Chapter 10: Push and Pull
Jamie's fingertips hooked hers. He led her blindly, walking backward in the general direction of his bed.
She'd grazed the tender flesh of his belly with her fingertips, but she might as well have shocked him with a live wire. Where had that come from? Jamie prided himself on his ability to read people, but this was not a turn of events he had anticipated. He had assumed Dr. Cora Glass was off limits to him. No doubt her dating pool consisted of NYC's doctors and lawyers and professional elite—not men who merely posed as them for photographs. She'd made that clear from their first conversation over cocktails. "You make your living impersonating men you'll never be..."
A good bit of banter, that. Jamie didn't know why that line had been bothering him, reverberating in his mind ever since.
He'd made his opening gambit in the bathroom out of sheer force of habit, assuming he'd get nowhere. He knew he wouldn't from the first moment they met. He'd reached across the cocktail table and touched her hair, the same way he might have ventured a toe in a pool of water to test its temperature. And she'd withered him on the spot with that knowing schoolteacher stare.
But she wasn't a schoolteacher, Jamie reminded himself. And he was not an insouciant schoolboy, as much as she left him feeling like one at times. The woman with the roving fingers was a scientist if he understood correctly. Perhaps she viewed him as an experiment—or a specimen to be dissected.
He turned his head over his shoulder to see where he was going. The room was black, but a black less deep than the windowless bathroom had been. A hint of light penetrated from outside. It reflected from the opaque shades of the light fixtures that flanked the bed and from the metallic clock that hung above it.
"So," she broke the silence as she shuffled after him. "Which one of us goes first?"
"Do you take turns? I aim for simultaneous enjoyment." He stopped short, letting her stumble into him on purpose. "Careful." He caught her by the elbows, but not to steady her. Testing the waters once again to see if she would pull away.
She stood her ground. "Truth or dare," she said, ignoring his implication. "Who gets the first question?"
Jamie resumed his trek toward the room's only horizontal surface. "Are we still playing that? I thought we were having a book club. Ow!" The bed made its position known. Some sharp corner scraped against the back of his heel. "Damn. Watch out for the bed frame."
She giggled. "Did you hurt yourself?"
"Yes." The mattress groaned under his weight. Jamie kneeled at the edge of it, facing the direction where he'd left her. He stretched out his hands and her fingers made contact, finding him again. "Careful," he said as he pulled her in. "This way."
"A book club in your bed?"
"The best place for book clubs, in my experience."
He moved backward on his knees, leaving her no other options but to let go or join him. She followed. No hesitation. How far did she intend to go? He lifted the edge of the covers, and she shifted to release them out from under her. He guided the sheets around them both, tucking her into the bed beside him.
"And which book will we be discussing at our inaugural meeting?" she asked, with a smile in her voice.
"You said Jane Eyre was your other favorite?"
"Yes. Very good!"
Ah, there was the schoolteacher, giving her pupil high marks. Jamie straightened the top sheet, allowing his hand to brush her shoulder as he smoothed it. "I told you I'm a good listener."
Her wandering fingers remained still for now. "Don't tell me you've read that too?"
"Perhaps we should start off with a quiz to see if I'm qualified." Jamie kept his hand safely outside the covers, but he swept the back of his knuckles downward, tracing the curve of her waist and the swell of her hips. He let it hover there, barely making contact, as they bantered.
"No, and stop changing the game," she said. "I was promised Truth or Dare."
"Truth or Dare for Cowards," he corrected. "Go ahead. You go first. Ask me anything."
"What's your favorite book for real. Not the fake-insult version."
"I told you, Great Expectations."
"That was true?"
"I'm afraid so. I do blunder into the truth occasionally, as much as I try to avoid it."
"You don't seem like the type who reads Victorian novels for fun."
"Don't I?" The dryness of his tone gave nothing away, but her blithe dismissal chafed at him. He found it irritating, her surprise that he had ever opened a book in his life. And yet it awoke something in him as well. Some desire to prove himself to her. Or a need to put her in her place.
"Were you an English major?" she asked.
A change of subject was in order. "Yes," he said, "But you've had your question. My turn."
Jamie's eyes had adjusted enough to see her silhouette. She lay on her side, facing him, and he brought his mouth close to her ear. "Why can't I kiss you?"
She pulled back slightly and shook her head. "No lips."
"But why?" he asked, returning his own head to his pillow. "That's my question for you."
"All that talk about books, and you haven't read your Brothers' Grimm."
"Which story?"
"The Frog Prince."
"Am I the frog?"
"You're the prince. If you kiss me, guess what you turn into."
He chuckled. "That's the truth, is it?"
"Yes. Don't try it." She poked him in the chest beneath the covers. "That goes for when we're on camera too. Sorry if that puts a crimp in your story arc."
"That does present a challenge, yes." Jamie caught her finger in his fist before she could retract it.
"It's not a challenge," she replied as she pulled free. "Men always think these things are challenges for them to overcome. But it's not. Do you hear me? It's a boundary. A firm one."
"Good." He nodded. "I prefer my boundaries firm."
She sought out his chest again, more gently this time. Tentative fingers, leaving a trail of curiosity as they mapped the contours of the terrain. "No, you don't. You liar."
"Not at all," Jamie protested. "Firm boundaries and firm mattresses. I like a bit of resistance to press up against."
By way of demonstration, he took hold of her waist and shifted his weight forward. He rolled her on her back, suddenly and swiftly, letting his hips press against hers for a moment. A heartbeat. Nothing more. Then, he rolled back again before she could react.
"Don't you enjoy such things?" He kept his tone as normal and unbothered as if they were discussing how she took her coffee in the morning.
She didn't answer. She remained lying on her back where Jamie had left her. From the position of her head, she appeared to be looking straight up at the ceiling, or the black emptiness where the ceiling should have been. He could see the outline of her chest beneath the covers rising and falling, rising and falling.
At last, her head turned back toward him. He could see nothing of her face except for the faint glimmer of light reflecting off her eyes.
"Yes?" he prompted. "Or are you one of those philistines who prefers soft mattresses?"
"I'm sure you'd like to know," she answered. "But it's my turn to ask a question."
Jamie smiled. "Fair enough."
She paused a moment, thinking, and he wondered idly what color her eyes were. He couldn't remember now. He could see the shape of them, but the darkness had drained their surroundings of all color.
Finally she spoke. "OK, Mr. Darcy. What's the worst insult you said about me in your interviews."
"I stayed true to my character."
"That's not an answer."
"Neither was yours."
She shook her head. "Play fair, or I'll tell the cameras what a coward you are."
He grinned, not sure if she could see it. "Nothing too horrible," he assured her. "I believe I said you're not my type on paper, or something along those lines."
"And is that true?"
"True that I said it, or that I meant it?"
"Both."
They eyed each other in the darkness. Jamie let the silence linger before he responded. "Sorry, you only get one question."
She made an indignant sound in the back of her throat.
"Rules are rules," he reminded her, naughty schoolboy that he was. "Firm boundaries and all that."
She pinched him lightly on his side.
"Watch it!" Jamie shimmied closer. He took the hand that pinched him and lifted it over her head, abandoning it somewhere by the headboard. "No more fingertips for you."
He pressed himself against her side then, letting her sense his height. Chest against the side of her rib cage. Stomach against the swell of her hip. Her hand—the one he'd confiscated—draped around his neck. Her fingertips played in his hair.
His mouth was close enough to kiss her if she turned her head. She didn't. "So, here's your question." He addressed it to her turned cheek. "How close to the boundary am I allowed to go?"
"It's not up for negotiation."
"Yes, I understand no kissing. But am I allowed to do this?" He stopped a whisper away from the place where her jawbone met her ear and blew a shallow stream of air.
She rewarded the sensation with a gasp. Her fingers dug into his scalp for a moment. But then she relaxed again, releasing her breath with a appreciative hum.
"Is that a yes?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"What about this?" Jamie nuzzled with the tip of his nose this time, starting in the same spot but exploring further in the crease behind her ear.
She rolled her head to give him greater access. "Mmmm. That's fine."
Jamie pushed on. He adjusted his angle until the ridge between his nose and mouth made contact with her ear. "This?" he whispered, allowing the fullness of his upper lip to tease against her earlobe.
"Careful." She tugged his hair firmly. A warning.
"That's the boundary, is it?"
She turned onto her side to face him, removing her ear from harm's way. "That was dangerously close to the edge." Her hands both pressed against his chest and held him there.
"So," Jamie mused. "This boundary is more of a cliff than a brick wall. If I step over it —
"Don't." She pressed harder for a moment to make her point. "I'm not playing games."
Jamie put his arms around her waist and pulled her against him, trapping her hands between them, his mouth an inch from hers.
She really wasn't playing. He could tell from the way her neck stiffened and her head flinched instinctively away. Baffling. In all his experience, he'd never encountered this particular set of rules. He found it oddly intriguing. Like doing a jigsaw puzzle, and finding a piece that doesn't conform to any of the standard shapes. A firm "no" to first base, a "yes" to second, "no" to third... All out of the standard order.
But then again, the standard order became repetitive after a while. This interaction had engaged his full attention far more than the typical round of snogging might have done. Tongues were good for a variety of things, and it'd been ages since he shared his bed with anyone quick-witted enough to banter back and forth while they played.
He relaxed his grip, letting the empty space seep between them once again. Kissing wouldn't be necessary. There were as many forms of foreplay as the mind was capable of imagining. The secret, he knew well, was in the push and pull. Find the boundary and pull back. Again and again. Over and over, with the patience of the ocean tide smoothing the jagged rocks. A force both slow and irresistible.
He was not in any rush. They had a whole month to play this game, and he meant to draw it out. How long? Until the point when neither one of them could stand it any longer. Until the tide became unbearable, and rocks crumbled into sand.
But Jamie knew better than to push forward any further without getting one thing on the record first. "Games aside," he said. "Please tell me if I cross a line. Just say the word at any point, and I'll stop."
"Do you want to stop?"
The glint of light reflecting from her eyes vanished as she spoke. He couldn't tell if she looked down or closed her lids. He found her face and cupped it between his hands, smoothing her hair behind her ears. There she was. The glint returned to him.
"No," he told that little light. "I don't want to stop. I've only just begun."
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