The Bedroom Business

Jake shot her a look. “What in hell does Mozart have to do with this?”

“That’s just my point. He has nothing to do with this. This is all about hormones, and—and random combinations of­—of basic animal instincts and—and emotions and—” Emily began to weep.

Thank God, Jake thought frantically. Now, it all made sense. Hormones, instincts, emotions...

He reached across the console and squeezed her knee.

“Baby,” he said gently, “you should have told me. Look, if you’re approaching that time of the month...if your hor­mones are going up and down...”

She hit him. Not hard, because she wasn’t a complete fool. The night was black, the road slick, and yesterday’s near accident had made an impression. But she hit him, neverthe­less, a good, solid shot to the arm, delivered with enough power to make him say “oof.”

After that there was nothing but merciful silence, all the way through Connecticut, into the city, and to the sidewalk outside her apartment building.

Moments later, Emily was sitting on the floor before Horace’s cage, weeping while Horace sang. Ten blocks away, Jake got pulled over by a policeman who asked, warily, if Jake would like to explain how come he’d gone through the last three red lights in a row.

Jake explained.

“Unbelievable,” the cop said when he’d finished, and Jake drove away without a ticket but with the officer’s warning that there wasn’t a woman in the world worth getting himself killed for...and the assurance that even if there were, no mor­tal man could possibly hope to understand her.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

JAKE put his car into the garage, rode the elevator to his apartment and stormed inside.

He yanked off his jacket, tossed it in the general vicinity of a chair, headed for the kitchen and switched on the lights.

The room was big, bright, and handsomely done in stark black and white. It was the complete opposite of the kitchen in his Connecticut place, where the walls were old brick and the floor was made of wide-planked wood, although what in hell that had to do with anything was beyond him.

It was just that Emily had made a fuss about the Connecticut kitchen.

“I love this room,” she’d said, smiling as she’d fried their eggs this morning, and he’d said yes, it was a terrific room, and then he’d taken her in his arms and kissed her, and found himself wondering what it would be like to spend all the Sundays of his life that way, with coffee on the counter, eggs and bacon on the stove, and Emily in his arms...

Which only went to prove how easily a woman could turn a perfectly intelligent man into a sad, confused ghost of his former self.

Jake opened the refrigerator, took out a bottle of ale and slammed the door shut.

How did women manage these things? How did they put such crazy ideas into a man’s head without his even knowing they were doing it? And Emily, of all females...

Unbelievable!

She was the one woman he’d have thought incapable of such witchcraft, but he’d been wrong. The idea hadn’t lasted—how could it? But the fact that she’d managed it was terrifying, and never mind her little speech about not wanting forever any more than he did.

“Ha,” Jake said as he twisted the cap off the bottle and tossed it into the sink.

They all wanted forever. Nature had hard-wired them that way. Women were nest-builders, plain and simple, but men were meant to fly free—and, dammit, if he came up with one more stupid bird analogy, he was going to explode.

Jake tilted the bottle to his lips and took a long drink.

Women were all the same. Sooner or later, every last one of them brought things down to basics. Man, woman, sex, marriage, and never mind Emily’s fancy denials.

Okay, so she’d ended things between them. So she’d made the speech that was usually his, smiled that little smile, said this was it, thank you and goodbye. No more sex. No more laughter. No more walks in the snow or soft little touches, no more sleeping in his arms as if she belonged there after making love.

No. After sex. Because she was right, it was sex, not any­thing else.

Jake glowered and brought the bottle to his mouth again.

On the other hand, maybe it was a trick. She might have been saying one thing and hoping for another. Why not? No man could ever figure out the twists and turns that the female brain could manage. For all he knew, Emily was sitting by the phone right this minute, waiting for him to call and say, Em, baby, I didn’t really want this to end after one weekend or a thousand weekends, I want—I want—

Jake took a swig of ale.

Maybe a monk’s cell. Or a padded one. Sanity. Peace and quiet. That was what he wanted. Maybe there was a place out beyond Jupiter where a man could enjoy being with a woman without all these ridiculous complications.