by Joan Hohl
He was going to be late, Eric fumed. But if he hadn’t been in a near stupor from boredom, and unconscious of the passing time, he’d have been in the shower or dressing in the bedroom, and would have missed the truck.
Tossing the directory aside, Eric sprang from the chair and dashed into the bedroom. After a record-setting shower, shave and teeth-cleaning sprint, he shrugged into a blue-on-blue striped shirt, stepped into almost-new designer jeans, and then, carrying his shoes and socks, returned to his post at the window.
Eric was watching the house, while sliding his feet into soft leather slip-ons, when the front door opened and Glen Reber emerged. Eric’s eyes narrowed on the man as he hurried along the walkway, then turned in the direction of his car...and Tina’s house.
Cursing aloud, Eric leapt from the chair, grabbed his jacket from the back of the only other chair in the room and tore out of the apartment and down the outside stairway. He hit the ground running, and as he whipped around the side of the garage the Lincoln’s engine roared to life. Checking his headlong rush, he strolled down the macadam drive. The headlights flashed on as the car was set in motion. It cruised past Eric as he gained the sidewalk and sauntered toward Tina’s place.
Dismissing Reber, the couple in the house across the street and the puzzle of a Sunday-evening delivery of furniture from his mind, Eric strode up the walk to Tina’s door and gently pressed his finger to the doorbell button and held his breath. He was over half an hour late.
Eric hoped Tina didn’t open the door with a heavy object in hand, prepared to bean him for ruining her dinner.
Six
“That was great. You’re really an excellent cook.”
Tina felt her cheeks grow warm with a pleasurable flush at Eric’s praise—not that she had needed to hear his verbal approval of her culinary efforts. The proof of his enjoyment of the meal lay in the empty dishes and decimated remains of the bird on the table before her.
No, Tina didn’t need verbal confirmation, but hearing it was lovely, just the same. His vocal appreciation of her offering canceled the last lingering shred of annoyance she had felt at his being so late to arrive. Fortunately, the meal had not suffered. The chicken had been moist, the whipped potatoes had been creamy and the gravy had been smooth and unlumpy.
For herself, Tina could not have said whether the meal was good, bad or merely average. She had eaten sparingly, and had barely tasted the portion she served herself. Her meager food consumption had been due not to a lack of appetite, but to the distracting presence of the man seated opposite her at the small table.
Even casually attired, as he was this evening, and had been on the three previous occasions she was in his company, Eric presented a powerful appeal.
Distracting? Ha! Tina thought, trying to collect her thoughts. Demoralizing came closer to the mark. Demoralizing as defined by the fact that one look at him and her morals and deep-rooted beliefs were immediately ready to take a flying leap out the window in unconditional surrender.
“Thank you,” she finally managed to respond. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.” She lowered her eyes, unwitting provocation in the sweep of her long dark eyelashes. The unmistakable sound of his sharply indrawn breath brought her gaze back to his, a frown tugging her brows together. “Is something wrong?”
“Ah...uh, no, of course not.” Eric’s lips wore a suspicious twitch. “What could be wrong?”
“I don’t know, but...” Tina’s voice drowned in a sigh, and she shrugged her shoulders, unwilling to pursue the subject in the face of the blatantly teasing smile replacing the twitch on his lips.
“But?” Eric prompted, flashing his perfect white teeth at her.
“Nothing. Forget it.” Bypassing the feeling that she had missed something, Tina flashed her own, if not perfect, at least presentable, white teeth in return. “Are you ready for coffee—and the big dessert taste test?”
Appearing to be enjoying himself immensely, for whatever inexplicable reason, Eric sat up attentively, brought his devilish smile under control and gazed at her from laughing blue eyes belying his otherwise solemn expression.
“Bring it on,” he intoned in a deep and serious voice. “I vow to be impartial.”
Rolling her eyes, Tina stood and began stacking the dishes. “Just let me clear this away first,” she said, gathering the cutlery. “Make room on the table.”
“Here, let me help.” Standing, Eric scooped up the meat platter with one hand, wrapping the other hand around the gathered flatware—and her fingers.
Tina felt certain that the touch of his hand on hers was impersonal and purely accidental. At least she reasoned it was impersonal on his part. For her, the sensations activated, the heat generated, by the touch of his skin on hers was all way out of proportion to a simple contact of flesh.
In a word, Tina felt...branded.
“No.” Tina knew at once that her denial was too strong, too emphatic. Collecting her wits or what was left of them, she carefully slid her hand from beneath his. “It’ll only take a minute. I’ll do it.”
“But I want to help.” The glitter in Eric’s crystal blue eyes did not reflect his mild tone.
“But it’s not necessary,” Tina protested, escaping his penetrating stare by beating a hasty retreat. “You are the guest.”
“So what?” he retorted, trailing her into the kitchen. “You had all the work of preparing it,” he said, following her to the sink. “I can do my part by helping clear it away.”
As he approached her, his eyes grazed, then fastened on the pie Tina had removed from the fridge and set on the counter before dinner. “Will you look at that?” he said in simulated awe. “That lemon meringue is picture perfect.” He slid a sparkling look at her. “Lord, it’s beautiful. Maybe we should have it framed instead of eating it.”
Relieved by the easing of the sudden tension that had intensified in the air between them, Tina was more than willing to play along with his nonsense. She pursed her lips and made a show of giving his suggestion serious consideration. “You know, you may be right. Even though it would be a little messy to frame.” She paused, as if pondering the possibilities, an impish smile teasing her lips. “I suppose I could spray it with varnish and use it for a kitchen decoration.”
“Wrong.” Eric laughed. “I can’t wait to destroy it.” He turned to head back into the dining room. “You start the coffee. I’ll finish clearing the table.”
The pie was an unqualified success. Eric required two good-size wedges of the sweet-tart dessert before declaring the unofficial contest between Tina and his mother a draw. He was even more lavish with his praise for Tina’s dessert than he had been for the first part of the meal.
Again ridiculously pleased by his compliments, Tina fairly floated into the kitchen to rinse the dishes and load them into the dishwasher. It was after the chore was finished, the kitchen spotless once more, that her elation was tempered by a sobering realization.
Dinner was over. The night was still young. She and Eric were alone in the house.
Now what?
If that little, electrically charged moment caused by the casual touch of his hand on hers was an indication, Tina was afraid she knew precisely...what.
She still felt shaky inside from the incident, even after the brief respite that had come from distancing herself from him.
At Tina’s insistence on completing the job of cleaning up by herself, Eric had made a token protest, then agreeably ambled into the living room after they finished their second cups of coffee. When she returned to the dining room to wipe the table, he had been sprawled lazily on the plush recliner set to one side of the wide front window.
Tina had experienced a sharp pang of longing at the homey, everyday, normal look of Eric ensconced in the chair. He had discarded his shoes and had his stocking feet propped up on the attached footrest, with his nose buried in the sports section of the Sunday paper.
At the time, still under the heady influence of that tense moment and his euph
oria-inducing praise, but at a relatively safe distance from him, Tina had heaved a longing sigh and smiled mistily at the comfortably relaxed look of him.
But that was then, and now was now, and standing irresolute in the gleaming kitchen, Tina didn’t have a clue as to what to do next. It had been so long since she was actually alone with a man, she didn’t know quite how to act.
Memory stirred, rudely reminding Tina of her idea earlier that morning of seducing Eric.
Yeah. Right.
A thrill shot up her spine. Conditions certainly appeared favorable for such a plan of action. Being with Eric, talking with him, laughing with him, before and throughout dinner, had seemed so easy, effortless. Eric had conducted himself like a gentleman...if a slightly devilish gentleman. He had not stepped out of line by word or insinuation.
Her imagination had stepped out of line.
And yet, in all honesty, Tina exonerated herself with the fact that, from the moment she opened the door for him, there had existed a nearly tangible tension humming beneath the surface between them.
The tension was sexual in nature. Tina was absolutely certain about that. Even with her admittedly limited experience, she would have had to be utterly insensitive not to feel and understand the drawing power of the electrical currents of sensual magnetism.
In truth, Tina was not averse to the new and rather exciting sensations. She was still a bit surprised by the surge of feelings, but not nearly as startled by the onslaught as she had been that morning.
She was a female.
He was a male.
Animal attraction.
All very well in theory, Tina reasoned, acknowledging her cowardice in hesitating to join Eric in the living room. But, in light of her overreaction to that flesh-against-flesh moment, how did a relative novice go about learning the rules of the ritualistic mating game, while maintaining a modicum or, at the very least, a scrap of aplomb?
Not by cowering in the kitchen, she thought, ridiculing her timid self. Grow up, Tina. The time has come for one good woman to come to the aid of her latent sensuality. March in there and learn to be...if not bad, maybe a little naughty.
Moving before she could change her mind, Tina straightened her spine, squared her shoulders and strode from the kitchen. Midway through the dining room, she modified her stride to a graceful saunter.
Eric didn’t notice. At least he didn’t appear to notice. How could he, with his attention semingly riveted to the colorful comics pages? Stifling a sigh, Tina settled into the club chair placed on the other side of the window.
* * *
Eric felt her the instant she swayed into the room. The short hairs at the back of his neck quivered in recognition. The fingers that had so briefly curled around hers itched to repeat the experience. His mouth went dry, as it had at the table when she lowered her eyes, innocent seductiveness in the sweep of her lashes.
Innocent?
Lord, Eric hoped so.
Keeping his eyes fastened on the page he no longer saw, he absorbed the hot shivers of awareness arrowing to every nerve, ending in his rapidly hardening body.
Tina.
Her name swirled inside his mind like the sweetest symphony, arousing a deep, never-before-felt ache of yearning in his innermost being. An image of her formed, an alluring vision exact in detail.
This evening, Tina had allowed her hair to flow free. The honey blond mane swept her shoulders when she moved, an enticement to his fingers. She had dressed casually in a cotton knit pullover and a midcalf-length skirt. But there was nothing casual about the effect on his senses of the sweater softly clinging to the enticing upward curve of her breasts and the full skirt gently swirling around her delectable hips and legs when she moved.
Her soft brown eyes beguiled him; her sweetly sensuous mouth brought a groan to his lips. His breath lodged in a tight knot in his throat and his stomach muscles clenched each and every time he glanced at her.
Eric didn’t appreciate the feelings. They were too deep, too intense, way beyond a mere physical attraction. And that flat-out scared him.
Hell, when had he ever reacted with such inner disruption to the mere touch of his hand to a woman’s soft flesh? Eric didn’t need to struggle for an answer. It sprang into his mind full-blown, in boldface letters.
Never.
From experience, Eric knew he could cope with an indulgence of the senses, without losing sight of his mission at any one particular moment. But this...this stirring of the intellect and emotions along with the senses, the sensual, made him feel vulnerable, exposed, every moment.
By her very association with the prime suspects in this nasty business, Tina herself was suspect. And, his gut instinct and inclination aside, Eric knew that he was inviting disaster by becoming personally involved with her.
Somebody could get hurt; Eric was beginning to fear that he would be that somebody.
Therein lay his dilemma. How was he to resist the lure of her, when every living element inside him responded to the strength of the attraction drawing him to her?
He wanted Tina with every physical, emotional and intellectual particle of his being. And, for the first time in his professional life, Eric was afraid he was about to embark on a course of action counter to every principle he believed in and stood for.
If he had any common sense, Eric reflected, he’d bolt from Tina and her house until the question of her possible guilt or innocence was resolved. At the same instant, he acknowledged that he had no intention of either listening to or following the dictates of common sense.
He was here.
Tina was here.
Whatever would happen, would happen.
Giving a mental shrug, Eric raised his eyes from the paper to find Tina staring at him, her revealing expression a study of inner confusion, conflict, and unmistakable, extremely exciting, innocent sexual interest.
Innocent?
The question again stabbed into Eric’s mind.
Yes, dammit! Innocent, he stabbed back.
There was something...some quality, an aura almost virginal about her. Which, on reflection, considering the fact that she had been married, should have been laughable.
So why wasn’t he laughing?
The tension simmering between then crackled, seeming so palpable, Eric felt he could reach out and coil it around his hands, examine it with his eyes.
He smiled at the idea.
Tina returned his smile with an eager hesitancy that, while endearing, held the power to activate his hormones into a frenzy.
“Hi.” Eric was amazed at his ability to articulate the simple one-word greeting, considering his mental state and sudden shortness of breath.
“Hi.” Tina sounded as breathless as he felt.
“Kitchen duty finished?” Eric rejoiced at his accomplishment of producing three whole words in an entire and complete sentence.
“Yes.”
There was a tantalizing quality to Tina’s voice that sent shards of excitement piercing through Eric’s mind and to the depths of his taut body.
“Would you like to do something?” Her eyes were clear and guileless.
“What did you have in mind?” Eric’s smile was slow and seductive.
“A game?”
“Like what?”
“Monopoly?” she suggested.
Eric contained the laughter that tickled the back of his throat. “Uh...no.”
“Parcheesi?”
Afraid the building laughter would escape if he opened his mouth, Eric responded with a quick and decisive negative shake of his head.
Tina’s eyes sparkled with a suspicion-arousing gleam of inner amusement. “Boggle?”
Eric lost it. “Boggle?” he choked out before giving way to the eruption of uninhibited laughter.
Tina managed to maintain an indignant expression for all of fifteen seconds, and then her own throaty laughter pealed forth to mingle with his.
“Okay,” she said when their mutual bout of hilarity subsided
to an exchange of grins. “What, then?”
Squashing the urge to voice the desire that immediately sprang to mind, Eric swept the room with a quick glance, noting with a surge of satisfaction the stereo components on a table in one corner.
“How about some music?”
“Music?” Tina revealed her incomprehension with a blank frown. “Yes, of course, but—”
“If we shove the sofa back a little,” he interrupted her to explain, “we could clear enough space to dance.”
“Dance?” she echoed. “Here? Now?”
“Sure. Why not?” Eric said, prudently refraining from telling her the type of horizonal dancing he’d prefer to engage in with her, while consoling himself with the hope of at least holding her in his arms if she agreed to the vertical form of erotic exercise. “I’ve been wanting to dance with you since Friday night at the tavern.”
“But you never said a word about dancing,” Tina said, frowning. “Did you?”
“No.” Eric grimaced. “Hell, you could barely make your way through that mob, let alone dance.” He indicated the floor with a flick of his hand. “In comparison to that floor in the tavern, this is a veritable ballroom.” He gave her his most appealing smile. “What do you say?”
Tina hesitated, but only for a moment, and then she shrugged. “Well, all right. What kind of music would you like?” she asked, rising to walk to the stereo system.
The dirty-dancing kind, Eric answered to himself. “What have you got there?” he countered aloud, easing the footrest back into position against the chair, then getting up to attend to the business of moving the sofa.
“Well, I lean toward the classics,” she confessed in warning, almost apologetically.
“Do you have any Rod Stewart?” he asked, “Tonight’s the Night” in particular springing to mind.
“No.”
“Phil Collins?” Eric suggested, holding out hope for “One More Night”...or one night, actually.