“Thanks,” the woman said, obviously taking the coffee. “Sorry to bother you so early. Where’s Daniel? I thought I heard somebody.”
“No, just me. He’s off-site. Awful, talking to yourself, isn’t it? If I’m not careful they’ll put me away.”
There was more as she lingered at the door, but Connolly stopped listening. He lay there instead, looking up at the ceiling, still drifting in a haze of sex. Now there was the sound of water running, the rattle of a pot being put on to boil, the scrape of a match. Everything seemed to him erotic. He imagined her measuring out the coffee, her robe half open so that her flushed breasts stood out, the nipple firm against the silk. He imagined lying here every morning, listening to her being busy in the kitchen as the stickiness of sex dried on his skin. When she opened the door, her finger to her lips in warning, she giggled at the sight of him.
“Look at you,” she whispered. “Do you think you might put your trousers on, or do you just want to stay like that all day?”
“All day,” he said. “Come to bed.”
But she shook her head. “No, I told you. I won’t do that to him. Come and have some coffee,” she said, leaving the room.
He got up, pulled his pants on, and followed her out. “Funny scruples you have,” he said teasingly.
But she came up to him and held him. “Don’t scold. I won’t, that’s all.”
“Sorry,” he said, kissing her. “Do you want me to go?”
“No. Let’s not waste the coffee, now that I’ve made it. Bloody cow next door. She’s probably put her ear to a glass at the wall.”
He sat at the little kitchen table near the window, smoking, watching her as she poured the coffee and brought it to the table. Every movement seemed interesting-the way she smoothed the back of her robe under her as she sat down, blew gently on the coffee, reached for a match.
“What?” she said self-consciously.
“Just looking,” he said. “I can’t get enough of you.”
“Well, you’ve only just started,” she said dryly, lighting a cigarette.
“No. Weeks. From the start.”
“That’s nice,” she said, taking a sip of coffee, playing. “It must have been the sight of me doubled over sick that made you decide. Was that it?”
“No. The ride back from the ranch,” he said seriously.
“Really?” she said, interested.
“Uh-huh. There was that moment.”
“What moment?”
“There’s always a moment between a man and a woman when you know something can happen. It doesn’t have to-it can just pass right on by. But it can never happen without that moment. You know, when you feel it’s possible.”
She laughed. “You’ve got cheek.”
“Didn’t you feel it too?”
“It’s different for a woman.”
“I don’t believe it. Not that part.”
She shrugged and looked toward the window, at the shaft of sunlight pouring between them on the table. “What was all that about your going away?”
“I may. I don’t know. But we can see each other. He’s not back all week.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve just come from the test site. I saw him there.”
“That must have been cozy. Look, if anything’s going to happen, you’ve got to leave him out of it. I mean it.”
“He’s not in it. I’m talking about us. You and me. You can make whatever rules you want.”
“All right,” she said softly, “but not here. No one’s ever come here.”
“Where did you go with the others?”
She looked at him. “Don’t pretend you’re jealous. You’ve no right. I never said there were others. I just said no one’s ever come here. You can see what it’s like.” She tilted her head toward the neighboring apartment.
He followed her gesture, taking in the room for the first time, a blur of terra-cotta pots and Navajo rugs draped over simple government-issue furniture. He reached across the table for her hand. “We can meet somewhere.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll find a place.”
“There’s the ranch. We could go there.”
“She left you a key,” he said, a statement.
Emma nodded. “She thought I might need it.”
“That day,” he said. “Before the drive. You thought about this before the drive.”
“No. A suspicion. I didn’t know.”
He smiled. “But you thought it might. You were ahead of me. Come here.”
She shook her head, but he gripped her hand, pulling it gently, and she followed the pull, getting up and moving to where he sat, her robe falling open as she straddled him. His face was level with her breasts and he began kissing them, barely touching them at first, then, as he felt the nipples harden, moving over them in a steady rhythm, pressing, so that she anticipated each stroke of his mouth. She closed her eyes. His mouth opened to lick the nipple, tasting her, still salty with sweat. He pressed his face into her, and her head, no longer flung back, now dropped down next to his. “No,” she gasped, “you’ll break the chair,” a last vestige of practicality. He carried her again to the couch, his mouth still on her, tasting all of her this time, slowly, making love to every part of her, teasing her sex until she held his head there, shuddering as she came under his tongue, so that when he entered her again she lay open, already his.
Mills was waiting in his room, lying again on the bed.
