Driven to Distraction & Winging It

by Tina Wainscott

  Her expression lightened. “Well, okay then. I’ll try not to let this interfere too much with your work.” Her face crinkled with worry again. “Were you able to decipher those notes I ruined?”

  “I just reprinted them. Really, it’s not a problem,” he assured her when the worried look didn’t go away.

  “All right. Good. Let’s go then.”

  She snapped the leash onto Elmo’s collar and they walked to the front door. She took a deep breath and shored up her shoulders. “Okay, here’s the game plan,” she said, using that sporting term again. “I’ll hold Weasel Boy’s leash, and you’ll hold my hand. Like this.”

  She slid her hand against his, and their fingers entwined automatically. Which was strange since his reaction shouldn’t be automatic at all. Before he could analyze that, though, he was overcome by that elating sense of connection. And an odd sense of anticipation.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Very.”

  They stepped out into the cool evening air. They had only reached the end of the walkway lined with the glowing pink flamingos when it became evident that he should be the one holding the leash. Elmo kept crossing in front of them to get to Barrett, tripping Stacy in the process. She carried the bag with the sandwiches.

  The sun had just set, casting an orange glow across the western horizon. The rest of the sky was a brilliant indigo blue. Instead of thinking about how the colors were created, he took in the scene like Stacy obviously did. He’d never noticed the way the colors melted together before. Now he noticed not only that, but the way the light cast a glow across Stacy’s face and made her look beautiful. The way her hand felt in his also cast a warm glow over him, though he knew that was scientifically impossible.

  Several of the Sunset City residents smiled and waved, then turned and whispered to each other.

  “This should go a long way toward convincing them we’re madly in love,” she said. “We can walk around to the lake, sit on a bench and pretend to enjoy each other’s company.”

  Pretend? Perhaps she was pretending, but he was definitely enjoying her company. He didn’t like the thought of her pretending.

  “I appreciate you going to all this trouble for me,” he said.

  “It’s no trouble.”

  Okay, that was better.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive,” she said, a content look on her face. She met his gaze. “Is it hard on you?”

  To his surprise, he wanted to say yes. It was hard to look at her mouth and not kiss it, hard to understand why he wanted to kiss her when they were only pretending and the last thing he needed was someone like her in his life.

  She was waiting for his answer, as though it mattered to her.

  “No, not at all.”

  When they reached the small park area, he released Elmo to explore. The dog sniffed the ground as he traveled in circles, though he never took his gaze off Barrett for more than five seconds. If that was adoration, well, he did like it. He glanced at Stacy, who quickly shifted her gaze to Elmo, as well.

  “Have you ever been adored?” he asked, making her snap her gaze toward him again.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you.”

  For some reason, she tried to pull her hand free of his. He held on tighter, not ready to relinquish the charade.

  She looked at their linked hands. “I…well, Granny adored me, though I’m not sure it counts when it’s family. Not that they have to adore you or anything, but…” Her gaze lifted to his. “No,” she finished with a soft sigh. “Not even by a dog. I’m sure my time will come.”

  He led her toward the bench that faced the lake. The surface reflected the sky and the palm trees that swayed in the breeze. Only the occasional ripple marred the mirror image. It amazed him how something so simple could be so beautiful. He looked at Stacy, who looked beautiful, too, even if she looked a little sad.

  They ate, the wrappers making makeshift plates in their laps. Stacy kept dabbing her face, reminding him of the chicken crumb episode. At one point, she left a smear of mustard by her mouth, which she licked off with a swipe of her tongue. He heard himself make a small sound between a choke and a groan.

  “Did you say something?” she asked.

  He crumpled his sandwich wrapper. “Not me.”

  She stuffed the rest of her sandwich in the bag.

  “Should we…” He gestured, then took her hand. “Tell me about hand holding.”

  “What?”

  “What other uses does it have? Besides just being romantic.”

  He set their linked hands on his thigh and traced his thumb over her skin. Her breath hitched as she stared at their hands.

  “Didn’t your parents hold hands?” she asked.

  “No. I’ve seen my sister, Kim, and her husband, Dave, hold hands. I was just wondering if it served some practical purpose.”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “If we’re going to be a couple, I should be aware of all the nuances, right?”

  “Well…it’s a friendly gesture. But it doesn’t last very long in that context.” She demonstrated, loosening their hands, giving his hand a squeeze, then retracting her hand again. “It’s a gesture of support, too. If you were going through something sad or trying, I might hold your hand for a while.” She took his hand again. “I might even place my other hand on top of yours, just to give you extra support.”

  He was supposed to be cataloging all this for research purposes, but the feel of her hands enveloping his was making it hard for the information to register.

  “What about this? I’ve seen men kiss a woman’s hands before.” He turned her hand over and kissed her moist palm.

  She shivered. “You kiss the back of the hand…in greeting.” She took his hand and planted a kiss on the back of it. “Like that. Only women never do it to men. It’s a romantic gesture. Sometimes it’s a classy greeting. I think the French do it.”

  A trace of moisture remained on the back of his hand from her kiss, skewing his thoughts. He’d never had trouble focusing before he met Stacy. “Have men kissed your hand before?”

  “No. It’s not an everyday sort of thing.”

  He kissed the back of her hand. She didn’t react the way she had when he’d kissed her palm. “You didn’t like it when I kissed your palm?”

  “Well, actually…I did. No one’s ever kissed my palm before. It was…interesting.”

  “Tater Tot casserole interesting?”

  She laughed, and a warm, satisfied feeling flooded through him.

  “Definitely more interesting than that.” She took a quick breath. “It was arousing. Like this.”

  She took his hand, faced it palm up and kissed the center of it. Her mouth lingered there, hot and moist against his skin. She was right—it was arousing. And not just the legal definition of inciting to action, awakening…No, this was arousing in a different way. More than physical.

  But very, very physical. His body was awakening, rising. If she asked if this charade was hard on him, he couldn’t honestly answer no this time. Heat flushed through him. Was it dopamine or norepinephrine? All he knew was that it was way more interesting than Tater Tot casserole interesting.

  She abruptly stopped pressing her mouth against his palm and sat up. “We’d better stop.”

  “But we’re doing so well. I’m aroused. Aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but we’re only supposed to pretend to be…aroused.”

  “Oh…right.” That pretending thing again.

  “Geez, look. No, don’t look. There’s Nita and Jack. And Arlene. Look at them, they’re like vultures, moving in for the kill. No, don’t look!”

  He was getting dizzy with the looking and not looking. “The people we’re supposed to be fooling,” he whispered.

  “Exactly.”

  “So, if I did this—” he kissed her palm again, very slowly, the way she’d kissed his “—it would help our defense position. Right?”

  Her eyes
rolled back in her head, and she whispered, “Exactly.”

  He’d never had this effect on a woman before, at least not that he’d noticed. He was noticing now, cataloging every action versus reaction. When he flicked his tongue against her skin, she inhaled sharply. When he traced his tongue across the lines of her palm, her breathing increased threefold. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Elmo watching them with interest. When Barrett’s tongue dipped into the crevice between her fingers, he didn’t care what Elmo was doing anymore. She let out a long, low moan.

  Her eyes snapped open, and she pulled her hand back. “Okay, that’s good. I think we’ve got them fooled now, yes, indeedy.” Her voice sounded shaky.

  He was surprised to hear a quiver in his voice when he said, “Are you sure?” He leaned closer to her face. Her lips glistened after she licked them. He wanted to kiss her—just for show, of course. Mostly for show, anyway. All right, forget the show. “Maybe we should—”

  “Go home. Yes, that’s what we should do,” she said in a breathless rush of words. “Our mission here is done.”

  Done, Barrett thought. But not over. He was a research scientist, after all. And he had a lot more research to do on Stacy.

  THIS ENTIRE SITUATION was unfair, Stacy thought as she readied herself for a jog at six-thirty in the morning—sixthirty! After which, she had to teach her workout class. If she’d slept well, that would have helped. She couldn’t even blame Weasel Boy. Barrett had kindly offered to keep him so she wouldn’t have to abide his whining all night.

  It was her own whining that had kept her up. Not actual whining. Except that one time when she caught herself staring out the window at the light burning next door and a strange sound had come out. But that was a fluke. Most of it had been internal whining.

  She jerked her leggings up one leg, then the other, then realized she had them on backward and tugged them off again. One of them had taken this charade too far last evening, and she was mortified to admit it was her. She’d melted—melted!—when he’d kissed her palm. She’d been nearly orgasmic when he’d run his tongue over her skin, and when he’d dipped into the spaces between her fingers…forget about it! Even now, tremors of lust shimmered through her body. During their walk back, she’d convinced herself it was only because it had been so darn long, too long to even count how long, since a man had touched her. She’d been okay with that explanation.

  Late into the night, though, it had fallen apart. She’d been around a man after a long absence before, and a simple thing like that hadn’t turned her insides to gelatin. Hadn’t kept her up all night uncomfortably aware of those long-neglected places on her body. Hadn’t made her chest ache with wanting.

  After wrestling with her yellow leggings so they were outside-in again, she tugged them on the right way this time. So it happened with a man she couldn’t possibly find something in common with. A man she was only pretending to be attracted to. Because she was nice.

  She made a face at her reflection in the dresser mirror. “Buy that, and I’ve got a mountain cabin to sell you on Miami Beach.”

  She’d also resorted to talking to herself, a sad state of affairs in itself. She donned her sports bra and a T-shirt that read, First Things First, But Not Necessarily In That Order, and tried not to think about affairs. The baby was what she wanted. That’s what would satisfy her. She’d given up on the romantic part of the equation.

  At least jogging didn’t involve hand holding, which had become quite the erotic thing. Or even much talking. All in all, it was pretty safe. And that was something she didn’t think she’d have to worry about with Barrett. He was a research scientist, for Pete’s sake! A dull, geeky, sexy-as-hell, broad-shouldered man with a tongue that—a dull, geeky scientist who didn’t have a clue about romance.

  She looked at the hand she hadn’t washed since the tongue event. Okay, he had a clue, he just didn’t know he had a clue. It was better to keep it that way. Armed with a clue, that man could be dangerous.

  Danger rang the doorbell. She glanced in the mirror, though goodness knew why. She was going jogging with a man she was only pretending to be attracted to.

  “Good morning,” he said when she opened the door. “I wasn’t sure you’d actually be awake.”

  “Me, either. I…wow.” She let her gaze scan his body. Blue tank top, nice arms, lean torso and shorts that showed off spectacular legs. He was only one degree off gorgeous. “I mean, wow, you’re going to be cold, aren’t you? You’re hardly wearing any clothes.”

  She ran her hands over the goose bumps on her arms. They weren’t from the coolish morning air.

  “I’ll heat up as soon as we start.”

  “Me, too.” She snapped her mouth shut. “Shall we start then?”

  “I usually stretch for a few minutes first. Don’t you?”

  She knew about stretching. She was nearly an expert on it. But everything fled from her mind as he bent over. If she hadn’t been so preoccupied with his very fine behind, she would have noticed how nice his calves were. And maybe she wouldn’t have been standing there staring when he looked up and said, “Aren’t you going to stretch?”

  “Oh, sure. I was just watching your technique, that’s all.”

  She surreptitiously glanced his way as he continued to stretch to see if he was watching her watch him. But he was completely focused on what he was doing, so it was not for her benefit.

  “Where’s Weasel Boy?” she asked.

  “I didn’t want to accidentally step on him, so I took him for a walk earlier.”

  “You two are getting along pretty good, aren’t you?”

  He shrugged. “It’s kind of nice having someone in bed with me all night.”

  Oh, and like she was supposed to breathe after that! “Don’t you think you might want to commit? To Weasel Boy, I mean? Adopt him, I mean?”

  “I can’t.” He glanced at his watch. “In thirteen days, eight hours and twelve minutes I start on my next research project for the National Science Foundation. It’s a two-year study in the Madidi, a new national park in Bolivia. Four point seven million acres, some never before explored. I’ll be working with various environmental agencies to determine the impact of opening the park to tourists. Part of it will be studying the dynamic demography of ant-and bird-dispersed seeds—divergent responses to tropical forest gap-phase regeneration. It’s an important program to help regrowth in decimated forests. Uh-oh, I’m boring you again.”

  “No, not at all.” She’d just gotten lost after the two-year part.

  Far away. In another country even. For two years. She forced a smile. “Sounds exciting.”

  “It is. Probably the most important project I’ve been involved in yet.”

  He didn’t sound excited, but then again, men didn’t often show their emotions.

  “And after that project?” she asked.

  “Maybe this will be the area I’ll settle into for a while.”

  “Still sounds to me like you get bored easily.”

  “Not bored. I just haven’t found where my passion lies.”

  Instantly her mind went to his tongue bathing her palm. Forget that. Remember gone for two years. Gets bored easily. Too smart.

  As they started their jog, she was amazed at how many of the female residents were up at that ungodly hour. Since she was never up this early, she couldn’t say for sure how many rose this early anyway. It was the clusters of women that gave it away. They were all seated on front porches with their coffees…waiting. Oh, yes, the anticipation was clear on their faces. They were waiting for Barrett to jog by.

  “Good morning, Barrett,” they crooned. “Stacy,” they added as an afterthought. She was surprised they’d even noticed her.

  Twenty minutes into the jog, the burning in her chest and legs won out over pride, and she slowed to a stop. Barrett, focused as always, kept right on running. She braced her hands against her thighs and huffed and puffed to catch her breath. She wasn’t a jogger. If she was going to have to en
dure this for the remainder of the week, she wasn’t going to make it.

  “Are you all right?” Barrett asked.

  She only had a moment to feel good about his returning for her—for noticing she wasn’t beside him at all—because of her annoyance that he was running in place and not even breathing hard.

  “I’d like to see you try a stint in my workout class. On second thought, that probably wouldn’t be a good idea.” Twenty or so women and Barrett…no, not a good idea at all.

  “Do you want to take a break?” he asked.

  She pushed herself upright. “No, I’m fine. Let’s go.” Maybe if they could continue to jog, that would be enough to convince the women in Sunset City to leave Barrett to his project. Certainly this kind of effort should count for something. After all, only a woman in love would subject herself to this kind of torture and get up early to do it.

  “THAT HAND-KISSING THING was a pretty good show,” Nita said during workout class.

  “And the jogging’s a nice touch, too,” Betty said.

  “But we ain’t seen you kiss yet. On the lips,” Nita finished, pursing bright red lips.

  “Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, if you know what I mean,” Ernie said with a lascivious chuckle.

  “Making suck face,” Arlene added.

  “Doing the wild thing with your tongues,” Frieda added.

  “Okay, already! Eight-two-three, nine-two-three. We almost kissed. Does that count?” She got distracted remembering that almost kiss that probably wasn’t an almost kiss at all. When Barrett had moved so close to her and looked at her mouth and was about to suggest something and she just couldn’t stand it anymore.