Never Trust A Lady

Chapter 14

It was the last thing she’d ever wanted to say to him. She regretted the words the minute they were out of her mouth, but of course there was nothing she could do about it then. She knew all too well that words once spoken can never be taken back.

With a furious, choked-off sob, she turned her back on Tom’s stricken face and tried her best to erase from her heart and soul the memory of the pain she’d glimpsed in his eyes. And she waited, breath held and trembling, the way one waits after the lightning flash for the thunder.

What she heard instead in that tense and breathless silence was the faint rustle and crackle of paper. The click of a cigarette lighter. The softest of exhalations. And then at last she heard his footsteps scuff the vinyl-tile floor, moving away from her, toward the breakfast nook. Away, not closer. As of course she wanted him to do. Had all but asked him to do.

And still she felt a vast sense of loneliness and loss.

“Yeah, I still grieve for my wife and my son.” His voice was harsh in her friendly kitchen, so warm and fragrant with the homey smell of steaming soup. “I probably always will. I loved Jenny for twenty-two years, dammit-that’s almost half my life. Jason was my child-my only child. You don’t stop loving somebody just because they happen to die.”

“Of course not,” Jane whispered. She opened a drawer, took out an ashtray and stood for a moment holding it, keeping her back to him as she drew a courage-building breath. Why not? she thought. Why not? I have nothing else to lose. “But,” she said, her voice shaking, “does it mean you can’t love anyone else, ever again?”

He didn’t answer, and when she turned with the ashtray in her hands, she saw that he’d moved around the table so that it stood between them, like a barrier.

“I don’t know,” he said, and for a moment his eyes blazed at her with the brightness of pain. Then he shook his head and looked away, reaching blindly for the ashtray she’d placed on the table. “I know I loved my wife. I don’t know if I’ll ever love anyone else that way again. I know, well, hell, I haven’t exactly been a monk in the seven years since she died, but there hasn’t been anyone that even came close.” He pulled his gaze back to her then, as if it was a hard thing to do, and there was no escaping the anguish in his face, and the confusion, the longing, and…fear.

He’s afraid, she thought, suddenly understanding. Afraid of letting go.

“And where,” she softly asked, “does that leave me?”

She saw his jaw clench, and he punched the words through them. “Damned if I know!” He brought his fist down gently on the tabletop, but his knuckles were white and his voice rose, rocky with anger. “I don’t know what’s going on with me right now, if you want to know the truth. I know I like you, dammit. I like your company. I know I want you, and not just to have sex with, either, though God knows-and I think you do, too-that I do want that. I mean I want you around-to talk to, be with-and that’s not something I’ve said to anyone in seven years, let me tell you!” He glared at her as if both blaming and daring her to dispute him.

She stared back at him, eyes burning, her whole face aching with the need to relieve the tension with tears. But I can’t cry, she thought. It will make it so much worse. I won’t cry. She said nothing, and watched the anger and frustration in his face turn to bewilderment.

“But the thing is, ever since I met you, it seems like I keep being reminded of Jenny. Not…you, exactly-I mean, it’s not that you remind me of Jen. You’re nothing like her. Just…things. Little things. It’s like…you’ve brought her back to me, or something.” His red-rimmed eyes stabbed her accusingly. “Now every time I turn around, seems like I bump into a memory of Jen.”

“And is that such a bad thing?” Jane asked, her tongue thick with unshed tears.

“It’s hell.” Again he ground the words out through tightly clenched teeth. “Do you know how hard I’ve tried to forget? For seven years?”

“Maybe,” she ventured, hugging herself now, hoping he wouldn’t see or notice that she was shaking, “you aren’t supposed to forget. Maybe it’s time to remember…and then-” she caught a quick breath and whispered it “-say goodbye.”

There were moments of suspenseful silence. Then he uttered a surprised-sounding “Huh!” and unexpectedly smiled. It was the same little lopsided smile that had always struck her as being so poignant; now, at least, she thought she understood why.

“Funny,” he muttered as he stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, “someone else just said the same thing to me a couple of days ago…”

When he looked back at her, his eyes had softened and the smile was slipping. “Look, all I know is, I wanted to see you again. Needed to see you, actually. So-” he gave an offhand shrug she knew was only meant to hide his terrible vulnerability “-I guess that’s the answer to your question, why I’m here.”

But not the second question, thought Jane. What do you want with me?

Because we both know exactly what you can’t ever bring yourself to admit. Simply put: You need me.

She didn’t know which she wanted to do more-laugh or cry. If she’d thought David a master when it came to knowing how to push her buttons, then Tom Hawkins must be in a class by himself. He’d known her only a few days, and already he knew the one way to short-circuit her resolve, the one button she could never resist. He needs me.

But, her heart protested, what about me? I need too. I want. I deserve. Someone who loves…me.

Before she knew she was going to, she heard herself speaking softly, almost musingly. Leaning against the countertop with her arms folded across, and pressed hard against, the quivering ball of nerves that had taken the place of her stomach, she began to tell him about herself. And about David.

“I met my husband when I was just seventeen, Tom. I was in high school, a straight-A student, and I had so many dreams. David was very jealous, possessive and controlling, which I, of course, thought meant that he loved me. Because I was young, and didn’t know then that loving someone doesn’t mean putting them in a cage. It means giving them room to fly.”

Her voice cracked on the last word, and she had to look away quickly and wait until she was sure she had both her voice and her face under control again before she dared go on. All the while, Tom said nothing, but simply watched her, quietly smoking. He seemed to be waiting for her to continue, and after a while, in a low, husky murmur, she did.

“When I was nineteen, I found that I was pregnant. I’d just started college, but I dropped out, and we got married-familiar story, right? Especially in those days.” She smiled wryly, not quite meeting his eyes. “I must tell you that I didn’t look for ward to my wedding day and future life with joy and optimism. It was more like…resignation. I knew life with David would never be easy, but I believed I was doing the right thing.

“Anyway. Two weeks after the wedding, I had a miscarriage.” Tom exhaled audibly. “It was early in the pregnancy. The child wasn’t real to me,” she said gently. “I didn’t grieve for it. What I grieved for were my dreams, my…possibilities.” She took a deep breath. “But only for a little while. I told myself David was a good man, a hard worker, that he would love and provide for me, and I told myself that I loved him and it was up to me to make him a good wife and a happy home.

“And I did, dammit.” There was anger now, and she didn’t even try to hide it, to keep her voice from grating or one hand from curling into a fist. “For so many years I followed him dutifully from place to place, pouring all my energy into trying to be the perfect wife, the perfect mom, spending all my creativity to make our home lovely and serene. And David, well, to give him credit, he was indeed a good man, a hard worker, a good provider, and after Lynn and Tracy were born, a very good dad. What he never learned how to be was a partner, a friend, a mate…a husband.”

She paused, knowing she was getting more carried away than she’d planned, meaning to apologize to Tom for boring him with her life story when he was so obviously more in need of a listener than a lecture. But he’d pulled out a chair and seated himself at the table, and was gazing at her intently, listening to her, it seemed, with every cell in his body. So she gave him the apology in a shrug and a smile and continued.

“As the years went by, I realized that David not only didn’t love me, that in fact he probably isn’t capable of loving anyone. He only possesses people. He loves the girls, because to him they are extensions of himself. Me he cared about only in terms of what I provided for him-his home, his children, his meals. Sex. I was expected to do my job, like any good employee, while his function, like that of any good boss, was to delegate as much work and responsibility to me as possible, and in return provide me with a living wage. Period.”

“God,” said Tom under his breath, almost involuntarily.

Jane glanced at him and found that this time it was impossible to look away again. She said softly, “Little by little, I came to understand that I was very much alone. And that I was lonely. I decided that I had to do something, because if I didn’t, I was going to die of loneliness. I believe it, you know-that you can die of loneliness. You die inside, the part of you that really matters, a little at a time.”

“And so,” he murmured, not disagreeing, “you got a divorce.”

“No,” she said. “I took up dancing.” And she had to laugh at the look on his face. “It’s true. I signed up for dancing lessons. I meant it as a way for David and I to share something, to actually do something together for once. But he thought it was silly, said he was too busy and refused to go, and because I’d already spent the money, I went ahead anyway. It was pretty awful, at first. I hated the group lessons-as one of several unattached women, I always seemed to wind up dancing the man’s position-but the instructor was very good. So I signed up for private lessons.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said when Tom restlessly stirred, frowned and reached for his cigarettes. “It’s what David thought, too-that I was having an affair with my dance teacher. How trite, huh? And actually, I did adore Hans-”

“Hans?”

“He was Dutch, I think-maybe German. Probably gay, but so what? He was young and lithe and graceful and charming, but more to the point, he made me feel all those things. When I was on that dance floor with Hans, I felt…as if I could fly. As if I were a bird, just released from a cage, and I was soaring… and that there was no limit to the sky.”

She stopped on a high note that was too dangerously close to being a sob, and after a few restorative moments, gave a low chuckle and murmured, “Oh, boy, David was furious. He demanded that I quit. But…” She paused then, remembering, reliving the terrible sense of panic and futility she’d felt as she’d tried to make David understand. She felt it again now as she wondered how she could ever expect Tom, a man, to know what it felt like to be a woman and trapped by other people’s expectations.

Passion filled her chest with pain; once more she doubled her fingers into a fist and used it to press against the ache. “He might just as well have asked me to give up light. I mean, I felt as if I’d been living in the dark for so long, you know? And now someone had come along and turned on the light. And here was this man who supposedly loved me, and he was asking-telling-me I had to go back to the dark! I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. He didn’t understand. He kept saying, ‘How could you put a dance class above your marriage, for God’s sake?’ He didn’t know it wasn’t a dance class he was asking me to give up, it was life.”

“And so,” said Tom in a rough, quiet voice, exhaling smoke, “you got a divorce. Hell, I don’t blame you.”

“Not even then,” Jane said, relaxing slightly, but not quite believing he really understood. “Believe it or not. It never entered my head. All I wanted then was to do some of the things I’d always dreamed of doing, in spite of his disapproval. I enrolled in some college classes, for instance.” She gave a soft, derisive snort, and said the rest with a little smile on her face, knowing it would sound too angry, too bitter if she let all her pain and frustration show. “Well, when David found out he couldn’t control me any longer, he just withdrew from me completely. Punishing me, I suppose. Sex was the last thing to go, probably because that meant a certain amount of inconvenience for him, as well. Eventually, all I was getting from him was hostility and disapproval.”

“That’s no way to live,” Tom said in a voice so gravelly it almost hurt to hear it.

“No,” Jane agreed softly, “it isn’t. And I knew that. But it still took a couple more years of pain and fear and the most awful guilt before I was finally able to tell David I wanted out. It was on the eve of our twenty-first wedding anniversary. I think it was partly that-” she smiled a little “-partly the fact that I’d just turned forty. Maybe a little that Lynn was a senior in high school, and I knew she was going to be leaving home soon. Then in a few more years, Tracy…and I’d be truly alone.

“Anyway-” she drew a deep, shuddering breath “-I did it, and it was a hell I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, and I vowed that I would never, ever go through something like that again. I also vowed,” and finally she had to whisper, “that I wouldn’t let myself settle, ever again, for anything less than someone who would love me, cherish me…and give me the freedom to fly. It’s been five years, dammit, and I haven’t.” She paused to snatch an agonized breath before blurting out, “Do you think it’s too much to ask?”

Tom shook his head. There was a long silence while he scowled at the floor.

“And now,” she said gently, and his eyes came back to her, warily, still frowning, as if he knew what she was going to say, “you are asking me to give you…all these feelings I have for you.” As hard as it was, she gazed at him without wavering, letting him see everything that was in her heart at that moment, knowing how it must hurt him to acknowledge it. “You want me to give all that I have to give-because that’s the only way I know how. Tom. When I feel something, I give it all. And believe me, that’s a lot. And in return, you can give me… nothing?”

There was another long silence before he finally coughed and said in that voice that was as raw as tearing cloth, “Right now, yeah. That’s about the size of it.”

He stubbed out his cigarette clumsily, like a blind man, and got to his feet. His smile was as skewed and painful as she’d ever seen it when he looked at her and muttered, “I always have been pretty much of a sonuvabitch.”

He paused, then shook his head and added on a note of wonder, “That’s what made Jen such a miracle, I guess. A man can’t expect to get two such miracles in one lifetime.”

And she knew that he was leaving.

It was what she wanted, of course. It was what had to happen. It was the way things had to be-for her sake. For her well-being and happiness, for all that she’d promised herself, all that she’d dreamed. Tom, of the gentle hands, the thrilling kisses, the unthinkingly caring little gestures…Tom had nothing left of his heart to give her. He’d invested it all in a woman and a child and buried it with them when they died. And she was sorry for him. She ached for his loneliness and need. But she couldn’t sacrifice her need for his. She couldn’t.

Oh, God, she thought, please don’t let me do this.

He knew he had to leave. It wasn’t what he wanted. God knows… Hawk actually thought it might have been easier to leave behind one of his appendages-at least for that they gave you some kind of anesthesia.

This was almost as bad as losing Jen and Jason all over again. In a way, he felt as if he was reliving it, those terrible days after the bombing…the hospital…leaving Marseilles, returning to their house in Florence…walking away from it that last time. Feeling as if his whole body had been tied down with lead weights, as if he were swimming against a powerful undertow, and every move he made, even the smallest move, required a tremendous effort, all the strength in his body, all the power of his will.

How many times he’d railed against his own strength and will, wishing he could just give in, give up and let the undertow take him down. But he hadn’t. Something inside him had made him keep making that next stroke, taking that next step, waking up to face one more day. Doing what had to be done. Simply because it was the way things had to be.

That was what it felt like to him now. Like his whole body was lead, and it took all his strength just to move his arms, to pick up his jacket, put one foot in front of the other. But he did it because it was what had to be done. He had to leave Jane standing there looking at him with her rain-drenched eyes. Walk out of her house, get in his borrowed red Nissan and drive away and never, ever come back. Never see her again.

It wasn’t what he wanted. It was the way things had to be. For her sake, because what he wanted from her was something he couldn’t give her in return. And for his sake, because he knew she’d give it to him if he asked her, and he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he did.

He didn’t say goodbye. He didn’t trust himself to speak. He went outside into the March night, carrying his jacket in one hand, not even feeling the cold, feeling only numbness and a terrible sense of urgency. Because he knew that if he didn’t get to the car, get it started and get the hell away from Jane’s house as fast as he possibly could, he might still do the unforgivable. He could still walk back into her warm happy kitchen and take her in his arms and pull her warm, giving body against him and kiss her until she begged him to stay. He could do it.

Please, God, don’t let me do it.

He had the car started, the lights on and his seat belt fastened, and was just putting the car in gear when suddenly she was there at his window. Adrenaline hit him, and it was like running full tilt into a wall. She lifted a hand and knocked on the glass, but he could only stare at her, shocked and jangling like a malfunctioning fire alarm, all his impulses and responses hopelessly scrambled. Don’t do this. For the love of God, just drive away…

But she was opening the door, bending down to him, and he knew it was too late for that now.

“Jane,” he growled just as she was whispering, “Please, Tom. Come back inside.”

“For God’s sake, what are you doing?” Angrily, he threw the gear lever into Park. The heater came on and blew gusty, humid air against the windshield, fogging it.

“I’d like you to stay.”

He could only look at her, everything inside him vibrating like a badly timed engine. Her face was a pale blur in the artificial moonlight given off by the mercury vapor yard lamps. He saw that she was hugging herself in the loose, soft tunic, and from the sound of her voice, he knew that she was shivering.

He stared at her and didn’t know what to say or how to feel. A moment ago he’d been engaged in a tug-of-war with his own impulses, requiring every ounce of willpower he possessed to keep from doing what she was now asking-begging-him to do. And perversely, now that she was asking, it was both easier and harder to resist.

Finally, of all the emotions rattling around inside him at that moment, anger seemed safest, the one least likely to produce a boomerang effect. Because it was impossible, under any circumstances, to imagine Jane angry.

“You want me to stay?” he said harshly. “And all that stuff you just told me in there-what was that, a bunch of garbage?”

“I meant every word of it,” she said in her soft, serene way. “And I still want you to stay.”

“Why??”

Why? Because, Tom Hawkins, in looking back over the last few days, I’ve realized that the happiest I’ve ever been in my life was when I was with you. And that the most miserable I’ve ever been in my life, since I met you, was when I wasn’t with you. Bottom line? Under any circumstances, it seems I’m happier with you than without you. Go figure, huh?

“Because,” she said, bumpy with shivers of cold and fear. “I want you.”

He almost laughed, and was fully aware of how ironic it would be if he did. After all, she’d done the same thing to him-twice. He didn’t laugh, not out of any particular sense of chivalry or nobility, but because, even in the bad light, he could see the fear and vulnerability in her face. It had about the same effect on his anger that the Nissan’s defroster was having on the fogged-up windshield.

“You want me?” he said roughly. A pulse began to scrabble behind his belt buckle. “Hell, I want you, too-I told you that. That’s not what this is about, is it?”

She didn’t answer; her face appeared frozen, her eyes fathomless pools. He realized that he’d never wanted anything so much as to have her close to him at that moment, wrapped up in his arms, naked, legs entangled, breaths comingled, and to drive the chill from her body with the raging heat in his. It was like nothing he’d ever felt before, a wave of desire so intense it was like a sickness; his head swam with dizziness. Struggling with it was like fighting to remain conscious.

With thickened tongue, he said, “You were right, you know-what you said in there-you do deserve a whole lot more than I can give you. For right now, for sure. Maybe not ever. I don’t know. That’s the problem-I just don’t know. I can’t give you any promises.”

“I’m not asking for any.”

He drew a breath that sounded like a sigh and said under his breath, “What do you think I am? I’d have to be a real sonuvabitch, you know that? To stay…”

And it occurred to Jane for the first time that maybe she was the one who was being unfair, that maybe she was asking too much of him. She thought about stepping away from the car door, letting him go. But her body wouldn’t obey her.

“I should drive away right now,” he muttered, his scowl fierce and furious. “I should-”

I should let him go. Panic zapped through her like a current of electricity, weakening her knees. If I do, I’ll never see him again. Desperately, she clung to the door, wondering how she’d ever manage to stand if he drove away and left her there. Wondering how she’d survive if he did. And how would I stop him, she thought, if he’s determined to go? Shoot out his tires with my Roy Rogers cap pistol? I won’t beg-I won’t!

“Ah, dammit.” He lanced her with an accusing stare and growled, “You’re gonna freeze to death-either get in here or go back in the damn house!”

Instantly, as if he’d said a magic word, she let go of the door. He pulled it shut while she darted around the front of the Nissan, flitting like a moth through the headlights. A moment later the passenger-side door opened, letting in a rush of cold air and her sweet, familiar scent. She settled into the seat and the door slammed with a quiet thunk, and together they sat listening to the rush and growl of the heater, and their own uneven breathing.

“This is ridiculous,” Hawk muttered after a moment. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she agreed, breathless, “it’s much warmer in the house.”

He shook his head, laughing soundlessly, and looked sideways at her. Her presence, her being…her smell, her warmth, all that she was…swamped his senses. His stomach growled audibly.

“And, there’s soup,” she added pointedly.

“Carlysle,” he growled, “what in the hell am I gonna do with you?”

Neither of them spoke. There was no sound in the car, even the heater’s gale seemed to Hawk to have become part of the rush and surge of his own life forces; he could hear them echoing inside his head. And the answer to his question lay teetering between them like a live grenade…

Later, he wondered if it was something she’d done-the faintest of sounds, the most infinitesimal movement, perhaps-that triggered it. He couldn’t think how else to account for what happened-the sudden shift inside him, the almost audible click as if someone had thrown a switch, and a whole complex set of gears had settled smoothly into place. He had a vague awareness of changed rhythms and altered perspectives, a half-fearful sense that the changes might be both profound and permanent, and then he was reaching for her, his hand going like a homing missile to the back of her neck, and his fingers were pushing roughly through her hair as he pulled her to him.

This time there was no kidding himself that the kiss would be some kind of diversion, something fun to pass the time, a game. Before his lips had even touched hers he knew that this was going to compare with the frolic in the moving van about the way his Walther 9-millimeter compared to Jane’s Roy Rogers cap pistol. This was the real thing. Dangerous. Devastating. He knew that going in. What he wasn’t prepared for was the jolt. It was like getting hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. Like taking a slug in a bullet-proof vest, right over the heart.

I’d forgotten. Jane thought. Forgotten how good this feels. Forgotten? No…she wondered now if indeed she’d ever known.

She was sure she hadn’t known about the ache. About pleasure so intense, so exquisite, so poignant it hurt. Never, not even as a naive girl imagining herself wildly, heedlessly in love, had she known such sweet, unbearable joy. Her heart scrambled into her throat, squeezing from it a gasp that was instantly swallowed up in his mouth. She whimpered his name, and he took that, too, hungrily, greedily, as if he was famished, and could never, ever be filled.

Oh, but he was gentle, too…giving, but not forcing; taking, never demanding…almost, she thought, as if he were guiding her in the steps of a dance. The most beautiful, breathtakingly wonderful dance. A dance through heaven…and beyond. So this is what it feels like, she thought. Flying…

Her mouth tasted like a drug, a magic potion, pure sin…something with the power to make him forget completely how wrong it was, or that he’d ever tried to resist its spell. Now he could only think about how good it was, and how long it had been since he’d felt like this, and how could he manage to get even closer to her, preferably inside her, and how soon. His heart was pounding, trying to punch a way out of his chest; he had a fire raging in his belly and a volcano in his loins, and a thirst he couldn’t seem to quench. Whatever it was she had-potion, drug or sin-he thought he could have drowned in it and died happy.

It had to end, of course, because there simply wasn’t room for it to go anywhere. Though for a time, Hawk tried his best to ignore that fact. He filled his hands with her-her hair, her shoulders, her neck-even let them find their way under the loose tunic she wore to the smooth, soft skin and the unexpected fullness of breasts beneath, urging her closer…closer.

And she tried…oh, she tried. Her back arched, her rib cage lifted and her belly pulled taut with yearning. But it was no use. The force was irresistible, but there were too many immovable objects-a console and a cellular-phone box, for starters-between them.

Finally, with a gasp of pure frustration, Hawk pulled his mouth away from hers and skimmed it instead down the side of her throat to the hollow at its base. There he rested, while her pulse jerked against his lips and her fingers tangled in his hair, and tried to restore some kind of order to his thoughts.

Order? There was only one thought in his head. Where?

Okay, maybe two. The second being, How soon?

Working his way back up the cords of her neck, he found her mouth again, found it soft, pliant, unreasonably sensual. Discovering that he was now in extreme, and rather adolescent, discomfort, he was even considering the back seat, God help him, when she said, moving her lips tantalizingly over his, “What is it…about cars, anyway?”

Hawk had to either groan or laugh. He did both, and into her mouth murmured, “I think I’m too old for this.”

Her laughter was shaken and bumpy. “Well, I know I am.”

But her mouth was there, open and inviting beneath his. He sank into it one more time…and once more…and yet again.

“Tom.” It was high and frightened, almost a whimper.

But he was too far gone with passion now for tenderness. He kissed her again, ruthlessly, until her neck muscles let go and her head fell back against the seat, and he heard her give a helpless little moan of surrender. He pushed his hand under the tunic, found a nipple already hard and sensitized and rolled it between his thumb and fingertips until her breath shuddered and her body trembled.

He found her responses to him-her trembling, her whimpers, her helpless surrender-exciting beyond belief. A primitive thing, he knew-a dark and, to the best of his knowledge, heretofore unexplored part of himself, but irresistible as the call of a wild wolf to its mate.

Her chest rose and fell like a bellows. His wandering fingers brushed her soft belly and he exulted when it quivered and tightened beneath his touch. Deft as a surgeon, sure now of his goal and his purpose, he slipped his hand beneath the elastic of the leggings she wore, burrowed his fingers through the springy cushion of hair and took possession of the most intimate and closely guarded part of her. And with that claiming, knew that there would be no going back.

Without his urging, she shifted, and he drove his fingers deeper, parting her, searching for her body’s most sensitive places. With his own body he felt the jolt of desire that rocked her when he found it. He took her desperate cries into his own mouth, and forgetting where he was for the moment, tried again to turn, struggling to bring their bodies into still more intimate alignment.

The steering wheel punched him in the vicinity of a kidney. A groan, more of frustration than pain, rumbled through his chest and into his throat. As far as he could figure, there was only one way to avoid that damn steering wheel, and if he did that he didn’t even want to think about where the gearshift was going to hit him.

Defeated, he let his hand relax so that it cradled her gently and he could feel her pulse throb against his fingers. He withdrew from her mouth with a long sigh and diminishing kisses touched with reluctance and apology to her lips, her cheeks, her throat, her eyelids. Pulling away at last, he looked down into her dazed and fathomless eyes and said thickly, “This is a ploy, isn’t it-to get me back into the house.”

She made a small, almost comically polite, throat-clearing sound and murmured, “Not at all. There’s always the back seat.”

Hawk snorted. “I thought we agreed we’re too old for that sort of nonsense.”

Her voice was hushed and shaken. “It’s been a long time, but I think I can still remember how…”

“Yeah?” Something dark and primitive jolted through him; he didn’t like to be reminded that any man besides himself had ever touched her. Ridiculous, he told himself. She was married for twenty-one years-almost half her life, for God’s sake. She’s divorced, has two children. And you have no claim on her whatsoever. Absurd.

She’d been young, she’d told him, when she’d met her husband. Still in her teens. He wondered if she’d lost her virginity in the back seat of a car. His own, he remembered…

That was when it hit him. That from the moment Jane had materialized outside his car window, he hadn’t once thought of Jenny.

“Seems to me,” Jane was saying, “it’s doable, if you don’t mind a complete loss of dignity.”

Shocked and frightened laughter shuddered through him. “Since when,” he croaked, “is sex ever dignified?”

“Well, since you put it that way…”

And there was her mouth again, calling to him like Temptation itself, and her feminine pulse beating against his fingers like a captive bird’s wings, and it was easy to close down his mind and his memory again, and hard…so hard to remember why it was he had to stop this, even for the few moments it would take to find them a better place. Hard to remember he’d ever been a separate being, capable of existing on his own. Parting from her at that moment seemed like an amputation.

“One of us has to be sensible,” he said at last under his breath, not knowing even as he was doing it where he’d found the strength to lift his mouth from hers, or pull his hand from between her legs. “For God’s sake, let’s go in the house.”