Take Me. Cherry Adair
be old enough to be my baby’s grandmother before we do it.”
Archie hid his grin behind his book. Conrad managed to look mildly interested by keeping his expression bland. “Good Lord,” he said, tongue-in-cheek. “Sounds like you might have to have a relationship before you fall into bed with each other. How novel.”
Jessie stuck out her tongue at him. “How droll.” She kicked off her shoes and pulled her legs under her. “Neither of us wants a relationship.” She said it as if it were the plague. “I just want him to be in the right place at the right time, damn it.”
3
THE LAZY DRIFT of fog gave an otherwordly charm to Pier 39, a picturesque tourist mecca of shops and restaurants down on Fisherman’s Wharf. Jessie tucked her hand into the crook of Joshua’s elbow and matched her stride to his. Moisture speckled Jessie’s dark hair like liquid diamonds. Their footsteps echoed on the wooden boardwalk as they strolled companionably between tubs of brilliant early-flowering spring perennials and the inevitable camera-toting tourists.
Jessie tugged on Joshua’s hand. “Come on. I want to go and see the seals.”
She leaned over the railing to get a better look as the animals lolled about on custom-made platforms in the water. “Cute, huh?”
Joshua chuckled. “Yeah, really cute.” He turned up the collar of her scarlet wool coat, his hands warm on her icy neck. “You’re freezing.” He tugged off the soft, warm scarf about his own neck and wrapped Jessie in it up to her eyebrows. She giggled. “How about a couple of gallons of hot coffee?”
“And pie?”
“And pie.”
They walked quickly, and found a small coffee shop down a little jog in the boardwalk. The restaurant smelled warm and yeasty and was almost empty. They selected a tiny, rickety round table with a view of the boats ferrying tourists out to Alcatraz Island and ordered their coffee before removing their coats.
“There are only about thirty choices. We could always order a slice of each,” Joshua suggested politely as Jessie scanned the menu for the pie selections. She stuck out her tongue at him.
Joshua’s eyes darkened. “I can think of more productive things to do with that.”
“Wicked man.” She turned to smile up at the kid who’d come to deliver their coffee and take their order. The young man almost stumbled into their table. Joshua sighed. Jessie had that affect on men of all ages.
Pie ordered, coats removed and coffee doctored, they lazily discussed the art show they’d seen together the week before, Joshua’s recent trip to Japan, and a large commission Jessie had just started, a bed-and-breakfast in Marin.
The waiter delivered their order and faded away. Jessie picked up her fork, and then put it down again. She pressed a hand to her midriff.
“I’m terrified I’m going to let Conrad down.” Absentmindedly, she began to tear a paper napkin into shreds. “The people who own the B-and-B also own a small vineyard in Napa. They’re influential, and there’s a good chance they’ll send a lot of business Con’s way if I do a good job.” She fiddled with the strips of napkin she’d torn.
“I’ve seen your work, Jessie. You’re a fine designer. They’re lucky to have you.”
Her cheeks pinked. “Really?”
“Really. But if worry is preventing you from sampling the delights of that lemon meringue p—”
“Oh, no you don’t.” Jessie pulled her plate closer and picked up her fork again.
She glanced up and, smiling, offered him a bite. He closed his lips around the tines of her fork. She was going to be under him tonight. She was going to feel the fires he’d been keeping banked explode into a fury of passion that was going to leave them both too weak to move.
“Thanks for sharing that with me.” He was so turned on he felt feverish. He’d been on a slow boil for months. “I can see how much you enjoy your food. You consume enough for a linebacker and look like a nymph. God, where do you put it all?” His eyes traveled down her slender body to rest for a moment on her small breasts.
“Well, obviously not there!” Jessie blushed. “Look at the baby seals or something. I can’t eat when you’re staring at me like a lion about to devour his Bambi du jour.”
“Hmm. Soft, succulent and tender pink.”
Jessie rolled her eyes. Joshua calculated they’d be out in the cold another hour at the most. He had an excellent bottle of Cristal chilling at home. He regrouped. “Tell me how adorable you were as a child.”
“I wasn’t an adorable child at all. I was a homely, gangly child.” She smiled. “Which made it tough to make friends. My mother and I moved constantly. We’d move from apartment to apartment, town to town, sometimes state to state, so I was always being shoved into a new school.”
“Military?”
“Collection agencies,” Jessie said dryly.
He frowned. “You were poor.”
“I suppose so, although I didn’t think about it at the time. Things were how they were.”
“When did you start this love affair with food?” He couldn’t wait to feel that avid little mouth all over him. Certainly, thinking of her sexually beat thinking of Jessie as being poor and wanting and having no one to care for her. For some reason picturing her that way pissed him off and made him feel…uncomfortable, damn it.
“Oh, way back. I learned to cook when I was six or seven because it was the only way I got to eat. My mom tended to forget little details like that. At one apartment, we had a wonderful Italian neighbor, sometimes she’d let me sit and watch as she prepared the family’s evening meals. The stairwells used to smell incredible.” She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “Garlic. Tomatoes. Yum. Hot, homemade sourdough bread. I used to sit on the bottom step outside their door and salivate. Just the smell of garlic is enough to make me remember that apartment on Ninth.”
“God, Jessie.” He’d never imagined her as a child, just a sensual woman, born to be made love to.
She waved away his sympathy. “Oh, don’t feel sorry for me. Trust me, when I was a kid, it was all a wild adventure. I thought being hungry was normal. And I learned to make a mean spaghetti.”
“That’s child abuse.”
“My mom? No. She didn’t hurt me. She just—”
“Neglected you.” Christ, no wonder she ate as she did; there would never be enough food in the world to a little girl who was starving. It explained her insistence on always getting a doggie bag even in the finest restaurants.
“It was a bit more complicated than that.” Jessie paused and bit her lip. Her eyes met his. “My mom hooked on the side to make ends meet. There. I said it. Phew. As a teenager, I began to hate her for what she was doing. For how we were forced to live. Basically, I was a huge oops. She never knew who my father was.
“She died six years ago. I didn’t like or approve of her lifestyle, but I loved her.” She looked at him, her eyes unusually bleak. “In an odd way, now that she’s gone, I miss her. Family is important, Joshua. No matter what.”
“Family,” he repeated dispassionately, his eyes flat. “I thought mine was bad, but my life was a cakewalk compared to yours.”
“Tell me. You never talk about anyone but Simon and your cousin, Paul the Playboy.”
“Want another slice of pie?”
“Does the Pope wear a beanie?” She mouthed “Apple” to the waiter across the room, then turned back to fix Joshua in place with her chocolaty eyes. “Tell me all the Falcon family’s dirty little secrets.”
“Read the tabloids.