As If You Never Left Me (Crimson Romance) by Katriena Knights Page A

Standing there in the cold hallway, she’d wanted to put her hand right under the straining cotton of his fly and go to town. If she had, she’d probably be sleeping right now, satiated and snoring.
    Instead, she was all alone in a big bed, punishing her pillow for her own stubbornness.
    A month, he’d said. There was no way she could have him in her house for a month and not drag him, at some point, straight into her bed, get him naked and have her way with him. So she had to decide, and soon, whether to go along with his plan. To let him be her husband again, in thought, word, and deed, or to send him packing back to New York.
    She smashed her pillow again and looked at the clock. Four hours from now, she had to get out of bed and go to work. Maybe Perry could tell her what she should do. She had a feeling she knew exactly what Perry would say.
    Closing her eyes, she pictured again the clean lines of his bare torso, remembered what his skin felt like under her hands. Remembered what it had been like to make love to him, to let him inside in every possible way. The thought of sending him away brought tears to her eyes. So did the thought of letting him stay.
    She looked at the clock. Three A.M. It was going to be a long night.
    • • •
    To her own surprise, she did eventually fall asleep, which she discovered when the ringing phone woke her. Barely conscious, she rolled over and picked up the receiver on her bedside table.
    “Joely, I know you’re not awake,” said Perry before Joely could jump-start her voice. “Just look out the window.”
    Joely rolled half over to peer over the headboard of her bed, tweaking the curtain aside. “Oh, my God.” Her tone was more reverent than upset.
    “Yep. Don’t bother coming in. I’ll call Virginia and tell her we won’t be there.”
    “Okay. Thanks, Perry.”
    She turned the phone off and leaned her chin against the headboard, looking out at nearly eighteen inches of snow. And it was still coming down, so thickly she could barely see the small barn that held her studio, only twenty yards or so from the house.
    Smiling, she settled in to watch for a while. She loved to watch the soft drifting of snow from the low, gray clouds, piling silently in her yard, filling the valley with white. It made her want to sing “White Christmas,” even though it wasn’t even Halloween.
    A sudden noise interrupted her reverie. Startled, she started to reach for the golf club, then remembered. Rey. How could she have forgotten? Especially after she’d nearly brained him last night. And standing there looking at him in his skivvies … Sometimes her brain amazed her with its ability to forget things. Self-preservation, she supposed, particularly in this case.
    She swung her feet out of bed and stuffed them into her fluffy slippers. The wooden floors would be cold. Grabbing her heavy, terrycloth bathrobe on the way out, she went to check on Rey.
    She found him a little sooner than she’d expected. He was in the bathroom, occupied. The door, which had a bad latch and loose hinges, was slowly swinging open.
    Joely couldn’t resist a look. He was still in nothing but his shorts, shivering visibly. Unfortunately, he had his back turned to her, making it impossible for her to see what he had in his hands. That was too bad.
    “Getting a little casual, aren’t we?” she said.
    “I closed the door,” he protested.
    “You have to pull it shut pretty hard. The latch doesn’t always catch.”
    “Well, I wouldn’t know that, now, would I?”
    Joely smiled. Rey seemed almost embarrassed. That would be a new experience for him. “Shall I close it?”
    “Yes, please.”
    Obligingly, though reluctantly, she shoved the door closed, making sure it stayed closed this time.
    In the kitchen, she started water for tea, reflecting on how nice it was to have time to linger over it. She stoked the fire in the stove, as well — something else she rarely bothered with in the mornings, because she