Time After Time (35 page)

She shook her head at his
antic.
If only you knew,
she thought.

When she turned back to
him, he was still smiling: a sexy, beguiling, depressingly
confident smile. It was in his genes — handed straight down, with
the rest of his good looks and charm, from his womanizing father.
The only difference between the two men was that Jack Eastman had
too much integrity to marry some woman and then put her through
hell.

I know this, and I love
him anyway. Dammit, dammit, dammit. I love him anyway.

She sighed in distress —
as if she were truly going to kiss some ugly toad — and leaned her
face toward his for the kiss.
Stupid
woman,
she told herself as she did
it.
He's not a prince. He's not even a
frog.

He's a
bachelor.

She brushed her lips
dutifully against his, then began to pull away.

"Hold it," Jack said in
protest, slipping his hand behind her head. "That's not enough to
break the spell." He pulled her back for another kiss.

This one was longer,
warmer, deeper. His voice was rich and insinuating as he said,
"Hmm... I think ... I
do
feel ... a change coming on."

"Don't," she said, shying
away. "Don't make fun of enchantments."

That surprised him. His
breath came in a soft, laughing exhale. "Don't tell me you're going
to change into a frog
after
this!"

"Jack — don't tease," she
begged. She was thinking of last night, of the apparition. She was
remembering the intense, unforgettable expression on Christopher
Eastman's face.

Why couldn't Jack look at
her that way?

"Madame, forgive me," Jack
said in a tone that was only slightly more serious than before.
"I've never had to deal with a real princess before."

She stiffened. "What's
that supposed to mean?" He gave her a lopsided smile and said
candidly, "It means I feel totally inadequate around you. I can't
seem to strike the right note."

The right note.
The right note was the sound of a
chime.

"I guess idle banter makes
me nervous," she said.

"Idle banter! Is that what
this is? I thought it was your idea of foreplay."

"Foreplay!" she said,
astonished. "This is what makes all those socialites fall at your
feet? I don't believe it!"

"I give up!" Jack let out
a frustrated laugh and pushed his chair away from the table. He
stood over her, angry and bemused at the same time, and rubbed the
back of his neck in frustration. "You're so god-blessed ...
prickly. It's like trying to grab hold of a porcupine."

"Is that so?" she said
coolly, looking up at him. "So much for the princess, then. Is
there a fairy tale that covers frogs and porcupines?"

"Yeah," he said, a
dangerous glitter in his deep blue eyes. He took her by the wrists
and pulled her up out of her chair. "The story goes like this: the
pretty little porcupine is real stuck-up, even though it's the frog
who has the big house on the shore. One day the frog is singing his
heart out for the porcupine — he's wildly attracted to her because
she's different from all the frogs he's known — and what does the
porcupine do?

He dropped his voice to an
ominous whisper. "She shoots one of her quills right through his
voice box. Because automatically she sees him as an enemy. She
doesn't understand his song. She doesn't even try."

They were standing a
breath apart in the shadows of a golden dusk that beamed through
the kitchen windows. Liz dropped her own voice to a whisper. "What
happens to the frog? Does he — you know — croak?"

"Not anymore," Jack said,
smiling at her pun.

She let herself be seduced
by his whimsical humor. "How does the story end, then?" she
asked.

"How do you think?" said
Jack, holding her by her shoulders, taking small, nibbling tastes
of her mouth. "The porcupine takes the frog home, sticks him in her
bed, and makes him her sex-slave."

"The Brothers Grimm say
that?"

"Well, words to that
effect."

"Jack—"

"Let me make love to you,"
he said suddenly.
"Please
let me make love to you. I've asked you every way
I know how. My God, Elizabeth. I feel like I've been thrown back
into the Victorian age. I feel like your father's in the next room,
shotgun on the wall. This is weird ... this shouldn't have to be so
hard—"

He cut off a groan deep in
his throat and said, "Ah, the hell with it," and yanked her against
his chest, trapping her hands flat against him and covering her
mouth with his in a hard, frustrated kiss. Liz opened her mouth to
say something, to protest or to agree, she never did know which,
and he thrust his tongue into it, filling it, beating back her
words, beating back her thoughts.

He kissed her until she
was breathless, until her ears rang and she had to jerk her mouth
away, gasping for breath. His hands slid down the length of her
back, coming to rest under the curve of her buttocks. Pressing her
close, he held her fast against him, making her feel the heat. He
kissed her again, holding her fast, making her want him, making her
love him despite all her pointless resolve not to.

She pulled away in a
last-ditch effort to avoid the agony that she knew lay ahead if she
went on with this. To love him and not have it
returned...

Panting, she said,
"No;
don't you see?
I—"

She raised her gaze to
his. If she looked him in the eye and told him that she loved him,
the affair would end right then, right there; no one feared
commitment more than a bachelor.

His look was dark and
burning, a mirror of her own hunger as he began to interrupt, then
wisely bit off the words. He waited.

In that fraction of a
second Liz reversed herself completely. "Oh, dammit, Jack — yes,"
she said in a small, helpless wail. She slid her arms around his
broad back and lifted her mouth, wet and swollen, to his. "I do
want you — more than anyone."

It was so much less scary
than admitting she loved him and risking his walking
away.

He looked more relieved
than triumphant as he lowered his mouth to hers in a perfect caress
that moved her nearly to tears. His kiss turned into a sliding
nuzzle at the curve of her neck. His voice was low, almost puzzled,
as he said, "I feel as if I've wanted you all my life ... and yet
... where have you
been,
all my life?"

She arched her neck in
offering, relishing the warmth of his lips on her skin, and said,
"Right across the tracks; funny you never noticed."

That brought a low warning
chuckle from him. "Nay, madame, I beg of you: put down your arms
this once."

He was right, of course.
She was being a porcupine again. On an impulse, she raised her
hands high above her head. "How about if I put my arms ... up ...
instead?" she asked innocently.

He lifted his head. A
slow, knowing smile played on his face, a smile that brought high,
rich color to Liz's cheekbones. "Boldness becomes you," he said,
impressed. He took the hem of her cotton top in his hands and slid
it as high as her bra. "Especially considering there are no
curtains on those windows."

"Oh!" Down came her arms,
down came the shirt.

He laughed softly, then
slipped one arm around her waist and said, "Come, fair porcupine.
Bedrooms were made for times like these."

They began going upstairs.
He was handling her with just the right mix of pressure and
tenderness. She felt like a skittish colt. Or worse: a
virgin.

She wanted to ask, "Is
anyone nervous besides me?" But he'd say no, and then she'd feel
more nervous than ever.

What if she didn't meet
his standards in bed? God knew, they must be high. What if Victoria
was right — what if everything down there was closing up? What if —
oh, God — people in his set made love altogether differently? Maybe
they had some secret, illogical way of doing it — like the way they
insisted on wearing long-sleeved shirts to weddings in
August.

They were hand in hand at
the bedroom door. Jack said, "You seem edgy."

"No kidding." Her voice
was grim.

Turning to her, he cradled
her cheeks in his hands, then slid his hands through the silkiness
of her hair. "I want you to know — before we go in there — that
this is different," he murmured. "Before, the bedroom has always
been the end of the line. But with you ... I don't know. It's
someplace where maybe we can hide, while we figure it all
out."

She put her fingers to
Jack's lips to silence him and said, "No promises necessary. I'm
not fragile. I won't break."

His brows drew together in
a little frown of worry. "Everyone's fragile," he said.

If he ends up hurting me,
at least he'll feel bad about it,
she
decided. It was such small comfort, but it was all she
had.

She lifted her chin and,
with her eyes closed, parted her mouth slightly for the kiss she
knew would come. When he kissed her this time, there was a
solemnity about it, as if they'd made a pact. But a pact to do
what? To hide in the bedroom together?

He released her. "We've
come full circle," he said softly. "This is where we
met."

She remembered it well.
She had been upside down and covered in plaster dust when she first
set eyes on him. Even then, she must have known that he was the
one. The day she met him was the day the magic began. The day the
magic began was the day she met him. "Full circle," she repeated,
awed by the mystery of it all.

They went into her bedroom
then, and Liz turned on a little rose-shaded lamp and sat on the
foot of her bed, and Jack looked around as if he were in a
make-believe room of a child's playhouse.

She didn't mind: he looked
so beguiled by the humble, crowded coziness of it all. The
small-print wallpaper; the painted shutters; the rag rug and the
vase of black-eyed Susans edging the lamp off the nightstand—all of
it seemed to charm him, all of it seemed to please. He peered out
at the view of the harbor, its navigation lights blinking in
reassuring harmony on the calm black water.

Liz jumped up from the bed
and said, "But it's so much better in the daytime! You can see
ships trafficking up and down the bay. You can see
sailboats—"

"I've seen enough boats to
last me a lifetime," he said, closing the shutters on the scene. He
turned to her. The warmth in his look was unmistakable. He reached
out his hand and trailed his fingers lightly on the wide-scooped
neck of her cotton top.

She was thinking,
This would have been much easier if he'd just
taken me on the kitchen table.

"I'm sorry about the bed,"
she said, bursting into another round of babble. "It's not a
king—"

"Neither am I."

"It's not even a
queen—"

"Neither are
you."

"That's right, I forgot.
I'm a princess."

No response.

"Porcupine?" she corrected
meekly.

He gave her a wry smile
and said, "If the quill fits ...."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry,"
she moaned, all but wringing her hands. "It's been so long. Maybe I
need a sexual therapist."

"Let's see what we can do
on our own first." He sat down on the bed and patted the space next
to him; Liz, feeling like the last kid to show up for the sex-ed
class, sat down beside him.

"Now. Since I seem to have
a bit more experience than you," he said in a mind-bending
understatement, "I'll make a few suggestions. The first is
—"

He kissed her lightly and
then touched his finger to her lips. "—don't talk. The second
suggestion — and mind you, it's only a suggestion — is, maybe you'd
like to close your eyes and pretend that mine are closed,
too."

"All right," she said, and
did as he said. He was being just whimsical enough to arouse her
curiosity. It remained to be seen whether the rest of her would
follow.

Her lips were slightly
apart with concentration; she felt him press his mouth to hers,
then run his tongue along the shape of her lips, moistening them.
It was a delicately erotic act, suggestive without being
overbearing.
More to come,
it promised.

Eyes closed, she
waited.

She felt him shift his
attention to her ear, nibbling the lobe, tugging it gently. She
held her breath as he trailed a gossamer line of kisses along the
curve of her neck, murmuring her name, stringing out the syllables
like pearls on a necklace. She felt him slide her cotton top down
from one shoulder, exposing cool, unkissed flesh. He dropped soft
kisses there, while she remembered finally to breathe, letting out
the air in a rush.

After that, he surprised
her by cupping her chin in his hands, then tracing the curves and
hollows of her face with his fingertips. It was the act of a
sightless person; it made her wonder whether he really
was
keeping his eyes
closed.