By the Book_A laugh-out-loud feel good romantic comedy

by Nancy Warren

  He settled the weights back in their cradle with a metallic click and rolled to standing. He moved toward her with a panther’s easy grace, and she felt desire snake through her belly along with a quiver of uncertainty.

  “I like you sweaty,” he said and, reaching out a hand, traced his index finger slowly across her chest where her breasts swelled lightly over the neck of her tank top. Her skin was damp and extra sensitive from her workout and she sucked in a sharp breath as she felt the slight roughness of his finger track its slow path. She watched them in the mirror, mesmerized, and saw her nipples pebble against the damp cotton almost before she felt the tingling, tightening sensation. His gaze glued to hers in the mirror, he put his finger in his mouth and sucked it.

  A shudder went through her.

  “I definitely like you sweaty,” he said in a low husky voice before blocking out her reflection by claiming her mouth.

  She tasted the salt of perspiration. Hers? His? Mingled, probably. Their lips were slick with it, and as he rubbed his lips back and forth against hers, she felt an urgent wave of desire swamp her.

  She clutched at him and felt the heat coming off his body through the warm, damp T-shirt, then his hot damp skin as her fingers found the rip in his shirt.

  He kissed her jaw, ran his lips down her throat, and she watched in the mirror through half-slitted eyes. His head was so dark against her white throat.

  Desire was already clouding her senses and it must have slowed her reflexes, because before she could stop him, he grasped the hem of her shirt and yanked it high, revealing her black sports bra.

  “No. You can’t,” she mumbled. “Somebody could come.”

  He grinned at her with pure devilry. “Somebody’s going to. That I promise.”

  And he flipped up the sports bra, baring her breasts to the brightly lit room, the mirror and any apartment resident who came through the door.

  “I meant—” she gasped “—anyone could come in and see me…see us.” He took a nipple into his mouth and she moaned.

  “That’s right,” he said, the words reverberating against her flesh. “Anyone could come in and see us.”

  She wasn’t an exhibitionist! She couldn’t imagine anything more mortifying. A low moan escaped her throat as he pulled the other nipple into his mouth and she saw the first in the mirror, as glossy and red as candied fruit.

  He was bent awkwardly to avoid the bike’s handle-bars, but he didn’t seem to notice. She could hear the lap of his tongue against her breasts and the soft sighs coming from her own lips.

  When he moved to stand behind her, she watched him cautiously, but still jumped when he put both arms around her, then pulled her back so she was still sitting on the bike, but leaning against his belly. In the mirror she saw herself, half-naked, gleaming with sweat. Saw his hand cup her belly then disappear under the waistband of her shorts.

  “I want you to watch yourself come,” he whispered in her ear.

  “No, I…” But then he was touching her and conscious thought fled. She was hot and wet and sweaty and untidy and she couldn’t possibly make such a spectacle of herself. Anyone could come in…

  Dimly, she knew she could flip her top back down and get Luke’s hand out of her pants pretty quickly, but not quickly enough to prevent any apartment resident in her building from seeing her like this.

  His fingers moved rhythmically, hypnotically, taking her to a place where convention didn’t matter. Her breasts rose and fell as her breathing grew labored, her nipples bouncing lightly as though caressed by an unseen hand.

  He rubbed at her exquisitely sensitive, slippery flesh, hot from the workout, hot from embarrassment, hot from desire. She felt his fingers separating her folds to touch her center.

  In the mirror she saw him watching her, saw a face that was hers and yet not hers, so sultry and sensual, her lips impossibly plump and red, her eyes huge and unfocused, her cheeks flushed, damp tendrils of hair curling over her forehead and temples.

  “Anyone could walk in,” he repeated. “They’d see you like this, spread out in all your glory, being pleasured.”

  She moaned, and her moan turned into a cry as he plunged two fingers deep inside her. Her hips rode that bike furiously as intense sensation built, layer by layer. She’d never felt so vulnerable, or so open, watching him watching her. Seeing her own abandoned pleasure.

  “Oh, I’m going to… Oh.” The rest of her words were lost, drowned by the wave that rose suddenly from within, its roar deafening her. She tried to close her eyes, but he wouldn’t let her. His free hand pulled her chin forward and she was so startled her eyes snapped open and she watched herself in the throes of a powerful orgasm.

  She was shocked at how wild she looked and sounded. Her mouth was open on a sigh, her face tight with concentration and flushed with passion.

  “You are so beautiful when you come,” he told her, staying with her through the aftershocks. “I wanted you to see it.”

  Suddenly he spun her, throwing her off balance physically and emotionally yet again. From somewhere a condom appeared and then she knew what she’d suspected—he’d planned this all along.

  He scooped her up and walked with her to the black workbench and laid her on it. He took her hands and wrapped her fingers around the black-vinyl handles, as though she were going to bench-press the weights. “Hang on.”

  He brushed aside her feeble protest as easily as one leg of her wide-legged exercise shorts, scooping her panties out of the way at the same time. While she was still flustered and thinking they should go up to her apartment before they really were discovered, he pulled her hips to the edge of the bench press, told her to put her feet on his shoulders and thrust inside her in one long motion.

  The tail end of her climax still quivered within her and it was as though her sensitive flesh were being stroked from the inside; new tingles radiated. He thrust hard, and fast. She clutched the handles for balance as her body tossed and rocked on the narrow bench. He half squatted in front of her, holding on to her knees as he thrust rhythmically into her. Her hips rocked right off the vinyl to meet him. She felt the bulge of the same quad muscles she’d watched earlier. She loved his strength and control, although he was fast approaching loss of control. She thought she’d watch him as he’d watched her, enjoy the helpless openness of his expression at the moment of total release, but then he stroked her. She’d have thought she’d be too tender to be touched again so soon on that hottest of hot spots, but it was barely a flutter of pressure, and her own wetness almost soothed even as his gentle touch excited her all over again.

  She wanted to hang on to control this time, but it was too much. When he took her mouth she opened to him. She wrapped her legs around his hips, and her back bent until her shoulder blades jammed against the bench. She was dimly aware that she was getting a second workout tonight, and then his strokes increased in speed and urgency. His fingers insisted she respond, and she couldn’t help herself. As he stiffened, then bucked against her, her legs squeezed him tight, tight, tight against her and she cried out her ecstasy into his mouth.

  It took several minutes for her to come back to earth, but when she did she found him grinning at her, a totally smug expression on his face.

  “I think I’m a damn good personal trainer if I do say so myself.”

  She rolled her gaze and pushed him away so she could pull her clothing back into order.

  He disappeared into the bathroom and came back to say, “Feel like a sauna?”

  “It takes half an hour to warm up.”

  “I was thinking our own natural body heat would do the trick.”

  “I think all my exhibitionism is over for the night. Anyway, now I definitely need a shower.”

  “No problem, there’s one right here. Plenty of room for two.”

  She glared at him, trying not to fall for his charm, but her lips couldn’t stop trying to smile. “No. Upstairs.”

  He put on a hopeful-puppy look. “Do I get to join you
?”

  She thought about it for a full second. “Yes.”

  It was a very long, soapy shower.

  THE FIRST THING that struck Luke when he pushed through the scratched and dented front door of the high school was the smell. It was as if he were going back in time. He’d forgotten that mix of adolescent sweat, chalk dust and cleaning chemicals that sent him traveling through time to feel like a high school troublemaker again.

  A kid half a foot taller than him with sneakers the size of Montana gave him a curious once-over as Luke stood there taking it all in—a glass case containing athletic trophies, a plaque with the names of the top scholastic achievers, the patches of fresh paint on the buff walls that didn’t quite cover scrawled black graffiti.

  Luke shook his head and followed Shari’s directions to the office. He hadn’t quite reached it when the bell rang and the relative quiet was over. Chairs scraped, voices rose, doors opened and streams of kids spilled out into the hallway.

  He dodged bodies and curious glances and finally escaped into the office where he asked a surly receptionist who looked as though she ate freshmen for coffee break to page Shari. It seemed touch-and-go as to whether she would or not, and Luke realized his palms were sweating. He wouldn’t go back to high school for a million bucks.

  He had to stifle the urge to kiss Shari when he saw her. Even though they’d made love that morning, she shook his hand, darting a glance at the old biddy receptionist as she did so. It seemed to him that her blush would broadcast to the world that they were beyond the hand-shaking stage, but if pretending they were strangers gave her confidence, he was happy to play along. He’d tease the hell out of her later, though.

  “Well,” she said breathlessly, “you’re right on time. Come to my classroom and we’ll get you set up.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Wilson,” he said.

  God, she was cute when she was flustered. “Please, you can call me Shari.”

  She waited until they were in her classroom to say another word. “I’m sure that old gossip suspected something the way you were looking at me.”

  “Shari, we were at that party together with a bunch of teachers. I think they know something’s up.”

  “You don’t understand. Miss Pavel is the last person you ever want to know about your business. Believe me. She’d carry on forever if she thought I had a boyfriend.”

  Luke was amazed at the sharp burst of hurt pride he felt. He wanted Shari telling Miss Pavel and everyone else in the world that he and she were a couple.

  He blinked at his own thoughts.

  He did?

  Pushing all ideas about their relationship, whatever it was, to the back of his mind, he pulled out his notes and put them in the right order.

  “Do you have everything you need?” Shari asked him.

  “Not quite,” he said, and kissed her swiftly.

  She pulled away, her color high once more. “That is completely against school regulations,” she said on a laugh.

  “I’ll get the rest of that after school,” he promised them both.

  Before she could reply—if she was even going to—the first kids shuffled into the room. He blinked as the desks filled rapidly and noisily. It was as though he were looking back at his own high school class. Apart from the change in fashions, the kids were the same. He could pick out the smart ones, the nerds, the athletes and the rebels. Amazing.

  He felt a wave of protectiveness that Shari should be alone with this pack of wild animals every day. Then the bell rang and she moved to stand in front of the scarred oak desk. Silence fell like a stage curtain.

  “Class, this is Mr. Lawson. He’s going to talk to us about working on a newspaper or online magazine article.”

  He would have asked them to call him Luke, but she’d already warned him about that. Mr. Lawson wasn’t him, that was his father, but he figured he could impersonate Mr. Lawson for Shari one day out of his life. He impersonated a total moron every day. He shrugged off the thought uncomfortably, cleared his throat and said, “Hi.” He looked around at the faces staring at him with a variety of expressions from bored to catatonic, and remembered what it was like to sit in classes day after day listening to boring stiffs like him.

  He glanced at his neat pile of notes. Hell with it.

  “Who, what, when, where, why. These are the building blocks of a newspaper article.” He stepped to the blackboard and wrote the five words down, the scratch of chalk and the smell of the dusty eraser so familiar.

  He turned to stare at the class. The class stared back. Boredom was changing to puzzlement. Progress.

  “So, let’s build a story. Tell me something that’s going on at this school that we can turn into a story.”

  Silence.

  A jock-looking type at the back hauled a designer sneaker onto his desk and retied the lace.

  “You, with your foot on the desk. What’s your name?”

  The athletic foot clonked to the floor. “Eddie.”

  “Eddie, tell me something that’s going on. Any of your teams winning?”

  The kid slumped in his seat. “Yeah.”

  “Which team?”

  “The football team.”

  “The Orcas,” piped up one of the keeners.

  Luke turned back to the board. Circled who and wrote, “The Orcas.” It took a few minutes and more tooth-pulling than an oral surgeon did, but soon he had a lead paragraph. “The Orcas, Seattle Middle High’s football A-team, beat the Tigers at their home field Wednesday night.”

  “That’s great,” said Luke, noting the kids were a lot more interested now the stories were about them. “What else is happening? Let’s do another one.”

  Silence and more shuffling. Luke rolled his eyes in Shari’s direction. “How about hard news? Safety issues? Overcrowding in the classrooms?” He turned and challenged them. “What do you guys want that you aren’t getting?”

  “New tennis courts.”

  “Computer lab time.”

  A hand went up in the corner.

  “Yeah?” Luke acknowledged the girl.

  “My assistance dog.”

  “What kind of assistance dog?”

  “I don’t walk very well. But having Daisy means I can go to a normal school.” She glanced down at the golden lab snoozing on the floor beside her. “But Daisy’s getting old, and it’s so expensive to train an assistance dog. I’d like to raise awareness, maybe encourage people to help fund assistance dogs.

  “I like this one. A human interest story, and maybe, if we go public with this, we can get some training funded. It’s worth a try.” He glanced around the class. “So, what’s our lead?”

  Shari hadn’t been certain how Luke would do with her students, and had secretly prepared some backup questions and information about journalism of her own in case he flopped. But gazing at the eager faces and the raised hands, the general excitement in the room as the kids and Luke worked together to write a news story, she accepted he’d surprised her yet again.

  With her help, Luke Lawson was turning into the confident, sexy, charismatic man she’d thought he was when they’d first met over mixed mail. The fact that she was part of his journey filled her with warmth.

  Her students were so excited and enthused, she had a feeling that if the story found its way into the local paper, Lori, or hopefully many kids like Lori, would get the dogs they needed.

  And, as the kids would say, that was sweet.

  17

  AN ODD BLEND of nerves and excitement swirled inside Shari to the same rhythm that her purple silky hem swirled around her legs as she shifted in front of the dressing mirror in her bedroom. Sun spilled into her window. It looked as though B.J. was going to have a beautiful day for her wedding. After a month of hard work Shari was ready to face the day. In fact, she ought to thank B.J. If it hadn’t been for her, Shari wouldn’t have ended up becoming intimate with Luke, and she couldn’t imagine now what it would be like not to have him in her life.

  She tw
irled once more in front of the mirror. The bold purple dress was perfect. One of those bland pastels would have made her feel like a woman trying to fit in with the rest of the crowd. The woman in the mirror set her own style, with the bright dress, strappy sandals and colorful shawl. She’d styled her hair in long, loose curls and put extra effort into her makeup. All that working out had given her tighter muscles but also a glow of health. She looked her best and knew it.

  When her doorbell rang, she was ready even though Luke was a couple of minutes early.

  She opened the door and nearly fell over. She wasn’t the only one who’d gone to extra effort with their appearance. Luke wore a summer-weight gray suit that had “designer” written all over it, but discreetly—in small letters. Under it he wore a crisp white shirt saved from being dull by a tie patterned in crayon-colored zigzags.

  He’d had his hair cut and styled; he was clean-shaven. She thought he looked gorgeous when he was slopping around in jeans and two-day stubble. Dressed up he made her tongue hang out. “I thought you were wearing a tux.”

  “Too hot. Besides, they might make a mistake and accidentally marry me to B.J.”

  “I like the tie.” Secretly she thought he couldn’t look better in a tuxedo.

  “Thanks.” He stepped closer and every neuron in her body snapped to attention. How did he do that to her so effortlessly? “You look so good in that dress, all I want to do is take it off.”

  She giggled and stepped back. “Play your cards right and maybe later you’ll get a chance.”

  The look he sent her said there’d be no chance about it. “I got you something,” he said and, digging into his pocket pulled out a small square box wrapped in silver paper.

  Her brows rose as she took it. She tore off the wrapping and opened the white box with the name of a Belltown jeweler stamped on the front in gold. Inside was a silver necklace with square tiles in a flowing mosaic of purple, red and yellow, and earrings to match.