hapter Three

Jane watched the Stars’ quarterback refill his glass from a bottle sitting on the coffee table. As he raised the tumbler to his lips, he studied her with pale piercing eyes that looked as if they could carry out a scorched-earth campaign all by themselves.

She had to come up with some way to seduce him before he threw her out, but what? She could simply strip off her clothes, but since her small-breasted body wasn’t exactly pinup quality, that might be the quickest way to get thrown out. Besides, it was hard to get enthusiastic about undressing in front of a stranger who was standing in a fully lit room that had a wall of curtainless windows. When she’d envisioned the nudity part of this, she’d imagined someplace very dark.

“You might as well go on with ’em, Rosebud. I believe I told you I ain’t much for hookers.”

His atrocious grammar renewed her commitment. With every one of his linguistic mistakes, her unborn child’s IQ dropped another few points.

She stalled for time. “I’ve always found it inadvisable to stereotype any group of people.”

“You don’t say.”

“Condemning a person solely on the basis of ethnicity, religion, or even that person’s professional activities is illogical.”

“Is that so? What about murderers?”

“Murderers aren’t, strictly speaking, a cohesive group, so it’s hardly the same thing.” She knew that engaging him in a debate probably wasn’t the best method of turning him on, but she was a much better debater than seducer, and she couldn’t resist driving her point home. “America was founded on principles of ethnic diversity and religious freedom, yet blind prejudice has caused most of the evils in our society. Don’t you find that ironic?”

“Are you trying to tell me it’s my patriotic duty as a loyal son of Uncle Sam to show you the cracks in my bedroom ceiling?”

She started to smile until she saw by his expression that he was serious. In the face of such blessed brainlessness, her unborn child’s IQ took another welcome tumble downward.

For a moment, she weighed the morality of deliberately manipulating someone so dull-witted, not to mention deficient in humor, but her need for the services of his warrior’s body won out over her principles. “Yes, I suppose in a way it is.”

He upended his tumbler. “All right, Rosebud. I guess I’m drunk enough to give you a chance before I

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throw you out. G’wan and show me what you got.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Let’s see the goods.”

“The goods?”

“Your body. Your bag of tricks. How long you been a hooker, anyway?”

“It’s— Uh… Actually, you’re my first client.”

“Your first client?”

“Please don’t let that alarm you. I’ve been very well trained.”

His face tightened and she remembered his distaste for prostitutes, a fact that made this particular charade all the more difficult to carry off. When she’d pointed this out, Jodie had brushed it aside by saying that his teammates were going to get him drunk, and he wouldn’t be as particular. But although Jane could see that he was imbibing, he didn’t look very drunk.

Once again, she would have to lie. Maybe it was the pills, but she seemed to be getting a better grip on the whole process. It was simply a matter of inventing a new reality, embellishing it with a few pertinent details, and doing her best to retain eye contact throughout the process. “You’re probably from the old school, Mr. Bonner, that still believes women in my profession can only get their training in one way, but that’s not true any longer. I, for example, am not promiscuous.”

His glass stalled in midair. “You’re a hooker.”

“True. But I think I mentioned that you’re my first client. Up until now I’ve only been intimate with one man. My late husband. I happen to be a widow. A veryyoung widow.”

He didn’t look as if he were buying any of this, so she began to embellish. “My husband’s death left me in terrible debt, and I needed something that paid better than minimum wage. Unfortunately, with no marketable skills, I didn’t have many choices. Then I remembered that my husband had always complimented me on the intimate aspects of our marriage. But please don’t think that just because I’ve only had one partner, I’m not highly qualified.”

“Maybe I’m missin’ something, but I don’t rightly see how somebody who claims to have had—What’d you say? One partner?—can be well trained.”

He had a point. Her brain clicked away. “I was referring to the instructional videotapes my agency has all its new employees watch.”

“They train you by watching videos?” His eyes narrowed, reminding her of a hunter looking down a gun sight. “Now, ain’t that interesting.”

She felt a little surge of pleasure as her child lost another few points on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Even a computer couldn’t have picked a more perfect match.

“They’re not ordinary videos. Nothing you’d want an impressionable child to see. But the old methods

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of on-the-job training aren’t practical in our current era of safe sex, at least not for the more discriminating agencies.”

“Agencies? Are you talking about whorehouses?”

Each time she heard that repellent word it stung a bit more. “The politically correct term is ‘pleasure agency.’ ” She paused. Her head felt as if it were floating off her shoulders. “Just as prostitutes are better referred to as sexual pleasure providers or SPPs.”

“SPPs? You sure are a reg’lar encyclopedia.”

It was curious, but his accent seemed to be growing thicker by the minute. It must be the liquor. Thank goodness he was too dull-witted to realize how outlandish this conversation had become. “We have slide shows and guest lecturers who discuss their various specialties with us.”

“Like what?”

Her mind raced. “Uh… Role playing, for example.”

“What kind of role playing?”

What kind, indeed? Her mind shuffled through various scenarios, searching for one that didn’t involve physical pain or degradation. “Well, we have something we call Prince Charming and Cinderella.”

“What’s that like?”

“It involves… roses. Making love on a bed of rose petals.”

“Sounds a little too girly to appeal to me. You got anything spicier to offer?”

Why had she mentioned role playing? “Of course, but since you’re my first customer, I think I can give you more value if we stick to the basics.”

“Missionary stuff?”

She gulped. “My current specialty.” He didn’t look too excited by the prospect, although his face showed so little expression, it was hard to tell. “That, or—I think I might have a talent for being the—uh—the partner on top.”

“Well, I guess you’ve just about overcome my prejudice against hookers.”

“Sexual pleasure providers.”

“Whatever. But the thing of it is, you’re a little old for me.”

Old!Thatreally frosted her. He was thirty-six, but he had the nerve to regard a woman of twenty-four as old! Maybe it was her floating head, but the fact that she wasn’t really twenty-four no longer made a difference. It was the principle that counted.

She mustered a look of sympathy. “I’m sorry, I must have misunderstood. I assumed you were able to handle a grown woman.”

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Whatever he was swallowing went down the wrong pipe and he choked.

Feeling decidedly malicious, she gestured toward his telephone. “Would you like me to call the office and have them send out Punkin’? If she has her homework done, she should be available.”

He stopped coughing long enough to level her with a sonic blast from those eyes. “You’re not twenty-four. Both of us know you’re not a day under twenty-eight. Now go ahead and show me what you learned from those training films about warm-up activities. If you catch my interest, maybe I’ll reconsider.”

More than anything, she wanted to tell him to go to hell, but she wouldn’t let her indignation, no matter how justified it might be, keep her from her goal. How could she entice him? She hadn’t given any consideration to foreplay, assuming he would simply get on top of her, perform the deed, and roll off the way Craig had done it.

“What kind of warm-up activities have you preferred in the past?”

“Did you bring any Reddi Whip with you?”

She could feel herself blushing. “No, I didn’t.”

“How ’bout handcuffs?”

“No!”

“Dang. I guess it really don’t matter then. I’m open-minded.” He lowered himself into the room’s largest armchair and waved a hand vaguely in her direction. “You go on there, Rosebud, and—whadyacall—improvise. I’ll prob’ly like whatever you come up with.”

Maybe she could do a seductive dance for him. She was a good dancer in private, but in public she tended to be awkward and self-conscious. Perhaps she could do a routine from one of her aerobics classes, although between her demanding work schedule and the fact that she preferred brisk walking as an exercise form, she usually dropped out before the session was over. “If you’d like to put on some of your favorite music…”

“Sure.” He got up and walked over to the stereo cabinet. “I think I might have some highbrow stuff. I bet a SPS such as yourself loves longhair music.”

“SPP.”

“Isn’t that what I said?” He slipped a compact disc into the machine, and as he resumed his seat, the living room was filled with the lively music of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee.” A piece with such a frenzied tempo was hardly her idea of seductive music, but what did she know?

She performed a few shoulder rolls from the warm-up part of her aerobics class and tried to look sultry, but the quick pace of the music made it difficult. Still, the chemicals surging through her bloodstream spurred her on. She added some side stretches, ten on the right and then ten on the left so she wouldn’t get lopsided.

Her hair brushed her cheeks as she moved in a manner that she could only hope was alluring, but as he

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watched her with those scorched-earth eyes, she couldn’t see any evidence that he was getting swept away with lust. She thought about touching her toes, but that didn’t seem like a very graceful dance movement. Besides, she couldn’t reach them without bending her knees. Inspiration struck.

One. Two. Three. Kick!

One. Two. Three. Kick!

He crossed his legs and yawned.

She experimented with a small hula routine.

He glanced at his watch.

It was hopeless. She stopped and let the bumblebee fly on without her.

“And here I was waitin’ for you to get to the jumpin’ jacks part.”

“I don’t dance well with people watching.”

“Guess you should have spent a little more time with them training videos. Or a couple of old John Travolta movies.” He got up and walked over to lower the volume on the music. “Can I be honest with you here, Rosebud?”

“Please.”

“You’re not turnin’ me on.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “Let me give you a little extra for your time.”

She could barely resist the urge to cry, despite the fact that she wasn’t a crier by nature. He was going to kick her out, and she would have lost her best chance to have the child of her dreams. Desperation made her voice husky. “Please, Mr. Bonner. You can’t dismiss me.”

“I sure can.”

“You’ll… You’ll get me fired. The Stars’ account is a very important one to my agency.”

“If it’s so damned important, why did they send you? Anybody can see you don’t know diddly about being a hooker.”

“There’s a—a convention in town. They were shorthanded.”

“So what you’re sayin’ is… I ended up with you by default.”

She nodded. “And if they find out you weren’t satisfied with my services, they’ll fire me. Please, Mr. Bonner, I need this job. If they dismiss me, I’ll lose my benefits.”

“You get benefits?”

If prostitutes didn’t get benefits, they certainly should. “They have an excellent dental plan, and I’m scheduled for a root canal. Couldn’t we… Couldn’t we just go into the bedroom?”

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“I don’t know, Rosebud…”

“Please!” With a sense of desperation, she snatched up his hands. Squeezing her eyes shut, she pulled them to her breasts and held them there, palms flat.

“Rosebud?”

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

“Letting you… feel my breasts.”

“Uh-huh.” His hands remained still. “Did any of those training videos suggest you take off your clothes first?”

“The jacket’s very thin, so I’m sure it doesn’t make any difference. As I’m certain you can tell, I don’t have anything on under it.”

The heat from his palms burned through the fragile silk into her skin. She didn’t let herself imagine what those hands would feel like without the tissue-thin barrier. “You may move your hands on them if you like.”

“I appreciate the offer, but— You plannin’ on openin’ your eyes anytime soon?”

She’d forgotten they were shut, and she quickly raised her lids.

It was a mistake. He was standing so near that she had to tilt her neck to gaze at him. From such close range, his features had blurred, but not quite enough to hide the fact that his mouth looked even harder than she’d first thought. She saw a small scar on the side of his chin, another near his hairline. He was all muscle and steel. There wasn’t a playground bully on this planet who’d have the nerve to torment this man’s child.

That’s my swing, geek face! Get off it or I’ll punch you.

Brainy Janie’s got cooties… Brainy Janie’s got cooties…

“Please. Couldn’t we just go to your bedroom?”

She loosened her hands, and he slowly released her breasts. “You really want this bad, don’t you, Rosebud?”

She nodded.

He gazed at her, and his warrior’s eyes revealed none of his thoughts.

“I’m bought and paid for,” she reminded him.

“That’s right. You are.” He seemed to be mulling it over. She waited patiently, giving his sluggish brain all the time it needed to work.

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“Why don’t you just go back to your employer and say we did the dirty.”

“I have a very transparent face. It would immediately be apparent that I was lying.”

“There doesn’t seem to be any other way out of this, then, does there?”

Her hopes began to soar. “I’m afraid not.”

“All right, Rosebud; you win. I guess we’d better head on upstairs.” He slipped his index finger under the pink ribbon. “You sure you didn’t bring any handcuffs with you?”

She felt her throat move against his finger as she swallowed. “I’m sure.”

“Let’s get it over with, then.”

He tugged on the ribbon as if it were a dog collar. Her heart thudded as he led her out into the foyer and up the carpeted steps without releasing her. The side of her body brushed against his. She tried to move away, but he held her captive.

As they climbed the stairs, she regarded him through the corners of her eyes with apprehension. She knew it was only her imagination, but he seemed to have grown taller and bigger. Her gaze swept from his chest to his hips, and her eyes widened. Unless she was mistaken, he wasn’t quite as detached as he seemed. Beneath those jeans he seemed to be fully aroused.

“In here, Rosebud.”

She stumbled as he drew her through the doorway into the master bedroom, still trying to figure out how someone as inept as she had managed to excite him. She reminded herself that she was female, and he had a caveman mentality. In his drunken state, he must have decided that any woman would do. She should be grateful he was dragging her into his cave by the ribbon instead of her hair.

He flipped a switch. Recessed lighting illuminated a king-size bed made up with blankets, but no comforter. It sat opposite a wall that held a row of windows covered with plantation shutters. There was a chest of drawers, a comfortable chair, a set of bedside tables, but very little clutter.

He released her ribbon and turned away to shut the door. She gulped as he twisted the lock. “What are you doing?”

“Some of my buddies have the key to this place. I’m guessin’ you’d just as soon we didn’t have any company. ’Course if I’m wrong…”

“No, no. You’re not wrong.”

“You sure? Some PSSs specialize in groups.”

“SPPs. And those are level threes. I’m only a level one. Could we turn out the lights, please?”

“How am I going to see you if we do that?”

“There’s quite a bit of moonlight coming in through those shutters. I’m certain you’ll be able to see just

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fine. And it’ll be more mysterious that way.”

Without waiting for permission, she made a dash for the light switch and flicked it off. The room was immediately bathed in the wide bars of moonlight slipping through the shutters.

He walked over to the bed and turned his back to her. She watched him draw his knit polo shirt over his head. The muscles of his shoulders rippled as he tossed it aside. “You can put your clothes on that chair there.”

Her knees trembled as she walked toward the chair he had indicated. Now that the moment of reckoning had come, she was nearly paralyzed with a fear that even narcotics couldn’t quite overcome. It had been one thing to plan this encounter in the abstract, but it was quite another to face the reality of having sex with a stranger. “Maybe you’d like to talk a bit first. Get to know each other a little better.”

“I lost interest in talking when we walked through that bedroom door.”

“I see.”

His shoes hit the floor. “Rosebud?”

“Yes?”

“Leave the bow on.”

She clutched the back of the chair for support.

He turned to her and, with a flick of his fingers, opened the button on his jeans. Bars of moonlight fell across his naked chest and down over his hips. His arousal was so pronounced she couldn’t tear her eyes away from it. Had she done that?

He spoiled her view by sitting on the edge of the bed to pull off his socks. His bare feet were straight and narrow, much longer than Craig’s had been. So far everything about him was larger than Craig. She took a long, steadying breath and slipped out of her heels.

Wearing only his unbuttoned jeans, he lay down on the bed and leaned against the pillows. She reached for the snap at the side of her jacket. He crossed his arms behind his head and watched.

As her fingers touched the snap, ripples of panic turned her skin to gooseflesh, and she fought to reassure herself. What difference did it make if he saw her naked? It wasn’t as if she had anything unusual beneath her clothes, and she needed him so desperately. Now that she had seen him, she couldn’t imagine anyone else siring her child.

But her hand felt as if it were paralyzed. She noticed that his zipper had crept down, revealing a narrow blade of hair bisecting a flat abdomen.

Do it! her brain screamed.Let him see you! But her fingers wouldn’t move.

He watched her, saying nothing. There was no kindness in that hard-eyed gaze. No gentleness. Nothing to reassure her.

As she tried to shake off her paralysis, she remembered that Craig hadn’t liked sexual foreplay. He’d

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told her that with men, the end result was all that mattered. Cal would probably appreciate it if she simply let him get to it. She began walking toward the bed.

“I got some rubbers in the top drawer in the bathroom, Rosebud. Go get ’em.”

Even though his request made everything more complicated, she was pleased with this evidence of his survival skills. He might not be book smart, but he had street smarts, a valuable asset to pass on to a child.

“No need,” she said softly. “I came prepared.”

She extended her leg slightly, then tugged on her skirt with her left hand. The white silk crept up to her thigh. She reached underneath, and as she withdrew the condom she had tucked in the top of her stocking, she was hit full force by the moral implications of what she was doing. She had deliberately sabotaged the condom, and this was thievery.

Studying particle physics either distanced people from God or brought them closer. For her, the latter had happened, and she was defying everything she believed in. At the same time, she began to rationalize. He had no use for what she wanted, and she wasn’t harming him in any way by taking it. He was merely a device. This would have absolutely no negative effect on him.

Setting aside her qualms, she peeled apart the package and handed the condom to him. Even in the dim light, she wasn’t taking any chances that he would notice the package had been tampered with.

“Well, now, aren’t you an efficient little thing.”

“Very efficient.” Drawing a steadying breath, she tugged her skirt just high enough so that she could kneel on the edge of the mattress. Then she straddled his thighs, determined to get this over with as quickly as she could.

He gazed up at her, his arms crossed behind his head, the condom between his fingers. Staying on her knees, she garnered her courage and reached for the open waistband of his jeans. Her fingertips brushed the taut skin of his abdomen, and the next thing she knew, she was flat on her back.

With a hiss of alarm, she gazed up at him. His weight pressed her into the mattress, and the heels of his hands pinioned her shoulders so she couldn’t move. “Wh-what are you doing?”

His mouth tightened into a hard, thin line. “The game’s over, lady. Who the hell are you?”

She gasped for breath. She didn’t know whether it was his weight or her own fear, but her lungs felt as if they’d collapsed. “I—I don’t know what you mean.”

“I want the truth, and I want it now. Who are you?”

She’d underestimated his street smarts, and she knew she couldn’t afford another convoluted explanation. Her only chance to salvage this situation lay in simplicity. She thought of Jodie Pulanski and forced herself to look directly into his eyes.

“I’m a big fan.”

He regarded her with disgust. “That’s what I figured. A bored society bimbo with a hankerin’ for

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football jerseys.”

Bimbo!He thought she was abimbo! The novelty of it distracted her, and it took a moment to recover. “Not all jerseys,” she said hastily. “Just yours.”

She hoped he wouldn’t ask her the number because she had no idea. The personal research she’d done had centered on his medical records: low cholesterol, twenty-twenty vision, no family history of chronic disease, only a variety of orthopedic injuries that were of no concern to her.

“I should kick your ass out of here.”

Despite his words, he didn’t move, and as she felt him pressed hard against her thigh, she knew why. “But you won’t.”

For a long moment, he said nothing. Then he reared back, releasing her shoulders. “You’re right. I guess I’m drunk enough to forget that I gave up groupies years ago.”

He moved to the side of the bed and shucked his jeans. With the bars of moonlight falling across his body, there was something primitive about him and elementally male. She looked away as he tugged on the sabotaged condom. This was it, then.

Her mouth went dry as he turned back and reached for the snap that held her jacket together. She flinched and made an instinctive grab for his hand.

He clenched his teeth in something that resembled a snarl. “Make up your mind, Rosebud, and do it fast.”

“I want to… I want to keep my clothes on.” Before he could respond, she gripped his wrist and shoved his hand under her skirt. Once she’d done that, she released him, because if he couldn’t take it from there by himself, she was doomed.

She needn’t have worried.

“You sure are full of surprises, Rosebud.” He stroked up the length of her stocking, then moved higher, tracing the path of the garter to the point where it met the lacy belt. Now he knew exactly how little she had on beneath her skirt.

“You don’t believe in wasting any time, do you?”

She could barely force the words through the constriction in her throat. “I want you. Now.”

She willed herself to open her legs, but the muscles in her thighs were so rigid, she could barely force them apart. He stroked them, soothing her as if she were a cat with an arched back.

“Relax, Rosebud. For somebody who wants it so bad, you sure are tense.”

“An—anticipation.”Please give me my baby. Just give me my baby and let me out of here.

His fingers brushed the soft hair at the juncture of her thighs, and she wanted to die from the embarrassment of it. She winced as his touch grew more intimate, then tried to turn the sound into a moan of passion. She had to relax. How could she possibly conceive when she was so tense?

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“Am I hurting you?”

“No. Of course not. I’ve never been more aroused.”

He gave a snort of disbelief and began to push her skirt to her waist, only to have her grab it at the top of her thighs. “Please don’t do that.”

“I’m startin’ to feel like a sixteen-year-old again, makin’ out in the alley behind Delafield’s Drugstore.” His voice had a husky sound to it she hadn’t heard before, giving her the impression that he didn’t find that particular fantasy entirely unpleasant.

What would it have been like, she wondered, to be the teenage girl making out with the town football hero in the alley behind the drugstore? When she had been sixteen, she was in college. At best, her male classmates had treated her as a kid sister; at worst, they had made snide remarks about “the little bitch who broke the grade curve.”

He trailed his mouth over the bodice of her jacket. She felt the moist heat of his breath on her breast, and she nearly leaped off the bed as his lips found the bump of her nipple.

A hot rush of desire, as unexpected as it was overwhelming, rushed through her. He closed his mouth over her nipple and teased it through the silk with the tip of his tongue. Sensation flooded through her body, waves of it, crashing in on her.

She fought against what was happening. If she permitted herself to derive even a moment’s pleasure from his caress, she would be no better than the prostitute she was impersonating. This had to be a sacrifice, or she could never live with herself.

But Craig had always ignored her breasts, and the sensations were so sweet.

“Oh, please… Please don’t do that.” Desperately, she reached out for him and tried to draw him on top of her.

“You’re mighty hard to please, Rosebud.”

“Just do it. Do it, will you!”

She heard something that sounded like anger in his voice. “Whatever the lady wants.”

His fingers opened her. And then she felt an awful pressure as he pushed himself inside. She turned her cheek into the pillow and tried not to cry.

He cursed and began to pull away.

“No!” She clutched at his hips and dug her fingernails into those hard buttocks. “No, please don’t!”

He went still. “Then wrap your legs around me.”

She did as he said.

“Tighter, dammit!”

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She tightened her grip, then squeezed her eyes shut as he began to move slowly inside her.

The stretch hurt, but she had expected his brutal warrior’s strength to inflict pain. What she hadn’t expected was how quickly the pain changed to warmth. His movements were unhurried—deep, slow thrusts of silk and steel that unfurled ribbons of pleasure inside her.

Sweat from his body dampened the fragile barrier of her clothing. He reached under her and caught her hips in his hands. He tilted them up, angling his own body in such a way that hot spasms licked at her. Her excitement grew even as she fought to suppress it. Why couldn’t Craig have loved her like this just once?

The fact that she was finding pleasure in having sex with a stranger shamed her, and as the sensations intensified, she tried to concentrate on her research by conjuring up thoughts of the top quark that obsessed her. But her mind refused to focus on subatomic particles, and she knew she had to act or he would push her to orgasm, something that would be unforgivable. She steeled herself, even as her brain warned her of the danger of inciting a warrior.

“Are you… going to take all day?”

He went absolutely still. “What did you say?”

She gulped, and her voice held a soft croak. “You heard me. I thought you were supposed to be a great lover? Why is it taking you so long?”

“So long?” He drew back far enough to glare down at her. “You know something, lady? You’re crazy!” And then he lunged.

She bit her lip to keep from crying out as he drove deep. Again and again.

She clung to him with her thighs and her arms, meeting his fierce thrusts with a grim determination. She would stay with him, and she would feel nothing.

But her body rebelled. Those intolerable pleasure waves grew strong. She gasped. Climbed.

And then his muscles stiffened. Every part of him went rigid, and she felt the moment when he spilled himself inside her.

She clutched her hands into fists, her own pleasure forgotten.Swim! Swim, all you warrior babymakers! Swim, all you sweet little brainless babymakers! With a rush of tenderness for the gift he was giving her, she turned her lips to his damp shoulder and gave him a soft kiss of gratitude.

He slumped forward, his weight heavy on her.

She kept her thighs clutched around his hips, not letting him go even as she felt him begin to withdraw. Just a little longer. Not yet.

The power of her will was no match for his strength. He pulled away and sat up on the edge of the bed. Bracing his elbows on his knees, he stayed there, staring into space and breathing deeply. The bow that had been fastened around her neck had come untied, and, as she moved, it slipped onto the pillow.

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Bars of moonlight slashed across his back, and she thought she had never seen anyone who looked so lonely. She wanted to reach out and touch him, but she couldn’t intrude on his privacy. The wrongness of what she had done struck her like a blow. She was a liar and a thief.

He rose and headed for the bathroom. “I want you gone when I come out.”