Authors: Tamara Larson
Jessie was torn between wanting to continue the bliss of feeling his hands on her, and leaving her most embarrassing physical imperfection somewhat vulnerable to his perusal. The bliss won out and she laid back down on her front, carefully arranging the sheet to cover her bottom. She’d exposed it in the first place, trying to entice him, but had somehow managed to forget about the mark. She hadn’t looked at it in so long, it had completely slipped her mind until
Duncan
had mentioned it.
She sighed as
Duncan
began kneading her back again. Within minutes she was oblivious to everything but the slide of his hands. She felt the shift of the bed as he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss on her shoulder.
“Your skin is so soft,” he murmured huskily against her back, sliding his mouth lower to the top of one shoulder blade. “Like warm silk.” His lips were feather soft as he kissed his way slowly down her back, tracing the knobs of her spine with his tongue while sliding his hands up and down her back. She’d had no idea that her back was so sensitive, but she quickly found herself breathing heavily and pressing her aroused nipples into the comforter to ease some of the tension the touch of his mouth was causing.
Jessie groaned throatily when he kissed the small of her back and tried to roll over but
Duncan
wouldn’t let her. He continued his journey downward, pushing the sheet ahead of him with one hand. Jessie began to stiffen when she realized his plan, but he just soothed her with his hands and pressed a kiss to the beauty mark that had caused her so much embarrassment.
“See,” he said softly, kissing it again, “there’s nothing to be ashamed of. I love this beauty mark. In fact, it’s a beauty of a beauty mark.” She grinned at his corniness, but didn’t try to move away. She just turned her head so she could look at him as he rested his chin on her bottom. He smiled back at her and traced a little pattern on her bottom. “Tomorrow we’re going to go out and buy you a thong bikini.”
Jessie shook her head. There was no way she was wearing anything like that publicly.
Duncan
continued. “And just as an experiment you should wear it to the beach. In a week, I’ll bet the tattoo parlors will be overrun with women wanting this exact mark.”
Jessie couldn’t help it, she laughed. He was so ridiculous. As if women would want to have a bull’s eye on their bottoms. “You’re crazy,” she said, shaking her head at him in amusement.
He almost said, ‘Crazy about you,’ but he caught himself before the words were out. He just couldn’t put his emotions out there yet. She needed more time to trust him before he revealed his true feelings for her. So instead he went for the light approach. Schooling his features into a leer, he ripped off the sheet completely and said, “Or you could just wear the bikini out on the balcony, and just give the pigeons,
Hannibal
and myself a private showing.”
Jessie giggled as he kissed his way up her back until he was lying on top of her, still completely clothed, and gently bit the back of her neck. He was just reaching underneath her to cup her breasts when the cell phone rang from the night table.
“Don’t answer it,” she groaned into the pillow, wiggling her bottom against the prominent ridge in his jeans.
He kissed her back one last time and lifted his body away from hers regretfully. “I have to,” he said with a sigh. “It might be Theresa. I told her to call if she couldn’t find a cab right away.” He sat on the far edge of the bed, and picked up the phone, wrapping one strong hand around Jessie’s ankle to keep her from escaping. He turned to grin at Jessie, but his playful expression changed to one of horror as he heard the voice of his grandmother come from the phone.
“
Duncan
,” Evelyn said imperiously, “where have you been? I’ve been trying to speak to you directly for the past two weeks.”
Damn,
Duncan
thought loosening his hold on Jessie’s ankle and turning his back to her. He’d been expecting Theresa’s call, so hadn’t checked the caller I.D when he’d picked up. “I’m sorry, grandmother. Didn’t you get my messages?”
“Yes, I received your messages,” she snapped. “All thirteen monumentally unenlightening reports, conveniently placed after midnight, when you know I’ve gone to bed and instructed the servants not to disturb me.”
“Oh. That’s right. I must have forgotten about the time zone difference.”
Evelyn’s voice was as sharp as shards of broken glass. “
Duncan
. I am not an idiot, and neither are you, despite your actions that would seem to indicate otherwise. It is quite apparent that you have been avoiding me.” Before
Duncan
could protest, she continued, “Now, why don’t you tell me exactly why you haven’t found Theresa yet? You are a detective, aren’t you? This is your job, I believe, detecting things, isn’t it?”
Inwardly,
Duncan
seethed. Now would be the ideal time to tell his grandmother about Theresa, but her condescending tone stopped him. “It’s like I said in my messages: no sign of her. Maybe she’s still in
Calgary
,” he said slowly.
There was silence on the other end. Idly,
Duncan
was aware of Jessie moving around behind him, but he was too focused on his phone conversation to really pay attention to what she was doing.
Finally, Evelyn said, “I see. So you haven’t seen her? At all?”
Relieved,
Duncan
answered quickly. “Nope, like I said, I’ve shown her picture everywhere and no one has seen her. A few weeks ago I thought I had a lead, but it went nowhere.”
Duncan
was a poor liar, but he knew enough to add some truthful details. As an afterthought, he added. “I’ll keep looking though.”
“See that you do,” Evelyn said briskly. “I’ll expect a personal account of your search every three days from now on, until you find her.”
“Fine,” he said shortly, “I’ll talk to you in three days then.” The line went dead and
Duncan
stared at the phone in his hand. Nothing had changed. His grandmother still had the power to reduce him to feeling like a child, a rather disappointing one at that.
Setting down the phone, he turned back to Jessie. He’d expected her to be lounging Cleopatra-style on his bed, listening to his conversation, and waiting impatiently for him to return his attention to her, but she wasn’t. Instead she was urgently doing up the buttons of her white, mannish blouse and glaring at him like he was vermin.
“Jessie, what’s wrong? Where are you going?” He asked, shocked at the disgusted look in her eyes.
“I’m leaving.” She said through clenched teeth, leaning over the bed to search for the tortoishell barrette he’d taken out of her hair earlier. Snatching it up, she turned and walked to the bedroom doors.
“Jessie, wait. What are you pissed off about now?”
Duncan
asked impatiently, jumping off the bed and following her to the door.
She swung around with blazing cinnamon eyes. “Why am I pissed off? How can you ask me that? Didn’t you say just an hour ago that you were going to be honest with me from now on?”
Duncan
quickly replayed the past five minutes over in his head. He hadn’t lied to Jessie, but his grandmother was another story entirely. Was that it? Jessie was mad because he’d lied to his grandmother? Then it hit him. Man, how could he have been so stupid? He’d spoken softly, but Jessie couldn’t have avoided cluing together the fact that he was hiding Theresa from their grandmother. Shit, why hadn’t he checked the caller I.D. or taken the call in the bathroom?
“Jess, please don’t leave. You promised you wouldn’t be so quick to believe the worst about me, remember?”
“Don’t throw that back in my face,” she pointed an accusing finger at him. “I promised that under duress, before I knew you were hiding that child from her grandmother. How can I trust you after something like this? Don’t you see how reprehensible this? ”
“Jess, you don’t know the whole story. Just wait and I’ll try and explain.”
She just looked at him, curling her lip in distaste, and pulled on the doorknob. “Today was a mistake. A huge mistake. I should have stuck with my instincts and stayed away from you, but I just get overwhelmed when you’re around. I won’t make the same mistake again, I can guarantee you of that.” Daring him to try and stop her, she looked pointedly at his hand where it rested on the doorjamb to block her progress.
Once again,
Duncan
wanted to force her to listen to him, but removed his hand resignedly. He couldn’t keep her here against her will, and to be honest, he was tired of defending himself. He was in the wrong, he knew that, but how could he explain if she wouldn’t even listen? “I’ll call you,” he said, trailing her to the front door where she scooped up her shoes and twisted her bare feet into them without looking at him.
“Don’t bother,” she said softly, pausing in her flight long enough to glance at him. The anger drained out of her and she suddenly felt very empty. He was so handsome; it was painful to look at him. His face was tight and drawn, nothing like the laughing, exuberant expression of ten minutes before. She wanted to leave cleanly, but she couldn’t help reaching out to touch him one last time. Laying her hand against his cheek, she said, “For what it’s worth, I’m really glad I met you, Duncan.”
Duncan
looked at her in horror. This really sounded like good-bye. He’d prefer her anger to this sad resignation. “Then why is it over? Why can’t we work this out? Jessie, I really care for you,” he said desperately, tightly pressing her palm to his cheek with his own hand.
It killed her to do this to him, but she had no choice. She had to think about her own feelings and what it would do to her to allow herself to love someone so deceitful. Twice in the eleven days she’d known him, he’d proven himself to be a liar. It was all too much for her. “Because you don’t take honesty very seriously and I do. It’s as simple as that. I can’t be with someone who lies about little things, let alone huge things. I’m sorry, but I don’t see how we can overcome something like that.” She pulled her hand from his cheek and turned away from him.
Duncan
didn’t touch her, but his voice was tight with strain. “Listen Jess. Things just aren’t that simple. Not everyone has a clean slate like you. I had a life before you came along—not much of one, granted, but a life, with an absent sister, and a wife, and a domineering grandmother. I wish I didn’t. I wish things were easier, but they’re not. If you’ll just give me another chance, you’ll see that I’m really not the creep you seem to think I am.”
“I don’t think you’re a creep,” she said gently. It was true, in many ways he was wonderful, but she couldn’t get past this one thing. “I just think you have a tendency to omit the truth when it’s convenient for you. Lots of people are like that. But the man I want, the man I thought you might be, isn’t like that.”
“But Jessie, you understood about Kerry once I explained it to you. If you’ll just listen, I’m sure you’ll understand about Theresa too.”
“Don’t you get it? I don’t want this to be a pattern in my life. From what I’ve seen, you always have something to explain. I can’t live like that. I’m not going to live like that.”
Frustrated and helpless in the face of her rejection,
Duncan
had finally had enough. In a deceptively cool, calm tone of voice he said, “Jessie, I guess it all depends on your definition of living. Like I said before, I had a life before you came along, and I’ll have one when you’re gone. What you have to ask yourself is: will you?”
Jessie flinched from the cruelty of his words, but she didn’t stop. “Good-bye,
Duncan
,” she said, easing out the door and clicking it firmly closed behind her. She didn’t cry; she was too dead inside to cry.
Chapter
26
Two hours later
Duncan
sat down wearily on the bar stool at Steamworks and waited for Kevin. Unable to sit calmly in his apartment, he’d called his friend and asked him to meet for a drink. He knew Kev was fighting a tight deadline on a particularly harrowing book, but his desperate tone must have convinced the writer to abandon his latest project for a couple of hours. Without hesitation, Kevin had agreed to meet at their usual place.
The bar was much busier on a Friday night, but Tessa, the bartender still found time to come over and look deeply into his eyes while taking his drink order. “Just a beer,” he said with an absent smile, breaking eye contact with her by pretending to look for a bowl of peanuts.
“Are you sure that’s all you want?” She asked with a slow, sensuous smile, leaning over the bar to display ample golden cleavage in a very tight, long-sleeved wrap top.
“Just the beer would be great,” he said, pretending not to understand what she meant. She had the kind of figure women today were always moaning about achieving, with tight abs on display and large high breasts he suspected couldn’t be real. With her long blond hair and deeply tanned skin she was extremely beautiful in a hard sort of way, but he didn’t feel even remotely interested in flirting with her. Hadn’t Kevin spent several evenings with this girl following their last meeting here two weeks ago? Then why was she so obviously coming onto him now?