“Stop it, damn you!” She picked up the box that had held his portable phone and threw it at him. It hit him square on the chin.
“Good shot. Thank God you didn’t break it. Here’s my offer: I want to move in with you tomorrow. We’ll be roommates, not lovers. We’ll be as close as any two people can be without having sex. No sex, Eden, no sex until you’re ready. That’s a promise.”
“Where will you sleep?”
“With you. Just like we did those two nights.”
Her brow furrowed and she was chewing on her lower lip. Good, he thought, just maybe I’ve got her.
“That would mean you’d discover all my bad habits,” she said.
“I’ve got bunches myself. We’d be in this together. Do you floss every morning or every night?”
“Night.”
“I’m morning. Do you snore like a pig?”
“I don’t know,” she said with perfect seriousness. “I’ve never heard myself. Do you?”
“Only when I’m stressed out or dog-tired. I run three mornings a week and work out at Mueller’s Gym up on Sixty-sixth another two days. I won’t get fat on you. I’m also a pretty good cook.”
“I won’t get fat either,” she said.
“Yeah, but is that through personal commitment or because you have to starve yourself to make a living? Will you get fat when you stop modeling?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve never had a problem before.”
He smiled at her. “Good. I think we’ve got all the bases covered.”
“I don’t cook very well.”
“No problem. Since you don’t eat, why bother learning? I do great things with lettuce and tofu and pork chops.”
“All right.”
“Give me the ring.” He held out his hand.
She handed him the box.
He pulled the exquisite ring from its bed. “Give me your left hand.”
She hesitated, and he just waited, his hand still out, palm up.
She thrust her left hand at him. He held the beautiful ring out, staring down at it as he slid it on her finger. It was a tight fit, a very tight fit, and she had to help him, wincing as she forced it over her knuckle. He’d rather thought a size five would do the trick.
“Good, it’ll be a real pain to get the thing off. If you’re ever really pissed at me and want to throw it in my face, you’ll have trouble doing it immediately, in the heat of passion, so to speak. That, sweetheart, will give you time to cool down and me to talk you out of your snit.”
“You’re miraculous, Taylor. You’re also a devious smart-ass.”
“Tell me more. Come here now, I want to hug you.”
She came between his legs, stretched out, and leaned back against his chest, and his arms came around her waist. He kissed the top of her head. “You are now my fiancée. It’s official. How does that sound?”
“Miraculous.”
He laughed, pulled her hair back, and bit her earlobe.
“Taylor? Why don’t you stay tonight?”
He wondered if she was pressed close to him to feel how hard he was. “All right,” he said. “We’ve got our Christmas stocking for tomorrow morning. It’ll be nice not to have to come trudging over here in the cold and snow at seven o’clock in the morning. This way, we can sit in bed, drink cocoa, and attack the stockings whenever we feel like it.”
“I can’t imagine it,” she said, her voice low and just slightly bewildered and disbelieving.
“I can,” he said, and kissed her earlobe. “Now I can imagine it very easily.”
“The last time I had a Christmas stocking, I was eleven years old.”
“Oh, yeah? You want a real sob story? The last time anyone gave me a Christmas stocking, I was in the police academy and it was my instructor. Mean bugger, my instructor. Lots of wrapped goodies—things like hand grenades, tear-gas canisters, a toy gun, bullets, handcuffs, you wouldn’t believe those handcuffs, all fur-lined—Lord, she was something else, my instructor, especially with those handcuffs. Her name was Marlene ‘Ball Buster’ Jakoby and she was—”
Lindsay turned and hit him as hard as she could in the stomach. “Handcuffs!”
“Yes, ma’am, I was a slave for a day. It wasn’t bad though—the handcuffs were lined with this really soft material.”
She looked thoughtful and Taylor groaned.
15
Taylor / Eden
They saw in Christmas Day, but only just. At ten minutes after midnight, Taylor looked at her and gave a big yawn. Tomorrow morning, early, was Christmas stockings. They needed their sleep. He held out his hand to her as he rose.
She tentatively placed her hand in his, stood up, pulled down her loose wine-colored sweater, and said, trying to hide her sudden embarrassment, “I’ll go first, if that’s okay. I’ll be about ten minutes.”
He nodded, turning to face the fireplace, trying to be as laid-back as his computer friends in California. At that moment she felt a spurt of anger at him, for he’d known intimacy with a woman; he knew how to act, what to say, how to speak. He knew what to do. She said from the doorway, “This isn’t fair. I feel so strange. I don’t know how to act, how to joke around about all this like you do. I feel stupid.”
He grinned at her, waving her away as he said, “On the other hand, you’re wearing a beautiful ring. You’ve got me at your feet. What else do you want?”
Again, his light touch. She just shook her head at him. Lindsay called out to him when she was through in the bathroom, and after seeing to the candles, the fire, the front door, Taylor went into the bedroom. Only the lamp atop the bedside table was on. She was lying on the left side, flat on her back, the covers to her chin. She was staring at him.
“Hi,” he said easily, but he was thinking that she looked the twenty-first-century prototype of a vestal virgin. He unbuttoned his shirt. “You kept to the agreed-upon limit, didn’t you, Eden?”
“For what?” She was staring at him. He pulled off his shirt. Then he pulled his T-shirt over his head.
“For the presents in our stockings,” he said through the cotton. “Just nonsense presents, limit of fifty dollars. Did you stick to the limit?”
She watched the white T-shirt float to the floor. He began to pull the belt from the loops of his dark gray slacks. Taylor had decided while he’d waited for her that he would wear his T-shirt and shorts to bed tonight, then, after he moved in tomorrow, he’d wear sweats, nothing more. That was what he’d thought at first. Then he thought, why the hell hide his body from her? Why the hell pretend the situation wasn’t normal? Why the hell pretend he didn’t want her and not let her see that he did? Why the hell not have her get used to him, beginning immediately? It was a risk; it was a god-awful risk, but he accepted it, and prayed. His hand paused a moment; then he knew he had to go ahead with it. She had to get used to him. She had to know that even when he was naked there was simply no chance he would hurt her. She had to trust him.
“Did you?” he asked again, not looking up.
The belt landed on the chair, curling around the T-shirt. He sat down and took off his shoes and socks, then rose again, his fingers on the trouser button.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m taking my clothes off. I tend not to sleep in them, you know. It makes them last longer. Save on the laundry and cleaning bills. Now, did you stick to our limit?”
“Taylor!”
She couldn’t help watching, she simply couldn’t help it. The image of the prince flared bright and stark in her memory, and she saw him naked, saw his sex hard and long, remembered the heat of his breath on her face, the coldness of his hands on her body, and felt the old terror, the humiliation and fear, the helplessness.