From the Heart

His words, she knew instinctively, would reveal much of the inner man.
    “It’s not finished.”
    “I’ll read what is.”
    Searching for a pencil, Slade stalled. He wanted his words read. It was a dream he’d lived with for too many years to count. But Jessica was different; she wasn’t the nameless, faceless public. Her opinion, good or bad, held too much weight. “Maybe,” he muttered. “If you’re going to help, you’d better sit down.”
    “Slade.” Wrapping her arms around his waist, Jessica rested her cheek on his back. “I’ll just bother you until you say yes. It’s a talent of mine.”
    Something about the casually intimate embrace stirred him beyond belief. Her breasts pressed lightly against his back; her hands linked loosely at his waist. In that moment, for that moment, he surrendered completely to the love he felt for her. It was deeper than need, sharper than longing.
    Didn’t she see that there was nothing he could refuse her? Slade thought as he brought his hands down to cover hers.Couldn’t she see that she’d become woman and dream and vulnerability, all in the space of days? If they were to pretend—for her sake—that there was no threat beyond the walls, perhaps they could pretend for his that she belonged to him.
    “Bother me,” he invited, turning so that he could gather her into his arms. “But I warn you, I’m no pushover.”
    With a low laugh, Jessica rose on her toes until her lips brushed his. “I can only hope my work’s cut out for me.” Deepening the kiss, she slid her hands under his shirt to run them up the firm planes of his back, along the ridge of muscle.
    “That might get you a couple of pages,” he murmured. “Want to try for a chapter?”
    She allowed her tongue to trace his lips lazily, giving them a quick teasing nip as she slid a finger up and down his spine. She sensed his response, just as she sensed his reluctance to show it to her. “Bargaining is my forte,” she told him quietly. She gave him a slow, lingering kiss, retreating just as she felt him increase the pressure. “Just how many chapters are in this book?”
    Slade closed his eyes, the better to enjoy the sensation of being seduced when no seduction was necessary. “About twenty-five.”
    “Hmmm.” He felt her lips curve as they touched his again. “This could take all day.”
    “Count on it.” Unexpectedly, he drew her away, then framed her face with his hands. “We can start negotiations right after we do some work in here.”
    “Oh.” Catching her tongue between her teeth, Jessica looked around at the disordered books. “After?”
    “After,” Slade said firmly, nudging her down in a chair. “Start writing.”
    Jessica was hardly aware of the hours that passed—one, then two, then three. He worked quietly, systematically, and with a patience she could never hope to emulate. Slade knew the books a great deal better than she. Jessica saved reading for the rare times when her physical energy lagged behind her mental energy. She enjoyed books. He loved them. She foundthis small realization another step in the ladder to discovering him.
    It was easier in the quiet, cluttered library to get him to talk. Have you read this? Yes. What did you think of it? And he would tell her, easily and in depth, without ever stopping his work. How her father would have liked him, Jessica thought. He would have admired Slade’s mind, his strength, his sudden flashes of humor. He would have seen the goodness Slade took such care to keep hidden.
    She doubted Slade realized that, by letting her work with him here, he was revealing his other side. The dreamer. Perhaps she’d always known it was there, even when she had recognized the streak of hard street sense. It was a complex man who could carry a gun and discuss Byron’s Don Juan with equal ease. That afternoon she needed the dreamer. Perhaps he knew it.
    The light began to fade to a soft gray. Shadows gathered in the corners of the room. Jessica had forgotten her tension and had become involved with the mindless task of copying titles and names onto the index cards. When the phone rang, she scattered two dozen of them on the floor. Quickly she began to retrieve them.
    “It just startled me,” she said when Slade remained silent. She cursed her trembling hands as she gathered the cards back into a pile. “It’s been so quiet, that’s all.” Furious with herself, she let the cards fall again. “Damn it, don’t sit there