“About my looks. I didn’t do anything to earn them. They just are. I get that they’re an advantage, but they’re simply genetics.”
“Do you feel the same way when someone compliments your smarts?”
Her short laugh was bereft of humor. “That’s never happened, but I get your point. Genetics again. Mostly. You can study and enhance your intelligence.”
“Enhance your knowledge, certainly, but I’m not so sure you can do much about your core intelligence.”
Ramsey picked up her boy shorts. “This is a bizarre conversation.”
Sullivan ignored that. “I think you’re smart. Seriously smart.” She didn’t say anything, but he thought he detected the faintest curling at the corners of her mouth. She was pleased, even if she couldn’t say so. He watched her balance herself on the arm of the wicker chair and begin to step into her shorts. “What are you doing?”
“Is that really a question?” she asked. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“I’m thinking past the obvious. What happens next? Do you keep getting dressed? Are you coming back to bed or are you planning to go?”
She stood, straightened, and hiked up the boy shorts under the Oxford shirt before she regarded him with a cool eye. “You gathered up my clothes and set them out where I couldn’t miss them. That’s a pretty big hint about your druthers.”
“You know, you could have reasoned I was being considerate. I didn’t realize I had given you cause to think otherwise.”
Ramsey had picked up her cargos, but now she dropped them over the back of the chair and remained where she was, not exactly feeling awkward, but not confident either.
“Stay,” said Sullivan. “Spend the night. I’ll make you breakfast in the morning.” When Ramsey continued to hesitate, he added, “I have Cap’n Crunch.”
That decided her. She walked to the bed and stopped when she was standing between his splayed legs. When Sullivan set his hands on her hips, she laid hers on his shoulders. “I really like Cap’n Crunch.”
“Everyone loves the Captain.”
Ramsey nudged his shoulders and he obliged her by lying back on the bed. She followed him down and this time she was the one who initiated the kissing. Eventually they rearranged themselves on the bed after Sullivan shucked his jeans and Ramsey slithered out of the boy shorts. The barely pink shirt stayed, although she unfastened the buttons while he put on a condom.
“The shirt smells like you,” she whispered when he returned to nuzzle her neck. “I like it.”
“It smells like the dry cleaners,” he said.
“I still like it.”
He tugged on her earlobe. “Anyone ever told you that you’re just over the far side of strange.”
“No, but I think that might be a good thing.”
He smiled against her mouth. “I know it is.” Then he kissed her and eased himself in. He held himself still when he saw her wince. “All right?”
She nodded, bit gently on her bottom lip. “I guess you can tell that it’s been a while.”
“Ah, it’s been less than an hour. I’m to be congratulated for my recovery and stamina.”
“Congratulations,” she said, nudging his mouth with hers. “But I was talking about me. That hour respite aside, it’s been a long time for me.”
He ran his tongue along the ridge of her teeth and then lifted his head to ask, “How long?”
“Since my divorce.”
Sullivan’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Since your divorce? How long are we talking about exactly?”
“Exactly?” She frowned, thinking, and was glad it took some effort. To her it meant she was putting the past in the past. Sullivan probably thought she was slow at math. “Four years, three months, and twenty-one days.”
“Jesus,” he whispered. “And what? Nothing. No one?”
“Do battery operated toys count?” Before he could answer, she felt him stir inside her. Suspicious, she asked, “Did you just get harder?”
