His body stiffened behind her. “What did you say?”
Chapter 13
JACK SPUN MARLY around. “You still think I’m feeding you lines. You think I’m a bullshit artist. Actually, you think I’m a liar. That’s very flattering.”
She opened and closed her mouth, her blue-green eyes wary. “I didn’t say you were a liar—I just wanted to tell you that I know the score. Take the pressure off so you wouldn’t have to keep up the…” Her voice faded out.
“Pretense? Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s the word you were going to use.”
She looked away. “Jack, you can’t expect me to believe in fairy tales.”
“Sweetheart, you know by now that I’m no fairy. And I can assure you that I’m not telling tales. I have the cameo of my great-great-grandmother right out there in my dresser. You want to see it? You want to read the correspondence between her and the man she married, my great-great-grandfather?”
“Jack, I’m not trying to deny your family history! But things are different today, and I certainly don’t expect—”
“A ring?”
She gave an embarrassed laugh.
“Why not? I am going to marry you, so you should expect a ring.” Jack saw a shiver run through her, and then she just goggled at him as if he had three heads.
She threw up her hands, splashing them both in the process. “These are the kinds of things that you can’t walk around saying or doing!”
“Why not? I just did.” Jack leaned back against the side of the tub again, amused.
“Why not? Because…because maybe I don’t want to marry you! Maybe it’s just a little bit early in the game to be making sweeping statements like that. Maybe you’re so sure of yourself that it’s almost giving me the creeps!”
Jack folded his hands behind his head and got comfortable with the outraged, beautiful naked woman in his tub. “You sure are full of compliments. I’m a BS artist, a scheming manipulator and now I give you the creeps. You know, a guy with a lesser ego might take some of that the wrong way.”
She stood, water sluicing down her body, and glared at him. Damn, she was one hot babe. He fixated on her breasts, that tiny waist, the beckoning patch between her thighs and those long, long legs. She was speaking, but he couldn’t seem to register the words.
“That’s just it! Your ego!”
Not worried at all about his ego, Jack fixated like a shark on a minnow. Then he honed in on his prey: the forbidden place right at eye level.
“You’re so sure of yourself that it makes me want to—ahhhhh! What are you doing?”
Jack was licking. And holding her prisoner with one hand on each cheek, which he couldn’t help squeezing.
Marly squirmed against him. “Stop that! You’re not listening to a word I—ohh.” She clutched at his hair and swayed. “I said stop it!”
He ignored her as she started to pant and rock against him. He got down to the serious business of distracting her from whatever rant she’d been about to go on.
“Don’t stop,” Marly moaned.
Now that’s more like it, thought Jack, pleased.
She whimpered. “Yes! Yes! Oh, please…”
He’d found the little nub at her center and he worried it with his tongue, making circles and figure eights. Suddenly she began to buck uncontrollably against him, while he held her hips in place. She made sounds that really weren’t recognizable as words, little cries that told him he’d brought her ultimate pleasure.
It was only then that Jack got to his feet, stood her on the edge of the tub and drove inside her slick, tight heat. She lost her balance, grabbed at his shoulders and he took her weight completely. “Wrap your legs around me,” he ordered.
She did, and he bent her back so that he could see her breasts, see their joining as he pulsed inside her. It was the sight of her, perpendicular to his body, laid out like a feast, that made him come in a hard, hot rush.
It wasn’t until afterward, lying on the rug with her on top of him, that he thought of a condom.
“I’m on the pill,” she told him. “And by the way, I may have no complaints at all about your technique, but that was a sneak attack!”
“Yup,” he agreed, unperturbed.
“I was trying to tell you something important.”
“I know.” He grinned. “And I was trying to tell you something important, too. That I don’t care what you say, or what barriers you erect, I’m going to get through them and I’m going to marry you.”
“You act like I have no choice in the matter!”
He blinked. “You don’t. Not really.”
She gaped at him.
“It’s fate,” he explained. “Destiny. Whatever you want to call it.”
The chills that she’d gotten the first time he’d said it to her returned. She didn’t believe in fate. She believed in making her own destiny, whether or not it involved Jack.
And right now she believed in self-preservation, in not being swallowed whole by his outsize personality and calm plans for what was her life. “Fate,” she scoffed. “You’re crazy, Jack!”
He stroked her hair. “I love it when you get all hot and bothered. You’re so damned cute.”
“I’m not cute! And you’re not listening to me.” She sat up and glared at him.
“I am listening to you. Really. I’m letting you vent. I just don’t happen to agree with you. You’ll see that I’m right in the end. I’m always right.”
“You—you—” She scrambled to her feet, angry and naked. “You’re such a—” She appeared to be searching for a word bad enough to describe him.
“Yes?”
“You’re such a man!”
He pursed his lips. “It’s true.” He spread his hands apologetically. “I am a man. And you are a woman. And I think I’m about to hear you roar.” He squinted, bracing himself.
She obliged, even though it was more of a shriek of frustration. She stalked out of the bathroom, leaving him on the rug.
He got up and followed. “I don’t advise any more roaring, unless you want Jimmy and Rocket coming to see what’s going on.”
“Frick and Frack had better stay far, far away or I will bleach their hair while they sleep.”
“Um,” said Jack. “Rocket doesn’t have any hair.”
“Then I’ll tattoo a pink poodle on his head.”
“Beware the mad hairdresser.” He walked to his highboy and opened the top drawer, pulling out a small silver box that had seen better days. He opened it and took out the antique cameo portrait, which nestled inside a gold locket. His great-great-grandmother’s face looked up at him, eyes sparkling with mischief under her old-fashioned hairdo.
He walked with it over to Marly, who’d wrapped herself in his robe. “That’s a little big on you. Here, take a look at this.”
She turned away from the window and reluctantly took the locket from him. “So this is the lady who’s caused all the fuss.” Her mouth softened. “She’s so pretty, Jack.” She handed it back to him. “But she has nothing to do with me. You’re turning a whim into destiny.”
“I’m not,” he said quietly. “Why don’t you trust me?”
She threw up her hands. “Because you’re a politician! A player! A Republican! What else can I say? You’re glib, Jack. And you’re too good-looking, too magnetic. One smile and people will give up their lives for you. I feel it working on me, too, and it scares the hell out of me. The impact you have on people is like nothing I’ve ever seen before…. You manipulate without even realizing it. Case in point—you just made me forget my own name, much less my argument about not being The One.”
“I thought you said you had no complaints.”
“I don’t—except that you’re asking me—no, telling me I’m going to marry you, and I don’t have the slightest idea who you really are.”
He shrugged. “I’m just me.”
“What do you want out of life, besides to be governor? What do you do in your spare time? What movi
es do you love, and do you ever wish you could just throw your fifty royal-blue ties into the garbage?”
Marly stopped and drew breath. “And how do you know that I’m the perfect woman for you—The One, as you say? Apart from sexually?” She narrowed her eyes.
“Oh, that’s right. You’ve got a whole file on me. But it won’t tell you what my favorite foods are, or what music I listen to, or who I most admire in the world.”
He nodded. “I understand. And I figure we’ve got all the time in the world to learn those things about each other. I didn’t say I wanted you to marry me tomorrow.”
She just folded her arms across her chest and stared at him, frustrated.
“Now, let me see if I can answer your questions. What do I want out of life, besides being governor? Well, first of all, I don’t really want to be governor.”
Her mouth opened. “You don’t? Then why—”
“I was born into a political family, Marly. Born the son of a senator, and brought up around people who have a lot of influence—power, I guess you’d call it. I was set on a path from an early age, and I walked that path. I got rewarded with lots of positive affirmation, so I kept walking it. Before I knew it, the path defined me and developed momentum. It dumped me into law school, into my father’s firm, and then into the political game. There are a lot of issues I care about, and I’m happy to be able to influence laws that deal with those issues…but I don’t have to sit in the governor’s seat to do it.
“What do I want out of life? Honestly? Just to be a regular guy for a while. Not be managed by campaign demands and PR demands. Not to be torn in a hundred different ways by the people who donate to my campaign and are lobbying for this, that and the other.
“I’d love, just for a few days, to be my little brother Tim. To dress like a rock star and adopt his screw-the-establishment attitude. But I don’t have the luxury of doing that…. I have responsibilities to a lot of people. Being governor isn’t just holding the reins and yelling, ‘Yah!’”
She remained quiet, just listening to him.
“It’s endless meetings and speeches,” he continued. “And documents and boring parties and public appearances. There are days when I’d rather have my balls waxed than attend another luncheon and make another canned speech that somebody else wrote for me.”
He walked to his big bed and pulled the covers back. He patted the other side. “C’mere. You wanna talk? We’ll talk.” She looked so puzzled and lost in his big robe. The sleeves hung completely over her hands, and the hem trailed the floor as she joined him. He wanted to pick her up and hold her against him forever, breathe in the scent of her hair and wake up to those eyes every morning. Maybe he was crazy, as she accused him of being. But he knew in his bones that he wanted her next to him when they were eighty.
“So…then why are you running again, if your heart’s not in it?” she asked.
“Babe, I’m running because we have momentum. I’m the incumbent. We have an agenda of change that we want to fulfill. I want to see the budget balanced. I want to see sweeping reforms on a lot of issues that I won’t get into right now. The bottom line is that it doesn’t much matter what I want personally—I owe it to my party, the voters, my campaign workers and contributors, even my family who has worked so hard to back me up. I owe it to them. So if I have to give up another four years of my life, I will. And no, it’s not me trying to be noble. It’s me…giving back somehow, taking the silver spoon out of my mouth and using it for some good.”
Marly sat quietly, watching him with softened eyes. Good, he seemed to be getting somewhere with her. He pressed his advantage.
“Me running for reelection is a little like you dropping out of art school to pay off your father’s medical bills. You put him over your own self-interest.”
That hit home with her. He knew it by the way her pupils darkened, the way her lashes veiled them instantly, by her quick swallow.
He caressed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Do I ever want to burn my fifty royal-blue ties?” He chuckled. “You have no idea how much! I dream of putting one through the shredder, dissolving another in acid. I want to feed one to the disposal in the kitchen, flush another one down the toilet.”
He dropped his head into his hands. “But the royal-blue tie is my signature, part of my public image. So I’ll have to wait a little longer.”
“Favorite movie?” she asked, settling back into his pillows.
“Brave heart. A tour de force. A masterpiece. Perfect in every way. It’s a film that manages to be about courage and self-sacrifice and true nobility without descending into cheesiness. Very rare these days. How about you?”
She mused for a while. Then she nodded. “Brave heart. And The Princess Bride,” she added, pulling her knees up to her chin and hugging them. “It was so damned funny.”
He nodded. “We’ll have to rent that.” He covered her hand with his and she didn’t pull away. “Now, the only unanswered question, I believe, is what I do in my spare time. And here’s the sad answer—I don’t have any spare time. I actually made this time between us by canceling about three different social obligations.”
“But if you had any?” she prompted.
“If I did, I’d…take guitar lessons. I’d make love to you a lot. I’d grow my hair long and grab you and a backpack and tour South America and Asia and maybe even hit the Australian outback. I’d go sailing every weekend.”
“I don’t know how to sail.”
“I’d teach you.” He reached over and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “So what do you do in your spare time?”
She looked at him sadly. “I don’t have any, either. Not really. What I do have—my one day off—I usually spend doing laundry and cleaning and basically collapsing because I’m too tired to move. But I’d love to travel,” she added in a wistful tone.
“Careful,” he warned. “We’re in danger of having a lot in common. We can’t allow that, you know. Especially since according to you, I’m crazy and we’re not getting married.”
“I can’t possibly have anything in common with a lowlife Republican,” Marly teased. “I’m already violating all my principles by sleeping with a man who wears a suit and tie.”
Jack lifted an eyebrow. “Funny. I didn’t think you Democrats had any principles. Especially not Democrats with artistic leanings—ow! Don’t make me call Jimmy and Rocket in here to defend me.”
“Even Frick and Frack would admit that I had provocation for punching you.” She shot him a sexy smile and he scooped her into his arms. “Hey! I can’t have sex again. You’ve worn out all my parts. They hurt, you savage.”
“Ah,” Jack told her. “But I’m a tender-hearted savage. See, I can kiss them and make them all better….”
And he proceeded to do just that.
Chapter 14
MARLY FELT as if she were living a dream as she fastened her seat belt again and accepted another martini in preparation for the flight back to Miami. What was she doing in Gulfstreams and limos, hanging out in the governor’s mansion?
And had the man really announced that he was going to marry her one day? Why her? None of this made any sense. She was a hairstylist, for God’s sake. She wasn’t the kind of woman that heads of state wanted to marry.
She looked down at her loose, bohemian cotton dress and now-copper toenails. She tugged on her braid. She took another large swallow of her martini. The texture of the cotton and the smell of the leather couch, the taste of the gin and the roar of the Gulf-stream’s engines—all of these details told her that she wasn’t dreaming.
Her body told her, too, since she could still almost feel Jack’s hands on her, Jack’s mouth on hers, Jack’s rhythm inside her.
But wasn’t she playing with fire? Could Jack swear his future over to her and the state of Florida at the same time? Wasn’t she flying a bit high with this man? And if he had to choose…
Again, her common sense told her that he was too rich for her blo
od. His world was too exclusive, too different from hers, and things would never work between them.
Her mother’s words during the atrocious dinner they’d shared in Fort Myers came back to her. Probably not fancy enough for you…
Well, she probably wasn’t fancy enough for Jack, no matter what he said to her in the heat of desire.
God. What would Ma say if she could see her now? It didn’t bear thinking about. Most mothers would be proud. Hers would be—
Marly almost swallowed whole the olive in her martini as a thought hit her. Her mother would be jealous. Was jealous. And she always had been.
The idea shocked her. Ma had been jealous all these years—of the attention and focus Marly got from her father, of the bond between them. And though it made her uncomfortable to think about it, she was afraid Ma envied her looks. Which was probably why Marly had never made a big deal out of them and didn’t wear makeup.
As the jet carried her into the sky, her mind took her back over the years, fitting puzzle pieces together. Ma’s impatience, her lack of encouragement on anything, her quiet fury when it had been Marly who saved her father’s life by insisting he see a specialist.
Fury! Not relief or gratitude, but anger. Because she’d been shown up by her daughter in the eyes of the man she loved.
She was competitive with her own daughter—not only for her father’s love, but for a string of other things.
Ma had never had the chance to go to college. Ma had never been creative. Ma had never had her own business.
And what would her mother do if Marly became engaged to the governor?
She swallowed the rest of her martini and a small, awful, borderline-hysterical giggle escaped her. The scenario didn’t bear thinking about.
The plane bucked a couple of wayward air currents, dropping suddenly and pulling Marly’s stomach into the cargo hold. She gripped the metal armrest until her fingers turned white, half expecting to plunge downward through the clouds to her death.
Why couldn’t she have died before she realized that her mother couldn’t wish her well? Would never be able to wish her well?
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