The 90 Day Rule (9 page)

The bubbles weren’t the only thing hissing.

“Come here.”

He pulled me close, wrapping an arm around my shoulders, hips and thighs slipping sweetly skin-to-skin and away as the turbulence bobbled us apart and together. A waltz in three four time.

Wanting to cross my fingers and hex him away was juvenile … and prudent. Even if I’d been free, and the damn rings made sure I remembered my vows, there was the little matter of haste and dangerous flirting in one-night-stand territory.

Physically my body screamed full speed ahead. Mentally I was fifteen years old, eager and unprepared. The forty-two year old said ‘yeah right, when pigs fly.’ Two out of three said ‘go for it.’

He whispered in my ear, “I like those odds.”

Shit shit shit!

Why me?

Of all the gin joints, in all the world, why did you walk into mine?

Because she paid him to.

Simple.

“Mr. Ryan…”

He chuckled. “That’s not going to work.”

“Wha—?”

“Pulling the boss card, darlin’.”

My toes lost their footing on the opposite bench, leaving me to bob upwards like a cork. Cellulite and a generous body mass index made for buoyancy and loss of contact with the seat. He used that to maneuver me onto his thigh, just the one.

Now I had his arm around my shoulder, bunched muscle under my ass and…

Crap. That wasn’t a gun. And yes, he was very glad to see me.

Whining, “Jack…” I managed to wriggle myself into even more of a situation.

I knew this because he gasped, or purred, or growled … or something expressing extreme pleasure in the moment.

Or maybe that was me.

Somehow that mass of muscle I now straddled gyrated sinfully, deliciously, as he gripped my hips, pressing me down onto his hardened flesh. Neck braced against his broad shoulder, my back arched in wanton disregard for posture.

We were playing a game, a very physical game. Not one I completely understood. With an outcome I’d only dreamed about, never achieved. Not with Robert.

It lurked, the big tah-dah, the release, the descent into emotional commitment and girlie yearnings.

Bigger than.

Better than.

Be the role model. The perfect wife. The companion, never the lover.

I wasn’t pretty enough, thin enough, outgoing enough to qualify as arm candy. But damn it, I was respectable. Dependable. That was my singular caché.

And the last thing I wanted to be with Jack Ryan.

But the price of freedom is never free. I didn’t understand
these
rules, if they even existed. With nothing to lose, suddenly everything mattered.

I slid off his lap and moved away, a single indentation in the fiberglass tub cradling my butt, another one his.

We might as well have been on different planets.

He sighed. I recognized frustration. Disappointment.

Turning his torso, his knee nudged my thigh but I resisted moving. To do so would lose me points. And respect.

Placing a finger on my chin, he drew my face around to look at him. Unless he propped my eyelids open with toothpicks, I wasn’t about to engage in a staring match with eyes that could sink ships.

“I’m sorry, Jes. I’m moving too fast, aren’t I?”

Mumbling, “Sort of,” I risked a quick peek.

He was staring at my breasts. And licking his lips.

Now that was empowering.

And dangerous.

“You, um, said you wouldn’t touch me.”

Looking genuinely surprised, he muttered, “You are a beautiful woman, Jessamine Cavanaugh.” And before I could make an arch reply, he stated coyly, “I lied.” The same way Tom Sawyer lied. Without malice.

Coach Jack Ryan did it on the deck, in the hot tub, with artful prevarication.

Ready to forgive, but not forget, I held my ring finger and the bondage under his nose and tapped it.

“Ninety days.”

“Eighty-five.”

My eyebrows shot to the skies. I liked a man who was good at math.

Before I could stop myself, I let slip, “Tomorrow it will be eighty-four.”

“I guess that means I should take you home.” He didn’t look too happy with that prospect. “Stay here. I’ll bring some towels and a robe.”

With that he stood, towering over me, water sluicing off his body in a torrent.

No, I am not that big a person.

I looked.

And then he was gone.

When he returned he laid some towels and an old fleece robe on the table, mumbled something about being in the bathroom and left me with my dignity mostly intact. Drying off, I confronted the choices offered: slip on my nylon workout outfit and wait by the door for my ride home, or … or slip the robe on and see what transpired.

Jack poked his head out the sliding glass door and asked, “You hungry?”

“Starved.”

Me and the old tatty fleece robe padded into the kitchen to see what the man had in mind.

Other than that…other thing.

“Uh, looks like eggs. That okay with you?”

If a man can count and cook … he had me at hello. There was no denying I had developed a strong case of like for Coach Ryan.

We sat and chowed down the evening breakfast, talking basketball, the pitfalls of recruiting, bringing along the players, how to teach sportsmanship, staying off the gnarly topics. Being just guys. And colleagues.

Eventually I started to yawn, Jack cleaned away the dishes and suggested he ought to get me home before my daughter and Chazz called out the cavalry.

I dressed and finally stood by the door.

Jack scooped the truck keys out of a dish and loomed near enough to be a second skin. I suspected what was coming.

“I want to kiss you, Jes. Will you let me?”

The right answer was no because if he did, I wasn’t so sure I’d be able to stave off the inevitable next question. Or even wait for him to ask it.

Jes Cavanaugh was needy. In lust. And possibly falling in love.

That seemed a huge step past ‘like’.

He never gave me time to ponder the issue. Palming my face he lowered his mouth to mine, tenderly brushing my lips. It was chaste, friendly.

And then it wasn’t.

Moaning, he pressed me against the door, his chest crushing me as he assaulted my mouth, his tongue demanding entrance, sweeping away any resistance with sure, sensuous strokes. It left me faint and breathless, my heartbeat thready.

He hissed, “Christ Almighty, I want you.”

That made two of us and the Halleluiah Chorus singing backup. The only noises I made were simple gasps and moans.

He didn’t seem to mind.

When it appeared I might pass out from lack of air, Jack said, “I better get you home before I do something we’ll both regret.”

I had a half hour to mull that over as he drove me slowly, reluctantly, back to town. When he wasn’t shifting, he held my left hand, his thumb doing sinful, sensual things to the palm. Suggestive things. Things that I translated to other body parts.

For the second day in a row, he pulled in front of the apartment building. The harsh glow from the halogen streetlights and the fluorescent glare spilling out of the entrance to the building did little to mask the hunger in his eyes.

Shutting the door I leaned in the window and said, “You’re wrong, you know.”

“About what?”

“Splitting infinitives.”

“Uh…”

“I happened to like the dangly bits.”

When I turned away I was pretty sure he was blushing.

****

Etty left a light on for me but her bedroom door was closed and I heard the rasp of snores. Deep manly snores.

Good. Chazz had stayed over. I really needed to find my own place. And soon. Their hearts were in the right place, giving me refuge, but even I knew I was overstaying my welcome. I had the means … and now I had an excuse.

I went about the task of making up the bed, my thoughts both scattered and intensely focused.

A shower might have been a good idea but the aromas from the hot tub, the bite of bromine and Jack’s musky male scent combined to tantalize my nose, like a fine bouquet that lingers in still humid air. That wasn’t all that lingered. Bits and bobs of flesh remained painfully engorged, expectant in a manner totally alien to me. Skin stretched over too tight muscles, nerve endings like shards of glass broken into jagged pieces sent jabs of sensation along every slip of flesh he’d touched.

My tongue moistened my upper lip, then retreated, the memory of his assault brutalizing my resolve.

I pulled at the rings, no longer sure that I needed to play by rules that had forsaken me. The one slipped off—the half carat in platinum relinquishing ownership with reluctance. I set it on the end table, my oath halfway surrendered. I’d … it had given me leave to misbehave. Symbolically. That might be enough for a man like Jack Ryan.

It wasn’t enough for me.

****

Chazz chugged his orange juice and listened to whoever was issuing instructions on the other end of the line.

I giggled at my old-fashioned notions of landlines.

Clicking the cell shut, Chazz said, “Coach wants for me to take you to the admin building, get you registered and then you can meet with Coach Bryant and set up a schedule with him.”

“Was that Jack, um, Coach Ryan?”

Was that needy Jes asking about Jack and making the intellectual leap that he could have called and told her that himself because he had her dossier and paperwork and wouldn’t he want to see her again…

 Even mental run-on sentences left one breathless. Especially when they led inexorably to pit-of-stomach bad vibes.

“Uh, yeah. We better haul ass, Jes. The lines’ll be long as it is.”

I agreed but asked, “Will I have time to change before we see Coach Bryant?”

Chazz checked some inner spreadsheet and shook his head no. That meant business casual, nylons and two inch soft leather, plain black shoes. I’d check into student grunge on another day. Today was dress to impress time.

No one bothered to explain that a more sensible option would have been an investment in roller blades. And not even the morning weathergirl mentioned that the last Monday in August was going to be one of the hottest of late summer.

Sometimes it sucks to be me.

“Mom, take my backpack, the purple one.”

“Thanks, Hon. I’m fine.” I adjusted the short waist suit coat and tucked the vinyl carryall under my arm.

Following my escort for the day, I discovered that the elevator was once more out of order and that pantyhose were still the devil’s curse on womankind.

Student Jes had two morning classes five days a week, one of them in economics and the other in finance. Assistant-to-Coach-Bryant Jes had a bad case of the heebie-jeebies and a total failure in personal body odor control.

We’d walked … everywhere and back, leaving no student footpath, legal or otherwise, untrodden. Then out to the Jordan Center, twice. Even Chazz looked wrung out and peckish. We were on the last try for the day to snag Coach Bryant’s undivided attention.

A young thing came be-bopping up, smiled shyly at Chazz, then did all but a curtsey to me.

“Are y’all Miz Cavanaugh?”

“Uh, yes, yes I am.”

“Oh goody.”
Goody?
“Coach says y’all come on down now.”

Chazz beamed at the Georgia peach, he couldn’t help it. She oozed cute out of every pore.

“I’m TJ,” she stuck out a hand, “and I’ll be your tour guide for today.”

She had a surprisingly strong handshake, one that said Fly Me with real suthin conviction. Chazz was drooling next to me, waiting for a touch. It didn’t happen. I got to liking Miss Georgia Peach TJ more by the minute.

The youngster liked the sound of her own voice, which wasn’t a bad thing. A bit on the edge of pleasant birdsong, it had an odd soothing quality without hitting screechy soprano high notes. The problem with soothing was that it lulled the senses into missing some very pertinent details. The little dynamo was a walking Wikipedia. I made a mental note to run to Staples and buy a digital voice recorder once the funds from my bribe had cleared.

Even Chazz’s eyes had glazed over, though that might have been from watching TJ sashay down the very long hallway.

The girl wore sprayed-on short shorts that on anyone else would have resulted in arrests and defibs being called into service. I was just old enough to have seen the old Dukes of Hazzard television show. TJ looked a lot like Daisy Duke, but with dark ash blond curls and way more smarts.