Total Package, page 8
“You talk too much,” she whispered as she eased away. “We’re done now, you know.”
“Are we? You think we’re done now?…. Ah, of course. You’re nervous of this new phase.”
“That wasn’t sex, Danya. You were doing something else, taking all that time and—you were so into it.”
He lifted a thick eyebrow. “And you weren’t?”
“I want to go home. Everything is just too much. Now, Danya, please, before someone sees—”
“Sees how I have marked you—how flushed and dazed you look, how soft? As if you’ve just made love?”
Sidney lowered her head; she had never blushed and now her face was hot. Danya’s fingertip lifted her chin, his kiss light upon her lips. “Okay, let’s go.”
Five
S
idney lay on her sleeping bag in Danya’s cabin, her mind too busy for sleep. Outside, the wind chimes tinkled softly, churned by the Pacific’s light breeze. None of what had happened hours before was real—not the dress, the earrings, or the woman she’d been for a few hours.
But Danya’s lovemaking was definitely real, her body aching slightly, her breasts sensitized as she flopped to her stomach and punched her pillow. She could almost feel the glide of the black satin sheet beneath her, the hard rhythm of Danya’s body meeting hers, the heat of him, that last pulsating feverish moment when everything stopped.
The distance of twenty feet stretched between her sleeping bag and his bed, and the man lying upon it—still and awake.
She could still feel him in her, feel the taste of his lips—He’d made love to her, taking his time gently.
As he had when leaving the cabin, Danya had carried her up the steps and into it, placing her gently upon her feet.
“Scared?” he’d asked gently when she’d placed the earrings into his hand, returning the mark of his possession, a physical notation that she belonged to him.
“I don’t want to talk now. This whole night isn’t real.”
“But it is.”
She hadn’t wanted to look up at him, to feel feminine and soft and small. Those emotions were unfamiliar and terrifying. “I had the feeling that you were—that you were doing something else than sex—I mean more than the physical, which was pretty good, by the way.”
His “Thanks” had seemed to be wrapped in humor. Danya’s fingertip had run around her ear. “What did you think was happening—other than the obvious?”
“It was weird.” Those were comfortable, but inappropriate words. Lovemaking with Danya had seemed magical, overwhelming, gentle, fierce, passionate.
She’d never seen herself as a passionate woman—except as passionate about her work, the details, the composition of light and shadow. Yet she’d demanded as much from Danya as he had from her.
At his touch, she had trembled, and knew that her body recognized his, wanting more, and she’d walked into the bathroom to give herself space, to recover from whatever was happening to her. In the bald light, her reflection in the mirror had been stark—her face pale, eyes huge and dark and mysterious, and her lips had been soft and swollen, the face of a woman who had been thoroughly loved. In their passion, she’d cried out his name, and then the other sounds so unlike her, deep in her throat, primitive noises. The tears she’d held spilled down her cheeks and she didn’t know why.
Those tears were still inside her, the uncertainty of who she was, the fear of what had happened—no light passing sexual encounter, but a deep primitive bonding.
Who was she? Was she tough, capable Sid Blakely who never stayed in one place longer than her work demanded? Who never failed at anything she wanted to do? Or was she this other woman, who cried and ached to be held? Who was this woman who hadn’t just had quick sex, but who had made fierce, shocking love to a man? Who had returned his touch, just as hungrily, who had met that fiery heat, demanding her own fulfillment?
Sidney turned to look at Danya, lying on his bed. In the shadows, his eyes were slits of silver, watching her.
She felt herself in motion, following the call of his body and the need to be close to him, and then she was standing beside his bed.
Danya simply lifted his hand, and, taking it, she slid in beside him, into his arms. Nestled against him and exhausted by her emotions, Sidney listened to the slow strong beat of his heart and gave herself to sleep.
Danya lay still, feeling Sidney ease from him.
He’d been awake through the night, cherishing her body close to his, wondering how she would react in the morning. He could only wait for Sidney to work through her conflicts, but it wouldn’t be easy for him, not after he’d tasted her body, felt it tremble and accept his own. He’d planned for a growing relationship, but Sidney’s response had swept them into a passionate storm.
In the morning shadows, Sidney dressed quickly, rolled her sleeping bag, and then paused to smooth her gown which rested upon the back of a chair. She ran her fingertip over the earrings left on the table, and then she walked back to stand beside him.
Danya pretended to be asleep as her fingers traveled lightly over his face, and forced himself not to return the light kiss she gave him.
Sidney slid silently from the cabin and Danya watched the door close before he was on his feet. He couldn’t let her leave without something to remind her of him. He grabbed the earrings, jerked open the door and went down the steps, catching her on the beach. “Sidney, you forgot something.”
In the light of dawn, she stared down at the earrings in his hand. “I can’t take those.”
“Please.”
“You’re standing naked on the beach, you know. Someone will notice.”
Then her gaze took him in, all of him, and she quivered slightly. “Cold?” he asked gently, when he knew what she wanted—the same as he.
“You’re not going inside until I take those earrings, are you?”
He smiled at that and shook his head. “See? You know me so well already. I have no mystery left.”
“Well, right now, with you naked and…” Her eyes had lowered, tracing his body and in the pink tinge rising up her cheeks wasn’t from the dawn.
Once he folded the earrings into her hand, Danya brought her fingers to his lips. “Here’s something you forgot.”
With that, he tugged her into his arms and kissed her with all the passion brewing in him—anger, fear for her, for himself and the love he already felt, tenderness and a deep need to bond with her on that primitive level again….
Because he feared his stark emotions, Danya thrust her away and turned to walk back to the cabin.
He left her standing dazed upon the sandy beach, his earrings in her hand and his kiss upon her lips.
Either she’d remember him or not, he decided grimly as he rubbed the ache in his chest, his heart. Either she would come back, or she wouldn’t.
The decision was hers.
In the small New York City studio apartment she had leased for a home base, Sidney pulled a candy bar from her cargo pants and watched streaks of June rain slide down the window. The candle she’d placed in an unused ashtray flickered slightly, casting shadows upon the barren walls. It was the first candle Sidney had purchased in her lifetime—because it reminded her of the dinner Danya had cooked for her.
Now that was truly strange, she reflected, that a man would cook for her. Correction: that he would cook expressly for her.
In the three days that Sidney had been in New York, she’d wrapped up her job with Marvelous Calendar Company. Jonesy had been pleased with her work and the photos were being cropped and processed for the calendar. Marvelous Calendar had given her a nice bonus. Several offers had come through via e-mail, but she hadn’t accepted them. She’d created a nice little sturdy professional niche and word had gotten around that she was reliable good quality. That equated to jobs. Career-wise, things couldn’t be better.
The models had sent the customary thank-yous with a twist this time: they were friendly and warm, adding tidbits about their private lives, inviting her to their homes, and adding that they wanted to be put on her wedding invitation list. Somehow, they’d gotten the wrong impression; marriage wasn’t on Sidney’s to-do list.
The let’s-be-friends-for-Ben’s sake/come-see-us letter that Fluffy had written was among the stack of mail on the coffee table. “Yeah, right, Fluffy.”
The ache to see Ben was there, her longtime friend with whom she had shared so much of her career. Pregnant now, Fluffy wanted Sidney to be a godmother to their child.
“No thanks, Fluffy.” Sidney looked out at the night and the rain. She had never thought of herself as a wife, or as a mother and she couldn’t explain the ache that Fluffy’s news had begun.
Was a career all she had? Sidney asked herself as she munched on a chocolate bar. There was Bulldog, Stretch and Junior, of course, and they connected by e-mail, telephone and came together at times when convenient or when various dangers happened to each other.
Stretch and Junior had already called, somehow sensing Sidney’s uneasiness. Their questions were sly, well-packaged but underlined with concern for her. How could she tell them that she felt as if her whole world was coming apart? That little pieces of her were uncertain?
The telephone rang and when the message machine started to record Bulldog’s gruff, clipped tones, Sidney picked up. “Hi, Bulldog.”
In typical fashion, he wasted no time in getting to the reason he had called. “Stretch and Junior are worried about you. What’s up? If it’s that damn Ben again, I’ll take care of him pronto.”
Her father could be irritating and his manners were abrupt, but he cared deeply about her. Sidney took another bite of her chocolate bar and the other end of the line seemed to explode: “What’s that I hear? Candy-bar paper? You know that stuff isn’t healthy and you’ve got to be careful of what you eat. Now, I know you’re upset. Your mother always did the same thing—made a beeline for chocolate the minute she got upset. And you’re upset, aren’t you? You’re not crying, are you?” her father demanded. “A Blakely never cries, Sid.”
Sidney swallowed the bite of candy and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye; for some reason, she felt weepy and soft as a sponge filled with water. Bulldog proceeded to pinpoint her problem. “I don’t like this candy bar business and I want to get to the bottom of this now…. Okay, your last assignment was for a calendar. What the hell are you doing wasting your talent on some light-brained job like that? You ought to be out in the middle of some earthquake, a forest fire or something.”
“The pay is good, Bulldog. The ground is steady beneath my feet for good shots and I’m not having to raise my camera up high while wading through a swamp filled with alligators. Not a leech in sight.”
“Yeah, well,” he grumbled. “Something sure as hell is wrong with you. Did you just sniff? Dammit, Sid, crying never solves anything. It’s action that counts—”
She’d had action—of the lovemaking kind with Danya, slow, thorough, fierce…
“It’s the fourth week of June, you know. And I have a summer cold,” she lied. When aroused, fearing for her, Bulldog, Stretch and Junior would all rush to her rescue. She’d had to play down her disappointment with Ben to stop Bulldog from entering a full-out war. “I’m having a cough drop. That was the paper you heard rattling.”
That pacified Bulldog momentarily. Then he said, “Stretch and Junior say you aren’t yourself. Either you tell me, or I’m flying to New York—wait a minute, if you had trouble, it might have been in that town on the Pacific. Amoteh, wasn’t it? It won’t take long to fly from here in Maine over there and—”
That terrified her. Everyone in Amoteh knew she had stayed with Danya for a few days, that she’d dressed in a gown, and had danced with him. Bulldog would be on Danya within minutes of landing in Amoteh.
She stroked the delicate earring in her ear. Louise Stepanov’s beautiful earrings were delicate and feminine and didn’t match Sidney’s T-shirt, cargo pants and boots, but she couldn’t bear to take them off. She only wore them when she was inside the apartment though, fearing she would lose one.
Why would Danya want her to take something so precious to his family, earrings that had belonged to his mother? “I would be honored,” he’d said.
Sidney flipped to the orchid corsage she’d pressed, remembering how intent Danya had been as he fastened it to her gown…. She had to stop her father from confronting Danya. The only way to take a firm stand against Bulldog was to hit him between the eyes with good solid truth, or else he’d take over “Look, Bulldog, I know you care. But you mess in my life right now, and I won’t be happy. I’m feeling pretty bad because I failed with Ben, and I’m working things out.”
On the other end of the line, her father sputtered and cleared his throat. “Half pint, that is no way to speak to your old man.”
“Just making my orders clear, sir.”
“Good enough. Call me if you need backup.”
Because he was her father and she loved him, Sidney asked a question that had been bothering her since Fluffy’s pregnancy-announcement/godmother-request letter: “So, Bulldog, have you ever wanted to be a grandfather?”
The silence at the other end of the line told Sidney that her father was stunned and trying to recover. “Are you pregnant, Sid?” he asked cautiously. “How the hell did that happen?”
“I’m not, but I guess it might happen the usual way—if I were, that is. I’m a woman, you know.”
“Oh, damn. You always were fast on the move. You don’t have one of those devilish, female biological urges do you? Now, Sid, think twice. You weren’t cut out for wife and mother duty.”
“That’s not in my life plan at all. You know I love traveling and my work. It’s exciting and I’m good at it—and by the way, Bulldog, your wife was mother material.”
“Sara was…special. I just wish she could have lived long enough to see you all doing so well.” Bulldog’s voice had softened. “But you girls were always more like me—on the move, busy with your careers, in the middle of everything. Sure, Sara had moods sometimes that I didn’t understand, and so do you girls, but you know you can count on me, Sid.”
“I’m just going through some things, Dad. I’m fine,” Sidney stated carefully.
“When you call me ‘Dad,’ I know it’s serious. Keep me posted, or I’ll break that cease-and-desist order,” her father ordered before abruptly ending the call.
Sidney finished her candy bar and reached into her cargo pocket for another. With Ben settled in a farm in Wisconsin, raising ducks and immersing himself in fatherhood and Fluffy, she wouldn’t have to worry about meeting him in some jungle camp where the inevitable was—inevitable. She hadn’t told him off yet, and she just had to finish that job. In close proximity, she was certain to attack him, verbally, and just maybe toss him a few times. The thought that Fluffy and Ben wanted her as a godmother for their baby caused her to frown. “When hell freezes over, chum.”
She crossed her boots that were resting on the arm of the couch and considered her next move…. Any number of assignments waited for her, but memories of Danya kept interfering with clear thinking. On impulse, she unlaced her boots, stripped off her socks and wiggled her toes, still painted with dark red polish.
The unfamiliar sensual moment drew her thoughts to Ben. Compared to Danya, Ben had never seemed primitive during sex—or as thorough. Mr. Rabbit was only concerned about one thing; Danya seemed to have other motives and definitely had been a very thorough lover.
But then, they’d met on a very high cliff doing the midnight moody thing, and missing his wife, he was getting ready to end it all.
Transference was a potent motivator, and she just might have been the object Danya had transferred to—if so, he did it very well. Picking through the logical pieces of what had happened between them was easy, and on a whim, Sidney decided to call Danya. Uncertain how to best reach him, she left a message on the Stepanov Building Company machine, then settled back to mentally script her talk with him—if he returned the call.
She’d promised to take the Stepanov family pictures, and there would be no way to do that without interacting with Danya.
Well, okay. If she went back to Amoteh, and Danya seemed okay with it, they could have very satisfying, earthshaking sex.
That is, if he hadn’t made complete emotional transference from missing his wife to Sidney.
On impulse, Sidney stood up and walked into a bedroom she seldom used for anything other than storage of her work. She tugged off her clothing and considered herself in the full-length mirror.
Danya’s earrings caught the light, sparkling in her reflection. She’d been right, when howling at the moon on Strawberry Hill and talking with the chieftain entombed there: She did have all the basic equipment, which was now sensitized and aching and lonely. She glanced at her bed, heaped with boxes of her work.
If she had Danya on that bed right now, she’d—
The telephone rang and Sidney waited until Danya’s deep voice came into the room. “I miss you,” he said simply and the line clicked off.
Sidney quickly redialed the Stepanov Building number and Danya answered. “Hi,” she managed breathlessly.
“Hi.”
“Sex with you wasn’t so bad,” she said, surprising herself and knew instantly that Danya had the power to bring things to her mind and lips that would never have previously escaped.
There was a long pause before Danya murmured dryly, “Thanks. You weren’t so bad either.”
Now that was real encouragement, coming from a romantic sort of guy. “I’m wearing your earrings…um, just thought you’d want to know. I’m taking really good care of them.”
Danya cleared his throat, his tone uneven as he asked, “Anything else? Are you wearing anything else?”
He was the first man to be interested in what she was wearing. Sidney held her breath as she answered, “Not a thing. Nope. Just those earrings.”
Then it seemed appropriate to ask, “So what are you wearing, guy?”
