If A Man Answers

by Merline Lovelace

  “Why don’t you put your hands over mine?” he suggested in the same, low rumble.

  Trembling with anticipation, Molly uncurled her fists and laid her palms over the backs of his hands where they gripped the bar.

  “Now lift.”

  She pulled herself up, just enough for his thighs to slide under hers. Her skirt bunched at her hips. The zipper of his jeans rubbed against her panties.

  And still he didn’t touch her! They were thigh to thigh, breath to breath, and he didn’t let go of the damned crossbar.

  It only took one flex of Sam’s biceps for Molly to understand why. He pulled downward. The steel cables behind her rattled. The weights clanked upward. The bar lowered, and Molly came down with it. Spread wide now, she pressed even more intimately against the ridge that had formed under Sam’s jeans.

  He kept her there, straddling his hips, until she turned liquid. Then slowly, so slowly, he let the bar...and Molly...rise. The exquisite, erotic pressure eased. Before she’d steadied her senses, he brought her down again.

  Then again.

  And again.

  “Sam!” she gasped as the molten fire spread from her belly to her breasts to her brain. “We need to...shed some clothes...before I explode.”

  “No, we don’t.”

  The rough edge to his voice rasped like a file on her jagged senses. That, and the way Sam slid one hand free of hers to unsnap his jeans. She barely heard the sound of his zipper over the thundering of her pulse. Her skin jumped when he tugged her panties sideways across her wet, slick flesh.

  Flexing his thighs, he positioned himself under her. Molly slid slowly onto his rigid shaft. The sense of joining was so profound, so complete, that she decided then and there not to waste her money on unnecessary furniture. Instead, she’d invest in a Universal gym for every room of her house. His house. Whichever house they happened to occupy at the moment.

  Slowly, Sam pulled her into a seductive rhythm. Down, up, down. The weights rattled. The cables whirred. The leather bench slicked under their hips. Too soon, Molly felt herself start to spin, higher and tighter.

  When Sam’s thighs flexed under her, she knew she was close to the edge. She couldn’t stand the thought of going over without touching him, without tasting him. Abandoning the crossbar, she fumbled with the buttons on his cotton shirt. Three gave. Two popped loose under her frantic hands. When she bared as much of him as she could manage, Molly wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

  When her climax came rushing upward, she did a little flexing of her own. Her muscles clenched with a skill that surprised her and wrung a groan out of Sam. He splayed his hands on her hips, driving her down, down. His body thrust up, taking her with it.

  She let out a sound somewhere between a sob and a screech. Light and dark together in a kaleidoscope of pure, pulsing pleasure.

  Molly drifted back into awareness sometime later. She wasn’t sure exactly when she and Sam had abandoned the hard, narrow bench for the hard, flat floor. Or when they’d jettisoned most of their outer clothes. She was sure that she’d never, ever, experienced such bone-melting, soul-shattering union.

  She propped herself up on one elbow, drinking in the sight of the man sprawled beside her. He looked like some big mountain cat lazing in the sun, those lethal muscles slack under his sleek, tanned hide. His dark hair stood in short spikes. His right shoulder carried two little red crescents where her fingernails had unintentionally gone too deep.

  She bent over and touched her mouth to the marks. He grunted, an indistinguishable male sound that could have been an invitation to continue or a warning that he hadn’t recovered full consciousness yet. Molly smiled and decided to test the waters.

  “About that couch...?”

  “It’s yours,” he muttered, not opening his eyes.

  “Why don’t we...?”

  She hesitated. She’d never propositioned a man before, much less a man as complex, as aggravating, as intoxicating as Sam Henderson. One of his lids squinched open. Through the screen of his lashes, he squinted up at her.

  “Why don’t we what, Mol?”

  She could do this. She could take the next step. She could tell him that she wanted him in her life. In her bed. In her heart.

  “Why don’t we share it? The couch, I mean.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. Well...” Her fingertip traced a dark swirl. “Yes.”

  “Okay.”

  With that, he closed his eye again and gave every appearance of a man whose only concern at that moment was catching a few z’s.

  Molly’s hand stilled. Her ridiculously thumping heart gave a small thud.

  That was it? She’d just suggested that they take up joint occupancy for some unspecified period in the near future, and all he had to offer in reply was a single, laconic ‘okay’?

  Well, what had she expected? A rapture of delight? A passionate declaration of undying love? She hadn’t exactly gushed over the idea, either. And, a nagging little voice reminded her, she’d been the one to pull back before, to suggest they take this slow.

  Contrarily, she now wanted Sam to press her for a more definite commitment. Or at least show some signs of wanting one. She sat up, giving the curl of dark hair wrapped around her finger an annoyed tweak in the process. That, at least, got both his eyes open.

  “Ouch!”

  “Sorry,” she muttered, groping for the puddle of bronze knit that was her dress. “If you can stay awake long enough to turn on the VCR, I want to watch that video.”

  “Right. The video.”

  Sam dragged on his jeans, fighting the resistance that caught at him with the force of a tail hook hitting the arresting barrier. He didn’t want to watch the damned tape. More to the point, he didn’t want Molly to watch it and follow through with her harebrained scheme of confronting a possible killer.

  He’d learned his lesson, though. She’d warned him in her blunt, inimitable style that she didn’t respond well to a firm hand on the reins. Hell, to any hand on the reins. She’d offered to share an as-yetundefined part of her life with him in the form of his leather sofa. Sam wasn’t going to jeopardize that hesitant offer by pointing out again the idiocy of what she planned to do.

  He didn’t have to like it, though.

  He liked it even less when the color faded from Molly’s face as Josh Walters’s smooth, cultured voice rolled across the room.

  “...the welfare reform bill I introduced last year does guarantee every person’s right to a job.”

  The scene faded. An American flag fluttered. The announcer came on, and a trailer appeared at the bottom of the screen announcing the congressman’s upcoming public appearances.

  “UNLV,” Molly muttered as the printed message flashed by. “Thursday, September eleventh. That’s tonight!”

  They’d missed that opportunity, Sam thought with grim satisfaction.

  Her eyes narrowed on the scrolling words. “Saturday, the thirteenth, at the Nellis Officers’ Club, 8:00 p.m. Tuesday, the sixteenth, at the Cashman Field Center, right before the baseball game....”

  She’d seen enough. Spinning around, she pinned Sam with a look that challenged him far more than the mild question that came with it.

  “Can I get onto the base without a military ID?” The cops at the front gate could issue her a pass, but they both knew she wouldn’t need one. She wasn’t going anywhere without him. Sam conceded with something less than grace.

  “My car has a sticker,” he said gruffly. “I’ll drive. I’ll also call out to the base tomorrow and find out whether the appearance is purely political or in conjunction with some official function. You,” he instructed, trying not to let it sound too much like an order, “had better call Kaplan and advise him what we’re doing.”

  Molly hugged that “we” to her chest as Sam scooped her up and hugged her to his chest. Disagreement was stamped all over his strong, rugged features, but he’d passed the test.

  By unspoken ag
reement, Molly spent the rest of Thursday night in Sam’s bed. She then spent most of Friday morning avoiding Davinia’s smug glances and unsubtle questions about when she and Sam intended to tear down the oleander hedge and merge their properties.

  “We haven’t gotten to any discussion of merging yet,” Molly finally informed her persistent boss. “We’re only at the your-place-or-mine? stage.”

  Davinia dropped into the chair in front of Molly’s desk, kicked off her three-inch heels, and crossed her ankles on top of the desk with a slither of expensive stockings.

  “Honey, I’m working on husband number four. You keep moving at this pace and you might not bag number one before you’re forty.”

  “For heaven’s sake, I’ve only known Sam for a little more than a week. Well, I’ve known him for longer than that, I suppose but only known him for...” She threw up her hands. “Okay, okay, I’ve known him long enough to recognize that he’s special.”

  “Special.” Her boss rolled her eyes. “He’s trophy quality, Mol. And I’m not just referring to those awesome abs or preposterous pecs. If it were me, I’d already have him stuffed and mounted.”

  “I’m sure you would. I’m not the great white hunter you are, though. After my last, disastrous fling with love, I’m taking things more slowly.”

  “More slowly?” Davinia huffed in derision. “You’re moving at the speed of road kill.”

  “Besides,” Molly added, ignoring the gibe, “Sam has a few issues of his own to work through before he lets himself get, uh, stuffed.”

  The older woman cocked her head. Her shining, blunt-cut platinum hair feathered across one shoulder. “Like what?”

  “Like a tendency to issue orders, for one thing.”

  “And?”

  She hesitated, knowing how closemouthed Sam was about his injury but needing to share her own, growing worry for him.

  “And a pain that keeps him awake and prowling all night sometimes.”

  Her boss’s feet slid off the desk and hit the floor with a well-mannered thump. Genuine concern filled her turquoise eyes. “What kind of pain?”

  Briefly, Molly recounted the few details Sam had told her of his accident.

  “He shrugs off any discussion of his headaches, but he did tell me that he has to meet another medical evaluation board in a few months. I didn’t understand all the Air Force jargon. All I know is that he’s on some kind of a temporary retirement or suspension list. If his condition doesn’t improve, this medical board will put him out to pasture permanently.”

  Davinia’s legal antennae snapped to attention. “He can fight a permanent discharge. He’s not completely incapacitated. If he can’t fly, he can certainly serve in some other capacity.”

  Molly shook her head. “I don’t think he’ll do that.”

  She’d gained enough insight into Sam Henderson in the past week to know he wouldn’t put himself back in uniform when those blinding headaches could hit him at any moment.

  “Tell him to call me,” her boss suggested briskly. “I know an attorney who specializes in worker’s comp and on-the-job injury cases. He might know something about the military system. If he doesn’t, I’m sure he can find someone who does.”

  Molly felt a rush of warm gratitude, remembering how only a few days ago Davinia had offered to involve her ex-husband in a lawsuit on her behalf against her pesky neighbor. Now she was ready to take up that same, pesky neighbor’s cause. Her boss was nothing if not generous-hearted.

  “Thanks, I’ll tell him.”

  Davinia got up to leave a few moments later. Sighing, she reported that she was having lunch with Antonio at the health food eatery in the spa where he worked.

  “Can you believe it, he’s actually got me enjoying bean sprouts?”

  Molly could believe it. From the droll expression on her boss’s face, she guessed it wouldn’t be long until Davinia had the handsome Spaniard stuffed and mounted. Mounted, anyway.

  Smiling, she reached for the phone. She’d promised Sam she’d call Detective Kaplan and tell him about Walters’s appearance at the Nellis Officers’ Club tomorrow night. Might as well get it over with. He’d probably raise the same objections Sam had to Molly’s planned expedition.

  To her surprise, he didn’t. When he called back some hours later, he turned the idea over, examining it from all angles.

  “It might work,” he said at last. “We’ll wire you. If you startle any kind of a reaction out of him, we can move in. What time is this big event?”

  “Eight o’clock. Sam called this morning to make sure.”

  “What kind of function is it?”

  “It’s a formal banquet in honor of the Air Force’s anniversary. Walters is the guest speaker. Supposedly, he’s going to use the occasion to unveil the second of his three new strategies for protecting jobs and growing industry in his district, which includes the base.”

  “Tell you what. I’ll bring one of our specialists by your place before you leave for this banquet tomorrow to fit you with the wire, then we’ll go to this party with you.”

  “All right.”

  “Since we’ll be on federal property, I’ll have to coordinate my presence with the base. The top cop out there’s a pretty cool head. He’ll give us whatever backup we need...if we need it.”

  The grim possibility gave Molly pause. Suddenly, the prospect of going face-to-face with Walters didn’t hold quite the same appeal it had before. She hung up a few moments later, alternating between a guilty regret at having started down this road and a determination not to chicken out.

  As she’d anticipated, Sam didn’t like the idea of Kaplan outfitting Molly with a wire any more than he liked the idea of her confronting Walters. She told him about it later that evening over a candlelit patio dinner of chicken and mushroom crepes, compliments of a French restaurant she’d stopped at on the way home. The bottle of light, fragrant pinot blanc came compliments of Sam’s well-stocked assortment of California wine.

  Sam, she noticed, had barely touched either the crepes or the wine. The flickering candlelight didn’t disguise the lines bracketing his mouth. Nor did Buck Randall’s soft lament, which Molly had suggested for background music when she’d taken in Sam’s rigid shoulders.

  “Kaplan is as crazy as you and your boss if he thinks someone like Josh Walters is going to say anything incriminating in public.”

  “He’s reaching, Sam, just as you and Antonio were last night when you tossed around that impersonator bit.”

  “That’s a lot more plausible than having you waltz into the club and spook Walters into a confession.”

  “I suggested the possibility of an impersonator standing in for Walters to Kaplan. He’s going to nose around, see if any of the actors on the Strip know of an act like that.”

  “Oh, great.” Sam’s fork clattered onto his plate. “If Walters didn’t know that he’s under suspicion before, he soon will. Why not just post a notice on the marquee in front of Caesars?”

  They both knew the detective would handle the inquiries discreetly. Molly didn’t try to argue the point, however. Her heart ached for the man across the table. Like the fabled character in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, Sam’s darker side was in ascendancy. Unlike Dr. Jekyll, though, he wouldn’t let the Mr. Hyde side of his personality win control of his being. He’d fight the stabbing pain with everything he had in him.

  Searching desperately for a way to help him with the continuing battle, Molly steered the conversation away from the contentious issue of tomorrow night into less provocative channels.

  “Speaking of my crazy boss, Davinia mentioned that she has a friend...an attorney...who specializes in claims for on-the-job injuries. She offered to get in touch with him for you if you want representation when you go before this medical board you told me about.”

  Sam tipped his head back, studying her through narrowed eyes.

  “Tell her thanks, but no thanks. I’m not going to fight the board’s final decision, Molly.”
/>
  “I didn’t think you would,” she replied calmly. “So what are you going to do, Sam? Besides make love to me two or three times a day, every day, until we wear each other or the leather on the bench out completely?”

  Her nonchalance startled a surprised look out of him. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he relaxed.

  “I’ve had a few offers. Kicked around a few ideas.”

  Curious, she swirled the pale liquid in her glass. “Like what?”

  “Like starting my own computer-based search service for classic car parts, for one.”

  Molly stared at him over the rim of her wineglass, surprised and impressed. She hadn’t connected the sophisticated array of computer equipment she’d glimpsed in Sam’s upstairs study with his allconsuming passion for old cars.

  “Sounds like a fascinating hobby.”

  “I wasn’t thinking in terms of a hobby, sweetheart. Classic cars are big business. Avid restorers pay thousands of dollars for original parts.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “No, ma’am. The finders fees alone would keep you in pinot blanc for the rest of your life...or in enough beer to eradicate every freckle on your long, luscious body.”

  “I don’t have freckles anywhere but on my nose,” she informed him loftily.

  A wicked grin tugged at his mouth. “Shows what you know.”

  Molly caught her breath as he eased his chair back.

  “Why don’t you bring your wine inside?” he suggested. “You can finish it while I work out. Then...maybe...we can work out together.”

  Matching her grin to his, she picked up her glass. “Sounds good to me.”

  Chapter 12

  Molly pirouetted slowly in front of the bathroom mirror, studying her image doubtfully.

  Was her black dress too much? Or not enough?

  Sam had told her that the military would wear their uniforms to the banquet tonight. The civilian men would be in tuxes, and the women would pull out all the stops. With that somewhat nebulous guidance, Molly had debated between her only long gown, a floor-length slide of shimmering gold lamé, and this above-the-knee cocktail dress. The lamé was more formal, but this little number had grabbed her heart and a good chunk of her bank account when she’d spotted it in Saks at Fashion Show Mall. She’d cheerfully delayed her planned furniture purchases for another month in order to possess it.