The Unsung Hero (43 page)
He moved faster—he couldn’t help himself. His own release came with a rush of sensation, a flash of light, the roar of his blood surging through his veins.
Sex. It was sex. Just sex.
And once again, it was incredible sex.
Tom knew he should feel glad. He should feel sated and pleased that this beautiful woman had come to him, that she so obviously had wanted him, that she hadn’t been able to stay away.
And hey, this was great. He didn’t have to take her to dinner. He didn’t have to say another word to her.
He could just clean himself up as best he could, fasten his pants, and walk away.
He almost did it. He almost made it out the door without uttering a single syllable.
But he made the mistake of turning around and looking back at her, still leaning there against the closet wall, still breathing hard, dress rumpled, hair mussed. And he wanted her. He still wanted her. It was physiologically impossible for him to have her again. Not this soon. And yet . . .
“Unlock the screens to the French doors in your bedroom,” Tom told her, his voice still unsteady, “if you want me up there tonight.”
She gazed at him. “Tom, please, can we—”
He didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to talk. It was, after all, her rule. “No,” he said, and got out of there, fast.
________________________________________
Seventeen
“ARE THEY AWFUL?”
“I didn’t look at them,” David said as he stepped back to let Mallory into his apartment. He had the air-conditioning on in anticipation of tonight’s photo shoot, so he closed the door tightly behind her.
“You didn’t? Why not?” She looped her fanny pack over the back of one of the kitchen chairs.
“Because they’re your photos. You should be the one who sees them first.” This past day had been torture. As he’d worked, he’d seen only glimpses of Mallory taking pictures with his camera around the hotel. And then when he’d finally had the afternoon off, she’d been on at the Ice Cream Shoppe. He’d gone in, ordered a cone, and watched her work as he’d eaten it. He’d gotten a cup of coffee, too, and sketched her as it had cooled. He’d stretched it into two hours, but he was so afraid of being creepy. Of being David Sullivan, the stalker.
“You didn’t even peek?” she asked.
“No,” he said.
“Honestly? Not even a little?”
He laughed as he handed her the pack of photos. “No. You look at them, and if you decide you want me to see—”
“I want you to see them. I wouldn’t have minded if you’d checked them out.”
Why was she looking at him like that? Her eyes were soft, and as he gazed back at her she turned away as if she was suddenly uncertain or . . . shy. Mallory Paoletti, shy?
“So how was work?” she asked as she sat down at his kitchen table and opened the pack of pictures, pulling them out and flipping quickly through them. “I was thinking about how tired you must’ve been all day—after working all those extra shifts in a row, after getting almost no sleep that night I came in and woke you up.”
David slowly sat down next to her, struggling to understand, afraid to misinterpret. Had she meant she’d been thinking about him all day, or that he must’ve been tired all day? It couldn’t have been the first. Could it?
“It was okay,” he said. “I’m a little tired, but I made a lot of money from tips. I don’t have to work in the morning, but the boss wants me to come in for the lunch shift tomorrow. One of the room service waiters quit and they’re short staffed.”
A week ago he would’ve jumped at the chance to make the extra money. Now all he could think was if he worked during lunch, he wouldn’t be able to meet Mallory at the Ice Cream Shoppe and have a sandwich with her by the marina. He’d missed doing that these past two days. Funny how quickly lunch had become his favorite time of day. Of course, right now, now was his favorite time of day, too, since she was finally here.
“Room service,” she said. “Cool. Are you going to do it? Take bottles of champagne up to all those lonely millionaires’ wives who’re looking for a little action while their elderly husbands are out fishing or playing golf?” She imitated a breathy, high-class voice, “Hello, room service? This is Mrs. Megabucks in room 260. I’d like a triple order of caviar, and can you send it up with that attractive David Sullivan and his great, big, enormous . . .”
She glanced up at him, her eyes gleaming, and David found himself thinking, shy. Where on earth had he gotten the impression earlier that she was suddenly shy?
“Tray,” she finished, laughing.
It was too late. He was already blushing.
“You thought I was going to say something else, didn’t you?” she asked.
“Actually, with you, Nightshade, I always expect the extraordinary. I wouldn’t dream of trying to second-guess you. You’re far too unique.”
“Too much of a freak.”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” he said quickly. “I mean that you’re special. I think you’re incredible and . . .”
Oh, God, way to go. Nothing like screwing up their friendship by cluing her in to the fact that he was completely infatuated. He grabbed her pictures and began looking through them, bracing himself, ready for her to make some excuse and leave. She had to go clean the bottom of her garbage can. She had to go brush her cat’s teeth. She had to . . . Or maybe she wouldn’t take the excuse route. Maybe she’d stay, but give him the Friendship Speech. “Gee, I really like you, David, and I’m so glad we’re friends. Friends. Let me say that again in case you didn’t hear. Ferrr-ennn-ddd-sss.”
But when he glanced up at her, she was looking at him in that same odd way that she’d been looking at him before. “That’s really nice,” she said softly.
And then she did it. At least he thought she did it. At the very least—and probably far more likely—he only imagined she did it. Her gaze dropped for just a split second to his mouth before she smiled and looked away.
According to every body language book in the world, that meant she wanted him to kiss her. Except, of course, if he’d only imagined it. Then it meant that he’d imagined she wanted him to kiss her. Two vastly different conclusions.
He looked down at the photos in his hands. She’d taken pictures of people. In and around the lobby of the Baldwin’s Bridge Hotel. She’d used the zoom lens, so they were all candids, taken without the subjects’ awareness of her presence.
She’d caught a distinguished-looking man with his finger up his nose. A woman, her face contorted with anger as she spoke on a pay phone. A little girl, dreamily lost within the pages of an open book. A man checking in at the registration desk, holding tightly on to the rolling cart filled with luggage, caught in a tug of war as a bellboy tried to take it away. Several shots of David as he’d worked, smiling as he stopped to talk with an elderly man, Mr. Torrence. She must’ve taken them through the restaurant window.
“These are really great,” David said, spreading them out on the table.
He leaned forward to point to the angry woman, and his shoulder brushed Mallory’s.
She didn’t move back. In fact, she moved closer. Their heads were almost touching, too, as they looked at the photo, and David’s mind went completely blank.
Two seconds ago, he’d intended to tell her something about this picture, but right now, all he could think about was the fact that her shoulder was warm and solid against his.
From the corner of his eye, he saw her turn to look at him.
She smelled like the gum she chewed by the pack as a substitute for her cigarettes, sharp and spicy. Cinnamon today.
He turned toward her, too, his mouth suddenly dry, his palms suddenly sweaty, feeling completely uncertain and scared to death. He wanted to kiss her. Every instinct he had was screaming that she wanted him to kiss her, too. But if he was wrong, he could lose her as a friend.
And he couldn’t bear that.
“Brandon’s late,” he said through the parched desert that had once been his mouth.
Mallory sat back. “Do you want me to get changed? Do I have to get changed? Since it’s just a kiss, can we do it dressed—without the oil and bathing suit?”
“Oh,” David said. “Yeah, well, I was going to take more than just a close-up. I mean, I was going to take close-ups, too, but I also wanted some full-length shots. Bodies and legs. And hands. Hands are so hard to get right. I wanted to see where they fall—naturally, you know? Do you mind?” he added. “I know the baby oil’s really gross.”
She’d already crossed to his costume box and was searching for the bathing suit she’d worn the last time. “The baby oil’s not half as gross as the thought of kissing that asshole again.”
“You don’t have to do this,” he told her. “I really don’t want you to if—”
“Chill.” She found the suit and turned to face him. “It’s acting. It doesn’t mean anything if you’re acting, right? But if he tries to cop a feel again . . . well, we’ll just have to take a little break while he recovers. If you know what I mean.”
Mallory went into the bathroom and closed the door. But she opened it right away. “I’m going to need help with the baby oil,” she said. “Can you do me a favor and help me put it on? I mean, instead of letting Bran put his hands all over me again?”
“Yeah,” David said. “Of course. My pleasure.” He realized a fraction of a second too late just what he’d said, and how completely inappropriate—although baldly true—it was.
He opened his mouth to stammer some kind of apology, but Mallory was smiling at him. “Mine, too,” she said, and shut the bathroom door.
As David stood there, he felt the pupils of his eyes dilate, felt his body go into a mild state of shock.
That had not been his imagination. Not that time.
“Joe, can you do me a favor?” Tom said. “I’ve got to get to the train station in fifteen minutes.”
Kelly knew when he realized she was sitting out on the deck with Joe and Charles, watching the sunset turn the ocean colors and the sky shades of red-orange. It was right when he’d said the words train station. Something changed, very slightly, very subtly in his voice.
She shook the ice around in her glass of lemonade before she glanced up at him.
He was looking at Joe, tension visible in his shoulders, in the muscles working along the sides of his jaw. He’d changed into jeans and a T-shirt. Sneakers on his feet. Baseball cap.
“I need to rent a cargo van with tinted windows—Jazz is going to rig it with surveillance gear,” he explained. “I finally found what I’m looking for in Swampscott, but it’s a first come, first served kind of place, and they’re open only till twenty hundred hours. Next train’s in twenty-two minutes.”
“Are you sure you should be driving?” Kelly asked. “All the way back from Swampscott by yourself?”
He looked at her, his eyes taking in her sundress—the same one she’d had on earlier that afternoon, clearly noting the fact that she’d let her hair down. Or rather he had. In the closet. She’d combed it since then. Put on sandals. And underwear. Reapplied the makeup that had run when she’d cried.
She wondered if he even knew he’d made her cry by leaving the way he had. So coldly. So abruptly. As if . . . She cleared her throat. “What if you get dizzy?” she asked.
“I won’t,” he said.
Joe had been about to stand, but now he was giving it a second thought, too. “You sure you’re feeling up to this?”
Tom was exasperated. “I feel fine. I’ve got a headache, but I’ve just spent three hours on the phone trying to find this particular make of van. If I didn’t have a headache after that, it would be some kind of miracle. And if I don’t catch this train . . .”
“Why don’t I just drive you into Swampscott,” Kelly said, her mouth dry—afraid he would turn her down, just as afraid he’d accept. What would she say to him during the forty-minute drive? “You can skip the train, Tom. I’ll take you right to the rental place.”
But he was already shaking his head. “Thanks, but no. I’m not going to ask you to drive me to Swampscott.”
“You didn’t ask,” Kelly countered. “I volunteered.”
Joe and Charles were looking from her to Tom somewhat warily, obviously aware of the undercurrents of tension, but—hopefully—having no clue as to their origin.
“Thanks, but no,” he said again.
“I want to.” Her voice wasn’t shaking. Yet. “I haven’t had a chance to apologize to you and—”
“You did,” he said. “Before. I accepted your apology.” He turned away, a trace of desperation in his voice. “Joe, can you please drive me to the train?”
Kelly stood up, nearly knocking her chair over. “God damn it. When I said what I said last night, I didn’t mean that we should never talk to each other again. I don’t want us not to be friends, Tom!”
Tom didn’t move, didn’t react, didn’t blink. He just looked at her.
Kelly couldn’t stand it. She didn’t care that her father and Joe were watching. She marched up to Tom and kissed him, long and hard on the mouth.
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