Matt would have followed Jenny Smith anywhere. Her white cut-offs molded her fanny the way he wanted his hands to, and her generous breasts moved freely beneath the short-sleeved, black knit shirt she wore. How on earth was he going to keep his side of this bargain? Give him the chance, and he’d make her so hot she’d beg him to touch her, if he didn’t go down in flames first himself.
She walked a step or two into the room, then gestured with outspread arms at a beige open-weave couch that was accented with nubby throw pillows. Nearby sat a bamboo swivel chair and a round, glass-topped table, with the latest art magazines arranged carefully on top. “This is the living area.” She swept a hand toward the other side of the large room, where a wooden table and two wooden chairs stood guarded by a stainless steel stove, refrigerator, and sink. “That’s the kitchen and dining room.”
“I guessed that.” He looked around the room again, noting the Oriental rug covering the hardwood floors. “No TV?”
“Do you watch much TV?”
“I’ve been known to catch a football game here and there, and the occasional women’s mud-wrestling program.”
Jenny wasn’t sure if he was being serious or sarcastic. She responded with a neutral, “I see.”
“Well?”
She crossed to a floor-to-ceiling oak unit along one wall and opened a set of folding doors. “The TV’s in here.”
Matt joined her at the cabinet and started opening more doors.
“What are you looking for now?”
“A stereo?”
“Sorry,” she said. “Lost it in my divorce and never got around to replacing it. I have an AM-FM radio. Think you can find enough music on that to survive?”
“When in Rome.” He shrugged nonchalantly, but she noticed him checking the titles of the books in her cupboard before she could close the doors.
Matt was confused by what he found. Ms. Smith had several books concerning women’s issues, but she also possessed a large collection of romance novels. It seemed she spent half her time reading books attesting to how badly men treated women and the other half reading stories about heroes and heroines and Happily Ever After. He glanced at her and thought, Will the real Jenny Smith please stand up? Or, to give the devil her due, maybe she was a woman who could understand—and appreciate—both sides of an issue.
Jenny saw the two vertical lines between Matt’s brows and quickly closed the doors on her small library. “Come on. I’ll show you the rest of the place.” She could almost feel his tall, lanky frame moving with her, as she passed through a doorway into the bedroom. She turned and discovered he was right behind her. She stepped back so quickly her foot caught on the area rug. As she fell, her breasts collided with his rock-hard chest. His arms naturally slid around her waist to keep them both upright.
Her blue eyes locked with his gray ones for a moment that seemed to stretch.
In a husky voice that she found incredibly sexy, Matt said, “Good thing I can still touch you. Otherwise, we might both have ended up on the floor.”
Jenny shivered and gave a shaky laugh. “Yes. Very lucky.” Her heart was beating a fast tattoo, and she realized she would have been perfectly happy to lay her head on his chest, slide her arms around his waist, and simply enjoy the feeling of being held in a man’s arms. Instead, she took a step backward, forcing Matt to let go.
She turned her back on him, to avoid looking into his eyes, and said, “We’ll be sleeping in here.”
He walked around the bedroom like a lion inspecting a new den. Jenny tried to see the room through his eyes. She’d set up twin beds with a narrow rattan nightstand between them. The bedspreads were tan, and the lamp on the nightstand was the same navy as the area rug she’d tripped over, which partially covered the hardwood floor. The room was functional, considering what they had ahead of them over the next thirty days.
Matt hoped he didn’t look as affected by their brief embrace as he felt. If he wasn’t mistaken, Ms. Smith wasn’t wearing a bra. He’d felt the soft warmth of her breasts against his chest as though she were naked, and his body had responded in a not unexpected way. Except, he hadn’t expected Ms. Smith to turn him on. He angled his body away to hide his arousal and noticed something interesting.
There was nothing of a personal nature on the nightstand or the clothes chest except what he recognized—from having purchased a bottle for a former girlfriend—as a very expensive perfume. In a feminist’s bedroom? He’d figured Jenny Smith would be into natural scents. Or maybe that was environmentalists. He casually strolled closer to her and took a deep breath to see if she’d sprayed some on. She turned abruptly and caught him sniffing, and he choked as he took a step back.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Fine. It all looks very . . . neat.” No lint on the carpet. No dust balls in the corners. No layer of life on the furniture. No butts in the— No ashtrays! Matt glanced quickly around the room and said, “I don’t see any ashtrays.”
“I don’t smoke.”
Matt made his voice stern. “I do.”
“Not in this apartment, you don’t.” She pointed to a sign on the end table: Thank you for not smoking.
It took Matt a moment to realize she’d put the sign in her bedroom. So, if she didn’t smoke, who was she expecting to read—and heed—that message in her bedroom? He felt a moment of irrational jealousy and shook it off. “We need to discuss this.”
Jenny looked at her watch. 6:52. “Talk fast. Patrick should be here any minute.”
“Patrick?”
“The photographer.”
Matt let that pass for the moment, because he wanted to address the smoking issue. “You knew I smoked when you asked me to participate in this project.”
“Cigarettes aren’t good for you.”
“That’s beside the point.”
“You should quit.”
“Do you want me to participate in this ridiculous project or not?”
“It’s not ridiculous.” When Matt opened his mouth to argue, Jenny realized she was running out of time and said, “All right. You can smoke. Outside.”
He grimaced.
“It’ll be fun,” she said with a coaxing smile. “We can sit on the front stoop and people-watch.”
Matt shook his head in disgust. Normally he could manage with only the occasional cigarette, but he’d been known to chain-smoke an entire pack in tension-fraught situations. He was pretty sure he was going to need a cigarette or two over the next thirty days. “I’m going to kill George,” he muttered. But he didn’t argue further. It was her home and her project, and he was willing—at least for the moment—to follow her rules.
Jenny opened the closet to show him the space she’d made for his clothes and he saw a riot of purple, orange, red, and green. Her clothes reflected the rainbow of color that had been missing in her navy and beige furnishings. He had no chance to ponder that anomaly before she opened the top drawer of a nearby chest and said, “I’ve cleared a drawer for you. “
Matt nodded his head toward the twin beds. “We certainly won’t have to worry about bumping into each other at night, will we?”
“No, we won’t.” Jenny checked her watch. 6:55. “There’s more to see, and we’re running out of time.” She wanted Matt to like her home, but she could tell he was disappointed about something. Surely he wasn’t upset simply because she didn’t have a stereo. Jenny’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. Maybe he’d been expecting them to sleep in the same bed.
“Bathroom’s here.” Jenny opened a door off the bedroom to a small cubicle that contained a sink, commode, and tub, all white and spotlessly shiny. She showed him the hole she’d chiseled in the door frame so the rope that tied them together could run through it when the bathroom door was shut. She turned back to face him. “That’s it. Any questions?”
“Did you stock anything to drink ?”
“There’s water and soda.” When his lips twisted wryly, she added, “There’s also some beer in the fridge and wine in the pantry.”
“I suspect I’m going to need something alcoholic before this is over.”
Jenny smiled and conceded, “We both may.” The knock on the front door sent them back to the living room. Jenny unlocked the door and welcomed Patrick Stuart with a warm smile.
The first thing Matt noticed was the pack of cigarettes in Patrick’s breast pocket. “He’s the one taking pictures?”
“Patrick will be photographing the project at intervals. He’s doing a paper on social realism in art,” Jenny explained. “My project qualifies as a contemporary example of the use of art to express social values.”
She watched Matt shoot a look at Patrick and bristle, as though another dog had threatened to take his bone. Patrick was an exceptionally well-built, handsome young man. He had eyes as blue as the Caribbean, sun-bleached blond hair, and a smile that was blinding against his healthy tan. But as far as she was concerned, he couldn’t hold a candle to someone with Matt’s maturity, intelligence, and raw animal magnetism.
“Patrick Stuart, this is Matthew Benson, the critic for Artist’s World,” Jenny said. “Matt, this is Patrick Stuart, my brightest and most talented student.”
Matt stuck out his hand as though ready to take on the competition. “Hello, Patrick. Nice to meet you.”
“The pleasure’s mine,” Patrick said. “I read your reviews all the time, and I respect your opinion, sir.”
Jenny watched Matt’s shoulders relax. It was hard not to like Patrick.
“Make it Matt,” Matt said, smiling at Patrick.
Jenny glanced at her watch and felt her heartbeat ratchet up. 6:58. “Guess this is it. Patrick, get your camera ready.” Jenny picked up the half-inch-thick white rope lying on the couch and turned to Matt. “Would you lift up your T-shirt so I can tie this around your waist?”
Jenny had carefully considered where to tie the rope and realized there was no place except their waists that would still allow them to change their clothes on a regular basis.
Matt reached down and pulled his T-shirt halfway up, exposing an abdomen ribbed with muscle.
Jenny had to reach with both hands to run the rope around his trim waist, and it forced her face against his chest. She couldn’t breathe without inhaling the intoxicating scent of a piney male cologne. His cotton T-shirt was soft against her cheek, while beneath it, she could feel his rock-hard belly. She worked quickly, disturbed by the enforced closeness. She handed the rope from one hand to the other around his back and brought it to his stomach to tie the knot.
Jenny hadn’t allowed herself to look at the skin he’d exposed when he’d lifted his shirt. When she tied the rope, she had no choice. His abdomen was striated with hard muscle, and the curly hair on his chest arrowed into a single line of downy black hair that disappeared into his jeans. He wasn’t wearing a belt, and his pants had slid down on his hips, until they’d caught on his hipbones. If he was wearing any underwear, she didn’t see any sign of it. Jenny shivered. Every time she moved the rope, her knuckles brushed his belly and he sucked it in, so his muscles rippled under her touch. Her hands felt clumsy, and her stomach fluttered.
Once she’d finished, she stepped back with a sigh of relief.” All done.”
“Thank God,” Matt said under his breath when Jenny finally finished tying the knot around his waist. She’d known what she was doing, the little tease. If she’d glanced down, she would have gotten a pretty good idea of how successful she’d been. Well, two could play this game. He picked up the other end of the rope. “Your turn.”
“I can do it,” Jenny said, reaching for the rope.
Matt held it out of her grasp. “Turnabout’s fair play.”
Jenny dropped her hand, caught off-guard by the roguish look in his eyes.
“Any special kind of knot you want?” he asked.
“Whatever. Just make sure it’s snug, but not too tight.”
“Lift your shirt.”
Jenny reached down and gathered the loose cotton folds of her shirt under her breasts. When Matt reached around her, his face was so close, she could feel his moist breath on her skin. She’d chosen the kind of cord used to hold back draperies, and the rope felt silky against her waist. The hairs on Matt’s arm brushed against her, raising gooseflesh on her arms, and she quivered at the feel of his fingertips on her mid-riff when he secured the knot.
Matt couldn’t believe how soft Jenny’s skin was. He wanted to reach up under her shirt and cup her breasts in his hands, to take each of the nipples he could see tightening under the flimsy material into his mouth and suck them until she moaned. He wanted to taste her with his tongue until she shivered in his arms. He would do it all, he vowed. And before the damned thirty days were up.
He contented himself with brushing his knuckles across her abdomen and “accidentally” dropping his thumb into her belly button for a teasing caress. He took a quick look and found her eyelids heavy and her nostrils flared. She was all woman, whether she wanted to accept it or not. He had the next thirty days to prove it to her.
“There. All done,” he said in a voice harsh with unfulfilled need.
They were both breathing heavily by the time he finished. Jenny only belatedly became aware that Patrick had been snapping pictures the entire time. She looked at Matt and got caught by a flash. She let her eyes adjust and checked her watch: 7:00 a.m. on the nose. “All right, Patrick. Time for one last picture. Step as far away from me as you can, Matt.”
Matt took one, two, three steps away. Jenny had carefully measured the rope to be sure that after it was tied around both their waists it would still give them the desired ten feet of distance from each other. She’d walked off ten feet in her living room and knew it wasn’t very far. It seemed even closer with Matt on the other end of the rope.
“Are you ready for a picture?” Patrick asked.
Jenny took a deep, calming breath. “Yes, I am. Matt?”
He fingered the rope at his waist as he said, “I’m ready.”
Patrick adjusted the lens on his digital camera and snapped the picture. “I’d better get going. I want to print a few of these pictures before class today.”
“I’ll see you at nine,” Jenny said, as she closed the door behind him.
“You teach today?”
“Half days Tuesdays and Thursdays,” she said. “A class in art history and one on contemporary women artists.”
“And you can make enough doing that to live?”
“I have another source of income.”
She didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t ask. “How about a cup of coffee?” he suggested.
“I don’t drink it,” Jenny replied.
Matt groaned. “No coffee, either?”
“I’ve got tea.”
“No thanks.”
“We can go shopping later today and get some coffee and a coffeemaker,” she offered.
“Swell.”
“Can I offer you a toasted waffle?” When he stared at her aghast, Jenny stiffened her spine and said, “I don’t like to cook, but mostly, I don’t like to wash dishes. If you want a more elaborate breakfast, you’re welcome to cook it and clean up after yourself.”
“I’ll take the waffle.”
Since they were already as far from each other as the rope would allow, the moment Matt moved toward the kitchen Jenny was pulled along behind him. When he felt the rope stretched taut, he turned and cocked a questioning brow. “You coming?”
“I guess I don’t have much choice,” Jenny said with a shrug. It was done. They were tied by an umbilical cord for the next thirty days.
Matt sat at the kitchen table while Jenny took two waffles out of the freezer and popped them into the toaster.
“They smell like they’re burning,” he said a few minutes later.
“You want to cook?”
Matt shook his head.
“Then don’t complain.” When the waffles popped up, Jenny plopped them onto a plate and handed them to Matt with a butter dish and a plastic container of syrup. “Eat hearty.”
Matt eyed the waffles suspiciously but found them surprisingly tasty.
“Who cooks for you at home?” Jenny asked, as she watched him wolf down his breakfast.
“I usually eat out. Or someone cooks for me.”
Jenny had a feeling “someone” translated into “a woman I’m dating.” “Why don’t you learn how to cook?”
“I know how to cook.”
“You do? Who taught you?”
Matt smiled sardonically. “My mother.”
“Really?”
“She was a busy woman, much too busy to cook breakfast for the family. So she taught me how to do it.”
“How big a family?”
“Five brothers and two sisters.”
“I was an only child,” Jenny said. “Were you the eldest?”
“Sure was.”
“What else did your mother teach you?”
“I do a mean tub of laundry, I’m hell on wheels with a vacuum, and I can change a diaper in four seconds flat.”
He was smiling when he said it, but somehow she knew he wasn’t kidding. “So when did you become a male chauvinist pig?”
He laughed.
It was a booming sound, full of warmth and humor, that sent a frisson down her spine.
“You liberated women don’t pull any punches, do you?”
“No. Are you going to answer my question?”
His face sobered. “When I got married.” He frowned and said, “No. When I got divorced.”
“Oh.”
He played with the rope that lay on the table between them as he spoke. “My wife, Adrienne, was the consummate career woman. She chewed me up and spit me out like a used toothpick.” He paused and ran a hand through his hair, rumpling it. “I was in and out of that marriage so fast, I didn’t know what hit me. When we split, she took me for every dime I had. So much for liberated women being able to support themselves.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It was a long time ago, and I learned my lesson. I won’t be so quick to tie myself to another woman.”
She watched to see if he’d realized what he’d said. He grinned ruefully. “Tie myself permanently to another woman.”
Jenny took that to mean he was no longer interested in marrying. Well, neither was she—for her own reasons, which she had no intention of sharing.
“I’m done,” he announced, sitting back in his chair.
“Done?”
“You can take these dishes away now.”
This time it was Jenny’s turn to laugh. “Remember me? The liberated woman? You can wash your own dishes.”
“I figured I’m a guest, so—”
“We’re both equals here,” Jenny interrupted. “That means you do your fair share. I made the meal. You do the dishes.”
“Is that the best deal I’m going to get?”
“It’s the only deal you’re going to get.”
“In that case, excuse me.” Matt stood, picked up his plate and silverware, and carried them to the sink to rinse them.
Jenny marveled at the play of muscles in his back and shoulders revealed by the tight T-shirt and wondered, not for the first time, how he stayed in shape. Maybe she’d find out over the next thirty days. His jeans hugged his taut buttocks, and she had a mental picture of her hands cupping them.
Abruptly she sat up straight, her face flushed with embarrassment. She’d been marginalizing Matt Benson, thinking of him as a sexual object.
Shame on you, Jennifer Smith!
I couldn’t help myself.
The only reason Matthew Benson set foot through that front door in the first place is so you could prove that a man can treat a woman as more than a sexual object—and vice versa. Look at you! Only 7:42, and you’re already ogling Matt Benson’s buns!
You have to admit they’re nice—
Jennifer!
All right. Geez. I’ll start appreciating his male chauvinist mind.
Matt turned back to her, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. “How soon before we have to leave for campus?” He observed Jenny checking her watch—yet again—and realized how bound she was to the clock. Didn’t she ever do anything without looking to see what time it was?
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to arrive a little early. My class is excited about the project, and they’ll want to meet you before we get started. We can leave anytime you’re ready.”
He threw the dishtowel on the table. “I’m ready now.”
Jenny picked up the towel and folded it, then walked over to rehang it on the rack by the sink. “Dishtowels go here when they’re not being used.”
Matt needed a cigarette. He squinted his eyes, scratched his ear, and asked, “Are you going to spend the next thirty days picking up after me?”
“Are you going to spend the next thirty days dropping things all over this apartment?”
Neither said anything for a moment, as the tension arced between them like an electrical current.
Matt took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I agreed to participate in your project, Jenny. I didn’t agree to change who I am. If I drop something, you’ll have to decide whether it bothers you more to pick it up or let it lie. I have no intention of tiptoeing around worrying about whether I’ve broken some unspoken rule. For the next thirty days, this is my home, too, and I’m going to treat it as such. Now, do you want to call this off right now, or do we go on from here?”
Jenny looked at her watch. 7:57. Three minutes short of an hour together and they were already at odds.
“Let’s—”
Call it off right now, Jennifer. How will you ever be able to stand a whole month of that kind of highhandedness?
He isn’t being so unreasonable, really. How would you feel if the circumstances were reversed, and you were staying at his place?
Can you imagine the chaos that must exist at his place?
That’s beside the point.
That’s exactly the point. How will your apartment look after he’s spent thirty days dropping his undershorts beside the bed?
Jenny smiled at the picture that thought conjured.
“All right, Matt. I’ll try not to pick up after you. At least I won’t criticize you, if I do. Will that satisfy you?”
“Sounds good to me.”
She couldn’t wait to see that pile of undershorts beside his bed.