know that.” His finger continued its path, tracing her lips, trailing down her throat.
She gulped. “You do?”
He nodded slowly. “You’re easy to read, Maria McPherson. You were an obedient child, and now you’re a careful woman. You don’t entice men, intentionally that is. In fact—”
He studied her face thoughtfully, then ran an experimental hand around behind her neck and brought his fingers up through the strands of her hair at her nape. The sensation was electric. She shivered deliciously.
“In fact, I wonder if you’ve not been too careful.”
“In, ah…in what way?” she asked breathlessly.
“In the way of totally avoiding satisfaction. By running from the joy of sharing yourself with a man.”
He was asking if she was a virgin. “This is getting way…way too personal,” she stammered.
He smiled apologetically but didn’t remove his hand. It felt pleasantly rough, not what she’d expected of gentry, if he was that. His fingers tangled playfully in her blond waves.
“Only an observation. I’m fascinated by your decision. If you elect to wait for your life mate, that is an honorable choice—one which any man should respect. I only wonder that a lovely woman like you shouldn’t be more eager to experiment a little.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t curious,” Maria blurted out, then realized she had made a tactical error in this matching of wits.
She suddenly wondered where the driver had gone. He was no longer in the front seat, but he didn’t seem to be waiting outside her door either.
“I mean, of course, anyone is curious about something they’ve never tried, something everyone talks about and requires at least one scene in every movie you see. That would be natural.”
“Of course,” he said. “Natural.” There, again, was that enigma of a smile. He didn’t insist upon an explanation, but she felt compelled to give one.
“Listen, my not wanting to have sex with you, a stranger, if that’s what you’re hinting at, has nothing to do with how attractive you are. Believe me, if I were to choose a man on looks alone, he’d be someone like you. On top of that, you have great manners and that super accent, and you’re fun to be around.”
“But you wouldn’t sleep with me?” He was teasing her, yet he was also serious. She could see mixed motives in the dark glitter of his oh-so-blue eyes.
“No!” she gasped. “I don’t even know you, Antonio. For goodness’ sakes, you could be married!”
“I’ve been honest, I told you my name and where I’m from. Now I add that I’m not married. Dio! I can see you still don’t fully believe me.” He sounded honestly frustrated. “How can we get to know each other? You tell me.”
She let out a long, weary breath. After all, she didn’t want to hurt the man’s feelings. “Listen, come upstairs for a cup of coffee. I think I have a pound cake in the freezer. But this is just a way for us to talk, okay? I’m not luring you up to my apartment to have my way with you.”
“Certainly not,” he said, agreeably.
“Or to let you have your way with me,” she added, just to make things perfectly clear.
But she feared all her warnings were doing no good. The dangerous twinkle in his eyes worried her. On the other hand, she’d already decided he wasn’t a threat. And even if he were, the walls of her apartment were onion-skin thin. One scream would bring three sets of neighbors running to her aid with the police soon to follow. Neighbors looked after each other in Bethesda.
She opened the door that led straight into her living room and turned, by habit, to lock the door behind them. Almost at once, she felt Antonio move up close behind her. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck, warm, inviting her to turn to face him.
If she didn’t take evasive action, he’d kiss her again. She stepped to one side, ducked, maneuvered around him and aimed for her kitchen.
He didn’t follow her, as she feared he might. Instead, he strolled around her little apartment checking out her knickknacks—her collection of seashells, her dainty demitasse cups and saucers displayed on their own cherry wood wall rack—while she made coffee and nuked a Sara Lee.
Finally, they sat on her couch and sipped and nibbled in electric silence. She thought she could hear her own heartbeat drumming in her ears. Her palms were moist and hot.
It was she, despite all common sense, who returned to their earlier conversation. “It’s just that I believe sex to be only one factor in a complex relationship that develops, over time, into marriage. My mother had me when she was very young. She never went to college because of me. Her whole life was different than it might have been because I came along, because my father disappeared when she told him she was pregnant.”
“And she supported both herself and you on her own?” he asked.
“Yes. It must have been terribly hard for her. I just don’t want it to be like that for me, raising a child alone. I want a husband first, then children. Everything in its proper order, you see?”
He took a bite of cake then nodded thoughtfully. “I understand.”
“But, you’re right, a person can’t help being curious. I mean, at work every day, people tell jokes then look at me to see if I get them. They know, I guess, that I’m sort of…inexperienced, and it amuses them.”
“You’re charming,” Antonio murmured, a smile lifting the corners of his lips.
“And you have a one-track mind.” She rolled her eyes then laughed at his hurt expression.
He put his plate on the coffee table and leaned toward her, his wide hands braced on his knees. “I’m not as obsessed with sex as you imagine. I just haven’t had much time or desire to be with a pretty woman, not for several years now.”
She pinched off a morsel of cake to plop into her mouth. He certainly was an unusual man. Not at all easy to figure out. No woman in years?
“Are you telling me you’re no longer just trying to make up for what your former employee did? The time you’re spending with me now is personal?”
“It always was.” Before she could figure out what that was supposed to mean, he looked away from her so that she couldn’t read his expression. “Tell me, what will happen when you return to work?”
Maria grimaced. “Oh, they’ll bombard me with questions. They’ll demand to know everywhere we went and everything we did.”
“And you will say?”
“I’ll tell them about the restaurant and the lovely meal, about the clothes and seeing the beautiful ceramics.”
“But they will pester you for more, for they’ll want to hear what occurred later.”
“Yes, I suppose they will.” The thought made her uncomfortable even now. “But I’ll tell them nothing happened.”
