The taxi left her at her gate. Suzanne paid him then looked across the street. Her car was parked right there. On an impulse, she walked over and got in, resting her hands for a moment on the steering wheel. At the first turn of the ignition key, the car started right up without that choking, grinding roar she’d grown used to. It purred gently, powerfully. She sat there, pleased, listening to her car hum, healthy and whole.
Her car was back from the dead and better than ever, thanks to her tenant. Her sinfully sexy tenant.
She’d overreacted. Yes, they’d had sex and that was at least as much her fault as his. It’s not like he’d overpowered her or anything. The instant his lips had touched hers, she’d melted. And though it had been rough it had also been exciting. Certainly more exciting than anything she’d experienced in…ever.
Suzanne had no doubt whatsoever that if, instead of bolting in panic back into her apartment, she’d asked John in, he would have followed right on her heels and they would have spent the rest of the night…what?
Making love, no doubt about it. In a bed. Instead of having sex. Against a wall. And in between bouts, they’d have talked. Maybe laughed a little, opened that bottle of Chablis she’d had in the fridge for weeks, finished the jar of contraband caviar a client had brought her.
John had flubbed it but so had she. She’d run from him like a scared rabbit.
And it wasn’t as if he’d blown her off the next day. He’d immediately acknowledged her, taken responsibility, said they needed to talk.
And the biggie—he’d dealt with Murphy for her and picked up her car. Which now purred beneath her hands. Pleased, she switched off the ignition and sat there, feeling a little foolish at her reaction to him.
A sudden vision of John Huntington formed before her eyes. His size, his strength, his intensity, his brute male power. Nope, she hadn’t overreacted. The man was formidable in every way.
She thought about what Todd had said as she opened her gate and walked to the door. That maybe the men she’d been dating had been too predictable, too bland, too…safe.
What was wrong with safe? she thought as she disconnected the alarm, opened the door, and then switched the alarm back on, just as John had made her promise to do. Safe was nice, warm, comfortable. Not words she’d ever associate with John Huntington.
He threw her for a loop.
He’d occupied most of her headspace all day. All day yesterday, too. Every second, in fact, since she’d met him, and that wasn’t good. She was a busy professional, just about to make that leap into the spheres of the very successful and she didn’t have time for obsessions. She barely had time to date, so what little time she had should be with men who would stay nicely in the background where they belonged and wouldn’t occupy her every waking moment.
Like now, walking warily into her own building. Wondering if he was in. Hoping he wasn’t. Hoping he was.
He wasn’t here. She paused for a moment in the hallway. He was a quiet man, almost eerily so, but she knew her building. It held the stillness of emptiness. And come to think of it, she hadn’t seen his Yukon parked outside.
From the sudden certainty of that, Suzanne realized that she’d been subconsciously looking out for his SUV and listening for signs of him. He’d said he’d be out of town this afternoon and would be late getting back. So she’d see him tomorrow. Which meant that she definitely needed a good night’s sleep if she wanted to face him with anything approaching equanimity.
To get that good night’s sleep she had to put Commander John Huntington right out of her head. She had to get her life back.
Tomorrow. She’d get her life back tomorrow. Today had been much too exhausting. Marissa Carson had topped herself today, changing her mind about everything that had been decided upon up until now. Most of the furnishings had already been ordered. When Suzanne pointed out that she’d lose a lot of money, Marissa had tilted her lovely head back and laughed long and hysterically, saying she was soon going to be very rich.
Marissa had been feverish, jumping out of her skin. Suzanne imagined that she was having problems with Mr. Carson, whom she’d never met. But she knew what he looked like. Pictures of him, a handsome, blond, cold-eyed man, were pasted all over the apartment. Had been pasted. Now all the photographs of him had been either taken off the walls or placed face down on the coffee table. Clearly, there was trouble in paradise. That was confirmed by the tall, blond, cold-eyed man who’d nearly knocked her over as she was exiting Marissa’s building a few hours ago. He’d looked furious and Suzanne was sure that fireworks were in the offing.
It had been difficult to absorb Marissa’s hysteria while trying to deal with her wishes for her apartment, which changed hourly. They’d finally agreed to meet again in two weeks, when presumably Marissa would have a better grasp on what she wanted.
In the meantime, Suzanne had spent an emotionally exhausting afternoon and had had to skip lunch, which made her cranky.
Her evening ritual calmed her, soothed her. A hot bubble bath with lavender oil. A bowl of frozen minestrone heated up in the microwave, a glass of red wine, half an hour in bed with the latest Nora Roberts and lights out at ten.
Suzanne closed her eyes, savoring the clean linen sheets, the warm light eiderdown, and the stillness of the night. The weather forecast had been for snow and she’d opened the curtains in all the rooms because she liked snow. As she snuggled deep in her bed, sure enough, a few stray snowflakes were drifting down from the sky, visible in the halo of the streetlights. She could feel her muscles start to relax, feel that slow slide into sleep…
Which didn’t come.
Two hours later, the grandfather clock in her living room next door tolled midnight. She listened to the slow tock and whir of the mechanism, and then the solemn chimes. She counted twelve and sighed as she slipped her legs out of bed.
The night was beautiful. Lowlying fluffy white clouds, like a child’s vision of Christmas, hugged the tops of buildings. Fat, lazy cartoon flakes floated down, gently, as if they had all the time in the world.
Snow was kind to her street. It covered the ruts and cracks and potholes. It softened the buildings grown raggedy with age and neglect. It spread its gentle mantle over this part of town, abandoned and sometimes violent, full of unhappy, failed souls.
The night sky glowed, reflecting the bright lights of downtown off the lowlying clouds. The clouds shimmered and snowflakes danced. Suzanne watched for a few minutes, searching elusively for peace.
Like sleep, it wasn’t coming.
She felt edgy and unsettled, as if she had somehow crossed a divide without meaning to. Without even wanting to. Moved into a new part of her life where she didn’t know the rules.
Todd’s words kept coming back to her. It was true—she had always dated men with whom she knew she could keep the upper hand and it was also true that there was no question of her keeping the upper hand with John. He was a dominant male in every sense of the word.
Of course, they weren’t exactly dating. One evening out, one bout of sex… what was the word for that? Dating? She had no idea; it didn’t fit any of her neat categories. And to top it all off, they were living together. Or rather not living together, but living in the same building. Just the two of them.
John was like a tiger. A gorgeous, wild animal that needed to be approached gingerly because it could rip your heart out without even trying. You needed to keep your distance from beautiful, wild animals. How was she going to do that when she would be seeing him every day?
The silent night wasn’t offering up any answers, just gentle snowflakes slowly tumbling out of the shimmering clouds. A light played erratically against the low hedge of box trees which ran along the side of the building, and Suzanne watched it flicker and glow against the dark leaves.
She peered more closely.
Why was it doing that? Where on earth was the light coming from? Not downtown, that was for sure. Not against her hedge.
And the light wasn’t a shimmer but a pinpoint glare. She frowned. A car? No, the beam was too small and it jumped around. And anyway it was coming from inside the hedge not from the street outside. At that angle, it had to come from…her house! From her office.