Lotus Blossom by Hayton Monteith Page B

breath lest she decided to leave him, because he knew that if she rose and told him that she didn’t want to stay, he would take her back to her little fourth-floor room in that ramshackle house.
    “Stay with me.” He hadn’t wanted to say such a thing. Pride had always dictated his moves with women. He had never asked any of them to stay with him. If they did, fine; if they wanted to leave, they could do that too. He had wanted no ties, no commitments, neither had the women with whom he had involved himself. But he knew he didn’t want Lotus to go. “Stay with me tonight.”
    She looked into the azure richness of his eyes, ready to tell him that she would be going as soon as they finished eating. “Yes. I’ll stay,” she heard herself tell him.
    “You will?” Dash questioned, not sure that her soft response had been what he’d heard, or if it had just been what he wanted to hear.
    “Yes,” she repeated, feeling the rush of blood up her face. She had just told him that she was going to spend the night with him. She had never said such a thing to any of her other boyfriends, Jeremy included, and yet she considered some of those relationships pretty serious. Her only sexual experience had been when she’d been twenty and a junior in college. It had been uncomfortable and unrewarding. She was not anxious to repeat it, and none of the urgings of her friends at school to try it again had changed her mind. But now she was telling a man that she barely knew that she would spend the night with him . . . and she was delighted, not apprehensive, with the idea. She stared at her wineglass.
    “You haven’t had that much champagne, darling, just half a glass.” He leaned over and lifted the palm of her right hand to his lips. “If you change your mind ... at anytime, at any moment, tell me. It will end then. Just say a simple no.”
    She looked at him and knew that he would take her home at anytime. She smiled at him and leaned to ward him and kissed the fingers that were curled around her hand. “I know that.”
    Dash felt as though he were crumbling, yet he had never felt so buoyant, so alive ... so conceited, because she trusted him. He was proud and humble at the same time. “Thank you for the lovely compliment, China Doll.”
    'You’re welcome.”
    He rose and went behind her chair to direct her toward the living room.
    Lotus balked. “We should do the dishes.”
    "I have help come in every day.”
    I still think we should rinse them. It’s an awful job to clean hardened-on food. If we run water on them, it will be easier.”
    “We rinse the dishes.” What a love she was, he thought, watching her as she preceded him into the kitchen carrying the cutlery, and what a darling shape. His pulse kicked into overdrive just watching her.
    They stood hip to thigh as they rinsed the dishes, smiling at each other often.
    “If anyone had told me that rinsing dishes in my own kitchen could be fun, I would have had them certified; but it is a delight,” he murmured as he led her out of the kitchen into the living room area, his one arm around her.
    “I never thought of it as fun before . . . but that’s because I was always arguing with my brothers about whose turn it was to do the dishes.” Lotus smiled up at him, then caught herself. She mustn’t talk about her family! She might slip and tell him too much. Dash Colby was a very sharp man. He needed very little information to add two and two and get a conclusion.
    “Tell me more about your family.” He could feel his eyes narrowing on her. He had sensed her withdrawal. What was bothering her?
    “There’s not much to tell. Most of the time we’re happy with each other.” She took a deep breath. “Besides, I told you a great deal about myself; yet, you haven’t told me anything about you.”
    She’s putting me off again, he thought smothering his irritation. “Ask away.”
    “Are you an only child?”
    “No. I’m the middle of five children. I have two