The door closed behind them, and Dorian snickered. “Just where do you intend to stick your hands, Mr. Washburn?” she asked, glancing sidelong up at him.
“Nowhere until we get to the roof,” he said with determination, looking neither to the left nor the right as he led her up a flight of stairs.
Dorian gasped as he opened a door at the top revealing a panorama of the city. “Oh, Deke, I can’t believe you’ve never shown me this before. It’s lovely up here.”
“It’s lovely down there, too,” he said impetuously as he slid the narrow straps of her dress off her shoulders, looking down at her deep décolletage all the while.
She slid the straps back up again. “I don’t really think this is a good idea,” she protested. Above them the stars twinkled like thousands of tiny diamonds peeping through black velvet; below, car headlights traced lacy patterns down the city’s main streets. A languid breeze stirred her hair and sent a delicious shiver up her spine.
“All those people downstairs are chatting and visiting and having a wonderful time. Why shouldn’t we have fun, too?” he asked persuasively, his lips against her hair.
“Reason number one,” she said, intoxicated by his nearness. “Larissa or somebody may follow us. Reason number two, um, stop, Deke, I can’t think,” she said, pulling away.
“That’s the idea,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight. The buttons of his new blazer pressed into her flesh, and she felt the proof of his desire through her clothes.
He kissed her then, slowly and smoothly. Before he was through she was weak with wanting him, and the stars whirled in the heavens.
“How could you deny me one of my fantasies?” he asked whimsically, smiling down at her.
She swallowed. “I don’t recall any fantasy that required climbing to the roof of the Europa,” she said. “If you want to make love, we could go to my apartment.”
“I told you when we first made love that I wanted to make love to you on the roof of the office building where the Dr. Feelgood’s Herbal Teas corporate office is located, remember?”
Dorian did remember. She wished she didn’t. For all she knew, Deke might have figured out some way to whisk them from this roof to that roof; she already knew about his expertise as a balloon pilot, and she wouldn’t put anything from a skyhook to a helicopter past him.
“Well, I’ve given up on the roof of my corporate offices. Too public. But here, on the roof of my own penthouse, with the stars for a blanket and a brick strategically placed in front of that door, no one can disturb us. It’s private. You’re beautiful. And I’m sick and tired of talking about it,” he said, trying to kiss her again.
“I don’t remember any brick in front of the door,” Dorian said, twisting away.
“I haven’t put it there yet.” He broke away and slipped into the shadows. She wrapped her arms around herself as excitement seeped upward from the pit of her stomach, her skin prickling with anticipation as she calculated the risks. It was thrilling to think about making love with Deke high above the city with their friends and acquaintances completely unaware one story below. Thrilling—and beginning to seem quite possible.
“You see? We’re all alone, you and me, up here with the breeze blowing and the stars spinning and the world far, far away.”
There was something hypnotic about Deke’s voice as he returned to her from the doorway, his shirtfront gleaming in the moonlight. She gravitated toward him, every cell in her body primed by the passionate timbre of his voice and the urgency of the blood pounding through her veins. She felt inextricably caught up in the enchantment of the moment.
He stopped at arm’s length from her and reached out to pull the pins from her hair one by one. Her hair fluttered across her shoulders, moon-white in the pale light. She stared up at him, holding his half-lidded gaze with her own, the heat of her body cooled by the soft summer air, desire feeding her greediness to be made love to in the way that only Deke could do it.
She felt constricted and constrained by her dress, and slowly she pushed one shoulder strap down, then the other, so that the lacy fabric fell away, baring her body to the cool night air. His hands curved around her breasts. She leaned into his palms, closing her eyes against the exquisite knowledge of his power over her.
“See how well we fit?” he asked, his voice low. “My hands were made for you, Dorian. My mouth was made for yours. Kiss me.” She obediently lifted her slightly parted lips until they met his. Her nipples bloomed beneath his fingers. He pinched lightly, sending pleasure and pain singing through her body. She drew his tongue into her mouth until he moaned deep in his throat. Their mouths mated hungrily, and she trembled against him, igniting them both with a passion made desperate by their need for haste. He fumbled with his clothes.
“Where?” she gasped.
He broke away only long enough to spread his blazer on the roof’s surface, deep in the velvety darkness beside the low wall circling the roof’s perimeter. He kissed her once more before sinking to his knees, so that she had no choice but to follow him, and before she knew it, she was sitting in his lap and feeling his burgeoning desire. He tugged at her panties until he could slip his fingers between her legs, and she clung to him, every muscle tense. Eyes locked, feeling gloriously decadent, they made love with an urgency like never before.
Halfway through, while he was still enclosed in her, Dorian sensed that something other than the need to rush was driving Deke. Something was different in him this time, a kind of desperation, a longing for something that she felt inadequate to provide. Suddenly, and for the first time, she felt that sexual satisfaction wasn’t enough for him, and she was at a loss to explain why.
All the stars in the sky seemed to explode then, and she murmured incoherently until she felt him pouring into her. Finally, spent, she angled backward, her skin slick, and shook her hair away from her face. He eased away after a few moments, but he did not reach up to touch his fingertips tenderly to her face as he usually did and as she expected him to now. For the first time since their sexual relationship began, she felt self-conscious about their love-making.
Deke’s only communication was a perfunctory kiss on her cheek as they separated. She couldn’t see his eyes in the darkness.
He helped her straighten her dress, and she helped him brush off his jacket.
“Do we have to go back to the party?” she asked plaintively. The party seemed to exist on a different plane, far away from the present place and time.
He looked down at her, his face somber. She wanted him to crack a joke, to say how good it had been, anything.
“I am the host,” he reminded her.
“I’d better do something about my hair,” she said, because it was no longer twisted into its knot.
He gave her a critical once-over. “Maybe we should have been more careful.”
She managed a laugh. “It’s a little late to be thinking of that, don’t you think?”
He got down on his hands and knees to help her look for the pins, and she fumbled until she managed to work her hair into a reasonable facsimile of how it had looked before.
“I’d better slip down to my apartment and make a few major repairs,” she said, infusing her voice with a lightheartedness she didn’t feel.
“I’ll cover for you,” he promised.
Dorian left Deke on the stairs and ran down the service staircase to the floor below, where she caught the elevator to the sixth floor.
* * *
WHEN SHE WAS IN her apartment attempting to work miracles with mousse and hairspray and eyeliner, she realized that during their whole romantic encounter on the roof, Deke had never once referred to her as his fantasy woman. And that was something he always mentioned.
He had been as ardent as ever, but what was wrong with him? Or, maybe more to the point, what was wrong with her that their escapade, which should have been a wildly exciting interlude, had failed to please him? Where was the elation, the joy in coupling, that h
ad never failed them until now?
Since she and Deke had become so wrapped up in each other, she had felt them moving from a state of passionate tension to a new dimension encompassing the passion but including so much more. They had enriched each other’s lives. They had merged their separate identities into a seamless new identity as a couple. But now, when their lovemaking should have nourished their oneness and their separateness from the rest of the world, Deke had drawn away. Dorian had no idea why.
Oh, God, maybe it was all over.
The tears spilled over then, completely ruining her eyeliner again.
After she at last got herself under control, it took her a while to repair things, and then she went back to the party. She felt hollow and depleted and not in the mood to see anyone. The only consolation was that Deke would be there, and she’d have an opportunity to assess his mood. Maybe she could even cajole him into a better one.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” said Jill shortly after Dorian slipped into the penthouse through the front door. “Where on earth have you been?”
“Oh, I remembered that I’d forgotten to turn off my electric curling iron, so I went down to my apartment,” Dorian said offhandedly, and anyone else would have been fooled.
Jill narrowed her eyes, however. “Deke was missing, too. Is anything going on that you want to tell me about?”
Dorian allowed a small smile to play across her lips. “Well, something may be going on,” she said mysteriously, “but nothing that I want to tell you about.” Acting skills often came in handy in real life, she’d found.
“Oh,” said Jill, an understanding smile breaking across her face. “I see.”
Dorian smiled back even as her eyes were seeking Deke among his guests. She saw him and waved, infusing a conspiratorial wink into the gesture. He waved back, but not before hesitating one millionth of a second more than seemed normal. She stiffened and looked away, unable to help her reaction when he wasn’t responding to her with his usual verve and enthusiasm.
“Dorian,” Jill said suddenly, “I’ve been thinking.”
“That’s news,” Dorian said automatically.
“No, I mean it. Sandra and I have made plans to take Charles rollerblading tomorrow. Want to go?”
“Charles? Rollerblading?” Dorian asked, more than a little surprised. The stately Charles was the last person she had ever imagined to see on skates.
“I know, I didn’t believe he’d say he’d go, but he heard Sandra and me talking about how much fun it is and he got enthusiastic. Come with us, Dorian. It will be so much more fun if you’re along.”
Dorian glanced at Deke, who was now talking with a woman wearing a sari. How he could appear so absorbed in conversation with someone else after their escape to the roof, she could not imagine. She tried to think if he had mentioned doing anything tomorrow and was sure he hadn’t. Still, these days they had fallen into the habit of always conferring with each other about leisure-time plans.
“Dor? What do you think?”
Dorian swiveled her head around. “I’d like to go,” she said resolutely. “It sounds like fun.”
Jill grinned. “Oh, I’m so glad. I’ve missed you, best friend.”
Dorian was suddenly enveloped in a surge of rebellion. After years of regarding Jill as her best friend, she had allowed Deke to replace her.
“I miss you, too,” she said, giving Jill a quick, spontaneous hug. “We’ll make up for lost time tomorrow. Let’s have dinner together tomorrow night with Sandra and Charles, and maybe we could take in the laser light show at Stone Mountain afterward. What do you think?”
“I think it sounds like a wonderful day,” Jill said warmly, and they smiled at each other.
“Uh-oh,” Jill said ominously, “there’s Sandra looking like she needs to be rescued from that guy with the earring. Meet us at the rollerblade rental place at eleven o’clock tomorrow, okay?”
Jill hurried away, and Dorian looked around for Deke. Maybe a day with her friends, old friends who had known her for years, was exactly what she needed to distance herself from Deke.
She made her way toward Deke, taking her time. He was standing with his back facing her, effectively shutting her out of his line of vision.
Maybe she was reading things into Deke’s behavior that weren’t really there, she thought as she stopped to speak to Bob Washburn for a moment. And maybe she wasn’t.
But one thing was for sure: she would have to convince Deke that she was still her own person, and she would start tonight.
* * *
LATE THAT NIGHT, Deke lay in bed and thought about the party. It had been a great one. And he thought about Dorian; he could get aroused by merely recalling those few minutes up on the roof. Everything about it had been the stuff of dreams—a breathtakingly beautiful woman who fairly glimmered in the moonlight, a starry sky, and the thrill of escape from the people in his penthouse. And Dorian—tempestuous in her lovemaking, aban-doned in her release. His Dorian. His.
So why wasn’t she here, beside him in bed? Or why wasn’t he there, in her bed?
After the party, Dorian had pleaded exhaustion, brushing a stray tendril of hair out of her eyes and kissing him gently on the lips before she left at the same time as some of the guests. He hadn’t insisted that he wanted to be with her all night, although he did. He reminded himself that Dorian needed lots of space. And he needed space, too, especially now when something seemed terribly askew in the way that he and Dorian were relating to each other.
Here he was, in love for the first time, and the knowledge had paralyzed him. Even while they had been making love on the roof, he had been terrified of her power over his emotions, a power that she probably didn’t even recognize for what it was.
And what if they really did get married, as Larissa seemed to want him to do? Married people never had any fun. They couldn’t pick up and go places at a moment’s notice because obligations went with getting married. They couldn’t have other friends because the spouse became jealous, at least from what he’d seen. And they had to look at each other over the breakfast table every morning, like it or not.
He turned over and punched his pillow into submission, then crossed his arms behind his head so that he was staring up at the pattern that the canopy frame made on the ceiling. He tried not to think about the way Dorian had tossed her head when he’d waved at her across the crowded room after her return from reapplying her makeup. He couldn’t figure out why she’d acted miffed; they both knew that she’d enjoyed making love on the roof. Something had come between him and the woman of his dreams. But what?
He’d chased Dorian until he’d caught her. That, too, was part of the problem.
With the other women in his life, he had never stuck around long enough to find out what an honest-to-goodness relationship would be like. He’d broken things off when they got serious. He’d broken things off when they’d become too possessive. He’d broken things off when people started expecting them to remain a couple.
The point is, he’d always found a reason to break things off, but with Dorian it wasn’t that easy.
First, she didn’t want to get serious.
Second, she wasn’t too possessive. There was none of that pesky, querulous wanting to know where he was every minute. Dorian did her own thing. He did his. They got together at the end of the day, shared laughs and lovemaking, and fell asleep in each other’s arms.
Third, they had been so wrapped up in themselves that they hadn’t been around other people very much, and thus there wasn’t anyone who expected them to remain a couple.
Except Larissa, with her silly comments at the party earlier. Maybe if he explained again to her about the pact with the STUDs, about how he was the last holdout and it was a matter of pride with him to remain footloose and fancy-free, Larissa would get off his back. No. He knew as soon as the thought entered his brain that being a STUD was an excuse that wouldn’t hold water with his sister-in-law. Larissa would first
laugh her head off and then make his life miserable with her barbed comments.
Perhaps if he made it clear to Larissa that he wasn’t marriage material, she’d back off. But knowing Larissa, that would make her see him as even more of a challenge. She’d trot out her divorced friends and her unmarried friends and post-debutante friends and even, for all he knew, people she ran into at the grocery store, for his approval and eventual courtship.
Courtship. What an old-fashioned word! This is the nineties, Larissa, get a grip, he wanted to say to her. Of course, he wouldn’t say any such thing. He had to stay on good terms with his brother’s wife, naturally.
But all this was straying from his central thought, which was that he did not want to get married.
Neither did Dorian.
That should make it perfect.
He tossed and turned and thought that maybe he’d sneak downstairs and tap on Dorian’s door until she woke up and let him in. He missed her. When she wasn’t sleeping next to him at night, it was like the phenomenon of an amputee’s phantom limb; that is, he could feel her there, even though she really wasn’t.
If they were married, they would be together every night for the rest of their lives. He knew married people up in the hills of Georgia who hadn’t slept apart one night of their marriage, and some of them had been married for more than fifty years.
Fifty years was a helluva long time. An eternity. Thinking about it gave him the willies.
Deke got out of bed and went into the kitchen to get a glass of milk. Lou still had some cleaning up to do; the sink was full of glasses, and a dish of shelled peanuts sat on the counter.
He poured the milk, then sat down and dipped into the peanuts. He eyed the phone and thought about calling Dorian. He wanted to talk to someone. Well, actually he wanted to talk to her. She was his friend. She should understand what he was going through. But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t help him solve the problem when she was the problem.
He ate a few more peanuts. Come to think of it, his best friends were the STUDs. There was nothing like another guy to understand what a guy felt.
The World's Last Bachelor Page 18
