The Cost of Happiness: A Contemporary Romance (26 page)

He squinted at her, his head at an angle. “She can? Wow. Now I have to meet her. Call her and see if she wants to go out for a meal.”

“You don’t want to have dinner with me?”

“Oh, so now you’re saying yes?”

“I don’t believe I said that, exactly,” Meghan said slowly. She tried to remember the precise wording she’d used.

“I believe it could be inferred.”

She stood and grabbed her backpack from the bottom file drawer. “Okay. You win.”

Dan stood with his back to the door. When Meghan walked toward him, he flipped off the light and took her into his arms.

“Now I’ve won.” He kissed the curl of her ear, sending chills down her arms.

He knew exactly how to make everything disappear, leaving only his lips whispering over her skin, never quite making it to her mouth so she could kiss him senseless. Oh, and his arms, and those magic hands, creating friction through her clothes. And his cock, pressing hard on one of her hips. She ached for his cock at the damnedest times, her body revved and ready to forget the job, forget everything but the completeness and utter joy to be joined with him.

“You’re in collusion with my libido,” Meghan accused him.

“You talk too much.”

“There’s an easy way to shut me up.”

He pulled back as if looking at her, even though she could tell he couldn’t see her in the dark. She imagined fake confusion on his face, so she explained to the darkness, “You could kiss me.”

He found her lips unerringly, taking them in a thorough possession. She was lost, disoriented, aware only of Dan’s heat and solid weight against her body, his arms around her, his tongue tangling with hers. That ache—a throbbing need to be naked with him, to take him into her body, to fuse with his flesh—leapt out of control. In the black space, it was like a bonfire lighting and heating her from inside.

She groaned when his hand snaked up her top and tugged on her nipple. She reached down to stroke his erection, but his hips were so tight against hers she had no access. She grabbed his ass and massaged the hard muscle. God, she loved this feeling of building desire. She loved it almost as much as the anticipation, the stockpiling of visual images—the rumpled contours of his head, the fine edge to his nose, lips and chin, the perfection of his chest and waist, the heaviness of his sex—as they undressed, and then the choreography of the sex itself.

“We need a room.” Dan bit the words off, his jaw tight when she reached up to caress it.

Whoa. Did that—of course it meant what she thought it meant.
Don’t be stupid, Meghan
. She tried to diffuse the mood, give him a chance to back off. “We’re in a room,” she teased.

“A room with a bed, privacy, and maybe a bit more light,” he said, sardonically. She could picture him arching one eyebrow.

“Light so we can get on with reviewing the files?”

He chuckled. “Light so I can see that blush I imagine has spread from your face all the way down to your breasts.”

“If you can imagine it, why do you need more light?”

“So I can see just how far south it goes.”

“Wow, you’re so picky.” She laughed until he pulled down her bra cup and suckled her nipple. “Ah, okay, yes, a room.”

“Your place?” His voice held a note of triumph.

“All right. My place.”

His arm reached out and flipped on the light. His face was demonically happy. He’d won something he wanted, although Meghan couldn’t see what the big deal was. Her bed was made.

Even though Dan normally walked to work, he’d parked under the office building on purpose. He’d been determined that tonight he would see Meghan’s apartment.

As they rode down in the elevator to the parking garage, he deliberately kept his distance. He thought he’d seen a look in Wally’s eye at the Litigation meeting. Maybe Dan was paranoid, but he wondered if someone—Anne van Oostrum? Darlene McAndrews?—was reporting to Wally about the time Dan and Meghan were spending together working on the ProCell case.

As they walked across the nearly empty parking level, Dan resisted the urge to swivel around, checking for…what? Spies? He marveled at his own paranoia. Until he imagined being told that the firm disapproved of his relationship with Meghan enough to move her to another paralegal position or, worse, fire her. If his libido cost her this job, that would be disastrous.

Once they were in the car, he could breathe again.

“What?” she asked. “You okay?”

He shook his head. “I don’t normally park here. Kind of creepy.”

She looked at him for a long moment while he started the car. She didn’t say anything more.

“I’m excited to see your place,” he said to change the subject.

“Why? It’s an apartment. It’s clean.”

“It’s yours.”

“Whatever that means,” she muttered.

Seeing her apartment had taken on an inordinate significance in his mind. Her space, where she ate her breakfast, brushed her teeth, slept. He knew it wouldn’t be frilly, but after that he drew a blank. It would reflect something of Meghan’s personality, her life, even her hopes and fears. A stage set for the drama that he sensed was going on in her life.

He’d tried to ask carefully open-ended questions on their trip home from Ohio. About her childhood, her family, her schooling, her dreams. He got vague and distracting answers…when he got any answers at all.

“You know the way to my place, right?” she asked as they drove up the ramp to Cherry Street.

He made the left. “Yup.” At the stop sign, he checked Meghan. She’d leaned her head back and her eyes were closed. She really must have gotten in early. He smiled a little at her exhaustion. He was getting better at reading the signs.

How could he want to marry someone he knew so little? By the time he and Shana graduated law school, he knew everything about her—from the name of her first cat to the spot where she lost her virginity. As their relationship was already winding down then, in-depth knowledge didn’t seem the key to a happy, secure future.

That was ten years ago. Now, in his thirties, Dan wanted to believe his instincts were better-honed. He knew all sorts of things about Meghan, about her character and intellect, and yes, even her hopes and fears.

She wanted to be a lawyer, but feared her recent bad luck would prevent that. Even without knowing exactly what happened, Dan knew she’d make it just fine. She was a survivor. She didn’t linger on obstacles. She found ways to work around even the brick walls that appeared insurmountable.

He admired her. He loved her.

And he knew she wasn’t ready to learn that about him. Because as curious as he was about her, she wasn’t curious about him. She asked him no questions at all, didn’t seem interested in his origins, resisted the opportunity to meet his family.

When they pulled alongside her apartment building, he nudged Meghan’s shoulder. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty, your chariot has completed its journey.”

“I was resting my eyes,” she protested.

“And your jaw, I noticed. You might want to wipe up that little bit of moisture on your chin,” he said, pointing to non-existent drool.

She lifted a hand to her mouth, then glared at him. “Very funny.”

Dan laughed. It was funny. And sweet, knowing she could relax enough to sleep in the car.

She let them into the building, then led him up some stairs. They stopped at B-203. While she got her key out, the door behind them opened.

“Hey, there. I haven’t—oh, I’m sorry.”

Dan turned to see a pretty blonde wearing cutoffs and a ragged T-shirt. “Hi, I’m Dan.” He held out his hand.

“Ooh, the man with no blow-dryer,” the blonde said. “I’m Kassie. Meghan’s next-door neighbor. Whom I’m guessing has never mentioned me.”

“On the contrary,” Dan said. “She’s told me how much fun you are.”

Kassie eyed him in that frankly speculative way some women had. Her gaze assessed him without making him feel like a hunk of meat on display. More like a sci-fi character’s scanner, sweeping a triangle of rays from the top of his head to the tips of his shoes.

When she was done, she smiled a secret, ultra-feminine smile and said to Meghan, “Good going. Stop by later…or whenever.”

Dan wanted to tell Kassie he had sisters, so he wasn’t quite so clueless about the coded language of women.

“What was that about?” Meghan asked as she let them into her apartment.

That answered one of his questions. Meghan didn’t have sisters. “Oh, I think Kassie approves of your arm candy.”

“Arm candy?”

“Me.”

Her eyes got huge, staring at him then bouncing a look off the closed door. “Oh.” Her gaze came back to Dan. She frowned, clearly worried that Kassie might have offended him. “I’m so sorry. I’ll speak to her later.”

He gathered her into a hug. “Sweetheart, it’s okay. Kassie is happy for you. And I’m happy you have a friend.”

Her second “Oh,” was muffled against his chest. After a moment, she hugged him back. A little awkwardly at first, but then he felt her relax. “Oh,” she said a third time, as though she finally got it. Then she pulled away.

He smiled at her uncertainty. He framed her face very gently and kissed her. “Give me the fifty cent tour?”

Her shoulders jerked. “Yes, of course.” She led him from the miniscule foyer into the living room—if that wasn’t too grand a term for a room with a desk, bookcases, a single armchair and not much else. She had a couple of posters, though, and the apartment had some handsome moldings and built-in cabinetry.

It was also very hot. Meghan rushed over to open the windows, which were large sashed affairs with screens.

“I don’t have air conditioning,” she explained rapidly as she went from window to window. “Luckily all my windows face north and east so I just close them in the morning and then open them again at night.”

After she’d opened the two in the living room and one near her modest dinette set, Dan followed her to the other side of the apartment, which overlooked the parking lot of a drugstore. She opened a window in the bathroom, then two more in her bedroom and one, strangely enough, in her closet.

She returned to stand by the bed. “There. It should cool off pretty quickly.”

Dan slipped off his suit jacket and tugged at the knot of his tie. Meghan went back to the closet and returned with a hanger for his jacket, which she grabbed off the bed and placed carefully on the hanger. When he took off his shirt, she came back with two hangers, a normal one for his shirt and a hinged one so his trousers could hang by their cuffs. He eyed her hands with raised brows.

“Well, I figured you’d be more comfortable if you didn’t have long sleeves and trousers on.”

A minute later, Dan was down to boxers, his shoes lined up on her closet floor with the socks rolled up neatly inside the toes, his shirt, tie, and suit hanging next to each other on her closet rail.

“Three sisters and I’ve never seen a woman’s closet with actual space on the rod.” He could have kicked himself as soon as the words were uttered—they probably reminded her of her financial situation.

Meghan just laughed. “It’s a pretty big closet. And I have a linen closet and a coat closet too.”

Dan settled on the bed, his arms behind his head. “At least change into something cooler as well.”

Her eyelashes swept onto her cheeks. Was that a blush? Still, she didn’t hesitate to peel off her sleeveless top and black pants. He’d have preferred her to stay in her undies, as utilitarian as they might be, but it was fun to watch her pull on shorts and a tank top.

She came around the bed to sit next to him. He brought his arm down so they could hold hands.

“What do you want for dinner?” she asked.

“For you to let me phone out for something.”

“I can cook,” she insisted. When he looked sideways at her, she added, “Not well, but I can cook.”

“What were you going to have?”

“Well, Kassie won’t let me just have ramen noodles—”

“Good God, I should hope not. You need more food than that.”

She twisted her lips, not happy with his outburst. “Anyway, she’s been teaching me how to eat on a budget. So I was going to make a Chinese chicken salad with whole wheat rolls.”

“Do you have enough for two? I don’t mind ordering a pizza.”

She leaned forward, her hair shading her face. “I’d like to cook for you.” Her voice was muffled.

“Great. Can you put me to work?” He got up and started back to the kitchen.

“Hunh? Yeah, sure. I mean, I think so,” she said, hurrying after him.

She passed him and rushed to open the fridge. She started pulling things out—cabbage, soy sauce, a plate with two cooked chicken breasts on it. Dan guessed that she would have stretched that to two or three meals. He’d take her out over the weekend to make up for raiding her food supply. Or, better yet, have her stay with him for the weekend. He could afford to feed them both and they’d enjoy the air conditioning.

She gave him the cabbage, a cutting board and a knife. She looked at the equipment as though she still wasn’t sure what they were for. “Um. That gets sliced into really thin strips.”

He squelched the desire to tease her about her nascent cooking skills. He settled at the formica-and-chrome table and got busy.

While she got peanuts and a can of mandarin oranges out of a pantry, Dan glanced around the kitchen, the only room he hadn’t seen before. It took him a moment to figure out what seemed to be missing.

“Do you even own a TV?”

She looked up from the bottle of vinegar she was about to measure out. “Hunh? No. No TV. I had one in Iowa, but I didn’t bother to buy one here. Apart from anything else, the landlord won’t let us have cable.”

“What? That’s crazy.”

“Yeah, he’s really eccentric. Keeps insisting that it’s the cable company’s fault. I have my doubts, but the rent’s really low, so I figured it was a win-win. You know—I saved money
and
didn’t have that distraction while I studied.”

“I would never have made it through law school without certain distractions. TV, weekly trivia night, the monthly poker game with my friends. I’m a bit in awe of your single-mindedness. Or I’m scared you’re a pod person. Not sure which.”