Hoodwinked (7 page)

“Well…I'll see you Monday,” she began, reluctant to say good-night.

“Why not tomorrow?” he asked, pressing his advantage. Just to make sure he could keep tabs on her, he assured himself—not because he wanted to be with her. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Just to church.”

“Do you mind some company?”

She shouldn't have been shocked, but she was. He didn't, somehow, seem like a churchgoing man.

Her expression made him smile. “You're right,” he confessed. “I haven't been inside a church in a long time. But it will be a change of pace for me. What faith are you?”

“Episcopal,” she said.

He nodded. “I was brought up a Presbyterian, but Protestant is still Protestant. What time do we leave?”

“I go at ten-thirty. That gives me time to walk. It's only just down the street,” she said, aglow with excitement.

“Suits me.” He studied her in the light from her apartment, because she'd opened the door and was standing in the doorway. “Are you in a flaming rush to get in there?” He nodded, indicating her apartment.

“No…”

“Then why don't you come here and let me kiss you?” he asked, surprising himself, because he hadn't meant to say that. She had a body that delighted him, and he'd been staring on and off at her soft, pretty mouth all night. He was curious about her experience,
or lack of it. She'd said she was innocent. He wanted to see if she really was.

She felt electric tremors running down her spine. “K-kiss me?” she asked.

“It's the usual custom, I believe,” he murmured, moving closer. He slid a big hand around her waist and pulled her against him. “Or did you mean what you said that day—that I was too old for you?” he added, his eyes narrow and curious.

She could barely stand up, she was trembling so. “I didn't mean it,” she said, her voice unsteady. “I was trying to convince you that I wasn't chasing you.”

“You aren't the type to chase men,” he said quietly. His hands slid around her and held her gently while his head bent toward hers.

“I know,” she babbled. His breath was warm on her lips and she was almost delirious with nervous anticipation. “I've never been confident enough!”

“Shh,” he whispered against her lips. His mouth brushed them, very gently. He didn't rush her. He was slow and tender, and he did nothing to frighten her. After a minute, he felt some of the tension go out of her body. Her hands were against the front of his shirt, and he felt their quick, jerky movement.

He lifted his head to look into her wide, bright eyes. That nervousness wasn't faked, he'd have bet his life on it. She was even a little frightened of him. “You don't know how, do you?” he asked.

“N-no,” she confessed miserably.

“It's all right,” he said, and smiled faintly as he bent his head again. “I'll teach you what you need to know, Maureen,” he bit off against her mouth.

The words went through her with a shock of pleasure. She felt his mouth biting gently at hers in
slow, brief, provocative movements. His hands slid down to her hips and began to draw her against him and then put her away, in a motion that aroused her beyond belief. His experience was evident, and so was her lack of it.

“Jake,” she whispered, her tone soft with fear.

“Give in to it,” he whispered back. “You're safe. I won't do anything to hurt you or frighten you. Give me back the kiss, Maureen. Open your mouth a little and lift it against mine. Yes, little one, like that…Harder this time…harder!”

She felt the fierce crush of his mouth with awed pleasure. He tasted of coffee and smoke, and his lips were devastatingly expert. Her arms went under his and around him; her hands savored the taut muscles of his broad shoulders. She clung to him, her body trembling with a kind of pleasure that terrified her while his hard mouth took everything it wanted from hers.

When he lifted his head, her lips followed his, but he held her by the arms and stood looking down at her with an expression she couldn't decipher.

“You're trembling,” he said quietly.

“I…nobody ever…ever kissed me that way,” she stammered, embarrassed by her own lack of experience.

His eyes darkened. He couldn't have imagined even a week ago that there was a woman in the country who hadn't had at least one lover. He was astonished to discover that it mattered to him that Maureen hadn't. He moved his big hands slowly between her rib cage and her waist, enjoyed the softness of her body, the feel of her trembling hands against his shirt. Work was the last thing in his mind
as he looked at her. She wasn't the only one that hard kiss had affected.

“I won't take advantage of it,” he said, his voice very deep in the stillness. “You please me,” he added huskily, brushing his mouth gently over her forehead. “You please me very much.”

She sighed and nestled close. “I must seem terribly ignorant,” she whispered. “I'm sorry.”

He linked his hands behind her and swung her lightly from side to side. “Why are you sorry?” he asked. “Hasn't it occurred to you that innocence can be very exciting to a man?”

She grimaced. “Not to the few men I ever went out with. They thought I was a hopeless case.”

“Their loss. My gain.” He said it lightly, but his deep voice was like shades of velvet.

She looked up, her eyes sliding quietly over the broad face with its deep-set dark eyes, its imposing nose and square chin. It was a very masculine face, full of authority and strength. Somehow he didn't look like a mechanic, she thought dreamily.

“Have you always been a mechanic?” she asked absently.

He looked and felt briefly uncomfortable, and his hands stilled on her waist. “No. Not always.” He let her go. “You'd better get some sleep. I'll see you in the morning.”

“All right.” He seemed suddenly remote, and she wondered what she'd done to cause that reaction.

He lit a cigarette, pausing on the sidewalk to look back at her. “Do you cook breakfast or eat cereal?” he asked unexpectedly.

She hesitated. “I make biscuits and eggs and sausages, usually. Do you cook?”

He shook his head and smiled ruefully. “I'm living on stale cereal.”

“You could have breakfast with me,” she volunteered in a rush, forcing the words out.

One dark eyebrow lifted with gentle amusement. “Could I?”

“There's always plenty. Bagwell doesn't eat much,” she said, laughing.

“What time?”

She'd been holding her breath. Now she let it out, feeling as if she were floating. “Nine.”

He nodded. “See you then.”

She watched him go, her eyes eloquent. It wasn't a dream. It was real. She couldn't have imagined even a week ago that her worst enemy would become her friend. But it seemed to be happening, all the same. She wouldn't let herself think about what he could be. Spying was beginning to lose its thrill already. Now she was going to go through agonies worrying about him.

She was up at six the next morning, just to make sure she didn't burn the biscuits. She baked them up fluffy and light, and fried both sausages and bacon, just in case, and had to restrain herself from making the eggs much too early.

But even as she stood in the kitchen in her long blue, men's pajama top, barefoot, with her long hair around her shoulders, deliberating, there was a light tap on the back door.

Trembling with anticipation, she pulled the curtain aside and looked out. It was him, dressed in an older but still trendy gray suit, with the jacket looped carelessly over one finger, in a white shirt and a tie. She wondered idly why he hadn't worn the very
expensive suit she'd seen him in just days before. Could he possibly know that she was suspicious of him, and was he, therefore, trying to alleviate her suspicions?

She opened the door without thinking and blushed when his eyes went automatically to her long, tanned legs and back up to the deep cleft between her full breasts.

“I…I haven't got a robe,” she stammered, embarrassed.

His eyes moved up to hers, dark and steady. “You have a beautiful body,” he said quietly. “It's respectably covered and I'm not a lecher.”

“Oh, I didn't mean it like that,” she said miserably. “It's just…”

He came in and closed the door, tossed his jacket onto a chair and moved toward her without ever taking his dark eyes from her face. She almost backed away, but his hands came up to her face, framing it.

“There's no need to run from me,” he said quietly, searching her wide green eyes. “I'll never hurt you.”

“I'm not afraid of you.”

He bent, smiling, and put his hard mouth gently against hers, holding the soft kiss until she relaxed and he felt her hesitant movement toward him. Heady with her shy submission, he let his big hands move to her waist and gently brought her against him. It was fiercely arousing to feel her breasts against his chest through the thinness of his shirt and her pajama top; to know that she was nude under it.

“Come closer,” he whispered into her parted lips. “Put your arms around me.”

“I'm not…dressed,” she moaned, trying to be sane.

“God, I know!” he bit off. His hands flattened on her shoulder blades, pulling, so that he could feel her breasts crush softly against his stomach because he was so much taller than she was. The feel of them made him groan.

“What?” she whispered, pulling back to look up into his dark, glittering eyes. “Did I do something wrong?”

He set his teeth, holding back the words. She wasn't like the women he'd known. He couldn't tell her that he was so aroused he felt like pushing her down on the couch and ravishing her. Her eyes were wide and misty with excitement. Her mouth was just faintly swollen where his had crushed it. She looked and felt like a woman on the verge of her first love affair, and he wanted desperately to be the man. The first man. The only man.

His hands held her waist, marveling at its smallness as he smoothed her top against her sides, watching with unnerving curiosity the taut thrust of her nipples against the fabric. She didn't even seem to be aware of that maddening little giveaway.

“I think you'd better put on some clothes,” he said quietly, his eyes going back up to hers with darkening intent. “You can't imagine how tempting you look right now.”

Her face changed, brightened. She smiled softly as he released her. “Do I, really?”

He turned away, his face rigid, and reached for a cigarette. “Have you already made coffee?” he asked stiffly.

She didn't quite understand his abrupt mood change. Perhaps he wasn't awake yet. “Yes. Help yourself. I'll be right back.” She moved into the
bedroom and closed the door, still tingling from his warm, hungry embrace. It was nice being kissed like that, and a little frightening, too. She'd felt giddy and weak and had experienced a new kind of throbbing ache inside her. What an odd reaction to a kiss, she thought, and then fumbled her way into hose, a slip and a white dress, pausing to put on a minimum of makeup and put up her hair. She looked cool and young and neat, but not beautiful. She sighed at her reflection, pushed her slipping glasses back up on her nose, and went back into the living room, carrying her white high heels and her Sunday purse with her. She tossed them onto the coffee table and padded in her stocking feet to the kitchen.

Jake was drinking black coffee at the table, and he smiled at the picture she made. She looked neat and unruffled, and he wanted to let her hair down and wrinkle that dress. His dark eyes said so.

She flushed, smiling at him. “Will I do?”

“Oh, yes,” he responded. “You'll do.”

“I'll just fix the eggs,” she said, moving to get an apron. He watched her quick movements with lazy appreciation, wondering at the domestic picture she made. He'd never actually watched a woman cook before. It was fascinating. So was she.

“This is like another world to me,” he remarked suddenly. “I've never felt this relaxed in my life or enjoyed a woman's company so much.”

She turned to look at him, her eyes soft and excited. “Really?”

“Really. You're good for me.”

She lowered her eyes shyly and went back to the eggs. “I like being with you, too, Jake.”

He felt uncomfortable at the use of his nickname. He shifted in the chair. “How do you like working for Blake?” he asked suddenly.

“I like it very much,” she confessed. “Except that poor Mr. Blake worries so much,” she added. “He's been a bundle of nerves this week. That's not like him at all.” She shrugged, unaware of her companion's intent stare. “Maybe it's this Faber-jet problem. It's made us all nervous.” She glanced at him. “Do you suppose somebody could be trying to sabotage it?”

O
h, did you burn yourself?” Maureen exclaimed. She rushed for paper towels while Jake gritted his teeth against the pain from the sudden splash of hot black coffee on his big hand.

Her question about sabotage had caught him off guard and he'd almost given the show away with that clumsy movement. He forgot the sting of the hot liquid, though, watching her concerned face and the quick, deft movements of her slender hands as she mopped his hand and wrist and frowned over the red burn mark on the darkly tanned flesh.

It had been years since anyone had fussed over him. She didn't appear to be doing it because she wanted to impress him. She seemed genuinely to care that he'd been hurt.

She was leaning over him, her soft eyes concerned, her hands gentle as they rubbed some soothing ointment over the burn. “I'm so sorry,” she said. “I must have bumped the table. I'm so clumsy—”

“I knocked the cup with my hand,” he corrected. “It wasn't anything you did. What is that stuff?” he asked, frowning as he watched her rub it in, her fingers small against his huge hand.