Chapter 4 #2
This time when I closed the door, I made no attempt to cushion its click.
I didn’t slam it, just … closed it. And I trotted down the stairs the way I normally did, washed the mixing bowl without taking care to be particularly quiet, talked full voice on the phone to an old friend in Boston about an orthopedic specialist, even turned the radio on to the country sound that I liked.
When I’d done everything I could in the kitchen, I trotted up to my studio and did some organizing of materials, which entailed the opening and closing of cabinets.
Then I trotted back down to take the muffins from the oven.
While I was at it, I put on a pot of beef stew to cook.
My recipe was nowhere near as good as Bettina Gregorian’s, hers having far more ingredients than I could cope with.
But while there wasn’t the subtlety to my stew that there was to hers, it was still remarkably good.
At eleven o’clock, I put on my most nonchalant front and made my way back up the stairs. I didn’t bother to knock this time, or call Peter’s name from the door. For expediency’s sake, I went straight to the side of the bed, took a firm grasp of his upper arm and gave it a good, solid shake.
He jumped. His head shot around, eyes opening wide on mine, though they didn’t seem to see a thing. After several taut seconds, he slowly closed his eyes and sank down to the bed, but on his back. He threw an arm over his eyes. “You scared the hell out of me,” he said in a quiet voice.
“I’m sorry. There didn’t seem to be any other way to wake you.”
“Is it nine?”
I had to smile. “No. Eleven.”
He lifted his arm and peered up at me. “Eleven. I was supposed to get up at nine.”
“When I woke you at nine, you told me to wake you at ten.”
“Then ten.”
“When I woke you at ten, you told me to wake you at eleven.”
That gave him a moment’s pause. “I did?”
I nodded.
“Oh.” He dropped his arm back to his eyes. “I was having the most incredible dream.”
Adam used to say the same thing. Then he’d reach for me and expect that I’d be as aroused as he was, only it didn’t always work that way.
If I was sleeping, I was sleepy, and if I was awake, my mind was on other things.
Adam thought about sex a lot. I didn’t. In my book, there were far more important and exciting things in our relationship than that.
Without conscious intent, my gaze slipped over the covers toward Peter’s groin. But he had a knee bent. I couldn’t see a thing—for which I thanked my lucky stars the instant I realized what I’d gone looking for. If he’d been hard, I wasn’t sure what I’d have done.
Then again, if he hadn’t been hard, I’d have wondered more.
Then again, maybe my mind had gone suddenly wicked. Maybe his dream hadn’t been sexy at all. Maybe he’d been dreaming about winning one case or another.
I wasn’t about to ask. Instead, I cleared my throat. “Are you awake now?”
“I think so.”
“Help yourself to the shower,” I said as I took my fill of his chest. It was solid, impressively broad at the shoulders, tapering to the waist where the covers lay, and it was a devilishly masculine blend of bone, muscle and flesh.
I saw the tracings of several faint scars, but like the small one high on his cheek, they only added to the allure.
“There’s plenty of hot water. I had a new heater put in year before last.”
“Sounds good.”
“Bath towels are in the cabinet under the sink.” I wasn’t sure if I’d told him that the night before, but, if so, the repetition didn’t hurt.
I tried to think of what else he’d need to know, but I was distracted by his ribs.
They weren’t harshly delineated—he wasn’t that lean—but they provided an interesting contour to go with the swell of his pectorals and the faint concavity of his stomach.
“I made muffins,” I said quickly. “I’ll put eggs and bacon on when you’re ready to come downstairs—unless you’d rather not have eggs.
I can understand that you might not, I mean, if you’re keeping tabs on your cholesterol level.
Lots of men are, nowadays. And women. I can skip the eggs.
It’d be no trouble. I have cottage cheese and yogurt and plenty of fruit—”
It was as if I ran out of breath, just like that.
One minute I was talking, the next minute I wasn’t.
Everything seemed caught up in my throat, because while I’d been babbling, Peter had slid his arm back on his forehead.
Thus uncovered, his pale green eyes were focusing on me, holding my gaze captive, seeming to control the rest of me, as well.
I couldn’t move. Nor could I think of anything but the intimate message being conveyed, not only by those eyes but by his pose.
With his arm up high like that, the entire upper half of his body was lifted, extended, made to look larger and more imposing than ever.
I sucked in a sharp breath when his hand—the one that had been lying innocuously on the quilt—closed around my wrist. He tugged. I resisted.
“Sit,” he commanded quietly. His eyes continued to hold mine.
I shook my head. “Not a good idea.”
“Why not?”
I couldn’t think straight—at least, that was what I told myself when I didn’t offer an answer. I wasn’t about to say that his body excited mine too much for me to sit. I wasn’t about to say that I was frightened not of him, but of myself.
He tugged harder, and I found myself perched on the side of the bed smack by his hip.
Wisely, from his point of view, he didn’t release my wrist; if he had, I’d surely have bolted, because my pulse was already running a frantic race and threatened to drag the rest of me with it.
Rather, he anchored my cuffed hand to his chest. I curled my fingers into a fist, which was the least I could do to protect myself from the lure of his flesh.
“I shouldn’t be here,” I whispered.
“Why not?”
“I have things to do downstairs.”
“Like?”
I tried to think, but it was difficult, being so close to him. All my energy seemed sidetracked in the effort to keep my breathing steady. I swallowed. “Like … see to the stew.”
“Stew takes care of itself.”
I knew that, but I’d hoped he wouldn’t. “Do you cook?”
“I used to. It was a matter of survival.”
The story he’d told at Swansy’s about his crude beginnings came back to me in a rush. It was hard to remember he’d been mortal once. “You must eat out a lot.”
“Enough. Sometimes it’s just grabbing takeout on the run. I’d do more cooking if I had the time. I like cooking.”
I couldn’t believe the conversation. Peter had just bolted out of a dead-deep sleep, it was eleven in the morning, he was lying in bed half naked—all naked, if the truth were told—smelling faintly but deliciously of sleep-warmed man, and we were talking about cooking?
I wished he’d lower his arm. There was something exquisitely intimate about a man’s armpit. Maybe it was that not many people saw it. Maybe it was simply that it was different; I shaved mine. The hair under his was soft and smooth, as was that sweet skin beneath it.
Funny, but I’d never paid particular heed to Adam’s armpits. Or maybe I had, but I’d forgotten. Six years was a long time. A long time.
“Are you disappointed in me?” came the deep voice that was not Adam’s but Peter’s.
My eyes flew to his. “For what?”
He shrugged with one shoulder. “I don’t know.
” But his eyes told me otherwise. In their probing green way, they said that I’d been looking entranced with his body one minute, then not so entranced the next.
“Oversleeping, maybe,” he improvised when I said nothing.
“You hired me to work, not to sleep the weekend away.”
How could I be angry when he’d obviously needed the sleep? “You were tired.” I tried to casually lift my hand away from his chest, but he wasn’t letting go.
“Leave it there. It feels good on my skin.”
“It shouldn’t be there. I shouldn’t be here. You’re right. I hired you to work, and now I’m distracting you.”
“You’re the boss. You can do what you want.”
But I couldn’t. I seemed to have lost control of my senses. That was the only explanation I had for not jerking my hand free and fleeing the room. Peter wasn’t holding me that hard.
But I stayed. I stayed because I was in the thrall of the soft, sweet, exciting feelings that were surging through my insides. They were new and pleasant. I wasn’t ready to oust them just yet.
“Why were you so tired?” I asked. “Were you really up late all week clearing things up so you could come here, or did you just say that to make me feel guilty?”
He frowned. “Did I say that?”
“Yes. When I tried to wake you at ten. Is it true?”
“Yes and no. There was a lot of stuff that needed to be taken care of so I’d be free, but I also had a crisis situation with one of my clients.
” My raised brows invited him to elaborate.
He took them up on it. “I defended the man on charges of embezzlement. He was convicted on lesser counts than he’d originally been charged with, but he was still sentenced to a brief prison term.
Last Monday there was a brawl in the prison yard.
He’s been accused of stabbing one of the other inmates. ”
“Oh dear.”
“Oh dear is right. He would have been out on parole in another two months. Now he’s facing disciplinary action that could add another six to his sentence.”
“Is he guilty of the stabbing?”
“He did it, but he claims it was self-defense.”
“Were there any witnesses?”
“Yeah. A prison yard full, all of whom hate my man because he isn’t one of them.
He’s really a straight guy who made a single big mistake in life.
Now that’s been compounded. And the worst of it is that he has a wife and two kids.
The pressure was so bad in their neighborhood that they moved, but they’ve been waiting for his parole to start putting the pieces together again. ”
“What could you do for him? Were you able to help?”