Sleeping Arrangements (Silhouette Desire) (16 page)

“Didn’t go in at all. Personal day.” A stray curl had escaped from the casual braid she’d pulled her hair back in. She brushed it off her forehead with the back of one hand, reached
out with the other. He knew her priorities and handed her the cola first. She twisted the lid off and drank as he eyed the walls, then her messy clothes. She shrugged.

“I know. It’s not technically my house yet. But no one should have to live with a color like that.”

He smiled at her. “You’re absolutely right.”

Cans of paint were lined up on the floor like soldiers. He leaned over and looked at the sample splotches of paint on each lid, all shades of blue.

“I thought it should look like the ocean in here,” she said.

“Give me a minute to change and I’ll help you sand it down.”

She’d been enjoying doing the work herself but found that she welcomed the idea of working with Spencer, too. When he came back to the bathroom in old jeans and a T-shirt, she handed him a white face mask, stretched the elastic band of her mask over her hair and set about raising some dust.

Not until they took a break and headed down to the kitchen, careful not to touch anything with their plaster-powder–covered hands, did she find out that he’d had a reason for searching her out so early in the afternoon.

After minimal cleanup—what her mother would call
a lick and a polish
—they grabbed drinks and stepped out the back door to get some fresh air. Addy stood halfway down the stairs while Spencer walked down to the grass.

“Thanks for the help,” she said, sucking clean, crisp air deep into her lungs. “I’m glad you came home early.”

“Well, I wanted to talk to you.”

She refused to tense up at the thought of another uncomfortable conversation.

“We haven’t exactly been careful, Addy.”

She gave him a blank look, and reached a hand up to feel for the face mask still perched on top of her curls, sure she had made them both follow such a basic safety precaution.

Spencer rolled his eyes at her.

“I’m talking about safety in the bedroom, not the bath.”

Comprehension dawned. She sat down hard on the cement
step. Their two nights together rushed through her mind in vivid detail, right down to the sensation of having him inside her.

Bare skin on bare skin.

She didn’t say anything, staring at her hands as they strangled the neck of the cola bottle and trying to figure out how she’d lost her mind so completely that she’d let this happen.

“Are you on anything?” His question lifted her head. She laughed harshly.

“Other than the occasional aspirin?” She shook her head. “No. It’s been so long—Jesus, how could I be so stupid? The last thing I need is to end up an—”

“Unwed mother?” He finished her sentence. The silence between them was its own comment.

“It’d end up being exactly that,” she said finally. When he opened his mouth to speak, she kept talking. She didn’t want to hear his denial or his promises. “Look, let’s not go jumping to any conclusions here.” She did a rapid mental count of days. “I’m probably fine. And if I have a problem, that’s what it is. My problem.”

He came over to the steps and stood between her bent knees. Taking the bottle from her, he set it on the stairs and gathered her hands in his.

“Don’t be ridiculous. If
we
have a problem, it’s ours, and I want you to tell me immediately.” She set her lips together and eventually nodded. She could agree with his intentions without promising anything. “As far as the rest goes, I’ve taken care of it.”

Statistics about the failure rate of condoms flashed to the front of her mind. “That’s fine, but twice as safe is better. I’ll call my doctor tomorrow.”

But when she spoke to her doctor the next morning, the woman told her that she’d need to wait until they were sure she wasn’t pregnant. She could start the Pill on her next cycle, though.

Stress at the idea of an unwanted pregnancy cooled things between them for a little while but not during the night. Addy
didn’t think anything could keep her from Spencer’s bed in the middle of the night, from the shivering pleasure she found there time after time. But it was harder to look at him in the middle of the afternoon and not wonder if she was making such a mess of her life that she might never be able to repair it.

Try as she might, she couldn’t make herself care about that.

Another weekend rolled around and she’d settled into a state of assumed calm, when Spencer pitched another curve-ball at her.

“You want me to what?”

Her bottle of cola rattled as she slammed it down on the little round-topped wrought-iron table. The weather was warm enough on the first day of May that they’d decided to grill dinner outside and eat in the backyard. It had been a very pleasant meal up until right about now.

Spencer was grinning at her from across the table, the Chinese paper lanterns she’d strung up over the back door making his hair shine red-gold. The smell of hickory smoke and steak, grilled to perfection, still hung in the air.

“It’s not like I’m daring you to strip naked and run around the block.”

“I did that in college,” she retorted. “Won fifty bucks on a bet and enjoyed it a lot more than what you’re proposing.”

He laughed out loud. “Trust me. This is much easier.”

“Says you.”

“It’s just dinner with a colleague and his wife.” He snagged her free hand and pressed a quick kiss to her knuckles. She wasn’t falling for that. “C’mon. Come with me. You can tell ’em you’re my girlfriend,” he offered in persuasion.

She stuck her tongue out at him. “I don’t know if that’s better or worse than the truth.”

“Fine. You can tell them you’re my willing sex slave.”

“Well, that much is true,” she said, frowning, until his sudden hot look and the hand he slid up her arm to stroke at the crook of her elbow reminded her that she wasn’t to be persuaded. “Besides, it’s not just dinner. It’s dinner and the sym
phony.” She said the last word as if she was scraping something icky off her tongue.

“It’s the symphony and then a late dinner. And you’ll like it, I promise you.”

“You may have only known me for a couple of months, Reed, but even that short of a time ought to have made it clear to you that I am not exactly the symphony kind of girl.” She pulled her hand free and grabbed her drink, taking a healthy swig. “Put me in a blues bar or a jazz club and I’m right at home.” She smiled at the thought. “Hell, and there’s nothing better than getting hot and sweaty dancing in a jam-packed reggae bar until dawn.”

“I can think of a better way to get hot and sweaty, and you could even call it dancing.” The devil danced in his eyes as he ran a bare foot up her leg until his toes wriggled in her lap. She swatted at him.

“Stop distracting me. My point is that I’m not a pearls-and-cocktail-dress–wearing, fluty-music–liking woman.”

“You pulled a suit out of that disaster you call a closet. I’m sure you’ve got a dress stuffed in there somewhere.”

“That’s not the issue.”

“Fine.” He settled back in his chair, all limbs back where they belonged. She nodded decisively, glad she’d made her point. “I dare you.”

She gritted her teeth, willing her mouth shut. It was a no-win contest. She gave up in a huff. “My brother talks too much,” she muttered. “One of these days I’m going to tell you his real name, and we’ll see how he likes it then.”

“Why, Addy, whatever do you mean?”

She eyed her bottle and wondered if the two inches of cola left in the bottom would spray far enough to wipe the grin off Spencer’s face if she shook it up enough.

“Only Tyler knows just how powerless I am to resist a dare.” She’d plot her sibling’s revenge later, and it would be painful. She was losing this round, but she wanted something in return. “Fine. The symphony and dinner. But then you have to come with me on an outing of my choosing.”

“Done.” She could see that he wasn’t worried.

“A Cubs game. Wrigley Field. Bleacher seats.”

“No problem.”

“A day game. Middle of the week.”

“Aw, Addy, you know my schedule…”

“And—” she’d save the best for last “—you can only drink Old Style. Three cans, minimum.”

“Cans?” When he grimaced and gave a wistful glance to where his glass of cabernet rested on the table, she knew she’d hurt him.

“Giving up?”

“Not a chance.” He toasted her with the wineglass. “I’m sure my stomach will eventually recover. Here’s to new experiences.”

She leaned forward to clink her bottle against his crystal glass and covered up her frown by taking a sip.

Damn. Now she was going to have to go out and buy a dress.

Addy had always prided herself on knowing where her skills lay and knowing how to delegate authority. The combination of these two traits meant she knew exactly what to do in this crisis.

She called Maxie.

Her sister met her at lunchtime on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Oak Street, the mecca of Chicago for high-end shoppers. Maxie strolled up arm in arm with Sarah. They kissed hello and Addy said she was glad that Sarah was joining them.

“I brought her—” Maxie jerked her head at Sarah “—so you’ll believe me when I tell you that you look stunning in floor-length crimson satin. I don’t want you trying to run home with a boring black tea dress.”

“I don’t even know what a tea dress is,” Addy moaned, already dreading the idea.

“Then you’re lucky I do. Let’s shop.”

“Okay, but I only have an hour.”

Maxie stopped dead in her tracks and looked at her in disbelief. She pulled Addy’s backpack off her shoulder, rum
maged in it for a moment and dug out the cell phone. She handed it to Addy.

“Cancel your afternoon appointments. Now. I’m not screwing around here.”

In the end, Addy decided that it hadn’t been too awful. If not for the frequent moments of finding herself standing in her underwear—thank god she’d worn some—in a room with her sisters and various other strange women, listening to them analyze her body and what would look good on it, she might even have found it fun. And the dress she’d gone home with was certainly not black or boring.

The night of the event, she stood in front of her bathroom mirror, struggling with her earrings—she couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn earrings—and wobbling on one high heel–shod foot as she tapped around blindly with the other toe on the floor, looking for the second shoe by touch. Spencer was waiting downstairs and she was late.

She managed to get the earring in, a thin dangling bar of brushed gold, at the same moment that her toes found the other shoe. She stepped back and looked at herself in the mirror. Her feet already hurt.
Suffering for beauty,
Maxie called it.

She hoped it was worth it. She’d be limping again by the time the night was over.

Her reflection stared back at her. Strange. She recognized herself, but it was as if someone had stripped her down to the skin and then superimposed the look of another woman over her bare body. Her hair, normally wild with tangled curls, was pulled back in a simple knot at the nape of her neck. Careful makeup made her eyes seem enormously dark, while her lips were stained a deep wine color. The dress, a warm, deep burgundy with a subtle sheen of gold, fell from a thin strip of fabric on her left shoulder in a low drape across her breasts and a lower drape on her back in a clean sweep to the floor. The slight flare toward the bottom would allow her to walk normally, her sisters had promised.

She gave herself a wake-up shake and then double-checked to make sure her dress hadn’t fallen off. Time to go.

Two steps out the bathroom door, she turned back. She took the men’s watch off her wrist and left it on the counter. Grabbing her ridiculously tiny clutch purse and the matching silk shawl she was sure would do nothing to keep her warm, she headed downstairs.

From the top of the stairs, she spied Spencer glancing at his watch. When he put one foot on the first step, she knew he was coming up to get her. She cleared her throat gently. He turned and looked up. Then took a step backward, staring.

She walked carefully down the stairs, feeling like Cinderella making her entrance at the ball. From the look on Spencer’s face, she came to the conclusion that this was not at all a bad thing. Maybe she should try to do this dressing-up thing more often.

At the bottom, she stopped in front of him. She’d been afraid to find him in a tux, which would remind her too much of a prom. But he was perfect in a black suit with a dark gray shirt and darker tie. He raised a hand to her, palm up, and she placed her fingers on his. When he drew her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to her knuckles, his eyes never left hers. The silent moment made her so tense that she finally laughed, not wanting to take herself too seriously.

He smiled at her without a word and lifted her hand up, turning her in a slow circle in front of him. Three hundred and sixty degrees later, she was a little dizzy and the silence was killing her.

He saved her, as always.

“You’re beautiful.” He trailed a finger against her neck, across her bare shoulder and down the length of her arm. “Overwhelmingly so.”

She knew she was blushing and searched for something to say to lighten the moment. Once again, he had the words she didn’t.

His brow quirked and she could see him stifling a grin as he asked his question.

“What exactly is holding that dress up?”

“You don’t want to know.” She’d been amazed by the tricks Maxie had taught her. “Suffice to say, it might as well be chewing gum.”

“And what’s underneath it?”

That one she knew how to answer. She took a step forward and pressed herself against him while she drew his head down to whisper in his ear.

“You know I always go commando, baby.”

She remembered for the rest of the night his groan and the low laugh that followed it. When he handed her the single rose whose color matched her dress, or handed her into the limo waiting outside the house, she kept those sounds in her mind and told herself not to be nervous. Introductions to the second couple over champagne in the lobby outside their box seats passed in a blur. Before she knew it, the house lights were dimming and they were sitting down in velvet-covered chairs.