by Nora Roberts
Maybe she should wear her hair up. Lips pursed, she scooped it off her neck, angling her head this way and that to check the effect.
“What do you think?” she asked Lily, who was sitting on the floor busily putting a pile of little toys in Hayley’s oldest purse. “Up or down? I think I can pull the up-do off, if I keep it sort of tousled. Then I could wear those cool earrings. Let’s try it.”
When a man said he wanted to take you out to a special dinner, she decided as she pinned and re-pinned, the least you could do was pull out all the stops, appearance-wise.
Right down to the underwear. At least that was new—and purchased recently with the idea that eventually he’d see her in it.
Maybe tonight, if they could extend the evening a little. He could come back here with her. She’d just have to block Amelia out of her mind. Block the idea that Harper’s mama was right in the other wing. That her own daughter was in the next room.
Why the hell did it have to be so complicated?
She wanted him. They were both young, free, unattached, healthy. It should be simple.
Becoming lovers should have weight. She remembered Harper’s words. Well, the situation had weight. It was time she started thinking of that as a plus instead of a minus.
“I’m the one making it weird, Lily. I can’t seem to help it. But I’m going to try.”
She put on the earrings, long, flashy gold dangles, considered a necklace and rejected it. The earrings made the show. “Well.” She stepped back to do a little turn for her daughter. “What do you think? Does Mama look pretty?”
Lily’s response was a mile-wide grin as she dumped everything out of the purse.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Hayley said, then turned back to the mirror for one last check.
The breath left her body so fast her head went light.
She wore a red dress, but not the thin-strapped, short-skirted number she’d had for more than two years.
It was long and elaborate, cut low so that her breasts rose up to be framed by the silk with a cascade of rubies and diamonds spilling down over the exposed flesh.
Her hair was piled high in an elaborate confection of shining gold curls with a few arranged to frame a striking face with lush red lips and smoldering gray eyes.
“I’m not you,” she whispered. “I’m not.”
She turned deliberately away, crouched to pick up scattered toys with trembling fingers. “I know who I am. I know who she is. We aren’t the same. We aren’t alike.”
Chilled with a sudden panic, she spun back again, more than half afraid she’d see Amelia step out of the glass, and become flesh and blood. But she saw only herself now, with her eyes too wide and dark against her pale cheeks.
“Come on, baby.” She grabbed Lily, and at the baby’s wail of protest, snatched up the old purse, then her own evening bag.
She made herself walk at a reasonable pace, and slowed even that as she approached the stairs. Roz would see the shock on her face, and she didn’t want to talk about it. Just for one night she wanted to continue the illusion of normal.
So she took her time, got her breath back, got her features under control. She strolled into the main parlor with Lily on her hip and a smile on her face.
ten
HEAT LIGHTNING SIZZLED in the sky, broody bursts, as they drove into Memphis. The traffic was as sulky as the night, but Harper seemed immune to it. They might have limped into the city, but the air was cool in the car, and Coldplay simmered out of the speakers.
Every so often he’d take his hand off the wheel to lay it over hers. A casually intimate gesture that made her heart sigh.
She’d been right to say nothing of that vision, or apparition, whatever it had been, in her bedroom mirror. Tomorrow was soon enough.
“I’ve never had dinner here,” she said when he pulled into the hotel’s lot. “I bet it’s wonderful.”
“One of Memphis’s finest jewels.”
“I’ve been in the lobby. You can’t come to Memphis without seeing the Peabody’s duck walk. It’d be like not seeing Graceland or Beale Street.”
“You forgot Sun Records.”
“Oh! Isn’t that the coolest place?” She shot him a stern look. “And don’t think I don’t know you’re laughing at me.”
“Maybe a chuckle. Not an outright laugh.”
“Well, anyway, the Peabody’s got an awesome lobby. You know they’ve been doing that duck walk for over seventy-five years.”
“Is that a fact?”
She gave him a little shove as they walked toward the hotel. “I guess you know all there is to know about the place, being a native.”
“Finding out more all the time.” He led her into the lobby.
“Maybe we could have a drink in here before dinner, by the fountain.” She imagined something cool and sophisticated to mirror the way she was feeling. A champagne cocktail or a cosmopolitan. “Is there time?”
“We could, but I think you’ll like what I have in mind even better.” He walked with her toward the elevators.
She glanced back over her shoulder with some regret. All that gorgeous marble and colored glass. “Is there a dining room upstairs? They don’t have one on the roof, do they? I’ve always thought roof-top dining was so elegant. Unless it rains. Or it’s windy. Or it’s too hot,” she added with a laugh. “I think roof-top dining’s really elegant in the movies.”
He only smiled, nudged her inside ahead of him. “Did I tell you that you look beautiful tonight?”
“You did, but I don’t mind certain kinds of repetition.”
“You look beautiful.” He touched his lips to hers. “You should always wear red.”
“And look at you.” She ran her fingers down the lapels of his dark jacket. “All duded up in a suit. The rest of the women in the restaurant won’t be able to eat for envying me my good luck.”
“If that’s the case, we might just have to give them a break.” He took her hand as the doors opened, then led her into the hallway. “Come with me.”
“What’s going on?”
“Something I hope you’ll like.” He stopped at a door, took out a key. He unlocked the door, opened it, gestured. “After you.”
She stepped inside, her breath catching as she saw the spacious room. Her hand fluttered up to her throat as she crossed the black and white checkerboard tiles into a parlor where candles flickered, and red lilies speared lavishly out of glass vases.
The colors were deep and rich, long windows adding the sparkling lights of the city. In front of one, a table was set for two, and a bottle of champagne sat in a gleaming silver bucket.
There was music playing, slow, soft Memphis blues. Stunned, she turned a circle, saw the spiral staircase that led to a second level.
“You . . . you did this?”
“I wanted to be alone with you.”
Her heart was still in her throat as she turned to face him. “You did this for me?”
“For both of us.”
“This beautiful room—just for us. Flowers and candles, and God, champagne. I’m overwhelmed.”
“I want you to be.” He stepped to her, took both her hands. “I want tonight to be special, memorable.” And brought them to his lips. “Perfect.”
“It’s sure off to a good start. Harper, no one’s ever gone to so much trouble for me. I’ve never felt more special.”
“It’s just the start. I ordered dinner already. It’ll be up in about fifteen minutes. Plenty of time for us to have that drink. How do you feel about champagne?”
“I feel like I couldn’t settle for anything less right now. Thank you.” She leaned to him, took his mouth for a long, warm kiss.
“I’d better open that bottle, or I’ll forget the lineup of events.”
“There’s a lineup?”
“More or less.” He walked over to lift the bottle from the bucket. “And just so you can relax, I gave Mama the number here. She’s got that, your cell, mine, and I made her promi
se to call if Lily so much as hiccups.”
He popped the cork as she laughed. “All right. I’ll trust Roz to keep it all under control.”
She did a little spin, just couldn’t help herself. “I feel like Cinderella. Minus the evil stepsisters, and well, the pumpkin. But other than that, me and Cindy, we’re practically twins.”
“If the shoe fits.”
“I’m going to wallow in this, Harper, I may as well just tell you that. I don’t know how sophisticated I can be when I just want to jump up and down, go racing around to look at everything. I bet the bathrooms are amazing. Do you think that fireplace works? I know it’s too hot for a fire, but I don’t care.”
“We’ll light it. Here.” He handed her a glass, tapped his to it. “To memorable moments.”
She held the moment, the glow of it. “And to men who make them happen. Oh, wow,” she said after the first sip. “This is really good. Maybe I’m dreaming.”
“If you are, I am, too.”
“That’s all right then.”
He touched her, skimming his fingers over the back of her neck, exposed by her upswept hair. Then with the lightest of pressure eased her toward him. The knock on the door brought on a wry grin.
“Prompt service. I’ll get it. Once they’ve set up dinner, we’ll be completely alone.”
HE MADE IT all happen, she mused. The big picture, the tiny details so the evening unfolded for her like the pages of a storybook. And because of him, she was sitting in an elegant suite, sipping champagne with the romance of candlelight, the shimmer of firelight. Flowers scented the air. There was a lovely meal she could barely taste through the anticipation bubbling in her throat.
Tonight, they would make love.
“Tell me what it was like for you, growing up,” she asked him.
“I liked having brothers, even when they pissed me off.”
“You’re close. I can see that whenever they come to visit. Even though they live away from Memphis, the three of you are like a team.”
He topped off her glass. “Did you wish for sibs when you were a kid?”
“I did. I had friends and cousins to play with, but I did. A sister especially. Somebody to tell secrets to in the middle of the night, or even to fight with. You had all that.”
“As kids, it was like having a personal gang, especially when David came along.”
“Bet the four of you drove Roz crazy.”
He grinned, lifted his glass. “We did our best. Summers were long, the way they’re supposed to be when you’re a kid. Long, hot days, and the yard, the woods, they were the whole world. I remember how it smelled, all green and thick. And this time of year, how you’d hear the cicadas all night.”
“I used to leave my window open a little ways at night so I could hear them better. I bet y’all got in plenty of trouble.”
“Probably more than our share. You couldn’t slip much by Mama. She had this radar, it was a little scary. I remember how she’d be in the garden, or in the house doing something, and I’d come around and she’d just know I’d been doing something I shouldn’t’ve been doing.”
She propped an elbow on the table, cupped her chin in her hand. “Name something.”
“The most baffling, at least at the time, was when I was with a girl the first time.” He drenched one of the strawberries in whipped cream, held it out for her to bite. “I came home having had my first sample of paradise in the back-seat of my much-loved Camaro, about six months after my sixteenth birthday. She came into my room the next morning, and put a box of Trojans on my dresser.”
With a shake of his head, he polished off the berry. “She said, and I remember this very well, that we’d already talked about sex and responsibility, about being safe and smart and careful, so she assumed that I had used protection, and would continue to do so. Then she asked if I had any questions or comments.”
“What did you say?”
“I said, ‘No ma’am.’And when she walked out the door, I pulled the covers up over my head and asked God how the hell my mama came to know I’d had sex with Jenny Proctor in my Camaro. It was both mystifying and humiliating.”
“I hope I’m like that.”
His eyebrows lifted as he coated another berry. “Mystified and humiliated?”
“No. As smart as your mama. As wise as that with Lily.”
“Lily’s not allowed to have sex until she’s thirty, and married a couple of years.”
“Goes without saying.” She bit into the berry he offered, mmm’d over it. “What happened to Jenny Proctor?”
“Jenny?” He got a look on his face, a kind of half smile that told her he was looking back. “Why, she just pined away for me. She was forced to go to California to college, and stay out there and marry a screenwriter.”
“Poor thing. I shouldn’t have any more,” she said when he topped off her glass again. “I’m already half buzzed.”
“No point in doing things halfway.”
Angling her head, she sent him a deliberately provocative look. “Is part of the lineup you talked about getting me loose on champagne so you can have your way with me?”
“It was on the schedule.”
“Thank God. Is that event coming up soon, because I don’t think I can sit here and look at you much longer without having you touch me.”
His eyes darkened as he rose, held out a hand for hers. “Here was my plan. I was going to ask you to dance, so I could get my arms around you, something like this.”
She slid into them. “I haven’t found a single flaw in your plan so far.”
“Then I was going to kiss you, here.” He brushed his lips over her temple. “And here.” Her cheek. “And here.” And her mouth, sinking in slowly and deeply until that meeting of lips was the center of the world.
“I want you so much.” She pressed against him, burrowed in. “It takes me over. Take me over, Harper. I’ll go crazy if you don’t.”
He circled her toward the steps, stopped at the base and looked into her eyes. “Come upstairs, and be with me.”
With her hand in his, she started up, then let out a breathless laugh. “My knees are shaking. I can’t even tell if it’s from nerves or excitement. I’ve imagined myself with you so many times, but I never imagined I’d be nervous.”
“We’ll go slow. No rush.”
Her heart was beginning to trip and stumble, but there was one more thing. “Um, I’m using something—birth control—but I think we should . . . I didn’t bring any of those Trojans.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Should’ve figured you’d thought of everything.”
“Be prepared.”
“Were you a Boy Scout?”
“No, but I dated a few former Girl Scouts.”
It made her chuckle, and nearly relax again. “I think . . .”
She trailed off as she stepped into the bedroom. There were candles waiting to be lit, and the lamp on low. The bed was already turned down, with a single red lily resting on the pillow.
The romance of it saturated her.
“Oh, Harper.”
“Wait.” He walked around the room to light the candles, to turn off the lamp. Then he picked up the flower and offered it. “I brought you these because it’s how I think of you, how I’ve thought of you since the beginning. I’ve never thought of anyone else the same way.”
She stroked the petals over her cheek, breathed in their fragrance, then set the lily aside. “Undress me.”
He lifted a hand, nudged the thin strap from her shoulder, laid his lips there. In turn, with her heart beating thickly, she slid the jacket off his.
Then her mouth found his as her fingers opened the buttons of his shirt, as his drew down the zipper at the back of her dress. His hands cruised over her back, and hers spread over his chest. When her dress slithered to the floor, she stepped out of it—then held her breath as he eased back and just looked at her.
She wore flimsy scraps of red that shimmered in
the candlelight against her smooth pale skin. And high, high heels with long, long legs. Desire, already impossibly strong, clutched at his belly.
“You’re amazing.”
“I’m skinny. All angles, no curves.”
He shook his head, reached out to trace a finger over the subtle curve of her breast. “Delicate, like a lily stem. Would you take your hair down?”
With her eyes on his, she reached up to pull out the pins, then skimmed her fingers through it. And waited.
“Amazing,” he repeated. Taking her hand, he drew her to the bed. “Just sit,” he said, then knelt in front of her to slip off her shoes.
His lips trailed up her calf and had her clutching the edge of the bed. “Oh God.”
“Let me do the things I’ve thought about doing.” His teeth grazed the back of her knee. “All of them.”
There was no thought to deny him, and no words that could surface through the flood of sensation. His tongue slid along her thigh, that mouth burning tiny brands into her flesh even as his hands traveled up, tracing her breasts with his fingers until they ached over her thundering heart.
She shuddered out his name, falling back on the bed as he came to her.
She could hold him close now, touch as she was touched. Taste as she was tasted. The pleasure filled her—the glide of his hands, the heat of his lips, the catch of his breath as they rolled together to find more.
No rush, he’d told her, but he couldn’t slow his hands. They wanted to take, and take more. Her breasts in his hands, in his mouth, small and firm and satin smooth, and when he feasted on them she bowed up, exposing the long, slender line of her throat.
At last, she was his.
Her nails bit into his back, scraped down his hips. Tiny thrilling pains. Then she was over him, her mouth as greedy as his, and her quick, gasping breaths roaring in his head like a storm.
Candlelight sheened over her skin, skin going damp with the heat they fueled through each other. The gold of those flickering lights glowed in the deepening blue of her eyes as he slid his hand over her, found her hot. Found her wet.
The orgasm was like a burst of light, a stunning flash that blinded her, set her body on fire then left it to glow. She felt herself slide toward oblivion, then come back into the bright, bright world of swimming sensations. Her body was awake, alive.