Paintings on the wall, including the one of the jazz musicians she’d won from him last year, statues of angels and a multitude of peach-and cream-colored pillows on her couch. Cultured, feminine, complex—all words he’d use to describe Des.
“Seriously, though, if you’re doing this to all the women you sleep with, I’m confused as to why they take your end dates so easily.” Running her hands through her hair, he couldn’t help but continue to stare at her. Even when he wanted to ease her feet from his lap, get his coat and go home.
The problem was, he couldn’t blame her for that comment or others like it that she’d made. A few months ago if she’d said something like that to him, he’d have given some blithe response and gone on his merry way. But something had begun to change in him in these past weeks, even before he’d gone to the ski resort and found out he’d been sending erotic emails to his coworker.
Looking away from her to stare at the TV screen, he continued rubbing her feet. “Never gave any of them a massage like this.” He’d never even thought about doing it.
“Oh.” Did she have to sound so shocked?
“Ask your next question.”
“How do you know I have another question?” she asked.
“Because I know you, Des. I think we keep going round and round with that fact. Let’s face it right here and now. I knew you pretty well before I ever sent a Dear Lover email.”
“I don’t argue that fact. I know you as well as I know my brothers—probably better since I haven’t seen them in a while.” Clearing her throat, she continued. “Okay, I was going to ask why you never did this with them. Actually, no. I want to ask you why you were with so many of them. Did you really think it was necessary to keep your guilt at bay, or was part of it ego?” She was more interested in this part of his life than he would’ve preferred.
He shook his head. “None of those women meant enough to me to stroke my ego. And for the record, I didn’t sleep with every one of them.” He held up a hand because he knew he hadn’t fully answered her question. “Every woman I’ve ever gone out with intrigued me on some level. Some more than others, and those were the ones I slept with. Dating, socializing, partying as some would say, it was a good distraction. If I was out with them, I wasn’t sitting in my apartment thinking about what happened to India.”
“Do you still love her?”
He hadn’t expected that question, but after a few moments, he could understand why it seemed that way. “On the contrary—it’s because I’ve been so afraid of ever feeling that emotion again that I’ve used all those women. I know they like to judge me in the tabloids, and that’s fine. Why shouldn’t they? Even though I’m not doing anything wrong now, I did before.”
“So destroying your personal reputation, or rather building a false one, is your penance for an accident that you didn’t cause.” She sighed. “That’s just as ridiculous as me blaming myself for what Gordon did to me.”
He clenched his jaw upon hearing the man’s name, and because her words were partially correct. He didn’t mind the press bashing him, mainly because if his name was in circulation, so was the name of the company. And since the worst they could do was call him a playboy, it didn’t negatively affect RGF. But he didn’t see the life he’d chosen to live as doing penance. He saw it as taking responsibility in a way he’d failed to do so long ago. “I think we’ve already discussed how well-matched that makes us.” Were they really well-matched? If he were on the outside looking in, he wouldn’t have thought so. And now he wondered how that thought made him feel.
“Well, we’re certainly two of a kind.”
He looked away when seconds ticked by with neither of them speaking.
“Maurice?”
He looked over at her again. “Yeah?”
“What comes after the foot rub?”
Maurice carried her into the bedroom. Another first for him. He’d responded to her question by turning off the TV and lifting her into his arms. When she looped her arms around his neck and stared at him with a look hot enough to sear his eyeballs, he’d tried like hell not to run in.
Tonight, unlike too many of their nights together, he wanted to do things differently. Probably because things between them had begun to feel different, even more than their last night at the ski resort. As if this thing between them was taking steps, moving from one level of involvement to another. If so, what step were they on now?
It was dark in the room when they entered so when he set her down, she went to the nightstand beside her bed and switched on the lamp. Now that the space was cast in a golden glow, he walked to her, cupping her face in his hands before leaning in to kiss her.
His lips touched her tonight as if for the first time. The warm connection came as an easy prelude, and he dropped another lingering kiss on her closed mouth. Her hands came up to clasp his biceps, and he took the kiss a step further. This time he swiped his tongue over her lips. She sucked in a breath, the action parting her mouth so he could slip his tongue inside. They played a game with their tongues, delving deep, pulling back, needing the connection again, so going in once more.
Eventually his hands moved, fingers slipping through the silken strands of her hair. She slid her hands down from his biceps to his waist, gripping his shirt between her fingers as
