Read Bedroom Eyes for Free Online Page B

suppose.”
    “How do you use it to move like that?”
    Mrs. Merlin skipped across the living room, which flowed through a wide archway into the kitchen, then vaulted onto the countertop. “Search me,” she said. “But when the goddess provides, I don’t question. Nice kitchen,” she added, glancing around.
    Assuming she wouldn’t get a straight answer from her visitor, and leaving her to finish passing judgment on her apartment, Penelope went into the bedroom to exchange her loafers for a comfortably worn pair of house slippers.
    Her slippers were under the edge of her bed. As she slipped off her shoes, her mind flashed to the memory of being lifted and carried effortlessly by the man with bedroom eyes. Her feet had floated above the sidewalk as he’d cradled her in his arms.
    Penelope knelt beside the bed, reliving the feel of her body crushed against his chest. She sighed, thinking how invincibly strong he was, how heroically he’d rescued her. Even Raoul, her fantasy lover, couldn’t have done a better job.
    She knew she should tend to the pint-size woman now surveying her kitchen like a broker come to bid, but Penelope, suffering a curiously stirring eruption of sheer physical reactions, couldn’t budge.
    “Who is that man?” she whispered, idly pulling her slippers on. “Why is he following me?” She rested one hand atop her thigh. Tracing a figure eight with her fingers, she said to herself, “Why does he bother with me?”
    She wished with all her being she could answer that question in a way that would bring her pleasure, but she was far too rational, far too honest. He wanted something from her, from Penelope Sue Fields, and it wasn’t her feminine allure that attracted him. Perhaps he was in tax trouble? Perhaps he needed a lawyer and didn’t know how to ask the bar for a referral? Perhaps he’d mistaken her for someone else?
    Surely, Penelope thought, smoothing her hands against her sides and along her slender hips, he did not desire the very thing she suddenly and fiercely wanted him to want.
    Her.
    Penelope Sue Fields, the last one chosen for softball, the first one picked by the teacher to read her homework.
    Penelope Sue Fields, outstanding lawyer, who might one day, if she continued on her current track, set her sights on a federal judgeship.
    Federal judgeships were for life.
    And so was spinsterhood.
    She sighed and turned away from her bed. Best to get back to the moment, back to Mrs. Merlin, however unreal that particular visitor might be. Soon David would arrive, and Penelope had so far neglected to prepare one tidbit of the marvelous dinner she’d imagined only that morning.
    That morning, which seemed weeks, even years ago. That morning, when she’d concentrated on the work she’d brought home, then rewarded herself by a late afternoon shopping trip to Pottery DeLite.
    “I say,” Mrs. Merlin piped up in a voice that carried surprisingly far, “would you happen to have a snack for a hungry woman? “
    Hearing her visitor’s voice, Penelope hurried from the bedroom. “Honestly,” she said. “I’m having trouble believing you’re real or I assure you I would have offered you refreshment the minute we walked in the door.”
    Mrs. Merlin crossed her arms and looked steadily at Penelope. “Do I look like an object of your imagination?”
    Thinking of the characters who peopled her fantasy world, Penelope felt a blush rise on her cheeks. “Well. . .” she began.
    “Never mind,” Mrs. Merlin interrupted. “No need for hypothetical questions. Especially when my hunger is most definitely real. I am craving something shrimp- or crab-based, and perhaps some jambalaya. Yes, jambalaya would be perfect. You do know how to make jambalaya?”
    Jambalaya? Escargots she knew. Crepes and other delicacies crowned with sauces ranging from béchamel to hollandaise to béarnaise, oh, yes, all those Penelope knew from heart. But jambalaya?
    In the few months she’d been in New Orleans