Never Love A Stranger Part 9

James smiled as he carefully licked his spoon. "That's not likely."

"No," she agreed, looking at his hard, lean body. "I guess it isn't."

Having finished off all the available ice cream, James stood up and began gathering the china. Annie waved him off. "Don't worry about it, James. You cooked. I'll clean up."

She saw the flash of surprise deep in his blue eyes. "I can do it."

"Just sit down," she said impatiently. "You're not a slave here, James."

Obediently, he sat down and watched as she stashed everything in the dishwasher, scrubbed the pots, and wiped off the counters carefully. She wasn't this neat at home, but she knew Kay would kill her if there were any spots left on her prized black granite countertops.

"There," she said at last. "All finished. See' It didn't kill you to sit still."

James flashed his flawless white teeth in a grin. "I believe I could get used to it."

"Do you want to get started on learning how to read'"

James nodded as he followed her out to the living room. "Is it difficult'"

The eager hope in his voice slashed to her heart. It told her more clearly than his words had that no one had ever treated him like a person before.

"Yes," she said carefully, not wis.h.i.+ng to discourage him, "but not impossible by any means. It will take

some time, though."

She went to the nursery, where Kay, devoted mommy that she was, had already ama.s.sed a considerable collection of Dr. Seuss and the like. Annie knew that Kay had been reading to Clark practically since the moment he was conceived. If Clark was reading yet, he had given no sign of it, but Annie wouldn't have been really surprised to find that he was. If maternal devotion had anything to do with it, Clark would be reading by the time he was a year old.

She returned to the living room with several large, colorful books. James was sitting on the black couch, waiting for her. She sat down next to him and opened the first book. "Do you know the alphabet'"

She found that James had absolutely no knowledge of the alphabet, yet within half an hour he was able to fluently read the easy reader she had brought out. She was amazed to discover that he had only to see a word to memorize it. At last she closed the book and looked at him through narrowed eyes.

"You're not normal, James. You know that'"

James looked alarmed. "I have a good memory."

"Bull," she said succinctly. "Don't give me that. It's more than that, and you know it."

James said nothing.

"It all begins to make sense now," she went on. "I'm not a big science fiction reader, but I've read a bit. Your people were some kind of super race, weren't they'"

James hesitated, then nodded reluctantly.

Annie swallowed. The notion of eugenics gave her the creeps. The idea of creating people according to a preconceived notion of ideal humanity was way too reminiscent of the Aryan race ideas propagated by the n.a.z.is in the thirties and forties. But with the recent advances in cloning technology and the newly developed ability to map DNA, it wasn't nearly as farfetched a notion as it had been twenty years ago. Three centuries from now, who knew what scientists might be able to do by manipulating human genes'

She began to piece together what James had told her over the past two days. Somewhere along the line, she speculated, someone had figured out a way to create ideal people, perfect people like James. People who were physically and mentally superior. And, not surprisingly, there had been a backlash. She guessed that laws had been pa.s.sed, making the genetically engineered population slaves rather than people equal in the eyes of the law.

Normal people didn't take kindly to the notion that they were inferior, or suddenly obsolete. It made the way James' society had treated him a whole lot more understandable. Immoral as h.e.l.l, but understandable.

She remembered James' a.s.sertion that he couldn't have children. She was willing to bet his people had been forcibly sterilized as well.

And when they rebelled against such treatment, they had been eliminated.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I didn't know."

"I should have told you earlier," James said stiffly. "I simply didn't want to see the expression in your eyes when you realized I was created rather than born."

Annie shook her head. "It isn't your fault someone messed around with your genes, James. Just because you came out of a test tube doesn't make you less human." She looked at him and smiled wanly. "If anything, it makes you more human. Superhuman, if you will. I guess that's why people in your society had a hard time dealing with it."

James looked blank. "A test tube'"

Evidently that was another term that hadn't stood up over three centuries. "I just meant that an artificially created human is still human." She shrugged. "We have test tube babies here, too. Sometimes, when a woman can't get pregnant any other way, they fertilize one of her eggs out of utero and then implant it somehow. I don't know the specifics, but I do know that a baby created that way is just as human as one made the more usual way."

James hesitated, almost imperceptibly. "You are remarkably tolerant."

"On the flip side--" Annie shrugged. "You may not like my saying this, but I can see why the people in your society freaked out. It can't be easy, finding yourself in compet.i.tion with perfect people."

James lowered his lashes. They were, like the rest of him, totally unbelievable, dark gold and longer than any she'd seen before. She wondered if someone had actually gone to the trouble of engineering genes for fabulously long eyelashes. If so, that unknown scientist must have had way too much time on his or her hands.

"I am not perfect," he said.

"n.o.body's perfect, James. But your people must have come a lot closer to it than the rest of us."

She took the book from his hands and put it on the coffee table. "Let's forget reading for now," she said gently, knowing from his expression that he was thinking of his past. His past, her future. "Why don't we listen to some music' Do you like cla.s.sical music'"

He tilted his head. "Cla.s.sical music' Do you mean music like the Beatles'"

She grinned. "No, although they're pretty good too. I mean, you know, Bach and Beethoven. Old guys like that." She opened Kay's entertainment center, which was, predictably, black, and started looking through the CDs, which were arranged neatly by composer and artist. "How about some Vivaldi'"

James shrugged.

"I hope Vivaldi is known in your century."

"Perhaps it is. I do not believe the family I belonged to was a particularly musical one." He raised his eyebrows as she removed the CD carefully from its case. Kay would have a cow if she got a fingerprint on it. "What is that'"

"A CD." She stood up and walked back across to the couch, offering it for his inspection. He took it, holding it by the edges just as she had. He studied it carefully, turning it in the light and admiring the rainbow colors that danced across it.

"What is it for'"

"This one has music on it. There are also ones that hold information for computers, and now they put movies on them, too."

"Ah," he said, giving it back to her with an air of satisfied curiosity. "We use chips for similar purposes."

She put the CD into the player and touched the appropriate b.u.t.tons, causing Vivaldi's Four Seasons to stream from the speakers in a cascade of lovely sound. She had purposely picked something accessible, something that most people were capable of appreciating, although her own tastes in cla.s.sical music ran more to somewhat esoteric composers such as Takemitsu and Gla.s.s.

James leaned forward and listened intently. She sat down on the sofa next to him without speaking, respectful of his evident desire to listen in silence. When the first movement of the "Spring" concerto ended, he turned to her with an odd expression on his face.

"This is exceptionally beautiful." "Even better than the Beatles'"

He tilted his head thoughtfully. "I wouldn't go that far."

Annie burst out laughing. "James," she said when she got her giggles under control, "you have to be the sweetest man I've ever met. And the funniest."

He looked chagrined. "I did not intend to be amusing. You asked for my opinion and I rendered one."

"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings," she said hastily, choking back her laughter. "I'm glad you like it."

"I do. It is lovely."

He turned back to the speakers and continued listening. Annie curled her feet up on the couch, feeling peculiarly comfortable as she sat next to him in companionable silence. It was not often she found someone who liked to listen to cla.s.sical music with her. Kay liked music, but she was the exception rather than the rule.

After a few minutes, James leaned back. He regarded her with a thoughtful look, then slowly, hesitantly, slid an arm around her shoulders.

It felt good. It felt right. She knew she should discourage him, but she couldn't have moved away if her life depended on it. She snuggled up in the curve of his arm and leaned her head against his chest.

Tentatively, he reached up with his other hand and began to stroke her hair.

The careful touch of his fingers sent a s.h.i.+ver through her, all the way down to her toes. She slitted her eyes in contentment. "Aren't you listening to the music any more, James'"

"The music is beautiful," he said softly. "But you are more so."

His fingers threaded gently through the length of her hair, exploring it as if he'd never touched a woman's hair before. Perhaps he hadn't. She supposed a woman who used a man for selfish s.e.xual pleasure wasn't interested in having her hair caressed any more than she was interested in kissing. Evidently his job had been to provide s.e.xual satisfaction, and nothing more.

She pressed her cheek against his chest. Apparently taking her reaction as encouragement, he let his lips brush the top of her head. She trembled. There was nothing more in the world she would have liked to do than lift her head and kiss him. But something--something that felt very much like guilt--stopped her.

Somewhere, in the back of her mind, sanity was making a comeback. Sanity, laced liberally with shame. She sat up and moved away from him. "I think I should go to bed now," she said, avoiding his forthright cobalt gaze.

James stared at her in a way that made her suspect he could see right down to the depths of her soul. "Did I frighten you'"

That was the very last question she wanted to answer right now. Standing up hastily, she stalked across the room. "I can't do this," she said hoa.r.s.ely. "I really can't. My husband--" James stood. He made no effort to follow her, simply looked at her with compa.s.sion. "You told me your husband has been dead for a year."

"Yes."

"Perhaps it is time to start letting him go."

"How'" She turned on him with sudden anger. "By having s.e.x with a stranger' How will that help'"

"Am I a stranger'"

Annie closed her eyes, bewildered by the conflicting emotions that warred within her. "I've only known

you two days," she murmured. "Two days isn't long enough. You can't replace Steve. You can't."

"I am not attempting to replace him. I am certain that nothing will ever take his place in your heart."

She covered her face with her hands. "I'm afraid," she whispered brokenly. "I'm afraid that you could."

James said nothing. For long moments there was no sound except the sweetly flowing Vivaldi. At last he

spoke.

"I only want to give you joy, Annie."

She lowered her hands and looked at him, unaware there were tears on her cheeks until he stepped

closer and began brus.h.i.+ng them away. "Don't cry. Please don't. I didn't mean to make you unhappy."

The sincere distress in his voice was her undoing. He was so kind, so inexpressibly sweet. Her guilt and

confusion splintered into shards and melted away in the warmth of his gaze. Unable to stop herself, she pulled his head down and kissed him.

It was nothing like the first fumbling kiss they had shared. She did not feel in the least tentative or shy.

She felt powerful and s.e.xy. He was an extraordinary man, the most remarkable man she'd ever met, and she wanted him as much as she'd ever wanted anything. Not merely because he was beautiful, but because he was kind, thoughtful, and gentle.

Because she had become convinced he was a good man. Her kiss was forceful, determined, and his lips parted almost at once. She thrust her tongue inside his mouth, collapsing against him when his tongue found hers and stroked it. She let her hands run freely across his body, exploring and caressing, as she'd been longing to do since she first saw him. She cupped his gorgeous tight b.u.t.t and pulled him against her, feeling the heavy bulge of his erection against her abdomen, rubbing against him with nearly desperate haste. Kay had been right. It had been much, much too long since she'd made love to a man. She reached down between their bodies and found his erection, straining against the fabric of his slacks.

He was incredibly huge, she thought with a shock. Evidently some scientist had figured out how to engineer that as well. She ran her fingers experimentally along the length of him, and he stiffened.

"Annie."

At the startled alarm in his voice, she paused. "Don't you like that'" she murmured against his lips.

He caught her hand. "Don't."