Dream a Little Dream (Chicago Stars, #4)(177)

As he started the truck, the tension that had been sizzling between them all day intensified. She lowered the window, and then realized the air-conditioning was already running.

“Heat getting to you?” He gave her a faintly wolfish look, but she was nervous now, and she pretended not to see it.

“It’s been warm today.”

“Hot’s more like it.”

His gentle pressure on her thigh encouraged her to slide closer, but she turned away and raised the window instead. He removed his hand.

She didn’t want him to think she was being coy, especially when she wanted him so badly, and she knew she had to tell him. “Gabe, I started my period this morning.”

He turned his head and regarded her blankly.

“My period,” she repeated. When he looked no more comprehending, she remembered his professional background. “I’m in heat.”

He gave a bark of laughter. “I know what it means, Rachel. I just can’t figure out why you think I’d give a damn.”

She hated herself for flushing. “I don’t believe I’d be comfortable . . .”

“Sweetheart, if you’re serious about being a hussy, you need to get rid of your hang-ups.”

“I don’t have any hang-ups. That’s just hygiene.”

“Bull. We’re talkin’ a major hang-up.” He gave a dry chuckle at her expense and turned out onto the highway.

“Go ahead and laugh at me,” she said grouchily. “At least this problem will go away. The other problem isn’t so easy.”

“What problem is that?”

She traced a thin streak of blue on the skirt of the tangerine-and-white checked dress she’d set aside for painting. “I just can’t figure out how we’re going to manage our—you know. Our fling?”

“Fling?” He sounded offended. “Is that what this is?”

They rounded a bend in the road, and she had to squint against the setting sun. “It’s not an affair.” She paused. “Affair is too serious. It’s a fling, and the point is, I don’t see how we’re going to manage it.”

“We won’t have a bit of trouble.”

“If you believe that, you haven’t thought this through. I mean, we can’t just take off in the middle of the day and . . . and . . .”

“Fling?”

She nodded.

“I don’t see why not.” He grabbed his sunglasses from the dash and shoved them on. She wondered if they were a defense against the glare or her.

“You’re being deliberately obtuse.”

“No. I just don’t see the problem. Or are you still talking about that period thing?”

“No!” She jerked the visor down. “I’m talking generally. You think we’re just going to do it in the middle of the day?”

“If we want to.”

“Where would we go?”

“Anywhere we wanted. After what happened yesterday, I don’t think either of us is too choosy.”

He glanced over, and she saw her miniature reflection in the lenses of his sunglasses. She looked small, insignificant, capable of being blown apart by the next big wind. She turned away from the image.

“If the snack-shop counter doesn’t appeal to you, we can drive to the house,” he said.

“You don’t understand anything.”


“Then maybe you’d better explain it to me.” He spoke like a man holding on to the last threads of his patience, and she had to choke out the words.

“You pay me by the hour.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“What happens during the hour—the hours—we’re . . . flinging?”

He regarded her warily. “This is a trick question, isn’t it?”

“No.”

“I don’t know. Nothing happens.”

“Something happens to my paycheck.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with your paycheck.”

She was going to have to spell it out. “Do you pay me for the hour we’re flinging or not?”

He was clearly wary, and his answer tentative. “Yes?”

Her stomach sank. She turned away to gaze out the side window and whispered, “You jerk.”

“No! I mean no! Of course I don’t pay you.”

“I’m barely making it as it is. I need every penny I can get! Yesterday afternoon cost me half a week’s groceries.”

There was a long silence. “I’m not going to win this one, am I?”

“Don’t you see? Nothing can happen while we’re working, even if we want it to, because you control my paycheck. And after work, I have a five-year-old to take care of. Our sexual relationship is doomed before it ever gets started.”

“That’s ridiculous, Rachel. And I’m not docking your pay for yesterday.”

“Yes, you are!”

“Look. You’re making a big deal out of nothing. If we want to make love, and the time is right, we’ll make love. It doesn’t have anything to do with paychecks.”

He could pretend ignorance, but he knew exactly what she was talking about. At least he had the grace not to point out that she’d once offered him sex in exchange for the very paycheck they were arguing over.