by Linda Cajio
She rounded on him, shocked. “Yes, they do. Why would you say that?”
He shrugged. “Because they looked so bewildered when I told them about your presentation and the project you’re handling. Our world’s like an alien world to them, isn’t it?”
“I suppose,” she said thoughtfully. “Academia does tend to isolate my father, and my mother spends her days three centuries in the past. They don’t view the world as most do. On the other hand, I don’t view things that are important to them in quite the same way. It’s a mutual ‘I just don’t get it.’ But that’s okay. They’re happy in what they do and I’m happy in what I do. They did know the success of the presentation was important to me.”
“It’s important to me too,” he said, “and no one understands it better.”
“Thank you.” Her voice was low, innocently seductive.
He gazed at her, proud of what she’d accomplished that day. Dave didn’t know the gem he had in her. Something had to be done about that. He liked the way she understood her parents and accepted them, in spite of their clear life-style differences. He liked … hell, he liked everything about her.
Charity wasn’t a prize to be captured, to be won. He’d realized that several days earlier. She was a fascinating woman, one he wanted to explore. He had a feeling that once she let a man in, he wouldn’t want to come out again. If was as if she were entrapping him. He was happily looking forward to getting caught.
The rest of the flight home passed in silence, mainly because Charity closed her eyes, indicating her weariness. Very crafty, he acknowledged. He enjoyed her quiet presence, though, as much as their conversations.
And he could watch her. Watch the way her breasts rose and fell leisurely with each breath she took … watch the way her legs shifted sensually against each other … watch how her hands were folded modestly in her lap, as if hiding the very essence of her femininity. Her perfume, sharp and mysterious, drifted on the air currents surrounding them. The interior lights of the plane were off, creating the illusion of privacy. He wanted to reach out and touch her, kiss her, taste her soft flesh and free her hair from its confines. But he knew he couldn’t indulge himself. The privacy was only an illusion. However, he could enjoy the torture.
The plane landed all too soon. He drove them home in his car, the privacy more real but the deprivation still very much in force. When they reached her apartment, he walked her to her door.
“I’m coming in for one minute,” he said firmly, “just to check that everything’s all right inside.”
“I appreciate that, but—”
He cut her off. “Charity, I have a single mother and four sisters who raised me to be a gentleman. Besides, I would want someone to check on their homes, for safety’s sake.”
He took the keys from her hands and unlocked her apartment door. Inside, he was true to his word, looking in every room. Of course, he couldn’t help it that he found her decor appealing, right down to the pointedly single bed in her bedroom. She waited for him by the front door.
“Go to bed, Charity. It’s late and you had a great day. And no Desirée’s Secret Desire.”
With that, he walked out the door, whistling.
“Desirée’s Secret Desire, my aunt Fanny,” Charity muttered for the hundredth time as she cut up a whole chicken late Saturday afternoon. The work now would save her plenty over the next few weeks in dollars and time.
What a great parting shot, she thought, her brain far from her bargain meat. She chopped the thigh from the leg with one clean swing of the cleaver. And she was angry with him for interrupting her family dinner in Boston. What a half-baked story about suddenly wanting to see more prospective clients! She bet he’d wanted to see something else entirely and that Desirée played a central theme.
“That bum,” she mumbled, clanging the cleaver down with force on the poor chicken leg. To be fair, he hadn’t suggested they stay over a second night. He hadn’t even mentioned it. Considering the way she’d cold-shouldered him after that kiss, the thought probably hadn’t even crossed his mind.
She whacked the chicken again for good measure, telling herself she absolutely was not disappointed. Not the least little bit. She muttered darkly under her breath even as she wondered at his sudden lack of interest. Realizing what she was doing, she took a deep breath and pushed the thought away. She should have given him a parting shot last night, right in the patootie. His new nickname was Aggravation from Hell.
So why did she find him so damned attractive? She slapped the mangled pieces of chicken on a plate and centered a new section of fowl on the board. She just didn’t understand herself. His interest in her was flattering. He might be interested only in one thing, but he was interested in that one thing with her. That was more tempting than she cared to admit.
Okay, he had some appeal. Chop went the cleaver, and another leg went flying on the cutting board. He was gentlemanly enough to check her house for safety and leave immediately after. Usually men used that as a ploy to get an invitation to stay for coffee … and more. Jake hadn’t, and the gesture had touched her. Chop. She still couldn’t believe how she’d talked to him on the telephone. And how he’d kissed the breath out of her the next morning. Chop, bam, chop!
He was easy to talk to, and she liked that even as she wished she didn’t. Another chicken piece was cleanly severed. But he would not be an easy man over the long haul. In fact, she had grave doubts he would even be there for a woman. Just because he was giving her some golden opportunity at work did not mean she had to fall on her knees in gratitude. A perversely honest part of her brain reminded her that he’d never ever done or said anything that even hinted he expected such a thing. She absolutely believed that any refusal from her on the personal side did not affect her job at Wayans. She knew harassment when she heard it. He didn’t make lewd or suggestive remarks. He just told her he wanted to see her, asked her several times to change her stance about dating men from work. She had to admit that what he said was true, about the workplace being the number-one territory for men and women to meet. The thigh meat was reduced another quarter inch by the black-belt-in-karate cleaver.
Okay, so he wasn’t a macho ogre either. But she was in no mood for logic to interfere with the ripe anger she was whipping up. Jake was not someone she should ever get involved with. If she had known then what she knew now, she would have run for her life the moment she spotted him in the woods that night.
But none of that negated one fact. She wanted him. When she went to bed at night, he was the last thing she thought of. When she woke up in the morning, he was the first. She could taste his mouth on hers nearly continually, feel his arms around her, his body taut under her hands. The scent of cologne and man lingered far too long in her senses, and wisps of his voice, low and sensual, were constantly in her ears.
And if she were completely honest with herself, she’d have to admit she was giving him mixed signals. That was because he made her feel so mixed up inside.
The doorbell rang. Charity blinked, then glanced down at the chicken she’d been cutting up. It was reduced to small chunks.
“I guess it’s stir-fry for the rest of the week,” she murmured, shaking her head. Her great bargain was a disaster. She washed her hands and, wiping them dry, went to answer the door.
Aggravation from Hell stood on the other side of the threshold. Trepidation shot through her as she wondered if all her thoughts had “called” him there.
“Help” he said, though she thought he looked more bemused than frantic.
“You and my chicken. Go home, Jake.”
“Charity, you’re the only sane person in this town. I think I’ve got a problem.”
“I’m not sane,” she said. “I’m standing here talking to you, aren’t I?”
“Dammit, woman. I need to talk to someone who uses some sense.”
She sighed, but didn’t open her door wider. First, she didn’t trust herself. He looked too good in casual clothes. The white rugby
shirt clung to his torso, emphasizing the long line of his body. There should be a law against his wearing it. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Did Gwen blow up the archive files?”
“No. I had that meeting with the men today, remember?”
“Oh, yes.” Charity leaned forward, suddenly intensely interested. “And?”
“And I explained what I had explained to them before.” He shook his head. “Charity, they went from machismo to weeping jelly in five minutes.”
She snorted, trying to hold back her amusement. It didn’t work as she imagined Dave and the others bawling like a bunch of two-year-olds. Laughing helplessly, she clung to the door for support.
“It’s not funny!” Jake snapped, pushing the door open and entering her apartment. “I was explaining how fathers are not passing on their knowledge to their sons, this being the basis for what we’re missing in our lives. I was trying to emphasize that they needed to do that with their own children, to reverse the process. The next thing I know, they’ve got it all wrong and it’s a sins of my father free-for-all. Some of those guys wept worse than Scarlett O’Hara.”
“Scarlett wasn’t a weeper.”
“Whatever. I think I opened a can of worms.”
“Think!” she exclaimed, laughing again. “I can’t wait to see what they do when you take them dancing in the woods!”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she desperately wanted to call them back. He gaped at her.
“Ahh …” She tried desperately to think of something that would cover up her blooper.
“Ahhh what?” Jake asked, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. “What do you know about dancing in the woods?”
“I read Iron John?” she tried hopefully.
“Buzz. Wrong. Try again.”
“I saw it on TV?”
“Sorry.” He stepped closer.
She stepped back.
“You saw me that night, didn’t you?” he demanded.
“That’s an understatement,” she muttered.
He turned the air blue with curses.
“Now, Jake,” she said, hoping to calm him down. “You have to expect these things when you’re half a block from the center of town.”
“I was not a half a block from the center of town!”
“Two?” she suggested, grinning.
“Was I really?” he asked sheepishly.
She started laughing all over again.
“Thanks a lot. I’m naked and you’re laughing. You do wonders for my ego.” His face turned red.
The blush was unexpected. In fact, it was rather touching to see a man like Jake blush. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop her amusement.
“You never said a word,” he complained.
“What could I say?” she asked, not quite looking at him. She’d managed to relegate the incident to the back of her mind in order to work with him. Now it was smack in the forefront again.
“It was an important ritual,” he said, glaring at her.
“I’m sure,” she said. “I think the chipmunks sang about it.”
“No, the chipmunks did not sing about it. We have to vent our ancient selves.”
“You really aired yours out.”
“You have no sympathy for the humiliated.”
“I’m trying.”
“Men weren’t allowed to laugh when women burned their bras.”
“You guys were too busy staring lasciviously.”
He grinned. “True. So what did you think when you saw me nude? Did you stare lasciviously?”
“No,” she lied.
“Liar.” He leaned forward. “I could feel eyes on me that night, watching. Now I know it was you.”
Something that had been funny had acquired a feeling of intimacy—between them. Her chuckles faded, and she was unable to look away from him.
“We’ll let that go for the moment,” he said. “Now that you’ve stopped laughing, maybe you can tell me what to do with these guys. One of them even cried because his father tricked the family dog into liking him best.”
“That must be Bill Williams,” Charity said. “He tells that story every chance he gets.”
“This time he had a rapt audience.” Jake ran his hand through his hair. “Catharsis is good, but this is ridiculous. What’s wrong with this town?”
“What are you asking me for?” she asked. “I’m not the one who’s the expert on the men’s movement.”
Leaving him with that piece of truism, she turned around and walked back into the kitchen. Jake followed.
“I knew you’d make me feel better,” he said dryly, then stared down at the chopped chicken. “Did a cleaver go berserk in here?”
“Haven’t you seen stir-fry before?” she asked in a haughty tone.
“Not like this.”
“It’s Balinese,” she said, and shrugged as if to say she couldn’t help his international culinary ignorance.
“It’s something all right. I’d suggest taking you out to dinner, but you’d say no.”
“I would,” she said, half wishing he would ask anyway. The chicken looked worse than before.
“It’ll look better once you fry it,” he said.
“I was going to broil it.”
He raised his eyebrows. “The Balinese have broilers?”
“A variation.”
He nodded, accepting her word for it.
“So what should I do with the men?” he asked, leaning against the counter.
“Take them out and shoot them and hang them?”
“Seriously.”
She shrugged, then opened the refrigerator to rummage around for vegetables to add to the chicken. “I don’t know. Tell them that was good for their souls and now they can be men?”
“I …” His voice trailed away.
Charity rose from her bent-over position and turned to him quizzically. He was standing as still as stone, staring at her.
“What?” she asked, puzzled by the intense expression in his eyes.
“Don’t bend over in a man’s presence again,” he said, his voice hoarse. “It makes funny things happen to them.”
“Oh, so now you’re going to tell me you can’t control yourself.” She made a face, thinking that he wasn’t different after all. “The age-old complaint of men. Blame the women for their lack of control.”
“Men can control themselves,” he said, smiling slightly. “The problem is, you give them impulses that they have an overwhelming urge to follow. At least, you give them to me. Like the impulse to reach out and touch your hair.”
He reached out and touched her hair, tucking behind her ear the strands that had come loose from her ponytail. She shivered as his fingers curved around the sensitive tip of her ear. She couldn’t remember a time a man had touched her this gently and caused such a reaction.
“And if I say not to touch my hair, what will you do?” she asked, gazing at his face. His cheekbones looked more prominent, and his eyes, usually a light brown, had darkened. Sometimes she couldn’t look at him at all because he did funny things to her insides or she felt extremely shy. And other times like this, all she could do was stare.
“Then I would follow my second impulse and touch your cheek and find the skin like velvet.” His finger traced along her jaw. The slight coarseness of his skin contrasted with the softness of hers.
She knew she ought to stop this, but she couldn’t muster the strength. A craving swirled through her, and she had to indulge it for just a few more seconds. After all, it was only a touch. Surely that couldn’t hurt anything.
“Now, of course,” he went on, “I would follow my third impulse. And that’s to kiss you.”
His hand cupped the side of her face. Charity wanted desperately to curl herself into his hand, into the warmth and strength radiating from it.
“But I won’t kiss you …”
Her stomach dropped sickeningly at his words.
“I won’t,” he repeated.
She told herself she was grat
eful he wouldn’t.
He gazed at her, his jaw tightening visibly. “The hell I won’t.”
His lips came down on hers in that sure and perfect way he had. Charity went straight into his arms without thought, until her body was tight against his. Need burst along every inch of her flesh. His shoulders were hard and solid, and she dug her nails into them, anchoring herself in the storm already pulling her into itself. His mouth twisted and turned, and she followed with hers, reveling in the gentle intensity.
His tongue enticed hers to join in an ancient mating, swirling together over and over, sending her senses spinning into soft gray depths of nothingness. She could taste him, hot and sweet and male. She could hear his breath coming deeper and more ragged with need, more seductive than any words could ever be. His hands smoothed their way up her spine, the palms flat and hot against her thin shirt. The friction sent out shivers everywhere, and she hungered for more of his touch. It was as if her skin had been deprived of a basic need and was now being nourished back to life. She realized dimly that she hadn’t been touched by a man like this in years, but it wasn’t just any man who could produce this response in her. It was Jake. And she wanted more.
His hands slid down her back and curved around her derriere. She moaned as he lifted her into him, their hips pressed intimately together. The kiss burned out of control, like a blaze raging through a forest. The hunger turned ravenous, and she met him move for move and touch for touch as desire flowed through her in a slow white heat.
He hauled her up higher, burying his lips at her throat, nipping and sucking in tiny love bites. She arched her head back, reveling in the sensations his lips created. The kisses dipped lower and lower along the open neck of her blouse, until he reached the cleavage of her breasts. He traced it with his tongue. She moaned and half wrapped her dangling legs around his as emotions long suppressed inside her were unleashed. He pressed her back until she was braced between the counter and the refrigerator. His weight leaned into her, so satisfyingly that she made little noises in the back of her throat. His mouth trailed kisses along the upper curves of her breasts. It was like having hot fire and cool ice on her skin at the same time.