He moved away, back toward the main part of the room, turning off lights and pushing all their work off to one side. She shuffled after him, stopping awkwardly a few feet away, not sure what he wanted her to do.
He found a music station on the clock radio, something playing jazz, and turned it down really low. When he was done, he turned back to her.
“Here.” He held out a hand. The room was dim, but not gloomy. She looked around, surprised. He’d actually managed to make it look way less like a conference room and more like a real room—a living room or a den. She took his hand and let him pull her next to him on the sofa. He tucked her under his arm. When he asked if she was comfy, she just nodded. She smiled a little, comforted.
There was a long moment, quiet and gentle, before he spoke again. “I didn’t think I was going to act on what I was feeling for you.” He paused and she could feel his chest rise and fall. “I didn’t know—I still don’t know—if it’s okay.”
“It’s okay with me,” she told him. “I really wanted, want this as much as you.” More even than that. She didn’t say it out loud. And why weren’t they downstairs buying condoms?
“Then it’s going to happen,” he assured her. “Can you understand why my first preference would not be to start here, in a hotel room ultimately paid for by the client? It just feels awkward to me, like some bad business affair cliché, to get romantic with a colleague while out of town.”
“The paralegal and the partner.”
“Exactly!”
She looked up at him as they laughed.
“Do you have someone? What I mean is, are you cheating on someone?”
“No. I told you that.” He didn’t sound annoyed by the question, but she was nervous all the same. “I haven’t been in a relationship for a couple of years. I just moved into my apartment in the Art Museum area two months ago. It’s still decorated in Early Cardboard Box.”
“Ah.”
“But the bed is made,” he volunteered in an encouraging voice.
She smiled. “Sounding better.” She mulled this over. “Of course, you could always come to the wilds of West Philly. You know where I live.”
“I’d like that.” She could feel the low vibrations when he chuckled.
“Here’s the thing,” she said. “I’m still aroused.”
He didn’t move. “Mmm. Me too.”
Okay, if he wasn’t going to tell her, she would just have to ask. “So why isn’t one of us going downstairs to buy condoms?”
“Anticipation. You know, sideways looks and fake accidental touches in the office, some surreptitious petting on the plane, a few suggestive emails—that kind of thing.”
“Oh, great, now I’m even hornier,” she complained, nestling closer to him.
“We could enjoy some heavy petting.” He didn’t move.
Meghan considered this seriously. She wanted to, she wanted to undress him and touch him and have him touch her. At the same time, she sensed he was right—that wouldn’t be as much fun if all they accomplished was more sexual frustration. The alternatives to making love all seemed too clinical. She was hot for him, not desperate. She could wait.
“Talk to me,” she countered.
“Suggestive talk? Office gossip? My childhood pet peeves? What did you have in mind?”
“Favorite movie.”
He thought for a moment. “Hard to answer, of course, because I have a couple. Twelve Angry Men is one. You know—with Henry Fonda as the lone juror holding out for acquittal? I know lawyers are supposed to say that To Kill a Mockingbird influenced them because Atticus Finch is such a great role model, but I love the drama of a single man arguing for what he believes in, challenging the prejudices of his fellow jurors and gradually winning them over. And as an added bonus, there are no lawyers in it.”
She could feel his cheek resting a little on her head. His voice was low and resonant. “How about you? Any movies made you want to be a lawyer?”
“Legally Blonde, of course,” she quipped. “Although I suppose now I should pick Erin Brockovich. The crusading paralegal who wins the case.”
“Okay.” He laughed. “Do you have a favorite movie?”
“It’s not very highbrow,” she confessed. “Love in the Afternoon. Audrey Hepburn and Gary Cooper.”
“I don’t know that one. What’s it about?”
“Audrey is the daughter of a widowed private investigator in Paris. She’s young, studying the cello. Her father—Maurice Chevalier—is investigating an American playboy—Gary Cooper—who’s got the worst reputation. So Audrey decides she has to meet this famous roué. She pretends to be a femme du monde herself, but it’s absurd—she’s clearly young and inexperienced. At the same time, she’s canny, and her stories of past lovers have lots of believable detail because they’re based on her father’s investigations of adultery.”
“That’s resourceful of her.”
“Exactly. Gary Cooper can’t help but be intrigued by her. He wants to believe that she’s had all these lovers because then he can make love to her too. He doesn’t want to believe that she’s had all these lovers because then she’s not who his heart says she is. Plus, he’s irrationally jealous.”
“So what happens?”
“Well, they meet in the afternoon because that’s when Audrey can get away from Papa. And she won’t deny any of her faux-liaisons, even though Gary Cooper gets angry at her. He figures it out, of course, the moment her deception is revealed. At the same time, he’s felt something with her, something real. There are tears, and the most wonderful ending in a Paris train station, when he finally realizes that he can’t live without her. Very romantic,” she finished. She didn’t want him to see that her eyes were moist.
He handed her a handkerchief. She didn’t know men actually still carried around handkerchiefs. This one was clean and had been pressed. She dabbed at her eyes discreetly.
They sat with only the jazz for a soundtrack. She could feel the heat from Dan’s body, hear the buh-thump of his heartbeat. He smelled familiar and different all at once. A woodsy scent combined with the aroma of his shirt. She trailed fingers along his forearm where his rolled-up sleeve revealed golden hairs on tanned skin.
It had to be late. She should probably go back to her room. She wasn’t sure what had been decided, but she felt okay however it ended. She just didn’t want to leave. She noticed Dan’s jaw tighten. He was stifling a yawn.
“I should go,” she offered. The arm around her tightened. “I don’t want to leave.” His arm relaxed.
“Would you—” he began.
“What?”
“It’s selfish. And maybe too kinky. I don’t know,” he faltered.
Okay, now she was intrigued. “Just tell me. I’ll say no to unacceptable levels of kink, I promise you.”
“Would you sleep here? With me? It’s a huge bed, and we can wear—well, whatever we would wear to bed. I just don’t want this evening to end.”
“That’s so sweet.” She twisted around so that her legs were draped over his and she could reach up to kiss him.
Oh boy, he kissed so well. Deep, soft, teasing, passionate—it was like the greatest hits of kissing. A top ten list. When his hands started drifting under her top, she pulled away.
“Horny territory, remember?”
He groaned.
“Let me go next door and brush my teeth. If I get cold feet, I’ll call so you don’t wait up. Otherwise, I’ll come back over. Okay?”
His eyes were shadowed in the room’s dim light, but she sensed she was getting that brilliant happy summer sky look. “Okay.”
She had a hard time leaving his room, what with his insistence on politely seeing her to the door, and the kissing, and the shared amusement when they—again—both reached for the doorknob. Which led to more kissing, deeper and more arousing kissing. More frustration. Totally worth it. Finally she slipped away.
Back in her room, she was shocked to see that she looked remarkably like the same
woman she’d been at the start of the day. She’d expected something dramatic to be written on her face, at least.
I’m going to sleep with Dan Howard.
She went to get the oversized T-shirt she slept in. She’d not had many sleepovers as a child—that just wasn’t something she could do with classmates. She’d had a roommate in college, a quiet girl from a farm in Northern Iowa, but they hadn’t really clicked.
As a consequence, Meghan was excited as much by the prospect of sharing whispers in the dark as the idea of anything sexual happening.
To be fair, she was still pretty excited by the sex thing too. She grinned at her reflection before reaching for the toothbrush. If the kissing was anything to go by, the sex would be a whole lot of fun.
Meghan figured it was a good sign that Dan wasn’t the kind of guy to have a 12-pack of condoms in his shaving kit, or worse, tucked into his wallet. Hopefully he wasn’t expecting too much—she wasn’t the most experienced lover. Obviously, she knew the basics, although she’d never been with anyone who tried to do more than the basic tab A in slot B. Nice enough guys—nice enough sex, even—but she’d always known there were more options available. She just hadn’t cared to ask for anything different.
She hoped she would be able to this time, she thought, as she hastily changed into the grungy Old Threshers T-shirt she’d brought to sleep in. She frowned at it—hardly seductive. She shrugged. Maybe that was a good thing. She slipped some jeans on over her panties—she wasn’t going back out into the hall virtually naked from the hips down. After checking that all the lights were off and grabbing the chocolate on the pillow—should have eaten that before brushing my teeth, hunh?—she padded over to knock on Dan’s door.
Dan gave the suite a quick check just before he heard her knock. Housekeeping had turned down his bed already and he wasn’t a particularly untidy person. It mattered to him that he not just grab at Meghan like she was a quick meal at the drive-thru window. He desired her—it took his breath away to think how much he wanted her—but he liked her even more. Work romances could be awkward. Respect and honesty had to be the way to keep their relationship from going south.
Of course, he should be smart and call this off now. It might not be too late for them to go back to being colleagues and nothing more.
Who was he kidding? They’d crossed that line about an hour ago. He would just have to be very careful and make sure Meghan was protected at work.
When he opened the door, his calm went out the window. She looked fresh and sweet, in jeans and a T-shirt and nothing on her feet. She held something out to him.
“It’s a host gift,” she teased, and dropped a foil-wrapped chocolate into his hand. “I’d already brushed my teeth when I found it, so you should eat it.”
“Same thing happened to me. That’s okay, we can have them tomorrow.” He followed her into the suite. She didn’t pause in the sitting room, just went straight into the bedroom.
“Which side do you sleep on,” she asked.
He pointed to the left. She grinned at him, then pulled back the covers on the right side. She unsnapped her jeans and wriggled out of them, giving him a glimpse of pale pink legs, then climbed into bed, pulling the covers up to her chest.
He wanted to laugh with joy, but his mouth had gone dry. Too obvious if he went for some water now, so he got busy getting undressed. He normally slept naked. That wasn’t happening here, so he stripped down to his boxers and climbed in on the left.
He turned toward her, his head up on his left hand. “What’s your T-shirt say?”
She glanced down, as if she couldn’t remember. “It from the Old Threshers Days back in Iowa. It’s like a county fair, only there’s a heavy emphasis on early steam-powered farm machines.”
“You’re from Iowa?”
“Mmm-hmm.” He decided that was not an invitation to ask her more about her childhood.
“I’m from Maine.” He could have kicked himself as soon as the words were out of his mouth.
Her smile was sly, teasing.
“I told you that already, didn’t I?” he asked.
“Aren’t you supposed to have some sort of accent, so you can tell me that I cahn’t get theyah from heeah?”
“Not if I wanted to continue living under my mother’s roof.”
She snuggled into her pillow, but her eyes were wide open. “Tell me about your mother,” she said.
“Smart, no-nonsense, principled. My dad’s a doctor at Maine Med, and my mother taught at the university. I like them both. It’s hard for me to see them as separate people, their identities are so caught up in their relationship.”
“Start with her name and what she looks like,” Meghan suggested.
“Anne Howard. Well, Anne Riedel Howard, actually. She got so many questions about whether that was one of Henry VIII’s wives that she started using her maiden name in self-defense.”
Meghan frowned. “But there’s no Anne Howard in that list. What are people doing, conflating Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard?”
“Now, see, my mother would love you” He felt his eyes get big at the idea of her meeting his parents.
She just smiled shyly back at him. He imagined introducing Meghan to his family. They’d be surprised because she wasn’t really the type he’d previously gone for, but her intelligence would win them over, even Dad. Watching those two going at it would be fun, he thought.
“Anyway, you were about to describe her to me,” Meghan prompted.
“Brown hair, now a bit grayer, I suppose. Blue eyes. I’m supposed to favor her, but I think it’s all in the coloring. My sisters look more like her, and I resemble my dad.” He didn’t feel like explaining about Christopher, how he was blond like his mother had been. Dan assumed that was one of the reasons Dad adored Chris—he looked like Margo, a living reminder of the woman who died too young.
Dan tried to keep from asking her the obvious question, but it came out anyway. “Do you look like your mom or your dad?”
He’d expected her face to shutter, her eyes a stop sign. She didn’t want to talk about her upbringing. He just didn’t know why. He was surprised when she didn’t look away.
“I’m supposed to be the spitting image of my father. I never knew him. I don’t look anything like my mother, who’s petite and blonde-ish.”
“You don’t like to talk about your past, do you,” he said, quietly.
She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. “You know that expression, ‘live in the moment’?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s my life. I mostly don’t think about the past, and I try hard not to think about the future. Which is why this is so much fun.”
“What’s so much fun? Being cross-examined by me?”
She was serious, though. “This,” she gestured at the room. “You. Before I came over here, I was thinking how I didn’t have sleepovers as a child. Now, I could dwell on all the reasons why that was the case, but it’s nicer to enjoy being here with you.”
Dan was stunned, then laughed. “This is a sleepover?”
She rolled back to look at him again. “Well, isn’t it? We’re going to sleep eventually, but for now we’re talking in the near-dark, sharing stuff.”
“Um, okay, sure. What happened to horny, though?”
She frowned. “I thought we weren’t doing horny, on account of how we don’t have condoms.”
He rolled his eyes in frustration. “Correct. The shadow of horniness should always be looming. At least it’s looming for me, and if I think hard about that sliver of pale pink silk I saw when you took off your jeans, it’s not just looming, it’s pretty much crashing over my head. So imagine how devastated I am that you’re so un-horny that you can compare this to a pre-teen sleepover.”
She giggled. “Well, as I never had a sleepover before, I didn’t realize they were horniness-free zones.” She closed her eyes. “Mmm. Pale blue, with white pinstripes, and the waistband is white with pale blue pinstripes. You we
ar them low on your hips, so I could see those dimples guys have above the ass. And there’s an unhelpful button midway on the placket.”
“Say what?”
“Your boxers. If you were imagining my panties, I thought I would return the favor and remember your boxers.”
“You noticed what color they were?” he demanded. “I couldn’t have told you what they looked like, and I’ve had them on all day.”
“I have a very good memory.” She smiled a secret little smile.
Dan thought she was laughing at him. He couldn’t be sure. “Well, if I’d had a T-shirt that covered most of my underwear, you’d be forced to imagine stuff too.”
“Poor baby,” she crooned. “Here, you can use the Braille method.” She pulled on his right hand and scooted over toward him so that his hand could reach her left hip. Her skin was warm, both where the fabric of her panties covered it, and especially where the fabric didn’t.
“Okay, so now you have to admit this is not a traditional sleepover,” he said, groaning slightly over the tantalizing proximity of his hand to all sorts of things he really wanted to touch. Her waist, her rear, her—
“I’m telling you, I don’t know from traditional sleepovers. This is now officially my exemplar for the tradition.”
“Meghan, if you think using words like ‘exemplar’ is going to stop me from getting hard, you are sadly mistaken. For some reason, I find your intelligence sexy.”
She laughed, delighted. “Right back atcha.”
Dan used his hand to tug her even closer to him. If she wasn’t going to respect his assurances, some physical proof might be in order. She giggled again, a charming noise, and then sighed as she snuggled up against his chest. It was sublime torture, of course, but irresistible. He could feel the softness of her well-washed cotton T-shirt, and beneath that, her breasts. He pressed her into him gently, and she must have read his mind because she wriggled a little. Exquisite.
He couldn’t move—his will power was not that good. Not when he knew how easy it would be to move them both past a point of reason and maturity. So he deliberately forced his arms to relax around her back, holding her close while not urging her to do any more of that devilish wiggling. Her hip was pressed against his erection, but that too was just—barely—this side of insanity. And all of it, absolutely all of it, was too nice to stop.
The Cost of Happiness: A Contemporary Romance Page 12
