"Yes, yes," he moaned. "I can do it again. Now I know I can do anything."
His self-confidence hadn't flagged when he woke up the following morning. He tossed back the covers and for a second, intended to swing his legs over the edge of the bed and do some calisthenics as he had done every morning of his adult life until his accident.
With the return of awareness there usually came a depression too. This morning, however, he smiled and willed away that depression.
He was invincible. He could do anything. He had successfully made love to a woman. The return of sexual facility was only the beginning. He would soon be able to walk. Then to run. And it was all because of the woman lying beside him.
With a fond smile he turned his head and was disappointed to see that Lilah was no longer there. All night they had remained coiled together on the narrow hospital bed. The pillow bore the imprint of her head, the sheets the scent of her body, but sometime in the wee hours of the morning, after he'd finally fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion, she had evidently sneaked back to her own room.
Adam laughed to himself. If she had done that for Pete's benefit, she was wasting her time. Weeks ago Pete had dispensed some unsolicited advice, telling his boss that he should "Keep Rirah in bed. Make rove all day. Then she not talk so much, not be so wired."
Adam laughed again, this time out loud, thinking about all the times last night when Lilah had opened her mouth to speak only to have it stoppered by one of his kisses. Frequently he had kissed her into silence. Or near silence. She made that little catchy sound in her throat that never failed to arouse him. Just thinking about it made the blood in his loins grow thick and warm.
As for being wild, she was a tigress of a lover. When stroked, she purred. When excited, she snarled. God forbid that she ever be tamed.
Lilah a virgin, he thought, chuckling and shaking his head in patent disbelief.
He worked his shorts up his legs. Wearing nothing more, he hoisted himself into his chair. He didn't even have to think about the movements anymore. They had gone from seemingly impossible to second nature under Lilah's incessant instruction. Often he had wanted to banish her from the planet when she nagged him to do one more despised exercise. Now he was grateful for her dictatorship. Look at all she'd done for him.
When he entered the hall, he glanced at her door and saw that it was closed. He aimed his chair in the opposite direction, toward the elevator, and rode it down to the first floor. Pete wasn't in the kitchen nor in his apartment.
"Crafty little booger," Adam muttered with a smile. Pete was giving them plenty of time alone together. Adam wouldn't be surprised if Lilah had arranged that too.
He made coffee and put it on a tray with two cups and two Danish. Breakfast in bed. Once they'd disposed of the coffee and Danish, he'd have dessert. Lilah. Naked and wanton and willing.
He was roused from his fantasy by his own groan of desire. His thoughts had turned deliciously dirty. It felt so damn good to plan a seduction that he knew he could consummate.
After a hasty trip outside to the terrace to pick a giant red hibiscus bloom that would look great in Lilah's hair, among other places on her body, he placed the tray on his lap and returned upstairs. He didn't knock on her bedroom door, but backed his chair against it and turned the knob.
When he wheeled around, wearing the idiotic grin of the drastically smitten, he was met with a disappointment equivalent to a deathblow.
No Lilah. No evidence of Lilah. No evidence that Lilah had ever existed.
The room was as spotlessly sterile as the day she had moved in. The bedspread had nary a wrinkle. There wasn't an assortment of sandals scattered helter-skelter across the carpet; no lacy lingerie dripping out of open drawers. The air bore the odor of desertion, not the scent of perfume. The lacquered dresser top wasn't filmed with dusting powder. There was no array of cosmetics and loose pieces of jewelry littering its smooth, polished surface. Adam knew without looking that the closet would be empty too. The room was absent life, absent Lilah.
His roar of outrage had origins in his gut. It rumbled inside his chest, gaining impetus, and echoed through the empty house like a night cry in the jungle. It was punctuated by the crash of the carafe of hot coffee striking the far wall.
Chapter 11
"I can't believe you just left."
"Well, I did."
"Without saying anything? Without letting anyone know where you were going?"
Lilah wore a strained expression. She had been undergoing Elizabeth's cross-examination for the last half hour and she was weary of it. "I've told you I was in San Francisco."
"How were we supposed to know that?"
"You weren't!" Lilah shouted. "That was the point. I wanted to get away by myself for a while. I'm a big girl. I didn't know I needed anyone's permission to take a vacation."
Thad held up his hand to silence his wife's next contribution to the argument. "We understand and appreciate your need for a vacation, Lilah. But you must admit that your timing was a bit off."
"Impulsiveness is one of my traits."
Why didn't they just go home and leave her alone, she thought. She still didn't feel like seeing anyone. She certainly wasn't up to justifying her most recent escapade. She couldn't reconcile her reason for fleeing Adam's house to herself, much less explain it to anyone else.
"Impulsiveness is running neck and neck with irresponsibility this time," Elizabeth said chastisingly. "You deserted Adam when he needed you most. Without a word. Without the courtesy of a formal resignation or a simple good-bye, you walked out."
"Adam will survive. He told me so himself. Before I left he said he could do anything. I believe him."
"But your job wasn't finished. He still needed you."
Lilah shook her head adamantly. "Not me. A therapist. Any therapist would do. He'd had an attitude turnaround. He was doing amazingly well. Before I left Oahu, I stopped by to see Dr Arno. He assured me that he could find an excellent replacement immediately."
"From what I hear, Dr Arno came through," Thad told them. "By all reports Adam is doing exceptionally well. He's even resumed control of his corporation."
"There, you see," Lilah said, "all's well."
"That still doesn't excuse you from being derelict in your duties."
"So don't pay me. I got a great vacation out of it. I had a helluva good time."
"Don't be flippant with me, Lilah."
"Then don't be so bloody self-righteous," she snapped. "I got tired of being stuck up there on that tropical mountain. I needed a change of scenery."
"So why San Francisco?"
"I'd never been there. I wanted to see it."
Actually it was the first city she'd come to after her midnight flight from Honolulu. It was as good a place as any to lose herself and nurse her misery. She'd seen very little of the city, spending most of her time in a hotel room. But she didn't want them to know that.
"What were you doing there all that time?" Elizabeth asked her.
"Having a wonderful time."
"Alone?"
"I didn't say I was alone."
"You said you went there to be alone."
"So I changed my mind," Lilah said testily.
"Were you with a man?"
These days, Lilah's control over her temper was tenuous at best. Her dark mood hadn't improved when, immediately upon her arrival home, Elizabeth and Thad had showed up on her doorstep. "Have you had spies on the lookout for me?" she had asked when she ungraciously invited them in. From there the conversation had deteriorated. Now she confronted her sister with full-fledged animosity. "What business is it of yours if I spent the time in San Francisco with one man or with a dozen men?"