Forsaking All Others (10 page)

“You’re forgetting, I’m an artist, too. The same is true with my work.”

She leaned forward eagerly, caught up in the subject she loved best. “It’s disconcerting sometimes, isn’t it, having your work so . . . so
visual!
” She gestured at the table top. “I mean, whatever we produce is right there for the world to judge us by.”

They talked on about the common interest they shared. Her cheeks grew pink, her eyes excited, body language intent, and he absorbed it all with growing enjoyment.

“Do you know you become vibrant when you talk about your work?” he asked.

“I do?”

“Your cheeks get pink, and your eyes dance around, and you get all animated and turned-on looking.”

She leaned back, retreating into the booth. “I guess I do. It exhilarates me.”

“Like nothing else can?” The implication was clear in his voice. The memory of his kiss came back vividly, and she dropped her eyes from his carefully expressionless face. She thought it best to lighten the atmosphere. “There’s one other thing that does as much for me.”

“And what’s that?”

“The mere thought of working with a Hasselblad.” She shivered, pressing folded hands between her knees as if even the word itself were sensual.

He lifted his cup, took a sip, mentioned casually, “I own a Hasselblad.”

Her eyes grew wide. Her back came away from the booth. “You do?” She gulped.

“Is that covetousness I see gleaming in your eye?”

“Is it ever!” She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Oh, those enormous two-and-a-quarter-inch negatives!” she swooned. “Oh, those lenses! Oh, the dream of owning the camera the astronauts took to the moon!” She sank back as if overcome, then pressed a hand to her heart. “I’d sell my soul for one of those things.”

“Sold!” he put in quickly.

“Figuratively speaking, of course. You actually own one? You’re not kidding?”

“I worked one whole summer on a road-construction crew and saved every cent I possibly could, and by fall I had enough to pay for the camera.”

Her face became clownishly sad. “Somehow I don’t think a road-construction crew would hire me on to drive a cat.”

“Don’t bother applying. You can try my camera any time.”

Again she sat up, surprised, a new look of fire in her eyes. “You mean that? You’d actually let me?”

He gestured nonchalantly. “I mostly use the thing when I make trips up north to Emily, where my folks live. They have a cabin on Roosevelt Lake, too, and I do most of my photography around the lake and in the woods up there. I stay in the city because the modeling pays for the wildlife art, which doesn’t pay for itself yet. But, like I said, the camera’s yours whenever you’d like to try it.”

“You mean it, don’t you?” she said, flabbergasted.

“Of course I mean it.” He leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest, and hooked a boot on the seat beside her. “But I didn’t offer to give it to you, just to let you try it.”

She smiled, overjoyed. Her nostrils flared slightly as her eyes drifted shut for a moment. She opened them to meet his, a hint of naughtiness about her lips while she made circles around the lip of her coffee cup with an index finger.

“I might abscond with it.”

They leaned back lazily, playing teasing games with half-shut eyes.

“Then I’ll have to make sure I stay very close to it . . . and to you, won’t I?”

Allison was suddenly very aware of his foot propped on the seat, almost touching her hip. And of how incredibly handsome he was, lazy that way, almost as if he were half asleep. And of the dancing eyes that told her he was far from asleep. And of the fact that, when the waitress asked, he had remembered she liked sugar in her coffee. And of the fact that she had laughed with him more in the last couple days than she’d laughed with Jason during all the months they’d lived together. And of the dawning realization that she and Rick Lang had an incredible lot in common.

I
T
was well past midnight when Rick paid their bill. Allison stood behind him, watching him shrug as he dug in his tight jeans pocket for change. His hair was flattened where he’d leaned his head against the booth. The collar of his old jacket was turned up, crinkled leather touching the back of his head. Without warning she itched to touch it, too.

Allison shook off the thought, buttoning her jacket up high and twisting her scarf twice about her neck.

“All set?” Rick asked, turning.

She nodded and moved toward the door. He reached around her, almost brushing her arm as he pushed the heavy plate glass open for her to pass through. Outside, crossing the parking lot, she was too keenly aware of the fact that he walked very near, just behind her shoulder, pulling leather gloves on while she buried her chin in her scarf, hands in pockets.

She stopped in the middle of the snow-packed parking lot and turned toward him. “Well, my car’s over here.”

He gestured in the opposite direction with a sideward bob of the head. “Mine’s over there.”

An uncertain pause followed, then, “Well, thanks for the hamburger. It was good, after all.”

“Anytime.”

It was quiet, late. All that could be heard were the exhaust fans on top of the restaurant humming into the neon-lit night. Allison looked up at Rick. His breath came in intermittent white clouds on the chill air. He stood before her, not a hint of smile on his face, pushing his gloves on tighter, tighter, while perusing her in the night light that turned her face pink.

“Well . . . good night,” she said, hunching her shoulders against the cold.

“G’night.” Still he didn’t move away, but stood there studying her until she became giddily aware of how fast he was breathing. There was no hiding it, for each breath was broadcast by its spreading vapor cloud. Reactions spread through her in a warm drift of awareness.
Her heart seemed to be beating everywhere at once. Then common sense took over, and she turned quickly toward the van, only to find him still following behind her shoulder. He slipped a gloved hand on her elbow, squeezing tight as they picked their precarious way along the icy footing. Though his touch was far from intimate through layers and layers of winter clothing, it sent shivers up her spine.

At the van she reached to open the door, but he beat her to it, reaching easily around her, then standing back, waiting, with his glove on the handle.

She turned to give him a last brief glance over her shoulder.

“Well, good night and thanks again.”

“Yeah,” he tried, but it came out cracky, so he cleared his voice and tried again. “Yeah.” Clearer this time, but low, soft, disconcerting.

Just as she was about to raise a foot and climb into the van, his hand captured her elbow once more, tugging her around.

“Allison?”

Her startled eyes met his as he circled both of her elbows with gloved hands. They stood in the narrow space between the open door and the vehicle as Rick’s hands compelled her closer. The freezing night air seemed suddenly hot against her skin. He pulled her closer by degrees, his head tipping to one side, blotting out the lights behind him as his lips neared.

“Don’t,” she demanded at the last moment, turning aside and raising her palms to press him away, though her heartbeats were driving hard against the hollow of her throat.

The pressure on her elbows increased. “What are you afraid of?”

“You promised you wouldn’t push.”

“Do you call one kiss pushing?” His breath was so close it brushed her cheek, sending a cloud of warm air over her skin.

“I . . . yes,” she managed, refusing to look up at him.

“Why don’t you try it and see if I push any farther?” The hands commanded her again until their bodies were so close that their jackets touched. Again Allison’s eyes met Rick’s, which were shadows only, though his hair, forehead, and nose were rimmed with a pinkish glow from the lights of the parking lot. “One kiss, all right? I’ve been thinking about it ever since the shooting session, watching you all fired up behind your camera. We were sharing something together then, I thought. Something that caught both of us up and exhilarated us, excited us. Don’t tell me you didn’t feel it. I thought maybe that common ground was reason enough to end the night with a simple kiss.”

“I told you, I’m not looking for a relationship.”

“Neither am I. I’m looking for a kiss—nothing more. Because I like you, and I’ve enjoyed being with you and
working with you, and kissing is a helluva nifty way of telling a person things like that.”

There was little she could do—and in another moment, little she wanted to do—to combat him. He lowered his lips the remaining fraction of an inch, touching her mouth lightly with warm, warm lips, made all the more warm by the contrast of his cold, cold nose against the side of her face while he held her by her upper arms. Her eyes slid closed, and her guard grew shaky while the gentle pressure of his mouth lingered, growing more welcome as the seconds passed. Without removing his lips from hers, he pulled her lightly against him, guiding her resisting arms around his sides, then clamping them securely with his elbows. When he felt her stiff resistance melt, he slowly, cautiously moved his hands to her back, wrapping her up, tightening inexorably while he started things with the sensuous movement of his head—nudging, now harder, now softer, back and forth, while she felt the warm proddings of his tongue. The warning voices, reminding Allison of Jason and the hurtful past, echoed away into silence. Only the thrumming of her own heart filled her ears as her hands rested on the back of his jacket, holding him lightly. Her lips parted, and his tongue came seeking. She met the warm, wet tip with her own and felt the heart-tripping thrill of wet flesh meeting wet flesh in a first seeking dance.

Behind her she felt his hands moving brusquely and
wondered what he was doing as the motion jerked his mouth sideways on hers momentarily. The next moment she knew he’d removed a glove, for she felt his bare hand seek her warm neck, under the cascade of hair, nestling in under the twist of scarves, massaging the back of her neck and head, commanding it to tip as he willed it, holding her captive though she no longer sought escape.

Her heart hammered everywhere, everywhere as she drifted beneath his warm, wet tongue while it slid along the soft, velvet skin of her inner lips, drew circular patterns around her own before he softened the pressure of his entire mouth, nibbling at the rim of her lips, making the complete circle before widening again, the kiss now grown wholly demanding.

Their jackets were waist length. He held her around her hips with a strong arm, and she felt his body spring to life with hardness as he pressed the zipper of his blue jeans firmly against her stomach, and before she knew what she was doing, she was moving in afterbeats, making circles with her hips that chased those he made with his.

As if realizing he’d taken the kiss farther than he’d intended, Rick closed his fingers around a fistful of Allison’s hair, tugging gently, gently as he dropped his head back and swallowed convulsively.

Their breaths came strident and rushed, falling in blending clouds of white as she leaned her forehead against his chin.

Rick’s eyes slid closed while he bid his body to slow down.

“Wow,” he got out, the word a guttural half gulp.

She chuckled, a high, tight sound of unexpectedness before two strained, little words squeezed from her throat. “Yeah . . . wow.”

Her hips rested lightly against him. She waited for her body to cool down and be sensible, but against her she could feel the difficulty he, too, was having talking sense into his body.

“One kiss,” he managed in a gruff voice. “That’s what I promised, and I keep my promises.”

Seeking to control emotions that seemed to be running away like horses with the bits between their teeth, she teased, “Would you believe I did that so convincingly just so I could get my hands on your Hasselblad?”

He laughed, raised his head, and answered, “No.”

She disengaged herself from his arms, and Rick complied without further resistance.

“Well, I did,” she teased, jamming her hands deep into her pockets and backing a step away. “I told you I’d sell my soul for one of them.”

He smiled, his eyes on her upturned face as he drew his glove back on. “You keep that up and you might end up doing exactly that.”

For a moment she had the urge to step into his embrace and try that one more time. But if she did, it might be more than his Hasselblad she wanted to get her hands on.

While she pondered, he indicated the van with an upward nudge of chin, ordering, “Get the hell in, do you hear?”

Obediently she turned and climbed aboard.

“I’ll call you,” he said tersely, as if trusting himself to say no more at the moment.

Then the door slammed shut, and he stepped back, feet spread wide, moving not a muscle as he watched the van back up and drive away. In the rear-view mirror she saw him as she rounded the corner. He hadn’t moved from the spot.

T
HE
phone rang exactly six times the following day. Each time Allison expected to hear Rick’s voice but was disappointed. Neither did he call all weekend. During the following week Allison grew more and more impatient for the sound of his voice on the other end of the line. But he didn’t call.

The transparencies for the book cover came back from processing and she tried calling him but got no answer. Vivien came to see them one afternoon, gushing in her own inimitable way that the shots were “
re-e-eally
nice.” Then she asked for Rick Lang’s phone number.

After giving it to her, Allison wondered if Vivien called men and asked them for dates. Probably. Remembering the freewheeling kiss Vivien had laid on Rick,
and the kiss she herself had shared with him, Allison couldn’t say she blamed Vivien one bit.

Friday night and Saturday seemed to crawl by, and still he didn’t call. Sunday morning Allison was up early and in the shower when the phone rang.

She burst from the spray stark naked and dripping, flying around the corner of the hall into the living room, skittering on the slick floor in her bare feet.

“Hello!” she exclaimed breathlessly.

“Hi.” One deep-voiced syllable turned her heart into a jackhammer. “Did I wake you?”

“No. I was in the shower.”

“Oh! Why don’t I call you back in a few minutes?” he returned apologetically.

“No!” she almost yelped, then consciously calmed her voice. “No, it’s all right.” There was a puddle on the floorboards at her feet. Her breasts were covered with goose pimples, which also blossomed up and down her belly like the curried nap of a carpet. Wet hair was dripping into her eyes and streaming into her mouth. She pushed a straggly strand away from one eye as she lied, “I wasn’t really in the shower. I was all done.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure. You should see me—all bright eyed and bushy tailed.” She glanced at her naked, shivering body and controlled an urge to laugh out loud.

“It’s been over a week,” he reminded her unnecessarily.

“Oh, has it?” Allison was shivering so badly she covered her breasts with one arm and hand, trying to keep warm.

“Very funny—
has it,
” he repeated dryly, “as if I haven’t been counting off every damned day.”

“Then why didn’t you call?”

“I was up north taking winter shots while there’s still some snow left, getting last dibs in on my Hasselblad before somebody else gets her hands on it. I just got back.”

“Just? You mean just now?” She checked the kitchen clock. It wasn’t quite nine yet. Emily was a three-hour ride from here.

“Yes. I wanted to leave yesterday, but my mother insisted on cooking my favorites for supper last night—a convenient ruse to keep me another day, so I just pulled in.”

“And?” she prompted innocently.

“And can I see you?” Beneath the hand that cupped her naked, wet breast a rush of sensuality tingled the nerve endings of her flesh. She closed her eyes and pretended it was Rick’s hand.

“I have the transparencies here to sho—”

“Screw the transparencies! When can I come?”

“I have to do my—”

“When?” he demanded, then decided for her. “Never mind answering that. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“Fif—hey, wait!”

But it was too late. The line had gone dead. She flew back to the bathroom, stubbed her toe on the corner of the vanity, cursed volubly, and flung a towel over her hair. Frantically rubbing, she wondered which to do, hair or makeup? There wasn’t time for both. Oh God, he was going to walk in here and she would look like she had just had a Baptist baptism! She flung the towel aside just as the phone rang again.

“Yes, what is it?” she demanded impatiently.

It was him again. “Have you had breakfast?”

“No.”

“Well, don’t!” The line went dead in her hand again, and she stared at it a moment, smiled, then flew back to the bathroom. When the doorbell rang less than twelve minutes later, she was sure it was him.

“Oh,
no-o-o!
” she wailed at her reflection in the mirror, her face sans lip gloss, blush, mascara, or even dry hair. Only one eye had pale mauve shadow above it. Like a half made-up clown she opened the door to find Rick standing on her landing hugging a grocery sack in both arms.

“Hi,” he said quietly, a slow smile spreading over his face.

“Hi.” A beguiling fluttering began just beneath her left breast as they stood in the cold morning air, measuring each other while the draft swirled into the apartment.

“Can I buy you breakfast?”

She couldn’t seem to take in enough of him at once
as her eyes wandered over his face, freshly shaved and shining, while he let his gaze roam over her half made-up face.

She nodded mutely, forgetting to step back and let him in. Still holding the brown paper bag, he reached one gloved hand out and captured her neck, pulling her half outside while he leaned down to kiss her, the zigzagged edge of the crackly bag cutting into her chin. His lips were warm and impatient as his tongue slipped out to touch her surprised lips. Then he straightened, released her, and smiled sheepishly.

“Oops, I’m sorry. Here I am letting all the warm air out while your hair turns to icicles.” He moved inside and glanced down her legs. She had whipped on a pair of faded jeans and a plaid cotton shirt but hadn’t had a chance to put her shoes on. Self-consciously she tried to cover the bare toes of her left foot with those of her right.

His eyes moved to her wet, straight hair, and from her left eye to her right. Next he caught sight of the puddle of water on the living room floor, by the telephone.

One eyebrow lifted skeptically. “All bright eyed and bushy tailed, huh?”

“Well, sort of.” She flipped her hands out only to realize she still held the brush from her eyeshadow.

The room was flooded with bright morning sunlight, cascading across the yellows and greens, dappling the gleaming hardwood floors where the plants cast leaf
shadows. Rick’s glance moved around, lingering longest on the puddle before returning to her face.

“Should I have waited until later to call?” he asked.

Her heart threatened to explode in her chest as she admitted, “No, I’d have gone mad waiting another hour.”

The brown paper bag slid down his leg and landed on the floor with a thump. Rick’s eyes devoured Allison’s face while he reached out and brought her up hard against his chest, lifting her completely off the floor while he kissed her thoroughly. His tongue sought her mouth, and hers eagerly waited to meet it, moving in wild, eager greeting as if these last eight days had been agony for each of them. His teeth trapped her bottom lip, but she neither knew nor cared when she tasted the faint saltiness of blood. He fell back against the door, taking her with him, letting her body slide back down until her toes touched the floor. And in passing she realized he was hard, aroused, and marveled that she could make him so even while her hair was wet, her makeup still in its plastic cases. His hands disappeared from her back, and she began to pull away, only to be stopped.

“No, wait, don’t go,” he said, close to her ear, “I just want to get my gloves off so I can touch you.” Behind her she heard the gloves hit the floor, then his hands pulled her close again, and she clambered right up on top of his boots with her bare feet, leaning willingly, feeling the welcome length of his body against hers. His
palms slid to her buttocks to draw her harder, harder against him. She circled his neck with both arms, straining toward his lips, tongue, chest, and hips while desire flared in her. His cold palm slid beneath her shirt. When it brushed the skin just above her waistband, she flinched and shivered.

He pulled back, looking down into her eyes. “What’s the matter?” His voice was deep and ragged.

“Your hands are like ice.”

“Do you mind?” he asked with gruff tenderness, one cold hand already warming on her soft, willing skin.

She searched his eyes, her own gone somber, her lips fallen open, slightly swollen and glistening with moisture from his tongue.

“No.” It was difficult to speak, her heartbeats were so erratic. She had missed him incredibly, found herself undeniably eager for more of his lips and hands on her. Those hands now spread wide over her ribs, which rose and fell in sharp gusts while the driving thrum of her heart seemed to lift her from his chest and drop her back against it heavily.

And then his face was lost in closeness as he kissed the side of her nose, her colored eyelid, her uncolored eyelid, her temple, and after that impossibly long wait—her mouth. He took it with tender, demanding ease, playing with her tongue, nuzzling even as he tasted, tempted, tried. His hand rode up her ribs until one
thumb rested in the hollow beneath her left breast, where it gently stroked. Surprised when he found no bra, he lifted his head, smiled, and murmured, “Mmmm?”

Her arms still looped about his neck, she replied, “Well, you only gave me ten minutes.” Then she reached to catch his upper lip between her teeth and tugged him back where he belonged. His kiss grew ardent and searching while his hand at last filled itself with her naked breast, its nipple puckered tight with desire.

Into his open mouth she whispered throatily, “Rick, what did you do to me in these last eight days?”

“Exactly what you did to me, I hope—drove me crazy.”

“But I don’t want you to think I just . . . just fall against every man who walks through that door with a grocery bag in his arms.”

“How many have walked through it that way?”

“One.”

“Hell, one’s not too many. Your reputation’s safe.” But he backed away, grinned into her eyes, and added, “For the time being.”

And she knew her days—maybe hours—of celibacy were numbered. She was falling for him more swiftly than she’d fallen for Jason, and more surely, for while she had learned to love Jason, she’d never really liked
him. But she had liked Rick Lang even before falling in love with him.

Restraining his desires, he smiled down into her eyes. “Hey, lady, did you know you have purple stuff above one eye and not the other?”

“It’s mauve, not purple, and it’s eyeshadow, not stuff, and I was hoping you’d be so overcome by me you wouldn’t notice.”

“And what about that mop of hair? You intend to leave it that way or do you want to dry it while I cook us a
real
omelette?”

“Inferring that the one I fixed us was not a real omelette?” she returned in an injured tone.

“Exactly. Mine will have ham and green pepper and onion and tomato in it, and it’ll be topped with cheddar cheese.”

“I can’t stand green peckers,” she stated tartly.

“Green
whats!
”

Immediately she colored. “Oh, Rick, I’m sorry. I . . . I . . .” She turned her back, horrified to have let the familiarity pop out unrestrained. It was an old joke between her and Jason.

“Go dry your hair. I’ll holler if I can’t find everything I need.”

In the bathroom she glowered at her reflection in the mirror.

“Stupid twit!” she scolded her reflection.

To turn the odds in her favor, she made her bed, put on a bra, and took extra pains with her hair, styling it with the curling iron until it fluffed about her collar in wispy tendrils that bounced on her shoulders.

The sound of the stereo came to her. Smiling, Allison glanced toward the doorway, then began humming as she turned toward the mirror again.

Her makeup was subtle and iridescent, applied with a light but knowledgeable hand, for she’d made up many models in her day. As an afterthought she placed light touches of perfume behind each ear, on each wrist, then on impulse snaked a hand beneath her shirt and touched the valley between her breasts before bending to touch each ankle, too.

Straightening up, she turned to find Rick leaning indolently against the bathroom doorframe, grinning as he watched her. He let his head tip speculatively to one side while teasing, “So that’s where you women put perfume, huh? I counted—there were seven places.” He pulled his shoulder from the door and turned away. “Your breakfast is ready, Cleopatra.”

Allison could have died on the spot.

She might have felt self-conscious meeting his eyes when she took her place at the table, but he put her at ease with his teasing. Swinging around, bearing two plates with enormous, fluffy Spanish omelettes, he unceremoniously plopped them on the table, advising, “Eat up, skinny, you look like you can use it.”

“Oh, do I now? I didn’t hear any complaints a few minutes ago when you came in.”

“You may not have heard them, but you may recall I had a hand on your ribs, and you’re about as fat as a sparrow’s kneecap.”

She smiled. “You sound just like my mother. Every time I go home it’s, ‘Allison, eat up. Allison, you just don’t look healthy. Allison, have a second helping.’ It drives me crazy. Why is it that mothers and grandmothers think a woman isn’t healthy unless she’s at least twenty pounds overweight?”

“Probably because they love you and mean the best for you. If they didn’t they wouldn’t bother to notice. I get the same thing from my dad when I go home, only about being single. ‘Rick, you know that Benson girl moved back home and got a job in Doc Wassall’s office. Didn’t you used to date her when you were in high school?’ ” Rick grinned sardonically. “That Benson girl probably weighs a hundred and eighty now and wears support hose and orthopedic shoes. Besides, I don’t think Dad would believe it if I told him I can actually cook an omelette. He’s never cooked one in his life. Mom’s always there to do it for him . . .
and
his laundry, his house-cleaning, and reminding him when it’s time to pay the electric bill. That’s their way of life. If they try to force it on me, I understand it’s because they want me to be happy. So I just grin and tell Dad maybe I’ll give old Ellen Marie Benson a call before I leave.”