Elise searched Sloane’s face but there were no clues there. She dropped her gaze to the ground and humiliation drained through her as she turned back to the stove. She wanted to ask him to leave, but her mouth was so dry she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to get the words out. She picked up the milk with a shaking hand and poured it into her cup. This time the whiskey flowed without prior measurement. She just poured until the cup couldn’t hold another drop, and she didn’t even bother adding honey.
“I don’t know what to say,” Sloane said from behind her.
“I got my answer. Please go.”
It took two hands to lift the cup to her mouth. Her first sip was straight Jack Daniels since she hadn’t bothered to stir the drink. It burned a fiery path down her throat and through her chest, and she swallowed convulsively to keep from coughing. She waited for the sound of Sloane’s retreat, but the house remained silent.
She felt his hand on her back, stroking her hair, and as if he’d given a signal, her eyes overflowed. Now, in addition to pleading for lovemaking from a man who obviously didn’t want her, she was crying.
“I don’t need your sympathy,” she snapped at him, her voice unsteady.
“You’ve never had it. My anger, my passion, yes, but never my sympathy.”
“If you’re not feeling sympathy, it must be pity. God, I’ve sunk so low!”
“Stop it, Elise.” Sloane’s fingers gripped her shoulders, and he shook her lightly.
“Get out of here!” Elise slammed the half-filled cup on the stove top and turned to face him. Her fists beat on Sloane’s chest. “Get out of my house!”
He stopped her assault by pulling her tightly against him and crushing her to his chest. Elise cried out, trying desperately to pull away, but he wrapped his arms around her and bent her backward, muffling her mouth against his cheek. Elise struggled, flailing her arms uselessly at her sides where Sloane had them pinned. Whatever was happening was something she had driven him to, not something he had chosen. She wanted no sacrifices, no concessions.
“Stop fighting me.” Sloane held her imprisoned as his mouth bathed her face in kisses. “Calm down and stop fighting me.”
Elise knew she was beyond self-control. She continued to struggle, hoping that he would grow tired and release her. She lifted a knee and aimed it where it would do the most good, but Sloane was too quick for her, thrusting his own leg between hers and clamping it tightly to block her. His arms tightened around her and his mouth continued to soothe her heated face. She managed to inch her hands up to his chest to push against him, but it was like pushing at a wall. She pulled at his clothes, trying ineffectually to scratch him, but her hands were too tightly pressed to his body.
Even in the hysteria that gripped her, Elise realized that Sloane was not going to release her until she stopped fighting. She continued to struggle against him, but the hopelessness of it was apparent to them both. When she was finally exhausted she relaxed against him, her tears soaking the collar of his shirt.
He held her as she cried until there were no tears left. His hands slipped under her hair and covered the length of her back, kneading and stroking it as she leaned against him, her breath coming in dry sobs until the sobs were gone, too.
“How many years have you needed to cry that way?” Sloane rested his cheek against her hair. “How many years have you needed someone to hold you while you did?”
Her anger was gone. She was empty of emotion, and Sloane’s quiet caresses had completed the purge. “Forever,” she whispered, not even sure if the words were loud enough for him to hear.
“Lise, you turn yourself inside out giving to everybody else, and you never take anything for yourself. Not even a good cry. I had to wrestle it out of you.”
She was startled at the nickname; it had been seventeen years since she had heard it.
“I’m all right now.” She pulled away and Sloane let her go. Elise turned to look for something to repair the damage to her tear-streaked face, but Sloane beat her to the sink, soaking the edge of a dish towel with cold water.
“Come here.”
She shook her head, but he ignored her, reaching out to pull her closer. Gently, beginning with her forehead, he rubbed the wet towel over her face. Elise shut her eyes, letting him do as he wished. She could imagine what she looked like, although she was much too drained to care. She could feel the rough terry cloth slide over her nose and around her eyes. He mopped at her cheeks and her chin and then started all over again.
“You can go,” she said when he seemed to have finished. She commanded her voice to be steady and rational even if inside she felt anything but. “I’m sorry I caused such a scene, but I really am all right now.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Sloane leaned back against the sink and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I was issued an invitation, and I haven’t heard a withdrawal.”
Elise hadn’t met Sloane’s gaze since she had asked him to make love to her. Now her eyes shot up to his face in surprise. “Consider it withdrawn.”
“I don’t think so.”
Elise forced a bitter laugh. “Wouldn’t that be something? You’d make love to me, and I’d be so pathetically grateful it would make you feel like God. It would be an experience to remember.”
“It will be an experience to remember.”
“Look, I don’t know what got into me to ask you such a thing, but whatever it was is gone now.”
“Is it?” He reached out, and before she could object he grasped her hand. “Funny, I want you more than I ever have.”
“You didn’t want me. You made that obvious. Do tears and tantrums turn you on?” She tried to pull her hand from his but he wouldn’t let her.
“Didn’t want you?” He laughed softly. “I can’t remember not wanting you. Are you talking about the night at the river? Didn’t I want you then? Or how about the night I came here to settle our past and you greeted me in a sheer white robe with your hair streaming down your back? Didn’t I want you then so badly that I had to get out of here before I lost whatever sense I had?”
“Sloane…”
He brought their clasped hands to her mouth to silence her. “Or tonight? Spitting at me like a drowning cat, that dress clinging to every curve of your body until my insides went liquid. Didn’t I want you then?”
She turned her head. “Don’t.”
“Is that what you really want to say, Lise?”
“I practically threw myself at your feet, and you didn’t say a word!” Elise felt a resurgence of anger, but it died quickly when she looked in Sloane’s eyes.
“I felt like someone was choking the words out of me. Here you were offering me exactly what I wanted, and I knew you were only doing it because you were so distraught. What could I say?”
“Yes.”
Sloane shook his head. “Do I want you hating me when you wake up tomorrow? You don’t give yourself to a man easily. What would it have done to you to give yourself like that?”
Was he handing her a good line or was the concern she saw in his eyes genuine? “Well, now you won’t have to worry.”
“You’re right. Because now when I make love to you, you’ll know it’s my idea, too. It’s what I want.” He pulled her inexorably closer. “Not that you’re not going to want it.”
Elise could feel her heart stop, then begin to pound so fast that the beats merged into one rolling crescendo. “No. Not like this. Not because you know it’s just something I need.”
“Have you ever known me to be charitable? I’ve never forgotten what it feels like to sink inside you and feel your life pulse around me.” He dropped her hand and dug his fingers gently into her waist, pulling her ever closer. “We owe each other this night.”
Only this night? Did she need to be loved that badly? “We don’t owe each other anything.”
“You’re right. ‘Owe’ is the wrong word. It’s not a debt; it’s a gift freely given. I give myself to you, taking what I need in return. You do the same.”
Elise reached up to touch Sloane’s cheeks. She smoothed trembling fingertips over the faint roughness of his skin and down over the luxuriant mustache. Could she let Sloane feed this ache inside her until once more she sated herself? Would one night be enough to help her get on with her life?
“Lise?”
“No one but you has ever called me that.” Elise traced the fine lines around Sloane’s eyes, her fingers memorizing the new additions to a face that was still very much the same. She stroked her thumbs over his eyelids when he closed them. His eyebrows were wiry, and she smoothed them, watching them spring back to life immediately. His hair was of a wiry texture, too. Her fingers fanned out to tangle in it. It was not quite curly, not quite straight. It had a resiliency that wouldn’t change, not even, she suspected, when the few silver strands giving it character turned to many.
It would be so easy to forget everything…
Sloane’s fingers swept up and down her spine. When the rain-cooled wind from the open back door whipped through the kitchen he opened his eyes. “You’re shivering. You need to get out of those wet clothes.”
Elise debated what to do. He was offering her solace, warmth, pleasure. She was an adult and perfectly free to take him up on his offer; she had in fact begged him for this night of lovemaking. So why the hesitancy? Why the doubts?
“I’m all right,” she said, shivering again.
“You’re asking for pneumonia.”
There was not one rational reason to say no. She needed this, and Sloane said he needed it too. They were two consenting adults who—at least on some level—cared about each other. She knew Sloane would be a magnificent lover. She had spent her whole life being afraid to take what she wanted. Tonight, just for this night, she would.
She shivered again, and then laughed a little at the warning in Sloane’s eyes. She felt suddenly much too shy just to invite him to her bedroom. And yet her decision seemed to have been made. They were going to make love. Even saying the words to herself increased the throbbing inside her. What should she do? Go upstairs and change into something dry, then come downstairs only to go back up again later with Sloane? She wasn’t very good at this. She and Sloane had only made love outdoors or in the back seat of his mother’s car. The times she had made love to Bob had been at his house when Amy was away with friends. What was the protocol?
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” Sloane said softly, as if responding to spoken words instead of thoughts. He brushed his index finger over her cheek and around her ear. “I’m going to take you upstairs and find your bathroom. Then I’m going to run a hot bath for you.”
“And then?” Her eyes focused somewhere right below his.
“And then I’m going to make love to you. And it’s going to be very slow and very gentle and very, very right.” His finger lodged beneath her chin and lifted it a little so that she was looking right at him. “For both of us.”
Elise wasn’t sure that slow and gentle was what she needed. Already she could feel her body’s response to his words. Her nipples tightened and she felt a heated rush in the very core of her. If he could do that with only a few words…
“But first I’m going to kiss you, just the way I’ve wanted to kiss you all evening.” His fingers spread into her hair, and he tugged gently at her chin until her mouth was close to his. She could feel his warm breath against her lips, then his lips hovering against hers, not quite making contact. The first brush of his mouth was so soft, she wasn’t sure it had even happened. Inadvertently she sighed, parting her lips a little as she sought more pressure.
He pulled back to slow their pace and brushed his mouth against hers again. “Do you want more?” he asked.
“You always were an awful tease.” Elise opened her eyes without moving away. “An awful tease and an awful flirt.”
“And you always were so easy to do both with. How could I help myself?”
She smiled a little, aware that Sloane’s words were having just the effect he had clearly intended. She was already less anxious. “You could do anything you wanted with me. I never knew how to stop you. I never wanted to stop you.”
Sloane bent toward her. “I was always too out of control to take it slowly for long.” This time his mouth found hers with more passion. He wet her lips with his tongue then slid it into her mouth to trace the straight line of her teeth.
Elise clung to him, parting her lips to give him easy access. Up against the full length of his body she could feel him stir to life as one kiss melted into another. Any doubts she’d had about his involvement, his desire, were put to rest. Sloane wanted her; this was not charity. Their lovemaking might be slow and gentle, but it wouldn’t be passionless.
He sucked lightly on her full bottom lip, then took it between his teeth and tugged gently. Elise could feel the tugging deep inside her as if everything was connected, one part of her a conduit of sensation for another.
“What are you smiling about?” Sloane asked, pushing away from the sink so that they were standing straight but still touching.
Elise slipped her arms around his neck and pulled his head back down to hers. “I was wondering how anyone could top the miracle of the human body.”
Sloane laughed and scooped her into his arms, swinging her feet off the ground as he did. “Even soaking wet you don’t weigh as much as you did when you were eighteen.”
“You’re just stronger.”
“Let’s go upstairs.”
He held her off the ground, walking to the steps where he set her down. Obediently Elise turned and began her climb, then returned to the bottom to grasp Sloane’s hand and pull him up with her. “After telling me we were coming up here, were you waiting for an invitation?”
“Exactly.”
She realized he’d been giving her one more chance to back out. She was surprised at his patience. Sloane had never been patient, and she was grateful for this new sensitivity. It strengthened her resolve and heightened her desire. “I only issue one invitation,” she said, her voice provocative.
“But that one wasn’t specifically for your bed.”
Elise squeezed his hand. “You’re right. I’d intended to knock you to the kitchen floor and have my way with you between the sink and the refrigerator.’’
In the second-floor hallway she paused outside the bathroom door. The idea of a hot bath was a good one, but she wondered if the time away from Sloane would give the doubts she was suppressing a chance to reassert themselves. “I’m warmer now,” she said hesitantly. “I don’t think I need a bath. I just need to get out of these clothes.”
“We’re going to do both.”
She shivered at the promise in his voice, but she pushed on. “I don’t want to leave you right now.”
“I’m not going to leave you, I’m going to get in with you.” Sloane entered the bathroom, still holding her hand. His eyes took in the old-fashioned claw-footed bathtub. “Perfect.”
Elise had to remind herself to breathe. She watched as he bent and pushed the rubber stopper into place, then turned on the water and adjusted its temperature. He straightened and faced her. Even though they weren’t touching now, Elise felt as if Sloane were stroking her body. Her hand went to the top button of the bodice of her dress and froze there. She looked down at her own long fingers wrapped around the dainty mother-of-pearl button. She couldn’t move.
Sloane’s hands covered hers. He pried her fingers from the button and unfastened it himself.
“What would your mother say if she knew what we were about to do in her bathtub?” Sloane whispered in her ear.
It was the last thing in the world Elise had expected him to say. She felt a surge of laughter start at the tips of her toes and progress up her body. She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t do anything except give in to it. How had he known that the same thought had crossed her mind?
“I’ve never even kissed a man in this house,” she told him when she could.
He unfastened the next button and caressed the newly revealed skin with his thumbs. He smiled at the noise she made deep in her throat. “I could never understand how you could be such a perfectly proper daughter and still have a streak of sensuality as deep as the Wehachee running through you.”
She trembled with anticipation as the third button was undone. She was grateful for Sloane’s conversation. He had sensed her fears, and his voice was soothing. He was talking to her like the old friend he was as he undressed her like the ex-lover he was. The combination was irresistible. She lowered her eyes and watched his hands as she answered him.
“Split personality. I learned to cut one off from the other, at least when I was around you. I never needed to do it any other time.”
He unbuttoned two more; now the dress was open down to her waist. His fingers brushed the soft skin of her stomach as he reached behind her under the dress and unhooked her bra. “Such a waste.” He stepped closer and his mouth nuzzled her neck. “All these years, when I allowed myself to think about you, I’d imagine you married to some lucky Miracle Springs businessman who didn’t deserve you. I pictured you having your mama over for Sunday dinner and running over here every night to be sure she’d taken her pills or tucked herself into bed properly. Then I pictured you going home to your husband and shedding your clothes and your inhibitions.” Reluctantly he abandoned her back and his hands came out of the dress to settle on the dainty linen collar. Slowly he pulled the fabric down over her shoulders, over her arms, until it was free to her waist. “I never thought of you alone. Why did you let that happen?”
“You spoiled me for anyone else.” Elise reached behind him and locked her fingers in his hair. “I tried. With Bob.”
Sloane snorted against her ear.
“I dated others. Every time a man would get close, I’d realize he wasn’t you.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t think that was a recommendation.”
“For a while I did. But when it got to the point where it was either full steam ahead or breaking away, I broke away. In my own naive fashion, I think I was being faithful to you.”
Sloane was shaken by her admission. His hands tightened, and he pulled her closer against him. “Lise, did you think I was coming back?”
She sighed, and her head dropped against his shoulder. “No. But I had this dream of coming after you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Elise wondered what there was about standing almost naked against a man that loosened her tongue so. “I almost did once.”
“What stopped you?” he asked harshly.
“Fear. I knew you were in college by then, at Goddard. I bought a ticket to fly to Boston. But when the time came for me to get on the plane, I couldn’t do it.” She pulled her hands from his hair and placed them lightly on his shoulders. “What would you have done if I’d showed up at your door?”
Sloane truly didn’t know. He shook his head in response.
“I knew it was too late for us,” she said, her hands falling to her side. “But I should have come anyway. Then I would have known. I could have got on with my life.”
Sloane reached around behind her to hook his fingers under the scrap of lace that had bound her breasts. The bra fell to the floor.
His eyes closed for a moment, but watching him, Elise knew it was not disappointment that held him in its grip. A curious strain seemed to settle over him. “You should have come.” He opened his eyes once more. Almost hesitantly he reached up and stroked one breast with his fingertips. Elise could feel her flesh tighten. “How can you still be so beautiful? And so responsive?” He shook his head.
Elise unhooked the black leather belt that held the dress at her waist and felt the fabric billow around her feet. She slid her fingers under the elastic of her half slip and pants as Sloane watched her, and pulled them down over her hips until they were lying with the dress. Bending slightly she rolled down the tops of her thigh-high stockings until they were off, too. She straightened to face him, her hair falling over her shoulders like a veil.
She knew she had changed. Years didn’t pass without changes. She had neither borne nor suckled children to mark her body with those wonderful signs of transition, but age had still left its imprint on her. Nothing was as firm or as smooth as it had once been. The straight planes of her body were softer now; she was rounder in the hips and thighs, her breasts no longer tilted perkily to the sky. She was thirty-five, not seventeen, but she was curiously undisturbed that Sloane would see her this way. She was still the same woman, even more of one than the teenage lover he remembered.
Sloane reached behind him to turn off the water, but his eyes never stopped traveling the length of her body. He drew a deep breath as she lifted her arms to twist her hair and sweep it into a thick knot on top of her head, fastening it with a barrette from the counter over the sink.
He stepped forward and settled his hands at her waist, then lifted her and turned to place her in the tub. She gasped as the water stung her skin, but she slid down into it and turned to watch him undress.
Elise had seen Sloane clad only in swimming trunks, and she had tried to ignore the response of her body to the firm skin and the broad expanse of his shoulders. But now there was no reason to ignore anything. She let her eyes drift slowly over each part of his body as it was revealed to her. Sloane was older too, and yet the changes in his body were good ones. He was broader, more padded, but the padding was muscle and firm, supple flesh. He was stronger, more solid. If possible he was more desirable. She felt a wave of heat at the realization.
“Feeling warmer?” Sloane asked, one corner of his mouth lifting in a smile as if he could read the response of her body in her eyes.
Elise could feel the heat travel to her cheeks and she knew she was blushing. Thirty-five and she still blushed like a virgin under his gaze. “Not warm enough,” she said, holding out her arms to him to counteract her response.
If he was surprised by her invitation, he didn’t show it. He stepped over the edge of the tub and slid into the water behind her. Then he slipped a leg around each side of her and cradled her body between his thighs. The intimacy, the sheer luxury of being surrounded by a man, by Sloane, destroyed whatever shyness she’d felt. She was too alive with feeling, too suffused with waves of desire to feel anything else. Elise leaned back against Sloane’s chest and moaned softly as his hands settled at her breasts.
“You fit my hands so perfectly. You always did,” Sloane murmured in her ear. He cupped the warm water and drizzled it slowly over her breasts, then smiled at the small noise Elise made in response. “When I was seventeen I thought that was no accident. I fantasized an understanding being somewhere in the heavens who’d created us to fit together so well.”
Elise leaned more fully against him and began to stroke the tops of his legs with her palms. The hair-roughened skin against the smoothness of her hands was a homecoming. How well she remembered this feeling. How she had longed for the special freedom of exploring a man, knowing every inch of his body intimately. Even as she thought the words, she knew it was not just any man she had longed for. Only this one.
The tips of her fingers sank lower in the water to discover the sleek softness of his inner thighs. His response was immediate.
Sloane’s hands tightened on her breasts and his thumbs brushed against her nipples. Elise’s breath caught in her throat.
She felt Sloane’s lips against her shoulder. Slowly he nuzzled his way up to her ear. His teeth caught her earlobe and tugged lightly on it. Then his tongue traced the graceful whorls, dipping inside to send sparks through a body that was already on fire.
As he played with her ear, his hands slid lower, skimming the taut satin skin of her abdomen to rest at the juncture of her legs.
It was only then that Elise realized how great her need. She caught her breath and held it, fighting back the instant response to his touch. Her hunger embarrassed her, humiliated her. What would Sloane think? They’d only just begun.
She turned a little so that her side was against him and she could see his face. She felt she had to explain, to apologize. “Do you know what this is doing to me?”
Sloane nodded his head in response.
She was ashamed, ashamed that she had let her own needs build until they were driving her to rush something she’d wanted for years. “I feel like I’m coming apart inside,” she mourned.
“That’s what it’s supposed to feel like.” He bent his head and found her lips, turning her around with his hands at her waist until she was lying across him, her breasts rubbing against his chest. “Has it been that long, Lise?”
“Too long. God, much too long.”
There was no more reason to talk, to rehash a past that had cheated them both. They were starved for each other. She tried to know each inch of his body. She wanted to remember it all, to be able to pull out and cherish the sensation of his skin against her fingers, her lips, her breasts. Frantically she drove herself to make memories. If this was to be a reprieve from loneliness, let it be complete. Let it be a moment caught in time.
Sloane’s response was immediate, although he held back. “Lise, I want to be gentle,” he said finally. “If it’s been such a long time for you it might hurt …” He tried to push her away, to slow down the passion that had ignited so fully.
Elise ignored him, seeking the evidence of his desire. She’d done little to excite him directly, yet he was completely ready for her, hot and hard and more than willing. She couldn’t believe he really wanted to wait. Grasping him with her fingers she lowered herself over him, bringing him home where he belonged. Her cry was exultant. Sloane was truly hers once more.
He shut his eyes and clasped her against his chest. He could feel the shudders run through her body. He knew it would take very little to turn them into full-blown quakes. “We never had any control,” he apologized as she moved against him again.
“I don’t need control. I need you.” The ecstasy she felt was so overwhelming that it surprised even her. Her body, set free to pursue its goal of pleasure, ignored all the warning signals from her brain. It carried her along like the tumult of a rising river, and she could only go with it. Each time she moved, each time Sloane moved, she experienced such an agony of sensation that she knew she was going to explode.
Yet she didn’t. Sloane was holding back as if he were afraid his own passion would hurt her. He had promised her slow and gentle lovemaking. He seemed determined to uphold that promise no matter what it cost him.
“Don’t you want me?” she asked him finally, her words as heated as the sensations flooding her. “Have you forgotten what it’s like to want me?”
His control slipped. His fingers dug into her and he turned her slightly so that he could plunge deeper into her flesh. “I never forgot. Never.”
She gasped and felt herself spinning away from him even as he held her closer. He thrust once more and she came apart against him, crying out his name. He thrust once more and joined her.
Afterward they lay in the cooling bath, their breath mingled and slower. Elise rubbed her hand over Sloane’s chest to spread the beaded droplets of water and watch them condense. She was strangely embarrassed to meet his eyes. She had orchestrated this, rushed them to a conclusion that should have taken much longer. But she had wanted him so badly. And that need and desire had been clearly communicated.
“Let’s get out of here before you get chilled again,” Sloane said finally. He sat up straighter, bringing her with him. Elise pushed away to stand and step out of the tub. She was numb with uncertainty. Did she dress again? Did he? She turned to see if she could read an answer in his eyes. She saw in them a duplication of her own doubts.
She turned and took a bath towel off the rack on the door and began to dry herself, carefully avoiding any more direct glances at Sloane. She wanted only to maintain whatever dignity was left. She heard Sloane get out of the tub and then felt him tug the towel from her fingers. He dried her, using long, gentle strokes. Then he unpinned her hair and used the towel to blot the moisture from the long strands. When he was finished, he dried himself, then lifted her chin and forced her eyes to his.
“I don’t know what to do,” he told her. “I want to stay the night. Will you let me?”
Elise wondered if she had misread his feelings. Or perhaps she hadn’t, and he was being kind. She had certainly made her needs clear enough. They were needs most men would be glad to oblige for a night, Sloane included.
“What do you want, Sloane?”
“This night. With you,” he said, stroking the soft skin under her chin.
Elise knew a clearer statement of his intentions would never be issued. He would give her this night, even enjoy the giving, but he was warning her it was all she could expect, no matter how powerful her own needs. It was what she had known all along and what she had feared.
“Lise?”
“What about Clay?” she hedged.
“Clay’s staying at Aunt Lillian’s for the night because I have to get up early tomorrow and head to Gainesville. No one will know if I spend the night here.”
“That’s not exactly true, not with your car parked outside. The whole town will know.”
Sloane stiffened and drew away. “That would be a problem, wouldn’t it?”
It would be a problem. Affairs in a small town were grist for the gossip mill. Elise could imagine the speculations of her neighbors. They would know just exactly what she had given Sloane. They would also know how little it had mattered to him when his car never appeared in front of her house again.
“I have to live here,” she countered quietly. “What people think matters to me.”
“How about what I think?”
Elise lowered her eyes. “I know what you think.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The humiliation she had successfully suppressed came rising to the surface. “I threw myself at you tonight. Completely. I imagine it was flattering and scary as hell at the same time. But you don’t have to be scared, Sloane. I know what tonight was, and I know what it wasn’t. I just don’t want the whole population of Miracle Springs to know the same things.”
“What do you mean, what it was and what it wasn’t? It hasn’t had time to be anything compared to what it could be.”
“Tonight was a one-night stand. I’d rather not share that piece of news.”
“Fine.” Sloane reached for his clothes and began to dress. “In other words, now that I’ve served my purpose, I can get the hell out of your house before your neighbors begin to speculate that you’re really flesh and blood.”
She wanted to protest, but Sloane was turning toward the door, one hand buttoning his shirt as he did. “I won’t be back,” he said, “even if you get all charged up again and invite me. I won’t be used to relieve your sexual discomfort. I thought we could have something different, but I was a fool. You’re no different than you ever were. You put everybody else’s needs and opinions before your own because then you don’t have to make decisions. You’re a coward, plain and simple.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, suddenly afraid that she had misjudged him. “Tell me what you mean!”
“Figure it out by yourself. I’ve got to go move my car!” Sloane slammed the bathroom door and the explosion resounded through the silent house. Elise leaned against the sink with her eyes closed and listened to the angry sound of his retreating footsteps.