This time he managed to avoid flushing. In fact, he grinned; and a kiss seemed quite natural. It did emphasize their mutual stickiness.
“As a matter of fact…” he said, looking down into the leaf-green eyes, “I do.”
“Well, there’s self-confidence. And this is a town where you can get good take-out pizza, so…”
The outside of Amber House was pleasant, a big white-painted home built back in the expansive years just before 1914, linked to two others like it. That was on Twenty-second Street, only eight blocks from the Capitol, but in a neighborhood of quiet streets overshadowed with huge trees. Adrienne went ahead of him, opening the door of the suite. He followed, the pizza box in one hand, his bag in the other, and looked around. It was elegant, in a carefully old-fashioned way: big iron-framed four-poster bed, king-sized and draped in sheer curtains; sofa, dressing table, lots of burgundy and gold—and with a name of its own.
The Renoir Room, if you please, Tom thought. I suppose one could get used to this.
He could see through into a marble-tiled bathroom with a separate shower stall and two-person Jacuzzi. There was a slight scent of wax polish and an herbal sachet. It wasn’t exactly what he’d have picked, even if he could afford to drop two c-notes a day for bed-and-breakfast and the fresh chocolate-chip cookie on a little plate by the turned-down sheets of the bed.
But it’ll certainly do, he thought. “Not bad,” he went on aloud, conscious of a slight tightness in his throat. Hell, you’re not a teenager on his first heavy date, for God’s sake! he told himself sternly.
A bottle of wine was resting in a silver cooler on the table by the sofa, with two glasses. He looked at her and quirked a brow slightly as he set the pizza box down beside it.
“You’re not the only one capable of foresight,” Adrienne said gaily, tossing her key on an antique armoire and walking toward the bathroom, peeling off her T-shirt as she went. “And now, desmellification. I‘ll go first, since you’ll be quicker.”
He fought down an impulse to suggest that taking a shower together was even more economical of time; that would be a bit premature and presumptuous. Do not spoil things now! he told the part of himself that was still governed exclusively by hormones and instinct. It was a slightly smaller part of his psyche overall than when he was twenty-six, or sixteen, but not all that much smaller; and it had been quite a while.
And you’ve never, not even as an impossibly horny teenager, had a woman hit you this way. So you will remain in control. I don’t think there’s much doubt about where this evening’s going to end up, either.
Besides, he was enjoying himself hugely, more than he could remember doing for years. Roy was right; I’ve been hit hard and bad. Raw physical attraction was there in plenty, but he genuinely enjoyed her company…. And her sense of humor, and her attitudes, and her taste in books, and even the weird stuff about her relatives, he thought. I can compromise on the music. She was evidently a classics-and-folk enthusiast, sixties revival stuff, to his old-time country and alternative rock. They had some overlap; she loved the Dixie Chicks too, particularly “Goodbye Earl,” and the Poyns, and Enya, and WaterBird, and Pint & Dale.
The water hissed on; his imagination filled in pictures. For that matter, since she’d left the door open, he didn’t have to rely completely on that. He poured glasses of the wine; if he remembered correctly, it was supposed to “breathe” awhile before you drank it. Tom himself had been brought up a beer man, when he drank; years in California had taught him to enjoy wine, but he didn’t pretend to be a connoisseur or an expert. In fact, he found the more pretentious type of wine enthusiast a bore—
“Penny for them,” Adrienne said.
She was wearing a cloth bathrobe, and drying her hair as she spoke. The robe stuck to her in interesting parts, and when she lowered the towel the loose-curled bronze hair fanned out around her face like an umber cloud, slightly darkened by its dampness.
“Woof,” Tom said. “Woof, woof, woof. Thoughts? You need to ask?” Then he grinned. “I was thinking about the wine breathing. But isn’t red supposed to be at room temperature?”
“European room temperature: fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit,” she said, taking a glass from his hand and sipping. “That rule was made by Frenchmen—and northern Frenchmen at that, who lived in stone barns where you had to stand in the fireplace to get over sixty degrees. Provençals and Italians always put the bottle in a bucket of water to cool a little. Speaking of water…”
He went into the bathroom and under the rush of hot water. It felt good to get the stickiness off his skin. Looking down as he soaped himself, he thought seriously for a second of turning the water on cold.
But then, it probably wouldn’t do any good, anyway, he thought. Let’s go, boy!
One of the advantages of a Ranger-style crop haircut was that it dried easily.
When he sat down beside her on the couch, Adrienne fed him a bite of the slice of pizza she was holding in one hand. He scooped up one himself and returned the favor; it was an extremely good thin-crust, done in a brick oven, and he was hungry. That was a pity, since he hardly tasted it at all, or the wine. They smiled into each other’s eyes, and then hers took on a hint of sadness for an instant.
“There’s only one problem,” she said. His eyes flickered toward his carrying bag, and she laughed a little. “No, that’s all taken care of. The problem is I really like you. As a person.”
“That’s a problem?” he said.
“It could be, later,” she said somberly.
“To hell with later, then,” he replied, and gathered her to him.
“Rosy-fingered dawn calls,” a voice breathed in his ear.
“Hnnnn!” he grunted, and sat upright.
For a long moment he didn’t know where he was. Then memory rushed in. A long slow smile lit his face, and he ran a hand up under Adrienne’s chin. Evidently she’d been up for a while, since her hair had been washed and dried, and she was already dressed in an expensively conservative jacket-and-skirt outfit with a cream silk shirt. She took his hand, kissed the palm, and slid down toward him.
“Breakfast,” she said, a few breathless moments later.
He grinned, and continued. She made a wordless sound, half passion and half exasperation. “Dammit, I have to run! They want me back in Berkeley by nine-thirty.”
“Duty calls in its shrill unpleasant voice,” he agreed, looking at the clock; six A.M., and dawn was just stealing through the east-facing windows with rosy fingers. “You must move like a cat, Adri. I’m usually not a light sleeper.”
“Cat yourself,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows. “Tom the tomcat.”
“That makes you my queen,” he said, standing and sweeping a bow, then striking a pose and flexing when she ran her eyes up and down him again.
“I’d say you were boasting, but it’s all true,” she said, as he picked a robe up off the floor and donned it. Then: “God, but I wish we could stay together all day.”
They looked at each other, the laughter dying.
“Me too,” he said, and then forced his voice back to lightness. “Breakfast.”