The Love Experiment Read online

  She rested her head into his hand with a satisfied sigh. It was the only answer he was going to get, and he liked it too much. He stretched a hand out to reach for her cell. They had two questions left in this set.

  He had to clear his throat to get his voice in gear. “We’re supposed to share five positive characteristics about each other.”

  “I’ll start.” He felt her fingers at the back of his neck, playing in the short hair there. “You care about people.” What she was doing with her hand sent shivers down his back. “You’re honorable.” She brought her other hand to his chest, rested it over his heart. “You use your skills for good.” She had to be able to feel it trying to leap into her palm. “You write like you can change the world.” She brought her face close, brushed her nose on his. He quit breathing and closed his eyes. “You kiss like you can stop time.” And it did stop when her lips glanced across his; a whisper, a phantom ache, and then she started the clock again. “Tell me five positive things about me.”

  She made him hungry, greedy, wishing he had a different life, longing for a place to retreat to when things got tough. He was jealous of her sense of adventure. His was scuffed and tattered, but hers might be enough for both of them if he could find a way to tell her he was nothing without the work he feared the world no longer valued. He was interviews and story outlines, headlines and paragraphs. He was facts and figures and the impact they had on people, but without those things he was a hollow person, living in an unkempt apartment with an untidy cat, with bad housekeeping habits and poor coping skills.

  He’d end up punched into one too many concussions, or smoke himself into bad health. He’d end up pointless and bitter and alone and bitter all over again. He’d question everything but a future where he was a different man with a woman who loved him, who he could worship in return, because it was too much to believe he could have that from twenty-four questions.

  But Derelie sat on his lap, her eyes full of trust, and he had enough honor not to question that.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jack’s heart pumped strongly under Derelie’s resting palm, his arm at her back held her securely. He wanted her body close, but he’d hesitated on the question and he wasn’t a hesitant man. He looked younger and less authoritative without his glasses. He looked curiously uncertain for a supremely confident man.

  “You can say I’m brave.” He’d said that before, but she regretted prompting him, regretted the impulsive decision that landed her in his lap and the way both of those things made her feel small and soft and needy. And still she wanted to kiss him, forget about the questions and the emotions they shook loose, and simply feel the heat and strength of him; concrete and steel to her sunshine and birdsong.

  And he wasn’t taking the prompt.

  She pressed her feet to the floor and made to stand, a lump of hope turned rancid in her throat, only to feel his arm tighten around her.

  “Five things are not enough.” His voice was pitched so low it curled inside her. “Five things puts a limit on you. You’re not five positive things. You’re five hundred, five thousand.”

  She drew back a little because Jack sounded angry, and since she’d barged in and made herself at home in every sense of the word, he had a right to be.

  “I want things from you, Derelie Honeywell.” He brushed the back of his knuckles gently over her cheek. “I want them and I shouldn’t. You make me feel things I’d forgotten about, remember things I’d locked away. You, not the idiot experiment—you. I’m answering the questions because of you. Because of your generosity, your honesty. Because you have a clear heart and a strong mind and a tenacity that impresses me.”

  Oh, it wasn’t anger, it was fire. It crackled across his skin and flickered in his eyes. She’d never wanted to be so close to a blaze so intense, so willing to be consumed by passion without care for the consequences. There was nothing careful about wanting to be with Jack. It was hot coals, no shoes, a tightrope walk without a net.

  “I want your mouth on mine because you astonish me. I want your hands on me because you delight me. I want to hear your voice because you inspire me. I want to smile at you because I’m no longer afraid it might hurt either of us to show you what you make me feel.”

  She put her lips to his ear. Jack made her feel reckless and free. “Do it.”

  He crushed her to his chest, his mouth on her neck. “I don’t know what the questions mean anymore, but the answers fucking terrify me.”

  The question was how to keep her sanity while Jack’s kisses were restrained and tentative, at her jaw and her cheek and her brow, while his hands stroked, held, explored and her blood sizzled. Her breathing got noisy and her own hands busy, burrowing into his short hair and gripping his arm. She wanted his lips but he wouldn’t take them. Wouldn’t let her mouth near his.

  There was only one more question in this set. What roles do love and affection have in your life? She already knew Jack’s answer—he’d had very little love and was wary about affection.

  “Please,” she whimpered against his throat. He’d kissed her before; his hesitancy now was infuriating and it made her fingers into claws. She’d been loved deeply platonically and grown to adulthood fueled by affection. She’d had sex, great, good, boring, bad, but she’d never felt need like this. She burned for it. “Please, Jack.” She would be nothing but ash if he failed to answer.

  She was incendiary when he did.

  He caught her jaw in his hand and they locked eyes. His had gone dark, in their bed of bruises, and then with a groan that shook through him he brought their lips together.

  Kiss followed kiss followed kiss. Thorough and sweeping and possessive. Jack’s lips could be soft and addictive or hard and cruel. He didn’t censor, he got lost. He gave her his emotions without guarding them, and she reflected them back without judgment. Her tongue to encourage him, her hands to praise him, the echo of her pulse in her breath and her core, ground into his stomach and hips. But there would be more.

  Derelie scrambled to exchange sidesaddle for sitting astride Jack’s lap without losing contact. He grunted in disapproval when she moved, but woke quickly to the possibilities of closer contact, opening his arms to give her room, but damn this dress, the skirt was too narrow to allow her to settle over his thighs.

  He broke the kiss, hands to her waist. “No.” He stood, backing her up. “This can’t happen.”

  What was he talking about? “It’s happened before.” It’d happened with less buildup than this.

  “That wasn’t real. This isn’t real.” He took his hands off her and put distance between them. “It’s the voodoo from that experiment.”

  “You said you wanted me. Was that a lie?” He turned his face away. Her own had gone past flaming and entered nuclear meltdown. Any minute now her features were going to slide down her chin and pool on her chest. “Did you make out with me for the story?” What a complete cad.

  “I made out with you because I meant everything I said, because I want you, Derelie Honeywell, but we’re being manipulated.”

  “You think a game of Twenty Questions made us want to kiss.” The questions were probing, they forced confessions and the whole setup demanded honesty, but could a question and answer session have that kind of power?

  “I don’t know, but I think we need to take a breath to find out.” He moved about restlessly, putting his back to her. “And that wasn’t just kissing.” He groaned and turned to face her. “There are a dozen reasons why it’s a bad idea that I want you to stay for the weekend.”

  He didn’t say the night. And it was more than kissing. It was more than a game of questions and answers. “Is this about work? Because no one has to know.”

  “It’s about us. My behavior toward you has been unacceptable.” He shook his head as if even his own formality appalled him. “I took advantage of you once before
. I’m not doing it again.”

  “I’m choosing this. It’s not like you’re forcing me.”

  “Like I didn’t force you outside Elaine’s?”

  She could’ve kneed him in the groin outside Elaine’s. She’d been more annoyed when he stopped kissing her and shoved her in a cab. “I’m not some backwater innocent. If I want a one-night stand with you, I get to decide that for myself.”

  “Do you sleep with the man from yoga?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “You’re right. Ask me why I invited you to Elaine’s.”

  “You told me.” It wasn’t flattering. “You needed a decoy.”

  “And I could’ve invited anyone, but I invited you. You thought it was a date.”

  She mashed her lips together. She didn’t like him guessing she’d gotten that wrong. “You said it was to show me how a stakeout worked.”

  “I felt guilty about how I’d treated you. Guilt and attraction, that’s a lethal combination punch. Now ask me why I kissed you that night.”

  “It was for the story. So you didn’t get caught out spying on Bix.”

  “It was because I wanted you.”

  It wasn’t for the story. He’d lied. “Are you telling the truth now?”

  “I needed cover, sure, but I didn’t need to put my hand up your dress or my tongue in your mouth.”

  Oh. It was kind of a date then. The new Cooper Street Can’t Get Enough dress didn’t go to waste.

  “You came through that door tonight and you looked at me as if you’d never seen me before. We don’t know each other. I’ve behaved like a bastard and this experiment started something, but I want to be sure that when I take you to bed it’s not the experiment I’m fucking. I want you to know it too.”

  He wasn’t lying now. And she wasn’t imagining he had it as bad for her as she had it for him.

  “The look on your face, Honeywell.” His softened into a smile. “Derelie.”

  Jackson Haley saying her first name shouldn’t make her feel made from beating wings.

  “I want to take you on a picnic. I want to finish the last set of questions. When we’re done, if you still want me, nothing will stop me making you feel good, not being colleagues, not the story, not knowing you could do better than me.”

  Not a cad. Not a bastard. There was some kind of unexpected chivalry at work here.

  “What now? We talk about the weather?”

  “You go home. Do some down dog. Make sure you don’t want that other guy you sweat with instead of me.”

  “That other guy can put his ankles behind his head.”

  Jack laughed. “The question is, does he make you want to put yours behind his head?”

  If her tongue got any dryer, she’d have to make a grab for Martha’s water bowl.

  “Tomorrow, lunchtime, I’ll pick you up and take you out in the sunshine. I’ll see what I can do about birds.”

  “You could’ve thrown me out because I’m a thief, but you’re throwing me out because you don’t want to kiss me anymore.” She tried to summon resentment, but it was squeezed out by amusement.

  He stepped into her space, put his hand to her face and brushed his lips on hers, making it all better. “Go home, Derelie, before we do something we might regret. There’s time for that tomorrow night when at least we can pretend to have given this our full consideration.”

  The fact he was using her first name was enough of a softener, the rest of it didn’t hurt either. She bent to say goodbye to Martha, got a “Marah, yip” in response, collected her cell and purse, and met Jack at the front door.

  “You don’t know where I live.”

  He pointed at his chest. “Investigative reporter.”

  “You’re going to hack into the employee database to find me?”

  “No.” He handed her a Sharpie and a pad. “I was going to ask.”

  She tried not to laugh as she wrote her address down. “Do I need to bring anything?”

  “Just that last set of questions.”

  He stood very close. They were toe to toe. She touched a finger to his brow. “Does it hurt?”

  “Had worse.”

  She didn’t want to leave. “How about this?” She trailed her finger lightly around his shadowy eye socket.

  “It’s just a black eye.”

  She put her hand to his side over his T-shirt where she knew his skin was branded with a rainbow of color. “And this?” He didn’t answer, but he did kiss her, his hands going to her shoulders just as a heavy weight landed on her feet.

  She broke the kiss and looked down to see Martha lying over their toes. “Merrow.”

  “She’ll do anything to escape,” Jack said.

  “Marah.”

  This pussy was a cock-blocker.

  Jack bent and picked the cat up, placing her over his shoulder while he opened the door. Martha made a disgruntled noise that sounded a lot like she’d said, “Noooo” and flicked her tail against Jake’s torso.

  “Go before she decides to dig in,” he said, then winced as she obviously did.

  Derelie had arrived at Jack’s place a thief looking to steal up on the truth, but she left with more than she’d bargained for. All her hushed outrage and cautious awe was recast as a hum of anticipation that woke her with enthusiasm next morning and floated her through the early yoga class.

  She separated her spine anchors and tucked her butt bones with more ease than normal or maybe it was less anxiety about getting it right. She didn’t even think about looking around for Yogaboy. They were on the same weekday schedule, but on weekends it varied, and in any case, she was far more interested in putting her ankles behind Jack’s head and prone to spontaneous bursts of smiling thinking about that. Only a few hours and twelve questions before she’d get the chance to try.

  While she was rolling up her mat she felt a tap on her shoulder. “Namaste,” he said. She really should’ve come up with a better name for Yogaboy. He wasn’t a boy, for a start. He was in some ways ageless as well as being like a muscly rubber band.

  “Hi,” she said, because namaste sounded wrong in her mouth.

  “You enjoyed your practice this morning,” he said.

  “Yes, it was a good class.” Whatever she’d seen in his exotic appearance, and island of calm manner, so different to any of the men back home, was thoroughly muted by twenty-four questions and their unimaginable answers, and having been kissed silly last night by a man she desired more than was sensible.

  She made a move to go and he put his hand on her arm, a touch so light and quick it might not have happened at all. “I’d like to have sex with you.”

  Now, this wasn’t a Spinoza-type of proposition—there was no mistaking it for what it was. Something she’d have been seriously all over, if it wasn’t so blunt and there was no Jack.

  “Why?” It was out of her mouth before she realized she didn’t care what his response was.

  “I like your ass.”

  Gosh. “That’s not very, um, spiritual.”

  “Screw spiritual. We’ll get chai first, then we’ll fuck.”

  She laughed.

  He looked confused. “You don’t like chai?”

  “I don’t like you.” He’d spoiled the fantasy of himself altogether now.

  “But we have a connection.”

  The only connection they had was situational. “I’ve been coming here for months, putting my mat beside yours, and we only made eye contact once that whole time.”

  He looked at the ceiling. “If I made eye contact with every novice, I’d never have a moment to myself.” Gross. He wasn’t an island of calm, he was river sand in your bikini bottoms. “But I just chose you.”

  “Like I’m a fun fair prize? An oversiz
e stuffed bear?”

  “Exactly. You get me.”

  She got him all right. She tucked her mat more firmly under her arm. “Go away.”

  “I’m only doing this once.” He plucked at one of his long dreads. It was brown near his head but bleached blonde at the tip. “I won’t ask you again.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  He made small circles with his hands, describing his confusion. “You’re rejecting me?”

  With bells on it. “I don’t think we’re a match.”

  He looked her up and down, and his appraisal wasn’t kind. “You should try Pilates. You have no natural flexibility. You’ll never be any good at yoga.”

  Or a passive aggressive shithead either. She almost said, “How do you like my ass now?” but stopped when she realized they had an audience of students for the next class. She was very conscious of eyes on that ass as she headed for the locker room, but an hour later having shoved it into cargo pants she was self-conscious in a new way.

  Jack buzzed her apartment on time. He had an Uber car waiting and a file archive box in his arms. “Are we going to work?” He wore respectable jeans, a nice T-shirt, his glasses and a cap. He looked her right in the eyes, and it was more disconcerting than Yogaboy’s full body assessment because she wasn’t sure how to read it.

  “I don’t own a picnic basket.”

  He was just as bruised, but he’d shaved. “When was the last time you went on a picnic?” She wanted to touch him so badly.

  “If I tell you never you’re going to feel sorry for me.” He opened the car door and she climbed in. He piled in after her, putting the box between them, and gave the driver the address of some park she’d never heard of.

  “Is the answer never?”

  “Only if that’s going to unfairly prejudice you toward me.”

  “You want me to feel sorry for you?”

  He sighed playfully. “I’m giving way to the inevitable.”

  If the inevitable was a bed and a night together, she was giving it all away.