Читать книгу All She Wants... - Leslie Kelly - Страница 11
ОглавлениеALTHOUGH HE’D CLIMAXED so powerfully he’d thought the top of his head might blow off, Chaz was now even more desperate to get his mystery lover home. He quickly shoved himself back into his clothes, wondering how someone he’d just met could already be the most sexually addictive woman of his life.
She amazed him, thrilled him. Moments ago, she’d taken him to the ultimate heights, but just looking down at her, seeing the heave of her bare breasts as she tried to steady her breathing, he was already hard for her again.
She was stunning. Intriguing. So sexy. He’d never, in his entire life, been as driven by primal lust as he was tonight.
“Let’s get out of here.”
She busied herself fixing her bustier, not meeting his eye. “Maybe we could just stay here and...”
“Forget it,” he bit out. “I want you totally naked and I don’t want any interruptions or worries about privacy.”
She hesitated, but he wasn’t about to give her any time for doubts or regrets. All he could think about was tearing his pants open again, yanking those tights back down, and plunging balls deep into her tight pussy.
Bending down, he hauled her up, shifting them so his back was to the camera, blocking any view of her. “I have to get you home. Now.”
“Chaz, I...”
“I doubt we’ll even make it past the foyer of my house,” he told her. “There’s a condom in my pocket and I’m tempted to put it on while we walk so I can fuck you the very second we close the front door.”
She gazed at him, the mask still disguising far too much of her face. But the excitement in those eyes was unforgettable. “I like that idea.”
Helping her up, he tightened the laces on her top and helped her refasten her black leather jacket. He could feel the thud of her heart as his knuckles brushed her chest. The woman was every bit as aroused as he was.
Leading her outside, he made good on his promise and picked her up, prepared to run home with her now that he knew she was in no way ready to call it a night.
She tried to protest. “This is silly, I can walk.”
“Shut up. A deal’s a deal.”
“Are you always so stubborn?”
“I’m not at all stubborn. I’m the most easygoing guy around. Ask anybody.”
“Then why don’t you just agree to put me down before you break your back?”
“You’re not exactly a wide load.”
“I’m not exactly a featherweight, either.”
He feigned insult. “You’re offending my manliness.”
Her responding laugh was cute and feminine. But he had to admit, she might have been right, because, as light as she was, after two blocks, his legs were complaining.
“Put me down, you big idiot. I fully intend to be fucked against your front door, and you won’t be able to do that if you can’t walk!”
He stopped, liking the way she thought, and really liking that she was so blunt about it. She seemed to be the kind of woman who went after what she wanted and made no apologies for it, which he found incredibly appealing. They might have danced around this a little bit at first, but now that the course was set, she wasn’t steering off it.
“Okay, you win.”
Pressing a kiss on her lips, he let her slide down his body, loving the instant when her parted legs hugged his hips and they came to within a few layers of fabric of ultimate connection. She ground against him, and he thrust back, his cock painfully hard and desperately in need of hot, wet woman.
Needing another taste before they completed the walk home, he carried her over to the nearest tree and leaned her against it. Bending his face to hers, he kissed her hungrily, exploring the soft, wonderful places in her mouth. Their bodies ground together, mimicking the heated act they’d be completing if not for their clothing.
“I want in,” he groaned.
“And I want you in,” she whimpered. “Stupid tights.”
“They’re awesome tights. But right now I’d like to rip them with my teeth.”
She hissed into his mouth, bucking a little as she envisioned it. “Why don’t you just use your hands instead?”
He stared down at her, wondering what she meant, then getting it. He couldn’t decide at first if she was serious. They were not in a brightly lit vestibule anymore, they were half hidden in the shadows of a tree. But still....
“Right here? Right now?”
“Yes,” she begged, arching harder against him. “Just a taste, Chaz. Give me something to tide me over for another few blocks.”
He reached between her heated thighs, felt the dampness of her crotch and dug his fingers into the weave of the tights, easily pulling them apart. Sighing with relief, with masculine satisfaction, he fingered her, finding her every bit as wet as she’d been before.
Letting most of her weight rest against the tree, he quickly unfastened his pants. His cock sprang hot and hard into his hand. It brushed against her thigh, and she moaned and tightened her legs around him, pulling him close to her heat.
“Please, Chaz,” she begged, writhing, thrusting her hips forward to take what he wasn’t yet giving her.
It was insane. They were outside on a public street, in one of the biggest cities in the country. But there was something dark and elemental about the night. Maybe it was the late hour. Maybe it was because of the date on the calendar—Halloween night. Maybe it was the bright moon or the long, narrow clouds drifting across the inky sky or the sense of surreal, all-encompassing attraction he’d felt from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. Something just wouldn’t let him stop without grabbing this hedonistic, dangerous moment of sin.
He began to slip into her, his cock inching in, gobbled by her silky, wet flesh. From the very first moment of possession, he was shaken by the primitive desire to pour himself into her. He wanted to make a permanent place for himself inside her body, to bury himself so deeply she would never remember what it felt like before he’d taken her.
He’d pushed no more than an inch, barely even the head of his dick, into her, getting nothing but a taste of her sweet tightness, when a car came by, slowing and beeping as someone cat-called out the window.
“Fuck,” he groaned, immediately pulling away, lowering her to stand, and tugging her skirt down into place. He quickly spun around, his back toward the street, blocking her from view, and trying to fix jeans that were suddenly way too tight.
“Oh, God, just shoot me now,” she groaned.
He glared over his shoulder at the occupants of the offending vehicle, hidden within shadows behind closed windows. The car quickly sped up and tore off down the street with another honk of the horn and a squeal of tires.
“They’re gone.”
“Did you get that tag number? I’m going to put a hit out on them,” she said, sounding tortured by sensual need.
Although it physically pained him, he managed to get his clothes around his steel-hard cock, shoving it behind his seam as he heaved in deep breaths of cold night air.
“It’s not much farther to my house,” he said, swallowing in an attempt to calm himself down. His heart was racing, his blood coursing hotly through his veins. If he closed his eyes, he could almost feel her still, and it was easy to imagine what it would be like to sink all the way into her and be wrapped in all that silky warmth. “Can you run in those damn shoes?”
“I’ll crawl if I have to,” she said, her vehemence both cute and flattering. “And FYI, if you’d like to revisit that particular position as soon as we’re behind closed doors, I definitely won’t complain,” she said sounding breathless.
“You’ve got a deal.”
Both anticipating that moment now more than ever, they returned to the sidewalk, walking together, hip-to-hip, thigh brushing thigh. He slid an arm around her waist, tugging her close, and she pressed her cheek against his shoulder, her head fitting there just perfectly. They didn’t run, but there was purpose in their strides, a hunger for what would come when they reached their destination.
A chime suddenly interrupted the quiet night. “Crap, let me turn this off.” She glanced into her purse and retrieved her phone, quickly scanning the message on the screen.
“Problem?”
Sighing, she asked, “Are you going to rape me, then murder me and make a lampshade out of my skin?”
He almost tripped over his own feet, coming to a stop and spinning to face her. “Excuse me?”
“My friend Viv, from back at the bar. She finally stopped dirty-dancing with an entire football team and realized I was gone. Now she’s harassing me for leaving with you, as if you’re Hannibal Lecter’s long-lost twin.”
“Please assure her that I’m not a rapist, or a killer, or an interior decorator.”
It took her less than a second, then her lips twitched. “Ha. Very funny. So I can assure her my skin is going to stay where it is?”
“It seems to be doing a very good job in its present location,” he said, casting an appreciative eye over her, from windswept red hair down to her wickedly sexy shoes.
In fact, he wouldn’t change a single thing about her. Except for removing that mask. Oh, and the rest of her clothes.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice so proper and prim and adorable, he had to tug her close for another quick brush of lips on lips.
Realizing her friend was just being protective, and that she had the right to be, considering this relationship was moving super-fast and had so far involved acts that would probably get them arrested for indecency, he said, “Tell her I’m going to make wild love to you all night, then get up and make you waffles for breakfast.”
That sounded like the perfect way to spend his first night and following morning home.
She lowered her eyes and stepped away from him. “Um...”
“You don’t like waffles? All right, pancakes it is.”
“Listen, the first half of that sounds wonderful.” She twisted her hands in front of her, her eyes on her own fingers. “But I’m not looking for anything serious here.”
“If I were making Peking duck, I might consider that serious, but we’re talking breakfast food here. How about Lucky Charms? How serious can a cereal with marshmallows in it be?”
“They’re my favorite,” she admitted with a sheepish sigh.
“Mine, too. I once broke up with a woman who told me she wouldn’t allow a kids’ cereal at her breakfast table.”
“Guess she didn’t want kids.”
“We hadn’t really reached that stage yet. But on behalf of any potential future children she might have, I called her bluff and didn’t see her again.”
“Dumped over a box of cereal. Harsh.”
“Hey, don’t mess with a man’s one weakness.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“Tomorrow morning?”
She immediately realized she’d backed herself into a corner. “Uh, wait, no, that’s not what I meant.” She tucked a strand of wildly blowing hair behind her ear, visibly stalling. Taking a deep breath, she admitted, “Breakfast implies an all-nighter.”
“You doubting my manhood again?” he asked, deliberately misunderstanding her. He knew she was skittish and was backing away from the idea of actually spending an entire night in his bed. Hell, if she thought up-against-the-front-door sex was all he was after, she didn’t rate her own appeal very highly. After what they’d already shared, what she’d already made him feel, he wasn’t sure he’d be willing to let her out of his sight for a month.
“Not at all,” she said, her smile tremulous. “It’s just, I’m not thinking long-term here.”
“And tomorrow morning is oh-so-far away?”
“Too far away for my taste.”
Huh. She’d really surprised him. He hadn’t had many one-night-stands, but he felt pretty sure that women got testy if they thought you didn’t want them to actually sleep with you once they’d been invited to, uh, sleep with you.
“I like you,” he admitted with a shrug. “Going to bed with you tonight and waking up with you tomorrow won’t exactly be a hardship.”
“It might if you knew who you’d be waking up with.”
“You mean, the wicked witch?”
“Something like that.”
“I’m a big boy. I’ll take my chances.”
She swallowed, her throat quivering. A gusty wind howled through the night, and she pulled her coat tighter around herself. Chaz stepped closer to block the wind, enjoying the way her hair blew against his face. Not to mention how deliciously soft her skin felt against the tips of his fingers. The memory of sinking just one inch inside that beautiful body made him shake with need, from head to toe.
Yeah. He would definitely take his chances. He’d savor whatever she wanted to give him and then figure out how to make her want to give him more.
He reached for her chin and lifted it, forcing her to look at him. The silly mask remained on her face, and he couldn’t wait to take it off. But he sensed they were doing that dance again, like they’d done in the bar. Forward and back. He didn’t want to do anything to push her away.
“Just come home with me,” he urged, “and let the chips fall where they may.”
She stared up at him, uncertainty awash in those shaded eyes. “With no promises?”
He sensed she needed an out. Hoping she’d change her mind, he nodded. “No promises.” Lightening the mood, he grinned. “And no lampshades.”
She visibly relaxed, her stiff posture loosening, her tight mouth softening. “That’s a deal.”
“Are you going to let your friend know?”
She glanced at her phone, tapped out a brief message, and then turned the device off. “I’m all yours,” she said once she’d dropped it back into her purse. “For the next hour or so, anyway.”
“There you go, doubting my manliness again.”
“Three hours?”
“At a bare minimum.”
However long it lasted, he would never forget it. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before, and he was already sure that he was in the middle of something very special. Possibly life-changing. He couldn’t say how he knew it—maybe intuition, maybe wishful thinking. It didn’t matter. He was just certain, on some elemental level, that he would be irrevocably changed after this night.
They started walking again, but hadn’t gone more than a couple of feet before he heard her soft giggle. So maybe she wasn’t thinking about anything on an elemental level.
Which was just one more thing he liked about her. She was damned unpredictable.
“What now?”
“I just had this mental image of somebody at that savings and loan watching the video and wondering what in hell was going on when you stood there for so long with your head thrown back.”
He thrust a hand through his hair, wondering where on earth the two of them had gotten the nerve to be so outrageous. He could practically see the headlines now: Local Reporter Charged With Indecency In A Bank Lobby. Wouldn’t his friends and colleagues have a field day with that one?
Still, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. “I suppose that depends on who was watching.”
“You might want to change where you do your banking.”
He wasn’t worried. “I really don’t think they watch those recordings unless they have a reason to review them for a crime or something.”
“Then let’s hope nobody robs the place tonight. I’m so not ready for my close-up to be seen by an audience.”
“Your close-up was my favorite part of the whole banking experience,” he admitted, unable to deny it. “But even if somebody does watch, that camera didn’t capture anything below waist level.”
And if it had, there’d be nothing to see except a mass of glorious, curly red hair.
Christ, the thought of what she’d done to him—how she’d made him feel—was enough to make him want to throw his head back and howl to the moon like a werewolf on the prowl this Halloween night. Her sexual generosity had stunned him.
“You know, I’ve dated women for months who didn’t do for me what you did back there.”
“Do you mean going with you to the ATM so you could, uh—” she licked her lips “—make a deposit?”
God, she was outrageous. “Yeah. You didn’t have to actually let me complete my...deposit.”
“I enjoyed it.” She shrugged, sounding as though she meant it.
“I thought women only enjoyed it on a guy’s birthday or after getting a diamond bracelet or something.”
“You calling me cheap for settling for a cherry-flavored drink and a dance?”
“There is nothing cheap about you,” he insisted with a squeeze of her hand. “Absolutely nothing.”
“I’m kidding. But there was no quid pro quo about it,” she said. “I wanted to taste you.”
“You didn’t have to go for the full-course meal and swallow every morsel.”
She stopped and turned on her heel to look up at him. “I told you before, I’m not a cock-tease. I wasn’t going to bring you up the mountain and not let you jump off the highest cliff.” She lifted up on her tiptoes and brushed her lips against his. “You taste good.”
He tugged her close and covered her mouth for a kiss, sweeping his tongue inside to explore her all over again. She twined around his body like a vine around a post, pressing every inch of herself against him. By the time the kiss ended, he was barely able to catch his breath. His heart thudded, his pants refused to stay zipped to the top, and he found himself wishing he hadn’t insisted they leave the vestibule. And cursing that stupid honking car to the ninth circle of hell.
Letting her go, he said, “Come on, we’re almost there.”
She nodded, twined her fingers in his and matched him stride for stride as they headed down the street. They passed one young couple, dressed as a pair of comic book superheroes, who barely managed to stop groping each other as they walked by. He wondered if he and his mystery woman had just interrupted the couple the same way the car had interrupted them. The other couple hadn’t seemed to rush to put any clothes back in place, but he would bet they weren’t more than a few minutes from reaching that point.
“Happy Halloween,” he said with a grin as they passed.
“You, too,” the guy said. “Hope you get lots of treats.”
Chaz fully intended to.
“That’s my place on the corner,” he said, nodding toward his townhouse.
“Good thing, these shoes are killing me,” she said.
“Serves you right for doubting my manhood.”
“I didn’t doubt your manhood. Just your wisdom.”
That startled another laugh out of him. Damn, how he liked this woman.
“Well, I don’t see any toilet paper or eggshells, so I guess the trick-or-treaters didn’t punish you for not being home to give out any candy.”
“A few knocked before I went to the bar. I handed out a couple of bags of airplane crackers and some Altoids.”
“They should’ve egged your house just for that.”
She was probably right. Fortunately, no angry, deprived-of-candy ghosts or goblins had played tricks after he’d left.
Yanking her hand from his, she suddenly stopped. “Who’s that?”
“Huh?”
“The woman sitting on the car over there.”
Realizing she was looking toward one of the reserved parking spaces directly in front of his house, he followed her stare. A bright yellow Beetle was parked beside his own car, and on the hood of it sat a woman. She was draped in gauzy white fabric that might have been a toga or might have been a ghost-sheet like the one he’d worn.
Chaz scrunched his brow for a moment, wondering why some stranger was sitting alone on the hood of her car at this time of night. Then he spotted the hair, as yellow as the vehicle, and realized who it was.
“Shit.” He turned to his mystery witch. “It’s my sister.”
“Sarah,” she whispered.
Taken aback for a moment, he suddenly remembered he had mentioned his sibling’s name at the club. “Yes. I have no idea what she’s doing here.”
“She looks upset.” There was a hint of coldness in the tone that hadn’t been there all evening. It appeared he wasn’t the only one disappointed that someone had delayed them from getting inside for their promised up-against-the-wall adventure. His sister had the worst timing in the universe. Well, second worse. That car honking was number one.
“There you are,” Sarah said, sliding off the car and sniffing audibly. Definitely a toga. Roman goddess? “Mom said you got back to town today and I just had to see you and you weren’t he-re when I neeeeded you! Where have you be-en?”
“Have any cheese you can give her to go with that whine?” his companion muttered.
Chaz smothered a laugh, because, yes, Sarah had sounded like a whiny brat. Which wasn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence. She was the baby of the family and relished the role, getting her way in just about everything she’d ever wanted.
“Don’t move,” he said, reluctantly dropping his companion’s hand. “I’ll find out what’s going on and be right back.”
He strode toward his pain in the ass of a sister. “Hey, kid, what’s up?”
“I’ve been waiting for you, big brother. I feel like I’m going crazy!” Sarah threw her arms around his neck, buried her face in his chest and began sobbing loudly. “I’m so miserable!”
So much for Welcome home. How’s it going? I’ve missed you.
He returned the hug, smoothing her hair, wondering what on earth the big drama was this time.
“I can’t believe you didn’t let me know you were home and ask me if I wanted to do something tonight,” she said.
“I figured you had plans with your friends.”
“I did. I mean, I do.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“Everything fell apart.”
Maybe for her. But things had fallen into place for him, and he didn’t want anything to change that. “I intended to call you tomorrow. Now what’s wrong?”
“You will not believe who I ran into today.”
“The president?”
She pulled away and scowled at him. “No! Can you believe Lawrence Vandenberg is going to A.U. for his master’s degree and he lives right beside the campus and Mom never warned me?”
Oh. That. “I heard. Lulu mentioned it in an email.”
Sarah’s jaw dropped. “You keep in touch with her? After what her stupid brother did to me?”
“Not regularly, that’s for sure. She moved here. Mom gave her my email address so she could get some information on housing and stuff.”
That was the full extent of his contact with the girl-next-door, and he wanted to keep it that way. Lulu Vandenberg had been the most annoying next-door neighbor any geeky kid should have to endure, and he was lucky he’d made it out of his childhood with his sanity—and his tailbone—intact.
He did vaguely wonder how she’d turned out. Lulu had, after all, been one of the prettiest girls he’d ever known, not that he would never have told her he thought so in a million years. Maybe she’d grown up to be a hag, though he doubted it. Her emails had been friendly and chatty, brimming with self-confidence. Of course, Lulu had been that way, too. Always talking, always ready to hand out advice. She’d been a real know-it-all.
Nah. He didn’t really want to see how she’d turned out.
“She had the nerve to ask you for help after the way she always treated you when we were kids?” Sarah said, finally thinking of someone other than herself.
To be fair, Lulu hadn’t been all bad. They’d actually gotten along fine much of the time, usually by ignoring each other. It was just that she was so damned bossy, and good at everything. She’d out-played him on the basketball court, had ridden her bike in circles around him while he still struggled with his first ten-speed. She was the bravest and the toughest when it came to playing truth-or-dare. She was also dangerous—he’d been a witness to the great playground fight, when she, at age eight, had slugged an eleven-year-old boy who made fun of six-year-old Lawrence for still having a teddy bear.
And of course there was the ladder incident. Sometimes, when he sat down just the right way, he still got a twinge out of that forever-cracked tailbone.
“It’s no big deal. Mom asked me to help out. Lulu’s her best friend’s kid. What was I supposed to do, say no?”
“Well, hopefully you told her the safest place in the city to live is Anacostia,” Sarah said with a heaping helping of spite, since that neighborhood was one of the most dangerous in the district.
Chaz grunted. “Let it go, little sister.”
It was kid stuff, and he’d tried to forget it. That said, he did hope his Realtor had found Lulu an apartment far away from his own neighborhood.
“What, exactly, did Lulu tell you about Lawrence?” she asked.
“Just that he was coming here to go to school, too.”
“Did she mention that he was doing it so he could be close to some girl?”
Chaz stayed quiet, sensing a trap in the question.
Eventually Sarah continued. “Because he happens to have a girlfriend! And I think they might be living together!”
From several feet away, where he’d left his sexy witch, he heard a cough, but he stayed focused on Sarah, knowing he had to hear her out, give her a brotherly word of wisdom, and then send her on her way. “And that’s your business...why?”
She sputtered. “Well, he had to have been aware I’m at A.U. He did it on purpose, came here just to get close to me and try to make me jealous.”
“Is it working?”
“No, it is not. That’s ridiculous.”
“Great. Then there’s no problem.”
She gritted her teeth and literally growled at him. “Of course there’s a problem.”
He had never found out exactly what had happened between his sister and Lawrence. Nor was he sure he wanted to. Knowing his sister, and well aware that Lawrence was a great guy, he had to assume Sarah had been at fault, not that he was about to say that to her. He valued his eardrums too much; she would scream the neighborhood down if he accused her of being anything but the injured party in that long-ago breakup. The key being long ago.
“Sarah, it’s been years. Why haven’t you moved on?”
Her bottom lip pushed out and her big blue eyes grew moist. He could see unshed tears, illuminated by the street light overhead. Damn it, his sister really could turn on the waterworks.
“You just don’t understand.” Sniff. “Of course you’d take his side. You’re such a guy.”
“I understand breakups and exes. I’ve had my share.”
He didn’t add that he was the one who usually did the breaking up, his job being a lot more important to him than anyone he’d ever dated. And most women his age didn’t want to wait around for weeks at a time while he jet-setted his way across the globe chasing stories.
There had been one who’d seemed like she could handle it. She’d assured him she could, in fact. Then he’d come home early from a trip and gone to surprise her at her place.
Surprise! She was dating another dude on the side, and had been for a while.
They hadn’t had any exclusive agreement or anything, but she’d told him flat-out that she wasn’t seeing anyone else. He could take a woman who dated others, but he would not put up with one who lied. In his line of work, where he had to rely on sources, he had absolutely zero tolerance for liars. He’d devoted most of his efforts to tyrants and warlords, but even the lowliest liar could do serious damage. He’d seen friends’ careers ruined because of other people’s falsehoods, which was bad enough. Worse were the deceptions that put others in harm’s way. In some of the darker, more dangerous countries he had visited, deliberate lies had lured journalists to their own brutal deaths, and Chaz was always slow to give his trust and quick to take it back if it were betrayed.
“Listen, why don’t you go ahead with your plans for tonight. Go have fun, you’ll feel better. I’ll take you out for breakfast on Sunday.” Seeing that she was considering it, he added the key point. “I’ll bet running into you didn’t make Lawrence change his plans.”
That did it. The crocodile tears dried immediately and her shoulders squared. “You’re right. I can’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he ruined my Halloween.”
“Atta girl,” he said, squeezing her arm and gently pushing her toward her car. He opened the door and helped her shove all the loose fabric of her costume inside.
She rolled down the window and blew him a kiss. “Thanks, Chaz. Happy Halloween. Have fun with your...oh, where’d she go?”
“Who?”
“Weren’t you with someone?” she asked, craning to look through the windshield at the sidewalk.
The empty sidewalk.
He didn’t panic. “She must have gone up to the porch to wait for me.”
Sarah sat up higher in her seat and peered toward the front of his house. “Nope, nobody there.”
“I’m sure she’s around,” he said, not worrying...not really, anyway. “Call me tomorrow about breakfast.”
Sarah agreed and then backed up the car and drove away. The second she was out of sight, Chaz spun around to return to his companion. He assumed he’d find her in the shadows of one of the large live oak trees that lined the front of the row of townhouses. But she wasn’t there.
His heart rate kicked up. He strode toward his own place, searching the porch and the walkway, then retraced his steps.
“Are we playing hide-and-seek now?” he asked out loud, feeling stupid for not having gotten her name. He didn’t particularly want to call out, “Hey, sexy witch who just gave me the best blow job of my life, where are you?”
Dry leaves scuttled along the sidewalk and a strong breeze howled up the empty street, whistling between the cars. There was no other sound. No response.
No beautiful woman.
Not believing his own senses, he looked again, retracing their steps, checking behind each car, going all the way up to the corner. By the time he reached the bank vestibule and saw it empty, something akin to panic made him break into a sweat until he was almost running to the bar. But somehow, he knew even before he went inside and scanned the entire place, table by table, that he wasn’t going to find her.
Every minute, every step, every peering glance reinforced in his heart what his head had already begun to accept.
She was gone. His mystery woman, the one he’d been sure was going to become his utter sexual obsession, had disappeared.
