Detained

“Wait a minute. You just said, the measure of success was flexible and then gave me a rigid definition with extreme outcomes for yourself.”

“Like I said—inconsistent.”

She gave his hair a hard tug.

“I assume that answer didn’t come up to your impeccable standards of rationality.”

“You assume correct.”

He shook her hand off and sat up to face her. “It’s not rational. It’s just how it was for me.”

“And it’s still that way?”

“Baked in.” He reached for her hand and pulled her to him. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m a character out of an Ayn Rand book, making up my own perverse rules of natural order.”

She laughed and swung her leg across him so she straddled his lap.

“Don’t say it. You know I can read a book now. You’re the same anyway.”

“I am not.” She poked him in the chest. “We are not the same.”

“Oh, no? On anyone’s scale, you’d have to be considered a success. You’re independent, educated, you have a career you care about.”

“I’m paid a pittance and I have to fight for every decent by-line. I’m nowhere near where I want to be in my career.”

“You prove my case.”

“And how do I do that, lawyer?”

“By defining success as something beyond reasonable expectations—as something personal to you. As something you stretch the boundaries of your life for every day.”

“You’re a little too smart for your own good.”

“You forgot rich.”

She stroked a finger over his brow and he closed his eyes. She breathed in his ear, “I forget nothing.”

“Certainly not what sitting in my lap does to me.”

She rotated her pelvis, forward, back. Tease. “What does it do to you?”

He opened one eye. “I know you’re not stupid, woman.”

“I want you to tell me.”

“Because showing you isn’t enough?”

She laughed, a wanton sound, leaned forward to kiss him. Long and lush enough to make time stand still. He pulled her against his chest, pushed the robe off her shoulders. Her hands went for the tie on his. Her lips were at his neck. Her movements were feverish, while he felt drugged by her nearness, by the warmth and softness of her caresses. He had no inclination to move back to the bedroom, and she had every intention of keeping him right here. She abandoned his lap and slid to the carpet, doll eyes full of mischief, overflowing with carnal intent.

He pulled a strand of her hair, let it slide between his fingers. “I’m not sure I want you on your knees.”

“I don’t require your permission.”

He captured her hands before she could do anything lethal with them. “You do.”