Ain’t Misbehaving

Chapter Three

“Don’t give me that. Every guy knows that half the time when a girl says no, she means yes,” Jeff said disgustedly. “If a guy didn’t push it a little once in a while, he’d never get anywhere.”

A chorus of foot-stomping approval-entirely male-erupted from the back of the classroom. “I’m glad you said that,” Kay said cheerfully. “That myth has been kicked around for generations. It’s another way of saying that a girl just wants to be coaxed. Is that what you mean, guys?”

A half dozen “right ons” were pelted in her direction. Kay nodded as if pleased. The girls were staring at her as if she’d suddenly turned into Benedict Arnold. Hands were waving like flags of protest. Kay motioned them down; her attention, for the moment, was directed solely toward the males in the class.

“There’s just one problem with that,” she said regretfully. “When you coax people into doing something sexual that they’re not sure about, you’re in a position to hurt them very badly. Maybe in a way that will affect the rest of their lives.” She slid off the desk, aware that a few of the smiles in the back of the room were suddenly fading. In the silence that followed, she said softly, “Do you really want to be responsible for that? Jeff, can’t you understand what it’s like to be just plain scared?”

“Hey, wait a minute. You think a guy isn’t scared?”

“Very.” Kay agreed quietly. “Maybe more than most of you want to admit. Men often have a hard time acknowledging vulnerability, but that’s exactly why, when either partner says even a tentative no, the other partner must honor it. Now, let’s talk about some more of the sexual myths that get passed around. One of them is the notion that a girl means yes when she says no. Another is that a man can’t stop after he reaches a certain point. Now, what are some other myths?”

Mitch shifted in the open doorway, unseen, unnoticed. Kay played her class as if it were a symphony orchestra-a noisy clamor of basses, short silences, then the softer timbre of her voice making points that forced them to think.

Sex education had definitely changed since he was in school. At fifteen, he could well have been one of the boys in the back of the class-belligerent, wise-cracking, his jeans too tight, and just the first word on the subject of sex enough to raise his hormone level to the combustion point.

But in those days, sex education had consisted of the football coach belting out a few gruff words on the subject. And Coach had looked nothing like Kay.

She wore an open-weaved violet sweater, with sort of puffed sleeves and a rounded neckline. The clingy fabric skimmed gently over her slim figure, softly revealing the pert swell of her breasts. Her straight skirt, a plaid in muted jewel tones-violet and sapphire and topaz-not only hugged her hips but showed off her legs. And he’d been right about her hair. She did wear it simply brushed back, swirling around her shoulders whenever she moved.

Her skirt hiked up as she pinned two magazine photographs above the blackboard. “Sexual stereotypes in ads,” she announced. “One for makeup and the other for a motorcycle. You see dozens of ads every day, and each one tries to tell you what the Ideal Man or Ideal Woman in our culture is supposed to look like. Steven, do you think the girl in this ad is good-looking?”

“You better believe it,” hooted the boy from the back of the room. Two girls turned around to scowl at him.

“Is she sexy?” Kay asked.

There was a chorus of male agreement.

“She doesn’t have a single flaw,” Kay agreed. “Heck, she doesn’t even have a pore. The camera makes us believe she’s absolutely perfect. And the ad makes us believe that perfection is the goal for a woman. But it’s pretty easy to feel self-conscious, intimidated, even inadequate comparing oneself to that kind of role model. So…are these ads valid? Mark, answer a question for me. Is that your standard? When you feel attracted to a girl, is that what first appeals to you-how close to a perfect beauty she is?”

Finally, to Kay’s relief, they began to talk about their sexual feelings. For a while, she thought the boys in the back of the room were going to do nothing but smirk and wisecrack. For eleventh graders, some of them were remarkably immature.

It was her last class of the day, and she was glad when the bell rang. “Hold it one more second,” she ordered. “On Monday, I want you each to bring me pictures from magazines or newspapers that tell us more about sexual roles in our-” she spotted Mitch in the doorway, and gulped in shock “-society. Be prepared to talk about what you think is sensible in those roles, and what you think is unimportant, illogical or unfair.”

The class, dismissed, headed toward the open door with the collective grace of a charging bull. For a minute, Mitch’s face was lost in the shuffle. Maybe she had only imagined he was there? She hadn’t heard from him since the previous Saturday and hadn’t expected to; they hadn’t even exchanged last names.

But when the kids cleared out, he was definitely there, leaning against the doorway, an old brown leather jacket slung over one shoulder and a brown-corded leg shoved forward as he waited for her. She felt a flush climbing her cheeks as she hurriedly retrieved her books and papers.

“I’ve gone through more trouble than you know to find you, Kay Lucretia Sanders.” His voice boomed out in the empty room.

She grabbed her coat with a sudden smile. “I can understand how you might have learned my last name, and even how you tracked me to this school. But not how you uncovered Lucretia. That middle name’s been buried for years.” Her eyes flashed impish glints. “You must be a very determined man,” she said solemnly. “Either that, or unbelievably nosy. Did you enjoy the lesson?”

“I wanted to come in and sit on the kid in the back row, but I controlled myself.”

She chuckled, switching out the light as they left the room. “Jeff will come around one of these days. Compassion and patience work a great deal better than stem reprimands, at least for my subject.”

“Maybe, but sitting on him would have been a great deal more satisfying.”

She chuckled, sliding him a sideways glance as they headed for the back door of the school. The kids in the hall-particularly the girls-were giving him plenty of eye attention. He didn’t seem aware of it. As he held open the glass door, his expression was inscrutable.

“I had in mind spiriting you away,” he said casually.

“Did you?”

“You undoubtedly have something planned for later, since it’s a Friday night. But I was thinking that maybe for an hour or two…”

“Sounds fine,” she said gently. A gentle voice seemed to be called for. She could see Mitch was uncomfortable. The word shy flitted through her head, as it had once before, yet it seemed so impossible. Neither his looks nor his manner nor anything else about him gave him any reason to suffer from shyness. “I haven’t been kidnapped in a long time,” she remarked.

“Then there’s something wrong with the men in this town.”

And with the women, she thought, if this delectable man was actually at loose ends on a Friday night. Outside, they were instantly assaulted by a burst of wind. Clouds were bunching together in low, swirling masses, blocking a sun that had already started its downward descent.

“Your car?” he asked suddenly.

She shook her head. “I almost always walk.” Since Moscow was built on hills, walking made for excellent exercise, at least until the snows hit. “Where are we going, anyway?”

He cleared his throat. “Tell you in a minute.” As soon as he figured it out himself. He’d spent the entire week just finding her, this lady who seemed to have entered his soul like sunlight. He’d simply wanted to see her one more time, see if she was as real as he’d remembered, only somehow he’d never gotten around to worrying about what to do with her then. And maybe he’d expected to find her talking to a class about reproductive functions in some academic way, not happily chattering about sexual intimacy in front of a roomful of teenagers.

Damn it, he’d faced death-more than once. He’d shaken hands with courage, and he had no doubts about himself whatsoever in terms of strength of character or fortitude…but he hadn’t figured on a lovesick attraction for a woman who spoke about sex as if it were toothpaste. Normal, average stuff. For her.

Sliding into the seat beside him, Kay tossed her books in the back of the car as Mitch started the engine. She resisted an urge to brush back that single shock of white hair that had fallen over his forehead. He was so quiet! She had the feeling Mitch took life far too seriously-maybe he had had to.

At the first stop sign, he tossed a sudden, lazy smile her way. “How do you feel about climbing fire towers?” he asked gravely.

Normally, just the word climb was enough to set off a phobic reaction in Kay. But she took another look at Mitch. His eyes, settled on hers, were like polished stones still warm from the sun, and she found herself catching her breath. “That sounds like an occasion for a bottle of wine,” she responded, just as gravely.

“You can put me down anytime, you know. Really. What’s a pair of shoes? And the ground isn’t that damp.”

Kay glanced back; she wasn’t sure why. It had something to do with her skirt hiking up around her waist as Mitch carried her piggyback. Still, there was no one around to sneak a peek at her blue-and-white polka-dot underpants.

It was one of those Robert Frost woods. Lovely, dark and deep. Also nearly impenetrable. Regardless, it smelled marvelous, like clean winter wind and pungent bark and rich, dark earth. A few leaves still clung to the trees, just enough so the wind could whistle through them in exotic, ghostlike murmurs.

She was having a wonderful time. When they’d first stepped out of the car, Mitch had looked first at the thick brush tangling the forest floor, and then at her attractive leather shoes. “Would you believe this has changed more than a little since I was a kid?” he’d said wryly. “Could we start over? Pretend I never came up with the idea of walking to the tower. I’ll take you out for a drink, and if you have time we’ll go out to dinner.”

That struck Kay as a terrible idea. Every instinct told her that being surrounded by people would do nothing to loosen up Mitch. So she’d convinced him that they just had to climb that fire tower of his today. In the process, he’d tried to maintain that quiet reserve of his, but how long could a man stay formal while carrying a woman on his back? And as she’d suspected from the beginning, he had an irrepressible sense of humor.

“You’re getting heavy,” Mitch complained.

“You’re not even breathing hard,” she pointed out.

“Give me a chance. We’re not even near a mattress.”

She blinked, staring in delighted surprise at his dark, wavy hair. That remark was definitely risqué. He was really warming up. And she was determined to get some full-blooded laughter out of him if it killed her.

Her arms were curled loosely around his neck. A bottle of wine and some plastic cups in a brown bag were snuggled between his back and her chest, inside Mitch’s jacket. His forearms had a firm grip on her thighs, and she had the delightful sensation of being carried off like pirate’s booty into the middle of absolutely nowhere. Piggyback wasn’t a romantic position, but it was certainly suggestive, though her fanny was taking most of the cold wind. If she’d worn a full skirt today, she could have pulled off a somewhat more modest posture, but heck, a little end justified the means.

“Where’d the white streak in your hair come from?” she asked conversationally. Her finger stroked that half-inch-wide streak of crisp hair; she’d been wanting to touch it from the first minute she’d seen it. “Genetic thing in your family?”

“No, I earned it carrying two-ton women around in my youth.”

He was the stingiest man with a secret she’d ever met. “Do I have to tell you one more time that I could have walked?”

“And had your feet soaked and your shoes wrecked from the brush. Down.”

She slid, rather unglamorously, down his back to the ground and was given a second and a half to restore her skirt to propriety before he turned around.

“I should have peeked at what my hands were holding all this time,” he remarked.

“After all your grousing, you should be so lucky. Why-” But she could see why they’d stopped. It only looked like the middle of nowhere. Half hidden in dead vines was a metal ladder leading up to the planked floor of the fire tower. In the dusky woods, it hadn’t been immediately visible. She studied the lower steps first, and then her eyes slowly trailed up, and up again.

“It’s rather a long distance to the top,” she commented.

“About three stories’ worth.”

“That platform up there doesn’t look solid.”

“It’s very solid.”

“People can get shortness of breath if they go too high.”

“You’re scared of heights.” Mitch sounded resigned.

“Certainly not,” she assured him, and gulped. “You first.”

“No way.”

A latent burst of propriety made her remind him politely that she was wearing a skirt.

“I already noticed. And I’ve already had my hands on your fanny, so it’s too late to worry about modesty. If you fall, you’ve got a cushion. Me. So it’s ladies first. I won’t look.”

Which was fine, only she hadn’t taken ten steps up before he remarked on her terrific legs, the stinker. Actually, from his position Kay knew he couldn’t really see her legs. From the instant she’d lied about her acrophobia, he’d flanked her every move. His long arms stretched above hers and he made mischievously sure his body was surrounding her with every step. No wonder she was dizzy. It had nothing to do with soaring above the trees…but those steps did keep coming.

She glanced back to look at him. His grin was wicked, his eyes were dancing and his cheeks were ruddy. She had a feeling he hadn’t done anything quite so crazy in years, which was enough of an incentive to drive her up the rest of the way. So her heart was beating in her throat and the vertigo was making her head spin. So?

“So this is your fire tower,” she breathed at the last step.

“Honey, stop clutching the ladder like a lifeline,” he said mildly. “Just step up onto the platform. Honestly, you’ll be safe.”

“It doesn’t have sides,” she observed.

“There are at least eight square feet of solid floor up there, and I’ll be your sides.” His palm, most possessively, patted her rear end encouragingly.

She crawled up onto the platform, pride never having been her strong point. The view, truthfully, was spectacular. Misted mountains climbed to the north and west, with a sterling-silver ball of a moon just rising over them. Beyond the woods, rolling wheat fields sprawled to the south and east, like a blanket stretched out in soft velvet folds. The stars were out, even though it wasn’t pitch-dark yet, and they were so close she felt she could touch them. As it happened, all she wanted to do was grab Mitch’s jacket.

Her fingers clutched, and she heard his soft chuckle. “We can go right back down, you little liar. If I’d had any idea you were this scared of heights-”

“I’m not,” she insisted, and added demurely, “Where exactly is that wine we were carrying? I could use some Dutch courage.”

“Coming. I zipped the bottle up inside my jacket.” Without releasing his firm grip on her wrist, Mitch sat in the center of the wooden floor, tugging Kay into the space between his thighs. She didn’t argue. With both arms around her, he managed to wrestle the wine from the bag and to get the cork out with a pocketknife corkscrew.

“You’re a regular Boy Scout,” she remarked.

“You can stop shaking anytime. There is no possible way I would let you fall.”

Ignorant man. She was terrified of falling, but for the moment she was tingling simply from the feel of his thighs tucked around hers. His body was big, powerfully constructed and unbelievably warm. That heat was in direct contrast to the coolness of his wind-chilled cheek as he leaned forward to pour the Beaujolais into two plastic cups.

Kay relaxed, feeling tucked up and enfolded like a gift-wrapped present. His touch was casual, meant to warm and reassure, not to turn her on. It was delightful to meet a man who didn’t spend all his time negotiating his way into bed. He actually showed old-fashioned symptoms of feeling pleasure just at being with her, no strings attached.

Relaxed or not, Kay felt as though all the blood had drained from her head and settled lower…somewhere near where his thighs touched hers. Wanton fantasies were singing in her bloodstream, and the lyrics were “You’d be so nice to come home to…” She accepted a cup of wine with laudable calm. “You’ve been here before?” she questioned.

“As a kid. It obviously hasn’t been used in ages, but fifteen years ago the tower was always manned during dry summers. In fall and winter, it was deserted, making a terrific place to go just to…think.”

“Nonsense.” She took a sip of wine, loving the feel of the warm liquid soothing her throat.

“Pardon?”

“Don’t give me that ‘think’ stuff. You were a teenager when you came here. So you had a girl with you. And that’s why you came here. For the privacy.”

There was silence behind her, and then his palm brushed her hair to one side. Very straight, very white teeth took an unexpected but gentle nip out of the nape of her neck. “Nancy White,” he murmured.

“Ah-ha!” Kay said triumphantly.

“Her father was a minister. Nancy was so darned willing…and her father was so darned mean,” Mitch said morosely. “Darned near got me kicked out of school.”

“How old did you say you were?”

“Fifteen.”

“And you never got past first base?”

“Second,” he corrected immediately.

Kay chuckled.

“I didn’t always come here with a girl,” he insisted. His voice turned quiet, pensive. “It was one of the few private places I knew.”

“And beautiful,” she said softly. With her head resting in the curve of his shoulder, she was perfectly content. “I love it, Mitch. This is a thousand times better than going out for a drink and dinner.”

“Pardon?”

“Come on, Mitch. We’re both of an age. Just being with someone is the best way to get acquainted. The traditional date is a terrible way to get to know someone. It’s always the same old thing. You dress up and act stiff and talk about what school you went to and whether you like shellfish.”

Mitch choked on a swallow of wine.

Kay grinned. “Don’t you agree with me? The man’s always had it the hardest. Getting up the courage to ask for a date, then laying out the cash for a meal and wine, and finally having to worry about timing the first kiss. Unless you’ve been happily attached for a long time, you have to be sick of that routine. Admit it.”

She tilted her head back and caught a peculiar expression on Mitch’s face. “It can get boring,” he agreed.

“And how can a fire tower ever be boring?” she added contentedly.

“Particularly when the lady plans to stay up here for the next four years rather than risk the climb down.”

“Let’s not get sarcastic.”

He chuckled, and Kay loved the sound. Mitch sent her protective messages, whether he knew it or not. Never mind that at times he could suddenly turn reserved, and never mind that his lightest touch sent exciting ideas tumbling through her head. He sent out definite vibrations that told her just being with her was precious to him, and not that his sole interest was in bedding her.

“Do you have to be back at a certain time?” he asked.

“Not till nine-thirty. Poker,” she murmured irritably.

“Poker,” he echoed.

“The guys come over to play poker most Friday nights. Usually, they like five at the table, particularly when one of the group remembers to buy napkins and potato chips. As in the sole feminine participant. Me.”

“You like the game.”

“Generally, I beat the pants off them,” she admitted.

“And just who are…the guys?”

He folded his arms around her ribs and she snuggled back, setting down her wine, aware of his slight stiffening but assuming it was due to his change of position.

“Stix is one. He’s sort of a big brother-my first date way back when, but that never went far. He’s called Stix because he’s tall and skinny.”

“I guessed that.”

“John works for the health department.”

“You also dated him.”

She shrugged. “For a few months. Actually, Barker…”

Mitch didn’t want to know. She was comfortable with men; he already knew that. She was comfortable talking about sex; he already knew that, too. And undoubtedly she ended her affairs amicably, because she would have started them with honesty and terminated them that way as well. That was fine. Commendable.

But he had a sudden image of her, flushed with laughter, her hair disheveled and her lips parted, surrounded by a houseful of men who’d known her far too well…

“Hey,” she murmured.

He had tucked his long arm under her knees and swung her around into his lap. “You know, I like to play poker,” he said quietly. “In fact, as a kid, I could bluff as well as a Las Vegas hustler.”

She stiffened at the first pressure of his lips on hers, not in rejection but in surprise. She hadn’t minded hearing about his Nancy White; it was years before. And she hadn’t hesitated to mention her poker game; the men were friends, not ex-lovers. Actually, she’d tried to tell him subtly that it wasn’t a date that took up her Friday nights.

All the same, jealousy was in that first pressure of his mouth on hers. It wasn’t merely a kiss; it was also a claim.

When she closed her eyes, colors seemed to splash on her closed eyelids. The vibrant red of a summer sunset, the pale yellow of the early morning sun, the silky blue of a mountain lake. Between her coat and his were folds of material preventing intimacy. All she could really feel was the pressure of his lips, so warm, so precious.

The afternoon hadn’t been what she’d expected. His showing up, the woods, his fire tower… Maybe it was all a little crazy, but from the first time she’d met him she’d felt odd vibrations. Mitch wasn’t an average man.

Oddly, she felt a little afraid of him. Of the powerful feelings he induced in her, so fast, so unexpectedly. She also had a great faith in her judgment as a woman. Every instinct told her this was a man she could trust when all the chips were down. And there weren’t many such men running around.

Her mouth gave back tit for tat. With fingers spread, she slowly touched his jacket and climbed up to the collar, finally to the warm skin of his neck. With that touch of her fingertip to his skin, the kiss changed; his mouth turned soft and sensitive.

His tongue swirled, probing her parted teeth, then stole inside, suddenly tentative. Her tongue touched his, welcoming gently.

The wind nipped at both of them; darkness surrounded them like a hush. When his arms tightened around her, she slipped her hands inside his jacket, wanting to touch this man as she’d never really wanted to touch another. He was so…different. Kisses…darn it, at twenty-seven, she’d had dozens of kisses. The men she dated used kisses as preludes to the next step, but Mitch didn’t use a kiss at all. He savored it.

Her lips felt loved, stroked by his own. He tasted and tested and kept coming back for more. There was a smile between the two of them, when they both ran out of breath like teenagers. There was a smile, and then it vanished, because Mitch’s lips clearly hadn’t yet had enough.

Her legs curled up, and her fingers splayed in his thick hair as she exulted in his quick intake of air. As he supported her head with one hand, his other hand reached for the buttons of her coat. His breath fanned her throat as he managed the first button, then the second.

His lips nuzzled at the flesh he’d uncovered, above her sweater. He rubbed his cheek against her soft skin, and when his lips crushed hers again his hands were suddenly in a terrible, almost awkward rush to loosen the last buttons. She almost smiled, but couldn’t.

Her breasts ached inside her sweater. She’d waited years to feel the caress of those big hands. No one had ever touched her the way she knew Mitch was going to. Loving had always come as naturally to her as breathing, from expressions of simple affection when she was a child to demonstrations of sexual feeling for the two men who had been special in her adult life. In between, there had always been levels of physical contact that had felt right at the time to her judgment.

With Mitch, there wasn’t a judgment but an emotion. Everything and anything was right. It had to be. He tasted so sweet, her suddenly not-so-shy man. So hungry! His whole body was tense with urgency, his heart beating with it, his hand trembling with it. Yet it wasn’t the rough kisses that swayed her, but the gentle ones. The ones where he slowed down and made sure she knew the exquisite taste and texture of his mouth and his skin, the scent of him, the pleasure in her that shone in his eyes.

His loving promised a giving so intense, a potential for sharing so infinite that she really no longer cared if they were better than a hundred feet above the ground on a cold night on a hard platform without a cushion in sight. Her body surged toward his when she felt his hand slide beneath her coat.

His fingers rested just below her breasts, just below soft white flesh that swelled, waiting. All he had to do was move his hand an inch. His fingers roamed over her ribs, making her murmur with wanting.

The side of his thumb edged half an inch. Her nipples stiffened and heated up like hot pebbles, shamelessly pouting for him. He lifted his hand…

Mitch took one last nibble at her bottom lip and then drew back, clutching the lapel of her coat as he closed it. His breath was rasping in his lungs as though he’d just sucked in fire. “Your men,” he said raggedly.

“Pardon?”

“You have a poker game.”

“Do I?”

“Yes.” And if she thought he was going to leave her at the door to a group of other men, she was sadly mistaken.

Maybe he had a latent streak of masochism, but he needed to at least see his competition.