See Jane Fall (14 page)

Her heart fluttered, despite the guaranteed
ending to the short, lovely connection she had made with him. She
sighed. “You won’t be.”

“Of course I will be. I like you, Jane.”

She couldn’t look up. She knew he was
telling the truth. She could hear it in his voice. She couldn’t
bear to see that truth in his eyes now, only to see them grow cold
in a day or two, embarrassed that he had said these things to her,
wishing he could take them back.

“Jane, I’m not some guy who walks away from
the girl he likes just because another pretty girl walks into the
room. I’m not that guy.”

She looked up at him, locking her eyes with
his, knowing what she knew from every photo shoot over the course
of five years. It was the rule. There were no exceptions.

“Lars. She’s
Samara Amaya
.
Every
guy is that guy.”

He stared at her, rubbing his jaw, then put
his hands on his hips. “Well,
I’m
not. I’m not going
anywhere. We’ve got a week. I want to see what happens with
you
. I’m not that guy, Jane.” He put his hands on her
cheeks, and leaned down to touch her lips with his, whispering,
“I’m not.”

She nodded at him. There was no point in
arguing about it anymore. He was so earnest, so sincere, tears
pricked the backs of her eyes as he pressed his lips against her
forehead, resting his hands lightly on her hips.

Turn away from him and walk into your room,
Jane. Alone. At least you had this. At least you had tonight.
Tonight was something, and something is better than nothing. Now,
say good-night. Don’t let this go any further.

Her head and her heart were locked in a
bitter battle.

Why not? Why can’t I just spend a few more
minutes with him?

You can’t. You can’t have him. Tell him to
go now. Protect yourself!

No! Samara’s not here yet. Don’t push him
away yet.

She
will
be here. Tomorrow you
will lose him!

Her heart roared back,
It’s NOT tomorrow
YET!
brooking no further argument.

Jane tilted her head back up and whispered,
“Do you want to come in?”

He leaned back, looking at her tenderly,
fingers kneading the skin at her waist.

“Oh, I’m not offering
that
!” she
said, eyes widening. “We could just…”

“I…I didn’t think you were.” Lars grinned,
stifling a chuckle. “Sure, I’ll—”

“Just…” She backed away from his hands,
standing against the door, cheeks hot. “Come in if you want.”

She unlocked the door and he followed her
inside.

CHAPTER 5

When he told Jane he liked her, he’d only
been telling most of the truth. He didn’t remember
ever
feeling quite like this about a girl, and while he knew his
feelings had intensified quickly, he couldn’t help them. She was
the most interesting person he had ever met, and he didn’t care
that her cousin was really pretty. Nothing was going to happen with
her cousin and Jane would just have to trust him on that.

He pulled the door shut behind him then
turned to face her, and try as he might to remember the words
I’m not offering that
, the idea of throwing Jane down on the
bed and proving to her just how much he liked her felt like a
pretty solid plan.

Ambient light streamed in from the parking
lot through the venetian blinds, and he was glad she didn’t flick
on one of the overhead lights. He preferred the half light.

She put her sunglasses on the bureau and
slipped out of her sandals. He hadn’t noticed before, but her toes
were perfectly painted with some color of dark polish and they
looked slick and shiny. Sexy. An unexpected concession to beauty in
such an unfussy girl—he felt the flush of heat across his skin just
looking at them.

She sat down on the edge of the bed,
crossing her legs, leaning back on her palms. She looked up at him,
but her face was unreadable and for the first time in a long time,
he was in a girl’s hotel room, but he wasn’t sure of himself.

Jane didn’t give an inch.

She didn’t pat the bed beside her in
invitation, or tilt her head to the side with a teasing smile; just
raised those serious green eyes to look at him. He wasn’t sure if
he liked it, feeling unsure of himself; he wasn’t sure if such
unpredictability was unsettling or exciting.

Without breaking their gaze, he let the
backpack on his shoulder slip down his arm and carefully rested it
on the floor. He leaned against the back of the motel room door,
staring at her with his arms crossed. She had invited him in with
conditions. Frankly, he wasn’t even sure
why
she had invited
him in, and he sure as heck wasn’t making the first move no matter
how much he wanted to.

Her tongue darted out to lick her lips and
she bit lightly on her lower lip, looking at him, but she still
didn’t say a word and Lars couldn’t get a bead on whether she was
flirting with him or nervous, but he watched her, fascinated,
wondering what would happen next, trying not to think of better
uses for that tongue than licking her
own
lips.

“This is awkward,” she finally rasped,
softly. “It’s just a big bedroom, isn’t it? If we were in New York
and I invited you back to my place after a date, we wouldn’t just
go sit in my bedroom.”

“Not that I’d mind if we ended up there,
Minx.” He didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable or awkward. He had
an idea. “So…what would we do? If you invited me back to your place
in New York?”

Jane leaned forward and rested her hands on
her knee, moving her crossed foot in lazy circles. “Well…we’d hang
out in my living room…and I’d offer you a drink, for starters.
Coffee or tea or another glass of wine.”

Lars lightly nudged his backpack. “I have
another bottle in here.”

He squatted down, unzipping the backpack and
took out the bottle. The glasses clinked together as he stood up,
placing all three items on the bureau in front of her.

Jane smiled at him, standing up, and he was
painfully aware of her so close to him in the dim light—how close
they both were to the bed behind them. His body tightened and he
swallowed, looking down at her curly head.

“May I offer you a glass of wine?” she asked
with a tentative grin.

“Why yes, New-York-Jane, I would love one.”
He exhaled.
Stay cool, Lars. Let her relax a little.

She unscrewed the top of the wine bottle and
poured two glasses, offering him one. When he took it, his fingers
grazed hers, a feather touch, but it chipped away at his
self-control. His breathing got more deliberate as his eyes shot up
to meet hers. She swallowed, watching him, then sat back down on
the bed.

He took a sip from beside the bureau, his
eyes holding hers.

“Then what?” he asked, unable to keep the
huskiness out of his voice.

“I’d light a fire in my little fireplace.
It’s gas, not wood, but I like the glow. Makes my living room feel
warm.”

Through a fog of want, Lars remembered
something. He put up his finger, telling her to hold on for a
second. “Didn’t use this tonight.”

Lars squatted down in front of his backpack
again, and when he stood up, he was holding a small, green plastic
lantern. “It’s an LED lantern. Came with the backpack.”

Jane beamed at him. She stood up to take the
lantern, then turned it on and placed it next to the open bottle of
wine. When she turned, he had moved to stand between her and the
bed. She was so close he could feel the heat of her body. It took
every ounce of self-control in his tense, aroused body not to touch
her.

“So…” he murmured. “We have our firelight
and our wine. We’re in New York. What comes next?”

“Music,” she whispered. She swallowed.
“You’d love my collection.”

“I bet.”

She straightened her back, fishing her phone
out of her back pocket, and her breasts grazed his chest. He
cleared his throat to stifle the other sound he made and glanced
down at her.

“Cue up some music, New-York-Jane.”

She reached around him, lightly brushing his
waist as she placed her wineglass on the bureau. She tapped on the
phone then looked up at him. “What’re you in the mood for?”

I’m in the mood to make out with you, so
whatever song you choose, I’ll make it work.

He looked down, feeling the uncomfortable
pressure of his breathing as he took in the smell of her shampoo.
“May I?”

“Sure.”

He looked down at the bright screen of the
phone but was distracted by the slight movement of her breasts in
the shadowy light cast from the phone screen. She was breathing
just as heavily as he was. He could hear her quick intake of breath
as he grazed her hand with the back of his.
Yeah, Minx. Me
too.

“What do you have?” he whispered.

One of her fingers pushed the song list up
slowly, and he tried like hell to concentrate on the names, not on
her fingers, or the warmth of her smaller body, or on her breasts
moving up and down with every breath she took and released. He
tried to concentrate and find a song that would fit the mood, tell
her what he wanted, what he was feeling.

“This one.” He tapped lightly on The
Beatles’ “Woman.”

“Really?”

He nodded and tossed the phone on the bed as
the guitar chords started playing.

“Would we dance?” he asked, needing to feel
her in his arms, needing to touch her and be touched by her.

“We might,” she murmured, staring into his
eyes in the dim light.

“Then dance with me, Minx.”

He watched as her smaller, whiter hand
settled into his larger, darker one and he carefully curled his
fingers around it, pulling her up against his body until her
breasts were pressed against his chest. Careful not to step on her
little lacquered toes, he dropped her hand and put his arms around
her, resting his hands on her lower back, feeling her arms reach up
to circle his neck until her hands met and laced.

She laid her head on his chest and they
swayed lightly to the mellow music, to the words of a man
beseeching a woman to trust him.

***

Jane’s fingers quickly grew warm pressed up
against Lars’s neck. After tonight she would have to delete “Woman”
from her playlist. She would never be able to bear hearing it
again—even if she heard it fifty years from now, she knew she would
wince, remembering tonight, remembering her terrible, fierce
longing for the man holding her.

He had surprised her by choosing this song.
It wasn’t one of the innocent, lighthearted ’60s tunes they had
enjoyed listening to in his truck yesterday. There was something
more mature, deeper and more complex, more…inevitable about this
song. Inevitable. Like Lars turning his back on her tomorrow.

She closed her eyes against her thoughts and
leaned her cheek against his chest, swaying back and forth with
him. Generally, Jane was satisfied with herself—who she was in her
heart, the way she got along with people. She had longings, of
course: to belong to someone, to feel connected to family as she
had before she lost her parents, to feel secure in her
relationships. She rarely wished she were prettier. Jane had come
to terms with how she looked a long time ago, resigned herself to
it, accepted it. She told herself it wasn’t so bad being plain if
you were kind and funny, interesting and well liked. She had
invested her time and energy into her personality, and mostly she
was happy with who she was.

But, leaning against Lars Lindstrom’s solid
chest, with his tender words in her head, she felt an
uncharacteristic rebellion against the unfairness of being so
plain, so average, so forgettable.
If I were beautiful
, she
thought,
he wouldn’t be able to walk away from me. If I were
beautiful…

Her eyes watered, and she tried to shift her
thoughts away, back to the moment.

Stop thinking about tomorrow, Jane.

Lars leaned back and Jane looked up at him.
His eyes were large and black, surrounded by a thin band of icy
blue, and they captured hers with intensity, flicking briefly to
her lips then back to her eyes. She straightened her back in his
arms, raising her chin. She tilted her head lightly to the side,
running her tongue over her lips.

His lips twitched up for just a moment
before he lowered them to hers, and she closed her eyes, her
insides spinning and swirling with pleasure. He ran his hands over
her sweater, up and down her back, finally slipping under her cami
and touching the warm, smooth skin of her back. She shivered,
stepping forward into him, frustrated she couldn’t get closer.
Every nerve ending demanded to be touched by him and her breasts
ached to be flush against his skin. She felt him trying to push her
shirt and sweater up, and she wiggled, breaking away from him for a
moment as he slipped her clothes over her head. He found her lips
again and his hands returned impatiently to her lower back. She
felt his rough, muscular fingers kneading, adjusting and
readjusting over her skin like pumice, making her tremble.

She moved her hands to his waist, pulling on
the bottom of his polo shirt and he tore his mouth away from hers
to pull it over his head in a quick movement then put his arms back
around her. He pulled her roughly up against him, crushing her lips
with his as a growly sound rose from his throat. Through the flimsy
material of her black, sheer bra, she could feel the tickle of his
hair, the heat of his chest pressed up against her breasts with
only a thin barrier between them. She sighed into his mouth, loving
the liquid fire of his tongue stroking hers.

Lars had backed up against the bed, and as
he sat down, Jane kept her arms around his neck. He put his hands
under Jane’s backside and lifted her so she straddled his lap. She
held onto his neck and he moved his hands up to her face, his
thumbs stroking the hot, soft skin behind her ears as his palms
held her cheeks.