Her mind whirled, racing this way and that. The hundred dollars that she was looking at wouldn’t go far. She was not an idiot. But a lunch with conversation, another dinner at an intimate restaurant, perhaps a bike ride or weekend trip – each time gaining her another hundred. The hundred dollar bill began to multiply, began to make a difference. All she had to do was go back to his home. All she had to do was spread her legs.
Cathy—no, Winter, she corrected herself—picked up the hundred dollar bill. She folded it very deliberately and put it safely into her purse. Then she looked up. “I’ll go back to your house.”
Chapter Three
A thousand times, Cathy changed her mind, and a thousand times she bit back the words. They did not speak during the taxi ride. Michael had taken her hand when he entered the cab after her and had not let go of it. Their hands lay clasped on the seat between them, his large one engulfing hers. He did not hold her hand tightly or squeeze it or play with her fingers. There was no overt demand. Yet the contact created an intimacy and a bond that in her indecisive state of mind she could not break. Perhaps it was that as much as anything else that stopped her from telling him that she had second thoughts about what she was doing.
At their destination, Michael paid off the cab, and still with the lightest of contact—the warmth of his hand at her elbow or at the small of her back—he directed her to the front door and then inside the house.
The entry was shrouded in mystery. Lamps sitting on dark lacquered occasional tables had been left on so that pools of light played with the night shadows. Cathy instinctively shivered, but she wasn’t given time to analyze the feeling. Michael ushered her into the living area. Cathy received a swift impression of a comfortably furnished room with big upholstered armchairs, a deep-cushioned sofa, some small lamp tables and other accessories. A gas fire burned yellow in the glass-fronted fireplace. The fire was out of context in June, but the ambiance of the dancing flames was striking.
Cathy moved forward, away from him, breaking physical contact. She whirled to face him. She crossed her arms, and her palms began unconsciously running up and down her bare skin. The fear that had nudged her earlier in the entry became full-blown, making her skin clammy. She was breathing shallowly. Suddenly and startlingly sober with the adrenaline racing through her veins, her mind screamed at her. She hadn’t considered. She could have placed herself in very real danger. This man was a stranger to her! What a fool she was! He could do anything he wanted to her. No one knew where she was. She gulped back a sob, her breath rasping in her throat.
Hearing her swift intake of breath, Michael stilled and narrowed his gaze on her. The firelight burnished glints of gold dancing in her auburn curls and cast mysterious shadows into her eyes. But he easily read her body language. She looked like a beautiful frightened feline holding herself at bay. It would not take much to spook her, he thought. He had deliberately used a cab to bring them back to his house, believing that she would be less likely to say anything about having second thoughts within the driver’s hearing. Now he saw that he had correctly anticipated her state of mind. His body had already been hard for her before they had left the restaurant. He would have to curb his impatience. He felt the razor-edge anticipation and, along with it, the tightening of his balls.