The Erotic Secrets of a French Maid (8 page)

He followed her reluctantly, wanting to correct her about what the mistake had been, but he was distracted by both the delicious scent of roasting meat and Emma's odd hopping gait. "Did you hurt yourself?"

"Just a temporary muscle tightness. Nothing to worry about!" She lurched into the kitchen.

He was going to ask again about her leg—it seemed a severe muscle issue—but was distracted by what she had done with his old place. The kitchen and living area were one room, divided only by a high breakfast bar. She had created a third space in the bay window at the front of the apartment by hanging panels of salvaged wood-framed windows from floor to ceiling, dividing the bay from the living area.

She'd set up a dining area in that small glass-enclosed space, a tablecloth covering what looked like a card table. Two of the bay windows were open, bringing in the rustling of the leaves just outside them. It was surprisingly charming.

The living area had a futon couch, a desk with an elaborate array of computer equipment, a drafting table, and a bookshelf sagging with the weight of tomes. The only art on the walls was a series of black-and-white architectural photographs in lucite frames.

"These are fantastic pictures," he said, pausing to admire the light and shadow in an arched gallery.

"Thanks. I took them."

He turned, surprised. "You're a photographer, too?"

She shrugged and took the cellophane off the irises and started trimming their stems. "Not really. I only take them for myself, and they're only of things that I find beautiful. Patterns, mostly. Repetition.

Symmetry. Angles and curves."

"The mathematics of beauty."

She looked up from filling a vase and smiled. "Yes. Exactly. Most people don't get that; that there is math in both the visual arts and music."

"You're talking to an engineer."

She laughed. "I guess that could explain it, but I've met plenty of math and science guys who lack an aesthetic sense. Look at the great flowers you chose: structural, and all one kind. I think it's the best way to display flowers."

Flattered, he made a faint noise that might be construed as thanks.

"So!" she said brightly. "Would you like to open the wine?" She put a bottle of red up on the breakfast bar, then bumped it when she reached up again to put down the corkscrew. She fumbled and just managed to catch it before it fell over, and before his own mad dash got him there. "Oops! Sometimes I think I'm all thumbs," she said, a quaver in her voice. She giggled, but not a happy giggle. More a verge-of-hysteria giggle.

He reached for the wine bottle and corkscrew and examined her surreptitiously as he went to work on
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the bottle.

Emma hopped about the small kitchen, prattling something about micro salad greens and vinegars, her hands moving as fast as birds' wings.

He pulled the cork and moved to her side of the breakfast bar, where the wineglasses were. He poured out two glasses, glad to see no cork bits, and paused to look at the wine label. It was a nice pi not noir from Oregon.

She bumped into him and bounced away, his closeness seeming to make her hummingbird nervousness go up a notch.

He reached out and touched her arm, to calm her, to tell her that she didn't have to do this. "It's okay,"

he said.

Her eyes went past him to the wine. "Is it? I was hoping so. I'm afraid I don't know as much as I'd like to about wine. The woman at the wine shop down the block chose it for me."

She snatched a glass and held it up. "Here's to new adventures!"

He took a glass as well, but when she clinked her glass with his he didn't drink. "Emma."

She lowered her glass. He saw faint tremors in the surface of her wine, revealing the shaking of her hand.

"Yes?"

"You don't have to do this. We can stop right here. Forget the whole arrangement."

Her eyebrows went up in concern. "Stop? You've changed your mind? You don't want any of this?"

"It's not right."

"But I made a stuffed leg of lamb. And dessert." She looked helplessly around the kitchen, the signs of her efforts clear in the dirty bowls, pans, and utensils.

"We can still eat the dinner you made. Maybe even make a deal for you to cook at my house a couple times a week. But I don't want you to feel like you have to follow through on the rest."

Some of the light left her eyes. She looked
hurt.
"You don't want to sleep with me."

"Yes! I do! But you're so nervous, I wanted to give you a chance to reconsider."
He
was calling
her
nervous. Ha! What a joke! He was the one who was ready to die of nerves.

She set down her wineglass and played with its base, watching her own fingertips sliding around the circle of glass. Then she suddenly looked up, meeting his eyes with a steady gaze. "It's been a year and a half since I've had sex. They say it's like riding a bicycle and you never forget how, right? But that doesn't mean there isn't a part of me that's still a little nervous, no matter how much I'm looking forward to it."

He was surprised and pleased by her admissions of having been celibate for so long and of wanting to sleep with him. "It's been a while for me, too," he said quietly.

"I've never done it with someone I wasn't in a long-term relationship with." She stepped closer to him,
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bringing her mouth within inches of his own. "And I've never been creative with it, before tonight. But it's good to try new things. To learn. Don't you think?"

He could feel the warmth of her breath against his lips. "Education is important." He tried to give nobility one last chance. "I don't want to corrupt you."

"The sin of knowledge? A bit old school, don't you think?"

"I don't want you to be ashamed, afterwards."

"Will
you
think badly of me, if I become your mistress?"

Would

he think less of her if she went through with it? If she were his age or looking for marriage, then he might.

But Emma had other things on her mind than relationships. From what little he knew of her, she wouldn't be doing this unless it made practical and moral sense to her.

He laughed as he realized what his answer to her question was. "If you go through with it, tomorrow I'll wonder if it's all been real."

She raised a brow. "Will I be a toy to you? A sex toy in a very large toy box?" She gestured to the apartment.

"Not a toy. A toy implies mastery by another. I think pagan goddess' would be the better description. A goddess bestowing gifts upon the incredibly fortunate."

She smiled and came close enough for her lips to brush his. "I can live with that."

He was suddenly sure that he could, too. Oh God, yes, he could. He put his hand on her hip and began to close the scant distance.

The buzz of the oven timer cut between them. "Oh good, there's the lamb!" she said, hopping away from him and grabbing her oven mitts.

"Hurrah," he muttered. Walking was becoming difficult for
him
now, as well. He moved to the other side of the breakfast bar, where his lower half would be out of sight.

He watched her lift the pan out of the oven. She glanced up at him and smiled, and for the first time in his life he seriously wondered if he should start looking for a wife. There was something deeply appealing about a woman cooking for you. Though this was only a business arrangement, it was easy to forget that fact when Emma smiled at him, when she seemed to take such care and delight in the meal she had made.

"Do you want to help?" she asked.

"Sure. What do you need me to do?"

"You could finish setting the table. I took out dishes for two settings, if that's okay."

He looked at her in puzzlement.

"I wasn't sure that you'd want me to eat with you, or if this was supposed to be more like a restaurant
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experience."

"Two places is what I expected," he said, although he hadn't given it a thought before this moment. He couldn't swallow a bite if she was hovering in the background, watching.

"Good! I'm starving."

He went to work on the table. As he was finishing up she hobbled up to join him, carrying two plates of salad. He went back and got the wine, returning to find her lighting candles. It was a much more romantic setting than he had anticipated, and he was glad for it. It gave the illusion that they were both here because they wanted to be.

And wasn't that true anyway?

Emma stood in her awkward bird pose beside the table, gesturing toward a chair. "Sit. Please."

He moved past her and pulled out the other chair for her. "Please," he said. She might soon be his mistress, but that didn't mean he couldn't be a gentleman about it.

She ducked her head shyly and sat as he pushed in the chair.

"Your leg is still bothering you," he said.

"It'll go away, don't worry."

"Are you sure?"

"Oh, yes."

He took his own seat, still doubtful. "Do you need me to massage it?"

The suggestion made her eyes go wide. "No! No, really, there's no need to bother."

"I have strong hands: I could take care of it in a flash. It'll be gone before you know it."

She grimaced. "I doubt that. Trust me, it's going to be fine. Let's have our salads, shall we?"

He let it go, turning his attention to his plate. It was mixed baby greens with thin slices of pear, crumbled gorgon-zola, and candied pecans. He'd had something similar in a restaurant, and Emma's version was just as good. "This is delicious."

"Thanks."

After this scintillating start, conversation lagged. Russ racked his brain to come up with something that might be of interest to a twenty-six-year-old woman.

Twenty-six-year-old? He couldn't come up with anything to say to a woman, period. His life revolved around work, hockey, a bit of charity fund-raising, and sitting in his re-cliner reading the paper. He couldn't remember the last time he'd done anything significantly different. He used to have hobbies: he used to play classical guitar; used to play a mean game of backgammon; used to camp and hike and had backpacked around Europe and southeast Asia for six months; he even used to dink around in his wood
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shop, making bad furniture.

Emma made a little noise in her throat, and he realized that the silence had gone for much longer than it should have. "Shall I put on some music?" she asked.

"Sure." Anything to fill up the silence. It would probably be teeny bopper music that he'd never heard.

Just as long as it wasn't rap or hip-hop.

When she'd chosen a few disks and pressed play, though, Dean Martin's "Sway" came out of the small speakers.

He laughed. "This is way before my generation. I hope you don't think I'm that old!"

"Stop with the 'old' stuff, will you?" she said, sitting down again. "You're in your freakin' thirties. Big deal."

"I stand corrected."

"Good." She smiled. "And I happen to like old standards, and this song in particular."

"It's a great song."

"My mother used to play it and dance 'round the living room with our pomeranian in her arms. I'm not sure the dog thought much of the experience. It was a terrible dog; peed on everything."

"So your mother loves Dean Martin?"

"She says it was 'their' song, hers and my dad's. He died when I was nine."

"I'm so sorry." He imagined her mother dancing around the living room with the lapdog in her arms, swaying to the voice of Dean Martin as she longed for her husband. The image cut to that part of him that still grieved for James, and he felt his throat tighten. "So sorry."

Emma shrugged, her smile sad. "Life's full of surprises."

"How's your mother now?"

"She remarried a few years ago and lives in the Midwest now. She's happy."

"It must have been hard for you, losing him at such a young age."

"It was bewildering. Frightening. Mostly I remember the feeling of chaos; that all normality had been destroyed. I was afraid we'd have to move."

"Did you?"

"No. Grandma came to live with us. She somehow made us all feel safe; that things were going to be okay. And we were, mostly. My brother got into a lot of trouble at school and had a few wild years, but he turned out okay. He lives in Kirkland now, with his wife and baby daughter."

"Is your grandmother still around?"

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She shook her head. "She died a couple years ago."

"That's a lot of death to have experienced, for someone as young as you."

"I think it helps me to appreciate the present. At least I tell myself it does. What about you? Have you lost anyone you cared about?"

"My brother. Six months ago." He somehow managed to get the words out.

"What was his name?"

"James." To his horror he felt tears start in his eyes. He cleared his throat. "But this isn't pleasant dinner conversation. I think the lamb must be ready."

She looked at him for a long moment with wordless understanding, got up and lightly touched the back of his hand, then reached for his plate.

"I'll get it," he said, starting to stand.

"No, you can relax. Let me."

He stayed where he was, the feeling of that small touch on his hand lingering. As he watched her move away with the salad plates he yearned to sink into the warmth she seemed to offer; wanted to forget himself in her, if only for a few hours. Something about her seemed capable of that type of magic, transforming the grayness of his everyday life into something brighter.

The rest of the meal passed with light conversation about the city, about where they grew up, about places they'd been in the world. She'd spent her junior year of college in Italy and traveled extensively while she was there, which gave them plenty of impersonal topics to explore. They moved through the meal and into dessert: a mint truffle ice-cream terrine with two sauces.