she felt in her icy spring swimming pool, that would come to haunt her later on.
It sobered her up. Immediately. What had been a gentle night of wicked secrets turned instantly into a cold, clammy, degrading sense of... cheapness. Of loss. What am I doing here? Was I drunk or drugged or what?
When she came to the surface she gasped in shame and turned and saw Kitty and she could tell from her shadowed gaze that she was feeling the same thing. The gritty stone on the side of the bank only added to the sense of shoddiness. She pushed her hair back away from her eyes and face, not looking at Ross, not even looking at Kitty.
I must look at him. I have to. She did.
And she cringed.
He looks like a pimp, she thought. Lounging there in those incredibly tacky tight - what are they? toreador? - pants, he looked not at all like what he had seemed. He looked more like...
How odd! He looks like an imitation of all of that!
How odd. But how degrading. She grasped the side of the pool and vaulted out of the water, shedding drops in all directions, and skipped toward the poolhouse toward warmth and composure. She wanted to try to cover herself with her hands and she started to. But then that seemed silly after all that had happened, and maybe, even rude, so her hands stopped halfway and then she saw that Ross was in front of her, between her and the poolhouse and holding up a towel.
How, she wondered, did he get all the way around the pool in front of her so fast?
He was there, though, which was the point. She didn't want to see him or talk to him or - God no! - have him touch her. But she couldn't really avoid the towel because that really would be rude. She stopped just short of him, arms clasped in front of her chest for warmth, and turned her back to allow him to drape the towel about her shoulders and... and as he draped the towel the side of his hand touched her shoulder and there was that tingle once more and the chill flashed on her skin...
And the towel seemed to... coil... about her.
Like a knowing glove.
"Davette!" he whispered.
There was no alternative but to turn and face him and when she did she faced his glowing eyes and they held her and swelled down within her and the heat, the trembling frenzy, the... wicked ache... returned.
And soon it seemed they were back inside - Kitty with them, really with them - and they were laughing and hugging as they walked on either side of him, both women naked once more.
Into the kitchen, because they were starving. For steak. A big, thick super-rare steak, that was the craving. They sat Ross at the little counter that ran the length of the great house's great kitchen while the two of them, still naked, prepared the meal.
Still naked. Bright kitchen lights and cold floor and no reason for it at all except to be... nasty and wanton and...
And as she talked to the Team she didn't describe the way the two of them, she and Kitty, danced around in front of him making that meal. How could she tell them about it... how could she ever have behaved that way? Stretching up high to reach this, reaching way across him to get that. Bending over farther than she needed to for something else... She crimsoned at just the memory of it, of how she and Kitty, carnal tension sputtering in the air, had competed to see who could act like the cheaper tramp.
No. She couldn't tell about that.
But she could tell them about the food.
"Ross never eats," Kitty said chidingly when he said he didn't want a steak.
Ross's face had gone hard and he had used that Voice when he replied that he had his own diet and the smile he gave as he spoke softened it not at all. Davette had almost jumped at the tone, had felt a brief shiver of fear.
But learned nothing. She merely resolved not to question him about so sensitive a topic again.
The erotic atmosphere had been restored to its original tightness by the time the meal was prepared. Davette sat down but knew she was far too excited to eat.
"But you must be hungry," whispered Ross, gazing deep through her eyes. "You haven't eaten in twenty-four hours. And look at that