and the security pad by the door are the only modern touches. As we walk up the steps, the door silently swings open to admit us to a grand foyer with a skylight.
I give up all pretense and gawk shamelessly as he leads me into the living room. Grecian sculptures, Ming vases on columns, overstuffed furniture, painted friezes, formal family portraits, eighteenth-century paintings of country squires, Tiffany stained glass…it’s like moving through one of those living history museums.
As we walk, I keep expecting costumed docents to pop out from behind the furniture and tell us the tour’s about to start.
“Say something,” he orders me. “Ground control to Major Winona?”
“I can’t lie, I’m kind of speechless.”
I let him guide me down a hallway, which is lined with oil portraits of cranky-looking men in stiff, formal suits. Then we step into a parlor that looks more like…Blake. It’s Scandinavian in style, with an umber-brown leather sofa in an angular wooden frame, lamps in wicker baskets dangling from the ceiling, and bookshelves stacked with hardcovers featuring photography, fashion and art. A trio of framed pulp sci-fi magazine covers on the wall and shelves of tin 1950s toy rocket ships and ray guns speak to his mostly hidden nerdy side.
“Whoa. That was quite the time-travel experience.” I stick my foot back out the doorway into the hall, tapping the Oriental carpet. “Look at me! My foot just travelled back to the eighteen hundreds!”
“I know.” He smiles wryly. “Alice doesn’t love the old décor, but I did it for my father. He hated having to sell our furniture; it was humiliating. Once our debt was paid down, I bought back as many of our belongings as I could find, just on principle,” he says.
He directs me to the sofa. I settle down and sigh against its buttery softness.
“Can I get you a drink?”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
He flops down next to me and drapes an arm around my shoulders. “Do I have to go look for my trivia game? Its’s…” He waves his hand at the double-door entrance to the living room. “It’s somewhere around here. I mean, just for the sake of pretending you came over to play trivia, I could ask you some questions. What planet are the Slitheen from?”
“Roxacoricofallapatorius,” I say triumphantly.
He makes the sound of a buzzer. “Oh! So close! But no. It’s actually Raxacoricofallapatorius!”
“Just so we’re clear, you do understand this is a theoretical discussion?”
He grins at me. “I forgot to tell you that this is strip trivia.”
I burst out laughing. “And I forgot to tell you that I planned to take my clothes off anyway, so really, no need to get all tricksy.” I stand up and unbutton my silk blouse, slowly peeling it off. I fold it neatly and drop it on the sofa.
His smile fades, and he stares at me with a look of such intensity that I glance down at myself nervously.
“What?” I ask, self-conscious.
He shakes his head slowly from side to side, gaze burning with emotion. “I’ve been craving this all week long. Wanting it until I hurt,” he says huskily.
The naked need in his voice turns my knees to jello, and I sink down onto the sofa. He moves close to me, stroking my hair from my face and running his fingers through the silken strands, then buries his face in my hair and inhales.
“I just love the smell of you,” he murmurs into my hair. “Is that weird?”
“I hope so. Kind of brings you down to my level.” Heat and yearning flood my body. I’ve been fighting to deny the true depth of my craving, but his words, his touch, are undoing my defenses. When he looks at me, I’m not Weird Winona who made a homecoming dress from a thrift store table cloth. I’m beautiful, I’m funny, I’m sexy, I’m a goddess worthy of adoration.
He drops the silky locks of my hair, and I lean in to kiss him. To my shock, he moves back.
“Not until you tell me about peaches.”
Right. Like he wants that more than sex. “Very funny.” I move forward again.
In one swift motion, he captures my wrists and pins them above my head. “I’m not kidding.” And he’s not smiling.
He releases my wrists, staring at me with a burning intensity.
All it will take is one soul-melting kiss, and he’ll forget this nonsense and rip the clothes from my body. I move towards him.
He frowns, shakes his head, and slides to the end of the sofa. “I don’t want there to