Behind a Lady's Smile by Jane Goodger

the nights at the dinner table, those times when they wouldn’t be naked in bed with him taking his pleasure. When they weren’t in the bedroom, he’d still be with her, still have to listen to her. And that’s when he’d decided New York really wasn’t the place for him. He was heading west.
    Genny, though, she was different. She didn’t talk just to hear her voice. When she talked, she was giving him little pieces of herself, enough to let him know she was scared to death of what awaited her in London, enough to know that selling her mother’s jewelry wasn’t as easy as she’d made it seem. The funny thing was, she didn’t realize what she was telling him; she never came right out and said it. It was just the things she said, like how she remembered looking at her mother and thinking she looked like a princess, with her pretty ear-bobs and her sparkling necklace.
    Then, when they were done talking, the torture would begin. The night would inevitably get cool, the fire low, and as the hours passed, she’d get closer and closer until she was pressed up against him, her head nestled by his arm or his back or his side. Holy God, he deserved sainthood for keeping his hands off her, for never letting her know even a tiny bit how her soft, warm body pressed up against his was making him crazy. He never let her be in front of him, didn’t want her to feel just how much she was affecting him, didn’t want to be tempted to press even closer to relieve some of that terrible ache that had kept him awake.
    And now he faced the wonderful prospect of imagining her in her bath, of hearing her sigh in ecstasy as she lowered herself into the warm water, of thinking how her breasts would look, slick with water and the fancy soap he’d bought for her.
    The walls between the rooms were thin, thin enough so that he knew when she stood up from her bath, and he tried, God knew he tried, not to envision how she looked toweling herself dry. And then, blessed silence. She must be decent by now, was perhaps smiling at her reflection in the mirror, seeing how she looked dressed as she ought to be dressed.
    Mitch had taken his own bath, a quick dip in tepid water to wash off the trail dust. His bath had cost fifty cents, hers, two dollars, a price determined by the size of the tub and the amount of water, no doubt. Still, he was clean and felt more human again. Funny how a man could get used to his own stink when he was on the trail long enough. When he was in Omaha, he bathed and shaved daily. He looked in the mirror, frowning at his beard, rubbing a hand over it. He rarely shaved on the trail, often returning to Omaha with an impressive beard that was perfect for the winter months.
    But he was heading back to New York, where it would be hot and humid, and a beard might not be the best idea. Digging through his pack, he pulled out his shaving kit and set to work, first trimming, then shaving. He always enjoyed the moment when he finished and stepped back to see the stranger in the mirror.
    He was turning his face this way and that, when a knock sounded on his door. He couldn’t help but smile, suspecting it was Genny on the other side. The two of them would look like very different people from the two who’d walked into the hotel.
    He went to the door, then stopped, rehearsing in his head what he was going to say: You look real nice, squirt, just like a girl . Yes, that was perfect.
    But when he opened the door, what he found on the other side stunned him, and he couldn’t utter the blasé words he’d planned. She’d piled all that beautiful blonde hair atop her head in an artless style that suited her far better than the girlish braids she’d worn since he’d met her. And the dress fit her the way it ought, hugging breasts that were surprisingly full and accenting a waist that curved in, making her female figure even more pronounced. Hell, he’d known she was a girl, he just hadn’t realized how much of one she was. He swallowed