“Don’t you want to turn around?” he asked.
“No.”
“I’m going to put on my nightshirt.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You’re drunk.”
She said nothing for a long moment, evaluating. “No. Only a little tipsy now.”
“It’s a fine line where you’re concerned.”
“Probably. It’s not a line I’ve ever crossed before.” She patted the empty side of the bed. “Go on. You can sit here.”
“Definitely feeling no pain.” He removed his nightshirt from the wardrobe and sat down in the same spot he had claimed on earlier nights. The invitation to do so did not exactly ease his mind. Not only did he wonder what she was up to, he wondered what he would do about it.
Roen removed his jacket, vest, and shirt with his usual care. He pulled on the sleeves of his flannel undershirt, rolled his shoulders, and stripped to his waist. He was preparing to raise the nightshirt over his head when he felt Lily set her hand squarely between his shoulder blades. Her palm was warm. There were points of heat at the ends of her splayed fingers. He didn’t draw a breath until his heart slammed hard in his chest.
“What are you doing, Lily?”
“You know. Can’t you feel my hand?”
“I can. I do. I don’t know what it means.” He shivered slightly as she drew her index finger down the length of his spine. “I don’t think you should do that.” She immediately ran the same finger back up the ladder.
“You don’t like it?”
“It doesn’t matter if I like or it not, our agreement has conditions.”
“I know. I made them.”
“Are you testing me, Lily? Is that it?”
Her hand moved again, this time to the base of his neck. She slipped her fingers under his hair, fiddled with the ends, winding them around a finger and then tugging gently. “You need a haircut.”
Roen reached behind him and laid a hand over hers, stopping her play.
“It’s nice, though,” she said, “the way your hair brushes your collar.”
“When I’m wearing one,” he said dryly.
“Yes, of course. When you’re wearing one.” Lily slid her hand out from under Roen’s. She walked her fingers across his left shoulder, paused, then lightly grazed his skin on the way back to his neck. “Now, about the barber. When you see Sam Love, ask him to give you a trim, not a scalping.”
Roen circled Lily’s wrist and removed her hand from his neck. He laid her hand beside his hip and then quickly stood up. He did not have to look down to know that his erection was filling out the front of his trousers. “I think it would be better if I slept downstairs tonight.” It was not his intention to alarm her, but her movement behind him suggested he had done precisely that. He looked over his shoulder in time to see her wrestling with the covers as she tried to scramble to her knees.
He put his arms in the sleeves of his nightshirt and pulled it over his head. When it fell into place, he took a step away from the bed and began gathering the blankets laid out on the floor. Holding them in front of him, he finally turned toward Lily. She hadn’t left the bed, but she had moved across it on her knees. If she extended an arm now, she would be able to reach him. He inched backward, but not far enough, fast enough, and when Lily struck, it was not with the clumsy, loose-limbed effort of a drunk. She grasped a fistful of his nightshirt and pulled. Hard. There was nothing playful in the gesture.
Lily was not able to topple him, but to save his shirt from being rent, Roen had to step up to the edge of the bed. He thrust the blankets at her chest, and when she was off balance, he pried her fingers loose and backed away so that he was out of her reach.
“What the hell, Lily?” He stared at the vague silhouette that she made. She was no longer on her knees, but she was still sitting up, her legs curled to one side and a shoulder resting against the iron rail head. “What’s wrong?” He managed not to add the two words he was thinking. “What’s wrongwithyou?” If he thought it would sound like an accusation, there was no chance that she would hear it as concern.
“Don’t go,” she whispered. “I don’t want you to go.”
“I understand what youdon’twant,” he said quietly, matching her tone. “I don’t understand what youdo.”
Lily drew one of the blankets he’d shoved at her across her legs. The rest she pushed aside. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know or you don’t want to say?” When she didn’t respond, Roen decided it was time to light the lamp. It wasn’t as if he was still aroused. That erection was at best a memory. “Shield your eyes.”
