Hurts So Good (18 page)

Her cry was sharp and fierce. It came from her soul and emerged from her lips.
"Neil...
Neil..."

"Here,
chere.
Here I am and here I belong. Here, where you belong to me. But only for tonight. Unless you accept that I want the best for you because
I love you."
His lips hovered over hers, then his tongue lapped tears from her cheeks. "Be a good sport and don't fight me on this. I know I'm selfish, but you're being selfish too. Let me think of someone besides myself for a change."

She crushed her lips against his with a sob of defeat. "All right. All right! We'll do it your way. Are you satisfied?"

"With your answer, yes. Otherwise...
no."
He groaned low as he began to move inside her. "Hold my hand. Tight as you're holding me inside." A broad palm spread over hers, and she locked her fingers with his. "I'll lead the first steps until you know them by heart. Dance with me?"

As Billie Holiday crooned another song, Neil guided her with such fluid grace that she found herself moving effortlessly to an increasingly rapid beat. His praise burned hot and sweet in her ears, in her breast, compelling her on until she was soaring again, higher than before.

His heart beat above hers, no longer in a gentle persuasion but in a rough rise and fall as they galloped together in the joy of unrestrained passion. The more she gave, the more he gave back. She took him. And took him. And took him until she thought he might tear her into fragments of ecstasy.

And then he did. She cried at the beauty of it. She covered his face with kisses, which he returned until he wrenched his mouth away and lunged forward.

He stared down at her as she felt the pulse of his release. He came in a stunning silence. He came in absolute stillness, not even with a blink.

Andrea began to shiver, unsure if it was from the chilled air that fanned over their sweat-slick bodies or his continued stare, as if he were in shock.

"Neil?" She touched his cheek, and he softly bit her palm. "Are you okay?"

"I don't think so."

"What's wrong? Please, tell me."

"Math," he whispered.

"I don't understand, Neil."

"It's very simple,
chere.
Simple as two halves making a whole."

* * *

Neil studied his surroundings as he blew another smoke ring into the early morning light.

A roach skittered across the floor in the kitchenette.

The avocado-green refrigerator in the corner wheezed for another breath while Billie Holiday sounded as if she needed a rest from the automatic replay.

It wasn't only Billie's voice that needed a rest. Neil pulled Andrea closer and was amazed to feel that part of him that should have needed a rest stir. He stroked Andrea's hair away from her face and studied her profile.

He'd never been more sober. Sober and eager to have Andrea in tow when he crawled out of bed. The mattress beneath them was thin, and at least ten springs had unhinged since they'd taken each other on. But the sheets were clean—if he didn't count the sweat now on them or the faint streak of blood that he'd discovered earlier. He'd blinked and blinked again, while he groped with the realization that he'd been Andrea's first, not the second.

It had certainly been a first for him, making love to a woman he loved. A woman he had the good sense God gave him to never let go.

"Seems I stand corrected," he whispered. "You and Lou were both right,
chere.
It don't matter where a person rests his head, so long as he wakes up next to the right person."

While the refrigerator hummed and Billie Holiday sang on. Neil lifted a candle stub from beside the bed and took a shot at the roach.

He laughed quietly. "Bull's-eye."

His next target might not be as easy: Getting a ring on Andrea's finger and the first of their children in her belly before summer was out.

He'd give them everything he'd been deprived of, the things he still craved, his very own
Father Knows Best
home. Yet he couldn't lie to himself. Even in this he was being a selfish bastard. He wanted to be the breadwinner, the sole provider, for all the right reasons, but there was one that wasn't exactly noble.

Fear. Fear of losing her, whether it was to another man, to death, or even a career. All the things that had shaped his life and him into what he was: a man who loved her, needed her so desperately that he would use any means to keep her tied to him.

Chapter 14

"You're fired."

"I'm
what?"

Without bothering to look up from his ledger, Neil said matter-of-factly, "You're fired. F-I-R-E-D. As in, fired."

"Did I just hear you say that I'm fired?"

"As of tonight, you are no longer tending bar."

"As of tonight, I'm no
longer
tending bar!"

"Is there an echo in here or
what?"
Pushing back his chair from the desk, he stretched, then popped the suspenders riding his shoulders. He looked at her then, a sly smile on his lips. "Another bartender starts tonight, the one who's taking your place. You've got a new job,
chere.
The club manager quit, and guess who's taking his position?"

Andrea eyed Neil warily. If she'd learned anything in the past few weeks of sharing a pillow with him, it was that he was a master chess player—another of his attributes he hadn't mentioned but made sure she found out about. Whether at the game board or the bedroom or in this immaculate office she couldn't believe was the same one they'd first met in, he called every checkmate. It was his game, and anyone who challenged it left with nothing, not even a shirt.

"I don't know anything about running a club, Neil."

"Not yet. But if you pick up how to run a club as fast as you did bartending, then you'll be the best club manager this side of the Mason-Dixon Line. Besides, I can't concentrate while every man at the bar's hitting on you."

So that was it. He'd already thrown out several patrons, cutting short a few numbers to do it.

"This is ridiculous. How many times do I have to tell you that I can take care of myself? I've more than learned the best way to deal with a drunk." A state she'd yet to see him in. Not only had he cut his smoking in half, his drinking was down to a trickle.

Still, that didn't make him an easy man to live with, although he did accept her explanation of the typewriter she'd taken to his house—that it had been a graduation present. More than that, he was always sober, surprisingly neat—and not a day went by that he didn't bring her fresh flowers or a trinket she'd admired. For some reason his nonstop gift-giving bothered her, so she'd quit pointing out whatever caught her eye—not that it stopped him from showering her with presents anyway.

"Don't matter if you can deal with a drunk. Proprietor's prerogative. We'll work on the books together tomorrow. Tonight, we'll work on each other." He glanced at his watch. "I've got an hour before I need to warm up. Practice making perfect, how about an early start? I'm already hot."

He reached for his sax and slipped loose the mouthpiece. Andrea edged toward the closed door of his office.

"That's far enough, Neil. Put it down."

"Make me. Or better yet, I'll make you." As he stroked it between thumb and middle finger, her knees wobbled, and she steadied herself against the wall.

He tossed the mouthpiece to his desk and, with a quick stride, reached her and slid his hand up her skirt. She'd begun to wear skirts lately at his request. One of many requests she'd agreed to. Like the one that had her sharing his bed while her apartment floor swarmed with carpenters and plumbers and electricians. They were toppling walls, reclaiming hardwood floors, replacing light fixtures. And the bathroom! Black marble tile wrapped around a sleek sunken tub, and a bidet.

"Gets you every time,
chere.
Good thing I don't have the same problem onstage, or it could be a very embarrassing situation." He smiled as her nails sank into his wrist, and he tightened his intimate grip. "Why, Andrea, what a good sport you are. Usually, it takes at least five minutes before you start to claw. Ten to bite. You're making excellent progress, and I most certainly approve."

"Sink your teeth into this, Slick. I have no desire to be your club manager. You'll have to hire someone else."

"Then where will you work?"

"Behind the bar, of course."

"No such thing. I don't want you tending anymore, not here, not anywhere. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, you do. Now I'm making myself clear. I've worked hard to learn the ropes. I'm fast, the clientele likes me—"

"Too much, that's the problem."

"I'm a good bartender, Neil."

"The best."

"Then you have no right to take away my position."

"I claim the right, as the man who loves you and sleeps with you, to enjoy any position the two of us can devise. The wall's right handy, but the couch is a mite more comfortable. Take your pick, unless you want me to choose. Say, both?"

"Forget either unless you've got something better to offer than trying to bully me into a job that I don't want."

"Lord, but you do drive a hard bargain." He sighed and shook his head. "I was afraid of this, so I did give some thought to another arrangement. Come park them sweet little buns on my lap,
chere."

When she refused to budge, he picked her up and moved to the couch, where he nuzzled her neck and murmured sweet, naughty nothings into her ear until she slumped against him with a sigh. Here they go again, she thought, bracing herself. He wanted something and knew exactly what strings to pull to get it, which included shifting her thighs until she was straddling his hips.

"Go ahead, Neil. Lay it on me while I'm still coherent."

"Okay, try this on for size. You don't tend bar, and you don't manage the club. Instead, you manage yours truly."

Could it be? She'd seen the amazing volume of work he put out, often writing in a frenzy as she looked on from the bed.

"You mean you're ready to record again? To tour?"

"Have you been drinking what I haven't? Since you moved in, my muse seems to think I've got a machine gun for a brain. I need a rest, not an ulcer. I'm talking about something much more appealing than me coming out of the closet and firing one of those sure hits you've inspired me to crank out."

Something more appealing than what she'd subtly been pushing for? "This I have to hear."

"Here's the deal. You quit working and spend your free time decorating. Thanks to all the bucks I'm shelling out for overtime labor, the third floor'll be done before summer's out. It's gonna have lots of style, but it'll need a woman's touch. Your touch. A touch I need worse than our home does. I want you sitting at the front table every night while I play each song for you. And while some other club manager closes up the bar, we'll tear up the sheets, then watch a rerun of
Father Knows Best."
His gaze searched hers as he said softly, "I would like to be a father. The kind of father I always dreamed of having. With you as the mother, better than the best."

Andrea groped for words, while his words echoed between her ears.

"I—um, I'd prefer to be married first, Neil."

"That could be arranged."

"But—but we haven't known each other long enough."

"Long enough for me to know that I love you like crazy, and I'll do whatever it takes to keep you. Do you know what it means to me to be the one who makes you smile and wakes you up with a kiss every mornin'? What a deep sense of pride I feel, being able to take care of you? Let me. Let me make you as happy as you make me."

He
couldn't
be proposing this soon. Despite Liza's warning, she wasn't prepared. Neil wanted a wife who made
him
her career, while he kept his own and thrived on her total dependence on him. The kind of dependence that had made his mother weak. It was a weakness that he saw as strength.

Andrea knew he loved her. Passionately. So passionately, his love was all-consuming. He held on too tight, as if certain she'd desert him if he let her loose. Knowing what she did of his past, she understood. But she had to make him understand that love couldn't be caged or bought with lavish gifts. What she wanted,
needed,
was his trust. Trust so absolute she had no fear of his desertion once she confessed her deception.