It Had to be You Page 17

  “Well, almost,” I say, pointing out a small gap between Elsie’s brooch and what I learned was another, smaller brooch donated by Clara. “It needs something here. We’ll have to look through my mismatched stuff when we get home.”

  Her face lights up. “You’d do that?”

  I’m pretty sure my heart just seized, but Jesus. She sounds so damn thrilled you’d think I had offered her a diamond bracelet. “Of course. I’d like to be a part of your gift.”

  “That is the berries!” She smacks my arm. “C’mon, what the heck are you waiting for?” She whirls on the balls of her little T-strap shoes and sashays off down the hall.

  29

  susan andersen

  Like something out of the picture shows

  LENA

  Goodness gracious, but this has been a fine day and night! First I get all of my stolen property back, plus have the satisfaction of watching Mrs. Rodale squirm when faced with Officer Miller. Then Booker treats me to that wonderful lunch at the Sorrento Hotel. Not to mention I am beside-myself thrilled with the reception my rendition of It Had to Be You received from the club’s patrons. Henry is dead right—this is a song for the ages. One of which I simply cannot see myself ever growing tired.

  Then there’s my amazingly thoughtful gift from Clara and Dot. I am so humbled by the affection my coworkers have shown me with their willingness to contribute to my lovely dressing room door star. It makes me feel like an honest to Betsy celebrity.

  Now here I am, taking sneaky peeks around Booker’s bedroom while he rummages through the top shelf of his closet looking for his box of loose tie clips and pins, collar bars, button studs and cuff links. It’s all I can do to not laugh out loud.

  Because who but Booker would have an entire container dedicated to orphaned bits of accessories? I don’t even own a real jewelry box, just the old cigar box I asked one of my old bosses to save for me when he finished his last cigar.

  With pale grey walls and rich wood trim and flooring, Booker’s bedroom is every bit as beautiful as the rest of his house. And since it’s directly above the living room, it, too, has a fireplace. I can’t get over that—a fireplace in the bedroom! This has to be one of the ritziest, most luxurious things I have ever laid eyes on.

  Speaking of luxurious, I really want to throw myself atop Booker’s bedspread and just flap my arms and legs like a kid making snow angels. My gosh the thing is swank, like something out of the picture shows. Its pattern, in a rich combination of bronze and silver, makes me think of some of the fancy Art Deco detailing I’ve seen on and inside of buildings around the state. And it looks so soft and silky-satiny, I can only imagine what it would feel like against bare skin.

  “Hah! I knew the damn thing had to be in here somewhere.”

  I have to hide my smile when Booker emerges from his closet. Foraging through the enclosed space has mussed him up some and he looks so darn cute.

  Well, okay, Booker is a good deal more than cute. But he looks younger somehow than he did just ten minutes ago.

  He grins at me, waving his free hand with a flick of his long, strong fingers in the direction of the two leather wingback chairs in front of the fireplace. “Grab a seat. I’ll build us a little fire and we can paw through this. See if we can find something to finish off your star.” He sets the box on the table between the chairs, then goes to squat in front of the fireplace.

  After building a little tipi of kindling over wads of newspaper, he pulls out a few larger pieces of wood from the cubby built into the wall next to the fireplace and swiftly assembles them in a similar shape over the kindling. He strikes a match and shoves its flame into the bottom section. The paper catches fire.

  I reach for the jewelry box Booker left on the table while he’s blowing the small flame into a larger one. But the man must have eyes in the back of his head. “Get your mitts off that,” he says. “You and me, baby, we’re going through that thing together.”

  He joins me a moment later and turns on the table lamp. As flames lick the kindling, which in turn adds fuel to lap at the larger pieces of wood, he picks up the box and hands it to me. “Dive in.”

  I remove the lid. “Oh, my, look at all of these! I hardly know where to start.” I toss the top back on the table between us, then turn back to the box.

  “Take out all the bits that won’t work first and we’ll set those aside.” He flips the box top upside down. “You can put them in here.”

  I remove the tie and collar bars, which are clearly the wrong shape and size and their removal starts whittling down the choices. “Why do you even have some of this stuff in here? They don’t look like they were ever part of a larger set.” I shoot him a sly smile. “Or parure.” I love saying that word. It makes me feel sort of worldly.

  “I grew tired of them, but liked them well enough to think I might want to wear them again sometime in the future.” Booker shrugs. “Like you said, though, you put the things away, and it’s out of sight, out of mind. I forgot all about them until tonight.”

  “Well, you have some really swell stuff here. You should pick some of it to use again.” Looking for a round piece, I cull out the rectangular and square cuff links unsuitable for the spot we need to fill and add them to the growing pile in the box lid. I glance over at Booker. “Okay, I think I’ve narrowed it down to pieces that might fit the space.”

  He reaches across the table between us. “Give it here. I can tell you right now some pieces in there are still too large.” I give him the box and he removes several more items. Then he hands it back again. “Go to town, doll.”

  I grin at him, then bend over the box to begin picking through the remaining shirt studs and tie pins. In the end, I hand Booker a stylish round onyx tie pin with a tiny silver starburst in the center. It just looks like Booker. I also pass over three little onyx and gold shirt studs. “If the pin’s too big, maybe some of the studs might fill in the space better.” I grimace. “I was excited to see the star on my door, but I should have brought it home so we could actually size things. I can be too impatient for my own good sometimes.”

  “We can drive back and get it, if you want.”

  I still. Yes, yes, yes! “Really?”

  “You gonna be able to sleep for thinking about it all night?”

  Oh, Lord, has he got my number! I shake my head.

  “Grab your coat.”

  I whoop and race downstairs ahead of him to do precisely that before he can change his mind.

  The streets are deserted this hour of the morning so no more than a half an hour later, we’re back at Booker’s house again with my beautiful star and a tube of glue Booker grabbed from Roger’s work bench. We also have a Sunday copy of the Seattle Daily Times we picked up from Booker’s favorite seller who was busily stocking his news shed with freshly delivered stock.

  Booker locks the front door behind us, then tosses the paper on the entry way table and hands me the glue. “Take the star into kitchen—it has the best lighting. I’ll go up and grab the jewelry.” He climbs the stairs two at a time.

  He’s right about the lighting, and after covering a generous section of the kitchen table with a couple of layers of old newspapers I find in a box on the enclosed back porch, I lay down my door star and place the tube of glue next to it.

  “Here we go.” Booker hands me the four pieces we selected and sets the box with the remaining jewelry on the far end of the table. “See if they fit.”

  I pick up the tie pin and set it in the spot. “Oh.” My heart drops. “It’s...almost perfect.” It fits the space pretty well, except for one tiny spot. I didn’t even realize I had my heart set on this piece until a hot surge of disappointment washes over me. It doesn’t make sense, because I didn’t even notice the little gap until Booker pointed it out. But now I want this tie pin of his to fill it, and fill it perfectly.

  When I, of all people, should know there is no such thing as perfection.

  “Hey, it may still work.” Booker hands me one of t
he shirt studs. “Try fitting this in next to it.”

  It slides in like it was made for the space and I squeal like a little girl. “There is such a thing as perfect. Oh, my gosh, you are brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!” I throw myself at him, rising on my toes to lay a thank you smooch on his lips.

  At least, that was my intention. But it’s as if I kissed a live wire. I feel a jolt of 100 proof, make your hair smoke, pure heat rocket through me from where my lips press against Booker’s clear down to my—ahem—lady place. I jump back, my face on fire.

  “I’m sorry! I got carried away. I didn’t mean to get fresh with—” I cut myself off, because, God, I sound like an idiot. What the heck? I can handle amorous drunks without blinking an eye. But put me within smooching distance of Booker Jameson, whose kisses I have relived in my dreams for eight long years, and all my street smarts, my confidence in myself as a woman, goes up in smoke.

  “Oh, honey.” Gaze intent, Booker snakes an arm around my waist and jerks me flush against his hard, hot body. “You don’t have a damn thing to be sorry about,” he assures me.

  His voice is a low and husky rasp abrading every nerve in my body. And I have a feeling I’m in trouble.

  Big, big trouble.

  He looks down at me with smoldering eyes. “In fact, you and me? Lena, sweetheart, you and I are just getting started.”

  And, squatting slightly, the better to align himself with my not nearly as impressive height, he bends his head and rocks his mouth over mine.

  30

  susan andersen

  God, but it feels like home

  BOOKER

  I think I’m holding her too tight and kissing her too hard. But I have been dying to get Lena back in my arms for what seems like half a lifetime. And good God Almighty. Those pretty lips cushion mine even as her plush curves gently give beneath the crush of my harder body. Desire rattles though my bones like a runaway train. But when a sudden thought crops up in the back of my mind, I fight back the mist of animalistic lust that has me in its spell.

  Shit. I just grabbed and kissed her without so much as a how’s-about-it-baby. From the first touch of my mouth on Lena’s, I was so consumed with the scent, the feel, the taste of her I have absolutely no impression as to what her feelings regarding my caveman tactics might be.

  Yet when I start to lift my head, I feel her plump, pretty arms, which I’m only just now realizing are already twined around my neck, wind tighter still.

  And she sighs a long, drawn out, “Oh.”

  So, all right, by God, it may be nonverbal but that sounds like a green light to me. Taking full advantage of the small opening her breathy word gives me, I explore the slick inner flesh of her bottom lip with a slow slide of the tip of my tongue. Feeling impatient, on edge, I coax Lena’s lips open wider. I inveigle them even farther apart by nipping her full bottom lip here, helping myself to a tiny suck there. But mostly I just kiss her. Endlessly. Insistently.

  I groan when the opportunity finally comes to slip my tongue more deeply into her sweet, sweet mouth. God, but it feels like home.

  Lena must think so as well, because her fingers wind through my hair, and she grips handfuls of it with take no prisoners resolve. She opens those satiny, addictive lips a tiny bit wider yet, her tongue rising off the floor of her mouth to duel with mine.

  I doubt I could feel the effect of her tongue sliding over mine more explosively were I a fuel barrel she was twirling lighted torches while dancing the Black Bottom atop. I back her up against the closest upright surface. It turns out to be the new electric Frigidaire and her shoulder blades reach its top.

  I bury my mouth in the soft, fragrant crook of her neck, my jaw brushing the shoulder it curves into. I need to feel her skin. Blindly seeking it out, I God bless the fad for rolling women’s stockings, as I reach firm bare skin the moment I hit her knees.

  I smooth my hands up the warm, smooth backs of her thighs, hiking the skirt of her dress up, filmy fabric pooling atop my forearms as my hands move higher.

  And higher.

  And higher still.

  Until they reach the silky leg openings of what feel like tap pants. Lena sucks in a breath as my fingertips brush beneath a leg opening to trace the crease at the top of her thighs where they meet the sweet curve of her ass.

  I groan. Then promptly slip my hands the rest of the way under her French knickers. Hauling her up, I splay my fingers to lightly grip a lush cheek in each hand. My eyes slide closed in sheer appreciation. Of the heat, of the sumptuous feel and weight of the full curves I hold.

  Then Lena spreads her legs and sets me on the path to the Promised Land. “Jesus,” I growl, hiking her up until I can press my cock against the soft, hot notch between her legs.

  The moment I do so, I hear our urgent, ragged breaths as, together, we sharply inhale. Feel as the insides of her knees grip my hips. Rubbing up against that little piece of heaven at the apex of her fabulous thighs, I smile savagely against her warm-skinned throat as a moan vibrates beneath my lips. I chase the little quiver with the flat of my tongue, which sets off another tremor. Then yet another, fainter one.

  For a moment, the room is silent aside from our rough breathing, her faint moans and my own guttural groans. Then the fridge suddenly kicks in, making Lena start. I slowly lift my head.

  Hell. We’re in the damn kitchen—not exactly the ideal place for what I have in mind. Reluctantly, I set Lena on her feet again and step back.

  Swaying slightly, she blinks up at me. “Booker?”

  She looks so damn cute. Those clear blue eyes, rimmed in exotic navy blue, are heavy-lidded. Her cheeks are flushed, her hair’s all mussed and her lips are swollen from my kisses. I sweep her up in my arms.

  Where she feels so damn right.

  “We need a more comfortable spot.” God, baby, don’t change your mind. Hoping to prevent precisely that, I kiss her again.

  Attempting to control a woman through seduction is hardly the stuff of heroes. I’m pretty damn sure, however, I’m gonna lose my mind if Lena decides all this heat between us is going nowhere. And, face it, given her opinion of sex, courtesy of my pitiful teenage performance, that’s a very real possibility.

  But when I raise my head once again, she dazzles me with a dreamy smile. And presses an openmouthed kiss against my temple before sliding her lips over to my ear. “Nifty,” she breathes.

  I grin so hard I probably look like an escapee from Western State insane asylum, and I take the stairs two at a time up to the second floor. Not an easy feat sporting a raging hard-on, lemme tell you.

  Which is why I need to rein things in a bit before I literally go off half-cocked. Lena already believes sex is for the birds. That’s a direct result of my younger self doing precisely what I need to avoid in the here and now. Because, going at her with all the savoir faire of a dog covering a bitch in heat will sure as hell never change her mind and win her heart. I have to be smart about this...which is impossible if I allow my dick to run the show.

  When I carry her into my bedroom moments later, low flames are still flickering from the fire I built before we left on our run to the club to fetch Lena’s gift. Firelight infuses the room with a soft, warm glow and creates soothing, ever shifting patterns against the nearest wall. I stride straight over to the bed and toss Lena upon it.

  A startled whoop escapes her, then she laughs as she lands in a sprawl on her back. She promptly wings her arms and legs in and out against my spread.

  “Are you making a snow angel on my bedspread?” I demand, biting back the huge laugh fighting to escape me at her antics.

  Only to have Lena immediately stop. “Nooo.” She shoots me a sheepish smile. Strokes her hands against the spread with such sensuality I’m dying to feel them bestow the same attention to my body. “Well, maybe,” she amends.

  Then she laughs with uninhibited gusto. “Okay, fine, I am. The minute I saw this beautiful thing, I wanted to fling myself down and make a snow angel to feel its satiny, s
ilky fabric against as much of me as possible. And oh, my gosh, Booker. It is every bit as grand as it looks!”

  “And you look mighty fine lying on it, baby.” On my hands and knees, I prowl up from the end of the bed to join her on the bedspread, rolling onto my side next to her. I prop myself up on a forearm. Now that Lena’s brought up the subject, I realize the bedspread really is a sensual treat. I can’t believe I never truly appreciated just how much of one before this morning. I smile down at her. Hook a rogue hair off her cheek with my unoccupied hand. “Hello, gorgeous.”

  “Hi, yourself, handsome.”

  I bend my head to kiss her neck once more, and smile against her soft skin when she lifts her chin to give me better access and more room to move. Pushing back again, I track my gaze from the neckline of Lena’s chiffon dress to her T-strap shoes. “When the hell did you get this body?” My hand outlines her curves an inch or so above her body. “You weren’t built anything like this back in Walla Walla.”

  Lena snorts. “They didn’t starve us at the Blood of Christ, but they sure could have shown a little more Christian charity in the size of their portions. Although, to be honest, the flavor—or lack of it—doesn’t really support the larger portions idea.” She grimaces. “Truth is, until I started spending time with you and Will, I had no idea how good food could taste. But once I was exposed to honest to God flavor and pleasing textures—well, let’s just say the minute I left the B of C, I started seeking out more of it. I ate what I wanted to eat instead of tolerating slop like the foundling home served up.” She gives a flat on her back little shimmy. Flashes me a grin that takes my breath away. “And as anyone can plainly see, I ate a great deal more of it.”

  Lena shoves up onto her elbows, a position that thrusts her breasts out. To stop myself from getting grabby, I sit up and slide down the mattress to kick off my shoes. I remove hers, as well—then unfasten her left silk stockings and slide it down her leg and off over her foot. I stretch back up to press a kiss to the soft, firm skin I just bared. Then reach for her right stocking.