An hour later, Jordan was putting the last of the stools on the tables.
"Dad, are you sure you don't want us to stick around and help."
"No Jordan, go home. But first make sure he makes it home in one piece...." Max said grimly as he pointed over at Woody who was leaning his head against the window looking out at the dark street.
"No problem. G'night, Dad."
"Good night sweetheart."
Jordan picked up her bag and coat and walked over quietly to Woody's side.
"Do you want to share a cab?"
"I don't think that would be a good idea Jordan." Woody replied with a sigh.
"Oh, would you cut it out...this curse shit is getting older by the second."
Jordan didn't stop for his poor-me drivel and dragged him bodily out of the pub and into a waiting cab. She told the cabbie Woody's address and settled back waiting for Woody to stop his whining. The street lights were all off and uniformed police officer were directing traffic...it looked like it was going to be a long ride.
On an alcohol induced whim she took her boots off and handed them to him one at a time.
"What the hell are you doing?" he asked
When she noticed his babbling had stopped she looked over at him. "It looks like we're going to be here for awhile," she commented looking out the window at the traffic. "My feet are killing me" Jordan leaned back against the corner of the seat and pulled her knees up to her chest. "Wake me up when we get there."
Woody shook his head and reached over to swing Jordan's legs into his lap. When she arched a perfectly shaped brow at him he said. "At least on of us can be comfortable..." He leaned his head back and closed his eyes while rubbing small circles in the arch of Jordan's foot.
She felt the warmth of his hands as they worked their magic on her feet. She curled her toes around his fingers feeling the tenderness and accepting the sudden tide of arousal she was feeling as a natural circumstance of falling in love with him.
"We could've walked faster." he said interrupting her thoughts..... And what thoughts they were.
Love...? She cringed. Alcohol had a way of distorting reality. She couldn't possibly be in love with him......
"Are you alright?"
"Yes, of course" she stammered sitting up pulling her feet abruptly away from his lap.
Woody thought she was asleep for the amount of conversation that took place as the taxi picked its way toward his building. They were less then a block away when the taxicab sputtered and stalled in the middle of the street.
"I don't believe this. I'm outta gas." the cabbie exclaimed.
Jordan couldn't help herself. For the second time that evening she laughed out hard and long. The tears were rolling down her face when she handed the cabbie a wad of bills and opened the door.
"We need to get you off the streets before anything else can happen." she said yanking Woody by the tie until he was forced to scrambled out of the cab instead of running the risk of strangulation.
Maybe it was the sudden blast of night air or the action of standing vertical so quickly but Jordan took a step forward and tumbled into him.
"Shit" he grabbed her wrapping his arms around her supporting her weight with his body. So soft and warm and she smelled good, despite the bourbon and smoke from the bar.
"I think I drank to much." she giggled and leaned against him.
"Really? I would have never guessed." He hauled her away from the cab. It was time to get her sobered up. "Come on sweetheart. I'll call you another cab from my place. It's time to get you home."
"So you can have your wicked ways with me?" catching him off guard she sprayed her body against his her breast crushed into his chest and her lower body met his as she pulled him down for a full, but for too brief kiss on the lips.
Pulling away from her was the last thing he wanted to do but he had no choice. He peeled her off him and braced his arms around her so he could lead her inside.
"No Jordan, I value my life to much to take advantage of you like this."
"Did you know that women are more vulnerable than men to many adverse consequences of alcohol use?"
"No, I didn't." he chuckled wryly holding her arm in one hand and her boots in the other.
"In general, women have less body water than men of similar body weight, so that women achieve higher concentrations of alcohol in the blood after drinking equivalent amounts of alcohol .....It's not fair, you out weigh me by at least...."
She stopped walking and looked him up and down with a critical eye. 'Damn' she thought trying to remember what she was talking about and not think about the color of his eyes. She shook her head and continued on.
"But there is a bright side....Women absorb and metabolize alcohol differently than men. Women eliminate alcohol from the blood faster than males. You see, women have a higher liver volume per unit lean body mass.....and alcohol is metabolized almost entirely in the liver....."
"That's quite informative Doctor Cavanaugh...Now hold these while I open the door."
Jordan looked around when Woody handed her her shoes. They were standing outside his apartment. Once the door was open he went inside leaving Jordan standing there trying to figure out how they got there that fast and why her shoes were in her hand and not on her feet.
"Don't just stand there Jordan." Woody's disembodied voice yelled out to her. She poked her head in first and looked around before she stepped in.
"Where are you?"
"Kitchen...shut the door."
Jordan sheepishly turned around and closed the door behind her. Clutching her boots to her chest she found him at the kitchen sink making coffee with one hand holding the phone with his other. Without asking she knew he was calling her a cab. One by one she ran her fingers over personal items lying about as she meandered into the kitchen. She stopped in front of a refrigerator littered with take out menus hung with magnets on the front. She read them off in her own way.
"Delivery guys have an attitude...Peking duck is lousy...Subs are okay but the pizza is to greasy...Never answers their phone..............."
When she stopped talking he looked up and saw her staring at the wall.
"What?"
"Look, don't you see it?" she pointed with one finger.
He dropped his head to her level to look. He stifled 'oomph' when Jordan all but stabbed him with the heels of her boots when she passed them to him. She reached up and grabbed the clock off the wall.
"Its 12:05. It's tomorrow. Your birthday is officially over."
Woody grinned enigmatically "It won't be until I have made sure you've made it home in one piece. The cab should be here in about twenty minutes."
Still looking at the clock Jordan leaned against the refrigerator. She was starting to sober up. And for the life of her she didn't want to. Birthdays were suppose to be special not painful. At least that was what she's been told. With a smug smile she flipped the clock over and turned back the hands.
"There...." she said looking at her handy work "It's only eleven o'clock."
"What are you doing?"
"Giving you one more hour of your birthday, only this time the stars are not aligned. It'll be our secret." Tossing the clock over on the counter she tapped a bunt fingertip against his chest accentuating each word. "Nothing...else... can.... possibly... go.... wrong." She flattened her hand against his chest and asked, "....hummm, if you could have a birthday wish what would it be?"
The room was closing in on him. He dropped her boots down in the most logical place he could think of at that moment.
"I don't believe in birthday wishes Jordan."
"You should." She whispered reaching for the nap of his neck with her palm.
Hell, she'd regret her actions in the morning she knew it, but there was just so much you could blame on too much bourbon and in her heart she knew this wasn't one of them.
When her lips met his he was lost. Why not take hold of an opportunity and have a little pleasure, especially since that pleasure seemed to handing itself to him on a silver platter? Why not? Given that his attraction to her was stronger that anything he'd felt in a very long time. Maybe in his whole life.
She took his hand and led him to the bedroom.
"Wait!....what.....Now?!" he nearly choked and put the breaks on.
"Yes, now farm boy"
"The cab will be waiting..."
Jordon grabbed his arms and wrapped them around her waist.
"If you have other plans..." she said in that matter-of-fact, dry reporter kind of way as she finished loosening his tie.
"NO! I mean no...If you're sure...."
She took his shocked face in her hands and brought his mouth closer. "Oh, I'm sure." she whispered on his lips just before she kissed him.
He felt like he had just entered the 'Twilight Zone'. He knew that it was just the situation; a disastrous birthday celebration and too much to drink, that staged this moment. But for one night he was going to let himself dream that this wasn't just a one time...mistake.
Jordan decided she was having an out of body experience. Her mind was telling her to run and her body was screaming for the release of months of tension.
She purposely ignored the little voice that said "I told you so."
Jordan didn't know if she was being extremely foolish or refreshingly honest. Maybe it was the bourbon talking. Maybe it was some innate reflex to try and make up for some lost innocent joy from their pasts.....perhaps it wasn't. She knew it was probably a foolish mistake, but so be it. She could pick up the pieces of her self-esteem after.
"Jordan?" He whispered, pulling away long enough to murmur her name. She recaptured his mouth. She didn't want to talk, she didn't want him to analyze. He could do that later. At that moment she just wanted. Clothes melted away in string of moans and fumbling laughter.
At the point of no return, she let her own mind question what it was about him...
.......Why him? Why now?.....
It wasn't the feel of his warm palm on her breast that caused the rapid acceleration of her heart. And it sure as hell wasn't the way he softly ran his hand up the side of her hip, or his throaty sigh when she moved beneath him.
It wasn't any of those things.
Maybe......maybe it was his breath on her hair, the way it warmed her scalp. Or the slow way he slid down her body, pausing to leave a moist kiss here or to brush his fingertips against her skin there.
It might have been the grind of his hips, the surge that she first felt when he entered her. That union of sensations.....That they were connected, that she couldn't wait.....that he needed to move. The primal sound of longing that came from deep in her soul. Or the automatic grasp of her hands on the bed sheets as he moved within her, searching for and finding a steady anchor, when she felt herself falling head first into the deep end.
Could it be the taste of his skin, the salt, the feeling of his nipple against her tongue as she drew it into her mouth? Or his slight gasp as she slowly closed her teeth?
She knew it wasn't the way he whispered in her ear. She'd had other lovers. She'd heard sweet nothings before.
Perhaps it was the way he took her to that wonderful place where she simply floated. She gasped, reveling in the feel of his movements, in the hardness of his body, his fingers touching her, mapping her body. After all, she could hear the small noises she knew must come from her own throat.
If she didn't know better, she would have thought it was the euphoric way her body exploded in an earth-shattering sensation, rising off the mattress, slamming into his.
But she knew that wasn't it that.
No, when she really thought about it, she knew it was the way he held her secure while her body shook. The way he welcomed her climax much as he did his own.
The way he mumbled, 'I love you' so low, she knew that he thought only he himself could hear it.
It was the way he kissed her forehead and stroked her face as she settled back to earth. The feeling she had as he nuzzled her ear and took her hand in his weaving their fingers together to the point where she couldn't tell where his hand ended and hers started. The way he asked softly if she were ready before he began moving within her again, his body promising things her heart had only just sampled a taste of.
Later, when sleep finally claimed her, she contemplated, with perfect clarity, about how truly simple life could be....too bad the morning light would change all that.
"Dad, are you sure you don't want us to stick around and help."
"No Jordan, go home. But first make sure he makes it home in one piece...." Max said grimly as he pointed over at Woody who was leaning his head against the window looking out at the dark street.
"No problem. G'night, Dad."
"Good night sweetheart."
Jordan picked up her bag and coat and walked over quietly to Woody's side.
"Do you want to share a cab?"
"I don't think that would be a good idea Jordan." Woody replied with a sigh.
"Oh, would you cut it out...this curse shit is getting older by the second."
Jordan didn't stop for his poor-me drivel and dragged him bodily out of the pub and into a waiting cab. She told the cabbie Woody's address and settled back waiting for Woody to stop his whining. The street lights were all off and uniformed police officer were directing traffic...it looked like it was going to be a long ride.
On an alcohol induced whim she took her boots off and handed them to him one at a time.
"What the hell are you doing?" he asked
When she noticed his babbling had stopped she looked over at him. "It looks like we're going to be here for awhile," she commented looking out the window at the traffic. "My feet are killing me" Jordan leaned back against the corner of the seat and pulled her knees up to her chest. "Wake me up when we get there."
Woody shook his head and reached over to swing Jordan's legs into his lap. When she arched a perfectly shaped brow at him he said. "At least on of us can be comfortable..." He leaned his head back and closed his eyes while rubbing small circles in the arch of Jordan's foot.
She felt the warmth of his hands as they worked their magic on her feet. She curled her toes around his fingers feeling the tenderness and accepting the sudden tide of arousal she was feeling as a natural circumstance of falling in love with him.
"We could've walked faster." he said interrupting her thoughts..... And what thoughts they were.
Love...? She cringed. Alcohol had a way of distorting reality. She couldn't possibly be in love with him......
"Are you alright?"
"Yes, of course" she stammered sitting up pulling her feet abruptly away from his lap.
Woody thought she was asleep for the amount of conversation that took place as the taxi picked its way toward his building. They were less then a block away when the taxicab sputtered and stalled in the middle of the street.
"I don't believe this. I'm outta gas." the cabbie exclaimed.
Jordan couldn't help herself. For the second time that evening she laughed out hard and long. The tears were rolling down her face when she handed the cabbie a wad of bills and opened the door.
"We need to get you off the streets before anything else can happen." she said yanking Woody by the tie until he was forced to scrambled out of the cab instead of running the risk of strangulation.
Maybe it was the sudden blast of night air or the action of standing vertical so quickly but Jordan took a step forward and tumbled into him.
"Shit" he grabbed her wrapping his arms around her supporting her weight with his body. So soft and warm and she smelled good, despite the bourbon and smoke from the bar.
"I think I drank to much." she giggled and leaned against him.
"Really? I would have never guessed." He hauled her away from the cab. It was time to get her sobered up. "Come on sweetheart. I'll call you another cab from my place. It's time to get you home."
"So you can have your wicked ways with me?" catching him off guard she sprayed her body against his her breast crushed into his chest and her lower body met his as she pulled him down for a full, but for too brief kiss on the lips.
Pulling away from her was the last thing he wanted to do but he had no choice. He peeled her off him and braced his arms around her so he could lead her inside.
"No Jordan, I value my life to much to take advantage of you like this."
"Did you know that women are more vulnerable than men to many adverse consequences of alcohol use?"
"No, I didn't." he chuckled wryly holding her arm in one hand and her boots in the other.
"In general, women have less body water than men of similar body weight, so that women achieve higher concentrations of alcohol in the blood after drinking equivalent amounts of alcohol .....It's not fair, you out weigh me by at least...."
She stopped walking and looked him up and down with a critical eye. 'Damn' she thought trying to remember what she was talking about and not think about the color of his eyes. She shook her head and continued on.
"But there is a bright side....Women absorb and metabolize alcohol differently than men. Women eliminate alcohol from the blood faster than males. You see, women have a higher liver volume per unit lean body mass.....and alcohol is metabolized almost entirely in the liver....."
"That's quite informative Doctor Cavanaugh...Now hold these while I open the door."
Jordan looked around when Woody handed her her shoes. They were standing outside his apartment. Once the door was open he went inside leaving Jordan standing there trying to figure out how they got there that fast and why her shoes were in her hand and not on her feet.
"Don't just stand there Jordan." Woody's disembodied voice yelled out to her. She poked her head in first and looked around before she stepped in.
"Where are you?"
"Kitchen...shut the door."
Jordan sheepishly turned around and closed the door behind her. Clutching her boots to her chest she found him at the kitchen sink making coffee with one hand holding the phone with his other. Without asking she knew he was calling her a cab. One by one she ran her fingers over personal items lying about as she meandered into the kitchen. She stopped in front of a refrigerator littered with take out menus hung with magnets on the front. She read them off in her own way.
"Delivery guys have an attitude...Peking duck is lousy...Subs are okay but the pizza is to greasy...Never answers their phone..............."
When she stopped talking he looked up and saw her staring at the wall.
"What?"
"Look, don't you see it?" she pointed with one finger.
He dropped his head to her level to look. He stifled 'oomph' when Jordan all but stabbed him with the heels of her boots when she passed them to him. She reached up and grabbed the clock off the wall.
"Its 12:05. It's tomorrow. Your birthday is officially over."
Woody grinned enigmatically "It won't be until I have made sure you've made it home in one piece. The cab should be here in about twenty minutes."
Still looking at the clock Jordan leaned against the refrigerator. She was starting to sober up. And for the life of her she didn't want to. Birthdays were suppose to be special not painful. At least that was what she's been told. With a smug smile she flipped the clock over and turned back the hands.
"There...." she said looking at her handy work "It's only eleven o'clock."
"What are you doing?"
"Giving you one more hour of your birthday, only this time the stars are not aligned. It'll be our secret." Tossing the clock over on the counter she tapped a bunt fingertip against his chest accentuating each word. "Nothing...else... can.... possibly... go.... wrong." She flattened her hand against his chest and asked, "....hummm, if you could have a birthday wish what would it be?"
The room was closing in on him. He dropped her boots down in the most logical place he could think of at that moment.
"I don't believe in birthday wishes Jordan."
"You should." She whispered reaching for the nap of his neck with her palm.
Hell, she'd regret her actions in the morning she knew it, but there was just so much you could blame on too much bourbon and in her heart she knew this wasn't one of them.
When her lips met his he was lost. Why not take hold of an opportunity and have a little pleasure, especially since that pleasure seemed to handing itself to him on a silver platter? Why not? Given that his attraction to her was stronger that anything he'd felt in a very long time. Maybe in his whole life.
She took his hand and led him to the bedroom.
"Wait!....what.....Now?!" he nearly choked and put the breaks on.
"Yes, now farm boy"
"The cab will be waiting..."
Jordon grabbed his arms and wrapped them around her waist.
"If you have other plans..." she said in that matter-of-fact, dry reporter kind of way as she finished loosening his tie.
"NO! I mean no...If you're sure...."
She took his shocked face in her hands and brought his mouth closer. "Oh, I'm sure." she whispered on his lips just before she kissed him.
He felt like he had just entered the 'Twilight Zone'. He knew that it was just the situation; a disastrous birthday celebration and too much to drink, that staged this moment. But for one night he was going to let himself dream that this wasn't just a one time...mistake.
Jordan decided she was having an out of body experience. Her mind was telling her to run and her body was screaming for the release of months of tension.
She purposely ignored the little voice that said "I told you so."
Jordan didn't know if she was being extremely foolish or refreshingly honest. Maybe it was the bourbon talking. Maybe it was some innate reflex to try and make up for some lost innocent joy from their pasts.....perhaps it wasn't. She knew it was probably a foolish mistake, but so be it. She could pick up the pieces of her self-esteem after.
"Jordan?" He whispered, pulling away long enough to murmur her name. She recaptured his mouth. She didn't want to talk, she didn't want him to analyze. He could do that later. At that moment she just wanted. Clothes melted away in string of moans and fumbling laughter.
At the point of no return, she let her own mind question what it was about him...
.......Why him? Why now?.....
It wasn't the feel of his warm palm on her breast that caused the rapid acceleration of her heart. And it sure as hell wasn't the way he softly ran his hand up the side of her hip, or his throaty sigh when she moved beneath him.
It wasn't any of those things.
Maybe......maybe it was his breath on her hair, the way it warmed her scalp. Or the slow way he slid down her body, pausing to leave a moist kiss here or to brush his fingertips against her skin there.
It might have been the grind of his hips, the surge that she first felt when he entered her. That union of sensations.....That they were connected, that she couldn't wait.....that he needed to move. The primal sound of longing that came from deep in her soul. Or the automatic grasp of her hands on the bed sheets as he moved within her, searching for and finding a steady anchor, when she felt herself falling head first into the deep end.
Could it be the taste of his skin, the salt, the feeling of his nipple against her tongue as she drew it into her mouth? Or his slight gasp as she slowly closed her teeth?
She knew it wasn't the way he whispered in her ear. She'd had other lovers. She'd heard sweet nothings before.
Perhaps it was the way he took her to that wonderful place where she simply floated. She gasped, reveling in the feel of his movements, in the hardness of his body, his fingers touching her, mapping her body. After all, she could hear the small noises she knew must come from her own throat.
If she didn't know better, she would have thought it was the euphoric way her body exploded in an earth-shattering sensation, rising off the mattress, slamming into his.
But she knew that wasn't it that.
No, when she really thought about it, she knew it was the way he held her secure while her body shook. The way he welcomed her climax much as he did his own.
The way he mumbled, 'I love you' so low, she knew that he thought only he himself could hear it.
It was the way he kissed her forehead and stroked her face as she settled back to earth. The feeling she had as he nuzzled her ear and took her hand in his weaving their fingers together to the point where she couldn't tell where his hand ended and hers started. The way he asked softly if she were ready before he began moving within her again, his body promising things her heart had only just sampled a taste of.
Later, when sleep finally claimed her, she contemplated, with perfect clarity, about how truly simple life could be....too bad the morning light would change all that.