He ordered a sundae for himself and a dish of hazelnut ice-cream for her. “Eat it slowly,” he commanded once the waitress delivered their snacks.
Jenny eyed him curiously. “Why?”
“I’m not ready to take you home yet.”
She grinned. “I’m not ready to go home.” She tasted her ice-cream and her grin widened. “Wow, this is great. I’ve never had hazelnut ice-cream before. Taste it, Luke.”
He took a taste, then insisted she taste his sundae. He was feeling expansive, delighted that she was in no hurry to bring their night to an end. He wanted to sit with her for hours, watching the flickering light of the candle dance across her face, watching the rare but welcome breezes toy with the coppery waves of her hair. She’d worn it loose, and it spread like a cape over her shoulders, emphasizing their narrowness. Her blouse was a gauzy white linen, the neckline and short sleeves trimmed with crocheted lace, and her skirt was the same white fabric with lace along the mid-calf hem. She looked like an angel, a nymph, a bride.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured.
She had just closed her lips around her spoon, and a small drip of ice-cream got trapped in the corner of her mouth. Staring at him, she slowly removed the spoon and ran her tongue over her lips to capture the drip. After an unnervingly long moment she lowered her eyes. “Maybe we ought to talk about this,” she said.
“Talk about what?” All he’d done was to compliment her on her appearance. He hadn’t mentioned the effect her beauty had on him—or the more disturbing effect of glimpsing the tantalizing pink tip of her tongue as it darted across her lips. Thanks to the strategically positioned table between them, the most blatant evidence of her effect on him was well hidden, and he saw no need to mention it.
“I know we’ve seen each other a few times. You’ve taken me out and spent money on me...”
Taken her out? For what, sandwiches? Pizza? A picnic and a free concert and a pass-the-hat experimental theater performance? Astronaut ice-cream?
Before he could argue she continued. “And Sybil—who’s much more worldly than me, or at least she says she is—anyway, she keeps telling me that sooner or later you’re bound to demand something in return.”
“Wait a minute,” he broke in. “If we’re discussing what I think we’re discussing, let me assure you I never demand anything. If it happens, fine. But if it doesn’t, I’m not an animal. I don’t make demands like that. And I don’t know why we’re even discussing this particular subject, Jenny. All I said was that you’re beautiful—”
“We’re discussing it because it’s there,” she persisted, once more lifting her eyes to him. She reached across the table and cupped her hand over his. “I like you, Luke.”
His heart began to pound and his brain instantly reverted to his earliest erotic daydreams of her—daydreams of her lips on his and her small body beneath him, above him, surrounding him. Again he thanked God for the barricade of the table between them.
“I’m just...kind of slow about these things,” she said.
“No problem.” His voice sounded oddly raspy to him.
“I mean, I have to love a person first. Can you understand that?”
She had to love a person first. His pulse began to slow, his abdominal muscles to relax, his respiration to become regular. He wasn’t going to sleep with her tonight, that much was certain. He might never sleep with her. She had to love him first.
While he wouldn’t call that threshold insurmountable, there were no guarantees that their friendship would ever deepen enough to qualify as love. Love took time; love was capricious and unpredictable. They would be together in Washington only six weeks longer. Whatever happened happened.
He should have been immune to her blunt honesty by now, but he wasn’t used to a woman being so direct, so utterly devoid of pretense. He appreciated her candor, and he was determined to match it. “I don’t want to play games with you, Jenny,” he said. “I’m attracted to you. But I’m not going to pressure you. I’m not going to give lip service to love just so I can get you into the sack. If you’re slow about these things, you’re slow about them. I can live with that.”
Her hand tightened on his for a second, and when she relaxed her grip he rotated his wrist and wove his fingers through hers. They finished eating their ice-cream that way, Luke wielding his spoon clumsily with his left hand, happy to sacrifice dexterity for the pleasure of holding her hand. He wouldn’t let go of her, not to scrape the syrup from the bottom of his dish, not to wipe his face, not to pull his wallet from his hip pocket.
Even if what they had wasn’t love, he wanted it. And he had no intention of letting go.
* * *
SHE WAS FALLING in love with him.
It was too soon, really. She’d known him less than two weeks. Just because he was intelligent, just because he was rivetingly handsome, just because he was thoughtful enough to shorten his pace to match hers as they strolled westward toward Georgetown in the balmy, starlit evening, just because her hand felt so secure in his... None of that could explain her certainty that she was destined to love Luke Benning.
It was always possible that he’d made his noble statements about not being demanding merely to soften her up—but she couldn’t believe that. It was also possible she was willing to label her feelings for him love because she was desperately attracted to him—but she knew the workings of her mind and her heart too well to be able to fool herself. If she wanted to make love with him badly enough, she wouldn’t rationalize. She would just do it.
She did want to make love with him—but even more, she wanted to love him. She wanted to know all the warmth inside him, warmth he seemed to have spent too much of his life containing and ignoring. She wanted to savor the trust that was building between them, not to rush it but to let it blossom at its own leisurely pace. For the moment she wanted nothing more than to experience the love his fingers were making to hers as his hand enveloped hers.
“Do you have any plans for tomorrow?” he asked as they ventured into her neighborhood.
She peered up at him and smiled. “You tell me.”
He returned her smile, and her heart quickened at the unique beauty of his features. If it wasn’t love she was experiencing, it was something equally exciting—and whatever it was, she was thrilled by it.
“We could drive down to Mt. Vernon for the day if you’d like.”
“Would you like that?” she asked, frowning slightly. Last Saturday they’d gone to the Air and Space Museum; Mt. Vernon was like another museum. Just because she was appreciated all the historical tourist attractions Washington had to offer didn’t mean Luke wanted to spend every weekend staring at museum displays.
“I wouldn’t have suggested it if I didn’t want to do it,” he assured her. They turned the corner onto her block. “I could even arrange for a picnic lunch, if you think you could stomach some more shrimp and chicken wings.”
“I think you’re plotting to make me fat,” she scolded.
“Found out at last,” he confessed, eyeing her petite figure and chuckling.
They drew to a halt at the foot of the stairs leading up to the front door of the brownstone where she lived. Still holding her hand, Luke turned her to face him. “All right,” she capitulated, scaling the first step so she was nearly standing eye to eye with him. “Make me fat, see if I care. We’ll go to Mt. Vernon and eat shrimp.”
“I’ll pick you up at eleven.”
“Great.”
Still he didn’t release her. She didn’t want him to. She concentrated on the shape and strength of his hand enfolding hers, the dry smoothness of his palm, the tapered length of his fingers, the light pressure of his thumb against her wrist. She wished he would take her other hand in his, as well.
He did. He held her hands at her sides and moved closer, close enough to brush his lips over hers. It was barely a whisper of a kiss, yet it ignited tiny shocks of energy throughout her entire body. Reflexively she gasped.
&nbs
p; “I’m sorry,” he said, though he didn’t look the least bit repentant.
She meant to tell him she forgave him. She meant to clarify that, while she was fairly traditional about love and lovemaking, there were really no hard and fast rules about a kiss between friends.
What she did was lean forward until their mouths were touching again.
She heard a barely audible groan coming from him—or perhaps from her. Their lips fused, moved, opened, and then their tongues found each other. Luke let go of her hands so he could gather her in his arms. He wrapped them around her slim waist, then slid one hand up her back and beneath her hair to the nape of her neck. His tongue explored the tender flesh of her lips, the edges of her teeth, the dark sweetness beyond, moving in thorough, unhurried thrusts that sent fresh jolts of sensation through her flesh. Her thighs grew tense, her hips throbbed, her breasts burned at the luscious pressure of his chest against hers as he pulled her more intimately to himself.
Her hands had cramped into fists, and she willfully unfurled them and lifted them to touch him. Through his shirt she felt the bones and sinews of his shoulders, the supple muscles of his upper back. He angled his head slightly and his tongue moved deeper, absorbing her breath and melting her soul. She ached everywhere, ached for Luke, ached so much she couldn’t suppress the small, agonized cry that tore free from her throat.
Pulling back from her, he sucked in a ragged breath. She buried her face in the warm hollow of his throat, too embarrassed to face him. What a hypocrite she was, giving him that prim little speech about sex and love and how slow she tended to be about such things, and then dissolving into a seething mass of uncontrolled passion in the wake of one kiss.
His fingers twirled through her hair. She listened to his erratic respiration, to the frenetic drumming of his heart against his ribs. Several minutes elapsed, and then he spoke in a rough, breathless whisper: “Jenny?”
“Yes.”
Gently he urged her away from him, gripping her shoulders and holding her steady so he could look at her. She imagined she must look ravished—flushed and glassy-eyed, wanton and disheveled. His enchanting smile as examined her proved it.
“That was incredible,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Whose turn is it to apologize?”
She managed a feeble smile of her own. “Mine, I think.”
“Then we’re even?”
“I suppose.”
He brought one hand forward to her cheek. His fingers caressed her with such excruciating tenderness she let out a sigh. “My sentiments exactly,” he murmured. He traced the edge of her chin with his thumb, then let his hand drop. “I’d better leave.”
“All right.”
He took a step backward, and another, his eyes remaining on her. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, at last pivoting on his heel and striding down the block to where he’d parked his car when he’d come for her earlier that evening.
“Good night,” she whispered after him. The taste of his lips lingered on hers; the heat of his kiss continued to grip her body even after she watched him unlock the silver BMW, settle himself behind the wheel, rev the engine and maneuver out of the parking space. Not until he’d driven down the block and out of sight did she find the fortitude to go inside.
A small, neat pile of her things sat on the floor in front of the closed door to the bedroom she and Sybil shared: her pillow, her nightgown, her hairbrush and the dog-eared copy of Pride and Prejudice she was rereading in preparation for her senior honor’s thesis on Jane Austen. Jenny understood what the pile meant.
“Do you want to borrow my sleeping bag?” Fran asked.
Jenny spun around to see her solemn, bespectacled apartment-mate standing in the doorway of the other bedroom. She glanced down at the articles Sybil had left for her, then accepted Fran’s offer with a smile. “She put out my pillow but no blanket.”
“The couch is kind of uncomfortable.”
“If it’s that bad I’ll use the floor.”
Fran shrugged. “Sybil, Kate and I went to a H.U.D. party. All the guys Kate and I met there were dorks, but the guy Sybil brought back was pretty foxy-looking. Not that looks are everything, but he wasn’t bad. How was your date with Luke?”
“It was...very nice,” Jenny said vaguely, following Fran into the bedroom and taking the down-filled sleeping bag Fran pulled out of the closet. She wasn’t in any condition to describe her evening to Fran, who would no doubt enjoy analyzing it if Jenny gave her the chance.
After thanking Fran for the sleeping bag, she returned to the hall, where she spotted Kate emerging from the bathroom, dressed in pajamas and a robe. Kate took note of the sleeping bag in Jenny’s arms, then at Jenny’s shut bedroom door, and then at Jenny herself. “Men,” she said with a disdainful sniff.
Men, Jenny pondered fifteen minutes later as, washed and clad in her nightgown, she crawled into the sleeping bag on top of the lumpy living room couch. Men. Sybil was right now sleeping with a man she’d met just hours ago, and Jenny would be spending the night alone instead of with a man she was practically in love with.
Far from condemning Sybil, Jenny envied her. All her old-fashioned sentiments couldn’t negate the fact that her body still simmered with arousal. Every time she closed her eyes she imagined Luke’s lips on hers, his arms around her, and her soul clenched with yearning. Kissing him had been both spiritual and carnal. If only she had Sybil’s nerve, she could be in his bed right now, kissing him again, allowing her body the full pleasure of his love.
But that was the problem: love. Did she really love him? Did he love her? Why rush when she wasn’t sure? She’d know when it was time to know. Luke Benning was a decent man; he’d promised he would wait until she knew.
That alone was reason enough to love him. And to her surprise, the restless longing that had been tormenting her from the moment she’d seen him drive away was replaced by a transcendent peace, an understanding that she’d done the right thing, that everything was going to work out magnificently, that the future held splendid things for her and Luke.
With a smile, she nestled into the pillows and drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Five
* * *
“DID I MENTION that I spoke with Jack Halliford? Seems an uncle of his contributed heavily to an endowed chair at Duke a few years back. The Halliford name has clout down in Durham, if we should find it necessary.”
Luke ground his teeth together to keep from railing at his father. He had already told the old man innumerable times that he didn’t want any strings pulled to get him into law school, and the old man had stubbornly ignored him. Why bother protesting anymore? Let James Benning prattle on about his networks and connections. Maybe in time he’d run out of steam, and then Luke could make himself heard.
He cursed the traffic. What strange spasm of filial duty had inspired him to offer to drive his father to the airport? His father had arrived in the city yesterday, dined with Luke and returned to the duplex for the night, spent all day today massaging some muckamuck at the F.D.A. on behalf of one his clients and then met with Luke for dinner prior to catching the shuttle back to LaGuardia. Luke had had to listen to him babble about law school all last night. He’d been subjected to more law school babble over breakfast, and still more over dinner. And like a fool, he had volunteered to drive his father to the airport, thereby opening himself to yet another half-hour discourse on the topic.
“Your mother said you called her during the day on Monday,” his father remarked, offering Luke a glimmer of hope that they were done discussing law school for now.
“That’s right,” he said. “There was an unexpected roll call on the Senate floor and I found myself with some time to kill, so I gave her a ring.”
“That was good of you. It made her happy.”
Perhaps it had, but it had made Luke uneasy. He would have understood if his mother had wanted to talk about Elliott’s prolonged absence. But she hadn’t seemed particularly interest
ed in Elliott at all. “It’s you I’m worried about,” she’d told Luke.
He’d been flabbergasted. It wasn’t like his mother to contradict anything his father said, and his father had told him she was upset about Elliott.
“Luke, are you still there?”
“Yes, Mom, I’m still here. I’m calling because Dad said—”
“`Dad said,’” she’d echoed in a caustic tone. “Your dad said things and scared Elliott away. I’m worried that he’s going to scare you away next.”
“He hasn’t scared me away,” Luke had insisted.
“The man...” She’d sounded tentative to Luke, almost diffident. In the Benning family, it was considered heretical to voice criticism of James. “He’s like a bull in a china shop. He just stampedes through life, knocking over everything in his path...”
“Mom, what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you. I’m afraid he’s going to stampede you the way he stampeded Elliott.”
Luke was afraid of that, too. More and more, he was afraid of that. But he’d never admit it, certainly not to his mother. “He’s a strong man,” Luke had said, “but I’m not exactly a weakling.”
He’d heard a faint giggle through the receiver, the nervous sort of laughter his mother succumbed to when she was feeling the first flush of a vodka-induced languor. And indeed, she probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to say such things to him if she hadn’t been drinking. “Your father goes on and on,” she’d said. “Every day. It’s, `When Luke does this,’ or `When Luke becomes that.’ He’s got your whole life planned out.”
“That’s his style.”
“He just... He railroads everyone.”
“You’re mixing your metaphors, Mom,” Luke had said, anxious to inject some humor into the conversation.
“I don’t want to lose you, Luke,” she’d murmured sadly. “I should have protected Elliott but I didn’t, and now I’ve lost him. And I’m too old and tired to protect you—”
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