body, and started up the stairs.
“Still trying to save the universe, I see,” he said. “You always were a sucker for lost causes.”
El shot a cool glance back over her shoulder. “Not at all. I’m very practical now. Not nearly as sentimental as I used to be.” She took an audible breath, huffed it out, and launched into her hostess routine.
“The front bedrooms look out over the river, but your room is the only bedroom that also has a good view of Mount Hood…” Her voice was brisk and practiced. He let his attention drift, his gaze wandering down her heavy cascade of wavy, sun-streaked bronze hair. The curling wisps that kissed the top of her ass were bleached to silver-gilt.
“—and this is the library, as you can see. Lots of books and magazines for browsing, but we ask, as a courtesy to other guests, that this be a quiet room. If you wish to converse, there’s the sunroom, the salon, the dining room, the parlor, and the porch.”
“It’s going to feel strange to put my feet up and read a newspaper in Frank Kent’s inner sanctum,” Simon remarked.
El paused at the door that led up to the tower room. “I’m sure he wouldn’t begrudge you the pleasure,” she said. “He died six years ago.”
Simon cursed himself silently. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “Up these stairs is the—”
“I’ve been here before, remember? Please, El, would you relax?”
She continued as if he hadn’t spoken, her voice tightly controlled. “Here is the tower room. I’m afraid that the room wasn’t large enough for a queen-sized bed—” she unlocked the door and pushed it open, “—so I hope a full size will do.” She gestured for him to enter.
Simon looked around, disoriented. Gone was the twin bed with the ruffled pink-and-white spread, the white vanity piled high with books, the poster of the sultry-eyed maiden riding a unicorn.
Now the room was pretty, tasteful, neutral. An old-fashioned four-poster was covered by a colorful quilt. The wallpaper was a delicate, understated floral pattern. There was a washstand, a cheval mirror, a wooden bureau, a braided rag rug.
He felt bereft. “It’s not you anymore.”
“I took the master bedroom suite for myself when I remodeled.”
“I see.” He stared forlornly out the window at the oak tree. At least that was more or less the same. Just bigger.
“The bathroom is right at the foot of the stairs,” she informed him. “I’ll make sure that Missy left you fresh towels and washcloths, and—”
“Stop it!” His voice came out harsher than he’d intended, and she flinched. He stopped, and sought to put his lost, groping feeling into words. “We were friends,” he said helplessly. “Don’t freeze me out. Can’t we pick up where we left off?”
El let her hair fall forward to veil her face. “Do you remember where we were when we left off, Simon?”
Hell, yeah. Fire and smoke. Adrenaline racing through his body, screams of terrified horses echoing in his head. The slender girl twining herself around him, the bewildering flare of heat and need. Like he could ever forget. He cleared his throat carefully. “I remember.”
El backed towards the door. “Then you understand why we can’t pick up, just like that. Look, it’s almost teatime, and I have to—”
“El, please don’t,” he persisted.
“—to get things organized. Missy can’t manage alone. If you like, you can join us all for coffee, tea and scones in a half hour in the dining room.” She hesitated, her eyes brimming with emotion, and shook her head, dismissing it, and him. Her hair swirled as she spun around.
The door clicked shut. Light footsteps tapped down the stairs, pausing to make sure that his bathroom had towels and washcloths. Ever the perfect hostess. Her quick, light footsteps faded.
Simon wrenched off his boots and flung himself onto the bed. He bounced on the orthopedic mattress. Just like the Kents. Nothing but the best. He’d surprised himself as much as her by the impulse to stay here. For the first time, he realized that the harm he could do here in LaRue might not only be to himself. And he was unprepared for how outrageously pretty she was. That was unfair. A dirty, nasty trick.
El had been so good to him. He’d launched himself into the world with nothing but her pillowcase of food and money to sustain him. She’d become a symbol of home and safety in his mind, but it wasn’t fair to think of El that way. She’d just been a needy, affectionate kid.
A total sweetheart. And he’d taken advantage of that sweetness. He’d nailed her the night that he left, right in her mother’s flowerbed.
He’d had lots of sex since then, but even the very hottest of it—and some of it had been very, very hot—hadn’t come close to the emotional intensity of that fumbling explosion in the flowers with El.
Simon closed his eyes, and rolled onto his belly. He was an opportunistic prick, in the privacy of his own dirty mind. He had no business in the Kent mansion, having erotic fantasies about the golden princess. Domestic bliss looked warm and cuddly from the outside, but it was beyond his reach. He knew exactly how that script would play.
It started out small, breaking eggs and smashing teacups. It got progressively worse from there. Once El figured out that he was more trouble than he was worth, he’d be out on his ass.
He preferred to spare himself that humiliation from the get-go.
He was always up front with the women he slept with that commitment was not part of the deal. He tried to make it up to them by satisfying them sexually. That, at least, was something he could be generous with. It was an art, to please a woman in bed, and he’d dedicated himself to it with all of his considerable intensity.
But a woman like El would never be satisfied until a man was on his knees in front of her, promising her the moon.
Dealing with what had happened to Gus was going to hurt like hell. It wouldn’t be right to use El to comfort and distract himself knowing he was just going to leave again. He’d wronged her that way once already, and she was still pissed about it.
Women like her weren’t for men like him. Guaranteed disaster.
Ironic. It made him laugh, but the sound was dry and bitter. He was so out of place in this prim room. This was a room for old-fashioned, well-bred, proper sex. Not that he’d ever actually had any sex like that, but his dirty mind was up to anything. Four-poster bed, fine linen sheets, big puffy pillows, classy woman? He could see it.
He’d be on top of her, of course. Missionary position. Lights off, moonlight streaming through the window. Their bodies would be discreetly draped by the quilt as he moved inside her. Embracing her tenderly. Gazing respectfully into her eyes. Dignified, proper, decorous.
Whoops. Oh, man. The joke was on him. His dick was so hard, he had to roll onto his side to give it some space. He knew exactly how her slender body would feel naked beneath him, taking him inside her, deep and slick and yielding. He would kiss her as he fucked her, deep, hungry kisses. He would suckle her breasts while she struggled towards
