“I always liked Sandy. How’s she doing?”
“Really well. She’s an assistant producer for a TV talk show in Chicago. She was in New York to set up a series of interviews. I don’t get to see her often, but when I do it’s great. It’s like we saw each other just last month, rather than last year. The rapport is always there, you know?”
“She’s that kind of person. Curious. Open. Interesting. I can see where she’d be a successful producer.”
The driver pulled up at the restaurant just then, interrupting the conversation. Katia climbed out of the car, leaving Jordan to settle his account with the driver. He joined her moments later, and with a light hand at the back of her waist guided her inside.
When they had been seated at a small corner table with menus open before them, Jordan resumed the discussion on a slight tangent. “You enjoyed college, I think.”
“After that first year.”
“Mmm. How could I forget that first year.”
“I don’t know. You were always coming to my rescue when I needed it most.”
“You were homesick. I was glad to be able to help.”
“Homesick was only part of it. Going to NYU was like culture shock. I suppose any large city college would have hit me that way.”
“Hey, you weren’t from the boonies.”
“No, but I’d led an insulated life. Everything had been taken care of for me. Suddenly I had to find my way around a new place, meet new friends, grapple with a checkbook. It was overwhelming.”
“It was what you wanted,” he reminded her.
“And I’m not complaining. Simply remembering.” She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and she was smiling warmly. “You know one of the things I remember most clearly about that first year? Remember the time I was in the middle of finals and I panicked?”
“Do I remember? I still get chills when I think of it. You showed up at my office as pale as a ghost and I could see that you’d been crying.”
“I didn’t know what to do! I’d had one final, pulled an all-nighter and stumbled through a second, and I felt so sick that I didn’t see how I’d be able to study for a third, the one I was supposed to take the next day. You took me back to your place, heated a can of chicken soup and noodles and made me eat it, then put me to bed. Then you woke me up at five the next morning and studied with me for six hours so I could take the exam at noon. And all the time you kept telling me that half of the other freshmen were as panicked as I was. I think you were lying through your teeth.”
“It worked didn’t it? You aced the exam.”
“Not aced. Got a B plus.”
“Close enough. And I wasn’t lying; I was guessing. I remember how I felt during that first round of exams. I nearly dropped out of Duke.”
“Really? You never told me that.”
“Pride, Katia.”
“So where is it now, that pride?” she teased.
“Oh, I still have it, but it’s taken different directions with age. I can afford to talk about my college days, maybe because they’re so far behind me.”
“You sound like an old man. You’re not exactly over the hill yet, Jordan.”
“Not yet. But getting there. I’m telling you, my knee was killing me this morning.”
“You should have had surgery on it fifteen years ago. Was it pride that kept you from doing it?”
He shook his head. “Stupidity.”
The waitress approached, an adorable young woman who looked like she was just in college herself. Katia hadn’t glanced at the menu, but Jordan gave it a quick once over. “Quiche and salad?” he asked. When she nodded he turned to the waitress and ordered two, as well as iced coffees. When the waitress had gone, Katia leaned even closer.
“I thought real men didn’t eat quiche,” she stage whispered.
“You’ve been reading the wrong books. I like quiche. Does that make me an unreal man?”
He was unreal, all right, Katia reflected. He was smooth and self-assured, intelligent and positively gorgeous. “It makes you very cosmopolitan, and a free thinker at that. I think you’d eat quiche because someone declared that real men don’t. You do what you want. I respect that.”
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
“You’re welcome,” she answered likewise.
For several minutes they simply sat looking at one another. Katia felt warm all over because Jordan’s eyes told her that she was the only woman in the room. Then confusion set in, because if those eyes were telling her the truth, and if she was interpreting that truth correctly, she didn’t understand why she and Jordan weren’t lovers.
“Haven’t you ever thought of marriage?” she asked on an impulse born of frustration.
“Marriage?” He made a shrugging motion with his mouth. “Not recently.”
“You never think of it? What about children? Don’t you want to have them?”
“I’d like to have children.”
“What are you waiting for?”
“The right woman.”
She nodded, but her confusion was greater than ever. What was she doing wrong? Why wasn’t she the right woman? “I thought for a while there that you’d settle down with Donna Parker. She was nice.”
“Very nice.”
“But?”
“No fireworks.”
“Ahh. She was too nice.”
“As in the sweet and conventional and boring. Yes. How about you? We never really talked about what happened with Sean.”
Katia shrugged. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“You dated the guy for a year and lived with him for another three. What finally broke it up?”
She wasn’t good at lying and didn’t even try. “He wanted marriage. I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“You said it yourself. He wasn’t the right guy.”
“And since Sean?”
“Alan?” she teased.
“Forget Alan. No other marriage prospects?”
“I’ve been too busy.”
“A euphemism meaning that no one has come along who meant more to you than your work?”
Oh, that man had come along. He sat smack in front of her. How could she answer? “No euphemism. I’ve been too busy.”
“What do you see in the future? Will you always be too busy or are you going to want to settle down some day?” All too clearly he recalled the conversation in Maine the month before, when Peter had teased her about wanting a husband and babies. Jordan had thought about that a lot in the days since.
“Settle down as in having a family?” She, too, recalled the discussion. Her answer was the same. “Eventually.”
Jordan who had been holding her gaze almost somberly, suddenly grinned. “Remember that guy who took you to your high school prom?’
“Jimmy? Sure I do. You came home right before he was to pick me up, and you dragged me, prom dress and all, to the apple orchard, singing and dancing with me until the hairdo my mother had spent hours arranging was thoroughly wilted by the heat. I had every intention of telling Jimmy I was sick, changing into jeans and insisting that you finish the evening with me. But you had a date.”
“Forget my date. You couldn’t have stood Jimmy up after he’d gone and rented a tux.”
She smiled at the memory. “No. I suppose not. He was sweet. I do remember glaring at you, though. You were lolling there against a tree, so smug with your arms crossed over your chest and your legs crossed at the ankles.” She took a quick breath. “Jimmy married a girl from college. Last I heard, he had a house in the suburbs, two kids, a dog and a Cherokee Chief.”
“Too conventional for you?”
“Too predictable. He was a really nice guy, like your Donna—”
“But no fireworks.”
“None.”
Jordan sighed. “I guess we’re a pair. Always looking for excitement.”
“Not excitement, at least, not all the time. Just … fireworks.”
“As in endless
natural combustion … explosive chemistry.” He arched a brow. “How did you do in Chem?”
“B minus.”
“Same here, and man did I have to work for that.” He went on to reminisce about those particular efforts, having deftly steered the subject to safer ground. The waitress brought their lunch, and they chatted easily as they ate. By the time they were done and standing in front of the restaurant once more, they were both feeling stuffed.
“How can quiche fill you like this?” she moaned. “I always think of quiche and a salad as a nice light meal.”
“When the piece of quiche is a quarter of the pie and the salad has everything but the kitchen sink in it what do you expect?”
He stretched and patted his stomach, which looked wonderfully flat to Katia. She was nonetheless pleased with his next suggestion.
“Let’s rent bikes and take a ride.”
“Think you can handle it with those knees?”
“Sure I can handle it. Think you can handle it with those thighs?”
She looked down. “What’s wrong with my thighs?”
Nothing, Jordan decided, looking at them in her tight jeans. He swallowed hard. “They don’t look terribly muscular.”
“Thank God for that,” she said, and led the way to the nearest bicycle rental stand.
For the next three hours they pedaled around the eastern end of the island. Katia found the ride to be nearly as exhilirating as the look of pleasure on Jordan’s face. When they finally returned to the bicycle stand, though, she found that her thighs were not the problem.
“Uh-oh,” Jordan said. “Sore?”
She was stretching her legs, but it was her bottom that ached. She would have rubbed it had she been able to do so unobtrusively. “I’m okay.”
He walked up beside her and did what she’d wanted to do; his large hand gently rubbed her seat. When she glanced shamefacedly up at him, he grimaced. “Mine’s killing me, too. I guess we’re both out of shape. Want to try to walk it off?”
“In lieu of hot water bottles that sounds good.”
It was. They strolled leisurely along the streets, stopping in shops, browsing, even buying t-shirts. When Jordan announced that he was hungry again, Katia realized that she was too, and that it was easily dinnertime. By mutual agreement they ate at a small French restaurant that was simple but elegant. Whether it was the acidule de cannette that sated her, or the bottle of wine she and Jordan drained, or simply his company that made her feel so warm and lazily happy, Katia didn’t know. But she had to struggle to pull herself from a pleasant haze when Jordan suddenly leaned forward.
“Let’s stay here for the night.”
“Jordan, this restaurant closes at ten.”
“Not here. Here on the island. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t felt this good in ages. I’m not ready to go back to New York yet.”
“But the plane—”
“Is at our disposal. I’m sure the pilot won’t mind a night’s vacation. We could stay over, have a late breakfast, maybe go to the beach if the weather’s good tomorrow, and I’d have you back in the city by dinnertime tomorrow night.”
“Jordan, I don’t have anything with me!”
“What do you need?”
“Toothbrush, blowdryer, makeup—”
“Toothbrushes we can pick up. You have a hairbrush in your purse, and you don’t need anything else. You don’t need makeup, Katia. Especially not here.”
She was beginning to warm to the idea. It had been a wonderful day; to extend it would be heaven. “We really shouldn’t,” she said, but her eyes were dancing mischievously. “There are a million things I usually do on Saturdays.”
“But it would be fun, wouldn’t it?” The feeling in his eyes matched hers.
“Uh-huh.”
“Let’s do it,” he whispered.
“Okay!” she whispered back.
Chapter 10
Finding a room for the night was harder than they had expected, but neither Katia nor Jordan minded the fact that they had to try four inns before they found one that had space—even if Jordan did have to twist an arm to get the room in the end.
“Now this is style,” Katia announced after they had wound their way through the maze of narrow halls and creaking stairways to arrive finally at the attic room they had wangled from the reluctant clerk. The room had one shabby dresser, one rickety chair and one small and lumpy bed. “Ah. A mirror.” It was above the dresser and slightly dusty. “How nice.”
They laughed, undaunted by the less-than-deluxe accommodations. “See what I mean?” Jordan teased. “My hotel will be in demand.”
“That’s unfair. The better places were booked solid, and I assume this room is the runt of this litter, if the clerk’s hesitance was any indication.”
Jordan was emptying the brown paper bag he had carried in, placing toothbrushes, toothpaste and a bottle of wine on the dresser. “Any glasses here?”
Katia found one in the minuscule bathroom and held it out triumphantly. Fortunately, Jordan had had the foresight to have the liquor store attendant open the wine; the room didn’t come with a corkscrew. He repopped the cork and filled the glass. “To the Vineyard,” he offered, downed a healthy swallow, then passed the glass to Katia, who did the same.
It was the first of many toasts they made, one increasingly more absurd than the next. By the time they had finished the wine they were sitting hip to hip on the floor with their backs braced against the bed. Two hours had passed. They had laughed, reminisced about things they had done as kids, teased each other about things they were doing as adults, and in general had the best time Katia had had in years.
But now Katia groaned. “I think I’ve about had it, Jordan. My eyes don’t seem to want to stay open.”
“No problem.” He pushed himself somewhat laboriously from the floor until he was on his feet, but bent over with his hands flattened on the bed. He stared at it, then with an effort straightened. “You take the bed. I’ll take a blanket on the floor.”
“You take the bed. I’ll take a blanket on the floor.”
He shook his head slowly. “No, no, babe. Let me be chivalrous.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
As though to emphasize his point—or win another—he extended a hand to her and tugged her up. She sat down with a plop on the bed, then moaned and twisted to one side. “Oh, for a bath,” she whispered.
“Go ahead.”
“I’d fall asleep in it. Have to wait till morning.” Her sole thought was to stretch out on a set of cool sheets, put her head on a pillow and surrender the war with her eyelids. She actually did the latter first. With eyes closed and without thinking, she pulled free the knot of her shirt. She didn’t bother with the buttons, but whipped the cotton fabric over her head.
“Katia?”
Her eyelids flickered, then raised. Jordan was staring at the skimpy excuse for a bra she wore. Within seconds he had turned and snatched up the t-shirt he had bought for himself. “Here. Wear this.”
She reached for the shirt with a sleepy smile, but before she had a chance to take it he drew it back to his chest. In a single stride he was before her, then hunkering down. He met her gaze, then dropped his own to the tiny catch at the front of her bra. Shakily he released it, peeled the sheer fabric aside and slid the thin straps from her arms.
Even as fuzzy minded as she was, Katia could feel it happening. Her body was beginning to tingle, the sensation centering in her breasts as his eyes adored them.
“More beautiful than ever,” came his hoarse whisper. Leaning forward, he touched his lips first to one nipple, then the other.
She closed her fingers on his shoulders and moaned. Her nipples were taut, damp where he had kissed them. She swayed, but Jordan steadied her. With jerky movements he shook out the new t-shirt and rushed to get it over her head. Since it was his size it easily fell to cover her.
Again, however, he had second thoughts. Tugging the
t-shirt he had worn all day over his head and tossing it aside, he moved to sit beside her on the bed, slid an arm around her waist beneath the shirt, and pushed it up even as he turned her toward him.
The feel of her bare breasts against his chest was like lightning for them both. Katia sucked in a breath while Jordan made a sound deep in his throat and held her tighter. His eyes were closed; he wore a look of pain. Her own expression was much the same.
“Jordan, I don’t think I can stand—”
The words caught in her throat as he roughly cupped her neck and pushed her face up with his fingertips. Then his mouth took hers in a kiss that was filled with fiery passion, and Katia couldn’t think, much less speak. His lips angled hungrily over hers, never still, ever searching for more. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, deeply and greedily. There was something about his rush for possession that suggested he would get caught any moment and be strung up by the heels, but Katia only knew that she had ached and ached for the possession too long to either analyze his frenzy or deny him.
With that same odd kind of panic he pushed her back on the bed and moved over her, undulating his fully aroused body against hers as he continued to kiss her. She was dizzy with too much wine and too great a need when he suddenly stiffened, moaned and rolled away.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart! God, I’m sorry!” He threw an arm across his eyes, making no attempt this time to hide the huge bulge at his fly. He was breathing heavily, his muscled chest roughly rising and falling. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’ll hurt you. I’ll hurt both of us.”
Had Katia been sober and well-rested, she probably would have demanded an explanation. But she was neither. The best she could do was too grasp the pillow and bury her head, which was spinning madly. Jordan knew what he was doing, some vague fragment of reason assured her. If he had stopped he was probably right. He knew … he was probably right.…
The next thing she knew it was morning. She came awake slowly, aware of having had a dream … or a nightmare … unable to decide which. Jordan was sprawled on a blanket on the floor. He wore nothing but his jeans.
Her knight in denim armor.
Aware of a heaviness behind her eyes, then spotting the empty wine bottle and realizing its cause, she carefully worked her way out of bed and crept into the bathroom, where she took the bath she had been too tired to take the night before.
Twilight Whispers Page 20
