Take Me

It had been years since he had taken the time to slowly seduce a woman. It had been even longer since he had wanted a woman as much as he wanted Jessie. In fact, when he thought about it, he couldn’t remember ever wanting another woman as much as he wanted Jessie. Nor could he remember one who actually listened without trying to impress him—which might explain his excruciating patience.

And the fact that he was still around. And very aroused.

Over the past several weeks, and mostly during transatlantic phone calls, he’d discovered they had many things in common: old movies, Japanese and Italian food and skiing. Joshua had no interest in skydiving, bungee jumping or spelunking. Jessie’s love of dangerous sports appalled him. Not sure why, but wanting to understand this complicated woman better, he brought the topic up again.

“I don’t get the fascination,” he finally said, after she’d told him about a recent rock-climbing excursion. “What is it about the danger that turns you on?” Her skin looked soft, the bones in her slender hands almost fragile. He refrained from touching her. He wasn’t a hand holder. Had never even thought about it before. He frowned. Even the idea of just holding this woman’s hand had appeal.

“Everything.” Her eyes looked mysteriously dark in the shimmering light. Her gaze skittered to the table next to them and back. The toddler was banging a spoon on the high chair tray.

“I suspect it’s the same surge of adrenaline you get when you…when, you know, you’re going to attempt a merger. That heady rush that tells you you’re alive. That feeling of power can’t be duplicated. I feel invincible….” She shrugged one slender shoulder. “It’s hard to explain. Why don’t you come with me the next time I go?” She gave him that mysteriously limpid look he couldn’t fathom.

“Thanks,” Joshua said dryly, picking up his wineglass and taking a sip. “I’ll stick to mergers and acquisitions. At least I won’t have any broken bones.”

“Luckily, I haven’t had any of those. Believe me, I’m not into physical pain. Just the rush.”

“I don’t like you doing anything that has the distinct possibility of leaving you dead or paralyzed.” He didn’t like the thought a lot, he thought scowling.

“I’m always careful.” She viewed his concern with a strange expression in her dark eyes. “I’ve never had anyone worry about me before.” Her lips curved in a poignant smile for a moment before she looked down at her lasagna, then back to meet his eyes. “I’ll probably stop soon anyway.” Something flickered behind those fathomless brown eyes again, then was gone.

“Somehow I doubt anyone could make you do something you didn’t want to do.” His tone was dry.

She picked up her wineglass. “With the right incentive—” she toasted him “—you’d be surprised.”

“I LOATHE THAT MAN!” Jessie slammed the kitchen door at the main house and stormed into Conrad and Archie’s family room.

Conrad hid a grin. “Another amicable dinner date?” He folded his newspaper on his lap.

“Grrr.” Jessie started pacing. “This isn’t in the least bit funny, you know. I’ve missed out a gazillion times because he keeps going on these blasted business trips. Damn it. I’m starting to like him!” Jessie flopped down in an easy chair cradling a cushion on her lap. “I don’t want to like the blasted man. Don’t look at me like that, Archie. I don’t!” She grimaced. “At this rate I’ll be old enough to be my baby’s grandmother before we do it.”

Archie hid his grin behind his book. Conrad managed to look mildly interested by keeping his expression bland. “Good Lord,” he said, tongue-in-cheek. “Sounds like you might have to have a relationship before you fall into bed with each other. How novel.”

Jessie stuck out her tongue at him. “How droll.” She kicked off her shoes and pulled her legs under her. “Neither of us wants a relationship.” She said it as if it were the plague. “I just want him to be in the right place at the right time, damn it.”

3

THE LAZY DRIFT of fog gave an otherwordly charm to Pier 39, a picturesque tourist mecca of shops and restaurants down on Fisherman’s Wharf. Jessie tucked her hand into the crook of Joshua’s elbow and matched her stride to his. Moisture speckled Jessie’s dark hair like liquid diamonds. Their footsteps echoed on the wooden boardwalk as they strolled companionably between tubs of brilliant early-flowering spring perennials and the inevitable camera-toting tourists.

Jessie tugged on Joshua’s hand. “Come on. I want to go and see the seals.”

She leaned over the railing to get a better look as the animals lolled about on custom-made platforms in the water. “Cute, huh?”

Joshua chuckled. “Yeah, really cute.” He turned up the collar of her scarlet wool coat, his hands warm on her icy neck. “You’re freezing.” He tugged off the soft, warm scarf about his own neck and wrapped Jessie in it up to her eyebrows. She giggled. “How about a couple of gallons of hot coffee?”

“And pie?”

“And pie.”

They walked quickly, and found a small coffee shop down a little jog in the boardwalk. The restaurant smelled warm and yeasty and was almost empty. They selected a tiny, rickety round table with a view of the boats ferrying tourists out to Alcatraz Island and ordered their coffee before removing their coats.

“There are only about thirty choices. We could always order a slice of each,” Joshua suggested politely as Jessie scanned the menu for the pie selections. She stuck out her tongue at him.

Joshua’s eyes darkened. “I can think of more productive things to do with that.”

“Wicked man.” She turned to smile up at the kid who’d come to deliver their coffee and take their order. The young man almost stumbled into their table. Joshua sighed. Jessie had that affect on men of all ages.

Pie ordered, coats removed and coffee doctored, they lazily discussed the art show they’d seen together the week before, Joshua’s recent trip to Japan, and a large commission Jessie had just started, a bed-and-breakfast in Marin.

The waiter delivered their order and faded away. Jessie picked up her fork, and then put it down again. She pressed a hand to her midriff.

“I’m terrified I’m going to let Conrad down.” Absentmindedly, she began to tear a paper napkin into shreds. “The people who own the B-and-B also own a small vineyard in Napa. They’re influential, and there’s a good chance they’ll send a lot of business Con’s way if I do a good job.” She fiddled with the strips of napkin she’d torn.

“I’ve seen your work, Jessie. You’re a fine designer. They’re lucky to have you.”

Her cheeks pinked. “Really?”

“Really. But if worry is preventing you from sampling the delights of that lemon meringue p—”

“Oh, no you don’t.” Jessie pulled her plate closer and picked up her fork again.

She glanced up and, smiling, offered him a bite. He closed his lips around the tines of her fork. She was going to be under him tonight. She was going to feel the fires he’d been keeping banked explode into a fury of passion that was going to leave them both too weak to move.

“Thanks for sharing that with me.” He was so turned on he felt feverish. He’d been on a slow boil for months. “I can see how much you enjoy your food. You consume enough for a linebacker and look like a nymph. God, where do you put it all?” His eyes traveled down her slender body to rest for a moment on her small breasts.

“Well, obviously not there!” Jessie blushed. “Look at the baby seals or something. I can’t eat when you’re staring at me like a lion about to devour his Bambi du jour.”

“Hmm. Soft, succulent and tender pink.”

Jessie rolled her eyes. Joshua calculated they’d be out in the cold another hour at the most. He had an excellent bottle of Cristal chilling at home. He regrouped. “Tell me how adorable you were as a child.”

“I wasn’t an adorable child at all. I was a homely, gangly child.” She smiled. “Which made it tough to make friends. My mother and I moved constantly. We’d move from apartment to apartment, town to town, sometimes state to state, so I was always being shoved into a new school.”

“Military?”

“Collection agencies,” Jessie said dryly.

He frowned. “You were poor.”

“I suppose so, although I didn’t think about it at the time. Things were how they were.”

“When did you start this love affair with food?” He couldn’t wait to feel that avid little mouth all over him. Certainly, thinking of her sexually beat thinking of Jessie as being poor and wanting and having no one to care for her. For some reason picturing her that way pissed him off and made him feel…uncomfortable, damn it.

“Oh, way back. I learned to cook when I was six or seven because it was the only way I got to eat. My mom tended to forget little details like that. At one apartment, we had a wonderful Italian neighbor, sometimes she’d let me sit and watch as she prepared the family’s evening meals. The stairwells used to smell incredible.” She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “Garlic. Tomatoes. Yum. Hot, homemade sourdough bread. I used to sit on the bottom step outside their door and salivate. Just the smell of garlic is enough to make me remember that apartment on Ninth.”

“God, Jessie.” He’d never imagined her as a child, just a sensual woman, born to be made love to.

She waved away his sympathy. “Oh, don’t feel sorry for me. Trust me, when I was a kid, it was all a wild adventure. I thought being hungry was normal. And I learned to make a mean spaghetti.”

“That’s child abuse.”