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He kissed her because she made him feel the same way. Not like a different woman, of course, but she made him feel like the man he could be someday. The sort of man who put down roots and grew toward the light of goodness, spreading limbs, sheltering all that was important to him. He could feel himself changing... and it had nothing to do with finding his father.
More like finding himself.
As they stepped in the shower, shivering in delight at the hot water sluicing over their bodies, Leif felt sweet peace settle over him.
This was right.
Never in his life, with any of the women he'd been with, had he felt the way he felt about Abigail. And it was so odd to find this with someone like her. He'd thought she was amusing when he first met her. All prickly, picky, and exacting as she directed her committee to put this here, that there. Buttoned up Miss PTA turned out to be surprisingly sensual, delightfully witty, and utterly wicked in bed. Who woulda thunk?
"Want me to wash your back?" she asked.
"Only if I can wash your front," he said, running his hands up and down her back, loving the way her slick skin felt next to his. They fit so nicely together, her curves settling against his hard angles. Leif caught Abigail's lips and poured all those tender emotions into a kiss.
Tenderness faded as passion flared.
Abigail ended the kiss, leaning back so she could look him in the eye. "I counted on you washing my front."
Leif laughed and then picked up the handmade goat soap he'd bought in New Orleans a few week ends ago. "Whatever you want, Madam President."
Abigail smiled. "That's exactly what I like to hear."
LATER THEY LAYin the soft glow of the bedside lamp beneath the draped muslin that swathed Leif's bed. The whole room looked like it had been imported straight from Bali. The canopied bed was made of ornately carved dark wood. Sand-colored walls covered with huge canvases of swirling water and palm trees contributed to the exotic atmosphere.
"This looks like a girl bed," she said, pushing up and rolling to her side. Leif lay splendidly naked and spent.
"I like it," Leif said, fingering the airy fabric that hung beside his head. "I have a friend who makes this stuff. She suggested it for the bedroom."
"She?"
"Relax. I didn't sleep with her."
"Well, I have no right to care. You don't belong to me," she said, despite the pain flooding her heart. Leif wasn't hers. What they had between them wasn't lasting. Just mutually beneficial. The way she'd felt on that motorcycle, powerful and loved while plunging into the night, Leif's arms around her, was an illusion. Some kind of adrenaline rush. Nothing to do with her heart.
"Perhaps not, but I don't sleep with two women at the same time. Guess I'm not that modern.”
She shrugged, trying to hide her relief. She wanted him all to herself. She was selfish that way.
"You’re beautiful, you know that?" He rolled to face her, stroking a hand down her ribs to her waist.
She shook her head. “I’m passably attractive."
"What? You’re crazy. Look at the way your body slopes. Here." He traced her breast down to her nipple, which peaked at his touch.
"Is slope a kind substitution for sag?"
''No, let me show you,” he said, hopping out of bed and padding across the room toward a table that held a variety of art supplies. A work in progress that looked like a cross between a landscape and an abstract design sat on his easel, framing the backside of the man she’d just had her way with. Abigail decided she loved the view from Leif’s bed.
He returned carrying a large drawing pad and a pencil.
"What are you doing?"
“I’m showing you what I see.”
"You're going to draw a nudie pic of me?" Abigail asked, sitting up, a string of alarm unwinding. "I need to go. It's getting late."
Leif gently nudged her back. "Why?"
"Because I left the house unattended and Birdie sleeping inside."
