Chapter 37-We Never Have Any Fun

"Life of the Party"

Amanda smiled in amusement as the blonde intentionally brushed against Lee in passing just before a server appeared with a tray of Hors D'oeurves at which her partner turned up his nose, despite her encouragement. She sipped at her champagne just as the blonde reappeared to make another attempt at capturing Lee's attention, this time wedging herself between them.

"Hi," the blonde purred.

"Hi," Lee said in response.

"Don't I know you?" The woman said as Amanda rolled her eyes. Could she be more obvious?

"No, I don't think so," Lee said politely, but really wanted nothing more than for her to go away and she had obviously not gotten the hint that he wasn't interested when he'd ignored her earlier pass at him.

"Well, I'm Betsy Jordan," she replied. "Buy me a drink?"

Lee shifted uncomfortably at her blatantness. There was a time when he'd have jumped right in, but he found that type of woman no longer appealed to him. "Uh...Sorry...I'm really not very thirsty," he said as politely as he could. Truthfully, he was thirsty, but not for anything Betsy Jordan could supply. He'd been mesmerized by watching Amanda sip at her champagne, vividly reliving memories of their lovemaking in his apartment. "Maybe some other time, huh?" What would it take to get her to take a hike?

"I'll be here all night," she said seductively. "Look me up if...uh..." she cast a cool glare at Amanda who just smiled sweetly, "...things get dull."

Amanda snorted with laughter as the pouty blonde walked away finding herself thoroughly amused by the whole thing. She'd learned that the blonde bimbo type no longer held Lee's interest after the "Randi-baby" incident last week. When Lee gave her a look, she said, "Sorry."

"Amanda," Lee said with a look that told her exactly what had just been on his mind.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Not hungry, not thirsty and not interested in Betsy Jordan, you must not be feeling well."

Lee sighed and said, "I'm really very sorry, Amanda," as he took her arm. "I know I'm not being very much fun tonight."

"Oh, that's all right, Lee. We never have much fun," Amanda replied. Then at seeing the shocked and somewhat hurt look on his face, she backpedaled. "Oh, I mean, no, we're really not supposed to." She stammered an awkward apology and whispered about being his cover, but inwardly she wished just once that they could attend one of these parties with her just as his date, not his cover.

As their conversation turned back to their reason for being at the party, Lee still couldn't shake off the nagging doubt that had crept into his mind at Amanda's crack about not having fun together. Did she really feel that way? He could have sworn that she'd had fun during their floorplay at his apartment just a few days ago, but maybe he was wrong. Surely, she wasn't the type of woman to fake it. No, he thought. Her reactions to him were too intense to be fake, the way her body had trembled beneath his, the way she'd...He shook off those nagging thoughts and tried to focus on the case at hand.

A while later, his plans thwarted by the disappearance of the papers containing the dirty details of Johnny Salinas' colorful career, Lee went to look for Amanda, wondering what had taken her so long to go to the powder room. As he turned down the hall to find the bathroom, he spotted her just leaving the room and hurried to catch up with her, gently pushing her back into the room.

"Lee, what are you doing," Amanda said in surprise.

In response, Lee turned the lock on the door and approached her, sliding his hands to her waist and said, "This," just before capturing her lips in a fiery kiss and backing her up against the marble countertop. He was delighted when she responded by opening her mouth beneath his and wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him in for a deeper kiss.

Amanda moaned under the onslaught of his lips on hers, his tongue probing her mouth, his hands at her waist sliding up under her sparkly jacket to caress the skin of her back that her dress exposed when not covered by the jacket she'd worn over it, something her mother had insisted on before leaving the house. She pulled away for a moment, panting. His searing kisses always took her breath away. "So...uh...it seems...You're hungry for something, after all," she said through her heavy breathing.

"You," Lee said in a husky passion-filled voice before pushing her jacket from her shoulders and lowering his lips to her neck. "Only you," he whispered against the tender pulse point as he grasped her bottom to lift her up onto the counter.

"Oh," Amanda gasped in response as she felt his hands sliding up under her dress, bunching the fabric up around her thighs before slipping one hand inside her panties. "Lee," she hissed as he began to stroke her hard and fast, driving her over a powerful climax in mere minutes. She clamped her mouth shut as she tried to keep herself from crying out too loudly as they were in someone else's home.

"Let it out, Amanda," Lee growled as he dipped a finger into her while he continued to caress her with this thumb. "I wanna' hear you come."

Lee's words, combined with the dual-sensations he was creating sent her over the edge and she could no longer contain her response, "Lee!" she screamed as her body convulsed.

Lee removed his hand from her, slid her panties down her legs, quickly freed himself from the tight constraints his pants created and plunged into her before the tremors of her orgasm had subsided. "Oh," he groaned as her walls closed around him. He gripped her hips tightly, retreated and then slammed into her harder than before, needing to prove to her that they could have fun together even on a work assignment and that she was more to him than just his cover. If all he wanted her there for was a cover, he could have asked any woman at the agency. He knew several who would be only too happy to play the role of his arm-candy for the night, but he only wanted Amanda on his arm. Not just on his arm, in his life, in his bed, if they ever managed to make it there, and most definitely, she was the only woman in his heart. "Amanda!" he cried as he continued to drive into her hard and fast until he could no longer control himself and felt himself erupting inside her.

"Yes, Lee," Amanda cried at feeling him spurting his warm seed into her, taking immense pleasure in the fact that he wanted her, that she could cause that reaction in him when the likes of Betsy Jordan couldn't capture his attention for more that thirty seconds.

Lee halted his jerky movements as the last vestiges of his release began to subside and just held her for a moment, peppering her neck with soft kisses while he got his breathing under control. He pulled back from her, straightened his clothing, smiled a devilish smile at her and said, "Now, what was it you were saying about us not having any fun?"

Amanda couldn't help but laugh and replied, "You know that I meant at these parties. I didn't mean that we never have any fun together. It's just that every party we go to, we're always working. It's...um...it's never about having fun together. It's not like it's...a...a date or anything like that." Having realized how that sounded as if she were asking him to take her on a date, she quickly hopped down from the counter, reached for her discarded panties and turned from him.

"Right," Lee said. "Not a date. We're working." He gently reached for her and turned her to face him, smiled at her again and said, "But that doesn't mean that once in while we can't enjoy our work...right?"

"Right," she said smiling back at him.

The next day while Amanda was bent over mopping the kitchen floor, her mother walked in and without so much as a hello, said, "So, you must have had a good time on your date last night."

"What?" Amanda said as she stood to face her. "I wasn't' on a date, Mother. I told you, I was working."

"Uh-huh," Dotty said as she tugged at her daughter's collar. "Exactly what kind of work results in this," she asked indicating the love bite where her neck met her shoulder. "I assume you were "working" with that Lee again."

"Mother!" Amanda said tugging her collar back in place to hide the evidence, hoping that neither of her boys had seen it as well. How would she explain it to them?

As if sensing her thoughts, her mother said, "Oh, relax, Amanda. The boys haven't noticed it and it's low enough that I don't think they will. I just happened to notice it when you were bent over the mop. So, this thing between you is still going on?"

"Mother," Amanda said in a warning tone.

"Look, I'm not trying to meddle, but I won't lie and say that I'm not concerned for you. I mean, we're talking about over a year now and yet, this man has never been introduced to the family, never been invited over for dinner. I had hoped when he asked you to meet his only living relative a couple of weeks ago that the two of you were heading toward a real future."

"Mother, please, just let me worry about that," Amanda said but couldn't help smiling as she recalled the events of the night before, "And stop trying to make him a member of the family. He's the type of man who can't be pushed. He...he's been through a lot in his life and he has a hard time opening up."

"Well, I imagine being an orphan would cause him to have some serious trust issues. I can understand that, but it doesn't seem that he has any trouble opening up in the bedroom department."

"Mother, stop, really, just stop. You just have to trust that I know what I'm doing. If I push him too hard, that will just send him running for the hills and I don't want that. I don't want to take the risk of scaring him off."

"Amanda, you're not afraid that I'd scare him off, are you," Dotty said looking a bit affronted.

"Mother, I love you. You know that, but you have this tendency to..." Amanda paused as she tried to find a tactful way to put it.

"To what, Amanda?" Dotty questioned as she folded her arms across her chest.

"To interrogate my dates as if they're suspects in a homicide and you're the lead investigator. I think sometimes you've read too many Agatha Christie novels. Now, I don't want to talk about this anymore. We still have a lot of spring cleaning to do."

"All right, all right," Dotty said holding up her hands in surrender. "I just want you to be careful. I don't want to see you get your heart broken again." She then bustled up the stairs to continue her work.

Amanda gazed after her mother for a moment, then said softly to herself, "Me either."

Two days later when cleaning up the house they were assigned to, Amanda found herself once again the subject of an interrogation as Francine had cornered her while she was working on the master suite.

"Amanda, we need to talk," Francine said.

"Look, Francine, if you're going to try to bribe me into doing the guest bathroom for you again, you can just forget it. Our instructions were very specific."

"I don't give a damn about the guest bathroom. It can grow Penicillin for all I care," Francine said disdainfully at the thought of cleaning someone else's bathroom. "I want to talk to you about Lee."

"What about him," Amanda said as she continued to work, dusting around the wooden frame of the mirrored dresser.

"What exactly is going on between the two of you," Francine demanded.

"I don't know what you mean, Francine," Amanda said evasively.

"Come on, Amanda, don't give me that innocent look. I've already learned that you're not as naive or as innocent as you pretend to be. I've seen the smoldering looks that have been passing between you and Lee and the office for months. You're sleeping with him, aren't you?" She knew that she was because Lee had more or less confirmed it by his lack of answers the numerous times she'd confronted him about it.

"Francine, that is none of your business," Amanda said hotly. Who did she think she was asking her a question like that?

"Okay, you wanna' play it that way, fine! But know this, Amanda, Lee Stetson, while he can be sweet and charming when he wants to get in, can be ruthless and even downright cruel when he wants to get out."

"Speaking from personal experience, Francine," Amanda said and smiled in triumph as it was clear that she'd struck a nerve. She already knew from her weekend at the Cumberland with Lee and he and Francine had once been involved.

Francine recovered almost instantly from her moment of weakness and said coolly, "Let's just say that I've known Lee a lot longer than you have," and then quickly made her way out the door smiling smugly at having had the last word.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"She did what?" Lee said when Amanda told him about her confrontation with Francine.

"Oh, Lee, don't worry about it, "Amanda said. "It wasn't that big of a deal. I can hold my own with Francine. I just thought you should know that she suspects that there's...you know...something between us."

"Yeah, I know. She's asked me about it a couple of times too," Lee said.

"Why didn't you ever say anything?"Amanda said.

"Because we all still have to work together and I didn't want you to be embarrassed by knowing that Francine knows. I'm sure you know by now that she's not exactly subtle."

"Oh," Amanda said not sure whether she should feel flattered that he'd tried to protect her or insulted that he seemed to think she couldn't' protect herself.

"I'm gonna' have to get her back for this one," Lee said with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

Two days later, Amanda giggled in delight as she watched Francine's facial expression change from one of glee at her booking of Mrs. Flanagan to one of sheer annoyance at Lee's gift to her. She watched in amusement as Francine shoved the offending feather duster at Lee and flounced off in a huff.

Lee looked at Amanda, grinned and said, "So, how's that for having fun?"