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Why argue? She turned and walked toward the back steps, retrieving the door key from beneath a pot of pink caladiums.
"That's not very safe."
"The alarm is set." She climbed the steps, unlocked the door, and pushed it open. The beeper went off. "See?" She punched in the code to disengage the alarm.
He reached beyond her and depressed the status button on the keypad. The LED showed that no interruptions had been made to the system since the alarm had been set. "Do all the doors and windows have contacts?"
"I think so."
"Glass breakage and motion detectors?"
"I assume. Mother is usually here by herself, so she's always cautious."
"Okay."
Berry set her handbag on the kitchen table. "Would you like some coffee?"
"Thanks, but I don't have time for it. I gotta shove off. You should get some sleep. You've had two short nights."
"I'd like to take a nap. Later I plan to go to the hospital to see Ben."
Ski's eyes narrowed fractionally.
Immediately she went on the defensive. "I haven't seen him since he was carried out of here on a gurney. Yesterday, I stayed out of his room because of the ugly scene with Amanda. But I'm entitled to go and see about my friend."
"I'm sure your friend will appreciate a visit. His wife won't."
The emphasis he'd placed on the word friend didn't escape her. "No, she probably won't. Because she, like you, can't get past the fact that I was naked when Ben was shot. In light of everything else, isn't it rather juvenile and ridiculous to be hung up on that?"
She stepped around him and headed for the door that led into the rest of the house. Over her shoulder she said, "You can see yourself out."
Before she'd taken two steps, he caught her shoulder with one hand and brought her around, pulling her against him. "I don't have a wife," he said in a low voice. "And the reason I can't get past you being naked is because I saw you naked."
Then he kissed her, hard and thoroughly, planting his tongue firmly inside her mouth. However, the kiss lasted for no more than a few seconds before it ended, and he set her away from him abruptly and decisively.
His chest inflated around a deep breath that he then expelled in a gust. His eyes skittered around the kitchen, stopping at random points before connecting with hers. Roughly, he said, "You could have the book thrown at me for that."
Berry's own breath was coming in short, insufficient gasps. She stared at him for several seconds, then reached up and linked her fingers behind his head. "To hell with the book."
She drew his head down as forcibly as he'd pulled hers to him moments earlier. She pressed her mouth against his, and, after the briefest hesitation on his part, the kiss resumed, hotter and hungrier than before. This is what they'd been moving toward. The mutual hostility had been a defense mechanism used by both in an unsuccessful attempt to deceive themselves. It had been about this from the start.
One of his arms curved around her waist while his other hand cupped her butt, and, using both, he pulled her high against him until she was on tiptoe, and he was fitted into the notch of her thighs, and, oh, my God, he was hard and solid, and it felt so good. Immediately her body grew warm and wanting, and when she inclined her hips to make the contact even more evocative, a growl vibrated from his throat.
The kiss intensified. It was that kiss you're lucky to experience once in a lifetime. That kiss that defies the rules, that banishes conscience, that is purely sexual. That kiss that makes you feel vibrantly alive and positively doomed. That I'm-going-to-die-if-I-don't-fuck-you kiss.
She thought he might.
She thought she might.
And they might have.
If they hadn't heard the car's approach.
The engine died. Doors closed. She and Ski released each other and sprang apart. She thought she probably should tug down her blouse, smooth down his hair, but there was no time because Caroline and Dodge were coming in through the back door.
Whatever Caroline was saying died on her lips as she cleared the doorway and drew up short, her eyes seesawing between Berry and Ski.
She had stopped so suddenly that Dodge ran into her back, crushing a grocery sack between them. Apparently sensing the electrically charged atmosphere, he took his turn looking back and forth between them.
