All Who Are Lost (Ashmore's Folly Book 1) (62 page)

So she had
another
bone to pick with her younger sister. Diana settled back against the leather seat. Too bad if Laura had already gone to bed. It was high time she paid Miss Cat Courtney a visit.

And maybe she’d get her stash back.

~•~

Except Laura wasn’t at Edwards Lake.

Her car was there. Her cat, peering out the window, was there. But, Diana discovered after a half hour of ringing her number, breaking in through the gates, circling the house, and throwing pebbles at the upper windows, Laura herself was not there.

Which brought up the interesting question of where Laura, minus cat and car, was spending her Saturday night. So she had a gentleman friend, did she? But she’d have to come home sooner or later to feed that stupid cat.

Diana settled down on a chaise lounge by the pool, stretched out under the starlight, and prepared to wait.

And while she was waiting, she might as well revisit that time when Mr. Perfect had not been so perfect. She fumbled in her bag for her recorder and flask, leaned back and looked out into the night sky, and pressed
Record
.

“Was I, the wife, the last to know?”

~•~

“We need to be at Monticello early,” Richard said. “The tourists won’t be out until late morning.”

Laura sat on the side of the sleigh bed and watched him unpack his duffel bag, laying out a shirt for the next day. She kicked off her shoes and luxuriated in the feeling of free toes. After all the walking they’d done that day, it was sheer bliss to enjoy cool air on bare feet. “We don’t qualify as tourists?”

He gave her a quick grin. “Not me. I’m a son of the Old Dominion. Now you, on the other hand – Irish immigrant or Texas matron or whatever you are – you’re a tourist. You can gawk and take all the pictures you want.” He put the duffel bag down on the floor beside an elaborately carved desk. “Do you want the bathroom first? I need to check messages and call Julie.”

She fell back on the bed and stretched out her arms against the chenille spread. “I’d love a bath.”

“Go ahead. I’ll shower down the hall.”

By the time she had soaked in an old-fashioned tub with gorgeous brass claw feet, deliberated between the short peach silk slip packed at the last moment (too obvious?) and the long cotton T-shirt she usually wore (too boring?), and examined her face in the mirror to make sure that the redness around her eyes had subsided, Richard had finished his phone calls. She tried on the peach slip and then changed her mind and donned the T-shirt when he called out, “Have you drowned in there?”

“Coming right out.” Off went the T-shirt. On went the silk slip again. She drew in a deep breath and reached for the bathroom light.

Most women her age, she thought, were more experienced, that is, if they hadn’t spent their sexual lives to date with a husband married very young. Marriage, even a marriage that worked superficially, offered a comforting familiarity. The routines of intimacy were established, the awkwardness of learning another’s patterns over and done with. Sharing a bed was taken for granted. Coordinating baths and showers was second nature. A wife didn’t have to worry about making the first move or learning a new rhythm of desire.

Without Cam, she would have had at least one love affair by now; she would have gone away with a man for the weekend before this. A shared room for the night in a charming B&B would not be a new setting for her. She wouldn’t hesitate, wondering if she should just turn out the light and get into bed and take her nightgown off in unspoken acknowledgment of the night ahead. Or get into bed and wait for him to take her clothes off. Or walk right out there and take
his
clothes off—

Good heavens! That was what she got for marrying too young. She had no idea how to act with a man who wasn’t a comfortable old shoe husband.

And the sad thing was, the world expected that Cat Courtney was exactly the sort of woman to walk out self-confidently, in eager anticipation of the night. She’d played Jane Eyre for months, and even Jane would run joyfully to Rochester’s arms. Jane would never cower in the bathroom like the limp reality who lived behind Cat Courtney.

“Laura?” An edge to Richard’s voice. “Are you all right?”

“Coming.” She snapped off the light.

But then, Cat might have missed the heart-stopping sight of her lover sitting against the headboard, hair still damp from his shower, jeans unbelted, blue shirt hanging open, bare feet reaching almost to the end of the double bed.

Cat might not feel struck by a sudden, delightful feeling of pure lust down to her very fingertips.

He looked relaxed and younger than his years, and very masculine as he cycled through the channels with the remote. For the moment, he hadn’t a care in the world. She forgot her trepidation and laughed as she climbed onto the bed beside him. “What is it with guys and remotes? Is it encoded on the Y chromosome?”

“You bet,” said Richard, and settled on CNN. “We can’t control the universe, but, by heaven, we will control our TV sets. And our women.” He clicked the remote at her. “Come over here. You’re too far away.”

She scooted over and settled in against him. The headboard and pillows at their backs, two pairs of long legs reaching to the end of the bed. It would be a tight fit tonight, two tall people in this small, old-fashioned bed. They’d have to sleep very close together—

She breathed in deeply and leaned her head against his shoulder. The denim of his jeans lay warmly against her thigh; she felt the seams through the silk. “Did you reach Julie?”

“Yes.” Richard sounded less than happy. “I sure did. And I forgot about her going to music camp next weekend. She was very understanding about it—”

Not too difficult to imagine Julie’s sweet, wistful, deliberate thrust into his heart.

“— And she was planning to get new clothes for camp this weekend, and I forgot to leave her a credit card. So we’ll have to get her kitted out this week.” Oh, Julie was playing his heartstrings and wallet like a pro. “I should have remembered, put this weekend off until she leaves, but—” He gave her a sidelong glance and put his arm around her shoulders. “I’m glad we came. I’m enjoying this.”

“So am I.” Even though he’d ruthlessly marched her through two enormous convention halls of antiques till her feet ached, they’d had a good time. There had been no sexual tension, no thought of the tangled lives left behind them in the Tidewater. They’d companionably held hands, looked at old silver and Victorian fabrics and rare pocket watches, argued over the authenticity of a Tiffany lamp, disagreed vociferously about the attraction of a folk art cistern (she loved it, he thought it was a piece of junk), and relaxed over surf ’n’ turf after their flight into Charlottesville. Both of them had turned off their cell phones. “So how many calls were Lucy?”

“Five,” said Richard. His fingers rubbed absently along her shoulder. “Julie must have let something slip about my being away last night. Miss Infernal Busybody wants to know where I am and what I’m doing and, of course, she really wants to know who I’m with.” He stretched out his legs. “She should be grateful I don’t call her back and tell her.”

Lucy. Laura tried to ignore the slight uneasiness that drew a finger along her spine. Thinking about Lucy led to inevitable thoughts of her other sister, who had no doubt awakened from her drugged sleep this morning to discover the ransacking of her cocaine stash. Diana, who’d said,
Richard and I are
mated for life
. She couldn’t bear to think of Diana, not now while she curled up next to Richard in bed.

She hesitated and then laid her arm across his chest, and was rewarded by his sudden stillness. “Lucy warned me off you.”

“Did she now?” Richard clicked the TV off. “When was this?”

“Right after I got back from Texas this last week.” His fingers moved on her shoulder, exploring the tie that held up the gown. Laura’s heart started to beat faster. “We argued over it.”

He turned to her, and now he wasn’t the companionable man who had bought her the Art Deco pin she liked even though he thought it was a fake, or the laughing man who had dared her to order a large steak and then finished it off for her. She saw a purposeful look in his eyes, the look of a man who saw something he wanted and intended to go after it without wasting any more time. “Did you tell her what she could do with her meddling?”

“She thinks we’re dangerous for each other.” That didn’t come out the way she intended, probably because her voice caught as she tilted her head to allow him access to her throat.

“She’s right there.” His voice dropped, and she felt his tongue trace the edge of her nightgown. “Hard to think of two people more dangerous for each other – I like this on you, very pretty, like the wrapping on a present – no, keep your hand there, I like you touching me—”

The lamp shedding a gentle glow on the room came within her reach as he guided her down across the bed. “Should I turn this off?”

“No.” Richard put her hand above her head, away from the switch. “No, I want to see you.” He brushed a stray strand of hair from her face. “Does the light bother you?”

She shook her head. Nothing bothered her right now, except the hand that was slowly, slowly untying the bow at her shoulder and drawing the silk down to uncover her breasts. He had closed out the rest of the world to her, his body leaning over hers to block out all other realities. His eyes were in shadow, lashes covering his thoughts, as his hand traveled down from her hair to the soft mound of her breast. She felt the tip harden as his fingers brushed over it, and desire shot through her all the way to her toes.

She couldn’t stop the soft sigh in the back of her throat.

“Do you like that?” His voice had dropped even lower, lazy and knowing.

She liked it, of course she did, and he knew it. But maybe he wanted to hear it, and so she whispered, “Yes.”

“You are so lovely – so soft and warm—” His fingers were gently shaping and massaging her flesh. He gave her a grin. “You’ve grown up nicely, Laura Rose.”

Impossible to hang on to shyness in the face of his frank delight in her. “You told me once they were smaller than mosquito bites.”

“Did I?” He tweaked her nipple lightly and studied its reaction. “When did I see—”

“I was eleven. We were fishing and I fell in the lake and lost my top. You said not to worry, no one would notice.”

He laughed. “How ungallant of me. But – in my defense – you probably scared the fish off.”

“Yes, you said that. But you let me wear your shirt till we got home.”

“Oh, Lord. My careless youth comes back to haunt me.” His lips traveled to the soft flesh on the undercurve. “Well, you can wear my shirts any time. Now – about your breasts – from a structural point of view—”

She was laughing now. “Structural? Are you planning to build yourself a woman?”

He shook his head. “Can’t. Ask any architect. You can’t improve on the female breast. It’s nature’s perfect structure.”

Oh, she loved this silly, sexy pillow talk, and she loved the way he traced lazy circles on her sensitive skin. Who knew that Prince Charming could flirt so outrageously in bed? She stretched out luxuriously and rubbed her foot along his denim-clad leg. “I thought you guys worshiped skyscrapers. Bigger is better, or – um, something like that.” Her hand traveled down his chest to the waistband of his unbuttoned jeans. “Speaking of which—”

She received a look of mock sternness, but he leaned into her hand. “Skyscrapers do not occur in nature.”

“Oh, my mistake. I thought they did. Like this one.”

“Besides,” his voice caught for a second, as her fingers came trailing down his zipper, “do you have any idea how much trouble a skyscraper is to erect? You can only build on certain types of land – yes, like that – the permits are hell to obtain, half the time you have to resort to bribery—”

She whispered, “I’m easy to bribe.”

Another indrawn breath. “I thought you might be – Laura, take it a little slower there—” He shifted against her hand. “And a skyscraper, once built, still has to make a respectable return on investment.” She giggled. “Now the breast, on the other hand, has none of those disadvantages.”

She kissed his chest. “Oh, you think so, Master Architect?”

He leaned over her again. “Well, let’s examine the evidence objectively.” His fingers molded and lifted her left breast. “Focal point equidistant from all points on the perimeter, so we have precise concentricity – perfect load-bearing weight distribution—”

“Not anymore. Gravity is already doing its evil work, I’m afraid.”

He quieted her with a kiss. “Aesthetically pleasing from all angles. That’s of paramount importance. Then, of course, it fulfills architecture’s driving principle—”

“What’s that?”

“Form follows function.” And Richard lowered his mouth to her.

~•~

The rhythm was different tonight, they were different, relaxed from their day together. No frantic reaching out to claim each other before it was too late, no jumping off an emotional point of no return. Last night’s storm had played itself out. Tonight was gentle, leisurely, fun. She could wriggle out of the silk gown, putting on a show like the most exotic of fan dancers, with an audience whose eyes glowed at the sight of her. She could insist then on wearing his shirt, which he surrendered to her on the laughing condition that she not button it up. He could lie on his back and let her draw his jeans down with excruciating, teasing slowness. He could reward her by covering her body with his own, kissing her long and deep, so deep that she felt touched by the sun all the way to her core.

And, in all those long moments of his discovery of her, she could explore him. He was an unknown continent to her, a beloved friend, now become a stranger, now become her lover. Her hands could run along his back, feeling those long muscles that gave him that incredible height. Her skin, against his, could feel the different textures between them – where she was soft and delicate, he was hard and masculine, where she was round and pliable, he was straight and unyielding. She learned that he loved her hands against the back of his neck – that he delighted in the flushed skin and shallow breathing of her own arousal – that he had a hidden weakness for the sound of her whisper in his ear, telling him what she felt and what she wanted him to do to her next.