“The pain is over,” he promised. “No more, Anne. Trust me.”
She did, but trust had nothing to do with this. Pagan Eve was still only eighteen. She could talk to Jake. She’d always been able to talk to Jake. This wasn’t going to work. Maybe there was something physically wrong with her. Could they discuss it? She was afraid he was going to tear her apart.
He listened; she would remember for the rest of her life how Jake had listened. How his face was carved in moonlight, how he never smiled. She would have died if he’d smiled. Instead, his lips moved, over her eyes, over her cheeks, settling on her mouth again. The kiss had sent her well on her way to euphoria before his lower body moved again, and by then her body somehow already knew the rhythm. She moved with him, mindlessly, and then, magically, everything was different.
Her flesh grew moist and silky; so did his. She was not lost, not anymore. She felt wild and free, and this strange, fierce sweetness kept building. She needed…something. So terribly. Jake kept whispering to her, coaxing her. And then night exploded into day like a flash fire. An ecstasy ripped through her that she could feel to her fingertips, an intense, rich pleasure that she had never expected in a thousand years.
After that, he wouldn’t let her go. She was exhausted, but he insisted on taking her through that ecstasy again and again…
Anne closed the window. She undressed, brushed her hair, settled under the covers, and knew she wouldn’t sleep.
Chapter 5
The next morning, at the bank, Anne pushed the button for the elevator and glanced at her watch. Three minutes after ten. No one was going to shoot her for being late for the first time in six years, but all the same she was a bundle of nerves. Not only had she forgotten to set her alarm clock, but this was the second night in a row that she hadn’t slept very well. Undoubtedly by coincidence, Jake had been in town two days.
Smoothing the jacket of her gray wool suit, she stepped out of the elevator. Marlene was waiting with the usual pile of notes to hand to her…and she was wearing an odd half-smile that made Anne pause. “Having a good day?” she asked curiously.
“Very good.” Marlene chuckled. “I have a feeling your day is going to be just as good, Miss Blake.”
Another coworker gave Anne a strange look. Rather distractedly, Anne smiled a greeting at her, shifting her leather briefcase under her arm as she strode toward her office. She opened the door, and her jaw dropped.
Violets were everywhere, spilling all over her desk, on the small table between the two visitors’ chairs, on the low credenza against the wall, even on the carpet. The stems of the small purple blossoms had been wrapped in gray silver foil, and their fragile scent filled the air. She heard the faint giggling of her female colleagues just behind her, yet the sound seemed to come from a mile away.
She dropped her briefcase onto a chair, one of the few surfaces not covered with flowers. A white envelope was propped up in the center of the purple profusion on her desk. With trembling fingers she picked it up: To Idaho, princess.
There was a sudden hush behind her. In a daze, Anne half turned to see Mr. Laird’s unusually florid face in the doorway, his eyes riveted to the incredible transformation of her office. “Anne, the entire place has been in an uproar for the past hour.” His lips pursed and then softened. “They started arriving a half-hour ago. The tellers downstairs aren’t even trying to add two and two. You’ve always been a puzzle to them, Anne, never giving a hint you had a private life, and now this…” Mr. Laird threw up a hand. “And for heaven’s sake, you’re five minutes late for a meeting in the conference room. Had you forgotten? And as for these being delivered to the office, frankly, it’s not at all appropriate.”
“It certainly isn’t,” Anne agreed readily. Mr. Laird was so right. Jake did terribly inappropriate things. Aroused women on wooded country roads, left them standing frustrated in doorways, invoked memories so that they couldn’t sleep…and sent violets.
“Are you coming?” Mr. Laird inquired crisply.
“Yes.” Of course she was coming. As soon as she blinked back the sweet, unexpected blur of moisture in her eyes.
Anne heard the persistent thumping on her front door just as she was arranging the last container of violets on her bookcase. Her nerves leaped in response, knowing it was Jake even before he crashed through the door in jeans and sweatshirt. “Hi,” he said blandly. He took a small but lethal bite from her neck, touched her nose and sauntered in tennis shoes past her to stare into the living room. “I’m disgusted. Really disgusted. I hoped there would be more. I don’t know what on earth’s wrong with the florists in this town that they don’t stock more violets.” He pivoted back to look at her, hands loosely on lanky hips. “Aren’t you proud of me?”
The thank-you speech she’d rehearsed all afternoon went the way of a whirlwind. “Proud?” she asked blankly.
“A gentleman always sends candy and flowers to a lady. They’re very appropriate gifts.” He prodded her with a get-with-it gesture. “I nearly forgot.” He dug into his pocket, and produced two chocolate bars, a little crushed. “The candy part. Want some?”
“No, thank you.” She touched her fingers to her temples. “God, you’re exhausting, Jake. Would you kindly go back outside the door, say hello, let me give you an appropriate thank-you for the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever seen? Then we can go on from there like normal people.”
He considered, and then shook his head. “I don’t think so.” Sheer mischief lit his eyes as he surveyed her gray designer suit, white blouse, black pumps and the jet combs holding her hair in an impeccable twist. “Did you have a DAR meeting today?”
“Did you clean out a basement?”
“If you’d been doing what I have, you would undoubtedly have dressed in jeans, too,” he protested, and cocked his head. “Well, actually, you probably wouldn’t have dressed in jeans, sweetheart, but most people-”
“Are you going to stand there and insult me long enough for me to make coffee, or is this just a quick social visit?” Anne questioned politely.
“I wasn’t insulting you. I’ll bet lots of people clean their ovens dressed to go to a church bazaar.”
“You’d go to the President’s inauguration in a frayed shirt.” Trying not to laugh, she moved swiftly into the kitchen and started to pick up the coffeepot, but he followed and stopped her by capturing her wrist in his hand.
“I want you to go outside with me for a minute or two. I’m not ashamed to be seen publicly with you, even dressed as you are,” he added virtuously.
“Thank you so much.”
“Are you going to be angry if I tell you I called Laird to make sure we could leave by Friday?”
“Yes.”
“And I called your grandmother,” Jake added as he closed the door behind them and nudged Anne toward the parking lot in back of the building. “I called Jennie partly because I’ve always loved her, and partly because I decided that it was the chivalrous thing to do.” At Anne’s horrified expression, Jake grinned. “Chivalrous. You know, like candy and flowers and no sex. Now, Anne, don’t look like that. I didn’t say one word to Jennie about marriage, because we’re not talking about marriage anymore. I just told her that we’re going to Idaho, that my intentions were more or less honorable, that I would take good care of you, and that Gramps would be delighted to hear the sound of her voice should she need anything at all over the next couple of weeks.