“I want to go where you want to go,” Anna answered promptly. “Jay, I’ve been selfish and mean. It’s your turn. What do you want to do?”
“Why don’t we get dressed up and go out for dinner?” Jay suggested. “We’ll eat, talk and dance. Sound good?”
“That sounds wonderful,” she answered dreamily. “I like dancing with you. Even when you’re being obnoxious. And I want to talk to you, too. I told you about my childhood last night and I still don’t know the first thing about yours.” Anna gave him a serious look. “I think you were right about intimacy. I want to be intimate with you.”
Jay wanted to be intimate with her, too. Badly. Painfully. Immediately. He didn’t know what it was about her but he wanted her with an urgency he didn’t understand. No matter how many times he took her, he wanted more. He hungered for her and he didn’t think a lifetime would be long enough to satisfy all the needs she awoke in him.
“Me too, angel,” he vowed. “Me, too.”
Her smile widened at her response. He felt like he was looking into the sun. She was all fire and heat. She warmed his heart and his blood and ignited his soul.
“Good.” Anna gave him an affectionate squeeze.
At the parking lot, she turned in his arms and kissed him again. “I think it’s about time I took my poor car home,” she informed him solemnly, violet eyes dancing. “People might talk.”
“They might,” Jay agreed.
They grinned at each other.
“I’ll follow you back to your place then and we’ll go to mine afterwards, all right?” Jay asked.
Anna nodded and they separated to solve the car problem. It really was funny that she’d made such a fuss about a mud-free parking space in her snit over her wrecked Nikes and since then she’d only used it once. She couldn’t help laughing at herself as she drove. And she couldn’t help thinking that Jay had even managed to take her mind off of the mud.
He stayed behind her and waved and blew kisses at lights, as if he hated being separated, even by a car length, as much as she did. Jane had been right, as usual, Anna thought. She was in denial. She was serious about Jay and it was time to do something about it. This weekend.
He made his usual dramatic fuss when they arrived at her house, running over to help her out of her car. She laughed at his antics and enjoyed his arms around her waist as they walked to her door. She’d missed so much, all these years. So much solid human contact. So much fun. Jay was right. She’d been affection-deprived and he was making up for it. She even waited eagerly to hear his silly nicknames.
“Beautiful, I missed you,” he breathed against her lips, as if he knew what she was waiting to hear.
“Handsome, I missed you, too,” she replied in kind.
Inside, he followed her to her room and sprawled across her bed. “Do I get to watch you get ready for our date?” Jay inquired with obviously prurient interest.
Anna arched a brow at his request. “Why? Do you like to watch?” she asked with the same heavy innuendo he was so fond of using. He knew she meant more than watching a woman change clothes.
Jay’s eyes glowed like ebony flames. “Anna. I like to watch you when I’m inside you. I like to watch your face when you cry out for me. I like to watch your body turn to molten gold in my arms and burn for me.”
Anna swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry at his scorching words. She slowly undressed for him while his eyes simultaneously devoured and worshipped her.
She was an idiot, she realized. He’d told her from the beginning how he felt and he’d shown her every minute since. She hadn’t known love when it hit her in the face. His feelings for her were written openly in his eyes and in his hands, gripping her coverlet in two taut fists.
He did love her. The realization thrilled and frightened her. But he was a man worth taking risks for and she was determined not to hold back any longer.
When she stood naked, she posed boldly and let him see everything he wanted to, nearly feeling the loving touch of his eyes on her skin.
“What do you want me to wear?” Anna finally asked, her honey voice darkened with emotion.
“Me.” Jay stayed put, watching her with palpable intensity. “I want to be inside your skin and everywhere outside. I want to wrap you in myself and hold you in my heart forever.”
Anna trembled. Love wasn’t just a word or a game. It was a power, an elemental force every bit as dangerous as those she directed every day in her laboratory.
“But for now, passion flower, I want you to wear what you were wearing the first time I saw you,” Jay finished softly. He relaxed his grip and gave her a tender smile, as if he knew his intensity unnerved her and he wanted to put her at ease.
She found the garments she’d worn that night and slowly, deliberately, aware of her audience with every cell of her being, she put on the silky thigh-high stockings, rolling them up her long legs. Then she stepped into her fragile heels and turned her back to Jay in a provocative stance.
“Are my stocking seams straight?”
“Yes,” he answered in an uneven voice that told her how deeply her performance affected him.
Anna smiled at him over her shoulder, and slipped into the satin merry widow, tugging it into place and smoothing the fabric that threatened to spill her generous curves out over the top.
Straps fastened to the stockings and the round garters slid up to support the tops. A tiny scrap of red satin covered her like a fig leaf. Then she walked to the closet to get her dress. She turned back to face him and the flapper gown fell around her like a sigh. She reached back to close the zipper. Ready, she went to him and waited.
“Anna,” he whispered. “Don’t move. Don’t say anything.” While she stood like a statue, he raised one shaking hand to stroke the soft fabric from her hips to her ribs.
“Oh, honey. You are beautiful. I want to wait and if you move at all, I won’t be able to.” The fierce hunger in his eyes held her still and after a minute he stood beside her and drew her slowly against him.
His cheek rested against hers and their hands entwined. They swayed together as if they danced to some silent music. Finally, he tugged her toward the door in an unspoken command and she followed his lead willingly, still held in the thrall of his sensual spell.
He’d given himself to her unstintingly, over and over. Tonight, Anna vowed, she’d give herself to him just as completely. He deserved nothing less. He deserved the intimacy he’d asked for. He deserved to have his love cherished by the one he gave it to.
And it was easy to do. He’d shown her how.
Jay tucked her into his car with a final shivery caress along her jawline. Then he joined her on the other side and held her hand tightly while he drove. Anna didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to break the aura of anticipation and seduction.
He didn’t speak either, until they reached his home. Then he only said, “Wait,” before going around to open her door for her.
She let him help her out and walked beside him in a dreamy haze. Inside, he pushed her onto a chair and left her there while he dressed for her.
Secretly, Anna hoped he’d produce a tuxedo. He looked wonderful in all monochrome. Odd that such a Technicolor personality came packaged in natural black and white coloring. She wondered with unscientific whimsy if he’d developed such a colorful personality in reaction.
When he came back for her, smiling faintly and looking like a sardonic devil in black and white formal dress, he took her breath away.
How had she failed to notice that first night that he was possibly the most spectacularly handsome man she’d ever seen? How had she introduced herself to him without salivating on his cummerbund?
“I have something for you,” he said and gestured for her to turn around. She did. Something turned out to be a brush. Jay unbraided her long hair and smoothed the freed mass in lazy, lingering strokes. Anna gave a blissful sigh and leaned against his legs while he brushed her hair.
“You have such beautiful hair,” he informed her
admiringly. “You look like a golden flame.”
Then he fastened something cold around her neck.
Anna looked down and tried to see over his hands. Jay laughed at her frustrated curiosity.
“Come on, we’ll go see it in a mirror,” he told her and guided her over to one.
Jay stood behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders. Before him, Anna saw the same woman in the mirror she’d seen the first time she’d tried on the dress. Only now her confidence had an added element. A new light of emotion gleamed in her eyes and a new awareness softened her features. Love made her glow like the flame Jay likened her to, from the inside out. Behind her, his bold, dark good looks made the perfect foil for her fiery coloring.
As her eyes traveled downward, she saw it. A gold choker set with rubies circled her throat.
Anna caught her breath as she looked at the circles of fire that glowed against her white skin.
Jay’s long fingers smoothed her throat and stroked the hollows of her shoulders. “Beautiful,” he said with a smile to her reflection.
She smiled back, meeting his ebony eyes in the glass.
“You think so?”
“Oh, yes.”
“You look pretty good yourself.”
Jay preened modestly. “It’s good of you to say so.”
He knew very well he was the tall, dark and handsome type women dreamed about and Anna was sorely tempted to kick him for his smug attitude. But she decided to accept the bribe instead and continued to admire her rubies.
Chapter Eleven
“Why rubies?” Anna asked curiously on the way to the restaurant.
Jay sent her an incredulous look. “An unbelievably handsome and inventive lover, not to mention one blessed with an unusual capacity for endurance, gives you rubies and you want to know why?”
“I’m a scientist. It’s my job. I ask why for a living,” Anna reminded him with mock seriousness.
“Baby, I keep telling you, that’s your problem. You ask too many questions. You think too much. Sometimes, you should just go, ‘look at the pretty red things’.”
“Hmm. How about, ‘look, with these I can make a whopping beam of coherent light’?”
Jay shook his head in dismay. “Do I even want to know what coherent light is?”
“A laser. Rubies work really, really well.”
Anna sounded a little too enthusiastic for his peace of mind and he shot her a threatening glance. “Don’t you dare go and make some kind of high-tech toy out of that necklace. That’s a piece of art, a work of beauty for my beauty, and if it comes off your lovely neck, I may have to wring it.”
Anna gave a low, rippling laugh. He was so easy to tease. He really thought she’d cut up her necklace and use her rubies? He had to be out of his mind.
They were obviously the kind of gift a lover gave. They were an accolade to amorousness and Anna treasured them for the thought. He’d given her a salute to passion and that touched her far more than the monetary value. He’d called her his beauty and that was enough to make any right-thinking woman smile.
Anyway, she silently defended, if she was going to make a laser, she’d use industrial rubies, not true gems like the beauties winking around her throat.
But she let Jay think she might, since it made him so delightfully nervous.
“You certainly give unusual gifts,” she mused out loud, taking another route since he hadn’t answered her original question. “A canoe, with special paddles and life jackets. The most bizarre floral arrangement I’ve ever seen, with possibly the worst poem in the history of written language. And now a ruby choker. That’s variety.” Anna let her statement hang, inviting a reply.
“Variety is the spice of life,” Jay returned blandly.
Anna waited.
“An unusual woman demands unusual presents,” Jay finally informed her haughtily. “I match the present to the person. You, my dear, are an L.L. Bean canoe with accessories, loud and large floral arrangement, bad poetry, ruby choker kind of woman.”
Well, that was a nice answer. Very nice. Anna liked it better the more she thought about it. So he appreciated many facets of her, just as she knew he wanted her to appreciate his many sides.
“It takes an unusual man to give unusual presents,” Anna remarked, stroking his jacket sleeve and his ego simultaneously.
“Yes, it does,” Jay agreed.
She regretted feeding his ego. Now she could practically feel it swelling and crowding her against the door.
He continued in the same vein, “Someday, precious, you’ll come to appreciate all my unusual qualities. In the meantime, I want to hear you say ‘look at the pretty red things’, okay?”
Anna gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look and made an ‘oh’ shape with her lips. “Look at the pretty red things!”
“That’s better.” Jay patted her thigh approvingly. “Now say, ‘Jay, how can I thank you?’”
Anna was happy to play along. “Jay, how can I thank you?”
“Oh, baby, I’ll think of something.” The heartfelt voice was accompanied by a blatant look down the neckline of her dress. Anna thought she could actually feel his eyes on her cleavage.
She didn’t think she’d ever been happier.
“Jay, tell me something. If I put my foot in your lap and stroked you with my toes, would you like it?” she inquired thoughtfully.
The car swerved sharply and Jay made an abrupt correction.
“Honey.” He sounded dazed again. “Yes. But don’t you dare do it tonight at dinner or you’ll ruin my plans.”
Anna leaned her head against his shoulder and idly traced a pattern on the fabric covering his warm thigh. “You have plans for tonight?”
“I’ve been working on them all day,” he answered smugly.
“All day?”
“Well, not all day. I had work to do, too. But I wanted tonight to be special, no matter what happened with your test, providing you lived through it. If it worked, you’d want to celebrate and if it didn’t, you’d need some cheering up,” Jay explained.
Anna was touched even more deeply by that statement. He’d thought about her feelings and was already prepared to comfort her if she had a disappointment.
“What were you going to do if it didn’t work?” she asked curiously.
“Now, honey, do you think I’m going to tell you?” He gave her a sardonic look. “As brilliant as you are, everyone has a defeat once in a while. I stand ready to surprise you and cheer you up whenever it may happen to you.”
“Hmm. Whenever is a long time,” Anna mused, teasing him. “You really think planning on ‘whenever’ is a good idea?”
Jay teased her right back. “You aren’t going to get your ‘better luck next time’ present, so give up.”
“More presents?” Anna sat up and looked at him.
“Tonight, you only get the ‘congratulations’ presents,” he said firmly.
He made her feel like a child, eagerly looking forward to whatever surprise he had planned. And at the same time he made her feel like a strong passionate woman, with the added thrill of knowing that he liked her that way. He admired who she was, not just what she looked like, though he was always quick to let her know he did appreciate her body.
He was some lover, Anna thought again, warmed all the way through with happy anticipation. She hugged her feelings for him to herself and thought that this must be what it felt like to fall in love.
Sort of tingly all over.
Anna remembered Jay’s words and smiled inside.
It was nice to know that he was feeling tingly all over, too. And sometime during the weekend, she’d find the right time and the right way to tell him that she felt the same.
Too bad he hadn’t taken her ‘whenever’ bait.
Or maybe he was skillfully avoiding the subject. She hadn’t exactly given him any reason to think she was interested in making him a permanent fixture in her life. He’d told her he loved her and she’d said ‘oh’. Then s
he’d tried to leave. And she hadn’t mentioned it again.
Anna winced inwardly at the thought. She’d been so callous to his feelings. Suddenly she wondered why he didn’t seem discouraged. He’d continued to tell her how he felt, pursued her relentlessly, asked for intimacy. Why hadn’t he given up?
He’d also done a lot of planning ahead, she soon discovered. They had a reserved table for two in a quiet corner at the restaurant. A bucket of champagne waited for them and a single blue rose lay across one gilt show plate.
Anna picked it up and sniffed appreciatively. It had the rich perfume most hothouse flowers lacked and she fingered the velvet texture in admiration.
“Jay, this is beautiful. How did you get a blue rose?”
He looked secretive and smug, his black eyes gleaming at her in the low lighting. “I have a secret supply.”
“Come on,” Anna wheedled. “I really want to know.”
He gave her a thoughtful look. “All right, beautiful. You haven’t seen my garden yet, have you?”
She shook her head. They’d always been at his place at night, or in a hurry to get to work, or in a hurry to… She pulled her mind back to the present abruptly.
Too late, however. He’d already seen the blush staining her cheeks and she blushed redder when he just laughed and winked.
“Yeah, I haven’t had a chance to give you a tour of the place yet, have I?” Jay teased her wickedly, enjoying her embarrassment. “Well, my best buddy Michael was in business college with me but he dropped out to be a carpenter. He’s sort of a Zen master type and didn’t like the corporate life. Anyway, he’s really big on cultivating roses. He’s the one who planned and planted my garden. He lives in New Hampshire, so I asked him to send me a blue rose.”
Anna absorbed the information, fascinated. He had a best friend who grew roses? She would never have guessed that. And his friend had sent her the rose. What a nice man.
“But how did he get it blue?” she persisted.
Jay shrugged. “I think it’s a special variety but maybe he used food coloring on it. I don’t know. I didn’t ask, honey. I just knew if anyone could come up with a blue rose, he could. Being that kind of friend, he didn’t even ask why.”
When Sparks Fly: Love and Rockets Page 16
