Secrets of a Perfect Night

by Stephanie Laurens

  Her flight had gotten in late, and she hadn’t really thought of anything beyond taking a shower and going to bed. “Going to my room.”

  “Some of us are going to my house in a while. You should come with.”

  She pulled back and looked up into his face. She thought about it and thought she’d rather sleep than listen to more stories about the time Mark and friends had all skied naked, or the time they’d pranked the Chess Club and hidden all the kings. “I think I’m just going to crash tonight,” she said.

  “Okay, then meet us tomorrow. We’ll be on the back side.”

  Living so many years in Galliton, she knew he meant that they’d all be skiing the back side of Silver Dollar Mountain. But just because she’d been raised in a resort town didn’t mean she knew how to ski. She didn’t. “I’ll try.”

  Mark pulled her closer and she looked beyond him and spotted Thomas through the shadows of shifting bodies.

  “Your hair smells nice,” Mark complimented her.

  “Thank you.” Thomas held Holly within his embrace, and he moved with a perfect and fluid rhythm she’d never known he possessed. Holly’s arms were wound around his neck, and he held her much too close. The sight of his hands resting in the small of her back, their bodies touching, bothered Brina more than it should.

  Mark talked about the businesses he owned and he complimented Brina repeatedly. He was charming and amiable, but her attention was focused on the couple across the dance floor. Her head was filled with their image and her own riotous thoughts, and she wondered why the sight of Thomas and Holly should eat at her. Why it should burn a hole in her stomach.

  The answer came to her as the last strains of a guitar echoed in the ballroom. She felt ownership over Thomas as if he were hers. He’d been her good friend for a lot of years, and even though she’d treated him badly toward the end, she still felt a connection to him. And to be completely honest, she hated the sight of him with Holly. Perhaps because she knew that if Thomas were a bus driver or a mechanic, Holly probably wouldn’t have crossed the room to speak to him, but there was more to it. More she couldn’t explain. More that felt a bit like jealousy. Her feelings didn’t make a lot of sense. They weren’t logical, but that didn’t stop them from twisting her into a confused knot.

  She excused herself from Mark and wound her way to the bar. Feeling a little ragged, she wondered if she should order another drink or just go to bed. She did neither. Instead, she ran into her tenth-grade lab partner, Jen Larkin. Jen had packed on about eighty pounds and she still had the most freckles Brina had seen on a person. They chatted for a bit, but the music made conversation near impossible, and mostly the two ended up yelling questions at each other. She lost sight of Thomas through several songs and couldn’t help but wonder if he’d sneaked off to jump the prom queen.

  He hadn’t. He and Holly walked past her and stood in the short line at the bar. Begrudgingly she had to admit that they made a good-looking couple.

  From the stage, the band broke into a song Brina recognized from having spent so many years listening to Thomas’s cheap stereo. Before she could talk herself out of it, she walked up to him and said, “They’re playing our song.”

  Through the dim shadows provided by the chandelier, he looked into Brina’s eyes for several long moments as if he were trying to figure something out. Just when she thought he might not say anything at all, he did. “Excuse us, Holly,” he said, and took Brina by the elbow. He led her to the middle of the crowded dance floor, then wrapped his warm palm around the back of her left hand. “Since when is ‘Lay Lady Lay’ our song?” he asked as he grasped her waist.

  She placed her hand on his shoulder; the smooth fabric of his jacket felt cool to her touch. “Since you used to make me listen to Bob Dylan for hours.”

  He glanced over the top of her head. “You hated it.”

  “No, I just loved to give you a hard time.” He held her several inches away from him as if he didn’t want her to invade his space. He held her as if he were a dance instructor, moving with perfect impersonal timing. He hadn’t minded Holly invading him, though, and she was surprised at how betrayed she felt by that. Her feelings were so crazy, she wondered if she was losing her mind.

  “Thomas?”

  “Hmm.”

  She looked up into the shadows of his face, into the darkness concealing his eyes and outlining his nose and finely etched mouth. “Are you still mad at me?”

  Finally he gazed down at her. “No.”

  “Then do you think we can be friends again?”

  As if he had to consider that too, several lines of the song passed before he answered, “What do you have in mind?”

  She didn’t really know. “Well, what are you doing tomorrow?”

  “Skiing.”

  She was a little surprised by his answer. “When did you learn?”

  “About six years ago.”

  At a loss for witty conversation, she asked, “So do you like it?”

  His grasp on her waist tightened sightly, and he pulled her a fraction closer. “I have a condo in Aspen,” he answered as if that said it all, and perhaps it did.

  His thumb lightly brushed her palm and he folded their hands into his chest. Pleasurable tingles spread up her wrist and arm, as if chased by a breath of warm air. “Are you skiing with Holly?” she asked as if she weren’t dying to know.

  “Whoever. Are you going to meet up with Mark Harris and that bunch?”

  “No.” She didn’t want to waste time talking about Mark. “Remember the time I saved all of my baby-sitting money so I could buy equipment and join the Ski Club?”

  “You broke your leg the first day.”

  “Yep. I haven’t tried it since.” She moved her palm across his shoulder, and she touched the collar of his white shirt. Beneath her sensitive fingertips, his flesh had warmed the thick linen. “I thought I might do some shopping and hang out at the lodge.”

  His hand slid to the small of her back, and he eased her into the solid wall of his chest. Brina’s breath caught in her throat.

  “Sounds boring,” he said against her right temple, but he didn’t offer to keep her company.

  “Have you seen all the pregnant women in this room? I’ll find someone to talk to.” Brina turned her face slightly and breathed deep. She filled her lungs with the scent of his cologne and the warmth of his skin. He smelled so good she was tempted to lean forward and bury her nose in his neck. She lifted her index finger and lightly touched his skin above his collar. The warmth of his skin tickled her palm.

  She wondered what he would do if she told him how much she’d missed him. That she hadn’t even realized how much she’d missed him until she’d seen him again tonight, and how genuinely happy she was just to see his face again.

  She wondered if he felt the same, but she was afraid to ask. She wanted to hear about his life. She didn’t even know where he lived. “What are you doing for the rest of the night?” she asked, thinking that maybe they could find somewhere and catch up on the last ten years.

  “I’ve got a few options, but I’m not sure what I’ll do.”

  She didn’t want to look pathetic in front of him, so she said, “Yeah, I have a few options, too. Mark invited me to a party at his house.”

  The last strains of “Lay Lady Lay” poured from the speakers and Thomas dropped his hands and took a step back.

  “Maybe we could go together,” she offered.

  “I don’t think so, but thanks.” He looked over Brina’s head to the tall blonde who stood by the bar where he’d left her. “Holly Buchanan is trying to seduce me,” he said. “She’s a yoga instructor and says she studies the Kama Sutra.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No. She mentioned something about showing me a goat position.”

  “That’s disturbing.” Surely Thomas realized that if he were still poor, Holly wouldn’t have uttered a word to him, let alone whispered anything as warped as goat positions in his ear. Thomas
couldn’t be so stupid as to fall for it. He’d always been to smart. “She’s using you.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I think I’ll let her.”

  Three

  BRINA WOKE THE next morning feeling as tired as when she’d gone to bed. After she’d danced with Thomas, she’d danced with Mark again and had ended up at his house with a bunch of his friends. One thing she’d noticed was that they hadn’t evolved that much. Brina had left the party feeling lucky for her life in Portland. She didn’t have a boyfriend at the moment, but at least she had a bigger pool to choose from.

  When she’d arrived back at her hotel room, she’d crawled into bed only to lie awake all night thinking about Thomas and Holly acting like goats. And the more she’d thought about it, the angrier she’d become until she’d wished Thomas were standing in front of her so she could punch him. She hadn’t fallen asleep until around 3:00 A.M. Now it was eighty-thirty and she was exhausted.

  Brina sat up on the edge of her bed and threw the blankets aside. She dialed room service and ordered a pot of coffee and a toasted bagel. The kitchen told her breakfast would arrive in twenty minutes, so she headed for the shower. As she stood beneath the warm water and let it pour over her head, she wondered why Thomas romping around like a goat should bother her so much. She figured maybe it was because she expected more from him, at the very least to have better taste in women. True, Holly was still beautiful, and it had been ten years since high school. Maybe Holly had changed and become a nice person, but Brina doubted it.

  She reached for her shampoo and worked the lather through her hair. Maybe Brina had built Thomas up in her mind to be something he wasn’t. She’d used the blueprint of the boy she’d known, the boy who’d gone to movies with her just so she wouldn’t have to go alone, to create someone who was perhaps larger than life. But people changed. Thomas had changed. He’d become…a man.

  After her shower, Brina wrapped her hair in a towel and brushed her teeth. A loud knock shook her door and she quickly stepped into a pair of beige lace panties. She grabbed her white silk robe and called out, “Just a minute,” as she slid her arms into the sleeves. She pulled ten dollars out of her wallet and hurried to tie the belt about her waist. At nine in the morning, she figured room service was used to seeing people in their bathrobes. But when she opened the door, it wasn’t room service. Thomas stood on the other side, looking fresh and clean and very rested for a man who’d spent the night trying out the sexual positions of animals with the prom queen. His white T-neck was tucked inside a pair of black ski pants, and the word DYNASTAR was printed up each of his long sleeves.

  “I thought you’d be up,” he said.

  Brina looked down at herself and pulled the robe tighter around her waist and breasts. “I wish you’d called.”

  “Why?”

  She looked up into his blue eyes and stated the obvious. “I’m not dressed, Thomas.”

  “I’ve seen you naked before.”

  “When?”

  “When your swimsuit bottoms came off.”

  “I was eight. We’ve both grown a bit since then.”

  “You’re still short.”

  Room service arrived, and before she knew what he was doing or could protest, Thomas paid the waiter, then carried the tray inside. Brina shut the door behind him as his long strides took him across the room. He set the tray on the table in front of the windows, then flipped the heavy drapery aside to find the pull string. The curtains folded back and the bright morning light poured into the room, reaching all the corners except the small entry where Brina stood.

  She leaned back against the closed door and studied his short dark hair cut straight across the back of his tan neck. Her gaze took in the width of his shoulders and back, his narrow waist and nicely rounded buns. His legs had always been long, his feet big, and suddenly the room felt a whole lot smaller. The clean fresh scent of his skin mingled with the smell of coffee, and Brina’s stomach twisted into a hungry little knot. She didn’t know which was most responsible for the hunger pain. The sight of her bagel or the sight of Thomas.

  Then he turned and looked at her, and she knew. His face was more devastatingly handsome, the symmetry a bit more perfect, in the natural light of day. His skin seemed more smooth and a shade more tan. He looked more…The word that came to mind was swarthy. The mixture of his Anglo father’s and Spanish mother’s blood created a powerful illusion of passion and control.

  She felt naked in front of him and pulled the towel from her head. Her damp hair fell past her shoulders and covered her breasts and back. “Why aren’t you out skiing with Holly?”

  Instead of answering, he poured a cup of coffee. “Did you leave with Mark last night?” he asked as he blew into the cup and took a drink.

  “I went to his party, but it was boring, so I left.”

  He lowered the cup and raised a dark brow. “That’s a shame,” he said, sounding very insincere as he walked toward her, his long strides silently closing the distance between them. He seemed more relaxed this morning. More like the easygoing boy she’d grown up with, and less like the man she’d met the night before.

  In contrast to Thomas’s apparent ease, Brina’s nerves zapped her like the Stun Master she sometimes carried for work. She took the cup from him and held out the ten-dollar bill in her hand. “Take this.”

  “Keep your money, Brina.”

  Instead of arguing, she leaned forward and shoved it deep inside the hip pocket of his ski pants. The second her hand slid between the thin layers of slick nylon and Gore-Tex, she realized it was a mistake. Thomas froze and she jerked her hand free, but it was too late. The air between them changed, becoming clogged with tension. She placed her hand behind her back, the heat from his body still warming her fingertips. She was pretty sure he’d dressed left, and she didn’t know if she should apologize or pretend she didn’t know. She decided on the latter but couldn’t quite meet his gaze. She stared as his chest and asked, as if she weren’t dying of embarrassment, “Did you come here to pour me coffee?”

  “I want you to ski with me.”

  She looked up into his face and was relieved when he stared back as if nothing had happened. “I told you I don’t know how to ski.”

  “I know. I’ll teach you.”

  “I don’t even have a ski jacket.”

  “You can rent what you need.” She was about to argue that she didn’t need anything because she didn’t want to ski when he added, “I’ll pay for everything.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “Fine, I won’t.” He glanced at his silver wristwatch. “The rental shop opened five minutes ago.”

  “You called?”

  “Of course. How long will it take you to get ready?”

  Brina considered her options. She could let Thomas teach her to ski, or she could sit in the lodge and hope she found someone to talk to for the next five or so hours. “Thirty minutes.”

  Thomas ran his gaze over Brina, a quick sweep up and down of his eyes. He took in her silk robe and damp hair, her flawless skin and pink toe polish. “Can you make it twenty? The rental shop runs out of small sizes early.” He reached past her and grasped the door handle. “I’ll meet you in the lobby,” he said, and walked out of the room and into the hall. The scent of her shampoo followed him, filling the air with the fragrance of coconuts and kiwis.

  He walked to the end of the hall and let himself into his suite. The far wall consisted mostly of windows and overlooked the ski runs below, and the curtains were pulled back to allow golden sunlight to spill into the room. The light caught in cut-crystal glasses in the bar, and shot multicolored prisms across the thick beige carpet.

  His skis leaned against the stone fireplace. His Hugo Boss suit he’d worn the night before was flung across the arm of an overstuffed couch, and the napkin with Holly’s telephone number had fallen from his pants pocket and lay on the mahogany coffee table.

  Despite
what he’d told Brina, he hadn’t considered Holly’s invitation. Well, maybe he’d considered it, but not for more than a few minutes. Holly Buchanan was as gorgeous as ever, but he didn’t suffer under the delusion that it was his personality alone that turned her on. And frankly, he liked to do the pursuing.

  He walked into the bedroom, took his black ski boots out of the closet, and shoved his feet inside. The woman he felt like pursuing at the moment was just down the hall. Last night, when she’d walked up to him and asked him to dance with her, he hadn’t been sure he wanted to trip down memory lane with Brina McConnell.

  Then he’d taken Brina into his arms, and the longer he’d held her there, the more he’d become convinced that he was going about the whole Brina situation wrong. He decided to discover why she’d fascinated and consumed his teenage years. Growing up, she hadn’t even been all that cute. Not until junior high school anyway, and not like now.

  Thomas finished buckling his boots and stood. Since he was in town until the next afternoon and had no real plans, he figured he owed it to himself to figure it out before he left. There was a part of him that thought maybe she owed him too, owed him for all the times he’d kept his hands to himself when what he’d really wanted was to run them all over her body. When he’d wanted to taste more than her lips and her throat, when he’d wanted to put his mouth on her breasts and run his hands up her soft thighs.

  If he were completely honest, he’d admit that part of his plan had little to do with the girl from the past and everything to do with the woman who’d opened the door wearing her hair in a towel, cheeks pink from her shower, and her nipples marking the front of her white silk robe. He was far more attracted to the woman who’d blushed when she’d shoved money in his ski pants and found more than she’d bargained for than to Holly, who’d shoved her phone number in his pocket while telling him exactly what she wanted.

  Remembering Brina’s face at the exact moment she’d realized where she’d put her hand brought a smile to Thomas’s lips. He chuckled as he pulled his ski poles from the corner he’d leaned them in yesterday. If she wasn’t careful, the next time she touched him would be no accident.