to be an obligation.
“I know I don’t have to stay, but I’d rather not have to make my way home without benefit of the subway. Do you mind if I stay until the power’s restored?”
“Not at all. I’d like for you to stay if you want to.”
He tried to lighten the moment. “Then it’s settled. You’re stuck with me until then.” Please let it be sooner than later.
Her laughter sounded more relaxed and he knew he’d done the right thing. “Okay. Looks like we’re stuck with one another.”
He wasn’t sure exactly how it happened, but in that moment...she moved...he moved...in the inky black, and his hand closed over her breast. For several stunned moments he could only stand there, his hand wrapped around her soft breast, her nipple stabbing against his palm through her shirt material.
Like a sudden summer storm, the atmosphere shifted and thickened. A sexual charge pulsed between them. For one daft moment, he could have sworn she leaned into his touch, pushed her pebbled point harder into his hand. Want slammed through him, his universe reduced to the feel of her breast in his palm, the hot desire that left him rigid. She uttered a muted, inarticulate sound. He wasn’t sure if it was a moan or a protest, but it served as a dash of cold water.
He yanked his hand away. “I’m sorry. That was an accident.”
“Of course it was.... I’m sure...you’d never...”
“How far are we from your bedroom?” he asked, his tone as tense as his body.
“Simon...”
She thought he only had to touch her breast and he was ready to throw her down and have his wicked way with her? Ready to fondle her and taste her until she was so caught up in their passion she’d forget all about the dark? Unfortunately she was right. And if she was his, he’d do just that. But she wasn’t his. “The window—that’s where the window is, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Was that relief or embarrassment or both in that single syllable? He left it alone.
They navigated the short hall to her bedroom, past the bed and over to the window. Tawny opened the curtains and raised the blinds.
The city lay shrouded in darkness, reminiscent of a well-rendered charcoal sketch, dark skies with the looming shadows of darker buildings against it. In the distance auxiliary-lit buildings stood, glowing sentinels guarding the city. Up and down the street, candles, flashlights and headlamps provided illumination.
Despite the muffled noise of people and the inevitable bleating of car horns, the darkness isolated them, stranded them on the island of her apartment, removed from the rest of civilization.
Dark clouds scudded across the sky, obliterating the bit of light the night sky might have afforded.
“A storm’s coming in,” she said.
“It looks like it. Do you have any candles?”
“No flashlight, but I have lots of candles.”
She released his hand and turned. Her bedside table stood a few feet from the window. She opened the drawer and felt around. She held up a long object. “My flamethrower.”
She flicked a long-nosed, handled lighter and lit a candle by her bed. She crossed the room, lighting two wall sconces. They flanked a painting of a semidressed woman reclining on a divan. Very sensual. Like her. Like the room.
A sleigh bed dominated the windowed wall. A comforter in an elegant paisley pattern of bold reds, cinnamon and gold lay atop it. Matching gold-fringed pillows were piled against the headboard invitingly. A mirrored dresser filled the wall space between the bedroom door and wardrobe. Tawny moved over to a large triple-wicked pillar candle on her dresser.
She turned to face him, smiling. “I told you I had plenty of candles.”
She was even more beautiful with candlelight dancing across her face, flickering over her bare shoulders, casting the valley between her breasts into a mysterious shadowy place he longed to explore. Her smile faded and the perfume of the candles wafted around them, exotic scents that conjured images of hot sex, that stripped away his reserve and left him a man who ached for the woman he wanted and couldn’t have. Her lips parted and he could have sworn he glimpsed a reciprocal heat in her eyes.
“You shouldn’t burn them all. We don’t have any idea how long the lights will be out.” Nothing like a little censure to dissipate a mood.
“I have plenty. I’ve got a thing for candles.”
“What else do you have a thing for?” he asked, his tongue moving faster under the circumstances than his internal censor. And he was