One Night With You

“Nobody?” She imagined that his eyebrows shot up. “I smiled.”

“Yes, you did.” She settled more comfortably in the chair. “At least once.”

Laughter rumbled out of him, and she wished she could have been with him then to see those lights dancing in his eyes. “If I had another potato,” she said, throwing prudence to the wind, “I’d ask if you wanted to share my supper.”

“What goes with the one you’ve got?”

“Steak burger seasoned with onions, egg, mustard, ketchup and Maggi sauce, fresh asparagus and a mesclun salad.”

“I’ve got an Idaho potato, if that would persuade you to follow through with that idea. And I’m pretty good at cleaning up the kitchen.”

“You wouldn’t consider scrubbing that potato before you bring it over, would you?”

“You bet. Uh…what time would you like to have the potato?”

“About a quarter of seven.”

“Great. By the way, does Her Honor drink wine with her steak burger?”

“Whenever she has it in the house.”

“See you later. And thanks, Kendra.”

She hung up and sat there for some minutes contemplating what she’d just done. For a woman who didn’t want a relationship with the man, she had all but initiated one with that invitation. Oh, I’m not going to exorcise myself about it. He’s not married, and he’s good company. Besides, he’s interested or he wouldn’t have called me. She started down to the basement for some firewood in order to build a fire in the living-room fireplace and stopped. Suppose his case came before her! She shouldn’t develop a relationship with Reid knowing that, if his plan succeeded, he’d have a case before her within the next ten months. Oh, what the heck, I can recuse myself.

She toyed with the idea of changing her clothes to look more respectable, but discarded it. She looked perfectly fine in her jeans and sweater, and if she put on anything sexy, he’d think she was coming on to him, and he’d be right. Still, she combed her hair down, put a pair of medium-sized gold hoops in her ears and set the dining-room table.

Her doorbell rang precisely at a quarter to seven and she wondered if he’d been standing at the door looking at his watch so that he could do that. She opened the door and got a sharply raised eyebrow from him.

“Hi. I’d have whistled, if I hadn’t thought it would be rude. You look…like a pretty teenager.”

“Oh. Thanks. You mean the jeans?”

His expression suggested that she was unreal. “I mean the whole package.” He handed her the potato, scrubbed and unwrapped, and a bag containing a bottle of wine. “I hope you like Ch?teauneuf du Pape.”

“I’m not an aficionado of fine wine, Reid. I go to the liquor store and ask for chardonnay if I want white or Chianti if I want red, so I’ll look forward to this one.”

“It’s smooth. I think of it as a red that suits a lady.”

“That’s the second nice compliment you’ve given me in the ten minutes you’ve been here. After the bashing my ego’s had in this town, I needed it. Now, come on in the kitchen with me and behave yourself.”

“Whatta you mean by that?”

“I mean if you keep saying such nice things, you’ll have me in such a stupor that you won’t get any dinner.”

“Now, you behave. Where do you want this potato?” She held out her hand. “Whoops!” she said when she felt the electric static that passed between them.

He stared at her, and she turned away, went to the counter and began greasing the potato with olive oil. She’d made an enormous mistake, and she had to spend the evening with it.

“What are you doing to that potato?” His voice was too close, so close that she didn’t dare turn to the left or to the right. Dear God, please don’t let him touch me.

“Just what it looks like. Here. Wrap it in a piece of paper towel and put it in that microwave oven.”

“Where’s the paper towel?”

“It’s…Oh, I don’t know.”

“Turn around here.” His hands gripped her shoulders, but they turned her gently. “Come here.”

His grayish-brown eyes had become thunderheads heralding what she knew would be a violent storm. She didn’t know what he saw in her eyes, but at that moment she wanted him. He pulled her close and lowered his head so slowly that she reached up and with her hand at his nape, guided his mouth to hers. His lips trembled as they crushed hers. His groans sent shivers throughout her body, sending her blood rushing to her vagina, exciting her, and when he rimmed the seam of her lips with his tongue, she opened her mouth and sucked him into her, pulling on him, sucking and feasting. Her nerve ends seemed afire. If only she could crawl into him. The heat in her vagina rose with the seconds, and something akin to an itch demanded friction. Oh, how she wanted him skin to skin, his chest to her breasts, and his penis buried deep inside her. She pulled his tongue and sucked it vigorously until he suddenly pushed her away.

As if he feared that he may have hurt her feelings, he brought her back to his embrace, but didn’t let his body touch hers. “I’ve been celibate for a long time, Kendra, and if anything ever happens between you and me, I want to be sure of the reason.”

She wanted to tell him that nothing would happen between them, but after what she’d felt seconds earlier in his arms, she didn’t believe it and she didn’t feel like lying.

Instead she said, “I could say the same, Reid. Take care of that potato for me, will you?” He didn’t move, so she glanced at him.

“Have I…Are you…Is everything all right with you and me?” he asked her.

She faced him. “Yes. You’re straight with me. Now we know where we stand.”

He didn’t bat an eyelash. “We always knew, Kendra. Now we have to deal with it. Is that blue thing the microwave oven?”

She couldn’t help laughing. He’d put demon desire in its proper place and expected that she would do the same. “Yes, that’s it, and I’d be happy if it was any other color.” Their simultaneous laughter cleared the air.

“You could grow on me,” he said, and turned the kitchen chair around and straddled it.

“What does that mean?”

“Come now, Kendra.”

“Reid, talking with you is like taking a true and false test. You don’t explain anything unless I pull it out of you.”

“When I was in my twenties, I didn’t appreciate your type of woman. Accomplished, cut and dried. What you see is what you get, and if you don’t like it, keep moving. You’re as straight as the crow flies and beautiful to boot.”

“And I assume that means you like women who are honest.”

A smile formed around his eyes, and she looked the other way. Did that man know how attractive he was? “Right. And beautiful. Don’t leave that out,” he said.

She liked his sense of humor, and she was beginning to like him. “How do you like your burger? Medium or well done?”

“Well done. May I watch you mix it up?”

She agreed, and he stood beside her while she added the eggs, onions and seasoning to the ground beef, made three large patties, put a small amount of oil in the frying pan and set the meat to cooking. “That’s reasonable,” he said. “You put in them what we usually put on them after they’re cooked.” She turned on the microwave oven, raised the steam level under the asparagus, took the bowl of salad out of the refrigerator and put it on the table.

“That didn’t take long, and you got everything ready at the same time. That’s a trick.”

“I did the work before you got here, but took about fifteen minutes.”