But Miriam wasn’t dressed normally, was she? No, she was wearing a Lola Chacha original, which meant that her gown—in addition to boasting sequins and marabou and a side slit that could potentially be considered criminal—dipped as low, both in front and in back, as it possibly could without risk of having the wearer arrested. As long as the lights were low enough that the police couldn’t see her, anyway.
Which meant that Rory’s hand, when it landed on the small of her back, landed not on her gown, but on the small of her back. The naked small of her back. And having even that slight skin-to-skin contact with him sent Miriam’s temperature skyrocketing.
Automatically her own hold on him—she had settled her hands innocently on his chest—contracted, something that caused her fingers to curve intimately, even possessively, into his firm flesh. Before she could right herself or him—not that she necessarily wanted to right herself or him, really, not with his hand on her naked back that way—the person who had jostled Rory from behind jostled him again. This time, when his body was shoved forward, Miriam pushed her hands higher, to his shoulders, which she then found herself gripping for dear life.
She told herself her reaction was simply a result of having responded instinctively, unmindful of the fact that there was little chance she would fall, thanks to the density of the crowd surrounding them. It hadn’t been because she just wanted to get a better hold of Rory. It hadn’t been because she wanted to take advantage of even this small moment to touch him one last time.
Really. That hadn’t been the reason. She’d just overreacted a bit, that was all.
Rory’s reaction, though, seemed to come from something other than a simple instinctive response. Because there was something very deliberate, not to mention very arousing, about the way he had placed one hand on the—quite naked—small of her back and had cupped the other hand over her—equally naked—shoulder blade.
Oh, yes, his movements were very deliberate, Miriam thought as both of those hands on her back then began to dip lower—considerably lower than was actually necessary for keeping her righted. And she knew that those hands were dipping lower, not just because she felt the soft glide of his fingertips along the heated, sensitized flesh of her back, but also because she felt his fingertips come to a halt curving over the upper swells of her derriere.
“I’m okay, Rory,” she told him a little breathlessly. “You don’t have to…to…to…”
“To what?” he asked. And although his voice was all innocence and curiosity, the expression on his face was anything but.
Miriam told herself his cheeks were only flushed because he was embarrassed to have been discovered touching her the way he was touching her—even though he did nothing to remove his hands. And she told herself his lips were only parted that way because the air was close, and it was hard to breathe—even though he didn’t seem to be lacking for breath. And she told herself his eyes were only darkening and fairly glazing over because the throng of people surrounding them created a heat that was nearly overwhelming—even though the heat enveloping them didn’t seem to be generated by a throng of people at all.
And she told herself that her own response to him—the flush she felt warming her own cheeks, the shallowness of her own breathing, the heat coursing through her own body—was simply a result of the crowd, too.
Unfortunately she didn’t come close to believing any of the things she told herself.
The music slowed then, and segued into something by Gershwin, though Miriam was too befuddled at the moment to identify just what the song was. Surprisingly, a number of people left the dance floor then, presumably because they needed more of a rest than a simple slow tune. She waited for Rory to release her and lead her off the floor, as well, but he did neither. Instead he pulled her closer—something she would have sworn was impossible to do—and tucked her head beneath his chin and circled her waist loosely with both arms.
Immediately she was surrounded by the scent of him, a mixture of Old Spice, damp cotton and hot man. The combination was intoxicating, narcotic. And all Miriam could do was relax against him, feeling as if it were the most natural place on the earth for her to be. Their torsos bumped together, their legs brushed against each other, and she didn’t think she’d ever experienced a more exquisite sensation than feeling as if she were tangled up with Rory Monahan.
Unable to help herself, but calling herself a fool just the same, she looped one arm around his neck, wove the fingers of the other through his hair and let him guide her body back and forth, back and forth, back…and…forth…
And then she heard him say, very softly, “We need to talk, you and I.”
The lights had gone low by now, canopying the entire room with darkness, and something about that must have emboldened Rory. Because the hands that he had linked around her waist suddenly began to wander, skimming lightly over her bare flesh again. His fingers drifted up her spine, then back down. Then they ventured up again, over her rib cage this time, and down the other side once more. And with every soft skim of his fingertips over her back, Miriam’s heart rate quickened, her uncertainties multiplied and her confusion compounded.
“Talk?” she echoed. “A-a-about what?”
He hesitated only a moment before saying, “Us.”
“Oh.”
But instead of launching into whatever he wanted to say about us, Rory told her, “This is a, um, a, uh…a rather amazing gown.” His voice was a mere murmur near her ear. “What little there is of it, I mean.”
“Ah. Yes. Well. It isn’t mine,” Miriam told him, a delicious shiver of excitement spiraling through her at the way he voiced the comment, and the way his fingers began to make slow spirals over her sensitive skin. “Normally I never…I mean, I’m not usually so…This isn’t the sort of thing I customarily…” But she gave up trying to explain, when she was unable to finish any of the anxious thoughts crowding into her brain.
“No, neither do I,” Rory told her, agreeing with her all the same.
Somehow he had made sense of her mental meanderings, Miriam realized. And for some reason that didn’t surprise her at all.
“I just, um…” she began again. “I mean, I was trying to…It was all because of…”
“Yes, I understand completely,” he told her.
And again somehow she knew that he did.
“But you wear it well, Miriam,” he said, his voice a velvet caress against her ear, her neck, her throat. “Because you look…” He inhaled deeply, then released the breath slowly, as if he wanted to illustrate the rest of his statement, which happened to be, “You look…breathtaking. In fact,” he added further, his voice still sounding a little uneven, “you smell breathtaking. And you feel breathtaking.” Once again, he sighed deeply. “You are breathtaking,” he told her. “I don’t know why I didn’t realize that a long time ago.”
Well, obviously, Miriam thought morosely, it was because she hadn’t, until recently, been a devil with a blue dress on. An Outer Temptress, so to speak. That was why Rory was responding to her now when he hadn’t noticed her before. Not for any other reason than that.
She realized then the folly of her situation—Rory would never want her for who she really was—and tried to pull away. But the hand that had returned to the small of her back dipped lower again, to the upper swell of her bottom, pulling her into the cradle of his pelvis. She bit back a groan when she felt how hard and ready he was for her. Or, at least how hard and ready he was for her Inner Temptress.
“We need to talk,” he said again. “About us.”
She shook her head. “There is no us.”
She couldn’t be sure in the darkness, but she thought his expression changed then, from one of hopefulness to one of discouragement. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Of course there’s an us. There’s been an us ever since we…”
She shook her head again, more vehemently this time. “No, there’s no us,” she insisted. “There’s Rory Monahan, and there’s my Inner Temptress. Mi
riam Thornbury doesn’t fit into the picture at all.”
Now his expression changed again, to one of total confusion. “Inner Temptress?” he echoed. “What are you talking about? Not that I don’t find you tempting,” he quickly assured her, sweeping his hands slowly over her bare back again.
And all she could think was, Oh, Rory.
“It isn’t me you find tempting,” she told him. “It’s my Inner Temptress.”
He smiled, albeit in a puzzled way. “I still don’t understand. If there’s someone inside of you who’s tempting me, Miriam, then it’s you tempting me.”
As much as she wished she could believe that, Miriam shook her head. “No,” she told him. “It isn’t me tempting you. It’s a fictional creation of Metropolitan magazine.”
“Now I’m hopelessly confused,” he said. “What would a magazine have to do with my feelings for you?”
“It’s a long story.” She sighed heavily and avoided his gaze. “But when I removed all those issues of Metropolitan magazine from the library that Mayor Trent wanted removed, I took them home and I started reading them, and there were a few articles that—” And then the gist of his question struck her, and Miriam narrowed her eyes at him. “You have feelings for me?” she asked.
He chuckled. “Well, of course I have feelings for you. Miriam,” he said, “I love you.”
She gaped at him for a moment, feeling, for one scant second, like the happiest woman on the face of the Earth. Then suddenly she sobered. Because she realized what Rory said didn’t apply to her. “No, you don’t love me,” she told him softly. “You love my Inner Temptress.”
He uttered a sound that very much resembled a growl of frustration. “Miriam,” he said. “What. Are. You. Talking. About.”
As quickly as she could, she tried to explain. She revealed to Rory the crush she had had on him for six months, then described how the magazine articles led her to create what she’d thought was a foolproof plan to lure him and tempt him and make him her own. She told him of her delight that the venture had been such a success, until she realized that he had fallen, not for the person she really was, but for the fictional temptress she had fashioned from a series of magazine articles. She reiterated that he couldn’t possibly be in love with Miriam Thornbury the librarian. Because he had fallen in love with Miriam Thornbury the temptress instead.
“So you see,” she said, “if you’re in love, it’s not with me. It’s with a…with a…a…” She, too, uttered a dissatisfied snarl. “A devil with a blue dress on,” she fairly spat. “It isn’t with the woman who’s fallen in love with you.”
For one long moment Rory only gazed at her in silence, his expression now offering her not a clue as to what he might be feeling or thinking. Then, very softly, he began to laugh. A laugh of utter delight, of total freedom, of uninhibited joy. And when he did, Miriam thought he looked…he looked…
Well. He looked breathtaking. She couldn’t help but sigh as she watched him.
And she also couldn’t help asking, “What’s so funny?”
“You,” he said as he pulled her closer. “My sweet Miriam. My erudite librarian. My keen student. My ardent paramour. My bewitching temptress. For you are all of those things, my darling. And then some.”
At his softly uttered words, Miriam began to feel a bit breathless again. And a bit dizzy. And a bit contemplative. And then she began to feel very, very happy. Because suddenly she began to see that Rory was right. She didn’t have to be just one thing. She wasn’t just Miriam the librarian. And she wasn’t just Miriam the temptress, either. She was many things to many people. Many things to Rory. Just as he was many things to her. And always would be.
All along Miriam had told herself she had to take responsibility for her Inner Temptress’s behavior, because her Inner Temptress, for all her alien qualities, was a product of Miriam herself. So if she was so insistent she be responsible for the little vixen’s behavior, then why couldn’t she reap the little minx’s rewards, too?
Rory must love all of her, Miriam told herself. No matter who or what she was, because that was the nature of love. Just as she loved all of him, no matter who or what he was.
Oh, my, she thought. It was all so clear to her now. Honestly. For an educated woman—not to mention a successful temptress—Miriam truly did have a lot to learn. And she couldn’t wait to have Rory teach her. Mostly because she had one or two lessons for him, as well.
Rory must have sensed her train of thoughts, because he lowered his head to hers, pressing his forehead gently against her own. “So you can see that you are many things to me, Miriam,” he said, reiterating his earlier statement. “And I can only hope that there’s one more thing you’ll become.”
“What’s that?” she asked, still feeling breathless and dizzy and contemplative and happy.
“My loving wife,” he told her. “Will you be that, too?”
“Oh, Rory…”
Instead of finishing her answer verbally, Miriam thrust herself up on tiptoe and pressed her mouth to his. Again and again she kissed him, more deeply and possessively with every passing second. Rory responded with much enthusiasm, roping his arms around her waist now and slanting his head to the side to facilitate their embrace.
Vaguely Miriam heard the sound of music and of laughter and of applause. And when she pulled away, she found that the entire population of the Stardust Ballroom—nay, the entire population of Marigold, Indiana—were witness to what was, quite possibly, the most shameless public display of affection ever perpetrated in town. Even Mayor Trent, Miriam couldn’t help but notice, was smiling and clapping. Miriam smiled, too. Because right behind the mayor was Cullen Monahan, looking quite flummoxed.
Maybe there was hope for the Monahan clan yet, Miriam thought with a grin.
Then, after bestowing another quick kiss on Rory’s lips, she moved her mouth to his ear and whispered, “Let’s get out of here.”
He nodded eagerly. “I have my car.”
She smiled. “Oh, good. I hope you parked it in a secluded area.”
Amazingly, not only did Miriam and Rory make it to his car without succumbing to their passion—well, without succumbing too much to their passion—but they also made it back to Rory’s apartment before succumbing to their passion. Well, no more than some soul-deep kissing at a stoplight. And copping a few feels at a stop sign. And then, once, pulling over to the side of the road in a delirious effort to remove Miriam’s panties, only to reconsider and finally—finally—make their way to Rory’s place.
But once they were at Rory’s place all bets were off. And all clothes were off, too, in no time flat. Before Miriam realized what was happening, the two of them were standing completely naked in Rory’s bedroom, and he freed her hair and filled his hands with it. Not that it had taken any more than a couple of quick tugs on the chopsticks in her hair—or on the gown she was almost wearing—for Miriam to find herself in that state, though Rory’s clothing had presented a bit of a challenge because he’d had on considerably more than she. Not to mention he wouldn’t quit kissing her and tasting her the whole time she was trying to undress him.
And even when she’d finished undressing him, he still kept on kissing her and tasting her—not that she minded at all, because she was doing some kissing and tasting of her own by then and remembering all over again just how delicious Rory Monahan was.
And then she stopped remembering anything, because he slowly began to walk her toward his bed, his hands skimming lightly over every exposed inch of her. And of course it went without saying that every inch of her was indeed exposed. Little by little he urged her backward, onto the mattress, then followed her down and covered her body with his.
Oh, this was so much better than a car, Miriam thought as he stretched out alongside and atop her. Because now Rory’s naked skin was pressed against her own naked skin, from shoulder to toe, and there was nothing—absolutely nothing—to inhibit them. Not that either of them seemed to feel particularly inhibite
d at the moment. On the contrary…
Miriam wound her fingers in Rory’s hair as he dragged a line of openmouthed kisses along her neck, her throat, her shoulder, her collarbone. And as she tightened those fingers, gasping, he ducked his head lower, drawing her erect nipple into his mouth to suck hard on her tender flesh. But even that didn’t seem to be his final destination, because he moved his kisses lower again, to the underside of her breast, along her rib cage, over her flat belly, into her navel. And then lower still, to her hips, her pelvis, the sensitive insides of her thighs.
So senseless was she with wanting him by the time he began to move his head upward again that Miriam didn’t realize his final destination until she felt his mouth upon that most sensitive part of her self. She gasped again at the initial contact, then expelled her breath in a rush of exhilaration and sucked it in again, harder this time. Oh, no one had ever—Oh, she’d never felt anything like—Oh, it was simply too—Oh—
Oh!
Again and again Rory tasted her, teased her, taunted her, until it seemed as if he would never satisfy his hunger for her. Finally, he gripped her hips hard in each hand and lifted her to his mouth, for one final, furious onslaught that very nearly shattered her. Then, as if he couldn’t tolerate their separation any longer than she, he climbed back up onto the mattress beside her.
Without a further word he propped his upper body on his elbows, folding one on each side of her head. Then he settled himself between her legs and pushed himself toward her, his hard shaft coming to rest between the damp folds of her flesh without penetrating her. Miriam, barely coherent now, looped her arms around his neck, and met his gaze intently.
“Now,” she told him. “Make love to me now.”
His breathing was ragged, and his eyes were dark with wanting. But he told her, “I don’t have anything. Any protection, I mean. In spite of wanting to talk to you and tell you how I felt tonight, I honestly hadn’t anticipated this happening again yet.”
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