Waking Up (10 page)

“You offered to come, I didn’t ask you!” she retorted and then shoved against his arm experimentally. It didn’t budge an iota. “Besides, since you went off with Casey, I’ve found that I can have a perfectly good time on my own, thank you very much.”

He cocked his head at her quizzically, his expression alive with amused interest, his gray eyes sparkling. She looked into that gaze and then pressed herself against the edge of the pool to avoid touching his wet skin. Something in his eyes was unsettling, intent. “But you wouldn’t want your male friends to think that the chase is free and easy, would you?” he asked, wickedly light. “Let them know there’s a little competition. I hear it whets the appetite.”

Her look to him was speaking as she replied drily, “I don’t see them exactly flocking to my side. You seem to have a distinctly off-putting air about you.”

Jason looked briefly, uninterestedly to his right where the volleyball game was still going on, but was now played with an air of absentmindedness as several interested, speculative glances were thrown their way. “I don’t know,” he said consideringly. “There are a few biting fish in the sea. What do you say? Shall we give them something to think about?”

“What do you mean?” She didn’t know how to curb or hide her skittishness at his close proximity, and so she shoved once again, irritably, at his arm.

“I mean to indulge in a little pretence. Let’s act as if we are really dating. Let’s say I’m the jealous boyfriend.” Another gleaming smile, as if it were all a big joke.

“But we both know that you’re not,” she muttered and swallowed against the thought of it. Jason, aroused and angry, hauling her into his arms, driving his hungry mouth down. A bout of excited trembling shook through her.

“But what would I do if I was?” he asked softly, his question so close to her thoughts that she jumped violently. He brought one hand to the side of her neck. She held herself completely immobile, not even breathing for fear of giving her agitation away. Jason’s eyes took on an electric quality, blazing vividly until she couldn’t look away from his lean face. “Mightn’t I just possibly pull you close, like this, and kiss you long and hard in front of everyone? Mightn’t I want to establish things beyond a shadow of a doubt to people like Casey, and your young, groping friend who’s watching us so avidly now…”

He pulled close until she was gently sandwiched against the edge of the pool and his lithe, wet body. She stared up into his half-shadowed face, her eyes dazzled by the sun and the purposeful light in his eyes. He bent his head. She knew then what he intended, and dropped her heavy lids over her eyes and raised her lips to meet his.

The noise of the party faded from her awareness until it was no more than a meaningless background disturbance. Jason’s lips caressed hers, brushing, stroking, gently probing his way into her warm mouth. The kiss deepened, and the forearm she had been gripping shifted to her back. As her handhold slipped, she automatically clutched at his shoulders, his skin silken and slippery under her wet fingers. He gathered her against his chest until they were close together, torso to torso, her legs between his. All she could feel was the cool water lapping against her heated skin and Jason everywhere, nothing to hang on to, nothing to hold, nothing to touch but Jason.

His mouth slanted hard against hers, never brutal, never overly amorous under the heat of so many different gazes, but enticingly, lightly, sensually teasing. He raised his head and her eyes opened slowly to stare at him, blankly. Aware shock rippled through her. She suddenly knew for certain that he was as sexually attracted to her as she was to him. It was in his tense body, the tight, very controlled muscles, that look of banked-down excitement in his vivid eyes.

She whispered thinly, without even being aware of it, “Oh, my.”

“That is what I would do, I think, if I were jealous,” he said conversationally and then quickly, uncontrollably, licked his lips.

She looked away very fast at that and said again, “Oh, my. So many people are looking at us. L-let go of me, please.”

“Don’t run away from me, Rob,” he said quietly, one arm a tight band around her waist, the other coming up to stroke at her hair.

“You’re scaring me.” Her face half-crinkled in distress, her stomach a queer, tight knot.

“No, I’m not. I haven’t done a thing to you that someone else hasn’t already. I’ve seen you before on your front porch, late at night, with your father sound asleep in his room.” She bent her head jerkily and pressed a hand against her mouth, flushing hot and dark. Who had he seen her with? Who had he watched kiss her, touch her hair? His low tone was intense, biting. “No, I’m not scaring you, you’re scaring yourself. What are you feeling, Rob? What’s going through your mind right now? What’s frightening you?”

Her head jerked to one side. “Don’t dig at me,” she hissed. “Now for God’s sake, let me go! I’m not going to discuss anything with you here, of all places!”

His intent expression eased slowly, and he shook himself as if he had just remembered where he was. “Okay,” he said mildly, and his hold on her loosened so that she could wriggle away. He stepped back. “We can always talk later.”

But she wasn’t ready to think about that, as her face burned hot from both the sun’s rays and her own inner reaction, and without replying she ducked underwater to swim away swiftly. Jason gave her time to get her composure back, and she swam a strenuous three or four laps so that she could avoid conversation with anyone else. When she was ready to climb out, he was there to give her a helping hand, his long fingers closing over hers, his shoulder and arm muscles flexing as he took her weight in one quick heave up.

They walked over to where she had left her clothes, his a tidy pile close by, and while she drew her tank top over her wet bikini and left her shorts, until she was more or less dry, Jason did the exact opposite, sliding his black shorts over his brief, skin-tight swimming trunks while piling his shirt and sandals with her things. She scrupulously avoided getting too near him, which he noted with a wry twist of his mouth.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, tilting his wet head down to her in enquiry.

She took a deep breath and unconsciously held it while she glanced over at the laden tables of food. “I’m starved,” she confessed, and so they went to get something to eat.

After piling their paper plates high with hamburgers and finger foods, they went back to where they had left their clothes and shoes, and settled on the grass. Jason made a second trip for a can of beer for himself and a soft drink for her. Then they munched in a strangely companionable silence, considering recent events, and Robbie stole several quick, furtive glances at his profile as he basked indolently in the sun. She didn’t think he was aware of her scrutiny; for he gave no sign otherwise as he commented from time to time on the various antics of several children who dashed in and out of the different, fluctuating knots of people and generally acted as though they hadn’t a lick of sense among the lot of them.

Then he said, very quietly, without looking at her, “Am I so very different from who you thought I was that you don’t know me anymore?”

Her hand jerked as she reached for her canned drink and the can fell over in the grass, the cola bubbling out until she snatched it up again quickly. She ducked her head, for he had turned to stare at her, his eyes oddly darkened. His hair was beginning to dry, the lock that fell on his forehead a lighter golden-brown than the back of his head, which was still wet and slicked down. “Did I ever know you?”

He held still and then after a moment said heavily, “I thought you did. Maybe I was wrong.” Her eyes shot up sharply. His own head was turned to one side, his expression tired and discouraged.

Her heart went out to him and that odd, lonely look of his. “You’ve become so complex,” she whispered and reached out to touch his bare knee. His gaze shifted slowly and he stared at her hand until she drew it back, self-consciously. “I think there’s a lot more I could learn about you.”

A smile creased his features then, the slowest, sweetest smile she had ever seen from him, and she thought she could never look at his countenance enough just then. Even after she rose to get herself more chips, which were her eternal weakness, and after his smile had faded, a quiet, subtle look of pleasure remained on Jason’s face for a long time.

The late afternoon faded to early evening. Though Robbie and Jason were among the younger of the couples present at the party, their air of self-possession and quiet maturity had several older employees from the restaurant gravitating towards them, along with John and Marilyn. The group discussed many topics while watching their respective children with wearily jaundiced eyes, some sitting in lawn chairs, others sprawled in the grass like Robbie and Jason.

She noticed that Casey avoided the group and would not meet her eyes, for which she was thankful. Though she had known better, the other girl hadn’t, and had tried to attract Jason’s attention while under the impression that he was romantically involved with her. She didn’t care for that kind of behavior and she was unsure of her ability to hide her distaste for the brunette in the future. Sexual promiscuity was one thing, but when hurting an innocent victim became a possibility, it was no longer a question of morality, but one of ethics.

After a time, Marilyn wiggled out from under her husband’s heavy arm and came to sit next to Robbie in the grass. For someone who had just turned thirty, the other woman looked remarkably young, with blonde hair falling in her sea-green eyes and a sprinkle of freckles across her pert, small nose. She blew up with her lower lip stuck out and sent a wayward lock of hair floating up. It came right back down again into her eyes, and she sighed in disgust while Robbie grinned.

“So, tell me all!” Marilyn said, settling back in the grass as though intending to have a long chat. “Where and when and how did you two meet? Have you known each other long?”

Robbie was never so thankful that she tanned as darkly as she did when she felt a wave of warmth rising stealthily, insidiously up her neck. “We’re neighbors,” she replied nonchalantly.

“Well, that doesn’t tell me much,” complained the blonde, who then shifted her gaze to Jason with pleasure. He was leaning back on his elbow, one leg stretched out flat, the other propped up, and he smiled lazily at the other woman while Robbie looked anywhere but at the two sitting so close to her.

“We’ve known each other for about twelve years, now,” Jason told Marilyn, who sighed dramatically while glancing back with dancing eyes to Robbie.

“So you two are childhood sweethearts? Oh, I think that’s so darling!” A dark scowl began to form between Robbie’s brows like a thundercloud, and it grew more ominous as Marilyn continued teasingly, “Why, I can’t think why you haven’t told us all about Jason before this, honey! To think she’s been keeping someone as luscious as you a secret all this time!”

With an understandably wary look to her, which she didn’t catch, Jason replied carefully, “It hasn’t exactly worked out like that, Marilyn, so perhaps that’s why Rob hasn’t mentioned me before. I find that she is surprisingly reticent about all sorts of things.”

She threw him a dark, unfathomable look from under straight brows, which he returned blandly enough. But though Marilyn continued to stare at her interestedly and Jason fell suddenly, unbudgingly silent, she didn’t say a thing, and soon the blonde left to check on her two children.

They stayed until after sunset, Robbie going to Jason’s car to retrieve her bulky bag so that she could change into her skirt while he slipped on his shirt, and at seven o’clock the two picnic tables were cleared only to be reset with new, different food dishes. There was a succulent fruit salad served in two boat-like sides of watermelon rinds, along with several trays of
hors d’oeuvres
, a huge platter of cold barbecued chicken legs, and several different kinds of cheeses set out with an assortment of fancy crackers.

Marilyn opened her gifts a little later on amidst a smaller cluster of people who emitted loud bouts of laughter at some of the humorous items she received. Her mother, a huge, sunny woman with a laugh that boomed out over everyone’s except John’s, had given her a frothy, provocative nightgown which would, when worn, leave little to the imagination. John was obviously delighted while Marilyn buried her reddening face into the material like a bashful bride at the uproarious approval that the gift brought.

Jason had his arm casually around Robbie’s shoulders, and then he leaned close to whisper into her ear, his lips brushing the sensitive skin, “Do they throw such extravagant parties each time there’s a birthday in the family?”

She settled herself closer against him, fully aware of his body warmth through her thin clothing as she turned to whisper back quietly, “I don’t think so. Marilyn confessed to me that as she was having a rather hard time facing her thirtieth birthday, she decided to meet the fact with gusto rather than shrink from something she couldn’t change. I think the party was a lovely idea.”

His hand tightened briefly on her shoulder as he replied softly, “I do, too. Certain things in life are irrefutable, and it’s best to face them squarely. Trying to avoid them simply doesn’t work.”

She turned her head to look at him questioningly, but he was watching Marilyn open her last gift, and there was absolutely nothing to be read in his expression.

Soon after the gifts were opened, several people began to leave, though there would soon be a new wave of arrivals when the restaurant closed. The party, Robbie guessed, would go on until close to dawn. After a quick, low word to her, Jason rose to approach John, and the two men talked for a few minutes. She wandered over to the pool, which was practically deserted, even though it was still warm from the sun’s heat. She bent and dabbled her hand in the water idly, sending small rippling waves out and watching them reflect the outside lights, dark blue depth and sparkling white. Her short braid fell over one shoulder, still wet from swimming that afternoon, and she knew that when she let it out, she would have curls until she washed her hair.