woman alone. She’s damned pushy enough the way she is!”
He almost smiled at that. For a woman who thought she was a failure, she’d gotten him to do things for her he’d never have done for anyone else. Damned honest gray eyes of hers. He snorted derisively. He knew she wasn’t manipulative. He knew she’d tried her damnedest to be, but it just wasn’t her nature. Still, in her own decent, scrupulous way, she’d handled him like a pro. He was strangely ambivalent about that, too. Sometimes her directness irritated the fire out of him, and other times, like when she was sputtering out her “You bother me” speech last night, it sent a stab of feeling through him that he couldn’t quite identify—and couldn’t quite ignore.
As he rocked back in his swivel chair, listening to the faint squeak of its hinges, he found himself fantasizing about making love to her. She was so caring and vulnerable with the kids, and so guarded with him. What would it be like, he wondered, to see her flushed with passion, gasping and moaning softly in his arms? Beautifully naked, her silky skin wet and pulsing against his. He gritted his teeth, crushing the dangerous image. But another emerged in its place, just as haunting, and every bit as dangerous: the image of Jess today, when she’d shocked him by taking his fingers in hers.
He’d resisted squeezing back, had balked at the compliment and the intimacy. He fisted the hand she’d held so tightly. He wasn’t Mr. Niceguy, dammit. Wasn’t the generous soul old Roxbury was, and he didn’t want to care, to deceive the woman who was looking at him with a new, almost-admiring expression. He’d backed off, growled at her. Rejected her approval.
It was best that he had, he told himself. She was an open person by nature. Unfortunately, people who were supposed to have loved her had given her a lot of emotional scars. It was ironic, he mused. Both he and Jess were guarded in their own ways. She’d never had much affection in her life, or much approval. By working with these kids, she was getting both, at last.
Because Lucas had known affection, but had lost it suddenly and cruelly, he no longer sought it. He rejected it, and didn’t give a damn about anyone’s approval. They were an interesting twosome, he and Jess Glen. Very different, but ironically alike.
Though the kiss they’d shared had proved they were highly compatible sexually, pulling her into bed would be a mistake. It might do his ego some momentary good, but it would only make her more guarded and inhibited when the affair ended. He didn’t want to add to her hurts, and offering uncommitted sex to a woman who wanted affection and emotional attachment would be underhanded and sleazy.
He knew he had to steer clear. But the memory of the kiss nagged, driving him crazy. Dammit! He jerked forward and switched on the diagnostics. Enough time had been wasted dwelling on that idiotic kiss. It was time he moved on.
“Hey, man,” came a voice from behind him. Swiveling around in his chair, he saw Molly and Moses standing just inside the door. The thin girl, her hair pulled back into a runty ponytail, was carrying a plate with what looked like a sandwich on it. Moses held a steaming mug.
Lucas sat forward, frowning, but not particularly irritated by the interruption. Maybe a break was a good idea. “What can I do for you two?”
They were looking around the room, clearly in awe of the advanced technology they were seeing. “Shi— uh—” Moses began, then amended, “Shoot, man, you know how to work all this stuff?”
Lucas raked an impatient gaze over the computer equipment. “The board of directors thinks so,” he muttered.
“What is it you’re doing?” asked Molly.
He shrugged. “Working on a Virtual Reality program for a pharmaceutical company in Japan.” Lucas indicated the helmet sitting on the desktop to his left. “This is what we call an HMD, or head-mounted display. Through it we see a Virtual, or imaginary, world. And this—” he lifted the glove, barely able to keep the anger at the malfunctioning piece of junk from his voice “—is our cordless, force-feedback glove. It lets you feel an imaginary thing the way it would really feel. Say, an imaginary marshmallow that feels spongy, like a real marshmallow, or an imaginary rock that feels hard, like a real rock.” He slipped on the silver glove and opened and