Instead her head fell back a little to more fully expose the delicate line of her throat to his questing fingers, while her own hungering hands curled into fists on her lap. She managed, just barely, to stifle the excited, frustrated little moan that rose to her lips.
"Excuse me." Desi heard the stewardess's voice through a hazy fog as Jake's hand dropped reluctantly from her throat. "Would you like a drink, Mr. Lancing? Or coffee?"
"A drink?" he said, and Desi thought she heard a note of vague confusion in his deep tones as if he, too, had forgotten exactly where they were. As if, like her, he had completely lost touch with their surroundings and with time, and was as surprised as she was to suddenly realize that the plane was already airborne. But he seemed to recover himself quickly. "Yes, a drink would be fine. Brandy, if you have it."
"Certainly, Mr. Lancing. And you, miss?"
Desi looked up blankly, a little slower to return to reality than Jake had been. It had been such a beautiful dream that she had been indulging in with him—beautiful and all too brief. She was loath to let it go.
Jake's hand touched her arm lightly. "Would you like anything?" he asked.
Desi smiled at him, a soft, sleepy child's sort of smile, wholly charming and unconsciously inviting. "Yes, please, Jake," she said, and they both knew that she wasn't talking about a drink. "A Bailey's would be nice. On the rocks."
"You obviously know who I am," Jake said, turning to her when the stewardess had moved off down the aisle to take drink orders from the other passengers. "But I don't know who you are." His hand came up to gently tug at a wayward curl that had escaped from the knot on top of her head. "What's your name, pretty lady?" he asked, twining the coppery curl around his finger.
What do you want it to be, she wanted to say. I'll be whoever you want, whatever you want.
"Desiree," she said, not even aware that she had given him her full first name.
She was Desi to almost everyone else, she realized later, for him she wanted to be special and different.
"Just Desiree?" he asked. He released her curling tendril of hair and let his fingers travel lightly down her shoulder and along the length of her arm to the pale hand still clenched against her thigh. He lifted her hand in his as if to examine it.
The fingers were long and slender, the nails kept short and unpolished but buffed to a glossy sheen, so that they glowed like smooth flat pearls on the tips of her fingers. He touched each nail softly, almost wonderingly, and then turned her hand over in his and drew one hard brown finger slowly across her sensitive palm.
"No last name?" he said, still looking down at the slender hand in both of his.
"No," she said, "no last name."
This whole thing was still a dream, she thought. The stewardess hadn't succeeded in waking them up after all. To give him her last name, even though she already knew his, would somehow break the spell. She didn't know how it would, exactly, but she superstitiously didn't want to take the chance. To tell him that she was Desiree Weston might lead to talking about Zek, and from there to "oh and do you know so and so" and to the movie industry in general and all the mundane things that two people meeting for the first time would normally talk about.
But this meeting wasn't mundane or ordinary. It was fate, she suddenly realized. They were meant to meet like this. Strangers, instantly and fiercely attracted to each other. The way she had always secretly dreamed it would be.
"No last names, not tonight." She smiled up at him and her smile, soft and teasing, was like a promise. "Just Jake and Desiree."
He nodded again, that single characteristically decisive movement of his head. "Jake and Desiree," he agreed, and brought her hand to his lips.
His brown eyes held hers as he bent his head to kiss the palm, and he looked at her through the fringe of his short dark lashes.
What a beautiful man he is, she thought, more beautiful than any man has a right to be. Her eyes roamed hungrily, in open desire, over his face.
Those melting brown eyes with their thick lashes were dangerously seductive and knowing. The straight dark brows above them were marred, and thus made infinitely more interesting, by the tiny crescent-shaped scar slicing through the right brow. His nose was classically straight, his jaw strong and square with a hint of arrogance, his chin determined. His was a strong face, just saved from harshness by the softening effect of his dark hair, which was the color of rich, brown sable and so thick and shiny that Desi knew that she would need a whole hour just to run her fingers through it.
And his mouth, she told herself solemnly as she continued her painstaking inventory of his familiar face, his mouth was his best feature. It was an exciting, masculine mouth, rather hard and clean-edged, as if it had been chiseled by a sculptor. The bottom lip was just slightly fuller than the top, hinting at a softer, more tender and sensual side to his nature.
The side that he was showing to her now as those firm lips caressed her palm and kissed the tip of each slender finger. His eyes continued to hold hers, sending her silent, secret messages of his desire, so that she couldn't have looked away, even if she had wanted to. He was making love to her with his eyes, holding her a willing and eager captive in their bottomless brown depths.
Neither of them seemed to be aware, just then, of the people seated all around them in the dim, softly lit interior of the plane. People in front and in back and to the side, blocked out by the high seats and the curve of Jake's right shoulder as he sat turned toward her. It was almost as if they were alone. Almost, but not quite.
They were not nearly alone enough, she thought. And she wanted, more than she had ever wanted anything, for them to be really alone. We wanted them to be somewhere where Jake's kisses could go beyond her hand.
It didn't occur to her that this was their first meeting. That, in reality, she hardly knew him and that she should not be allowing or encouraging his caresses. She felt as if she had known him all her life, wanted him all her life. As if his lips, moving so warmly against her palm and fingers and the tender inside of her wrist, had touched her before and would touch her again.
In a way it had happened before—countless times—in her deepest, most secret dreams. Dreams hidden even from herself, for Desi could never remember them in the morning, except for the feeling that they had been wonderful and the nagging wish that they had gone on just a little longer.
She was reminded now of the sweetness of those half-remembered dreams, and she wanted the completion that she had never found in them. She wanted his lips to travel from her hand up to her shoulders and the pale line of her throat, across the curve of her cheek to, finally, claim her mouth. She wanted, desperately, for him to kiss her. And she knew, looking into his smoldering eyes, that it was what he wanted, too.
But the stewardess came back then, bringing their drinks. Jake didn't completely release her hand but instead placed it firmly on his thigh, pressing it down a little, as if to make sure she would leave her hand there while he was busy with lowering the tray table.
His action was unnecessary because Desi couldn't have moved her hand even under the threat of dismemberment. It felt as if her fingers were glued to his hard thigh by a strong current of electricity and, like someone receiving a tingling shock, she couldn't let go. Not that she wanted to anyway.
Jake handed her drink to her then, and his free hand came down to cover hers on his leg as if he, too, couldn't bear to break contact, even for a minute.
They touched glasses silently, toasting each other with their eyes, and sipped at their drinks. Jake reached up a long arm and switched off the overhead light, banishing their fellow passengers to formless shapes and surrounding the two of them in a cocoon of intimate darkness. With long hard fingers he deftly tore open the small foil package of smoked almonds that the stewardess had left with their drinks and popped one into Desi's mouth. She accepted it greedily, giggling softly from pure giddiness and anticipation.
They huddled together in the soft darkness, speaking of noth
ing in particular, neither seeming to feel the need, at least not then, to know any more about the other. They whispered and held hands and took turns feeding smoked almonds to each other, one by one, slowly and tantalizingly, filling up the time until they could be alone.
The cabin lights came on unexpectedly, making them blink like two sleepy children, and the stewardess's voice came over the loudspeaker, advising them to extinguish all smoking materials and to fasten their seat belts for the descent into the San Francisco International Airport. Since neither of them had any more than carryon luggage they were able to bypass the sleepy irritable crowds around the baggage-claim carousels and go directly outside to hail a cab.
With a part of her mind Desi registered the looks that they—or, rather, Jake—received but no one came up to ask for his autograph. Maybe they thought it was too late, she speculated idly, or maybe they were warned off by his purposeful stride and the way he looked neither to the left or right but only at her.
"Hungry?" Jake asked as they waited for the cab to pull up to the curb.
Instinctively Desi knew that he was offering her the opportunity, if she wanted one, to leave him without awkwardness, to keep from happening what they both knew was surely going to happen if she went with him. If she said yes, she was hungry, then he would take her somewhere very public for a midnight snack, but if she said no...
Desi didn't even hesitate. The thought of refusing or hedging never even crossed her mind. And if it had, she would have dismissed it without a second thought. She wanted what was going to happen, wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything.
"No, I'm not hungry," she said as they settled into the back seat of the cab.
He put his arm around her in the cab, holding her willing body close to his side. But he didn't kiss her, not yet. And she knew, again instinctively and with certainty, he was waiting until they were alone.
It didn't seem at all unusual to her that she should know so surely what he was thinking and feeling but she did. Or, at least, she felt that she did.
She snuggled against him, feeling warm and secure and totally wonderful. She was in no hurry at all at this point, content just to feel his strong arm around her and his hand resting possessively on her shoulder. The subtle spicy scent of his after-shave, the rich aroma of his leather jacket under her cheek, the faint trace of brandy on his warm breath all combined in her mind into one exciting sensation. The essence of man. Jake. Forever after, those smells, separately or together, would invariably remind her of this man and this magical night.
He let go of her briefly to pay the cabbie when they pulled up to the porticoed entrance of the hotel. A bellman snapped to attention when he recognized Jake, hurrying forward to help with the luggage. Jake waved him away with a smile and a brief, "No, thanks, we can manage."
Jake took Desi's hand again, leading her onto the escalator that transported them to the lobby of the hotel. She followed him passively, almost like a sleepwalker, as if her actions were all taking place in a dream, and stood docilely and completely unembarrassed by his side as he checked in. A tiny disinterested part of her mind noticed the looks they were getting—a bellman standing near the escalator who was looking their way, the surprised double takes of some of the hotel's other guests, the desk clerk's knowing smile as she handed Jake his key—but Desi put it down as attention paid solely to Jake Lancing, the actor, and in no way connected with herself.
In a way she was right. Jake Lancing would attract attention wherever he went. He was, after all, an internationally famous, Oscar-winning actor. But she failed to take into account the attraction of her own flaming beauty and, more importantly, the soft love-struck expression on her face as she gazed up at the man at her side.
It was enough to make even the most hardened cynic smile a little to watch them as they walked toward the glass elevator; the tall, strikingly handsome man in tailored tan slacks and a black leather jacket possessively clutching the hand of the slender red-haired woman at his side. A woman who looked fragile and almost childlike in her fashionably funky clothes, with her huge blue eyes fixed firmly on her companion. Romance seemed to spiral around their heads like a beacon, unmistakable to even the most casual observer.
Jake, seemingly no more aware of anyone else than she was, opened the door to the hotel room and stepped back, motioning for her to enter first. The door clicked behind them, a strangely final sound.
They were alone.
Jake moved away from her as they entered the room, dropping his carryon to the seat of a chair, casually removing his jacket and tossing it over the back of another, reaching out to switch on a bedside lamp. As she stood there, watching him, Desi felt a faint twinge of uneasiness, her only one since that first embarrassed moment of their meeting on the plane. Not at being in his room and not at her reason for being there. She was not in the least uneasy or unsure about that. She had never been surer of anything in her life. But...
What now? she wondered vaguely. Am I supposed to just rip off my clothes and fling myself on the bed? Do I wait for him to make the first move?
She didn't know the protocol for a situation like this, and she stood a little awkwardly in the middle of the room waiting for him to give her a clue as to how they should proceed.
Jake reached out and took her satchel and carryon from her, dropping them in the chair next to his. She looked up at him, her blue eyes wide with eagerness and trust and just the tiniest bit of fear, had she but known it.
"Would you like a drink?" he asked gently. He didn't say the word "first," but it hovered there, unsaid, between them.
"No. I... No." she heard herself mumble, and thought, maybe he wants one and that's why he asked me. Maybe a drink first is the way this sort of thing is done. "But if you do—" her hand fluttered up distractedly to nervously touch her neck at the open collar of her shirt "—please, go ahead. I'll..." Her voice trailed off.
Wait, was what she had been going to say, but it would have sounded so... dumb. And she couldn't think of anything else to say, not anything intelligent, with him looking at her like that, with that smoldering look in his dark eyes.
"You go ahead and have one," she said, and her hands fluttered again, moving from her neck to her hair, absently pushing at the loose tendrils as if to tuck them back into the loosely confined curls on top of her head. The upraised movement of her arms pulled her shirt, loose-fitting as it was, against the soft swell of her breasts, clearly outlining their shape and the aroused state of her nipples, like hard little buttons pushing against the confines of her shirt.
Jake made a low sound in his throat, a half-smothered groan of desire, and he reached out, gently cupping his hands around the tempting curves of her breasts, his thumbs just touching her throbbing nipples.
Desi felt herself melt at his touch and would have fallen to the floor in a trembling, molten heap, but somehow his arms were suddenly around her, holding her up, molding her shaking, eager body firmly to his.
"I don't want a drink," she heard him growl, his lips at her ear. "I want you, Desiree."
She pushed at his chest almost frantically, and his arms loosened instantly as if he thought she was trying to get away. She lifted her hands, one pale slender palm resting tenderly on either side of his strong, angular jaw. Her eyes locked with his. "I want you too, Jake," she said clearly, and offered him her parted lips.
He kissed her then—finally!—taking her offered mouth with a fevered eagerness that excited her already aroused emotions to an almost unbearable point. Her hands slipped from his face to the back of his neck, her fingers tangling in the thick brown hair that she had so longed to touch. It felt like silk against her palms just as, somehow, she had always known it would.
The feel of his hair under her hands, feeling so exactly right, made her suddenly hunger to touch him elsewhere. To run her fingers through the hair on his chest and to smooth her hands lovingly over the satin-hard muscles of his bare shoulders and back. But he was holding her too closely for
that. Gently, passionately he ravaged her mouth with his teeth and tongue, while his hands burned through the barrier of her clothes, caressing her shoulders and back and, finally, cupped her small firm bottom to mold her as closely as possible to the hard arousal of his body.
Desi's fingers clenched in his hair, and she strained against him, making a small sound of unmistakable need. Jake's hands tightened on her buttocks, lifting her from the floor, and her slim legs locked themselves obligingly around his waist. He took three steps and then turned and fell backward onto the bed, taking her weight on top of his.
The short fall dislodged their lips and hands and Desi lay still for a few moments, panting lightly, her hot face hidden in the curve of his neck. She felt his hands in her hair, removing the pins, and then he smoothed it through his fingers, down her back, stroking its silken length as if she were a purring cat. Desi could feel his heart beating heavily beneath her breasts, and as she lay there with her face pressed so closely to his neck, she became aware, once more, of the faintly spicy scent of his cologne mixed, tantalizingly, with Jake's own male scent.
Her tongue snaked out experimentally to taste him, and then her lips opened to feed greedily on that vulnerable place where his neck began to curve into his broad powerful shoulders.
Jake groaned and his hand stilled on her hair. He made a movement as if to roll over, trapping her under him. But Desi sat up abruptly, her wild hair foaming over her shoulders like a coppery cloud, and he lay still, waiting to see what she would do, staring up at her with hungry passion-glazed eyes.
"Desiree," he whispered almost pleadingly after a minute when she continued to sit there silently straddling his waist.
One Night With You (The Heart of the City Series, Book 1) Page 3
