He pulled away and dragged in a breath. "So if you don't throw me out, she'll say you behaved unprofessionally to justify dropping you as an intern."
"Bingo." She dived in again, holding his head so she could kiss him with the kind of dedication he deserved.
By the time he came up for air again, he'd divested her of the bathrobe. He tossed it on the floor. "How will she know if I've left?"
"She'll be here in an hour." She finished unbuttoning his pajama top and shoved it down his arms.
He unfastened the tiny buttons at the neck of her granny gown. "I could leave, and then come back."
"Nuh-uh. She'd quiz me in the morning, and I'm horrible at lying." She untied the drawstring of his pajama bottoms. "Once you leave, you have to stay gone."
"But you'll be alone! What if he comes back?"
"I'll buy all the things we talked about today. And he might not come back after the way you chased him." She gave his pajama bottoms a push, and they fell to the floor. "Now stop talking, get a condom, and come into the bedroom. We have a time crunch, here."
"Give me a key to your apartment. I could sneak in here after you're asleep. Technically, you wouldn't know I'd been here."
"Technically, I would probably bash you in the head with the collected works of Freud! Don't sneak, please. Just come to bed with me right now. We've never done it on a mattress before." She turned and walked toward her bedroom, pulling her granny gown over her head as she went.
"Don't think I haven't noticed."
In her bedroom, she threw back the covers and stretched out on the bed. Life would be hell once Gloria arrived, but that wouldn't happen for another hour. She glanced at the bedside clock. Correction, fifty-five minutes.
Will arrived, naked except for his glasses. He was bearing a shiny packet in one hand. He paused in the doorway. "Just let me take a mental picture to sustain me."
"Good idea. Me, too." She cataloged his thick dark hair, which fell untamed over his forehead after a night's sleep. How she would miss those green eyes, even the horn-rimmed glasses. And his mouth. She'd loved his mouth from the beginning.
He was no muscle-bound weight lifter, but he had decent pecs sprinkled with dark hair, a respectable six-pack, and then came the piece de resistance as they probably said in French bordellos. That magnificence was all hers until Gloria showed up in fifty-five minutes. She looked at the clock again. Fifty-one minutes. She beckoned him forward.
"Yeah." He took off his glasses, put on the condom, and joined her on the mattress. "Ah." He gathered her close. "How is it that we've never tried it this way?"
"Circumstances." She wiggled against him.
He kissed her and brushed the hair back from her face. "How much time do we have?"
"Allowing fifteen minutes for you to pack up and leave, I estimate that we have approximately thirty-four and a half minutes."
"Spoken like a true nerd." He rolled on top of her.
She spread her thighs to give him access. "I am not."
"You are so."
Then he slipped deep inside her, and she was willing to be anything he wanted if he would only keep up that certain rhythm that was exclusively Will's. He had a gift, and she was the lucky girl receiving it right now. She wouldn't think beyond this moment.
Her first orgasm rocked her world. The second turned her into liquid fire, and by the third, she was ready to levitate.
"We're not finished, you and me," he crooned into her ear.
She moaned and lifted her hips. "I hope not."
"I'm not talking about coming."
He might not be, but he was the master at that activity, and she couldn't think while he plied his craft. "Okay."
"I mean it."
"Me, too." She meant every whimper, every cry. Beyond that, she saw no future for them. They were victims of bad timing. He wrenched one more climax from her thrumming body before riding her hard and letting go with a groan that was half blessing, half curse.
They sank together onto the mattress. This was cuddle time, pulling up the covers and basking in the afterglow time. They couldn't afford it.
She waited until his breathing returned to normal. Then she gave him a nudge. "You have to leave."
"This sucks."
"I know. But right now, she holds all the cards." He sighed. "And she plays dirty." "It's her game."
Rising up on his elbows, he looked into her eyes. "I'll find a way around this."
"Please don't take chances with Gloria."
"I won't." He gave her one last, lingering kiss. "But I will be watching over you, somehow. You're not facing that wacko alone."
"He could be gone, scared away." Because she couldn't cling to Will, she'd cling to that hope.
Will went home, although he would have loved to stay and tell Gloria what he thought of her high-handed tactics. But he couldn't jeopardize Amanda's standing with the university. So once he got home, he flipped through the phone book until he found the number he needed.
When Chester didn't answer, Will figured out that Chester and Mavis were still holed up in Mavis's apartment. Will envied them the luxury of spending then Sunday morning together, when he'd been summarily run out. Thank God for those last moments with Amanda, though.
He hoped she'd understood what he was trying to say, without saying it. If they let go of this special connection, they'd be making a huge mistake. He hoped she realized that what they'd found—the amazing sex, the easy conversation, the natural friendship—didn't come along very often. Sometimes never.
Sure, she had her goals, and he respected that He only wanted to add to her list of things to want—a special person to share the life she wanted to create, a person who wouldn't drag her down, someone who would support and enhance her dreams. He could be that person, if she would let him.
Going further into the telephone book, he found Mavis Endicott and dialed the number.
Mavis answered immediately, sounding irritatingly cheerful.
"Mavis, this is Will, Amanda's friend."
"Will! Why are you calling? Why not just drop over?"
"I'm not at the apartment building right now." And he felt that acutely, as if the world didn't sit quite right on its axis now that he'd been banned from Amanda's place.
"That's a shame. Chester and I are having rooibos tea. It's that bush tea they talk about in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency mystery series set in Africa. Chester doesn't much like it, but he'll get used to it. You should come over and try some."
"I need a bigger favor than sharing a cup of tea." Will hesitated, needing to know but not wanting to know. "But first I have to ask... how much can you hear through the apartment walls?"
Mavis didn't answer right away. "That depends," she said at last.
This was uncomfortable, but Will pressed on. "On what?" "Whether Chester and I turn off our hearing aids." "Oh."
"We turned them off last night," she said quickly. "Any noises that came through weren't clear. It could have been the TV, for all we knew."
"Right. The TV." Will didn't bother pointing out that Amanda didn't have a TV, so anything Mavis and Chester had heard had been a live performance.
As for Will, he'd been concentrating so hard on Amanda that he hadn't even considered the noise level. He'd thought about it in his own apartment earlier in the day, which told him his involvement with Amanda had escalated the longer he'd stayed with her. That wasn't the point of his question, though. The transfer of noise from one apartment to another was vitally important for another reason entirely.
Mavis cleared her throat. "Did you hear anything from ... my apartment?"
"Didn't hear a thing." Amanda might have, although that didn't matter now. "I have to know whether, with your hearing aids turned up, you would be able to hear someone crying out in distress in the next apartment."
"Oh, my, yes. With our hearing aids turned up, we hear every little scuffle. I know how thin the walls are, so I'm careful to be quiet. Chester is, too. But it turns out
we both had the same idea, not to tell Amanda about the thin walls. That way we can watch over her without her knowing."
"I see." He and Amanda had been playing to quite an audience, between the stalker outside the window and the neighbors with their ears to the wall.
"But we really didn't hear much of anything last night," Mavis said. "Honestly."
Will didn't believe a word of it, but he'd get over his embarrassment. That was chump change compared to keeping Amanda safe. "Circumstances have forced me to move out of Amanda's apartment," he said.
"Oh, dear. Please tell me you didn't have a fight. I was assuming the yelling had to do with—um, not that I heard much yelling at all. Maybe a teensy bit, but like I said—"
"It's okay, Mavis. We didn't fight." Will explained the situation with Gloria. "So I need to be there, but Amanda can't know I'm there. And I need a key, in case she has a problem."
"That's simple. I have a spare key Amanda gave me in case she ever locks herself out. She never does, of course. Very disciplined girl."
Until I interfered in her life.
"And you can hide out in Chester's apartment for as long as you need to," Mavis continued. "He's not sleeping there anyway. That way you can take one side of Amanda's place, and we can cover the other side. Chester and I can show you the best spots for maximum hearing."
"Okay." Will controlled the urge to laugh.
"Not that we use the spots to listen in on Amanda. But naturally, when you live somewhere, you notice these things."
"Of course."
"When do you want to set things up?"
Will gave thanks for snoopy neighbors. Mavis and Chester already had the surveillance thing down. "I'm sure Amanda will be going out sometime today. If you could call me when she leaves, I'll head over then."
"Perfect. Don't worry, Will. We won't let anything happen to that girl."
"No, we won't." And because Will wanted to be completely alert tonight, he'd take a nap after he finished this call. If that wacko showed his face, Will would take him out.
TWENTY-EIGHT
I am furious with you, Amanda, absolutely furious. But I can't have you getting raped on my account." Gloria stood, hands on hips, and gazed at the white heart spray-painted on the window. "What were you thinking, renting a first-floor apartment? No single woman rents a first-floor apartment."
"It was cheap and available. It's right on the bus line. I have good neighbors."
"You mean Mavis and her boyfriend Chester, the ones I met last night? They were spying on me through a crack in the door as I came down the hall. I call that nosy, not neighborly."
Amanda had the right to call them nosy because she loved Mavis and Chester, but she'd be damned if she'd let Gloria diss her friends. "They're concerned about me. And they're good-hearted."
"Apparently everyone on this floor is good-hearted. I've never seen such a valentine frenzy in my life." "It helps bring the tenants closer together." "That's all well and good, but you need something more than sappy sentiment. You need motion detectors and Mace. Why didn't you tell me this guy was leaving creepy songs on your answering machine?"
Amanda shrugged. "I thought it was my problem."
"So you solved it with Will, is that it? You're damned lucky I haven't terminated your internship. You betrayed me, Amanda."
"It wasn't meant to turn out like that. It was a temporary situation." And if saying that made her heart ache, too bad.
"All men are a temporary situation. Monogamy was created by a patriarchal society. It's up to women like me to battle that concept." Gloria pushed back the sleeve of her fur coat to consult her jeweled watch. "Grab your coat. By the time we get there, the hardware store should be open."
Amanda couldn't imagine a more bizarre activity than shopping in a hardware store with Gloria. She'd probably spend all her time examining the ropes and chains.
"Come on." Gloria tapped her watch. "We're burning daylight."
"I really appreciate that you're taking an interest, but I can do this myself. I realize that I need some sort of personal protection and I was planning to get a few things today."
Gloria let out her breath in obvious exasperation. "Lord give me strength. You're on a limited budget, right?"
"I can manage this expense." And Gloria was the last person she wanted giving her charity.
"I can picture it, now. You'll buy the inferior, on-sale item that will fail you at a critical moment. That's how you ended up with this death trap of an apartment. Get your coat. This shopping trip is on me."
"No. I mean, no, thanks." Amanda had her limits. Gloria could get away with banishing Will because that was probably in Amanda's best interest. She'd been getting too involved, too attached. But Gloria was not buying her protective hardware.
"You don't want to argue with me." Gloria's gaze was filled with haughty confidence. "I'm still holding the big club."
Amanda's jaw dropped. "You'd give me a bad review over this?"
"You bet your sweet little tush I would. A good psychologist keeps an open mind when confronted with a problem.
You have a problem, but your mind is closed tight against the possibility that I might be of some help. You're allowing stubborn pride to skew your thinking."
Amanda tried to stare Gloria down, but she couldn't do it. Gloria was right. That was a humbling revelation. Gloria could be criticized for many things, but having a closed mind wasn't one of them.
Besides that, Gloria shared one quality with Amanda— she was incredibly tenacious. Admitting that they were even slightly alike was tough, but if Amanda believed in being open-minded, then she had to look at Gloria honestly. She wasn't completely bad, not by a long shot.
Amanda took a deep breath. "Okay, let's go to the hardware store. And thank you."
"You're welcome." With a smile of triumph, Gloria headed for the door. "We'll also pick up razor blades and solvent so we can take that damned heart off your window. It's creeping me out."
When Harvey came back from Starbucks all caffeined up, Louise was waiting for him. She stood in the living room, smoking a cigarette. It sagged, like it was still sort of soggy, which meant it was one of the ones he'd frozen.
Because he'd convinced her that she'd put the cigarettes in the freezer, she refused to buy a new carton when she still had this one. With all her money, she was weird about the little stuff, sort of like Scrooge. She had trouble keeping the thawed cigarettes lit, though. She had to smoke with one hand and keep her lighter handy in the other.
"You've been gone a lot." Louise took a drag on her cigarette. "Shit." Flicking the wheel on the lighter, she relit her cigarette.
"You know I go to Starbucks, butter buns."
Louise drew in a lungful of smoke. "I'm not talking about Starbucks in the morning, like now. I woke up in the middle of the night and you were gone. What the hell were you doing roaming around at two in the morning?" "Something."
"You pencil prick. It better not be a girl." "Okay."
Louise advanced on him, her cigarette in the corner of her mouth and smoke coming out the other side. She looked exactly like a fire-breathing dragon with tits. "It is a girl, isn't it?"
"I can't help it, lemon lips. You know I'm a bad boy." She blew smoke in his face. "You tittle turd. Tell me her name, now." "Amanda."
"That's a lie. Amanda Detmer's a famous actress. She'd never go for a twerp like you. You're making this up." The tip of her cigarette stopped glowing. She swore and flicked the lighter over it again.
"Not Amanda Detmer. Amanda Rykowsky."
"I don't know any Amanda Rykowsky!" Louise puffed on her cigarette and coughed like she was about to hack up a lung.
Harvey waited for the light to come on in Louise's brain. He'd told her about Amanda last week. She would remember if she thought about it long enough. He knew the minute she'd made the connection, because her eyes started shooting sparks.
"The receptionist." Louise began to quiver. "She's so pretty."
Louise
got right in his face, and her eyes glowed like the tip of her cigarette. "If I catch you messing with that girl, I'll glue your dick to a train track."
A thrill of excitement ran through him. "I'll try to stay away, jelly joints, but I can't promise. She's in love with me."
Louise's jaw worked. "In love with you?"
"She wants me real bad."
"The bitch. So she thinks she can steal another woman's husband, does she?"
Harvey sighed dramatically. "Guess so."
"We'll just see about that!" Louise glared at him. "From now on, I'm keeping an eye on you, buster. A very close eye."
That was exactly what he wanted. He'd make his move tonight. Louise had taken him for granted for years, but if she saw that he had someone else, if she thought she might have to fight to keep him, things would change around here. Finally he'd have the upper hand.
For the first time since he'd become involved with Amanda, Will had to buzz the apartment intercom to get inside the building. Mavis had called mid-afternoon, after Amanda had taken off for the library. She'd told Mavis she wouldn't be back until dinnertime.
It wasn't a very good intercom. Mavis's voice was crackly and hard to hear. Will spoke with exaggerated clarity. Between a bad intercom and her dicey hearing, she might not have the faintest idea who he was. "It's Will Sloan." Her response came through loud and clear. "Goody!" The door lock buzzed, and he was in. Walking down the valentine-infested hallway made him grumpy. He'd tried to call Justin and ream him out, but Justin hadn't picked up. Will didn't blame him. If he were in Justin's guilty shoes, he wouldn't pick up, either.
Hell, maybe it was for the best. He'd wanted to believe he could be an asset to Amanda and not a distraction, but in reality they'd spent too much time having sex. While she was near, his hormones kept him from admitting the bitter truth— they couldn't seem to control their urges. Because of that, he could be a huge distraction, one she didn't need at this time in her life.
Mavis and Chester came out of Mavis's apartment. Mavis looked as if she'd won the lottery. Chester wasn't exactly smiling, but he looked less disgruntled than usual. Will tried to feel happy for them, but instead he was irritated and jealous. A few more hours of sleep and he might be able to dredge up some better emotions.
My Nerdy Valentine Page 28
