Laurel wore a serene smile as she bent to pick up her iPod.
“Nonchalant, baby. Act nonchalant.”
Yeah, right. Dana hooked her finger in the collar of her shirt, pulling the material away from her neck. “Nonchalant,” she repeated.
“Sure. Not a problem.”
“May I hold your hand?” Laurel asked in a sweet voice.
“Not when it smells like pussy.” Second floor. “Now come on, act natural.”
Another moment, and the elevator doors slid open to reveal a twentysomething young man with acne scars and a football-player build wearing a dark blue rent-a-cop uniform. He blinked at the sight of them. His nose twitched a moment later.
He looked from Dana to Laurel. In fact, his eyes lingered on Laurel’s chest. He glanced hastily back at Dana. “You okay, Ms. Watts?”
“Yes, we’re fine, thanks, Rocky.”
“How long have you been stuck in there?”
Dana’s mind went totally blank. It’s written all over our faces, isn’t it? She tried to grin at Rocky and found that she was already smiling.
“Since around seven o’clock yesterday evening.” She glanced at her wristwatch. 7:56 a’m. Just about thirteen hours.
Rocky’s eyes darted over Dana’s shoulder, searching the elevator car behind them. “I’m glad I found the two of you. The camera in there doesn’t appear to be functioning properly. I figured I should come check it out…”
Dana cleared her throat, face flooding with heat. How the hell could she explain a camera lens covered in whipped cream? She dropped her gaze to her feet, wishing the elevator would swallow her up.
“I’m sorry, Rocky.” Laurel gave the young man a charming smile.
“I had a little accident with the camera. I don’t think I caused any permanent damage.”
Rocky gave a friendly grin. “It’s no problem, miss. I’m just glad you’re okay.” He looked back to Dana, upper lip trembling for an instant. “And doing well,” he added.
“Um…I need to go back up to my office so I can grab my purse,” Dana said.
“Oh.” Laurel looked from Rocky to Dana. “Well, I guess I’ll go with you.” She succumbed to a shy smile. “Keep you company.”
Dana was disheartened to see him struggling to suppress a laugh.
“Sounds good.”
“All right, ladies.” Rocky stepped back from the elevator door with a smug grin plastered on his face. “You two have a safe ride up. And an uneventful trip down.”
For a moment, Dana thought she saw genuine empathy in his eyes.
Warmth and kindness and a camaraderie borne of daily exchanges of “good morning” and the trading of casual nods as she left work each evening all shone in his knowing gaze. For a moment, she was sure he was going to have mercy on her.
“What’ll you give me for the tape?” he asked without a blink.
Dana sighed, leaning against the elevator doorframe and giving Rocky a weary look. Opportunistic bastard. “Fifty dollars and a letter of commendation to the building manager?”
“Throw in one of those muffins you carry in every morning for the next week or so, and you’ve got a deal.”
Dana slapped the button for her floor. “Have it waiting when I get downstairs.”
“You bet,” Rocky said as the door began to slide closed. “And I won’t watch it. I swear.”
Nonchalant, Dana reminded herself. “There’s nothing on it, anyway,” she called out, but the door was already closed. Faced only with her own reflection in the elevator door, she dropped her face into her hands and groaned.
Laurel gave her a quick hug. “I thought that went well.”
Dana shook her head, inhaling deeply. Christ, she needed to wash her hands. How distracting. “I don’t think we were very nonchalant,” she muttered.
THE MONDAY AFTER
For the first time in her life, Dana couldn’t keep her mind on work. The important proposal that was supposed to fill last Friday night remained half written on her computer screen, and for the past twenty minutes she’d been deleting and retyping the same sentence. The memory of her weekend with Laurel floated insistently through her brain, shutting out all customary activity. She just couldn’t make this software development project matter.
Friday night in the elevator had been an epiphany, and the rest of the weekend had more than fulfilled the promise of that first night.
Saturday flew by in a blur of lovemaking, laughter, and intimate conversation that bled over into Sunday morning, then threatened to stretch late into the afternoon. When she and Laurel finally said goodbye, it was only because they were both so weak and exhausted from having almost nonstop sex that they’d agreed time apart was necessary for the good of their health.
Sunday evening was heart wrenching. When Laurel walked out of Dana’s apartment, the magic seemed to leave as well. The strange enchantment she wove that made the rest of the world irrelevant was gone. Since that moment, Dana had grown more and more uncertain about everything—their amazing connection, the passion they’d shared, and even her instinctive trust of Laurel.
Perhaps brain chemistry and pheromones had clouded her mind.
In a lust-induced haze, anyone could fool herself into imagining love at first sight, or at least the chance of a relationship that extended beyond one intense weekend. Dana’s hand twitched on her computer mouse, and she once again read the sentence that she was obsessively rewording. Everything told her to pick up the phone and call Laurel, but fear held her back. The weekend had been incredible; would trying to turn it into something more ruin everything?
She couldn’t tell if that last kiss at her door was one in a string of kisses that would lead her and Laurel into a shared future, or if it was simply a sweet good-bye. Dana was sure no one wanted a perfect fling to end. Part of the charm of a passionate encounter like hers with Laurel was probably the fact that it was only short-lived. Reality would never impact.
She touched the phone, then withdrew her hand, unwilling to make the call that would confirm her worst fears. The smart choice was to wait for Laurel to call her. If she didn’t call, then Dana would know the verdict and graciously withdraw. She was big enough to accept the gift she’d been granted and not demand more than Laurel could give.
Her desk phone rang, and Dana startled at the sound, sending the cursor flying across her monitor with a jerk of her hand.
“Hello?” Her voice shook so much, she knew she sounded like someone else. Swallowing, she tried to produce the coolly efficient greeting she normally gave when picking up her work line. “This is Dana Watts.”
“Hey, birthday girl.” The masculine voice on the other end sent a flash of disappointment through her, but she had to smile despite herself. “Still speaking to me?”
So it had only taken Scott two and a half days to work up the courage to call and see how pissed off she was about his strip-o-gram.
He sounded nervous, and Dana decided to let him sweat it out a bit.
“Why wouldn’t I be speaking to you?”
She heard him hesitate, no doubt wondering if his birthday present had shown up on the right night. She played it cool, letting him work up the courage to ask. It was the least he deserved for catching her so off guard on Friday.
“Did you get my present?” His voice mixed concern and hope.
“Or had you already gone home?”
“Having second thoughts about the strip-o-gram, are we?” Dana glanced at her office door, double-checking that it was firmly closed.
The last thing she wanted was for anyone to overhear her talking about strippers.
“You did get it.”
“I did.” A smile came to her face unbidden. She had promised herself she would thank Scott for bringing Laurel into her life, so she did. “Thanks.”
“Really?” She could hear him start to relax. “So you, uh, enjoyed her?”
“All night long.”
Scott hesitated. She could practically hear the gears tur
ning in his head. “Excuse me?”
“You heard correctly.”
“She told you I only paid for a half hour, right?” He sounded bewildered.
“The power went out and we got stuck in the elevator as I was escorting her from the building,” Dana said. “I was pretty angry with you for the first hour or two, I’ll admit. But I got over it.”
“You did?”
Dana could hear the caution in Scott’s voice. He obviously didn’t know where this was going, and was remaining guarded. She was surprised she was telling him this much about what happened, but she couldn’t stop herself. It felt good to confide in a friend. “She’s a really nice girl.”
“She…is?”
“Her name is Laurel. She’s about to graduate from veterinary school.”
Scott laughed, sounding uncertain. “You really got trapped in an elevator with the stripper?”
“Trust me, neither of us was happy about it at first.” Dana burned to tell him everything, if only because she could hardly believe it herself.
But she hesitated to give him details, afraid that it would somehow tarnish what had been the most amazing night of her life. “It turned out to be a pretty good birthday, believe it or not.”
“Really?” Scott asked, approaching a leering tone. Apparently he was feeling more comfortable now that he knew she wasn’t out for his blood. “Did you finally give in to your Sapphic tendencies?”
Dana struggled not to overreact to the teasing comment. She couldn’t believe he was asking her flat-out if she was a lesbian, but at the same time, she knew he didn’t believe anything had really happened that night.
“Actually, she knocked me down a peg or two, which I probably needed.”
“I can’t believe it,” Scott said. “So are you guys, like, friends now?”
Were they friends? After only one weekend, Laurel felt like the best friend Dana had ever had. She also felt like an obsession. Dana ached to touch her again, she needed to taste her skin just one more time. But what did Laurel want? No matter how sincere her promises of “next time” had been each time they made love, there was no way of knowing how she felt, now that they had spent some time apart. For all Dana knew, Laurel was even now realizing what a bore she really was.
Dana wasn’t sure she would blame her.
“Yeah,” she finally decided, “we’re friends.”
“Well, shit,” Scott said. “Happy birthday.”
“Indeed.” Dana glanced at her computer screen, rubbing her temple tiredly. She didn’t want to talk about Laurel anymore. She wanted to get this proposal done, to get back to some semblance of normalcy.
“Hey, I’ve got a proposal here that should’ve been done yesterday. I’ll call you later.”
They said their good-byes and Dana hung up the phone with a relieved sigh. Her hand lingered on the handset for a moment, and she eyed the number pad warily. She would give anything for it to be Saturday night again. To be buried deep inside Laurel, thrusting hard, feeling firm thighs wrapped around her hips. Now, in the cool light of Monday afternoon, it seemed unlikely that she would ever experience that sensation again.
They were such different people. Pursuing Laurel would be irresponsible, and foolish. No matter what they’d said in the elevator and later during the hours that followed their release, the truth was that they’d shared one crazy weekend and nothing more. Dana took her hand off the phone.
“One crazy weekend, and nothing more,” she whispered, trying to solidify the reality check.
What had happened between them was one of the best things Dana had ever known. But it was time to get back to real life, and maybe that was a good thing. She didn’t know how to be in a relationship. If that’s what Laurel wanted, she would be disappointed. And what if nothing they did could ever live up to their first beautiful weekend? Would the memory eventually sour? Dana didn’t think she could stand it if that happened.
Her desk phone rang again, startling her so badly that she cried out and brought her hand to her chest. Her heart hammered madly beneath her palm. No doubt it was only a client, but even though she had just talked herself out of expecting to ever hear from Laurel again, she found herself hoping. Gripping the edge of her desk in a desperate bid to stay tethered to reality, she answered the phone with a breathless “Hello?”
“Hey.” It was Laurel, and she sounded sexy as hell. “Busy tomorrow?”
Dana collapsed back into her chair, exhausted with relief. “I’ve got a proposal to write, but it can wait. What are you offering?”
THE DATE
Laurel flitted around her apartment nervously, feeling more like a teenager trying to get ready for the prom than the cool, confident woman she prided herself on being. She was still in her bra and panties, having tried on and discarded at least a half dozen outfits in the past thirty minutes. Isis sat on the bed, full of feline gravitas, watching her descend into full panic mode. The thought of seeing Dana again had her mood swinging crazily from sharp anticipation to guttwisting fear that their time together was a fluke.
Their weekend had been perfect. Hands-down, without-a-doubt perfect. If she could, Laurel would have chosen never to leave Dana’s apartment, to stay forever in the fantasy world they’d created. For an entire weekend, only the two of them existed. The sex was a revelation, the companionship even more so.
But now they were back to the real world, and Laurel had no idea if they could pick up where they left off. She stopped in front of the mirror on her closet and looked at the anxiety written all over her face.
Nothing so wonderful could last. After two relationships, one of them serious enough to have left her brokenhearted when it failed, Laurel knew one, inalienable fact: Life was bigger than one night in an elevator car, and it never hesitated to pull the rug out from under you.
Sighing, she tried on another pair of jeans. “What’s wrong with me?” she asked Isis. “And here I was worried that Dana would freak out.”
The black cat lifted her head and yawned.
“Just goes to show you how much I know.” Laurel looked back at the mirror. “You think she’ll like my ass in these jeans?”
Of course Dana would like her ass. That wasn’t really the question.
What Laurel really wanted to know was whether Dana would like her enough to overcome her solitary tendencies on a longer-term basis. And if the answer was yes, was she ready for another relationship herself?
Unable to resume the search for the right top before she had a good heart-to-heart, Laurel stepped away from the mirror and plopped onto the mattress next to her beloved feline.
“When we were in that elevator, I was just sure that everything would work out,” she said, giving Isis a tender stroke. “I could see she was scared, but I thought—well, of course she was scared. She was practically a virgin.”
Laurel closed her eyes, smiling as she played back images from Saturday night, their first in a real bed. Somehow, impossibly, Dana was the best lover she’d ever had.
“I swear,” she murmured. “If I hadn’t known it was almost her first time, her performance never would have clued me in.” Isis meowed, and Laurel took that as a sign of protest. “I know, I know. More information than you needed.”
She scratched Isis’s head and stood to return to her closet. Gazing at her assortment of tops, Laurel selected another to try on. This one was a favorite, hugging her breasts in a way that made her feel like she could conquer the world. When Dana saw her, they would probably be lucky to make it to the restaurant. The thought made her knees go weak. Feeling unsteady, she immediately returned to her spot on the bed.
What the hell was she doing? Laurel dropped her face into her hands and exhaled. She was in the middle of her last clinical rotation, only months away from graduation. Her dream of helping animals was finally coming to fruition. And now, after all the years of struggling, dancing to pay her bills, studying whenever she could grab a moment alone, she had managed to launch herself headfirst into someth
ing that threatened to sweep her away entirely.
What if it didn’t work out? Was she strong enough to deal with another heartbreak, with everything else she had going on? Did she want to invite complications by falling for Dana?
“I wasn’t supposed to be the one who gets scared,” Laurel whispered, as though reminding herself. “I told her I wanted to be more than her memory of a spontaneous sexual encounter, and I meant it. Why am I doing this now?”
It was a silly question. She was scared because she was absolutely positive that she could fall in love with Dana, given half the chance.
And when she already felt the way she did, after only one weekend, she wasn’t sure she wanted to risk the inevitable heartache if this didn’t work out. There was a reason she hadn’t been out looking for a relationship right now, and it was because she didn’t want to be stupid just when her life was really starting. Other people had let her down often enough that she had to be able to rely on herself.
“But I told Dana to be brave, so I have to do the same, right?”
Laurel searched Isis’s wide golden eyes, looking for the answer. “I’m the one who called her. I can’t just run away now.” She tried to imagine what Dana would think if she backed off now, and cringed. “No, I like her too damn much to do that.”
Isis blinked, offering little in the way of advice.
“Right,” Laurel said, and exhaled in a burst of air. “So here’s the plan. We’re not going to have sex tonight.”
Isis flopped onto her side and stretched out languidly. Laurel chuckled and rubbed her belly.
“I can resist, I swear.”
If sex was all this thing with Dana was about, then she needed to know now. A connection that was purely physical was probably not worth the distraction level right now. But if it was more, if there was a possibility that this could turn into something as serious as she thought it might, there was no way she could let herself do anything but close her eyes, take a deep breath, and plunge in.
Thirteen Hours Page 13