Free Caress Part One (Arcadia) by Josie Litton Page B

front door to the apartment open.
    Surprised, I glanced at the time. It was barely 9:00 pm.
Lucas never got home this early. Concerned that something might be wrong, I
went to meet him.

Chapter
E leven
     

Lucas
     
    I walked home from the office. Half-way there, it started to
rain, not heavily but enough so that by the time I stepped into the apartment,
my hair was plastered to my head and I needed to get into dry clothes.
    I stopped short when I saw Emma. In the little blue skirt
and soft white sweater she was wearing, she looked good enough to eat. The
cliché, popping into my head, made me smile.
    What she thought at that moment I couldn’t begin to guess. I
was dripping wet, staring at her like a starving man, and grinning like a loon.
It was a wonder she didn’t turn tail and run.
    Instead, she looked me up and down slowly enough to make my
cock harden even further. Softly, she said, “I’ll get you a towel.”
    Good to her word, she was back with one moments later. As I
took it, I said, “It’s raining outside.”
    As opposed to where, inside? Damn, I was really losing it.
    “I thought it might be,” she said with just the right note
of humor, more teasing than mocking.
    Rubbing at my hair with the towel, I realized that I was
still staring at her. Getting a grip on myself, finally, I said, “How’s the
work going?”
    That was the best I could do, seriously? She’d been opening
up to me a little lately, actually talking about her family and giving me a
glimpse of what her life had been like both before and after it all imploded.
    But the question didn’t seem to faze her. Instead, she said,
“It’s going really well. I was just about to watch one of Margo’s movies.” A
little shyly, she added, “Do you think you might like to join me?”
    She looked so sweetly uncertain, as though she really
thought that I might have something better to do.
    I did, like run in the opposite direction. But I reminded
myself that I needed to gain her trust if I was to have any hope of discovering
what she knew about her father.
    I’d been making progress; she was definitely more relaxed
around me. Watching a movie together might help even more.
    At least, that’s how I rationalized jumping at the chance to
spend time with her in the dark.
     “Just give me a few minutes to get into something dry,
okay?”
    “Sure, whenever--”
    Enjoying her look of surprise, I headed for the master
bedroom. First thing, I made a quick call. A few minutes later, just as I
finished changing into jeans and T-shirt, the doorbell ring.
    People say you can get anything delivered in New York. I
don’t know that to be literally true although I’ve tested the limits a time or
two. But a well-connected doorman can definitely get popcorn and soda at a
moment’s notice.
    The young guy who brought them over grinned when he saw the
tip I handed him. He took off whistling as I went in search of Emma.
    She was waiting for me in the screening room next to the
library. I’d poked my head in there my first day in the apartment but I hadn’t
appreciated how large and well set up it was. Twenty or thirty people could
have gathered there and not felt crowded.
    With just the two of us, it was like having a movie theatre
all to ourselves.
     “What’s all that?” she asked as she saw what I was
carrying.
    “You arranged the movie,” I said. “The least I could do was
bring the soda and popcorn.”
    She laughed as I set them down along with the glasses and
ice that I’d snagged in the kitchen out of a metal ice tray with a lever that
popped the cubes out. Her pleasure in what was really just a small gesture
pleased me more than I wanted to think about.
    “So what’s the movie?” I asked as I flopped down on a couch
and tore open the bag of popcorn. It wasn’t fresh from the microwave but it
smelled good all the same.
    “The Lady is a Flirt,” Emma said as she dimmed the lights
and started the projector. “It was Margo’s big break. It