When in Rio (10 page)

“Did you have your house professionally decorated?” I asked now, half turning to look at him with a splash.

“What?” He looked amused again, not annoyed, at the non sequitur.

“Sorry, I was just remembering that Christmas party last year.”

“When you spilled the wine?”

“You’re like a mind reader. Yes, exactly. Your house—did you have it done or did you do it yourself?” I no longer had any idea why I felt it necessary to know this, and tried very hard to look cute and small and harmless while he screwed up his handsome face and thought about his house. At least I sincerely hoped he was thinking about his house, and not starting to think I was a freaky little chick he found annoying after all.

“My sister did it, when I moved back to Houston from London. My whole family is there mostly. In Houston, not in London, I mean. I didn’t have much in the way of furniture or anything yet when I went over there, and coming home I didn’t want to do a major move overseas, so I sold most of my furniture in England before I left. I pretty much started with an empty house. My sister’s into all that. Well, it’s her job. She’s an architect and a designer. She made me look at magazines for weeks and cut out things I thought looked interesting, and then for the next year she just dragged me all over town making me approve and pay for stuff. She mostly dealt with all the contractors, but my house was still torn up for months. I hated it at the time, but I like the result I guess.” He pulled me in again. I had been drifting away as he spoke, buoyant in the deep water. “Why, don’t you like it? Anne said it needed to look…like understated, but expensive. Successful.”

“It does,” I reassured him, remembering that I’d already heard his sister’s name from Kendra, and trying very hard to forget the context in which I’d heard it. “And I do like it, very much. I have no idea why I asked. I’m sorry, I think I just have a tendency to, um…”

“Babble after sex, just a little? It’s okay, I talk too much too. Besides, I think it’s cute,” he said mildly, reaching up stealthily to pull out the last few pins and ponytail holder that had secured the remains of my
updo
. My hair tumbled down, the ends sinking quickly under water. I watched the strands trail out in lazy patterns, dark against the water with its white frost of suds.

“Conference starts tomorrow,” Jack mused. “Remember that whole conference thing?” We grinned at each other and kissed in an unhurried, slightly sleepy way that I thought I could rapidly become addicted to. He went on when we separated, as if he had never stopped talking in the first place, as if such kisses were now to be an expected part of a conversational lull. “It’s pretty late, if you’ve noticed. We probably ought to be thinking about sleep.”

I blushed yet again and admitted I hadn’t noticed at all. Which, in turn, made Jack smile and snuggle me closer still. I sighed happily into his chest, trying to stifle the anxieties that tried to resurface now that the endorphin levels were returning to normal again. Office romances, sleeping with one’s boss, initiating a physical relationship on a trip away from home…all Very Bad Ideas, as was well known to everybody who was still single and self-supporting by the time they passed their early twenties. All ideas I had tried to keep staunchly in mind, until that fateful conversation on the beach earlier.

But somehow I just couldn’t muster the energy to worry. Not when Jack stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head while drying me off with a towel. Not when he pulled me into bed next to him and spooned up behind me, ignoring my out-loud musing about whether it was time for me to go back to my room.

And certainly not when he whispered a drowsy, “Good night, little one,” in my ear before kissing it softly and falling straight to sleep.

Chapter Eight

“And clearly, the relative cost of this type of in-house training and documentation pales in comparison to even a relatively minor fine, particularly if the problem isn’t corrected and the fines mount up. Compared to the cost of litigation,” Jack continued as he switched screens to the next in a series of graphs, “the cost-benefit analysis…”

I was trying very hard not to nod off, because I was supposed to be taking notes and helping Jack refine his presentation. Besides, it looked extremely bad if the personification of all that in-house documentation was snoozing in the back of the lecture room.

“Examining the year-to-year increase in damage awards in the Fifth Circuit cases alone, it’s pretty easy to see that…”

When I woke up this morning, he had already showered and he must have reset the alarm before leaving the room. I found my suitcases at the foot of the bed, with a note.

K—

Thought you might want your stuff when you got up. Have gone to breakfast. Am extremely sore and cranky. Had a bad dream about that fucking snake. On the other hand, you look like pre-Raphaelite art when you’re sleeping. See you downstairs.

J—

If he was going to be writing notes of that sort, it was going to be nigh impossible to fall back out of love with him, which would surely be the wise thing to do by the end of the week.

“At its broadest, training should be prepared for
all
personnel, because even those in roles we don’t traditionally view as having contact with the environment are, of course…”

The note had smelled a bit like him. Not as if he had scented it deliberately, of course, but as if he had possibly dashed it off while still damp from showering and having just splashed on some aftershave.

I shifted uncomfortably in the thinly padded chair. I had found a seat next to Jack at the start of the presentation that officially opened the conference, and had just time for a croissant and a cup of coffee beforehand. Now I wondered where I would ever find another cup to see me through to lunch. It was great coffee, just like all the coffee in Brazil, even the stuff being served to the conference attendees. One more cup would be plenty…

“And as always, regardless of your country’s individual requirements, the key to good reporting is having quality data in the first place, overseen and compiled with an almost obsessive eye for discrepancies. Hiring people who can actually turn a phrase well on paper, as well as having enough background in the scientific aspects, is another important consideration. For that, of course, I have to give the nod to one of our senior staff members who’s here this week, the lovely and talented Ms. Katherine Snow, there in the back. We’ll probably lose her to academia someday, but until then she’s one of the main reasons our company doesn’t get its…rear end…fined regularly.”

I looked up, nonplused. Jack gave me a jaunty little salute and then went on with his talk while people smiled and nodded politely my way. I tried hard to look like the type of person who gets flattering mentions during speeches all the time, until everyone’s attention finally drifted back to Jack, after the requisite spate of delayed chuckles as two translators finished quietly relaying the “rear end” remark in Portuguese and French.

“Again, the importance of the presentation is critical. Good data are the foundation, but it must be reported accurately and coherently. And so that type of staffing is also key when considering…”

He was facing the screen a little too much. He should face the audience, I thought. Engage them more. But overall he gave a good speech and people were clearly interested, leaning forward, laughing at the right spots. Taking notes. He looked like what he was—successful, knowledgeable, a master of his chosen field.

Who knew how to spell “pre-Raphaelite” and had moved my luggage into his suite.

Lose her to academia?
So he was astute about people, as well. I didn’t recall ever revealing that “someday” plan to him. True, I’d thought about it almost constantly. Especially now, when it seemed as though my chosen career was taking a course I’d never anticipated. It was lodging me ever more firmly in the office instead of out in the world where habitats still involved things like plants and animals, and not just the fluorescent-loving, spider-inhabited peace lilies that seemed to be taking over every office building in Houston these days. True, cockroaches swarming in a
mildewy
kitchen could be considered to constitute a thriving ecosystem, but…

My mind drifted from the rainforest we’d tromped through yesterday to the Costa Rican jungle and my bird-tagging trip, one of my earliest ventures into the wild. I’d known from the end of my very first sweaty, wretched day, even while dabbing antibiotic ointment on my many scratches and hydrocortisone on my countless insect bites, that I had found what I wanted to do. And later, in graduate school, when my thesis work had taken me to the North Slope of Alaska and into the Arctic Ocean, I saw the oil companies as things that were just in the way, saw only the potential harm they could do.

All the way from Houston, my BMW prodded at my overdeveloped sense of guilt.

* * * * *

“It was very good,” I whispered again, for what must have been the fifth time that afternoon. Jack and I were sitting side by side in another conference session but he was paying very little attention to the presentation, instead reliving his own talk in a series of seemingly random whispered questions to me about how it had gone. Fortunately we were sitting in the back. It was a fairly small meeting room, however. In a desperate bid to avoid drawing another glare from the lecturer, I pulled out the notepad I’d been using off and on, flipped to a clean page and wrote…

It was very good. You did a great job. The audience loved you.

The next time Jack leaned toward me with a question I tapped my pen on the page, drawing his attention to the words without looking away from the speaker. After a moment of puzzlement, Jack gave me what I could swear was a pout. Snatching the pen from my fingers, he scribbled furiously for a moment and then slid the pad back to me, slouching grumpily if elegantly down in his chair.

Your token reassurance is far from satisfactory. I hate public speaking. Later you will be forced to pay for your disloyalty.

Considering for a moment, I tapped the pen against my mouth and then jotted my reply.

I never for one minute dreamed you had an actual insecurity. Couldn’t you just picture the crowd in their underwear, as that’s supposed to help with nerves?

Skimming my answer, he pursed his lips and then raised a cool eyebrow at me.

Was only picturing one crowd member in underwear. Did not help with nerves. Next time will try picturing her nude instead.

For your nerves?

Only for some of them.

The speaker caught my giggle, I think, but I copped an innocent look and a little fake cough. I doubt he was fooled.

I was only thankful this was no longer school, as I suspected these notes were rapidly heading in a direction that would spell disaster were they to be taken up and read aloud to the class.

Sorry to have disturbed Sir’s nerves. Perhaps Sir would feel better after a few drinks and a nice hot bath? I think I know a few other remedies Sir might enjoy.

You sound like a butler. Not a good visual, little K.

Try a French maid’s outfit. Better?

On my butler? Yuck.

What visual would you prefer?

Jack tapped the pad thoughtfully with the pen then gave me an equally thoughtful look before writing a fairly long answer and handing me the pad, whispering, “I mean it. Go
now
.”

Visual I’d prefer. You, already in the bed when I get to the room after the session is over, naked and playing with yourself so you’re wet and ready for whatever I care to do with you. You should have your legs spread very wide, so I can see every inch of your pussy as you work a finger in and out of it. Only one finger. You may not come until I say you can.

I read it twice, blinking and blushing, glancing automatically around as if anybody else might be reading before I penned my response. Jack paid no mind, just shot his cuff to check his watch. The session would be over fairly soon, I saw.

When you quit the flirty banter, you just quit cold turkey, don’t you? I thought you were all sore from the hike yesterday. Besides, there’s still one more session this afternoon, remember?

Jack looked at me, wearing that maddening hint of a smile, and leaned over to whisper in my ear again, handing me back the notepad firmly as he did so. “If you think I’m joking, little one, you might want to make sure there’s enough ice in the freezer for ice packs once you get to the room. You’re likely to need them later if you don’t learn to follow instructions any better than this. And don’t think you can just go get your Tiger Balm back if you’re sore afterward either. Kendra has already given that to
me
.”

Well, of course I
had
to go then. I was so instantly wet that I actually thought I might embarrass myself if I stayed.

* * * * *

Curiouser
and
curiouser
. In the middle of the very large bed, weighed down by one of Jack’s hiking shoes, was a note. I had nearly sprinted to get to the room and had to read the note a few times before I realized what was going on. When on earth had he found the time to do this? And when had he made it back up here to leave the note?

K—

Now that I have your attention, I noticed you broke about half your nails yesterday and I know you’re probably as sore as I am, so I made you an appointment for a manicure and pedicure. Downstairs, hotel salon, starting at two thirty—hurry! Then a massage back up in the room at four.

I’ll take very good notes for you at the afternoon session. Expect me back at five-thirty. I’ll expect you to be relaxed, properly grateful, wearing nothing but the results of your manicure and pedicure. Arranged and occupying yourself as I described downstairs, of course. We’ll be dining in the room.

Have a pleasant afternoon, little one.

J—

I traded my pumps for flats and headed back downstairs, eager to check out the salon and spa I’d been eyeing since our arrival. But I did make a brief detour to the bar before I left the suite, just to make sure there was ice. Either way, it never hurt to be prepared. In fact, it usually hurt much less.