“Liar.” He reached up and cupped the back of her head as he studied her expression. “You were afraid to wake me.”
“Okay, I was afraid. Afraid of this.”
“Hey.” His lazy grin belied the fire in his eyes. “You don’t have to be afraid of me.”
“I’m not.” Her heartbeat quickened to the familiar rhythm it had learned in response to Jonah. “I’m afraid of me.”
“Your mustache looks like a caterpillar that ran headfirst into a wall.”
“I know.”
“So a little more mashing can’t hurt, right?”
“Jonah—”
“I’ve been wondering all night long what it would be like to kiss a woman wearing a mustache.”
“No. It’s a bad idea.” She tried to pull away.
His fingers splayed across the back of her head and held her firmly. “Your wig feels like steel wool and that coat smells of mothballs. God knows why you turn me on all decked out like this, but you do. I probably need a shrink.”
“We probably both do. Jonah, let me go.”
“I’m not going to seduce you.” His gaze probed hers. “I just want a kiss before you go. After this morning, I won’t be allowed.”
Flames of desire licked away at her resolve. “You know we won’t stop with a kiss.”
“Yes, we will. I promise.” He released her wrist and lifted his hand to stroke his knuckles across her cheek. “Because you’re right about making love while your mother’s writing this book. It’s not a good idea.”
She closed her eyes and leaned into his gentle caress, needy as a kitten. She shouldn’t feel disappointed that he agreed with her. She shouldn’t, but she did. “No, it’s not a good idea.”
His voice grew husky as he continued to brush his knuckles over her skin. “How long will it take her to finish it?”
“I have no idea.”
“Weeks?”
“Probably.” She sighed. His touch felt so good.
“Months?”
“I hope not.”
“That’s my girl.” He guided her gently down. Trying various angles, he finally muttered an oath and slid one finger under the bottom of the mustache to lift it away from her upper lip. “Now I know why women complain about these things,” he murmured.
She couldn’t imagine how this kiss could turn out well, but somehow he managed to capture her mouth and slide his finger away in one amazingly coordinated movement. And once he finally connected, she forgot about the mustache, and her disguise, and her mother, and her mother’s book. His lips moving against hers instantly brought back the powerful need that had swept her into his arms and into his bed. Nothing else existed but that driving passion.
The thrust of his tongue flooded her with heat and moisture. She didn’t even realize she was unfastening the buttons of his shirt until he caught her hand and pressed it flat against his chest. His heart thundered underneath her palm.
Slowly she lifted her mouth away from his. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
She raised herself enough to look into his eyes. That didn’t help.
Holding her gaze, he brought her hand up to his lips and kissed her palm.
The moist caress made her close her eyes and fight for control. Another few seconds and she’d beg him to make love to her. “I have to go.”
“Yeah.” His voice was thick with desire. He released her hand and smoothed her mustache with one finger. “This has been fun, but next time I’d like to try it without the soup-strainer.”
Next time. “I think…the only way this will work is…if we don’t touch anymore, at least until…”
“I know.” He sighed. “But this celibacy thing sounded a whole lot easier ten minutes ago.”
She opened her eyes. He lay there all sexy and rumpled, with his shirt half undone and his gaze hot. Somehow she’d have to find the strength to stand up and walk out of this apartment. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
He brushed his knuckle over her lower lip. “Maybe not, but I’m glad you did. Now I know that Saturday night wasn’t just a fluke.”
“A fluke?” She stared at him in amazement. “Jonah, we made love all night!” And now she wanted to make love all day.
“And then you walked out. I figured you could live without me.”
“But last night I told you that I’d let myself forget about my mother’s project because I was so desperate to make love to you.”
He smiled. “I know, but then you stayed in the bedroom all night long. I didn’t really believe you until just now, when you started unbuttoning my shirt.”
Her cheeks grew warm with embarrassment. “And I was the one who laid down the ground rules. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Oh, I do,” he said softly. “And I loved it. You see, once upon a time I thought you were so hot for my body that you’d bid tons of money to be with me. When I discovered that wasn’t what you’d paid for, I felt like a fool for the way I’d come on to you. I wondered if you’d have even been attracted to me if I hadn’t put the idea in your head.”
She hadn’t really thought about the blow his ego had taken when she’d told him her real motivation for bidding on him at the auction. She smiled, remembering how she’d reacted to her first physical contact with him. “You didn’t put the idea in my head. I began wanting you the night of the auction when you were squashed in between me and Barb at the table. I fought it. Then I…lost the fight.”
“But now, for who knows how long, you’re going to win that fight?”
“Yep.” Taking a deep breath she stood. “My mother’s mental health is at stake. I won’t rush her, and I won’t take a chance on making love to you and lousing everything up.”
He gazed at her. “Let’s hope your mother’s a fast writer.”
WHEN STAN THE DOORMAN caught sight of Natalie getting out of a cab and approaching her apartment building, his eyebrows disappeared beneath the bill of his cap.
“It’s me—Natalie,” she said.
Stan looked closer before starting to chuckle. “You’re losing that disguise, you know.”
“I know. But it served its purpose. Now I have to get upstairs and take Bobo for a walk before he messes on the rug.”
“Right.” He grinned as he held the door for her. “They’ve tried to interview me, too. Wanted to know about your comings and goings.”
Natalie paused. “Really?”
“I pretended not to know who you were.”
Natalie’s throat tightened with gratitude at his unexpected protectiveness. She’d assumed the people in her building were more distant and uncaring than the ones in Jonah’s apartment, but maybe that was because she’d been distant, too.
She laid a hand on Stan’s uniformed arm. “Thank you,” she said. “That means a lot to me.”
“You’re welcome.”
As Natalie rode the elevator to her floor, she wondered how many women very much like Mrs. Ruggerelo lived in the building, and how many Pete Hornaceks she might find if she opened her eyes. Then she wondered how many of them would have been happy to help her with her mother, had she been willing to ask. The idea had never occurred to her. She’d shouldered the burden alone because that’s the way her family had always handled things, but obviously she’d needed help. Without Jonah’s cooperation she’d be looking at complete failure.
On her way down the hall, she passed an elderly lady she’d noticed many times, someone who obviously lived on her floor. “Nice morning,” she said, smiling at the woman.
“Yes, it is.” The woman looked at Natalie as if she had horns and a tail.
Natalie started to label the woman as unfriendly until she remembered her disguise. Maybe now wasn’t the time to chat up the neighbors, after all.
It also wasn’t the best time to run into her mother, who was presently heading toward Natalie’s door at a furious clip.
Alice glanced at Natalie and did a double take. “Is that you?”
“Hi,
Mom.” Natalie took off her derby and pulled off her wig. Ah, much better.
“Natalie Michelle LeBlanc, what are you up to? And where have you been? I called your apartment until midnight and started in again at six. Finally I decided to come down and use my key to make sure you were all right, although you know how I hesitate to invade your privacy. I would never use this key unless I thought—”
“It’s okay, Mom.” Natalie had changed some of her opinions about this privacy business in the past few days. “I’m sorry if I worried you. I should have told you I was spending the night at Jonah’s.”
“Like that?”
“I didn’t want to be recognized going into his apartment building. So far nobody has figured out where he lives, exactly, but if they saw me, they might put two and two together, so I disguised myself.” She hurried to unlock the door. Bobo was going crazy barking and whining on the other side. As he leaped at her, she wondered if she could possibly get him outside fast enough, considering that she needed to change clothes and remove her mustache.
“Jonah must have gotten quite a laugh out of seeing you like that,” Alice said.
“Oh, yeah, he was hysterical.” Natalie glanced at her mother and noticed she was dressed. “Mom, could you please borrow one of my coats and take Bobo for a walk? I’m sure he’s desperate and I’d rather not go back out on Central Park West in broad daylight looking like this.”
“Sure…in fact, if you weren’t here, I’d planned to take him over to the park, like I did this past weekend. He really likes that.”
“Yes, he does.” Natalie opened her front hall closet and took out a jacket, Bobo’s leash and the pooper-scooper while Bobo pranced around frantically. “Thanks, Mom. This is a big help. Just keep a tight grip on the leash.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Her mother’s eyes sparkled. “Bobo’s accident seems to have worked out pretty well for you. Be back in a jiffy.” Her mother headed down the hall with Bobo pulling on the leash.
Natalie stood in the doorway and watched them go as another revelation hit her. Perhaps she’d been so hell-bent on doing things for her mother that she hadn’t considered that Alice might need to do things for her. She hadn’t asked anything of her mother since her father had died until the weekend she’d spent with Jonah, when she’d needed her to take care of Bobo.
She thought about Jonah’s neighbors. No one took without giving back, even Mrs. Sanchez, who crocheted baby clothes for the triplets. Jonah, Leo and Pete had made sure Beth got to the hospital in time, and she’d named each of them a godfather to one of her sons. Everything was based on give-and-take.
Uneasiness stabbed her as she realized how much Jonah was giving to her and Alice by agreeing to help with the book. And what could she give him in return? Certainly not what he wanted the most, although it was the very gift she longed to give. Something else, then. She’d have to think about it.
THE FIRST NIGHT Jonah agreed to pay a visit to Alice LeBlanc, a downpour drenched Manhattan. Jonah considered it good luck, because people were so busy staying out of the rain they didn’t bother to notice him. The doorman at Natalie’s apartment recognized him, but otherwise he made it to Alice’s door without causing any comment.
He took off his raincoat, ran a hand through his damp hair and rang the bell. Alice had said Natalie didn’t want to interfere with the interview, so she’d planned to go to the movies with her friend Barb. According to Alice, Natalie had said she’d see him later on. He doubted it.
In fact, now that a couple of days had gone by and he was faced with the life-style Natalie enjoyed on Central Park West, all his old insecurities about her had resurfaced. He believed that she wanted him to help her mother, but he’d begun to doubt that she wanted him—at least on any long-term basis.
Maybe she’d allowed herself to get carried away a few times when he was right there to tempt her. After all, they were two healthy people with normal sex drives, and they’d been placed in a seductive situation. But he was afraid that with Natalie, the urge faded the minute he was out of sight. She’d never mentioned missing him when they were apart, so maybe she didn’t ache the way he did every time he thought about the night they’d shared.
The door opened and Alice LeBlanc beamed at him. He recognized Natalie’s delicate features traced with the fine lines of middle age. Her hair was short like Natalie’s but salt-and-pepper instead of blond. Blue eyes gazed at him instead of the soft gray that haunted his dreams, but the smile was so much like Natalie’s that his breath hitched. Alice was a lovely woman, as he expected Natalie would be when she reached her fifties. And God help him, he wanted to be there.
“You must be Jonah.” Alice held out both hands. “How wonderful to meet you at last.”
He took her hands in his—warm hands that reminded him of his mother’s. He’d somehow expected a society matron’s grasp to be different, cooler and more perfunctory. Beth was right. He needed to work on his prejudices. “Same here, Mrs. LeBlanc.”
“Alice,” she corrected, drawing him inside and shutting door. “Unless you’d rather call me Mom?”
He nearly choked.
She looked at him with concern. “Oh, dear, did I overstep? Maybe I’m making assumptions I shouldn’t make about you two, but considering the way Natalie feels, I thought—”
“I’m crazy about your daughter,” he found himself saying. It wasn’t hard to admit the truth. “But we haven’t actually started talking about a future together.”
“I see. Here, let me take your coat.” She hooked it over an antique coat tree in the hall. “Come and sit down. I made coffee. I thought you might like some after ploughing through this nasty weather.”
“Sounds great.”
“Make yourself comfortable. I’ll get the coffee.”
He walked into the living room but he didn’t sit down right away. There was too much to see. The apartment smelled of lemon oil, which also reminded him of his mother, and to be honest, the furniture didn’t look any more expensive than what he’d grown up with. The rain-soaked view of Central Park and the glittering lights on Fifth Avenue were the only thing that separated this room from its counterpart in Buffalo, but it was still a big distinction.
A bookcase covered one wall, and framed family pictures were scattered among the leather-covered volumes. He homed in on the pictures, greedy for information about Natalie’s childhood. What struck him about the pictures, considering that he was used to seeing family photos crammed with faces, was how few people were in the photo gallery of a family with an only child. He studied the serious look in Natalie’s father’s eyes and understood why he’d intimidated Natalie’s mother so much. But the guy had missed knowing something important about his wife, which hadn’t been fair to either of them.
Then he picked up a picture of Natalie looking full of vinegar as she modeled her Brownie uniform, and he smiled. He could just picture her chasing Jimmy Holcomb around the playground.
“I consider it a very good sign when a man starts looking at a woman’s family pictures,” Alice said as she set a tray on the coffee table.
Jonah replaced the picture of Natalie and turned to face her. “And why’s that?”
“It indicates you’re interested in her as a person, not just as a sex object.”
Jonah coughed into his fist. “Is that so?” he managed to say at last.
“Well, I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Yes, you’re right.” The truth was, he wondered if Natalie was interested in him only as a sex object, but he didn’t think that was the right comment to make to her mother.
Alice smiled and gestured toward the couch. A yellow legal pad, a pen and a small tape recorder lay on the lamp table beside her. “I’m so glad you’ve turned out to be the person Natalie hoped you’d be.”
He walked over and sat down while she poured them each a mug of coffee from an insulated carafe very much like one his mother owned. If he’d expected bone china, he wasn’t going to get it. Another assumption bit
the dust. “And who do you think she hoped I’d be?” he asked.
Alice gave him a confidential glance. “Well, by now you must realize a woman like Natalie wouldn’t spend that kind of money on a one-night stand.”
No, but she’d spend it to save her mother, and the one-night stand might have been a bonus. “I realize that, but she was also helping a worthy cause, don’t forget.”
“That was a nice extra, but I’m here to tell you that Natalie doesn’t love the cause of literacy thirty-three thousand dollars’ worth. She was after you.”
He picked up his coffee and took a bracing sip. He might as well make use of this chance to get some information out of this woman. She certainly wasn’t pulling any punches with him. “I’ll be honest with you, Alice. I still have trouble believing that someone with Natalie’s money, the kind of money that allowed her to bid on me at the auction, would be interested in a future with a guy who fights fires for a living.”
The light of battle came into Alice’s blue eyes, and her tone became more aggressive. “You don’t know Natalie as well as I thought you would by now if you’d make a statement like that. Money, or the lack of it, would be the last thing she’d consider in a relationship.”
He felt properly chastised. “Point taken. And I’m sorry. It’s just that…” He searched for the right words. “If you can try to put yourself in my shoes, a guy like me can’t even imagine how someone could just write out a check for that amount when it’s not for a car, or a down payment on a house, or somebody’s college fund. It’s almost unreal to me.”
“I told you she didn’t do it lightly.”
“No, but the point is she did it.” He gazed at her. “I can’t relate to a gesture like that, but that’s probably because to me, it would be such a big deal.”
“And you think it was ostentatious,” Alice said.
“In a way, yeah. I’m sorry if you take that wrong. Natalie’s a terrific person and I’m sure she meant well. But to be perfectly honest, that’s how it seems to me.”
Alice sighed. “That girl. I told her she should confess, but I can see she hasn’t, and so your opinion of her is suffering as a result. That’s no way to run a love affair.”
Single, Sexy...And Sold! Page 14