39 - THE UNWANTED SPARK
Derek
Bonds was shivering. My blood was hot. She smelled like sex, like the promise of hunger sated. Soft, vulnerable, beautiful. I could hear the distant roar in my ears.
No, not here, not her. I clamped down hard.
I let her wrists go and stayed close enough to catch her if her knees quit. They almost did.
She looked up in confusion, then disappointment. Fuck, she really wanted it. I pushed down harder.
The arms first. When I took both her wrists in the one hand, her arms had gone heavy.
A frightened person locks up or pulls, the arms going hard, the whole body leaning back toward the door.
Hers had done the opposite. They'd gone soft and handed me their weight, the way a sleeping kid's arm gives you its weight when you move it, and they'd gotten heavier the longer I held her.
That wasn't fear. That was surrender.
The breathing, then. She'd stopped. Ten seconds, maybe twelve, the kind of breath-hold that isn't voluntary. Pupils blown wide. The color up high in her face and across her throat, and it was the wrong color. It was blood coming up to the surface instead of draining out of it.
Idiot. It wasn't fear. Lacey Bonds had been horny as hell. I should have stopped then.
Then she'd asked me to do it again.
Her wrists in my hand. Small. The pulse going hard against my fingers. The weight of her arms settling into my grip, given over.
Fuck. I've got a fucking hard-on.
This was a problem.
I hadn't been hard like that since Pamela.
This woman cares for my daughter. Plus she’s clueless about this shit.
There is not a worse woman in the state of Kentucky for me to react to like this.
Lock it down. Be a host. Get her home.
I told her she didn't know what she was asking for, and she didn't. Sheltered suburbanite divorcee, reading badly written naughty books, constructing fantasies.
Fuck, I had wanted her.
"Send me the MRI specs tomorrow," I said.
She didn't answer that. She said, "I know what I'm asking for. Lessons. Do you still teach private lessons?"
Goddammit. She's still on it.
"No. I don't think that would be good for you." Did she think she was fooling me? Or herself?
"Nonsense. I should learn this. I'm smart, you said so yourself. This is exactly the kind of thing I need to learn now that I'm single."
"Maybe we talk about it later. I don't have a lot of free time. Send me the specs."
"Of course." A beat. "I was kidding anyway."
She wasn't kidding.
I changed the subject, reached for the easy professional register that should have been the simplest thing in the world, but it wouldn't come. So I watched her instead of listening. She'd gone bright right after the demonstration, too bright, the lit-up look I'd seen before, like she was high.
Then she went quiet. Her answers got shorter. She was looking at me less. And then she was getting angry. Quiet about it, under her manners. But angry.
There it is, Harrington.
She didn't even know why she was angry.
I told her I looked forward to the proposal. I'd have my answer by the end of the week. Aaron would bring the car. She didn't argue. She gathered her bag, and the politeness was holding the anger about half an inch off the surface, and I knew if I kept the night going it was going to come through.
I walked her out. I should have just opened the door.
Then she wheeled on me.
"I told you I wasn't scared or upset, Derek.
" The anger was right at the surface now.
"For a genius, you don't listen very well, do you?
" She shook her head. "Sorry. That was rude.
But I wasn't upset. You didn't do anything wrong.
" She said it to the door behind me, not to me.
Then she went past me and down the steps to the car looking mortified.
That was a giant cock-up, Harrington, in the drill sergeant's voice. Sir, yes sir! Was it ever.
I went up to look in on Jess.
She had one arm flung over her head and the other around her elephant, breathing even, heart behaving tonight, which it doesn't always.
This was the deal. I'd made it with myself in a hospital room almost four years back, holding a toddler whose mother had just died, a list of the men I was not going to be from that hour on.
The man who almost assaults his daughter's cardiologist wasn't on the list only because I'd never considered it.
I went back down and poured a bourbon.
Up until the self-defense business, I'd have told you the night went well. The fish was delicious. She laughed. I even told her about my mother, which I don't do.
Don't lie to yourself, Harrington. She loves Jessica, that's not just her Dr. Bonds persona.
She's smart, professional, gorgeous, and now I know what makes her tick.
Then I caught myself. It's worse than I thought.
She didn't turn me on because she was sexy and willing.
She brought that out because she'd already moved in and I hadn't noticed it.