chapter ten

Lisa looked at the clock on the nightstand. Dave had left the room fifteen minutes ago, and the music was as loud now as it had been the moment he walked out the door. So loud, in fact, that it had apparently paralyzed his nerve endings, leaving him unable to stumble back up the stairs.

It better have, anyway.

Lisa tossed off the covers, grabbed the only jeans she had—her dirty ones—and pulled them on. She yanked the door open, trudged down the stairs, and came around the corner to find the room filled with smoke and laughter and bodies moving with the music. She saw Dave across the room, his back to her, standing beside an ice-filled barrel. Unbelievably, he was popping the top on a bottle of beer.

As he tipped the beer up and took a long drink, she came up behind him. “Dave!”

He choked hard, coughing, then spun around. “Lisa?”

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Finally he shrugged weakly. “I’m . . . uh . . . just, you know, having a beer, I guess.”

“You’re having a beer, you guess? While I’m up there trying to sleep? Is that what you’ve been doing all this time?”

“Come on, Lisa! It’s only been, like, five minutes!”

“Try fifteen!”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Now, it couldn’t have been that long. No way.”

“Oh, yeah? I watched the digital clock click by, Dave. Fifteen times!”

“Oh,” he said sheepishly.

“Did you talk to them about the noise?”

“Yes. Now, I did do that. I mean, I tried, but—”

“But they stuck a beer in your hand and you forgot all about why you came down here? I thought you were an expert at handling this kind of thing!”

“I am, but—”

“When you break up loud teenage parties do you let them bribe you with alcohol?”

“Oh, all right!” Dave gave her a look of total disgust. “The Cowboys are playing, and I wanted to see the game. Which, of course, I’d be watching right now if I were at home. But I’m not at home, am I? See, I got this phone call late one night. There was this woman on the other end, wanting me to come to Mexico—”

“What did you say?”

Dave stopped short. “Uh . . . which part?”

“You said the Cowboys are playing? Is it the Redskins game?”

“Yeah.”

Lisa glanced toward the TV. “Which quarter?”

“Second.”

“Is there room for one more in there?”

“You want to watch the game?”

Was he kidding? If she hadn’t gotten stuck in Mexico, she’d be planted on her sofa in her apartment in San Antonio, watching this very game alongside a couple of friends from her apartment complex, having a Dos Equis right out of her own fridge.

“Maybe for just a minute,” she said, hauling a beer out of the barrel. When she turned back, Dave was smiling, a broad, brilliant smile that made her heart lurch.

Suddenly she didn’t feel the least bit tired after all.

A couple of hours and a couple of beers later, Dave wondered why in the world he’d wanted to sleep in the first place. The music was loud. The beer was good. The game was better. And when the refs made a bad call Dave got to learn a whole bunch of Spanish expletives he’d never heard before. Outside of his family, he’d had very little social life lately, and he was surprised at how good it felt just to relax with a bunch of people who were hell-bent on nothing more than having a good time.

And sitting next to Lisa wasn’t half-bad, either.

Ever since he’d seen her come out of that bathroom earlier wearing his shirt, he hadn’t been able to think about much else. Now they were sitting on a sofa populated by a couple more people than it was really designed for, which had shoved him and Lisa right up next to each other. Knee to knee. Thigh to thigh. Hip to hip.

She’d pulled her dirty jeans back on, which was all she had, but that didn’t matter to him in the least. Not one woman since Carla’s death, no matter how sexy she dressed, how beautiful she smelled, how clear she’d been about her intentions to move to the bedroom, had affected him the way Lisa did right now. All he could think about was touching her anywhere he could get away with in polite company, then leading her back upstairs to move his hands into places polite company would never allow.

The final two minutes of the game ticked off, and with every second that passed Dave grew more restless. Pretty soon they were going back up to that room. Did he really want to draw a line down the center of that bed?

In the last seconds of the game, the local Cowboys fans let loose with a barrage of cheers that the Cowboys themselves probably heard all the way back in Dallas.

Manuel, who’d been sitting in a chair beside the sofa, leaned over and spoke to Dave and Lisa: “A victory. Time to celebrate!”

Before Dave could do a lot of pondering on what that might mean, everyone was getting up and he found himself being dragged into the middle of a group of men moving into the other room to the table full of alcohol bottles. Lisa was likewise being herded along with the women to a spot about ten feet away beside a table. On it sat a bowl of lime slices and a saltshaker. This family was so nuts that squirrels had to be circling the house, so God only knew what was coming next.

“What’s going on?” he asked Manuel.

“Tequila shots,” Manuel said with a big grin. “Lozano style.”

To Dave’s utter amazement, a woman grabbed a lime out of the bowl, then gyrated forward in time to the music. She tilted her head to the left, simultaneously squeezing a slice of lime over the side of her neck. Another woman picked up the saltshaker and sprinkled it over the spot where the lime juice was. Then all the women turned in unison and zeroed in on a man standing next to Dave. The wedding ring he wore said he was probably the first woman’s husband, or at least Dave hoped he was. The man’s grin grew bigger with every second that passed.

Manuel grabbed a shot glass from the table, filled it with tequila, and handed it to the man. With a big, provocative smile, he started walking toward the woman. She smiled back at him, making little “come on over here” signs of invitation with her fingertips. When he reached her, he dipped his head and licked the salt and lime off her neck. Then he put the shot glass to his lips, downed the tequila, dropped the glass to the floor, and kissed his wife long and hard amid an explosion of rowdy whistles and cheers.

Dave just stood there, gaping at the spectacle. Animal House, Mexican style.

He glanced at Lisa, and she was wearing one of those “what in the hell have we gotten ourselves into?” looks. His sentiments exactly.

Another woman limed and salted herself, and the group enticed her partner to step forward. He licked, drank, and kissed. The crowd went wild.

Then, as that couple stepped aside, a woman moved up behind Lisa and squeezed a lime slice over her neck. Lisa spun around, brushing her hand against her neck, shaking her head wildly. The women laughed. A second or two passed during which Dave actually wondered what these people had in mind.

Then Manuel held out a shot of tequila in front of Dave.

He glanced back at Lisa. The moment their eyes met, she stopped all the neck brushing and stood frozen in place. The women around her giggled. One grabbed another lime slice and dribbled it over the curve between Lisa’s neck and shoulder to replace what she’d swept away, the open collar of his shirt leaving plenty of bare skin for the lime juice to slither over. The woman followed with a sprinkle of salt.

Through it all, Lisa didn’t move. Didn’t even flinch. All she did was stand there, motionless, speechless, watching Dave watching her, as if she couldn’t believe that he would even consider doing anything as outrageous as this.

He couldn’t believe it, either.

Just being around Lisa set him on fire, which meant that right about now he ought to be running for a fire extinguisher. Instead, all he wanted to do was crank up the heat.

He took the shot glass and started toward her.

He moved slowly, deliberately, his gaze never leaving hers, her green eyes widening more with every step he took. The noise level around him shot completely off the scale with the crowd egging him on, tossing out provocative comments, as if this were the best entertainment they’d had in ages.

Finally he stopped in front of her, standing so close that he could see the rise and fall of her chest with every breath she took. Glancing down, he saw a drop of lime juice slither down her neck onto her collarbone, dragging a few granules of salt along with it.

As he leaned in, her eyes drifted closed. He placed his hand on her shoulder, and when he caught that single droplet of lime juice with the tip of his tongue every muscle in her body seemed to contract. He moved upward to the hollow between her neck and shoulder, found the salty spot, closed his mouth over it with a soft, sucking motion of his lips and tongue. Beneath the rough texture of the salt, her skin felt satin smooth.

With one last sweep of his tongue, he rose again, put the shot glass to his lips, and downed its contents in a single swallow. He dropped the glass, tucked his hand around the back of Lisa’s neck, tilted her face up, and kissed her.

The moment he dropped his lips against hers, he sensed her surprise, but only a second elapsed before she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. The tequila tasted like fire, but her mouth seemed hotter still.

Hot tequila. Hot kiss. Hot woman. Damn, this was good.

He slid his arm around her back and pulled her right up next to him, her breasts crushed against his chest, as he continued to kiss her with an enthusiasm that made the crowd go wild. He had the fleeting thought that if his family could have seen him, they would have known for sure that he’d slipped right off the deep end. Dave, the ultimate conformist. Nice, normal, dependable Dave, who wouldn’t even think of pulling a stunt best left to drunk frat boys.

Maybe that was why it felt so good to do it.

When he finally pulled away and looked down at Lisa, her eyes were dazed and heavy-lidded, seemingly unable to tear themselves away from his. After another round of applause, the family’s attention turned to the next woman, who doused herself with lime juice and salt and moved forward. Lisa snapped out of her daze and moved aside. Dave moved right along with her, and the action shifted away from them onto the next couple. Then Lisa looked back at him.

It had been a long time since he’d felt a woman’s touch and an even longer time since the heat of a woman’s body had warmed his own, and he knew for a fact that he’d never had a woman look up at him with the desire he saw in Lisa’s eyes right now.

He slid his hand along her neck, leaned over, and put his lips next to her ear. “Let’s go back to our room.”

She turned her head, her cheek grazing his, and he felt her breath against the side of his neck. “I can take the stairs two at a time. Can you?”

Dave nearly jumped out of his skin. Hell, yes, he could, with her slung over his shoulder if he had to.

But just as they had turned to leave, the music suddenly stopped. Dave turned back, surprised to see all the motion in the room come to a halt. The sudden silence, after the raucous music all evening, was almost painful. Glancing around, he saw the old woman rise from her rocking chair. She turned and gave a roundhouse stare to all the people present. As if she’d spoken a command out loud, everyone set their glasses down and scurried toward the parlor, many of them dragging chairs along with them.

“What’s going on?” Dave asked Manuel.

“It is ten o’clock.”

“That’s significant?”

“Twelve years ago, my father died at ten o’clock on El Dia de los Muertos. My mother believes that is a sign. She believes he gathers our dead relatives at that hour and returns with them to visit. We must prepare to greet them.”

Oh, no. No way. Dave had no intention of greeting anyone, dead or alive, because he’d just made an appointment with Lisa he was going to keep. “Maybe we’ll just go back up to our room—”

“No! You must stay! This is what everyone is waiting for!”

Dave shot a glance at Lisa. Her cheeks were still flushed, and she was looking at him in a way that said the minute they stepped back into their room clothes were coming off at the speed of light.

“It’s a family thing,” Dave said. “And close friends. We don’t want to interrupt.”

“No interruption,” Manuel said. “Come. I will tell you about it.”

To Dave’s dismay, Manuel swept them both into the parlor and right up to the altar, where the perfumey smell of the flowers and the candles about knocked Dave over backward. Manuel pointed to one of the photographs.

“My great-uncle Sergio. He died in the Spanish-American War.” He pointed to a grainy photo of a young woman. “My great-grandmother Antonia. She died of rheumatic fever at age twenty-nine. And this is my father, Benecio. He was killed in a train accident near Cuernavaca.”

Manuel continued through his family tree, which had more branches than a hundred-year-old oak. Unfortunately, their host’s generosity pretty much obligated them to stand there and listen until their host chose to shut up.

“One candle is lit for every relative who has died,” Manuel went on. “If a candle is not lit for a person, his soul must light a finger to guide him back.”

Sounds painful. By all means, keep those candles lit. Can we go now?

Lisa was standing beside Dave, and all at once he felt her palm against his shoulder. She slid it slowly downward until it rested at the small of his back, and something inside him liquefied at her touch. All this talk about dead people was going in one ear and out the other. He couldn’t smell the flowers or candles anymore. He could scarcely hear Manuel’s voice. He was having a tough time even making his eyes comprehend the photographs the man was so lovingly pointing out. All he knew was that Lisa was touching him, and he was overcome with the compulsion to touch her back.

“I told you about our family,” Manuel said, after what seemed like an hour. “Now tell me about yours. Is there someone you wish to remember?”

“What?” Dave said.

“A relative who has died.”

Dave froze, staring at Manuel. In contrast to the tumultuous noise level of only a moment ago, the room was eerily quiet. He glanced back at the altar, and for the first time he actually looked at the photographs there, at each one individually. There were dozens of them, old and new—men, women, a few children. These people had been here once. Now they were gone.

The dead.

A blurry, out-of-focus image of Carla swept through Dave’s mind. Suddenly he became aware that not a single Lozano was speaking and that everyone’s attention was focused squarely on him.

He shook his head. “No. No one.”

“Do you have a photograph? You may put it with these on the altar—”

“No,” he said sharply. “I don’t have any photographs.”

That was a lie. He still carried Carla’s photo in his wallet. But since the moment he’d heard the news of her death he hadn’t looked at it. Not once. And he wasn’t about to start now.

Manuel looked confused for a moment. Then a knowing expression came over his face. “You have lost someone not long ago.”

Statement, not question. Christ, he didn’t need this. Not now. He didn’t need Manuel’s intuition kicking in, he didn’t need his far-flung theories about the afterlife, and he sure didn’t need that look on Lisa’s face that said she was listening as raptly as everyone else. The silence. Damn it, he wished every Lozano on the premises would go back to blowing the roof off.

“No,” he told Manuel. “I haven’t.”

“It is difficult to hide, señor. Your eyes tell everything.”

Manuel continued to stare at him, waiting. Then Lisa touched his arm.

“Carla?”

Dave turned, astonished that she’d spoken Carla’s name. For a moment, all he could do was stand there, staring with disbelief.

“Who is Carla?” Manuel asked.

“No one,” Dave said quickly. “Thanks for the hospitality, Manuel. But it’s time we went to bed.”

“Americans,” he said, with a sad shake of his head. “They have no understanding. Death is only a transition into the next life, where your loved ones are. Dia de los Muertos is the day they come to see us again.”

The thought of that sent something dark filtering through Dave’s mind, something that had eaten away at him for four long years.

No. You have to stop thinking about her. You’ll go crazy if you don’t.

He turned back. “Do you actually believe that? That the dead come back?”

“Why should I not?” Manuel said. “Should not people who have crossed over want to visit their loved ones left behind?”

If that was true, then Carla had been watching. She’d been watching him with Lisa, sitting with her, laughing with her, kissing her, seeing him succumb one more time to the woman he never should have touched, never should have looked at, never should have dreamed about in the dark of night for the past eleven years. The woman he’d never forgotten, even when he’d been married to Carla.

“To tell you the truth, Manuel,” Dave said, “it sounds like a whole lot of silly superstition to me. But if you want to believe it, more power to you.”

With that, he turned and strode away.

A few minutes later, Lisa stood in the hall outside the door of their room, her back to the wall, her eyes closed, cursing herself for opening her big mouth. The moment she’d spoken Carla’s name, everything had changed. Why had she done it?

Because she could see so clearly that Dave had to be thinking about her even though he wasn’t saying her name, and the silence had demanded to be filled. But if she’d had any idea that after all this time he’d still feel Carla’s death so intensely, that he’d turn and hurry up the stairs, leaving her standing in that parlor as if nothing at all had happened between them, she would have kept her mouth shut.

She closed her eyes and ran her tongue over her lips. She could still taste his kiss. It had been the most incredible sensation—the fiery taste of the tequila mingling with his warm lips moving over hers in a shockingly sensual way. That he’d done it in the midst of a crowd had stunned her even more. He wanted her tonight. She was sure of it. Or, at least, he had, right up to the moment Carla had gotten in the way, coming back to haunt them like a ghost rising from the grave.

Lisa went inside the darkened room and clicked the door closed. The only illumination came from the streetlights shining through the open patio door. Dave sat on the balcony on the rattan sofa, his back to her.

She didn’t know what to expect. She only knew what she wanted. With that in mind, she slipped over to the closet, opened the door, and reached into her backpack. From a zippered pocket she pulled out one of the plastic packets it held and stuffed it into her jeans pocket. Carrying condoms wherever she went was a habit she’d held over from high school, because safe was always better than sorry.

She walked across the room and leaned against the patio door frame. Swirls of the night wind of November coming down from the Sierra Madres skated across her skin, raising goose bumps on her arms and ruffling her hair.

“My, you left the party quickly,” she said.

“You need sleep,” Dave said, not even bothering to turn around. “You should go to bed.”

Lisa felt a stab of disappointment. “Nah. I’m not really sleepy after all. And it was hot at the party. I could use a little air myself.”

She moved out onto the balcony, circled the sofa, and sat down beside him. When she saw what he was holding, her heart slipped a notch or two.

His wallet, open to a photograph of Carla.

Lisa hadn’t seen her since high school and light was minimal on the balcony, but still there was no mistaking the face. She was a few years older in this photo, but she looked essentially the same—blond hair, green eyes, with a soft, sensitive expression. Lisa willed him to put the photograph away, but still he stared at it. She knew any questions she asked might only inflame an already combustible situation, but not asking meant he would turn away from her completely, and that was the last thing she wanted tonight.

“How long has she been gone?” Lisa asked.

“Four years.”

“I read about it afterward. Icy roads. She lost control of the car on that bridge. Wasn’t that what happened?”

“Yeah. That was what happened.”

“Why didn’t you give her photo to Manuel?”

“I don’t even know those people. Carla is none of their business.”

His defensiveness sent a twinge of desperation fluttering through Lisa’s stomach. Tell me, Dave. Tell me why you can’t forget her.

Correction. Tell me how I can make you forget her.

To her relief, he flipped past Carla’s picture, only to settle on one of a little girl about four or five years old. Lisa leaned over to get a better look. She was a pretty child, with warm blond hair and green eyes.

“Ashley?”

Dave nodded.

“She’s beautiful,” Lisa said.

“She’s Carla. In every way.”

Lisa imagined that Dave was remembering what a shining couple he and Carla had been, the very picture of perfection, blessed with a child who was a daily reinforcement of just that. In her youthful anger and jealousy, Lisa had convinced herself that Carla was nothing more than a spoiled little rich girl who was going to make his life miserable. But now she knew how wrong she’d been and just how traumatic Carla’s death must have been for Dave.

She closed her eyes, cursing silently. How was it that after all this time the thought of the two of them together still sent waves of jealousy rolling through her?

Because you were in love with him. Maybe you still are. Maybe you always will be.

For the past eleven years, Dave had stayed in the back of her mind, hovering in that corner reserved for hopeless dreams that refuse to go away. And she knew if she walked away from him tonight, tomorrow she’d go back to San Antonio and spend the next eleven years wondering what might have been. She tightened her jaw subtly but resolutely.

“Downstairs,” she said. “Why did you kiss me?”

He shifted uncomfortably but didn’t look at her. “Peer pressure?”

“Do you really expect me to believe that?”

He was silent.

“Kissing me tonight doesn’t mean you loved Carla any less.”

He turned to look at her. “Is that what you think? That I feel guilty about it?”

“You don’t?”

“Spare me the psychobabble. If I want analysis, I’ll hire a shrink.”

“Why? So you can wallow in it from now on?”

Dave’s gaze turned positively glacial. “You haven’t got any idea what you’re talking about.”

“Then why don’t you enlighten me? If you’re going to kiss me like that in front of a roomful of people, I think I’ve got a right to know what you were thinking when you did it.”

“I wasn’t thinking a damned thing, or I never would have done it.”

“Right.”

“I’d had a few beers—”

“Oh, come on.”

“It wasn’t a big deal, Lisa.”

“A peck on the lips wouldn’t have been a big deal. What you did—believe me. That was a big deal.”

He didn’t respond. He just shut his wallet and returned it to his pocket.

“You wanted to come back upstairs,” she said softly. “And you know I did, too. So what happened to change all that?”

“I told you I’d get you out of Mexico. That’s as far as anything between us is going to go.”

“Why? Did you suddenly decide that I don’t appeal to you after all? Now, that’s a reason I’ll go along with, because, you know, chemistry is just one of those things.”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“Did it suddenly dawn on you that after tomorrow we’ll probably never see each other again, so you figure what’s the point of anything happening between us tonight? If so, that’s fine, too.”

“Lisa—”

“But, Dave,” she said, dropping her voice, “if you wanted me before and you don’t now because I spoke your dead wife’s name, then you’ve got a problem that an entire army of shrinks couldn’t possibly hope to deal with.”

She held her ground, giving him a defiant stare, standing behind every word she’d said. She knew she was treading on thin ice, but maybe it was just what he needed to hear. And maybe he’d hate her forever for saying it. Either way, she had nothing to lose.

“Like I said,” he told her. “You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“I think I’m closer than you want to admit.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Maybe you need to.”

“Cut it out, Lisa.”

“But—”

“Will you just shut the hell up and leave me alone?”

She recoiled, feeling the jolt of his angry words lodging directly in her heart. Yes, she’d pushed him. Hard. But she wanted to know— needed to know—why Carla’s death still had a stranglehold on him four years later. But it looked as if she was never going to find out.

“Sure, Dave,” she said, rising from the sofa. “Whatever you say. And don’t worry. After tomorrow, I won’t be around to bother you anymore.”

She brushed past him, heading for the patio door. As she came around the arm of the sofa, to her surprise, he clamped his hand around her wrist and pulled her to a halt.

“Lisa. Don’t go.”

It wasn’t a command. Instead his voice held a hushed, pleading tone, and like some kind of invisible cord, it kept her from walking away more effectively than his grasp on her wrist ever could have. Then his grip relaxed, becoming more like a caress. He let out a long, tortured breath, then slowly, slowly pulled her back around until she was standing in front of him. The silence on the patio was broken only by the rustle of the night wind through the trees. He took her other wrist and ran both of his hands down to grasp hers, then looked up at her, his gaze solemn.

“Here’s the truth. I kissed you because I wanted to. Because you looked so beautiful and we’d been sitting together all night and it seemed . . . God, Lisa.” He exhaled. “Just looking at you has always done something to me I don’t understand and I probably never will.”

She held her breath, afraid to break whatever spell it was that kept the longing in his voice and the desire in his eyes. “And then you wanted more than a kiss.”

His gaze played over her body, easing down over her breasts to her waist, then back up to her face again. His hands tightened against hers. “I still do.”

The coarse hunger she heard in his voice gave Lisa the same feeling she got in her stomach every time her plane hit a pocket of turbulence—an intense, breathless, swooping sensation that was almost painfully exhilarating. And now, when Dave pulled her between his thighs, taking her hips in his hands and burying his face against her, the feeling only intensified. He inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly, his warm breath soaking through her shirt and burning her skin like a brand.

She heard the muffled sounds of traffic in the distance, tires rushing against asphalt, horns honking. The night air swirled through the trees, creating a whisper of leaf against leaf. Lisa sensed everything around her, but she remained strangely disconnected from all of it. All she knew, all she felt, all she wanted right now was Dave.

He tugged on her hips, easing her down until she was straddling his legs, her knees tucked beside his thighs, resting on the padded cushion of the rattan sofa. She steadied herself by placing her hands against his shoulders, and when she dared to meet his eyes again they were smoldering with want, with need. When men looked at her like that, when she could see that craving in their eyes, the subsequent rush was like a drug she needed desperately. It was a feeling like no other, that unparalleled sensation of being beautiful and desirable, of being the number one thing on a man’s mind.

She knew the power of sex. She always had.

He curled his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her to his mouth, plunging his tongue inside in a deep, blistering kiss that made the one he’d given her downstairs pale in comparison. He shoved his other hand beneath her shirt and circled it around to the small of her back, his rough fingertips rasping against her skin as he pulled her closer still, his mouth burning against hers.

God, this man could kiss.

Then a sense of desperation crept in. She had no delusions that he’d suddenly fallen madly in love with her. There was a big difference between love and lust, and Dave DeMarco was experiencing a major case of lust.

He saved love for women like Carla.

No. Maybe it wouldn’t be that way. Not if she made it so good for him that he forgot all about his dead wife. Made it the best sex he’d ever had in his life, so he would want to come back again and again and Carla would slip further and further from his mind. She wanted him to feel every sexual tremor like an earthquake inside him, to associate the sight of her, the feel of her, the very smell of her with the most incredible sensations of his life. She wanted to make sure that from this moment forward, every time he thought about sex, hers would be the face he would see.

Sorry, Carla. You can’t have him. Tonight, he’s mine.

She tore her lips away from his and sat up, unbuttoned his shirt, and spread it apart, stroking her hands over the rigid muscles of his chest. Then she leaned back in, trailing her lips over his jaw, his neck, feeling the roughness of a day’s growth of his beard against her cheek. His hands clenched against her thighs.

“Inside,” he murmured.

“No.”

“Lisa—”

“Right here.”

She knew how daring it felt to be outside in the night air surrounded by city lights, how outrageous, how illicit, and how much it heightened the pleasure, the excitement. Most of all, she knew beyond all doubt that his precious Carla would never have been caught dead having wild, scorching sex on a balcony.

Before he could even think about objecting again, she sat up quickly, undid a few of the buttons of her shirt, and slipped it off over her head, flinging it aside. She rested her palms on his shoulders, leaned in, and kissed him again, brushing the tips of her breasts against his bare chest.

“The balcony’s secluded,” she whispered. “It’s dark. Trees all over the place.”

“If someone sees—”

“They’ll get a hell of a good show. I promise you.”