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“You know what time it is. It’s a number. Think about it.” He sounded drowsy himself.
She had never thought of time as a number, but as soon as she did, the image of three numbers popped into her head. “One-oh-four.”
“Bingo.”
Mildly pleased, she went to sleep.
She woke before he did, which wasn’t surprising, given how early she’d gone to bed and how late he’d gotten in. She lay there through the tense expectation of being hit, then slowly relaxed. The bed was toasty warm; he gave off so much heat that she could feel the warmth even though they weren’t touching.
Sleepily curious to see if the time thing worked again, she thought of time as a series of numbers and immediately saw a four, a five and a one. She pulled the sheet from over her head; the room was getting a little brighter. Without any way to check—short of getting out of bed and going down to the kitchen, which she wasn’t willing to do—she supposed four fifty-one was close enough. How handy was that, to not need a clock?
Dante was lying on his side, facing her, one arm bent under his head, his breathing slow and deep. The room was still too dim for her to make out many details, but that was okay, because she wasn’t ready for details yet; the general impression was sexy enough as things were.
What was a woman supposed to think when a healthy, heterosexual man slept with her for the first time and didn’t even try to cop a feel? That something was wrong with her? That he wasn’t attracted to her?
She thought he was dangerously intelligent and intuitive.
Sex was definitely part of their relationship, if knowing someone for roughly thirty-six hours could be described as a relationship. Some of those thirty-six hours had seemed years long, especially the first four or five. She couldn’t say that their time together had been quality time, either. On the other hand, since she hadn’t seen him at his best, she thought she might know him better than someone who had known him for a much longer time but only in a social setting, so she wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t made a pass at her during the night.
She wasn’t ready for sex with him, might never be ready, and he knew that. If he’d tried to storm the barricades, as it were, she would have stiffened her resistance. By simply sleeping with her and not making any overtly sexual moves, he was, in a way, counteracting those first terrible hours together and making sex a possibility, at least.
He wasn’t even naked, though the boxers he’d worn to bed didn’t cover much. She wasn’t naked, either; he’d had all her clothes brought to her, so she was sleeping in her usual cotton pajamas. Perversely, because he hadn’t tried to have sex, she began to wonder what it would be like if they did—then suspected that he’d known that would be her reaction.
Sex wasn’t easy for her. She didn’t trust easily; she didn’t arouse easily. Voluntarily giving up her personal sense of privacy was difficult, and the payback was usually not worth the cost. She liked the feel of sex, and when she thought about it in the abstract, she wanted it. The reality, though, was that the execution didn’t live up to the expectation. Regardless of what she was doing, she seldom relaxed completely, which she thought good sex probably required.
The thing was, she was more relaxed with Dante than she’d been in a long, long time. He knew what she was, knew she was different, and he didn’t care—because he was even more different than she was. She didn’t have to hide anything with him, because she didn’t care if he liked her or not. She certainly hadn’t tried to hide her temper or sweeten her tart tongue. Likewise, she had no soft-focus ideas about his character. She knew he was ruthless, but she also knew he wasn’t mean. She knew he was autocratic, but that he tried to be considerate.
So maybe she could let herself go and really enjoy sex with him. She didn’t have to worry about his ego; if he started going too fast, she could tell him to slow down, and if he didn’t like that…tough. She wouldn’t have to worry about his pleasure; he would see to that himself.
She wondered if he took his time, or if he liked to get down to business.
She wondered how big he was.
Maybe she could relax enough to enjoy it, and even if she didn’t, at least she could satisfy her curiosity.
With a suddenness that startled her, he threw back the covers and got out of bed. “Where are you going?” she asked, surprised when he headed toward the door instead of the bathroom.
“It’s sunrise,” was all he said.
And? The sun rose every day. Did he mean he always got up at this time, even when he’d had only four hours’ sleep? Or did he have an early app
ointment?
She didn’t follow him. She had her own appointment—with the bathroom. She also wanted to give him enough time to have that first cup of coffee.
When she left her room forty-five minutes later, after having made the bed and put away her clothes, she went to the kitchen but found it empty. A pot of coffee had been made, however, and she smiled with satisfaction.
Where was he? In the shower?
She didn’t intend to stand around waiting for him to make an appearance. She was in the living room, heading toward her bedroom, when he appeared on the balcony two floors above.
“Come up here,” he called down. “I’ll be outside.”
His bedroom had a deck—or was it a balcony, too?—that faced east. She had looked at it yesterday, but hadn’t gone out, because his damn command had kept her from stepping outside. There were two comfortable-looking chairs and a small table out there, and she’d thought it must be a comfortable place to sit in the afternoon when the sun had passed its apex and that side of the house was shaded.
She went up the two flights of stairs to his bedroom. His bed, she noticed, had been stripped; that gave her a sense of satisfaction. She could see him sitting in one of the chairs outside, so she went to the open French door. Coffee cup in hand, he sat with his head tilted back a little, his eyes almost closed against the brilliance of the bright morning sun, the expression on his face almost…blissful.
“You’re handy with the salt, aren’t you?” he said neutrally, sipping the coffee, but she sensed he wasn’t angry. Of course, the coffee from the kitchen wasn’t dirt-flavored. When he made the next pot of coffee in here, he might not be as sanguine about things.
