Free path to conquest by Unknown Author

Donnenfeld ran the lab, we didn’t even have to publish. We were just one big, sometimes argumentative family of oddballs and geniuses and social maladroits who all happened to love science. There was a quiet excitement in that, I guess. It wasn’t exactly tranquil and unhurried. I mean we all had self-imposed motivations pushing us forward in whatever we were working on. But it was pretty relaxed. God, it seems like so long ago, I can barely remember.” Sari rolled her eyes. “Geez, listen to me flapping ray gums here. You ask me a simple question and I just go on and—”
    Neville leaned over and gently kissed her lips. It was a brief kiss.
    “Uh, you trying to tell me to shut up?”
    “No, not at all,” he said. “When you talk, I leam more about you. And I’d like to learn as much as I can.”
    “Talk is cheap,” Sari said, doing a Mae West impression. “I’ll take shutting up any day.”
    They kissed again—softly at first, then gradually increasing their intensity, but still in a tranquil, unhurried way, as if they both had those words in mind. After a long time, they separated.
    “Are you sure you’re not getting cold, Sari?”
    She stared at him, then broke into a giggle. “You must be kidding! Besides, it’s not that cold. I love it when it snows like this—no wind, just a dusting of little soapflake snow. I feel like 1 could stay outside forever. When I was little, my mom would threaten to get the National Guard to drag me in on nights like this.”
    Neville grinned at her. “Oh, I’ll bet you were a terror. What would you do when she called you the first time?”
    With a devilish glint of reminiscence in her eyes, Sari pirouetted away from him. “I’d waltz across the lawn,” she called, her voice musical. “Then I’d prance close to the porch to tease her. Then I’d do a Highland fling out to the sidewalk— pas de deux with the lightpole—-and then swing a little.” As she spoke, she did each dance, ending up literally gripping a street lamp and spinning around it. By now More couldn’t contain his laughter.
    Abruptly, Sari lost her footing and fell flat on her back. He rushed over, concern wiping the laugh off his face. “Are you all right?” he said, cradling her head.
    Sari’s eyelids fluttered, then she propped herself on her elbow. “And I always wound up on my ass. All these years later, nothing’s changed. Except one thing.”
    He helped her to her feet. “What’s that?”
    She tugged his collar, bringing their faces nose to nose.
    “When you kiss me and make it better, it’s not quite the same as when Mom did it.”
    With a half smile of gentle lust, Neville closed his arms around her and their lips touched and opened.
    “My place or yours?” Sari said in a husky whisper.
    “Peter’s.”
    Taking pains to be slow and quiet, Sari turned the key in Peter Forsythe’s lock. The dead bolt slid with a maddening creak that she was sure would wake the whole building. She pushed the door and she and Neville crept into the foyer. Good — it’s dark! she thought gleefully. She closed and relocked the door, trying to hide her nervousness. What's he gonna think of me if I say I want to sleep with him? What are Pete and Hannah gonna think when they see us coming out of the same bedroom tomorrow morning? What do I care what anybody thinks? With silent resolve, she held More’s hand firmly in hers and pulled him along.
    “Where are you going?” he whispered.
    “To my room.”
    “And where am / going?”
    His expression was neutral. She couldn’t tell if he was being playful or charmingly obtuse. “My room.” She continued guiding him.
    “And who’s going to my room?”
    “Nobody.”
    “Oh.”
    He followed meekly as she hurried into the bedroom Pete had shown her earlier, and shut the door quickly and quietly. Sari prayed to herself: Don’t chicken out, stupid! She avoided looking at Neville’s face as she reflexively switched on the dresser lamp and shed her