“This is fine.”
“Your shoes are going to be ruined.”
He shrugged. “C’est la vie.”
She couldn’t stop her little sigh of pleasure at hearing him speak French.
“Are you really worried about my shoes?”
“No, I . . . like hearing French.”
“J’aime écouter toi parle anglais.”
“You like hearing me speak English?”
“It works both ways. French might be exotic to you, but English is exotic to me.”
“But English is so ordinary, while French is the language of—” She stopped abruptly before saying the word, which only made her comment more awkward than it would have been if she’d just said it.
“Love?” he finished for her.
“Right.” The word shouldn’t be so loaded, considering they barely knew each other. But when the word was said with a French accent caressing each vowel and consonant, what woman wouldn’t feel a little weak in the knees?
She took a shaky breath and searched for a way back to casual conversation. “You mentioned the pentagon, and I didn’t really explain why we have one.”
“And why do you?”
“Because the streets are laid out in the shape of a five-pointed star, which forms a pentagon in the center.” Thank you, Miss Dubois. You may go to the head of the class.
“I have never seen a town grid like that.”
She’d appointed herself tour guide, so she might as well finish the job. “The town’s founder laid the streets out that way as a tribute to his wife, who was his shining star.”
“How nice.”
“Her statue’s over there.” Gwen pointed toward the gazebo. “You can’t see it from here, but it wouldn’t matter, anyway. I’m sure it’s pretty well covered in snow. Her name was Isadora Mather.”
“Mather? Would you spell that for me?”
She spelled it easily. Every first grader in Big Knob learned how to spell that name. But she couldn’t understand why he was so interested. “It’s not French, is it?”
“No, but it is a famous name. On my way to majoring in botany, I took a course in herbal healing. The textbook discussed the witch trials both here and in Europe, because many of the women accused were accomplished herbal healers.”
“So you’re talking about that judge in Salem, Cotton Mather.” On some level Gwen had realized the last name was the same as the town founder’s, but she hadn’t thought anything more about it.
Marc nodded. “Yes, the very one.”
“It’s probably a common pioneer name.”
“Perhaps. But a five-pointed star surrounded by a circle is the symbol for the nature-based practice of Wicca.”
“Is it? I’m not really up on that kind of stuff.”
“Non?” He glanced at her in surprise. “With your love of plants, I would think a belief system focused on the natural world would interest you.”
“I was never exposed to it. I use herbs to cook, and that’s about it. If I’m sick I go see Doc Pritchard.” This whole discussion was making her uneasy. She wasn’t particularly religious, but she’d spent her life attending services every Sunday at the Big Knob Community Church. The conservative folks of Big Knob were about as far from witchcraft as you could get.
“I would love to know if the Mather name can be traced back to Cotton.”
“Even if it could, it wouldn’t prove anything.” Or more accurately, Gwen didn’t want it to prove anything. “Anyway, there’s no circle around Big Knob.” But as soon as she’d said that, she thought about the walking path connecting the five points of the star.
That was just a coincidence, though. She’d used those paths all the time as a kid. A path from point to point made logical sense as a shortcut. Once you got out to the end of a point, you didn’t want to retrace your steps all the way back to the center of the star, so you’d cut across. Everyone did it, and the path had become a wide rut after people had used it for nearly two centuries.
“Isadora Mather nursed the first settlers through a horrible smallpox epidemic.” Gwen continued to recite the information she’d learned in school as if to guarantee there was no misunderstanding about the founders of Big Knob. They were upstanding citizens who had nothing to do with witchcraft. “Without Isadora there wouldn’t be a town. That’s why the Big Knob Historical Society raised money to put up a statue of her.”
“And how did she cure people? With her knowledge of herbal remedies?”
“I don’t know.” She’d never questioned how Isadora had battled the smallpox epidemic. Her teachers had implied that she’d done it through sheer grit. “I suppose she might have known something about herbs, though.”
“I am sure she did.”
“That doesn’t make her a witch.” She turned down the walkway leading to her house.
“Not in the sense you mean, but she might have been Wiccan.”
“No, no, she wasn’t. I’m almost positive that she was Presbyterian, or maybe Methodist. She might have been Baptist. Yes, I think that was it. Baptist.” Finding the keyhole wasn’t easy without her glasses, but she finally managed it.
“Forgive me if I have upset you.”
“Oh, you haven’t.” First chance she got tomorrow, she was calling Jeremy’s mom, who was president of the historical society. Lucy Dunstan would clear up this Cotton Mather story in no time, and then Gwen could forget all about Wiccan symbols and magic.
“I have upset you. You could barely get the key into the lock, you were so upset.”
“That wasn’t me being upset.” She flipped the switch that turned on the hall light and closed the door, which felt like a very intimate thing to do.
“Are you nervous?”
She looked up at him. He was still blurry, but blurry didn’t ruin the stunning effect. Marc’s blue eyes made her think briefly of the imaginary man who visited her at night, but the eye color wasn’t even close to the same. Her dream lover had light-colored eyes that at times seemed almost silver. Marc’s eyes were the velvet blue of deep twilight.
Now he was studying her with those amazing eyes and waiting for an explanation for her fumbling at the lock of her very own door. She could admit to wearing glasses or she could admit to being nervous. Both were true, but owning up to bad eyesight seemed like unnecessary honesty.
“Yes, I’m a little nervous,” she said. Huge understatement. Walking across the square was one thing. Standing here with him inside her little house was a whole other thing. “You don’t seem nervous at all, though.”
“Perhaps I hide it well.” He gazed at her, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket. “From the moment I saw you, my heart has been racing.”
Once he confessed that, her own heart rate jacked up considerably. No man had ever said something so revealing to her before. Apparently the makeover was a success.
He cleared his throat. “I realize we have only just met.”
“In person.” She took a shaky breath. “We sort of met three weeks ago.”
“And you cannot imagine how much I looked forward to your e-mails.”
“I . . . me, too. Looked forward to yours, I mean.” She’d lived for those e-mails.
“I am sure this is too soon, but—” He paused and gazed up at the ceiling. “I told myself to take this slow, but I have such an urge to kiss you.”
Her heart beat so loud in her ears she was almost deafened. “Is that a request?” She couldn’t believe he was asking. Anytime she’d been kissed before, the guy had just done it without so much as a by-your-leave. Not a single one of those former kissers had been a tenth as hot as Marc.
Marc was the sort of man who could throw her to the braided rug at their feet and she wouldn’t object even a little. Instead he was asking politely if he could kiss her. If he was a typical Frenchman, they sure were different.
“It is a request,” he said with a half smile that curled her toes.
“You don’t want to see the plant first?”
She heard the words come out of her mouth and wanted to gulp them back. A French god wanted to kiss her and she was geeking out about a stupid plant. “Forget I said that.”
“All right, I will.” He took her by the shoulders and drew her close. “We have yet to call each other by our given names.”
“I know. I was waiting for you.” As she gazed into his eyes, her senses sharpened, giving significance to the smallest things.
The soft tick of her mantel clock counted the seconds before he lowered his head to kiss her. The imprint of his fingers through the material of her coat made her wonder what his fingers would feel like on her bare skin. Drawing in a shaky breath, she caught the scent of his exotic aftershave.
“I am glad to be here. . . . Gwen.”
Somehow he turned her ordinary name into a French-accented endearment. She gulped. “I’m glad, too. . . . Marc.” Holy cow. All they’d done was exchange first names, and she was a bonfire. She couldn’t imagine what would happen when he kissed her. She might have to break out the fire extinguisher.
Chapter 6
This is unlike me, Marc thought as he closed in for the kiss he had craved ever since his first glimpse of Gwen’s full lips. I usually take my time getting to this point.
But he had fought the urge to gather her into his arms from the moment they had met. The French custom of two quick kisses on the cheek had only increased his desire to touch her.
Brushing back the lapels of her coat, he slid both hands behind her neck and up into her scalp. He registered the silky mass of her hair sliding between his fingers, the scent of roses wafting from her skin as he leaned toward her slightly parted mouth. Her eyelids drifted downward until her dark lashes rested against her cheek.
He had kissed many women in his life, but he had never anticipated a kiss more than this one. Without understanding the impulse driving him, he felt powerless to resist. Kissing her took priority over everything—food, sleep, even scientific curiosity. He needed this melding of lips, had to have it or something inside him would wither from lack of contact.
Struggling for a civilized approach, he gave her a butterfly-soft kiss. It failed to cool the heat in his veins. Instead it stoked the fire and gave him an intoxicating taste so familiar he would swear he had kissed her a thousand times. Her velvet mouth seemed made to fit against his, and her languid sigh shredded his control.
A wild sense of urgency roared through him. With a groan he tilted her head back and plunged his tongue deep. Had he not been a man of some experience, the sensation of thrusting into her hot mouth would have made him come. As it was, his erection strained against his jeans and his mind filled with images of tearing off her clothes and taking her right there on the floor.
No! By God, he would not behave like some savage. He had standards. Summoning what was left of his restraint, he pulled back, released her and stepped away, breathing hard.
Her eyes were still closed and she swayed a little. Her lips glistened from his kiss, and color suffused her cheeks. Slowly she opened her eyes.
He saw the passion there. If he pressed his cause, she would not resist. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.
But he was not that kind of lover. He worked to tame his breathing. “I . . . apologize.”
“Why?” Her question was low and throaty, filled with tightly leashed passion.
“I overstepped.”
“I didn’t mind.”
He reminded himself she was an American woman. Judging from Hollywood movies, plenty of American men skipped the romance and went straight for the sex. Gwen would not question such behavior.
She had no knowledge of his style, could not know that he never lost control this soon in a physical relationship. But he knew it, knew what he expected of himself, and it was not this.
Gazing at her affected him in ways no woman ever had, and he was confused by that. She was beautiful, but no more so than other women he had kissed. Yet her lips drew him like a moth to a flame, and looking into her eyes made him think of naked bodies and perfumed oil.
But when he tried to see her objectively, which was difficult, he failed to pinpoint any outstanding physical attributes. Maybe he was dealing with pheromones. He had read of them in the animal world, but had thought that deodorants and perfumes kept them from being a factor in human sexuality.
Yet what else could be going on? Pheromones would explain why he wanted to bury his nose in the curve of her neck and breathe her in. When he was close to her like this, pheromones must be working like a powerful magnet pulling him closer and closer until he became mesmerized once again by her plump lips. . . .
He drew back with a soft curse. He had caught himself leaning toward her, ready to repeat his first offense and perhaps go on to commit others even more heinous. His condoms were in his suitcase two blocks away. Time to focus on something safe.
Shaking his head to clear the lust from his brain, he heaved a sigh. “The plant,” he said. “Let us go look at it.”
She blinked. “Okay.” She hesitated, as if trying to remember where the plant was.
He could understand that kind of confusion. He was having trouble remembering his own name.
“Right. The plant. It’s in the kitchen.” Still wearing her coat and boots, she started toward a door to their left. Then she turned back to him. “Would you like to take off your coat?”
“Yes. Merci.” He had been so preoccupied with getting his hands on her that he forgotten to take off his coat or help her with hers. His mother would have been ashamed of him.
Courtesy demanded that he assist her with hers first, but he was afraid if he got that close, he would lose control again. This was ridiculous. He longed for a computer so he could do some serious research on pheromones. Maybe jet lag had something to do with it.
Although it assaulted his sense of good manners, he allowed her to remove her own coat. She unbuttoned it, but before taking it off, she leaned down to take off her boots.
Dear God, now he remembered how seductive that yellow blouse was. He became mesmerized by the tantalizing peek at her cleavage. He wanted more. How easy it would be to slip the pearl buttons free and slide the blouse down over her creamy arms.
Once her boots were off, she straightened and shrugged out of her coat. When she hung it on a coat tree by the door, something in the pocket knocked against the pole. “Oh.” She reached inside the pocket. “Your gift.”
He had forgotten that, too. The man who had chosen it while strolling down the Champs-’lys’es was not the same pheromone-infected person who now stood in Gwen’s hallway. That was fortunate, because pheromone-man would have bought her matching silk underwear. In black.
“Shall I open it?”
“Yes.” Anything to distract him from the lure of her body. He snapped out of his daze long enough to remove his jacket. Following her example, he hooked it over a peg adjacent to hers.
“This is so exciting.” She worked the tape loose. “I’ve never had a gift from a foreign country before, unless you count Canada, which I don’t because it’s attached.”
He decided not to watch her mouth while she talked, because that made him want to kiss her again. “It is only something small.”
“But you thought of me.” She opened the bag and pulled out a box the size of her fist. “It may be small, but it’s heavy.”
And not good enough. He longed to grab it away and promise her something better. Had he known he would feel this way about her, he would have spent more money and time on this gift. He might have chosen jewelry, something that would nestle against her soft skin the way the pendant did.
Gwen pushed back the hinged lid of the box and gasped. “Marc, it’s beautiful.” Carefully she removed the lead crystal paperweight, cradling it reverently in her hand as if he had given her the Hope diamond.
Its facets glittered in the overhead hall light. Maybe he had found the right gift, after all. She seemed really happy with it.
Holding it closer, she peered a
t the smooth face of the paperweight. “What’s that in the middle?”
“A fleur-de-lis.”
She squinted at the glass design embedded in the middle of the paperweight. “So it is!”
He was beginning to suspect she wore glasses and had decided to leave them off for this first meeting. How endearing that she wanted to look her best, but he had a feeling that glasses would not have dented this overwhelming attraction.
“Fleur-de-lis,” she repeated. “Otherwise known as Iris pseudacorus.” She gave him a proud smile, looking exactly like a little girl who had just handled the toughest word in a spelling contest.
He was lost beyond all hope. Somehow he knew she had learned that fact just for him and was pleased to display it so early in the visit. Once again, he fought the urge to kiss her breathless.
“It’s a beautiful paperweight.” She returned it gently to the box. “Thank you.”
“A beautiful woman deserves beautiful things.” She glanced at him. “That’s nice of you to say, but I feel like a fraud.”
“A fraud? Why?”
Setting the box on a little table in the entryway, she turned to him. “You heard Johnny back in the bar. I went to the Bob and Weave and got all dolled up this afternoon. Normally I don’t look like this. My hair’s different, my makeup’s different, and even my clothes are different. I borrowed this blouse and the necklace from Dorcas.”
“How flattering that you would go to so much trouble.”
“I needed to. If you’d met me looking the way I did earlier today, you wouldn’t have been so hot to kiss me.”
“I doubt that.”
“I’ll prove it.” She picked up her purse from the table and rummaged through it. “Get a load of these peepers.” She put on a pair of the ugliest glasses he had ever seen.
Laughing was probably a mistake, but it had been a long day, and the glasses were ridiculous.
“I look awful in these, don’t I?”
“You could never look awful. Are those even yours?”
Casual Hex Page 6