“You’re with me,” he ordered simply. Her eyes flew to his. They were steady, insistent. His cool fingers still rested upon her tense ones while her heart sent out a crazy stutter step.
Yes, I am,
she thought.
I’m really with you.
“Thank you, Brian.”
He squeezed her fingers, then his slipped away, and for the first time she truly felt like his date.
Chapter Six
THE BAND HAD A LOT OF TALENT
wrapped up in five members, plus a female singer. They played a mix of mid- to easy rock, ranging from The Eagles to Ronstadt to The Commodores to Stevie Wonder, but all their music had a hard, sure beat to encourage dancers onto the floor, then once they were warmed up, back to the tables to cool down with another round of drinks. When half the group deserted their table in favor of the dance floor, Brian and Theresa remained behind in companionable silence, watching the dancers.
The band slammed into the driving beat of a recent Journey hit, and Theresa found herself mesmerized by the back view of Felice Durand’s gyrating hips. She was wearing a fire-engine red dress that slithered on her derriere with so much resistance that Theresa was certain the friction would soon send up a trail of smoke. But she was good. She moved with feline seductiveness, never missing a beat, incorporating hands, arms, shoulders and pelvis in a provocative invitation to naughtiness. Watching, Theresa felt a twinge of jealousy.
Suddenly Felice spun in a half circle, her back now to her partner as she sent an open-mouthed look of innuendo over her shoulder at him. Two more shakes and her eyes spied Brian. His chair was half turned toward the dance floor while one elbow hung on the table edge. A quick glance told Theresa he’d been watching Felice for some time.
Without missing a beat, the woman somehow managed to shift all her attention to Brian. Her hips traced corkscrews, her mouth puckered in a glistening pout, and her hands with their glossy blood-red nails conveyed come-hither messages. Theresa’s eyes moved back to Brian, and she saw his gaze drop from Felice’s face to her breasts to her hips and stay there.
A moment later, Felice spun adroitly to face her partner, then maneuvered herself into the crowd where she couldn’t be seen, as if to say, you want more, boy, come and get it.
Brian glanced at Theresa and caught her watching him. She quickly dropped her eyes to a plastic stir stick she’d been playing with. She felt herself coloring and felt suddenly very much out of place. This young, brash crowd wasn’t for her. Jeff fit in here, maybe even Brian, but she didn’t.
Just then the music changed. The keyboard player chimed the distinctive intro to “The Rose”—slow, moody, romantic.
From the corner of her eye, Theresa caught a flash of fire-engine red zeroing in on Brian, but before it quite registered, he’d lunged to his feet, captured Theresa’s hand and was towing her toward the dance floor. They’d barely left their chairs when they were intercepted by Felice and her partner returning to the table.
The sable-haired beauty looked attractively flushed and sheeny from her exertions as she stopped Brian’s progress with a hand on his chest. “I thought this one might be mine.”
“Sorry, Felice. This is our song, isn’t it, Theresa?” Too astounded to answer, she let herself be pulled through the crowd onto the dance floor, where she was swung loosely into Brian’s arms.
“Is it?” She peered up at him with a gamine grin.
“It is now.” His own conspiratorial grin eased the discomfiture Theresa had been feeling while watching him observe Felice.
“It occurs to me that in less than two short weeks we’ve gathered enough of
our songs
to fill a concert program.”
“Imagine what a mixed up concert it would be. Chopin’s Nocturne and Newbury’s ‘Sweet Memories.’ ”
“And ‘The Rose,’ ” Theresa added.
“And don’t forget ‘Oh, I had a little chicken and he wouldn’t lay an egg ...’”
“She
wouldn’t lay an egg.”
“What’s the dif—”
“
He
chickens don’t lay eggs, not even when you pour hot water up and down their legs.”
Brian laughed, a melodic tenor sound that sent ripples of response through his dance partner. Something wonderful had happened. During their foolishness their feet had been unconsciously moving to the music. Theresa’s natural musicality had taken over of its own accord. With her guard down, and distracted by both Felice and their conversation, she’d forgotten to bring her shy reservations along with her onto the dance floor. She was following Brian’s graceful, expert lead with a joyous freedom. He was a superb dancer. Moving with him was effortless and fluid, though he kept a respectable distance between their bodies.
When had their laughter died? Brian’s green eyes hadn’t left Theresa’s but gazed down into her uplifted face, while both of them fell silent.
“Brian,” she said softly. “I don’t care if you dance with Felice.”
“I don’t want to dance with Felice.”
“I saw you watching her.”
“It was rather unavoidable.” His dark eyebrows drew together with a brief flicker of annoyance. “Listen, Felice is like the countless groupies who hang around at the foot of the stage and shake it for the guitar man, whichever one is playing that night, hoping to score after the dance. They’re a dime a dozen, but that’s not what I want tonight, okay? Not when I have something so much better.”
At his last words his arms tightened and hauled her against him, that place she’d so often wondered about with half dread, half fascination. Her breasts were gently flattened against the corduroy panels of his sport coat, and her thighs felt the soft nudges of his steps. Upon her waist pressed a firm, secure palm, while hers found his solid shoulder muscle, his cool, extended palm. Against her temple his jaw rested.
I’m dancing. Breast to breast and thigh to thigh with a man. And it’s wonderful.
Theresa felt released and loose and altogether unselfconscious. Perhaps it was because, in spite of the fact that their bodies brushed, Brian retained a hold only possessive enough to guide her. His hips remained a discreet space apart while the other spots where Theresa’s body touched his seemed alive and warmed.
He hummed quietly, the notes sure and true. The gentle vibrations of his voice trembled through his chest, and she felt it vaguely through her breasts. He smelled clean and slightly spicy, and she thought,
look at me, world. I’m falling in love with Brian Scanlon, and it’s absolutely heavenly.
The song ended, and he retreated but still held her lightly. His smile was as miraculous as the revelation she’d just experienced. Her own smile was timorous. “You’re a good dancer, Theresa.”
“So are you.”
The band eased into “Evergreen” without a pause, and as the notes began, it became understood Brian and Theresa would dance again. He took her against his body, dipping his head down a little lower this time, while she raised hers a fraction higher. And somehow it seemed portentous that the first word of the song, was, “Love ...”
“Theresa, you look as pretty tonight as I imagined you when Jeff first told me about you.”
“Oh, Brian ... ” she began to protest.
“When I turned around and saw you standing in the kitchen I couldn’t believe it.”
“Amy helped me. I ... well, I’m not too experienced at getting ready for dances.”
He lifted his head, gazed into her eyes, folded her right palm against his heart and whispered, “I’m glad.”
And the next thing she knew, her eyes and nose and forehead were riding within the warm, fragrant curve of his neck. Her cheek felt the textures of corduroy, wool and cotton and freshly shaved masculine skin. She drifted in his spicy scent that grew more pronounced as the heat of their joined skins released it from his jaw and neck. Somehow—some magical somehow—their hips had nestled together, and she felt for the first time the contour of his stomach against hers, of his warm flesh within the tight blue jeans, seeking to find hers as his forearm held her securely about her waist, pressing her and keeping her close.
She tried closing her eyes but found she was already dizzy from the emotions his nearness stirred in her, and the slow turns he executed increased her vertigo. She opened her eyes and saw through her own lacy lashes the outline of his Adam’s apple only an inch away. She watched his thumb as it rubbed the backs of her knuckles in rhythm with the music. He had captured her hand by cupping its backside, and her palm lay flat, pressed against his chest. She felt the steady thump of his heart, then became aware of how callused his fingers were as they stroked her hand. She recalled that long-fingered left hand upon the neck of the guitar as he’d been singing to her. Her eyes drifted closed again as she basked in the new feeling of wonder at where she was, who she was with and what kind of man he was.
This time when the song ended, neither of them moved immediately. He squeezed the back of her hand harder and tightened his right arm until his elbow dug into the hollow of her spine.
Brian,
she thought.
Brian.
He eased back, never releasing her hand as he led the way to their table, and the band announced a break.
At their places, Theresa sat in a private cloud with nobody but him. Their chairs were side by side, turned slightly outward from the table, and when Brian sat, he crossed an ankle over a knee in such a way that the knee brushed the side of her thigh. He left it there intentionally, she thought, a thread of contact still binding them together while they had to forgo dancing.
“So, tell me about what it’s like to teach music to elementary-school kids.”
She told him. More than she’d ever shared with any other man.
And while she talked, Brian studied her face, with its shifting expressions of laughter, thoughtfulness and something utterly pure and wholesome.
Yes, wholesome,
he thought.
This woman is wholesome in a way I've never encountered in another woman
.
Certainly in none of the Felices whose offers I’ve taken up whenever the mood struck me.
Women like Felice, in their siren-red dresses, with their sleek hair and slithery hips—women like that are one-nighters. This woman is a lifetimer. What would she be like in bed? Naive and unsure and very likely a virgin,
he thought.
Totally opposite to the practiced felines who could purr deep in their throats and press themselves against a man with skilled teasing, which somehow always managed to repel even as it allured. No, Theresa Brubaker would be as honest and fresh as ... as the Chopin Nocturne,
he thought.
“So, tell me what it’s like to be on a Strategic Air Command base during the day and playing at the officer’s club in the evenings.”
He told her.
And while he talked, Theresa pictured the Felices, the “townies” who gazed up at the guitar man from the foot of the stage, for his and Jeff’s band also played gigs in the canteens where enlisted men were allowed to bring civilian dates. Theresa thought about what he’d said—something about countless groupies hanging around the stage and
shaking it
for the guitar man, hoping to score after the dance. But he’d added, that’s not what he wanted tonight.
Tonight?
The implication was clear. Back at the air base there would doubtless be others who’d capture Brian’s attention, others in fire-engine red dresses with faces and bodies like Felice Durand’s. A man like him wouldn’t be content for long with a wallflower like herself.
She imagined Brian stepping off the stage, taking up the offer of some groupie, tumbling into bed with her for the night.
And if Brian had ample opportunity, she supposed her brother did, too. The thought was sobering.
She came from her musing to find Brian’s eyes steady on her face as he spoke in a sober voice. “Theresa, next June, when Jeff and I get out, I’m thinking about settling around Minneapolis some place so he and I can get another band going here.”
“You are?” Crazy commotion started in the vicinity of her heart. Brian, returning here to live permanently? “But what about Chicago?”
“I’ve got no ties there anymore. None that matter. The people I knew will practically be strangers after four years.”
“Jeff has mentioned that you two talked about staying together, but what about the rest of the band?”
“We’ll audition a drummer and a bass player here, and maybe a female singer, too. We’d like to get into private parties, but it’ll take a couple of years of playing night spots and bars before we can manage that.”
He seemed to be waiting for her approval, but she was speechless. “Well....” She gestured vaguely, smiled brightly into his eyes and tried to comprehend what this could mean to her future relationship with him.
“That’s not exactly the reaction I’d hoped for.” She dropped her eyes to her lap and needlessly smoothed the gabardine over her left knee as he went on. “I told you before, what I really want to be—ultimately—is a disc jockey. I want to enter Brown Institute and go to school days and play gigs nights. Jeff is all for it. What about you?”
“Me?” She lifted startled brown eyes and felt her heartbeat tripping in gay expectation. “Why do you need my approval?”
Not a muscle moved on Brian for a full fifteen seconds. He skewered Theresa with his dazzling green eyes, but they were filled with unsaid things.
“I think you know why,” he told her at last, his voice coming from low in his throat.
A resounding chord announced the beginning of the next set, and Theresa was saved from replying by the booming sound that filled the house. She and Brian were still staring into each other’s eyes when the undauntable Felice appeared out of nowhere and commandeered Brian’s left arm, hauling him out of his chair while his eyes still lingered on Theresa.
“Come on, Brian, let’s see what you’ve got, honey!”
He seemed to shake himself back to the present. “All right,
just
one.”
But Theresa was subjected to the prolonged torture of watching Felice appropriate her date for three throbbing, upbeat songs. It took no more than sixty seconds of observation for Theresa’s mouth to go dry. And in another sixty, wet.