Jared bit his lip and forced himself to be still. "Take your top off, sweetheart."
She did as he asked, and he shuddered with desire as he watched her pull the pink T-shirt over her head, her full, ripe b.r.e.a.s.t.s thrusting up as she arched her back. The shirt cast over a chair and forgotten, she turned her gaze, dark and glazed with pa.s.sion, back to Jared. His breath caught in his throat as she began to move on him.
She moved slowly, all her attention focused on the special, warm, silken pocket nature had left her just for him, as he filled her. Her head rolled back, eyes closed, her dark lashes curving along the line of her cheek.
He braced his feet on the bed, dimly aware that he was still wearing his sneakers. He gritted his teeth, fighting the completion that rushed toward him. Reaching out, he caught Genna"s hand and drew it to the dewy valley where their bodies were joined. Her eyes flew open and she gasped his name as the explosion of fulfillment shook both her body and his.
"I love you, Genna," he whispered, pulling her down on top of him.
They lay in a happy, contented, exhausted tangle of limbs. Jared stroked a hand over the curve of Genna"s hip the way he might stroke a cat. He loved the feel of her, soft and smooth with just a little extra padding in all the right places. A smile of utter serenity graced his handsome features as he opened his eyes to gaze into Genna"s. They shared her pillow. It had a hand-embroidered pillowcase and smelled of potpourri and summer and Genna.
"You"re so beautiful," he whispered, too exhausted to do more.
She smiled like a pixy and giggled. "I"m not beautiful. I"m cute."
He found the strength to chuckle. "Adorable."
Snuggling her closer and pressing a kiss to her unruly mop of waves, he let his eyes take in the details of the loft bedroom. It was like Genna-not too big, but very feminine; an endearing mix of practicality and whimsy. Every piece of furniture looked like a flea market refugee, most if it repainted white and adorned with old patchwork pillows, porcelain figurines, and beribboned bouquets of dried flowers. He guessed this would be her hideaway, the place where she would come to read romance novels and fashion magazines, though she would probably never admit it.
So tied up in being sensible. He wondered if she had ever let herself be free of responsibility, childlike, footloose. Had Genna ever done anything just to be crazy? He doubted it. Probably since childhood she had worked her f.a.n.n.y off to be as unlike her father as possible. Jared imagined that admitting to being in love with him the way she had was the most reckless thing she"d ever done. It meant a lot to him. Practical, level-headed Genna confessing love for an ... individual ... like himself. And in front of a witness no less. He was, after all, the ant.i.thesis of her ideal man.
He was tempted to tell her how much it meant to him, how much she she meant to him, but he forced himself to hold back. Genna hadn"t wanted a relationship with him in the first place. He"d be a fool to push her now, when she was only just beginning to accept this very special magic that they shared. For Genna"s sake he would be patient. For Genna he would do just about anything. Jared grinned and stretched, feeling incredibly self-satisfied. meant to him, but he forced himself to hold back. Genna hadn"t wanted a relationship with him in the first place. He"d be a fool to push her now, when she was only just beginning to accept this very special magic that they shared. For Genna"s sake he would be patient. For Genna he would do just about anything. Jared grinned and stretched, feeling incredibly self-satisfied.
"Thank you for the flowers," Genna said, running her foot up and down his muscular calf. They had finally managed to get his jeans and shoes off. Lord, how she loved the feel of his body. He was so solid, and he was solid in more than the physical sense. A woman couldn"t ask for a better man, a better friend or lover. She was determined to enjoy every minute she had with him.
"You"re welcome. And thank you for helping."
"Did you get everything straightened out with Alyssa?"
"Mmm-hmm. We had a good talk last night. I think it"s all straightened out. I know I need to understand that she"s going to miss her mother. I guess I"m just touchy about it because I was always jealous of the time Elaine got to spend with her. Between that and this thing with Simone ..."
Genna reached up to run her fingertips down the taught plane of his cheek. She could feel a muscle working in his jaw. "Didn"t your lawyer say there"s nothing to worry about? You"re Alyssa"s natural father and, thanks to me," she teased, "well on your way to becoming a model citizen."
"I know, I know. There"s just ... something. I don"t know."
Just something. Genna didn"t tell him she felt it too. She shivered a little and made a show of pulling the sheet up over her bare shoulders.
"I just feel as though she"s got some kind of trick play up her sleeve, something my defense isn"t ready for." He patted Genna"s bottom and forced a grin. "Listen to me. Here I am, talking like a quarterback, and I don"t have to leave for training camp for another two weeks."
"That soon?" Genna cursed herself a jillion times for blurting that out. She didn"t want him to feel as if she were tying unwanted strings to their relationship. He was hers for the summer. He hadn"t indicated he wanted anything more serious than that, and she wouldn"t make the mistake of a.s.suming he did. Nor would she try pushing him into it. She"d done that once; she had the emotional scars to prove it. If loving him meant letting him go, then that was exactly what she"d do.
Misinterpreting her sudden stiffness for plain old embarra.s.sment, Jared chuckled. He tipped her chin up, giving her his teasing grin. "Genna, are you gonna miss me?"
She twisted a wry smile up at the corner of her mouth, but couldn"t quite meet his gaze. "Don"t flatter yourself, Hennessy."
"You"re a cruel woman, Genna Hastings." He laughed, rolling over so he was on his hands and knees, straddling her. "So, are you going dancing with me tonight, or what?"
"Dancing?" Genna asked, as if the concept were totally unknown to her. She couldn"t seem to tear her gaze or her mind off the ma.s.sive male form looming over her.
"Yeah, you know, cut the rug, trip the light fantastic. Dance. It"s a social activity."
"Oh. Dance," she said stupidly, her gaze feasting on the scenery of his thickset chest and tapering waist. His belly was flat and ridged with muscle, and a thin line of downy brown hair bisected it and ran in a widening path to a thicket of curls around his- "I"d love to, doll," he teased, not missing the trail her darkening eyes took, "but I don"t want to spoil you."
A vivid blush stained Genna"s cheeks. She shoved him off the bed with a strategically placed hand and sat up, reaching for her pink T-shirt. "You"re impossibly conceited."
Jared bounced to his feet, pulling on his underwear. "Might as well face it, babe," he said, amused, "you"re addicted."
Otis "Boo Boo" Paige took up the floor s.p.a.ce of a family of four. He made Jared look like a munchkin. He was the biggest, meanest-looking man Genna had ever laid eyes on. She did a strangulation number on her black satin clutch purse as she stood in Jared"s living room looking up-up-up at the man, her features frozen in an expression that was a mixture of cordiality and stark terror.
Jared introduced him as "the baddest offensive line man in the cosmos"-Genna a.s.sumed that was a compliment-then the men slapped hands, b.u.t.ted heads, and pretended to shoot each other with finger pistols.
Jared searched his cluttered rolltop desk for his car keys. Debris scattered this way and that. It looked to Genna as if someone had emptied a Hefty bag of crumpled papers onto the surface. How he ever found anything there was a miracle, she thought. Who knew what lurked under all that rubble. Someday he"d probably come across the Holy Grail.
"Boo Boo"s going to baby-sit Lyssa while we"re out," Jared said, still digging.
"Nnnn," Genna said through her teeth, raising her brows.
"I"m not a baby," Alyssa protested, swinging her legs over the edge of the desk chair.
Outlandish as the thought was, still Genna was tempted to suggest taking the little girl along, then Boo Boo smiled and his whole tough-guy image shattered. Suddenly he possessed all the deadly menace of a teddy bear. His eyes glowed a soft velvet brown. He had a s.p.a.ce between his two front teeth and talked with a slight lisp.
"It"s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Hastings." His voice was like cotton candy.
"Boo"s got his master"s in child development."
Why should that surprise me, Genna asked herself. She offered Boo Boo her hand and her smile. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Paige. Jared"s friends are always so full of surprises."
Otis laughed his understanding.
"Daddy, Genna"s got her new dress on," Alyssa said from her seat in the swivel chair. With a wink Jared swung her up in his arms, and nose to nose they sang a jazzy number about a woman in a fancy dress out for a night on the town.
Boo Boo shook his head. "The man is crazy."
"So I"ve noticed," Genna said with a grin.
Jared swung his daughter over to her babysitter, and she scrambled like a monkey onto Paige"s mountain-range shoulders.
"Be a good girl for Uncle Boo Boo, Lyss," Jared said, taking Genna by the elbow and steering her toward the door. "And don"t win all his pennies away from him."
"The lady plays a mean Go Fish," Boo Boo informed Genna.
They strolled arm in arm down the sidewalk toward Jared"s gleaming black Corvette. Around them the summer evening settled into a warm golden haze. Down the block Theron Ralston, in checkered Bermuda shorts and dress shoes, polished his yard jockey while Mrs. Ralston"s poodle slipped around the back side of the statue and lifted its leg.
"Did I tell you, Miss Hastings, that you look like Christmas and my birthday all wrapped up in a million bucks in that dress?"
Genna blushed.
That wicked Jack Nicholson grin slashed across his face as he corralled her between his arms and the car. "Why, Miss Hastings, one might a.s.sume you are unaccustomed to male praise."
"One might be correct," she said with syrupy sweetness. "But one needn"t look so smug."
"One can"t help it when one thinks of all the bozos that have missed the boat here." He touched a feather-light kiss to her lips, trying to be careful not to smudge her lipstick.
Genna reached a forefinger up to erase a telltale trace of red from his lower lip. He had the most incredibly sensuous mouth, she thought, tingles snaking up her arm and down to the tips of her toes. There was always a smile lurking around the corners of it, a smile that could be boyish, devilish, or all-out s.e.xy.
She looked up into his baby-blue eyes, loving every inch of him. This wasn"t the first time a man had taken her dancing, but no man had ever done it with such style.
Jared had promised her she would wear the elegant, extravagant purple taffeta dress, and so she was. She felt like a princess. She felt on-top-of-the-world beautiful, with a twinge of embarra.s.sed shyness. Couldn"t people tell by looking at her that she was more preppy than princess?
Jared shook his head as if he"d read her thoughts.
"Did I tell you, Mr. Hennessy, that you look incredibly dapper tonight?" she asked.
His shoulders just tested the seams of a dazzling white dinner jacket. The wing collar of his white shirt squared off the lines of his strong jaw. A neatly tied black bow tie resided above a row of shiny black studs that marched down his chest. Black Italian leather shoes, the cost of which probably made Genna"s car payment look like pin money, stood beneath a stylishly cut pair of black trousers.
Jared grinned. "You like me all dolled up, Teach?"
"Don"t let it go to your head, Hennessy."
"I could change into a T-shirt if this is too much for you. Someone just sent me one from Chowderhead"s Chowderhouse-"
"That"s okay," she said dryly, her hands smoothing down his lapels. "You know you had me believing you didn"t own a shirt with b.u.t.tons, much less a suit."
"No." He shook his head, sliding his arms around her waist. "You had yourself believing that, Miss Typecaster."
She smiled at his smile as he lowered his mouth toward hers. Suddenly a flashbulb exploded to Genna"s right, almost sending her on top of the Corvette.
"Heaven above, Amy! What are you trying to do, give us heart attacks?" Genna squealed.
"Did you get my good side?" Jared asked, mugging for the camera.
Amy grinned unrepentently and saluted them with her Instamatic camera. "Just capturing the moment, as they say. You kids have a good time now." She adjusted the small black bow in Genna"s hair.
"Yes, Mom," Genna droned, rolling her eyes. "Don"t wait up; some of us kids are going for sodas after the prom."
Genna wasn"t sure what she had been expecting when Jared had said they were going dancing. A modern, ultra-chic discotheque, she supposed. What she got was old-fashioned elegance with a capital E.
Copper Beeches was a turn-of-the-century mansion named for the trees that lined the drive. It had been built with a lavish hand by an early railroad baron who had wanted to make all his filthy rich Hartford neighbors pea green with envy. The family had died out in the forties, and the grand old house had been left more or less to its own devices until some enterprising businesswoman had bought it and turned it into a posh hotel.
The floors were polished marble and parquet, the walls covered with gilt-framed oil paintings, the tall windows hung with silks and velvets. The grand ballroom was something straight out of The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby. It was done in gold and white, and it had a dance floor that gleamed like gla.s.s. At one end of the room a tuxedoed orchestra played romantic songs from the twenties and thirties. Couples in elegant evening attire danced or sat at linen-draped tables sipping champagne from crystal flutes.
Genna was in a daze. She was sure her heels never touched the floor as Jared led her in on his arm, receiving respectful nods from the staff. She"d have sworn the champagne she drank was liquid stars, the music filling her head from some faraway dream. Until Jared pulled her into his arms on the dance floor, she didn"t quite believe any of it was real.
"Surprised?" he asked.
"Endlessly," Genna answered. It seemed she couldn"t resign herself to the fact that she would never know what to expect from this man. She was a person who had always needed control over her life. With Jared she felt as if she were on a galloping horse with no bridle; the ride was exhilarating, but a little frightening.
The gravel-edged rumble of s.e.xy male laughter sounded low in Jared"s throat. "You have to stop trying to pigeonhole me, princess. Just lean back and enjoy the ride."
"I would if I could just shake this feeling that any minute now the cook is going to come out and tell me I have to go wash the gla.s.ses," she quipped.
"Is that your own version of Cinderella?" Cinderella?"
"Yep. Gennarella Gennarella, I call it."
"Well, never fear, Gennarella, your devastatingly handsome prince isn"t about to let you out of his arms."
"Are you sure there"s room for me? That ego of yours takes up a lot of s.p.a.ce," she teased.
She could have danced all night. She could easily have spent the next eon or so in Jared"s arms, his body swaying smoothly with hers. The man took cheek-to-cheek literally and occasionally allowed his smooth, warm lips to make taste-testing forays down her cheek and along her jawline to her lips as they danced. He held her close, singing the old standards in her ear in his velvet-soft voice.
The only small damper on their evening came with the last song. A red-haired woman with enormous black eyes and a shimmering silver flapper dress took her place at the microphone and began singing a song about a woman whose love is leaving her and who doesn"t know what she"ll do after he"s gone.
The song went straight to Genna"s vulnerable heart. Jared was leaving for training camp in two weeks. Then it would be fall and the football season would start. What would become of their summer love? She burrowed closer to him. She swore to herself she wouldn"t push him for more than they already had. They had a good friendship, and she would content herself with that. Jared had told her he loved her, but she knew from experience how fickle a phrase that was when uttered by a man in the throes of pa.s.sion.
When the song ended, Jared tipped her head up and kissed her deeply, a kiss that offered a taste of heaven, one that she drank in to soothe her uncertain heart.
He lifted his mouth a few inches from hers. "If we didn"t have a baby-sitter waiting, I"d take you upstairs and we could make a perfect end to a perfect evening."
Visions of satin sheets and carved mahogany furnishings drifted through Genna"s head. Visions of the two of them naked on those sheets, with her in Jared"s powerful embrace and Jared telling her over and over how much he loved her and needed her-for all time, not just for the summer. She didn"t even recognize the desperation in her voice when she said, "Another time, maybe?"
He brushed a hand over her bouncy hair, his heart full of love for her as she stood against him and gazed up at him with her bottomless blue eyes so full of longing and something achingly close to sadness. Was she that afraid of a long-term relationship with him? How long was it going to take before he had her complete trust? He traced the outline of her softly parted lips with his forefinger and said, "Another time, definitely."
NINE.
JUST LIKE IN Cinderella Cinderella, the clock struck, and their fantasy evening was over. And it struck with a vengeance. Simone Harcourt was waiting for them in Jared"s living room.
Genna knew who the woman was before anyone said anything. As soon as they"d stepped in the door Jared had gone utterly still. Genna could feel the tension emanating from him. For one long moment the entire room was held frozen in a terrible sense of suspended animation as Jared and Simone stared at each other with hatred in their eyes.
Finally Otis rose from his chair and came toward them. "Hope you had a nice time," he said, moving toward the door. The implication was that if they hadn"t already had a good time, they weren"t going to start now. "Alyssa was a sweetheart, as always. She went to bed at eight-thirty, but I don"t believe she"s sleeping very well now." He shot a pointed look at Jared"s ex-sister-in-law before giving her a stiff bow. His voice frosted over as he said, "It was a pleasure meeting you, Ms. Harcourt."
The woman merely nodded.
Genna thought Simone was as lovely and cold as an ice sculpture. She sat on a beige wing chair with her back as straight as a post and her elegant hands folded on her lap. She was in her late thirties, Genna guessed, with neat short black hair and flawless makeup on patrician features. Her tailored tan business suit suggested an angular, slender body. The legs crossed beneath her pencil-thin skirt were long and graceful.
As soon as Boo Boo was out the door, Jared broke their staredown. "Simone," he said in a voice so cold it gave Genna the shivers. With a hand on the small of her back, Jared brought her farther into the room with him.
"I should have known you wouldn"t be here when I arrived," the woman said accusingly.
Jared"s eyes burned her with a baleful glare. "I"m supposed to feel guilty when you didn"t have the common courtesy to call and warn me you were coming?"
She looked away, knowing she was being unreasonable. It was to her advantage to put him on the defensive. "I see you"ve been out partying as usual. What cheap dives are you frequenting these days, Jared?"