He did not immediately reply but gazed down at her and thought about that. Another thing Shana liked about him. He thought about everything she said to him. He thought about it hard.
But he ended this consideration with a return of his smile and a shake of his head. "I am excited," he admitted. "And happy and contented — "
"Not to mention sexually satisfied."
Dash laughed. "Not to mention that. But Shana." He took her hand from his face and his smile softened as their fingers laced. "I'm very sure I'm not making more out of this than there is. I don't think I could. It's just so...big." He reached out to stroke her face with their joined hands. "Don't you feel that, too?"
She did. Oh yes, of course she did. So much so that looking into his sincere blue eyes, Shana felt tears well up. "Still," she told him. "We're going to let this...percolate. Make sure."
"Oh, absolutely." He bent to kiss her. It was a short, sweet kiss of promise. "When we get married, Shana, even you will be thinking it's a great idea."
She laughed, as did he. And the laugh led to another kiss, which led to yet another, with each successive kiss less sweet and a bit more carnal.
"It's your turn, darling," Dash murmured, before nothing was said again for a long, gasping while.
~~~
It was a sight that would have warmed a heart much harder than Brittany's, though Brittany wasn't sure any more how hard a heart she owned. Peter stood leaning against the open door of the kids' bedroom with his arms folded over his chest, his ankles crossed, and his face softly pensive. He turned when he heard her walk up. "Babysitter gone?" he asked.
"Gone, and happy to be so." Brittany let herself lean into him when he uncrossed one arm to wrap it around her waist. "Though the boys look like perfect angels when they're unconscious, don't they?"
Peter gave her waist a squeeze. "They're always little angels to me."
Brittany's grunt was somewhere between mockery of this statement, and acknowledgment Peter might actually believe it. Another reason her heart wasn't so hard any more. How could any armor around it withstand a man who was not only gorgeous, a terrific lover, reliable and considerate, but who also loved her children? Come on.
"I will never forget how they behaved when we showed up Friday at Blake's door," Brittany said, and snorted a laugh.
Softly, Peter laughed, too. "No, they were hardly angels then. Little traitors, more like."
"There was a push car and a giant stuffed polar bear, and that was only what I could see from the front door."
"Blake had obviously been trying to bribe them, just as you'd predicted."
"But they didn't care." Vehemently, Brittany blinked back the tears that welled in her eyes every time she remembered the moment.
"Once they saw you, they came running." Peter laughed. "I don't know if I've ever seen two bodies move so fast."
Brittany sniffed and then chuckled to cover the sound. "And once Blake saw you," she reminded Peter, "he was all Mr. Cooperation."
"Hey." Peter lifted a modest shoulder. "What can I say?"
Brittany turned to fist her hand in his collar. "You can say it's time for us to go to bed, too."
Peter's smile was slow, but very wide. "And here I was, not even realizing that bedtime was up to me."
Brittany let go of his collar to tap his cheek. "It isn't always. But on certain, special occasions..."
Peter lowered his head to give Brittany a long slow kiss. "One of these days," he murmured, when he was finally done. "It'll be up to me when it's wake-up-and-get-out-of-bed time, too."
His eyes met hers and Brittany knew what he was saying. He planned on becoming a permanent member of the household, someone it would be okay for the boys to see walking out of her bedroom in the morning. He'd stated this intention on previous occasions, but to Brittany's surprise it did not provoke her usual nervous response tonight.
Tonight, it was starting to sound more like a promise than a threat.
She felt herself smile and linked her arms around his neck. "One of these days," she promised him back, "you will discover that wake-up-and-get-out-bed time is strictly up to the boys."
Peter laughed, then made Brittany squawk as he bent to sweep her into his arms.
"Shh," he warned, lifting her upward for a kiss. "Now is not a good time to wake up the kids."
"Oh, really."
Peter smiled. "Because it is bedtime."
Brittany chuckled as he carried her down the hall.
~~~
"If I do say so myself, I think that went well," Olivia said to Gideon as she picked up another wine glass, this one set on the pressboard hutch.
"It went very well." Gideon wiped a spill off the coffee table with the kitchen rag and then turned to Olivia from his half kneeling position. "I hope I'm not being over-confident, though, in assuming Anja is going to behave now."
Plucking up another wine glass, Olivia shot him a sardonic look. "She'll behave if you behave, darling."
Gideon made an affronted exhalation. "I always behave."
"Hmmmmm. But how do you behave?" Olivia took the wine glasses toward the kitchen. "Just now you're being up front," she told Gideon, over her shoulder. "You're listening to Anja's concerns, and acting on them. That's a very different behavior from before."
"Oh." Gideon grinned and hoisted himself to his feet. "You mean that."
"Yes, I mean that." Olivia rolled her eyes, set the wine glasses down, and gave about one split second of consideration to the idea of washing them.
Gideon waltzed up beside her. "You're not going to wash those now, are you?" He was clearly not a fan of the idea.
Which made Olivia reconsider. "It would be nice to come in to a clean kitchen in the morning."
"It would be nice to get a little marital attention, after all the humble pie I had to eat tonight." Gideon wrapped both arms around her.
"Animal," Olivia said, and gave his shoulder a punch.
"Oh, so you want to play rough." A nuzzle in the space between her shoulder and her neck had Olivia laughing and twisting out of his grip. But she wasn't free long. Gideon grabbed her once again and found her mouth with his own. Olivia struggled for about one heartbeat and then began kissing him back. Soon she had her hips backed up to the kitchen counter with Gideon's tongue deep in her mouth and her hands busy under his shirt.
When Olivia's busy hands prompted Gideon to gasp and then leave her mouth to start suckling her neck, she heard herself pant out, "You know that thing, that thing Brittany wanted to ask us?"
"No, I don't know that thing." Gideon abandoned Olivia's neck to devote his attention to her blouse, which he began to unbutton.
"You know." Olivia stilled for Gideon so he could draw off her blouse. "That thing about when we should start a family?"
Gideon halted with Olivia's shirt half off her, her arms caught in the sleeves. His gaze shot to hers. "You said you didn't want a family."
"No, you said you didn't want a family, and because I love you I said that was okay with me."
Gideon kept on staring at her. Olivia used the moment to shrug the rest of the way out of her blouse. She put her hands on Gideon's shoulders and looked up at him. "Now that I know about your real job and everything, I think I know why you said that, about not wanting a family. It was more about being afraid to have a family. Afraid of having more people you would have to protect."
Gideon's hands fell to his sides.
"Would you like a family?" Olivia asked him.
His eyes narrowed.
"Because I think you could protect us, Gideon. I don't think that would be a problem. That is...if you wanted to do it."
His chest rose and fell. "Look what happened to you."
Olivia lifted one of her hands in a dismissive wave. "That was my fault."
"No, mine."
"Well..." Olivia rubbed her chin with her thumb. "All right, it was partially your fault, but only because you weren't being honest with me, trusting me. But that's different now
." She went still. "Isn't it?"
Gideon watched her, slit-eyed. "You're that sure of me now?"
Olivia made an exasperated sound. "Didn't I prove it tonight? But are you sure of me?"
His lashes lowered as he took his sweet time thinking about it. Olivia died a thousand deaths before he finally lifted his big male hands to her naked back. "Yes, I'm sure of you." He let out a deep breath. "And I'm positive you would make a terrific mother."
"Just like you'd make a great father."
"God," Gideon said.
"What?"
"I didn't think I could get any more aroused than I already was, honey, but I was wrong." Gideon's eyes blazed at her. "I need to have you — now."
"On the couch again?" Olivia asked hopefully.
"On the kitchen table."
Olivia laughed, wondering cheerfully how he was going to manage that as Gideon pulled her to him.
It didn't take her long to find out.
~~~
Anja had intended to get in her new car and go to the lab when she'd left the party at Olivia's house. Truly she had. But once she got home, she couldn't dredge up the energy. She dropped onto the leather sofa in her den and sat staring at the wall.
She had been the one to tip Hollister off to the existence of the vector. She had. Not Gideon. Not even some higher-up than Gideon at the Pentagon. She'd also been the one to allow Hagar access to her data. That had been her mistake.
She'd presumed she would be better than anyone else at keeping her research safe and secure. She'd thought she could handle it.
But she hadn't been able to handle it at all.
Anja felt the surprising, and extremely rare, desire to weep. If she could not depend on herself, then who could she depend on?
She briskly wiped at the millimeter of a tear that had begun to form in her right eye. But another one merely formed in its place. Because...as it had turned out, there had been other people she could depend on. As it had turned out, everyone — from Gideon on down to Shana — everyone had pitched in to help her out of the mess she'd made.
Anja drew in a sharp breath and jumped up from the sofa. "Enough," she said out loud, then shook her head at the fact she was talking to herself. After which she did it again. "I need..."
But she didn't know what she needed. She strode into the kitchen. There she dragged her fingers through her hair. Her gaze caught on the view out her kitchen window. There was a light on in Shana's house, the upstairs bedroom light, if Anja was not mistaken. Her lips twisted in amusement. It would be like Shana to make love with the lights blazing. Lovemaking, Anja was certain, was what was going on there. Gymnastic, enthusiastic lovemaking, given extra spice by the look of love that would be in both partners' eyes.
Her gaze shifted to Brittany's house. No lights on there. And the lovemaking would not be light and rompy, Anja thought. No, in Brittany's house it would be two bodies twined in the kind of long, slow tenderness that made promises that were not yet ready to be put into words.
Now as for Olivia's house, lights were on downstairs, but not upstairs, which caused Anja's head to tilt in curiosity. Was no lovemaking going on there? Mmm, perhaps not. Between Olivia and Gideon there was not the first bloom of infatuation, nor was their love unsullied by betrayal. And yet...and yet in some ways Anja felt their love might be the strongest of them all. Purposeful, enduring, weathered.
"Anja, you are becoming downright sorry for yourself." This time she didn't bother berating herself for the out-loud monologue. "Perhaps you had better go into work after all."
Unwilling to be dissuaded by her own laziness or self-pity, Anja strode swiftly back to the den and picked up her briefcase. She checked that she had her keys and went out the front door.
The blue van was parked in front of the house next door to hers. The Agency van.
There was a strangely pleasant sinking sensation in the pit of Anja's stomach. If she should open her garage, get into her car and drive downtown to the lab, the van would follow her.
He would follow her.
Anja bit the underside of her lip. If she drove away in her car, she wouldn't have to talk to Walter. She hadn't been talking to him. What she didn't quite understand was why she was giving him the silent treatment. Why was she avoiding him?
She had the uncomfortable feeling it had something to do with having confessed to him her uncertainty regarding the vector's back door. It had to do with fearing she might trust him again — and maybe about something even bigger.
Get in my car. Drive to the lab. He will wait in the lounge. I will not have to exchange with him one word. Why, he was not even attractive; too big and slightly goofy, with more heart than brain. And his smile...
Anja felt the sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach again.
She began walking, but she did not walk toward her garage. She walked toward the blue van. Why she was doing this, she had no idea. As she approached, the window closest to the sidewalk rolled downward.
Walter was leaning toward the opened window of the passenger side as Anja walked up. His face was concerned. "Is something wrong?"
"No — I mean, yes. Yes, something is wrong." Indeed, that was an understatement. What was she doing? She didn't even know. Yet as she gestured toward her house, words came out of Anja's mouth, as if she'd rehearsed them. "Would it not be just as effective to keep an eye on me from the inside as to do so from the outside?"
His lips parted in a flummoxed expression.
"I will give you something to drink, nonalcoholic." Anja sighed. "Perhaps I will even feed you."
Still, Walter stared. It was enough to make Anja, a sophisticated woman of the world, feel like a gawky adolescent.
"Okay," he finally said. "Is this a trick?"
That made Anja laugh. Admittedly, she'd been rather full of tricks over the past few weeks. "Not a trick," she claimed. Then she tilted her head, raised one eyebrow, and said it. "You will just have to trust me on that."
His russet lashes half lowered, but he raised the window and then opened the van door. With surprising grace for a man with an arm in a cast, he got out of the vehicle. Then, eyeing Anja in a very peculiar manner, he held out his good hand.
For her to take.
Anja drew in a deep, deep breath. She had thought Walter was not intelligent? The man was a demon. He knew what he was doing, holding out his hand to her like that. He knew.
He was asking her to trust him.
Slowly, feeling like she was stepping off the high dive, Anja reached out to take Walter's hand.
His smile, wide and yet growing, told her he knew exactly what he'd accomplished.
"Come then," Anja said sharply. "I am hungry."
"Yeah." Walter's grin was ear to ear. "Me, too." And he gave her hand a warm and reassuring squeeze.
The End
About the Author
Alyssa Kress completed her first novel at age six, an unlikely romance between a lion and a jackal. Despite earning two degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and spending nearly a decade in the construction industry, she's yet to see her feet stay firmly on the ground. She now lives in Southern California, together with her husband and two children.
You can learn more about Alyssa Kress and her other novels at http://www.alyssakress.com.
Other books by Alyssa Kress available at Smashwords:
Marriage by Mistake
The Heart Heist
Preview of Asking For It
"Don't answer it," murmured a female voice to the left of Griffith in his king-size bed, twenty stories above Los Angeles.
"Hm?" Griffith became aware of a buzzing sound to his right. His Blackberry was sitting on the night table, vibrating.
"Don't get it," repeated the voice to his left. The voice, Griffith now remembered, belonged to a fashion model named Mona. She appeared to want to keep sleeping.
Though Griffith did his best to accede to a lover's wishes, he always answered his Blackberry. He reached out from
under Egyptian cotton sheets and fumbled for the phone. While putting it to his ear, he squinted at the numbers on the clock. Five a.m. That was a little early, even for him. "Hello?" he said.
"We financial types here in the west get up early," the man on the other end apologized. "But you told me to call you as soon as I found out."
In an instant, Griffith came wide awake, placing the voice and its import. It was Edward March, junior vice president at GoldFed Financial. Griffith tensed, like a dog on point. "Did you get the meeting?"
"I got it," March told Griffith. "He'll see you at six o'clock tonight."
"Six," Griffith repeated. His heart drove to a happy speed as he twisted to a sitting position. "Bring him to my office. You have my card, right? It's on Avenue of the Stars."
"Will do," March said, then paused. "You're going to wow him, right?"
In his penthouse condominium, Griffith's mouth split in a grin too ferocious to reveal to the fainthearted March. "You won't be sorry you arranged a meeting between me and your boss."
Griffith barely heard Edward March's relieved, "Good." He was already hanging up the phone and jumping out of bed. He had thirteen hours to see that he did, indeed, wow Daniel Templeton, the president of GoldFed Financial. Some would have said the kind of presentation that could secure a loan the size Griffith was seeking couldn't be produced in a mere thirteen hours. Whoever said that didn't know Griffith Blaine.
As he made for the bathroom, stark naked, he began dialing a number on the Blackberry.
"Oh, Ms. Marshal?" Calling his executive assistant from the bathroom sink, Griffith reached for his toothbrush. "Don't tell me I woke you?" His tone was innocent, but not the smile he gave himself in the mirror. "Sorry about that, especially if you're, uh, entertaining that new man of yours, but we have a rush situation on our hands. You know the Wildwood project...?"
While Griffith explained the charts and graphs he wanted his young and eager assistant to rush to the printer, Mona appeared in the mirror behind him.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"...so we'll need the numbers from our latest run-through," Griffith went on to Deirdre Marshal. "Put it on the good paper, in the new folders. Just business, sweetheart. That bit wasn't for you, Deirdre." Griffith shoved his toothbrush into his mouth and listened to the anxious obstacles Deirdre was imagining would get in the way of assembling the presentation Griffith would put together.
Indiscreet Ladies of Green Ivy Way Page 30
