by Nora Roberts
By two, he was beyond amazement at the human body’s capacity for vice, and had revised any previous perception of the skill and endurance required in food-service occupations.
He made sixty-three dollars and eighty-five cents in tips, and vowed to burn his clothes at the first opportunity.
The place was still rolling at three, and he decided Lena hadn’t been avoiding him. Or if she had, she’d had a reasonable excuse for it.
“What time do you close?” he asked when he carted another load toward the kitchen.
“When people go away.” She poured bottled beer into the plastic to-go cups, handed them off.
“Do they ever?”
She smiled, but it was quick and distracted as she scanned the crowd. “Not so much during Mardi Gras. Why don’t you go on home, cher? We’re going to be another hour or more in here.”
“I stick.”
He carried the empties into the kitchen and came back in time to see a trio of very drunk men—boys really, he noted—hitting on Lena and hitting hard.
She was handling them, but they weren’t taking the hint.
“If y’all want to last till Fat Tuesday, you gotta pace yourself a bit.” She set to-go cups under the taps. “Y’all aren’t driving now, are you?”
“Hell no.” One, wearing a University of Michigan T-shirt under an avalanche of beads, leaned in. Way in. “We’ve got a place right over on Royal. Why don’t you come back there with me, baby? Get naked, take a spin in the Jacuzzi.”
“Now, that’s real tempting, cher, but I’ve got my hands full.”
“I’ll give you a handful,” he said and, grabbing his own crotch, had his two companions howling and hooting.
Declan stepped forward, ran a proprietary hand over Lena’s shoulder. “You’re hitting on my woman.” He felt her stiffen under his hand, saw the surly challenge in the Michigan boy’s eyes.
Under other circumstances, Declan thought as he sized the kid up—six-one, a toned one-ninety—he might be the type to make his bed every morning, he might visit old ladies in nursing homes. He might rescue small puppies. But right now, the boy was drunk, horny and stupid.
To prove it, Michigan bared his teeth. “Why don’t you just fuck off? Or maybe you want to take it outside, where I can kick your ass.”
Declan’s voice dripped with bonhomie. “Now, why would I want to go outside and fight about it, when all you’re doing here is admiring my taste? Spectacular, isn’t she? You didn’t try to hit on her, I’d have to figure you’re too drunk to see.”
“I see just fine, fuckface.”
“Exactly. Why don’t I buy you and your pals a drink? Honey, put those drafts on my tab.”
Declan leaned conversationally on the bar, nodded toward the T-shirt. “Spring break? What’s your major?”
Baffled and boozy, Michigan blinked at him. “Whatzit to ya?”
“Just curious.” Declan slid a bowl of pretzels closer, took one. “I’ve got a cousin teaching there, English department. Eileen Brennan. Maybe you know her.”
“Professor Brennan’s your cousin?” The surly tone had turned to surprised fellowship. “She damn near flunked me last semester.”
“She’s tough, always scares the hell out of me. If you run into her, tell her Dec said hi. Here’s your beer.”
It was past four when Lena let them into her apartment over the bar. “Pretty smooth with those college jerks, cher. Smooth enough I won’t give you grief for the ‘my woman’ comment.”
“You are my woman, you just haven’t figured it out yet. Besides, they were easy. My cousin Eileen has a rep at the U of M. Odds were pretty good he’d heard of her.”
“Some men would’ve flexed their muscles.” She set her keys aside. “Gone on outside and rolled around in the street to prove who had the biggest dick.” Weary, she reached up to tug the beads loose as she studied him. “I guess it’s the lawyer in you, so you just talk yourself out of a confrontation.”
“Kid was maybe twenty-two.”
“Twenty-one last January. I carded them.”
“I don’t fight with kids. Plus, I really hate having bare knuckles rammed into my face. It seriously hurts.” He tipped her chin up. She looked exhausted. “Had a long one, didn’t you?”
“Going to be a long time till Wednesday. I appreciate the help, sugar. You pulled your weight.”
More than, she thought. The man had slid right into the rhythm of her place and worked. Charmed her customers, tolerated the grab-hands, and avoided a potentially ugly situation by using his wit instead of his ego.
The longer she knew him, she reflected, the more there was to know.
She tugged an envelope out of her back pocket.
“What’s this?”
“Your pay.”
“Jesus, Lena, I don’t want your money.”
“You work, I pay. I don’t take free rides.” She pushed the envelope into his hands. “Off the books, though. I don’t want to do the paperwork.”
“Okay, fine.” He stuffed it into his own pocket. He’d just buy her something with it.
“Now, I guess I’d better give you a really good tip.” She wound her arms around his neck, slithered her body up his. Eyes open, she nibbled on his lip, inching her way into a kiss.
His hands ran down her sides, hooked under her hips, then hitched them up until her legs wrapped around his waist. “You need to get off your feet.”
“Mmm. God, yes.”
He nuzzled her neck, her ear, worked his way back to her mouth as he carried her into the bedroom. “Know what I’m going to do?”
Lust was a low simmer under the bright glory of being off her aching feet. “I think I have a pretty good notion.”
He laid her on the bed, could almost feel her sigh of relief at being horizontal. He pried off one of her shoes. “I’m going to give you something women long for.” He tossed the shoe aside, then climbing onto the bed, removed the other.
Weary or not, her face went wicked. “A sale at Saks?”
“Better.” He skimmed a finger over her arch. “A foot rub.”
“A what?”
Smiling, he flexed her foot, rubbed her toes, and saw her eyes go blurrier yet with pleasure.
“Mmmm. Declan, you do have a good pair of hands.”
“Relax and enjoy. The Fitzgerald Reflexology Treatment is world famous. We also offer the full-body massage.”
“I bet you do.”
The worst of the aches began to evaporate. When he worked his way up to her calves, overworked muscles quivered with the combination of pain and pleasure.
“Do you take any time off after Mardi Gras?”
She’d been drifting, and struggled to focus at the sound of his voice. “I take Ash Wednesday off.”
“Boy, what a slacker.” He tapped a careless kiss to her knee. “Here, let’s get your clothes off.”
He unbuttoned her jeans. She lifted her hips, gave a lazy stretch. He doubted she realized her voice was husky, her words slurring. “What else you got in mind to rub, cher?”
He indulged himself by cupping her breasts, enjoyed her easy response, the way she combed her fingers through his hair, met his lips. He tugged her shirt up and away, snapped open the front catch of her bra. Kissed his way down to her breasts while she arched back to offer.
Then he flipped her onto her stomach. She jerked, groaned, then all but melted when he kneaded her neck. “Just as I thought,” he announced. “Carry most of your tension here. Me, too.”
“Oh. God.” If she’d had a single wish at that moment, it would’ve been that he keep doing what he was doing for a full week. “You could make a good living out of this.”
“It’s always been my fall-back career. You’ve got yourself some serious knots here. Doctor Dec’s going to fix you up.”
“I just love playing doctor.”
She waited for him to change the tone, for his hands to become demanding. He was a sweetheart, she thought sleepily. But he was a man.
The next thing she knew, the sun was beating through her windows. A groggy glance at her bedside clock showed her it was twenty after ten. Morning? she thought blearily. How did it get to be morning?
And she was tucked into bed as tidily as if her grandmother had done the job. Tucked in alone.
She rolled over on her back, stretched, yawned. And realized with a kind of mild shock that nothing ached. Not her neck, not her feet, not her back.
Doctor Dec, she mused, had done a very thorough job. And was probably at home sulking because she hadn’t paid his fee. Hard to blame him, when he’d been such a sweetie pie, and she’d done nothing but lie there like a corpse.
Have to make it up to him, she told herself, and crawled out of bed to put coffee on before she hit the shower.
She walked into the kitchen, stared at the full coffeepot on her counter, and the note propped in front of it. Frowning, she picked up the note, switched the pot back to warm as she read.
Had to go. Counter guys coming this morning. Didn’t know when you’d surface, so I was afraid to leave the pot on. But it’s fresh as of seven-ten A.M., that is, if you end up sleeping ’round the clock. By the way, you look pretty when you sleep.
I’ll give you a call later.
Declan
“Aren’t you the strangest thing,” she muttered as she tapped the note against her palm. “Aren’t you just a puzzlement.”
She needed to stop into the bar to check on her lunch shift, to check on supplies. Then, needing her curiosity satisfied, she drove out to Manet Hall.
The door was open. She imagined he was one of the few who’d lived here who would leave that impressive front door open to whoever might wander in. Country living or no, someone should put a bug in his ear about a security system.
She could hear the racket of workmen from the back of the house, but took her time getting there.
The parlor grabbed her attention. She crouched down, touched her fingers to the glossy floors, and found them hard and dry, and, stepping in, just looked.
He took care, was all she could think. He took care of what was his. Paid attention to details and made them matter. Color, and wood, the elegant fireplace, the gleam of the windows, which she imagined he’d washed personally.
Just as she imagined he would furnish this room personally—and with care and attention to detail.
She’d never known a man to take so much . . . bother, she supposed, with anything. Or anyone. And maybe, she was forced to admit, she’d spent too much time with the wrong kind of man.
“What do you think?”
She turned and, framed by the windows, by the light, looked at him as he stood in the doorway. “I think this house is lucky to have you. I think you see it as it should be, and you’ll work to make it come to life again.”
“That’s nice.” He crossed to her. “That’s very nice. You look rested.”
“A man’s not supposed to tell a woman she looks rested. He’s supposed to tell her she looks gorgeous.”
“I’ve never seen you look otherwise. Today you look rested on top of it.”
“You are the smoothie.” She wandered away, toward the fireplace. She trailed a palm over the mantel, stopped when she came to the brown leather frame holding the photograph of a young woman. “Abigail,” she whispered, and the ache went into her. Went deep.
“Miss Odette gave it to me. You look like her, a little.”
“No, I never looked as innocent as this.” Compelled, Lena traced a fingertip over the young, hopeful face.
She’d seen the photograph before, had even studied it, point by point, during a period in her life when she’d found the story, the mystery of it, romantic. During a period when she herself had been young enough to see romance in tragedy.
“It’s odd,” Lena said, “seeing her here. Seeing part of me here.”
“She belongs here. So do you.”
She shook that off, and the sorrow those dark, clear eyes coated over her heart. Turning, she gave Declan a long, considering look. Work clothes, she thought, tool belt, a night’s stubble. It was getting harder and harder to picture him wearing a pin-striped suit and carrying a fancy leather briefcase.
It was getting harder and harder to picture her life without him in it.
“Why did you leave my place this morning?”
“Didn’t you see the note? Counter guys.” He jerked a thumb back toward the kitchen. “I had to beg and pay extra to get them to schedule me for a Saturday morning. I had to be here.”
“That’s not what I meant. You didn’t come into the city, work—what was it, about six hours busing tables?—and give me a foot rub because you didn’t have anything better to do on a Friday night. You came in for sex, cher, and you left without it. Why is that?”
He could feel his temper prick holes in his easy mood. “You’re a piece of work, Lena. You’ve got a real talent for turning something simple into the complicated.”
“That’s because things are rarely as simple as they look.”
“Okay, let’s clear it up. I came into the city because I wanted to see you. I bused tables because I wanted to help you. I rubbed your feet because I figured you’d been on them about twelve hours straight. Then I let you sleep because you needed to sleep. Hasn’t anyone ever done you a favor?”
“Men don’t, as a rule, unless they’re looking for one in return. What’re you looking for, Declan?”
He gave himself a moment, waiting for the first lash of anger to pass. “You know, that’s insulting. If you’re worried about your pay-for-work ethic, I can spare about twenty minutes now. We can go up, have sex, even the score. Otherwise, I’ve got a lot to do.”
“I didn’t mean to insult you.” But she saw, quite clearly, she had. “I just don’t understand you. The men I’ve known, on an intimate level, would have been irritated by what didn’t happen between us this morning. I expected you to be, and I wouldn’t have blamed you. I would’ve understood that.”
“It’s harder for you to understand that I could care about you enough to put sex on the back burner so you could get a few hours’ sleep?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe that’s not insulting. Maybe that’s just sad.” He saw the color deepen in her cheeks as the words hit her. Embarrassed color, he realized. “Everything doesn’t boil down to sex for me. It helps things percolate, but it’s not all that’s in the pot.”
“I like knowing where I stand. If you don’t know where you stand, you can’t decide if that’s where you want to be, or which direction you’d like to go from there.”
“And I’m fucking up your compass.”
“You could say that.”
“Good. I’m a pretty agreeable guy, Lena, but I’m not going to be lumped in with others you’ve dealt with. In fact, you won’t deal with me at all. We’ll deal with each other.”
“Because that’s the way you want it.”
“Because that’s the way it is.” His tone was flat, final. “Nothing between us is like, or going to be like, anything either of us has had before. You may need some time to get used to that.”
“Is this how you get your way?” she demanded. “By listing off the rules in that annoyingly reasonable tone?”
“Facts, not rules,” he corrected in what he imagined she would consider that annoyingly reasonable tone. “And it’s only annoying because you’d be more confident having a fight. We’ve already eaten into the twenty minutes we could’ve earmarked for sex. Good sex, or a good fight, take time. I’m going to have to take a rain check on both.”
She stared at him, tried to formulate any number of withering remarks. Then just gave up and laughed. “Well, when you cash in your rain checks, let’s do the fight first. Then we can have make-up sex. That’s like a bonus.”
“Works for me. Do you have to get right back, or have you got a few minutes? I could use a hand hauling in and unrolling the rug
I’ve got for in here. I was going to snag one of the counter guys,