“I want you to lick me all over, starting with my toes.”
The female voice was an intimate purr, coming through the slightly open door of the adjoining room.
Riveted, Joseph had stood at the edge of the sink, his swim trunks dripping water on the tiles, his hands hovering over the faucets, his skin turning hot. He’d thought he was alone in the house.
“Rake your hot tongue over my instep... move slowly upward, slowly, slow... ly to the back of my leg, behind my knee... ohhh, that feels gooood....”
Unexpected desire slammed Joseph. Outside the bathroom window he could hear the sounds of Crash’s laughter mingled with the musical cadences of his brother’s new bride as they fired up the grill.
Joseph had arrived early for the party, intent on doing a few laps in the pool before dinner. All the guests would swim later in the evening, but Joe preferred having the pool all to himself. He was as serious about swimming as he was about law. No horsing around for him, just serious laps designed to increase endurance.
“Do you feel how hot my skin is? It’s on fire. Lick it... put out the flames.”
A big drop of moisture fell into the sink, and Joe didn’t know whether it was water or sweat. He glanced at the door he’d come through, judging whether he could ease back into the bathroom and out into the hall without making any noise.
The voice seduced, carrying through the crack in the doorway as clearly as if Joe were in the room. There was no answering male voice, not even a murmur. The woman was alone.
“Ohhh, I’m so hot tonight. Slick and wet and hot. Feel that heat with your tongue.”
Caught up in her erotic images, Joe abandoned all thought of trying for escape and gave himself over to the spell cast by the mystery woman in the adjoining bedroom.
“Find the spot... ohhhh, that’s it.”
Her voice washed over him, rich, seductive, full of erotic promise.
“I want you... now... come to me...come in out of the cold... inside where it’s nice and soft and warm.”
In his mind Joe followed her instructions. Pure unadulterated pleasure jolted through him. Everything in the bathroom spun away, and Joe was inside the bedroom, inside the woman whose voice seduced him, enchanted him, bewitched him.
What did she look like? This temptress with a voice of silk and fire. This erotic enchantress. This seductress with the delightfully naughty twist of mind.
The door was open a crack. Did he dare risk a peek?
His mind reeling, his body achingly aroused, Joe craned his neck toward the crack in the door. A wisp of bright pink lay on the floor, a very small bikini swimsuit with hardly enough material for a handkerchief.
“Fool,” he told himself. “Look away.”
But he couldn’t. He saw feet, small, dainty feet with high insteps and toenails painted an outrageous purple. His gaze moved upward. There were legs, long, shapely, suntanned legs.
“Ohhh,” she said. “I want you so much....”
Her fingernails were painted the same as her toes, the purple vivid against her skin as her hands moved.
Her body was irresistible, impossibly perfect. A platoon of armed Martians couldn’t have kept Joe from wanting to see more.
He took one step toward the door... then another.
“You are sooo hard, sooo big,” she whispered.
How did she know? Now that he was standing in the crack of the door, Joe couldn’t move.
Shamelessly he took in the full length of her, spread across the bed, neck arched, hair fanning across the pillow like flame, red lips lush and pouty, pressed intimately against the telephone receiver.
Maxie Corban. Crash’s new sister-in-law. Alone in the guest bedroom, having telephone sex.
“Are you ready?” she whispered. “Don’t hold back. Now. I want it now!”
A groan escaped Joseph. And then another.
Maxie slammed down the receiver and shot straight up in bed.
Joe froze, hoping she wouldn’t see him. But her eyes were like lasers, burning holes in his.
He wished he’d gone out the other door when he’d had a chance, wished he’d been caught washing his hands, even wished he’d been caught on the toilet. Anything but this. Anything but standing in the gap of the doorway, sweat dripping off his face, his arousal evident.
“You!” she said.
She unfolded herself from the bed and stalked toward him, gloriously, magnificently naked. He didn’t even try not to look
Suddenly she realized what she was doing, and bent to retrieve her swimsuit.
If he had left then, they both might have been able to ignore the incident. They both might have pretended it had never happened.
But the lawyer in him wouldn’t let him leave. He couldn’t ignore a challenge, couldn’t quit the field without winning the battle. Or at least proving his innocence.
“Look,” he said. “This is not what it seems.”
Maxie harnessed her breasts in minuscule triangles of bright pink, then hopped around on one leg trying to get into her string bikini.
“Oh no?... Dammit.” The bikini bottoms were so tangled up, she had to start all over.
“Need any help?”
It was the wrong thing to say. If he’d been in his right mind, Joe would never have made the offer, but his right mind had vanished about the time Maxie had made her first erotic suggestion on the telephone.
“Don’t you dare!”
All her maneuvering made her bounce in exciting, enticing ways, ways guaranteed to prolong Joe’s own painfully embarrassing condition.
“Look... I’m not the kind of man who does this sort of thing,” he said.
“You stand there in the doorway watching me... watching me...”
“I think it’s called telephone sex.”
“I know what it’s called.” She finally won the battle with her clothes, and stalked toward him, hands on her hips.
“What I want to know is what were you doing?” Her eyes raked him from head to toe. “As if it weren’t perfectly obvious.”
“I was using the bathroom.”
“I can see that. Using it to spy on me and get your own jollies.”
Thankfully, her rage and his embarrassment combined to dampen Joe’s ardor. He was almost feeling back to normal.
Almost. The thought of having to sit at the table with Crash’s sister-in-law for the rest of the evening was mortifying. More than that, it was downright scary. Even now, even in the face of her fury and his acute embarrassment, he was stirred by her.
“To be perfectly blunt, I was using the toilet.”
“The toilet’s through there.” She nodded to the doorway behind him.
“I know that.” He nodded toward the sink. “I wash afterward. Don’t you?”
“What is this? A lesson in etiquette? You must have flunked the course. Polite people don’t spy.”
“The door was cracked open.”
“You didn’t have to look.”
“I couldn’t help myself.”
“Are you saying I’m at fault here?”
“You’re very compelling on the telephone.”
“I didn’t know I had an audience of two.”
“You’re also appealing in person, I might add.”
“If you’re trying to flatter me into forgiveness, it won’t work. I’ll never forgive you for spying on me like that, Joseph Patrick Beauregard. Never!”
With that parting shot, she’d stalked off and left Joseph standing in the bathroom.
He stood in the same spot now, fully clothed, eyes closed, remembering how she’d looked that fateful summer night, magnificent in her rage, the tiny bikini setting her body off to perfection.
He’d stolen something from her, something very precious. He’d taken the gift of intimacy she bestowed on another via phone and used it for himself.
And he’d never even apologized.
Each detail of that night was emblazoned in Joe’s mind. Even as he replayed it, he knew he’d missed nothing. Not once had he ever said to Maxie Corban, “I’m sorry,” not once in all those months. He’d taken the coward’s way out, avoiding her at every turn to cover his own embarrassment.
And now fate was forcing them back together, fate in the form of a nine-pound baby boy.
It was high time he cleared the air. He had to apologize.
Energized, Joe returned to his brother’s den and dashed off a note: “Sorry I had to leave. There is something very important I have to take care of.”
He propped the note on the telephone table, then riffled through the telephone book till he found Maxie’s address. Should he call first?
It would be the polite thing to do. It would also give her a chance to tell him no.
Following his second impulse of the evening, Joseph headed toward Maxwell Street. Her house was yellow. And in the driveway was her little red Volkswagen as well as a navy blue Ford sedan.
She had company. Something he hadn’t counted on.
Maybe he should leave. The clock on his dashboard said ten. It was too late to go calling anyhow, especially without an invitation.
Joseph had his hand on the ignition key when he saw her through the window, red hair shining in the lamplight, head thrown back, laughing. Suddenly everything he’d meant to say vanished from his mind. There was something about her so compelling that all he could do was sit and stare.
As he watched, another person came into view, a man, tall and handsome in a reckless, debonair sort of way. He snapped his fingers, did a quick cha-cha step, and Maxie joined in. They were beautiful dancing together, rhythmical, graceful.
The man was everything that would appeal to Maxie, everything Joe was not. He didn’t have a debonair bone in his body and couldn’t dance a step if his life depended on it.
Not that any of that mattered. He’d come to apologize to Maxie, not to woo her.
He had Susan, and she was all he needed. The sensible thing would be to drive down the street and pretend he’d never even come. After all, he would see Maxie tomorrow in his office. That would be soon enough to apologize.
He took one last glance through the window. The man swirled Maxie around the floor, then dipped low, bent over her like a lover.
Joe turned off the ignition, slammed out of the car, and barreled up the sidewalk.
As he punched the doorbell he muttered to himself, “Hell, I came to apologize. No need to turn tail and run because Fred Astaire can’t keep his hands off her.”
The door swung open and Maxie stood there, flushed and laughing. The strains of a sexy blues song drifted through the doorway.
“Good grief,” she said, sobering. “What brings you here?”
Joe craned his neck, but he couldn’t see the man she’d been dancing with. He’d probably gone to the bedroom to wait for her. Probably at this very minute he was stripping off his clothes and climbing between the covers.
At that thought every shred of good breeding deserted him.
“Do I have to tell you standing on the sidewalk, or can I come in?”
“Well, of course.”
She stood back to let him pass by. She was wearing purple shorts that showed off her legs, and a patch of sweat made her tank top stick to her body in enticing ways.
His body responded instantly. Or was it his body and his mind? He brought himself under control and followed her into the den.
It looked like something she would design, cheerful, comfortable, and zany—sedate antique rocking chairs sharing space with chairs painted purple and sporting red painted lips and gold high-heeled shoes on the front legs; marble-topped end tables vying for attention with tables painted in pink and purple polka dots; a big, plush pink sofa topped by pillows with embroidered lips and red fringe.
That’s where the man sat, on the sofa among the painted lips and red fringe.
“Joseph, this is my associate, Claude.”
“Just Claude,” he said, extending his hand, obviously amused by Joseph’s expression.
Joseph was mad at himself for being so transparent. In the courtroom he was as inscrutable as the Lincoln Memorial. Why was it that every time he got around Maxie every ounce of civilized behavior deserted him and he reverted to a primitive jungle beast?
“So,” Claude said, his smile false. “What brings you here this time of night?”
He emphasized his point by consulting his watch. Joseph rose to the challenge.
“Business,” he said, his smile equally false. “Personal.”
Maxie sat on the sofa close to Claude, too close, in Joe’s opinion, and he chose a chair directly opposite them. He always preferred looking his opponents straight in the eye. There were two chairs opposite the sofa, but he deliberately chose the purple one with the outrageous gold high-heeled shoes. Not for one minute would he want Claude to guess that he was conservative to the bone.
Besides, he was feeling a little reckless. And more than a little proud of himself. Men who were conservative to the bone didn’t pay unexpected late-night calls then sit in outrageous chairs.
Maxie looked distinctly uncomfortable. A first for her, Joe was certain. And Claude showed no intention of leaving. He leaned toward Joe, a satisfied smirk on his face.
“Earlier this evening Maxie and I were discussing the mating habits of the praying mantis,” he said.
“Claude...”
He reached over and patted her knee. “It’s one of Maxie’s favorite subjects.”
Joseph saw right through the ploy. He settled back in his chair, a sizable man who had no intention of being pushed off the turf by this suave Fred Astaire clone.
“It’s also one of mine,” Joe said. “I’m particularly intrigued by the actions of the female.” He swung his glance toward Maxie. “She devours the male.”
A pink flush started at the highest point of her cheekbones and spread all the way out to her hairline. It was the only sign that she was not in control.
Her unsettled state suited Joseph’s purposes just fine. Maxie in control was lethal.
A heavy silence descended over them, and for a while it looked as if all three of them would spend the rest of the evening sitting stiffly in their seats trying to stare each other down. Joe had already made up his mind that nobody was going to get the best of him this evening, certainly not Claude. He’d come to apologize, and apologize he would, even if he had to sit in the purple chair all night waiting for Claude to get the hint and leave.
“Is that before or after sex?” Claude said.
Joseph didn’t bat an eyelash. He merely quirked an eyebrow upward and plucked a peppermint out of the carnival glass bowl on the table beside him.
Maxie gathered force like a thundercloud. She practically shot sparks when she stood up.
“During, I think,” she said, her smile wicked.
Joe left his peppermint suspended two inches from his open mouth, and the formerly unflappable Claude flapped into silence.
“Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I’m going to the kitchen to make lemonade—to cool everybody off.”
She swept grandly from the room, leaving Joe and Claude staring at each other.
When the kitchen door had closed behind her, Joe stood up, a big man who didn’t hesitate to use his size to his advantage when the need arose. He meandered around the room, inspecting every nook and cranny, every knickknack that would give him a clue to Maxie.
“Would you stop that prowling?” Claude said.
“Do I make you nervous, Claude?”
“No, but you’re making me mad. What do you mean showing up at Maxie’s like this, unannounced?”
“It’s personal.”
“I happen to be Maxie’s best friend, and if you think I’m going to leave and let you do or say something to upset her, you’re very mistaken. I might not look like much of a man, but I’m willing to take you on.” Claude stood up, his fists doubled. “And anybody else who might harm her.”
It was then that Joseph saw Claude for what he was. He sat back down, in the rocking chair this time.
“I’ve misjudged you, Claude. Only a very good friend would be willing to duke it out with a man nearly twice his size.”
Claude sat back down, somewhat mollified.
“Look, Claude. I’m afraid we got off to a bad start. I came here on impulse, on an errand that is very important to me.”
“Maxie and I have no secrets from each other.”
“Maybe not, but what I have to say is best said without an audience.”
Claude looked as if somebody had sewed him to the sofa.
“You’re a stubborn son of a gun, aren’t you?” he said.
“So are you.”
“It looks like a stalemate.”
Though Joe rarely smoked, and used his pipe mainly as a prop, it came in handy at times when he wanted to signal to his opponents that he was in the battle for the duration. He took his time tamping in tobacco and putting a match to the bowl.
“So it does,” Joe said.
“Are you planning to smoke that odious thing?”
“Yes.”
“This is a silk shirt I’m wearing. It will smell like tobacco.”
“Probably.”
“You’re not going to leave, are you?”
“No.” Joe took a deep puff, then settled back in his chair.
Claude picked up a magazine and fanned it around. Then with a snort of disgust he stood up.
“Tell Maxie I had to go.”
“I’ll do that.”
At the door Claude made a parting shot. “If I didn’t know Maxie could hold her own against a passel of wildcats, I’d stay on that sofa, regardless of my silk shirt. If I were you, I’d be careful what I say to her.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“See that you do.”
Feeling generous at his victory, Joseph let Claude have the last word. As the door closed behind him, Joe sat back in his chair and smiled.
In the kitchen Maxie was humming.