Of course, most of what she'd learned involved her own likes and dislikes. The way she liked to be touched, stroked, kissed. He hadn't actually told her how to touch him, to stroke him, to kiss him…
"Hey, there, uppity up." Jack's deep voice stopped her at the foot of the stairs. She stared across the small alleyway that ran between the grocery store and the newspaper office. He wore jeans and a faded denim work shirt open to reveal a white T-shirt beneath. For a split second, an image flashed through her mind the way he'd looked last night as he'd loomed above her.
He'd been beautiful, his body hard and powerful and tanned from hours spent outdoors. Gold hair sprinkled his chest and swirled around his flat, brown nipples. Muscles rippled as he braced his arms and flexed his body and plunged deep. So very deep…
"You look hot." His deep voice pushed past the sensual fog holding her prisoner and jerked her back to reality.
"It's the dress. I don't usually wear this sort of thing and I never would have bought it, but Deb talked me into it. She said the cut was flattering—"
"I mean hot as in temperature hot, darlin'. You're sweating."
At his words, she became acutely aware of the glide of perspiration near her temple and she reached up to slap the wetness away.
"I'm sorry, I thought … I mean, Dolores said the same thing, but she meant…"
"But you do look hot, too." A grin curved his features as his gaze swept the length of her. "I do like the dress. You actually have legs."
She couldn't help herself. She grinned and the tension eased. "Yes. They're good for walking."
"And holding on." His words brought memories of last night flooding back, but Paige was determined not to be sidetracked again.
Fighting back the memories, she adjusted her purse on her shoulder. "So what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at the ranch?"
"I was at the ranch, and I'll be heading back after I pick up a load of feed over at Murphy's. But first—" he took a bite and swallowed before pitching the core into a nearby trash bin "—I wanted to see you."
A sense of dread filled her because she'd faced too many morning afters and none had ever gone well. Most had been spent with Woodrow running through a list of her shortcomings and what she'd done wrong.
Everything.
"We're not scheduled to see each other until tomorrow night," she blurted. She didn't want to hear this. She didn't need to hear it.
"That's what I wanted to see you about."
Here comes the brush-off.
"We have a deal."
"But it's not going to work the way that it stands."
"You agreed to tutor me," she pointed out. "You promised you'd teach me everything you know every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the duration of two weeks."
"I know, but if you want the job done right, then I think we need more lessons."
"You can't just back out because – what did you say?"
"I want to see you tonight." He crossed the distance to her. "Every night, until Deb and Jimmy make it back."
Elation jolted her at the same time a wave of disappointment rushed through her, filling her with a sense of dread that was all too familiar. "I was that bad last night."
"Are you kidding?" He caught her chin and tilted her face up until her gaze met his. "Darlin', you were that good. I'm just taking my responsibility seriously. You deserve more than a crash course. I want to take my time and do this right. I don't want to leave anything out."
"I wouldn't want you to do that." This time, she was the one who actually reached out and kissed him because for the first time in her life, Paige Cassidy didn't feel like a failure.
She felt like a woman. A real woman.
* * *
Chapter 9
«^»
The next few days passed in a dizzying blur. Paige spent her days at the newspaper and her nights with Jack. Every night, just as he'd said.
He was every bit the experienced teacher she'd known he would be. The man was a sex machine. He could set her ablaze with just a glance and, as she soon discovered, she could do the same to him. It was all about the little things. A simple gesture such as the lick of her lips, the bat of her eyes, the sultry sway of her hips and bam, he was ready.
She'd expected the seduction process to be more complicated, but with Jack it seemed easy. Natural.
If Paige hadn't know better, she might have thought she'd met her soul mate. But she knew better, of course. While he was an expert lover, so in tune to every sound she made, every breath she took, he wasn't the sort of man a girl let herself fall in love with. Not unless she wanted to end up with a broken heart.
Paige had already had hers shattered and she wasn't risking that ever again. It had taken her too long to glue all the pieces back together.
Woodrow had been the temporary sort. The good-looking, good-time guy that every girl lusted after. Paige had made the mistake of thinking that his interest was more than lust. That when he looked at her, he had the same hopes and dreams that she had.
She knew now that she'd only been a challenge. The classic good-girl virgin, who ended up being nothing more than a conquest. Sure, he'd gone further than simply talking her out of her panties in his back seat. He'd married her, but that, too, had been selfishly motivated. Every other woman in town had seen him for exactly the man he was. Everyone but Paige. She'd been younger and so easy to please. That's why he'd married her. He'd wanted a housekeeper and a cook. But he'd gotten a surprise. She hadn't been any good at either, and so he'd gone looking elsewhere.
She could keep house now and cook and she wasn't the fashion disaster she'd been way back when, but she wasn't everything a man like Jack Mission needed in his life or in his bed. He needed an equal and despite the fact that Paige told herself she was just that, she didn't truly feel it inside.
Not that it mattered. Even if she was every bit the desirable woman she sometimes felt like, Jack still wasn't the right man for her.
She would never find herself saying "I do" to a man like her ex ever again.
No matter how good he was in bed. Or how he held her hand when they went to the movies or fed her French fries off his plate when he met her for lunch or encouraged her when she spoke about her SAT group and her endeavors to find a permanent meeting place so that the women actually had someplace safe to go when their home lives overwhelmed them.
Never again.
* * *
"Leave the light off." Paige's command reached Jack's ears as he leaned back and reached for the lamp on the nightstand. Her hand closed over his an inch shy of his target. "Please."
"I want to see you."
"You can see me just fine. The street light's blazing outside." A nervous laugh bubbled from her lips. "I practically need sunglasses."
"It's just a small lamp."
"It's more romantic this way," she blurted, her grip tightening on his hand. Her eyes glittered with panic, and a surge of protectiveness spread through him. A feeling he fought down. While she'd been so open to him the past few nights, loving and eager and so damned giving, he sensed that she was holding back.
That there was something holding her back.
"Please. It's…" She licked her lips and he knew her mind searched for a plausible excuse. "It's more romantic with the lights off."
"Why don't you tell me what's really bothering you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You're afraid."
"Afraid? Of you?"
"For me to see you with the lights on. You're scared I'll see the real you, and that I won't like what I see."
"That's crazy." Despite her words, he could tell that he'd touched a sensitive spot. Her eyes brightened with tears and an ache gripped his chest.
"Baby, don't let him do this to you. He's long gone. You don't have to be afraid."
"I'm not." She shook her head frantically and a fierce light fired in her eyes, as if she fought the truth. "I'm not afraid of anything."
"
You are."
"Look who's talking." Her fierce gaze caught and collided with his. "When's the last time you stayed longer than a few months in one place?"
"This isn't about me." He pulled away from her and swiveled to sit on the side of the bed.
"You want to talk fear." She scrambled to a sitting position behind him. "Then let's talk."
"I didn't have talking in mind when I came in here. I just want to see you."
"You're not restless," she rushed on as if he hadn't said a word, or rather, she wanted to pretend he hadn't said a word. Because then the talk wasn't about her. It was about him. "You're afraid to stay too long in one place."
"You're changing the subject, and for your information, I don't like staying too long in one place."
"The subject is fear. You're afraid to plant roots."
"We're talking about your fear, and I don't need roots."
"Afraid to get too close."
A grin curved his lips. "Darlin', we've been about as close as two people can get."
"That's physical. I'm talking about more."
"You're the one who wanted sex lessons. Sex implies physical."
"You don't wake up with me. You stay most of the night, but you make sure you're gone before I open my eyes. Why is that?"
"I've got work to do, a ranch to run. I gave Jimmy my word. I have to get an early start."
"You don't want to wake up with me because then what we have might be more than a one-night stand."
"Darlin', I'm well aware that it's not a one-night stand. It's a two-week stand and I'm a busy man."
"Then prove me wrong. Stay tonight. All night. I'll make pancakes for breakfast."
"I think I'd better leave. I've got a hundred head of cattle coming in first thing tomorrow. I need to get an early start."
"Go ahead," she called after him. "Because if you'd stayed, you just might have found out that I'm right."
* * *
She was dead wrong.
Jack gunned the engine and pushed his bike faster, tearing up gravel as he headed for the ranch.
Afraid to get too close?
Like hell. He wasn't afraid. He just didn't like getting close. That way he didn't hurt anybody when the restlessness set in and he went on his way. No attachments meant no ties had to be broken. It simply made things easier for everybody.
Besides, he just plain didn't like getting close to people and settling in. He didn't like feeling so comfortable that he started taking each moment for granted. That's the way he'd been when his wife had passed away. Settled. Comfortable. Happy.
The last thought struck him and he increased his speed. Hell, he was happy now. It was just a different sort of happy. He was doing what he loved, moving from place to place, enjoying the scenery and really living his life rather than simply existing. Damn straight he was happy.
But as Jack pushed the bike harder and faster, he remembered the way he'd felt before his late wife's death. How he'd enjoyed coming home day after day, working the ranch with his dad and building his future.
Happy.
What he'd felt the past ten years didn't come close to touching that emotion. He wasn't happy now. He was simply existing.
So what? It was better than the alternative, better than risking having that happiness snatched away, like it had been so long ago. One minute he'd been young and in love. The next minute she was gone. Gone.
The misery had set in and nearly killed him. He'd grieved so hard, that the only way for him to cope had been to leave. To escape. To forget.
But the memories had followed him, creeping up when he least expected them. When he saw a family having dinner together at a local diner or glimpsed a man and woman grocery shopping together or simply holding hands, he thought of her. And was even worse when he knew the couple, when he knew how happy they were.
And so he ran, leaving behind the people he'd met and the friends he'd made, trading it all in for another town full of strangers. He would be all right for a little while and then the cycle would start all over and the past would catch up to him again.
Like now.
Paige had brought it all rushing back, because for the last few days, she'd shown him a happiness that he'd only dreamt of. She'd pushed past his defenses and gotten under his skin, and he liked it. Hell, he loved it. He loved her.
The realization hit him as he braked to a stop in the driveway outside the ranch house. He did love her.
He glanced down at the bike. He loved her, and yet instead of taking her in his arms and holding her, loving her, he was here, miles away, alone and running.
Hell, she was right. He was afraid to get too close. But there was one thing she'd been wrong about. He didn't fear settling down. He was settled.
That truth hit him as he walked inside the house and down the familiar hallway to the room he'd had for as long as he could remember. It was his own space, filled with his things from his bed to his sports trophies lining the wall, his first saddle draped over a chair in the far corner to the first blue ribbon he'd won for showmanship at the Austin County Horse Show. This was his place, filled with his past, his roots.
He thought of Cecil McGraw over at the grocery, Wayne and Nell, and a dozen other people in town. His town. He'd grown up here. He always came back here. He didn't need to settle somewhere and plant roots because his roots were right here in Inspiration. His past, who he was, what he wanted, it was all in this small Texas town with his family and his friends and his woman.
His thoughts went to Paige, to the fear and desperation he'd seen in her eyes. She'd been terrified tonight, defensive, scared, and she'd pushed him away.
Jack had gladly let her because he, too, had been fearful and desperate. But no more. He'd faced his fear and conquered it. Hopefully she could do the same because Jack didn't intend to let her push him away ever again.
He walked over to his suitcase and started pulling his things out. In several minutes, he'd filled his drawers and closet and unpacked every item of clothing. With the chore came a freedom even more profound than what he felt when he was on his motorcycle, hauling ass down an empty stretch of highway.
He felt free of his past, of his fear, and now he could look to the future.
He wanted Paige Cassidy. Now and forever.
The trouble was, she didn't want him back.
Yet.
* * *
"And so I told him, 'Norm, I will not wear the yellow dress. It may be your mother's favorite, but the woman hates me and I look awful in yellow'."
"Atta girl."
"You go, Dorothy."
"Tell it like it is."
"I mean, if the woman had been the least bit nice to me, I'd wear salmon or even chartreuse, but she's constantly talking about my chicken and dumplings."
"The heathen!"
"The witch!"
"And my apple strudel."
"She's a communist, that's what she is."
"A demon straight from hell."
"And my lemon chiffon mousse…"
Paige tried to concentrate on the rest of the session. She truly did, but every time she tuned in to what was being said, something reminded her of Jack and last night and the all-important fact that she'd crossed the line. She'd pushed him away. And he probably hated her.
So? There are only three days before Jimmy and Deb get back. Then he's gone anyway. What difference does it make?
None. That's what she tried to tell herself. Three days was nothing. She'd learned so much over the past week and a half that a few days hardly mattered.
She tried to remember that, to believe it, but as the session came to a close and Paige said goodbye to the women who milled around the refreshment table, she still couldn't convince herself.
Three days was three days. Nearly half a week. A lifetime to a woman who knew next to nothing when it came to pleasing a man. What if Jack had yet to teach her some technique crucial to the whole seduction experience? She couldn't afford to miss out on even a moment, muc
h less three entire nights.
That's what she wanted to think, rather than face the possibility that she wanted the next three nights with him, that she'd come to look forward to them, to him, and the last thing she wanted was to drive him away. She feared it had nothing to do with beefing up her education and everything to do with the fact that she liked Jack Mission.
He was handsome and sexy and nice. He listened to what she had to say and shared his own past with her. They had so much in common.
But at the same time, they were worlds apart. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end and a strange awareness skittered over her skin. She turned.
Make that twenty or so feet apart.
He stood just inside the doorway, a grin on his face as he tipped his hat to the last SAT member who filtered out, a plate of goodies in hand. Before Paige could take her next breath, he pushed the door closed and twisted the lock. She was trapped.
Trapped?
She was being silly, yet that's how she felt as he closed in on her. Like an animal stalking its prey.
"You're not mad at me, are you? I shouldn't have said those things. It wasn't my place."
"You had every right. I called you out. Fair is fair."
"But what you fear and what you don't fear is your own business."
Jack stopped just inches shy of her, his body blocking out any means of escape. "And what do you fear, Paige?"
"Let's not start this again."
"We never finished it. You were right about me. I was afraid of getting close."
Was as in the past. Meaning he wasn't afraid now.
"That's right," he said as if he read her thoughts. "I'm not afraid anymore to get close. To get very close." He leaned down and touched her chin, tipped it so that his mouth was only inches away. "You were right and I admit it. Now I want to hear you come clean with me. I don't want any secrets between us this time. Nothing but the two of us touching, tasting, feeling each other."
This time.
She became acutely aware of his close proximity, the hungry look in his eyes and the fact that they were all alone in broad daylight with the door locked from the inside.
"I want to see you." He reached for the top button of her blouse, the fluorescent lights blazing overhead. "Now."
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