* * *
Jack didn’t stop until they’d reached the garages; then he fished his car keys from his pocket and opened the door of the bright red Corvette. “Come on, let’s go for a ride. I can’t stay around here, thinking about Joey up there, talking to Ms. Peters.”
“Isn’t this...?” Keely asked him as he loaded her into the convertible.
“Yeah, it arrived this morning. Part of my payment for the commercial. Bring back any memories?”
“I don’t know,” Keely said, looking up at him. “Let’s see if you can make it to your side of the car without tripping over something.”
“Very funny,” Jack snapped, heading around the front of the car, not daring to try patting the hood or flipping the keys. He’d done that enough, unsuccessfully enough, to not want to try it again. “Where are we going?” he asked, once he was in the driver’s seat, his hands on the wheel.
“What do you mean, where are we going? You’re the one who put me in this car, remember?”
“True enough. Do you have the keys to your aunt’s apartment? We could go there. It seems more logical than just driving around, going nowhere. I’m going nowhere enough now as it is.”
“Well, I should probably pick up the mail, check for phone messages. And I think I’ll go crazy, too, if I have to stay here, knowing Ms. Peters is talking to Joey. Candy’s napping, and Petra’s here. All right. The key is on the ring with the van keys, and that’s probably still in the ignition,” Keely told him, and Jack was out of the car, heading for the van before she could finish.
He wanted out, he wanted out now. He couldn’t stick around here, knowing Joey was talking to Edith Peters, saying God only knew what. Besides, a million years ago, when Keely had come out to the pool, she’d said they had to talk. This place was about as private as Yankee Stadium on opening day. If they wanted to talk, they’d have to go somewhere else.
“Got ’em,” he said, closing the car door and putting the gear shift into reverse. “Let’s enjoy the ride, okay, and wait until we get to the shop. Then we’ll talk. You did say you wanted to talk, right?”
“Whatever,” Keely said, shrugging, and sat back, folded her arms over her chest, and was quiet as the proverbial tomb until they’d parked the car behind the shop and were heading up the stairs to the apartment.
Once inside, Jack headed for the couch and sat down, then buried his head in his hands. “God. This has got to be over soon. I can’t take much more of this, Keely, I really can’t. Edith Peters putting us all under a microscope, green feet, Joey’s stupid mouth, waiting for Cecily’s fax...”
Keely sat down beside him, put an arm around his shoulder. God, it felt good to have her sitting beside him.
“I know, Jack. We’re under a lot of pressure. I fell apart today, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have deserted you all like that—but when I saw Candy with those green feet... I wanted to murder Petra, which was stupid, because she’s marvelous with Candy.”
Jack lifted his head, turned to her. “No, you’re marvelous with Candy. Petra plays with her. You make sure she’s fed and changed and bathed. You sing to her, pat her to sleep, make sure she gets to the doctor. You do that, you cook, you take care of the house, you’re still decorating the house, and you make it all look easy. I don’t know how you do it.”
“Smoke and mirrors,” Keely told him with a wry smile. “I’m really scared out of my mind half the time. The other half I know I’m out of my mind.”
“You’re doing much better with Candy,” he told her, taking her hand. “You should see her little head pick up every time she hears your voice. She’s crazy about you.”
Keely looked at him, blinked, and then turned her head away.
“Hey, what did I say?” he asked, grabbing her shoulders, turning her back so he could see her face. See the tears in her eyes. “Keely, what’s wrong?”
“I love her so much,” she said, then pressed a hand to her mouth, obviously trying to compose herself. “How can I... what will I do when... oh, hell!” She jumped up from the couch and ran into the other room. Jack heard a door slam and figured it was probably the one to the bathroom. She’d be bound to choose a door with a lock on it.
He could follow her, stand outside the bathroom door. Listen to her cry. Call through the door that he loved her, wanted her with him for the rest of their lives, wanted them to raise Candy together, raise a whole bunch of kids together.
That would be cool. Not.
So he’d wait. Give her some time to collect herself, try to put some of this seesaw day behind her, all the up and down seesaw days they’d had since she’d first shown up on his doorstep looking like the salvation he’d prayed for as he’d tried to figure out what to do with Candy.
Because she did want to talk to him. She’d said so. Was it the cowardly way out to want to wait, listen to what she had to say, before he opened his big mouth and maybe made a fool out of himself?
And what was so bad about making a fool of himself? Asking her to make their fake engagement real? Taking that great big leap, asking her to give up her career in New York, stay with him, be a mother to Candy? Asking her to be his wife? His love?
Was he that unsure of himself? That unsure that Keely knew her own feelings, could separate her love for Candy from her love—please let it be love—for him?
Yup. He sure was, because he admittedly had some trouble separating his love for Candy from his love for Keely. They were a set, arriving in his life at the same time, taking over his house, taking over his heart. How could he separate one from the other? It would be like asking himself which of the two of them he loved more.
While he mentally beat himself up, Jack walked around the small, well-furnished living room, not really paying attention to what he was looking at, but only moving, because sitting still was impossible.
And then he saw the blinking light on the answering machine.
He looked toward the open doorway leading down the hallway. Looked at the blinking red light. Looked down the hallway once more.
Gregory?
Jack’s fingers touched the edge of the desk; then he slowly walked his hand toward the answering machine, tapped its plastic surface, dangled a finger over the PLAY button... took one last look down the hallway.
He hit PLAY.
“Hello, darling,” a woman’s voice chirped, and Jack fumbled with the slide on the side of the machine, lowering the volume. “I wish you’d picked up. I hate talking to machines. But this can’t wait. You’d better sit down, Keely, because I’ve got a surprise for you. I’m retiring. Yes,” the woman’s voice went on, now with a bit of girlish giggle in it, “it’s true. We’ve decided to move to Florida once we get home. Sand, sun, the ocean. It won’t be Greece, or even Paris, but oh, Keely, just the thought of dealing with one more housewife with all her taste in her mouth is just so defeating. And now the best surprise. I’m going to give you the shop. All yours, no strings. Oh, not that you’ll want it. You’ll want to sell it all, go back to Manhattan. I know you, I know how badly you want that. So, fine. Do it, with my blessing. Now, aren’t you glad I told you to sit down? Ah, Keely, I’m so happy. I only wish you could be this happy. Bye, darling”—another girlish giggle—“someone seems to want me. Darling, stop that! I was talking to—” Click. “End of messages.”
Jack hit the REWIND button, his mind whirling. Did he save the message? Erase it? Kill himself?
The message rewound, and the red light began blinking again, the message sitting there, ready for Keely to play it.
“Jack?”
He turned around, using his body to block the sight of the blinking message light. “You okay?” he asked as she slowly walked into the room, sat down on a small chair that looked too fragile to hold Candy.
“Yes, I’m all right. And I’m sorry,” she told him, folding her hands in her lap. “There’s just been so much... so much... well, there’s just been so much, you know? My business failing, coming back here, wanting the job furnishin
g your house so badly. Candy, you... Arizona.”
Jack winced. “Yeah. Arizona. That’s what you want to talk about, isn’t it? I thought so.”
“No, that’s not really—”
“Yes, it is, Keely,” he interrupted her, going over to her, taking her hands, pulling her to her feet. “You’re dying to talk about it. And what you want to say is that I disappointed the hell out of you.”
She had kept her head down, avoiding looking at him, but now she raised her head, looked at him with astonishment written all over her beautiful, expressive face. “What?”
“Don’t be kind, Keely,” he said, still holding on to her hands. “Bears have attacked with more grace. I can apologize, and I do, but I’ll never be able to tell you exactly what the hell happened out there.”
“We did get a little carried away,” Keely told him, her voice low, so that he had to bend his head to hear her. “But it was mutual. You didn’t do anything I... anything I didn’t want you to do.”
“You said it was proximity,” he reminded her quietly.
“Yes, I did, didn’t I?”
“We’re pretty... approximate now, aren’t we?” he asked her, stepping slightly closer to her, letting go of her hands, using one of his hands to tip up her chin.
Her smile was tremulous. “I don’t think that’s a proper use of the word.”
“Maybe not, but it’s close enough. We’re close enough. Can we try again? I really do want to try again, Keely.”
She pressed her lips together, wet them with the tip of her tongue.
But he held on, didn’t give in, even though that unconscious wetting of her lips had tipped his libido switch to ON with a vengeance. “Keely?”
“Shouldn’t... shouldn’t we be talking about Ms. Peters, and Joey, and... and strategy?”
“Should we?” he asked her, lightly rubbing her bare arms, watching the way her powder-blue sleeveless cotton sweater breathed with her, her chest rising and falling, rising and falling, driving him crazy.
“We... we should probably be talking about a lot of things,” she told him, even as her arms made their way around his neck.
“We only get into trouble that way, Keely,” he reminded her. “Maybe, just for now, it’s better this way.”
She closed her eyes, nodded.
He bent his head closer, kissed her. Softly. Gently. One kiss. Two kisses. Advance and retreat.
“I’m not made of crystal, Jack,” she said, tightening her arms around him.
“I know,” he breathed against her ear, sliding his hands low on her back. “You’re much too soft and warm. You don’t have any edges when I hold you, Keely. No brittle pieces.”
“No defenses,” Keely said, sighing as he kissed her throat, as she melted into his arms. “You leave me with no defenses.”
“Good,” he told her, bending his legs, slipping one arm beneath her knees as he lifted her. “Am I safe in asking you to tell me where to go?”
She buried her head against his chest “Down the hallway, then to your right,” she said, already pushing off her sandals, so that they dropped, one after the other, to the floor.
He stepped into her bedroom, vaguely registered pieces of dark furniture before his attention was caught by a huge four-poster bed covered with a blue-and-green-flowered quilt. “Fantasyland,” he muttered, waiting as Keely leaned half out of his arms to pull down the quilt. Several decorative pillows pulled down with it.
The bed was almost waist high, making it easy for him to transfer her from arms to bed, even easier for him to follow after her, his loafers left behind on the floor.
Sunlight dappled the bed, shot golden highlights into Keely’s hair as she lay there on the blue-and-green-flowered sheets, a perfect Sleeping Beauty he was about to awaken with his kiss. “God, Keely, you’re beautiful.”
He watched as a faint flush of color rose into her cheeks. “I... I thought we weren’t going to talk. You’re making me nervous, looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” he asked, pushing his hand under the hem of her sweater, pressing his palm against her flat midriff. “How am I looking at you, Keely?”
“I... I don’t know,” she answered, fresh tears glistening in her eyes. “Nobody’s ever looked at me like this before.”
“Nobody’s ever wanted you like this before,” he whispered, bending low, easing his side against hers, moving his lips over her cheeks, her throat. “Nobody in the world has ever wanted anyone the way I want you.”
“Oh, Jack...”
Oh, Jack. He loved the way she said his name. Loved the way she looked at him. Loved the way she felt as he moved his hand higher, cupped her left breast. Loved the way she closed her eyes, sighed.
He’d missed all of this, they’d both missed all of this, in their mad rush to put out the fire between them that had burned so hot in Arizona.
The fire was still there, but now there was more. He didn’t know what that more was, but there was something... something swelling deep inside him, washing over him in wave after wave, each higher, deeper, stronger than the last. More than lust, more than hunger, more than wanting, even more than needing.
His hand left her breast, slid around to her back, lifting her slightly as he brought his mouth to hers, as he slanted his lips against hers, as she opened to him, as he slid his tongue inside her. Exploring. Learning. Glorying in the way her arms came up and around his neck, how she melded against him, how the want and the need took second place to the cherish and the hold and the please God forever that he felt.
Clothing disappeared as the world disappeared, as everything except Keely disappeared. He kissed her breasts, captured her nipple in his mouth, cupped her, molded her.
Worshipped her.
Touching. Caressing. Learning.
She moaned softly when his hand slipped between her thighs, when he found her moist and ready for him. She pressed kisses against his chest, her head half lifted, as he probed her, let her move against his hand, felt her go very still when he found her point of greatest pleasure.
Slowly. He’d take this slowly. Bring her pleasure, bring her to pleasure, watch her eyes go dark as the pleasure built, as she went liquid in his arms.
But now she was touching him, gripping him intimately. Stroking him. Her touch light yet firm, her quick, nibbling kisses on his neck, the lobe of his ear, tightening a coil inside him, sending electric tingles through him, building his passion, building his need.
He moved his fingers. Keely went very still in his arms, her hips rising, her thighs spread wide, inviting him to every intimacy. She was his, open and giving, and he felt her body contract, heard the soft whimper that barely escaped her throat. She trusted. She allowed. She let him give.
He let her take... and take... and take.
And then she was moving again, rather desperately clasping at him, entwining her legs with his, pulling him closer to her, her rounded nails dragging across his back, not hard enough to hurt but with just enough pressure to guide him to her, cover her body with his own.
“I... I’ve never...” she breathed into his ear as he held her, let her hold him, as she slowly relaxed, even as her breathing remained quick, shallow.
Neither had he. He’d never wanted to give like that, taken such pleasure in the giving. It was almost enough.
Almost, but not quite.
Keely seemed to sense that and began touching him again, moving provocatively beneath him, sliding one hand between their bodies... finding him, guiding him...
“Wait,” he whispered, using the single part of his mind that retained even a hint of sanity. He groped on the bed with one hand, found his slacks, found the packet he’d carried with him since Arizona. In his heart of hearts, he must always have been an optimist, always believed he’d hold Keely again, please God be allowed to love her again.
And then he was with her again, in her again, deep inside her, moving inside her, moving with her, building toward a climax that terrified him with its prom
ised intensity.
He held her, as she had held him, his face buried in her neck. Trying to regain control of his breathing. Trying to locate the strength that had seeped out of his every muscle during their mutual release. Trying to tell himself that, no, he wasn’t going to cry.
But he could...