License to Love (9 page)

“There’s a first time for everything.” Steve gingerly touched his cheek. “I can’t say I’m thrilled to be the first guy you decked.”

Michelle gulped. “You—you deserved it!”

“Did I?”

“Yes! Because nothing means anything to you! You have different women in different cities on different weekends but essentially, it’s all the same because if your partners are interchangeable and replaceable, then nothing that happens with one of them is of any importance. Everything and everyone is the same to you.”

Steve shifted uncomfortably. His sister Jamie had said much the same thing to him too many times to count, but hearing it from Michelle was somehow more disturbing.

“Well, if it’s any consolation to you, this date is definitely different from any other I’ve ever had,” he said defensively. “And you’re certainly nothing like any other woman I’ve ever gone out with. You patronized me all through dinner, you made it very clear that nothing less than a lethal blizzard could ever gain me entry to your apartment, you quarreled with me, insulted me and slugged me. You can believe me when I say that this evening—and you— stand apart from any other.”

Michelle folded her arms in front of her chest and glowered at him. “Good!”

He met her smoldering glare with one of his own.
“Good?”

“Yes! I’d rather be the most miserable date you’ve ever had than an indistinguishable and forgotten face in your crowd of admirers!”

And while he was mulling over how to reply to that, every light in the apartment simultaneously went out, plunging them into total darkness.

Four

Michelle gasped. Steve cursed. They waited for a few seconds for the lights to flicker back on. Nothing happened.

“Do you think the power lines are down?” Michelle asked anxiously.

“Could be. Listen to that wind howling.”

Steve’s voice came as a disembodied sound in the darkness, but Michelle was inordinately relieved to hear it. There was something frightening about being plunged into this impenetrable blackness and something reassuring to know that she wasn’t alone. Even if the other person there did happen to be Steve-The-Snake-Saraceni.

And then it struck her. “If there is no electricity, there won’t be any heat.”

“I’m sure it’ll be on again soon,” Steve said soothingly, wishing he believed it. It was windy and freezing, the roads were impassable, and the chances of a line crew going out to work on downed power lines seemed slim to none.

Another minute passed in dark silence. Neither Michelle nor Steve moved. The only sound was the eerie, lonely wail of the wind.

“What if the electricity doesn’t come on soon?” Michelle mused aloud. “This building isn’t well insulated at all. The place loses so much heat.."

Her voice trailed off. There was no use stating the obvious. That without continuing electrical heat to replace that which was lost through the too thin walls and windows and assorted cracks and crevices, the temperature in the apartment would drop quickly.

“Relax. The power will be restored momentarily.” Steve sounded even less convinced than the last time he’d offered assurance. “In the meantime, we could light some candles. You do have candles, I hope?”

“I wish I did but I don’t,” Michelle said glumly. “I never thought to buy any. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. If we were at my place, we’d be out of luck, too. I don’t have candles, either. You do have a flashlight, of course?”

Michelle bit her lip, feeling inadequate indeed. “No, I don’t.”

“I bet you don’t have any tools, either. Not even the basics—hammer, nails, wrench, pliers.”

“I keep meaning to buy all that stuff,” Michelle said defensively. “But I’m never in a hardware store and—”

“As the son of a master carpenter, I’m appalled. I bought those basic tools before I even bought furniture for my place. Sort of a Saraceni legacy, I guess. Well, all isn’t lost, we do have another option. I’ll go door to door and ask your neighbors for candles or a flashlight.”

He groped his way, slowly and carefully to the door, called goodbye to her and was gone. Being familiar with the layout of the room, Michelle quickly found the door and waited by it, peering out into the hall through a crack. She could see nothing but complete darkness. Even the streetlight at the end of the block was out.

Steve returned a short time later, shining a flashlight. “I got one candle.” He pressed a small, short one into her hand. “And the guy in 2E is letting me borrow this flashlight long enough to go down to my car and get my things.”

“Your things?” she echoed.

“My gym bag. I keep it in my car. I have a sweat suit and wool socks in there—all clean—so I can put them on. I’m not about to sleep in my new sport coat and anyway, without heat, I’ll need something warmer.”

Michelle allowed herself to breathe again. “Yes, of course.”

Steve shone the light upon her face. “What did you think, that I’d packed some overnight gear with the full expectation of sleeping over with you tonight?” He didn’t give her time to answer. “You did! The expression on your face tells it all.”

“Stop wasting the batteries by shining that thing at me,” Michelle grumbled.

“You see, you were wrong about me.” Steve sounded extraordinarily pleased. “I simply planned to take you to dinner, not to bed. I hope this proves to you that I’m not the indiscriminate, compulsive womanizer you’ve accused me of being.”

“As if you care what I think of you,” Michelle said wryly.

“Strangely enough, I do.” He no longer sounded pleased, he sounded confused. He beat a hasty retreat. “I’ll just grab my coat and head on out to my car. You are going to let me back in, aren’t you?”

“I don’t have much choice,” Michelle replied ungraciously. She wasn’t about to make the mistake of believing that her opinion of him actually mattered to him. After all, this was a man whose little black book had multi-state listings.

Alone now in the apartment, Michelle used a small juice glass on a plate to improvise a holder for the candle and lit it. The flame was small but so bright in the pitch blackness that it seemed to cast a great glow throughout the room. She saw Burton the cat still asleep on the sofa. He’d remained oblivious to the prior goings-on there, except to curl himself into a ball.

Her cheeks flushed at the memory of those tempestuous moments. The way Steve had made her feel... the throbbing excitement, the delicious sense of spinning out of control. When she felt a tingling, tightening ache deep in the core of her, Michelle banished those heady reminiscences. They were too potent; she didn’t dare allow herself to indulge in them. She must always keep in mind that Steve Saraceni had undoubtedly made hosts of other women feel incredibly, excitingly sexy, too.

Flustered, she hurried into her bedroom, the small candle lighting her way. For the first time she noticed that the double bed seemed to dominate—indeed, fill—the small room. The branches of a tree limb rattled against the windows and Michelle jumped with a startled gasp. She couldn’t remember ever being this nervous and on edge.

The room was already getting chilly. In an effort to keep her bills down, she never set her thermostat very high anyway, and the cessation of heat combined with the fierce wind outside were making their effects felt. In a very short while, the apartment was going to be uncomfortably cold.

A quick glance at her watch revealed that it was past midnight. As there was no electricity, the sensible thing to do was to go to bed and sleep through the rest of the storm.
But how could she ever sleep with Steve here?
How could she even get ready for bed—undress!—with him in the apartment?

That unnerving scenario galvanized Michelle into taking advantage of Steve’s temporary absence. She undressed quickly, tossing her discarded clothes into the closet. It was a most uncharacteristic action. Having grown up in crowded quarters, shuttled between her parents, she’d become meticulous about putting everything in its place. A way to exert some control over uncontrollable circumstances, perhaps. Or maybe she’d simply been born with a gene for neatness.

But there was no time to be neat tonight, not when Steve’s return was imminent. The chill in the air made her shiver, and it was only going to get colder. Michelle swiftly donned a full set of thermal long underwear and pulled on a dark blue sweat suit on top of those. She had just put on her second pair of socks when Steve pounded at the door.

Carrying the candle, she hurried to let him in. He was covered with snow. “You’re a dead ringer for Nanook of the North,” Michelle observed.

“Ah, a little blizzard humor. What’s next? An Abominable Snowman joke?” He flicked a glob of snow at her and she squealed and jumped away. “I turned on the car radio while I was out there. The big story is the weather, of course.”

Steve removed his overcoat and brushed the snow from it, then kicked off his wet shoes, talking all the while. “They have no idea when it’ll stop snowing, the winds are gusting up to forty miles an hour and half the city is without power. The turnpike’s closed and there’s been a twenty-one-car pileup on 1-81.”

“That’s awful!” Michelle exclaimed.

“Yeah. They’ve dispatched all snow removal equipment to the accident site to allow emergency vehicles to get the injured to the hospitals. Forget getting the power restored until sometime tomorrow, at the very earliest.”

Michelle watched, wide-eyed, as Steve shrugged out of his sport coat. When he took off his tie and began to unbutton his shirt, she sprang to action. “You can use the bathroom first.” She shoved the candle plate in his hand. “While you’re getting un—uh, getting dressed, I’ll get the sheets for the sofa.”

“And plenty of blankets. It’s already getting cold in here. By morning, it’ll really be—what’s the matter?” He stared at Michelle, who had just heaved a dispirited groan.

“I don’t have any blankets,” she said.

“What?”

“I’ve never needed extra blankets,” she explained, her tone both defensive and apologetic. “I have a goose-down comforter for my bed. It’s one of those that’s guaranteed for arctic temperatures, and it’s all I need. I have a ribcord cotton spread that I use in warmer weather.” She lowered her eyes. “You can use it tonight. If you wear your coat—”

“Forget it, Michelle. My coat is wet from the snow and it’s only a thin wool, not all that warm anyway. And a lightweight cotton spread is useless on a night like this, particularly when there’s no heat! You and I are going to share—the bed, the arctic quilt, and our body heat. It’s the only way.”

“No way,”
she cried. Her heartbeat had doubled, tripled its rate. “If you think I’m going to bed with you, you’re—”

“You can’t seriously believe that I’m making a play for you now?” Steve interrupted incredulously. “Baby, you’ve taken paranoia to new extremes! I just don’t want to freeze to death tonight.” He snatched his gym bag and stomped into the bathroom, leaving Michelle alone in the darkness.

What was she going to do now? Her lungs felt full to bursting and a breathless weakness assailed her.
She couldn’t spend the night in the same bed with Steve!
The mere thought of having him in her apartment, carefully installed in the other room while she slept, had been unnerving enough, but this—

“Your turn.” The sound of Steve’s silky voice echoed as the bathroom door opened a short while later. The shadowy glow of the candle signaled his appearance.

“I will absolutely, categorically, not allow this to happen , ’ ’ Michelle said emphatically.

She turned around to watch him approaching her. He was wearing baggy gray sweatpants and an equally roomy gray sweatshirt with heavy gray socks on his feet. And he looked as devastatingly handsome as he had in his dress clothes, maybe even better, for the loose casual clothes emphasized his hard, muscular virility in a way that the designer duds did not.

Michelle’s mouth was suddenly dry. Her voice lost its assertiveness and became pleading. “Steve, surely you realize that we can’t—”

“I realize that we have no choice in this, Michelle,” he cut in briskly. “You’ve made it very clear that you don’t want to share a bed with me, but we’re going to. So if you’re entertaining any stupid, martyrish notions of sleeping on the sofa yourself with your pathetic cotton spread, you can just forget it. We’re going to
sleep,
literally. I’m not using it as a euphemism for making love. We’re both adults and we’re both going to act like it. Sensible and practical.
Capiche?”

Michelle stared at him mutely.

“That’s Italian. I’ll teach some words to you, if you’d like. You’ve got all night to learn.”

Steve advanced toward her. Michelle automatically backed away.

“Michelle, I’m not going to chase you around the room carrying a candle.” His lips quirked wryly. “It’s too impractical.” He set the candle down on the small end table and headed toward the bedroom. “Good night.”

Once again silence reigned in the small apartment. Michelle picked up the candle and glumly trudged into the bathroom. It was always drafty and chilly in the winter, but without any heat coming through the small register, the little room was becoming downright frigid.

She completed her ablutions speedily and hesitantly walked to the threshold of her bedroom. By candlelight she saw her bed and Steve in it, the arctic-proof quilt pulled so high that his black hair was barely visible on the pillow. According to him, she was now supposed to casually climb into bed with him.

She rebelled. Michelle carried the burning candle back into the living room, put on her parka, and sat down on the sofa. It was going to be a very long, very cold night.

She didn’t know how long she sat there. The room was steadily growing colder and so was she. Worse, the small candle was melting fast. It would soon burn itself out, leaving her completely in the dark.

“I’m making an exception in your case.” Steve was suddenly standing above her. Michelle jumped. She’d been staring out the window at the wind whipping the snow into drifts and hadn’t even heard him approach.

Steve scooped her up into his arms before she realized his intentions. “I’ve never forced a woman to do anything she doesn’t want to do, but as the old saying goes, there’s a first time for everything.”