She Loves Me Not Read Online Free PDF Page B

already, the magazine still clutched in his hands.
    Disappointment steals over her.
    She turns off the bedside lamp and slips between the cold sheets on her side.
    â€œBen?” she whispers, poking him. “Ben?”
    He mumbles incoherently, his back to her.
    Shivering, she stretches out beside his warm body, wrapping her arms around him, kissing his shoulder. “Ben?”
    He grunts, rolls over. “Why did you turn off the light?”
    â€œYou were sleeping.”
    â€œI’m reading.” He turns the lamp back on.
    â€œYou’re not reading anymore.” She kisses his neck.
    He closes his eyes again, wearily as opposed to passionately.
    â€œBen. Warm me up, will you? It’s freezing in here.”
    â€œTurn up the heat.”
    I’m trying, she thinks grimly, pushing the comforter and sheets back to expose her supposedly provocative self. Her teeth are practically chattering, and Ben’s eyes are still closed.
    â€œBen . . .” She kisses his neck again. “Look at me. Please?”
    He opens his eyes. If he’s enraptured by the sight of her in her nightie, he’s doing a hell of a job keeping his burning desire under wraps.
    â€œNo wonder you’re cold,” he says. “Go put on something with sleeves.”
    â€œOr I could take this off and not put anything on,” she says, feeling slightly ridiculous. She isn’t good at seduction. She never has been. Dammit, why won’t Ben take the lead? She trails kisses along his collarbone.
    He squirms. “Come on, Christine, cut it out. It’s tax season. I need to get some sleep.”
    â€œYou just said you were reading.”
    â€œWell, now I’m sleeping. I took cold medicine an hour ago and it knocked me out.”
    â€œWhy? You’re not sick.”
    â€œI think I’m coming down with the flu. Everyone at work’s been getting it.”
    Terrific. Ben is prone to frequent moaning when he’s ill. When they were newlyweds, she relished the chance to play Florence Nightingale, but that got old very quickly. Especially after she got seriously sick herself, and Ben’s bedside manner left something to be desired.
    â€œThis is my fertile time, Ben,” she points out. “How am I supposed to get pregnant if you have no interest in me whatsoever?”
    â€œI didn’t say I had no interest in you whatsoever, Christine, I just said I’m not in the mood tonight.”
    â€œYou’re never in the mood.”
    â€œI’m coming down with the flu, and I’m wiped out after a fifteen-hour day. You try riding the train round trip for hours every morning and night and see how you feel.”
    â€œI’m not the one who wanted to move out here, Ben. You are.” She rolls away from him and sits up, pulling the blankets to her chest, partly because she’s shivering, partly because she’s suddenly self-conscious about the plummeting neckline. “You know I would have been perfectly content to stay in the city.”
    â€œYou were miserable in the city for the entire last year we were there. I thought a change of scenery would help.”
    â€œI went through hell last year, and it had nothing to do with where we lived. If you want to help me, you know that a baby would— Where are you going?”
    He’s out of bed, throwing a sweatshirt over his pajamas and heading for the door.
    â€œOut for a walk.”
    â€œI thought you were so goddamned tired.”
    His reply is lost in the door’s staccato slam.
    She’s left alone to cry into her pillow, shivering from the chill.
    L ong past one A.M ., lamplight still spills from the first-floor windows at 48 Shorewood Lane.
    He wonders whether Rose has fallen asleep on the couch in front of the television again, like she did last night. Or maybe she’s awake, folding laundry, as she was when he peeked through the window late one night last week.
    His boots make a