by Nancy Warren
Maybe his heart wouldn’t be touched by their brief affair, but she was darn well going to make sure he had a few memories that would stay with him, as well.
Tonight felt like a good opportunity for making memories.
She bounded into her bedroom, her body already thrumming in anticipation, and donned some of her new racy underwear. Jake had seemed to like that thong. She wondered how he’d feel about the merry widow, which, until a few weeks ago, she’d thought was strictly an opera.
Then she brushed her teeth, fussed with her hair and applied a little makeup. She spritzed perfume into the air, then walked through the cloud of scented spray. And finally, she put on a short slinky dress that was about as subtle as having Take Me tattooed all over her body.
She was humming as she picked up the Bundt cake, checking the clock to make sure she had her timing right. She wanted to hit Mrs. Lawrence’s place close enough to the beginning of Jeopardy! that there wouldn’t be much time to chat. Not that Cynthia minded chatting with her elderly neighbor; usually she enjoyed it. She just didn’t want the older woman examining her plans for the evening too closely.
Her strategy worked like a charm. When, bundled in an overcoat, she knocked on her neighbor’s door, Mrs. Lawrence answered immediately, feigning surprise—as though she hadn’t watched her approach. “Why, hello, Cynthia.”
“Hi, Mrs. Lawrence. I need a favor. I’ve baked our new neighbor a cake, but he’s not home. Do you still have the spare key from when Mrs. Jorgensen lived there?”
“Goodness, I’d forgotten all about that. Yes, dear, I do. Come in. I’ll get it.”
“Thanks.” She stepped in, declining to take off her coat. She didn’t want Mrs. Lawrence or Alex Trebec getting an eyeful of her take-me-I’m-yours outfit. That was for Jake’s eyes only.
“I thought I’d leave the cake on his kitchen counter for a surprise.” Well, she thought, salving her conscience, it was partly true. Only it was a two-part surprise. A cake in the kitchen, Cyn in a merry widow. Jake couldn’t have moved into a more welcoming neighborhood.
“I took him some of my famous brownies last week,” Mrs. Lawrence said, returning to the front hall with a key. “He is such a nice young man. He cleaned my eaves for me the other day, then we had a chat. He asked quite a lot of questions about you.” The old woman’s eyes twinkled with delight. “I think he’s interested.”
“Asked questions about me, did he?” Cyn smiled back, hoping Mrs. Lawrence’s hearing aid couldn’t pick up the sound of gnashing teeth. “What sort of questions?”
“Mostly, he seemed interested in other men you might have seen in the past. Naturally, I told him I never notice what goes on in the neighborhood.”
“Thanks.” She gave the woman a quick one-armed hug, balancing the cake in the other. It would have been just awful if her neighbor had told the truth—that no other man but Walter had ever visited her.
A canine whine came from the open doorway to Cyn’s right, where Mrs. Lawrence indulged in her two great loves: watching television and watching the goings-on in the neighborhood.
“That’s Gruber. He doesn’t like watching Jeopardy! alone.” And sure enough, she heard the opening bars of the familiar theme music.
“I’ll be on my way. I’ll return the key tomorrow.”
She walked the short distance to Jake’s house and let herself in the front door, pleased he didn’t have a security system to worry about. She was fairly certain he knew nothing about the spare key at Mrs. Lawrence’s. She planned to surprise him tonight.
She placed the cake on his kitchen counter, wondering when they’d get around to eating it. She thought about stripping and waiting in his bed, but then he’d miss the effect of her sexy new dress and underwear. Instead, she made herself comfortable on the leather couch in his living room. She debated sitting in the dark to wait for him, but who knew how long he’d be? She drew the drapes, snapped on a light and picked up the newspaper. She hadn’t checked her stocks for a while.
Apart from the noise of the rustling paper and the creaky sounds of an old house, it was silent. After checking her stocks, she went back to the news and lost herself in an article about a local drug dealer who’d been found dead. There’d been a time when she would have skipped articles about such unsavory subjects, but lately she’d become fascinated with the drug trade. They’d released the man’s name, Dominic Torreo, and she could have sworn it seemed familiar. But why?
She heard something else—the sound of a vehicle turning into Jake’s drive. She flicked the lights off and waited, blinded by the sudden darkness. Excitement, and a tiny flutter of nerves, filled her body. How would he react when he saw her? What would he think? Her ears strained, but she heard nothing. It seemed to be taking an awfully long time for Jake to come into the house. Maybe she should go looking for him.
Then she squeaked with alarm. She heard a deadly metallic click and felt the pressure of a cold cylinder on the back of her head.
She jumped about half a mile, another cry escaping her lips. “Jake, it’s me.”
“Cyn?” The gun was removed from her head.
“Oh, my God. Jake. You scared me.”
“I damn near blew your head off. What are you doing here?”
“I baked you a cake.”
“So that’s what I smell.” He flipped on a light and glanced at her, then his eyes focused on her dress. He swallowed, and when he spoke again his voice had grown husky. “Is that your apron?”
She licked her lips in what she hoped was a lusciously sexy way—she was supposed to look like a sultry movie star, not a parched lizard. “No.” She rose slowly. “I want to fulfill your fantasies.”
His eyes narrowed and he stared at her for a long moment. Her heart began to bump against her ribs—or it could have been the wire stays on the merry widow; they were so fused together it was impossible to tell.
He might stare at her from his face of stone, but she saw a pulse thrumming under his jaw. The only workout he was getting right now was from his libido. And if his pulse was any indication, that had just kicked up.
She did another licking-the-lower-lip thing, this time a lot slower, and very deliberate. Then she allowed her gaze to wander his body from top to toe—and she very much liked what she saw. A second, crucial part of his anatomy had also perked up with interest. “Do you have a fantasy?” she asked again, with feigned confidence. She’d tried to memorize all the fantasies from Raunch—even the Erotically Advanced—hoping she’d remember all the choreography.
He took a step toward her and her body started to smoulder. “Oh, yeah,” he drawled, his voice as smoky as old whiskey. “I have a fantasy.” He reached out and put a hand on each shoulder, where his heat burned through the thin silk of her dress.
“I have this fantasy just about every damn day.” His hands slipped down to encircle her wrists, imprisoning them lightly, which made her shiver. Here it comes, she thought, hoping it was a scenario she’d at least heard of.
His voice hardened. “I have this fantasy that one day you’ll do what you’re told.” His hands tightened on her wrists. “I fantasize about you following my orders, like staying away from my house.”
Oh, dear. This wasn’t going at all the way she’d planned. He put his stern face right close to hers. “And for you to keep your nose clean and quit snooping—that’s a freakin’ wet dream!”
Her shoulders would have slumped forward in failure if she didn’t fear her breasts would be impaled on all that underwire. She must have hooked it up too tight. Now that her heart was pounding, she could barely breathe.
This time when her tongue came out to wet her lips it was pure nerves. “Something important came up.”
His hands tightened on her wrists. “If I hadn’t smelled chocolate, I might have hurt you first and asked later. I don’t want that to happen, Cyn. Not to you.”
“I’m sorry.” It was the true worry she saw in his face that made her apologize. He cared about her. She wasn’t
sure how deep it ran, but on some level she knew he cared. She should have realized he might feel differently about secret callers than she did. Next time she’d definitely phone first.
“What’s the emergency?”
Now that it came right down to it, she didn’t want to tell him. She should have stayed at Mrs. Lawrence’s to watch Jeopardy! Stayed home and scrubbed out the garburator. Anything but meet Agent Scary on anything but his own terms. She tried to chew her thumb, then realized her wrists were still caught in his grip. And ooh, it was hot. Kind of like the handcuffs again, only made of molten steel.
“What?” he repeated more sharply.
“Neville Percivald asked me for a date,” she blurted, not at all the way she’d planned to tell him.
“You broke into my house to tell me some dweeb asked you out?”
“He’s not a dweeb! I mean he’s—”
“You blew him off, right?” he interrupted.
“No. Not exactly.”
His expression was not happy. “Tell me you turned him down.”
“I said yes,” she told him defiantly. “He’s a suspect. I can wear a wire.”
A flicker of amusement twinkled deep in those blue, blue eyes. “And what would you do with a wire?”
Stick it in your eyeball didn’t seem like the best response, although it was the first thing that came to mind. “I’d get him relaxed and incriminating himself, then you’d arrest him.”
“Right after jumping out of the laundry van conveniently parked out front?”
She stuck her chin up and narrowed her eyes. “That’s how they do it in the movies.”
The atmosphere began to change. His hands loosened and his fingers caressed her wrists. “If you collect incriminating evidence while wearing a wire, then I’d have to debrief you.” He elongated each syllable of “de-brief” and a picture popped into her mind of him slipping off her briefs.
She glanced up to see that the humor had disappeared and a far more disturbing twinkle had replaced it. Her heart was pounding again.
“I’m very good at debriefing my volunteer agents.”
“You are?” Her voice was as thin and wispy as a sigh.
“First, I’d need the wire back.” He ran a single finger across the lace edging of her bodice, hovering at the shadowy cleft between her breasts.
“I could go to the bathroom and take it off.”
He shook his head. “Wouldn’t stand up in court. Someone could tamper with the evidence. No, I couldn’t let you out of my sight until I had removed the wire, debriefed and strip-searched you.”
“Strip-searched?” Her voice bounced.
He nodded again, serious but for that disturbing twinkle that acted like the ignition switch on her sex drive. “They usually don’t show that part on TV.”
“No.” She cleared her throat. “I’ve never seen it.”
“I do a very thorough strip search. I’m a bit of a workaholic that way. Stickler for detail.”
“What exactly would you be searching for?”
“Don’t know until I find it. That’s why it has to be such a thorough search. Best we do a dry run now, so you’ve still got time to back out.”
Dry? Was he kidding? She was wet just thinking about what he might do to her once he had her naked, and from the wicked expression that tilted the corners of his mouth, he knew it.
How had he turned the tables on her again? She determined not to give in too easily. She stuck her chin up once more. “But I’m not wearing a wire.”
“You sure?” He ran his index finger beneath her breasts, following the line where the underwire lifted her cleavage.
Her breath sucked in with a little whoosh and her nipples beaded, hard and yearning for his touch.
If she’d learned one thing about this man’s lovemaking technique, it was that basically he never gave her what she wanted when she wanted it. True to form, he ignored the breasts that were knocking themselves out to get his attention, and traced his fingers up the buttons on her dress. Oh, he was pushing her buttons, all right. All of them, except the ones on her chest that most wanted to be pushed.
“When you’re wearing a wire, it’s important not to get too nervous or excited.” He flicked open her top button, and she swallowed noisily. “You’re not, are you?”
“Hmm?”
“Nervous…or excited?” He settled his hand over her heart, which was beating so hard it almost bounced him off. “A little fast,” he murmured with deep amusement. “Maybe you should lie down.”
“Oh, yes.” That sounded like a very good idea.
Linking her hand with his, he led her up the stairs. The old wooden steps creaked and popped as they made their way up. She wanted him so badly, she felt like sprinting up, ripping her clothes off at the same time. But a kind of shyness stopped her—that, and knowing they were acting out his fantasy. She had to face facts; the man liked to play by his own rules.
Not that she wouldn’t do her level best to bend them, maybe even break a few. But whatever game they played, she trusted him to make sure she had a whole lot of fun. And that, after all, was the point of this game—to make sure they both had fun.
The master bedroom still bore Mrs. Jorgensen’s Scandinavian influence in the blue walls and bare floorboards, but Jake had taken a rather prim room and made it masculine and very much his. A Viking would have felt right at home here, jumping his lusty Viking wench after months at sea. For one thing, he’d replaced Mrs. Jorgensen’s prim double bed.
“That bed is huge,” she said. It dominated the room.
“It’s a king. I’m a restless sleeper. I move around a lot in bed.”
“I’ve noticed.”
The head and footboards were light pine, not as fancy as her four-poster, but solid enough to tie… Where had her mind spun off to? She forced her attention to the navy-and-white duvet that covered the enormous bed, then to the pine side table, which held a lamp, a pair of reading glasses and a well-thumbed paperback copy of Hamlet. She squinted; maybe she needed a stronger prescription for her contact lenses. “Shakespeare?”
“Sure. Nobody gets the women on their backs like old Will.”
“Really?” What was he thinking of, Shakespeare in Love? “Hamlet is a tragedy.”
Jake had snapped on the bedside lamp. Now he shut off the overhead light, dimming the whole room, and stepped forward until he was standing in her space, close enough that she could smell him. He cupped the back of her head with one hand and with the other slipped the straps over her shoulders so he could trace the lacy edge that cupped her breasts. His lips skimmed her mouth, cheek, temple, then buried themselves in her hair.
He whispered, “Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew….” The damp breath swirled into her ear and seemed to channel right down to the core of her, which was, in fact, thawing and melting.
She loved poetry, but she wasn’t a simpleton. She remembered her college Shakespeare course pretty well. “Hamlet refers to suicide in that soliloquy,” she told him primly, although the effect was somewhat marred when he rolled her nipple between his fingers and she moaned.
“It’s open to interpretation,” he insisted, slipping his hand under her skirt and between her legs in a really sneaky ploy to prove his point.
She sucked in her breath as he cupped her, knowing she was as dewy as he could wish, then smiled as his hand stilled and went rigid. “Where are your underpants?”
“I’m not wearing any.”
His hand was warm and leather-tough against the soft flesh of her inner thighs where they rose above the garter-snapped silk stockings. This whole ridiculous getup might be uncomfortable for everyday wear, but it was deliciously feminine and sexy in situations like this.
“Proves my point about amateurs.”
“Who are you calling an amateur?” She tried to sound indignant, but his hand had started moving and she was losing her train of thought.
“Bureau regulations spec
ify that anyone wearing a wire has to wear underpants. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to search this whole area thoroughly.”
She settled her feet farther apart to give him better access, and whispered, “I promise to cooperate.”
“First, a visual inspection.”
She fought frustration as he left her wet and throbbing and needy to slide the straps all the way off. He stood back as the dress slipped to the floor in a heap no larger than a silk handkerchief. He let out a low whistle. “I like that thing.” He turned her this way and that, insisting on a complete visual inspection.
Then he traced the top of her stockings, where the skin was bare.
“I didn’t want another pair of panty hose ruined,” she whispered.
“Liar,” he said softly, and sank two fingers into her, slow and deliberate. Fortunately his left arm was wrapped around her waist or her trembling legs would have dropped her to the floor at the surprise assault. His fingers thrust in and out in a deliberate tempo while his thumb rubbed in counterpoint.
She wanted to strip his shirt off, but her hands had ceased to obey orders from her brain. She just clung to him, feeling the pressure build and build, hearing her own panting cries from a distance, until her head fell back and she cried out loud as a great wave swamped her. Her legs buckled, and he swung her up high against his chest and carried her to the bed.
He stripped, then snapped off the bedside lamp, leaving the curtains open to let in light from the nearly full moon. He took his time unhooking her from the merry widow, touching and caressing each inch of new flesh he revealed. Everything seemed to glow in the moonlight. Her breasts, his teeth, his biceps as he leaned over her; his beautiful eyes as he stared at her.
Something happened.
Something magical and frightening, as enchanted and ephemeral as the moonlight itself. He stared into her eyes, and she stared back, feeling an acute sense of recognition. It’s you, she found herself thinking. It’s really you.
She lifted a hand to his face, tracing his lips with her finger as he settled between her thighs. He entered her slowly, and her body welcomed him. It was as mundane and as magical as a ship pulling into port, a car pulling into the garage…. He was home.
