by Meg Cabot
But Jack seemed to have other ideas. He suddenly slipped both hands under her and lifted her from the sink, then started, with Lou held high against him, towards the bedroom door. Jack evidently had something against skewering women against the kitchen sink—that was the only reason Lou could think of for the sudden change in venue.
But she was more glad than she could say for his decisiveness when, a second later, he’d lowered her onto Donald’s bed…and then lowered himself on top of her. Suddenly she could feel that goody trail against her own bare stomach…his goody trail, and so much else.
Then he was pulling at her clothes. Off came the flannel shirt. Goodbye went each of her socks. Last to go were the long johns, and those he peeled from her with care, watching intently as inch after inch of bare skin was revealed in the sliver of light that spilled into the bedroom from the fire in the next room.
“So you are a natural redhead,” he observed hoarsely, running his fingers through the triangle between her thighs.
“You doubted it?” Lou asked huskily.
“Honey,” he said, “I’ll never doubt anything again, where you’re concerned.”
And then he was kissing her again, another one of those breath-stealing, toe-curling kisses that made her feel as if the sole reason he’d been put on this earth was for this, and this alone…to kiss her. As he kissed her, he ran his hands up and down the length of her nude body, doing things, touching things, Barry had never done or touched. Making love with Barry had been fun, but there’d been a certain perfunctoriness to it. They’d done it regularly, three times a week, and it had been satisfying.
But Barry had never pressed her up against a sink and kissed her as if his life had depended on it. Barry had never made the noise Jack had when she’d wrapped her hand around him, then buried his head in her neck. Barry had never made her feel as Jack was making her feel, as if there was just her and him in the entire world, and that the only thing that mattered at that very moment was the two of them.
And Barry had never, as Jack was suddenly doing, torn off his own clothes, as if he could not stand to have them on a second longer.
And there it was, in all its glory, the famous Townsend ass.
And it was, for the moment anyway, hers, to do with exactly as she pleased.
What she pleased to do with it at that moment was run her hands over its perfectly round smoothness….
Then pull it very hard towards her.
Jack got the message and seemed to need no further urging. A second later, he had buried himself in her.
Home. That’s all Lou could think. That after months— years even—of journeying, she had come home at last. Which was ridiculous, of course, because there was nothing remotely homey about Jack. Jack wasn’t comfortable. Jack wasn’t relaxing to be with. Except for the whole cooking thing, Jack didn’t even strike her as very domestic.
But they fit. Oh, God, how well they fit together, as if his body had been created for the sole purpose of coupling with hers. Lou had never experienced anything like the sensation of fullness that swept over her when all that hardness entered her, embedded so deeply that she could have sworn she felt it all the way to her spine—that spine he kept managing to debilitate with his kisses. Lou could not remember ever feeling so complete, so less like a brain, and much like a woman. In fact, she was fairly certain that she had just died and gone to heaven.
Until he moved.
Just the barest fraction of an inch. But still, it sent sensations shooting through Lou’s body that she had barely known existed. Suddenly she was on another roller-coaster, but this one a roller-coaster of need. She needed Jack to move like that again. She needed to move along with him….
And to her everlasting joy, he did. And she, moving against him, realized that this was what sex was supposed to be like, not that dry, mechanical thing she’d been doing with Barry since that night after their senior prom in the back of his mother’s Chevette. No, it was this, wet, hot roller-coaster love, the thing everyone had been talking about, the thing that she’d spent years writing about but never experienced herself, never understood….
Until now. Now she understood. Now she knew, as she lay beneath Jack Townsend, her body molded to his, their lips and tongues entwined, what all the fuss was about.
The only question, really, was how in the hell had she done without it for so long?
And then something started happening. Something was building inside her, a pressure she recognized dimly as being like what she’d used to experience with Barry, but was a hundred times more intense. Surely she couldn’t be orgasming already. It normally took her at least twenty minutes to climax, and that was only after a half-hour of messing around.
But something was definitely happening, welling up from some fiery place deep within her, then beginning to grow, like a flame on a match head.
Only instead of burning itself out, the way a match would, this flame kept growing and growing, until soon it was bigger than a candle flame, bigger even than a camp-fire, a housefire, burning out of control. No, it was a raging forest fire, and it was consuming her, and making her do all manner of things she had never done in her life, such as sink her fingernails into Jack Townsend’s fifteen-million-dollar ass and call his name in a ragged voice that sounded completely like her own, as what felt like a wall of cool blue water went crashing over her, putting out the flames and drowning her in sun-kissed waves of blessed wet….
And then Lou opened her eyes and realized that for the first time in her life, she had orgasmed without fantasizing that she was with someone else—such as that hot guy from the “Horatio Hornblower” series on A&E. No, she had come all on her own—well, with a little help from Jack—and in record time.
And Jack, she soon realized, if the heavy weight that was collapsed on top of her was any indication, had come, too, no doubt at some point during her own frenzied climax. The only sign that he was not in fact dead was his heartbeat, which she could feel thudding very fast against her breast.
“My God, Jack,” she said, when she could finally summon the energy to speak. “What was that?”
20
“Look,” Jack said as he dug the spoon into the ice cream container. “It happens. I mean, when two people fight as much as you and I do—”
“—there’s a lot of tension,” Lou finished for him, doing some excavating with her own spoon. “Sure, I get that. But come on. I mean, I may be practically a virgin—”
“I told you I take that back.” Jack frowned at her from across the bed. “And stop Bogarting the chocolate sauce.”
“Bogarting’s only for smoking,” Lou said, passing him the squeeze bottle.
“Whatever,” Jack said. “And that wasn’t what I was going to say. Sure, we fight a lot. But why do we fight? See, that’s the question you ought to be asking.”
“I know why we fight,” Lou said. “It’s because you’re a jackass.”
“That,” Jack said, squirting chocolate sauce directly into his mouth, then adding a spoonful of ice cream to it, “is not why we fight. We fight because you can’t control your insatiable lust for me, and it makes you cranky.”
“Do you talk with your mouth full to all your girl-friends?” Lou wanted to know. “Or am I just the lucky one?”
He swallowed, then rolled over until he was resting his head against one of her naked thighs. Lou, he’d discovered, from that first moment he had slipped a hand under that flannel shirt she’d been wearing, out in the kitchen, had skin the consistency of ski wax, as smooth and as firm and as buttery soft. He hadn’t felt skin like hers since…well, he couldn’t remember when. Possibly never.
He knew one thing, though. He hadn’t gotten enough of it yet. Not by a long shot.
“What do you say we just stay here?” he asked, reaching up and fingering one of her long, auburn curls. “Forever. Or at least until the snow melts.”
She had picked up the ice cream container and was scraping the bottom of it with her spoon.
“We can’t,” she said. “We’re out of butter pecan. Besides, there’s no TV.”
“We don’t need TV,” Jack said. “We have each other.”
“Right,” Lou said, with a laugh. “We’d kill each other in a day, maybe two, tops.”
“No, we wouldn’t,” Jack said. “Did anybody ever tell you that your hair reminds them of a Key West sunset?”
“No,” Lou said. “Did anybody ever tell you that when you come, you make a sound like a howler monkey?”
“See,” Jack said. “This is why we work so well together. You are the only woman I have ever met who is absolutely immune to flattery. In the past forty-eight hours, I’ve come to realize that most of my past relationships have just been a series of meaningless, empty sexual encounters—”
“Speaking of which,” Lou said, “if you’ve given me a disease, I fully intend to go to the press.”
“Would you please,” he said tiredly, “let me finish? I am trying to convey something to you that has a deeply personal meaning to me.”
She held up one hand. “So long as what you’re trying to convey isn’t chlamydia, I’m all ears. But next time, we are totally using a condom.”
Jack took a deep breath. He had no idea why this was so difficult. Maybe because she kept making wisecracks. Maybe because he was emotionally and physically spent—though in a good way. Maybe it was because he was used to being the one pursued, not the one in pursuit.
Or maybe it was because, for the first time in his life, he actually found himself caring—caring more than he wanted to—about what a woman thought of him.
In any case, he was finding this far harder than he’d ever expected.
“Look,” he said. “I know that in the past we’ve had our differences. But in the past forty-eight hours, I’ve really come to respect you, Lou. You’re level-headed, brave, and good in a crisis. Not to mention totally hot in bed. I realize now that in sleeping with, um, some of the kind of women I’ve slept with in the past, I’ve been limiting my growth as a human being. There is something to be said, I now know, for intellect over physical beauty.”
“If you think I’m going to give you a blow job now,” she said, licking the spoon, “you’re high.”
“You know what I mean,” Jack said. “Lou, you are the first woman I have ever been with who not only ate all of the food I prepared for her, but offered to do the dishes afterwards…let alone wasn’t afraid to eat a little dessert.”
“Obviously,” Lou said, “you haven’t led any of your other dates on a forty-eight hour tour of terror, the way you did me. Running from armed assassins tends to make a girl hungry.”
“Lou,” Jack said. “I’m serious. I think when we get back to civilization, maybe…we might want to consider…well, I was thinking we should move in together.”
It was, he knew, a risk. He had never asked a woman to move in with him before. They had always just sort of done it. One day he’d gone off to the studio, and that night, when he’d got home, all their stuff was in his closet.
And he didn’t want Lou to get the wrong idea. He was not talking marriage. Only a fool would marry a woman he’d slept with a grand total of once. Well, okay, twice, if he counted fooling around in the shower afterwards.
But living together. That was different.
Except that he had a feeling Lou Calabrese was the kind of woman who wasn’t going to just show up on his doorstep one morning with a suitcase and a box of CDs. No, Lou was definitely the type who would wait for an invitation.
So he was extending it, and now, before someone else could swoop in and get there first.
But if he’d expected gratitude for his kind offer, he was destined for disappointment.
She leaned over and patted him, very kindly, on the shoulder. “Thanks, buddy,” she said. “But why don’t we wait and see if we can get through the next twenty-four hours without anybody shooting at us before we make any big decisions about our future domestic arrangements.”
He eyed her uneasily. He wasn’t sure she understood what he’d just said.
“Lou,” he said. “I’m not talking about the ranch in Salinas. I’ve got a place in the hills, you know. Seven bedrooms, with a pool that’s got a vanishing horizon…”
Lou handed the empty ice cream container, both spoons, and the chocolate sauce to him. “That’s great, Jack,” she said. “But why don’t we sleep on it? I imagine we’re both pretty exhausted.”
She slid from the bed, then padded, stark naked, from the bedroom into the bathroom. A few seconds later, he heard her employing Donald’s toothbrush yet again.
That was another thing. How many women did he know who would use a stranger’s toothbrush? None.
Jack wasn’t sure what was happening to him. Why was he having this reaction to sex with Lou? Just because it had been the best sex he’d ever had was no reason to go overboard like this. If he didn’t watch it, she was going to start thinking he was in love with her, or something. Which he wasn’t. He definitely wasn’t.
He just never wanted to be away from her again. That wasn’t love, necessarily. It was just…
Interest. He was interested in her. She was like some new and exotic line of car. He’d test driven her, and liked what he’d found. Now he wanted to lease. Not own. Lease.
With an option to buy, maybe.
Lou turned out the bathroom night and came back into the bedroom. See, now this was the problem. How was he supposed to remain rational about all of this when she was going to do stuff like walk around stark naked?
Because of course it turned out that under that baggy wool sweater and slacks was a body that was curvy in all the right places, and slender in all the others. That fact, coupled with a pair of perfectly shaped, tip-tilted breasts, the ends of which were a tantalizing pink, and that damned distracting thatch of red hair—she kept, Jack had not been surprised to discover, what Tim Lord, who could be surprisingly lewd when there weren’t any women around to overhear him, would have referred to as a “trim quim”—was what spelled his doom. Because how was he supposed to resist something that was wrapped in such delectable packaging?
Maybe, he thought hopefully, as Lou slid back into bed beside him, she snored. He could never live with a snorer. Snoring would put him right off.
Lou looked at him, one of those little elvish smiles she sometimes wore, curving her lips.
“Goodnight, Townsend,” she said before reaching for the pullstring to the lamp by her side of the bed.
“Goodnight, Lou,” he said.
The room was plunged into darkness. The fire in the other room had died long ago. Now the house was perfectly still…except for the wind that still raged all around it, making a howling noise that might, to someone with an imagination, almost have been the mournful cry of an arctic wolf.
He lay there, the empty ice cream container filled with used spoons and the chocolate sauce bottle not the only barrier, he felt, that was between them.
At least those, however, were easily removed. And as soon as he’d done so, Jack moved across the mattress until they were spooned together, her back to his front, one of his arms tucked around her, and a hand curled possessively around one of her breasts.
“Not this again,” Lou said, not exactly pleasantly.
He looked down at her. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Only that you are a creature of tenacious habit.”
He didn’t have the slightest idea what she was talking about. He did, however, know that whatever it was, it didn’t matter. Not anymore.
“You might as well admit it, Calabrese,” he said into the darkness of her hair, fanned across the pillow between their heads. “You’re smitten with me.”
Her chuckling was now the only sound he could hear, besides the wind. He had meant to stay awake, just in case Ski Mask and his buddies found them out. But he drifted off to the sound of that chuckling and the flowery scent of her hair. He didn’t realize the fragrance was Donald’s
shampoo and conditioner in one. He thought it was the scent of Lou’s soul. He fell asleep thinking that it was a miracle they’d found this cabin, but an even greater mira cle that they’d found each other. He fell asleep fantasizing about all the time they’d spend together in the cabin, waiting to be rescued: the meals he’d cook; the games of cards—Donald seemed like the type who’d have cards somewhere—they’d play in front of the fire; the stories they’d tell each other.
And the love—especially the love—they’d make.
Except that when he woke up the next morning, she was gone.
This was not as it should be. When women spent the night with him, they tended to stay exactly where he wanted them to, which was in bed. They did not get up and go roaming around without him. Not unless they wanted to surprise him with breakfast.
But Lou hadn’t gotten up to surprise him with breakfast. He realized this as soon as he stumbled, wearing only the sheet and one of the heavy comforters from the bed, into the living room. Lou wasn’t in the kitchen, or the living room, either. The bathroom door was wide open, revealing another empty room.
And that wasn’t the only thing that was wrong. It took a bleary-eyed Jack a few minutes to realize what else was bothering him. And that was the light. Yes, light was pouring in through the windows, and even through a skylight he hadn’t realized was there the night before. Bright sunlight, the kind he’d caught only the barest glimpses of since his arrival to Alaska.
The sun was high in the cloudless blue sky—he could see that through the skylight. It made the snow all around the cabin gleam with almost blinding intensity.
And that’s when he realized just where Lou had disappeared to. She was standing, wrapped in a comforter of her own, on the front porch, a cup of something that steamed in one hand, the other shading her eyes as she gazed out at the gleaming white snow.