Lisa Kleypas - Smooth Talking Stranger

"No, I… I need to be by myself."

"Sweetheart. I didn't mean for it to happen like this. Come to my bed. Let me make love to you the right way."

"That's not necessary."

"Yes. It is." His tone was low and urgent. "Please, Ella. This wasn't what I planned for our first time. I can make it so much better for you. I can-"

I touched his lips with my fingers. His breath was searing and soft. I would have spoken, but the elevator doors opened with a ding. I jumped at the sound. A man exited and went to his car, his footsteps a hollow-sounding echo on the concrete.

I waited until the car had left the parking garage before I spoke to Jack. "Listen to me," I said unsteadily. "If what I want or what I feel means anything at all to you… you've got to give me some space. Right now I've reached the limits of what I can handle. This is the first time I've had sex with anyone besides Dane. I've got to have time to think." Hesitantly I reached up to stroke his taut jaw. "You don't need to show me any more fireworks," I added. "In fact, the thought is sort of terrifying."

"Ella-"

"You have to back off," I told him. "I'll let you know when or if I'm ready for anything more. Until then… I don't want to see or hear from you. The person I need to see right now is Dane. The person I need to make decisions with is Dane. If there's any room for you in my life after that, you'll be the first to know."

It was a fairly safe assumption that no woman had ever spoken to Jack Travis that way before. But it was the only way I knew how to handle him. Otherwise I was pretty sure I would be naked in his bed within the next ten or fifteen minutes.

Jack caught my wrist, pulling my caressing hand away from his face, and he skewered me with a wrathful stare. "Damn it." He hauled me into his arms and held me close, breathing hard. "I've got about ten things I want to say to you right now. But at least nine of them would make me sound like a psycho."

In spite of the seriousness of the situation, I nearly smiled. "What's the tenth thing? " I asked his shirtfront.

He paused, considering it. "Never mind," he grumbled. "That one would make me sound like a psycho, too."

Guiding me to the elevator, he pressed the button. We rode up in silence. Jack drew his hands over my shoulders, my waist, my hips, as if he couldn't keep from touching me. I wanted to turn against him and let him hold me, and go up to his apartment. Instead I got off the elevator when we reached the sixth floor, and Jack followed me.

"You don't have to walk me to the door," I said.

He scowled and stayed with me until we got to the apartment. I was about to enter the combination on the keypad, when Jack took my shoulders and turned me to face him. The way he stared at me brought a flush to every visible inch of skin. His hand slid behind my neck.

"Jack-"

He kissed me roughly. My lips parted at the demanding pressure. It was a lewd, scorching, brain-demolishing kiss… not that there was much left to demolish. I pushed against him, trying to end it, but he kept on until I went boneless against him. Only then did he pull his head back, glancing down at me with hunger and a flash of belligerent male triumph.

Apparently he felt he had made some kind of point.

It flashed through my mind that this entire event had been a form of territory-marking. "Men are like dogs," Stacy was fond of saying. And she usually went on to add that, like dogs, they all took up too much space on the bed, and they always went for the crotch.

Somehow I pushed the correct combination on the keypad and went into the apartment.

"Ella-"

"I'm on the pill, by the way," I said.

Before he could reply, I closed the door firmly in his face.

"Hi, Ella," the babysitter, Teena, said cheerfully. "How'd your meetin' go?"

"Just fine. How's Luke?"

"All clean and fed. I just put him in the crib."

The mobile was playing gently, bears and honeypots turning in a lazy circle.

"Any problems while I was gone?" I asked.

"Well, he was a little fussy right after you left, but then he calmed down." Teena laughed. "Boys never like to see Mommy go off without 'em."

My heart skipped a beat. Mommy. I thought about correcting her, but it didn't seem worth the effort. I gave Teena some cash, let her out of the apartment, and I went to take a shower.

The hot water soothed and relaxed me, easing my aches and twinges. It did nothing for my guilt, however. For the first time I experienced the two-pronged remorse of having cheated on someone… remorse for having done it in the first place, and also for having enjoyed it so much.

Sighing, I wrapped a towel around my hair, put on a robe, and went to check on Luke. The mobile had stopped, and everything was quiet.

Tiptoeing to the side of the crib, I peeked in, expecting to see the baby sleeping. But he was staring up at me in that somber way of his.

"Aren't you asleep yet, Luke?" I asked softly. "What are you waiting for?"

The second he saw me, he moved and kicked, and his mouth curled in a baby-grin. His first smile.

It startled me, that spontaneous reaction to seeing me. It's you. I've been waiting for you. And I felt a lovely ache that went right down to my soul, and I forgot everything except that moment. I had earned that smile. I wanted to earn a million more from him. Without thinking I reached for Luke and lifted him from the crib, exuberantly kissing his warm little face, his smiling mouth. I inhaled his powdery, diapery, innocent smell.

I had never known such happiness.

"Look at you," I murmured, nuzzling into his neck. "Look at that smile. Oh, you are the sweetest boy, the sweetest baby…"

My boy. My Luke.

"Wow," Dane said when he walked into the apartment, after a prolonged hug at the door. He glanced at the designer decorating, the big windows and show-off view, and gave an appreciative whistle.

"It is pretty cool, isn't it?" I asked with a grin.

Dane was the same as always, warm and easygoing and handsome. He was shorter and leaner than Jack, with the result being that we fit together perfectly when we hugged. Seeing him reminded me instantly of all the reasons I had gotten together with him in the first place. He was the man who knew me better than anyone, who never set me off-balance. It was rare to find people in life you knew were never going to hurt you, or screw you over with moral manipulations. Dane was one of them.

I showed Luke to him, and he admired the baby dutifully, watching as I settled Luke into his baby bouncer. I attached a hoop of interesting toys for Luke to look at, and sat next to Dane on the sofa.

"I had no idea you were so good with babies," Dane said.

"I'm not." I took Luke's hand and showed him how to push a plastic puppy from one side of the hoop to the other. Luke flailed at it with a grunt. "I'm getting pretty good with this one, though. He's training me.

"You look different," Dane observed, settling in the corner of the sofa to get a better vantage.

"Tired," I agreed ruefully. "Dark circles."

"No, not that way. You look great. Kind of… bright-eyed."

I laughed. "Thanks. I can't imagine why. Probably because I'm so happy to see you. I've missed you, Dane."

"I missed you, too." He reached out and pulled me over him until I was half-sprawled, my hair falling into his face. The top two buttons of his hemp shirt were undone, revealing his smooth golden chest. I got a familiar clean, acrid whiff of his salt rock deodorant. Affectionately I bent to kiss him, those lips I had kissed so many thousands of times. But the gentle contact didn't bring the same sweetness and comfort it always had. In fact, it produced a strange ticklish aversion.

I lifted my head. Dane pulled me closer, and that sent a thrill of something un familiar and not at all pleasant through me.