Page 47 of Rest In Pink

Tonight, I wanted him.

So I hit my cellphone. It took him a while to answer, but when he did, I said, “Get your ass up here. We need to talk. Naked talk.”

“I’m really beat,” he began.

“I just offered you sex. Are you dead? What’s wrong with you?”

He sighed. “Anemone and Peri are up there. Come on down to the Big Chef.”

“There is food and an amazing bathtub up here. Also, I do not deliver on command.” That’s actually not true, just not now. He was sounding pretty ragged. He needed food and comfort. And we had Marianne’s insanely good leftover lasagna.

“Anemone and Peri—”

“Don’t think about them. Think about me, hot and naked, moaning under you. Peri’s asleep and Anemone is somewhere in Cincinnati. And I am here, waiting to bite you in the throes of orgasm.”

“On my way,” he said and hung up.

The things a woman has to do to get laid around here. Really.

Chapter Twenty-Two

As soon as I turned off my phone, I went downstairs to the kitchen and started on the food part of my plan. The microwave had just dinged to tell me the lasagna was done when I heard the Gladiator come up the drive. I crossed that barn of a living room and went into the foyer to open the door just as he raised his hand to knock.

“We could do laps around this damn living room,” I said, and kissed him, mashing myself against him because I wanted to feel him against me. Phone calls were all well and good, but better was his chest pressing on my breasts, my hips tilted into his. Don’t get me started on his hands.

“Hello to you, too,” he said when we came up for air.

“Come with me,” I said and pulled him down into the living room, across the expanse of marble flooring and into the kitchen, which was also obnoxiously large and blue, but had Marianne’s food in it.

“I’m not hungry,” he said.

“I’m going to fix that.” I pushed him down on one of the counter stools and kissed him again, just to keep him warm, pushing myself between his legs to get closer, staying in the kiss because it felt so good, and then he slipped his hand under my t-shirt, so I swiveled him around to the counter where I’d spread out cheese and crackers and olives and pickles and some of Peri’s raw veggies and this dipping sauce Marianne makes with sriracha, and cold steak and ham and a loaf of unsliced whole wheat that he could tear chunks from. “Just have a couple of bites,” I said. He was going to be expending significant energy soon, and I wanted to make sure he was fueled up.

I went back to the microwave and used a towel to pull out the pyrex dish, wrapped the towel around it, got a spoon and fork and turned back to the counter.

He was eating and not just nibbling. He’d just needed a nudge so he’d listen to his body which was probably starving.

I put the lasagna in front of him, said, “That is very hot, be careful,” and handed him his tableware.

He nodded and dug in.

I pulled a Coke out of the fridge and gave it to him, and then I sat down across from him, just to look at him because I’d missed him. Anemone was right, he gave good face. Not chiseled or noble or anything like that, but strong, sure, his eyes were hooded but there wasn’t any slyness there, his nose had been broken but that just showed he’d done some living, and his mouth . . .

He had a great mouth. He was shoveling food into it at the moment, but it was still a great mouth. I’d had dreams about that mouth. And he knew what to do with it.

He’d finished the lasagna and was reaching out for the bread when he caught me looking at his mouth.

“What?” he said.

“I love your mouth,” I said.

He dropped the bread. “Come here and tell me about it.”

I grinned at him and came around the counter and he pulled me against him, putting his leg between mine, and kissed me good, sliding his hand down my stomach and between my legs. “Oh, good, the jeans with buttons,” he said, smiling at me, and I laughed and kissed him again.

He tasted like lasagna. I love lasagna.

Then he moved his hand under my t-shirt. “Are you sure Peri’s in bed?”

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