"Well, then," he suddenly announced with conviction. "I guess I"ll just have to prove it to you myself!"
Maryanne threw her head back and laughed. Game, set and match! she thought, admiring how he"d handled it. But when she recovered, she looked him over doubtfully, one eyebrow raised high. "You?" she asked. But she was only teasing him, and they both knew it.
"Sure, why not?" he replied with a casual air. "I always say, if you want something done right you have to do it yourself."
"So who"s the lucky girl?" she now wanted to know.
"Ooh." He tried to look a little put out. But he recovered quickly. "You realize the only way you"re ever going to know for sure whether or not I"m proving you wrong is if you"re right there, seeing it for yourself."
"Mmm." Now it was Maryanne"s turn to consider. "I guess that seems fair." But truthfully, aside from this bantering, which was engaging and fun in and of itself, she really had no idea if he was serious about it. Was this just a line to get her home for the night? Probably. But what did it matter? If it was just a line, it was certainly one of the more original ones she"d encountered.
Just then, the waiter came to offer them dessert.
"You"ve barely touched your food," Dan observed. "Was everything all right?"
"It was fine," Maryanne told him. "I just wasn"t very hungry."
He looked at her suspiciously for a moment, but didn"t say anything more. But she knew what he was thinking. People accused her all the time of being anorexic. But she loved her body the way it was.
As they left the restaurant together, she was suddenly filled with that jittery excitement that comes with a new romance.
"How about a little dancing?" Dan suggested. "Would you be into that?"
Maryanne smiled. "I would."
She was not, however, a confident dancer, and she was pleased when Dan seemed content to slow-dance. Being close to him and having all of his warm, undivided attention directed at her as he led her across the floor acted like a cathartic for her libido. She felt ready and even eager for a more intimate embrace. But he appeared to be in no hurry and she, too, felt remarkably at ease and relaxed. Before she even realized it, they had danced and talked and laughed the night away.
She was surprised when he drove her back to the restaurant.
"Where did you say you were parked?" he asked.
"Oh! Uh, let me see." She had fully expected him to want to take her home, or at least somewhere private. She was so taken aback by his casual manner that she momentarily forgot where her car was. She glanced at him, confused. She knew she had given him all the right signals. She was certain he was attracted to her. What on earth was going on? "It"s that street over there. Yeah, that one. And it"s the black car, a few blocks down." She was completely flummoxed, and not a little disappointed.
"I had a wonderful time," Dan told her, and she noticed that there was surprise in his voice. She wondered if he had felt some of the same misgivings about their date that she had.
"Me, too," she said, blushing when it came out sounding like an accusation.
Dan chuckled knowingly. "Believe me," he said with emphasis, "I would love nothing more..."
Maryanne stared at him, surprised that he had read her mind.
"Oh!" she said again. It was disconcerting-albeit refreshing-to be confronted with such honesty.
He parked behind her car and shut off his engine. "If I"m gonna get around this whole male instinct thing and prove you wrong, I"m going to need a strategy," he told her. "My plan is to let the antic.i.p.ation build for a while, you know, kind of work my way up to s.e.x. I actually believe in the old adage that the harder you work for something the more you appreciate it."
She stared at him, stunned. "Are you serious?" It was hard to tell because he was grinning at her.
"Sure. Kind of. Yes!" He opened his car door and got out. She didn"t even reach for her handle, knowing him well enough already to realize he was coming around to open her door for her. He even took her hand and helped her out of his car. But once she was outside, he blocked her from going anywhere. "Of course there"s another part to my strategy, too," he admitted.
"Oh? And what might that be?" she asked, a little breathless.
"Well, I figure if I kiss you-and I"m not talking about a tight-lipped little prim-and-proper good-night kiss here, but a full-fledged, no-holds-barred, French, Italian and Portuguese all in one, make-out kiss-it"ll help build my antic.i.p.ation and keep me on pins and needles until the next time I see you."
"Portuguese?"
"Don"t question me," he said, gently cupping her face in his hands.
She was still laughing when his lips touched hers, brushing them ever so lightly at first, but the laughter suddenly died in her throat, because he really did kiss her then, just like he said, with a full-fledged, no-holds-barred, French, Italian and Portuguese all in one, granddaddy of a kiss. She clung to his shoulders for support. His strong arms held her up as his hands moved possessively over her back and hips. His lips and tongue seemed to be consuming her. When he finally pulled away, she stared up at him in surprise.
And later, as Maryanne tossed and turned in her bed into the next morning, she wondered if it was for himself or her that he was building antic.i.p.ation.
Whatever Dan"s intention, they were both eager to see each other again after that, and they made plans for the following night and then the night after that. It went on like this for several weeks. They spent more time together than Maryanne had ever spent with a man, and yet they had still not become intimate-at least not in the truest sense. Dan always refused to take her home. Sometimes he would even go so far as to please her right there in his car, when what started out as one of his good-night kisses ended with her trembling in absolute pleasure after he somehow managed to get beneath her clothing and find just the right places to touch her.
"But I want to please you, too," she"d say, really meaning it, and not just offering herself because she felt that she ought to because he"d pleased her.
"Not yet," he"d tell her. "I want you know how much I appreciate you. I want you to believe it."
And she did. By the time he finally took her home for their first real night together, she was utterly convinced that she had somehow breached the ordinary parameters of relationships as she had come to know them and discovered something truly different and exceptional.
Dan had shown the ultimate self-control up to this point, but when at last she presented herself to him in a little silk negligee she picked out especially for the occasion, he finally lost control. With a strangled groan of anguish he embraced her, moving his hands all over her, trying to touch her everywhere at once and, in his enthusiasm, tearing the delicate fabric.
Maryanne laughed delightedly. She was filled with feminine arousal. She had never in her life felt more desirable, and she knew that because she felt so l.u.s.ty and desirable, she was.
"G.o.d, how I"ve wanted you," he moaned. He suddenly picked her up, holding her close in his warmth as he carried her to the bed. She could not wait to feel him inside her.
They made love their first time in a kind of frenzy, with Dan holding back for as long as he was able, trembling violently with his effort. He came to her in the ordinary missionary position, but there was nothing ordinary in the way he held her, cradling her shoulders and head in his strong arms, and gazing down into her eyes in between bouts of pa.s.sionate kisses. He had that wonderful feel and smell of a clean-shaven man, and Maryanne wrapped her limbs around him in eager delight. A kind of aggressive pa.s.sion welled up in her, and she dug her fingernails into his back. This seemed to push Dan over the edge, and his thrusts began to quicken with his impending release. But suddenly he stopped short, holding himself very still to recover his control, and shaking violently with the effort. Maryanne looked up at him in wonder and he smiled into her eyes.
"Almost lost it there," he groaned. "You"ve got me in knots."
"Go ahead if you want!" she encouraged.
"No. You first."
And once again she was reminded of how much she meant to him, and her own arousal soared to be so valued and so desired. She kissed him with all the pa.s.sion she felt. He moved with her, a.s.sisting her, maintaining control and using his hands and lips and everything else he could think of to please her. When she finally cried out with her release, he lost the last bit of his control, crying out with her.
Afterward he was not quick to release her, but held her quite close, remaining firmly embedded in her as he spoke in a low, intimate voice. "You"re an amazing woman," he told her, and his eyes seemed to be trying to communicate something more to her as his gaze burned into her.
It was not long before they were both aroused all over again, and this time he had no difficulty prolonging their lovemaking, switching positions numerous times before Maryanne found herself being taken the way she liked best, on her hands and knees. With this she went wild, flinging her hips outward toward Dan in a most enticing erotic dance. Her sudden abandon roused him beyond what she had seen thus far, and she was once again struck with her own femininity and allure. She felt exceedingly sensual. All her inhibitions melted away, and she audaciously continued her dance until the pleasure finally became too much for her and a thousand little sensations exploded within her. Meanwhile, Dan paused to allow her to achieve the full spectrum of her release.
Maryanne smoldered in the aftermath for a few moments. But then, craving a more intimate embrace, she lifted her body up against him, so that she was on her knees and leaning back on Dan"s chest. He immediately acclimated to this new position, wrapping his arms around her body to offer support while lunging upward into her body. He moved his hands over her, squeezing her nipples with one while gently stimulating her c.l.i.toris with the other. Filled to overflowing with tender affection, Maryanne reached her lithe arms behind her to reciprocate the embrace, gliding her long, manicured nails up and down along his firm backside. Every now and then she would dig her nails into his flesh-just hard enough to stimulate but not to hurt-egging him on as he tirelessly thrust up into her. The l.u.s.t was consuming her yet again, and she nimbly turned her upper body toward him suddenly, clutching his face in her hands almost violently so that she could kiss him. A kind of euphoric aggression reared up in her with her sudden awareness of her feminine power, but the soft, warm contentment that she was blanketed in overruled all.
"Why do you never eat?" Dan asked her later.
"I eat!" she replied.
"I haven"t ever seen you eat," he countered. "And you"re so thin." She was quiet, so he carefully maneuvered himself to look at her face without disturbing her much. "I"m not trying to stick my nose where it doesn"t belong, or fix you or anything like that," he said. "I just want to make sure you"re okay. And to let you know that I understand if you ever need a friend."
"You understand?" she asked curiously. There were myriad things she normally said when someone brought the subject up, but at the moment she was too weakened by the intense lovemaking to get sufficiently worked up to a defensive status.
"My sister is anorexic," he told her. "She"s a beautiful woman and I can"t stand that she suffers so much simply because she doesn"t know it."
Maryanne stared at him, speechless.
Dan kissed her lips tenderly, holding her face in his hands. "I would hate it just as much if you didn"t know how beautiful you are."
She smiled. "You certainly know how to make a girl feel beautiful," she admitted. And it was true. Maryanne suddenly felt like a G.o.ddess with a body as supple and sensual as a cat"s. In the days that followed, she basked in the glow of being one with another and having it mean everything to him. She raced to see Dan at the end of each day, longing once again for that intense pleasure of being accepted and adored and desired. Within a week, she was struck with the astounding realization that she was in love.
When it first occurred to her, Maryanne was alarmed. What about all her philosophies about love? What about the conclusions she had reached about relationships over her lifetime?
But she told herself that this time was different. She could clearly see, even in this incredibly short period of time in which she had known him, that Dan was different than any other man she had known before. He had already exceeded everyone else in her heart.
She had no choice but to try, she told herself. She must find the courage to see it through.
And already, she harbored secret little fantasies and dreams of their life together. They kept growing and building deep within her mind and heart. Her long, lonely past was behind her. A life with Dan was in front of her.
A month had pa.s.sed since the night she first met Dan, discouraged and stressed and apathetic. She had hardly put her best foot forward that night, but he had looked past everything else and discovered something special in her. And unlike any other man she had ever known, he had proven himself to her. Tonight she would show him how much she appreciated him. Tonight she would prove herself to him.
Maryanne trembled with antic.i.p.ation as she went about her day. She took the day off work so that she could accomplish all that she planned. She began with an arduous trip to the salon and, by the time she left, there was not so much as an inch of her body that had not been buffed, waxed, filed, exfoliated, styled or in some other way enhanced. She could hardly afford it, but all that she had to do was picture Dan"s face and suddenly she knew that it was money well spent. Besides, she could tell by the way she was tingling inwardly that she had to be positively glowing outwardly. She couldn"t wait to see Dan"s expression when he saw her.
But then, having gone to so much trouble and expense already, she felt that she ought to have something fabulous to wear, both in and out of the bedroom. After all, with this being the anniversary of their first month together, it was important that she show Dan that she was willing to make the effort to please him.
The day flew by in a haze of antic.i.p.ation at the prospect of delighting a loved one. Everything was a success. Maryanne not only found the perfect dress to complement her slender figure but it just happened to be in Dan"s favorite color. Suddenly feeling a bit naughty and bold, she followed this purchase up with stockings and a garter belt. She would wear that-and nothing else-under her dress. She debated with herself over whether she should tell him what she was wearing ahead of time or let him discover it when he undressed her. She could imagine teasing him with it at the restaurant. But then again, the surprise when he discovered it himself would be memorable as well. She tried to make up her mind as she headed home to put on her makeup. Glancing at the clock, she realized with a start that she was actually running late.
They had agreed to meet at the same restaurant where they first met in person. Maryanne felt a strange sense of deja vu as she rushed through the streets to get to the restaurant. Once again, parking had been impossible.
But none of that mattered when at last she reached the restaurant, cheeks flushed and a brilliant smile on her face. She felt such keen excitement that the mere sight of Dan, sitting in the same spot where she had seen him for the firs time, caused her heart to flutter unnaturally and her breath to catch in her throat. But when he turned to face her, the smile died on her lips.
"What"s wrong?" she whispered breathlessly.
"Not a thing, now that you"re here," he replied with his usual, good-natured manner. But before Maryanne could even accept or reject this, he stood up and turned toward the hostess without having given her more than a cursory glance. "Here she is," he said to the woman apologetically. "I really appreciate you holding the table."
And with that Maryanne was suddenly being ushered along behind the hostess, with a little nudge from Dan to the small of her back. She felt trapped between the two of them and suddenly terribly claustrophobic. In the back of her mind, she had a premonition of something tragic about to occur but she ignored it, turning her mind angrily to the moment instead, and thinking that she didn"t really care whether or not the hostess had to hold the table. That was what hostesses were paid to do, after all. Why must Maryanne be flung around like a rag doll, without even so much as the courtesy of a greeting just to make life easier for the restaurant staff?
Maryanne kept walking but she turned her head toward Dan as she went, prepared to toss a flip remark along these lines in his direction. But the remark instantly died in her throat. She saw that his eyes were glued on someone else, and she knew without even following his gaze who it was that had captured his interest. It was a woman that she had barely noticed a moment before, except perhaps in that way women do tend to notice other women. She suddenly remembered her in vivid detail. She could almost visualize each and every feature at the same moment that Dan was seeing it, just by watching his eyes move up and down over the woman with keen interest.
And then Dan"s eyes met Maryanne"s.
They arrived at their table. The woman in question had pa.s.sed by and was gone. Maryanne fumbled with her chair and clumsily seated herself. She felt awkward and ridiculous. She dug her nails into her palms and tried her best to appear nonchalant.
She noticed with another wave of humiliation that Dan"s eyes were full of remorse.
"I"m sorry," he said solemnly. Maryanne merely looked at him with a confused expression, as if she had no idea what he could possibly be sorry for. Her lips were formed into a small, humorless smile. She wanted to brush the matter aside but she didn"t trust herself to speak. "Look, I know that you"re upset. You saw me looking at that woman, right? I"m sorry. It was like...I didn"t even realize I was doing it until I saw your face."
"You have nothing to be sorry for," she told him, praying he would drop the subject. But she could hear that her voice held that tone; the tone was a dead giveaway that there was something to be sorry for. She tilted her head to hide her face and pretended to examine the menu. Above all, she desperately hoped that he wouldn"t humiliate her further by patronizing her with some perfunctory compliment. She far preferred him to continue to not notice her at all. She tried to think of something to say to change the subject.
"You look beautiful tonight," he said, immobilizing her in horror. Every word he uttered drove her further away from him. "You"re the most beautiful woman in the room."
"I worked late so I didn"t even have time to change," she lied. "I almost didn"t show up at all, so you see your compliments only make you appear less sincere." She definitely didn"t want him thinking she had gone to any trouble.
"Well, what I mean is that you look beautiful without having to lift a finger."
She was in turmoil, but the smile remained stubbornly fixed on her lips. Inwardly she was comparing this night with their first date, when he had been indulgent over her tardiness and took note of every detail about her with keen interest. But this was really no surprise, she reminded herself. Hadn"t she predicted this very outcome that first night?
"You"re thinking that this is a sign that I am beginning to do the guy thing and lose interest in you."
"What I was thinking was that I wish you would change the subject."
"You see!" he exclaimed. "That"s what I mean. If this didn"t really upset you, your eyes would be flashing with excitement right now while you pointed out how right you were."
Maryanne was momentarily taken aback. He was perfectly right. And she was impressed with him all over again in spite of what had happened. She sighed. It was so disconcerting to know that as she grew more attracted to him, he would only grow less attracted to her. The waitress came and they ordered drinks.
Maryanne was becoming more composed.
"Okay," she conceded, pulling her thoughts together. "Although I am hardly upset, as you suggest, I will admit that I was thinking that the disenchantment has already begun. Just as I predicted that it would. Just as I knew it would. I never for an instant believed it would be otherwise. So why should I be surprised or upset?"
"All because I looked at another woman?"
She shrugged. "That and other things."
He looked at her sideways, confused. "Other things?"
She was careful to phrase her words so that she didn"t give her true feelings away. She would discuss it with him-she found that she was intrigued by the prospect of doing so-but she would never let him see how much he had hurt her. She could never let him know that she"d been fooled by him, even for a single moment. That would be the worst thing she could do.
"When I met you here tonight, every detail of our meeting was precisely the same as it was the first time, right down to how late I was." Except that I worked ten times harder to impress you tonight, she added to herself. "I planned it that way so that I could compare how you behaved tonight with how you behaved back then. Suffice it to say, you were more considerate, attentive, and much more intrigued with me when I was a stranger. So yes, I would say that it"s already starting."
He stared at her, momentarily speechless. In the meantime, their drinks arrived. He sipped his thoughtfully.
"Maybe this...thing that happens with guys isn"t what you think. Maybe it seems one way to you, but that"s not the way it really is. I know, for example, that I have been thinking about you nonstop all day. Every minute that I waited for you in the front of this restaurant tonight was pure agony. My feelings for you are stronger than a month ago, so the only thing I can think is that somehow my behavior is not showing you how I really feel."
"That may be true," she said. "But what does it matter? I"m not a mind reader, so your behavior, not what you"re thinking, is what has an effect on me." She suddenly remembered the way his eyes had moved over the woman earlier. It was precisely how they had traveled over her the first time he saw her. And now, for all of her efforts that day, he had yet to really look at her.
"Well, I"ll just have to be more aware of it and try harder," he said. He took another sip from his drink. But he was suddenly anxious. "Will you allow me that-the chance to become a better man?"
She felt a tug at her heartstrings in spite of her unhappiness. Yet she couldn"t help wondering why men clung so tenaciously to women when their instincts were telling them to let go. And she couldn"t help being irritated with him, either. Why was he so intent on selling her something he had no ability to deliver? This could have been so much more fun if he had just allowed her to remain indifferent. But he had to push her for more and now she had stupidly allowed herself to fall for him. She found his disenchantment utterly despicable. And the worst part was, her disenchantment was the one thing that had the power to intrigue him all over again!
She was once again struck by the utter hopelessness of relationships.
She couldn"t bring herself to answer his question either way, but luckily the waitress came by at that moment to take their order. For dinner, she ordered another martini.
With Dan once again the attentive pursuer, his eyes seemed to open suddenly and he really looked at Maryanne for the first time that night.
"If this is how you dress for work," he observed thoughtfully, "I think you should switch to a career in modeling."
She downed the rest of her martini in a single gulp and shrugged. "What, you think I look good tonight?" She said this as if it were the most absurd thing she had ever heard.
Dan laughed. "Yeah, I think you look good. Too good." He picked up her hand and carefully examined her perfectly manicured pink fingernails. "Mmm," he remarked thoughtfully. "I don"t think they"re working you hard enough over there."
"Well, you know how it is," she countered nonchalantly. His playful mood was catching. "Some of us make it look easier than others."