Once Around (22 page)

"
I know," said Molly, placing her hand in his. "It's better."

#

"Oh!" The dark-haired matron placed a beautifully manicured hand over her heart. "I didn't know anyone was in here."

"
No problem," said Jessy, hitting the Off button on the cell phone. "It was too noisy out there for me." She was curled up in the far corner of the pink brocade sofa in the ladies' room lobby.

The woman frowned as she patted her steel helmet of a hairstyle.
"The orchestra has been on break since the entrée."

Jessy tilted her head.
"I hear Gershwin."

"
I mean they're only just now back." The woman looked at Jessy as if she couldn't understand her without a translator. "If you don't like noise, you're going to be terribly unhappy."

"
I just needed a break," Jessy said, wondering why so much explanation was necessary. "I'm fine."

The woman murmured something Jessy was sure
, she'd hate if she could understand it, then exited stage right.

Jessy forgot all ab
out her before the door slammed shut behind the woman. She'd placed a call to a colleague at the hospital. Risa worked in pathology and had weekends off. It would take at least twenty minutes to get a call back, which was just perfect. With any luck at all she'd be dancing with Spencer when her beeper sounded and she put the rest of her plan in motion.

She stood up and let her dress settle around her thighs. She half-expected someone to take her aside and tell her to go home and finish getting dressed.
Look at you, sister,
her daddy would say.
Ain't you too old to be playin' dress-up?

This isn
't dress-up, she thought. This is the way grown women are supposed to look if they want to attract a man. The old Jessy Wyatt with her plain face and braided hair would never have stood a chance with a man like Spencer. If she wanted to make her dreams come true, she'd have to make sure some of his dreams did as well.

Which was what tonight was all about.

#

"
The song is over," Molly murmured.

"
Don't worry." Rafe's lips brushed against her hair. "They'll play another one."

"
People are looking at us.

"
Do you care?"

She swayed closer to him.
"No," she said. "Not one bit."

"
Good."

The magic would end with the music. It always did.
He'd have given everything he owned to make sure the music never stopped.

After a while they stopped dancing entirely and just
held each other. Her breasts pillowed against his chest.

He wanted to lower his head and draw his tongue along h
er cleavage and taste her skin. Her belly was pressed against his groin, a warm insistent presence. Everything about her was warm—her hair, her laugh, her voluptuous body. He was drunk on the feel and smell of her.

But it wasn
't a perfect world. The lights went up. The orchestra said good night. People milled around, gathering up coats and car keys and anecdotes to tell at work on Monday morning.

He and Molly stood together at their table and waited.

"I think you've been stood up," he said as the ballroom quickly emptied. "I don't see the lawyer anywhere."

"
That's impossible." Molly scanned the room for easily the tenth time. "I can't believe they'd leave me stranded."

"
You're not stranded," he said quietly. "I won't leave you."

#

Those words were her undoing.

I won
't leave you.

"
I can call a cab," she said. "I'll be fine."

"
Where I come from, men don't leave women alone in the middle of the night."

"
Where I come from, it's called business as usual."

"
We're playing by my rules tonight, Molly. I'll take care of you."

He slipped off his jacket
' once again and settled it around her shoulders. It felt familiar to her now, both comforting and wildly exciting. The push-pull of emotion made her feel dizzy. His hand enveloped hers, and she was instantly anchored.

"
I parked myself," he said as they exited the hotel. "The lot's on the other side of that footbridge. Stay near the doorman. I'll be right back."

"
I'll come with you," she said.

"
You're tired, and it's cold. I'll be back before you know it."

She wrapped his jacket close around her body. The doorman smiled at her
, and she smiled back.

"
Your boyfriend's a park-it-yourself type," he said. "Don't see many of them around here."

She was about to say that Rafe wasn
't her boyfriend, but something in the doorman's tone got under her skin. She nodded her head instead and kept silent. Robert and the doorman had a lot in common. Both men judged people by the externals, as if parking your own car made you a lesser human being. Robert always used valet parking, and he'd walked out on his pregnant wife. She wondered what the doorman would think of that,

"
You should tell him people notice these things," the doorman went on. "Little things make a difference. A classy woman like you deserves only the best."

"
I already have the best," she said as Rafe parked his battered red truck at the curb.

Let the doorma
n think about that for a while.

#

Spencer's Porsche rolled to a stop at the far end of the parking lot near the lake. Jessy watched as he shifted into neutral, let out the clutch, then set the parking brake. He turned to her, his face shadowy in the dark interior of the car. She wished she could see his eyes. Maybe that would make this easier.

"
Is this where you wanted me to park?" He sounded curious, a little puzzled, definitely intrigued.

She nodded. She felt more like herself there than anywhere else in Princeton
, surrounded by trees that had withstood the Revolution, land that echoed with stories.

"
I thought you needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible."

"
I lied to you," she said in as clear and steady a voice as she could manage. "They don't need me at the hospital."

"
They paged you," he said. "I was there when the call came through."

"
It was a setup, Spencer." That was the first time she'd called him by name. Just saying it excited her. "I arranged for a colleague to ring me."

He drummed the steering wheel with the fingers of his right hand.
"Why did you do that, Jessy?" His tone was still neutral. Back home people let their feelings flow like tap water but not here.

She sucked in
a deep breath then blurted out, "Because I love you."

His head shot back as if he
'd been struck a blow.

"
No," she said, raising her hand. "Don't say anything, I know you don't love me but I can change that."

"
Jesus, Jessy, I--"

"
Hush," she said, slipping back into her old speech pattern. "I'm not tryin' to hurt you, Spencer. I love you is all."

"
You can't love me, Jessy," he said, dragging a hand through his hair. "You don't even know me,"

"
Doesn't much matter," she said, inching her skirt higher up her thighs. "I love you."

His gaze dropped to the expanse
, of bare leg she was exposing. "This is a mistake, Jess. You don't know what you're doing."

"
You're right," she said "I'm crazy. Out of my mind. I can't be held accountable for my actions." She slid her panties down over her hips and skimmed them off.

She could hear the sound of his breathing in the quiet car. Yes
, she thought. This was the right thing to do. No matter what happened, she would always have this.

"
I'll do anything for you," she said simply. "Whatever you want."

"
Put your panties back on, Jessy. This is crazy."

She took his hand and placed it between her thighs.
"I'm wet," she said. "That's what you do to me, Spencer. Without even touching me, that's what you do." She'd never talked that way before. Not even in her dreams. She'd never said those forbidden words to anyone.

His fingers curved around her mons. She shuddered and closed her eyes. She was afraid to breathe
, afraid that the slightest sound or movement would shatter the magic spell. She heard him slide closer to her. His fingers threaded through the nest of curls then slipped down to explore her body. She settled back against the seat and moved her legs slightly apart.

He groaned. Or maybe she did. The sound seemed to galvanize both of them. He slipped two
fingers inside her body, and she clutched him with muscles she didn't know she had. She turned toward him and pulled the skimpy dress up over her head then tossed it into the backseat.

The sound he made almost brought her to climax. He wanted her. There was no doubt about that
, no doubt at all. She fondled his erection through the fabric of his trousers. Rock hard, she thought. And she was responsible for it. Not Molly Chamberlain. Not some fantasy figure.

Just her.

She came hard against his hand, her body convulsing around his fingers, her head thrown back against the seat. That beautiful leather upholstery would be marked with her juices, and he didn't seem to care. That thought alone made her come again, more violently this time, her body bucking wildly against him until she cried out.

She felt bereft when he withdrew from her
, as if she'd lost part of herself. He reached into the backseat and retrieved her dress.

"
Put this on," he said. He didn't sound like himself. There was an edge to his voice, an urgency she'd never heard before.

She cupped his erection.
"But what about you?"

He met her gaze
, and she saw the unmistakable fire in his cool gray eyes. "We have all night."

Chapter Thirteen

I won
't leave you.

The words resonated inside Molly
's heart as Rafe drove her home.

I won
't leave you.

Had Robert ever said that to her? She couldn
't remember. He'd pledged to love and honor her. He'd vowed to be there in sickness and in health. But had he ever said he wouldn't leave her?

She didn
't think so. She didn't think anyone had ever said that to her in her entire life. Certainly nobody had ever meant it.

She
'd grown up with the sound of her mother's tears for a lullaby. Her parents' marriage had been a passionate and dramatic one, brief periods of calm followed by long stretches of rage. She'd cowered under the covers as a little girl with her hands clapped over her ears to keep the ugly words away. "Your daddy and I love each other very much," her mother used to tell her after the storm had passed. "It has nothing to do with you."

And that was the trouble. None of it had anything to do with her. When her parents finally split up
, they moved on to other relationships, other marriages, other battles, and left Molly to fend for herself. She bounced between her mother and her father, moved from school to school, from friend to friend, searching for something or someone she could count on,

Robert was supposed to be that someone. Although he never said it in so many- words
, she'd known he was as solid as the ground under her feet, as dependable as the air she breathed. They were a team, he said. They knew how to work together toward a common goal: his law degree. She'd admired his single-minded dedication to the task at hand, even when that dedication got in the way of their marriage. There would be plenty of time for their marriage once he was established. Once he had their future locked in, it would be her turn. She could quit her job, or at least scale down her hours, get pregnant, create the family she'd always wanted.

I
won't leave you.

Last Christmas she and Robert went up to Bridgewater Commons to do their gift shopping. The mall swarmed with people. You couldn
't reach into your pocket without bumping into someone else's hand. They settled on some little electronic gadget for Robert's older brother, and Molly got on the endless line to pay for it. "Where are you going?" she'd asked Robert as he moved away from her. "Don't go fad I'll never find you in this crowd."