The Polka Dot Nude Read Online Free PDF Page A

stuffed it in my purse with the book on Eliot. “I’ll leave you to Popper. See you tomorrow.”
     “I’ll walk you home,” he offered.
    It hardly seemed necessary, but I’d left the lights off and the door unlocked, so I was glad for the company. “I’ll go in and wait till you have a look around,” he said.
    “I don’t suppose they have many muggers here in the country.”
    “They have raccoons, skunks, and other undesirable critters.”
    He came in and waited while I turned on the lights and looked around. He strolled to the table and took a diary from my box of research material. “Mind if I take this home with me? I’ll bring it back tomorrow.”
    I looked to see it wasn’t a book I needed right away, and told him to take it. “But don’t lose it. I have to give all this stuff back to Rosalie.”
    “I’ll be careful.” At the doorway, he stopped and turned around. “Thanks again,” he said, looking at the diary.
    “Thank you for the feast.”
    After a thirty-second silent pause, during which he looked a question at me, and I apparently gave approval, he drew me into his arms. Even in heels, I had the luxury of reaching up to put my arms lightly around him. His head came down and stopped two inches above mine. “Did I happen to tell you, you’re sensational?” he asked softly.
    “It must have slipped your mind,” I murmured.
    “Not for one minute,” he said, and kissed me.
    I hadn’t realized he was so strong till I felt his arms crushing the breath from my lungs, shaping my body to his. Warm fingers moved over my back, their heat passing through my light silk blouse. Brad kissed the way he cooked— au point . Just the right amount of enthusiasm and pressure to show it was more than a formality, without overwhelming me. The ingredients were right, too; a woodsy scent hovered discreetly around him at this close range. His lips firmed, and a palpable excitement spiced with a soupçon of passion swelled between us. It was a natural chemistry, which took its course, simmering long enough to leave me breathless. I knew in my melting bones that I could easily lose my head over this man.
    His index finger stroked my cheek in a delightfully possessive and familiar way. He said, “See you tomorrow. Sleep tight.”
    I drifted into the living room on a cloud. I had just spent the evening with a tall, literate, heterosexual male older than twenty and younger than sixty. A man who didn’t consider kissing one of the martial arts. How had I gotten so lucky? He was interesting, handsome, even rich. And he liked me. He thought I was intelligent and beautiful. He thought I was sensational. Nobody ever called me “sensational” before in my whole life. When I stopped in front of the mirror over the sofa, I looked almost beautiful. There was a dreamy smile on my lips, and stars in my eyes.
    It would be intellectually stimulating to see him. Philosophy and real literature—I used to be interested in those things when I was at college. I foresaw a wonderful summer of rewarding work and pleasant diversion, culminating in— Now be real. Keep one moccasin on the ground. Culminating in the completed biography of Rosalie, and some more money.
    I glanced through a few of Rosalie’s letters, but my heart wasn’t in it, so I took Brad’s book of critical essays on Eliot to bed with me. It was wonderfully erudite, and the only reason my eyes were closing was that I was tired. If I remembered The Waste Land better, I’d understand the essays, find them more interesting. But what the hell was the “specious good,” and what did “prelapsarian” mean anyway? It wasn’t even in my dictionary. It meant he was a deep-dyed intellectual, and would soon discover I was shallow and superficial, with no real self to fill up my ego. But he hadn’t found it out yet, and Helen was in Greece on her honeymoon, so there’d be no interference from that quarter.
    How had she gotten Garth to the altar so fast? To me, he