Free Seduction in Mind by Susan Johnson Page B

time for me," he observed cheerfully.
    "You're full of pleasantries today," she remarked, although she was pleased at his altered mood.
    "You'll see. While I'll be faithful forever because I love you with all my heart."
    "I don't want you to love me with all your heart. I've told you before, I want you to find other amusements, Harry. I'm too old for you."
    "Of course you're not." But he had no intention of arguing now that she'd agreed to see him again. "Do you want me to cook dinner on Friday?"
    "You work. I'll bring something."
    "Just you is enough." He quickly kissed her again and then turned with a wave and, whistling, walked away.
     
    "No more flowers?" Sam asked as Alex reentered the bedroom.
    "Harry says you're notorious and won't stay long and he was quite cheerful when he left."
    "You must have promised him something."
    The man was prescient and she hesitated, debating how truthful to be.
    He recognized the moment of evasion and obligingly changed the subject. "He's young. Where did you find him?"
    "He found me. You don't approve?"
    He shrugged. "It depends how young, I suppose, although it's none of my business."
    "That's true."
    "As long as we won't be interrupted again, it's not a problem." He'd had time in her absence to come to his senses.
    "I doubt we will, although, as you say, Harry's young—and rash." She smiled at him. "Not altogether a youthful trait."
    "My reckless behavior doesn't include voyeurism."
    "Really… never?" She'd heard of the tableaux vivants in the brothels.
    "I recognize a leading remark when I hear it—but I'm too involved"—his smile was lush with suggestion—"in my own affairs to worry about others."
    "Like now."
    "If you're still in the mood after your adoring swain."
    "Adoration has its disadvantages."
    "So I've discovered."
    "We've become blase, it seems," she said with a small smile. "Do you ever wish for the naivete of adolescence? Or perhaps a man like you was never naive."
    "Like me?" He grinned. "What the hell does that mean?"
    "I can't picture you in an adoring mood."
    "Just because I don't have long blond hair and calf's eyes?"
    "No, because you're too jaded and cynical."
    "But not worth dismissing for all that," he said, one dark brow raised in conjecture.
    "No," she replied softly. "Even for all that."
    His smile was distinctly uncynical. In fact, it was gloriously inviting. "I'm glad."
    "These feelings we have—I have—"
    "We have," he countered. "Have brought us here against our best judgment."
    "And kept us here when we both know if we were thinking clearly, we'd walk away."
    "While we could."
    She looked at him for a salient moment. "Surely, it's not that dramatic."
    He shrugged. "I can't leave, and I told myself I should when you were outside with that damned child."
    "I told him I'd see him on Friday."
    "I know. He wouldn't have left otherwise."
    "You've done this before."
    "Probably," he said.
    "And does it work?" He was importuned ceaselessly, she suspected.
    "Sometimes."
    "And when it doesn't?"
    "You switch to another plan."
    "Do you continue switching, or are you rude eventually?"
    "I'm not going to tell you. You have to do what you have to do."
    "But none of that applies to us, because we're going to be adults about this."
    "Fucking, you mean."
    "Yes. And you didn't feel the need to dress, for which I'm grateful."
    "I wasn't going anywhere."
    "How cool you are. Does it take enormous practice?"
    The amount of practice he'd had wouldn't be something she'd appreciate, so he answered with diplomacy. "My nannies beat good manners into me. Now, come here and we'll see about you having some more orgasms."
    She moved toward him, wanting what he wanted, feeling famished when she never did, feeling as though he'd been away a month.
    And when she came to rest before him, he slowly unwrapped the sheet covering her, let it slide to the floor, untangled the knot in her chemise ribbon, eased off the filmy garment, and drew her close with such aching slowness, she moaned