The Polka Dot Nude by Joan Smith Page B

noticeable minute before he crushed me against him and attacked vigorously. It was a small victory; I had made him stop and think, and something had overcome whatever reluctance that thinking had caused. After a long, bruising kiss, I pulled away.
    He tilted his head and asked, “What brought that on?”
    “I just felt like it.”
    “We must have breakfast together more often.”
    I could tell the instant the mood changed. The friendly intimacy was invaded by a gleam of the old leaping instinct. “Do you feel you know me well enough now to . . ."
    “Not that well.” I stepped back.
    “This isn’t the Victorian age, Audrey!”
    “I really have to get to work.”
    “Is it something I said?”
    “No."
    “Something I didn’t say—like ‘I love you.'”
    “I really have to go.”
    “You’re running away.”
    “I’m only running next door.”
    “We’ll have dinner together tonight,” he called after me.
    “I don’t know . . . Don’t put it like that. It sounds like a bribe.”
    “No strings attached! Honest.”
    “We’ll see,” I said, and fled from the kitchen. As I went through the living room, my eye caught something pink on the sofa table. It was a book. Love’s Last Longing, it was called, and the name of the author was Rosalie Wildewood. There are books we admire, like Pride and Prejudice, and there are books we love, like Gone with the Wind. Anything by Rosalie Wildewood was a book beloved by me, and several million other red-blooded women, who had our fantasies graphically depicted in purple prose. We were saved from shame by the healthy dollops of history Rosalie provided. Love’s Last Longing was her latest release. I picked it up and frowned at it, while Brad came trotting after me.
    “What on earth are you doing with this?” I asked him.
    “You recommended her. Idle curiosity. I just wanted to see what appeals to you.”
    He’d have a pretty weird idea of that if he were to judge by this book. At least I was assuming it would follow the pattern of Rosalie’s other books. “Just bear in mind, what I read isn’t necessarily what I enjoy doing.”
    “It’s what you’d enjoy if you could let yourself go,” he tempted.
    “Maybe, but where would I find a pirate and a sea captain to do it with?”
    “It’s an emperor, and a prince.”
    “Oh, I haven’t read this one. How’d you like it?”
    “I’m just beginning. It seems lively, if contrived and overly dramatic.”
    “Kind of a female’s version of Madison Gantry, would you say?”
    “Something like that,” he admitted. “Would you like to have it?”
    “You’re not finished.”
    “I picked up the latest Gantry too. Wildewood isn’t really my style.”
    “You talked me into it,” I said, and slipped it into my purse. “Funny—Rosalie Wildewood chose the same first name as Rosalie Hart. Of course it’s fraught with romance.”
    “Audrey is beginning to sound like a wildly romantic name to me.”
    “Does Dane suggest anything? Other than the canine association, I mean? The Danes were fierce, you know.”
    “Blue cheese?” he said, and hunched his shoulders.
    Funny an English professor hadn’t said Hamlet. I went home and put Love’s Last Longing in the bedroom, away from temptation.
    About fifteen minutes later, Brad jogged past my window. He’d changed back into his jogging outfit, and I knew his kitchen would be sparkling clean too. I wondered what he planned to make for dinner. Then I turned my attention back to my work and forgot Brad O’Malley for a whole ten minutes.
     

CHAPTER 5
     
    The reason I thought of Brad was that I needed the diary he’d forgotten to return. He’d be jogging much longer than I could afford to wait, so I went over to get it myself.
    I was surprised to hear the clatter of typewriter keys when I reached his door. He couldn’t have jogged four miles already! Simcoe! He’d sneaked in around the back of the cottage so I wouldn’t see him, and was checking for damages. But