Love's Own Reward

by Dana Ransom

  “My, we are into some rather nasty chest-beating this morning, aren’t we, Mr. McMasters.”

  He reached for the phone. “Want me to call him back?”

  She caught his hand, redirecting it to her hip. “No. Do I have to spell it out?”

  “I was an English major. I’m good at spelling. But I’m not too sure about chemistry.” His look questioned without words. Where did he stand in this particular equation?

  “The chemistry’s fine, Jess. Just fine.”

  “Teach me something about chemical reaction.”

  “After last night? I don’t think there’s anything I could teach you.”

  “Don’t be too sure. Let’s experiment.”

  Jess lifted her up, letting his jacket fall to the floor, and he carried her back to bed.

  TEN A.M.

  Ten a.m.?

  Charley repressed the moral outrage claiming the hour positively slothful. Everything she wanted was right here in bed, anyway. Smiling, she stretched out her hand. And met with cool sheets.

  Jess. She bolted upright. Oh God . . . He wouldn’t have gone without telling her. Would he?

  “Jess?”

  She scrambled from the tangled sheets, whipping a short terry robe from her closet and belting it on the run. As she rounded the hall corner, the first thing she saw was his leather jacket folded over the back of the couch. With a smile of relief she approached it, stroking the supple grain with her fingertips before turning toward the sound of singing in the kitchen. She paused at the breakfast bar, completely blown away by the sight of Jess cooking breakfast.

  An unfamiliar speaker cube was angled on the corner of the counter playing something distinctly Motown. Accessorizing Jess’s bare feet, jeans, and T-shirt was her lost pair of pantyhose, slung about his shoulders with ankles knotted loosely in front like a preppy sweater. She could smell sausage and he had something in a skillet, waving it across the burner in time to the swing of his shoulders and sassy shake of his hips. Bare feet shuffling and sliding, he continued to sing softly and not very well to the music.

  “Hold on. I’m coming. Hold on. I’m—”

  He executed a neat spin and almost dropped the frying pan when they came face-to-face. Then he grinned. “Gooood morning!” He set down the pan and did a nice James Brown glide to the refrigerator. “Breakfast is almost ready.” He got out a bottle of orange juice and shook it on his way to the table in an interesting variation of the cha-cha.

  “Pardon me, but I could have sworn you weren’t a morning person.”

  Jess grabbed her around the waist and did a few fancy dips before returning to the stove. “Oh, yeah, I love the morning. After coffee. And after vigorous exercise.” He gave her a quick wink. “After the first pot of java hits the bloodstream, I’m just a sweetheart of a guy.”

  “Remind me to give you an IV drip tomorrow about a half hour before you wake up.”

  He paused and frowned slightly. “Why? What did I do? I didn’t kick you, did I?”

  “You kick, too?”

  “I’ve been told I am not a lot of fun to sleep with.”

  She smiled, a warm, contented smile. “Someone lied.”

  He slid her a wicked glance. “Why, Miss Carter, are you saying you like having me in your bed?”

  She didn’t even blush. “And in my kitchen and in the shower and on the couch and in elevators.”

  He raised an eyebrow, rather liking her answer. “Sit. It’s ready.”

  When he leaned over to serve her breakfast, Charley caught the feet of her pantyhose. “What’s this?”

  “Found them hanging from the refrigerator door this morning. Why? Did you lose a pair? What do you say, Cinderella, shall we try them on and see if they fit?”

  She pulled down on the nylon, bringing him close enough to make his tempting mouth easy prey. She kissed him with all the tenderness he stirred in her, and it was a long moment before he opened his eyes and began to straighten.

  “Eggs are getting cold,” he murmured as she reeled him in again.

  “Too much cholesterol is bad for the body.”

  He indulged her for a time, then pulled away with a sly smile. “So is too much of other things I can think of. So be a good girl and eat your eggs and leave the poor old cook alone.”

  Charley marveled at him. Jess ate in time to the music, tapping his fork in the eggs, swinging his knee under the table, rocking in his chair to the rhythm. He caught her bemused look and grinned. “I like my blues with breakfast. You didn’t have anything around, so I picked that number up when I went out for juice. Don’t you have a radio or CD player?” When she shook her head, he stared at her as if she’d told him she was from another planet. “What do you do to get your soul going every day? Share a peek at naughty slides with good ol’ Alan?”

  He scowled into his coffee cup, and Charley wondered delightedly if he could possibly be jealous. Of Alan and her. It was an interesting theory. One that warranted testing.

  Last night he’d said he loved her.

  “Jess, why didn’t you tell me Alan called the morning we left for my brother’s?”

  He went very still. She could almost hear his mind working, feel his senses reaching out cautiously to chart her mood. “I must have forgotten.” Then his tone tightened. “Why? Does it matter?”

  Did it matter? “No,” she told him softly. “But you should have told me.”

  “Sorry. I’ll be a better messenger service between you and your boyfriend next time.”

  “There won’t be a next time.”

  Jess lifted his head to look at her, his expression unreadable. “So that’s it.” His tone was barren.

  “For me and Alan. That’s over.”

  He chewed his lip for a moment, then asked, “Because of me?”

  “For a lot of reasons, but you’re among them.”

  He nodded, but that wasn’t really a response. He’d turned inward again. It unsettled her, especially at this particular time, when they were discussing important matters. She was telling him she was severing all emotional ties to be free for him. And he was telling her nothing. Had he meant it when he said he loved her? Or was that just something a man said when he was in bed with a woman? She was so darn ignorant of such things. He’d mentioned Alan, so wouldn’t this be a good time to bring up his past romantic interests to see if some were still lingering? And suddenly, looking at Jess, it didn’t matter if there were a hundred before her. She didn’t need to know the nasty details. Just as long as nobody came after her.

  In an oddly hushed voice she said, “You can leave the speaker here if you want. That way you’ll always have something to get you going in the morning.”

  He didn’t smile. “Sure.” He said that as if there wasn’t a chance in the world that it would happen. And Charley was torn between two very vivid pictures—of Jess McMasters at her table in the morning, unshaven and teasing, and one of herself buttering her toast alone. A silence settled between them as they finished their meal, trying not to look beyond the moment to what would or would not be.

  “Oh, before I forget.” Jess nudged a small box toward her. “Here. This is for you. To make up for scaring you with my driving and growling at you this morning.”

  “Jess, you didn’t have to—” She opened the box and gave a small gasp. “Oh . . . Jess.” That’s all she could manage through the sudden fullness in her throat. There, nestled in the I. Magnin box, was a pair of diamond ear studs.

  He was watching her with a cautious reserve. “I know those aren’t the ones you wanted, but I didn’t have time to get a second mortgage on my house.” He gave a wry smile that thinned with strain. He looked at the box where the diamonds glimmered brightly. They looked small. A lot smaller than they had in the store. And he tensed, waiting for her to mention that fact.
“I guess it wasn’t a great idea, considering you could buy their whole damn inventory. You can take them back if you want to trade up for something flashier.”

  “Take them back?” Charley looked up at him, her eyes glittering as brilliantly as the stones. “Why would I—”

  Then she got a good look at his expression. It was shuttered against emotion. But just for an instant there was something in his eyes, a furtive shadow, a bleakness of inevitability. With a throat-aching tenderness Charley realized he was expecting her to reject his gesture as not quite good enough. And she was suddenly furious with him. How could he think that? Didn’t he know her well enough to trust her?

  Then she could see with a crystal clarity that he didn’t know anything beyond a past of painful inadequacy. And she knew what it cost him to make the gesture. He’d overcome an incredible barrier of self-protection to lay his fragile faith on the table along with the box. He was trusting her to see the worth, while bracing himself for the possibility that she would fail him. I won’t fail, Jess. I won’t. She would make him believe it.

  It was hard to know exactly what to say. She was dangerously close to breaking down. She wanted to grab him and smother him with love and sympathy, to soothe the years of hurt away. But he’d hate that. His pride wouldn’t stand for pity.

  Carefully she chose her words, dragging them up from the heart. “I love them, Jess. Because they’re from you. I don’t care if they’re a full carat or window glass. And if you try to take them back, I’ll break your arm.”

  The first glint of humor touched his gaze. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” She came off her chair to hug him. “Thank you,” she whispered against his ear. She heard his breath gush and felt the tension running out of him. And he was hugging her back. Tightly.

  “That’s nice to know. Next time I’ll save myself some money and opt for glass.”

  Next time. Charley clutched at him and at the sweetness of that phrase. Then she pushed away. “I want to put them on.”

  He watched, smiling easily now, as she fastened the studs in her earlobes and turned her head for his inspection.

  “How do they look?”

  He reached out to tuck a strand of auburn hair behind one ear. “Beautiful.”

  Charley followed his hand, coming to him for a lingering kiss. When she traced his upper lip with the tip of her tongue, he ducked his head and laughed.

  “None of that.”

  She wouldn’t be discouraged. Her lips grazed along his stubbly cheek to sketch the whorl of his ear, eliciting a hard shudder.

  “Cut it out,” he warned direly. “I have no energy left for this, Charley. You’re wasting your time.”

  “I don’t think so,” she purred throatily and let her tongue retrace the path her lips had taken.

  “I’m telling you, there’s no way I’m going to rise to the occasion.”

  She tipped his chin up, smiling down at him, then leaned in to lick across his lips in a slide as sensual as a hand running across silk. Her hand lowered to his lap, and she gave a feigned gasp of surprise. “Oh my! What’s this?”

  “A miracle,” he claimed with a grin. “Let’s not waste it.”

  IT WAS DARK. Charley squinted at the clock on her night table. Quarter past eleven. Sighing, she let her eyes drift shut and a contented smile curve her lips. She couldn’t believe being with one person could fill the soul so full of satisfaction. Or be so fun, so sweet and sexy and silly. She’d never laughed so much or loved so much or been so wonderfully exhausted as during this day with Jess McMasters. He simply amazed her. One moment he’d be Marx Brother crazy, and the next as sultry as a Valentino. The not knowing what to expect left her giddily off balance. And it felt great.

  Over the course of two short weeks he’d managed to coax her from a lifetime of reserve into an abandon that made her blush to think of it. He challenged her to speak her mind and chided her whenever she let him bulldoze her. He was full of new things and surprises. He liked to sample everything life put before him and prodded her to do the same. She discovered a fondness for soulful rhythm and blues, especially when it came to dancing with Jess in the living room with nothing on but a set of her new silk underwear. By dinnertime he’d managed to cajole her into modeling all of it for his appreciation. She was stunned by her own sense of freedom when around him. He gave her plenty of reasons to blush, but usually it was because of his outrageousness, not her own discomfort. And then there was the way she couldn’t seem to keep her hands off him. It wasn’t just because he had a wonderfully sexy body—which he did. He had a way of teasing with his eyes, of tempting with his smile, of fencing with his intellect to stimulate the mind. And a touch that excited the senses in ways she’d never imagined. She was crazy in love with him.

  Thinking of him inspired a need to feel him close. She rolled over and then just stared for a moment at the empty sheets. She knew he hadn’t gone home. Simply because she didn’t think he had the strength to drag himself beyond the door. After eating one of her microwave dinners without complaint, he’d fallen asleep with his head on her lap as they watched television. It had taken some doing just to move him from couch to bed, and then he’d gone under like a drugged man.

  Curiosity as much as the want of companionship drove her from the warm bed. With Jess’s T-shirt brushing over her bare skin, she padded into the dark living room to find him sitting on the floor in front of the patio slider wearing just his jeans. His arms were wrapped about updrawn knees and an open bottle of Maalox dangled between them. He was rocking slightly to the quiet croon of the Temptations with head bowed and eyes closed. She knew he heard her approach. The flesh on his back tightened over muscle.

  “Pretty hard-core, taking it right out of the bottle,” she mused, bending to remove the Maalox from him and set it on the coffee table.

  “We tough guys like it straight.” He didn’t open his eyes or lift his head.

  She frowned, concerned. “Are you all right?”

  “Just one big mess of stomach acid feeding on raw nerves.”

  “Ugh! Nice image.”

  He didn’t smile. Now she was truly alarmed. She settled behind him, placing her knees on either side of his hips, and put her arms around him. She rubbed one palm lightly over his rigid middle. “What can I do?”

  “This is kind of nice.” He nudged his head against hers. “Probably not medicinally sound, but it feels good.”

  She held him for a while, absorbing his tension, riding with the rock of his body. Something was wrong. And it wasn’t indigestion. Though it may well have been the cause of his stomach distress. She couldn’t guess what was bothering him, so finally she was forced to ask.

  “What’s on your mind, Jess?”

  She felt him inhale mightily. For a moment he didn’t answer. And when he did, her whole world caved in.

  “I was just thinking about how much I’ve enjoyed these last couple of days with you.” It wasn’t what he said. It was how he said it.

  He was saying goodbye.

  Fourteen

  “I’VE ENJOYED them, too,” Charley said softly, cautiously.

  The music stopped. The room was suddenly very still. Charley fought down the feeling of panic spreading like a sickening chill over every sense. Her heart refused to digest the truth her mind was telling her. She rubbed her cheek against the swell of Jess’s shoulders, not wanting to acknowledge the prospect of losing him.

  “I care about you, Charley. You know that.”

  Oh God. It was worse than she thought. A numbing paralysis cushioned the blow, enabling her to speak. “But?”

  “What?”

  “I’m waiting for the other shoe. Drop it, Jess.”

  It came out in a rush. “Charley, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. Honest to God. I shouldn’t have let it happen. I should have stopped
it that night at your brother’s before things got—out of control.”

  A shiver started in her insides and built to a full-fledged quake. Even though he didn’t move within the span of her arms, she could feel him pulling away. And the thought of that distance terrified her. “Are you saying you’re sorry we made love?”

  His voice was low, deadened somehow in a way that was very frightening. “No. No. That’s the hell of it. I’m not sorry. Not one damn bit. But I gotta go.”

  She pressed her face against his shoulder blade, squeezing her eyes shut against the well of helpless tears. He sounded so sad, so sure. That’s what undid her. He was still sitting here in her living room, but he was already gone. All the loving, all the laughter, they were over. Just like that. And suddenly one word surfaced with a fearsome force.

  No!

  No. She wouldn’t let him go. Jess wasn’t going to waltz out of her life after becoming as necessary as air to her existence. Not if she could help it. Not without one heck of a fight!

  “Why?”

  He stiffened at her combative tone. “Why?”

  “Why are you doing this, Jess? I need a reason. Did you just get bored? Was it just the sex you wanted? Did you suddenly decide you couldn’t spend another second with a woman who can’t boil water? What?” That last word cracked and trembled.

  “Charley . . .”

  “You talk to me, Jess. You spell it out in big, clear letters so I won’t misunderstand. I thought there was something wonderful, something special, going on here. Am I wrong? Tell me, am I wrong?”

  She could see his knees shaking where he’d drawn them tight into his chest. She could feel his heart lurch to triple time and his breathing go haywire.

  “You’re making it harder,” he told her hoarsely.

  “Good. I want it hard. I’m not going to make it easy for you to leave. I’m going to hang on tight. You’re going to have to drag me down three flights of stairs and all the way to your car, and then you’d better hope you have a crowbar to pry me loose. I love you, Jess.”