Dream Man (7 page)

He arose but did not approach her. He looked as if he wasn't going to answer, but then he frowned and said slowly, “Why? I … I guess I don't know why. To be honest, I didn't expect you to ask that question.”

Her heart hammered high in her throat, making speech difficult. “You didn't?” she asked hoarsely. “What did you expect me to say?”

“I realize I'm sounding more and more like an utter idiot, a real jerk, but I guess I just expected you to say yes.” His brows drew together. “Or no.”

She was suddenly certain that no was not one of the answers he'd truly expected. Really, the man was out of his mind. And his ego made Everest look little.

“All right,” she said. “For the record,
no
.”

She returned to the sofa, not to sit but to straighten a cushion. She perched uneasily on the arm still staring at him, not knowing whether to laugh or get mad. He was the most disconcerting man she had ever met. If she had any sense at all, she'd toss him out this minute. Marry him, indeed! They had met exactly one week ago, had spent one hour in each other's company until this evening. He had sent her flowers, she had responded with a brief, polite thank-you note. It was hardly a basis for making a lifelong commitment.

“How could you possibly ask me something like that?” she demanded, her agitation growing. She got to her feet and paced back and forth across the room, never coming near him but never taking her eyes off his face.

“The very first time we spoke,” she said, “we established that we both hate cages. Believe me, I haven't changed. No matter how liberated a man might persuade himself he is, there are still too many barriers our society permits him to—expects him to—erect around his wife, his … his property. I've had relationships with men, Max, not many, but a couple, and the minute I told the man I loved him and we began discussing marriage, things began to change. What he planned for the future, his future, became the dominant issue. What
he
thought was right for
us
turned out to be what he wanted to do, regardless of what I might have wanted or needed. Do you know even one man who's given up a promising career to follow his wife across the continent when a transfer meant a good promotion for her?”

“Might I point out that you are self-employed? The only person who could transfer you across the country would be yourself. And the same applies to me.”

“I was just using that as an illustration. As a single woman, I can do whatever I want, whenever I want. I make my own rules, just as you do. But you can do it married or single, because you're male. That's the way our society is.”

Max should have felt that this was some kind of victory. His proposal had cracked her facade even more than those wild and unexpected moments of passion following her mugging. Her eyes were so big and so confused that he felt he was staring into a deep sea on a cloudy day. He wanted her desperately, and she had said a very clear and unequivocal no—was still saying it. He hadn't anticipated that. He hadn't foreseen her considering marriage to him as a cage. Something pretty basic inside him told him that marriage to her would be a wonderful thing, not a set of shackles but a bonding, a togetherness he had been missing and wanting for a long time without recognizing that need in himself. The fact that he hadn't realized it until the moment he saw her said something about the rightness of his decision. There had to be some way he could make her understand, some way he could stop her running from him. He heard a gusty sigh and recognized it as his own. “Marriage wouldn't have to be a cage. We could work around and through our feelings.” He decided she might feel easier if she thought he had a few concerns to be resolved as well. “We could try to have one of those marriages that doesn't trap its partners.”

She stared at him. “Do I get you right? Are you talking about one of those so-called open marriages? Where you go your way and I go mine, and we get together once or twice a week and compare notes? Or make friends with other, like-minded couples and have ‘fun' weekends away together, and it doesn't matter who ends up in whose bed? Tell me, have you heard of a little thing called AIDS?”

The horror and disgust in her tone told him exactly what she thought of those ideas. It echoed his own feelings exactly. “Of course I don't mean that kind of marriage, and not because of AIDS!” he exploded. “To me a marriage is the exclusive territory of two people, and it doesn't include outsiders in any way. If it does, it isn't a marriage, it's an arrangement, and that's not what I want for us.”

“Forget it, Max. Forget you ever said it. I'll do the same. Subject closed.”

“The subject is not closed. Can't you even consider it for a few minutes? I mean, you aren't giving me the smallest chance to explain.”

“So … explain,” she invited coolly, even though she knew that nothing he could possibly say would make her consider his proposal—even for a few minutes.

He moved closer until her forbidding attitude stopped him. “From the moment I first saw you, I've wanted you,” he said, and then shook his head as if those hadn't been the words he'd meant to say. “I mean, there's something about you that I respond to so powerfully and on a level so deep that I can't ignore it. So, I thought the only way to cure what ails me is to have you and … and you don't look like or act like an easy—” He broke off, rubbed his hand over his face, and shook his head— “Oh, hell, I'm doing this so badly, and all I want is to tell you that I feel something for you I've never felt before for any woman in my entire life.”

“A physical response?” she asked, aghast at what she was hearing. She stood, fists clenched at her sides, her gaze fixed on his face. His blue eyes no longer danced in a crinkle of smiles. They were sober, thoughtful, and slightly darkened under the shadow of his drawn brows, which emphasized his pale skin. She could see he didn't find this conversation easy.

“It's more than that, I'm telling you! I don't know what it is. I've responded physically to women before, naturally, but not like this. This is big, Jeanie. It's important. So I think we should get married before we do anything about it.”

Now she did laugh, but it was a sound with little humor in it. “You're asking me to marry you because you find me physically attractive? That's insane!”

“Is it?” he challenged. “It is, whether we like to admit it or not, the reason most people marry. I just choose to be blunt about it, not to play stupid games and swear undying love for you. To begin with, I don't believe in love. I don't believe it exists—except parent for child, child for parent. But I do know that what I feel for you is important, that I care about you. If I'd had any doubts as to that, what happened tonight in the garage and my primitive desire to murder that monster who had touched you would have cleared them up. But it's more than caring too. Maybe this intense sexuality is what people mean when they say love. If you've never really been in love, how can you know? You said you only thought you were. What did you feel before that you don't feel now?”

“I don't know. I can't explain it.”

“But you aren't denying that you feel something?”

She was silent for a few moments, then shook her head. “No. I'm not denying that. There is a very definite … sexual feeling between us. But that doesn't mean we have to act on it. It doesn't mean that we are going to. We can't. We don't even know each other.”

“I know enough about you. I knew enough ten minutes after we met. Maybe even thirty seconds. You stood there, backlit by the sun coming in your office window, your hair escaping in a little halo of curls, your skin all pink and gold, and your eyes filled with panic. You managed to hide the panic quickly, but I knew you so well without even knowing who you were, that I could read it in you. And I know this—”

He moved in on her then, lifted one hand and touched the side of her face, drawing his fingertips over her cheekbone. “You have the most beautiful face I've seen, the most touchable skin, and you like me to touch you.”

“No …” she said on a soft breath, unable to prevent her tongue from flicking over the spot at the corner of her lips where his thumb had stroked.

“You—” He broke off, swallowing hard as his gaze followed that unconscious motion of her tongue. “Your sex appeal is so strong, I haven't been able to get you out of my mind. For Pete's sake, Jeanie, why do you think we both went to the trouble to, as you put it, establish that we hated cages? It was because we were both aware of the danger we represented to each other's freedom.”

She didn't want to answer that. She didn't even want to think about it. She felt the way she guessed a trapped politician must feel.
Deny, deny, deny!

“You're crazy!”

He took her hand and flattened it on his chest.

“Feel what you do to my heart rate, Jeanie. You make me crazy, all right! You make me want you like I've never wanted anyone else in my life, and it makes me just as mad as it makes me horny, but I'm not backing off!”

She felt another helpless laugh escape; there was nothing she could do about it, and this time it held genuine amusement—at both of them. The situation was so bizarre that there was nothing to do but be amused. “Most men, feeling that way about a woman, would be doing their damnedest to get her into a bed, not a church,” she said, shaking her head.

“Yeah. I know.” She thought he looked puzzled by his own actions and words, resentful, too, and confused. He frowned. “But maybe this is all because I think it's time I got married. My brother pointed that out shortly before I met you. Minutes before, as a matter of fact. I laughed. I didn't take it seriously at all. Until I saw you. And then I knew that if I was ever going to do it, I was going to do it with you, because you are the right one for me.”

She slid her hand from under his, wondering if he could feel the tremor running through her, and stepped clear of him. “Max,” she said, “you have to realize that you can't just get married because your brother thinks it's time. Sit down,” she said. “Tell me about your brother. And about you. Do you always do what he says you should? Is he older?”

She didn't know why she was doing this. It didn't make any more sense than his impulsive proposal, but she didn't want to send him away without learning more about him and his strange idea. Not that she was considering it for a moment, of course, but for some odd reason, she couldn't just kick him out. Not until she'd heard everything he had to say.

He didn't sit but walked to one of the tall bookcases that flanked the fireplace and ran his fingers along a row of titles. “Rolph's a couple of years younger than I am. I'm thirty-eight, if you're interested,” he added almost parenthetically, “and no, I don't usually listen to his suggestions about how to run my life. He was probably joking when he said it anyway. He was making his usual complaint about the way women respond to me.”

Jeanie raised her brows and eased herself down onto the cushions of the sofa. “And how is that?” What a question! She knew all too well how she responded to him and was certain that other women did exactly the same. It gave her a bad feeling. She had never liked to be one of a crowd. Not that it mattered. She had no intention of continuing to be one of those women. She could control her responses.

“They—uh—” His cheekbones took on a dark red shade, and his mouth twisted wryly. “Well, let's just say that I've never had trouble getting dates and—Hell! That sounds pretty juvenile, doesn't it? Like I'm a high school kid bragging. What I mean is women like me. As a general rule.”

“They… well, they usually claim to have fallen in love with me if I see them more than a couple of times. I don't have to do anything to make it happen, and Rolph believes that there's no point in him trying to have a serious relationship with a woman, because the minute he brings her home to meet the family she's going to drop him and make a play for me.” He took a large book from the case, opened it at random, and studied the page in front of him. The flush on his face deepened as he assiduously avoided her gaze.

She leaned back and eyed him curiously. He wasn't boasting. She could see that. He was truly abashed at having to tell her about women's reactions to him. “Does that happen?” she asked. “Do your brother's friends drop him and make plays for you?”

He looked up. “Sometimes.” He put the book back. “All right. Nearly always.” He came and sat in a wing chair opposite her. “Dammit, Jeanie, it's embarrassing!”

“What is? Talking about it or the fact that it happens?”

His mouth twisted sideways again in an expression of distaste. “Both.”

“Do you try to stop it from happening?”

He nodded. “Not that it does much good.” He looked even more uncomfortable. “Some women just don't want to take no for an answer. They seem to think I can't possibly mean it. That if they feel for me whatever that thing is they insist on calling ‘love,' then I have to return the feeling. And I don't. I never have. I never will, because it isn't a real feeling. It's just another name for sex.”

“And you think if you were married, it would stop them from coming after you, just like that?”

“Well, yes, of course! I mean, women would see that there'd be no point in chasing after a married man, wouldn't they, and—” He looked miserable as he shook his head. “Well, it wouldn't hurt, anyway. It would give me some kind of an edge. Make a barrier of sorts. I have had a couple of pretty serious, live-in relationships in the last ten years or so. One lasted nearly two years, and, during that time, things with other women eased up a bit. So I figured if I were married for real—” He broke off with a helpless shrug.

Jeanie shook her head. “You're pretty naive for a man of thirty-eight, McKenzie. At least about women.”