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of a certain tension after a while in the way he was holding her, she straightened away from him, allowing her arms to assume a more conventional position.
    “Don’t change,” he murmured against her hair.
    “You plied me with liquor,” she accused, laughter burbling in her husky drawl, “and what’s worse, at least where I’m concerned, you plied me with food that was totally irresistible.” She let her head rest against his neck, her eyes on a level with the pulse that beat just under his jaw. She felt satiated with food and drink and something else she didn’t dare analyze, something she had no desire to resist.
    “Hedonist. You’re an amazingly easy target, you know.”
    She responded lazily to the teasing note in his voice. “I am, aren’t I? I’m making all sorts of alarming discoveries about Miss Willy Silverthorne these days.”
    His feet slowed to a stop and his arms tightened until she was acutely aware of every muscle in the length of his body. “I think we’d better get out of here or I’m going to start on my dessert beforetimes,” he growled, leading her out the screened door and around to where they had left the car. “I’ll give you a rain check on that road test. I don’t think you’re in any condition to appreciate the subtleties of engineering tonight, hmmm?”
    They went straight home and Willy suppressed a minor surge of disappointment as he wheeled into his garage. It was too early for the evening to end, especially as she was feeling— How was she feeling? Full, but not uncomfortable . . . woozy, but not drunk . . . satisfied, yet strangely unsatisfied. And when Kiel led her across the uneven pavement to the dunes that led onto the beach, she followed along as if she had had a last-minute reprieve.
    “Leave your shoes here,” he ordered, slipping off his own and turning the cuffs of his white trousers up a couple of turns. He took off his natural linen jacket, turned back the sleeves of his brown silk shirt, and they began to walk.
    There was no one on the beach. Between the crests of the high row of dunes, the lights of an occasional cottage glimmered, but for all Willy cared, they could have been alone in the world, so still was the night, so bright the moon; and when Kiel began to speak after they had walked for perhaps a quarter of a mile, Willy had trouble shifting from a purely sensual creature to a rational one in order to grasp his words.
    “Why don’t you ride to work with me from now on?”
    “What? Oh ...” She considered the idea and rejected it, and Kiel wanted to know why not.
    Her refusal had been instinctive, based on the crazy, exhilarating feeling of skating on thin ice she had when she was with him, but she tried to rationalize it. “Oh ... I don’t know, Kiel. It’s enough of a coincidence, our working so close and living so close. I mean, who would have expected you accidentally to move into the house closest to mine when we happen to work in adjoining buildings. If we suddenly started showing up for work together, people might— Oh, you know what I mean! So far, no one’s even seen us out together, but if we suddenly start letting it be known that we practically live in each other’s pockets, then tongues will start wagging and I can do without that sort of thing.”
    “So you prefer not to mix business and pleasure, hmm?”
    Sidestepping a wave that was more aggressive than its brothers, she jostled against him and he caught her to his side and forgot to release her. “I hadn’t exactly thought of it that way,” she parried.
    “Then think about it. Surely you haven’t managed to get off scot-free, working with all those would-be Lotharios. Haven’t you even dated a few of them?”
    She moved her shoulders in a disparaging way, searching for a way to change the subject, but he persisted and finally she told him that yes, she had gone out with one or two of them and still dated her boss on occasion. “But I’d rather not, really,” she