Читать книгу Friendly Persuasion - Dawn Atkins - Страница 10

“ABSO-FRIGGIN’-LUTELY amazing,” Tina said after Kara had described the events at the Hyatt the night before. They were in the coffee room where Kara was drinking a double-bagger of Earl Grey because she could barely keep her eyes open. She’d lain awake all night reliving her Latin lover adventure.

“It was amazing,” Kara said wistfully. “Only I don’t know what to say to him now. He saw me…you know…like that.”

“Like what? With your head thrown back, eyes rolling, sweating and moaning like a beast? Like that?”

“No, better than that. I was really, really sexy.” The memory made her blush. “And today I’m going to have to ask the guy whose hips I wrapped my legs around last night to quit belching the lyrics of songs over the office intercom.”

Tina opened the refrigerator for what Kara knew to be her usual morning pilfering. “God, nothing in here but Sampson’s peanut-butter celery that he never eats.” She emerged with a piece of it.

“Could I get some help here?” Kara said, calling her friend back to her problem.

“Just act normal,” Tina answered, waving the stalk in the air. “You have a double life. Last night you were an exotic stranger and he was Don Juan. Today you’re back to being a repressed account exec and he’s an overgrown kid who collects comic books.”

“I guess so. And last night did the trick. I can definitely see how sex without love works.”

“Poof!” Tina said, pretending to tap Kara’s head with her celery wand. “You’re sexually liberated.”

“It was nice of Ross to do that for me, don’t you think?”

“He got something out of the deal, too,” Tina said, then gave Kara a speculative look. “You’re not making too much of this, are you? No urge to register at Macy’s or anything?”

“Of course not. This was a one-time thing.” Except all she’d done for the past ten hours was relive the event and long for more. “So, you say, just act like nothing happened?”

“Exactly.”

She sipped her tea, clutching the warm mug with her nervously cold palms. “Speaking of nothing happening, how did it go with Tom last night?”

Tina blushed. Amazing. Tina never blushed. “It was bizarre. It started out like I planned—it’s two a.m. and I tell him my car won’t start and could he give me a ride home. He looks at me funny, but he says he’ll do it.” Tina tapped her lip with the jagged-ended celery stick.

“Then what?”

“So, I climb into his car, lean into him to free my seat belt, giving him plenty of thigh to ogle—and he ogled, all right. Good, I think, we’re getting somewhere. I’ll invite him in for thank-you coffee and we’ll see if he’s as attentive in bed as he is at the bar.

“He hardly talks in the car, but I drag out of him that he’s close to his family, and he’s taking classes to be an engineer. His eyes are so blue…. Anyway, we get to my place and I ask him to come in and you won’t believe what he says to me.” Pause. Tina was such a drama queen.

“What?”

She took a bite of celery and chewed slowly. “He says, ‘You need your sleep.’”

“What?”

“Then he says, ‘Give me your distributor cap and I’ll put it back on before you pick up the car.’ Can you believe it? He was on to me the whole time. Then he offers me a ride to work this morning.”

“Wow. What did you do?”

“I gave him the cap, but I rode in with my neighbor.”

“So, are you giving up?”

“Are you kidding? I figure he likes to make the first move. Old-fashioned, but nice. He held the door for me and walked me up to my apartment, too. A gentleman.” She sighed, then tossed the stub of celery into the trash. “I’ll just play it his way. Let him come to me.”

“Maybe he’s not your kind of guy, Tina.”

“He’s hot. That makes him my kind of guy.”

“What if he wants to get serious?”

“No guy wants to get serious. Not if he has half a chance not to. That only happens in romance novels.”

“Just be careful.”

“Ditto,” she said, looking past Kara’s shoulder. “Miguel at twelve o’clock.”

Kara whirled to find Ross leaning against the doorjamb taking a swig from a quart bottle of V8 juice.

“Ross!” she said, too bright, too nervous.

“Have fun last night, Kara?” he asked, his expression neutral. “Meet anybody?”

“I, uh, I…actually, I did.” Her heart pounded in her ears at the sight and smell of him—she could still detect Miguel’s spicy scent. It seemed weird to talk about it in front of Tina, but she needed some acknowledgment that she hadn’t been alone in the miracle of it all.

“That’s good.” Nothing flickered in Ross’s eyes. She almost despaired. Hadn’t it meant anything to him at all?

“I hope it was all that you wanted.” Then he touched her shoulder—softly, but with an intimacy that turned her to liquid. It meant something to him, all right.

“All I wanted. And more,” she said. But not too much? She wasn’t thinking about engagement rings or wedding cakes, right?

Tina snorted and looked from one to the other. Then she pointed at Kara. “You be careful. That’s all I’m going to say.” She toddled off.

“Good advice,” Ross said softly. “Surprising, coming from Tina.”

“I know. She’s getting downright maternal.”

“Are you all right?”

“Sure. Yes.” Her mouth was so dry and he was standing so close.

“I mean, you’re not smitten or anything?” He was trying to joke, but he looked at her very closely.

“Smitten? Ha,” she joked back. “You’re good, but not that good.”

“I’m not known for my modesty.”

“Evidently not. And I remember both my name and where my underwear is.” Electricity shot through her, as the image of Miguel pushing her teddy to the floor came to her. “Talking about it feels weird,” she said.

“Yeah.” Ross ran his fingers through his hair. “Hard not to, though. I can’t stop thinking about it.” His eyes flared again.

“I can’t believe that was me doing that,” she whispered, blushing madly.

“Believe it. You were hot. But I wasn’t surprised. You don’t seem to know how sexy you are.”

“Thanks.” His praise warmed her to her toes. “That was good for me, Ross. I learned a lot. Thanks.”

“And you’re sure you don’t feel the urge to offer me a sock drawer?”

“No way. You’re too much of a slob.”

“Let’s not get insulting now. I liked it better when you were worshiping at my feet.”

“Pul-eeze,” she said, shoving him playfully out of her way. “Back to work, Mr. Love Meister.”

Relief filled Kara. She and Ross had had amazing sex and they were still the same joky, easy friends they’d been the day before. Later that day, feeling jaunty, she slipped a check under a straightedge on Ross’s drafting table to pay for half the hotel room.

Except when she returned to her desk after a Dairy Arizona meeting, she found the check on her desk torn in half with a Post-it note that said, My pleasure…Miguel. Lust washed through her and her legs turned to boiled pasta.

Ah, Miguel.

At home that night, Kara felt terrible—alive with itching. She couldn’t read and TV was boring. She even tried the firefighter video, but it looked silly and flat, not warm and sensual. How could anyone settle for video sex when there was the real thing out there? She wanted more of Miguel.

What if Miguel wanted more of Katherine?

There was only one way to find out. An hour later, she stood in the doorway to the Hyatt bar, dressed as she had been last night, her heart in her throat, looking for a certain lonely South American playboy with an on-and-off accent. What was the worst that could happen? If Miguel showed up, perfect. If not, no one would ever know how foolish she’d been.

Unfortunately, Miguel didn’t show. Probably for the best. How could a second time compete with the first? The major charm of last night had been the miraculous newness of it all. Ross must realize that. How uncharacteristically sensible of him.

Finally, when the lounge singer, an ancient-looking guy wearing a tux and a toupee in equally bad taste, started singing “Strangers in the Night,” she almost laughed out loud. Strangers in the night, indeed. She slid off her stool and practically ran out of the bar.

WHEN ROSS STEPPED into the Hyatt dressed like Miguel and feeling like an idiot, the last strains of that Frank Sinatra tune about strangers exchanging glances were fading from the air. He just wanted to see if Kara—make that Katherine—was having the same thoughts he was. If not, so be it. They’d had a nice night and that should be enough.

He stayed for an entire set of the lounge singer until the guy started doo-be-doo-be-doing his way through “Strangers in the Night” for the second time. Ross hadn’t heard that song in years. His parents had the album and when his mom was depressed she would play it and get that wistful look on her face. She never said anything, but he could hear her thinking, If it weren’t for your father and you kids, I’d be exchanging glances with a stranger right now. He’d hated that.

So much better to make fun of the singer in his powder-blue tuxedo and bad rug, especially since Ross’s stranger in the night had not shown her perky breasts in that slinky black dress.

He should have known. Kara was smart. That night had been perfect, and how could he top perfection? He was good, but not that good.

KARA GOT TO WORK early the next morning. She’d peeled off the skintight dress and kicked it into a corner—a move worthy of Ross—and slept off that stupid fantasy. If even reckless Ross knew better than to try again, something must be wrong with her. Maybe she was trying to fall in love with him.

She’d nipped it in time, though. Her concentration was in sharp focus this morning. One hour into the day and she’d already coaxed the Dairy Arizona CEO into getting his board of directors to sign off on the ads. Her tenacity was legendary at S&S. If you want it done, give it to Kara. That was the book on her and she was proud of it. By the end of hour two she’d drafted the promotion plan, and then headed into the kitchen for her midmorning snack as a reward. She was definitely over the fantasy aftereffects.

Today she’d gone with low-fat cottage cheese with pineapple and sliced cantaloupe instead of the usual yogurt and carrots. She was a lot better off living dangerously with her snacks than her sex life. She rounded the turn to the kitchen and found Ross sitting at the table, his feet up, reading the alternative newspaper, whistling to himself.