Hold Me Close

by Rosalind James

  Kayla finished taking the order from the four-top, stuck it on the cylinder at the counter, then got back to Luke’s table just as Michelle was flipping her order pad at last.

  “I’ll take this one,” she told the girl.

  “Excuse me?” Michelle looked at her with some hostility in her blue eyes. “This is my table.”

  “Yeah.” Kayla looked at Luke, flipped her own pad, and said it. “But it’s my boyfriend.”

  Michelle glanced between the two of them, and Luke grinned and said, “’Fraid so. You could say she’s got me roped and tied.”

  “Oh.” Michelle was looking disconcerted now.

  “You mind switching tables with me?” Kayla asked her. “Doing Five?”

  “Uh . . . sure.”

  Michelle headed off, and Kayla looked at Luke and said, “Well, shoot.”

  He laughed. “What?”

  “I think I’m jealous. And sorry about the ‘boyfriend’ thing. It just slipped out.”

  “Those tricky words can do that. In the heat of the moment and all.” His eyes were gleaming now, the smile just lifting the edges of that gorgeous mouth, and she laughed out loud.

  “Roped and tied?” she asked him.

  “Mm.” He was smiling for real now, and she’d forgotten all about her order pad, because that smile, that look had gone straight to the spot and were already doing the job, and she wanted to crawl into his lap right now. “That’s how I remember it, anyway,” he said. “I wasn’t too sure about it at the time, if you recall, but damn if it didn’t have its moments. Or maybe it’s just that it’s been one hell of a long week. Or could be I’m more flexible than I realized.”

  She cleared her throat. “Um . . . what can I get you?”

  “You really want me to tell you? Now?” He looked around the sparsely populated cafe. “Well, if you say so. Like I said, I’m equal opportunity.”

  “Order,” she told him, trying for severity without much success. “I’m working.”

  “Oh, I’ve got an order,” he assured her. “But for right now, how about some coffee?”

  “You came in here just to get coffee?”

  “Nah. I came in here to see you. But don’t worry. I’m a real good tipper.”

  “I’ll bet.” She flipped her pad closed, turned and left him there, and walked away with a little bit of flounce in her step. It was hard to look all that sexy in black uniform pants, a white blouse, and an apron, but she did her best. And when she looked back over her shoulder at him, he had a look in his eye that told her he’d noticed.

  “Holy shit,” Michelle demanded when Kayla was grabbing the coffeepot. “That’s your boyfriend?”

  “Well,” Kayla said with some smug satisfaction that she wasn’t one bit ashamed of, “he’s also the principal of the high school. Feel a bout of volunteering coming on?”

  “Hell yeah. How come I never get guys like that? And how come my high school principal was fat and bald?” Michelle sighed. “If I could’ve gotten sent to his office, I’d have been so bad I’d never have graduated. Do they still spank here?”

  “You are nasty. And he’s too old for you anyway. Could I also remind you that he’s mine?”

  “I’m very, very versatile.”

  Kayla gave Michelle her best narrowed-eye glare. “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”

  “Oh, yeah, it does.” Michelle sighed again and went for the plates of food on the counter after the third angry ding of the bell. “But if you change your mind,” she tossed back along the way, “do a lonely girl a favor. Give me the heads-up.”

  Kayla was still smiling when she got back to Luke with his coffee.

  “What?” he asked at the look she shot him.

  She poured, then put a hand on her hip and looked at him sideways. “I think Michelle wants a threesome.”

  He spit out a little coffee at that, and she waited until he was done coughing and was wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Not touching that,” he finally managed to say.

  “Hm.” She kept the smile from her face with some effort. “Do girls act up so they get sent to your office?”

  “Well . . .” He fussed around with the napkin a little more. “No. Because I’ve got an assistant principal who does the discipline. And a strict open-door policy.”

  “So it has been an issue.”

  He shrugged and took another careful sip. “Girls and authority figures? Every male teacher works that one out pretty fast.”

  “I’m guessing you worked it out faster than most.”

  “If you’re trying to get me all conceited,” he said, “you’re doing a pretty good job. How about if I settle for being irresistible to you? Because that’s the one I want.”

  She did smile at that, waited for him to set his cup down, and poured him a little more coffee. She couldn’t just stand here doing that, though. She had a job to do.

  He waited in the booth for her, drinking coffee and reading the paper until her shift was over. When she’d changed out of her uniform and grabbed her coat, he helped her on with it, said good-bye to Michelle, and then held the door, and Kayla felt . . . taken care of, that would be the phrase, in a way she hadn’t in a very long time.

  “So what brings you down here before the end of the school day? I should tell you,” she said, zipping her coat against the November chill, “that I’m getting Eli from the library at five. So I don’t have time for . . . much.”

  He was looking a little embarrassed now, his hands shoved into his jacket pockets. “Well—Damn. This sounded like a good idea when I thought of it in the middle of the night. Now I’m worried about what you’re going to say.”

  He actually did look worried. She tucked a hand through his elbow and said, “No. Tell me.”

  His arm tightened over her hand, he started walking again, and he was pleased, she knew it. He wanted her hand there. She snuggled a little closer, and he looked down at her and said, “Huh?”

  She smiled. “Am I distracting you?”

  “You know you are. Why do you have to be so pretty? I see you, and my train of thought—it’s left the station, and I’m standing there without a clue.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked through the laughter that was threatening to overtake her.

  “Oh, yeah. That. I had this idea that we could go get tested together. I know it sounds crazy,” he hurried on. “And if you say no, it’s no. But I wanted to . . . I wanted us both to know, because I want—” He stopped again, put his head back, and muttered, “Man up, Jackson.”

  He looked so confused, so uncertain, so she just waited until he looked down at her again and said it. “I want to be inside you without a condom. I’ve been thinking about it all week, and I can’t believe it, because I’m a careful guy, and this isn’t the kind of thing I do. But I want to feel you. I want it bad. And I thought, if we got tested together and showed each other the results, maybe we could do that. As long as you’re on birth control, that is.”

  He’d knocked the breath right out of her. She’d stopped again, and so had he, and a group of teenagers walked by and said, “Hi, Mr. Jackson,” and Luke looked at them and said, “How you doing?” and Kayla started walking again, and so did he.

  “Um . . .” she said. “Can I confess something to you?”

  “Sweetheart, you can confess just about anything. And if it’s that we have to keep on with the condoms, you can say that, too. If there’s a reason, then, hey, that’s the way it is, and we’ll deal.”

  She melted a little more at that. “No. No, it’s not that. It’s that—it’s that when you said that . . .” She swallowed. “It made me want to . . . it made me . . .”

  “Oh, man.” His voice sounded strained. “Are you going to make me even hotter, right here on Main Street with my students walking by?”

  “Yes,” sh
e said. “I guess I am. Because, Luke, I want that, too. And, yes, I’m on birth control. And I’m just . . . dying for you right now. I’m just—”

  So wet, she didn’t say, because how could you say that to the high school principal on Main Street?

  And because she didn’t need to.

  “Damn,” he said. “Damn. Let’s go.”

  THE REAL DEAL

  Deferred gratification. He’d given more than one talk about that in an assembly, had seen the skepticism on the young faces in the audience. He was very much afraid that he was never going to be able to give that talk again with a straight face, because if there’d been any way to get his gratification right now, he’d have gone for it in a heartbeat. Saturday would be good. Now would be a hell of a lot better.

  Five minutes’ walk to the clinic, where Velma Brooks barely blinked behind the front desk when Luke pulled out his credit card to cover Kayla and told her why they were there. Another ten minutes for the blood draw, and they were up front again.

  “Day or two for those?” Luke asked Velma.

  “Could be,” she said, casting a glance over the paperwork. “Or could be Monday, Tuesday. Depending.”

  “Or could be a day or two,” he suggested. “If you put a little note on there.”

  “Yeah, well, the little notes generally come from a doctor.”

  “Or they come from a helpful staff member who knows how important it is.” He gave her his best coaxing smile. “Have a heart, Velma. A nice, big red note with a circle around it asking them to hurry it up? Just for me? For old times’ sake?”

  She snorted. “Would these be the old times when you hauled the ladder out of my shed so Robert could climb down from his room at two in the morning and paint your class year on the water tower with you? Or a couple hours later, when the cops woke me up to tell me they had all of you at the station? Or would they be the old times when he didn’t come sneaking in the door until six the morning after prom, because somebody talked the desk clerk at the University Inn into renting a room to a bunch of drunk eighteen-year-olds? Or would they be a little later, when—”

  “I was young and foolish,” Luke said hastily. Kayla was smiling now, but this was veering into the danger zone. “Now I’m a pillar of the community, remember? And anyway, I thought you were supposed to be discreet.”

  “No, I’m not supposed to tell what I know. Doesn’t stop me from knowing it, and I do. Just about every single thing that happens in this town, and what happens in a few others, too, where a pillar might be spending his time.” She cast another glance at Kayla, and Luke could just about hear the thoughts going through her head. “Anyway, I don’t see the big urgency here.”

  “What, you’ve never seen a man hopelessly in love before?” He felt the shock of surprise in Kayla, put an arm around her shoulder, and pulled her close. “New leaf. New man. And you can spread that around anywhere you like. Here, or anywhere else where it might need to get said. You have my permission. Two little notes. Please.”

  She sighed, reached for a stamp, and hit both forms, chunk, chunk, and Luke beamed at the big red “STAT” decorating both of them.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She shook her head of elaborately curled jet-black hair. “I should know better,” she muttered. “Can’t believe you got me.”

  “You can’t help being a romantic,” Luke said. “Sticks out all over you. You try to hide that soft heart of yours, and it shows through all the same.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You can turn it off now. You got what you wanted. I’ll give you a call with the results. But I’ll need your number,” she told Kayla.

  “Nope,” Luke said. “We want the paperwork, all nice and official, because we’re going to be sharing it. That’s the idea.”

  A lift from the plucked, painted-on eyebrows for that. “Then you’ll have to come get it. Otherwise, I could fax yours to your office, or you could avoid the middleman and have that secretary of yours publish the results in the newspaper.”

  “Thanks.” He ignored the dig at Cindy. No love lost there. Something from Catholic Daughters, his mother had told him, although he tried his best not to know. “We’ll be here Friday afternoon. Oh, and can I get the restroom key?”

  She handed him a huge, leopard-print, plastic back scratcher with a key attached by a string.

  “Well, that’s classy,” Luke said.

  “And it comes back, too. Haven’t lost a single key since I did it. Get out of here. I’ve got work to do.”

  He leaned across the counter and kissed her on the cheek, and she swatted him away and said, “Boy, you weren’t behind the door when they were handing anything out. Git.”

  Kayla started in when they were barely out of the waiting room. “Luke . . .”

  “Shh.” He looked around the deserted hallway, used the key on the ladies’ room door, and was pulling her inside.

  “What are you doing?”

  He tossed the back scratcher into the sink, turned, and took her in his arms. “Got to kiss you.”

  He’d just wanted his mouth on hers, and, all right, maybe to feel her up a little. Just for a minute, because he was dying. So he leaned against the door, got a hand behind her head, lifted her onto her toes with the other, and settled his mouth over hers, and, oh, yeah. Hot and sweet and so good.

  And then she whimpered, opened that soft mouth, wriggled her tight little body up closer, got her own hands in his hair . . . and that was it.

  He turned with her, barely in control enough to keep his hand behind her head so she wouldn’t bang it on the door. He had the other one under her pretty little butt, was lifting her by it, and she was coming right on up there with him. Her legs were wrapping around his waist like they were meant to do that, because they were. Her fingers were stroking over the back of his neck, her other hand was tunneling up under his jacket, yanking his shirttail out from his pants, and then her hand was inside there, diving down below his belt, stroking the sensitive skin at the small of his back, down to his tailbone, and oh, man. Oh, man.

  She was still making those urgent little noises into his mouth, too. He dragged his own mouth away and kissed his way across to her ear, and she turned her head, pressed her cheek against the door, and moaned, “Luke. Please. Do that to me.” He had his mouth at her neck, was using his teeth on her, and she was squirming in his arms and whimpering some more, and that hand of hers . . . that questing little hand . . .

  The knock, when it came, made both of them jump.

  “Luke Jackson, if you don’t haul your butt out of there in two minutes, I’m calling your mother.”

  He was still holding Kayla up, but he’d lifted his head and was staring into her wide gray eyes. And then she giggled, and he grinned.

  “Yeah.” That came out sounding a little strangled, so he cleared his throat and said it again. “Yeah. One minute,” and grinned at Kayla some more, while she put her hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter.

  It was more like five minutes, actually. But when you were that far gone, it could take a while to get back to normal. Besides, he had to tuck himself back in, and Kayla had to fix her adorably messed-up hair. He may have had to kiss her once or twice and murmur a couple things in her ear, too. You couldn’t rush the good stuff.

  He still had hold of her hand when they headed back into the waiting room. He dropped the back scratcher on Velma’s desk and said, “Thanks. Great bathrooms. I’ll be recommending them,” and Kayla was giggling again.

  Velma shook her head, trying and failing to keep the smile from showing, and said, “And this is the role model we’re offering our children. The world is going to hell in a handbasket.”

  He had to laugh out loud at that one. “See you Friday.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “But use your own darn bathroom next time.”

  “Well,” he said, “that’s kind o
f the point of the paperwork.” But Kayla was pulling him out of the office, so he wasn’t sure Velma heard it.

  “What time is it?” Kayla asked when they were walking up to the library.

  “Uh . . .” He looked at his watch. “Ten to five.” He looked down at her, and she caught his smile in the light of a streetlamp. “Time flies when you’re having fun. Tell you what. How about moving our date up to Friday night?”

  “Um . . . Babysitter?”

  “Babysitters have been known to work Fridays. Give her a call? Marlene would do it, betcha anything. She’s saving for college. I told you. And I need to be with you.”

  “I’ll see.” She tried not to feel pushed. Crowded.

  He groaned. “Damn. I knew it. Small towns. It’s that stuff Velma said. Yeah, I’ve done a few things over the years. And I’ve dated a few women, too. I thought I was being discreet, dating them out of town. Apparently I was mistaken. But I’m not dating them now. I’m dating you, and that’s it. It’s all about you.”

  “That’s nice.” She could hear how lame it sounded. But it was all, suddenly, too much. Too rushed. “But I think I need to slow down.”

  “Oh, baby.” His hand went to her cheek. Too quickly, and she flinched, and he dropped his hand. “What?”

  “Don’t . . .” She swallowed. “Don’t call me ‘baby.’ Please.”

  He looked confused. “Why not? And what was that? Did you think I was going to hit you?”

  “No. Of course not. Never mind. Please. Let me go get Eli. He’s waiting.”

  “Kayla.” He didn’t touch her. He just said her name, and she shook, wrapped her arms around herself, and thought, shoot. Shoot. Why was she acting this way? Why?

  “Ba—Sweetheart,” he said. “Kayla. You can go if you want to. I’m not going to grab you. You can do every single thing you need to do. Everything you have to do. You don’t owe me a thing.”