InstructionbySeduction (13 page)

Leah pulled her legs up around Hale and hooked her ankles
around his back. She squeezed when he pushed, driving him farther within her.
They moved together in a symphony, each moving in just the right way. With
bodies moving in harmony, it was time for the climax.

Hale moved in perfect time with Leah’s body, his thrusts and
strokes as gentle and firm as though Leah’s mind were a guiding hand. Leah laid
her head back against the pillow. The sweet pressure was almost ready to burst.
He touched her most sensitive spot again and again, the intensity building.

As it boiled over, Leah opened her eyes and stared at Hale
square in the eyes, Scott’s blue depths meeting her gaze. They came together in
a storm befitting the end of a passionate symphony. Leah struggled to keep her
eyes open as she shook and came hard against Hale’s shaft, watching him as he
released into her. Hale’s new blue eyes displayed the euphoria and the
unmatched delectation of their coupling and it was all that Leah had ever hoped
to see.

Leah closed her eyes as Hale collapsed over her.

“Forget strawberry jam,” Hale said. “Forget honey. You are
pure silk. The expensive kind. The kind that men will max out their credit card
to buy because it’s just so damn beautiful and they can’t wait to see it on the
love of their life.”

Leah wanted to smile but instead she nearly cried. For all
the poetry she assigned to Hale’s crude, sometimes crass words in the past,
those few sentences were enough to turn her into a puddle. The sincerity
doubled the beauty of the words. Leah was warm in places she didn’t know she
could be.

As Hale moved his upper body in preparation to rise off
Leah, he looked down at her and she up at him.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“I don’t understand,” Leah said with a slight shake of her
head.

Without responding, Hale’s body shook slightly—and he shook
off the outer form of Scott. Brown hair replaced blond, green eyes replaced
blue, Hale’s fine features replaced Scott’s. All while he touched her, held
her, his flesh still within her.

Leah tried not to scream and was mostly successful. All that
came out was a little shriek and a hefty shudder. Up until then she still could
have convinced herself that Hale was human. That he had a twin brother. That
somehow Scott had known about all this and actually shown up on her doorstep.
But at that moment, watching him transfigure from Scott into Hale right on top
of her, there was no denying the truth.

“What are you?” Leah choked.

“You know exactly what I am. Why do you keep denying what
you already know?”

* * * * *

Freedom from her classes as the days led into summer break
meant Leah had more time to focus on her duties at FoodSmart, more time to
spend doing kickboxing…and more time to stalk Mayfaire’s for Scott. Leah sat in
her car again, out in front of the store. She adjusted her top, which was very
flattering on her new kickboxing-induced figure. She was closer to her ideal
weight than she’d been since high school and she felt great. She looked great.
She desperately wanted to show that greatness to Scott.

Leah slid out of the Honda and walked into the store. She
thought of Scott’s business card and was amused at how she lacked the nads to
call him but had no qualms about being a psycho stalker at his workplace. Leah
made her rounds at the store and after not seeing him, bought a pack of gum and
walked back to her car. She would see him again soon. She could feel it. And
nothing would hold her back next time.

She hadn’t called on Hale in the days since their last
encounter. After watching his disguise act she was unnerved. It had been a
beautiful evening with a heart-stopping end. She still couldn’t tell him what
he was so sure she knew. What was he? A demon? His insistence that she already
knew what he was infuriated her. She didn’t damn know and was irritated that he
was so sure she did.

* * * * *

It was a week until the trade show. Leah was embarrassed at
how excited she was about going on a business trip. It was a first for her and
somehow it made her feel more like an adult and less like a kid playing pretend
in a grown-up world. Not only did she have a position sufficient enough to go
on a business trip but she was trusted enough to do so.

“What are you smirking about?” Kelly asked.

“What do you mean?” Leah leaned against the metal bin that
caught the scanned groceries. They were a little short-handed and she’d been
helping out by bagging groceries for Kelly.

“You’re always smirking that snotty little smirk,” Kelly
teased. “And it’s particularly snotty today. What are you thinking about?”

Leah laughed and shook her head then stopped. A cold sensation
swept through her and a frozen rock formed in the pit of her stomach. Kelly’s
words had sparked a bittersweet, sick feeling within her.

“Hey, you okay?” Kelly asked. “Now you look like you’re
going to toss your cookies.”

“I’ll be right back,” Leah whispered, then turned and ran
for the employee restroom. She slammed and locked the door behind her. As she
turned to face the mirror, the rock rotated and shifted in her guts.

Leah looked at her reflection and her face was both white
and flushed, if that were possible. She stared into the glacier-like green of
her eyes. And smirked.

Leah threw herself back against the wall, fearing she would
crash right through the drywall. She stared at herself. She stared at Hale’s
very essence in her own reflection.

You know exactly what I am.

“He’s me,” Leah choked in shock. “He came from me. I created
him from myself.”

* * * * *

Leah stared at the box. Remembering all the times she tore
it off the top of the dresser in a near-frenzy made her apprehension all that
much more unbearable. Her savior was now making her question her own sanity.
How was it possible? How could a box create a flesh-and-blood human being from
her psyche alone? Had she hallucinated the whole thing?

Impossible,
Leah thought, turning away and pacing.
I
was sore. I was wet. I was relaxed. I was touched in every possible place in
every possible way. Plus I’m not psychotic.

The box seemed to dare Leah as she looked at it over her
shoulder.
Open me. See what happens. Open me like I opened you.

Looking away again, Leah stopped pacing.
You cannot open
the box. The box opens you.

“The box opens you,” she whispered. “The box can make your
dreams come true.”

Leah leaned against the dresser and pulled the box down. She
cradled it in her hands like a tiny infant, an invaluable part of herself. She
opened the lid.

And there was nothing.

Not a bang, not a whimper. Not a shimmer of power or a black
hole sucking all the life out of her. Just nothing. Just the box. And a
stronger, more confident, more vigilant Leah.

Hale’s last lesson.

It all came from you
, a voice in Leah’s mind said.
It
was within you all along. Every word, every revelation, every act and moan and
whisper. After all, you already knew…the box opens you.

Excitement stirred within Leah as she rocketed up I-35
toward Kansas City. Three days of hard-core grocery store management awaited
her but the idea of being in that professional environment thrilled her. People
would look at her and think she was somebody. Not too long ago she could have
been the one making up the room and now she was staying in it. A nice hotel,
too. Doubletree.

Leah squealed out loud inside the Chevy Malibu that
FoodSmart had rented for her. She wanted to wiggle around to go with it but didn’t
think that crashing the car would do much for her career. So she settled for
another squeal and cranking up the radio.

After two hours on the road, inevitably her thoughts turned
to Hale. The revelation that he didn’t really exist—or at least not anymore—wasn’t
as devastating as she originally thought. Instead, it was almost a newfound
freedom. Empowerment.

She knew all that stuff all along but she had to find a
magic box to personify all she already had inside her.
The box
. Who knew
what it was? But Hale…how could she have missed it? The same eyes. The same
smirk. His name was an anagram of her own, for Christ’s sake. How he knew
everything about her. How he knew where she kept things.
That’s exactly
where I would have put it
, he’d said on his first visit to her, referring
to the beer.
Of course he would have.

Leah wondered if she’d been born male she would have looked
like Hale. Or maybe his features and build were all from her imagination, since
she knew exactly what she liked in a man.

In a man
, Leah thought, getting sidetracked by
thoughts of Scott. Maybe while she was in Kansas City she’d waste some time
perusing Mayfaire’s to see if she could find him again. She had to see him
again.

Just call him, jackass
! she chastised herself.
You’re
in KC. He’s in KC. Just call him.

Instead Leah checked into her room at the Doubletree and
received a warm welcome from the front-desk staff. She slung her borrowed
garment bag over her shoulder and made her way to her room.

It was a simple but elegant room. Leah felt a little bit
like royalty when she compared it to her subsidized student apartment back in
Wichita. She hung up her clothes, three new suits that it would take her a
lifetime to pay off. But they fit like they were made for her, looked great and
would last as long as classic fashion did.

The clerk at the front desk told her that some of the
vendors would be setting up their booths that night if she wanted to get a
sneak peek. Mostly Leah was hungry but she decided to swing by anyway and get a
feel for the place. She slid into a skirt and jacket, casual but sophisticated
and looked in the mirror.

“Who are you?” she asked her reflection, then giggled. She
pocketed her room key card and headed back down to the main floor.

Following the map on the paper holder from her key card,
Leah located Salon A. The door was closed but she pushed it open a few inches
to peek inside. Many of the exhibits were already up but a good number were
still under construction. Leah slipped inside and started briefly reviewing the
ones that were up.

Leah passed a booth for cleaning products targeted toward
grocery stores, a supply chain management software company and a few others
before she came to one that made her stop dead in her tracks.

Do your employees know the law?
the banner asked.
Let
us make sure they do!
Leah picked up one of the brochures. The company did
on-site training of laws pertaining to the food environment, with updates on
recent legislation, ongoing support, the works.

Training,
she thought.
I could do this
. Leah
envisioned her own booth.
Customer service sells more products than
displays—let us show you how! Or maybe, Increase sales ten percent in one month
by training your employees to deliver stellar service. Or…

“So were you just checking out the competition? Or maybe
trying to cause a disruption?”

That voice. Leah’s thought froze in her brain then melted
away. That voice, the voice of perfection. She turned around slowly, feeling
like she might spin and pass out. But there he stood, in a collared shirt and
blue jeans.

“Hi, Scott,” she whispered.

“You remember my name. Impressive.”

Scott leaned back and crossed his arms, appearing to size
her up.

“Let’s see—you work for…Dillon’s.”

Leah shook her head.

“Wal-Mart Super Center.”

Leah shook her head again, trying not to laugh.

“Well that only leaves FoodSmart then.”

“Yes, that’s right. And no, I wasn’t trying to cause
trouble…but I guess that’s what I ended up doing.”

“So if you manage a FoodSmart…”

Leah didn’t correct him.

“Then how is it that you were produce shopping at
Mayfaire’s? Unless you were, in fact, checking out the competition?”

I was checking out something
.

Leah paused, not wanting to lie but too embarrassed to tell
the truth. Scott took her hesitation as confirmation.

“I see,” he said. “No, don’t worry. We’ve all done it. So
you must have heard about the problems that store was having.”

“Actually I had no clue until…”

Leah trailed off. She didn’t want to narc on those
employees.

“Until?”

“Hey,” she said abruptly. “Do you want to get something to
eat?” She flashed him a smile, somewhere in between stellar customer service
and
you would look great without those pants on.
“We can talk shop.”

“I’d love to.” Scott looked as if he were trying to return
her smile but it got stuck somewhere while he was locking eyes with her. “I
know a place.”

Scott walked Leah across the street to a tiny Italian
restaurant. He held open the door for her, then set his hand lightly on the
small of her back as they entered. Leah closed her eyes and took a deep breath
to keep from shivering noticeably. The hostess greeted them warmly and they
were seated immediately—it was still a little early for the dinner crowd.

Leah smiled across the table at Scott, contemplating how the
hell she’d gotten here. When had she ever asked for a date? Was this a date?
She didn’t know and she didn’t care. All she knew was that she had her chance
and she wasn’t going to waste it.

“Are you here often?” she asked.

“I’ve been here several times. The salmon is killer. I
wonder if they’ll have it on the menu tonight. It changes with whatever they
get in.”

“Sounds wonderful. So—you live close to here?”

Leah tried not to sound like she was fishing.

“I live in Overland Park so it’s not like I would just swing
by here on a whim. But when I’m in the area it’s a definite.”

“So you’re not staying in the hotel, I take it?”

“No, Mayfaire’s wouldn’t pay for it, so unless someone else
invites me to stay in their room I’m not…”

Scott trailed off, then lowered his head. Was he blushing?

“I’m sorry.” He shook his head as he looked at Leah. “I
wasn’t at all insinuating that… I mean…”

Leah grinned. She was thoroughly enjoying his discomfort
almost as much as the thought of inviting him up to her room.

“You mean…?” she asked innocently, feeling the wicked smile
spreading.

Scott laughed. “Enjoying yourself?”

“Absolutely.”

Over a glass of cabernet Leah learned all about Scott. As
soon as he had half a glass of wine in him he opened up quite a bit, she noted.
Lightweight. She listened with fascination about his time at Iowa State
University and how he’d never worked anywhere else but for a grocery store
chain. He talked halfway through dinner before Leah realized that he was
rambling because he was nervous.

Nervous because of me? When has that happened…ever?

The server cleared away the dishes and Scott paid the tab.
Leah and Scott were left with the remains of a bottle of wine. Leah was a
little tipsy, a lightweight herself, and was trying not to act drunk. They
laughed over a hundred stories from work. It amazed Leah that no matter how
hard a grocery store tried to differentiate itself, it was really just the same
as all the others when it came to the crazy things people would do within those
four walls.

“Oh my God,” Leah laughed, recovering from yet another story.
“This one time we had a mother put her baby on the conveyor belt. The baby got
all the way up to the cashier so he lifted her up and said, ‘ma’am, do you have
a coupon for this?’ I thought the woman was going to lose it. Baby thought it
was pretty funny too.”

“There was this one time,” Scott said, turning slightly red,
“there was this beautiful girl running down aisle six and she slipped and fell.
I ran to help her but I realized…it was really me who’d fallen.”

Leah’s lips parted and she stared at Scott. Was it the wine
talking?

“I’m sorry,” Scott said quickly. “We should go.”

Scott stood and held out his hand to Leah. “Shall we?”

Leah took his hand and let him help her out of the seat. His
hand was warm and comforting but the way his touch sent shivers all through her
body made Leah desperate for a little more. When she was out of the seat, Scott
tried to release her but she didn’t let go of his hand.

It was still light outside when they emerged from the restaurant,
which surprised Leah. It seemed like they’d been there for hours. Too bad,
since Leah would have enjoyed a walk under the stars.

“Have you ever been down to the plaza?” Scott asked.

“Once but I wasn’t there long. Hardly counts, really.”

“Would you like to go? The river walk is beautiful.”

“I’d love to,” Leah breathed.

Leah followed Scott back across the street to his silver
Acura. He opened the door for Leah and she slid in, the supple leather of the
interior molding to her body like it was made for her.

“I love your car,” Leah said as Scott slid behind the wheel.

“So do I.” He laughed. “This is what I get for driving an
old beater for ten years.”

“Ah, so you’re a man who saves and plans ahead?”

“Absolutely.”

Leah watched Scott in shrouded amazement as he backed the
car out of its parking spot. He looked perfect in it. She couldn’t imagine him
driving anything else. Classy yet not pretentious. Solid but not stuffy.

Within moments of leaving the parking lot Leah was lost. She
knew Kansas City like it was Shanghai. Without her map she might as well be
anywhere in the world. But Scott knew exactly where he was going and delivered
them to the plaza in a matter of fifteen minutes.

The plaza was a popular spot, filled with restaurants and
stores, fountains and culture. The river curved through the edge of the area,
complete with a cobblestone walkway and benches. Scott found a parking place
and eagerly took Leah’s hand as they exited the parking garage.

“I love coming down here,” he said. “It’s a great place to
people-watch.”

“I’ll bet,” Leah said as a group of piercing aficionados
walked by.

“I saw a group of Hare Krishnas once, all in orange robes.”

“Wow. You don’t see that in Wichita.”

“You see crazy things in Wichita too. I was there once for
River Festival.”

Leah laughed. The annual festival tended to bring out the
best and the worst in people. Scott led her down to the river walk. They paused
for a moment, appreciating the beauty of the orange setting sun. Its reflection
flickered across the ripples of the water like an oil painting.

“It is beautiful,” Leah agreed. She continued to watch the
river until she realized that Scott was staring at her. She turned her head to
look at him, painfully aware of the little smirk that was playing on her lips.

“Let’s walk,” Scott said.

To her surprise, Leah wasn’t disappointed. She would have
desperately loved for him to have kissed her at that very moment, just taken
her in his arms and given her a kiss to wipe all others from her mind. But she
was just as satisfied to have him hold her hand and walk with her by the river.
They didn’t even have to speak. The silence was not uncomfortable.

As they reached the end of the river walk Scott turned to
her and said, “I should probably take you back to the hotel. The events start
early tomorrow.”

Leah nodded but didn’t move when Scott began to move up the
steps. He stopped and turned around. He looked like a dream to her there on the
stone steps, gazing at her with a question in his eyes. Then the question went
away. Scott returned to the pathway of the river walk and put his hands on
either side of Leah’s head, lightly brushing away her hair.

There was no hesitation in either of them. Like it was part
of a script in a movie, Scott moved toward Leah, a gentle passion burning in
the blue depths of his eyes. Leah tilted her head up and closed her eyes just
in time to feel Scott’s kiss gently brush her lips.

His kiss was nothing like Hale’s Scott impersonation. The
real Scott started soft and gentle then kissed her in short, quick bursts,
taking her lower lip in tiny nibbles into his mouth and then, as Leah opened to
him, he cautiously allowed his tongue to caress hers. He stroked her hair and
cradled her head in his hands as if she were a fragile china doll. It was quite
possibly the most chaste French kiss she’d ever experienced but it made her
melt inside like butter and her toes curl in her shoes.

Scott pulled away from her and their eyes locked for a brief
moment. Leah wondered if she looked as confused as he did. They’d shared
precious few hours together and yet the connection was so strong after a single
kiss she’d have said yes to anything he asked of her. She wondered if he was
feeling the same thing.

Finally Scott flashed her a beautiful smile and said, “Let’s
go.”

They were back at the hotel too quickly for Leah’s taste.
Scott walked her to her room. It was the shortest walk of her life from the
front door of the hotel to the door of her room. Why couldn’t she have been on
the top floor, in a remote area like Egypt so that it would have taken them all
night to get there?