Free The List by Anne Calhoun Page A

million.”
    “Slacker.”
    She smiled and made a soft sound, low and deep in her throat, somewhere between a purr and a laugh. He couldn’t name it, but with his hand against her throat, he could feel it under his palm. A few months into their relationship, he was learning that the best way to explore her was through touch, as if he could draw the answers to who she was out through her skin. And it blew his mind that she’d let him palm her throat when the only difference between caressing her and choking her was pressure.
    No self-protective instincts at all. “What’s left on the list?”
    She shifted a little, tucking her feet into the throw’s lower edge. “Work. Call a few people. Make a connection. I may need to go to London in a few weeks.”
    “See your family?”
    “Talk to people at Quality Group about a potential business deal. I’ll take the train to Cornwall to see Nan while I’m there, yes.”
    He made his own soft noise, indicating he’d heard her. Family wasn’t her favorite subject, and he wasn’t clear on the details of her childhood, except that for a woman who collected friends and acquaintances and people to connect, she could count her living relatives on one hand and rarely brought up friends from home.
    Or former lovers.
    “You have any ex-boyfriends in the UK?”
    “No,” she said.
    “No,” he repeated, a little surprised. “How old were you when you left?”
    “Eighteen. I skipped my gap year to start at NYU. You sound surprised.”
    “I am surprised.”
    “You asked about boyfriends. I had one lover before I came to America.”
    He mulled this over. In high school he’d had girlfriends, not lovers. It was an oddly mature word to use to describe what he thought of as a typical teenage experience.
    “How many since?”
    “Do you keep score, Daniel?”
    “I’ve lost count,” he admitted.
    “As have I.”
    The colorful leaves of the oak tree dipped to the glass, smearing the water streaming off the glass ceiling before springing up. She wasn’t relaxed in his arms, but she wasn’t getting up, either. “Fine,” he said. “Your first kiss.”
    “Rory Freeman, in his father’s shed.”
    “How old were you?”
    “Twelve. He lived on the next farm over from Nan’s. I was with her on and off that summer, based on Mum’s schedule. You?”
    “Tiffany Lubbock, thirteen, both of us, on the way home from junior high school. I’d had a crush on her since the fourth grade. She had braces, and it was very awkward. Neither of us knew what we were doing.”
    She peered over her shoulder at him. “You’re quite good at it now.”
    He kissed her. “Thanks. Lots of practice. How was it?”
    “I also made up for inexperience with enthusiasm,” she said. Her eyes went out of focus. “It was a toolshed. Rory and his dad fixed motorbikes for extra dosh, so it smelled of dirt and oil and petrol. His hands were rough. I remember that. He liked to hold my face while we kissed,” she said.
    He drew his finger along her jaw. Tilda’s jaw was so strong, not square but distinct, with a stubborn chin, and somehow knowing a boy of twelve had been the first to feel the clean bones of her face under his hands sent a swift pang of jealousy through Daniel’s gut. “He had calluses. The contrast of rough skin and soft lips fixated me. I wanted to learn everything he could teach me.”
    “At twelve he couldn’t teach you much.”
    Her eyes remained unfocused. She was lost in memory, and somehow Daniel doubted he’d be thanking Rory for anything. To cover the flood of emotion inside him, he kept going. “When did you lose your virginity?”
    “Virginity is a cultural construct,” she pointed out. “Given the many, many ways two people can have sex, limiting the question to the penetration of penis into vagina is a rather narrow approach. Anyway, why is it a loss? I gained knowledge, experience.”
    The thought of wild, barely restrained Tilda growing in experience sent a bolt of