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“Yes. I’m not exactly the world’s neatest housekeeper,” he told her, then confessed, “Actually, I’m pretty bad at it.”
She laughed, relieved. From the nature of his tone, she had been expecting him to say something so much worse. “Nice to know you’re not perfect. And that so-called vice of yours, well, it can easily be rectified with a cleaning crew coming in maybe once a month. Or maybe less,” she added.
Bowie unlocked his front door, and she walked in ahead of him. She looked around at the opened room. “Or, maybe more,” she amended.
It wasn’t the last word in cluttered, she thought, but it was definitely close to it.
Bowie had never liked the idea of a stranger pawing through his things.
“I’ll think about it,” he told her. “But right now,” he continued, closing the door behind them and then locking it. “But right now,” he repeated with renewed energy, “I’ve got something more important than a cleaning crew on my mind.”
Marlowe’s breath caught in her throat as she looked up into his eyes.
“Funny, me, too,” she told him just before she turned her mouth up to his and melted into his kiss.
The moment she did, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him again.
And again.
In absolutely no time at all, he had her blood rushing and her heart pounding, going faster than a hummingbird’s wings.
In less time than it took to think about it, Bowie was carrying her up the stairs and into his bedroom. Once there, they made slow, languid love the first time around. Then, catching their collective breath, they did it all over again, but fast
er and more intensely the second time.
Finally, when it was over, Bowie pulled himself up onto his elbow and looked at Marlowe. “You know, I think you could get to be very habit-forming.”
He said the word think, but in reality, he already knew that she was. Deep down, his cautious nature wouldn’t allow him to state the fact flatly because, more than anything, he didn’t want to set himself up for rejection just in case she didn’t feel the same way he did—or didn’t want to feel the same way that he did.
“Could get to be, huh?” Marlowe said, repeating the words he had just used.
It just proved to her what she had feared all along. That Bowie was not the type of man to commit, even though he had promised to provide for their child. She didn’t need him to provide for this baby; she could do that on her own and do it well. She didn’t need his money, and she didn’t need him, not if she had to twist his arm like this.
“Well, I wouldn’t want you to get any bad habits on my account,” she told him, her voice rising as she threw off the sheet and started to get up.
Seeing the way Marlowe had just thrown off the covers, he stared at her. “Where are you going?”
“I’m getting dressed, and then I’m going home. To my home,” she emphasized.
But Bowie caught hold of her wrist, anchoring her in place. “Hold it—did I just say something to make you do a U-turn like this?”
“No, of course not,” she answered sarcastically. “You didn’t say anything. Anything,” she emphasized with feeling.
Still holding her in place, his eyes looked into hers. “I’m sensing hostility,” he told her.
“Very perceptive of you,” she replied bitingly. “Now if you’ll just let go of my wrist, I can get dressed and leave you to whatever it is you want to be left to.”
“Marlowe, calm down,” he told her sternly. “We need to talk.”
“No, what I need to do is have my head examined for actually thinking that we—” Her phone rang just then, distracting her. “I need to have my head examined,” she repeated, upbraiding herself for being so naive and stupid.
She got no further because her phone rang again. Exasperated, Marlowe looked down at the screen. It was her mother.
Talk about bad timing, she thought.
“I have to take this,” she snapped. “It’s my mother, probably calling to make sure I haven’t been abducted again.” Blowing out a breath, she swiped her phone on and declared, “I’m fine, Mom,” before her mother could say a word.
And then she realized that her mother wasn’t able to say anything. Her usually composed parent was sobbing almost hysterically.
