Never Trust A Lady

by Kathleen Creighton

  He stared at her and didn’t know what to say or how to feel. A moment ago he’d been engaged in a tug-of-war with his own impulses, requiring every ounce of willpower he possessed to keep from doing what she was now asking-begging-him to do. And perversely, now that she was asking, it was both easier and harder to resist.

  Finally, of all the emotions rattling around inside him at that moment, anger seemed safest, the one least likely to produce a boomerang effect. Because it was impossible, under any circumstances, to imagine Jane angry.

  “You want me to stay?” he said harshly. “And all that stuff you just told me in there-what was that, a bunch of garbage?”

  “I meant every word of it,” she said in her soft, serene way. “And I still want you to stay.”

  “Why??”

  Why? Because, Tom Hawkins, in looking back over the last few days, I’ve realized that the happiest I’ve ever been in my life was when I was with you. And that the most miserable I’ve ever been in my life, since I met you, was when I wasn’t with you. Bottom line? Under any circumstances, it seems I’m happier with you than without you. Go figure, huh?

  “Because,” she said, bumpy with shivers of cold and fear. “I want you.”

  He almost laughed, and was fully aware of how ironic it would be if he did. After all, she’d done the same thing to him-twice. He didn’t laugh, not out of any particular sense of chivalry or nobility, but because, even in the bad light, he could see the fear and vulnerability in her face. It had about the same effect on his anger that the Nissan’s defroster was having on the fogged-up windshield.

  “You want me?” he said roughly. A pulse began to scrabble behind his belt buckle. “Hell, I want you, too-I told you that. That’s not what this is about, is it?”

  She didn’t answer; her face appeared frozen, her eyes fathomless pools. He realized that he’d never wanted anything so much as to have her close to him at that moment, wrapped up in his arms, naked, legs entangled, breaths comingled, and to drive the chill from her body with the raging heat in his. It was like nothing he’d ever felt before, a wave of desire so intense it was like a sickness; his head swam with dizziness. Struggling with it was like fighting to remain conscious.

  With thickened tongue, he said, “You were right, you know-what you said in there-you do deserve a whole lot more than I can give you. For right now, for sure. Maybe not ever. I don’t know. That’s the problem-I just don’t know. I can’t give you any promises.”

  “I’m not asking for any.”

  He drew a breath that sounded like a sigh and said under his breath, “What do you think I am? I’d have to be a real sonuvabitch, you know that? To stay…”

  And it occurred to Jane for the first time that maybe she was the one who was being unfair, that maybe she was asking too much of him. She thought about stepping away from the car door, letting him go. But her body wouldn’t obey her.

  “I should drive away right now,” he muttered, his scowl fierce and furious. “I should-”

  I should let him go. Panic zapped through her like a current of electricity, weakening her knees. If I do, I’ll never see him again. Desperately, she clung to the door, wondering how she’d ever manage to stand if he drove away and left her there. Wondering how she’d survive if he did. And how would I stop him, she thought, if he’s determined to go? Shoot out his tires with my Roy Rogers cap pistol? I won’t beg-I won’t!

  “Ah, dammit.” He lanced her with an accusing stare and growled, “You’re gonna freeze to death-either get in here or go back in the damn house!”

  Instantly, as if he’d said a magic word, she let go of the door. He pulled it shut while she darted around the front of the Nissan, flitting like a moth through the headlights. A moment later the passenger-side door opened, letting in a rush of cold air and her sweet, familiar scent. She settled into the seat and the door slammed with a quiet thunk, and together they sat listening to the rush and growl of the heater, and their own uneven breathing.

  “This is ridiculous,” Hawk muttered after a moment. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she agreed, breathless, “it’s much warmer in the house.”

  He shook his head, laughing soundlessly, and looked sideways at her. Her presence, her being…her smell, her warmth, all that she was…swamped his senses. His stomach growled audibly.

  “And, there’s soup,” she added pointedly.

  “Carlysle,” he growled, “what in the hell am I gonna do with you?”

  Neither of them spoke. There was no sound in the car, even the heater’s gale seemed to Hawk to have become part of the rush and surge of his own life forces; he could hear them echoing inside his head. And the answer to his question lay teetering between them like a live grenade…

  Later, he wondered if it was something she’d done-the faintest of sounds, the most infinitesimal movement, perhaps-that triggered it. He couldn’t think how else to account for what happened-the sudden shift inside him, the almost audible click as if someone had thrown a switch, and a whole complex set of gears had settled smoothly into place. He had a vague awareness of changed rhythms and altered perspectives, a half-fearful sense that the changes might be both profound and permanent, and then he was reaching for her, his hand going like a homing missile to the back of her neck, and his fingers were pushing roughly through her hair as he pulled her to him.

  This time there was no kidding himself that the kiss would be some kind of diversion, something fun to pass the time, a game. Before his lips had even touched hers he knew that this was going to compare with the frolic in the moving van about the way his Walther 9-millimeter compared to Jane’s Roy Rogers cap pistol. This was the real thing. Dangerous. Devastating. He knew that going in. What he wasn’t prepared for was the jolt. It was like getting hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. Like taking a slug in a bullet-proof vest, right over the heart.

  I’d forgotten. Jane thought. Forgotten how good this feels. Forgotten? No…she wondered now if indeed she’d ever known.

  She was sure she hadn’t known about the ache. About pleasure so intense, so exquisite, so poignant it hurt. Never, not even as a naive girl imagining herself wildly, heedlessly in love, had she known such sweet, unbearable joy. Her heart scrambled into her throat, squeezing from it a gasp that was instantly swallowed up in his mouth. She whimpered his name, and he took that, too, hungrily, greedily, as if he was famished, and could never, ever be filled.

  Oh, but he was gentle, too…giving, but not forcing; taking, never demanding…almost, she thought, as if he were guiding her in the steps of a dance. The most beautiful, breathtakingly wonderful dance. A dance through heaven…and beyond. So this is what it feels like, she thought. Flying…

  Her mouth tasted like a drug, a magic potion, pure sin…something with the power to make him forget completely how wrong it was, or that he’d ever tried to resist its spell. Now he could only think about how good it was, and how long it had been since he’d felt like this, and how could he manage to get even closer to her, preferably inside her, and how soon. His heart was pounding, trying to punch a way out of his chest; he had a fire raging in his belly and a volcano in his loins, and a thirst he couldn’t seem to quench. Whatever it was she had-potion, drug or sin-he thought he could have drowned in it and died happy.

  It had to end, of course, because there simply wasn’t room for it to go anywhere. Though for a time, Hawk tried his best to ignore that fact. He filled his hands with her-her hair, her shoulders, her neck-even let them find their way under the loose tunic she wore to the smooth, soft skin and the unexpected fullness of breasts beneath, urging her closer…closer.

  And she tried…oh, she tried. Her back arched, her rib cage lifted and her belly pulled taut with yearning. But it was no use. The force was irresistible, but there were too many immovable objects-a console and a cellular-phone box, for starters-between them.

  Finally, with a gasp of pure frustration, Hawk pulled his mouth away from hers and skimmed it instead
down the side of her throat to the hollow at its base. There he rested, while her pulse jerked against his lips and her fingers tangled in his hair, and tried to restore some kind of order to his thoughts.

  Order? There was only one thought in his head. Where?

  Okay, maybe two. The second being, How soon?

  Working his way back up the cords of her neck, he found her mouth again, found it soft, pliant, unreasonably sensual. Discovering that he was now in extreme, and rather adolescent, discomfort, he was even considering the back seat, God help him, when she said, moving her lips tantalizingly over his, “What is it…about cars, anyway?”

  Hawk had to either groan or laugh. He did both, and into her mouth murmured, “I think I’m too old for this.”

  Her laughter was shaken and bumpy. “Well, I know I am.”

  But her mouth was there, open and inviting beneath his. He sank into it one more time…and once more…and yet again.

  “Tom.” It was high and frightened, almost a whimper.

  But he was too far gone with passion now for tenderness. He kissed her again, ruthlessly, until her neck muscles let go and her head fell back against the seat, and he heard her give a helpless little moan of surrender. He pushed his hand under the tunic, found a nipple already hard and sensitized and rolled it between his thumb and fingertips until her breath shuddered and her body trembled.

  He found her responses to him-her trembling, her whimpers, her helpless surrender-exciting beyond belief. A primitive thing, he knew-a dark and, to the best of his knowledge, heretofore unexplored part of himself, but irresistible as the call of a wild wolf to its mate.

  Her chest rose and fell like a bellows. His wandering fingers brushed her soft belly and he exulted when it quivered and tightened beneath his touch. Deft as a surgeon, sure now of his goal and his purpose, he slipped his hand beneath the elastic of the leggings she wore, burrowed his fingers through the springy cushion of hair and took possession of the most intimate and closely guarded part of her. And with that claiming, knew that there would be no going back.

  Without his urging, she shifted, and he drove his fingers deeper, parting her, searching for her body’s most sensitive places. With his own body he felt the jolt of desire that rocked her when he found it. He took her desperate cries into his own mouth, and forgetting where he was for the moment, tried again to turn, struggling to bring their bodies into still more intimate alignment.

  The steering wheel punched him in the vicinity of a kidney. A groan, more of frustration than pain, rumbled through his chest and into his throat. As far as he could figure, there was only one way to avoid that damn steering wheel, and if he did that he didn’t even want to think about where the gearshift was going to hit him.

  Defeated, he let his hand relax so that it cradled her gently and he could feel her pulse throb against his fingers. He withdrew from her mouth with a long sigh and diminishing kisses touched with reluctance and apology to her lips, her cheeks, her throat, her eyelids. Pulling away at last, he looked down into her dazed and fathomless eyes and said thickly, “This is a ploy, isn’t it-to get me back into the house.”

  She made a small, almost comically polite, throat-clearing sound and murmured, “Not at all. There’s always the back seat.”

  Hawk snorted. “I thought we agreed we’re too old for that sort of nonsense.”

  Her voice was hushed and shaken. “It’s been a long time, but I think I can still remember how…”

  “Yeah?” Something dark and primitive jolted through him; he didn’t like to be reminded that any man besides himself had ever touched her. Ridiculous, he told himself. She was married for twenty-one years-almost half her life, for God’s sake. She’s divorced, has two children. And you have no claim on her whatsoever. Absurd.

  She’d been young, she’d told him, when she’d met her husband. Still in her teens. He wondered if she’d lost her virginity in the back seat of a car. His own, he remembered…

  That was when it hit him. That from the moment Jane had materialized outside his car window, he hadn’t once thought of Jenny.

  “Seems to me,” Jane was saying, “it’s doable, if you don’t mind a complete loss of dignity.”

  Shocked and frightened laughter shuddered through him. “Since when,” he croaked, “is sex ever dignified?”

  “Well, since you put it that way…”

  And there was her mouth again, calling to him like Temptation itself, and her feminine pulse beating against his fingers like a captive bird’s wings, and it was easy to close down his mind and his memory again, and hard…so hard to remember why it was he had to stop this, even for the few moments it would take to find them a better place. Hard to remember he’d ever been a separate being, capable of existing on his own. Parting from her at that moment seemed like an amputation.

  “One of us has to be sensible,” he said at last under his breath, not knowing even as he was doing it where he’d found the strength to lift his mouth from hers, or pull his hand from between her legs. “For God’s sake, let’s go in the house.”

  Chapter 15

  “You okay?” Hawk asked as he waited for her to come around the car. She was moving slowly, he noticed, and wondered if she felt as shaky as he did, or if, perhaps, now that he’d given her breathing room, she was having second thoughts.

  She shook her head and gave him a look that implied he’d said something incredibly stupid, but smiled a little, too, as if she’d already forgiven him for it.

  Okay? Are you crazy? She wasn’t even sure her legs would carry her as far as the house.

  She thought it would have been so much easier if they could have just stayed where they were. Or if, at least, he would sweep her up in his arms and charge boldly into the bedroom, like Rhett Butler carrying Scarlett up those stairs. The good old caveman fantasy-let him take the responsibility, and the decision out of her hands!

  “Can you walk?”

  She met his familiar black scowl with gently arched eyebrows and murmured. “I think so. Can you?”

  He chuckled and reached for her hand, lifting it to his lips in an impulse that seemed both out of character, and at the same time oddly familiar. For some reason, maybe because of that, Jane felt as if her heart had jumped into her throat; she actually felt it would stop her breath.

  It’s what I want, she thought, fighting panic. I’ve made my choice. I won’t regret it.

  But still…it would have been so much easier if they could have stayed in the car like teenagers and let passion govern, and not have to think about it at all.

  The kitchen was warm and light, and smelled of soup and, faintly, of cigarettes. Jane closed the door and made straight for the stove, picking up a spoon from the countertop with one hand and at the same time reaching efficiently for the burner knob with the other.

  Hawk stood with his jacket draped over one shoulder, hooked on a finger, and watched her.

  “What are you doing?” he asked after a moment.

  Breathlessly, not looking at him, she said, “It just needs warming a little…it’ll only take a minute…”

  Unnamed emotions, treacherous as rapids, tumbled inside him. “Jane, for God’s sake, turn off the stove.”

  “I thought you were hungry.”

  “Yeah, I am,” he growled, “but sure as hell not for soup.”

  She had her back to him, her hands resting on the edge of the counter. He had a feeling if she lifted them from that support, they would tremble. He took a step closer to her and said softly, “Jane, look at me.” She lifted her head and gave him her profile, but didn’t turn. He raised a hand and almost-not quite-touched her. “Come on…please.”

  And then she did finally face him, leaning against the counter with her arms folded across her middle. He noticed that she was still gripping the soup ladle, as if it were a weapon she might brandish in her defense, if necessary.

  His voice was gruff when he said, “You can still call this off, you know. Now you’ve had a chance to thin
k about it, if you’ve had second thoughts…”

  “No,” she said softly. “It’s what I want.” But her eyes looked scared.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “After what-”

  “Tom.” And now something-could it have been anger?- crossed her face like daytime lightning, barely discernible except as a flicker in the corner of an eye. But instead of thunder, her voice was a sultry rumble, humid and tense as a hot summer afternoon.

  “Everything I told you was true. Including the part about it having been five years-more than five-since I’ve been with a man. If I’d never met you, if you hadn’t kissed me, if you hadn’t come here tonight, I’d have gone right on doing without one, and-” her voice rose slightly, a little lift of belligerence that touched him “-very nicely, too, believe me.” She paused, then said quietly, “But…I did, and you did, and here we are…and, I’d like you to stay.”

  Again something darkened briefly in her eyes, but this time he had no trouble identifying it as uncertainty, and she added belatedly, over a choked little swallow, “If you want to.”

  He frowned and muttered, “You know I do.” He felt wired and itchy, as if heat lightning crawled just beneath his skin.

  Her eyes met and held his across the well-lit distance between them, and it seemed as though the lightning that was in both of them arced the chasm, as well, met and joined in a charge of electricity that was almost visible.

  “Then,” she said, “I’d ask of you no more than that. And as for your…scruples-” her mouth tugged sideways in a smile as wry as his own “-you told me you’d been with other women since your wife died. Women you didn’t love. What’s one more? It’s just sex, Tom.”

  He couldn’t account for the spasm of pain that sliced through him, and something he could have sworn was disappointment. But he growled. “Dammit, Jane, this is different.”