“You doin’ okay in there?” Maybelle screeched.

“Yes.” She whispered the word.

“Huh?”

“I finally know what you mean,” she said just loudly enough to carry through the door. “Now I feel sexy.”

“Whatever she’s got on,” she heard Maybelle hiss to the saleslady, “we’ll take it.” Then her voice came faintly through the closed door. “Now that you feel it, hon, what’re you gonna do about it?”

It felt a lot like how going to confession must feel. In the anonymity of the dressing room, speaking softly through the door, Mallory told Maybelle exactly what she intended to do.

When she got home with her treasure, lacy bras and panties, the pink robe and gown and several more equally sheer and arousing sleep outfits, she realized she hadn’t asked Maybelle if she’d started reading her mother’s book.

Her mother-and her books-were way down on her list of priorities right now. What was on her mind was that it was only eight-twenty and Carter was at home. She could tell he was at home because his overcoat lay on one chair and his tie on another, his briefcase was open and the contents spread out over the table that held the Christmas tree. A lot of Carter was there to look at, just not Carter himself. He had to be in his bedroom. Alone, she hoped.

She didn’t hear any giggling female voices or see any evidence of a woman, no stiletto heels kicked into a corner, no feminine-looking coat or handbag. Whatever he’d done tonight must have ended in complete disaster. She tried to feel sorry, but it wasn’t easy.

She tiptoed into her own room with her new unmentionables, then tiptoed back out. She couldn’t help herself-she had to hang up that overcoat. Once she’d done that, she had to lay the tie out in a neat fold on the little table behind the mistletoe-hung arch, and once she’d done that, she had to put his papers into squared-off stacks.

Now she could put her own things away. Suddenly starving, she went to her bedroom and ordered from room service. “Shall we deliver your dinner with Mr. Compton’s?” said the voice that answered the phone.

“One dinner or two?” she wanted to ask, but couldn’t. She thought about it for a minute. “No, bring his when it’s ready.”

It was a little like a French farce. From her bedroom, she heard the bell ring, then heard Carter tiptoe out to receive his room service order. Mallory had her ear glued to the door. It sounded as if the waiter was setting up in his bedroom. So when the bell rang a second time thirty minutes later, she tiptoed out and steered the waiter with his cart into her room. As the waiter left her room, she heard Carter tiptoe out with his empty tray.

She felt the tension building. When she did what she intended to do, she might actually surprise him into compliance. Her plan was what you might call an ambush, very unsportsman-like, but highly effective.

The evening wore on. Mallory ate dinner and did another tiptoeing act to deposit the tray outside the door of the suite. From Carter’s room came the muted sounds of an action movie-bam! bang! crash! ker-plooey! Next she took a long, soaking bubble bath. She washed her hair, blow-dried it to a smooth, silky fall, redid her makeup. She found herself drawn to the stock market channel and made herself switch to a romantic movie.

At last she couldn’t stand it anymore and tiptoed over to listen at Carter’s door. He was asleep. The soft, rumbling snore was a sure sign.

It was time.

As if it were a battle campaign, she checked her ammunition one last time. Makeup, not too much, not too little, her hair, the hang of the hot-pink gown and robe, her fingernails and toenails.

Quit stalling.

Okay, you can put on one dot of perfume first. The patchouli-based scent the makeup artist had tucked into her bag was heavy and musky, generating images of long, steamy afternoons of sex, which meant she had to keep Carter interested until summertime.

Maybe she was starting too soon.

Get yourself across the hall!

She sneaked across the sitting room floor, positioned herself outside Carter’s door—

She’d forgotten the sheaf of papers she was supposed to wave in his face.

Back across the sitting room. Grab the papers. Back to Carter’s door. No nonsense now. Go for it.

She threw open his door with a shattering bang. “Carter, I’ve had a brainstorm!” she announced, scurrying into the room before he could find something to throw at her. “Wake up. I have to talk to you now, while it’s fresh on my mind.” She’d reached his bed, where he was thrashing, trying to sit up. She plopped herself onto the edge and drew one knee up until it touched him.

“Is it morning?” he croaked.

“Not yet. This is too important to wait for morning.” The act of parting her legs like that, feeling the robe slide open and the cool air of the room wafting between her thighs, all that while being so close to Carter’s overwhelming maleness was having a startling effect on her. It was Carter she was supposed to be seducing, not herself.

She put the sheaf of papers on the other side of him, which gave her all the excuse she needed to lean over him, brushing his chest with her breasts. He seemed to be trying to pull more cover over himself, but her position made it impossible. “Can you wake up enough to listen?”

He was as awake as he’d ever been in his entire life. His eyes might not be fully open, but under the covers, everything was stirring. In the light that came through the doorway he could see her clearly enough to react to the silkiness of the robe she was wearing, and how little there was of it. Her knee pushed against his thigh and the robe parted, giving him a glimpse of her breasts, smooth, creamy, mounded like ice cream and just begging to be licked. The robe was pink. Strawberry sauce.

She wore a gown under the robe, but it concealed nothing. His hands were itching to slide into that opening in the robe, cup her breasts, bring them to his mouth one at a time, discover and explore her nipples. He wanted to make her scream with pleasure and beg him for more.

His erection, sudden and powerful, ached insistently.

“There’s a thread that runs through all the depositions,” she said, but his senses went on the alert when she moved a little closer, bent a little lower, then put her hand on his chest, splaying out the fingers. It was such a small gesture, and undoubtedly an innocent one. She had no idea how her touch branded him with its heat. He mustn’t let himself reach out to her. If he touched her, he would have to kiss her, wouldn’t be able to help himself.

Just like he couldn’t help shifting under the pressure of her smooth, slim hand, turning the touch into a stroke, feeling her fingernails rasp lightly against his chest hair, making it tickle, making his own nipples harden with pleasure and anticipation.

The scent of her perfume wafted to his nose, not overpowering but intriguing, something rich, mysterious and suggestive. The gleam of her hair, the flash of her eyes, were casting a spell on him.

She felt it, too. He could tell by the way her voice slowed, thickened until it sounded like dark honey. “They all want something,” she said, but her eyes had fixed on his face, and those long lashes were drooping down to her cheeks.

Did it mean there was a limit to her self-control? But was she feeling anything important for him, or was it just her excitement at having made a discovery? Or, just as hopeless, was it just a natural but impersonal reaction to the intimacy of being alone in a dark bedroom with someone, nearly naked? And did he even care?

God, how he wanted to pull her down to him and take her mouth so hard and fast that she’d want him to take the rest of her just as hard and fast. “Everybody wants something,” he managed to say, hearing how his voice has hoarsened. He was desperate to tell her what he wanted. No, to show her, with his mouth, his tongue, his hands, his cock that throbbed so painfully with longing to be inside her.