Strange Bedpersons (16 page)

Nick was pleased.

Of course, not everything was perfect. They’d been out every night for the past week—including two dinners with Norbert Welch—not getting home until after midnight, and while Nick was making social points and solidifying his career with an amazing amount of help from the reserved, newly well-dressed Tess, he was also too tired to make love. The good news was so was Tess—the strain of being calm and polite night after night took its toll—but somehow, that wasn’t a comfort. Nick was grateful for her transformation into a dutiful wife-type person, but he was beginning to feel he might have lost something important.

And tonight, the one night they didn’t have a dinner date, they were stuck touring an old house for the benefit of the Opera Guild. All he really wanted to do was stay home and have Tess rub his neck, but the Opera Guild open house was important to Melisande Patterson, so they had to go.

Then Tess was late getting home from tutoring at the Foundation, which infuriated him. She changed into a black mini and a white shirt topped with a black vest. It wasn’t until he helped her out of the car at the showcase house that he realized the vest was one of his Armani suit vests. He was fairly sure the shirt was his, too.

“You look very nice,” he said tightly. “Feel free to wear anything in my closet.”

“I do,” Tess said. “Look, are you going to be mad at me for long? Because you knew I had to tutor, and I even left early to get to this stupid house thing so—”

“Don’t start,” Nick said grimly, and steered her to the door.

“Mr. Jamieson, how nice!” The starched matron at the door held out her hand graciously. “We were beginning to think you wouldn’t make it.”

“I wouldn’t miss it, Mrs. Tate,” Nick said. “I’d like you to meet a friend of mine, Tess Newhart. Tess, Mrs. Tate practically runs the Opera Guild single-handedly.”

“Oh, nonsense.” Mrs. Tate waved her hand and blushed and melted into a perfectly nice woman charmed by a perfectly nice man. Nick heard Tess sigh and looked over to see her smiling at him, acknowledging another snake-oil conquest, and he felt his own anger start to dissolve.

“It’s my fault,” Tess said to Mrs. Tate. “I was late getting home from work. Can we still see the house?”

“Oh, of course,” Mrs. Tate said, beaming at her. “In fact, this is a good time. There’s practically no one here now. You can take a nice leisurely tour.”

“Oh, good.” Tess leaned on Nick’s arm and smiled up at him. “Let’s see everything.”

His heart warmed at her smile, and he thought about what life was like with her and what it had been like without her. And then he thought about how he was growing surer and surer that he never wanted to be without her again—no matter how exasperating she could be. Hell, he probably exasperated her some of the time, too.
Lighten up,
he told himself.
There’s such a thing as taking yourself too seriously.

“You look a lot better in that vest than I do,” he told her, and her smile widened and washed over him.

“Well, that’s what I thought,” she said.

The last of his anger disappeared, and he followed her lead as they toured, helping her make lavishly demented plans for redecorating his house in green velvet, pink faux marble and purple gauze. She laughed and darted from room to room, and by the time they reached the fourth floor, the week they’d been celibate loomed large in his mind, and he wanted her so much he wasn’t sure he’d make it home.

“I definitely think we should drape the bathroom in green velvet,” Tess said at the top of the staircase. “It holds in the moisture so nicely.” She leaned against him, and he put his arm around her and kissed her hair, and she laughed up at him, her eyes half-closed.

“Atmospheric,” Nick agreed absently. If they left immediately, he could have her in his bedroom in twenty minutes. “Well, I think we’ve seen...” he began but Tess was pulling him along to the next door.

“Oh, Nick,” she said, and he followed her in.

“Drapes again.” He surveyed the walls that this time were swathed in thick white satin. “What is it with these people and drapery?”

“This looks like your place.” Tess stood beside the black grand piano sitting solitary in the middle of the black-and-white-tiled floor and slowly turned around. The laughter was gone from her voice, and she seemed suddenly forlorn. “All black and white and empty.”

“Well, not exactly empty.” Nick watched her move through the room, her red hair floating like a fireball against the white satin. “There’s the piano and you.”

But Tess had stopped and was staring down at her clothes, appalled. “Even I match. My God, when did I start wearing black and white?”

“You look great,” Nick protested. “And trust me, with that hair, you don’t need to worry about black and white. You’re always in Technicolor.”

“Is this what you want?” she asked him suddenly. She spread her arms and looked down at her clothes. “Is this the way you want me to be?”

He stopped, taken aback. “I want you to be the way you want to be,” he said, confused. “The way you’ve been since you moved in. You mean the clothes? You look great in black and white.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Tess’s face creased in concern, and she turned away from him to run her hands down the keys of the massive grand piano.

“Tess—” Nick stopped as she bent to look at something on the keyboard.

“I don’t believe it,” she said, disgust thick in her voice. “They’ve made this into a player piano.”

“What?”

Tess spun around, indignant. “They’ve not only stripped all the color out of this room, they’ve stripped the people, too. You don’t even need a pianist. Just flip the switch.” She surveyed the room and then turned back to him. “I can’t stand it anymore. I’m starting to be this room. You flip the switch and I act all dignified and cold.” Her jaw clenched as she shook her head. “I don’t want to be this room, Nick. This room needs some excitement in its life. And so do I.” She walked to the side of the piano, and boosted herself up on the top, swinging her legs with sudden abandon and smiling at him evilly. “Come here.”

“Are you crazy?” Nick said, equally appalled and aroused. “Get down from there.”

“Come on, Nick.” Tess stretched out full-length across the piano on her back, letting her arms dangle over the keyboard, and Nick tried hard to keep his mind off her curves and on the get-down-from-there part. “Let’s strike a blow for humanity. Prove you’re not a robot. Come over here and make love to me.”

“Tess—”

“If you’re worried about me destroying a great musical instrument,” Tess said, tipping her head back to look at him upside down, “you can stop. Somebody already did that when they converted it. Can you believe they did that?”

“No,” Nick said, distracted as she rolled over onto her stomach and kicked off her shoes. “What are you doing?”

Tess propped her chin on her hand. “Did you ever see
The Fabulous Baker Boys?”

“Yes. Get off that piano.” Nick went to the doorway and checked the hall. There was nobody for miles, which relieved his mind considerably. He turned around to see that Tess was off the piano, which relieved his mind even more. But then she reached under her skirt and peeled off her black bikini underpants, which relieved him not at all. She tossed the pants at him, and he caught them.

“No,” he said, feeling himself tighten as he watched her boost herself back up on the piano.

“How about
Pretty Woman?”
she asked him.

“No. Get off that piano.” He looked down at the scrap of black lace in his hand and then crammed it into his pocket before it gave him any more ideas than he already had.

Tess crooked her finger at him. “Come here. We’re going to reclaim this morgue in the name of human passion.”

“No, we’re not.” Nick leaned in the doorway, trying to be cool. “Forget it. Get dressed. We’ll go home. We can even stop and pick up a piano on the way if it’s going to have this effect on you, but no, not here.”

“Pretty please?” Tess touched her lips with her tongue and smiled at him from the piano, and he felt the heat turn his brain to mush.

No, no, no,
no
.

“No,” he said, praying his voice was firm. “We can’t. I don’t have any protection and—” He stopped because Tess had slipped two fingers into her vest pocket and pulled out a condom.
“You planned this?”

“Of course not,” Tess said, dropping the condom on the piano. “But I’ve learned a lot from you. Forethought. Initiative.” She batted her eyes. “Drive.”

“Don’t do this to me,” Nick said, and then she began to unbutton her vest, and he went to her to stop her because somebody had to be an adult in their relationship.

He just hoped he could do it.

So when he came to pull her off the piano, she leaned into him, running her toe up his inseam and loosening his tie as she moved her mouth softly to his neck.

“No,” Nick said, trying to evade her mouth. “Come on, Tess, not here.” He looked over his shoulder. “Anybody could come in here.”

“Oh, please, Nick,” she said against his neck, and he said, “No. Stop it.”

Tess stopped moving her lips down his neck and rested her forehead on his shoulder in defeat. It wasn’t going to work. She had to face facts: if she wanted Nick, it was going to have to be his way. And that meant not just making love in beds, but in everything. She suddenly saw a lifetime of proper dinner parties and Opera Guild open houses stretching before her, and the thought was so depressing her desire died.

“All right,” she said, and slid off the piano to stand beside him. “Let’s go home.” Nick looked at her, his forehead creased with concern, and she tried to smile up at him. “It’s all right. Let’s go. I was being dumb.”

He leaned down and kissed her gently. “You’re never dumb,” he whispered against her cheek, and then he kissed her again. This time his mouth was hot and sweet, and his tongue tangled with hers, and she felt the heat rise in her again. Then he put his arms around her, and she felt him hesitate as he realized that she didn’t have a bra on. The hesitation was brief, then he moved his hands around to her breasts and she leaned into him, moaning a little as the pressure from his hands eased the ache there.

“Oh, don’t,” she whispered to him. “I want you so much I can’t stand it.”

He kissed her again, his mouth gentle against hers as he tasted her with his tongue. “I can’t stand it, either,” he whispered. “I’ll never make it home.” He put his hands on her waist and boosted her back up onto the piano, catching her mouth with his again.

“Nick?” she said when she came up for air, and he said, “Don’t change too much. I appreciate this week, but don’t change too much.”

As her relief turned to lust, she pulled him to her, wrapping her legs around him and taking his hand to move it under her shirt. His hand was cool on her breast, and she closed her eyes at the pure ecstasy of his touch, and then he pushed her back and rolled onto the piano with her. She moved against his weight and let her head fall back as he pulled up her blouse and took her breast with his mouth. His mouth felt so good and she wanted him so much.

Oh, yes,
she thought as the familiar dizzying heat flooded her. Then he shoved her skirt above her hips and pulled her tight against him. She moaned and it was part laughter because it felt so good to be pressed against him after such a long, cold week, and because the cold, hard surface of the piano made the hot, hard weight of him even more exciting. Then his fingers were inside her, and she moved against his hand until she thought she’d die. She bit his shoulder through his jacket and clawed at him while he fumbled with the condom, and he muffled her moans with his mouth, and then he was inside her, and she didn’t think at all anymore.

They fell back into the rhythm they found each time, and she felt herself winding tighter under him, felt herself about to explode, and then he stopped moving and put his hand over her mouth. She blinked in confusion.

“Mr. Jamieson?” Mrs. Tate called up the stairs for what was clearly the second time.

Tess’s spurt of laughter was smothered under Nick’s hand. “Yes?” he called back, giving Tess a warning glare that dissolved into a grin.

“Did you find the player piano?”

“Yes,” Nick said. He was trying to keep his voice steady and Tess sympathized, she really did, but he was hard inside her and she couldn’t bear it. She began to move against him, and he closed his eyes.

“Shall I come up and turn it on for you?”

“
No
,” Nick said. “Thank you, no. I’ll do it.”

Tess peeled his hand from her mouth. “The switch is on the left side of the keyboard,” she breathed in his ear. “And then, if you don’t mind,
please,
I think I could come if you’d get a move on.” She rocked against him again and her voice broke. “I was
really
close before you stopped to chat.”

“I have lost my mind,” Nick whispered in her ear. “And it’s your fault. But what the hell.” He reached his arm over the keyboard, fumbling for the switch, and she shuddered as he shifted inside her. Then the piano leapt to life playing the Minute Waltz and Tess laughed out loud and Nick rocked against her until everything came free inside her and all her worries went out into the universe with any other rational thought she might have had.

“That was incredible,” she told him later, when they were curled up in bed together. “That was the best.”

“I knew I should have told Christine to get me knee pads.” Nick winced as he stretched out his legs under the covers. “I’m too damn old for this.”

“Ha,” Tess said, and set about convincing him that he wasn’t.