“What time is Cooper due here?”
“One.”He stretched again, this time half turning to his side, and in the instant before he drew his top leg up, I caught a glimpse of a line of soft, dark hair on his belly.My heart reacted wildly, and my eyes shot upward, following that line as it widened in a spray of hair over hischest.I had just focused on a small, brown nipple when it disappeared beneath the covers, which Peter drew up.
A helpless little sound slipped from my throat.Horrified, I coughed to cover it up.Between that cough and the newly risen covers, the spell was broken.
“Are you getting up?”I asked as I headed back toward the door.I didn’t care that I sounded cross.Enough was enough.
Apparently not.“Eleven.Wake me at eleven.”
“Oh, Peter.”
“I’m beat.Too many late nights.”
That’s your problem, bud,I was on the verge of saying when he added, “Had to clear my desk to get here.”
I should have known he’d say something like that, something I couldn’t berate.I sighed.“Eleven?”
“Mmmm.”
This time when I closed the door, I made no attempt to cushion its click.I didn’t slam it, just … closed it.And I trotted down the stairs the way I normally did, washed the mixing bowl without taking care to be particularly quiet, talked full voice on the phone to an old friend in Boston about an orthopedic specialist, even turned the radio on to the country sound that I liked.When I’d done everything I could in the kitchen, I trotted up to my studio and did some organizing of materials, which entailed the opening and closing of cabinets.Then I trottedback down to take the muffins from the oven.While I was at it, I put on a pot of beef stew to cook.My recipe was nowhere near as good as Bettina Gregorian’s, hers having far more ingredients than I could cope with.But while there wasn’t the subtlety to my stew that there was to hers, it was still remarkably good.
At eleven o’clock, I put on my most nonchalant front and made my way back up the stairs.I didn’t bother to knock this time, or call Peter’s name from the door.For expediency’s sake, I went straight to the side of the bed, took a firm grasp of his upper arm and gave it a good, solid shake.
He jumped.His head shot around, eyes opening wide on mine, though they didn’t seem to see a thing.After several taut seconds, he slowly closed his eyes and sank down to the bed, but on his back.He threw an arm over his eyes.“You scared the hell out of me,” he said in a quiet voice.
“I’m sorry.There didn’t seem to be any other way to wake you.”
“Is it nine?”
I had to smile.“No.Eleven.”
He lifted his arm and peered up at me.“Eleven.I was supposed to get up at nine.”
“When I woke you at nine, you told me to wake you at ten.”
“Then ten.”
“When I woke you at ten, you told me to wake you at eleven.”
That gave him a moment’s pause.“I did?”
I nodded.
“Oh.”He dropped his arm back to his eyes.“I was having the most incredible dream.”
Adam used to say the same thing.Then he’d reach for me and expect that I’d be as aroused as he was, only it didn’t always work that way.If I was sleeping, I was sleepy, and if I was awake, my mind was on other things.Adam thought about sex a lot.I didn’t.In my book, there were far more important and exciting things in our relationship than that.
Without conscious intent, my gaze slipped over the covers toward Peter’s groin.But he had a knee bent.I couldn’t see a thing—for which I thanked my lucky stars the instant I realized what I’d gone looking for.If he’d been hard, I wasn’t sure what I’d have done.
Then again, if he hadn’t been hard, I’d have wondered more.
Thenagain,maybe my mind had gone suddenly wicked.Maybe his dream hadn’t been sexy at all.Maybe he’d been dreaming about winning one case or another.
I wasn’t about to ask.Instead, I cleared my throat.“Are you awake now?”
“I think so.”
“Help yourself to the shower,” I said as I took my fill of his chest.It was solid, impressively broad at the shoulders, tapering to the waist where the covers lay, and it was a devilishly masculine blend of bone, muscle and flesh.I saw thetracings of several faint scars, but like the small one high on his cheek, they only added to the allure.“There’s plenty of hot water.I had a new heater put in year before last.”
