“Thanks.” She waited until he’d left the room to slip the robe on and to take her turn in the bathroom. Her hair was a wreck, her face a little pale from lack of sleep, and her eyes and lips a bit swollen.Passion-drunk.The term went through her head and seemed to fit the image of the smugly disheveled woman in the mirror. Except this one looked passion-hungover.
She ran her tongue across her teeth and grimaced. She’d gone to sleep without brushing her teeth, something she never, everdid.
She considered her predicament. Her own toothbrush, plus spares, were in her apartment upstairs, but coffee was down here. Luke was certainly neat—neater than she was, anyway. Perhaps he had extras. Sure enough, when she clicked open the medicine cabinet, there were two unopened brushes. Delighted with her find, she brushed her teeth and with a shrug, used Luke’shairbrush.
Back in bed, she was propped on pillows, still wearing the bathrobe when he came in with the coffee andnewspaper.
“Milk, no sugar,right?”
She nodded, inordinately pleased that he’d remembered from last night how she liked hercoffee.
As he crawled in beside her, his own coffee in hand, splitting the newspaper and giving her half—as though they’d spent hundreds of nights together instead of just the one—she asked the question that had plagued her since she’dwoken.
“Where are we in thebook?”
A page rustled. “Ahead of schedule, but following alongnicely.”
She stared at his profile. They couldn’t possibly be. “But…are you saying? I mean…lastweek?”
He grinned at her. “Chapter five. ‘To the Brink and Back.’ Get her so hot she’ll be coming back formore.”
“But that’s crazy.” She’d like to meet the author of that book. She’d give him, or her, or them such a piece of her mind. Women weren’t thatpredictable.
“You’re here, aren’tyou?”
So she was, but not because of some lame book. Was she? “You make it sound like agame.”
He stared at her in surprise. “It is a game.” He ran a finger between the crossed lapels of his robe where the swell of her breasts was revealed. “Seduction, courtship, sex—it’s the greatest game ofall.”
“No. I don’t believe that. It’s not a game tome.”
“Last night was chaptersix.”
She rolled her eyes. “Six for sex. Howobvious.”
“Obvious worked for me lastnight.”
It had worked for her, too, but she wasn’t admitting that. She thought for a minute. If last night was only chapter six, then… “What’s in chapterseven?”
Luke turned to gaze at her for a long moment, then, throwing back the covers, got out of bed, disappeared and returned a few minutes later with the garish red book she’d seen drop onto hisfloor.
Crawling back into bed, he handed her thebook.
She flipped it open, wishing she hadn’t asked. She didn’t care. Besides, it was a bit embarrassing reading it in bed naked with the man who’d just become herlover.
She flicked through pages, trying to ignore the diagrams, and found it at last. She choked with laughter. “I don’t believe this guy. Chapter seven. ‘Lap It Up. Your Guide to OralSatisfaction.’”
“Don’t mock it till you’ve tried it,” he told her, and licked his lipsdeliberately.
“Oh, stop.” She shut the book with a thunk and put it on the night table, then picked up her half of thenewspaper.
Reading in bed with Luke was so snug and intimate that she felt like part of an old married couple—except for the very new, very potent sexual hum in theair.
He’d given her the front news section and she peeked over his shoulder, expecting him to be buried in the sports pages, only to find him pulling out department storeflyers.
“What are your plans for the day?” she asked, only increasing her feeling of old marriedcoupledom.
“I have to go shopping for a wedding present for mydad.”
