From the first, he’d thought she was good-looking. Since their pool night, he’d found her attractive. And now...
And now he’d better concentrate on the reason he was here, though that was becoming incredibly difficult. “Anytime,” he said.
Lexi nodded and started playing. It was music that started soft, then gradually got louder until he had a whole range of readings. But even though he was concentrating on the monitor, he was aware of the seductive melodies coming from the piano. The notes seemed to curl around him and tug him closer to her.
Lexi’s music called to him, and he wanted to answer.
He shook his head, trying to clear it. They must be putting too many preservatives in the vending machine food. He was going to have to start brown-bagging it.
“That was perfect!” he said when she finished, trying to sound hearty to counter the effect of her music. It didn’t work. “What was it?”
“Rachmaninoff.” She used the mechanical hand to push her hair back from her face. “Did you like it?”
Like? His breathing was shallow. His heart rate had increased. He wanted to join with her in incandescent harmonies that would melt the piano keys. “Yes.” He was still caught in the spell, unable to move.
After several motionless moments, she gave him a tiny smile that released him. “Good.”
That the spell was now broken was a relief and a disappointment, but it was for the best. Starting something serious with Lexi and then approaching her father’s foundation for a grant might cause complications. Exhaling, he stared at the tangle of wires on the floor next to him. “I think we’re ready to attach the electrodes.”
He dragged everything over to the piano. Sitting on the bench next to her, he dipped a cotton swab into the conductive jelly and smeared it over the red places Lexi had made on her arm and temple.
Then there was the third spot.
Spencer felt almost queasy inside, exactly the way he felt when approaching any challenge in which he was the underdog. And the challenge here was to remain clinically detached while swabbing the top of Lexi’s breast.
Never had he been so aware of what he was doing. He’d worked with women before and hadn’t had this reaction....
But had he ever seen skin so... Pure was the only word he could think of to describe the untouched quality it had. Soft and white, with curves in interesting places, the exposed triangle of Lexi’s chest was about as far from the world of cold, metallic electrical components as he could get.
He drew another breath, hoping to clear his head, and only succeeded in drawing in the deep musky notes of her perfume.
What would happen if, instead of attaching the electrode, he just lowered his mouth and thoroughly kissed her?
LEATHER UNDERWEAR. Had she gone mad? She had no business wearing leather underwear. Leather was for lingerie professionals, like Francesca. Lexi was a white cotton amateur.
How embarrassing could this situation get? She’d unzipped herself practically to her navel. He had to have seen what she was wearing.
No reaction. None. Nothing.
Just look at the intent way those brown eyes were concentrating on all the electrical wires.
It was her own fault. All by herself she’d blown a stolen poinsettia and a platonic kiss, tongue or no tongue, all out of proportion. Then she’d compounded her error by listening to Francesca. And now she was suffering for it by sitting here in hardware-adorned leather underwear that was shouting, “Hey, stud, let’s have a hot time tonight,” and she couldn’t shut it up.
She should have changed as soon as she realized that all he wanted to turn on were the lights.
“OUCH.”
“Did I hurt you?” He was moving too fast, trying to remain professionally detached. Forget it. He wasn’t professionally anything anymore.
“No, my hair caught on the zipper.” She reached to untangle it.
“Try using the hand.” He’d repositioned it so Lexi’s own hand was in a fist and showed her how to use her knuckles to operate the two fingers that were functional.
After a few efforts, she clamped on the lock of hair. “I can feel that I’m holding something!”
“Does it feel like hair?”
“Sort of. I don’t know whether I’d recognize it as hair, because I already know what I’m touching.” She pulled, but her hair was really caught. “Oh,” she said, and looked down at herself.
Spencer automatically looked down, too...then wished he hadn’t. “What is it caught on?”
Lexi looked up at him with a funny expression. “Francesca’s Christmas present.”
“What?”
Her face colored. “It’s...it’s kind of a gag gift. And Francesca’s going to order a set for herself—in red—but not if they’re uncomfortable. And because they aren’t returnable I’m wearing mine to test them for her,” she finished in a rush.
“Wearing your what?”
“My, uh...I thought you noticed.”
He’d noticed a lot, but he didn’t know what was politic for him to admit to noticing. “The...the outfit?”
“Yes.” She unzipped herself and pulled the edges of her top apart. “The leather.”
Spencer stared at something that looked like it would have been worn by an Amazon warrior in a fantasy comic book. That, he hadn’t noticed.
That, he hadn’t expected.
That, he couldn’t ignore.
“My hair is caught on one of the chains and I can’t make this thing—” she waved the robotic hand “—work well enough to get it free. Could you...?”
Could he what? Continue to function while in the quivering throes of testosterone-induced shock? “Sure.”
Between the hand, the chains and Lexi’s unsuccessful attempts to free it, her hair was snarled pretty good.
First he untangled the hand.
That left the chain on the bra. It was a short chain with tiny links that lay flat against the leather. Trying very hard to avoid touching her more than necessary, Spencer nevertheless grazed his knuckles against her skin.
One of them gasped softly. He may have; she may have. It didn’t really matter. All Spencer knew was that he could no longer remain in this unintended intimacy without doing something that involved skin, leather and his lips.
But her hair wasn’t coming loose. In desperation, he tugged, and the chain gave.
The silver studs decorating the cup of the bra turned out to be more than decoration. They were working snaps. And the chain had been attached to one of them. The leather parted, revealing a generous crescent of skin.
Lexi gasped and clutched at herself with both hands. Or three, as it happened. “Oh! It tingles.”
“Damn right. Sorry.” He inhaled and exhaled twice. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“Swear, or open the ‘Gate of Delight’?”
“The Gate of Delight?” His voice didn’t sound right, but Lexi didn’t seem to notice.
“That’s what Francesca said it was called...you know, this feels really weird.” With an odd expression on her face, she continued to touch herself and the various zippers and chains with the hand, driving Spencer pretty much insane with lust. “It’s kind of tingly. I can tell the difference between my skin and the leather. My skin is warm...the zipper pull is cold...and I can feel a texture variation....”
He should be thrilled. The sensor grid was working. He ought to be studying the data and recording her movements. Instead, he’d completely lost all scientific objectivity and was hypnotically watching the movements of her real fingers interact with those of the robotic hand while trying to figure out a way he could interact with her, too.
She touched his arm with the hand. “Do you feel a buzz?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“The hand is supposed to do that?”
“I’m not talking about the hand.” He skimmed his fingers over the smooth skin of her neck and jaw. “I’m talking about you.” He couldn’t have prevented himself from kissing her right the
n for all the grant money in the world.
It was probably not the best move, considering he’d kissed her once—no, twice already. But each kiss had been different. The first was a sizzling kiss of discovery. The second... Well, the second was supposed to have been a simple goodbye kiss that had ended up getting complicated.
This one... This one was lust, pure and simple.
Okay, impure and unsimple, but once her lips parted under his, he didn’t care. She was incredibly sexy, she was warm, she was in his arms and...
He was falling for her.
Hard. But he’d have to get right back up, because Spencer Price wasn’t ready to fall for anybody. He needed to focus all his time and energy on the robotic hand. Grant money, even new grants, wouldn’t last forever. Someone else was bound to develop a similar idea, and then all their work would be commercially useless, unless they were the first to perfect it.
His team was counting on him. And there was a certain professor he owed. Spencer was too close to let anything distract him now.
But he was falling for Lexi.
Falling for her soft, mobile mouth, the silky hair and the exotic perfume. Falling for the way he felt when she was in his arms. Falling for the expressions in her eyes. Falling for the emotions she revealed when she was lost in her music. Falling for the black leather. Even falling for her pitiful pool playing.
This was not good.
He broke the kiss long before he was ready and told himself he should feel guilty. He wasn’t surprised when he didn’t.
“It’s a good thing that electrode isn’t hooked up to my heart, because the monitor would be off the scale about now,” she said breathlessly.
He grinned and touched his forehead to hers. “I want you to know that I came here strictly to test the hand.”
“Then let’s test it.” She drew it up to cup his face. “Feel the tingles?”
He did. “Probably vibrations from the motors.”
“Wonderful possibilities,” she said, echoing his thoughts.
Closing her eyes, she mirrored with her own hand the movements of the robotic one. “I can feel your skin and a slight roughness from your beard,” she said, moving it over his face. “I can feel the warmth....”
“Lexi, do you have any idea of what you’re doing to me? I can’t—”
“Then don’t.” And she kissed him until his head spun.
Somewhere in the far reaches of his mind, he knew this wasn’t a good idea. “Are you sure?” he asked, barely breaking the kiss to do so.
“I’m beyond sure.”
Spencer turned his head and placed a kiss in the palm of her real hand, then playfully kissed one of the working fingers of the robotic hand.
The buzz against his lips had a painful sharpness to it and he jerked. “I just got zapped.”
That meant something important, but he lost the thought when Lexi leaned close.
“Shall I kiss it and make it better?”
He drew her into his arms, tried to kiss her, but pulled back. “My lips are numb.” He glared at the traitorous hand.
Lexi laughed. “While you’re getting the feeling back, I’m going to conduct my own tests.” Still laughing, she managed to use the hand to work open the buttons on his shirt.
After that, Spencer pretty much went on autopilot. With Lexi reporting on all the sensations she felt, they got all the buttons undone, explored a couple of zippers on Francesca’s Christmas present, then Lexi, wearing the sexiest smile he’d ever seen, said, “The ultimate test,” and unsnapped his jeans.
All the air left his lungs in a whoosh and he was about to suggest adjourning to the bedroom, or sofa, or someplace besides the piano bench, when Lexi looked startled. “I think I broke it.”
“What?” he gasped, very certain that everything he needed was fully functioning.
“The hand. It’s hard to move the fingers.” She trailed it down his stomach. “Do you feel the tingles anymore?”
He threw back his head. “The tingles are incredible.”
“How incredible?” She moved lower.
“Wonderfully, fabulously incredible.”
“You need a new texture reading,” she said with a mischievous smile.
And the hand clamped over him.
Spencer experienced an instant of absolute ecstasy before the pressure increased and the tingles became painful needle pricks.
“Lexi,” he gasped just as there was an electrical sizzle and a burning smell. Not good. Very bad. No doubt a painful sign from above.
“Spencer, something’s wrong!”
No kidding.
Lexi pulled at the hand. “I can’t get it off!”
Nobody was getting anything off at this point. “Stop pulling!” Spencer fumbled for the power supply and jerked the plug out of the wall.
Eyes wide, Lexi frantically asked, “What do I do?”
Spencer grimaced. “Can you get yourself unhooked from the hand?”
“I think so.”
“That would be a good place to start.”
AFTER EXTRICATING themselves from the smoking hand, a mortified Lexi had driven Spencer to Rocky Falls’s only after-hours medical clinic.
Much later, she helped Spencer pack up the equipment.
“We will look back on this and laugh some day,” he promised, gingerly getting into his car.
“Yeah, too bad you already sent that letter to Texas Men.”
He started to laugh, then winced. “On the bright side, we know there is a design problem with the hand.”
Lexi was fairly certain there were other, less humiliating ways to detect design flaws. “And on the dull side?”
He looked at her, managing a half smile. “I’ve got a lot of work to do between now and Christmas, so I won’t be able to see you until then.”
Like that was a big surprise. From his comments in the car, she’d been anticipating a variation of the “this isn’t going to work” talk. And it hadn’t so far. He was lucky to have escaped with his manhood intact.
Still, Lexi pretended this entire evening would just be one amusing anecdote in her dating history, and waved goodbye from her front steps.
Then she went straight to the kitchen, got out all the leftover peppermint cheesecake from the Wainright and dug in.
NATURALLY, Francesca called from Indiana for a report.
So Lexi told her everything, except about eating the cheesecake.
“Was it horribly humiliating?” Francesca asked.
“Not as humiliating as having my underwear set off the metal detector in the emergency clinic.”
Lexi could hear choked laughter.
“Is he...will he...can he, uh—”
“No, he hasn’t become Rocky Falls’s only castrati tenor. His...pride was bruised and his underwear was scorched. That’s all.”
“What a relief. Ah...”
“What?” Lexi grumbled.
“Well, does he have a lot to be proud of?”
Lexi sighed for lost opportunities. “I think so, but I only know thirdhand, so to speak.”
Francesca chortled. “Lexi, you are so bad.”
She groaned. “Not bad enough.”
“So now what?” Francesca asked.
“Well, the hand’s design needs tweaking.”
“You two need tweaking.” Her disgust sounded clearly over the phone.
“Uh, there is to be no tweaking until after Christmas. Doctor’s orders.” And she was certain she wouldn’t be the tweaker.
“So what? You gave him a rain check?”
Lexi picked up the phone and walked across the hall from her bedroom until she could see Spencer’s calendar picture still hanging in the bathroom. “After this little setback, not to mention spending Christmas with my family, do you honestly think that he’ll want anything more to do with me?”
8
SPENCER FULLY RECOVERED, in spite of the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about Lexi. He’d never had trouble concentrating on his work b
efore. Never. But then, he’d never met anyone like Lexi before.
And it didn’t help that Rip had gone all metaphysical on him, lecturing about personal journeys and souls who traveled with a person. This from a man who took naps in a cave made of boxes.
Late one evening, when everyone had gone to dinner. and Rip hadn’t yet made his appearance, Spencer finally gave up and called her. There was no answer. When he checked with the Wainright Inn and discovered that Lexi was playing each night through the twenty-third, he rationalized that she was as busy as he was.
But that still didn’t make it easier to concentrate.
BY DECEMBER twenty-third, Lexi’s mother was calling her almost hourly, so she decided to spend the night at her parents’ on Christmas Eve.
The imposing traditional white Colonial house, with a magnificent view of the falls, was not her childhood home. They’d lived in Kansas City, Fort Worth and finally, Austin, about an hour’s drive away. But during Rocky Falls’s development as a fine arts center, and the resulting building boom, Lexi’s parents had realized that it would soon be fashionable for wealthy Texans to have a vacation and retirement home here. The Cultural Arts Foundation agreed and built the house with an eye toward entertaining potential donors during their leisure time, as well as housing visiting guest artists. The Jordans would live there as long as her father was the chief trustee.
The only other time Lexi had stayed there was when she’d first come to Littletree and was looking for a roommate. It was not a kick-your-shoes-off kind of place, but Lexi figured she could keep her shoes on for a couple of days.
She arrived about threeish in the afternoon, and parked in the circular driveway right behind the delivery van from Main Street Drugs. Removing the garment bag and duffel containing her clothes and presents, she closed the door just as the delivery driver jogged down the front steps.
“Merry Christmas!” Lexi called.
Mr. December Page 11
