L.A. Caveman (17 page)

He pulled back, gazing at her with
gentle concern. "Stanna?"

He’d possessed her body, and her mind
was under siege too if she counted his tactics in changing her
column. Hadn't he called her a man-hating, manipulating
feminist?

What she hated was the idea of this
man thinking of her as manipulative. She'd certainly just given him
reason enough, by sleeping with the boss. Perhaps he thought she
angled for special favors. But surely he wouldn't count what they’d
just done against her. Would he?

Jake couldn't for the life of him
figure out why she froze up. One minute she was responsive as hell,
the next in her own world. One that didn't include him.

A flash of memory wormed through his
head, one he wished hadn't: A laughing, seductive Jolene suddenly
transformed into a cold, manipulative woman whom he didn't know,
and didn't want to know. The resulting numbness lingered. Even
now.

He shook off the memory almost
immediately, but the taste of it remained, chilling him.

He felt her arms tighten about him,
somewhat belatedly.

But now he was the stiff one, and he
didn't mean the part of him that seemed to have a mind of its own.
She was so desirable, so seemingly vulnerable. He wanted to believe
it wasn't an act. That she wasn't angling to use him
somehow.

She sensed his distance, he could
tell. She looked at him questioningly. "What's wrong?"

After a long pause, he spoke. "I know
how much you want your column back the way it was. How much you
want the magazine to change back to what it had been when Ian ruled
the roost. I just want to be straight with you. This won't change
things."

"Change things? As in changing your
mind about your precious woman-bashing 'zine? You thought that's
why I did this. I knew it. I just knew it."

Her flame-lit face telegraphed
disappointment, then pure feminine fury before she rolled from him
and began to dress.

He spoke to her back. "You don't have
to be so unreasonable about it all." He was becoming irritated. "I
didn't mean anything."

She whirled. Grabbed her backpack and
began stuffing her belongings into it. When she yanked the blanket
off him he lay still as a statue and caught her looking. He raised
an eyebrow at her and thought he spotted the beginning of a
smile.

"Stanna." He rose sinuously and tilted
her chin to him. "You're wrong about me, you know." He kissed her,
long and slow. "I don't think that's why we did this." He kissed
her again, felt her resistance beginning to melt. "We did this
because of simple, animal desire, nothing more, I realize that
now," and bent to kiss her again.

He pressed his lips against something
suddenly hard and compressed.

Realizing his error, he tried again.
"I feel... good thoughts about you."
Good thoughts?
Good
going, Casanova. But what did she expect? An 'I love you?' His
heart lurched as those exact words poised on his lips. He wasn't
sure they weren't true.

But it was too late.

Stanna pushed against him, freeing
herself. "The rain sounds like it’s stopped. Let's get back down
the hill, okay?" Her back was turned again. He wanted to put his
arms around her. He wanted to kiss her skin, tug gently on her
hair, and pull her against him.

But she turned and gazed at him
coolly.

Suddenly realizing he was naked and
she was fully dressed, pack in hand and waiting by the door to
leave, he began feeling a little cool himself. "Fine," he retorted.
Unstable female.

Neither said a word as he extinguished
the fire.

It was a long and silent nighttime
hike back down.

The chill extended into their
professional relationship, though they both took great pains to
hide it.

Weeks after, Stanna still hadn't had a
moment completely alone with him, unless she counted the weekly
debates over her column, which she didn't. He was much the
same.

She was the one who was altered by
their night on the mountain.

She found herself acutely aware of the
times he arrived and the times he left, and was so sensitized to
his voice that she could pick it out of a crowd of voices across
the hall effortlessly. His laugh made her pause whatever she was
doing with a strange ache of longing.

He didn't approach her on a personal
level.

Professionally, though, he was as
infuriating as he'd always been. Masticating her column, placing
bimbo ads on the back covers of
Men's Weekly
, meeting with
Tia of K&C Ad Agency more often than he met with her... he was
as bullheaded and misguided as ever, but who was she to tell him
such a thing? She was just a little receptionist and a column hack,
that's who she was.

"It takes less facial muscles to smile
than it does to frown," Corrinna chirped. She paused in her stroll
down the hall. "What's wrong? You've been so
sad-looking."

Stanna gave a small smile of
reassurance. "It's nothing, just a minor problem I'm working on."
He goes by the name of Jake Tremere
.

"Well, if you ever want to talk about
it..." Corrinna smiled at her warmly before continuing on her
way.

"Stanna." His voice. She felt her
pulse immediately begin jogging around the block. But she was
carefully noncommittal as she turned towards him. "Yes?" She hoped
he hadn't heard that last transaction of Corrinna's.

But his voice was neutral,
professional as he spoke. "I’m attending a business convention. It
runs for five days, a gathering of all the national Men's
magazines:
Men's Health, Men's Perspective, GQ
, all the
rest. I need someone to keep an eye on internal office things
temporarily. Your previous training makes you the likeliest
candidate for that."

Will wonders never cease. But he was
stiff, proper. "What's the catch?" she asked.

"No catch. I just think you're the
best man for the job," he replied. He winked.

He
winked
. Then he walked away.
"Jake!" she called, scrambling to follow him.

He glanced at her as she paced beside
him down the hall. She grouched. "You walk too fast.” For some
reason that made him smile at her, slowing his pace.

"When's the trip?" she
asked.

"Next week. All week."

She walked him to his office, then
ground out, "Thank you."

He looked at her, lips pressed shut.
His aqua eyes glinted with a tiny sparkle just for her. "Just don't
do anything I wouldn't do while I'm gone," he told her sternly, but
his eyes threw more sparks.

"That leaves my choices wide open,"
she retorted.

She didn't realize how soon she'd be
confronted with decisions reminding her of that moment.

Telly had never felt more
conspicuously female. Their hungry eyes crawled over her and she
knew what it felt like to be a juicy steak thrown into a dog
kennel. She'd only been at the Edwards Air Force Officer's Club for
thirty seconds, and she was already being buried in both camouflage
BDUs and dress blues.

"Can I buy you a drink?"

"I'm buying her a drink," growled a
testosterone-soaked voice as its owner waved a five-dollar bill at
the bartender. Others were arguing over who could take her coat,
which she decided to hang onto. Maybe she'd even put it back on.
Soon. The way the boys eyeballed her black corset-enhanced cleavage
made her peek to see if she'd popped out. She accepted a pink
Cosmopolitan from one guy.

She smiled, thanked them, and watched
as they immediately got into another fight over whose chair she
should take.

They gave off whiffs of Brut
aftershave, beer, and eager sweat. They were randy, masculine, and
about as far from Ernest the checkers-playing church boy as boys
could get.

Trouble was, they were a little too
far from him.

She felt the beginnings of a headache
and wondered which one of them would be the first to suggest
playing Quarters. Or strip poker.

She looked about in mild
desperation.

He was sitting alone with a cynical
twist to his lips. He watched the circle of flyboys preening and
fighting before her with unconcealed amusement and not a little
contempt. But he gave her a little wave and a greeting lift of his
chin.

"Excuse me," she said. She had to say
it a couple of times before they let her out of the
circle.

"Hey, the Ladies Room is that way,"
one of them shouted after her too loudly.

She walked directly toward the
mysteriously cool man. His blond hair was cut to above his ears,
and gelled slightly to give it a spiky look much like hers, only
shorter. Innocently blue eyes appraised her with amusement, as if
she reminded him of a funny joke. She wished he’d share it with
her. She could use a laugh.

"Have a seat," he told her when she
reached his table.

He wore camouflage, like many of the
others. On his shoulders were pinned the double black bars of a
captain. His voice wasn't especially deep, and its wry tone matched
his amused expression. He already sounded more intelligent compared
to the guys who’d swarmed her. Funny how just three words,
modulated properly, could make someone sound smart.

"Are you waiting for someone?" she
asked him. No need to cramp some girlfriend's style.

"No." He took a sip from his glass.
Vodka? Water? He watched her levelly. He lowered his drink to the
red and white plastic checkered tablecloth and rubbed his
double-jointed thumb against the perspiring glass.

She couldn't tell if she was unnerved
or excited by the gesture.

She decided to make polite
conversation. "So, do you--"

"...come here often?" he finished.
"Yes. We all do." He smiled at her, a sweet smile. "Not too many
women in uniform, here with us lifers. So when fresh m--, uh, faces
like yours make an appearance, it's an event."

There it was, that wry tone
again.

"Not that I blame them in your case.
I'm sure you attract men wherever you go."

She could forgive a little
wryness.

He looked at her directly and for a
moment she noticed a strange manic excitement in his eyes. But then
it was gone, and they were back to being impenetrable. He still
smiled, an expression somehow at odds with his words. "They're
trying not to stare at us right now. But they're watching our every
move."

She looked up. Some of the guys did
seem to be staring, but they weren't making a big sneaky deal out
of it. One even waved. She started to wave back, but he grabbed her
hand. "Don't do that. Brian'll take it as an invitation." He stared
at her. He let go of her hand immediately, but she wasn't
happy.

"Brian has one advantage over you,
anyway. I know his name."

"My name is Wayne," he informed her
with a small dry smile. "And yours is...?"

"Telly. It's English."

"I didn't think it was Arabic." He
kept his smile.

She didn't like him, and wasn't sure
if she were attracted to him. At least he was somewhat interesting.
She decided to let it play out.

"So what do you big, bad military
types do for fun?"

"Get drunk, shoot stick, act stupid.
We also seduce women, and watch each other trying to seduce women.
The way Brian and his friends are watching us right now. Hey!" His
abrupt shout hurt her ears and made her jump. "You wanna show, buy
a ticket!" Brian and friends laughed, shaking their heads. But they
made a point of looking away.

She realized Wayne was drunk. And
obnoxious.

She started to push her chair out to
leave.

"Hey," he murmured gently. "I didn't
mean to scare you." His sincere words made her pause, sink back in
her chair. His gentle smile and wistful tone of pure regret didn't
quite mesh with the expression in his eyes. But she
waited.

His hands rested in his lap under the
tablecloth. He wry tone was back when he told her, "They just love
to watch." The tablecloth rustled. Was he scratching
himself?

"I'm not a Peeping Tom. More on the
other side." He fixed his unsettling eyes on her and slowly raised
the tablecloth.

The panel in front of his BDU trousers
was unbuttoned and gaped open. His white underwear was lowered to
beneath his testicles, but pushed up tightly against them. His
large penis shaft jutted out proudly. It curved slightly to the
left. She noticed, in a moment of complete objectivity, that a
clear bead of moisture dotted the tip.

She tore her gaze away, looked at his
face.

The manic expression had returned to
his eyes. He was deep into his own private fantasy, his own world.
The role he wanted her to play, she understood finally, was the
part of shocked, horrified, and maybe reluctantly fascinated
girl.

She smiled with some wryness of her
own.