him, too. Gilded his sunbrowned skin. Deepened the interesting creases in his cheeks, the smile lines around his mouth.
“How old are you?” she asked idly, reaching for the beer he held out.
“Thirty-four.” He didn’t ask her the same question. “Why?”
“You’re well preserved.” She trailed a hand over his shoulder. “I’m twenty-nine.”
“Thanks. We’re both old enough.” For what, he didn’t say. He rubbed his bare chest. “Most women don’t like telling, though.”
“Are you always this polite?”
“My mum hopes so.” Oh Lord, a chink in the walls of pleasure. His mother. He had one, maybe just like Janet. He fell onto the bed, held his beer can to one side, and lowered his head to kiss her open mouth. “But no, ma’am. I’m not that polite. Now.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” She repeated her earlier words.
He frowned. “Hey. I didn’t really think you were a working girl.”
“Yes, you did.”
He seemed to take most things literally, which Darcie tried not to mind, either. After all, she’d taken Merrick at face value. There was a lesson there but right now she wouldn’t give it any credence.
“Well, I didn’t want to think so,” he said.
“Why not? Other than the fact you don’t pay for sex?”
“I’d never pay for it. Even if I was ugly as a fence post.”
Her gaze wandered over him. “Believe me. You have nothing to worry about.”
“No worries, darling,” he corrected her. “We’re behind on our lessons here.”
“No worries.” Repeating the mantra, Darcie folded him close. Darling. “But on second thought, isn’t this subject too personal for our first date?”
“What, sex? Have another beer,” he said. “Then you won’t care.” He paused. “Is that what this is?” He glanced at the duvet, the pillows, Darcie. “A date?”
“Well. I guess not.” She murmured, “No strings.”
Warm and scented with sex, with each other, they lay close under the covers, drinking tall cans of Foster’s lager. Another, then another. Ugh. Still, beer didn’t taste so bad by the third bottle. Or was it fourth? At some point he’d called room service after they finished the minibar supply to have it restocked.
“For a woman who hates beer,” he finally said, “you’re holding your own here.”
The room spun a little. “It’s cheaper than the hard stuff.”
He kissed her again, tasting of beer and man. “You live where?”
She hadn’t told him. “New York.”
“City?”
He sounded horrified. She took another swallow. “Uh-huh. Right outside of Manhattan. You know, the island the Native Americans sold to the Dutch.”
“By yourself?”
No, with my grandmother. She couldn’t say that, either. Didn’t want him to know too much about her. Darcie pushed away the memory of home, even of Gran, who would appreciate more than anyone else this little tryst, and of course banished any thought of her mother. Tonight was tonight. Her one-time, one-night stand. Tomorrow was…
“No way. I have a roommate.”
“Male or female?”
“Uh…female.” Two actually. Eden Baxter and Sweet Baby Jane, the devil’s spawn. Nearly a week later Darcie’s punctured calf still hurt. She tried to recall her last tetanus shot but couldn’t.
He frowned again. It made him look totally endearing, even if he did show signs—serious ones—of being too much like her family. “If I was your father,” he said, proving the point, “I wouldn’t let you live in such a big city. Too dangerous.”
“Let me? You’re not my father.” Darcie ran one finger down his belly, then lower. “This is too dangerous.”
That distracted him. All over again. Just as she hoped, he reached for another packet on the night table. “What happens when I run out of condoms?”
“We’ll…renegotiate.” She took him in her hand to help. Silk and velvet, strength and vulnerability. “We’ll improvise.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
He made it sound like a question, but Darcie agreed. All she would let herself think about was this: lovemaking, long and lazy, to be relished, the likes of which she’d never known before—take that, Merrick—or perhaps ever would again. They shared the last of the beer…five, or was it six? And over and over Darcie indulged herself, her fantasies, the tug of need low inside, for the rest of the night.
In his arms, she dreaded the dawn—and ignored the first flutters of nausea.
Until a few faint fingers of light finally penetrated the wall of windows in room 3101 of the upscale Westin Sydney. Then Darcie Elizabeth Baxter startled awake, hot bile in her throat—and bolted for the bathroom.
Darcie gave one last gasp, swallowed twice, and straightened. Resting back on her heels on the marble floor, in the doorway of the toilet stall, she swiped the moistened washcloth over her face again, her parched lips, then drew long, deep breaths to steady her stomach.
There. She would live now. Worse luck.
Then she realized she was no longer alone.
Without looking up, Darcie knew he was there, leaning a strong, broad shoulder against the green frosted glass of the bathroom door—and shirtless of course. A quick glance in the vanity mirror confirmed his naked chest. Darcie shuddered while her heart did a little tap dance of appreciation. All that expanse of sunbrowned skin over sleek muscle, warm and smooth under her fingers during the only half-remembered night of casual sex and talk…the feel of the silky dark hair that swept across his breast-bone…the lure of tight, dark twin male nipples…
“Hi. How’s it going?” he said.
Deep, throaty morning voice. Hint of amusement.
“It’s not. I hope.”
He laughed, low and intimate, reminding Darcie not only of her illness—wretched, so wretched to be sick away from home, sick in a strange man’s company—well, not exactly a stranger now, she had to admit—reminding her of the intimacies they’d shared. Now this…she heard the familiar chink of a can against the gold signet ring on his little finger. Darcie’s nose wrinkled at the smell of hops, malt and yeast.
Oh God, he was drinking a beer.
“What time is it?” she said, aghast.
“Almost six.”
“Six
