Rock Me All Night (3 page)

“It's just…this is odd. Why did you call me tonight?”

“I want to get to know you better.”

“How much better?”

“Naked,” he said, lifting one eyebrow and gazing straight through her to her soul.

She wanted to see him naked, too. He probably had an all-over tan, and she could tell from the cut of his sweater and jeans that there wasn't any spare fat on his body. “Well, that's to the point.”

He leaned across the table, all possessive male intent on keeping the advantage. Another shiver slithered down her spine and she leaned toward him. Their faces were inches apart. She felt the brush of his breath against her cheek.

“You were hedging toward it too slowly for my tastes.”

“I'm not a speedy person.”

“I am.”

His gaze fastened on her mouth. She licked her
lips and heard him groan. “Then you should try out our Mile of Men.”

“No, thanks.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don't want a strange woman picking me off the line. I want you.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Who knows? Tell me about you, Lauren. What do I make you wish for?”

She sank back against the chair and took a sip of her tea. “I thought you'd forgotten that.”

“I forget nothing.”

“Really?”

“Truly. Photographic memory. It's a pain in the neck sometimes.”

“Like me?” she asked. Anything to avoid discussing her ill-timed remark earlier. What had she been thinking?

“I wouldn't say that.”

“Nah, but you'd think it.” She should finish her tea, say thank you and get the hell out of here before she said anything else she'd regret revealing to him.

“Not about you. Tell me.”

“Do we know each other well enough to exchange secrets?” she asked, stalling.

“I want to see you naked, so I think we have to swap secrets.”

“No quickie one-night thing?”

“Would you be happy with that?” he asked.

She thought about it. A one-night stand wasn't her thing, but Jack teased at something deep inside her that she was afraid to let out. Something oddly vulnerable that all the men who'd loved and left her had damaged, and she didn't want to risk that again. And a one-night stand—well, that was about lust, not about emotions and scarred souls.

“Lauren?”

“No. I want more than that with you.”

He lifted her hand from the table and brushed his lips over the back of her hand. “I knew it. Trust me.”

She tugged but he wouldn't release her hand. Finally she realized that he wasn't going to do anything he didn't want to do, anything that wasn't in his plans. It had been a long time since she'd met a man who didn't let her set the pace and make all the decisions.

“It seems silly.”

He said nothing, only waited.

She dropped her head and looked at the chipped Formica table. “I wish I still believed that Prince Charming was out there, because you have the trappings of being one.”

“A fairy-tale prince, eh?”

She glanced up. He was studying her as if he'd never seen her before. “Don't let the tough-girl act fool you. Deep inside I want the white picket fence, like every other woman. It's just that I've spent the last ten years kissing toads.”

“So experience tells you that even though I look like I could be the prince, I'm the toad?”

“You got it.”

“What would it take to prove you wrong?”

“A lot of trust, a little love and…the man of my dreams.”

“That's a tall order,” he said. “How about a lot of fun, a little daring and me?”

J
ack knew he was no fairy-tale prince. In fact, given his lifestyle, he was probably more like the toads Lauren had kissed. But he didn't want to let this thing go so easily.

The diner was quiet in this early-morning hour. A few people trickled in and he noted their factory uniforms. They probably worked the early shift. Two guys waved at Lauren and she smiled back at them.

“Longtime listeners. They set me up with their crew chief, Joe Brigg. We're getting him to participate in the Mile of Men.”

He felt a surge of jealousy that he knew was irrational. “Are you still seeing this Joe?”

“Nah, he wanted a traditional sort of wife. And despite the fact that I'm low-key, I'm not stay-at-home material. I love my show and my listeners. Giving that up would be hard.”

Jack didn't know what to say to that. His life was all about change. He didn't know from one day to the next what might strike his fancy. He ran a record label, true, but he had enough leeway in that job to take off at a moment's notice.

“Boy, do I know how to end a conversation or what?” she asked lightly, but there was more than a little unease in her posture.

He reached for her hand where it lay on the table. He held it loosely in his own grip. Her fingers were cold, and he stroked his thumb over her knuckles, trying to warm her a little. He wanted to pull her out of the bench seat and around to his side of the table.

Wanted to tuck her up against his chest and promise her that the days of kissing toads were gone. But he wasn't the right kind of guy to make that kind of promise. The one time he'd tried to make something last longer than six months had backfired on him and the woman he'd made promises to.

“I asked for the truth,” he said at last. He prized himself on honesty in all relationships. In fact, he'd ruined two friendships because of his fanatic devotion to the facts.

Lauren was watching him carefully, seeming to measure the man he was. Jack had never been so
conscious of the fact that he might not measure up to whatever standards she had that said “man.”

She gave him a sad-looking smile. “You did. Should I have lied?”

It would have been easier on him. He could have blithely continued with his seduction plan. A nice, easy affair that would have been mutually satisfying. At the end of it they could've gone their own ways with no hard feelings. Just pleasant memories. “No. I don't want there to be lies between us.”

“Still want to get naked with me?” she asked in that husky alto voice of hers.

God, he'd give five years off his life to have her naked in bed and just listen to that voice talking dirty to him. “Hell, yes.”

“Wish you'd kept it light?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.

Now it was his turn to be honest, and for the first time in his life he didn't want to be. Because the truth would put a barrier between them. And he wanted to be breaking down the problems between them instead of reinforcing them. “Yes and no.”

“Why no?”

“Things were uncomplicated before. You were just an attractive woman. Now you're…”

“What?” she asked. Her eyes met his steadily, and he felt a pressure to not disappoint this woman.

“More.” It was all he could say. He wasn't going to tell her that she set a fire in him that had nothing
to do with lust and everything to do with the longing he carried inside since childhood. A longing for something intangible that he'd always known was missing from his life.

“Well, that's one thing in our favor.”

“It's everything.”

She took another sip of her tea and played with the ring on her finger. Her nails were bitten to the quick and not exactly glamorous, but he liked the little flaw. The ring was some sort of Celtic knot made out of sterling. He skimmed his gaze over her, studying her. Noticing the funky earrings buried in her thick hair and the simple gold chain that disappeared under the collar of her maroon sweater.

“I guess we should be going,” she said. A tendril of her hair curled around her cheekbone.

He reached up and brushed it back, tucking the curl behind her ear. Her hair was soft—softer than anything he'd ever touched before. He rubbed a strand of hair between his forefinger and thumb.

Lauren sat still, watching him with those wide brown eyes of hers and making him want…her.
Just her.
He tugged on the strand of hair and she leaned toward him. He leaned closer. So close, he felt the brush of her breath against his mouth with each exhalation.

He caressed her face. Her skin was soft and he traced a light pattern over her high cheekbones down to those full lips of hers that had been driving him
out of his mind. He stroked her lower lip with his thumb. She caught her breath.

He knew then that whatever was between them, it was too late to keep it light. Physically there was more than a spark that bespoke of mutual attraction. His gut said this woman matched him passion for passion. And he freely admitted he wanted to explore that.

But not at a price that Lauren would find too high to pay. And not at a price that he'd regret asking her for. And certainly not at a price that would rock the solid world he'd built for himself.

 

Lauren studied Jack as he drove back to her car. He was like no other man she'd ever met, and her throat tightened at the thought of never getting to explore the magic that had blossomed between them. Why couldn't they?

He brought to life more of her senses than any other man she'd ever met. He made her laugh and think. And challenged her with his acerbic wit. He was the kind of man she'd always dreamed of finding, and only now did she understand that she'd been settling for the mirage, the illusion of the real thing, never realizing that it could be solid.

Jack was certainly solid, she thought with a grin. But she needed more than the physical. That article she'd read about him bothered her. However, because her mom had lived in the spotlight most of Lauren's
life, she knew that interviews didn't always give the reader all the facts.

“I read an article about you in
Detroit
magazine,” she said once they were headed back to the station. Jack had put on a Paul Simon CD, one from the late eighties that had the mellow influences of Africa in it.

“Did you?” he asked with a wry grin.

She toyed with letting him keep her away from what she wanted to know. But in the end, the heavy beating of her heart and the warnings in her mind convinced her otherwise. “Don't be coy. I want to know if the article was true.”

He sighed and fiddled with the volume on the stereo but didn't turn to look at her even when he had to stop for a traffic light. “I don't think of myself as the most eligible bachelor in the city, if that's what you're asking.”

Let it go.
But she couldn't. “I'm not. I want to know about the six-month thing.”

“Sweetheart, we just met.”

She knew what he was saying. Her rational mind said they were still essentially strangers, but she'd shared her heart and the secret she'd always longed to find in a mate with him.

And now she needed to know if the guy that she'd started liking the minute they'd met was going to break her heart. Should she let him in or keep him at the safe arm's length that she'd kept all other men? And with Jack, would that be easy to do?

“I know, but I told you a secret. And that article made it sound like you had a phobia about things lasting longer than that.”

“Well, I do,” he said, his voice even deeper than its normal tonality.

“Why?” she asked. She'd grown up with one of the country's leading relationship experts, so Lauren knew firsthand that you had to keep hammering away at the same question until you found the real answer.

“It's just been my experience. I'm forty-five. I know a lot about myself and my habits.”

“And you can't teach an old dog new tricks?” she asked around the tightness in her throat.
Forty-five.
She probably had sounded like a child to him. Saying that she still wanted happily ever after. Her gut argued that she hadn't. That the truth she'd seen shining in Jack's eyes was the same desire as hers.

“Watch who you're calling an old dog,” he said lightly.

She watched the streetlights out the window and tried to pretend it didn't matter. That his superficial answer to her very real question didn't hurt. Why should it? She'd just met him. Though it felt different in her soul.

“Lauren…”

She didn't look at him. Didn't want to right now. Paul Simon played quietly in the background, and Lauren closed her eyes and concentrated on the lyr
ics of the song instead of the man who perplexed her and made her yearn for a deeper connection with him.

He cursed under his breath. She felt the car slow and then stop. She opened her eyes. He'd pulled onto the shoulder. She shifted her head on the back of the seat to watch him.

“Why are you stopping?” she asked. His features were stark with only the dashboard illumination. He scarcely resembled the stylish man that she knew him to be. And she wondered if this was the real Jack Montrose seated next to her in the dark. When all the trappings of looks fell away, all that was left was the heart of who he was.

“Because I can't chase you when I'm driving,” he said.

“I don't understand.”

He twisted to face her, cupping her jaw in both of his hands. It was the third time he'd touched her face, and she couldn't help the elemental awareness that shot through her.

“Let me explain it. I'm sorry I can't promise you more than six months. That I can't say that you're the one woman who will make me want more than any other one has. But it's just too soon.”

“Hey, you were the one who said you wanted to get to know me naked.”

“I still do. But naked doesn't mean lasting.”

“I know,” she said softly.

Jack tugged her into his arms. He held her loosely
but securely. She relaxed and let go of the hurt that had been building in the pit of her stomach. He smelled like fresh pine, and she burrowed closer to his warmth, inhaling deeply.

“You confuse me,” he said, rubbing his chin against the top of her head.

“I'm just a woman.”

“And therein lies the mystery.” She tipped her head back and their eyes met. “I can't make any promises. But dammit, woman, I can't let this go either.”

“Me, too.”

She lifted up and met his mouth as it descended on hers. His lips brushed softly over hers, keeping the embrace light until her mouth tingled and she ached to know his taste. She opened her mouth, but he lifted his lips and dropped kisses down the column of her neck.

She lifted her hands, plunging them into his thick hair and lifting his head, bringing his mouth back to hers. She opened her lips against his. Breathed in his breath and gave him back hers. Then she skimmed her tongue over the seam of his lips and pushed it inside, tasting him as deeply as she could.

Something long hidden inside her heart sprang to life, and as the timbre of the embrace changed and Jack took control of it, she acknowledged that maybe six months with Jack wouldn't be so bad. Because she knew she'd always regret it if she let him leave her life after just one night.

 

Lauren tasted as he knew she would. Like sunshine and vitality and a hint of spiciness. He'd made love to many women over the course of his life, and for the first time he felt something beyond just lust. It intensified the arousal flowing through his veins.

He felt each exhalation of her breath like a brand on his skin. He felt each minute movement of her body as she undulated against him like a velvet glove tightening on his private flesh. He felt each sound she made all the way to his soul and he knew he'd never kiss a woman again without remembering Lauren.

He thrust his tongue deep inside, seeking more of her, needing to delve deeper and claim her completely as his own. Her skin felt soft under his touch, just as he'd known it would.

His mind shut down and he was guided by instinct. Slipping his hands down her back, rubbing the individual vertebrae of her spine, slipping underneath the loose sweater she wore.

Her skin was warm to the touch and she shivered as he stroked his hand lazily under and down. She moaned deep in her throat, and the sound went straight to his groin, hardening him even more.

He shifted on the seat, pulling her more fully against him. Her breasts nestled into the hard planes of his chest. He reached for the hem of her sweater, starting to raise it, when he remembered where they were.

In a parked car on the side of the road. He was a
respected businessman, not a horny teenager alone with his first girl. He pulled his hands away from her flesh with a lingering caress. He lifted his mouth from hers, but her lips were full, swollen from his kisses, and he couldn't resist one more round before he lifted her off his lap and set her in the passenger seat.

He drew in several deep breaths, finding some control before he looked at Lauren. Her arms were wrapped around her waist and her eyes were closed.

“That almost got out of hand,” he said. Because he couldn't say what he really wanted to, which was,
To hell with getting your car, let's go back to my place and explore every nuance of the attraction between us.

But Lauren wasn't his usual kind of woman, and he'd heard more than the words she'd said in the diner. She wanted a man who would court her. A man who looked behind that made-for-sin body to the woman underneath. And by damned if he wasn't going to try to be that man.

He didn't understand why. Didn't even care to explain it, because he knew that if he tried, he'd realize that failure loomed in front of him. He'd never been good at the long haul, but holding Lauren in his arms had made him realize he had to at least try. At least make the effort of being the kind of man she wanted. Because he wanted to be her man.