Part 8 (1/2)
”So you thought you'd have a peep show before retiring?” he asked, shaking droplets of water as he stood, glaring down at her in embarra.s.sment. ”Usually, it takes at least a little coaxing to draw a woman to my bed.”
”Not from what I saw when I first met you!” she countered. ”That blonde looked pretty easy to me.” She averted her gaze. ”Look, I heard water running, and I... that is... it sounded like the sink, not the shower. I thought you might be shaving.”
Jack grinned despite himself. ”You zeroed in on that little blonde pretty good, huh?”
”Well, she wasn't wearing much,” Marilyn offered, scooting back to prop herself against his pillows. ”You going to stand there until you drip dry? I can come back later.”
”I could always drop the towel and just crawl into bed,” he said with a smirk.
”Yes, but then you'd get your sheets all wet and...well, you don't seem like the type who likes to sleep on the wet spot.”
”What type am I?” he asked, grinning while spreading her legs with his hands and sliding between them to lay on top of her, propping himself on his elbows.
”That towel...is...uh...very damp,” Marilyn said, clearing her throat and wetting her lips, obviously nervous.
”Then dry me off with it.” Jack rolled off her and plopped beside her onto his stomach. ”It's late, and I'm too tired to make the moves on you anyway.”
Marilyn pulled the towel from around his waist and gently glided it over his body, pausing on his bare a.s.s to ma.s.sage the muscles of his taut b.u.t.t.
Jack smiled to himself. He could tell she was nervous, that she'd just barged in without thinking, which seemed to be par for the course for his irrepressible editor.
”I'm sorry, you know. For embarra.s.sing you,” she said. ”For getting you into this fix, I mean. I had no idea that you were a fraud.”
”Say what?” Jack started to roll over, but Marilyn shoved him back onto his stomach. ”Please! I haven't the time or inclination to see your private parts, and as you said... it's late.” She continued ma.s.saging him, slapping him none too gently on the rump when he tried to sit up again.
”As I was saying, I'm sorry for causing you so much trouble.”
Jack grinned. ”Now that's more like it.”
”You seem like a decent guy, and you don't deserve this. But... what's done is done, and now we have to make sure you're ready to... ” She paused as Jack slowly rolled over to face her, and the towel she'd been holding dropped to reveal his enlarged p.e.n.i.s. ”... to stand up... oh, wow!” She struggled to avert her gaze. ”... to... to your... ah ...to your compet.i.tion during this cooking contest.”
”Now who's embarra.s.sed, chere?” he asked smoothly, a hand lifting to trace the planes of her face.
Before she could utter another word, he pulled her into his arms, with nothing separating them save her clothes.
Marilyn could barely catch her breath. With one kiss, his lips, which had so fascinated her on his photograph, seemed to burn through to her soul, and she found herself melting against him as the fire went unchecked by either of them.
”I knew when I first heard your voice on the phone that you were gonna be the death of me,” Jack told her between kisses as his hands moved quickly from her shoulders to the waistband of her Bermuda shorts.
”Uh... wait.” She glanced over at the jeans he'd discarded before taking his shower.
”Oh.” Jack smiled and reached into the nightstand's small drawer and pulled out a foil packet similar to the one he'd produced on the riverbank, then turned out the light, leaving the room in semi-darkness as the full moon outside slipped softly around them.
Just when he'd ripped the foil open with his teeth, her hands connected with his chest, shoving him precariously to the edge of his own bed.
”What the h.e.l.l?”
”I told you-I came over here to talk to you about something. I need to know whether or not this is okay with you.”
”You were looking at my jeans! I thought you wanted me to get the...”
”No! I thought maybe you'd put on your pants so we could have a civilized conversation!”
Jack rose to his knees, turned the light back on and glared at her. ”Talk? Right.”
”I suggested earlier that I be the one to shadow you, and you never really responded. That's really why I came over here.”
”Oh, I responded-you just didn't like what you heard.”
”Okay, I made a mistake. I'm trying now to rectify it. This is important-you must have someone with you at all times when you're cooking-it's just one of the rules set up by Larabee.”
”Yeah?” he asked, climbing back beside her. ”Well, it's a stupid rule. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?”
Marilyn rolled off the bed and put her hands on her hips. ”I have to abide by the rules too, you know. One of the contestants they had in an earlier contest cheated by having someone else mix up the ingredients for him when he lost a contact lens, and of course one of his compet.i.tors cried foul. So you could make this a lot easier on both of us, you know. It's just a cooking contest. Not like anyone is going to ask you to show your a.s.s.”
”Nope. Just my ignorance. And I may be a fraud, as you say, but I'm a proud one, and I don't relish the thought of having Robert Neal or Marie Sanders going back to the publisher with a 'Guess what?' story!”
”Well, I don't want to go back home and face the unemployment office saying the same thing!” she retorted. ”I don't have a pension from the Armed Forces to fall back on -I don't have an understanding family who will be there for me if you can't swallow your pride. All I have is standing before you right now, and it isn't much to brag about!”
He watched her face and felt like an absolute s.h.i.+t for continuing the farce. Her lovely face was troubled, frown lines creasing the corners of her eyes, her brows knitted with worry.
Jack leaned on an elbow and beckoned her with his free hand. ”C'mere, chere. Let's talk about it.” He patted the bed. ”I won't bite. Not unless you want me to.”
The startled look on her face melted into one of relief. ”Really? You can talk about this without getting angry or belligerent?”
”Try me.”
He covered himself with the sheet and blanket and gave her ample room to sit across from him.
”It's like this,” he said. ”We both screwed up. I should've stopped any rumors years ago that even hinted that I was a good cook. And you should never have entered me in that contest without talking to me first.”
When she opened her mouth, he lifted a finger and shushed her, continuing, ”I didn' t cause your problem any more than you caused mine. Can we just call a truce on that much of it?”
She waited until he removed his finger from her lips and nodded, but he could tell she was reluctant to agree.
”Blame's not gonna get us anywhere, chere. What we need now is a good solution.”
”I'm open to suggestions,” she said.
Jack noted her slightly flared nostrils and flushed cheeks. For a moment, neither of them said anything. Then he reached to lift a strand of hair that had fallen into her face, and when he moved to tuck it behind her ear, he found himself cupping the back of her head and pulling her toward him for the kiss he'd been wanting to lay on her ever since he'd caught her staring at him from the doorway of the bathroom.
”I don't want to fight with you,” she said breathlessly, when he lifted his lips. ”I didn't come here for that.”
”Remind me. Why did you come here?” he asked seductively, nibbling her bottom lip and drawing her into another kiss.
”This isn't getting us anywhere,” she said, panting.
”Maybe we're not supposed to go anywhere tonight... but right here,” was all he replied.
”You...have no modesty whatsoever.”