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“I thought so.Just making sure.”

She frowned athim. “I’m not as quiet as I used to be.”

With a twitchof a smile, he said, “I know. But you’re still pretty quiet.”

For somereason, she stiffened. “Is that a problem?”

“Of course not.Constant screaming can get old pretty quickly.”

Lori made aface, trying to force back the pang of sharp discomfort she felt when shethought about Ander fucking other women, making them scream with pleasure,making them feel as good as he made her feel.

“Anyway,” Andercontinued, staring up at the ceiling. “It makes you more of a challenge.”

That didn’tsound too bad. She thought she’d been getting pretty vocal lately, but maybethe sounds she made weren’t as loud and obvious as she thought.

“You don’t makea lot of noise yourself,” she said, peering at his stoic face. “So you’rehardly one to talk.”

Ander’s smilewas a little bitter. “No one really wants to hear me.”

Lori’s frowndeepened. “What does that mean? I don’t care if you make noises.” She thoughtback over the grunting, panting, and guttural exclamations Ander made in themidst of sex. “What do you say when you come?” she asked, turning to him withher characteristic inquisitiveness.

He blinked ather. “Excuse me?”

“When you comeit sounds like you say something. At least, the last few times. What do yousay?”

Ander’s facewas perfectly still for a moment. Then he gave her a dryly amused smile.“Here’s a piece of advice. Never pay any attention to what a man says when hecomes. Anything might be blurted out at that moment, and it rarely meansanything.”

Lori chuckled,although she recognized that he hadn’t answered her question. It was probablynone of her business anyway. For all she knew, it was some other woman’s name.“Nice.”

“It’s true,” Andersaid. “Who knows what I say? I might ask you to marry me. Pay no attention.”

She snorted asshe imagined such a scene. Her gigolo blurting out a proposal in the momentbefore climax. “I wonder how much you would charge me for that,” she said witha laugh.

The silencefrom the other side of the bed told her she’d offended him.

Groaning, shesaid, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. Really.”

“I know. Don’tworry about it.”

But Lori didworry about. They’d been having a perfectly nice conversation and she’d saidsomething stupid. She knew by now that he didn’t like to talk about the money,but she kept bringing it up.

It wasunavoidable. No matter how good a time she had with him, she could never escapeone basic reality.

He was with herbecause she paid him

“They have aSunday brunch here that’s supposed to be excellent,” Ander said pleasantly,obviously trying to move them past the awkward moment. “If we go out tonight,maybe we can sleep in tomorrow and go down to brunch before we see some moresights.”

“Sounds good,”she said, turning on her side to face him and smiling. “I’m actually getting alittle hungry now. I wonder if they’ll have anything good at this banquet.”

Ander laughed,as she’d known he would. And Lori decided that, despite a few awkward moments,it was shaping up to be a really good weekend.

And she stillhad all of tomorrow to look forward to.

Nine

“So the banquet went all right?”Sabrina asked, puffing as she increased her level on the fancy ellipticaltrainer and accelerated her speed.

“Yeah.” Loripaused to even out her own breathing. She’d been working out on the ellipticalnext to Sabrina now for almost a half hour, and she was hot, tired, sweating,and breathless. “Not exciting but not too painful.”

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