arm while the hand of the other slid up her thigh like a cool summer breeze ... in fact, she felt a cool summer breeze.

  “Jonah,” she said, turning her head from side to side, trying to evade his mouth and clear her mind at the same time. “We can’t do this here.” She started to laugh, and he kissed her again.

  “I’ll give you a two-second start,” he said, wrenching his mouth from hers as he pushed himself away.

  Her head was spinning. “Two?”

  “One.”

  Gathering silk in one hand, she used the other for support as she turned and scrambled up the stairs. He caught her half a second after she crossed into her apartment. His mouth was glued to hers before she heard the door close.

  She could feel his feet shuffling out of his shoes while his hands raced from her gown to the front of his shirt and back again as he feverishly tried to get them both naked immediately. Breathless with excitement and lack of air, she fumbled with his belt buckle.

  “I have a bed if you’re interested,” she said, laughing.

  “I’m not,” he said, pushing his pants to the floor and two-stepping out of them; reaching for her, pulling her near, palming and pressing her breast, his mouth everywhere he could find skin. The aching need in her swollen breasts turned to pure pleasure, dripping and oozing over her conscious mind like sweet, warm syrup. Her thoughts bunched together, grew thick and sticky and unintelligible.

  “But ... but what about my seduction?” she asked, feeling silk slide low on her breast and then off, gathering about her waist—his mouth exploring her inch by inch.

  “It’s perfect. It’s great. I’m lost. Captivated. God, you taste good.”

  She giggled, then inhaled sharply at the sudden jolt of bliss as he clamped down on her nipple. “But ... ah ... this isn’t ... it.”

  It was several seconds before he raised his head to look at her. “It’s not?” he asked, his voice raspy and strained. “Want me to stop?” She shook her head. “Okay, um ...” He glanced down at her bare breasts, swallowed hard, closed his eyes, tried to think. “Oh, I know,” he said, reaching for the teal blue gown—and since it wouldn’t go any lower, began to raise it up over her head. “We’ll take this off and save it for another time. I’ll seduce you.”

  She gave a soft laugh and cooperated with his endeavor, but long before she stood naked before him they both knew there would be no leading the other astray, no matter whose seduction it was. It was what they both wanted, what their hearts yearned to reach out and take, and give in return. In a sort of unreal moment when even the air around them seemed charged with some magical force that made their coming together seem as inevitable and right as the earth’s orbit around the sun, she placed her open palm on his chest, above his heart, to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Smooth, hard muscles strained against warm, soft skin; his heart hammered against her hand. ...

  His heart in her hand. It struck her as more than a metaphor as she met his gaze. The desire in his eyes matched her own. So did the love and the joy. But the fear that cast its shadow over his happiness was what her heart responded to most.

  She smiled at him, sure for the first time that she possessed something no other woman could give him. Her hand moved up his chest, curved around the back of his neck, and she kissed him, felt his hands sliding up her body as he cleaved to her in a passionate embrace. She would take the heart he offered her, hold it gently in her hands. She would protect it, soothe it, fill it with joy and laughter, teach it to trust. With all she was, she tried to tell him that his heart was safe with her.

  And maybe he understood. He wrenched his mouth suddenly from hers, his hand fisted in her hair, his breath coming hard and fast as he searched her face one last time in avid desperation for something he wasn’t even sure he’d recognize. But he did. He saw it. The love, the acceptance, the faith she had in him.

  He laughed out loud as he bent to scoop her up in his arms. She scattered kisses over his face as he carried her to the bed. He was aware of something busting loose inside him, bubbling and overflowing into every cell of his body. Rapture in its purest form, an unknown to him, and yet he recognized it instantly as something he needed in order to live—not just exist or survive on air and food and water as he had until that moment, but to truly live, with meaning and purpose.

  He laid her gently on the bed, looming over her briefly with a smile—a special, significant smile meant just for her—before he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her silly.

  Earl Blake passed away that night. Silently and, Ellen would always attest, in peace. For she believed that despite his seemingly unconscious state, some part of Earl Blake
had maintained residence inside that frail old body until the very last second, long enough for him to hear from her that his son would be well loved and cared for.

  Of course, Jonah was never too sure of this theory, never really sure about anything pertaining to his father. He left Quincey with almost as many questions as he’d arrived with about the man, and yet somehow his death and funeral were like a seal of closure for him. Along with his father’s body that day, he buried all his bitterness and resentment and with them went all notions of being unlovable, unworthy, and unacceptable.

  Naturally, Ellen helped with that too. She thought him completely lovable, absolutely worthy, and totally acceptable. So much so, she married him in the fall, just as soon as Felix presented an appearance acceptable for the wedding photographs—which she was lucky to have, it all happened so fast.

  With his hardship leave officially over, Jonah had to return to Washington. Three and a half weeks later he returned to Quincey. And, heart-stoppingly handsome in his dress-white uniform, he married Ellen on a Friday, then carried her over the threshold of his apartment in Anacostia, Maryland, that Sunday afternoon. For the next two months, every chance he got, he rambled with her from pillar to post, reseeing Washington through her eager eyes, even braving the frigid cold to watch the lighting of the National Christmas Tree.

  She breathed life into the musty old museums and historical monuments that he’d barely given a second glance; brightened and defined each gloomy overcast day so that at the end of each month he had a string of distinct, individual days that meant something, rather than a block of days that ran together in a blur, exactly alike and meaningless. She was so full of life, figuratively and literally, they’d recently—and most joyfully—discovered.

  “Guess who that was on the phone just now?” he said, bumping his way into the spare bedroom-cum-office with a pile of packing boxes. It still amazed him how quickly he’d gotten used to having her around, puttering around his things, in his life.

  “Who?” she asked, sitting on the floor, packing up the books she’d so recently unpacked and put on the shelf he’d cleared out for her. They’d found a house in Upper Marlboro with four and a half acres of land on which Jonah was eager “to grow many children.” She smiled warmly just thinking about it. He said he knew exactly what kind of father he didn’t want to be, and he was so impatient to begin.

  “Felix. He’s adding cell phones and pagers to his inventory.” He stretched out on the bed to watch her. It was his all-time favorite thing to do, watching her. “He says diversifying is the key to making that shop work, and he’s looking into computer software and maybe even a line of computers after that.”

  She chuckled. “That little shop isn’t going to hold him for long. Next thing you know, he’ll be knocking down walls, expanding into the next building, bringing in wholesale refrigerators and microwaves and making Fast Felix ads for television.”

  At least she hoped so. She was so proud of him—and he was so proud of his four-month AA chip that he carried it around in his pocket and showed it to everyone he knew, her mother had reported. Jonah asking him to take over the camera shop had been good for his ego too.

  “Yep. I think that’s part of the plan,” he said, watching her toss a handful of papers and brochures into the trash can. “Starring Mrs. Phipps as his best customer.”

  “Oh, she’d love that.” She dropped more stuff in the can.

  Earl’s little white house had reverted back to the Gunthers when he passed away. Denise offered to let Felix rent it from her, but with Ellen’s apartment being vacated and Mrs. Phipps so willing to mother and pamper him, he’d moved right in.

  “Absolutely,” he said, bellying his way to the edge of the bed to look into the trash can, since she seemed to be tossing more than she was packing. “Now that she’s fixing hot meals for him and Eugene, he says she really wants to rent out that last downstairs apartment so there can be an even number for dinner every night.” He reached into the can and removed a small green and white mini-book.

  “Man, I wish she’d cooked real meals when I was there,” she said, reaching for more papers and books to sort through. “Though eating with Eugene every night might have dampened my appetite quite a bit. I don’t know how Felix stands it.”

  “He says he’s not so bad, once you get used to him. Doesn’t talk much. Scurries back to his room the minute he’s finished eating,” he said, raising his head to give her a perplexed look. “You know, I can’t believe you’re throwing this away.”

  Glancing over her shoulder, she grimaced. “Oh. Give me that,” she said, snatching at the little green book, missing when he pulled his hand away. “Put it back in the trash. That thing has caused me nothing but trouble. I thought I threw it away back in Quincey.”

  “You did. I rescued it then too.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, a keepsake maybe. Besides, I like some of these,” he said, rolling onto his back, reading from the book as he held it above him. “ ‘Fill what’s empty. Empty what’s full. Scratch where it itches.’ That could be taken a lot of different ways. One way coming pleasantly to mind.”

  “Like you need a book to bring that to mind,” she said, getting to her feet and snatching at it again. He let the arm farthest from her fall to the bed with the book in hand. She’d have to climb over him to get it—which by the look on his face was exactly what he was hoping she’d do. “You think you’re pretty clever, don’t you?” He nodded and smirked, and she couldn’t bring herself to prove him otherwise.

  She walked across the bed on her knees, straddled his midsection, and sat none too gently. “Ugh,” he said with a whoosh of air. She leaned forward, pinning his arms to the bed.

  “I don’t need that little book anymore. I have everything I want right here. You. Our baby. A home.” She paused. “The most important step was the one they saved for last anyway, and I have it down pat.”

  “You do? What is it?”

  She bent her head and kissed him once and then again, and then she improvised, “Kiss your husband every day and he will want to stay and play.”

  He chuckled, though there wasn’t just amusement in his eyes. “I like it,” he said, and with no effort at all released his arms from their restraints to wrap them around her and hold her close to him. His mouth covered hers with fire and rain, hot and pelting. With equal enthusiasm she deepened the kisses, stretching her body flat atop his, his head in her hands.

  “Me too,” she murmured as he rolled her under him, nibbling and kissing and licking his away along her jaw and down her neck—one big hot hand splayed lovingly over her abdomen. Her mind grew dim under the onslaught of sensations, too many coming too fast to decipher individually. The taste, the smell, the feel of him mingled with the pounding of her heart, with the shiver of her nerves and the greedy, yearning throbbing deep inside her.

  She raised her head off the bed to press her lips to his neck. It felt too heavy and cumbersome for her neck to support, and she had to give up. Head back, chin in the air, she reveled in the pleasure, barely aware of the sharp edges of paper poking against her cheek—though it was vaguely distracting. Euphorically, she raised a hand, picked up the offending annoyance, and threw it in an unclear direction.

  The little green book sailed through the air, its pages ruffling like leaves in the wind. It came to rest sideways against the packing boxes, open to page 64.

  In finance, Chapter 11 is saved to talk about what to do when things go wrong, when plans fail, when disaster is imminent, when bankruptcy must be declared.

  Here, we’ve saved Step 11 for the same reasons, but also to set it aside as the most important step, to be learned in order to achieve your own happiness; to illustrate that all the other steps are useless and ineffective unless they are first coupled with the lesson learned in Step 11. Without it, nothing will ever be enough for you; no happiness will satisfy you; your heart will never know peace. And so ...

  STEP 11

&
nbsp; This above all, to thine own self be true

  And it must follow

  as the night the day

  Thou canst not then be false to any man.

  —William Shakespeare

  Be you. Be the best you can be. Be all that you can be. Make the most of who you are, because that’s all there is of you. Listen to your heart. Be honest with yourself. Your true happiness lies within you.

  A Biography of Mary Kay McComas

  Mary Kay McComas is an acclaimed romance novelist and the author of twenty-one short contemporary romances, five novellas, and three novels. McComas has received several honors and awards for her work, including the Washington Romance Writers’ Outstanding Achievement Award and two Career Achievement Awards from Romantic Times (one for Best New Author and another for Innovative Series Romance).

  Born in Spokane, Washington, the third child of six siblings, McComas graduated with a bachelor of science degree in nursing. She worked for ten years as an intensive care nurse. After marrying her husband and having their first child, the family moved to the Shenandoah Valley in northern Virginia, and McComas soon retired from nursing to raise her family, which included three more children.

  Throughout her childhood and into college, McComas battled undiagnosed dyslexia. As a result, she was an infrequent reader in her youth and early adulthood. It wasn’t until after the birth of her youngest son that McComas began reading for pleasure—books hand-picked by her older sister for their humor. Gradually, she branched out with her own choices, reading widely, until one book changed her life. “Eventually I bought IT. You know ... that one novel that even a dyslexic amateur can tell is poorly written, with no plot and horrible characters,” she explains. “I told my voracious-reader husband, ‘I can do better than this!’ And he said, ‘Then do it.’”