by Sandra Brown
“No, she won’t mind. She’s finished here. I wanted to hang around until all the decorations were up. I’ll send her over.” He laughed. “Oh, by the way, you may not recognize her. She looks like a schoolgirl.”
He hung up the phone while a dismayed Kathleen listened to his next words with the trepidation of a defendant listening to the decision of the jury. “He would love to have your help. Go on over and I’ll see you at home.”
“Seth, I don’t want to leave you here—”
“Why? Are you afraid I’ll get attacked by a giant reindeer?”
“I don’t want you to work too hard. You’re—”
“Having a ball. I’m all right, Kathleen. Now will you get going? Erik’s waiting for you. I’ll see you later.”
What choice did she have? If she made more of the issue than it warranted, he would wonder why she objected so strenuously to going alone to Erik’s house.
She left a few minutes later, pulling on her corduroy jacket against the chill November evening. An ominous fog had rolled in off the Bay and blanketed the city. Her headlights shone on the moisture-slick streets as she drove carefully through the twilight.
Her hands were unaccountably moist on the steering wheel. She was being silly! Erik no doubt wanted her advice in hanging the artwork, and then she would calmly take her leave. Or maybe he had someone there with him. Tamara? He hadn’t spent the night at home last night. He had said so without any explanation as to what or, more appropriately, who had kept him away from home. Had he been with Tamara? Were they warming up for those sun-drenched days in the Caribbean?
By the time she parked her Mercedes—which Seth had given to her soon after their marriage—in front of Erik’s condo, she was in a temper. It was with a certain belligerence that Kathleen pressed the button of the doorbell.
Her bad humor wasn’t improved when Erik threw open the door and promptly burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded, thinking she must have ink on her nose or something even more humiliating.
“I’m sorry, little girl, but I’ve already bought my Girl Scout cookies. Try me again next year… when you’re grown up.”
“Very funny,” she said dryly.
“I thought so,” he said cheekily. “Seth warned me that you looked like a schoolgirl. But then, I’ve seen you this way before. He never saw you at Mountain View.” His eyes arrested hers and held them. For a moment, they stared at each other over the space that separated them, each remembering happier days and one moonlit night beside the rapidly flowing river.
To save herself from drowning in those memories, Kathleen tore her eyes away. “No, he never did.”
Knowing that the mood was broken, Erik said, “Come in.”
She walked past him into the living room. All the furniture they had bought had been delivered. Only the windows remained bare. The room still had the unmistakable sterility of a bachelor’s house, but it had improved since the last time she had seen it. There was a cheerful fire burning in the grate, and only one lamp was lit.
“It looks nice,” Kathleen commented, thinking that she needed to say something. “You placed the furniture exactly according to my sketch.”
“Yeah,” Erik said ruefully as he thrust his hands in the back pockets of his tight jeans and surveyed the room with skeptical eyes. “It still needs something.”
“A woman’s touch,” Kathleen said spontaneously, then wished she had weighed that thought before saying it.
If Erik were any kind of gentleman he would ignore the statement. However, he had once told her that he was honorable, not stupid, and apparently that was still his creed. His grin was wolfish as he drawled, “Well, you’re a woman. So touch something.”
She turned away quickly and slid out of her coat. It was suddenly unbearably hot in the room. “Where is the wall hanging?”
“Right over here. I have it spread out on the floor.” She looked on the far side of the sofa where he pointed. “It’s really beautiful, Kathleen. I like it even more than when I first saw it. I want to thank you again.”
“And Seth,” she said quickly. Too quickly. She looked up to catch the pained expression that crossed his face, which was shadowed in the firelight.
“Yes, of course, I meant to include him.”
There was an uncomfortable silence as both of them looked at the wall hanging at their feet with the concentration of mystics trying to instill life into an inanimate object. Finally, Kathleen said, “The top of it is here.” She knelt down and felt along the rod to which the yarn was attached. “Yes, there are four hooks on the backside of the rod. All we have to do is hammer some nails into the wall.” She stood up and brushed off her hands. “Do you have some nails? And a hammer?”
“Out in the van.” He was gone only a few seconds when he came back. “I thought you might need this, too,” he said, handing her a yardstick.
“How did this suddenly become my project?”
“Because you seem to know what you’re doing.” He smiled. “What can I do?”
“Bring in a ladder.”
“Ladder! You don’t ask for much, do you?”
She put her hands on her hips, a gesture made provocative by the way it tightened the cloth over her breasts. “Don’t tell me you don’t have one. How are we supposed to reach up there?” she asked, pointing to the redwood wall that reached a peak in the cathedral ceiling above.
“I see it’s back to ‘we.’ ” Erik squinted his eyes as he looked at the wall. “How about a chair? Would that give you enough height to reach the right place?”
She sighed. “I guess so.” He went to the kitchen and returned carrying a hardwood chair. “That’s nice. Where did you get it?” she asked.
“At the unfinished-furniture store. All I had to do was put a sealer on the chairs and table. They turned out pretty well.” He sat the chair down against the wall, then faced her. “Now what?”
She threw him a disparaging look and knelt down with the yardstick to measure the distance between each hook. “Six and three-quarters inches,” she murmured. She slipped off her shoes; then, placing her hand on the back of the chair, she gingerly stepped onto it. “Would you say that this seam in the wood marks the center of the wall?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Okaaay.” She drew out the word as she did some mental figuring. She lifted the yardstick over her head until it touched the ceiling and then marked the wall with her fingernail along its side. “That ought to be right,” she said. “Hand me the nails and the hammer.”
When he had complied, she stuck the nails in her mouth as she drove in the first one. When all were done, she asked, “How are we going to lift it?”
“I’ll go get another chair.” Erik came back with the chair and, easing his bare feet out of well-worn tennis shoes, lifted the wall hanging as he stepped onto the extra chair.
When all the hooks were secured on the nails, Kathleen said, “Now get down and see if it’s straight.” Erik obliged and stepped away from her. “How is it?” she asked as she surveyed the artwork.
“It’s perfect.”
“Do you like it?”
“Very much.”
Something in his voice caused Kathleen to turn her head. He wasn’t looking at the wall hanging. He was looking at her bottom. “Erik.”
“Hmmm?” was his only response as he closed in on her. Before she could react, he had wrapped his arms around her thighs and was rubbing his hands up and down the front of them. “You have the sauciest tush I’ve ever seen, Kathleen. Why is it that having a baby didn’t make you flabby?”
He nuzzled her from the back even as his hands became bolder. He smoothed her hips with his palms and she gasped with shocked delight when she felt the firm clench of his teeth through her jeans on the back of her thigh.
“Erik,” she said unsteadily. His hands had worked their way under her shirt and were moving over her ribs. “Erik,” she said more forcefully, “I can’t stay up on this ch
air.” Indeed, her muscles had been rendered useless by his persistent hands and adventuresome mouth as he continued to nip her through the soft denim.
“Then come down.” The words were said simply, but the import of them was unmistakable. With his hands settled on her hips just below her waist, he turned her to face him.
Emerald-green eyes locked with blue and the transmission sizzled with unspoken need. He cupped her hips in each of his hands and drew her abdomen into his chest. Then, his eyes never leaving hers, he undid the bottom button of her shirt and continued upward until all were undone.
“Kathleen.” It was a plea. She raised her hands and buried them in his hair, pulling his face into her softness.
He clasped her just under the curve of her bottom and lifted her out of the chair. He didn’t set her down until he had carried her to the fireplace. Then, with infinite care, he lowered her to the carpet.
Her own anguished cry of longing echoed his as they came together in a tight embrace. Her mouth opened to receive the plunder of his, welcoming the pain as much as the pleasure. They were a tangle of arms and legs as each sought to bring the other closer, rolling and seesawing on the soft carpet.
Kathleen pulled the bottom of his sweater up over his chest until she felt the hair-roughened skin pressed against her tummy. He helped her as she peeled the garment over his head. Then he eased her out of her blouse and bra. They were flung away without regard.
“No one looks like you,” he whispered hoarsely. “No one feels like you, smells like you, tastes like you. God, I want you.”
“Touch me, Erik. Let me feel your hands everywhere. Your mouth. It’s so good,” she cried.
His mouth was hot and urgent as he ravaged her neck, then moved to her ear, aggravating the lobe with his teeth and tickling it with his tongue. His hands celebrated her body, finding without error each curve that he hadn’t forgotten and that his memory knew well.
He kissed her breasts with lips on fire. His tongue laved her nipples with the moisture of his mouth. When they were wet and shiny, he brushed them dry with his mustache.
Kathleen made small, imploring noises that sounded like his name. He deftly unsnapped her jeans and worked down the zipper. With her willing assistance, he divested her of the jeans.
His voice was a low rasp as he said, “You’re so pretty here.” His finger outlined the dark triangle visible through her sheer panties. Kathleen closed her eyes, mesmerized by the pattern his hands were tracing over her. The panties went the way of the jeans. Then there was nothing between them and he was touching her, kissing her, with a familiarity undimmed by the years that had separated them.
“Erik,” she groaned. “I haven’t forgotten.”
“Neither have I, but you’re sweeter than I remembered.”
Her hands fumbled at the waistband of his jeans and slipped the zipper down. She called his name…
The telephone rang.
Chapter Seventeen
They froze. The telephone rang a second time. A third. Erik eased away from her, cursing expansively and fiercely.
“You… you’d better get it,” she stammered, rising up to a sitting position. “It may be—”
“Your husband?” he asked bitterly as he jerked the receiver off its cradle.
“Hello,” he barked. “No, nothing’s wrong, Seth.” He looked at Kathleen, who covered her face. “I was standing on a chair and couldn’t get to the telephone… Yeah, it looks great. Thank you again… Yeah, she is a woman of rare talents.”
Like a thwarted beast who has been driven beyond his level of tolerance, Erik lashed out viciously at his scapegoat—Kathleen. His anger was unreasonable; it was unjust; but at that point in time, his Scandinavian temper was beyond reason. His face was scornful and mocking as he looked at Kathleen. “Do you want to talk to her? She’s available.” Everything he said was intended to wound with a double meaning. “Now?… Why?… Well, I…” A heavy sigh. “All right, we’ll be right there.” He hung up the telephone and eyed her with cynical amusement. “You’d better get dressed. Your husband wants to see us.”
She had folded her hands across her chest in a gesture of self-protection. It was unfair of him to think the torment was his alone. Instinctively, she reached up and touched his thigh as he stood over her.
At the touch of her hand, he flinched visibly and growled, “Get dressed.”
“Erik, I’m sorry. I didn’t want it to… It’s better this way. I couldn’t have lived—”
“Lived with yourself if you had been sullied by my lovemaking?” he finished for her in dulcet tones. Again he cursed viciously, while he paced the room like a caged beast. “Please spare me the guilty conscience. I’m not in a forgiving mood.” He glanced down at her and then roared, “Get dressed, goddammit! Or do you want to be raped? How much do you think I can stand?”
Kathleen scrambled to pick up her underclothes and pulled them on gracelessly. She was shoving her legs into her jeans when she, too, became angry. He was still glaring at her as if she were to blame for the fiasco. She faced him belligerently. “You’re the most selfish person I’ve had the misfortune to know. You don’t care about anyone but yourself, Erik!”
“Why should I?” he demanded. “You’ve taken away my son. I can’t have him. Who else should I give a damn for?”
“You… you could show a little consideration for me,” she said bravely.
He threw back his head and laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Don’t tell me. The next question I hear will be ‘Do you still respect me?’ Right?”
“Oh,” she ground out. “You’re despicable.”
“And what about you, Miss Righteousness? I wasn’t using any force down there.” He indicated the carpet at their feet. “From now on, I’m not jumping to the bait. I know you for what you are, Kathleen. You derive some perverse pleasure from driving a man to the brink of sanity and then you don’t come across. God knows how you must torment poor Seth.”
She gasped in mortification and took a step toward him, raising her arm, planning to deliver a stinging slap to his smug face. Her hand was caught in midair.
“At the risk of making my son an orphan, I won’t throttle you for trying that. But from now on, you can save yourself the trouble of wagging that sweet little ass in my face, because I’m not interested.”
“Go to hell!” she screamed, yanking her arm free.
He laughed. “I’ve been.”
Because she couldn’t immediately think of a rejoinder, Kathleen trembled with pent-up rage. Her jaws clamped and she strained each word through grinding teeth. “I don’t see how I could ever have let you touch me. You’re the most self-centered bastard I’ve ever known. You think you’re God’s great gift to women. Let me tell you something.” She shook her finger an inch from Erik’s nose. “There’s more to being a man than virility. Seth is five times the man you’ll ever be. He knows what tenderness and compassion and forgiveness are. And I don’t think he’d ever try to compromise a friend’s wife, either.”
The words reverberated in the room like a funeral knell. The silence that followed was ponderous. Erik’s head snapped back as though it had been pulled by the sharp tug of a puppet’s string. For long moments, neither said anything, only stared at the other.
When Erik finally moved, it was to bring his hands up to cover his face. Kathleen saw his chest rise and fall. He seemed to be starving for air. When he lowered his hands, he said dully, “You are exactly right, Kathleen. My behavior is unforgivable. You may find it hard to accept my apology, but I wish you’d try.”
She wanted to rush to assure him that the blame wasn’t his alone, but he turned away from her and went to the front door and opened it. Only then did he face her again, his shoulders slumped in dejection.
“It seems I’m not worthy competition for your husband on any level.” He didn’t wait for her to precede him, but walked out into the night, impervious to the cold. There was nothing to do but follow him.
Each
went to his separate car and drove to the Kirchoff residence. When they arrived and walked to the door together, they were less than polite strangers. Tension crackled between them. George met them in the hall and told them Seth was in the den.
“Hello!” Seth called out when they entered. “I’m glad you arrived when you did. George is about to best me in another tournament of chess. I think he cheats, but I’ll be damned if I can catch him at it.”
George only laughed before he offered to get them all something to drink. Seth declined graciously, Erik and Kathleen with reserved civility.
George retreated, and if Seth noticed the tight, taciturn attitude of his two companions, he didn’t show it. He launched directly into why he had asked them to meet with him. When he said what was on his mind, Kathleen fervently prayed that her ears were playing tricks on her.
“I… You… Seth, have you lost your mind? I can’t go to the Caribbean!”
“Why not?”
“Be… because I can’t, that’s why. What would I do there?” She dared not look at Erik to see his reaction to Seth’s unthinkable proposal that she accompany the production crew on the trip.
“The modeling agency called me a while ago. The stylist they are sending with the models is frantic. She’s afraid that she’ll be held responsible if any damage is done to the clothes that will be taken along. More than that, she’s sure she won’t remember which fashions are supposed to be featured in which commercial and how to coordinate them. She wore me out trying to explain her frustration. Erik, with all your headaches down there, worrying about your cameras, lights, the weather, transportation for twenty people, and so on, you won’t have time to think about all of that.”
He paused and drew a deep sigh. “Kathleen dearest, you are the only one I trust, that Erik will trust, to see that everyone has on what they are supposed to have on when he focuses them in his lens.”
Kathleen wrung her hands in agitation. She couldn’t, she couldn’t. There was no way she could go on the trip, be in constant contact with Erik after the emotionally wrenching scene in his apartment. Only a glutton for punishment, a masochist, would subject himself to that situation.