Ladies' Man (3 page)

Nothing heavy. Nothing too intense. Just dinner.

She wanted to.

And she was going to.

So what if he was too young. Age was a state of mind, anyway, wasn’t it? Look at Alma. Eighty-nine and going strong.

Still looking into Sam’s eyes, Ellen raised her voice enough to be picked up by the speakerphone. “Head for the West Side, please, Ron,” she said. “We’d like to stop at the Carnegie Deli and pick something up for dinner. And then, if it’s all right with you, we’d like the dollar tour of the city.”

“It would be my pleasure,” Ron said and signed off.

Sam smiled, a sweet, crooked, utterly charming smile. “Thank you.”

Ellen felt herself blush as she let herself be thoroughly charmed. “Well, we both do have to eat and…”

Sam was looking around the limo as if seeing the luxurious interior for the first time. “Nice car. I don’t suppose the TV has cable?”

Ellen picked up the telephone. “Hello, Ron? Sam just made the old ‘Does the limo get cable’ joke. How many does that make it? Seven thousand, six hundred and fifty-two times in the past three years that you’ve had this job? Shall we push him out of the car now, or wait until we’re going through the tunnel?”

“Very funny.” Sam took the phone out of her hand, listened to make sure Ron wasn’t really on the other end, and hung it up. Then he just sat there smiling at her.

Now what?

Ellen nervously searched for something,
any
thing to talk about. “So…how did you meet T. S. Harrison?”

“I refused to steal his 1969 Mets World Series autographed baseball.”

“You
what?
”

He grinned. “We were both in fifth grade. Angelo Giglione and Marty Keller—they were seventh graders, and everyone was scared to death of them—they told me that they were going to beat the crap out of me unless I finagled an invitation to Toby Harrison’s house and stole this baseball he had that all the Mets on the ’69 team had signed.”

“
Toby
Harrison?”

“Tobias Shavar Harrison. He decided in ninth grade to do the initial thing—it was around the time he grew a foot and a half taller and made the basketball team. But back in fifth grade he was fat Toby H., the weird science nerd.”

Ellen tried not to laugh. “I love the way you talk about your best friend.”

“It’s the truth. T.S. would be the first to admit it.”

“So, what happened?”

“So, Marty and Angelo knew Toby was my science partner, and that he’d have to invite me over to his house to get the project done. I think we were building a volcano. Toby was in charge of making diagrams of tectonic plates, and I was in charge of making the volcano—which was easy, since I’d made a model volcano in the fourth grade and it was still out in my garage. We were both in charge of creating the goo that was supposed to ooze down the sides.”

Ellen found herself hanging on to Sam’s every word, like some teenager struck with puppy love. She tried to convince herself that she was interested in the story he was telling rather than the slightly rough texture of his voice and the way his graceful mouth moved when he spoke. It didn’t take much imagination to picture that mouth moving against her lips, her neck, her…

She forced herself to look away from him, forced herself to pay attention to his story.

“So he invited me over,” Sam continued, “and I went, and we mixed all this horrible looking stuff together in his kitchen, and his mom even helped us figure out what we had to add to vinegar to make the volcano bubble and foam, and we had a pretty good time. He was an okay guy for a nerd, you know? He really knew how to make me laugh.”

It was no use. Ellen couldn’t keep from gazing at him, this time into his eyes. She found herself looking closer, trying to see if maybe he wore colored contact lenses. Nobody could have eyes that blue, could they?

“After we finished up with the volcano,” he told her, “I sort of casually asked to see this incredible baseball that everyone knew he had. He took me up to his bedroom and took it out of its case and let me hold it. It was so cool. All those signatures. It was worth a lot of money—well, you know, not by grown-up standards, but to a kid…. I asked him where he got it, and he told me his dad gave it to him.

“Now, when Toby said that, I knew he was full of crap, because everyone knew his dad died in Vietnam before he was born. But then he showed me this letter that his dad had written to him, telling him that his mom was going to hold this baseball for him until his tenth birthday. See, his dad knew he might not come back from ’Nam, so he wrote this letter for this kid that he would never meet.”

Ellen forgot about the color of Sam’s eyes, totally engrossed in the story he was telling.

Sam smiled at her ruefully. “And so I sat there, looking at all those signatures and the mark of the bat where Wayne Garrett had hit the ball into the stands for a home run. And I looked at the letter, and I looked at Toby, and I looked at the way he put that baseball back in its special case, and I
knew
that Angelo Giglione and Marty Keller were just going to have to beat the hell out of me, because there was no way I was going to take that baseball away from this kid. And there was no way I was going to let anyone else take it away, either. I told Toby everything, told him to lock that baseball up and not to trust anyone.”

Ellen had to ask. “Did they? Those boys? Did they beat you up?”

Sam leaned forward slightly, pointing to a spot on his face just above and off to the side of his right eyebrow. “See this scar? Seven stitches at City Hospital courtesy of Angelo Giglione.”

Ellen had noticed that scar earlier. It wasn’t a very big scar, yet it managed to add character to his face. It added even more now that she knew where he’d gotten it.

“T.S. only had to get five stitches that day.”

“They beat him up too?”

“He saw them corner me on the playground after school, and tried to even up the odds. We’ve been tight ever since.”

She resisted the urge to reach out and lightly trace his scar with her finger. She sat back in her seat, putting some distance between them, suddenly aware that for several long moments his face had been mere inches from hers, his mouth well within kissing range.

She wanted to kiss this man.

It was such a strange sensation. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d allowed herself even to think such a thought.

He was looking at her as if he could read her mind. God help her if he could.

But instead of leaning toward her and covering her mouth with his, Sam turned and opened the little refrigerator that was built into the side of the car. “Hey. Look at this. There’re five bottles of champagne in here.”

“Bob’s always ready for anything,” Ellen told him as he took one out and looked at the label. She tried to slow the pounding of her heart. “Emmy nominations. High ratings. Viewer’s choice awards. Academy Award—winning actresses who might need to be personally escorted back to their hotel after his show…Although, you know, he doesn’t drink himself.”

“I’d heard, yeah.” He eyed the glasses and corkscrew that were secured in a nearby compartment. “Do you think he’d mind if we opened a bottle?”

“What are we celebrating?”

“Now, there’s a myth.” Sam unwrapped the plastic from the top of the bottle, exposing the cork. “Who says we need to celebrate something in order to enjoy a glass of champagne? It’s really just beer made from grapes.”

The phone rang, and again Ellen put on the speaker. “Hang on, folks,” Ron’s voice said. “I’ve got a lot of brake lights ahead.”

The limo slowed, all the way to a stop.

As Sam watched, Ellen reached for a button on a control panel, and the opaque privacy panel that separated the back of the limo from the front seat went down. She moved across onto the other seat, sitting sideways so that she could look out the front windshield.

“What’s going on?” she asked the driver.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. But it looks as if some people up ahead are getting out of their cars.”

Sam looked at his watch. “There’ll be a traffic report on WINS in just a minute.”

Ron nodded. “I’ve been going back and forth between the stations—nobody’s said anything about this. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything. But from the way this looks, we could be here for a while.”

Ellen turned back to look at Sam as she put the panel back into place. “If there’s one thing I hate about New York City, it’s the relentless traffic. I hope you don’t need to be anywhere soon.”

“No, I’ve got the whole night.” For the first time in his life, Sam was ecstatic about being stuck in a traffic jam.

Who said they had nothing to celebrate?

He smiled and popped the champagne’s cork.

THREE

M
y all-time favorite movie?” Ellen mused, leaning back against the soft leather of the seat, her sandals off and her feet up on the facing seat. “That’s a hard one. I think it’s a toss-up between
E.T., The Sound of Music
, and
The Usual Suspects
.”

Sam laughed as he poured himself another glass of champagne. “I can see your problem deciding,” he teased. “They’re all so similar.”

His feet were up on the seat, too, and Ellen nudged his foot with her toe. “They
are
. They’re all great movies.”

Sam shifted slightly, moving closer to her so that their feet were touching all the time. “More?” he asked, holding out the bottle.

Ellen shook her head. “No, thanks. At least not until we can get something to eat to go with it.” She looked down at their feet—his were still touching hers—and then up into his eyes.

“So, tell me what made you decide to come to New York City for the summer,” he said with a smile.

Ellen had to laugh. “This is my fault, isn’t it?” she asked. “I touched you first, so now you figure it’s okay to touch me.”

He still didn’t move his feet away. He’d pulled off his white athletic socks when he’d taken off his sneakers, and his feet were warm, with straight, evenly shaped toes. But compared to his arms and hands, his feet were lily white, as if he didn’t spend much time with his socks and sneakers off. They were nice to look at, though, and even nicer to feel against her own slightly chilly toes.

He took another sip of his champagne as he gazed at her. “I’d rather hold your hand, but I thought I’d start slowly. You have to admit I’ve shown incredible restraint, considering we’ve been sitting here together for…” He glanced at his watch. “Nearly two hours.”

“Your subtlety has been astonishing,” Ellen agreed, “for a man who claims not to be subtle.”

He reached across her to set his wineglass in an inset holder along the side of the interior, and their shoulders touched. But when he shifted back, he didn’t move far enough away. She wasn’t all that surprised when he picked up her hand and laced their fingers together.

The sensation made her heart accelerate, but she couldn’t seem to pull away. She didn’t
want
to pull away.

“You seem just a little gun-shy,” he told her softly, bringing her hand up to his lips. “I’m trying really hard not to scare you.”

“I’m not scared,” Ellen said. And she wasn’t. She knew with a certainty that all she had to do was not move, and Sam would kiss her. All she had to do was to sit right there and just look at him, and he would lean over and…

But he didn’t.

He just smiled at her, a slow, steady heat burning in his eyes.

They’d been talking nonstop for nearly two hours as they sat in stopped traffic on the Van Wyck Expressway. Ron had relayed news reports that said a tractor-trailer had jackknifed on the road ahead of them, nearly crushing three cars. Apparently there were three different teams with three different Jaws of Life working to free seriously injured passengers. A bevy of choppers had landed on the highway, too, waiting to airlift the injured to the hospital. The road would be blocked for another hour or so.

There was nothing they could do but wait.

And talk.

And open a second bottle of Bob’s expensive champagne.

Ellen had told Sam a little bit—just a little bit—about her twelve-year farce of a marriage to Richard. He’d told her a little bit about his childhood in Brooklyn—growing up the son of a second-generation New York City cop, and the pressure he’d felt as the eldest son to follow in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps and join the police force. They’d talked about books and movies. They’d touched on the latest fashion trends and argued about the future of pop music. They’d talked about the best place to get Chinese food in the city, and the best place in the Village to get a Middle Eastern meal.

She hadn’t told him about her children. As dearly as she loved Lydia and Jamie, she wanted—for just one night—to feel young and wild. And someone young and wild and on the verge of kissing a man nearly ten years her junior surely didn’t have a fifteen-year-old daughter and a thirteen-year-old son.

And he
was
going to kiss her. Ellen realized he was simply taking his time. She liked him even more for that, and she loved the anticipation that seemed to stretch way out with each passing second.

He was gazing at her lips now, and he glanced up into her eyes one last time before he leaned forward and covered her mouth with his own.

He skipped all the rules of a traditional first kiss and swept his tongue possessively into her mouth, as if they’d been lovers for years. He tasted like champagne, sweet and delicious as he kissed her deeply, passionately. She felt herself respond to him completely, fire racing through her veins. Lord, it had been so long….

She wanted to wrap her arms around him, but she was still holding her wineglass.

Sam lifted his head long enough to take the glass from her hand and set it down next to his. And then he kissed her again, as if he’d never stopped—as if he never intended to stop again.

His hair was impossibly soft as she ran her fingers through it. His arms and his back were incredibly hard, his muscles taut and firm. But even as her hands explored his body, his hands did the same to her, touching her hair and the bare skin of her arms, sending shivers of desire down her back.

She was in
big
trouble here….

“Ellen, I want to make love to you.” His fingers found the edge of her shirt and swept up along her skin, covering the softness of her breast, caressing her, touching her so intimately.

She may not have been scared before, but now she was scared to death—not from the way Sam touched her, but from the way his touch made her feel.

Ellen wanted to make love to him too.

Desperately.

She pulled away from him, nearly leaping all the way across the limo.

Sam knew he’d gone too far, and he apologized instantly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have pushed. I didn’t mean to…”

From the other side of the limo, Ellen laughed. It was shaky, but it was a laugh. “If that was the way you kiss when you don’t mean to, I’m afraid to have you kiss me when you
do
mean to.”

She was gorgeous. With her blouse half untucked from her skirt and her hair disheveled and her mouth slightly swollen from the roughness of his five o’clock shadow, she was breathtakingly sexy. Her pulling away from him that way should have made him start to cool down. Instead he felt himself grow even harder.

She reached for her glass and took a long, bracing swallow. As Sam watched, she licked a drop of wine from her beautiful lips, and about a hundred incredible fantasies flashed crazily through his mind.

None of which were going to happen tonight, he told himself firmly. Yes, he’d kissed her, and yes, she’d kissed him back as if she’d spent the past decade on a desert island without a man. Yes, she’d surprised him and totally turned him on with the intensity of her response. Yes, she’d kissed him in a way he’d never been kissed before, but the reality of the situation was that she wasn’t going to sleep with him tonight.

He took a deep breath, and let it out quickly, shifting slightly in his seat. “So, why did you come to New York? Most people go to Connecticut for the summer to escape the heat.”

The telephone rang, and Sam laughed. “I’m destined to never hear the answer to that question.” He reached to switch on the speakerphone as he’d seen her do earlier.

“Heard another traffic report,” Ron announced. “They got that little girl out of that car, and the last of the choppers left for the hospital. They’re going to start working now to clear the road. Should be no more than another ten minutes before we start moving.”

“Thanks, Ron,” Ellen said.

Sam switched off the phone. “Maybe we should call the deli and order so that we don’t have to wait—we can just pick up the food.”

“You still want to have dinner?”

“Yeah, I’m starving, aren’t you?”

Ellen moved back across the limo so that she could reach the phone. It also put her within his reach, but he was careful to stay securely in his corner, hoping that after she made her phone call she’d stay where she was too. And then he could start inching his way in her direction….

“Hi, Ron?” she said into the phone. “Are you still up for stopping at Carnegie Deli? You are? Great. We’re going to call in our order—what can we get for you?” She paused. “I’m probably going to have a Reuben sandwich. You too? Excellent. We’ll call it in.” She hung up the phone and quickly dialed another number.

“How long have you been in town?” Sam asked.

She glanced at him. “Four days.”

“And you’ve already memorized the phone number of Carnegie Deli? I’m impressed.”

Ellen smiled at him. “I made a vow not to cook all summer long. And since Bob takes his chef with him when he goes out of town, we’ve—
I’ve
—been living on takeout—Hello? Darn, they put me on hold. Ron and I are having a Reuben. What do you want, Sam?”

What do you want, Sam?
It was one hell of a loaded question. Her cheeks flushed slightly as he simply gazed at her. He wanted her, and she knew it.

“Just make it three,” he finally said. “Get us some potato knishes, too, and a half a pound of cole slaw. Oh, and cheesecake. Definitely cheesecake.”

Ellen placed the order, then hung up the phone. Sam willed her not to move, and she didn’t.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” she said. “Take the entire summer off and come to New York City, I mean. I usually teach a summer course or two.”

“You’re a teacher?”

“College professor. Freshman English.”

He moved a little closer. “What colleges are in Connecticut? I can’t think of a single one besides the University of Hartford—”

“I teach at Yale,” she told him.

“Yale,” he repeated. “Yeah, Yale would be in Connecticut, wouldn’t it? Yale, huh? As in really smart kids and even smarter professors?”

“It’s not that big a deal.”

“I think I’m intimidated,” he said, inching toward her.

Ellen laughed. “You? I don’t think the word’s in your vocabulary.”

“Do you have, like, a master’s degree or something?”

“A Ph.D.”

“So I’m sitting here, about to put the moves on
Doctor
Ellen Layne?”

“Are you intending to put ‘the moves’ on me again?”

Sam inched closer. “I have a thing for smart women.”

Ellen rolled her eyes. “Something tells me you have a thing for women. Period.”

“We’re not talking about me right now,” Sam pointed out as he moved close enough to take her hand. “We’re talking about you. So, you blew off your summer teaching gig to come to the city for the summer—obviously not to make the rounds of the art museums.”

She had nice hands—fingers that were nearly as long as his but much more slender, with well-manicured nails, and soft, smooth skin. She wore no jewelry, no rings. She wasn’t one of those divorced people who clung to the past by refusing to remove her wedding band. That was a good sign.

Ellen gazed down at their hands, at the way he caressed the inside of her wrist with a slow movement of one finger.

“Actually,” her voice was slightly breathless, “I came to New York to try my hand at being an actress.” She looked up into his eyes and smiled. “In addition to memorizing Carnegie’s phone number, I’ve also gone on five different auditions in the past four days. One of them was for a part in a soap opera.” She laughed. “I don’t know what I’ll do if I actually get the job.”

“Move to New York.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Hey, it sounds like it’s been pretty easy so far. Most people come to New York to be an actor and it takes them years just to find an agent to send them on auditions. First week you’re here, you’re reading for what,
Guiding Light? As the World Turns?
”

“Actually, it’s a new show in development. How do you know so much about this?”

“An…ex-neighbor of mine finally got a part on
ATWT
, only to get killed off a few weeks later—her character, that is. I, um, helped her load her truck when she decided to head for Los Angeles.” He didn’t quite meet Ellen’s eyes, using the fact that the limo was moving as an excuse to look out the window. “Here we go,” he said. “Finally.”

Ex-neighbor, huh? Ellen somehow doubted the ex-neighbor, whoever she was, would have described her relationship with Sam in quite those words. Ex-girlfriend, perhaps. Or maybe ex-lover.

But Ellen didn’t really want to know. She didn’t want to care. In fact, she refused to care. Sam Schaefer was with
her
tonight. She wasn’t interested in anything more than right here and right now. The past didn’t matter, nor the future. All she had to worry about was this single moment in time, with his fingers caressing her hand, and his eyes caressing her face.

Ellen knew in that moment that she was going to kiss Sam again. Probably more than once. But she was a big girl. She was a full-grown woman. She could tell the difference between reality and fantasy—and what was happening here in this limousine was definitely fantasy. This man was not only far too young for her, but he was clearly not the type who invested in the long term when it came to relationships. It was more than obvious that everything they said and did in this protective bubble inside the limo would dry up and blow away the second they tried to bring it out into the real world.