Page 60 of Trick of Light
Because he’d found the woman for him. The one he’d never met while wandering the world, until he’d come home.
Since she looked just as dazed and aroused as he felt, he took a chance. “The family condo isn’t far from here.”
“Where?” She ran her tongue across her lips.
He gestured with his head toward a graceful Victorian three-story home on the Eastern Promenade. “Top floor.”
“Holy smokes. That close?”
“Yes ma’am. Three bedrooms, two baths, and plenty of soundproofing.”
26
Gabby couldn’t stop touching that big body of his. It felt addictive, as if once she’d allowed herself to feel that attraction, it chased away nearly every other thought in her head.
But not the one that warned her about trusting someone like Barnaby, raised in the lap of privilege. The one that wondered why he wanted her, someone not in his world, someone not his race. She hated having to think about that factor, but how could she avoid it with a member of the Carmichael family?
Normally she liked to think things through before she had sex with someone. But all those cautions and warnings were quickly dissolving under the force of overwhelming physical attraction. When he put his hand in the small of her back to guide her up the grassy slope, fire shot to her belly. When he took her hand as they hurried along the paved walkway, her heart melted at how tenderly his fingers interlaced with hers.
He kept checking to see if she was still with him, still into it. And every time, part of her knew she should make sure of a few things, the way she usually did. And part of her just wanted to forget all that and plunge into the pleasure offered by that gleam in his eyes and the flex of his muscles.
She finally snapped out of that pleasure-haze in the elevator to the top floor of the most elegant apartment building she’d ever seen.
“I have a checklist of questions I need to ask before we do this.”
He grinned. “That’s what I love about you. You always do your research.”
Love? No, he didn’t mean it that way. Moving on. “You don’t mind?”
“Whatever you need. Hit me.” The elevator doors opened with a whisper. He punched in a code on the door and they stepped inside to a white-carpeted paradise. Bay windows looked out on the promenade and the dark ocean beyond. Moonlight came and went behind drifts of clouds. It was absolutely quiet up here above the streets and the park.
The hush of money, she thought, remembering his comment about soundproofing.
She struggled to remember the questions on her checklist. They were such vibe-killers. But they had to be asked. “Have you ever had any STDs?”
“No. But we would obviously use protection no matter what.”
“So you always use protection?”
“Always. Except the first time. We had a scare and I learned my lesson.” Barnaby turned on a sleek titanium lamp that gave the room a subtle golden aura. Everything about this space invited you to feel coddled and treasured.
Or maybe that was Barnaby himself. He walked to a small bar set into an antique cabinet. It held a soda water siphon, which he used to pour out two glasses, into which he squeezed a lime.
Her favorite refreshing drink. He’d noticed that, and remembered.
“When was that?” she asked as he handed it to her. If he’d given her something alcoholic, she would have been suspicious.
“Is that part of your checklist? Here’s to thorough research and complete satisfaction.” Amused, he clicked his glass against hers. His deep resonant voice played on her nervous system like a cellist plucking strings. And “satisfaction”…oh man. That set up a full-on throbbing. This is foreplay, she thought suddenly. Or at least he was turning it into foreplay.
“I like to know as much as I can about someone before I get too intimate.”
“Fair. Okay, the first one was at boarding school when I was fifteen. Her period was late after that and we were both freaking out. I felt responsible because, well, I was. Can’t have a baby without sperm. Anyway, I told her if she got pregnant, we could get married. That freaked her out even more. She didn’t want to be a teen mom. I didn’t want to be a teen father, either. She nearly had a breakdown, she was so terrified.”
“What happened?”
“She went home for a month. I think she might have had an abortion, but she didn’t tell me about it. When she came back she said her period had started and everything was okay. Then she broke up with me and said she had to focus on school. That was the first and last time I ever had sex without protection.”
Wow, he’d given her much more than she’d asked for with that story. “How did you feel about her possibly having an abortion?”
