Ecstasy
Page 7
He couldn’t tell whether she noticed his reaction to that revelation. Something wasn’t right.
“Oh, you’ll see lovelier ones than this,” he said.
“Maybe.”
It had been on the tip of his tongue to tell her that he’d show her the world, but she lacked the zest of moments earlier, and he thought light banter might unsettle her. He had to get used to her mood changes.
“You’re still young.” He covered her hand with his own. “You’ll visit a few of them with me on this tour. We can have a wonderful time together, Jeannetta.” He paused. “If you want it.”
“Perhaps.” He caressed her hand, and a sensation of sharp, hot darts pounded at his belly when she turned her hand so that her palm embraced his own. He’d better get them interested in another subject, anything to enable him to make it through dinner without an embarrassing show of male want.
“When will you finish your novel?” Uh-oh. Wrong topic, he realized when she placed her fork on her plate, sat back and took a deep breath.
“That depends on a lot of things, some of which are beyond my control.” Suddenly, she brightened. “I’d been writing about a woman but, when we were in Rome, I realized that was all wrong. My protagonist is a man and should have been all along.”
“Anything to do with anybody you met on the tour?”
Her enigmatic smile curled her lip upward and settled at the corner of her mouth.
He hoped she couldn’t hear the wild thumping of his heart. “Well?” he insisted.
“Everything and nothing.”
“What kind of an answer is that?”
Her laughter wrapped around him; he could have listened to it forever.
“You inspired the change, but it isn’t about you.”
“I see. Gonna let me read it?”
“If I finish it, you’ll be the first to see it. I promise.” He resisted asking why she’d implied that she might not finish it, but they’d gotten out of one dump, and he wanted to see her happy, spirited, normal self, not melancholy and withdrawn. Her hand moved against his, a little caress.
“If I wasn’t certain I’d drive these French waiters up the wall, I’d move my chair around this table and sit where I could put my arm around you.”
She hid her eyes behind lowered lashes, but trembling fingers nevertheless betrayed her, and he thought his heart had galloped out of control. When she threaded her fingers through his, still avoiding his gaze, he thanked God for the long white tablecloth that covered his lap.
“Some people are big on words,” he heard her murmur beneath her breath.
“What? We’re still in France, lady, so don’t tempt me unless you’d like me to show you some wantonness of my own. I probably wouldn’t dance in the street with a group of Gypsies, but, take my word for it, I know how to let it all hang out. You want to eat those words?”
She shook her head and corrected her posture, but didn’t remove her hand from his. He reached across the table and tickled her chin with the forefinger of his free hand.
“Don’t go getting prim on me, sweetheart, too late for that. Look at me.”
Her long lashes lifted with snaillike speed. Lord, did this woman know how to flirt!
“Pour dessert, Monsieur?” The waiter must have understood his murderous glare, because the man glanced away, then back, as if to say, sorry, bad timing. Neither of them wanted dessert, so he ordered two cups of espresso coffee.
He wouldn’t press her. Time enough for that when he got her to himself. Her quietness didn’t disturb him, because he knew she was feeling something new, just as he was, and that she was trying to deal with it. They left the restaurant holding hands.
“It’s only nine o’clock. Would you like to stop by Bongo Ade’s for half an hour or so? It’s walking distance. It caters to Francophone Africans, but you don’t have to talk to them. How about it?”
“I’d love it. Unless their French is full of local accents, I’ll probably be able to understand it.”
Rays of yellow, orange, white and blue lights, reminiscent of a Harlem disco, flashed like convoluted rainbows across the dance floor of Ade’s home away from home. A low hum of voices melded with the steady rhythm of the drums to which patrons swayed even as they sat at tables or stood talking in groups. With its warm, homey atmosphere, Bongo Ade’s needed no welcome sign. Mason found a table, ordered lemonade, which the waitress recommended, and settled in the comfortable rattan chair. He noticed immediately that the West Africans seemed to prefer lemonade and soft drinks, while the Frenchmen and other non-Africans drank wine or spirits. People-watching had a lot to recommend it.
“Excuse me, please.”
He looked up as she started to rise, went around to her chair and assisted her. “I’ll be right back.” He watched her glide away. He had wanted her because...well, a man wanted a woman like her, but he had begun to develop a reason for wanting her that had nothing to do with what he saw when he looked at her. He needed to have a good talk with himself.
* * *
Jeannetta closed the door of the ladies’ room and leaned against it. She couldn’t imagine why she’d teased Mason at the restaurant when she knew he’d exact payment first chance he got. She’d never been so irresolute as now, telling him that he could expect nothing intimate between them and then leading him to believe he had a chance. A woman who did that risked being known as a tease, and the description didn’t fit her. At least it hadn’t. Mason wasn’t a man a woman could ignore, especially if he showed an interest. She had to admit that, with each come-to-me signal he sent her, with each tender gesture, her will to walk away from him weakened more. She rinsed her mouth and glanced up to see two West-African women enter the room.
“Where you from, love?” one of them asked in a most non-African fashion. She told them. The woman switched from French to English. She had spent seven years at the United Nations in New York before transferring to the UNESCO in Paris.
“You and your husband look good together,” the woman said.
Surprised at the assumption, Jeannetta replied, “He isn’t my husband.”
“You’d better fix that,” the other woman advised. “If you don’t, some other woman will do that for you. He’s nice. Real nice.”
“He sure is that,” the first woman added. “I never could understand how you American women don’t see to your men.” They talked for a few minutes, and Jeannetta remarked that they seemed less African than she would have expected. They told her, proudly, that they had lived and worked in New York, married Frenchmen, traveled extensively and that they were as uncomfortable in their ancestral villages as she would be. She said goodbye, started back to her table, and stopped. Two women in West-African dress had joined Mason, and his flirtatious smile told her that he enjoyed their company.
She steamed, in what she recognized as a fit of jealousy, strode purposefully to the table and stopped. Seeing her, the smile spread wider over Mason’s face and he stood. He introduced Jeannetta and asked them to excuse him.
“I’ve enjoyed meeting you ladies,” he added as they lingered.
Jeannetta could barely control an impulse to flinch when one of the women looked her over, showed a lack of concern for as competition and drawled, “When you leave your man alone in Ade’s, you’re asking one of us to take him.” Jeannetta glanced at Mason from the corner of her eye and wanted to erase that smirk from his grinning lips.
“He isn’t that easy to get,” she said, running her left hand along his arm possessively and smiling into Mason’s eyes. A broad grin animated his elegant features, and she could almost hear her heart sing with delight.
“I am so easy to get,” he said, grinning as his gaze seared her. “All you have to do is wink.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be a pushover,” she said, her gaze fastened on
his tantalizing lips as he bent over to seat her. She could almost touch them with her own.
“Maybe not for some people,” he teased. “Go ahead. Push a little bit. See what happens.”
The rhythm of the bongos increased, soft and sensual, and the heat in his eyes toyed with her. Desire tugged at her, but she fought it, finally crossing her legs in frustration. She knew the gesture hadn’t escaped him but, gentleman that he was, he let it slide.
“Chicken. Don’t you want to test your feminine power?”
“Get thee behind me, Satan.” He threw his head back and released an attention-getting, happy laugh. A warm glow flowed through her, and his blatant joy drew her into a cocoon of euphoria. His cocoon. What was the point in fighting him?
Chapter 3
He hadn’t taken her hand when they left Ade’s, because he couldn’t hold any part of her and fight his battle with himself. Her quiet serenity during the ride back had suited him, given him time for reflection. They reached her door, and he held out his hand for her key. Wildfire shot through his veins when she opened her bag, took out the strip of plastic and handed it to him without shifting her gaze from his. Be careful, man; you don’t want any more fly-by-night affairs. No more convenient sex. No more...
“Here.” Her whisper barely reached his ear. He held out his hand for the card and felt it scrape his fingers as her hand shook.
“Jeannetta.” He heard the soft rasp of his voice, but did she? Only the rapid quiver of her bottom lip told him that she’d responded to his entreaty. He tugged at the card, but didn’t take it. Waited. She glanced up at him with “I need you” blazing in her eyes, and he didn’t care about the lecture he’d just given himself, didn’t worry about her past insistence that there could be nothing between them. He shoved logic aside.
“I’m waiting for you to wink.”
“I never learned how.” He took a step closer, testing the water.
“If you can’t close one eye at a time, close both of them.” His breathing accelerated, and he finally had to shove his hands into his pockets while he wondered if the bottom would drop out of him. Like a slow-moving drawbridge, her eyelids covered her luminous eyes and her hands crept up his lapel.
“Jeannetta. Jeannetta.”
* * *
Her nerves skittered wildly when the voice that had shaken her before she met its owner produced that urgent, husky sound of need. She knew that her bottom lip quivered, because it always betrayed her nervousness. His large but gentle hands covered her slim shoulders, steadying her. Why didn’t he kiss her, take her, love her out of her senses?
“Don’t be afraid. I don’t wound if I can help it. I’m a healer.” She opened her eyes but couldn’t move, didn’t want to move, as his eyes turned a smoldering dark greenish-brown, and she could feel him inside her as he’d been that afternoon in her dream.
“Oh, Mason. Mason, I...” Goosepimples spread over her flesh and the air swished out of her. His lips touched hers, tentatively, as though he thought she might reject him. Clamoring for him, she parted her lips, slipped her right hand behind his head and pressed his mouth to hers. His tongue swept and swirled in her mouth and she savored the taste of him, sucked it, nibbled it, until he used it to show her how much more they could have together. Wave after wave of vibration pounded her center, and she undulated against him. Hot flames of desire engulfed her and, when she shivered, he tightened his hold on her, slipped his hand between them and swallowed her keening cry. She twisted against his body until he held her away from him.
“We have to think about this, baby. I want to take this key, open that door and lose myself in you but, tomorrow morning, you’d be sorry. You’ve told me enough times that you don’t want an involved relationship with me.” Still holding her gently, he sought confirmation that she had changed her thinking about them. “I want you to stand three feet from me and tell me you changed your mind.” But she burrowed her face in his shoulder, and he opened her bedroom door, took her in, kissed her cheek and turned to leave.
“Mason.” He turned around. “You’re... You’re...wonderful.”
“I’ll see you in the morning. Try to be on time.”
* * *
He had planned to go straight to his room and hit the bed. Instead, when he passed the elevator, he punched the button and headed for the bar.
“Surprised to see you down here tonight,” Geoffrey told him as he picked up his bourbon and soda and walked over to join Mason. “If I’m not welcome just nod your head and I’ll go on back to my table.”
“Why are you surprised to see me?” Mason asked him, hoping that it wouldn’t be necessary to tell the man to mind his business.
“Well, you’ll be rising with the chickens in the morning, and I figured you’d be turning in.”
Mason smiled inwardly. Geoffrey Ames could take a dozen trips around the world, but he’d carry that Georgia country style of speaking wherever he went.
“I’ll be turning in shortly. Enjoying the tour so far?”
“Well...yes and no. Accommodations are fine, but I’ve kind of set my sights on Miss Lucy, and I’m out of practice. I was married for well-nigh fifty years, and I guess I just lost track of how you go about getting a lady’s attention.”
“You didn’t need any help last night in Rome,” Mason retorted, referring to Geoffrey’s date with Jeannetta.
“It’s easy to ask for something if it don’t matter whether or not you get it. I just wanted company, and she’s a nice, gracious lady. Now, with Miss Lucy, I’ve got more than company on my mind.” He sipped first the bourbon and then the soda. “I was so sure Miss Jeannetta would be going out with you that I just about fell over when she accepted.” He took another round of sips, raising Mason’s curiosity.
“Is that the way Georgians drink bourbon and soda?”
Ames rubbed his chin. “Can’t say as they do. It’s the way I drink it.”
Mason held his gaze for a few minutes. “If you’re interested in Lucy Abernathy, I suggest you walk up to her table, sit down and start talking. She’ll be delighted. Trust me.” He downed his cognac. “See you in the morning.”
He hadn’t wanted company. He had a decision to make. He’d sworn off relationships that he knew would be temporary. So what was he going to do about Jeannetta? He had kissed more females than he remembered, but none had responded to him as she had, and none had fired him up as she did. She alone had made him feel as though he had the key to her heaven, that only he made the music to which she’d been born to dance. He knew that, after one night alone with her, he’d never be the same. If only he could understand his reservations about her. He walked into his room and swore. He’d tasted her; he’d gone to the bar to get her taste out of him, but not even the cognac had killed it. She hadn’t been in his room, but he smelled her, not her teasing perfume, but her aroused woman’s scent. He kicked off his shoes, stripped, dumped his clothes in a suitcase and headed to the bathroom for a cold shower.
* * *
Jeannetta checked her room to make certain that she hadn’t overlooked anything, closed her suitcase and laid the key on top. She glanced at the uninviting bed, and walked past it to the lone window of her Paris hotel room. The Arc de Triomphe glowed with its brilliant lights, romanticizing the night. She would never forget it, nor Paris, nor that room beside the door of which she had known for the first time the mind-blowing force of desire. She clutched her chest to steady her dancing heart as spasms of excitement rippled through her at the memory of his sweet tongue in her mouth and his aroused sex against her belly. Who could blame her for wanting him? She closed the curtain, turned back the covers and got into bed. She hadn’t had much experience with men, but enough to know that her dance with Mason Fenwick hadn’t ended. If she let it go any further, her cause would be lost. Tomorrow, she’d ask him.
* * *
“Glad to see you’re early, Geoffrey. I’ve seated you at the table with Lucy Abernathy for meals. You take it from there, man.” He grinned at Geoffrey’s wink. Winning that lottery must have rejuvenated the old man. Well, bully for him. He looked at his watch: seventeen minutes before departure. Where was she?
“Give the baggage one last check,” he told Josh, looking over his shoulder in the hope of seeing Jeannetta. A stab of anxiety pummeled his belly when the conductor issued the first call, “all aboard.” He couldn’t abandon his tour, and he couldn’t leave not knowing whether she needed him.
“All aboard for Istanbul.” Breath hissed out of him when the conductor climbed the steps. In another two minutes, he’d see that door close. An increase in the wind’s velocity and the smell of rain alerted him to the possibility of a troubled journey, but he had to shake off that concern; Jeannetta was his only... The wind shifted, and he turned quickly as the scent of her perfume reached him. He rushed to meet her, grabbed her carry-on bag, lifted her onto the coach and sagged against the door.
“I’m so glad you decided to join us.” He heard the bite in his voice, but after the scare she’d given him, she deserved it.
“And hello to you, too. What’s the problem? You knew I’d be here.” He figured that the train’s forlorn bellow and the chug of its wheels less than a minute after they’d boarded should set her straight.
She hadn’t expected his annoyance, but his glare was nothing short of a reprimand.
“You knew I wouldn’t leave here without you,” he told her, “and you knew my responsibility to these people. Didn’t you consider the dilemma you caused me?” He straightened up and stepped closer to her. “Do you always play it so close to the edge?”