Love Overboard - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,37
fun. What do you think?”
Ivan smiled wanly. “I think it will be a pain in the butt. I spent the entire evening explaining household artifacts to Mrs. Platz. What I really wanted to do was find a dark corner and make out with you.”
Stephanie looked at him. “Do grown-ups make out?”
“Yeah. When grown-ups do it they call it foreplay. And it’s pretty hot stuff.”
“And Mrs. Platz made me miss it. Will there be another opportunity?”
His hands splayed across her back, and his mouth met hers in a slow, sensuous kiss. “You can’t escape it.” His lips moved to her temple, then her ear, and he told her some of the details of foreplay.
Stephanie got a rush that went from her heart to her doodah. He was right. It was pretty hot stuff. She rocked back on her heels when he released her. “Wow.”
“Play your cards right, and tomorrow I might tell you more. I might even demonstrate.”
“Promises, promises.”
A promise he was going to enjoy keeping. In fact, he’d like to keep it later in the night. Or even better, he’d like to keep it now. It could take months for her to really learn to love him, he reasoned. He didn’t think he could wait months. Maybe he was being greedy. Maybe he should be content with being liked a lot. She already liked him a lot. And he really shouldn’t hold off because of her virginity. That would be discrimination. He didn’t want to be accused of being a sexual bigot. He almost had himself convinced when the phone rang.
“I have to get this,” Stephanie said, moving out of his arms. “It’s probably my mother. She always waits for the rates to go down before calling.”
Her mother. It might as well have been a call from God. So much for rationalization. He waved good night and went upstairs, telling himself it was all for the best, but not quite believing it. He had payroll checks to sign and a stack of ledgers to go over. Pretty boring stuff compared to relieving Stephanie of her virginity.
Half an hour later Stephanie crept up the stairs and got undressed in the privacy of her room. She dropped a warm nightgown over her head, checked her closet, and looked under her bed before creeping under the big down quilt. The wind had picked up since the afternoon, whistling in the eaves and roaring through the oak tree just outside her window. She was glad she’d had Ivan remove the screens and put the storm windows in place. The heating bill was going to be prohibitive if they had this much wind throughout the winter.
She switched off her bedside light and was thankful for the quiet. Obviously Eileen Platz hadn’t found any dead people in her closet. There would have been a scream by now. She wondered if Lucy and Melody were having trouble sleeping. Probably not. They hadn’t seemed too upset about the corpse. Of course, they hadn’t seen him. He hadn’t crashed down onto their feet. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, but there were too many things rolling through her mind—mostly thoughts of Ivan.
She slid out of bed, temporarily giving up on sleep, and went to the window. She’d chosen this bedroom because, like the master bedroom, it was at the back of the house and overlooked the harbor. She raised the shade and pulled the sheer curtain aside. It was a dark night, but she could see the outlines of the tall ships against the black water. One of them was the Savage, she thought, feeling a surge of pride and affection.
She slumped onto the chintz-covered window seat and looked into the night with unfocused eyes. She wondered if Ivan was already asleep in the bedroom across the hall and felt a vague discontent that they were separated. They weren’t married or engaged. They weren’t even lovers. There was no justification for the loneliness and frustration she felt, but she felt it all the same. Some of it was sexual. As Ace would put it, she was a hotbed of raging hormones. Thanks to Ivan Rasmussen.
She was musing about the pleasures of love when a gust of wind shook the house, and the dead man in the gray suit swung past her window.
It happened so fast, Stephanie thought she’d imagined it. When he swung by a second time, she stifled a scream and jumped from the window seat in astonishment. It took a moment for her to gather