Last Chance at Love (25 page)

He tipped up her chin, and she willed herself to look into his eyes. “My God, sweetheart. I...”

She opened her arms, and he locked her to him. “Are you sure? I need to know that this is what you want.”

“My whole being is tuned to you right now. I...I want you as much as you want me.” She didn’t know how she untied the bow tie and unbuttoned the tiny buttons on his shirt. The trembling of her fingers stunned her, but he stood patiently while she removed his shirt, folded it, and laid it across the back of the sofa and on top of his tuxedo jacket. When she grasped his hand and started upstairs to her bedroom, a nervous jitter overtook her and she stumbled on the stairs.

He lifted her and carried her up to the landing. “Where is your bedroom?” She pointed to his left, and within minutes, he removed her clothing and laid her on her bed. As he stood above her, his expression changed from adoration to hot fire in a second, like a shift of the wind.

If only he would... “Jake. Honey, what is it?”

“If I touched you now, I’d explode.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want your self-control. I want to feel, to know you’re mine. You don’t have to be perfect, you just have to love me.” She heard the words that came from her mouth and knew they were true. “Jake, come here to me. I’m on fire for you.”

He kicked off his shoes, socks, and trousers, and she reached for the slip of fabric that protected him from her eyes. Emboldened by her passion, she jerked it down his thighs and let the massive organ spill into her hands. She felt herself rimming her lips with the tip of her tongue and knew what it did to him when he braced his left knee on the edge of the bed, and lowered his trembling frame into her arms.

When she tried to grasp him, he stilled her hand. “Slowly, sweetheart.”

His lips brushed faint kisses over her forehead, eyes, ears, and then smothered her face with kisses. When she thought she could wait no longer, his mouth found hers, and at last she took him into her. He didn’t linger there, but trailed his warm mouth over her neck and collarbone, promising and kindling in her a blazing fire. Her nipples hardened, and the muscles of her vagina clenched and expanded in a rhythm that made her want to beg him to ease the tension.

Her breath shortened almost to a pant, and she cupped her left breast, needing at least that much relief. “Please. I... Kiss me. Oh, Jake. Oh, my Lord,” she screamed as his lips encircled the areola and slowly began to suckle. His fingers pinched her other nipple as he feasted, nourished himself. Nearly out of her mind, she began to rock her hips, and as if the motion excited him almost beyond control, he stilled her body with the weight of his big hand.

Her moans filled the room where he began kissing the insides of her thighs, nipping her belly, and promising her heaven and himself the feast of feasts.

“Honey, please get in me,” she begged, but he ignored her, as she had known he would. She raised her body in an effort to force him, but he hooked her knees over his shoulders and bent to her. Her keening cry was her thanks when the warm marauding magic of his tongue threatened to send her over the edge. It didn’t happen intentionally, but she knew for the first time what it meant to surrender completely to a man when the warm flushes attacked the bottoms of her feet and she lost the energy to urge him to her.

“You’re mine,” he told her, kissing his way up her body. He slipped on the condom and gazed down into her face. “Take me in, sweetheart.” But she was already reaching for him and leading him to her lover’s gate.

“Look at me. Don’t close your eyes. Look at me.” She opened her eyes and saw the fire and love in his. Then, he eased himself into her, filling her as she had longed to have him do. He paused for a minute to let her adjust. “Are you all right?” he asked in a voice that was nearly unrecognizable.

She nodded and her hips began to rock of their own volition. When he moved within her, her thighs began to tremble and almost at once the squeezing and pumping began.

“Let it happen, baby. Let me give you what you need.”

She couldn’t speak, so keyed up was she and so attuned to his every move. He eased a hand beneath her hips, brought her up to him, and gave her the driving force of his passion. Her whole body was one big flame. She thought it would consume her, but it didn’t.

“Jake, I’m suspended here. If I don’t burst, I’ll...I’ll die.”

He increased the pressure and the speed. “You will. Be still and let me love you.” She tried, but only for a minute. Then, suddenly it seemed as if her whole body were a massive balloon, swelling and swelling while she rode to his rhythm. And then she heard her own screams fill the room as she erupted in a violent spasm that sank her into a vortex of ecstasy.

“I love you. Oh, Jake, I love you so much.”

His arms tightened around her.” Allison. Baby, I love you. I love you.” He gave her the essence of himself and came apart in her arms.

They lay locked together for a long time, not speaking. Softly and tenderly, she stroked the head that lay on her breast, while her heart galloped like a thoroughbred out of control, wondering if he knew what he said to her. Did he know that in the moment of his release, he’d told her he loved her, and would he ever say it again?

She wanted to kiss his eyes, his face, his lips, to tell him what she couldn’t express in words, to show him how he had made her feel. His bulk wouldn’t allow her to raise herself up, so she wrapped her arms more tightly around him, hugging him as best she could.

“How do you feel?” he asked at last. “Are you...all right?”

She nodded, forgetting that he couldn’t see her, and he braced himself on his elbows and looked down at her.

“I want to know if you’re...satisfied. How do you feel?”

“Strange,” she said. “It was like being in a whirlwind, tossed in a thousand directions, sinking to the bottom, and coming to rest in heaven. It was wonderful, Jake, and I feel like a queen.

“What about you?” she asked him.

“Never worry about that, sweetheart. I told you when we were on the
Saint Marie
that you’re perfect for me. That hasn’t changed. If anything, I had it brought home to me even more forcibly a few minutes ago.”

He separated them and swung his legs off the bed. “Be back in a second.” He was back in a few minutes, and by the time he walked from the door to the bed in which she awaited him, looking at his nakedness had erased every thought but one from her mind.

“How late does that gourmet deli stay open?” he asked her, sliding between the sheets.

“Two o’clock in the morning,” she answered, “but right now, nothing could be farther from my mind.”

He sat up and leaned over her, his face ablaze in a grin. “You got something you want me to do?”

Play with her, would he? “Yeah. Provided you can manage it.”

The laughter she loved to hear tumbled out of him until, wanting some of her own, she shifted beneath him, contracted her muscles, and had the pleasure of seeing his demeanor change in a second, as hot desire replaced mirth, and he bent to her lips.

“You’re a wicked woman,” he said, before sucking her nipple into his mouth, putting his hand between them, and finding the nub of her passion with his talented fingers.

When he had heated her to the boiling point, he asked her, “What do you want?”

She knew that if she didn’t tell him, he would tease her mercilessly, but she held out as long as she could.

“Are you going to tell me?” he asked as her thighs began a quivering motion and heat seared the bottom of her feet.

Her moans grew louder, and she could stand it no longer. “You,” she said. “I want you to make me feel like I did a few minutes ago.”

Sensations plowed through her as his lips claimed her mouth and then, as if not satisfied that he’d drugged her nearly senseless, took her with him on a wild ride into the stratosphere.

* * *

“Wake up, sweetheart.”

A feeling of lethargy stole over her and she stretched long and lazily like the sated female she was, warm and happy, his voice coming to her as if in a dream.

“I thought you’d want something to eat. Aren’t you hungry?” he asked her. She turned over, grabbed the pillow, and hugged it to her. “Allison, are you awake?”

Was she awake? She bolted upright. “Jake. What are you doing? Oh, dear. I was sound asleep. You mean there’s something for me to eat?”

“Sure thing. I was hungry when you got here hours ago, and you drained what little energy I had. I’m near starvation. I got us some sandwiches and apples at that gourmet shop. Everything else was sold out.”

“I’m grateful for this. Can you spend the night?”

“I’d love to, and I want to, but in this closed community, that wouldn’t do your reputation a bit of good. Your neighbor watched me from her window while I waited for you. Are they all busybodies?”

“The older ones, yes.”

She wanted to ask him what, if anything, he had planned for Saturday night, but decided against it. He hadn’t given her the right to question his whereabouts. They finished the food, and he took the refuse to the kitchen.

“I’ll call you tomorrow morning around ten. All right?”

She nodded, disappointed, but aware that if he made love with her all night, she wouldn’t get enough of him. “Drive home carefully and safely.”

“Thanks. I’ll lock the door.” He stood and gazed down at her with an expression that assured her he would rather not leave. Then he kissed her and left without another word.

* * *

“I never thought I’d back myself into a corner,” Jake said to himself as he sat on his newly varnished balcony the next morning, sipping coffee that seemed cooler with each swallow. He needed some vigorous exercise; the heavy air was no help in clearing his thoughts.

Here I am, thirty-five years old, in love with a woman and sworn not to tell her or anybody else what I do for a living, and except for my superiors at the department, only my mother knows I was an undercover agent. Allison’s a reporter, and she’s writing a minibiography on me for her newspaper, so even if I trusted her not to write it in her story, I can’t compromise her by asking her to keep a secret. So I can’t share with her something so dear to me as my music, playing my guitar with Buddy and the band at Blues Alley. If she knew I compose classical music for the guitar, she might put two and two together and guess I’m Mac Connelly because he fascinates her. And State University would never honor a jazz musician.

He went inside, threw the cold coffee into the sink, put the cup in the dishwasher, and called his boss.

“Congratulations,” the chief said. “I see in
The Post
that you got a big award. My hat’s off to you.”

Jake had to laugh. “Thank you, sir, but if I remember properly, you don’t wear hats.”

“The proverbial hat. You get the message. Think you can fax me your best recollection of what your nemesis looks like? I put two men on him and they’ve given me different descriptions. Only one matched the Rockefeller Center man. We have to know whether we’re dealing with one man or two. Get it to me as soon as you can.”

“Right on. Give me an hour.” He wrote it out, adding that the man had tailed Allison on at least one occasion, and sent it off. Now, how was he going to avoid seeing Allison that night? It was Friday, and his fingers itched for a good workout with Buddy Dee and the band. He was willing to give up one night at the club, and from his understanding, it had better be Friday. On Saturday nights, women liked to be with their men. He hated lying and especially to Allison, so he decided on a partial truth.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he said when she answered the telephone. “Did you dream about me?”

“Hi. I don’t know. I slept so soundly that all I remember is putting my head on the pillow and waking up this morning.”

He put on a face, though he knew it was wasted. “Baby, you wound me; you were supposed to claw, scratch, and climb the walls in frustration because you didn’t have me locked deep inside you.”

“Whew. You’re getting pretty bold. I scratched and clawed, waiting for you to do that. But after you lived up to your notices, I didn’t have the energy to climb a wall, or even to scratch one.”

He felt his body quicken and knew he’d better change the subject. “You know how to make a guy feel great. How about we skip tonight and see each other tomorrow evening? I need to work on my book proposal. After getting that award, my instincts tell me I should try something a little more ambitious than I started. Is that okay with you?”

It wasn’t, he realized from her long pause. He waited. “All right,” she said at last, “but what will we do tomorrow?”

“I have something in mind, but it may not work out. I should know by tomorrow noon.”

A telephone call to Duncan settled it. “What happened to you after the awards, man?” Duncan asked him. “People were milling around anxious to congratulate you. What happened?”

He related to Duncan as much as he could of his need to find Allison, adding, “I know you’ll treat that with discretion.”

“Sure. Why don’t you bring her over tonight? I want to meet her.”

“How about tomorrow night?”

“Great. Tell her to come casual. We can have a barbecue on the grill. Five o’clock?”

“Right. If I don’t call back, it’s a deal.”

He hung up and called Allison. “I hope you’ll like my friends,” he said. “I don’t call many people friend, very few, in fact, but he’s one.”

“I’m anxious to meet them.” He imagined she wrinkled her nose when she said, “Imagine meeting your best friend in jeans and a T-shirt!”

“Look here, woman. He’s not supposed to notice or care how you look. Get it?”

Her laughter rang through the wires. “I stand corrected, sir.”

He hung up, welcoming the visit with Duncan and Justine because their loving relationship wouldn’t give him the feeling of emptiness he had experienced the last time he visited them. This time, he would have his own loving woman.

By six o’clock that day, he had a reasonable proposal, or so he believed. Compared to the old one, it obligated him to write a more serious, more literary work than his first book, and he welcomed the challenge. He phoned a local restaurant for a roasted, herbed chicken, baked corn bread, and sautéed spinach, showered, dressed, and waited for the food. He’d get a full-time cook and housekeeper, if it didn’t mean having the department’s security force lurking around. In the meantime, he tuned his guitar and practiced scales to limber up his fingers.