Free Sleeping Beauty by Judith Ivory Page B

quickly—afraid she would have him out into the street before he’d had a moment to gather himself—and the heel of his palm hit the door’s edge harder than he’d meant. The door shut with a small, firm, surprisingly loud, well …slam .
    Her eyes opened widely. Her head leaned back. If James hadn’t seen a brightness, a little thrill, in her eyes, or thought he had, he wouldn’t have proceeded. But the light in her eyes seemed there, and it lit something inside him. The next he knew, he’dslipped his arm round her waist, turned her, pressed her to the door, and kissed her.
    She scuffled immediately, unsurprised—no stranger to the mad, frenetic grope. He tried to make it sweeter than that. It was damn sweet for him. Her lips were smooth and springy, as youthful to the touch as to the sight. They were full, yet small and well defined. He could feel the neat ridge of her philtrum curving up, then down, then up, making a chiseled bow of her top lip, while her bottom lip was plump, pink, and soft.
    She shoved him in the chest, while he kissed this very female mouth, thinking, Oh, yes, this is romantic . Except it almost was. Her lips didn’t pull away exactly. Not immediately. The pressure of her hands against his chest was businesslike, angry. But the sweet-plump mouth clung to his for two or three heartbeats that made his head swim, made him forget whatever it was he thought he was doing.
    Which was as far as it got. She broke away, turning her head, breathing hard, audibly, there in the hall. He kept hold of her, though he cranked back his head a degree, mostly for fear that if he stayed too close, this reversal of hers would see him bit or spit upon or something equally unpleasant. He stared; she looked up at him. Neither spoke.
    It became a game of who would look away first. Not him. Not so long as he could watch the incredible, mythic eyes of La Belle Coco. That’s what they’d called her; how could he have forgotten?
    She looked up at him from beneath black lashes, her regard reminding him of the silent inscrutable wariness of Muslim women he’d seen in Africa. Women swathed in black from head to toe, veiled;all eyes. Constrained women. Women who’d made him afraid to think what mutinies might boil inside them.
    “Turn me loose,” she said.
    God bless, he was loath to. But the look in her eyes said he’d best comply. When he did, she stepped away, brushing at herself, straightening her sleeve where it had pushed up her arm.
    He was going to apologize. He certainly should have. He said, “I—ah—I got carried away.”
    “I’d say so.”
    Further contrition would not arrive. Regret, yes. He regretted that he had missed the way into her good graces. He regretted that he was so inexperienced with such matters as to be awkward and not able to gauge anything properly, because there was an inroad here somewhere. He just couldn’t find it. Moreover, she needed someone and it should be him, but he didn’t know what to do to make it so.
    She was vulnerable, fragile, yet afraid to be soft.
    Who’d said no once and now was being quite emphatic about it. Her eyes said no. Her pink, dumpling-soft mouth had become a tight, compressed line that said no. No.
    So, mature man that he was, he slapped his hat onto his head, nodding curtly. “Right,” he said. Ruddy hell, he thought. He twisted the doorknob, then—annoyed with her and himself both—he added, “My dear Mrs. Wild.” He said in a rush of earnestness, “If you ever do need a friend, I hope you will call on me.”
    It was, of course, most unlikely that she would call on a masher for any reason.

    James swung the door wide, half-blinded by direct sunlight, but stepped through anyway, clapping the door shut with strength. His exit quaked the doorframe. The brass mail slot bounced, then clattered, a rickety rhythm that followed him down the steps onto her front walk and—or seemed to, at least—out her brambly overgrown gate.
     
    Coco stood inside