by Cathie Linz
David’s thoughts should be outlawed. And talk about wicked! As for a distraction, he’d never met a distraction like Anastasia.
“To get around the law, on Sundays, ice-cream parlors and soda fountains served ice cream with just the syrup and no soda. The combination of cold ice cream and warmed chocolate syrup can be irresistible. Mmm.” She fed him a spoonful. “An incredible combination.”
“I know an even better combination,” he growled, his willpower reduced to red-hot embers as he took hold of the hand that fed him and tugged her into his arms. Instinct and need guided his mouth to hers as he kissed her blindly, hotly, tenderly.
As his lips consumed hers, Anastasia decided that he tasted better than any ice cream on the planet.
Sliding the blindfold from his eyes, she saw the passion in their blue depths before her own lids fluttered shut, allowing her to focus on what she could feel. He teased her lips with his tongue, coaxing her to part them and rewarding her when she did.
She could taste the chocolate and the incredible essence that was pure David.
One kiss merged into the next as passion flared out of control. Somehow they ended up on the padded bench near the back of the ice-cream parlor. His provocative fingers slid over her thigh, her rayon dress amplifying his touch.
A trail of heated kisses from the corner of her mouth to the hollow of her collarbone ended at the neckline of her dress. With each button on her dress that he unfastened, he paused to celebrate by returning his mouth to hers for a mind-blowing tangle of nibbles and delicate tongue thrusts before beginning another trail of kisses and undoing yet another button.
It took her a moment or two to think clearly enough to reciprocate by unbuttoning his shirt, and her fingers lacked the nimble talent of his, but what she lacked in finesse she made up for in enthusiasm. The first touch of his bare chest beneath her palm made her pause to enjoy the freedom to touch him.
When he slid his hand beneath her silky chemise to reverently cup her bare breast, she couldn’t prevent her gasp of sheer pleasure. Incorporating it into their kiss, he shifted it from blind hunger to a new plateau of erotic anticipation.
He moved slower now, as if he had all the time in the world to enjoy the wonders of her body. And he was touching her and kissing her as if she was a wonder, as if he was intrigued and delighted with everything about her.
Reclining on the bench, she paid no heed to the hard wood beneath her, only to the hard body above her. She could feel the muscles of his thighs flexing against her own as he used his weight to create an intimate, electric connection that brought in a new dimension of desire. His touch inflamed her, as hers seemed to inflame him.
The thud of his heart mirrored the uneven beating of her own. There was something wickedly sensual about his hand being beneath her silk chemise, caressing the soft swell of her breast, more so than if she’d been completely bare before him. She couldn’t see what his hand was doing, she could only feel it. And feel it she did, right down to the center of her womb. Brushing the ball of his thumb against her tingling nipples created a bliss so powerful it was almost painful.
As if sensing that, he lowered his mouth to the sensitive flesh and kissed her through the silk, feathering the crest with the tip of his tongue. Weaving her fingers through his dark hair, she clung to him as passion pulsed through her lower body. When his mouth finally returned to hers, their kiss took on a new intensity and fire.
She wanted more. She wanted no clothing between them. He wanted the same thing. He told her so with every thrust of his tongue, with every shift of his hips. He was about to peel her dress from her shoulders when light exploded all around them.
Swearing under his breath, David sat upright, shielding her with his body. “What the hell…”
“Oh my!” Claire gasped, her eyes as big as saucers.
9
“I DIDN’T MEAN to interrupt,” Claire said in an embarrassed voice. “I didn’t know anyone would be here this late. I saw the lights were on, I thought maybe I left them on, but I thought I had turned them off, but maybe I should have known that it was you two, not that I could guess, I mean, it’s none of my business…I’m babbling.”
“It’s not a problem,” Anastasia hastily assured Claire despite the fact that her heart was pounding a mile a minute as she hastily rebuttoned her dress. “This is your business. I mean The Big Dipper is your place of business and you have the right to walk in anytime you choose, and besides how could you have known…Now I’m babbling. David, say something.” Her voice reflected her desperation.
His voice, drat his hide, was amused. “Why should I? I’m having too much fun watching you two stumble around. Besides, I don’t do babble.”
“Do you want to hit him, Claire, or should I?” Anastasia asked.
“What?” David demanded. “What did I say?”
“Well, dear, you do have a way of putting your foot in your mouth. But I love you anyway.” Claire patted his arm reassuringly.
“What made you come back to The Big Dipper tonight?” David asked her. “I thought you were tired and were going to make an early night of it.”
“I did try, but I woke up after having the strangest dream about a fairy godmother who wore wild hats.” Claire shook her head in puzzlement. “Anyway, then I got to worrying about the grand opening so I decided to come over and check out a few things in the kitchen. I never dreamed I’d walk in on the two of you…”
Anastasia could feel herself blushing again, for only the second time this year—and David was responsible both times. She had to get out of here before she made a fool of herself, or rather a bigger fool.
Because it was finally sinking in that she was falling in love with David and she still had some serious doubts about the wisdom of such a move. Fooling around, having fun, was one thing. But loving someone like David, so unlike the usual guys she went for, could be very risky. Time to regroup here.
“Yes, well, I’d better get back upstairs,” Anastasia hurriedly said. “David can stay down here and help you do…whatever it is you need to do to get ready for the opening. I mean, I do have to go to work tomorrow. A full day. I’ve got to practice a new finger-play routine, and I’ve got a class of first-graders coming in for a tour of the library, plus I’ve got that Gaylord sales rep coming by in the afternoon. I’m babbling again. I never babble. I’m going now.”
“There’s no need, dear,” Claire began, but Anastasia had already fled.
“WHAT’S THE POINT of having a beeper if you’re not going to answer your page?” Betty demanded of Hattie, who was ten seconds late for the emergency meeting Betty had just called in Anastasia’s living room.
“Is that why my magic wand was blinking?” Hattie held it up to the light to study it. “At first I thought it was glowing because the time had come for David to find the secret room, then I remembered you said the wand would glow not blink. Then I thought perhaps it needed new batteries or something.”
“They don’t need batteries, they’re solar powered, you should know that by now,” Muriel informed her, but Hattie was already distracted by a stack of illustrations that Anastasia had been working on in her apartment.
Her voice warm with fondness, Hattie said, “Remember when Anastasia was a little girl, and it was almost as if she could actually see and hear us?”
Betty nodded. “I’m sure that’s why she tells such wonderful fairy-godmother stories.”
“I must say, however, that I’m much prettier than Anastasia is drawing me. And she has me wearing green.” Hattie slowly shook her head. “I rarely wear green. It makes my complexion look sallow.”
“Oh, give it a break, would you?” Muriel exclaimed. “We’ve got bigger problems to deal with here.”
Hattie blinked ingenuously. “What problems? Where is Anastasia?”
“Asleep in the other room.”
“Then what’s the problem? Why call this emergency meeting? I’d say she and David were getting along quite well. As for Claire
walking in on them in a most inopportune moment, well, that’s Betty’s fault.”
Betty seemed surprised by this news. “How do you figure that?”
“You were the one who wanted to enlist a human’s help,” Hattie reminded her.
Betty defended her actions. “All I did was put the idea of David and Anastasia as a couple into Claire’s head.”
“Then you should have put it into her head to stay home tonight,” Hattie told her.
Betty was not amused by the reprimand. “Hey, accidents happen. And what was that about Claire having a dream about a fairy godmother wearing wild hats? Did you have something to do with that, Hattie?”
“I most certainly did not,” she replied haughtily. “I don’t own any wild hats. What are you two laughing at?”
Betty and Muriel pointed to the haberdashery confection Hattie had atop her head at that very moment, a lavish affair decorated with plenty of orange and yellow mums along with a chirping yellow parakeet.
“Do you think the bow is a bit much?” she asked, indicating the golden ribbon tied under her chin.
Her question made her sisters laugh even harder, until they were doing tumbling somersaults in midair, so intense was their mirth.
“Well, fiddlesticks!” Hattie stomped her foot on the back of the chintz chair she was standing on, nearly losing her gilded pumps in the process. “I’m certainly not going to stick around here and be laughed at. Anastasia is my charge and I say she’s doing just fine.”
As she disappeared in a purple puff of displeasure, Muriel wryly noted to Betty, “The problem is that she also says she doesn’t own any wild hats. So what does that tell us about her judgment?”
Betty sighed. “That we’re not out of the woods yet. How many days left until our retirement?”
“Too many,” was Muriel’s glum reply.
ANASTASIA SPENT her Monday too busy with work to worry about David. But the moment she got in her car to drive home, he was center stage in her mind once again. Rather than running from the thought of loving him, she decided to take it out and examine it.
What would be so bad about loving him? Other than the fact that he had a tendency to be impossibly bossy and controlling, not to mention highly suspicious of others. The only interest she shared with him was an appreciation of the Three Stooges and a love for Claire. Without a doubt, he was vastly different from any of the men she’d fallen for in the past—not that there had been hoards of them.
Now for the positive column. The way he made her feel. The way he smiled as if he’d almost forgotten how. The way he had her and Claire’s best interests at heart even if he was being a pain about responsibility and reality. The way he’d undertaken the treasure hunt. The fact that underneath all that bluster he was a good man who probably was as confused about this relationship as she was.
While she might be falling in love with him, that was no reason to think that he was falling for her. Okay, so he showed signs of being attracted. And he kissed her as if he meant it.
But he still hadn’t given her any verbal indication of his feelings. Smoky looks hot enough to melt steel didn’t count. That could just be lust speaking.
The moment she entered her apartment, her worries about David had to take a back seat to the realization that the mouse was back in its trap. She’d been trying to catch him for days. The peanut-butter bait had finally done the trick.
Keeping her car keys in one hand, she used an oven mitt to carry the trap, not because it was hot, but because the last time she’d carried the trap outside she could feel the mouse’s movements inside and it had freaked her a bit. Hurrying downstairs, she raced toward her car. She was just about ready to drive away when David suddenly appeared from inside The Big Dipper.
“We need to talk,” he said in a no-nonsense tone of voice.
“Get in.” She didn’t have time to explain that she had to drive the mouse to its new home in the park and that she had to do it quickly so that it didn’t get a concussion or something from banging its head against the sides of the trap. Thinking the mouse might feel more secure if it couldn’t see where it was going, she’d covered it as best she could with the oven mitt.
“Your oven mitt is moving,” David noted as they zoomed away from the curb.
“That’s because there’s a mouse in it.”
His strangled exclamation was not a pretty thing.
“Relax,” she reassured him, taking one hand off the wheel to pat his denim-clad leg. “The mouse is in its trap.”
Putting her hand back on the steering wheel, David didn’t know which scared him more—the mouse or Anastasia’s wild driving.
“And the reason we’re taking the mouse for a drive is?” he asked, sarcasm masking his discomfort. “He’s bored with our neighborhood or what?”
“He keeps coming back.”
“How do you know it’s even the same mouse?”
“I just know,” she said, changing gears to stop at a red light.
“You could have a dbzen mice in your apartment.”
“Listen, if I had a dozen mice, Xena would not be sleeping at night. And neither would I. No, it’s the same mouse. I can tell. He’s laughing at me. And he’s taunting Xena.”
“Then exterminate him.”
“I can’t do that…”
“Because of Pescado. Right. So where are you taking Mr. Mouse?”
“To that park near Northwestern,” she replied, shifting into first as the light turned green.
“So it can go terrorize some poor gorgeous coed in her dorm room?”
She frowned. That hadn’t occurred to her. “Do you have a better idea? Other than extermination?”
“No,” he had to admit.
“Fine.” She decided the gorgeous coeds were on their own. “Then it’s the park.”
“Providing we live long enough to get there,” he muttered, grabbing the door handle as she zipped around an illegally parked car to take a corner.
“Calm down. I’m a good driver. So what did you want to talk about?”
David hadn’t expected to have this discussion with a trapped mouse six inches away from him. His voice was curt as he said, “About what happened the other night.”
“Yes?”
“I didn’t plan that.”
“I know. Neither did I. When I invited you downstairs, I thought we might get closer, but I had no way of knowing that things would get so…so intense and out of hand so quickly. I wasn’t trying to be a tease or anything like that” She shifted the Triumph to a lower gear as she rounded yet another corner before stealing a look at David.
Could one nervous blue-eyed look from him be the deciding factor? Could it push her over the edge and make falling in love with him a done deal? Granted, David’s look had been directed at the captive mouse, but she’d felt the strangest tug at her heartstrings and the strongest sense of recognition. Which sounded more like something from one of the fairy tales she read the kids than real life.
She didn’t have time to dwell on her thoughts because she had to move fast to get the last parking space near the park. As the red Triumph jerked to a halt, she heard David heave a sigh of relief.
It was short-lived as the mouse wiggled, scooting the trap out from under the oven mitt and almost into David’s lap. Leaping up like a man in the hot seat, he scrambled out of the car with more speed than dignity.
“You don’t like mice,” Anastasia noted.
“I don’t know many people who do, besides you.”
“Like I told Xena, it’s not that I like the mouse personally, it’s just that I—”
“Don’t want it killed. I know.” David stuffed his hands into his back jean pockets, as if to get them as far away as possible from the rodent. “So get a move on and let him go. For all we know there could be a city ordinance against releasing mice in a city park.”
“I certainly hope not.”
As she carried the mousetrap from the car, she couldn’t help appreciating the beauty
of the park, located on Lake Michigan. The sky was overcast, looking as if it couldn’t make up its mind whether to rain or not. But that only made the gunmetal blues and greens of the lake more vibrant. One or two trees in the park were starting to change into their fall colors. She knew from experience that, come October, the maples and oaks would be brilliant.
But for now she had to focus her attention on the mouse, which once she’d brought to the middle of the park was showing a marked reluctance to leave the trap even though she’d unlatched the opening.
“Just shake him out,” David ordered impatiently.
She did, a little too forcefully. The mouse flew into the air and almost landed on David’s shoulder. A diving movement was all that saved David. It didn’t save Anastasia, whom he rammed into before knocking them both to the ground. By rolling at the last minute, he was able to cushion her from the worst of the fall with his body.
It happened so fast that Anastasia couldn’t quite believe that she was actually lying plastered against David’s chest while he groaned beneath her. Feeling guilty that she’d put on a few pounds since sampling Claire’s ice-cream flavors, she hurriedly rolled off him.
“Are you okay?” she asked, putting her head down to listen to his heart beat just for the sheer pleasure of it, not out of any lifesaving techniques.
He nodded, but she couldn’t see him. So he lifted her head, threading his fingers through her gorgeous long hair. It was like silk. And she smelled incredible.
The long brown skirt she’d been wearing was hiked up, displaying a tantalizing glimpse of her calves. Her orange top and brown suede vest made her look adorable, while the silk scarf she wore was tied in a jaunty knot at the base of her throat.
He drew her closer, using his hands to guide her to him until her mouth rested upon his so that he could delicately sip at her parted lips as if she were a rare wine. Not that he was a wine kind of guy, but damn, she was intoxicating. Kissing her packed more of a punch than a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
It was his last thought before he became lost in the intimacies of her tongue tangling with his. When her thigh slid between his legs, he trapped it there, his hands on her back pressing her closer to his fully aroused body.