Page 49 of Just Come Over
“If you keep saying the L-word,” Rhys said, “I’ll lose all my happy feelings and won’t be in the mood to buy bunnies at all. That would be tragic.” He looked, finally, at Zora, and his expression, instead of hardening the way it sometimes did, got... what? More intense, maybe, but not harder, not this time. “Hey,” he said, and there was that smile again, around his eyes. “All right?”
Dylan had always been moody and grumpy after a loss. Zora said, “Hi” back, then got stuck.
“Come inside,” he said.
Oh. Good idea.
An entry that was nothing but oversized gray tiles underfoot and walls of uncompromising white, and a stairwell leading down. She saw what Casey meant about the scary stairs. The staircase was curved, and it was mostly clear acrylic, with gorgeous pale-gray stair treads standing as if by magic, like something in a story. And when she took that turn? It wasreallymagic.
“Rhys,” she said helplessly. “Wow.”
“Good, eh,” he said.
“Yeh. You could say that.”
It was like being in a treehouse. The entire front—back—whatever—of the house was glass from end to end and floor to ceiling, looking out on an endless section of native bush marching down the hill to the sea, all palms, tree ferns, cabbage trees, and pohutukawa. There’d be ferns under there, too, she knew, all of it looking as misty and magical as it had hundreds of years before. Jungly trees, Casey had said, and they were. The sky was a clear, impossible blue today, except for a few drifts of white cloud, and the sun dazzled, shining on the flat stretch of water far below.
“Sea view,” she said. “Harbour view, at any rate.”
“Yeh. I like seeing the sea. Never got over that one.” He’d set Casey down, and she and Isaiah ran through an open glass panel and down the stairs from this level’s third room. That was an enormous deck, furnished with comfortable-looking couches as well as a dining set, all of it in dark wicker, that stretched the width of the lounge with its black leather couches, the dining area, and a clean, modern kitchen done in white and shades of gray. The deck railing was entirely acrylic again, so you seemed to be perched on the edge of forever. If you had a fear of heights, it would be scary. If you didn’t, it would be magic.
“All roofed over,” she said. “So open, and so private. I love it. Must be spectacular at night, with the city lights. Of course,” she tried to joke, “I’m pretty spectacular too these days, with my red tile and all.”
His eyes went to “alert” again, or maybe they went to “more alert,” since Rhys could never look any other way. “Not sensitive of me, maybe, showing the place off to you?”
“No. Not at all.” She laughed and ran a hand through her hair, wishing all the same that she’d worn something other than shorts, a sea-blue top, and sandals that she’d kicked off at the door. She’d thought the top was cute, with its pintucks, cap sleeves, and buttons down the front, but she’d resisted dressing up too much. What would Rhys have thought if she’d turned up in a mini? That she was trying too hard, which would make him wonder why.
Especially since she’d somehow changed into short skirts after work every day this week. They made her feel sexy, and she’d wanted to feel that way. Today, though, they were shopping for rabbits. Sitting on the grass, probably. And she needed to stop trying to be sexy for Rhys, or imagining that he was looking at her legs. Or looking at his shoulders and his mouth, and picturing his...
No. Stop.Anyway, here she was, dressed in shorts and nowhere near glamorous enough for this house. “No,” she said again. “I want to see where you’re living. Where Casey’s living. Of course I do. It’s a beautiful house. It’s a spectacular house. It shouldn’t feel the least bit cozy or homey, not with nothing but gray carpeting to soften it, no curtains or pictures on the wall, but it does. It must be the trees.”
“Yeh,” he said. “What I thought. This is my first house, believe it or not. I’m forty, and all I’ve had before are condos. Time for a change, in all kinds of ways.”
“Victoria liked the low-maintenance high-rises, Dylan said.”
“She did. But come see this bath. This may be why I bought the place, even though I never use it. Could be I had a vision. Call it a fantasy, maybe.”
The master bedroom was part of the wall of glass that stretched on two sides, looking out on both the view and into the rest of the house. Roller shades hung at the top of the windows, and here, too, there were no curtains. And on the other side of a king-sized bed, dressed in white and sitting against a charcoal wall, there was a bathroom.
“Gorgeous,” she said when she stepped inside. It was an ensuite, that was all, of the ultra-high-end variety, except for one thing: the pedestal bath that stood in front of the wall of glass and looked out over bush, city, and sea. “You’d feel exposed, but in such a sexy way. A bit of David and Bathsheba on the roof, maybe.”
His green-gold eyes got a little warmer, or maybe a little more hawklike. She wasn’t sure what to call it. She just knew he was focused. “I don’t know about that, other than that I agree, it’s sexy.”
“Not a very nice story.” She shouldn’t have said the “sexy” bit. It had just slipped out. She leaned back against the long gray-marbled white counter with its two white vessel sinks. “Is this floor heated?”
“Yes. Not now. Too warm out.” He was leaning himself, one hip against the wall, his arms folded. She wondered if he knew how good that stance made him look, biceps and forearms and chest and tattoo and all, and if that was why he did it, but dismissed the thought. Rhys wasn’t one bit vain. Another difference from Dylan. Rhys’s face, its nose broken one too many times, his jaw too square, his brows too thick and dark and his brow ridges too pronounced, told you that you could judge him by what he did, not how he looked, not that he cared a bit how you judged him at all. He said, “Tell me the story.”
She wished she hadn’t said anything about it. This wasn’t going to come out well. “Maori usually go to church,” she said instead. “You and Dylan seem to have missed out on that.”
“Some. Call our upbringing ‘irregular.’ Never mind. Educate me.”
Was it hot in here? She had a hand at the back of her neck, the other one tracing over smooth benchtop and the edges of those gorgeous sinks. They were like broken pieces of shell, tumbled in the sea until their edges were smooth. The whole house was like that. Nothing but gray and white with a few splashes of charcoal, all of it organic, full of texture, and belonging as much to the sea as to the land.
“King David,” she said, and quoted, “‘And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.’ That’s the only pretty part of the story, if having him spy on her while she was naked can be called ‘pretty.’ Something about it I always remembered, because it was hotter than anything else in church, probably, like every boy hears the Song of Solomon and thinks, ‘I want that.’” She smiled, or she tried to. “That song ‘Hallelujah’? You must have heard that. That’s what it’s about, David and Bathsheba.”
“Mm,” Rhys said. “I have. Hell of a sexy song. I thought it was about orgasm.”
“That too. About love and sex and being overwhelmed beyond reason. And maybe about more than that.” Why were they talking about orgasm? She was so far out on the edge. This was disastrous. She was going to embarrass herself and him in the worst possible way. She couldn’t go on.
