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could see that all the soft lights had vanished from his eyes. "I’ll get the bedding for you."
    Jennifer watched him leave, wishing he would come back and tell her more. For she found that she very much wanted to learn about the little boy who had had no toys and the type of man he had grown into.
     
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    Over an hour later Jerome tossed restlessly in his wide bed. Tired as he was, he should be able to sleep. But it was proving impossible. He couldn’t get Jennifer White out of his mind. Her image haunted him.
    He could remember how soft and warm she had felt in his arms and how her lips had opened so invitingly under his. He could remember how good she had smelled before he had even seen her and then how beautiful she had looked when he had gotten his first clear look at her. He could remember the nervous habit she had of lighting a cigarette and then putting it out without smoking it. And he could remember how sad she had been when she had cried.
    Staring at his closed bedroom door through the dim light of his room, he wondered if she was asleep yet. Disregarding the voice calling him a fool because he wanted to see her one more time before he slept, he decided that it wouldn’t hurt to check on her.
    He shrugged into a robe and soundlessly slipped open the door. The living room was in dark shadows, with the exception of one lamp beside the couch. In profile to him, Jennifer stood on one leg, with the other raised and her foot supported on the edge of the couch. Wearing only a chemise, she was bending over and unbuckling one high-heeled shoe from around a shapely ankle. The silky material of the brief garment shimmered with every move she made. Jerome felt himself begin to struggle for breath.
    She dropped that shoe to the floor, switched legs, and bent to undo the second shoe. Her hair tumbled forward in soft waves from an indefinite part at the top of her head, and the lamplight cast out a glow, highlighting it. The scalloped lace border of the chemise stopped at mid-thigh. As she bent over he could see the edge of the matching panties that covered her sweetly curved bottom.
    Realizing that his fists were clenched, Jerome attempted to relax his hands and shoved them into the pockets of his robe just as Jennifer dropped the second shoe. She switched legs again, this time to reach up under the hem of the chemise to unfasten the top of her hose. Jerome swallowed hard. She must be wearing a garter belt.
    A garter belt! He had never known a woman who wore a garter belt. A surge of heat knifed through him so hot, he wasn’t sure he would be able to continue standing. How he wanted to make love to her! He could almost feel himself swollen and inside her now. But she was married. Married!
    Still unaware of him standing in the darkness, Jennifer began rolling down the first stocking, then she rolled down the other. He remembered now the dark hose he had first noticed in the bar as she had walked away from him toward that corner booth. There had been an even darker seam running down the center of each of her calves.
    A movement, a sound, something, made her turn, and Jennifer’s heart began to pound as she watched Jerome move out of the shadows. He was wearing a knee-length terry robe. Coarse sandy hair curled in the opening of the neck and down his bare legs. The stocking she held slipped out of her hand and drifted to the floor to join its mate.
    Jerome stopped a short distance away from her, unable to stop the dark hunger from flashing into his eyes. "Do you have everything you need?"
    "Yes, thank you," she murmured, then added needlessly, "I was just getting ready for bed."
    "So I see." He bent to pick up the pair of hose, and in an absentminded manner began to rub the gossamer substance of it between his fingers. "Tell me about your husband."
    "Husband?" It was terribly unnerving for her to watch him handle her hose in that intimate manner. Unnerving and exciting. She had the greatest urge to snatch them away from him