He gave her a ridiculously wounded look. “Hey, I’m not afraid of a little fast water. Or really big, sharp rocks, or steep, steep drops. I just wouldn’t feel right about risking your lovely neck. And since it’s your neck, certainly you should help carry the canoe in the spirit of good sportsmanship.” Jay declared self-righteously.
“Uh-huh,” Anna agreed sarcastically. “Like I said. All this talk of thrills and wild excitement is just the bait to hook yourself a porter.”
“That’s portager,” Jay corrected and ruffled her long hair. Then he held up two ties. “Which one of these do you like best?”
“The longer, wider one. I could use it to gag you with.”
“No, really.”
Really, Anna thought snidely. Then she turned to a different track as she considered the erotic possibilities. Hmm. Maybe, someday.
She studied his color choices in the meantime. One in pale yellow sported a thin red stripe. The other, a vivid green, was splashed with a swirl of color shaped somewhat like a floral design.
“The green one,” she decided. “Are those supposed to be flowers?”
“No. Real men don’t wear flowered ties. They’re supposed to suggest a floral theme without actually crossing the line to femininity,” Jay explained.
He flipped the tie under his collar and tied it expertly. “This says I’m a sensitive guy, in touch with my softer side, but not the kind of guy you wouldn’t want to go canoeing with.”
He swept her off her feet to explain, mock seriously, “I’m a manly man. But sensitive.” Then he kissed her quickly and set her back on her feet.
“You’re a man in need of a gag,” Anna remarked acidly. But she kissed him back.
“What’s my lovely mad scientist going to be up to today?” Jay inquired casually as he leaned against the wall and watched her finish dressing. She was something, in any state of dress or undress. He was eagerly looking forward to many more viewing opportunities.
Anna smiled widely, her face alive with pleasurable anticipation and satisfaction. “Today, I light off the test Freedom Finale,” she announced. Then she frowned. “And pray it works.”
Curiouser and curiouser, thought Jay. “What if it doesn’t work?” He was enjoying her enthusiasm for her work and he thought her little frowns of concentration were particularly adorable.
“Worst case? A total dud. Or a chain reaction instead of guided expulsion.” At his blank look she explained further, “In other words, instead of a nice, steady burn resulting in a nice, steady launch with a controlled explosion at a safe height, it’ll go off all at once on the ground or not far enough up.”
Explode on the ground. Suddenly, she didn’t look so adorable. Jay had a nightmare mental image of her broken, bloody body lying next to a large crater. “Just how likely is that?”
Anna looked up in surprise at his demanding tone. He was really nervous, she realized. She smoothed his tie and smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry. I’m a professional. I did preliminary tests and we practice all kinds of safety measures.”
He didn’t look convinced. He looked distinctly worried. Sweet of him, Anna thought. “Really,” she promised.
He frowned at her. “Anna, if you blow yourself up I’m going to be very angry with you.”
“Jay, statistically I’m in more danger in the shower,” she pointed out.
“So we’ll stop showering.”
She had to laugh at his grim expression. “Keep an open mind,” she teased, tossing his favorite phrase back at him. “Try to maintain a positive attitude. The danger’s relative. I know what I’m doing and I’m very, very careful. I don’t leave things to chance.”
Jay continued to frown darkly at her. She hugged him. Why not? A little display of affection comforted her, so it should be good for him, too. At least it might distract him.
“Just be sure you are careful,” he finally grumbled. “I’ll sit on you while Lyle gives you a good talking-to if you aren’t.”
“You’ll have to find the pieces first,” she kidded and instantly regretted it when he turned white. She’d forgotten but some people were really nervous around explosives. To her, they were just the tools of the trade but it wasn’t an uncommon phobia. It seemed to be the kind of thing that either bothered somebody deeply or not at all. Jay was apparently the type who was bothered by it.
“Jay, I’ll be all right.”
“You’d better be all right,” Jay muttered at last.
She grinned at his unusual loss of poise and kissed him to distract him. It worked so well, they were nearly late.
Jay left her at her lab door with a final dire warning to keep herself the way he liked her, in one piece.
She shoved him on his way in mock exasperation. “Enough. Quit. I’ll be fine but you are in danger of being hit by something explosive,” she threatened.
That sparked a glint of humor in his dark eyes. “I love it when you get explosive with me,” he told her with a sensual leer.
“So look forward to it. Later,” she hinted broadly. “I have work to do around here.”
“I’m going, I’m going.” Jay proved once again that he was a man of his word. He winked at her as he backed away, hands raised to ward off her attack. “I’ll see you later, my lovely.”
Dark brows waggled suggestively at her just before he vanished around the corner.
Chapter Ten
It was incredible, Anna thought, gazing in wonder at the brilliant colors streaming in sunbursts of scarlet, white and cerulean blue against the dim gray spring sky. A bold display of pyrotechnic artistry. An awesome example of the mysteries of chemistry, harnessed and channeled to produce her vision in the sky. It was so beautiful, she wanted to cry.
Instead, she turned to beam at Jane, who was whooping in triumph beside her.
“You did it!” she cheered. “Amazing! You’re a true wizard. Look how long the blue streaks hang.”
Anna hugged her assistant, laughing like a loon. “Isn’t it great? I love it. It’s wonderful.”
“Great? Wonderful? Anna, you outdid yourself on this one. Let’s pack up and you can go tell the good news to Grant,” Jane urged. “He’ll probably offer you a cigar to celebrate.”
That wasn’t funny. He’d rave and puff as enthusiastically as he lectured. But Anna felt ready for him. After practicing on the man who topped him for the title of Company Big Mouth all week, she felt ready for anything. Especially when the thrill of discovery and success accompanied the new gains in her communication and personal skills.
And this was a major success, getting the blend of colors to burst and fall in unison, with a boom thrown in for the thrill of it.
Well, maybe she did harbor a teeny, little fondness for big explosions. Certainly it seemed like a fitting tribute to her explosive personal life of late. The explosive new Anna and her explosive affair.
Excitement welled up and bubbled over. In a burst of happiness, Anna danced around Jane in a crazy circle. “I love it!” she announced. “And you’re the greatest assistant anyone, anywhere ever had. We should celebrate.”
The two women packed up safety equipment and headed the little jeep from the test site back to the office building, awash with satisfaction at their accomplishment.
“I should go tell Jay, too,” Anna mused out loud. “You won’t believe this but I think he was actually afraid I’d blow myself to bits. The thought of me working with matches and black powder made him really nervous.”
Jane rolled her eyes at that statement. “Gee. Why would a little thing like that bother anybody?”
“I don’t know,” Anna answered, matching her mocking tone of voice and doing her best to look ingenuous.
Jane considered her for a moment. “You know, that’s really sweet. He worries about you. He feeds you. I don’t know if you even noticed but he came by at lunchtime and brought you a sandwich since you were too involved to tear yourself away.”
Now that she thought about it, Anna did vaguely remember J
ay appearing and pushing a sandwich into her hand. She frowned. “Did I remember to say ‘thank you’?”
Jane shook her head in mock despair. “You’re hopeless,” she declared. “Put you in front of an interesting problem and you forget everything and everyone else around you. Just go tell Grant the news and then stop in to show your intended that you’re still in one piece, okay?”
Anna stopped dead in her tracks, brought abruptly back to earth by those words. “My what?”
“Intended. Come on, you can’t tell me you aren’t serious about this guy. And we’ve already established that he’s serious about you,” Jane pointed out, planting her hands on her hips in preparation for a confrontation.
Serious. The word echoed in Anna’s head. Serious. Was she serious? What were her intentions? What were his? She honestly didn’t know. The confusion showed clearly on her face and Jane made an exasperated sound.
“Which word didn’t you understand?”
Anna eyed the tapping foot and flashing eyes in trepidation. She was in trouble now. Lyle’s lecture would pale into insignificance compared to whatever Jane was about to throw at her. “All of them?” She attempted levity.
“Oh, boy. Can you say ‘denial’? I knew you could,” Jane smirked.
“I’m not in denial.”
“Oh, sure. The man buys you a canoe and you’re still not willing to face facts,” Jane said.
“Let’s just leave the canoe out of this,” Anna muttered. No matter how much fun it was, no matter how many thrills it provided, she was beginning to think that canoe wouldn’t be worth the amount of trouble it had already caused her.
Maybe what she really needed to do was to have a little confrontation with a certain canoeist and find out what he meant by wanting intimacy and more than her body. Explore her needs and wants… Exactly what did that mean, anyway?
Anna pushed aside the questions for the moment. Right now she had good news. No, make that great news. And to top it all, she also had some new ideas about an alternative to black powder that just might turn out to be the legendary and long-lost Greek Fire.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she told Jane. “Right now I just want to go gloat to Grant and maybe give him an exploding cigar.”
“And you’ll talk to Jay?” Jane hinted broadly.
“I’ll talk to him, I’ll talk to him,” Anna sighed, throwing up her hands in a mock plea for mercy. “I’ll go show him personally that I’m still alive. I’ll even remember to thank him for feeding me. And I’m going now!” she finished as she retreated hastily toward the stairs. She felt too good to wait for the elevator.
She turned and raced up the stairs, two at a time, her long braid flying behind her like a fiery whip. When she burst into Lyle’s office, beaming and glowing with excitement, he actually dropped his cigar. Fortunately, it landed in the overflowing ashtray.
“Lyle, the Freedom Finale is ready!” Anna announced triumphantly. She then jumped onto the man’s broad lap and planted an impulsive kiss on his weather-beaten cheek. “Isn’t it great? Congratulate me!”
As the shock wore off, he did. The fatherly man hugged her and actually patted her on the head but Anna decided to let it slide. He was entitled. For all his bullheadedness and lecturing, he was a dear.
“Well. Well, now,” Lyle boomed, getting slowly up to speed. “You’ve finished your new design, eh? That’s my girl. I knew you’d do it. Well, well.” He smiled, a gesture that threatened to crack his face and groped for his beloved cigar.
Anna laughed and hugged him back before jumping up to dance around his desk.
“Thank you for your vote of confidence. It’s the most beautiful shade of blue and the bursts time out perfectly. It’s great, Lyle.”
“Good work, girl. I’m proud of you, damned proud,” Lyle ground out. “Now, get yourself out of here and go celebrate your victory. Take that sorry new marketer with you, too.” He jabbed at her with his cigar for emphasis.
“What, Jay?” Anna asked, startled.
“Not what, who,” he corrected gruffly.
“Oh. You knew Jay and I were seeing each other?” Her surprise was evident.
“Ha. You think I don’t pay attention to what’s going on around here? You think I don’t have my thumb on this company’s pulse? What the hell do you think it is that I do, anyway, that’s what I’d like to know.”
He was winding up for a lecture, Anna realized in horror. She’d started him off. She’d better escape, and fast, or she’d be there until the lack of oxygen forced her to the floor in an effort to get below the smoke level.
“Fine, I’ll take him,” she promised so quickly that the words ran together as she backpedaled at top speed toward the door.
“You do that. And don’t you come back here before Monday, you hear me? What you want to work weekends for, I don’t know. You just—”
“Yes, sir, we’re going, thank you, sir!” Anna cut him off in desperation then dashed out the door and slammed it behind her. She leaned against it, panting. A very narrow escape.
Once she’d recovered, she headed to Jay’s office. Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t gone to see him there once. He’d always come to her. Maybe that was what he’d meant, in part, at least. That he wanted her to meet him on his ground once in a while. Not a bad idea, either. She’d see a different side of him that way. And maybe he deserved to finally see some reciprocation, too. Things had been pretty one-sided so far.
When she reached Jay’s office, he was on the phone but he waved at her to come in and indicated a seat at the sight of her in his doorway. Anna grinned at him in response to his welcoming wink and poked around while he finished. Even his office had personality, she noted with approval. Pictures, cards, a plant. Not the standard office rubber tree, either, but a sprawling philodendron.
She picked up a birthday card and read it with interest. She realized she didn’t know when his birthday had been. She wanted to know. The comical card, making the typical getting older wisecracks, was from somebody named Michael. It occurred to her that she didn’t know who his friends were or what Jay liked to do besides canoe and sleep with her. There were obviously many unexplored sides to him.
And suddenly Anna found herself wanting to explore them all. She wanted to know what Jay’s childhood had been like, now that she’d told him about hers. What his family was like, if they were close. She’d never asked.
She’d been distracted by her desire to experiment with his incredible body and then she’d been further distracted by the discovery that the experiment changed everything. Her mind was still coming to terms with what her body had long since acknowledged and it had kept her from moving past being stunned to thinking about the future.
Her future included Jay. No more denial.
“Sweetheart!” Jay hung up the phone and came around to hold her. “Are you still in one piece?” He gave her a suspicious look and used the excuse to allow his hands to roam freely over her.
“Yes.” Now that she was there, she didn’t know what to say, so she just stared at him like a tongue-tied idiot.
“Yes, I guess you are,” he agreed. His exploration verified that all her parts were where he’d last seen them. “Baby, you know how to make a man sweat,” Jay concluded as he gathered her close.
Yes, she’d made him sweat, Anna silently agreed. But she wasn’t going to do it anymore. She was going to learn how to be intimate and not shut him out. She could do it. She’d learned about communication, hadn’t she? She could learn about intimacy, too.
She tentatively wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned against him. Where did she start?
Somewhere. Anywhere. She took a breath and asked, “Jay, are you busy?”
“Not really, love. I’ve got most of my business wrapped up for the day. Why?”
She met his eyes squarely, loving the fact that she could look him easily in the eye. “I finished testing the new Freedom Finale and it’s done. Lyle gave me strict orders to get
out and not come back before Monday and to take you with me.” Her voice dropped dramatically. “I don’t have to tell you what will happen if I fail, do I? I’ll get lectured, Jay.”
“Oh. I see. Well, we can’t have that,” Jay responded with mock seriousness.
“Thank you,” Anna replied humbly. “I can’t tell you what it means to me that you’re willing to make a sacrifice like this for me. I mean, go off and spend the weekend with me, teaching me how to be your dream lover. I know I’m not very good at this yet. I need lots of practice.” Her sultry voice got stunning results, Anna noticed happily.
“Tell me more,” Jay breathed, his black eyes glistening with desire.
“Oh. Well, there’s so much,” she murmured throatily. “So much of you and I know so little. I’m afraid we’d better go right now and get started.” Wicked delight glimmered in her violet eyes.
Jay gave a little groan and swung her around in a circle. “You bet, love. Anything you want.”
She pushed against his chest at that, demanding his attention. “No. Wrong. I think it’s about time you got everything you want,” she promised seductively. For good measure, she blew in his ear and then nibbled at the sensitive cord of his neck.
“I’m all yours,” he volunteered readily. “Make me your learning toy.”
Anna gave him a hot, sweet kiss for a start. It was the least she could do in return for his generous tutoring in the wonderful art of French kissing.
When she let him up for air, she gripped his tie and held his eyes with determination. “No, you’re not a toy. You’re a man. A manly man, but one who’s sensitive and in touch with his softer side.” She waved the tip of his tie as a reminder.
“Come on, manly man. Let’s go play.” Anna beamed at him and tugged impatiently at the printed silk.
Jay followed, looking dazed and confused but very, very interested.
“Where do you want to go, precious?” he asked as he pulled her to his side in a possessive hold with one long arm.
When Sparks Fly: Love and Rockets Page 15
