Bette stood in front of a filing cabinet Wednesday evening, returning a folder—the Centurion file. In their cautious way, they’d asked for a proposal on the services her firm could offer, and she’d sent it off that morning.
But when her office door swung open, the Centurian account was forgotten. Almost before the door clicked shut, Paul had his arms around her from behind and his mouth on her neck.
“Mmm. Lord, you taste good.” He nipped at her skin. “You should have quit work hours ago.”
“There’s a lot to do—”
“You’ve always got a lot to do. Too much. But this time I forgive you, because it means you’re still here. I’ve missed you.”
“I saw you last night,” she pointed out, trying valiantly to maintain a reasonable tone when her hormones were doing the samba.
“Mmm-hmm. But not this morning. Or yesterday morning.”
He had a point. After they’d spent all their time together from Friday evening until Monday morning, he’d started the week with an appraisal of the stock of a north suburban collectibles shop being liquidated. She’d been the one to point out it made more sense for him to commute there from his Evanston apartment than from her house. She’d felt a momentary stab when a look flashed across his eyes that might have been relief. Maybe he’d been trying to figure out how to ease away already. But he’d made sure to see her each day. Besides, she’d thought with something between a mental grimace and a grin, he probably wouldn’t have thought far enough ahead to see they were setting a pattern.
It had been left to her to be the practical one, and practical she’d been.
But practicality had its price. After three days of waking up in his arms, the past two mornings had felt surprisingly empty.
“We had dinner together both nights.” Was she reminding him or herself?
“Not the same thing. Not the same thing at all.” His mouth traveled lower on her neck. The openmouthed kisses carried the veiled hint of his teeth, reminding her of the power behind his tenderness. “Some things you just can’t do at a restaurant.”
His hands slid up her ribs, opening to capture the weight of her breasts, then curving to press warm palms against quickly tightening nipples. His movement had drawn her tighter against his chest. She felt the melting warmth inside her, the warmth that needed the heat of his body. She arched more firmly into his hands and dropped her head back to his shoulder.
Shifting, he brought her even closer as he circled and molded and teased her breasts.
He knew how to pleasure her. In such a short time, he knew her body, her responses, so well. She wanted nothing more than to sink to the floor right here, right now, and to have him display that knowledge in the most intimate way imaginable.
What would she do when he left her? She squeezed her eyes shut against the fear.
This moment. Take this moment, but build no expectations that there will be others. She’d made her choice, to take her moments with Paul and deal with life without him when that came. But she hadn’t known the moments would be so wonderful or the prospect of living without them so terrifying.
“Paul.” She planned to lift her head, to gain that much control over herself, but the muscles wouldn’t obey and she felt hot stinging tears at the corners of her eyes. After a lifetime of using the present to build toward a clearly foreseen future, she didn’t even know how her muscles would react in the next second.
And yet it felt so right to be in his arms.
By her ear, his breath rasped harsh and irregular. It was a sound of pleasurable torment, and it flashed across her mind to wonder if she was not alone in this drowning pool of jumbled emotions.
She covered his hands with hers, and slowly lowered them to her waist. He didn’t fight it, but circled her tightly, squeezing the breath and some of the tension out of her.
“Paul.”
Her murmur was distracted, at best, as he bent and touched his tongue to the point of her collarbone just inside her blouse’s neckline. Her moan was involuntary. If he kept that up, in another second they’d be right back where they’d been.
Abruptly, he raised his head without letting her go.
“Bette, how about spending Thanksgiving at my folks’ house?”
She was surprised. Maybe stunned. She twisted around to get a better view of his face.
“Are you serious? Thanksgiving’s more than two weeks away.”
“So?”
So? So, the man she’d come to know quite well over the past month would rather not plan an hour ahead, much less two weeks. A tremor vibrated at the base of her stomach.
“Your mother might not appreciate your inviting people to a holiday dinner without letting her know,” she said.
“She knows.”
“She does?” Bette feared her voice squeaked unbecomingly. The tremor in her stomach intensified and spread.
“Sure. So will you come?”
“I’m sorry, Paul,” she said. “I usually spend Thanksgiving with Darla’s family, and I’ve already accepted her invitation this year.”
She wouldn’t be able to avoid wondering what it might have been like to be with him. She had no lingering concerns about being with his family, so what caused this odd sensation? If this had been any other man than Paul Monroe, she might have thought it was nerves over an invitation some could view as significant, perhaps even a statement of serious intentions.
But this was Paul, and she knew better.
“That’s all right, Bette. You go right ahead and go to the Monroes for Thanksgiving.”
The disembodied voice of Darla Clarence floated into the office. Bette spun around in Paul’s arms and they stared at each other. His look of astonishment quickly gave way to amusement.
“Darla?” Bette called out.
“Go on, girl, you say yes to that invitation right this second.”
“Darla, where are you? How did you hear that?”
“I’m in my office, and I can always hear what you’re doing in there.”
Bette’s mouth worked, but her vocal cords didn’t, so she only mouthed the words: “Oh, my God.”
“And I say you should go right ahead and take the boy up on his invitation,” Darla continued. “You’ve spent the past three Thanksgivings with us, you probably want something different for a change. Maybe their turkey won’t dry out like mine. I’ve been hoping he’d get around to asking.”
Bette studiously ignored the quirked eyebrow Paul directed at her. “But, Darla—”
She wasn’t sure what she was going to say, but it didn’t matter, because Darla wasn’t listening. “But, nothing. Just say, ‘Thank you very much, Paul, I’d love to come to your parents’ house for Thanksgiving.’ "
Paul looked a hair’s-breadth short of laughing as he prompted her, “You heard the lady.”
Bette knew when she was licked. Even with the unsettled sensation back in full force, she found it impossible not to smile as she followed orders. “Thank you very much, Paul, I’d love to come to your parents’ house for Thanksgiving.”
“You’re welcome, Bette.” He pitched his voice slightly louder. “And thank you, Darla.”
“You’re welcome,” came back the reply.
Paul grinned at Bette, then kissed her hard. Her heart swelled, but so did the trembling in her stomach. And now she knew what she feared: hope.