Come Lie With Me Read online

  “I mean it, stop fooling around!” she said sharply.

  He gave her a lazy smile, a heart-stopping smile. “Lady, if I decided to fool around, you’d be the first to know.”

  “Why don’t you go back to work tomorrow?” she demanded in sudden exasperation.

  “We’re closed for the holidays. I wouldn’t have anything to do.”

  “I’m going to give you something to do,” she muttered.

  “Like what?”

  “Picking your teeth up off the pavement,” she said.

  He threw his hands up in mock alarm. “All right, all right! I’ll be good. Next thing I know, you’ll be sending me to bed without my supper. I wouldn’t really mind, though, because you always come to tuck me in, and I get to watch you running around in those thin nightgowns of yours that you think are so modest…. Serena’s house is the solar redwood and rock one.’

  He threw in the last sentence just as she opened her mouth to blast him again, and she maneuvered the Audi up the steep drive to where the house nestled against the mountain. By the time she’d gotten out of the car and gone around to help Blake wrestle with the walker, Serena and Richard had come out to greet them.

  The steps were a problem for Blake, but he mastered them. Serena watched, an anxious look on her face, but she didn’t run to help him. Instead she stayed firmly by Richard’s side, her arm looped through his. Dione remained a step behind Blake, not out of servitude but to catch him in case he started to tumble. He looked over his shoulder at her and grinned. “Not bad, huh?”

  “A regular goat,” she replied, and only he caught her hidden meaning.

  He gave her another of his breathtaking smiles. “Don’t you mean mountain goat?”

  She shrugged. “A goat is a goat is a goat.”

  His eyes promised retribution, but she felt safe from him for the time being. If he started anything on the drive back home, she’d get out and walk!

  The traditional dinner had all of them groaning before it was over. Blake and Richard then retired to talk business, and Dione helped Serena clear the table. Serena had a cook, but she told Dione that everything had been prepared the day before and she’d given the cook the rest of the week off. “I don’t mind being alone in the house with Richard,” she said, laughing a little.

  “Is Operation Manhunt going well?” asked Dione.

  “At times.” Serena laughed. “Sometimes I…ah…undermine his resistance. Then he’ll freeze up on me again. But I think I’m winning the battle. He noticed that I’ve stopped going to Blake’s every day.”

  “Did he ask you about it?”

  “Richard? Not a chance! But he calls me almost every afternoon about some little something, as if he’s checking on me.”

  They traded a few comments on the mule-headedness of men in general and finished cleaning the kitchen. When they finally emerged they discovered that the men were still deep in conversation about the company, with Richard going over some sort of electronic blueprint with Blake. Dione looked at Serena, and they both shrugged. Kicking off their shoes, they sat down, and Serena used the remote control to turn on the television set, which revealed two football teams tearing into each other.

  Within ten minutes the men had left their technical conversation and were sitting beside the women. Dione liked football, so she didn’t mind watching the game, and evidently Serena shared the same fondness for it. At first Dione didn’t pay attention to the hand that touched her shoulder, lying absently over it so that the fingers touched her collarbone. Gradually the touch firmed, shifted and exerted pressure. Without quite knowing how it had happened, she suddenly realized that she was leaning back in the circle of Blake’s arm, resting against his chest while his arm kept her firmly anchored there.

  The startled movement of her body brought a knowing smile to his lips, but he merely held her more closely than before. “Shhh. Just watch the game,” he murmured.

  She was so rattled that nothing sank into her consciousness, but eventually the warmth of his body began to relax her. He would behave himself here, so she was free to enjoy the sensation, let herself drown in the heady scent of his skin. All too soon she would have only the memories of him to take out and savor.

  The time passed swiftly. Incredibly they became hungry again, so everyone raided the refrigerator and constructed enormous sandwiches of turkey, lettuce, tomato and anything else they could find. Blake’s sweet tooth demanded feeding, and he devoured what was left of the strawberry pie. The atmosphere was easy, comfortable, and he commented on it when they were driving home late that night.

  “Serena and Richard seem to have patched up their differences,” he said, watching her sharply in the dim light from the dash.

  “I think they’re well on their way,” she said, carefully keeping her tone bland. She wasn’t about to divulge anything Serena had told her.

  When they got home Dione looked him squarely in the eye and smiled. “I really don’t think there’s any need for me to tuck you in any longer,” she said sweetly. “You’re perfectly mobile now. I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.”

  As she let herself into her room she heard him doing a perfect imitation of a chicken clucking, and she had to bite her lip to stifle her laughter. The monster!

  But when he called her several hours later, jerking her out of a sound sleep, she didn’t hesitate. She hurried to his room and flipped on the light switch. He was lying on his stomach, hopelessly tangled in the sheet as he tried to reach his left leg.

  “Easy,” she crooned, finding the cramp and briskly rubbing the muscle of his calf between her hands. He went limp with relief as the pain eased away.

  “How much longer will this go on?” he muttered into his pillow.

  “Until your muscles are used to the demands you’re making on them,” she said. “It’s not as bad as it was. You seldom have a cramp in your right leg now.”

  “I know. My left leg drags more than the right. I’ll always limp, won’t I?”

  “Who knows? It won’t matter, though. You’ll look smashing with a cane.”

  He laughed and rolled over on his back, tangling the sheet even more. Despite what she’d said earlier, Dione bent over him and automatically began straightening the sheet. “You managed to make a disaster area of your bed,” she complained.

  “I was restless tonight,” he said, his voice suddenly strained.

  Dione glanced up, and her hands froze at their task. He was staring at her, his gaze locked on her breasts. A look of such raw hunger was in his eyes that she would have flinched away if she’d had any strength in her limbs. But she continued to sit on the side of his bed, mesmerized by the way his gaze moved lovingly, longingly, over her female curves.

  “Lady, what you do to me is almost criminal,” he groaned in a shaky voice.

  An odd tightening in her breasts made her close her eyes. “I’ve got to go,” she said weakly, but for the life of her she couldn’t make herself move.

  “No, don’t go,” he pleaded. “Let me touch you…my God, I’ve got to touch you!”

  Dione caught her breath on a sob as she felt his fingertips trace lightly over her breast, and she squeezed her eyes shut even more tightly than before. For a moment the awful unfamiliarity of a man’s touch on her breast brought back a nightmare of pain and humiliation, and she made a choked sound of protest.

  “Dee, honey, open your eyes. Look at me; look at how I’m shaking. Touching you makes me dizzy,” he whispered fiercely. “I get drunk on the very smell of you.”

  Dione’s eyes fluttered open, and she found that he’d moved closer, until his face was filling her vision. It was Blake’s face, not Scott’s, and his blue eyes were as dark and stormy as the sea, full of incredible hunger. His trembling fingers were still moving only lightly over her breasts, though the heat of his hand burned her even through her nightgown.

  “That…that’s enough,” she said, her voice thin, wavering out of control. “This isn’t right.”