“All right.” Jacob measured him. He figured if the man kissed Sunny again it would be simple enough to break his skinny neck.
“J.T. happens to be the brother of my sister’s husband.”
“Small world.”
Jacob didn’t bat an eye. “Smaller than you think.”
“Right.” If Marco had been wearing a tie he would have loosened it. But with his collar already open he didn’t have a clue how to ease the constriction in his throat. “Listen, do you guys need a table?”
“Absolutely.”
“We pulled some together back there, if you want to climb in.”
“Okay.” She looked up at Jacob. “Okay?”
“Sure.” He was already annoyed with himself. The jealousy had been an emotional rather than an intellectual reaction. He watched Sunny’s long legs as she walked between the tables. And an entirely justified reaction. Maybe men had progressed, but they had always been, would always be, territorial.
Half a dozen people greeted Sunny by name as they stopped at the table. Because most of the introductions were lost in the roar of the music, Jacob only nodded as he took his seat.
“This round’s on me,” Marco announced when he finally managed to flag down a waitress. “Same thing,” he told her. “Plus a glass of chardonnay for the lady and . . .” He lifted a brow at Jacob.
“A beer. Thanks.”
“No problem. I sold three cars today.”
“Good for you.” Sunny leaned over a bit, easily pitching her voice above the noise as she elaborated for Jacob’s benefit. “Marco’s a car dealer.”
Jacob got the image of Marco shuffling automobiles, then passing them around a poker table. “Congratulations” seemed the safest possible comment.
“I do okay. Just let me know if you’re in the market. We got in a shipment of real honeys this week.”
Jacob spared a glance at the brunette on his other side as she rubbed her arm against his. “I’ll do that.”
Relieved that Sunny’s new friend no longer looked as though he wanted to rearrange his face, Marco shifted his chair a little closer. “So what do you drive, J.T.?”
There was a universal moan around the table. Marco accepted it with a good-natured shrug and popped a handful of peanuts into his mouth.
“Hey, it’s my job.”
“Like taking little old ladies for test drives is a job,” someone joked.
“It’s a living.” Marco grinned. “None of us are rocket scientists.”
“J.T. is,” Sunny said.
“Are you?” The brunette scooted her chair closer.
She had big brown eyes, Jacob noted. Eyes that just brimmed with invitations. “In a manner of speaking.”
“Oh, I just love brainy men.”
Amused, Jacob picked up the beer the waitress set in front of him. He caught the look Sunny shot across the table. He recognized it. Jealousy, it appeared, was contagious. Nothing could have pleased him more. He took a long swig and tolerated the smoke the brunette blew in his direction. It was no use telling her that she was endangering her very attractively packaged lungs.
“Do you?”
She kept her eyes on his as she slowly crushed out the cigarette. “Oh, yes. I’m very attracted to intelligence.”
“Let’s dance.” Sunny shoved back her chair and snagged Jacob’s sleeve. “Nice try, Sheila,” she muttered, and dragged Jacob onto the dance floor.
“Is that her name? Sheila?”
She turned to him, into him, and tilted her chin upward. “Who wants to know?”
“Don’t you want me to be nice to your friends?” He settled his hands on her hips. With her heels, her eyes were level with his. And her body fit his perfectly.
“No.” Her mouth moved into a pout as she twined her arms around his neck. “At least not the stacked ones.”
Curious, he looked back at the table. “Is she stacked?”
“As if you didn’t notice. Unfortunately, her I.Q. measures the same as her bustline.”
“I like your . . . I.Q. better.”
“Good thinking.” Grinning, she brushed a kiss over his mouth. “I can’t blame her for giving it her best shot. You’re awfully cute.”
“Small dogs are cute,” he muttered. “Babies are cute.”
“You like babies.”
“Yes, why not?”
She toyed with the ends of his hair. “Just checking. Anyway, you are cute. And sexy.” She took a playful nip at his bottom lip. “And brainy.” She settled her cheek against his as he drew her closer. And mine, she thought. All mine. “What does the
“Which
“In J.T.”
“Nothing.”
“It has to stand for something.” She let out a sound of pleasure, “You dance very well.” The sax was playing again, crying the blues this time. Sunny’s eyes dipped closed as Jacob molded her against him. They were hardly moving in the press of bodies surrounding them. As his hands roamed over her back and his lips down her throat she didn’t care if they ever moved again.
Her thighs brushed against his. The leather fitted her like a second skin, one he was already imagining peeling away from her. As he turned her in his arms, slowly, sinuously, he shifted to taste the bare flesh of her shoulder. Even over the echoing music he could hear her skin humming. Lazily he trailed his lips back to toy with hers.
“You smell incredible. Like spring in the desert, hot, with some lingering trace of flowers gone wild.”
Unable to resist, she deepened the kiss until her head swam. “J.T.?”
“Yes?”
“I’m not sure, but I think we could get arrested for this.”
“It would be worth it.”
She opened her eyes, met his. “Let’s go home. I don’t like crowds the way I used to.”
***
They stayed a week, so that she could drag him to movies, malls, more clubs. She attributed his constant fascination to the fact that he’d never been in the Northwest before. Each time they went out, it was as though he were seeing things for the first time. Because of that, she enjoyed the hours and the errands more than she ever had.
When they were alone, when she trembled in his arms, she realized that it didn’t matter where they were. They were together. And if with each passing moment she fell more deeply in love, she did so freely and with absolute joy.
For the first time in her life she began to think of a future with a man, one man. She imagined passing through the years with him—not always content, but always satisfied. She thought of a home, and if white picket fences and car pools didn’t enter the fantasy, children did. She could picture the arguments, the noise and the laughter.
Before much longer, she thought, they would talk about it. They would plan.
He allowed himself the week. A handful of days meant so little in the vastness of time. And meant so much to him. He recorded everything he could, and branded the rest on his memory. He didn’t mean to forget, not an instant.
Yet he worried about how he could tell her where he had to travel when he left her so that it would hurt the least. More, he worried because he was no longer sure he had the courage to live without her.
When they left to go back to the cabin he told himself that it was the beginning of the end. If it had to end—
