He thought of it each time he saw the chart now—and for that reason, tried not to look. He appreciated Brianna’s ambivalence; he understood all too well the razor’s edge between fear and curiosity, the pull between the need to know and the fear of finding out.
Well, he could help Brianna find out. And for himself…
Roger slipped the chart into a folder, and put it in the box. He closed the top of the carton, and added an “X” of sticky tape across the flap for good measure.
“That’s that, then,” he said aloud, and left the empty room.
* * *
He stopped at the head of the stairs, taken by surprise.
Brianna had been bathing, braving the ancient geyser with its cracked enamel and rumbling flame. Now she stepped into the hall, wearing nothing but a towel.
She turned down the hall, not seeing him. Roger stood very still, listening to the thud of his heart, feeling his palm slick on the polished banister.
She was modestly covered; he had seen more of her in the halters and shorts she had worn in the summer. It was the fragility of her covering that roused him; the knowledge that he could undress her with one quick tug. That, and the knowledge that they were quite alone in the house.
Dynamite.
He took a step after her, and stopped. She had heard him; she stopped, too, but it was a long moment before she turned around. Her feet were bare, high-arched and long-toed; the slender curves of her wet footprints were dark on the worn runner that covered the floor of the hallway.
She didn’t say anything. Just looked at him straight-on, her eyes dark and slanting. She stood against the tall window at the end of the hall, her swaddled figure black against the pale gray light of the rainy day outside.
If he should touch her, he knew how she would feel. Her skin would be still hot from the bath, damp in the crevices of knee and thigh and elbow. He could smell her, the minglings of shampoo and soap and powder, the smell of her flesh masked by the ghosts of flowers.
Her footprints on the runner stretched before him, a fragile chain of footsteps linking them. He kicked off his sandals and planted a bare foot on one of the prints she had left; it was cool on his skin.
There were drops of water on her shoulders, matching the droplets on the windowpane behind her, as though she had stepped through it out of the rain. She lifted her head as he came toward her, and with a shake, let the towel wrapped round her head fall off.
The bronze snakes of her hair fell gleaming, brushed his cheek with wet. Not a Gorgon’s beauty, but a water spirit’s, changing shape from serpent-maned horse to magic woman.
“Kelpie,” he whispered against the flushed curve of her cheek. “You look like you’ve come straight out of a Highland burn.” She put her arms around his neck, let go of the towel; only the pressure of their bodies held it between them.
Her back was bare. Cold air from the window raised the hair on his forearm, even as her skin warmed his palm. He wanted at once to pull the towel about her, shelter her, cover her from the cold; at the same time, to strip both her and himself, take her heat to himself and give her his own, right there in the damp and drafty hallway.
“Steam,” he whispered. “God, you’re steaming.”
Her mouth curved against his.
“That makes two of us, and you haven’t had a bath. Roger—” Her hand was on the back of his neck, fingers cool. She opened her mouth to say something more, but he kissed her, feeling hot damp seep through the fabric of his shirt.
Her breasts rose against him and her mouth opened under his. The muffling terry cloth hid the outlines of her breasts from his hands but not his imagination; he could see them in his mind’s eye, round and smooth, with that faint, enchanting wobble of full flesh.
His hand drifted lower, grasping the swell of bare buttock. She shied, lost her balance, and the two of them collapsed awkwardly, grappling with each other in an effort to stay upright.
Roger’s knees hit the floor, and he dragged her down with him. She tilted and sprawled, landing laughing on her back.
“Hey!” She grabbed for her towel, then abandoned it as he lunged over her, kissing her again.
He’d been right about her breasts. The one under his hand was bare now, full and soft, the nipple hard in the center of his palm.
Dynamite, and the fuse was lit.
His other hand rested at the top of her thigh under the towel, close enough that he could feel the damp curls brush his finger. God, what color was it? Deep auburn, as he’d imagined? Copper and bronze, like the hair of her head?
Despite himself, his hand slid farther, dying to cup the soft slippery fullness he could sense, so close. With an effort that made him dizzy, he stopped.
Her hand was on his arm, pulling him back down.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please, I want you to.”
He felt hollow as a bell; his heartbeat echoed in head and chest and painfully hard between his legs. He closed his eyes, breathing, pressing his hands against the rough fiber of the rug, trying to erase the feel of her skin, lest he grab at her again.
“No,” he said, and his voice sounded queer, hoarse to his own ear. “No, not here, not like this.”
She was sitting up, rising out of the dark blue towel that puddled around her hips, like a mermaid from the waves. She had cooled; her flesh was pale as marble in the gray light, but goose bumps stippled the smoothness of arms and breasts and shoulders.
He touched her, rough skin and smooth, and drew his fingers over her lips, her broad mouth. The taste of her was still on his lips, clean skin and toothpaste—and a sweet, soft tongue.
“Better,” he whispered. “I want it to be better…the first time.”
They knelt staring at each other, the air between them crackling with unsaid things. The fuse was still burning, but a slow match now. Roger felt rooted to the spot; perhaps it was the Gorgon, after all.
Then the smell of scorching milk rose up the stair, and both of them started up at once.
“Something’s burning!” Brianna said, and made a dart toward the stair, her towel clumsily back in place.
He caught her by the arm as she passed him. She was cold to the touch, chilled by the drafty hallway.
“I’ll do it,” he said. “You go and get dressed.”
She shot him a quick blue glance and turned, disappearing into the spare bedroom. The door clicked shut behind her and he dashed down the hall, clattering down the stair toward the smell of disaster, feeling his palm burn where he had touched her.
* * *
Downstairs, Roger dealt with the spilled and scalded soup, berating himself. Where did he get off, lunging at her like a crazed salmon en route to the spawning grounds? Ripping off her towel and grappling her to the floor—Christ, she must think him next door to a rapist!
At the same time, the hot feeling that suffused his chest wasn’t due either to shame or to heat from the cooker. It was the latent heat from her skin, still warming him. I want you to, she’d said, and she’d meant it.
He was familiar enough with the language of the body to know desire and surrender when he touched them. But what he’d felt in that brief moment when her body came alive to his went a great deal farther. The universe had shifted, with a small, decisive click; he could still hear its echo in his bones.
He wanted her. He wanted all of her; not just bed, not just body. Everything, always. Suddenly the biblical injunction, one flesh, seemed something immediate, and very real. They’d nearly been just that, on the floor of the hallway, and stopping as he had made him feel suddenly and peculiarly vulnerable—he wasn’t a whole person any longer, but only half of something not yet made.