Miss Liz's Passion

by Sherryl Woods

  Todd nodded in apparent satisfaction. As she watched, his tension seemed to ease slightly. “Good. You need to relax more. Today with the dolphins was the first time I think I’ve ever seen you completely at ease.”

  The memory of the very pregnant Alexis lumbering into the air in a bid for attention brought back another smile. “How can you watch those dolphins and not relax? I know it’s just a quirk of nature that they appear to be laughing, but it’s contagious. I wish we’d brought Kevin along. He would have loved them.”

  “I’m glad we didn’t,” Todd said so softly she could barely hear him over the swell of music.

  “Todd…”

  “Don’t say it,” he said with an odd sense of urgency that sent shivers along her spine. “I don’t want to talk about Kevin or his education right now. For the next couple of hours, this is just between the two of us.”

  Liz felt her heart slide straight down to her toes. “It can’t be,” she managed to say in a choked voice.

  “Yes,” Todd said stubbornly. “Just the two of us.”

  Before she could argue with him, he jumped to his feet and held out his hand. “Come on. Dance with me. They’re playing our song.”

  “Our song?” she repeated, feeling dazed and all too intrigued. The beat was demanding, unrelenting and sensual, just like Todd. “I don’t even recognize that song.”

  “Neither do I. If we dance to it, though, we’ll make it ours. We’ll never be able to hear it again without thinking of this moment and this place.”

  The softly spoken words were those of a romantic, but the look in his eyes was pure rogue. Despite herself, Liz responded to the pull of the words and the look. Her heart accepted the sweet tenderness of the thought. Her body throbbed to the promise of the look. She stood up and followed him to the tiny square of floor where several other couples were already gyrating to the pulsing beat.

  Todd danced with a surprising lack of self-consciousness, his hips and shoulders creating a suggestive taunt that Liz unconsciously matched. As they circled and dipped, his gaze clashed with hers, holding her, teasing her. The brush of his hip against hers as he whirled her under his arm set off an explosion of desire. Whether it was that alone or merely the quick pace of the music, Liz couldn’t be sure, but she was breathless and filled with an odd sense of expectation. She was almost disappointed when the music ended and Todd released her hand.

  The lull in music lasted no more than an instant. Todd flashed a silent question at her and Liz found herself nodding. He laughed and the last of the shadows in his eyes fled. “I knew you’d lose yourself to this, once I got you out here.”

  “Don’t be so smug,” she retorted, but she felt too much happiness welling up inside to stay irritated for long. It had been far too long since she’d let herself go like this. The last time she’d been on a dance floor, she’d agreed to chaperon a junior-high party with a friend who taught at the school. One of the ninth graders had asked her to dance. He’d barely reached her chin and he’d moved with more dogged determination than grace. It had been nothing like this. Todd turned fast dancing into a subtle mating ritual. Heaven knows what he’d do with a slow song. It would probably be for the best if she never found out.

  Fortunately, she supposed, this particular crowd was only interested in music that soared, in beats that never slowed. Her hair was a damp, uncontrollable mess and her cheeks were flushed by the time Todd finally led her back to their table. She drank her now-warm beer in a single gulp.

  “Another one, please. Very cold.”

  Todd’s eyebrows shot up at the request, but he waved the order to a waitress and the beers were on the table in icy mugs within minutes. She was just catching her breath.

  Then she looked into Todd’s eyes and felt the earth open up. No man had looked at her like that in years. She hadn’t wanted one to. She still didn’t. The heady thrill was too confusing, too dangerous. That intimate, possessive look shook her hard-won serenity the way King Kong had rattled Manhattan skyscrapers. It was an unthinking gesture on his part, probably something he indulged in all the time. A man as sexy as Todd Lewis did not sit around on Saturday nights watching his hibiscus blossom. Flirtations were probably as commonplace for him as they were foreign to her. All of which meant that she ought to stop drinking this beer at once, stay off of the dance floor and if at all possible pretend that he had the sex appeal of a turnip.

  She pushed away the icy beer, regarded the dancing couples wistfully and sighed. She figured at best she had a shot at two out of three. A glance across the table assured her that Todd was no turnip and no amount of vivid imagery on her part was going to turn him into one.

  “Maybe you’d better get the lobsters now,” she said reluctantly.

  He seemed startled by the sudden request. “Is something wrong?” He reached across the table and ran his finger across her frowning lips. The sandpapery warmth of his work-roughened touch sent tingles skyrocketing through her. “You’re frowning.”

  Good, she thought crazily. It was very good that he couldn’t tell that her well-educated brain was turning to mush and her karate-trained knees were quivering like so much raspberry Jell-O. A little more internal heat from his touches and she’d melt into a happy little puddle right at his feet.

  “The lobsters,” she reminded him breathily.

  He still seemed puzzled, but he nodded. “I’ll go get them.”

  While he was gone, Liz drew in enough deep breaths to restore oxygen to her apparently deprived brain. Oddly enough, she didn’t seem to be thinking any more clearly by the time Todd returned with the cooler of lobsters.

  “One more dance,” he said, putting the cooler down on the floor and holding out his hand.

  Liz nodded and got to her feet before realizing that the music had gentled to a slow, intimate caress. It whispered seductively and her pulse throbbed in awareness as Todd’s arms went around her. His strength inflamed her femininity. The heat of his body enveloped her in longing. His purely masculine scent, a combination of salt and musk with a lingering hint of soap, made her thoughts careen wildly to images of provocatively tangled limbs and dampened skin. She wanted to run from those images. She wanted to indulge them.

  She wanted to live them.

  It was the last, the desire to tempt fate, that urged her closer into his embrace. Resting her cheek against his damp shoulder, she sighed with the sheer pleasure of being held. The thunder of Todd’s heartbeat matched the cadence of her own, swift and dangerous. She ignored the warning, indulging in the wild temptation, oblivious to consequences beyond this moment. She felt young and beautiful and cherished in these powerful arms. She felt even more when she looked into the hazel depths of his eyes, heard his harsh intake of breath. Desire, as demanding and insistent as anything she’d ever experienced, overwhelmed her, took her breath away.

  She clung to Todd and let herself simply feel for once. She might regret the moment later, but not now. His hand, already low on her back, swept lower. Their hips fit together in an instinctive joining that shocked her with its intimacy. When she would have pulled back, Todd’s whispered protest stopped her.

  “Don’t start thinking. Just enjoy the moment,” he pleaded. “Let me hold you.”

  She sighed and relaxed against him. They were barely swaying to the music now, barely keeping up the pretense of dancing. She heard the warning voices begin again in her head, a whisper at first, then louder. It was only when she felt the tug on her arm that she realized the warnings weren’t entirely in her imagination.

  “Watch it,” a couple said, pointing down as shouts and laughter erupted around them.

  Dazed and bereft without Todd’s arms to hold her, Liz glanced down. Lobsters—she had no doubt at all they were the ones Todd had just bought—were skittering crazily across the wooden planks in every direction.

  She choked back a laugh at the startled indignation on Todd’s face as he tried to round up the creatures who were making a madcap, if somewhat directionless,
dash for the sea and freedom.

  “Let them go,” she said as laughter bubbled up. He looked at her as if she were crazy.

  “Do you know how much I paid for those things?”

  “Let them go. They’ve made a daring escape. They deserve to survive.”

  “But dinner?”

  “I’ll fix pasta. It’s just as well. I’d never have been able to throw them into a pot of boiling water, anyway.” She shivered. “Do you realize how cruel that is?”

  “I never thought about it. I suspect if we thought too hard about killing cows or pigs or chickens, we’d never eat those again, either.”

  “It’s not the image I mind so much, it’s the action. Beef and chicken get to the stores in neat little packages wrapped in cellophane. They are not mooing and clucking in my presence. Those lobsters were going to be staring at me with their beady little eyes when I plunked them in the pot. The pasta will be much better.”

  “Okay, Miss Humanitarian,” he said with amused tolerance, “do you want me to carry them back to sea or shall I leave them to their own devices?”

  Since one of them was heading directly for the bare toes of a woman seated near the bandstand—their claws were not bound—Liz said, “I think you’d better help them along. No telling where they’ll end up, otherwise.”

  Several of the other customers joined in the lobster chase and the whole crowd descended to the beach for an impromptu ceremony setting them free. When the last of the lobsters was out of sight, Todd turned back to her. The look in his eyes made her breath catch in her throat. He stepped closer and slid his arms around her waist.

  “You’re going to owe me for this,” he said in a whisper that sent chills down her spine.

  She lifted her face and discovered that his lips were barely a hair’s breadth away.

  “What?” she murmured.

  “This will do nicely,” he said, his mouth covering hers.

  Startled, Liz’s hands hung limply at her sides as those velvet lips brushed hers with fire. Her toes curled into the cool sand and her body swayed toward Todd’s. As he had for those few moments on the dance floor, he became the center of her universe, the pull of gravity that drew her at will. The kiss was sweet and gentle. Though she was sure he meant it to be unthreatening, it shook her to her very core.

  Romantic seductions on the beach weren’t her style, especially not with the parent of one of her students. Sanity struggled against yearning and slowly but inevitably won. Determined not to let him see how deeply he had affected her, she stepped out of the embrace and faced him with a jaunty smile. That smile would earn her an Academy Award in Hollywood. It was the best acting she’d ever done.

  “Next time we have a school fair, I’ll know what price to put on my kisses,” she said, linking her arm casually through his.

  The breezy comment drew a scowl. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’ll put a sign on the booth: One kiss—three lobsters or equivalent in cash.”

  He regarded her disbelievingly. “You actually sell kisses at a damned school fair?”

  “It’s better than being dunked.”

  He shook his head. “I can see I’ve been missing a lot by skipping those fairs.”

  “We raise a lot of money,” she said proudly.

  “I’ll just bet you do.” He stalked off to the parking lot, leaving her to scurry along behind.

  She hadn’t guessed, until he spun out of the parking lot, just how mad he was. They were all the way to Key Largo by the time he spoke again. “No more.”

  “No more what?”

  “No more selling kisses to a bunch of old fools who should be home with their wives.”

  Liz laughed. “They’re usually with their wives. It’s all in good fun, for a good cause. Some of the money is for school projects and the rest goes to the homeless.”

  “I’ll match whatever you made in your best year, but I will not have you sitting in a booth getting paid for granting kisses.”

  Liz’s sense of humor began to fail her. She felt her temper begin to rise. “You don’t have anything to say about it.”

  “Like hell,” he muttered and lapsed once more into silence.

  When they got to Liz’s house, he sat stonily behind the wheel.

  “Are you coming in for pasta?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You realize, of course, that this entire argument is ridiculous.”

  “Probably.”

  “Then why are we having it?”

  A sheepish expression stole over his hard features. “Because I’m a pigheaded, possessive jerk.”

  “Agreed.”

  “You didn’t have to agree so readily.”

  He looked so hurt that she found herself laughing again. “Okay. I can’t say I found anything in your self-analysis with which I strongly disagreed, but I will promise not to rub it in if you’ll come in for the dinner I promised you.”

  He still seemed reluctant.

  “We can finish making plans for Kevin,” she said.

  Todd shook his head. “If I come in, I guarantee you that Kevin is the last thing we will discuss.”

  Liz swallowed hard. There was no doubt in her mind exactly what he was thinking. And wanting.

  “Then maybe you’d better go,” she whispered.

  He put a finger under her chin and turned her to face him. “Do you really want me to?”

  Dozens of conflicting emotions whirled through her, colliding like bumper cars. She blocked them all out finally and went with her heart.

  “No.”

  He swallowed convulsively. “Are you sure?”

  She gave him a tremulous smile. “Don’t push your luck, Todd.”

  He sighed at that. Gentle fingers brushed a curl off her cheek, then lingered along the curve of her neck.

  “I’d better go.”

  Dismayed, she stared at him. “Why?”

  “You’re not ready, sweetheart. I’m not ready for a one-night stand and you’re not ready for anything else.”

  The truth of that slammed into her gut and brought her out of the sensual reverie that had led to her impulsive invitation in the first place. She leaned across and brushed a kiss on his forehead. “Thanks,” she said, hurriedly opening the door as if she couldn’t escape fast enough now that she’d been reminded of the stakes of the game she’d been playing.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he promised.

  “Don’t.”

  “We have to talk about Kevin, remember.”

  She sighed. Kevin, again. He was their link. The only one. All during the long, restless night, she tried to remember that. Instead, all she felt was the burning wake of desire left by Todd’s kisses.

  Chapter 7

  The horrible sound of metal grinding against metal rent the air. Tires skidded and screeched on wet pavement. Glass shattered. Screams. Sirens. More screams, hers, lodged in her throat. Not her baby! No, please God, not her baby!

  Heart hammering, her body soaked with perspiration, Liz awoke with a start to the sounds of thunder, rain and a frantic pounding on her front door. Before she could reconcile nightmare and reality, the doorbell rang, followed by more impatient pounding. She sat up in bed, jerked the covers around her and blinked, trying to drag herself awake and away from the pull of the familiar, haunting dream.

  Even though she couldn’t quite get herself moving to respond to it, that incessant pounding had been a blessing. It had ended the nightmare before she had actually seen Laura lying in the street. For weeks after the accident, overcome with guilt and grief, she had relived the horror night and day. Finally, she had been able to block it consciously during her waking hours, but not at night. Still not at night.

  Her whole body shaking from the inside, she drew in a ragged breath and tried to get her act together to answer the door. She was normally a morning person, up by six, fully alert by the time she left for school at seven. The routine never varied. Even on weekends she was usua
lly quick to waken at disgustingly early hours. Today she felt as though her brain were made of oatmeal.

  She reminded herself that she also usually had more than one hour of sleep. Last night, with Todd’s touches etched indelibly on her skin and in her imagination, had been the pits. It had been nearly dawn by the time she’d fallen into a restless sort of half-slumber. It was barely after seven now. It would take a powerful amount of adrenaline to convert oatmeal into functioning brain cells after that amount of sleep.

  “Liz, are you in there? Dammit, open this door before I break it down.”

  Todd? She shook her head and tried to imagine why Todd would be beating on her door at the crack of dawn on Sunday. The doorbell chimed several more times. She’d never before realized quite how loud it was.

  “Elizabeth Gentry, open this door!”

  The heavy oak door rattled on its hinges. Liz flew out of bed, grabbed an oversized Miami Dolphins jersey and pulled it over her head as she ran through the house.

  “I’m coming, for heaven’s sake.” She rolled her eyes as she caught sight of her disheveled appearance in the full-length mirrors on the dining-room wall. It was too late to do anything about that. She threw open the door. “Todd, what on earth are you doing? Trying to wake the dead?”

  He simply stared at her, breathing heavily, his brown hair soaking wet. “In a manner of speaking,” he said softly, his gaze covering the distance from tousled hair to bare toes in less time than it took to check out fruit for bruises. It was a quick examination for reassurance, not a leisurely survey of masculine interest.

  Even half asleep, she recognized the genuine panic in his haggard face, the relief that filled his eyes. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Has something happened to Kevin?”

  “No, no, we’re fine. It’s you.”

  “Me?” She might be more befuddled than usual but he was making no sense, at all. Maybe his brain was waterlogged. It was really pouring out there and the sky was pewter gray with not a glimmer of blue in sight. It was a perfect day for huddling under the covers and sleeping in. Not likely, she thought with regret.