My House Or Yours?

He grinned from ear to ear and said, “There’s my Jo. I thought I’d lost her, you’ve been so polite.”

She’d been rude? She frowned and considered. “When haven’t I been polite?”

“I haven’t had tabs on you in much too long,” he informed her as if she hadn’t realized such a simple fact. “Do you know I dream about you? Hot dreams.” He scowled at her. “Are you living with somebody else?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, I’d hate for some irritated guy to come bursting into our room and act upset.”

Her “lover” would…act…upset if he found her with another man? “Is that how you would have been? If I’d had an affair, would you have been.upset?”

Mildly he replied, “I’d have ripped out his jugular vein, unkindly.”

“Is there a kind way?” She looked at him in shock.

“Not where you’re concerned.”

She was indignant. “We’re divorced!”

“I’ve missed you.”

Exasperated, she demanded, “When did you have the time to notice I was gone? How long was it before you realized I wasn’t around anymore? You ran out of dishes or shirts? What caught your attention?”

“Every damned empty day.” He looked up from the registry and added, “Every lousy, empty night.”

“It’s been almost four years.”

“It’s not yet four but it seems like twenty-five.”

“I don’t believe this.”

And he had the gall to inquire, “Why haven’t you found another husband?”

“How do you know I haven’t?”

“No ring.”

Along with supercilious eyebrows, she lifted her hand. “I always remove it when I travel. Don’t you?”

He went back to filling out the hotel information. But he said, “I’ve looked around, but nobody else is you.”

His eyes were on the page he was filling out. He had marvelous eyelashes. She couldn’t believe he’d actually said the words, that, instead, she’d heard what she wanted him to say.

He finished writing and handed the page to the person at the registration desk. “Two keys.”

“Yes, sir.” And she handed him the keys.

He picked up his bags and said, “I talk to your father and he has told me you are not married.”

“Mistakenly told you? I wonder why he lied. He probably felt you would be upset.”

“I’m never upset.” Chad was firm. “I can handle most things. You being away so long has bothered me.”

“It’s taken you almost four years to notice? You probably saw me in the air terminal and thought I looked familiar. Then you’d searched your mind as to which of your classes I’d been in. And finding I wasn’t a student, you sorted me out.”

“Come back to Indy with me.” He punched the button for the elevator. Then he stood and looked at her as the elevator doors opened. He followed her inside the cage and punched the button for the sixth floor. No one else was right there, so the doors closed. They were alone in the elevator.

“Why should I go home with you? You didn’t want me. Why should you care about someone else wanting me?”

“I love you.”

That ticked her off. “You really irritate me. No wonder I left you. How could you possibly—”

She stopped speaking as the elevator came to a quiet stop. The doors slid open silently. The hall’s carpet was discreet and elegant. It was nicely insulated and therefore silent.

On the wall opposite the elevator, they saw the numbers that indicated they were to go to the left. The room was right there. That’s why it was still available. It was next to the elevator shaft.

Guests would gather by the elevator and talk. Their voices would be heard in the room. Baggage carts were rolled from the elevator. They too would be heard, even though it was a discreet hotel. So the rooms closest to the elevator were used only in necessity.

Jo got out her key card and put it into the door’s lock. She was immediately aware her action startled Chad. He had always opened the doors. She’d usurped his move.

He kept her from entering by dropping his luggage in the hall. One bag clunked heavily. And he bent and picked her up!

“What—?”

He explained casually, “We’re going to sleep together. I always carry women into hotel rooms when I intend on sleeping with them.”

She gasped indignantly. “Just how many—”

But he kissed her quite skillfully and set the maulable mass that was Josephine Morris over out of the way. He then retrieved his abandoned luggage with perfect coordination.

How had he managed to be functional after that kiss?

How vulgar he was. He had to be very easy with the act of seduction—the preliminaries and the actual act. He planned to…sleep…with her. And he always kissed the women he slept with in hotel rooms.

She inquired with casual coolness, “What’s your score total so far?”

“I’ll check it out and let you know. The figures aren’t at my fingertips this minute. I’ll have to consult my computer files.”

That sobered her considerably. Chad hadn’t missed her at all. He’d been keeping statistics on other women, all of whom he’d carried through hotel room doors and seduced on the beds there.

Jo was crushed. No wonder he’d never contacted her. He hadn’t had the time to remember her. How had he even remembered who she was at the airport? He must have caught a glimpse of her and known he’d seen her…somewhere.

Think of having to sort through a wheatfield of women to discover which one she’d been!

He’d probably had to go to the airport’s computer base to contact his home computer bank and search out which one she was.

She said, “If you’ve been traveling much, you must be exhausted.”