Seeing Spots (5 page)

She divided the eggs and bacon onto two
plates. "Those clippings," she said with all the regal dignity she
could manage, "are from our high school days. They’re about the
football team. Simply because they happen to mention you…"

"Uh-huh." He flipped pages, and held the
scrapbook out toward her. "How about this one? It’s only
about five years old, and it’s about my landscaping business."

Her cheeks flushed redder than ever. Damn
it, she’d forgotten that was in there. Dare’s growing business had
been featured in the local paper, and in a moment of weakness she’d
cut out the article and saved it.

"Uh," she said, pivoting and walking toward
the table, a plate in each hand. Dare followed in her wake. "Look,
Dare, I know this makes me seem kind of like… well, a stalker or
something. But…"

He chuckled, closing the scrapbook and
laying it carefully on the table. "It doesn’t make you seem like a
stalker," he said. "In fact, I’m glad I saw it. I never would have
believed you otherwise."

"Really?" She dropped into a chair and
looked up at him. "You were the most popular guy in school, Dare.
Even in high school, you were gorgeous. Is it that hard to believe
that I might have had a crush on you?"

He sat down opposite from her, looked down
at his plate, and spoke softly.

"Yeah," he answered. "It is."

"Why?"

He stabbed a forkful of
eggs and chewed them, looking like he was thinking hard about the
question. "I told you before," he said at last. "You
were 
so
 smart. I mean, you were literally the smartest kid in
school, or you wouldn’t have been the valedictorian. And you always
had your nose in a book. You were just—you were special, Kathy. You
were different. And I was so ordinary."

She felt her eyebrows draw down. "You used
that word before, Dare. But I don’t think you’re ordinary. I never
did."

"I was just a dumb jock," he said, scooping
up another forkful.

"No. You weren’t. I could always tell there
was more to you than anyone knew, Dare, way before you started your
business. The few times you spoke up in government class—the things
you said were really intelligent."

He frowned, looking as if he were racking
his memory. "What did I say in government class?"

She shrugged. "I don’t remember everything
you said, but I do remember you arguing with the teacher that the
space program was worth every bit of government funding because of
all the valuable technology it had spawned. I think maybe that was
the moment I developed a really serious crush on you."

"Because of my impassioned defense of
NASA?"

"What can I say? I’m a sucker for
science."

He shook his head, then looked up from his
plate and met her gaze for the first time. "I didn’t realize all I
had to do to seduce you was talk about spaceships," he said. "If I
had, then I might have tried it five or six
years ago, or…"

His voice trailed off, and he stared at
her.

"Hey," he said at last. "Your nightgown is
spotted."

She grinned at the hoarse note of lust in
his voice. "Took you long enough to notice."

"Give me a break. I just woke up." His
amber-green gaze slid down her body appraisingly, as if he’d never
seen leopard spots before. "I like it."

"I thought you might. I got it when I bought
the bra and the panties. I have to admit, I never really dared to
imagine you’d see me in it."

"I’d like to see you out of it."

"Down, boy. I cooked you a nice
breakfast. The least you could do is eat it."

"I’m not hungry." He cocked his
head. "At least not for eggs."

"
Eat
, Dare."

"We could reheat the food later," he
suggested hopefully, his eyes still ablaze with interest.

She looked at the hunger in his eyes, and
surrendered, pushing her plate aside.

"I suppose we could," she agreed. "So… sex
on the table, then?"

His face lit up in a happy smile.

"You read my mind," he said.

Chapter 5

They were moving too fast.

Dare sat on the side of his backyard pool,
his feet hanging in the cool water, brooding. It was a typical
summer day in Virginia, ninety-five and humid, and it had seemed
like the most reasonable thing in the world to call Kathy and
invite her over for dinner and a swim. They'd spent almost the
whole day together yesterday, after all.

She'd agreed, sounding cheerful. She'd be
here any minute, and the mouthwatering scent of burgers on the
grill gave mute testimony to the fact that dinner was almost
ready.

Cooking dinner for her
seemed so… 
domestic,
 somehow. She'd cooked
him breakfast yesterday, and now they were already having dinner
together. It would be like a dream come true, except he couldn't
quite rid himself of the certainty that he was going to wind up
with his heart ripped out of his chest and trampled beneath her
dainty feet.

Not that she'd ever be mean to him on
purpose. Kathy didn't have a cruel bone in her body. Of that he was
certain. But sooner or later, she was going to realize that he
wasn't enough for her. Just because she'd been carrying a torch for
him for a long time didn't mean they were well matched.

Eventually, she'd realize that he was
boring, and not too bright, and that would be that.

The thought scared him.
No—it 
terrified
 him. And that was strange, because he'd never really
cared that much about how his relationships would wind
up.

Maybe, he thought, he'd never had a
relationship he cared about as much as this one.

He cared an awful lot, he admitted to
himself. He wanted this to work out well. He wanted to go on
cooking dinner for her for all eternity.

He hated having so much of himself out
there, at her mercy. What he wanted didn't matter. He couldn't make
himself be the right man for her. Either he was, or he wasn't, and
all the wishing in the world couldn't change that.

And he was really, really scared that he
wasn't right for her.

So if he'd had any sense, he would have
backed off, waited a while before calling her, and kept this all
very casual, and so much safer.

But he'd wanted to see her so badly that he
couldn't help himself.

A voice spoke behind him. "Hi."

He turned and saw her
standing there, wearing a 
Firefly
 shirt and denim shorts.
"Hi," he said, rising to his feet and moving toward her. It was
like she was a magnet—he couldn't have stayed away if he
tried.

As he neared her, he realized all over again
how small she was. She was average height for a woman,
five foot six or so, but small-boned and petite. She
looked so fragile next to him that he was almost afraid to touch
her. But he put his hands on her shoulders, bent, and gave her a
very polite, chaste kiss.

She looked up at him with a little smile.
"Is that it?"

He lowered his head again, almost
reluctantly, and brushed his lips over hers again. She stood on
tiptoe, leaning into the kiss, and her hands lifted, cradling his
face. At the soft touch of her lips and the gentle caress of her
hands, heat curled inside him, and he opened his lips, his tongue
slipping into her mouth, slowly, gently.

Her tongue touched his, and the heat inside
him instantly roared into a conflagration. His tongue met hers more
aggressively, and his hands lowered, dropping onto her hips and
pulling her toward him. Her body melded against his, and he was
instantly hard. He pulled her against him, craving the pressure of
her body against his, and moaned into her mouth.

At last she pulled away, just a bit, and
smiled up into his face.

"That was nice," she whispered. "You didn't
kiss me yesterday. I thought maybe you just didn't like
kissing."

"I like kissing a lot," he said
hoarsely.

"Mmmm, yes. I noticed."

He couldn't explain why he hadn't kissed her
yesterday, the strange fear he'd had that kissing her would somehow
be too intimate, even more intimate than the other things they'd
done. It sounded stupid, even to him. And yet it had been a
perfectly valid fear, because with that one kiss, she'd somehow
turned him inside out.

"Um," he said. "I think the burgers are
probably ready."

"Oh. I was hoping to take a swim first."

"Okay," he agreed. "Just let me take them
off the grill before they burn."

He walked across the patio, turned off the
massive propane grill, and put the burgers under cover. When he
turned back, she'd removed her shirt and shorts and put her glasses
down on a poolside table, and his eyes practically bugged out of
their sockets.

She posed for him with a little smile. "Like
it?"

She was wearing a leopard spot swimsuit. It
was a one-piece, but it dove low between her breasts and rose high
on her thighs, and the way it clung to her curves would have made
any man stare. He tried to say "Wow," or something similarly
flattering, but all that came out was a strange noise. She blinked
at him.

"Was that
a 
growl
?"

Of course he wasn't growling. Growling would
be weird. He'd just sort of… choked on his words. Yeah, that must
be it. He tried again, but the same odd noise rumbled from his
chest.

She looked more surprised than before, and
he gave up on the talking thing. Talking was obviously not working.
He went toward her, but she turned, and jumped right into the deep
end of the pool, feet first.

She disappeared under the water, but bobbed
right up again, her hair curling in wet ringlets around her face.
"Come on in," she invited, treading water. "It feels good."

I bet it
does.
 He walked to the edge of the
pool and dove in, a little more gracefully than she had. When he
came up, he was two inches away from her. Another one of those
strange noises rumbled from his chest, but she didn't seem as
startled this time.

He reached for her, wrapping his arms around
her waist and pulling her to him. This time her legs went right
around him, her heels digging into his thighs, and he kissed her
again, hard and deep. Their bodies twined together in the
water.

And then someone above them made a
throat-clearing sound.

Dare jerked, startled, and both of them went
under for a second. They both came up, sputtering and shaking their
heads, and Dare squinted through bleary eyes at the figures
standing at the edge of his pool. He
swallowed, then looked over at Kathy, trying to convey an
apology without words.

I'm sorry. This is totally unexpected, I
swear.

"Hi, Mom and Dad," he said.

*****

Dare’s parents were staring at her
swimsuit.

Kathy tried not to blush
as she got out of the pool to meet the Greenes. True, she’d gone
out this morning and bought this suit with the intention of
knocking Dare for a loop, but it wasn’t 
that
 low-cut. Yes, it was sexy,
but no different than a hundred million other women might wear. But
his parents were both staring at her, wearing identical expressions
of shock, as if she were standing there stark naked.

Dare must have noticed their expressions,
because he quickly made introductions. "This is my, uh, friend,
Kathy Parrish. Kathy, these are my parents, Dr. Greene and Dr.
Greene."

Dare’s mother blinked, shook her head, and
wiped the shock off her face, offering her hand with a friendly
smile. She was a small, round woman with graying dark hair. "Oh,
just call me Susan, dear. No one calls me Dr. Greene outside of the
university. Dr. Greene is my husband."

Kathy stole a look at Dare
and noticed that he was staring at his feet, looking extremely
uncomfortable. She wasn’t surprised, since the situation was
undeniably awkward. His parents had stumbled onto the two of them
making out in the pool, and in another five minutes they might have
found them having sex there. 
Awkward
 didn’t begin to cover
it, really.

But she’d come to know Dare fairly well over
the past couple of days, and she had a suspicion that his
discomfort was caused by something else entirely.

She remembered his
voice: 
I always figured I was just an
ordinary guy, and you were too smart for me.

It was perfectly obvious
that he still felt uncomfortable, 
inferior
, about his chosen career
path. His parents were both doctors—one a medical doctor, one with
a doctorate in history—and if she remembered correctly, his older
brother had a doctorate too. Dare was the black sheep of the
family, the only one who hadn’t gone on to college and higher
education. Clearly that made him a little uncomfortable. And that
discomfort was reflected on his face, and in his slumped, defensive
posture.

"Susan," she said, shaking the older woman’s
hand. "It’s nice to meet you. And Dr. Greene—"

"Call me Frank."

She smiled, and shook his hand, too. Frank
was small, perhaps five foot eight, and mostly bald. How these two
people had produced a small giant like Dare she couldn’t quite
figure out. "I’m pleased to meet you."

"Well," Susan said, her eyes straying back
to Kathy’s swimsuit, "we didn’t mean to… interrupt. We just stopped
by to say hello, but since Dare has company…"

"We’d like it if you stayed for dinner,"
Dare said promptly. "I made plenty of hamburgers."