with sound effects.
She moaned and quickly twisted the knob to cold. It took a lot of willpower not to shriek as the icy water rained down on her head.
“It was temporary insanity. It was temporary insanity.” She turned the four words into her personal mantra.
By the time her body temperature equaled that of the South Pole, Nora felt prepared to face the day.
And Mark.
MARK WOKE UP feeling as if he’d conquered the world, and it had nothing to do with the comfortable bed he was lying in.
He rolled over hoping to find a warm and willing Nora lying beside him, but no such luck.
He settled for lying back and thinking about the previous night.
He’d only planned on picking Nora up at the airport and depositing her safely at home. He was lucky enough to still have both sets of grandparents, so the idea of losing a loved one was foreign to him. But he’d figured that Nora would be feeling pretty low when she got back. The least he could do was make sure she didn’t have to go home alone.
What he hadn’t expected was to have her in his arms and later find himself in her bed.
When they had dated, their relationship hadn’t moved to the intimate stage. Not that he hadn’t tried. But instead of charming his way into her bed, he had found himself out in the cold.
To this day he still wasn’t sure why Nora had broken up with him. If that hadn’t been bad enough, she had tripled the action by doing it on Valentine’s Day.
Since that day, Nora had treated him as if he were a carrier of the worst kind of plague. At one point he’d even gone so far as to ask Ginna why Nora had broken up with him. All his sister had done was give him one of those haughty sniffs she did so well and inform him that if he wanted to know that badly, he’d have to ask Nora directly. Since she hadn’t been returning his phone calls, that hadn’t been an option for him.
That had been two years ago and he still hadn’t found the nerve to ask Nora what caused the breakup.
He’d been stunned when she told him she didn’t want to be alone last night. At first he’d kissed her as an attempt to comfort her. The last thing he would have done was take advantage of a woman who was vulnerable, but dammit, she’d felt so good and so right in his arms. Then when she’d asked him to make love to her, he couldn’t think of anything else but banishing the shadows from her eyes. Calling what they’d shared mind-blowing was an understatement. If he hadn’t woken up in Nora’s bed, he would have been convinced it had been nothing more than a hot fantasy dream.
He was in the midst of remembering every incredible minute, when the door opened and Nora breezed in.
She looked more animated than she had when he’d picked her up at the airport. Her copper-penny hair was piled up into one of those complicated twists secured by a tortoiseshell clip. He was disappointed that she was covered up by a deep emerald-green plush robe that fell to her toes. He preferred seeing her bare skin flushed with desire. But he’d settle for the coffee cup she held in her hands.
“Good morning,” she greeted him with a bright smile and a light kiss on the mouth. She stepped back before he could deepen it. She handed him the cup. The rich aroma of coffee tempted his nostrils. “There’s a razor and clean towels in the bathroom,” she informed him. “I’ll have breakfast ready by the time you’re done.” She smiled at him again before she exited the room.
“I would have been willing to sacrifice myself as the main course,” he told the closed door. Since she didn’t return, he settled for climbing out of bed and walking into the bathroom, where he found his tuxedo hanging neatly on the back of the door. The last he remembered, his jacket had been abandoned somewhere in the hallway and the pants tossed on the floor just before they fell onto the bed.
Mark turned on the shower and tested the temperature before stepping into the cubicle. He surveyed the array of shower-gel bottles lining the shelf.
“I can either smell like a sugar cookie, fudge brownie or key lime pie,” he murmured. “Whatever happened to plain old vanilla?” He finally settled on key lime pie, thinking it would be similar to the lime-scented shaving foam he used. He soon discovered it wasn’t even close.
It wasn’t Mark’s first time in a woman’s bathroom, but it was the first time he’d been in Nora’s. Deciding he had the time, he did a little exploring. A closet revealed a colorful supply of towels in tangerine, turquoise, lime and lemon colors. The bath towels were oversize, the dimensions perfect for a man. He wondered how many men had showered in her bathroom. He quickly decided it wasn’t something he wanted to think about.
Once he finished, he towel dried his hair and worked to make himself as presentable as a morning-after visitor could be.
Mark left his jacket in the bathroom as he followed his nose to the kitchen. The homey aroma of food cooking sent his appetite level up several notches.
Damn, if he didn’t feel like the man of the house going in to have breakfast with the woman of the house. He stopped abruptly. Now where had that come from?
WHO KNEW?
Nora felt her pulse rate start to speed up as sultry images again invaded her mind.
Mark’s family liked to tease him that he never moved any faster than he had to. Last night, Nora had learned that was very true. The man knew how to draw lovemaking out until she’d been gasping and crying out for him to put her out of her misery. He had ignored her pleas, and when he finally did release her, she felt as if she’d been shot out into space among the stars.
She was positive she still hadn’t come down.
Nora concentrated on putting last night in a logical perspective. It wasn’t working. She didn’t want to call last night a mistake, but the word was blinking in bold red letters inside her head. She feared making love with Mark was the first step down a path she didn’t dare travel. She told herself she could make it easy. She could blame the event on unsettled emotions. She’d been grappling with mind-numbing grief that had evolved into the need to connect with another living being. Mark holding her last night had fed that need.
She tried to tell herself that it could have happened with whomever had been holding her last night, but Nora had never been a good liar.
Come on, Nora, call it what it was. A one-night stand.
Sure it was. The earth spun around, the stars fell down around us. I’m still in shock.
Making love was different with Mark. They shared a past, even if that past hadn’t included their being lovers. After they broke up, she’d told herself it was easier because they hadn’t been lovers. That had been because she wasn’t completely sure of Mark. For a man who’d been given more than the usual allotment of charm, he’d never provided her with any reason to distrust him. But she had always felt it could happen at any time. Mark had only to flash one of those devastating smiles of his and women fell all over him. Literally.
Nora never stopped to think that it was her own insecurity that pushed her away from Mark. That what her father had done to the family had remained in the back of her mind and affected any chance of Nora finding love because she was afraid she would be left behind the way her mother had been. She never stopped to think that the breakup might have been her fault, not Mark’s. Nora couldn’t live with the fear that one day, Mark might be tempted to leave.
“Something smells good.”
She whipped around so fast the small pitcher she was holding slipped from her fingers. Only Mark’s quick reflexes kept it from shattering on the floor. He set the jug on the counter.
“Pancakes?” He eyed the golden-brown circles on the hot griddle.
“Sourdough pancakes,” she explained, picking up a plate. “What with my being gone a while, I didn’t have too many supplies in the house, but I did have my sourdough starter and I had some freeze-dried eggs to use along with some