Was that an oxymoron??
She held her favorite calligraphy pen over the paper and waited for inspiration. Anytime she got close to Ethan, her breath grew shallow, her heart beat faster, and her panties got damp. It had to be a chemical thing. Why else had she been unable to get him out of her head?
She closed her eyes and remembered what he looked like when he laughed. As he’d accumulated more and more responsibility over the years, she was afraid that he smiled less and less. And that was a shame. Because his smile and his dimple were lethal. They made a girl’s legs weak, made her resistance turn to the consistency of Jell-O.
Not that she had ever needed to fend him off. Quite the contrary. It had been a close call a number of times when she thought about throwing herself into his arms and kissing him senseless.
His lips. Oh, wow. His firm, wonderful lips . . .
Her memories went further, taunting her with last Friday night’s events. Ethan smiling at her. Ethan in her bed. Ethan carrying her up the stairs.
Ah, now she was ready. . . .
Dearest Ethan,
Alone at night
With nary a light,
I imagine you nude,
If you don’t think it rude. . . .
My hands stroke your chest.
You nibble my breasts.
Romance and lust
Might well nigh combust. . . .
I long to begin
A life with no end.
Don’t shut me out,
And if you have doubts,
Rest assured that my love
Like a snug velvet glove
Will wrap you in heat
From your lips to your feet. . . .
I’ll preserve the charade
And the pact that I’ve made
With Cupid’s wild dart
To pierce your true heart.
So fair warning, mon amour,
After this one, four more. . . .
Jane stared at the scrap paper. She’d erased and rewritten so many phrases and words, the whole thing looked like chicken scratch.
She retrieved the decorated sheet of paper and laid it atop a smooth surface. Then carefully, oh so carefully, she copied her newest effort. When it was blotted and checked for mistakes, she put it on a thin sheet of cardboard to protect it and slid it into a large white envelope.
With a computer-generated address label bearing Ethan’s name and home address, the whole thing looked like a generic piece of business mail. Perfect.
Tomorrow she’d mail it, and then wait and see what happened.
Friday afternoon, Ethan came home in a foul mood. He had the weekend off again. He should have been riding high. But a number of frustrations had piled on top of one another, and he was ready to kick something, or explode, or both.
He scooped a handful of mail out of the box and juggled it while he unlocked his door. It was Friday night. Every other single man in Statlerville probably had a date tonight. Did Ethan? Hell, no. And it was his own fault. Despite what he might have hinted at to his sister, there was actually any number of very good prospects in his potential dating pool. Nice women. Hot women. Intelligent women.
And a handful who were all three.
But every time he thought about picking up the phone to call one of them, all he could see in his mind’s eye was an image of Jane, fast asleep in her soft, comfy bed.
And the more he thought about Jane, the more horny and frustrated he got.
Which totally wigged him out, because regardless of their extended estrangement, Jane was his dear friend. She didn’t deserve to be treated like a sex object.
And what about the damn mysterious valentine? He couldn’t get that out of his head either. He should have already thrown the stupid thing away. It was probably a hoax, or a joke perpetrated by some local college girls.
But all in all, what with the hot love note, his recent night spent in Jane’s bed, and a way too long dry spell in the carnal-arts department, he was a mess.
He opened a can of tuna and thought longingly of his sister’s latest offering down at the station. The catering idea had gone over like gangbusters, and it did him good to see the happiness and glowing pride on his sister’s face. She deserved every bit of her success. And the men and women under his command were reaping the benefits.
He ate the tuna straight out of the can and flipped on the TV to surf for a sporting event. He was game for anything but golf or deep-sea fishing.
Half an hour later, wondering why he paid for cable when there was nothing but drivel on any of the hundred-plus channels, he stretched out and kicked restlessly at the arm of the sofa. He linked his hands behind his head and let his mind wander to Jane, wondering what she was doing tonight. Now that they were on speaking terms again, was it kosher to call her? He wanted to hear her voice.
A jolt of something hot and sweet stabbed deep in his gut, and he realized he was getting a boner. He closed his eyes and freed his cock from his pants. With his right hand, he encircled his dick and began to stroke lazily.
He felt as guilty as a thirteen-year-old trying to sneak a peek in the girls’ locker room, but he couldn’t help himself. He thought about Jane.
He imagined what her breasts would look like if he unbuttoned her shirt. Her skin was pale, even in the summertime. Right now it would have the rosy glow of alabaster. He let the fantasy unwind. In moments, he had her bare to the waist, her hair in disarray on the pillow, her eyes gazing at him with dark azure fire.
Carefully, he unzipped her pants and dragged them down her legs. The fantasy Ethan moved slowly, giving the real Ethan plenty of time to stroke his shaft with a firm grip, letting the hunger build.
Ethan. She said his name in an aching voice, entreaty in her soft sigh. He could see in her gaze what she craved. Gently, tenderly, he moved over and nudged his hips between her thighs. It would be their first time. He wanted to make her moan and shudder with pleasure.
He was barely inside her when his climax slammed into him. It stole his breath and made him curse the release that was better than nothing, but so much less than he needed or wanted.
He lay there, his chest heaving, and felt a hellish mixture of emotions. Shame. Confusion. Regret for the past . . .
And once he had waded through all that, one other feeling stood out: determination. He had lost Jane once, because he hadn’t realized just how valuable that relationship was. He wouldn’t let it happen again.
He zipped his pants and stood up, groaning when he spotted the pile of mail he’d tossed on the coffee table. It had been a busy week, and there were at least half a dozen bills that were due by the middle of the month.
He went in the kitchen for a beer, pulled up the online-bill-pay screen on his computer, and settled down to work. It wasn’t the most glamorous way to spend a Friday night, but at least it would be done.
The large white envelope at the bottom of the pile looked like something from his insurance company, but there was no return address to identify it as such. The only other markings on it, besides his address, were the words PLEASE DO NOT BEND in block letters.
He flipped the envelope over and tore the flap loose. Whatever it was, it wasn’t much. The envelope weighed nothing at all, almost as if it were empty.
But the envelope wasn’t empty.
Holy crap. It was another erotic valentine, this one more beautiful than the last. The same flowing, feminine calligraphy he had admired in the previous note appeared in this one as well.
He read slowly. . . .
Dearest Ethan,
Alone at night
With nary a light,
I imagine you nude,
If you don’t think it rude. . . .
My hands stroke your chest.
You nibble my breasts.
Romance and lust
Might well nigh combust. . . .
I long to begin
A life with no end.
Don’t shut me out,
And if you have
doubts,
Rest assured that my love
Like a snug velvet glove
Will wrap you in heat
From your lips to your feet. . . .
I’ll preserve the charade
And the pact that I’ve made
With Cupid’s wild dart
To pierce your true heart.
So fair warning, mon amour,
After this one, four more. . . .
It wasn’t signed, nor had the last one been. But this time the sender called him by name. The investigative cop in him assessed the details even as the man—the recently celibate man—responded instinctively to the words and images. A snug velvet glove? Sweet Jesus. That could only mean one thing. In spite of himself, he reacted physically to the provocative note.
Who in the devil was sending him seductive messages? And the final stanza hinted at four more valentines to come. . . . Holy hell. Would they each be hotter than the last?
He jumped to his feet, his forehead damp and his skin tight. Who thought enough of him to write this kind of stuff? The last woman he’d dated more than two times was Wanda, the gal down at the auto-parts store. They’d hit it off and had shared some fun. But that was over six months ago, and recently he’d heard Wanda’s old boyfriend was back from Iraq. Word on the street was that they were engaged.
Besides, he couldn’t see Wanda composing pretty poetry. She was more of an outdoors female, hunting and skiing and riding her Harley. He honestly wasn’t able to think of a single woman he knew who would do such a thing. He turned over the envelope and stared at the postmark. January ninth—exactly a week later than the first one. Which meant that again the mystery woman had mailed her note on a Thursday.
He glanced at the calendar and counted four more Thursdays. As he suspected. The schedule thus far indicated that her final note, if indeed she did send more, would arrive the week before Valentine’s Day. Did that mean his mystery admirer had something planned for February fourteenth? Like maybe kidnapping or torturing him or leaving a dead animal on his doorstep or maybe even a voodoo doll?
He studied the envelope again, wishing he had thought to handle it with gloves. But he’d never had to preserve his personal mail as a crime scene. It was too outlandish to even contemplate. And besides, there were bound to be all sorts of prints on the envelope from various mail facilities and postal workers.
Then it struck him. In addition to the date, the postmark very clearly said Statlerville, which narrowed his field of study considerably. The only mail to actually be postmarked locally was the mail that people dropped into the “local” slot inside the main post office building downtown.
He went into his bedroom and retrieved the original note from his bedside table. He didn’t spend time wondering why he had kept it or why it was where it was.
He eyed the lavender envelope intently. Bingo. His mystery lady had mailed both cards from inside the post office—more precisely, in the slot marked “local.”
Which probably meant she was someone he knew. He wasn’t sure if that was better or worse.
He put both letters back in his drawer and covered them up with a folder from work. Feeling ridiculous, he closed the drawer and sat down on the edge of the bed with a sigh. He was so screwed.
Here he was getting turned on by a female whose face and name were an enigma. And at the same time, he was having romantic, sexual thoughts about a woman who had been his friend for almost twenty years . . . and whom, up until four years ago, he would even have categorized as his best friend. Maybe he was losing his mind.
He reached for the phone and then drew back his hand. If he was going to contact Jane at all, it had to look like a friendly gesture. Which meant that tonight and Saturday night were out. Date nights carried too much emotional baggage. Maybe Sunday.
He’d call her up and suggest going out for ice cream. In January? His subconscious jeered. Okay, so maybe he’d take her out for a drive so they could talk and catch up. Immediately, his mind went further . . . to parking out on some rural lane, taking Jane in his arms, kissing her slowly, sliding his tongue into her warm, sweet mouth, and mating it with hers.
He stood up and went to the wall, banging his head against it as he ground his teeth together. What was happening to him? He was fantasizing about two women; one of whom might be a deranged stalker, and the other who was not an appropriate object of his lust.
Why couldn’t he find a nice uncomplicated female and get laid, no strings attached, no baggage, emotional or otherwise?
With a mild curse for his own pathetic state, he rummaged in the floor of the closet for his gym bag, scooped up his keys, and headed for the gym. If he couldn’t relieve his sexual tension the old-fashioned way, at least he could punish his body enough that he might actually be able to sleep.
Two hours later, he stumbled back into the house. He’d come perilously close to throwing his back out again, and he’d sweated through his shirt and shorts.
But even as he stood in a tepid shower and scrubbed his body, he couldn’t resist reliving his Jane fantasy, enduring the predictable results, and later rolling restlessly, his hunger unfulfilled, in his cold, lonely bed.
Six
Jane was going nuts. She’d discovered a serious flaw in her “seduce Ethan with erotic valentines” plan. The problem was simple. She had no way of gauging Ethan’s response. Even though she planned to reveal herself as the authoress of the notes at a “ta-da” moment, in the meantime, it sure as heck would be helpful to know if they were working.
The fact that she’d actually been in his house the day he opened the first one should have given her an inside track. But Ethan had hidden not only the valentine, but also his reactions.
She was so agitated all day Saturday that an hour before Mrs. Fitzhugh was scheduled to leave, Jane excused herself, put on her running shoes, and hit the pavement. She had to do something to get this nervous energy under control.
Last night she hadn’t slept a wink. Every time she had dozed off, visions of Ethan’s gray eyes, his thick, dark hair, and his broad, wonderful chest rocketed around in her brain. His smile, his big gentle hands, his narrow waist and lean hips . . .
She ended up helplessly aroused and seriously frustrated, her body one big, aching, needy void.
Today had seemed endless, and it was only early afternoon. She wanted to go over to Ethan’s house, pound on his door, and ask him if he had received any suspicious mail. But that was out of the question. So she needed to cultivate patience . . . right now.
The irony was not lost on her.
In an effort to stay far away from Ethan’s street, she ran in the opposite direction. As she passed Mr. Benson’s home she saw a young man perched on a ladder, painting his heart out. The boy had already finished one entire side of the house and was doing some work up under the eaves. The old man had a habit of hiring kids in the community to do odd jobs. He believed it kept them out of mischief. In Jane’s eyes it was simply another example of her landlord’s generous spirit.
She barely had time to take a quick shower when she got back. Mrs. Fitzhugh was a model employee, but she liked to leave at three on the dot.
The rest of the afternoon dragged even more than the morning. Jane waited on five or six customers the whole time. And they each spent less than ten dollars, mostly on items from the Christmas clearance table.
Sometimes she wondered if she would be doing this forever. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy being a businesswoman. She was proud of the fact that she was able to turn a decent profit year after year, and during the summer and fall, there was never a dull moment.
She had fun decorating the front windows for the chamber of commerce’s seasonal contests. And she’d even volunteered at the high school the past two autumns, helping the cheerleaders create signs and banners for all the home football games.
She was part of the community. This was home. Her parents had moved to Knoxville a few years ago, but they were close enough for her to visit them o
n a regular basis. All in all, she had a very satisfactory life.
But sometimes at night when she was contemplating the great mysteries of life, it occurred to her that the only thing better than running Paper Pleasures would be the chance to be doing her own scrapbooking at home, creating volumes like Our Wedding Day, Baby’s First Christmas, Summer Trip to Magic Kingdom.
Both of her best friends from high school had married several years back. One was the mother of toddler twins, lived in Dallas, and still managed to run an online parenting newsletter for more than two hundred thousand subscribers. The other friend had just been named a junior partner in a prestigious law practice in Knoxville, and was married to a brilliant man with a political career in his future.
Jane felt like a slacker occasionally when she got a glimpse of their busy lives. Her two-year community college degree didn’t qualify her to do a whole heck of a lot. But she was happy for the most part. And she loved the quiet pace of Statlerville. She could think of nothing more wonderful than raising a family with Ethan here in the shadow of the Great Smoky Mountains.
But she was beginning to think that her dream was nothing more than a wistful fantasy. And why had it taken her four years after Ethan’s aborted engagement to finally make a play for him?
Because she was a coward—that’s why. She would rather live with the possibility of happiness than risk losing even that ephemeral dream to reality.
Well, those days were over. She had set her plan in motion. If it failed, she would give herself the opportunity to grieve, and then she would probably relocate. She refused to spend the best years of her life pining for a man who was too dumb to see what was right beneath his nose.
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