The Cost of Happiness: A Contemporary Romance (17 page)

“You’re from Iowa?”

“Mmm-hmm.” He decided that was not an invitation to ask her more about her childhood.

“I’m from Maine.” He could have kicked himself as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

Her smile was sly, teasing.

“I told you that already, didn’t I?” he asked.

“Aren’t you supposed to have some sort of accent, so you can tell me that I cahn’t get theyah from heeah?”

“Not if I wanted to continue living under my mother’s roof.”

She snuggled into her pillow, but her eyes were wide open. “Tell me about your mother,” she said.

“Smart, no-nonsense, principled. My dad’s a doctor at Maine Med, and my mother taught at the university. I like them both. It’s hard for me to see them as separate people, their identities are so caught up in their relationship.”

“Start with her name and what she looks like,” Meghan suggested.

“Anne Howard. Well, Anne Riedel Howard, actually. She got so many questions about whether that was one of Henry VIII’s wives that she started using her maiden name in self-defense.”

Meghan frowned. “But there’s no Anne Howard in that list. What are people doing, conflating Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard?”

“Now, see, my mother would love you” He felt his eyes get big at the idea of her meeting his parents.

She just smiled shyly back at him. He imagined introducing Meghan to his family. They’d be surprised because she wasn’t really the type he’d previously gone for, but her intelligence would win them over, even Dad. Watching those two going at it would be fun, he thought.

“Anyway, you were about to describe her to me,” Meghan prompted.

“Brown hair, now a bit grayer, I suppose. Blue eyes. I’m supposed to favor her, but I think it’s all in the coloring. My sisters look more like her, and I resemble my dad.” He didn’t feel like explaining about Christopher, how he was blond like his mother had been. Dan assumed that was one of the reasons Dad adored Chris—he looked like Margo, a living reminder of the woman who died too young.

Dan tried to keep from asking her the obvious question, but it came out anyway. “Do you look like your mom or your dad?”

He’d expected her face to shutter, her eyes a stop sign. She didn’t want to talk about her upbringing. He just didn’t know why. He was surprised when she didn’t look away.

“I’m supposed to be the spitting image of my father. I never knew him. I don’t look anything like my mother, who’s petite and blonde-ish.”

“You don’t like to talk about your past, do you,” he said, quietly.

She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. “You know that expression, ‘live in the moment’?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s my life. I mostly don’t think about the past, and I try hard not to think about the future. Which is why this is so much fun.”

“What’s so much fun? Being cross-examined by me?”

She was serious, though. “This,” she gestured at the room. “You. Before I came over here, I was thinking how I didn’t have sleepovers as a child. Now, I could dwell on all the reasons why that was the case, but it’s nicer to enjoy being here with you.”

Dan was stunned, then laughed. “This is a sleepover?”

She rolled back to look at him again. “Well, isn’t it? We’re going to sleep eventually, but for now we’re talking in the near-dark, sharing stuff.”

“Um, okay, sure. What happened to horny, though?”

She frowned. “I thought we weren’t doing horny, on account of how we don’t have condoms.”

He rolled his eyes in frustration. “Correct. The shadow of horniness should always be looming. At least it’s looming for me, and if I think hard about that sliver of pale pink silk I saw when you took off your jeans, it’s not just looming, it’s pretty much crashing over my head. So imagine how devastated I am that you’re so un-horny that you can compare this to a pre-teen sleepover.”

She giggled. “Well, as I never had a sleepover before, I didn’t realize they were horniness-free zones.” She closed her eyes. “Mmm. Pale blue, with white pinstripes, and the waistband is white with pale blue pinstripes. You wear them low on your hips, so I could see those dimples guys have above the ass. And there’s an unhelpful button midway on the placket.”

“Say what?”

“Your boxers. If you were imagining my panties, I thought I would return the favor and remember your boxers.”

“You noticed what color they were?” he demanded. “I couldn’t have told you what they looked like, and I’ve had them on all day.”

“I have a very good memory.” She smiled a secret little smile.

Dan thought she was laughing at him. He couldn’t be sure. “Well, if I’d had a T-shirt that covered most of my underwear, you’d be forced to imagine stuff too.”

“Poor baby,” she crooned. “Here, you can use the Braille method.” She pulled on his right hand and scooted over toward him so that his hand could reach her left hip. Her skin was warm, both where the fabric of her panties covered it, and especially where the fabric didn’t.

“Okay, so now you have to admit this is
not
a traditional sleepover,” he said, groaning slightly over the tantalizing proximity of his hand to all sorts of things he really wanted to touch. Her waist, her rear, her—

“I’m telling you, I don’t know from traditional sleepovers. This is now officially my exemplar for the tradition.”

“Meghan, if you think using words like ‘exemplar’ is going to stop me from getting hard, you are sadly mistaken. For some reason, I find your intelligence sexy.”

She laughed, delighted. “Right back atcha.”

Dan used his hand to tug her even closer to him. If she wasn’t going to respect his assurances, some physical proof might be in order. She giggled again, a charming noise, and then sighed as she snuggled up against his chest. It was sublime torture, of course, but irresistible. He could feel the softness of her well-washed cotton T-shirt, and beneath that, her breasts. He pressed her into him gently, and she must have read his mind because she wriggled a little. Exquisite.

He couldn’t move—his will power was not
that
good. Not when he knew how easy it would be to move them both past a point of reason and maturity. So he deliberately forced his arms to relax around her back, holding her close while not urging her to do any more of that devilish wiggling. Her hip was pressed against his erection, but that too was just—barely—this side of insanity. And all of it, absolutely all of it, was too nice to stop.

He gazed up at the ceiling, willing himself to calm the greedy nerves craving more stimulation everywhere her body touched his. He mentally reviewed some of the more arcane rules of evidence. Exceptions to the rules of hearsay usually worked in this situation.

Meghan’s mouth was over his clavicle—he could feel the warmth of her breath on his skin. Gradually he became aware that her breath was slower, her body softer, and she was—

“Snrghhh.”

—snoring.

She’d fallen asleep. That pretty much settled matters. He gingerly organized their bodies so he could reach back and turn off the light. It had been a long time since he had tried to fall asleep with a woman in his arms. Just like before, he found it wasn’t as easy as the movies made it look. Oh, well, the best things were worth working for.

Meghan felt good. It took her a moment to remember what had happened and why she was in Dan’s bed. She moved slowly to turn her head and check him out—mouth open, breath whistling slightly. He was still asleep with an arm around her waist. Not quite spooning but definitely keeping in touch. She smiled.

She couldn’t see a clock. She guessed it was early. Maybe six? She didn’t want to wake Dan but she needed the bathroom. Anyway, no way she’d be able to get back to sleep. She slipped out from under his hand in tiny inchworm movements. Once she was on her feet, she paused beside the bed, looking down at his floppy body. Nope, he was still asleep. She tried to feel good about that.

After she pulled on her jeans in the other room, she paused to scribble a note—
Great sleepover—next time can we have s’mores? Call me when you’re ready for breakfast. M.
—and left it on the sitting room table, now clear of all their files and documents.

She let herself into her room, already filled with dawn light because she hadn’t pulled the curtains in her rush to get back to Dan. Grateful for the autopilot routine of showering, she alternated between sheepish grins and the most curious sensation, almost like a tiny shudder. What was that French word?
Frisson
. Yeah, so that’s a
frisson
. Not an unpleasant feeling. Odd, and like nothing she’d ever felt before. Fizzy…and well, odd.

Goodness, if this is what it felt like after sleeping with him, she had to wonder what it would feel like to
sleep
with him. She’d probably go from fizzy to feeling like a soda bottle that’s been shaken just before opening. Meghan tried to remember what it had been like with Tommy, her high school boyfriend. They hadn’t quite gotten around to uh, home plate, as it were, but she had done a few things with him behind the AV room in high school, and she couldn’t remember ever feeling much of anything. It had been nice enough, she guessed. None of it had been very memorable. She’d lost her virginity in college. Again, it was okay, but while she remembered the event, nothing of how she felt afterward stayed with her.

Okay, so she wasn’t terribly liberated, sexually. Sex simply hadn’t felt important while she worked hard to get out of Iowa and build a stable life for herself. She knew all the feminist doctrine about making sure that she was in charge of her own satisfaction, but her satisfactions had come from jobs well done, good grades, and the sense that her life was under control.

Wrapped in a surprisingly generous hotel towel, Meghan stood at the window watching people getting into cars in the parking lot, mostly business people from the way they were dressed. She checked the clock. Time to pack.

As she folded her Old Threshers T-shirt, it hit her. One chaste night together might be all they’d have. Life—and work—back in Philly would change things. Dan would go back to being her boss, she’d slap herself silly with the reality of it all, they’d both realize how impossible the situation was. How this can’t happen. Consummating a workplace romance was a really bad idea.

The T-shirt smelled a bit like Dan, or maybe Meghan just wanted it to. Boy, would this get special treatment the next time she did laundry. And probably never be worn again.

She was zipping up her suitcase when the phone rang. It could only be Dan.

“Sleep well?” she asked.

“Not after you snuck out,” he teased.

“Oooh, poor you. Well, I’m standing here in a towel, so I’d better—”

“Don’t get dressed up on my account. We could order breakfast to be delivered, and then it would be casual dress indeed.”

“Nice try, Casanova. How about we get things wrapped up at ProCell, where they’re expecting us this morning, then haul our butts back to Philly. We can discuss what casual attire really means later.”

“Dinner?”

“It’s a meal,” she said slowly.

“Ah, but is it a meal we’re going to have together, at my place, clothing optional—at least after we’ve paid off the delivery guy, that is.”

Meghan was considering this when he groaned, “Oh, God, that was presumptuous, wasn’t it? I would love to take you to Le Bec-Fin, really I would, but I have to be honest and tell you that it’s going to take all my patience just to get to the end of a day at the office. Expecting me to sit through a nice meal without touching your skin, especially the curve between your waist and your hip, that’s not happening.”

He hadn’t woken up thinking that this was a bad idea. Meghan’s elation soared.

She laughed. “Don’t worry. The thought of a fancy meal, or even MickeyD’s, when we could be alone together—well, I’m with you on that one. Takeout or phone-in, I don’t care.”

“A woman after my own heart.”

“More like a woman after your own cock.”

He choked, and then burst out laughing. “Come and get it any time you want.”

Meghan’s face heated. “There is no way we’d make that flight if I did, and unless you went on a shopping trip while I was in the shower, our original problem remains.”

“Don’t remind me. As soon as we get back to Philly, I swear I’m buying out the condom aisle at the CVS.”

She thought about that for a moment. “Does that mean you don’t have any at home?”

“No, of course I don’t.” He paused. “Wait, that didn’t sound right. While it’s true I happen not to have any with me now, it’s not because I don’t believe in protec—oh, just shoot me now, will you?”

“Shoot you before we’ve actually
slept
together? No effing way.”

His sigh made him sound exhausted. “I want to be a liberated, up-to-date guy here, but I’m struggling to maintain any illusion that I’ve got all the moves down pat. It’s been a while, I’ll just say that.”

How intriguing—Dan was too good-looking and nice to have a hard time finding a date on a Saturday night. No way she wanted to badger him on the subject. He’d explain his past soon enough.

Meghan teased, “I’m pretty rusty myself. Still I believe the basic moves haven’t changed much in the last few thousand years. Even if disco was king when you last tried, that is.”