by Jan Freed
Sarina pulled the open edges of her jacket together, an oddly vulnerable movement that gave him pause. Her long pink flannel gown clashed with her red coat and puddled endearingly over her sneakers. The ends of her rumpled chin-length hair curled damply, as if she was fresh from a shower. A far different image from the one haunting his thoughts the past two weeks.
Needles of guilt stung his conscience and goaded his temper. Why did everything about this girl get to him, no matter how she acted?
He yanked his hand from his pocket and crossed his arms. “Still not talking? Well something’s going on, and I want to know exactly what it is before I drag Principal Miller into this mess.”
Sarina’s chin came up. Her eyes said how-dare-you.
Jack’s mouth thinned. “I guess I should’ve asked Donna first.”
“Leave her out of this.” Her voice was fierce with warning. She rose and faced him, quivering with indignation. “You lie to the housekeeper to get inside, you scare me witless, you barge in here uninvited and start badgering me—one of your students, may I remind you—for answers like Perry Mason with a bad script. As if you have a right to pry into my life. Well, I don’t think so, Mr. Morgan!”
Ah, yes. He liked this Sarina better. Much, much better. Too much better. The unwanted stirring of heat in his groin sent those stinging needles deeper.
She drew herself up to her full height, about his chin level, and glared. “I suggest you turn around and leave, before this turns into a nasty little incident I have to report to Principal Miller. I’m not sure your reputation can stand another accusation of harassment, are you?”
He unfolded his arms slowly. “Are you threatening me, Sarina?”
Her gaze faltered, then steadied. “I’m stating the facts. I know you were cleared of Wendy’s charges last semester, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? Leave me alone, forget about all these questions, and I won’t start another scandal by telling Principal Miller you came over here. Alone. At night. Then sent the housekeeper home.”
She’d slammed Jack’s hot button so hard he exhaled smoke. He moved forward, boot tips to sneaker toes, invading her space, expecting her to retreat. “Go ahead and tell him. There wasn’t a first scandal, so you can’t start a second one. You said yourself I was cleared of charges.”
Her world-weary expression held a tinge of pity. “Get real. A beautiful girl like Wendy...a man like you tutoring her privately. Put the two in a room alone and you’ve got a scandal, whether you were guilty or not. It’ll be twice as bad if I corroborate Wendy’s claim with a new story. Which I will, if you don’t leave me alone.”
Why, the manipulative little... “A ‘man like me’ is exactly right. I’ve taught at that school for ten years. If it comes down to your word, or mine—I’M win. I don’t lie, and people know it.”
She huffed in his face. “Tell that to Mrs. Anderson.”
His neck heated.
“Besides,” she continued. “I wasn’t talking about your sacred honor and sense of responsibility. That’s only half of what a reputation’s built on. Physical appearance is just as important.” She arched a brow at his startled look. “You may talk and act like Moses, but I’ve seen the way girls watch you. They’re not drooling over your morals, that’s for sure...”
Frowning at her revelation, Sarina looked away and swallowed hard, her cheeks growing pink.
A ray of speculation penetrated Jack’s murky emotions. The following rush of male satisfaction was bright and purely sweet. He could see her fighting her need to step back, but she didn’t budge.
“Would you like to explain that little comment?” he asked.
Her head whipped around, her gaze resentful. “And stroke your ego more? No, thanks. Go find somebody else to do it. In fact, leave now, or I’ll call Principal Miller at home.” She flicked a glance to the telephone on an end table two feet away. “I’ve had about all I can take of you and your harassment.”
He refused to be railroaded again by another Wendy Johnson! “Well, I’ve had about all I can take of Lolita wanna-bes playing games with my career. I’ll leave when you tell—”
“Loleeta?”
“You heard me.” A thought occurred to him. “She’s a teenager in an old movie who manipulates James Mason—”
“I know who Lolita is, I just couldn’t believe your gall. Listen, buddy, I’ve never operated that way in my life. But if I did, I wouldn’t be a wanna-be Lolita, I’d be the real thing. No, I’d be better.”
God. her eyes were magnificent. “Okay, tell me how you do operate. What is your game?” He would damn well get some answers before he left, but—responsibly. Rationally. He drew a calming breath and asked, “Why are you staying with Donna’s grandmother?”
She reached for the phone.
His hand flashed out, his fingers overlapping the delicate wrist bone above her padded coat sleeve. “Tell me what you’re hiding, Sarina. Maybe I can help.”
“Let go!” She pulled her arm once, twice, then suddenly went still.
The atmosphere shifted, quicksand beneath his feet. When her other hand came up he tensed for a slap. The feel of her gentle fingertips on his face sent a jolt of surprise to his boots. The Lolita gleam in her eyes sent a trill of alarm to his brain.
Her sigh was a calculated surrender. “I guess it’s useless to fight any more, since you’ve got me all figured out.” She lightly scored the line of his jaw with her nails, the bristling sound loud in his ears, then curved her fingers and ran her knuckles the opposite direction.
“Shame on you, Mr. Morgan,” she scolded, her voice a husky purr. Her nails retraced their original path. “Not shaving before dropping by. I’m sure there must be a rule of etiquette against that somewhere.”
If she’d grown pointed ears and a snarling snout, he couldn’t have been more shocked. Her body had softened. Her lids drooped, turning those dusky purple eyes into sultry weapons. Lethal within ten feet to a man’s common sense.
His other brain rose valiantly to the occasion.
He released her wrist as if scalded. Big mistake, since her freed hand reached up and kneaded the back of his neck.
“All right, Sarina,” he croaked, his heart clubbing his ribs in great thunderous blows. “You’ve had your fun. Give it a rest.”
“Oh, but you’re wrong. I haven’t had my fun, yet.” She pressed the pad of her thumb on his lower lip. “Neither have you.”
He stumbled backward two steps, surrendering ground like the coward he was, but she rode his boots, her hands still busy. One read the braille of his features; the other did shivery things to his ear.
“Sometimes in class,” she murmured breathily, “when you’re talking? So stern and serious and responsible. I’ve thought about touching you like this.”
Sweet mother of God! He grasped her arms and wrenched them down, not daring to look at her upturned face. “You win. I’m leaving.”
“No, don’t go.”
He gathered up every ounce of his considerable willpower and started to move.
“Jack.”
The sound of his name in that throaty whisper riveted his boots to the floor. Helpless to do anything else, he looked into her eyes.
Stunningly beautiful. Electrifying in their intensity. Naked with yearning.
All the blood in his body rushed to support his new command center. One touch, it ordered. To satisfy curiosity only. To confirm that her skin wasn’t as impossibly smooth as it looked.
His gaze never wavering from hers, he reached up in slow motion and feathered his knuckles down one cameo cheek. Her lashes fluttered and dropped, allowing all his senses to focus on touch.
Warm smooth satin. Fine plush velvet. Dewy soft petals. None of the writer’s cliehés at his disposal did Sarina’s skin justice. Beneath his fingers, her cheek flushed a rosy peach—to match her heated scent.
He couldn’t ignore the fragrance any longer, couldn’t pretend it hadn’t been teasing him unmercifully since she’d opened the
front door. Closing his eyes, he inhaled a deep reverent breath.
No custom-blended perfume could have been created to suit him better, to excite him more. She smelled lush and summery, wholesome and earthy, delicious with the promise of his favorite taste. Underlying the peaches was the her own unique scent. The one that grew stronger when a woman was aroused.
His eyes popped open.
She was staring at his mouth.
Forbidden fruit, his mind shouted from a great vast distance. He tried to remember why she was forbidden. But he was too dizzy, too hot, too hungry, too needy. He liked this Sarina much, much too much.
There was no room for anything else but the woman so near he could count every eyelash, yet too far from his starving body. As if reading his mind, she pressed closer.
“Sarina,” he said on a groan, splaying his hands on her hips, pulling her the last forbidden inch. Oh, yeah.
His world narrowed to one purpose. His straining erection wept a grateful tear, despite the irritating barrier of her bulky jacket. Where to start? So many choices, all of them explored mentally the past two weeks. He looked down and watched the tip of her delicate pink tongue dart out to moisten her lips. Her mouth, then. That was at the top of his list, anyway.
He reached up and cradled her jaw. sliding his thumb inward to test the springy plumpness of her lower lip. Damp. Ripe for the tasting. He rubbed his thumb pad once. Twice.
She parted her upturned mouth.
Excellent. On the way down he changed his mind and made a detour to the base of her throat. His lips absorbed the frantic beat of her heart, then lifted in triumph. She was excited, which excited him more.
Cupping the base of her skull with one hand, gripping the jacket-padded curve of her bottom with the other, he found himself asking new questions. “Tell me what you like,” he murmured in her ear. “Tell me what you want.”
She grew still, as if possibilities whirled through her mind. They sure as hell did in his. He’d never been so aroused in his life.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. Her hands moved restlessly over his back. “I’ve never felt like this. I want...everything.”
Jack fought through a wave of lust so powerful he nearly went under. Choking out a laugh, he said, “I think that can be arranged. Anything goes between consenting adults—”
He froze. Only one of them was an adult, consenting for the both of them.
In an instant of lucid clarity, he acknowledged the wrongness of this picture. A teacher, locked in a passionate embrace with a student. An older man seducing a young girl, no matter how seemingly mature, who was vulnerable to his greater experience. His ardor shifted to horrified self-disgust.
He grabbed her shoulders and thrust himself out of her clinging arms. She looked dazed, and he cursed viciously.
“Jack, it’s okay,” Sarina said urgently.
“It’s not okay!” Whirling, he put a good eleven feet between them—out of the range of her lethal eyes—and paced back and forth in agitation. “Do you realize what I almost did? Jeez, another minute and you would’ve been flat on that sofa. Or the floor.”
“Jack—”
“I swear, Sarina, I’ve never touched a student like that in my life. I—wanted to get some answers. I don’t know how or why I let things get so far out of control. It was unforgivable.”
“Jack—”
“Don’t worry, I’ll report myself to the superintendent tomorrow—”
“Jack!” Sarina bellowed, stopping him in his tracks. “Quit taking all the blame,” she said in a calmer voice. “I started the whole thing. I could have stopped you any time, but I didn’t. You’re not going to report this to the superintendent and ruin your career. Now listen to me—”
“Why?” Spearing fingers through his hair, he glanced at the petite girl in her pink flannel nightgown and cringed inwardly. She wasn’t much older than Kate, for God’s sake. Wouldn’t Brian Morgan be proud of his son, now? “There’s not a damn thing you can say to me that will excuse my behavior, so don’t even try.”
Her chin came up in a now familiar gesture. She marched forward and planted herself two feet away, her eyes a brilliant blue-purple. Insistent. Compelling. And utterly, hopelessly mesmerizing.
He was doomed.
“My name is Sarah Davidson, not Sarina Davis. I’m from Fort Worth, Texas, not San Diego, California. And, for your information, I’m twenty-seven years old, not eighteen. A legitimate consenting adult, Mr. Martyr.”
CUPPING HER HANDS around a mug of hot tea on the bar counter, Sarah wondered what Jack was thinking. He’d sat on the stool next to. her virtually silent throughout her long tale. Now he appeared to be deep in contemplation.
She’d told him everything. Her background. Witnessing three deaths. John Merrit’s, and then later, Mike’s and Larry’s. How the home-shopping sales pitch for a friendship ring had made her think of Donna, causing her to head from Omaha to Houston.
There were gaps missing from that nightmarish portion. Somehow she’d had the wits to use cash, a false name and a plausible sob story. She must’ve made a convincingly scared teen runaway on her way home to Mom and Dad. The gruff truckers had opened their hearts and cab doors readily enough. And Sarah, who’d feared and scorned hitchhiking her entire life, had felt lucky to get the privilege of a ride.
She’d told Jack about Donna’s generosity and daring plan, then pleaded with him not to expose them both. Their fate was in his hands, now. That probably should make her nervous. But instead, she was comforted and relieved.
Just then, Jack lifted his cup of coffee and took an absentminded sip, his strong throat rippling. The arms beneath his moss green cable knit sweater were startlingly hard, she remembered. Sarah took advantage of his inner focus to study him with unabashed pleasure.
If, as an image consultant, she disapproved of the clothes he wore to school, she heartily endorsed this casual “look.” She was Texas born and bred. What was not to like?
First there were those black Roper boots, the heels hooked over the lower brass rung of his bar stool. Their leather scuffed enough to prove he wore them more than once a year to a Garth Brooks concert.
Then there were his jeans. They were perfect. Faded and snug in a way stonewashed denim could never duplicate. Like if he stepped out of them, they’d lovingly hold his shape. Which was well worth holding, in her discerning opinion.
Maybe it was the legs that made the jeans perfect. They were long and muscular, the curve of his thighs twin temptations. She didn’t know if she wanted more to touch them—to see if they were as hard as they looked—or sit on them, to feel what else might be hard....
She lifted her mug and sipped, hoping to cover her burning cheeks. What must he think? She hardly knew what to think, herself. Sure, she’d felt desperate. Yes, he’d angered and frustrated her. But she hadn’t needed to come on to the man like Lolita after a raw oyster binge!
One touch of those long sensitive fingers on her cheek, and she’d been lost. Aching for his kiss—and more. She’d wanted just what she said. Everything. Anything. As long as it was with him. Why him? Wrong place, wrong time, wrong man—Donna’s man.
Setting down her mug, Sarah wondered where the pragmatic, undersexed woman she’d been had gone. The woman willing to settle for a marriage of convenience with Mark to fulfill the image of a perfect couple.
“Okay, backtrack for me to the man who murdered John Merrit,” Jack said, capturing her guilty gaze.
“Hmm? Oh.” Struggling for composure, she brushed the knee of the sweatpants she’d changed into, tugged down her white T-shirt. “What do you want to know?”
“I know he made bail. I know someone—someone he probably hired—put a bullet through your windshield the next day.”
Sarah’s stomach clenched. If she hadn’t stretched at that precise instant to change the radio station...
“Tell me about the man and his motive.”
Memory of icy blue eyes staring through a two-way mirr
or sent a delicate shudder through her body. “His name is Lester Jacobs. I didn’t know that until after I described him to police, and they brought him in for a lineup. He owns a real estate development company. When. the referendum to legalize casino gambling in Texas passed, he’d bought prime property in Galveston and San Antonio.”
“I’ m assuming he’s wealthy.”
“I think he’s a high roller. Tom Castle—mat’s the prosecuting attorney on the case—said he’s in over his head on the property he bought. He was betting everything on making a killing once gambling was legalized.”
“And Merrit’s campaign for governor got in the way.”
Nodding, she reached for her mug but only grasped the handle, sliding her thumb back and forth along the rim. “The campaign centered around an anti-vice theme. And he was so passionate, so charismatic that, against all predictions, he was beginning to affect public opinion. The latest poll indicated legalization wouldn’t pass in the general election.”
“So, this Jacobs slime bag killed one of the few honorable politicians this country had left.”
She shot him a startled look.
“Merrit spoke at Roosevelt’s graduation ceremony last year,” he said, answering her unspoken question. “He was great to the kids. Straightforward. Not patronizing at all. I liked the man.”
“Me, too. He was... very special.” Her throat closed up on the last word. Damn, damn. damn!
“He was scheduled to come back this spring for a roundtable discussion with the senior student council. They were really excited about it. Couldn’t believe he actually cared what they thought about the future.”
John had cared, Sarah knew. Biting her lip, she looked at the ceiling, drew a deep breath and fought the sting of tears.
She’d worked so hard to forget the huge loss John’s death represented. Now memory of his larger-than-life personality, his optimism and belief in people and his government—despite a hundred reasons to be cynical—pressed down on Sarah with crushing weight.
He’d been cut down at age fifty-two, his prime leadership years ahead. He’d been her friend, a better friend than she deserved. A small strangled sound escaped her now.