For some reason, this sends an unpleasant twist down my spine. Oh. So she just passes out after sex all the time. It means nothing.
That’s good, I tell myself. That’s what you wanted. Just a hookup.
So why does it bother me to think that this was nothing special to her?
“What’s wrong?” She’s still watching me, and in my early-morning pre-coffee daze, I must not have a very good poker face.
I force a haphazard smile. “Just thinking, that’s all.”
“About what?” Those pale eyes wander across my features before returning to search my eyes, like she can read the answer straight out of them.
Who knows, maybe she can. I try to think of the best way to tell her the truth without giving any false impressions. Because I’m thinking about her—but tell most women that and they’ll immediately assume it means you’re feeling something, getting serious. That’s obviously an impossibility for me. I’m thinking about her because she’s an interesting puzzle, that’s all.
“Wondering how you wound up here,” I say. That’s as far as I’ll confess.
It makes her crack a smile, though, and just that simple muscle movement, a slight difference in the curve of her lips, makes it feel as though a weight is lifting off my chest. “Well,” she says, “first I boarded an airplane from Philadelphia, then I landed in London and caught the endless transfer bus toward Oxfordshire . . . ”
I snort. “So you’re from Philadelphia?”
She shakes her head, which makes the strand of hair fall across her forehead once more. I fight the urge to brush it away once more. “A little town southwest of there. Lancaster. Don’t worry, even people from the eastern US seaboard have never heard of it,” she adds when I pull a confused expression. “It’s mostly Amish people and corn. Which is why I applied to go to the University of Pennsylvania the moment I could escape. It’s not far enough, but Mom wanted me kind of near home, and I wanted to be in a big city, plus I got a really big scholarship package, so . . . we compromised.”
“That’s a good school.”
She nods. “It is, but I want to go farther, you know? Philly’s only a couple hours away.”
“You don’t like the city?”
“It’s not that. I mean, it’s okay, I guess.”
“There’s a great music scene there. The Philadelphia Orchestra is fairly spectacular, if you like that sort of thing.” I’ve always wanted to see them in person, though the few times I’ve been to the US, the dates have never matched up right.
Harper smirks. “Never been, but I bet I would like it if I could afford it.”
My mouth drops open in only slightly exaggerated shock. “You live right there and you’ve never seen one of the best orchestras in the world?”
“Student budget, remember?”
“We really need to remedy this some time.” I shake my finger at her, faux-scolding. “That must be why you don’t like Philly.”
She laughs. “It’s not the city that’s the problem. I’m just afraid if I stick too close I’ll wind up getting sucked back into my hometown the way so many of my high school friends did. Some of them have babies already, can you imagine?”
I shudder, which makes both of us laugh. “That why you decided to study abroad?”
Another nod. “Traveling has always inspired me. I’ve been to London before to visit Mary Kate, and I’m always like a zillion times more productive on those trips than any other time in my life.”
“What do you mean, productive?” I ask. Somehow, this seems to be the wrong question. Suddenly she flushes bright red, and ducks her head toward the pillow. On instinct, I reach out to cup her cheek. Her skin burns hot beneath mine, though she does lift her face to mine again, seeming to forget about her desire to hide it. My thumb traces the curve of her cheekbone, and she exhales softly, a faint breeze on my palm.
I wait a moment, before smiling. “You were saying?”
She groans and bats my hand away, sitting up in bed. “Stop trying to distract me into baring my soul.”
“Oh, but it seemed to be working.” I wink.
She laughs, a throaty, breathy sound that drives me wild. I could take her again right now, pull her over top of me until she straddled my hips and let her ride me while I gazed up at her perfect, impossibly round white breasts, and savored the way her long red hair would bounce against them.
But somehow, strangely, even more than I want to do that, I want to know what makes her tick. “So you like to travel because it makes you . . . work better?”