"What kind of state job were you interviewing for?"
"State police, field detective division."
Taking the pitcher of tea from the refrigerator, she poured the two glasses full. "Lemon?"
"No, just straight." He took the glass from her, his fingers brushing hers. That was enough to make her nipples pucker and stand at attention. His gaze zeroed in on her mouth. "Congratulations," he said.
She blinked at him. "Have I done something?" She hoped he wasn't referring to all the publicity over the List – oh, God, the List. She had forgotten about it. Had he read the entire thing? Of course he had.
"You haven't cussed once, and we've been together half an hour. You didn't even swear when I dragged you out of the supermarket."
"Really?" She smiled, pleased with herself. Maybe having to pay all those fines was working on her subconscious. She was still thinking a lot of swear words, but the fines didn't kick in unless she said them out loud. Progress was being made.
He tilted the glass up and drank. She watched, mesmerized, as his strong throat worked. She struggled with a violent urge to tear his clothes off. What was wrong with her? She had watched men drink all her life, and it had never before affected her like this, not even with any of her three ex-fiancés.
"More?" she asked when he drained the glass and set it down.
"No, thanks." That hot, dark gaze went over her, settled on her breasts. "You look extra spiffy today. Anything special going on?"
She wasn't going to avoid the subject, no matter how touchy it was. "We had an interview for Good Morning America this morning – at four A.M. if you can believe it! I had to get up at two," she complained, "and I've been comatose most of the day."
"The List is getting that much publicity?" he asked, surprised. "I'm afraid so," she said morosely, sitting down at the table. He didn't sit down across from her, but took the chair beside her. "I tracked it down on the Web. It was funny stuff – Ms. C." She gaped at him. "How did you know?" she demanded. He snorted. "Like I wouldn't recognize your smart-ass mouth even in print. 'Anything over eight is strictly for show-and-tell'," he quoted at her.
"I might have known you'd remember only the sex stuff."
"Sex is much on my mind these days. And just for the record – I don't have anything for show-and-tell." If he didn't, he hadn't missed it by much, Jaine thought, remembering with great fondness how he had looked in profile.
He continued, "I'm just happy I'm not in the point-and- laugh category."
Jaine shrieked with laughter and threw herself back in the chair so hard it tipped her out onto the floor. She sat there holding her ribs, which had pretty much stopped aching but now decided to resume at such rough treatment, but she couldn't stop laughing. BooBoo cautiously approached, but decided he didn't want to get within touching distance and instead sought refuge under Sam's chair.
Sam leaned down and scooped up the cat, settling him on his lap and stroking down the long, lean body. BooBoo closed his eyes and set up a buzz-saw purr. The cat purred, and Sam watched her, waiting until the gales of laughter had subsided to giggles and wheezing. She sat on the floor with her arms wrapped around her ribs and her eyes wet with tears. If she had any mascara left, it had to be running down her cheeks, she thought. "Need any help getting up?" he asked. "I should warn you that if I get my hands on you, I may have trouble taking them off again."
"I can manage, thanks." Carefully, and not without some difficulty because of her long skirt, she got to her feet and wiped her eyes with a napkin.
"Good. I'd hate to disturb… what's his name? BooBoo? What the hell kind of name for a cat is BooBoo?"
"Don't blame me; blame my mother."
'A cat should have a name it can live up to. Naming him BooBoo is like naming your son Alice. BooBoo shoulda been named Tiger, or Romeo – "
Jaine shook her head. "Romeo's out."
"You mean he's –?"
She nodded.
"In that case, I guess BooBoo's a pretty good name for him, though BooHoo would be more appropriate." She had to hold her ribs really, really tight to keep from bursting into more laughter. "You're such a guy."
"What the hell did you want me to be, a ballerina?" No, she didn't want him to be anything except what he was. No one else had ever made excitement fizz along her veins like champagne, and that was quite an achievement, considering that a week ago they hadn't exchanged anything except insults. Only two days had passed since their first kiss, two days that had seemed like an eternity because there hadn't been any more lasses until she grabbed his ears at the supermarket and pulled him down to her level.
"How's your egg?" he asked, lids heavy over his dark eyes, and she knew his thoughts weren't far from hers. "History," she replied.
"Then let's go to bed."
"You think all you have to do is say, 'Let's go to bed,' and I'll fall over on my back?" she asked indignantly. "No, I hoped I'd have a chance to do a bit more than that before you fell over on your back."
"I'm not falling anywhere."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm having my period." Funny, she couldn't remember ever saying that to a man before, especially without even a twinge of self-consciousness. His brows snapped down. "You're what?" he asked in growing anger.
"Having my period. Menstruating. Maybe you've heard about it. It's when – "
"I have two sisters; I think I know a little about periods. And one of the things I know is that the egg is fertile roughly in the middle of the cycle, not close to the end!" Busted. Jaine pursed her lips. "Okay, so I lied. There's always a slight chance the timing is off, and I wasn't willing to take that chance, all right?"
It evidently wasn't all right. "You stopped me," he groaned, closing his eyes as if he were in acute pain. "I was damn near dying, and you stopped me."
"You make it sound on a level with treason." He opened his eyes, glaring at her. "What about now?" He was about as romantic as a rock, she thought, so why was she so turned on? "Your idea of foreplay is probably @
"You awake?' " she grumbled.
He made an impatient gesture. "What about now?"
"No."
"Jeez!" He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes again. "What's wrong with now?"
"I told you, I'm having my period."
"So?"
"So… no."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't want to!" she yelled. "Give me a break!" He sighed. "I get it. PMS."
"PMS is before, you idiot."
"That's what you say. Ask any man and you'll hear a different story."
"Like they're experts," she scoffed.
"Honey, the only experts in PMS are men. That's why men are so good at fighting wars; they learned Escape and Evade at home."
She thought about throwing a frying pan at him, but BooBoo was in the line of fire, and anyway, she would have to find a frying pan first.
He grinned at the expression on her face. "Know why PMS is called PMS?"
"Don't you dare," she threatened. "Only women can tell PMS jokes."
"Because 'mad cow disease' was already taken." Forget the frying pan. She looked around for a knife. "Get out of my house."
He put BooBoo on the floor and stood up, evidently ready to Escape and Evade. "Settle down," he said, putting the chair between them.
"Settle down, my ass! Damn it, where's my butcher knife?" She looked around in frustration. If she had only lived here longer, she would know where she had put everything! He came out from behind the chair, around the table, and had a firm grip on both her wrists before she could remember which drawer held her cutting knives. "You owe me fifty cents," he said, grinning down at her as he pulled her against him.
"Don't hold your breath! I told you I wouldn't pay when it's your fault." She blew her bangs out of her eyes so she could glare at him more effectively.
He bent his head and kissed her.
Time stood still again. He must have released her wrists, because her arms slid around his neck. His mouth was hot and hungry, and he kissed the way no man should kiss and still be allowed to run free. His scent was as warm and musky as sex, filling her lungs, permeating her skin. He put one big hand on her bottom and lifted her off her feet, aligning their bodies more completely, groin to groin. The long skirt hampered her, preventing her from wrapping her legs around him. Jaine arched in frustration, almost ready to cry. "We can't," she whispered when he raised his mouth a fraction of an inch.
"We can do other things," he murmured in reply, sitting down with her across his lap, tilted back across his supporting arm. Deftly he slipped his hand inside the scooped neckline of her sweater.
She closed her eyes in delight as his rough palm scraped over her nipple. He exhaled, a long, sighing sound; then it was as if they both held their breath as his hand shaped itself over her breast, learning her size and softness, the texture of her skin.
In silence he withdrew his hand and pulled the sweater off over her head, then deftly unzipped her bra and pushed it off her shoulders to fall to the floor.
She lay half-naked across his lap, her breath coming fast and shallow as she watched him looking at her. She knew her own breasts, but what were they like from a man's point of view? They weren't big, but were firm and upright. Her nipples were small and pinkish-brown, velvety soft and delicate compared to the rough fingertip he used to lightly circle one, making the aureole pucker even more tightly.
Pleasure speared through her, making her clench her legs tightly together to contain it.
He lifted her, arching her even more across his arm, and bent his head to her breasts.
He was gentle, totally without haste. She was stunned by his caution now, given his rapacious kisses. He nuzzled his face against the underside of her breasts, kissing the curves, licking gently at her nipples until they were reddened and so tight they couldn't possibly get any tighter. When he finally began sucking her with slow, firm pressure, she was so ready it was as if he had touched her with a live wire. She couldn't control her body, couldn't stop herself from arching wildly in his arms; her heart was thundering, her pulse racing so fast she was dizzy. She was helpless; she would have done virtually anything he wanted. When he stopped, it was by his own willpower, not hers. She could feel him shaking, his strong, powerful body quaking against her as if he were chilled, though his skin was hot to the touch. He sat her upright and pressed his forehead to hers, his eyes squeezed shut and his hands roughly stroking her hips, her bare back. "If I ever get inside you," he said in a strained tone, "I'll last, like, two seconds. Maybe."
She was crazy. She had to be, because two seconds of Sam sounded better than anything else she could bring to mind right now. She stared at him with glazed eyes and ripe, swollen mouth. She wanted those two seconds. She wanted them bad.
He looked down at her breasts and made a sound halfway between a whine and a groan. Muttering a curse, he leaned down and snagged her sweater from the floor, pressing it to her chest. "Maybe you'd better put this back on."
"Maybe I should," she said, and her voice sounded drugged even to herself. Her arms didn't seem to be working; they remained twined around Sam's neck. "Either you put on the sweater, or we go to the bedroom." That wasn't much of a threat, she thought, when every cell in her body was saying "Yes! Yes! Yes!" As long as she could keep her mouth from saying it, she was holding her own, but she was beginning to have serious doubts about holding him off for even a couple of days, much less a couple of weeks the way she had planned. Torturing him didn't sound like nearly as much fun as it had before, because now she knew just how much she would also be torturing herself.
He stuffed her arms inside the sweater and pulled it over her head, jerking the fabric into place. The sweater was inside out, she saw, but who cared? She didn't. "You're trying to kill me," he accused. "I'm going to make you pay, too."
"How?" she asked with interest, leaning against him. The same thing that was wrong with her arms was also wrong with her spine; it wouldn't hold her upright. "Instead of that half hour of thrusting time you claim you want, I'm going to stop at twenty-nine minutes." She snickered. "I thought you were holding out for two seconds."
"That's just the first time. The second time we're going to set the sheets on fire."
It behooved her, she thought, to get off his lap. His erection was like an iron bar prodding her hip, and talking about sex wasn't helping any. If she really, really didn't want to go to bed with him now, she should get up. But she really, really did want to go to bed with him, and only a small portion of her brain was still cautious. That small portion, however, was insistent. She had learned the hard way not to assume happily-ever-after would happen for her, and just because they were hot for each other didn't mean there was anything between them other than sex.
She cleared her throat. "I should get up, shouldn't I?"
"If you have to move at all, do it slowly."
"That close, huh?"
"Just call me Mount Etna."
"Who's Edna?"