Balancing Act

by Fern Michaels

  His feelings for Rita were more complicated than mere loving. It was something deeper, more essential to him. Need, perhaps. She made him feel needed and he responded in a basic, masculine way. The feeling that he must protect her, shelter her from hurt and disappointment, was sometimes so overwhelming it took his breath away. Together, they could live a quiet, comfortable life, mutually benefiting one another.

  Over the past years he had seen flashes of this independence she was right now wearing like a badge of honor. Those times in the past they had been quickly squelched, first by Brett and later by Camilla and Charles. Guiltily, he realized he could have encouraged her to find her own strength. But he liked it when she came to him for advice and he basked in her compliments for his astute business dealings on a particular contract. Most of his other clients lived their lives in the fast lane, and they sometimes resented what they called his interference. Once a contract was signed, they didn’t want to see or hear from him again unless he had a check for them.

  Jesus, he didn’t even like the hokey garbage Rita wrote. But garbage or not, she was an established author with a huge following and even more potential than some of the “artists” who turned out a book once every seven years. Rita’s earnings stunned him, and at times he chortled all the way to the bank. “I’m sorry, Rita, my mind was elsewhere. What were you saying?”

  Rita smiled. Ian appeared tired. If Twigg didn’t show up soon, Ian would go to bed and that would be the end of that. “It wasn’t important. Don’t feel you must stay up with me just because you’re my guest. You have a long drive in the morning. I might work a little longer and since it’s going good I’m getting ready to wind it down. I don’t want to skip over any loose threads in the plot.”

  “It’s the difference in our ages, isn’t it? You’ve just realized that I’m ten years older than you are. I know you’re young and vital, but I think I still have a lot of good years left in me.”

  Rita was about to light a cigarette. She stared at Ian, stunned at what he had just said. Her voice was brittle when she spoke. “Difference in our ages in regard to what?”

  “Us. You and me.”

  “Ian, there is no you and me. You’re my agent and I’m your client. We’re friends. I didn’t know that you . . . what I mean is, you never said . . . am I interpreting all of this right?”

  Ian nodded. “I didn’t want to rush you. The divorce and all. The children like me. You like my children. We’re both grandparents. We do have a lot in common. I thought you sensed . . . perhaps, I should have spoken sooner.” His voice was sober and solemn and sent a chill down Rita’s spine.

  “Ian, I had no idea. I’m sorry. I’m flattered, even honored, that you think of me in that way.” A week ago, a month ago, she probably would have fallen into his arms and never realized that he had not mentioned the word “love.”

  Ian was saved from defending his statement by a knock on the door.

  “Come in,” Rita called happily. She wanted to laugh and throw her arms around Twigg’s neck. His unruly, curly hair was still damp and clung in tight corkscrew ringlets about his face. She could smell his woodsy aftershave and it made her light-headed. For the occasion he had put on a clean, wrinkled shirt and jeans that molded his slim hips and long legs. His sneakers defied description.

  “Twigg Peterson,” he said, holding out his hand to Ian when he noticed Rita was just staring at him. It could have become an awkward moment.

  “Ian Martin,” Ian said in surprise. His eyes went to Rita and clearly said, I thought you said no one was here but you.

  “Twigg is doing a series of articles on dolphins and killer whales. He’s staying in the Johnson cottage around the bend in the lake.” She wondered if Ian realized he was glaring at Twigg.

  Twigg, on the other hand, had eyes only for Rita. “I’d like a beer, if you don’t mind. Don’t get up, I can get it myself.”

  “Get it himself,” Ian mouthed the words to Rita’s smiling face. She nodded as she leaned back in her chair and lit a cigarette. Ian would never understand a man who could do for himself when a woman was around and available to do for him. It never would have occurred to Ian to get his own beer. That’s what wives and housekeepers were for.

  Ian sat down heavily and Twigg returned, sitting down across from Rita and beside Ian. Rita watched the two men for a moment. With Ian’s announcement and Twigg’s arrival, she felt as though she were tumbling backward to square one, uncertain of herself and dreading the conversation that was to follow. Looking uncomfortable, even angry, Ian sipped his wine, draining the glass and placing it on the coffee table. His eyes shifted to Rita as though he expected her to hurry and refill it for him, or at least ask if he would care for another glass. Twigg seemed oblivious to Ian’s discomfort as he drank his beer. “I managed eight hundred words today,” he announced proudly.

  “That’s wonderful! Looks as though you’re coming to terms with the assignment and it won’t be long before you can put it behind you.” Easily, she entered into conversation with him. With Twigg it was always so easy. Occasionally, he directed his questions to Ian who found himself joining in the light repartee.

  Soon, Rita suggested that perhaps Ian might find another market for Twigg’s articles, and it was the agent who expressed interest in seeing something on paper.

  “It won’t mean much without the pictures to accompany it,” Twigg told him. “The assignment I’m doing for National Geographic naturally required photos, and they’re damn good if I say so myself.”

  Ian seemed immediately interested. This was a man with high qualifications. An assignment from National Geographic was something to boast about, and he’d heard recently that one of the major publishers was looking for subjects to print into what Ian liked to call “coffee table books.”

  Relieved that the two men seemed to be getting on so well despite the uncertain beginning, Rita quietly excused herself and went into the kitchen to start the dinner dishes. A little while later Twigg came in for another beer, followed by Ian carrying his empty wineglass. The conversation had now progressed to having Twigg send Ian a portfolio of his photos and text.

  As though it were the most natural thing in the world, Twigg took up a dish towel and began drying as Rita washed, still continuing his conversation with Ian. If the older man was a little surprised by this action, he said nothing. When it came to business, Ian was a dynamo, and the last in the world to alienate a prospective and profitable client.

  It was past midnight when Ian stood and announced he was going to bed. Rita offered to call him at five thirty so he could beat the rush-hour traffic on Interstate 80.

  “Good night, Ian,” Rita said softly, refusing to meet those accusing hazel eyes that asked when, if ever, she was going to abide by propriety and send this young rascal, Peterson, home.

  “Good night, dear.” He kissed her perfunctorily on the cheek and warmly shook hands with Twigg. “I’ll be watching for your stuff, Peterson. Don’t wait too long to get it together. I have a saying ‘strike when the iron’s hot.’ ”

  “I’ll do that,” Twigg assured him, sitting down on the floor beside Rita’s chair.

  “You certainly handled him efficiently,” Rita complimented after Ian had left them alone.

  Twigg raised a brow. “Efficiently, is it? That’s succinct and descriptive. I’ll have to use that myself.”

  Rita laughed. Twigg knew exactly what she was talking about only he didn’t think it worth discussing. Ian had been prepared to dislike Twigg and instead had offered to help him find a market for his work. Amazing. She liked the way Twigg had handled himself. Self-confident without seeming to be too brash and cocky, at least to the slightly stuffy Ian. She knew Twigg would fit into almost any group of people, being well liked as well as admired. Just look at the way he had charmed her!

  Silently, Twigg drank his beer, covertly watching Rita. He wanted to drag her off to his bed, to hold her, touch her, hear her whisper his name as she tumbled over the edge of pl
easure. She had lovely legs, he had noticed. Slim, gracefully turned, and teasingly revealed by the slit-hemmed skirt she wore. He had been conscious of the deep, open neck of her blouse all evening and of the shadow of cleavage it revealed. He wanted to bury his face between her breasts, breathe in the scent of her. Tenderly, her hand touched his head, running her fingers through his hair.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” she said softly.

  Turning, he looked up into her face. “I was just thinking I’d like to throw you over my shoulder and carry you down to my cottage and make mad, passionate love to you.”

  For an instant, Rita’s eyes glanced in the direction of Ian’s room. Then, turning back to Twigg, her eyes smiled down at him. “What are you waiting for?”

  His smile was dazzling, his gaze smoldering, and she was lost to her own building emotions and desires. He rose to his feet, drawing her up into his arms, dipping his face to bury it in the hollow of her throat.

  Chapter Six

  He carried her into his darkened cottage, completely sure of his movements through the darkness. Rita nestled her face into his neck, hurrying him with playful touches of her tongue against the faint stubble of tomorrow’s beard. She loved the way he smelled: spicy, musky, and most of all, masculine.

  I’m like a girl again, she thought, delicious tremors racing through her body. I never thought I would feel this way again, all quivery inside, a little nervous in my stomach, more than a little light-headed. She had thought those sensations were left far behind her, that a woman her age would be too old, too knowledgeable about why her blood pressure rose, to respond with any spontaneity. It wasn’t so, she rejoiced. There was no such thing as “too old.” Here, inside her, were those old but never forgotten feelings: the skittishness of a new colt, the wild flutter of wings, the desire, no need, to please and be pleasured. In his arms she was as smooth and supple as that sixteen-year-old girl within her. Her hair was as dark as walnut, her skin as white as alabaster. She felt beautiful and, feeling it, became beautiful.

  He took her into his bedroom and gently placed her on his bed. She was aware of his scent in here—aftershave, soap and dampness from the adjoining bathroom, leather and tobacco. All aphrodisiacs to her senses.

  Twigg flicked on the night table lamp; it glowed dimly, filling the room with a cozy glow. “I want to see you, Rita. I want to watch you when I make love to you.” There was a huskiness in his voice, a seductive look in his eyes, that set her pulses racing. She watched his hands as they came down to undo the buttons on her blouse, slowly lifting it off her shoulders and kissing the newly bared flesh and the top of her breasts.

  She was mesmerized by his movements, a little frightened, very much aroused. Whispers filled her head as he kissed and petted her, telling her how much she pleased him, how very much he wanted her. One by one her garments came away under his hands, and always he abated the sudden chill of skin bared to cool night air with the caress of his hands and the touch of his lips. The sound of his voice, deep, throaty, brought echoing vibrations from somewhere deep within her. She responded to him totally, entirely, allowing him to be the aggressor, the maestro.

  She heard herself moaning with pleasure as his lips ignited tiny flames of fire she had thought were long cold and dead, swept like ashes in a winter wind. He was murmuring his pleasure in her, telling her she was beautiful, womanly, desirable.

  Rita wanted to be beautiful for him. Wanted to bring him pleasure, make him happy. At the center of Twigg’s pleasure she would find her own, waiting for her, exciting her, making her fully aware of herself as a woman. Standing before her, he began to undress. He was gold from the sun, slender and hard muscled. His chest was broad, his long arms powerful, his hips sleek and narrow. Gilt hair bloomed on his chest and threaded over his belly to thicken again in a darker grove between his thighs. His legs were long and lithely muscled, but it was to the darkness between his thighs that her eyes returned. His desire for her was evident in the proudness of his sex, and she reached out to touch him, her hands lovingly holding his maleness and falling between his thighs to that special fragility that was a man’s. His hands were in her hair, his eyes closed, head thrown back on the thick column of his neck. “I love how you touch me,” he told her softly, so softly, she might have only imagined he’d uttered the words.

  Her arms opened to him, taking him into her embrace as he slid down into the bed, sliding his nakedness against hers and reveling in the contact between them. She was electrically charged. His mouth against hers demanded her willing response. His hands heated her flesh, finding each womanly curve and claiming them for his own. Her abandoned movements against him provoked deep sounds of delight that left him breathless. He found the roundness of her breasts and she trembled as he sought them with his mouth, kissing and teasing.

  Reaching down to take him in her hand, she stroked him, her fingers wandering to the secrets between his legs and the rough surrounding hair that so enticed her fingers. She felt the waves of bliss that emanated from him as he surrendered himself to her caress. Propping herself on an elbow, she raised herself up, tasting the freshness of his skin, nuzzling in the golden furring of his chest, trailing her lips lower, lower, until buried in the thicket surrounding his sex.

  Laying back, he yielded to her, his hands never leaving her body, availing himself of the nearness of her hips, the roundness of her bottom. She captured him with her hand, drawing him to her, her mouth finding him, and she took her reward from the sound of his indrawn breath and the sudden arching of his hips.

  He slid her lower body toward him, stroking the line of her back and following it over the curve of her haunches to the shadow between her thighs, parting them to avail himself of the center of her. His lips and tongue teased the sensitive flesh, his hands held her hips firmly, driving her closer to him. His mouth tasted her, devoured her, arousing echoing paroxysms in her caresses to his own body, doubling their excitement in one another, multiplying their desires.

  Drawing her up beside him, he covered her mouth with his own, allowing her to taste herself on his lips, tasting himself on hers. Rita’s body undulated beneath his touch as his hands strayed along her breasts, her back, between her legs. There was not an inch of her left untouched, unloved. He tantalized her, teased her, bringing her so close to the gates of her release only to deny her entrance. A fire burned in her belly and her need for him to take her grew into a hunger all-consuming. Her world was filled with him, her needs were for him alone. Only he could bring her the triumphant joy she could know as a woman.

  Greedily, she took his rigid, throbbing maleness into her hand, frantically bringing it against her, rubbing it against the wetness of her yearning body. “Please, have me,” she whispered, pleading, imploring, “have me now!”

  He rose over her, taking her into his arms, covering her mouth with his own, his silken-tipped tongue coming in to touch and devour hers. She opened herself to him, demanding he come into her and fill this pulsing emptiness he had created within her.

  He watched her face, exhilarated by the rampant lust he saw there, by the need for fulfillment she had allowed him to create within her. Lovely, so lovely. Lips parted to reveal the tip of her velvet-lined tongue; head thrown back and eyes closed with the weight of her passion. He entered her, feeling her warm, satiny sheath close and ripple around him. He wanted to bury himself in her, become a part of her, know her as he had never known another woman. Soft, kittenish sounds of pleasure fell on his ears as he moved within her, thrusting gently, becoming more insistent as his own restraint began to fail. He plunged into her, becoming one with that honeyed flesh, feeling her meet each thrust with a lift of her hips, holding fast to him with her arms, her legs, taking him deeper, wanting him deeper.

  At the point of no return, Rita’s eyes flew open, staring up at him, a smile lifting the corners of her kiss-bruised mouth. He felt himself falling into those clear blue depths, turning over and over, down and down, rushing toward that magical and mysterious
melding of their souls that made the mating of the flesh an insignificant interlude compared to the full and total joy of loving and being loved.

  Rita nestled her head against Twigg’s shoulder.

  “Sleepy?” Twigg murmured. Rita nodded. “I’ll watch the clock for you if you want to sleep. I don’t own an alarm but my watch is trustworthy.”

  “Hmmm,” she purred contentedly, “just like you are.”

  “Me? Trustworthy? Why, madame, haven’t you noticed that I’ve just ravished you?” She liked the sound of his laughter.

  “You, sir, have been reading too many romances !” she pretended to scold, lightly pulling his chest hair.

  “I haven’t been reading romance, Rita, I’ve been living one. Since the day I met you.” There was a deep note in his voice that started a shudder between her shoulder blades. “You, darling, are the most romantic woman I’ve ever known. Sweet, sensitive, womanly. Without false charades or devious facades. I like you, Rita Bellamy, very much.”

  His words warmed her as his embrace tightened around her, holding her close to him. He’s good for me, she thought, so very good. Time spent with him was exciting and at the same time soothing. Her work was going well, and he didn’t intrude himself upon her and make demands. He had work of his own, and he understood how difficult it was to restore a nebulous train of thought.

  “Admit it,” he whispered into the soft cloud of her hair, “you’d completely forgotten about Ian, hadn’t you?”

  “Rascal! How did you know?”

  “By the look in your eyes when I was making love to you. I was the only man who existed for you. Wasn’t I? Admit it!” His tone was teasing, joking, but there was an underlying note prompting her confession.

  “All right, I admit it. Yes, you were the only man who existed for me. You filled my world and I loved it. You touched me, Twigg, here, inside.” Her hand covered her breast and her words, meant to be light and noncommittal, suddenly became her truth.