The Wallflower

by Jan Freed

  He studied her thoughtfully, one hand gripping his mug on the counter, the other draped loosely over his knee. His long, thick to-die-for lashes lowered a fraction, filtering a sudden gleam. “You tell me.”

  He knew!

  Humiliation swept through Sarah, followed by a strengthening rush of anger. The cocky son of a bitch knew she loved him and was toying with her deepest emotions! Damn if there really wasn’t a thin line between love and hate.

  Lifting her chin, she slipped off her stool and played tug-of-war with his unfinished coffee. He was forced to relinquish the handle or get splashed.

  She gripped both mugs and headed for the kitchen. “It’s been real nice chatting with you, Jack, but you’ve outstayed your welcome. Run along home and spill your good news, so you can gloat over breaking two more hearts.”

  A rush of air was her only warning. Jack’s arms enclosed her from behind. His hands clamped the top of each mug. He resisted her efforts to pull free with insulting ease, then steered her cargo to the counter beside the sink.

  “Put the mugs down,” he rumbled in her ear.

  A delicious shiver tickled her neck. This was a game two could easily play. “Okay. Let go of them, first.”

  She saw his fingers start to lift, then he must’ve sensed her intention. He gripped the mugs tighter than before.

  “Sa-arah,” he warned, his breath warm, the body behind her warmer. “Don’t you dare throw coffee on these clothes I bought to impress you. They cost me half a month’s salary.”

  “You’re rich, now, Hotshot. Buy replacements,” she snapped, her attention skidding to a sudden stop. What was that he’d said? “You bought those clothes to impress me?”

  He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Hey, I was happy with slacks instead of ‘trousers.’ You could throw coffee on my slacks and I wouldn’t care.”

  She was still tingling from that shrug. She hated that she still tingled from that shrug. She loved that she still tingled from that shrug. Damn.

  “Water resistance is nothing to brag about for men’s slacks,” she assured him.

  “Quit impugning my wardrobe and let go of the mugs.”

  “No.”

  “Sa-arah.”

  Somehow letting go had become a symbol of surrender. “Tell me why I should.”

  “Because—” he drew out the word “—I need to turn you around and see your eyes.” He sounded gentle and sad. Not cocky at all.

  “Why?”

  He rested his cheek on top of her head. “Because, you implied I broke your heart, and I don’t think I could stand that.”

  “Why not?” she persisted, feeling him smile against her hair, loving the trapped-snuggled sensation of Jack’s body enveloping hers.

  “Because, Sarah, you have a big grand noble heart, full of kindness and courage and strength. Breaking a heart like that would be a heinous crime.”

  Her body softened, the better to absorb his words. “It would?”

  “It would.”

  She melted into him more, unable to resist one last, “Why?”

  “Because—” he curled closer around her, the movement protective and exquisitely tender “—breaking your heart would break my heart. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  Sarah let go of the mugs with a clunk.

  Jack turned her around, his hands gripping her upper arms, then peered anxiously into her face. She had no defenses left. Everything she felt was in her eyes for him to see. Her heart was breaking. Her heart was rejoicing. Her heart belonged totally and completely to him.

  Wonder dawned in his eyes, swelled into a high noon blaze of exultation. His hands tightened on her arms.

  “You really didn’t know?” she asked, laying her palms on his chest.

  He shook his head in a dazed manner, a shadow of trepidation creeping into his expression. He was beginning to understand the awfulness of their situation.

  She watched his dream fight for survival with his conscience, saw the exact second Moses won the battle. As he always would with this man. It was one of the main reasons she loved him.

  Resolve firmed his jaw. “I’ll call Irving and tell him I’m staying here. It won’t affect the sale. They’ll get someone else to do the rewrite.”

  “No, they won’t,” she corrected gently. “Because you’re going to do it. Brilliantly. You’re going to move to L.A. and accept this incredible opportunity God and your talent have given you.” His heart thrummed hard and fast beneath her palms.

  He lowered his forehead against hers and rolled from side to side. “Sarah, Sarah. I can’t leave now. I can’t leave y—”

  Two of her fingertips stopped the word. “You can, Jack. You must. If you stayed, you’d grow to hate me—and yourself.” She managed a weak smile. “I sound like a B movie. A really bad one. Somebody please rewrite this script.”

  He lifted his head, anguish and an odd anger in his gaze. “All right. You’ve appointed yourself the director of this story. Tell me how you want the scene to play.”

  She slid her palms up the hard wall of his chest and rose on tiptoe. “Not with anger or guilt,” she murmured against one ear, lowering her heels to string a necklace of kisses across his bobbing Adam’s apple, rising again to reach the opposite ear. “Not with regret or pain,” she whispered, threading her fingers into his sable hair, pulling back to look into his green-gold eyes.

  “This is a love scene, Jack. A man and woman have one night together before he ships out. They don’t know what the future holds, so they make the most of the hours they can control. No strings. No promises they may not be able to keep.

  “They create a memory to make them ache for each other when they go their separate ways. A memory to make them smile in their old age. That’s how I want the scene to play.” She massaged the base of his skull, sank into his body to tip the scales and prayed he wouldn’t sense the heaviness of her heart. “Think you can handle that, Hotshot?”

  She got her answer in the form of an openmouthed kiss, so hard and hungry it drove her stumbling back until her spine bumped the kitchen counter. The ride was as wet and wild as before, but escalated quickly to a new level of thrill.

  No door would open. No eyes would judge and condemn. They were two consenting adults with time and privacy on their side.

  His hands were everywhere at once. Big, gentle and fervent. Just when they seemed to settle on a favorite spot, they moved on to cup or squeeze or stroke new territory.

  “You feel so good,” he said against her lips. “I can’t get enough of you.”

  “Try,” she demanded, her hands equally busy.

  His biceps were as hard as they looked, his back a marvel of flexing muscles. His buns of steel filled her palms as nicely as she’d suspected since he’d first turned to write on his classroom blackboard. Her hand wandered to the ridge beneath his belt buckle. He clapped a palm over her fingers and broke their kiss.

  “Wait,” he rasped out, his erection pulsing once. Twice. When he finally lifted his restraining hand, it was to divest her of sweatshirt and pants with quick efficiency.

  In minutes she was standing in her kitchen, wearing pink satin bra and matching bikini underwear, shivering beneath his hot devouring gaze. She moved to cover herself, and his hands clamped her wrists.

  “Don’t. You’re perfect.” His thumbs rubbed her frantic pulse, his gaze scorched a path from her breasts to the apex of her thighs. “I’ve waited too long for this, wanted you too much. I think, Madam Director, it’s time to cut to a new location.” He bent over and scooped her up against his chest.

  She looped her arms around his neck during the dizzying walk, feeling small and feminine and desirable. As perfect as he’d said. It freed her inhibitions as nothing else could. They had all night, but she wanted him now.

  He lowered her effortlessly to the bed, then started to follow her down.

  “Wait,” she repeated his earlier order, her palm pressed to his chest. “Get undressed. Hurry.”

  He obey
ed without modesty, his burning gaze never leaving hers, his movements forceful and exciting. He came to her magnificently aroused, a compliment she returned in full. He discovered as much when he unclasped her bra to reveal stiff distended nipples, when he slipped off her panties and brushed his knuckles against her dewy welcome. She lifted her arms and pleaded, “Come here.”

  At last he covered her with a glorious masculine blanket of heated muscle and hair-roughened skin. She wriggled down to meet him properly. The kiss of intimate flesh was hot and moist. Unbearably erotic.

  “Easy, easy,” he soothed, as much a warning to himself, she suspected, as a means to soothe her fractious need.

  “I don’t want easy. I want hard. I love you so much, Jack,” she said with ardent agony, hearing his quick intake of breath. “I want you inside me now.” She surged up to drive her point home, succeeding only partially. “Jack, please. Let me show you how much I love you.”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Jack crooned, threading their fingers together, lifting their hands palm to palm above her head. “Let’s show each other.”

  In one powerful thrust, he drove all the way home.

  In her old age, she would remember this moment above all others. Jack gazing down with a branding tender possessiveness while her heart beat joyful and wild.

  Then he began the timeless rhythm that, in perfectly matched lovers, was like shooting the rapids in a kayak. They gasped and panted and rolled and laughed, rushing ever nearer to the exhilarating plunge they sensed ahead. She reached it seconds in front of Jack and snatched him desperately to her breast to bring him with her.

  She fell into an awesome climax that ripped his name from her throat, convulsed her body in spasms of splendid pleasure. As her ripples of sensation quieted, Jack reached his completion with a choked cry, then collapsed on her chest, his nose buried in her neck.

  Deeply content to be uncomfortable beneath his weight, she drifted into calmer waters. The hand that flopped tiredly over his shoulder rubbed light lazy circles on his damp skin.

  The hurt would come eventually, she knew. And it would be very very bad. But she had tonight. There were more memories to create.

  If she had to let him go, she would make damn sure this was one scene he’d never forget.

  HE HAD TO GO. It was almost midnight, and he didn’t want to face speculative glances or outright questions from Kate and his mother by arriving in the morning just in time to leave for school. There would be enough questions when he told them about the sale of Free Fall.

  Rolling onto his side. Jack braced his jaw on a palm.

  Moonlight filtered through an oak tree outside the window, dappling the sleeping form beside him in silver and gray. Leached of flamboyant color, Sarah seemed unfamiliar. More like a piece of sculpture than the small red-haired dynamo he’d come to know. He studied her with the appreciation of a museum visitor, his gaze unhurried. Unclouded by the passion hazing his earlier impressions.

  She was still perfect.

  Half on her belly, one knee drawn up high, she displayed a beautiful swell of hip artfully draped with a sheet. The downslope was sharp, ascending gently up a narrow rib cage into a generous palmful of breast.

  His gaze traveled leisurely over her slender arm—hooked over her pillow to frame an immensely pleasing profile—then back down the landscape of her body. He could encircle that tiny waist with both hands, he’d discovered. Slide his palms up to test the weight and yield of rose-tipped flesh. His body stirred strongly.

  Unbelievable. Even prolonged abstinence couldn’t account for his insatiable response to this woman. He’d known the sex would be good. He hadn’t known it would move his soul as well as the earth.

  For several contented moments Jack watched the rise and fall of her ribs, listened to the sound of her easy breathing; an entrancing feminine sound he could wake up to every morning—if he moved to Dallas instead of L.A.

  Averting his gaze, Jack stared bleakly out the window. An emptiness unlike any he’d known replaced his peace. Was he making the right decision?

  His mother and Kate would be well provided for financially when he left, and Sarah was right. They had become too dependent on him. His fault. He hadn’t held them to the same accountability he required of his students. His departure would be a crash course in survival, but they would pass.

  The high school would be in a bind, having to produce a substitute for the remaining three months. He hated that. But teachers had left unexpectedly before due to various reasons. The system would kick in and provide coverage.

  As for his kids...man, he really hated not being around to see them through their last months of high school. Yet, as Sarah had said, he’d provided them with a good foundation. And maybe—no, probably—Jack corrected honestly, they deserved a break from his inflexibility.

  He wasn’t proud of the realization that Sarah had been right about something else: his jealousy. Its absence in the face of imminent freedom was noticeable. He might never have admitted experiencing the ugly emotion otherwise.

  Responsibility was good, but, like anything else, not in excess. Certainly not at the sacrifice of youthful spontaneity and a time of life that should be remembered with joy.

  So that alleviated two of his main doubts in the wisdom of leaving. The remaining one slept quietly beside him. Was she right about him growing to resent her, or worse, if he stayed? He didn’t know. But looking back on another “if only” in his life, particularly one of this magnitude, was something he couldn’t do. Not and maintain his self-respect.

  But would his heart survive? He looked at Sarah.

  Her eyes were open and watching him. She yawned, then offered a sweet drowsy smile.

  Just that fast he was hard and ready for action. Again. He should ignore the clamor of his body. They’d gotten fairly acrobatic in some of their earlier lovemaking. She was very likely sore.

  Her smile faded slowly and the moment stretched, her expression growing more alert. Then another kind of languor seemed to overtake her, this one sensual and heavy with promise.

  “You aren’t in a hurry to leave, are you?” she asked, her siren’s voice stroking his arousal like a physical touch.

  Tell her you have to go. “Uhh...” he croaked.

  “Wait.” With a mysterious feminine smile that had him perking up like Rin Tin Tin for a T-bone, she whipped back the sheet and padded out the bedroom door.

  He cocked his head toward the sound of rummaging in the bathroom, then tensed as she appeared in the doorway. And he’d thought he’d enjoyed the view of her leaving. Ha!

  She approached with the grace and look-what-I’ve-brought-you demeanor of a small dainty cat with a proffered kill. “I thought maybe I would try this out, if you’re willing to cooperate,” she purred.

  He was so distracted by the charms her front view presented it took him a second to focus on her outstretched gift. A small bottle with peaches on the label. He peered closer. Body massage oil.

  He looked up with heated anticipation, his grin slow and lazy. “Sure. I’m in no hurry.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  MANY THINGS about entering high school as a twenty-seven-year-old had been a difficult adjustment for Sarah. The structured routine, the homework, the patronizing attitude of adults. The complex social hierarchy that ruled students’ happiness. All these factors, combined with the fear that her new safe house would be discovered, had made January and February stressful, to say the very least.

  Yet fifth period English with Mr. Morgan had provided a reason to look forward to each day. At first, because he added nice scenery to her windowless routine. Then later, because he made her brain think, her blood heat and her heart fill to bursting. How could she help but fall in love?

  The “scenery,” she’d learned firsthand, wasn’t simply nice. It was worthy of a calendar. During the two weeks following their lovemaking, she’d spent hours visualizing twelve poses that would do it justice.

  She had one spectacular
night of memories to design from. It would have to suffice. They’d both agreed a repeat performance wouldn’t be wise, although neither of them had specified why.

  Sarah’s reasons for abstaining had nothing to do with high morals, and everything to do with fear. He’d made his decision to leave. She was bound and determined to honor his choice. Now, when she lay awake in the dark, seconds from throwing back the covers, driving to Jack’s house and crawling through his bedroom window, she closed her eyes and conjured up a powerful deterrent: a vision of herself clinging to Jack’s knees, begging him to stay as he dragged her along the floor.

  On Jack’s final day of school in late February, she’d thought she was prepared to let him go. She’d urged him to leave, for Pete’s sake. She’d even helped organize fifth period’s surprise farewell party.

  “His kids” may have griped about Morgan’s Ten Commandments, but the messages they’d written on his goodbye card revealed affection and deep respect. To see the stern Mr. Morgan visibly choked up had caused an epidemic of watery eyes and clearing throats.

  Even Tony had gotten a little misty. It would’ve made a great Hallmark commercial if the cameras had been rolling. Almost as poignant as the moment after school when she’d said her final goodbye.

  Jack had stood in the hallway holding a box of clutter from the desk he’d just cleared. With kids streaming around them, she’d stared into his beautiful hazel eyes and muttered inane words she’d promptly forgotten.

  But she would never forget her sense of utter desolation at his curt good wishes for the future, his privately uttered admonition to be careful and send him a note after the trial. Or the premonition while watching him walk out to his car—its interior already halfpacked with belongings for his drive to L.A. in the morning—that this was only the tip of her agony. That miles of icy loneliness stretched below. Too many miles to melt in a lifetime.