“I’m fine,” Nelle says. “Thanks.”
James waves a hand. “All good.”
“Good, good.” Penelope purses her wrinkled mouth.
“Do you have a cat?” James asks, cutting pointed glances to the larger cat sculptures tucked around the room.
“Yes, Ptolemy. But he hides from new people.”
After another pause, Penelope says, “So you’re Wallace’s ...?”
“Daughter.”
“Daughter,” Penelope repeats. She sips her tea.
“I’m sorry if he never told you about me. He was a secretive man.” Nelle sets her tea on the coffee table. “If it’s any consolation, you’re news to me, too.”
James interrupts the next awkward beat. “So, have you always lived in Scourie?”
Penelope smiles sympathetically. “You must be fatigued from the drive up, if that’s the best small talk you can muster. No judgment here, though, I’m exhausted just from going into town.”
She gathers the teacups, though they have only taken a few sips each, and carries the tray away.
When she returns, she says, “We adhere to the sun’s bedtime around here. When she goes down, I go down. Take the guest room if you’re sharing. Second door on the left down the hall. Toilet’s attached.”
Nelle and James say their good nights and shuffle to their room. He digs their toothbrushes and clothes from the backpack while she takes stock of the room. Iron bed with a white quilt, one shuttered window, a slim door to the bathroom, blocky mahogany nightstandsholding opal-glass lamps, wallpaper dotted with tiny tulips peeling at the corners.
“Are you going to take a shower?” she asks.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” James says, rinsing his toothbrush. “It feels a little weird, doesn’t it? To shower in a stranger’s house? I mean ... we talked for a total of ten minutes.”
“I guess.” Nelle washes her face, towels it off. “She doesn’t feel like a stranger to me.”
They climb into bed, pitched into darkness.
“Do you care if I turn on the lamp?” she asks.
“Not at all.”
She clicks it on, and the room becomes a watercolor of incandescent yellow and shadows.
“I hope tomorrow’s not as awkward,” she says. “I didn’t know how to act. What to say.”
“You did great.” James rolls onto his side. “I promise. I think she was nervous, too. Maybe it threw her off that Quill never told her about you.”
“Maybe, but I don’t want her to dislike me because of that.”
“If she does”—James kisses the tip of her nose—“then she doesn’t deserve to know you.”
A ripple of pleasure spreads down to Nelle’s toes. She cups his neck and pulls him to her. Lips brush. She savors the anticipation. This tantalizing exchange of breath. His bare toes skim hers, stoking the animal within her.
But James loses control first, dipping down to pull a kiss from her. She lays everything she is at the altar of his lips, offering her body up. As they kiss, she feels subsumed by this celestial, glittery state.
Her pajamas are silky and small—a button-down shirt and shorts—and James’s fingers feel like bolts of lightning along her exposed calves, her thighs, her neck. She arches her back, pushing into him, needing more.
“Touch me,” she gasps, barely able to get the words out. “Touch me, James.”
He works at the buttons of her shirt, grazing her breast. One by one they release, until the fabric splits like stage curtains, unveiling her naked torso. Blood rushes south. Pulsing and hot and wet for him.
