Hot Wheels and High Heels (27 page)

And that was the problem. It was good. So unbelievably and unexpectedly and overwhelmingly good that she’d lost her mind. Completely lost it.

“John! Just please go away.
Please!
”

“Where exactly do you expect me to go? It’s my house!”

What a dope she was. Stuck in a man’s bathroom, telling him
he
needed to leave?

“I don’t get you, Darcy. Since when is great sex a problem? I never had a woman complain before. But what are you doing? Crying and locking yourself in the bathroom!”

“John, please . . .”

“I don’t know why you’re doing this, but you can be damned sure I’m getting to the bottom of it!”

She could hear it in his voice. He was going to claw through the door with his bare hands and then torture the truth right out of her. The average man wouldn’t tear up his own house, but she wasn’t so sure about John, and she waited for the door to come crashing down.

But now she heard nothing. She listened closely for a minute. Still nothing.

She dropped her head to her hands. He was probably just sitting out there, waiting for her to come out, and she’d have to eventually. But what then?

No man had ever made her feel like this before, as if she’d clawed her way through a barbed-wire fence to be with him again. Was she turning into one of those women who lost their heads over men? Look at Carolyn. Was she not telling the whole story? Did she put up with Ralph because once they slipped between the covers, he made her feel like
this?
Was that why he could control every other aspect of her life? Why she loved him when there was no obvious reason she should? If so, it had turned her into a mind-numbed idiot. And Darcy had the horrible feeling that she wasn’t far behind. One cataclysmic orgasm, and she was on the verge of becoming a female fool.

The doorknob rattled again. Darcy jerked her head up in time to see the door swing open and John come into the bathroom.

She gasped. “John! How did you—”

“Bathroom doorknobs might as well not even have locks.” He tossed a screwdriver onto the bathroom counter, wearing his usual hard-ass expression that said he was getting to the bottom of things no matter what.

Darcy sniffed a little and staggered to her feet. “I know I’m being dumb,” she said through her tears. “Please don’t kill me.”

John opened his mouth to say something, only to clamp it shut again. As he stared at her tear-streaked face, his warrior stance slipped a little. Finally his whole body slumped with resignation.

“I just want to know why you’re crying,” he said helplessly. “That’s all.”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

“You make me crazy. You know that?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I haven’t had a clear thought since the moment I met you.”

“I know.”

“I’m not used to that.”

“I know.”

“Do you suppose all this crazy stuff is going to get better anytime soon?”

She shrugged weakly. “I don’t know. But if I were you, I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

He shook his head slowly, then looked heavenward as if searching for a little divine guidance. When that didn’t seem to be forthcoming, he let out a long, weary sigh and held out his arms.

“Come here.”

She wobbled forward and fell against him, curling her arms around his waist and sobbing against his shoulder. He held her close, and she clung to him, overcome with the relief of being in his arms when she thought he might never want to hold her again. He stroked up and down her back, making little
shushing
sounds, and pretty soon her crying wound down.

“I just don’t understand you,” he said.

“I know. I don’t understand me, either.”

“Then how am I ever supposed to?”

“I think you understand more than you know.”

“How’s that?”

“You told me last night that I didn’t like sex. You were right. Up to now, there hasn’t been much about it to like.”

“I’m trying to change that.”

“I know. What happened just now . . .”

“Yes?”

She took a deep, shuddering breath. “It’s never been like that for me. Never. It was just so . . . so . . .”

“Good?”

“God, yes.”

“Then why are you crying?”

“I don’t know. It just . . . happened.”

He enveloped her in his arms again, kissing the top of her head. “Just don’t lock me out,” he said. “Okay? Never again.”

She nodded. After all, what would be the point? No matter how much she tried to hide herself, he always found a way in.

On Monday morning, John got to the office early to look over some quarterly tax reports before heading out on a few repossessions, but his brain just wasn’t in the game. Yesterday had been so good that he hadn’t stopped thinking about it for two minutes. He hadn’t wanted Darcy to leave his house last night, but she had to let her dog out, and quite frankly, she’d just about worn him out. Once she’d gotten over the hysterical crying fit he still didn’t totally understand, she’d become like a kid in a candy store, going after him like a woman possessed. And that had been just fine with him.

Not that he didn’t know the limitations of a relationship with a woman like her. He knew what kind of man she was looking for in the long run, and it wasn’t one like him. And he wasn’t looking for anything permanent at all. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy things in the short run. There was nothing wrong with a relationship that was based on sex. It came with no strings attached. Baggage didn’t matter, because it was temporary. And then when it was time to walk away, nobody got hurt.

He looked back down at the pages on his desk, only to see he’d pulled out the report for the wrong quarter. It had taken him ten minutes to realize it, since all he’d done from the time he sat down at his desk was sip coffee and stare off into space. This wasn’t like him. Tax reports, by God, were serious business. But right now all he could think was,
To hell with Uncle Sam
.

No. Get it together. You have a business to run
.

Then he had a horrible thought.

What if Darcy let on to Tony and Amy that the two of them were seeing each other? He’d protested so much about wanting nothing to do with her that if Tony found out, he’d rib John about it endlessly. And Amy. If she found out, she’d want to know just how serious it was, and no matter what he answered, she’d start planning the wedding. As flamboyant as Darcy could be, he was afraid she’d walk right into his office, throw her arms around his neck, and kiss him.

Please, God, don’t let her do that
.

A few minutes later, Amy got to work, followed shortly by Tony. Darcy arrived her usual ten minutes late. His nerves jangled a little when he saw her, and all kinds of erotic thoughts flooded his mind.

No. Concentrate. Watch for any indication that this thing’s going to blow up in your face
.

Darcy put her purse on her desk, then went to the coffeepot, poured herself a cup, and returned to her desk. She turned on her computer, then sat down and sipped her coffee as the screen came to life.

John breathed a sigh of relief. At least she hadn’t walked into his office right off the bat and hit him with a great big public display of affection. It was even good that she hadn’t immediately come into his office to say good morning. She didn’t usually do that, so if she did it now, it might look suspicious.

A few minutes later, he headed to the coffeepot for a refill.

“Good morning, Darcy,” he said as he poured, smiling a little, but not too much. Amy had a direct line of sight right to his face.

“Hi, John,” Darcy said as she typed. “I’ll have the morning report for you in just a few minutes.”

He stood there a moment more, waiting for her to say something else. But she didn’t even look up, so he just went back to his office, feeling a little disappointed. That was it?

No. This was a good thing, too. It appeared she wasn’t going to be one of those needy, insecure women who would eventually ask him stuff like
What are you thinking?
and
Where is our relationship going?
and all that other nonsense.

For the next hour, he glanced at her repeatedly through his office window. He watched her file, particularly when she reached into a lower cabinet and her skirt pulled tight across that pretty little ass. He watched her talk on the telephone, twirling her hair around her finger. He watched her type not nearly as fast as a clerk ought to. He watched her cuss out the copier as she cleared a paper jam.

He watched her
breathe
.

Finally he got up to leave on a repossession. He told her he’d be back in a few hours. She acknowledged that with a nod, then got up to go to the storeroom.

Had it been a dream? Had he not had wild, screaming sex with her just yesterday? She was supposed to be gazing at him all day, giving him those suggestive little looks that said,
Can’t wait until tonight
. What was
wrong
with her?

He picked up one car that morning, then hit two after lunch. When he got back to the office after the last repossession for the afternoon and passed by her desk, she barely looked up. He went into his office and stared at her through the window, but he finally got so frustrated that he closed the blinds so he wouldn’t be tempted to count the number of times she blinked.

Finally, at about three-thirty, she came into his office. He looked up at her expectantly. She put a new set of repossession orders in his in-box, then turned around to leave. No sexy smile. No suggestive little wink. Nothing.

Enough was enough.

“Darcy,” he snapped.

She turned around. “What?”

“Get back in here.”

He came around his desk, closed the door, and glared down at her.

“What are you doing?”

She blinked. “What do you mean, what am I doing?”

“Have you forgotten we spent the whole day yesterday in bed together?”

“Of course not. How could I forget that?”

“Then why am I getting the cold shoulder today?”

“Cold shoulder?”

“You haven’t spoken ten words to me all day.”

“There have been a lot of days when I didn’t speak ten words to you.”

“Not after we spent an entire day in bed together.”

“That’s supposed to make me more chatty at work?”

“Where do we stand, Darcy? Are you just going to pretend nothing’s happening between us?”

“
Is
something happening between us?”

“Of course it is!” he snapped. “We spent an entire day in bed together!”

“Yes, John. I remember. But that was just sex.”

Her words startled him. Of course that was what it was. He’d already told himself that. He just hadn’t expected
her
to say it.

“Just sex?” he said. “Was that all it was to you?”

“Was it something else to you?”

He froze, his mind suddenly failing him. He hadn’t expected that, either. “Uh . . . maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“I mean, we are seeing each other,” John said. “Aren’t we?”

“I don’t know. Are we?”

“Will you
stop
talking in circles?” He let out a breath of frustration. “Would it have killed you to at least come in and say hello first thing this morning?”

“I just thought I should play it cool. Do we really want Amy and Tony knowing what we’ve been up to?”

“Saying hello tells them we’ve been sleeping together?”

“Better safe than sorry, right?”

Wrong. Saying hello wasn’t a problem. Not unless she did something else along with it, like kiss him right out in front of everyone. But it was hard to know where to draw the line.

“Yeah,” he said finally, a little confused. “I guess that’s right. You know. Better safe than sorry.”

“So we need to keep things hush-hush.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Hush-hush.”

She started to leave, then turned back, leaning in and speaking softly. “John, in case you didn’t know, any relationship that’s
hush-hush
is always
just sex.
”

No. No way. He wasn’t letting it go at that. He wasn’t about to let her tell him yesterday meant nothing to her, because he knew better. He
knew
better.

He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back.

“John? What are you—”

He dragged her up against him, took her face in his hands, and smothered her words with a kiss. Hard and deliberate at first, just to make the point, and then he eased up, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs, twining his tongue gently with hers. When he finally melted away from her, she dipped in to touch his lips one last time with hers, as if she couldn’t bear for them to part. She opened her eyes, a dreamy expression filling her face.

“Does that feel like
just sex
to you?” he asked.

She sighed. “Uh . . . no.”

“Damned right it doesn’t.”

He yanked open the door and walked out of his office, and Darcy followed.

“Tony! Amy!” John said.

They came to attention.

“Darcy and I are going to be seeing each other. As in dating, and everything that goes along with it.” He pointed his finger at Tony. “I don’t want you to tell me I’m doing something I swore I never would, because a man’s entitled to change his mind. And you,” he said, swinging that finger around to Amy. “This doesn’t mean it’s time to drag Darcy to pick out china patterns and start planning wedding showers.” Then his finger came around to Darcy. “I’ll be at your apartment at seven o’clock tonight. I hope you like Chinese, because that’s what I’m bringing for dinner.” He fanned all of them with one last look that said they’d better toe that line, or else. “Everybody got that?”

There were murmurs of assent.

“Now get back to work.”

He strode back to his office and closed the door behind him.

Darcy just stood there, staring at his closed door, amazed at this turn of events. Finally she walked over to Amy’s desk, so stunned she could barely speak.

“I can’t believe it,” she whispered. “Did you hear what he just said?”

Amy grinned. “When you showed up at his house yesterday, I wondered what was going on between you two. Evidently quite a lot.”