AFTERGLOW (23 page)

She flushed, and David laughed. "I finally got you, huh? It's about time. I watched you and felt you—three times. It was great."

"I've never done that before," she said in a surprisingly shy voice. "I thought it was only in novels, like mine."

"So you think we're ready to publish the results of our study? Woman Succumbs to Superlover? Woman Gives All? Woman Admits Existence of Passion?"

"All right, all right, you win," Chelsea said. "But you know, David, it could simply have been the result
of …
deprivation!"

"Do you still feel deprived?"

"No, not at all. I feel on the brink of terminal satiation."

"You writers—what kind of a word is that?"

She was trying to find another retort, when he began kissing her. She felt his smooth, deft fingers glide over her breasts, pausing to gently fondle her nipples. To her utter shock, her body responded.

And responded.

"Some satiation," he murmured against her breast.

Shadows were lengthening, casting the bedroom into dimness.

"Oh, my God!" Chelsea nearly shouted. "We've got to meet my parents in thirty minutes!"

They were late, of course. David whispered in her ear as they entered the hotel, "They're going to know what we've been doing. Your eyes look so soft they'd melt a knife."

"Mac the knife or David the knife?"

"Cookie!" Harold Lattimer embraced his daughter, eyed her for a long moment and said, "So that's why you're late. Mimi, you need to speak to this daughter of yours!"

Chelsea groaned, and David had the grace to look a bit embarrassed.

"Bonjour,
David," said Mimi, kissing him on his cheek. "Do sit down and tell us about Chelsea's scar.
Entre nous,
of course!"

"Mother?"

"Cookie, you're sounding like a prude, and life is too short for that. What do you want to drink? More of that wimpy white wine? Waiter!"

David sat back and watched the wildly volleying jokes. When it was his turn, which it was very quickly, he said seriously, "The scar is only about four inches long, she can still wear a bikini and the scar tissue is minimal. I scarcely notice it."

"David!"

"Now, Cookie, don't be so serious." Harold Lattimer beamed at David and said, "When are you two getting hitched? Mind you, David, I didn't think my little girl would ever find a man to suit her, but it appears that you're suiting her just fine. What do you think, Mimi?"

"It sounds as if he is keeping a close eye on her scar,
je crois,"
said Mimi.

Chelsea choked on her white wine. "Never, never again," she declared, "will you guys go to Hawaii. You've become outrageous and decadent! You're embarrassing David. Now let's talk about your vacation. Censored, of course." There was a brief pause, a knowing look between her parents, and Chelsea said, "Just look at those elevators. It's like Buck Rogers in the twenty-fifth century, isn't it—"

"Chelsea," David said, taking her hand. "Shut up."

"Merciful heavens," Harold said after a long moment. "She did. What do you think about that, Mimi?"

"I hope,
j'espere,
that she isn't pregnant before the wedding."

David choked on his scotch. He hadn't used anything, nor had Chelsea. He felt an awful sense of fate descending on his head. Then he felt something he'd never felt
before: a sense of well-being, a sense of rightness. He shot Chelsea a look, but she was looking frantic and nearly shouting, "Waiter! I want another glass of white wine!"

"Mon Dieu,"
said Mimi. "Another margarita!"

"I feel battered, bruised, bent and otherwise mutilated," Chelsea said, slouching in the passenger seat of David's car.

"I didn't use anything, Chelsea," David said, studiously watching traffic before he pulled out of their parking spot.

"Join the club," Chelsea said. And she started praying in Latin.

"Chelsea, could we have—"

"David, please. I don't know. I'm very erratic, oh, forget it!"

She slouched even farther down, her knees against the dash. "Please forget what my parents said—they were off the wall. Marriage is ridiculous. Out of the question."

David finally got himself into the heavy traffic on Market Street. He said blandly, not looking at her, "Lots of people do it."

"Yeah, and lots of people don't make it."

"Yes, true enough." He thought glumly that she'd just experienced first-secondhand what a divorce was like. Well, it wasn't that bad. But he saw that she was scared, skittish, and he didn't know what to say. What if he
had
gotten her pregnant? He swallowed. He decided, his scientific persona coming to the fore, that he would monitor the situation closely in the upcoming weeks.

Why not get married? He rather hoped suddenly that he had gotten her pregnant.

No, that wasn't fair. Nothing seemed particularly fair at the moment, or particularly clear. He felt a surge of desire for her, followed by a spurt of impatience. For heaven's sake, she wasn't exactly
young.
One would think that he was something of a good catch, wouldn't one? He wasn't fat, he wasn't bald, he was a good lover, damn it. What woman wouldn't want him?

Stupid sod.

Chapter 14

«
^
»

D
avid paused a moment at his front door, momentarily nonplussed. Raucous laughter, squeals and general hilarity were coming from inside.

When he strolled into his living room he saw Chelsea, Mark and Taylor all sitting on the floor in front of a blazing fire, playing, of all things, chess.

Chelsea was saying, "Now, Mark, the rook doesn't go in a diagonal, the bishop does. Look!"

"Check, Chelsea!" Taylor shouted.

"All right, you guys, this isn't fair! We put your ages together and you still don't come near to me, and therefore you can't beat me. Aha! See, my knight goes here in front of my poor king."

"He's pinned!" Mark announced with great glee.

"You got that right, kiddo," Chelsea said. "What are you going to do about it?
I'm
awfully devious, so be careful."

"Dad!" Taylor jumped to her feet and then ran into his arms.

David wrapped his arms around his daughter and squeezed. "What is going on here?" he asked over Taylor's head.

Mark took his turn to be hugged by his father. "We're tromping Chelsea, Dad."

"If you know what a pin is you obviously are," David said, smiling at Chelsea over his son's head.

Both kids were wearing jeans and baggy shirts. All three
kids
were barefoot.

It was at that precise moment that David made up his mind to marry Chelsea Lattimer. He didn't question his decision. He just let it flow through him, making him feel pleasantly warm, making his world expand by two continents.

"Come on, Dad, Chelsea needs help—bad!"

"Hi, dear old Dad," Chelsea said, rising. She hugged him, resting her cheek against his shoulder for a moment.

"You still alive with these little devils?"

"We're fine. You look tired. You okay?"

He tightened his arms around her, leaned down and whispered in her ear,
"I'm
just fine, but I am feeling
a
bit …
deprived."

"Dad, you're kissing Chelsea again!"

"At least," Mark said to his sister, disgust in his young voice, "he's not touching her bottom."

"Yeck," Taylor said.

"Just wait until she's eleven or twelve," Chelsea said. "Yeck will turn to wow."

"Boys are stupid," Taylor said.

"What about silly girls?" Mark began, and David groaned.

"I'm going to get a beer. How about you, Chels?"

"A beer, Dad?" Taylor's eyes widened. "You never used to drink that stuff."

"It's the working man's drink, and I am a working man," David said.

"White wine for me," Chelsea said. "That, you guys, is the working woman's drink."

The kids were so wound up that it wasn't until eleven o'clock that they were finally tucked into bed. David dropped onto the sofa beside Chelsea. "Lord, what an evening."

"Lots of fun," Chelsea said. "I'll give you chess lessons, too, David," she added provocatively.

"Let's neck, instead," he said, and pulled her onto his lap.

David saw movement from the corner of his eye and said without turning his head, "Get back to bed or I'm going to turn into a monster. It's my turn to have Chelsea's attention. Scoot!"

"Yes, Dad."

"Yes, Father."

David leaned his head back against the sofa pillows. "They've certainly changed," he said.

Chelsea stiffened just a bit. "What do you mean?"

"They're … children, I guess, not little regimented soldiers."

"Don't let the general hear you say that." She wrapped her arms around his neck and nestled closer. "I missed you."

"Me, too," he said, his eyes closed, his entire body relaxed. It occurred to him suddenly that Chelsea had acted like a glorified baby-sitter for him. "Chels," he began, his hand rubbing up and down her back, "I appreciate all the time you've spent with the kids."

"My pleasure," she said. "I've never been around children before. It's been fun. Truly."

"I just don't want you to think that I've, well, that I've been using you."

"I think there probably are things you could feel guilty about, Dr. Winter, but the kids aren't one of them." She added thoughtfully, after nibbling at his earlobe, "I've learned a lot from them. And something else neat—they're already very socialized, but they still blurt out what they're thinking, and it usually knocks my socks off."

"I don't think they used to blurt out anything," David said.

Chelsea squirmed a bit to get more comfortable, and David groaned. "I'm in bad shape," he said.

"Unfortunately there's nothing to be done about it, Dr. Winter."

"Then hold your bottom still, or I'll fling you on the floor and ravish you."

She laughed and pressed her breasts against him. "I need to get myself home and get some sleep. I promised Mark and Taylor that I'd help them pack all their San Francisco goodies. What time is their flight to Washington?"

"Just before noon. Thank God they like the general. Mark's all excited about visiting the space museum, or whatever it's called."

Chelsea realized that she would miss them and asked very carefully, "When will they be coming out here again?"

"In April, for a week. Then I'll have them for about six weeks this summer."

"That's not too long to wait," she said, squirmed a bit, then jumped to her feet. "Now where did I put my sneakers?"

He hadn't meant to do it, but the words just came out without his permission. In the middle of the San Francisco airport. With hundreds of people nearby. They'd just deposited the kids with Margaret and the general, said their goodbyes and waved again as Mark and Taylor disappeared down the corridor to the plane.

Chelsea stared at him. "What did you say, David?"

He looked away from her, wishing he could retract the words, to save them for an intimate moment, but it was too late. He said, his teeth gritted, "I said that I want you to marry me, Chelsea."

"That's what I thought you said," she said, and kept walking toward the escalator.

David looked at her back and got angry. He caught up with her in a moment and grabbed her arm. "What the hell kind of an answer is that?"

"That, David," Chelsea said, "wasn't an answer. It was just a bunch of words that didn't mean anything to fill in time while I tried to figure out why you asked me what you did in the first place."