Slow Fever (2 page)

Now the long, hard length of his body contrasted with the lace curtain framing him. Kylie held a sofa cushion up to her chest and rapped on the window. He turned to her
and when she waved him away, he shook his head and grinned that fascinating beautiful grin as if he were a boy again, a boy who had forever devastated her.

Kylie dropped the curtain, and grabbed another pillow to cover her backside. She shuttled through the darkened house as fast as her plastic wrapped legs would carry her. She took another sip of her mother’s blackberry wine and shook her head. Michael wasn’t going anywhere until she disposed of him properly.

Minutes later, she jerked open the door again, quickly tying a flannel robe around her plastic encased body. “People will see you sitting there and you know how the gossip will spread.”

He lifted an eyebrow and Kylie closed her eyes. “Okay. Come in,” she said with all the warmth of the doomed.

As she stood holding the door open for him to pass, Michael looked even bigger than she remembered. Though bulkier now, he was still lean and moved gracefully. He carried with him dark tasty edges that she’d never know. He wouldn’t fit on her massage table. She’d have to use the fold-out extensions— Her fingers flexed; she didn’t want to think of Michael’s body beneath her hands…all that lean, long body packed with cords and muscles and wrapped in tanned skin. She wondered if the deep tan on his face matched the shade on his—

Her fingers flexed again as he dipped his head to take a quick kiss. Stunned, she watched him lick his lips, tasting hers. Her hands ached to grab his hair, those thick shaggy black strands, and to tether him for another kiss. She licked her lips, tasting his and wondered what she had been thinking. His eyes were just as green as she remembered, framed by dark lashes. Humor deepened the lines fanning from his eyes and danced upon his lips as he drawled, “Blackberry wine. You’re tipsy, right?”

“You’re interrupting my party,” she said when she could struggle past the sizzling burn on her lips.

“I’ve been there,” he said gently, easing his finger through the curls on top of her head. “Want to tell me about it?”

“No. Get lost.” If she could have packaged that dark, brooding male scent, she could make a fortune. He smelled of the night and secret longings that most women couldn’t refuse—but Kylie would.

“Can’t leave. Told Tanner that I’d watch out for you while he and Gwyneth are on their month-long honeymoon.”

“Big brothers. Who needs ’em?” Kylie muttered, uncaring that her tone reflected her dark and evil mood.

“What’s the problem?” Michael asked, settling down on the sofa. He stretched his long legs out to the footstool that held her sea salt foot soak, peppermint foot cream, and bright red toenail polish. He placed his hands behind his head and studied her intently.

Kylie tossed away the uncomfortable, slightly guilty emotion that he had caught her in a criminal act. Anna had never allowed heavy drinking in her home. At the midnight hour and the changing of her life, she wasn’t drunk, but a nice toasty “mellow.” She was taking steps—the next major one was to do her toenails. She was actively dragging herself out of the post-divorce bog. She was jumping from a bad plateau in her life to her future.

She’d use him.
Michael could always be trusted as a confidant. She lit the candles her mother had made, beeswax mixed with chamomile and ylang ylang. She’d shared that with her mother, the love of herbs and their uses and together they’d distilled the chamomile from her mother’s herb garden. Kylie’s plastic wrap rustled as she settled down beside him and indicated the spread of blackberry wine, cheese and crackers and rich, rich chocolate truffles
which she had been slathering with her mother’s raspberry jam. Michael poured wine into her glass, sipped and closed his eyes to enjoy. They were chums in this, the appreciation of Anna Bennett, a woman who had loved and tended them. “You’ll have to do,” Kylie said finally as she dipped the chocolate into the jar of raspberry jam.

She dipped a finger into the jam and suckled it thoughtfully as she studied Michael. “You seem tense. I suppose it’s the reflex you got from back in the days when I was interested in you—when I was a child,” Kylie said, sucking the rest from her fingertips. “I’d give you a massage, but right now I’m concentrating on my healing process and aligning my chakras. I’m in the ceremonial mode now—dispensing with the old to make a clean cut for the new me. I’m not usually self-indulgent, but I’ve got to deal with the pits before moving on. Meditating isn’t cutting it.”

His breath was rough and had a catching sound. His voice was deep and husky and uneven. “I’ll take a rain check on the massage.”

“You’re not a massage kind of guy. Well, sports massage maybe. You have to give yourself over to relaxing to get the full impact, and you won’t give a part of yourself away like that. You never have, not even when we were younger. You always seemed sort of coiled and ready to strike. I can’t imagine you really unwound and relaxed,” Kylie said, noting Michael’s honed features, his clean-cut jaw and dark gleaming eyes. The candlelight drifted along his glossy lashes and softened the harsh lines across his forehead and beside his mouth. She leaned closer and scanned his face. At Tanner’s wedding, the scar on Michael’s jaw had shocked her. She hadn’t asked how he’d gotten it, because Michael was a very private man. The chances of getting an answer were none to zero. “You could use some moisturizer. I was just getting ready to do my legs. I could shave you and—”

“No. I’m not into mutual-benefit preening.” Michael’s tone said he was just as immovable as when he’d tugged her off that bucking mechanical bull, plopped her over his shoulder and packed her out of the tavern to take her home.

Payback for the bucking bull incident and other matters would have to wait as Kylie dealt with her immediate healing process. She settled for needling him. “Mmm. Sun weathered skin. Tiny white lines at the corners of your eyes. You’re only thirty-four, Michael. Your women will have you turned into an old man before your time. You’ll have hair on your shoulders and be in the old men’s turkey-neck club pretty soon. Moisturizers can help. I hope you’re using a sunscreen.”

He smiled slightly before Kylie stuffed a cheese topped cracker against his lips. There was just the slightest resistance before he accepted the companionable gift, and his lips opened. The heat from his mouth burned Kylie’s fingertips as she drew away. A nervous little tingle shot through her as he studied her.

The trembling of her fingertips shot through him, surprising him. Other women had fed him, flirted with him, but Kylie wasn’t on his list of potential bedmates.

“Okay, here’s the scoop,” she said, preparing to use Michael’s ears to the fullest. He’d always been a good listener, despite his own rough life. Even then, he hadn’t let too many people close to him, except Anna who thought of him as a son. “My mother would have adopted you,” Kylie said softly, remembering how Anna cared for Michael.

He studied the strands flowing through his fingers, considering the light dancing upon them. “I know, but she had enough problems. I wasn’t going to add to the mix. Keep on track. You’re still running in all directions at once… I like the way your hair feels, the way it ripples against my hand.”

“Now that
is
jumping tracks and not keeping to one direction.” She’d tied her hair on top of her head with a blue ribbon, keeping it free of the various face masks. “I wasn’t lucky enough to have Tanner’s deep waves or Miranda’s sleek, straight hair. Oh, no, I have this stuff, too curly if it’s short. You could cut it for me, so short it couldn’t curl. If it weren’t so cold, I might try to shave it.”

“No, thanks. I like long hair and the sky-blue color of this ribbon. It matches your eyes.” Michael gently tugged the ribbon free and her hair spilled around her shoulders.

“I just haven’t had time to deal with my hair or anything else—like a really good pedicure. It’s been a busy year.” Kylie settled deep into her thoughts, allowing Michael’s toying with her hair to soothe her. “I thought when I got married, it would be forever.”

“Did he hurt you?” Michael asked slowly, almost too carefully.

“He was a wimp. What can I say? Leon knew better. I’m in better shape than he was, faster and more flexible.” Kylie pushed back the sleeve of her flannel robe to flex her muscle. The robe gaped, her breast leaped against the plastic and Michael sucked in his breath. She supposed this was because he was impressed with women who kept themselves in shape. She’d had to be physically active to stave off the emptiness of a sexless marriage. “But it didn’t help my ego to work like a dog, try to build our business and then find him layered on my massage table with his girlfriend under him. The next thing I know, the company is belly-up, we’re bankrupt and getting a divorce. He’s married to Sharon now, a very good aerobics instructor. I sent a toaster, the wide-enough-for-a-bagel kind, but I really couldn’t live with his suggestion—a communal sort of thing. I grew up here and though I married outside the permission of the Women’s Council and The Rules for Courting, my values are still pretty much those of Freedom
Valley. You know me—I just jump into life. Well, this time my instincts—that I could make this marriage work—were dead wrong.”

Long ago she’d discovered the deep basic instinct she had for nurturing, sometimes unwisely. Leon had been a user, knowing how to push her need-to-help buttons. To be truthful, much of what had happened was her fault. She knew that she should have made him take more responsibility, but in a misguided sense of wifeliness, she’d taken most of the work load…and Leon, of course, was only too happy to give his share to her. “I can’t place all the blame on Leon. By doing too much, I took away some of his feeling of accomplishment that his ego required. He’s perfectly capable of running a spa. I just gave him too much time to play.”

Her head was a little heavy now, and Kylie rested it on Michael’s shoulder. “I tried college, because it was important to Mom and Miranda and Tanner. After two years, I knew I wanted something else. I met Leon while working in a San Francisco health spa and retreat. I was studying for my license and met him at a Shiatsu conference…he’s excellent at Shiatsu and reflexology, women used to praise his technique, though I never experienced it. Our interests were the same and I considered us to be Yin and Yang. Not an argument in our entire relationship. Leon never argued. He considered it beneath him. Now I’m thirty-two—was married for nine years, and worked so hard to build a business. I should have come home to see Mom more. Leon didn’t want children and I agreed to wait—looking back, I don’t think I would have wanted them to have his jaw. Leon had a really weak jaw and we hadn’t had sex for years.”

Beneath her head, Michael’s heartbeat seemed to have picked up pace. “I need sex, Michael. I’m a physical
woman with needs. My clock is ticking and
she’s pregnant with my baby!
”

“Your baby?” Michael asked in that very wary tone as if he were picking his way through a field of land mines.

“Well, the baby that I eventually wanted. I wanted to be like Mom, to have a family and care for them, and to make her a grandmother. Leon wasn’t up to par, and sex with him wasn’t that good, and it’s my only experience. Instinctively I knew his performance might lack as a baby-maker. I’m a nurturer, a loving woman, I need sex, and I’ve got nowhere to go with all my energy. It’s frustrating.”

“Don’t drink any more wine, Kylie,” Michael said rather shakily after a long hesitation.

“I’m just mellow, not drunk. I never drink. It’s the ring,” she said, flopping back on the sofa to rest her head upon a pillow. Michael’s shoulders were too hard for real relaxing.

“Ring?” he repeated slowly, looking at the flannel robe that had just parted full-length to reveal her plastic coating.

“Ring! Wedding ring!” Kylie waved her left hand and the gold band that had symbolized her marriage in front of him—because he didn’t seem to be following her logic easily. His eyes slowly drifted from her body to her hand as Kylie said, “I can’t seem to just take it off. I mean what would I do with it? It’s got to be a ceremony of sorts. A burial in a tin can, that sort of thing.”

“What’s this mummy act?” Michael asked, his fingertips smoothing the plastic on her thigh. They dug in slightly and his expression did that tight, darkening thing again. “Take it off.”

The deep, raw edge to his order was unfamiliar. The dark, rich tone curled around Kylie, and she got that odd prickly feeling again. She studied Michael closely and pushed away the warning signals. Tonight, wrapped in plastic and dealing with the past, her logic could be akilter. She
was having an off-night and not about to be intimidated by his order. “I have to take care of the man-catching equipment. Moisture is good for old divorced women who have to rebuild their lives. The prune look isn’t appealing to potential sex-partners.”

“You’re thirty-two, Kylie, not ninety,” Michael said roughly. “Take it off, dress in something else and I’ll take you down to Valentina Lake where you can throw in the damn wedding ring and do what you have to do.” Michael’s voice was dark and rich, almost a growl. He scowled at her, poured another glass of wine and this time downed it quickly.

The idea appealed to Kylie, like the perfect maraschino cherry atop the nuts atop the banana split. She considered going to the lake, the drama of September winds sweeping across the lake as she hurled the ring into the dark mysterious depths. Michael was perfect for drama and late night adventure. “Good idea, but wrapping myself took a good hour. The stuff clings to itself and it will be a real job to take it off.”

“I could help,” Michael offered quietly, studying her with those dark forest-green eyes. Suddenly the air crackled with electricity, raising the hair on Kylie’s nape as she scooted off the couch.

The tight binding around her knees almost caused her to fall back again, but Michael’s broad palm flattened on her backside to push her upright. He had that closed-in, dark brooding look and the air seemed to steam around him as she wrapped her flannel robe around her protectively. “Mmm, no thanks. I’ll be right down.”