The Case of the Confirmed Bachelor Read online

  “In bed, sure.” Helen laughed. “But not as prospective wives. Nick was raised to believe in all the virtues, even if he doesn’t practice them. He’ll settle one day, but it won’t be with some vivid butterfly who likes the social life. He’ll want a pipe and an easy chair and his children on his lap at bedtime to read stories to. You mark my words, he’s got all the makings of a family man. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

  “I wish…” Tabby began fervently.

  “Don’t give up on him,” Helen said gently. “I know I tried to put you off him for your own good, but he’s changed since January. He really has. Give it a chance.”

  “He wants me,” she blurted out.

  “Good. That’s a step in the right direction. Just don’t give in to him. That’s the best way I know to classify yourself with his other women and turn him away.”

  “I know that. But it’s hard,” she confessed. “I do love him so, Helen.”

  “So do I,” his sister admitted. “I think he’s pretty special. But, then, so are you, my friend. Keep in touch. And don’t brood, about Nick or the spot you’re in. It will all work out. Really, this time next year, you’ll hardly remember it.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Tabby said. But long after she put the receiver down, she remained unconvinced.

  Chapter Five

  There was a crowd in the halls when Nick came out of Tabby’s office after having used the computer at Thorn College.

  Shrieks were coming from the biology lab, and the outer door was open. With assumed casualness, he walked in.

  Dr. Flannery was trying to calm a violently upset Pal. The man was holding something in his hands that the primate was obviously bent on possessing.

  “You can’t have these!” he was telling the monkey. “Where did you get them, anyway?”

  “What does he have?” Nick asked with amused interested.

  Dr. Flannery looked over his shoulder and his pink complexion went even pinker. “Dr. Day’s keys,” he replied. “God knows where he found them. Dr. Day must have been in here earlier.”

  “Are you teaching him to steal now, Flannery?” Daniel asked from the door with that maddeningly superior tone that put everyone’s back up.

  “I am not!” Flannery choked, and went even redder. “Would you give these to Dr. Day at lunch, please?” he asked Daniel, handing him the keys. “I have a meeting.”

  “Glad to,” Daniel replied. “That animal’s a born thief. I’d watch him if I were you.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do.”

  “This primate project is a waste of time,” Daniel muttered. “The only thing you’re going to learn about that creature is that he’s adept at sleight of hand.”

  “I believe your field is history?” Dr. Flannery asked pointedly.

  Daniel shrugged. “It doesn’t take a biologist to recognize an animal with a bad attitude.” He glanced with irritation at Nick, who’d been leaning against the door facing, taking in the conversation. “Did you need something, Mr. Reed?”

  “Only Tabby,” Nick replied with a sensuality in his tone that penetrated even Daniel’s thick skull.

  Daniel seemed to grow an inch. “My fiancée,” he stressed the word, “is teaching her class.”

  “I know.” Nick shouldered away from the wall. “Nice of you to take her class until she got here.”

  “How did you know that?” the older man demanded.

  Nick smiled slowly. “Why don’t you ask Tabby?” He turned and walked along the hall, intent for the moment on finding Dr. Day.

  The art department was in a separate building, and it took some searching before he found Dr. Day’s class. The interested looks he was getting from some of the women students amused him. But lately, the only face he saw was Tabby’s. Who’d have believed that she had a body like that, he wondered as he walked along. Her clothes made her look thin and lackluster. But under them… He groaned silently at the memory of how it had been to look at her, to touch and taste her. He wanted her more and more every day, and that wouldn’t do.

  He found Dr. Day in a corner classroom, just gathering his things together into an attaché case. He was a tall, thin man with thick dark hair, and he looked faintly nervous.

  “Dr. Day?” Nick introduced himself and shook hands with the other man. “I hope you don’t mind. I’m trying to find out as much as I can about a recent theft.”

  “You think I’m involved?” he asked, immediately defensive.

  “Good heavens, no,” Nick drawled. “I wanted to know if you had any idea why someone might stoop to the theft of an ancient relic in the anthropology department, that’s all.”

  Day relaxed, but only a little. He kept shoveling papers into that attaché case, but now his long fingers were trembling. “Why does anyone steal?” he asked. “For monetary gain.”

  “There are other motives.”

  He glanced at Nick. “Professional jealousy, I suppose?” He nodded. “Well, just between us, Dr. Daniel Myers has more than his share of that. He and Dr. Harvey were once what you might call serious rivals even though they work in different departments. They’re engaged now, though, so I assume that they’ve settled their differences.”

  “Dr. Myers has your car keys, by the way.” Nick told him after they’d talked for a few minutes. “He’ll give them to you at lunch.”

  “What is Dr. Myers doing with my car keys?” he asked irritably.

  “Dr. Flannery’s primate research project took them, I understand.”

  “That blasted monkey! I wish someone would cook and eat him. He’s a positive menace!”

  “Most of the faculty on his floor would tend to agree with you.” Nick frowned. “How did your keys get into the biology lab, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “I haven’t been in the biology lab in two days,” Dr. Day replied seriously. “The last time I remember having my keys was in the audiovisual room. That’s in the library, next door to the main building where the biology lab is temporarily located.”

  “Surely the monkey can’t leave the building when he wants to?”

  “He can pick locks, didn’t you know?” Day scoffed. “The damned thing’s almost human. That’s what scares me. One morning they’ll find him in the dean’s office smoking cigars and drinking brandy. Then where will Flannery’s precious research funds go?”

  He seemed to find that thought amusing. Nick thanked him and made a few more stops on his way around the campus. Then he went back to find Tabby, because it was now nearing the lunch hour.

  She and Daniel were in her office, in the middle of a heated discussion.

  “It wasn’t like that at all,” she was saying. “Daniel, you can’t believe…!”

  “What else can I believe? And isn’t his arrival right now a little convenient?” he added narrowly. “My God, you almost drool when he walks into a room! I’ve had no input from you in days about our book. I can’t even get you on the telephone in the evenings. And this morning you’re late and he knows that you asked me to take your class. How?”

  “Go ahead, honey. Tell him,” Nick dared her, pausing in the doorway.

  Tabby flushed. “Don’t make it sound like that!”

  “Why not?” he returned. “It was like that.” His eyes went to her blouse and lingered until she flushed. “I’m the reason she was late,” he told Daniel, and he smiled.

  Daniel went scarlet with rage. He glared at Tabby. “So that’s what’s going on. And you said it was just an old crush. But that’s not true. You’re lovers, aren’t you?”

  “No!” Tabby gasped.

  “Conspirators, too, probably,” Daniel continued angrily. “I don’t doubt that you’re guilty of that theft after all, Tabitha, and that you did it to discredit me! You know that when Brown retires, I’m in line for a promotion to head of the history department. You can’t stand it that I might achieve a higher position than you have in the sociology department, isn’t that it?”

  “Daniel, you aren’t eve
n making sense!” she exclaimed. “Stealing an important find would only discredit me!”

  “I’m engaged to you, so it would discredit me as well!” he shot back. “I must have been out of my mind to propose to you!”

  He walked out, still fuming. Nick’s dark eyes never left Tabby’s white face. “I don’t think you did it,” he reminded her.

  She looked limp. “Thanks, Nick. For that,” she added, glaring at him wearily, “not for making Daniel think we’re lovers.”

  “We’d be lovers if you were a little less rigid,” he said easily. “Come on. I’ll buy you lunch.”

  She was too tired to argue. Besides, there was little danger of any more romantic interludes in a public place.

  Or so she thought. But Nick had other ideas in mind. He bought a picnic lunch from a fried chicken franchise and herded her into the nearby park, to a secluded area under a sprawling oak tree.

  “Isn’t this nice?” he asked while they ate warm chicken.

  “Peaceful, at least,” she agreed. If it hadn’t been quite so isolated, she’d have minded less. A stream flowed through and the gurgling of the water sounded quite close, mingled with the singing of birds in the trees around them.

  “You could use a little peace after your morning.”

  “Why did you have to let Daniel know you were with me when he called?” she asked miserably.

  “Why try to hide it?” he countered. “He doesn’t own you. My God, you don’t even want him. He’s only using you to further his own career. A blind woman could see that, but apparently you can’t.”

  “Why he wants me didn’t matter at the time,” she confessed. “I only wanted…”

  “To spite me,” he said for her, his dark eyes narrowing as he finished a third piece of chicken. He wiped his hands and mouth on a napkin before he took a sip of coffee from a paper cup. “Maybe to show me that you could get married if you wanted to. I slapped you down hard on New Year’s Eve. I don’t blame you for doing something outlandish.”

  “I was drunk!”

  He looked at her solemnly. “No. You wanted me. And I didn’t want you.”

  “I know that, you don’t have to rub it in,” she said in a ghostly tone, averting her eyes to her own cup of coffee.

  He studied her, approving the way she looked in the prim green-and-white pattern shirtwaist dress she was wearing. Her hair was bundled up on top of her head with a green scarf. She looked younger than usual, and very flustered.

  He smiled, lounging back against the tree. He’d removed the sports coat that went with his dark brown slacks, and his tie with it. His white shirtsleeves were rolled up, the throat of his shirt unbuttoned. His hair was windblown and he looked reckless and elegant, lying there.

  “I didn’t realize how potent you’d be if we ever started kissing, until that night,” he continued. “I was curious about you years ago, but every time I made a move, you backed away.”

  “You never made any moves,” she countered.

  “But I did. I can remember one particular instance, when I invited you to come up to law school for the weekend and go to a party with me.”

  Her dark eyes met his. “You were teasing. You laughed even when you said it.”

  “And you blushed and mumbled something and rushed off,” he agreed. “I was serious. I meant it.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t have any shortage of partners,” she said stiffly.

  “No. But it was you I wanted. You made me ache when you were eighteen, Tabby,” he said softly. “I noticed you without any effort at all. But you were painfully shy of me. When I went to work for the FBI, I tried again, but that was a disaster. I ran to Lucy in self-defense, to prove to myself that I was still a man.”

  Her breasts rose and fell heavily with a long sigh. “They said you never got over her death.”

  “It was unexpected,” he said. “And I was fond of her. We got along well enough. I might have married her eventually.” He searched Tabby’s sad face. “But she was the consolation prize, nothing more. A substitute for what I really wanted and couldn’t have.” He sat up suddenly, holding her eyes. “Haven’t you worked it out? I’ve spent years telling myself that you found me too frightening to touch. Then New Year’s Eve, you launched yourself on me and started kissing me, and I couldn’t get away from you fast enough. I couldn’t believe that you really wanted me. I thought it was a drunken aberration.”

  “It was!”

  He shook his head. “No.” He lay back again and opened his arms. “Come here.”

  She froze, her lips trembling as she fought the temptation.

  “Come on,” he coaxed, smiling.

  Her eyes widened. “I won’t,” she choked.

  “Not enough temptation for you?” He paused to unbutton his shirt, watching her eyes go homing to the thick pelt of hair on his strongly muscled chest as he tore the shirt away from it and let her look. “Now, come here,” he challenged softly, and held out his arms again.

  She went to him against her better judgment. He pulled her down on him and found her mouth with slow passion, opening it to the soft probe of his tongue.

  She caught her breath and he felt it, and smiled. He eased her over, onto her back and while he kissed her, his hand gently took the soft weight of her breast and caressed her as if she belonged to him.

  “Touch me,” he whispered roughly.

  Her hands slid up and down over the thick hair, the warm muscle of him. She loved the way he felt, the faint throb of his heartbeat gaining strength under her finger tips. The breeze blew gently and bird songs filled the air while she heard her own quick breathing, and Nick’s, magnified in the stillness.

  She was dazed with pleasure when she felt his hand guiding hers away from his chest, down over the firm muscles of his stomach, until she touched him where his passion for her was most visible.

  Her hand jerked away, but he pressed it there, and his mouth became hot and insistent on her parted lips. For one long, exquisite moment, she gave in to her need and his, and let him teach her.

  The intimate feel of his body had an unexpected effect on her. She burned with the need to satisfy his hunger, to give him peace. She wanted him to touch her as she was touching him, she wanted him to pull her dress away and kiss her bare body. She wanted to be under him, over him, wanted to absorb him as earth absorbs water…

  She didn’t realize that she was whispering it to him, telling him all her secrets, her voice breaking as her hand pressed harder against him, learning him.

  He groaned and moved suddenly, his weight between her lax thighs, the press of his aroused flesh suddenly intimately demanding. She cried out at the sensations it gave her when she felt him as she’d never experienced a man in her life.

  “Nick…we…can’t!” she gasped.

  But he didn’t hear her. The area was completely isolated, deserted. His hands were under her skirt, touching her, paving the way. She heard a faint rasp and then felt him without any hint of fabric in the way.

  “Nick!” she cried out.

  “It’s all right,” he choked at her ear. His hands gentled her, trembling, as he eased closer, probing. He caught his breath and groaned helplessly. “Oh, God, Tabby, let me! Baby, let me, let…me!”

  His mouth covered hers with aching tenderness while he pushed down in a feverish, mindless agony of need. She cried out, because it was difficult. But seconds later, she felt him completely possess her, and she gasped at the incredible sensations she felt when he began to move with a slow, deliberate rhythm.

  He kissed her while he loved her, his tongue imitating what his body was doing. He rocked over her, his body slow and unsteady, but very expert as he drew pleasure from her. He whispered to her, his voice unsteady, broken with pleasure, coaxing her to move, to lift, to absorb him.

  The rhythm was unbelievably arousing. She jerked as the sensations shot through her like swelling fire, made her body wanton, made her brain shut down completely. There was only Nick, and the heat of his pos
session, the sharp urgency of his movements, the pleasure he was building and building until she tensed with an anguish bordering on madness.

  She heard him repeating her name as his movements suddenly became violent. The world exploded around her, inside her. She cried out and began to convulse helplessly in hot contractions that were as frightening as they were ecstatic.

  He shuddered and cried out in hoarse ecstasy, his body arching over her, his face clenched with the unbearable sweetness that racked his powerful body. Eons later, he slowly collapsed on her and lay still and spent, shivering with exhaustion even as she reached the most incredible peak of sensation. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t bear it! She whispered it brokenly, her nails digging into his hips, pleading with him.

  He gathered her closer and put his mouth over hers, rocking on her body until she convulsed again, and again. She cried out and her eyes opened, looking straight into his and his face blurred into red waves of delight.

  She came back to awareness a little later, and her body felt cold and sick. They weren’t even undressed. He’d only moved the most necessary things out of the way. He’d made love to her, taken her completely, in a public park under a tree where anyone could have seen them. The fact that the park was completely deserted made no difference. It was shameful and disgusting.

  She began to cry. Vaguely she heard Nick’s apology, felt him rearranging her disheveled clothing, righting his own. He pulled her up and into his arms, and held her cradled against him, his face a study in remorseful anguish.

  “I lost it,” he said, as if he still couldn’t quite believe what he’d done. “My God, Tabby, I lost it! I’m sorry. Baby, I’m so sorry!”

  She cried even harder. It wasn’t just the loss of her chastity, it was the knowledge that to him it was just an other casual interlude. It was also the shame of where it had happened. She was just like those women who walked the streets and sold their bodies, she thought hysterically. She had no morals!

  He dried her eyes, but she wouldn’t meet his concerned gaze. She drew away from him and got to her feet, surprised at how shaky she felt.