No Ordinary Man

Jess was watching him. Her dark eyes were so perceptive. They were bottomless and warm and incredibly gentle.

“Why do you hide?” she asked quietly.

His first thought was, God, she knew. But how could she possibly know? She was speaking figuratively, not literally. “I think of it more as trying not to make waves,” he said. “Or trying to be invisible.”

“Why?” she asked.

Why? What could he say to her? He’d already told her too much. Again. What was it about this woman that made him break his self-imposed rules over and over again?

Jess searched Rob’s face. For a few moments, he’d let his guard down, and she’d been able to see an array of emotions cross his face. But now again, his eyes were guarded, his expression closed.

Invisible. That was a good word for the way he held himself, for the way he made himself blend in. Except right from the start, Jess had been able to see past that. But, clearly, she was the exception. Not everyone would take the time to search for the real man.

“What if,” she said softly, “you’re busy being invisible, and your perfect match—your soul mate, so to speak—can’t see you? What if she walks right past?”

This conversation had long since gotten out of hand. Rob forced himself to smile. “I’m not too worried about that,” he said, trying to make his voice sound light. “Look, I’m going to the bar. Can I get you something to drink?”

Jess shook her head, no, and Rob just barely made it over to the bar. What if he was invisible and his soul mate could see him? He glanced back at Jess as she sat next to Kelsey and she gave the little girl a hug. She looked across the room at him and smiled, and he could barely breathe. How could he have a soul mate? At times he felt he didn’t even have a soul.

By the time the bartender served him a glass of soda, and he walked back to Jess and Kelsey, he was able to smile again.

“I’m going to start singing. Give me a kiss,” Jess said to Kelsey, leaning over to smooch her daughter’s smooth cheek.

“Break a leg.” Kelsey didn’t even look up from her coloring book.

“Don’t drink more than one glass of root beer for each set.”

Kelsey carefully selected a turquoise-colored crayon from her box. “What if I’m thirsty?”

“Water has been known to quench thirst.”

Jess stood up, tilting her head to look up at Rob. Their gazes locked, and she felt a dizzying warmth that started deep in the pit of her stomach and spiraled upward.

For once he was close enough so that all she would have to do would be to lean forward, and his arms would go around her. And then if she lifted her face to his…

He wanted to kiss her. Jess knew just from looking, from the way he gazed at her mouth, from the heat and longing in his eyes.

But it was crazy. They were standing in a room filled with people—including her six-year-old daughter.

She wanted to kiss him, too, but instead she touched his arm, letting her hand slide down to his hand. The sensation was shockingly intimate as he intertwined their fingers. Jess felt herself sway toward him.

This was crazy. Still gazing into her eyes, he reached out, cupping her face with his other hand. She stood on her toes, lifting her mouth to his.

Their lips met, featherlight and gentle. His mouth was warm and sweet, and she wanted more.

But she pulled away, shaken by the intensity of her desire. His breathing, too, was unsteady as he stared at her.

“Wow,” Jess finally said. She managed a shaky smile. “Can you hold that thought for about—” she glanced at her watch “—four hours?”

But it was as if Rob didn’t even hear her. “I’m lost,” he murmured, shaking his head slowly. “Dear God, I’m totally lost.”

Jess glanced down at Kelsey, who was taking great pains to appear absorbed by her coloring book. Which meant she hadn’t missed that kiss.

That kiss… He had kissed her. She felt a sudden burst of intensely perfect happiness. With a flash, she could see herself with Rob and Kelsey, laughing together in the kitchen, cooking dinner. Cooking breakfast. She could picture them taking trips to the beach, gazing up at the stars on a clear night. She could imagine a future filled with laughter and song.

“I’m lost,” Rob whispered again.

Not me, thought Jess. I’m found.

HE WAS CONFUSED.

It was an odd feeling.

For so long, he’d known exactly what he’d needed, and exactly what he had to do to get what he needed.

He still knew. But never before had the temptation to do otherwise been so powerful, so sweet.

Rob looked down at Kelsey, still coloring away in her book. She was part of the temptation. With very little effort, he could slip into the role of father. Father, husband, lover, friend. Soul mate. He could be normal, have a healthy family, make brothers and sisters for this little girl, make babies with her vivacious, beautiful, heart-stoppingly sexy mother.

Jess.

She stepped gracefully onto the small stage. Picking up her guitar, she sat on the stool, crossing her long, slender legs as she adjusted the microphone.

She met his eyes from all the way across the room and smiled.

She was temptation incarnate. She was unlike any woman he’d ever known—except maybe his own mother. But his mother was just a shadow. An elusive, ghostly memory from his early childhood, hovering just out of range of his peripheral vision.

Jess was real.

She was flesh and blood.

Blood.

His stomach hurt and he tried to stop thinking, stop feeling.

He watched Jess nod to the bartender, and the man faded out the taped music that had been playing. Softly, she began to play, taking the introduction around twice as her fingers warmed up.

As she started to sing, her voice was soft and light. Even through the sound system, it barely cut above the noises of the bar. She kept her eyes down, singing the first verse of the song almost as if to herself, and slowly the crowd quieted down. They had to quiet down if they wanted to hear her smooth, rich, alto voice at all. By the time she was ready to sing the refrain, Rob could’ve heard a pin drop. She looked up at the audience then, smiling as if they were all friends who just happened to drop by while she was singing in her living room. She looked around, meeting the eyes of individual people in the crowd.

“It’s just a simple country waltz,” she sang. “The kind you hear all the time. So darlin’, let this dance be mine.”

Jess let her eyes rest on Rob as she sang the second verse. “The music pulled us out across the floor. You held me oh so tight.” Her voice caressed the notes as she looked into his eyes.

God, how he wanted her. He wanted to kiss her, to devour her, to fall back on his bed with her, her body underneath his. He wanted to lose himself in her, to hear her cry out his name.

His hands were clasped tightly in front of him on the table, and he looked down, away from her for a moment, closing his eyes briefly. When he looked up, she was still watching him, and he knew she couldn’t help but see the heat in his eyes.

“Your smile, it set my heart on fire,” she sang, her own desire thickening her voice. “I hoped that you’d be mine, and stay and dance with me all night.”