Working on a Full House (6 page)

He grinned. "Three. That's all I had, and we just used up the third one. What was I thinking?"

She looked momentarily nonplussed, then seemed to realize he was referring to the condoms. "I would say you weren't
thinking
," she opined carefully.

Roy laughed. Laughing felt good, letting some of the joy bouncing around him get out. He leaned forward to give her a peck on the lips. If she only knew, he'd been lucky to have as many as one condom, sitting in his wallet from God knew when. He hadn't even considered birth control until she'd brought it up. No, he definitely had
not
been thinking. "We'll just have to improvise," he decided.

Her eyes widened again, this time with the part innocent, part adventurous sparkle that had made those three condoms go the way of all condoms in a hurry.

Roy felt his blood heat. Inside him stirred a peculiar melding of desires he hadn't even known he possessed: for a woman with a sharp mind, for one with warmth as well as sex appeal. For one who looked at him as if he hung the moon and stars.

Now she stuck her tongue in her cheek. "Are you going for a record, here?"

"You should be so lucky."

She laughed.

The happiness inside Roy jumped. And he was already very happy.

Maybe too happy
.

What? Where did that idea come from? Roy shook it off as he put an arm around her and drew her into a loose embrace. "Seriously, honey. I'd like to — well, maybe we could try something off the beaten path. But if you're too tired, or, um, sore...?"

She smiled. "You're serious."

His eyes widened. "Yeah." Damn straight he was serious, but...the idea pestered him again. Maybe there was a danger to how good this was.

Maybe he was trying for too much joy.

She must have seen something in his face for her smile started to fade.

Watching the joy drain from
her
sparked Roy back to reality. There was no danger here. Thinking so was — was the kind of thing his father would think. If you're happy, there must be something wrong. Thou must make thyself miserable. Feel guilty. Believe you aren't good enough.

Roy pulled Valerie closer. There was no danger, except that he might let his father's stupid ideas step in and ruin this. "I'm serious, darling." He kissed the tip of her nose. "I'm not done yet here. How about you?"

She bit her lip as she looked up at him. "You can't get enough of me."

"Nope." Jaunty now, determined not to let his father, of all people, ruin this, Roy brought his mouth close to hers. "Want me to prove it?"

A laugh escaped her. Full of humor, her eyes flashed up at him. Lethal.

He wanted her — again. Oh, how he wanted her.

So he was going to have her, and
enjoy it
.

He closed the eighth of an inch that separated them and pressed his lips to hers.

Joy, pleasure, excitement...a bone-deep wonder. All of these immediately splashed through him. He made a small sound and kissed her deeper.

She put one of those sweet arms around him.

Roy's eyes closed. Oh, this was good. This was so very, very good.

And there was absolutely no danger to enjoying it.

CHAPTER FOUR

He was still lying next to her when Valerie woke up.

It took her a second to orient herself, blinking out at the cool elegance of the hotel room, dimly lit by dawn. It took her another second to remember what had happened. When she did, her muscles tensed.

Had she really done all that?

The mild soreness between her legs told her she must have. So did the memories that filled her head, sweet and beautiful memories.

The source of those memories was still lying next to her, his male weight pulling down the other side of the bed.

Valerie breathed as softly and evenly as she could. She'd been sure he would wake up first. She'd been certain he'd be the one to carry out the terms of their deal, and leave.

But he was still here. Asleep.

Slowly, she pushed up from her pillow. Roy was truly dead to the world. His dark lashes lay long and flat against his cheeks. His beard was a disreputable shadow. With his breathing satisfied and deep, he had the appearance of a well-entertained predator.

Valerie felt a smile crawl over her face. He'd been so...beyond. Not only competent —
extraordinarily
so — but sweet. He'd made everything seem beautiful and meaningful.

He'd made
her
feel beautiful and meaningful.

The emotions that had swirled through her during the night whirled up again through her chest.

He'd made her feel loved.

She swallowed, staring down at him. Yes, that's how good he'd been. He'd made her feel, for a few hours, the way no man had ever made her feel — like she was important. No, more than that. Like she was essential.

Valerie sucked in her lips. The only thing that could be more beautiful than last night was if it could still be true this morning. If he would open his eyes, look at her, and show that same emotion of love and deep caring.

Time seemed to stop. The idea exploded in Valerie's mind. Oh, God, what if it could be true? What if everything it had meant to her, it had meant to him? What if he really was the great guy he seemed to be? This morning wouldn't have to be the end. They could continue, sweet and tender and caring.

Time started up again, abruptly. Valerie gasped in a breath. What was she thinking?
It could be true
? What kind of insanity was that?

They'd made a deal. He'd agreed to the deal. Gratefully. Good God, he didn't
love
her. Besides, she didn't even know him!

Valerie pushed herself up, making sure not to wake Roy. Very slowly, she eased out from the covers.

He didn't move any of his oh-so-capable muscles.

Okay, okay, she thought, the blood pounding heavily in her chest. She had to get dressed and pack. Very quietly.

Then she could be out of here. Safe. Safe from believing this could be anything more than it was.

A frolic, a good time. For one night only.

Barely breathing, Valerie picked up her clothes that were scattered about the room. Clutching the lot of them, she found her suitcase in the closet, quietly unzipped it, and found a clean shirt and pair of jeans. She wouldn't use the bathroom here, she decided. Too noisy. She'd just slip on her clothes and use the public restroom down in the lobby.

Working quietly, she put on her clothes, stopping every once in a while to listen.

He didn't wake.

Valerie buttoned her jeans, zipped her suitcase, and straightened.

Her gaze slipped, despite herself, to the bed. His hair made a dark splash against the sheets, his body was a potent presence barely covered by the tousled bedclothes.

Beautiful. He was in every way beautiful. And pure fantasy. Yes, that was the way he had to stay, in some dreamy part of her memory. To imagine anything more would be...catastrophic. A kind of vampire that would hang on and suck the blood out of her.

Valerie picked up her suitcase and let herself out of the room, making sure the door closed very quietly behind her.

~~~

Roy woke up feeling happy. A smile curved his lips as he opened his eyes. He was back in the place of unreasoning joy.

Then he noticed something wrong with the picture.

"Valerie?"

Her head was not on the pillow next to him. Roy rose and twisted to look toward the foot of the bed. "Valerie?"

He couldn't see her in the room.

His tone turned peremptory. "Valerie." He tossed off the sheets and got out of bed. Stalking to the bathroom, he found the door open. Roy gazed into the empty room with its row of hand towels stacked neatly above the sink and felt his heart start to beat heavily. Words came back to him, like stones dropped into a still pond.

Whoever wakes up first should just leave. I don't want a 'morning
.'

No
, Roy thought, staring at the damn hand towels, white and untouched above the sink. She couldn't have. Not after what they'd shared, how it had been. She
couldn't
have carried out the terms of that stupid deal.

He whirled. Maybe she'd just gone down to the lobby to get a cup of coffee. Right. That had to be it. He frowned his way to the closet and whipped open the door.

Empty. No suitcase on the floor, no jacket hanging on the clothes rod. Not a sock. Come to think of it, the bathroom had been empty, too. No personal items, like a toothbrush, comb, or bottles of make-up.

Roy gazed at the bare rug of the closet and felt his heart nearly pound out of his chest. She'd taken all of her things.

She'd left, without intending to return.

"Okay," Roy said, concentrating on breathing. "Okay."

But it wasn't okay. Dammit! How could she have
gone
? Hadn't she — ? Didn't they — ? God, it had been so beautiful.

Roy swiveled to confront the bed with its mussed sheets. His heart pounded in his ears. Well. Apparently, it had only been beautiful for one of them.

Roy had been — he'd been — Well, suffice it to say he'd not been in a place that would have allowed him simply to walk away this morning.

A choking sound came out of his throat. He stalked to the bed, grabbed one corner of the counterpane and gave it a hard toss, sending most if it onto the floor.

Acid leached through him. Although it was ironic, really. One could even call it poetic justice. The one time he'd actually wanted a woman to stick around, she'd left him.

Roy laughed, a short, black bark. Yes, for the first time in his life, he'd actually wanted a woman to stay, he'd wanted to deepen what they were starting together. He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head.

Huh. That wasn't going to happen.
She'd left
. He breathed in and out, slowly. Okay. Time to get rational, instead of pathetic. So, she'd left. A woman he'd had sex with had done exactly what she'd said she was going to do, and left.

Big deal.

But the pain still bit at him as Roy strode back to the bathroom. He splashed some water on his face, deliberately shocking, then used one of the pristine hand towels to dry off. He gave himself a disgusted look in the mirror.

What kind of fool was he? He'd wanted — He'd wanted probably the impossible, that's what he'd wanted. He'd wanted Valerie to fill the itchy hole left by the emptiness of putting that last hundred grand in the bank a week ago, the amount that topped him over thirty-five million.

Unsurprisingly, she hadn't been able to do that.

Shaking his head, Roy tossed the hand towel onto the sink and went back into the room. Ignoring the mild destruction there, he picked up his pants. With a sardonic twist of his lips, he set back to rights the pocket he'd turned inside out the night before in his frantic rush to get at his condoms.

He'd been hot to get at her, that was for sure. But, in truth, had she, herself, even been the goal? What he'd wanted was...to forget this awful emptiness.

Roy's dry smile faded. He shook out his pants and stepped into them. Maybe if his father were still alive Roy would have gained a sense of accomplishment at having achieved his life goal. His dad would have had to acknowledge, finally, that Roy had amounted to something, after all. Roy wasn't "completely irresponsible, a spoiled child," as his father had claimed during their last, big fight. His money was folded into a variety of solid investments, the sort of thing that made the world go round.

Scowling, Roy picked up his shirt and slipped it on. The problem was, he had a feeling that even if his father were still alive he'd find something to pick apart in Roy's life, something to disapprove of. Perhaps it was wrong to speak ill of the dead, but Spencer Beaujovais had been a master at criticism. He'd always given Roy excellent reasons to feel inadequate.

Roy reached for his cashmere sweater. "Now, if I could only find my wallet... Ah." He plucked his wallet off the night table and shoved it into his back pants pocket. On the way to the door, he took a last look around the room, to make sure he'd got everything.

Instead he caught her scent, a tart tang lingering in the air. As scents do, it went straight to Roy's memory center. The emotion in her dark eyes, the sweetness of her smile, the feel of her moving, sinuously, yearningly, beneath him. As if she were the other half of him.

Roy closed his eyes against an unwanted hit of grief.

Don't be stupid
. Illusion. It had all been an illusion. There'd been no deep emotion, on either of their parts. Just a trick of the night, of two people needing a connection for separate reasons of their own.

Turning on his heel, Roy made for the door. A good time, that's all it had been. One really good, but ultimately forgettable, time.

CHAPTER FIVE

"Valerie, are you listening to me?"

"Hm? I'm sorry. Were you saying something, Peter?" Valerie made an effort to shake herself back to her surroundings. It was Monday morning and she was standing in the hall for the examination rooms of Desert Valley Pediatric. Planted before her was Dr. Peter Lindstrom, recently engaged but who, up until four months ago, had been sleeping with Valerie.

Valerie blinked up at tall, lean, vaguely Nordic Peter, and registered that she wasn't feeling a drop of emotion about him. No pain, no shame, not even anger. This morning he was just...Peter. No big deal.

Whoa
, Valerie thought.
I don't
care.
One night of great, but meaningless, sex with a total stranger and I'm all over my humiliating crush on the man who rejected me
.

"I said," Peter repeated slowly, "Did you ever get the blood test results for the Carruthers baby?"

"What? Oh, yes. Yes, I did. Everything checked out fine."

Peter nodded, momentarily satisfied before his expression turned concerned. "Are you okay?"

Valerie blinked. "Excuse me?"

"You seem out of it this morning."

"What? Oh. Well, maybe I could have slept better." Understatement of the year. "Stress, stress, stress." Valerie brushed it off with a bright smile. "Bane of modern-day existence." It hadn't been stress that had kept her awake, however, but vain regrets. Totally vain. As if she'd done anything to regret. She hadn't!