Come Lie With Me - Linda Howard [58]
“I’m not playing,” he murmured. His fingers circled higher.
Desperately Dione released the wheel and grabbed his wrist with both hands. The car veered sideways, and with a curse he finally moved his hand, grabbing the steering wheel and bringing the car back under control. “Maybe I’d better start driving now,” he panted.
“You’re going to be walking to Serena’s!” she yelled, her face scarlet.
He threw his head back and laughed. “You don’t know how good that sounds, lady! It would take me a while, but I could do it! God, I feel like a human being again!”
Abruptly she realized that his spirits were sky-high, the natural result of his victory and the experience of being away from the house. He was delirious with pleasure, drunk on his newfound freedom from the prison of his own body. Still, she was driving, and she was afraid that he was going to make her run into something.
“I mean it, stop fooling around!” she said sharply.
He gave her a lazy smile, a heart-stopping smile. “Lady, if I decided to fool around, you’d be the first to know.”
“Why don’t you go back to work tomorrow?” she demanded in sudden exasperation.
“We’re closed for the holidays. I wouldn’t have anything to do.”
“I’m going to give you something to do,” she muttered.
“Like what?”
“Picking your teeth up off the pavement,” she said.
He threw his hands up in mock alarm. “All right, all right! I’ll be good. Next thing I know, you’ll be sending me to bed without my supper. I wouldn’t really mind, though, because you always come to tuck me in, and I get to watch you running around in those thin nightgowns of yours that you think are so modest…. Serena’s house is the solar redwood and rock one.’
He threw in the last sentence just as she opened her mouth to blast him again, and she maneuvered the Audi up the steep drive to where the house nestled against the mountain. By the time she’d gotten out of the car and gone around to help Blake wrestle with the walker, Serena and Richard had come out to greet them.
The steps were a problem for Blake, but he mastered them. Serena watched, an anxious look on her face, but she didn’t run to help him. Instead she stayed firmly by Richard’s side, her arm looped through his. Dione remained a step behind Blake, not out of servitude but to catch him in case he started to tumble. He looked over his shoulder at her and grinned. “Not bad, huh?”
“A regular goat,” she replied, and only he caught her hidden meaning.
He gave her another of his breathtaking smiles. “Don’t you mean mountain goat?”
She shrugged. “A goat is a goat is a goat.”
His eyes promised retribution, but she felt safe from him for the time being. If he started anything on the drive back home, she’d get out and walk!
The traditional dinner had all of them groaning before it was over. Blake and Richard then retired to talk business, and Dione helped Serena clear the table. Serena had a cook, but she told Dione that everything had been prepared the day before and she’d given the cook the rest of the week off. “I don’t mind being alone in the house with Richard,” she said, laughing a little.
“Is Operation Manhunt going well?” asked Dione.
“At times.” Serena laughed. “Sometimes I…ah…undermine his resistance. Then he’ll freeze up on me again. But I think I’m winning the battle. He noticed that I’ve stopped going to Blake’s every day.”
“Did he ask you about it?”
“Richard? Not a chance! But he calls me almost every afternoon about some little something, as if he’s checking on me.”
They traded a few comments on the mule-headedness of men in general and finished cleaning the kitchen. When they finally emerged they discovered that the men were still deep in conversation about the company, with Richard going over some sort of electronic blueprint with Blake. Dione looked at Serena, and they both shrugged. Kicking off their shoes, they sat down, and Serena used the remote control to turn on the television set, which revealed two football teams tearing into each other.
Within ten minutes the men had left their technical conversation