Jill laughed. “Finally—the one guy in the world for you.”
“Maybe so, since he’s been anointed The World’s Last Bachelor by his friends. So don’t start planning bridal showers, because I’m never getting married. Or dating anyone exclusively. Or anything fool-ish like that,” Dorian insisted as she flagged down a waiter.
“Most people seek permanence in their lives,” observed Jill.
“Boring,” Dorian retorted.
“Every other friend of mine wants to settle on someone special.”
Dorian plunked the check down between them. “The only thing I want to settle on is how much I owe you for lunch,” she said.
Jill dug in her purse for her checkbook calculator, and Dorian glanced anxiously at the clock on the wall. She would never have admitted it, but she was eager to get back to La Roacherie. Deke had said he might call this afternoon, and she wanted to be home if he did.
* * *
DORIAN, WEARING a skimpy vest with pockets all over it, a short skirt and a pith helmet, tiptoed down a dank stone stairway past the broken royal seal. A ray of yellow light from behind her penetrated the tunnel below, and dust motes swam before her eyes. She shaded her eyes with one hand and peered toward the sarcophagus where the mummy lay.
Nervously she struck a match and touched it to a candle. The candle flared for a moment, illuminating shapes and casting shadows of animal statues on the wall of the room ahead. She saw gilded couches, a protective sacred cobra made of gold, and vases of obsidian.
The sarcophagus was open. She approached it, holding her breath. Soon she would gaze upon the face of Tutankhamen, the boy king.
The mummy, wreathed in linen strips, sat up. He rubbed his eyes. “I feel awful,” he said in a petulant voice.
“You’ll feel good if you drink Dr. Feelgood’s Herbal Tea,” Dorian said, whipping out a jeweled teapot. “It’s just what the doctor ordered.”
She handed the mummy a cup of tea, and smiled into the camera.
“Dr. Feelgood’s Herbal Teas—good for whatever ails you. Just ask your mummy.”
“Cut,” yelled the director. “That’s a wrap. And this time I don’t mean the mummy.”
Dorian pulled off the pith helmet. She couldn’t wait to get home to a warm bath.
Deke came smiling out of the shadows as she was shedding the vest.
“That was terrific,” he said, beaming at her. “You were marvelous.” He tried to pull her close, but she twisted away.
“Don’t, Deke, I’m dusty. I’ve been slogging around in the Valley of the Kings all day, and what a day it’s been,” she said.
“Want to talk about it?”
She fell into step beside him. “Well, the director was late and in a bad mood, so he complained that the mummy’s wrappings weren’t right, so they had to be redone while we all sat around and waited. Then there was a problem with the lights. And the pith helmet hurt my head, but they said I had to wear it. And—and it was like little chunks being taken out of me all day long.”
“I’ve made reservations for a late dinner out,” he said.
She groaned. “Not you, too,” she said crossly. After she said it, she regretted her tone, but she’d been acting all day. She certainly didn’t want to act like something she wasn’t now.
“Me, too, what?”
“Wanting me to do more than I can do. Wanting something I don’t want to give.”
“So what would make you happy?” he asked patiently.
“A bath. And bed. We have an early call tomorrow.”
“You’ll take a bath at my apartment at the Europa,” he said, keeping his arm around her as she headed for the door. “And bed? That’s up to you.”
She ignored the inquisitive gleam in his eyes and tried to make conversation in order to take the sting out of what she still considered a refusal to see him tonight.
“Have you moved into the penthouse? I thought you wouldn’t be living at the Europa until next week.”
“I’m still staying with Bob and Larissa, but I stopped by the penthouse this afternoon and noticed that my decorator extraordinaire has furnished the bathroom with a copra-pack of shower gel by Caribbee. It brought back memo-ries.”
“Ugh, Caribbee,” she said with a sigh.
“There was also some plain white soap. And some sort of lily-of-the-valley stuff. And the tub, don’t forget, is the six-foot-square whirlpool variety, and it’s time that it was inaugurated.”
Deke, when in his best form, was hard to resist. She felt her fatigue melting away.
“Keep talking, Deke. It’s tempting.”
“We’ll stop by your apartment and you can pick up clean clothes.”
She smiled up at him. What could she say? She was so charmed by him ever since their day at his house on Blue Lake that even when she wasn’t with him it was as if she carried him with her, humming beneath the surface of her skin, pasted on the inside of her eyelids, nestled inside her brain, so that she could never entirely stop thinking about him.
“Okay,” she said. “You win. You always win.” But it was worth letting him win if it meant that her spirits took a turn for the better.
“Let’s get in the Wagoneer. We can come back for your car later,” he said.
She should have reminded him that he needed space and so did she. She was sure that neither of them had intended for the other to become part of their daily routine or had wanted the other to become a necessary means of compan-ionship. Neither had they meant to make love every day. As for the kindness and caring that were by-products of all this togetherness, they were a bonus.
The kindness and caring were what made the difference with Deke. With Dorian’s past relationships, those qualities had been missing. And it was good to have someone to cheer her along, to make bad things seem better.
Dorian realized that she was easing into his life and he into hers. The peculiar thing was that it was so comfortable to do nothing about it. It felt right just to let it happen. But that certainly didn’t mean that she didn’t have secret doubts about allowing Deke Washburn’s incursion into her life, her brain, her body—and even, to some degree, her heart.
He got into the Wagoneer and started the engine, shoving the gearshift into first.
“Are you okay?” he asked, glancing over at her.
She looked at him and her heart melted, washing away every misgiving.
“Very okay,” she said, and she moved close enough to rest her head on his comfortable and capacious shoulder.
* * *
“THIS PLACE IS BEGINNING to look less like a sarcophagus and more like a home,” Dorian said forty-five minutes later as she looked around Deke’s penthouse.
To her surprise, Deke picked her up and whirled her around.
“You’re the best decoration in the whole place,” he said close to her ear as she slid down his body until her feet touched the floor. He kissed her with a hungry passion that all but drove the air from her lungs. He kissed her until her head spun and her lips were numb.
“Deke,” she said again when he stopped kissing her so that they could both catch their breath. For an answer, he ground his hips into hers with a seductive twist that left no doubt of his intent. To keep from falling, she clutched at his shoulders. He laughed exultantly and swung her up into his arms.
“How about making me Feelgood?” he murmured into her ear. “How about letting me peer amid your many treasures?”
“Peer amid? Do you mean pyramid?” she asked, laughing along with him.
He strode toward the bedroom, which was dominated by its hand-tooled bed crafted of wrought iron, the canopy frame purposely left bare by the decorator. The reason became obvious when Dorian lay on the mattress; the canopy’s intricate curlicues cast heart-shaped shadows on the high white ceiling. She had little time to admire this artistry, however, because Deke kicked the spread aside and launched himself onto the bed with a vigorous leap.
He had her shirt unbuttoned before she could sit
up, and she had slid his over his head before he could wriggle out of his jeans. He became impatient with her skirt and pushed it up to her waist, and she wrapped her legs around him. It dawned on her that this was what she had been wanting all day. Now she couldn’t wait for him to fill her, to make her feel whole again after a day spent living up to other people’s expectations.
Dorian didn’t want Deke to waste time on preliminaries; she was ready for him. As he entered her, she gasped with pleasure and buried her face in the curve of his neck and shoulder, soaking up the familiar scent of him, his after-shave and soap and a deep musky fragrance that was his very own.
He murmured incoherently against her hair, his fingers biting into her back, and she ran her hands down the hard muscles of his torso to urge him on. As he moved in and out of her, the world receded and faded—the director and their differences, her exhaustion, the long day—and there was nothing in it but Deke and Dorian, Dorian and Deke, man and woman, one and the same, playing out the most elemental drama of all time.
Where they were was their own special plane of existence, a place where only the two of them could go or had ever gone, a place that had eluded them with every other partner in their lives. Being there with him, being part of him, was so new and so full of delight that Dorian wondered exactly what it was that they shared. Was it merely a meeting of ideal sexual partners, two people who had serendipitously found each other and mated? Was it profound un-derstanding? Was it an expression of their fundamental selves? Or was it more, much more, than either of them had bargained for?
Whatever it was, it was heaven. Deke cried out her name as he reached his peak, and then, in seconds, released by his passion, she followed, her whole body open to him, filled by him. As she coasted back to normal afterward, Deke kissed her cheek, her nose and her eyelids. She didn’t know until he lifted his head and looked at her for one long, bewildered moment that something was wrong.
“You’re crying,” he said.
She was. And she hadn’t even realized it.
* * *
WHAT DID THE TEARS MEAN? she wondered as she slowly soaped her body in the big tub afterward. Deke had run the water, lit a bath candle and gone away. She didn’t know if she had offended him by crying at the completion of their lovemaking. She didn’t know what was happening to her. Whatever it was, it had never happened before.
While she lolled in the huge tub, the warm water and the flickering candlelight lulling her into a state of relaxation, Deke came in bearing a tray containing two cups of tea and sat down on the edge of the tub.
“Want to talk?” he asked.
“Not with you out there and me in here.”
He sat down on the edge of the tub. “You’re sure you want company?”
“It’s a big bathtub,” she said, moving over.
He tested the water with one foot before turning the faucet handle so that cold water poured into the tub. It swirled around her, agreeably warm before it reached her knees. Deke slid in beside her and leaned back. “This is the life,” he said. He turned his head toward her. “Much better than cold Blue Lake, isn’t it?”
“It certainly is,” she said. His feet were magnified by the water, looking long and narrow beneath the surface, and he moved one over and slid it between hers.
“Deke,” she began, then stopped. She wasn’t sure how to say what she wanted to say.
“Your tone sounds ominous,” he said, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “Let me guess the problem. Hmm...don’t you like where my foot is?”
He wasn’t taking this seriously. She was at a loss as to how to continue. What if he wouldn’t listen?
Well, he’d have to get serious, and she’d make him listen.
“I think we’re spending too much time together,” she said abruptly.
He wiggled his foot. “Maybe, but we’re probably not spending enough time in between,” he said cryptically.
“Naturally, I don’t know what that means.”
“You think we’re spending too much time together. I think we’re not spending enough time between. Between the sheets. Between parts of each other’s bodies.”
She sank down until all of her but her head was submerged. “It’s impossible to have a discussion with you when you’re like this.”
“Like what? In my birthday suit?”
“You know what I mean.”
“What’s the discussion about? I’ve forgotten.”
“It’s supposed to be about our relationship.”
“Oh, I see. The elephant has finally lumbered out of the living room.”
“If you want to put it that way,” she said uneasily.
He slid his hand along her hip, but she pushed it away.
“I mean, we both agreed that we don’t want this to lead to anything,” she went on.
“I know, but it isn’t.”
“My career is all-important to me,” she said, but she struggled to say the words with conviction.
“How do you know it isn’t important to me, too? Aren’t I supportive? Don’t I cheer you on from the sidelines? Don’t I make sure you get your beauty sleep?”
“Yes,” Dorian said reluctantly. It was all true.
“So what’s the problem?” When he looked like that, his features arranged in an expression of kind concern, she could hardly resist him.
“I’m afraid you’ll think I’m more serious than I really am,” she said in a low voice.
He turned sideways and slid his knee between her legs, sending a wash of water across her midriff. She wanted to turn in his embrace, to be held close and reassured, but then again, she didn’t.
“There it is, the S word,” he said.
Too late she recalled that he had told her about other women mentioning the word `serious’ in their attempts to lure him into considering a committed relationship.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” she objected.
“Funny, but I believe you,” he said after a thoughtful moment.
“I mean, we’re not exactly keeping this casual, are we?”
“I know. We both need space. We agree. But we don’t need space between our bodies at this very moment.” He was smiling down at her, a warm light in his eyes. She closed her own eyes against it and pulled his head down for a kiss. The water lapped around them, sweet-smelling and warm, and the candle cast flickering shadows on the wall.
“I think,” she said, her voice almost breaking, “that there’s only one way to make me feel better.”
He kissed her then, long and thoroughly, and soon she felt much better indeed. But she couldn’t help thinking that the problem wasn’t solved. She was becoming too attached to Deke, to his way of life, to everything about him.
She was absolutely terrified to think that she might be falling in love with Deke Washburn.
* * *
WHEN DEKE HAD his next brilliant idea, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world, so much so that he didn’t even stop to think it over—he just spit it out.
The occasion on which it occurred to him happened a couple of weeks after his bathtub discussion with Dorian. They were spending the weekend at Blue Lake and lying side by side on the dock, their eyes closed against sun high in the sky, their bodies gleaming with suntan oil that smelled like pi;atna colada.
“Move in with me,” he said suddenly, wondering why he hadn’t thought of it before.
Dorian opened one eye, presumably to see if he was serious. He met her one-eyed gaze steadily so that she’d know he meant business.
“I’ve already mentioned that I’m going to be getting my own apartment soon,” she said.
Deke rolled over on his stomach. “You’ll never sleep in it,” he predicted. They had been together every night since he had moved into his penthouse over a week ago. Her bathrobe hung beside his shirts, which had picked up her fra-grance. Her Miss Piggy slippers rested intimately against his new pig-suede loafers. He had joked that someday they would find that the loafers and Mis
s Piggy had mated, giving birth to—hot dogs?
“You know I’m going to find a place of my own soon,” Dorian said.
“You’ve been talking about it ever since you signed the contract.”
“I know, but now Jill says she’s found a new roommate, a co-worker who is eager to move into my room at La Roacherie. I want my own place, Deke. I’m tired of dealing with roommates, with their untidiness, their boyfriends, their annoying habits. I’m not up to moving in with anyone right now.” She closed her eyes again, the subject dismissed.
Deke knew that Dorian and Jill had been best friends before they shared an apartment, and they would continue to be best friends. He also understood that Dorian wanted to strike out on her own. Still, the thought of living with her was a pleasant one and not one that he wanted to give up easily.
He leaned over, and, with his tongue, he traced the shape of a lopsided heart on her hot shoulder. “Will you think about it?”
Visibly irritated, she flipped over on her side.
“Deke, I don’t want to move in with you. I’m not eager for that kind of togetherness.”
“We’re together all the time anyway,” he reasoned.
“It would feel too much like a marriage. And you know my thoughts on that.”
“Living together isn’t marriage. It’s a matter of convenience,” he said earnestly.
Her eyes popped open. “I’ll show you convenience,” she said, tickling him. He shouted in surprise and yanked himself out of her reach as she dived for him.
He started to laugh, and they rolled like two puppies across the hard wooden dock. It ended when Deke scrambled to his feet and jumped into the water, sending up a fine spray that hit her broadside and ran down her face and chest.
“Are you coming in?” he called to her before ducking underwater to slick his hair out of his eyes.
“No, thanks,” she said. “You’re too rough. Stop acting like a sea monster and I’ll consider it.”
“I’ll show you a sea monster,” he said, flailing toward her. He was growling menacingly as he climbed up the wooden ladder and pulled her to him, and she was laughing and struggling to get away. With one hand he untied the bow at the back of her neck, and with the other, he unfastened the clasp so that her bikini top fell to her feet.
The World's Last Bachelor Page 13
