Impulsively she placed her hands on his temples and pulled him toward her until their lips touched. Pitt's eyes took on a bemused look, and when Heidi released him, he sat back and shook his head.
"Amazing how a man can misjudge a woman. All I expected was a handshake."
A blush tinted Heidi's cheeks. "You caught me in a weak moment. I was sitting here feeling sorry for myself, and when I saw a friend . . . well, I guess I got carried away."
He held her hands in a gentle grip and the smile faded. "I was saddened to hear of Admiral Bass's passing. He was a good man."
Her eyes grew dark. "The end was painless. After he went into a coma he just slipped away."
"God only knows how the Vixen affair might have turned out if he hadn't volunteered his services."
"Remember when we met?"
"I came to interview the admiral at his inn near Lexington, Virginia, where he retired."
"And I thought you were some government official who wanted to badger him. I treated you dreadfully."
Pitt paused and stared at her. "You two were very close."
She nodded. "We lived together for nearly eighteen months. He came from the old school, but he wouldn't consider marriage. Said it was stupid for a young woman to tie herself to a man with one foot in the grave."
Pitt could see the tears. beginning to form and he quickly changed the subject. "If you don't mind my saying, you're the image of a high-school girl on her first prom date."
"The perfect compliment at the perfect moment." Heidi straightened and peered around the tables. "I don't mean to take you away from anything. You're probably meeting someone."
"No, I'm stag." He smiled with his eyes. "I'm between projects and decided to relax with a quiet supper."
"I'm glad we met," she said shyly.
"You have but to give the command, and I'm your slave till dawn."
She looked at him and the sights and sounds of the dining room faded into the background.
She stared demurely down at the table setting. "I'd like that very much."
When they entered Heidi's hotel room, Pitt tenderly picked her up and carried her to the bed.
"Do not move," he said. "I'll do everything."
He began to undress her, very slowly. She couldn't remember ever having a man undress her so completely, from her earrings to her shoes. He made as little contact with his fingers as possible and the anticipation mushroomed inside her to an exquisite agony.
Pitt was not to be hurried. She wondered how many other women he had sweetly tortured like this. The passion began to reflect in Pitt's depthless eyes and it excited her to an even higher level.
Suddenly his lips came down onto hers. They were warm and moist. She responded as his arms tightened around her hips and pulled her to him. She seemed to dissolve and a moan escaped her throat.
Just when the blood felt as though it would burst inside and her muscles pulsated uncontrollably, she opened her mouth to scream. It was then Pitt penetrated her and she came and came in a sweeping rage of pleasure that never seemed to end.
The most luxurious hour of sleep comes not in the beginning or middle but just prior to awakening. It is then that one dream falls upon another in a kaleidoscope of vivid fantasies. To be interrupted by the ringing of a telephone and thrust back to conscious reality is as tormenting as the scraping of fingernails across a blackboard.
Heidi's agony was compounded by an accompanying knock on her hotel room door. Her mind fogged from sleep, she lifted the receiver and mumbled, "Hold on a minute, please." Then she slid from bed and stumbled halfway across the room before realizing she was naked.
Grabbing a terrycloth robe from her suitcase, she threw it over her shoulders and cracked the door. A bellhop slipped around the barrier with the ease of an eel and set a large vase of white roses on a table.
Still in a haze, Heidi tipped him and returned to the phone. "Sorry for the delay. This is Commander Milligan."
"Ah, Commander," came the voice of Jack Murphy, the Senate historian, "did I wake you?"
"I had to get up anyway," she said, disguising the urge-to-kill tone in her voice.