Sandra Brown: Low Pressure

He obviously regarded this as a business meeting.

She took a deep breath and opened the door. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

He came into the suite and, standing in the center of the parlor, slid his hands into the back pocket of his jeans and took a look around. Finally he came around to her. She said, “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

“I still need the charters.”

“You didn’t take the job with the senator?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“How’s it working out?”

“Okay. I’ve flown him back and forth between here and his ranch. Easy breezy. Less than an hour with a tailwind. On Saturday, I ran him and his wife down to Galveston to meet some friends for dinner. Was home by one a.m.”

“So it’s going well.”

“It’s only been a week, but so far so good.”

“I’m glad. Meanwhile, how are the repairs on your airplane coming?”

“That’s why I need the charters. My deductible is high. Even with Gall doing the labor, replacement parts are expensive.”

They were killing time, avoiding what they really needed to talk about, and both were aware of it. Her heart was about to burst out of her chest. She gestured to an armchair. “Sit down. Can I get you something to drink from the mini-bar?”

“No, I’m good, thanks.”

He took the chair. She sat down on the sofa. He looked around, noticing how lived-in the room was.

“You’ve been here all week?”

“Yes, since you dropped me off.”

Her long conversation with Van Durbin had moved from the street outside the mansion to an all-night diner. When it had finally concluded in the wee hours, she’d asked Dent to take her to the hotel. He had, without argument or comment. He’d given her a good-night hug but hadn’t offered or asked to stay with her.

She hadn’t heard from him again until she’d worked up the courage to call him an hour ago.

“After Olivia… I didn’t want to stay in my parents’ house.”

“Understandable.”

“It was hard enough for Steven and me to go through it, room by room, seeing what we wanted to keep. He took some of Olivia’s things. I kept some of Daddy’s which held special memories for me. Everything else, even Olivia’s jewelry, has been turned over to an estate liquidator. Steven and I agreed to donate all the proceeds of that sale to a homeless shelter. We’ll sell the property.”

“Are you sure you want to do that? It’s been in your family forever.”

“It holds as many painful memories for us as good ones.”

“What about the Georgetown house?”

She hugged herself. “Knowing that Ray Strickland had been inside it, lurking in my closet, handling my things—I could never spend another night there, so I bought out my lease. I’d rented it furnished. It’s fortunate that I never completely unpacked my personal belongings.”

“So that leaves New York. When do you go back?”

That he could ask so dispassionately was crushing, but she kept her voice level. “Actually, I haven’t decided where I want to light. My apartment up there isn’t really my home . It’s a solid investment. I’ll keep it as a pied-à-terre, but—”

“A pita what?”

She smiled. “A place to stay when I have to go to New York for business.”

“You’re gonna keep writing?”

“Strictly fiction next time,” she said ruefully. “But I can write anywhere.”

“Is that why you called me? You want me to fly you around till you see someplace you like?”

“No,” she said slowly, “I called you because it appeared that you were never going to call me. I figured that if I ever wanted to see you again, I’d have to invent a reason.”

He shifted his weight in his chair. He propped one foot on his opposite knee, then immediately returned it to the floor. He ran his hand over the length of his necktie as though smoothing it down, although it didn’t need to be.

Reading the signs of his unease, she asked, “Is this where you’ll say all the things that guys say when they don’t really mean them?”

“No.”

“You came on strong until I shared your bed, Dent. You broke down barriers that no other man had been able to break down. Was winning that prize all it meant to you? Were my orgasms trophies?”

“Jesus,” he said, shaking his head. “No.”

She continued looking at him and then raised her shoulders, silently asking, Then, what ?

He fidgeted some more and finally said, “I don’t know how to do this.”

“Don’t know how to do what, exactly?”

“Be a… a half of something. A partner, or boyfriend, or significant other, or whatever you want to call it. And that’s presumptuous for me even to say, because that might not be at all what you have in mind for me. Us.

“But, if it is, I’m telling you, fair and square, that I’ll probably suck at it. And I’d hate that. Because I wouldn’t want to be the asshole who hurt you. Again. More than you’ve already been hurt. You deserve to be happy.”

“Would you be happy?”

“If what?”

“If you were a half of something, a partner, boyfriend, significant other, or whatever.”

“With you?”

She nodded.

“I don’t know how to answer because I’ve never done it. All I know is that when I left you here last week, and it looked like everything was going to work out okay, I thought the best thing I could do for you was to back off and let you get on with your life. Swear to God, it was a sacrifice because I still wanted to be all over you. And I could have been. And I knew it. But I didn’t think it would be the best thing for you. So I left, thinking, ‘Well, take a bow, Saint Dent. You’ve done a good deed.’ I’ve never felt that good about a decision. Or that lousy.”

He left the chair and went to stand at the window that afforded a view of the hotel’s landscaped gardens and the river beyond. “I’ve thought about you every freakin’ minute. My apartment was crap before, but I really can’t stand it now, because everywhere I look, I see you. It’s gotten so bad I’ve spent the last two nights in the hangar. Gall isn’t speaking to me.”

“Because you slept in the hangar?”

“Because I’m too stupid to live.”

“He said that?”

“He did. He, uh…” It was several moments before he came around slowly to face her. “He said falling in love would make a person stupid. But I, being me, had taken stupid to a new level and let you go.”

Her eyes went misty. “You don’t want to have Gall mad at you.”

Later, they argued over who moved first, but the important thing was that they came together in an embrace that fused their bodies and mouths. Eager hands opened articles of clothing, but when he pressed her up against the window, she appealed to his reason and said that anyone on the hotel grounds could see them, and he asked, “Who cares?” and when she said she did, he pulled her to the floor, where her few remaining inhibitions were stripped away as swiftly as the rest of their clothes.

Eventually they moved to the bedroom, where they made excellent use of the king-size bed, then lolled, temporarily replete, stroking each other.

“That morning,” he said. “When you came out of the bathroom, just out of the shower, wearing my shirt.”

“Hmm. You looked at me funny.”

“Well I was feeling funny.”

“Why?”

He rubbed his lips against her temple, started to speak, then paused before saying, “I was about to say that that was the first time I’d ever been glad to see a woman on the morning after. But it was more than that. I also realized how much I’d miss waking up with you if you weren’t there.”

She closed her eyes against the emotion welling up in them. “I don’t know where it will go, Dent, or what will happen,” she whispered against his throat. “I only know I want to be with you like this as often as I can be, for as long as I can be.”