Listed: Volume II (12 page)

“I
know. I know you like it. But you need to know something.” He cleared his
throat. “There was a mix-up when our reservations were changed, and they gave
us a suite with only one bedroom.”

Emily
blinked, taking a minute to process what he said. “Oh.”

“So,
you see, we might need to move. We can stay here if you want, but we’ll have to
somehow make do with one room.”

“Oh.”

Paul
waited.

Emily
looked back at the pink, orange, and violet sunset behind the peaks of the
Pyramids. “Will the new suite have this same view?”

“No.
I’m sorry. We may, in fact, have to have two separate rooms.” He didn’t like
that idea at all. He didn’t like not being around if Emily needed him, but she
had to choose what would make her most comfortable. “So, we can stay here with
only one bedroom, or we could move to different rooms.”

“Let’s
just stay,” she concluded. She’d been staring out at the view, but now she
slanted him an ironic look. “We’re married, after all. I’m sure we can manage.
I just couldn’t bear to give this up.”

Paul
murmured an acknowledgement of her decision. Noticed she had a little smile on
her face and assumed she was taking pleasure in the view again. Then went to
tip the relieved concierge and tell him the suite was excellent.

As
the bellhops carried their luggage into the bedroom, Paul stood watching.

It
would probably be all right. He and Emily got along fine, even in close
quarters. The bed was huge. And fortunately all of those inappropriate thoughts
he’d been entertaining had been snuffed out by the sight of Emily’s helpless
suffering.

Sharing
the room would be no problem.

The
bedroom looked like it belonged in a honeymoon suite. It wasn’t tasteless or
crass, of course. Like the rest of the suite, it was lovely and elegant, but
the bedding was lush and sensual. There was a huge vase of red roses and
orchids on the table and a silver bucket holding chilled champagne and two
crystal flutes beside the flowers.

Quite
against his will, Paul’s mind flashed to the image of Emily—looking like a wet
dream in that new dress that left nothing to the imagination, with tousled
hair, sophisticated makeup, and bare legs above her high heels. The sight of
her so sexy that evening in New York had been like a hard kick in his gut.

Other
parts of his body had reacted too.

Then
he thought about her a few nights ago in the kitchen, when she’d woken him up
in the middle of the night. She’d been wearing what looked to him like
underwear, although maybe they were supposed to be shorts.

Whatever
they were, they’d displayed more of her luscious ass than he could handle. Then
she’d stroked the scars on his back. There was something about her deep
sympathy and tenderness that he’d wanted, he’d needed. But his body had
infuriatingly misinterpreted the stimulus and had leapt into eager arousal.
He’d been achingly hard, from just a few brushes of her fingers on his back and
the knowledge of how little she'd been wearing. He’d panicked when he realized
that his pajama pants wouldn’t hide anything.

He’d
used the refrigerator door as some sort of barrier, and he didn’t think she’d
noticed his response.

Paul
took a deep breath. He was over that now. He wasn’t going to react that way to
her again. She was sick and only seventeen years old.

For
thirteen more days.

He
stared at the big bed, the only bed in the suite. He imagined Emily climbing
into it with him tonight, wearing next to nothing. He imagined rolling over and
feeling her lush curves pressed against him in the dark. He imagined her hands
on his skin, stroking him, caressing him. He imagined her looking at him the
way she was looking at the view, with the same uninhibited passion.

His
body clenched with the kind of deeply physical interest that was supposed to
have been snuffed out. He felt a familiar tightening in his groin.

He
swallowed hard.

Maybe
he would just sleep on the couch.

***

Paul was propped up on
the bed with his laptop in his lap. He was pretending to work, but he was
mostly just waiting for Emily to come out of the bathroom.

He’d
suggested he sleep on the sofa in the sitting room, but Emily had been
astonished and appalled by the idea because the antique sofa was too short for
his height. He’d had to drop the subject completely when she started to make
noises about sleeping on the couch herself, if Paul was so uncomfortable about
sharing the bed with her.

After
a delicious dinner from room service on the terrace, Emily declared herself
exhausted. She was going to take a bath and go to bed.

He’d
tried to busy himself in the sitting room, thinking it might be easier to come
to bed much later than Emily, when she would hopefully already be asleep.
However, she’d apparently found his procrastination strange and asked again if
she should just sleep on the couch.

Paul
was not about to let Emily sleep on anything except a bed, so he’d told her he
was coming into the bedroom momentarily.

She’d
been in the bathroom for twenty-five minutes now, evidently enjoying a
leisurely bath, and Paul was having a very hard time not imagining what she
looked like, naked and sensual, relaxing in hot, fragrant bubbles.

When
he heard her moving around behind the closed door of the bathroom, he knew
she’d gotten out of the tub. He felt his heartbeat speed up a little, and his
skin broke out in a faint sweat. He tried to force down the reaction. His body
was responding as though he were about to have sex as soon as Emily got into
bed with him, when he knew very well that wasn’t going to happen.

He
stared fixedly at his laptop as the bathroom door opened and the spicy,
pleasant scent of ginger and vanilla wafted over to him.

“Do
you always work in bed?” Emily asked, stopping in the middle of the room to
look at him.

At
the sound of her voice, he couldn’t help but shift his gaze over to where she
stood. His body tightened with interest as soon as he saw her.

He’d
been hoping she would be a little self-conscious about sharing the bed and
would thus choose one of her less revealing sleep outfits. No such luck. She
looked lovely and utterly tempting in a little tank-and-short set in a smoky
purple satin. There was nothing overtly sexy about the simple cut of the top or
shorts—he knew she wasn’t trying to turn him on. But the color highlighted her
fair skin and her shiny, tousled hair. The soft fabric looked like it wanted to
be touched and clung to the curve of her breasts. One thin strap was slipping
down her shoulder, and the slight flare of the shorts emphasized her hips.

“Do
you?” she prompted, since he hadn’t answered her earlier question. She lowered
her eyes.

Paul
tore his hot gaze away from her, reminding himself with ruthless determination
that she was seventeen, she was sick, and she wasn’t for him. “Sometimes,” he
said, finally answering her question. “But I was just going through some email
until you were finished in the bathroom.”

“Oh,”
she said, slanting him a shy little look that was irresistible, tantalizing.

He
cleared his throat and was glad the laptop covered his groin. His body had
leapt to attention in every way. “I need to shower after the flight too.”

“Oh,”
she said again, this time with a different resonance.  “I’m sorry. I
should have let you use the bathroom first, since I took so long with my bath.
Was I too slow?”

“No,
no. You weren’t slow at all. This worked out well. I wanted to clear out my email
anyway.”

Emily
had walked over to her side of the bed and turned down the covers. “I’m going
to get a bottle of water,” she said, “Did you want one too?”

“Sure.”

She
padded out of the bedroom to get the bottles of water from the refrigerator in
the kitchen, and Paul took that opportunity to set down his laptop and get into
the bathroom before Emily could notice his physical condition.

The
bathroom smelled like Emily—strongly like ginger and vanilla from her bath but
also a faint whiff of the herbal scent of her shampoo and the mint of her
toothpaste.

He
turned the shower on hot and stifled a groan as he stepped under the spray. The
smell of Emily just intensified his arousal, as did the sight of her little
pink robe hanging from a hook on the door.

With
the water beating down on him, he wrapped his hand around his erection and
pumped quickly, bracing himself with his other hand against the shower wall.

He
tried not to visualize Emily, but he couldn’t seem to help it. He saw the
tumble of her hair around her face, the lush curves of her small body, that
irresistible expression in her blue eyes. He came, biting his lip to make sure
he didn’t make any noise.

He
grabbed the soap and lathered himself up, thinking about Emily waiting out in
the bedroom for him, under the covers. He hadn't yet softened all the way and
was hard again by the time he’d rinsed off.

Absolutely
disgusted with his body, which hadn’t been this out of control since he’d been a
teenager, he brought himself to another fast climax, this one relaxing him more
completely.

He
felt better when he finally turned off the shower. He thought he might actually
be able to make it through the night without doing something unforgivably stupid.

Emily
had turned off all of the lights in the room except for the lamp on his side of
the bed. He’d been hoping she would be asleep or mostly asleep when he came in,
but her eyes were opened and she watched him as he walked over and got into
bed.

She
smiled, and he couldn’t help but smile back. Fortunately, his body seemed to be
satisfied for the moment. It didn’t do anything untoward, despite the fact that
he was wrapped up in her fragrance again as soon as he slid into bed.

“Are
you tired?” Emily asked, when he reached over to turn off the light.

“Yeah.
It’s been a long day. I’m sure you must be exhausted, since you’re still
recovering from the fever.”

He
couldn’t see Emily’s expression very well in the dark, but there was a strange
resonance to the silence in the long pause that followed his words. She sounded
almost disappointed when she murmured, “Yeah. I guess I am.”

He
wished he hadn’t brought up her being sick. She’d been having a good day,
enjoying finally being in Egypt, and he’d brought her down by reminding her of
depressing reality. He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. “You can
sleep in tomorrow if you want. It’s usually more comfortable to go out early in
the day, but there’s really no rush. I can reschedule our—”

“Oh,
no. I’m sure I’ll be ready to get going early. I’m exciting about seeing
everything.”  She paused. “Do you snore or anything?”

He
gave a huff of amusement. “I don’t think so. No one has told me I do, anyway.”

“Well,
they might not tell you.” Emily’s voice was light and ironic, as if she were
feeling less self-conscious. “I’m sure all of your bed-partners were secretly
dreaming of being Mrs. Paul Marino and didn’t want to sully the experience for
you with the unpleasantness of snoring. But, since I’m already Mrs. Paul Marino,
I’ll definitely tell you if you snore.”

He
smiled in the dark, although hearing Emily declare herself Mrs. Paul Marino,
when they were lying in the same bed, did something odd to his chest. “I'll
appreciate the honesty.”

“No,
you won’t. You’d get all bristly if I were to tell you that you snore.” He
started to object, but she must have predicted it and continued, “Don’t try to
deny it. I know you too well. You would definitely get bristly. Not that it
would stop me from telling you.”

“Never
doubted it.”

Emily
made the mattress shift as she turned on her side so she faced him. “You can
tell me if I snore too.”

“I’m
sure you don’t snore,” he murmured, smiling again as he turned his head in her
direction. His eyes were adjusting to the dark, and he could see her dimly, her
eyes wide, her mouth turned up, and her body softly rounded under the blanket.

“What
makes you say that? Girls snore too, you know.”

He
laughed. He couldn’t help it. “Are you discreetly trying to warn me about
something?”

“No,”
she admitted. “I don’t think I snore. But you shouldn’t make snap judgments
based only on a person’s gender. Both men and women can snore equally.”

“Thanks
for the insight. I’ll remember that the next time I’m tempted to be a male
chauvinist.”

“I
don’t think you’re a male chauvinist, although you do have an incredibly strong
chivalrous streak in you that might occasionally be confused with it. But it’s
not the same thing.”

He
frowned. “I’m not chivalrous.” Even the word made him awkward, conjured up
silly, romantic visuals that were not at all in keeping with the experienced,
cynical man he took himself to be.

“Of
course, you’re chivalrous!” She sounded absolutely astonished by his denial of
what she evidently took for an undeniable fact. “What are you talking about?”