“Nothing yet,” Dominic said as he opened the pizza box he’d set on the kitchen counter. “The computers all checked out. He’s going to work the logs over the weekend.”
“Doesn’t he have a life?”
He was surprised she hadn’t asked if he’d be paying Al holiday rates. “It’s a puzzle. He wants to figure it out.”
She waited for him to put her pizza in front of her. He’d offered to get the takeout on his way home. She hadn’t protested. She’d been listless with a “whatever you want, I don’t care” attitude. He’d gotten half combination and half Hawaiian because she didn’t like so much sausage and pepperoni.
Jay had taken after both of them, wanting a slice of each.
Jesus. Maybe he shouldn’t have gotten pizza.
The silence was loud in the kitchen. He didn’t ask her what was wrong. She wouldn’t tell him. Instead, he hitched his hip and pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket, unfolding and sliding it across the table.
“What’s this?” She didn’t bother to read it for herself.
“Train tickets.” They were will call.
“For where?”
“Reno. I want to ring in the New Year up there.” It had taken him hours on the Internet over the last two days to come up with the idea. He’d gotten them tickets to a New Year’s party at one of the big casinos, two nights’ accommodations included.
She closed her eyes a moment, swallowed, then opened them again and looked straight at him. “Okay. That sounds like fun.” Her voice was so flat, it was scary.
She didn’t protest, didn’t ask why the train, why Reno, nothing. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t total acquiescence.
“It’s supposed to snow tomorrow, and driving over Highway 80”—which was the fastest route through the Sierra Nevadas to Reno—“would have been a bitch. So I picked the train.”
“That was a good choice.” She rose. “Do you want another piece?” she asked, though he still had a full one on his plate.
“No, I’m fine.” He didn’t trust her politeness. Something was going on in that mind of hers. She was pissed . . . or remembering stuff. Just as the pizza had reminded him.
But all she did was come back with another slice of Hawaiian. “Is it a fancy party? Should I bring the dress you bought me in Napa?”
He hadn’t thought about what he wanted her to wear. But then he smiled. “Yeah. That dress and—” He stopped, waiting for her to look up at him. When she finally did, he finished. “No panties.”
“None?” she asked without even raising a brow or putting up a fight.
Yeah, scary. Like she was saying all the right things, but feeling absolutely nothing.
“None.” He bit into the slice of pizza, the spicy sausage sizzling in his mouth. He smiled again, despite the tension in his gut, and added, with his mouth full, “Thigh-high stockings, too. Black. With those little seams down the back.”
“I don’t have any,” she said, shaking her head slightly.
“Then we’ll buy you some.” He grinned wickedly.
She didn’t react at all. “What are you going to wear?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He rose and hit the counter for another piece. When he turned back, her gaze was on him, her eyes a pale, washed-out blue in the overhead kitchen light.
He slid his plate onto the table, but leaned over her. “Tomorrow night is all about you.” He gripped her chin, her skin warm, smooth, kissable. “I’m going to find the perfect man for you.”
She didn’t say anything, didn’t move a muscle. Damn her.
“And I’m going to watch him fuck you.”
“What happens in Reno stays in Reno,” she murmured without inflection, without any clue to her emotions.
“Yeah. Something like that.”
Her lips parted, her breath puffed, and finally she said, “All right.”
28
THEY HAD TO BE UP EARLY THE NEXT MORNING TO MAKE IT TO THE train station in Emeryville on the other side of the Bay Bridge. The morning was overcast, but the rain had taken a break. Thank God the traffic over the bridge was light. The Zephyr’s route began in Emeryville and ended in Chicago. It would take over seven hours to get to Reno.
What happens in Reno stays in Reno. A variation on the Las Vegas slogan. Erin had every intention of giving Dominic what he wanted.
She didn’t tell him about the letter from WEU. She didn’t mention how she’d accused Bree in that awful, near hysterical tone. She was ashamed. She couldn’t say it out loud. Couldn’t bear for him to look at her. Or hear his words. What were you thinking, Erin? Of course she hadn’t been thinking, not at all
It was better to give him what he wanted. New Year’s Eve in Reno and her in another man’s bed. She’d masturbated for Shane. He’d watched them fuck. This was just one more thing, one further step so she didn’t have to think about Bree. Or Jay.
“He’s gotta be hot,” she’d said last night in bed. “I don’t want some smelly, skanky old guy.”
“I don’t want to watch you with some smelly, skanky guy.”
“So if I say I don’t like him, don’t push me into it.”
“I won’t.” Dominic had leaned over to blow warm breath in her ear. “We’re going to find the hottest, sexiest man who makes you wet just looking at him.” He’d licked the shell of her ear. “I want to watch you take a big cock between those gorgeous lips of yours.” He could have been talking about her pussy or her mouth. “I want to hear you make him groan, then scream.” He’d rubbed his hard cock against her. “I want to taste you with another man’s come all over you, inside you.”
It had all once been his idea, his growing obsession, but he’d succeeded in making it hers. With his body wrapped around her in the dark, she’d started getting into it. That was the moment she’d blotted out the argument with Bree, the things she’d said, the moment she put aside every other thought and started thinking hot, kinky sex in flashing neon letters. She wanted it as much as Dominic wanted it for her.
There was something to be said for living for the moment. Sometimes, it was the only thing a person had to offer and the only way to survive.
HIS WIFE WAS HOT. DOMINIC HAD ALWAYS THOUGHT THAT, THE first time he saw her wearing jeans and a baggy sweatshirt; when they’d married; when she was glowing in pregnancy. Even this past year, despite everything that had gone wrong.
She wore tight jeans, a short-waisted suede jacket, and white snow boots with fake fur around the tops that hit just below her knees. For whatever strange reason, the boots were fucking sexy. He wasn’t the only man who noticed.
Among the constant stream of people up and down the train’s aisle, male gazes followed her when she sauntered back to the powder room or down to the lower-level snack bar for a glass of wine. He’d immersed himself in the sway of her hips in those tight jeans as the train rattled along. The car pitched, throwing her off balance, and her hand automatically reached out, connecting with a broad shoulder. She smiled an apology with ruby lips, moved on, leaving the man with a stunned and heated expression.
Dominic had staked out two seats in the panoramic car, the windows curving up and over them for a spectacular view. Though less comfortable than the reclining seats in their booked car, these chairs faced out for watching the countryside race by. The groupings of two were separated by small round tables for drinks and snacks while larger parties played cards, board games, or ate lunch in restaurant-style booths at the rear of the car. Dominic preferred the scenery here versus the regular compartments, which had only side windows, the daylight partially blocked by the curtains even when they were pulled back.
The sky had been moody and overcast as they passed through Sacramento and the tracks climbed. Cityscapes morphed into marshland, then to rolling pastures and finally to the sandy earth of mountain slopes. Oak and ponderosa pines were surrounded by the greenery of incense cedar and Douglas fir, the deep-red earth itself littered with the scrubby look of manzanita. Outsi
de of Colfax, they’d gotten their first sighting of yesterday’s snowfall still sticking to the ground.
“Here you go, sweetie.” Erin handed him a beer and plastic cup. She’d purchased a bottle of chardonnay for herself.
“Thanks.”
Sweetie. The endearment rang nicely in his ears. He tried to remember when she’d so easily used a term of affection in the last year and couldn’t. Except when they were deep into one of their games. Just as the scenery morphed before his eyes, so had she, from the expressionless automaton of last night in the kitchen to this woman he barely knew but wanted badly.
She reached down to her carryall between them and pulled out a can of roasted nuts, shook it at him. He held out his hand for her to pour several into his palm. Leaning back, she propped her feet on the low windowsill, throwing a few nuts in her mouth. “They’ve got premade sandwiches and hot things like hamburgers and hotdogs,” she told him, “but they get warmed up in the microwave.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste.
“Let’s do the dining car.”
“Sure.” She hadn’t fought him on anything he wanted.
“Cheers,” he said, tapping his plastic cup to hers.
She smiled. This was how he wanted her, easy, loose, whatever the source of her recent ennui now gone or at least buried. For the moment, they were comfortable, amiable.
“Snow on the trees.” She pointed to the cedar limbs bending slightly beneath the weight. The red earth was covered in a layer of white dappled with animal prints.
Her interest permeated his senses. The train was a good idea. He didn’t have to concentrate on the driving or the traffic. There was just her. And God help him, he wanted this woman back for good, not just fleeting glimpses of her. Turning, he stretched his arm along the back of her chair, playing with the ends of her hair.
She hadn’t noticed the guy four seats down, but Dominic did. The man glanced away quickly as if caught in the act.
“What’s your age limit?” he asked under cover of the train’s clatter.
She didn’t dissemble. “Fifty.” She sipped her wine. “Unless he’s something extraordinary.”
“What about the low end?”
She tipped her head to him. Beneath the dark, moody sky, her eyes were a contrasting light blue. A flame began to burn in the depths. “Twenty-five.”
“That’s daring.”
She sat straighter, preened. In the heated car, she’d thrown off the suede jacket, and her long-sleeved teal T-shirt was tight across her breasts. “I’m worth it,” she murmured.
Christ. His cock throbbed. He saw her splayed out with the firm young body of a twenty-five-year-old between her legs, her face aglow, skin flushed with desire. “I have someone in mind.”
She settled back against the seat, her hair once again within reach of his fingers. He stroked it as if it were silk. “Describe him for me,” she demanded soft and low. “Tell me why I’m going to want him.”
His pulse kicked. Oh yeah. She was tumbling into his fantasy, feeding his nasty obsession, where everything was about her pleasure, her release of inhibition, plummeting into a state where she was all emotion, completely open to him and anything he asked of her.
Tomorrow, the next day, the one after, she might tear it all away from him, the sexy smiles, the laughter. Whatever. He’d ache for the loss then. Right now, she was here for the taking.
He assessed their target, using her as the smoke screen. “Thirty or so. He’s alone, I haven’t seen him with anyone. Reading a book—I can’t tell what—hardbound, no dust jacket.”
“A reader is good.” Boots balanced on the sill, she let a knee fall, parting her legs slightly, her thigh caressing his as the train car rocked. “I like intelligence.”
“His hair is short. And dark, almost black.”
“Short hair screams sexy executive.” Then she pointed at the foliage streaming past the window. “Look, it’s snowing.”
He’d been aware of the shifting light, a darkness descending, but now he recognized the softness of snowflakes against the rising slope of the mountain.
Without turning her head, she continued the low murmur of their conversation. “Describe his body.”
“Jeans, blue shirt. Good shape, broad chest as far as I can tell. Legs are long so he’s probably tall.”
Raucous laughter erupted from one of the booths, and their quarry glanced up from his book, his gaze lighting on Erin’s profile, then flicking to Dominic, then finally to the noisy group beyond them.
“Maybe he’ll get up,” Erin said softly. “We all have to use the restroom sometime. What about his face?”
“Decent looking. Clean-shaven.”
“Thank God. I hate that scruffy look. It’s so unkempt.”
He didn’t know how to judge handsomeness except by comparison. He tried to think of her favorites. “He reminds me of that doctor in Grey’s Anatomy.”
She smiled, lowering her lids as if she were seeing a vision. “Patrick Dempsey is hot. Even better when he’s had a fresh shave.” Twisting in her seat, her eyes glancing off the guy, she ended by gazing out the opposite window and raised her voice slightly. “Look over there. All that snow.”
Dominic turned as well. The view from the right side of the train, what he could see of it that wasn’t obscured by the unused minibar standing in the way, was of the mountain’s downward slope, and off into the swirling snow.
Erin rose, sidled past him, and stepped across the aisle. The opposite seats were filled so she leaned over the minibar’s console to watch, leaving enough room for people to walk by her.
Jesus, in the tight jeans, she had a heart-shaped ass that made his mouth water.
“Isn’t it cool?” she said, her gaze sliding over the thirty-year-old before landing on Dominic.
“You’d think you never lived in a place where it snows,” he mocked.
“That was ages ago.” She shifted from one foot to the other, one cheek plumping, then the other echoing the movement.
The Patrick Dempsey look-alike stared at her, mesmerized, his book forgotten in his lap. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple sliding up and down his throat.
Dominic had a sudden vision of what his wife could do to this young man, the heights to which she could take him in the last seat in the last car of the train. He didn’t consider the two porters that wandered back and forth between the cars almost constantly. No, in his fantasy, no one noticed a thing.
The loudspeaker crackled. “Last call for lunch in the dining car. You have ten minutes to get your reservations in.”
Facing him, Erin leaned back against the bar, hands braced behind her, breasts thrust forward. “I’m starving. Go put our name in, sweetie.” She smiled, then crossed to his side of the car and leaned down, pert ass in the air, to give him a smooch.
Damn. She was playing to their audience. When Dominic rose from his seat to pass her in the aisle, he cupped her butt briefly, the caress obvious to the man sitting only a couple of seats away.
By the time he’d returned, Erin was in her seat, boots once again propped on the sill, picking one peanut at a time from the pile in her hand. “How long will it be?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes. It’s community dining.”
“What’s that?” She held out her hand. He took several nuts.
“We sit with other people so the tables are filled up.”
“That’s fine.” She sat forward, twisting in her seat as if she were stretching kinked muscles. “I love meeting new people.”
She was such a damn liar. And so good at it.
Their man rose, heading toward the dining car.
“Now that’s a tight end,” Erin murmured, slouching back against her seat to watch.
The guy was tall, lean, with a decent breadth of shoulder. Dominic dipped down to her ear. “I can imagine that tight end with your legs wrapped around it.”
“You are so dirty,” she whispered, but her eyes sparkled. Right now, it was a stress-free fantasy. “I wonder
if he’s getting off in Reno.”
Dominic laughed. She was falling into the whole innuendo of the thing right along with him. “Now who’s being dirty?”
She clucked her tongue. “It’s your mind conjuring up double entendres.”
“He’s back,” Dominic singsonged to her, and she gave a fullthroated laugh. “I love the way you laugh,” he whispered without thinking before the words were out.
She laughed for him again as if she didn’t get the gut-wrenching importance of his words. “Why?”
“Because it’s sexy, and it makes me so damn hard I can’t think of anything else but doing you.”
“Sweet talker.”
A garbled announcement sputtered through the loudspeaker. “I think that’s our name,” he said.
“That was quick. But thank God”—she rolled her eyes dramatically—“I thought I was going to faint from hunger.” Rising, she pulled on her jacket, leaving it unbuttoned. Taking her purse from the bag she’d had at her feet, she laid the carryall on her chair. “There’s just a book and some water and the nuts in there. I’ll leave it to save our seats.” Then she pulled out the book and tossed it on his chair.
“That better not be a romance. It’ll wound my manhood.”
She glanced at his jeans. He was semihard. “I don’t think you have any problem with your manhood, sweetie.”
The book, he saw, was a managerial how-to tome and way too dry. No wonder she hadn’t brought it out of the bag. But Erin was still smiling over her comment as they headed down the aisle to the dining car. She gave a slight tip of her head as they passed the young man. At the same moment, he looked up, their gazes meeting briefly. Ah, eye contact. Unspoken signals. Dominic didn’t expect anything to come of it, not on the train anyway, but at least she was flirting. He was hoping the guy would get off in Reno. In more ways than one.
In the dining car, the waiter led them to a table midway through the car. They both took the window seats of the booth, sitting opposite each other, and ordered coffee to start.
“This is a nice setup.” Erin opened the menu. The food already served to the other diners actually looked appetizing and smelled good, too. The snow-laden countryside rushed by, but inside, they were warm, the tablecloth was white, the napkins cloth instead of paper, and by the window, a little vase of daisies danced to the train’s rhythm. The drone of voices blended with the whoosh of the wheels on the tracks, making other conversations virtually impossible to distinguish and isolating them at the same time.
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