The smell of cooking meat wafted in from the kitchen. A faint undertone of Indian spices accompanied the aroma. The muffled sound of a television also emanated from that direction, as did the occasional clank of pots and pans being moved around.

Chad Robbins closed out his e-mail and browser screens and flipped the laptop shut. Allyson poked her head around a corner of the hallway arch and smiled broadly at him. “Dinner’s almost ready, baby. Put the silly Internet away and come help me get the table ready.”

Chad looked at her and smiled. Her long blonde hair was in pigtails, but wild strands of it hung over her sparkling eyes and over her ears. She was a pretty girl, with a sweet, almost angelic face. The pigtails and her relative youth-she was twenty-four-endowed her with an almost Lolita-like quality. She could pass for a girl in her late teens. But she was slighter than Dream, smaller and less curvaceous.

And this was a problem, that way he was always comparing the two of them. It wasn’t fair to Allyson. Especially given his still-vivid memories of the emotional abuse he’d suffered during his time with Dream. Allyson was special in so many of her own ways, and her presence in his life had done much to prevent a slide into the kind of despair and guilt that had crippled his ex-wife.

Chad rose from the recliner and followed her into the kitchen. The table was already covered with a crisp white tablecloth. Set upon it were two lit candles in silver holders and a tasteful arrangement of fresh flowers. Chad opened a cupboard above the counter and withdrew two plates, which he set at opposite ends of the table. From a drawer he selected the appropriate silverware and set these next to the plates. Allyson selected glasses from another cupboard while Chad set about opening a bottle of wine.

The cork came out with the usual mild pop, the rich wine aroma immediately mingling with the scent of the spices in a pleasant way. Chad poured a modest measure of the red wine into each of their glasses. He then pulled his seat out and sat down, taking a sip of the wine as he watched Allyson transfer the food from the little island in the middle of the kitchen to the table. He experienced a mildly salacious tingle as he observed her moving through her domestic-goddess-in-training paces. He especially liked it when she would turn and flash him a look at her exquisitely toned calves. The dress she wore had a somewhat prim aspect to it, with no plunging neckline to reveal cleavage. However, the conservative effect was offset by a high hemline that fell just inches shy of miniskirt territory. The big pink apron she wore over the dress inexplicably heightened the erotic charge Chad derived from watching her, so much so that he was almost disappointed when she removed it and hung it from a peg on the pantry door.

She flashed him a dazzling smile as she settled into her own seat at the table. “Let’s eat, shall we?”

Chad needed no further prompting. He dug into the spiced lamb with enthusiasm, letting out a moan of almost sexual satisfaction as the tender meat penetrated his taste buds. Similar moans accompanied each of the next several bites.

He paused long enough to take a deep breath and say, “Allyson, dear, you have outdone yourself.”

Allyson received the compliment in what had become her usual way, by smiling sweetly and saying, “Thank you, sweetie. When we’re done eating, you can thank me again by fucking the daylights out of me.”

The eye contact between them in that moment was electric. Chad sucked in a hissing breath through clenched teeth. Talking dirty at the dinner table was one of Allyson’s kinks. No dinner ever elapsed without some amount of what she called“naughty talk.”

Chad returned her smile and said, “I’d like that.”

Allyson licked her lips after another delicate sip from her wine glass.“Of course you would. But I think I’ll sit on your face for a while first.” She laughed softly as she dipped a spoon in her curry. “After all, you’ll want to show your appreciation for all my hard work, won’t you?”

Dinner continued in that manner for a time. Moments of relative silence during which they enjoyed the food, followed by increasingly ribald verbal exchanges. Chad ’s body was vibrating with need by the time he finished his meal. His fork clattered on the plate and their eyes locked across the table again.

Allyson smiled. “We’re going to the bedroom. Fuck cleaning up. It can wait.”

Chad nodded his enthusiastic agreement. “Yes.”

He hurried around the table and pulled Allyson into his arms, her body slamming against his as she hooked her arms and a leg around him. Their mouths met. Their tongues danced. They gasped and moaned. Chad ’s erection thrust against the fabric of his trousers. Allyson squealed as she felt it and writhed against the hardness, making Chad shudder and reach for the hem of her dress, snatching it up over her ass.

“Hell with the bedroom,” Chad managed between gasps. “I want you now. Right here.”

A sound like a growl emerged from Allyson’s throat and a corner of her mouth curled in a carnal snarl. “Yes. Yes. Do it.”

Chad spun her around, grabbing a handful of her dress and pushing the flimsy bit of fabric up over her ass as she braced herself against the table.

She looked back at him over her shoulder, biting her lip as she said, “Hurry. Hurry.”

Chad was reaching for his zipper when they heard the heavy double knock.

THUMP-THUMP.

Someone was at the front door, pounding the wood with the base of a fist rather than using the brass knocker.

“God-DAMMIT!” Allyson slapped an open palm against the table top and stood up straight. “Who the fuck could that be?” She glanced over her shoulder at Chad again. “Please tell me you’re not expecting anyone. You would’ve told me, right?”

Chad frowned. “Who would I be expecting?”

The question was rhetorical. Allyson was the only person he’d allowed to get close to him since moving to the Atlanta suburb of Buckhead. He had no friends. The friends he’d had in his former life in Tennessee were either dead, estranged, or missing. And he’d made no new friends here. He was a financial analyst for Aerodyne in Atlanta, where he met a lot of people, but he’d intentionally maintained an air of aloofness with his fellow employees. And he met all gestures of potential friendship with a wall of coldness. With Allyson as the one welcome exception, of course.

THUMP-THUMP came the double-knock again.

Chad groaned. “Christ. You know it can’t be anyone I know.”

Allyson sniffed. “Well, I don’t have any friends here either, remember?”

It was true. Allyson had moved to Atlanta only a week prior to Chad ’s relocation there. They had met by chance at a coffeehouse, the chemistry between them instant and undeniable. And since then they’d been too involved with each other to bother meeting new people or getting entangled in the local social strata in any way.

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!

“Fuck!” Chad moved past her, anger boiling inside him again as the knocking intensified. “Okay, time to get rid of this asshole.”

“Be careful.” Allyson hurried after him, the slap of her bare feet on the kitchen tile becoming a whisper as tile gave way to living room carpet. “For God’s sake, Chad, don’t just open the door. It could be anyone. Remember that home invasion last week.”

Chad ’s hand paused on the doorknob. She was right. He’d read the newspaper stories. A wife and daughter had been raped. The wife’s husband was tortured until he’d given up the combination to the safe in his office. No one was killed and everyone had said how lucky that was for the victims. Except that Chad knew that was bullshit. Those poor people would carry the mental scars of that night with them the rest of their days.