One Sex Scene Too Far Read online

  He hefted the bicycle into the trunk and hopped into the driver’s seat.

  “Christ,” he said. “You’re shaking.”

  He started the engine and eased the car down the road. He drove slowly at well below the speed limit. Robin guessed he was being extra careful after what had happened.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I never meant to spook you like that. My horn was supposed to be a warning. You were right in the middle of the road. What were you doing?”

  “Daydreaming.”

  He grinned. “I do that all the time. I think all writers are daydreamers.”

  He stopped at a traffic light and turned to Robin as she took off her helmet. She heard the tug of his breath.

  “It’s you,” he said. “The redhead from the signing.”

  “Yes. I threw myself under your car so that you would stop and sign my breast.”

  He laughed. Damn, his laugh was attractive. Robin’s throat tightened. She felt suddenly starstruck. She was cracking jokes with Luke Delaney.

  The car moved off again. She was so overwhelmed that it took her several seconds to realize they were about to cross the Burrard Bridge.

  “You need to turn around,” she said. “I live up by Main and 22nd.”

  “I’m taking you home,” Luke said. “You can’t be alone yet. You’re still in shock.”

  Robin opened her mouth to protest. Then she closed it again. In her mind, her apartment was growing smaller and darker by the second. She realized that she didn’t want to be home alone

  “Thanks,” she said. “I’d like that.”

  Luke smiled. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to hospital for a checkup?”

  He was so sweet, Robin thought. Not arrogant like she’d assumed. In the next few minutes, he checked on her another handful of times.

  They crossed the bridge and turned left onto Beach Avenue. The snow fell fast. Luke maneuvered his car into a parking lot that was underneath one of the skyscrapers. They got out of the SUV and he led Robin across the lot and into an elevator, where he pressed his security card against a control pad.

  The elevator shot up so high and so fast that Robin’s ears popped. It stopped at the penthouse suite. With a ping, the door slid open. Luke ushered her across a corridor, then he used his security card to open another door, which he held open for her.

  “After you,” he said.

  Robin stepped ahead of him into an apartment, her feet sinking into the thick wool carpet. Everything was white—the walls, the carpet, the low, modern furniture. She blinked. She felt snow-blind. It was like they’d brought the snow in with them from the outside.

  It was still snowing outdoors, too. She could see the snow through a floor-to-ceiling window, which took up the end wall of the living room. She crossed the room to the window and pressed her nose against the glass. Feathers of snow spiraled past her. They tumbled down and down toward the sheet of the Pacific Ocean.

  Luke appeared beside her with a glass of cognac.

  “Here,” he said. “This should warm you up.”

  “Thanks.” She took the glass from him. “What a view.”

  She was so high up she felt like she was in control of everything. Even the ocean had offered itself to her.

  “I feel like the queen of the sea,” she murmured.

  Luke grinned. “The queen of the sea. I like that. What do you do?”

  “Me? Oh, I work in marketing for Flido. It’s an Internet company.”

  He nodded. “I’ve heard of them. But I wasn’t asking about your work. I was asking about you. What do you do?”

  She hesitated.

  There were many things she liked to do. She liked to sing her lungs out in the shower. She liked to pick blackberries in the fall and get her fingers stained with purple juice. She loved it when the hummingbirds brought their babies to her feeder. But none of these things seemed sophisticated enough for Luke.

  “I like to read,” she said at last. It was the best she could manage.

  Luke smiled the warmest smile.

  “A reader,” he said. “I should have known you’d be a reader.” It was like she’d joined a secret club.

  “What types of books are you into?” he asked.

  Silently, Robin cursed. Now she was going to have to admit that she hadn’t read any of his books.

  “I read romances,” she said.

  She expected Luke to laugh, but he didn’t. Even still, she felt unsettled like she’d exposed too much of herself.

  She put her glass onto a side table. “Thanks for the drink.”

  “You haven’t touched it.”

  “Sorry. I’ve changed my mind. I want to go.”

  Luke looked crestfallen.

  “They were right at the book launch,” he blurted. “I am writing a romance.”

  Robin’s jaw dropped.

  “I thought it would be easy,” Luke said with a sigh. “God, was I arrogant. A friend of mine, Ron Cartwright, dared me to do it. So I thought why not? I wrote a twenty-page proposal and sent it to my agent. Then I gave her a hard copy of the first draft. It came back thick with red scribbles. She hated it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Luke sighed again. “Don’t be. I didn’t bring you here to bore you with my problems. It’s a shame,” he continued. “If you’d have stayed much longer, we might have been snowed in.”

  He sounded so wistful that Robin found herself weakening. Then she told herself he’d probably used that line before on tons of love-struck groupies.

  ****

  Luke drove her home through the snow. The shapes of things were fading. She could no longer make out the gap between the curb and the road or the corners of the walls. The snow was softening everything. She bet outside, it was muffling the sounds.

  They passed a snow angel on the pavement. Robin imagined the angel taking off into the night on its filigree wings.

  She directed Luke to her house and he pulled up at the curb. Her house looked less old and ragged now that it was sheathed in snow. The kids in the neighbourhood called it the haunted house but Robin liked the fact that it was old. She loved how the floorboards creaked when she walked on them. It was as if the house was singing to her.

  She glanced at Luke. He was craning his neck to see to the top.

  “When was it built?” he asked. “It’s so tall.”

  “Mmm, I think the landlord raised the basement. It’s not all mine. I just rent the top suite.”

  There was a pause.

  For an insane second, she thought he was going to ask to see her again.

  “Take care,” he said.

  Robin bit her lip. Of course he didn’t want to see her again. How silly of her to think he did.

  She opened the door of the SUV. A blast of cold hit her. She stepped out, her feet crunching on the snow. Then she stuck her head back into the car.

  “Wait,” she said. “I’ve got something for you.”

  Luke raised his eyebrows.

  She hurried up the stairs of the fire escape to her apartment. Then she ran inside to the bookcase. Her favorite book, From My Fire to Yours, was easy to spot. She’d read it so many times that the spine was falling off.

  She eased the book from the shelf. Then, after thinking for a second, she took it into the bathroom where she grabbed her perfume and spritzed it over the pages.

  She hurried back to Luke’s car.

  “Here.” She passed the book to him through the driver’s window. “It’s my favorite. I thought it might help.”

  He grinned. “You’re giving me a romance?”

  Robin blushed. What a stupid gift. What had she been thinking?

  She turned and trudged off through the snow.

  “Bye,” he called after her. “From my fire to yours.”

  She had the distinct impression that he was laughing at her. Then she told herself not to be so paranoid.

  Chapter Three

  It was only the next morning that Robin remembered abou
t her bike. Blast. She’d left it in the back of Luke’s car. Not that she could ride it anyway. It was way too mangled. Her poor bike. She’d loved that bike. It was only four years old and it was the newest one she’d ever owned.

  She had to get the bus to work. She waited forever at the bus stop in the slushy snow. Her side ached from bruises. She’d scraped the skin off of her left hipbone during the fall. She felt like she was sixty-three, not twenty-three, old and stiff and frail.

  At 9.05 a.m., she dragged herself up the office steps and into reception. Sam sat at the desk, framed against a backdrop of frosted glass. She had too much gel in her short hair, which was spiked like a baby bird.

  Robin came up to the desk. She braced herself, expecting Sam to make a wisecrack about signing breasts. But Sam was engrossed in opening the mail.

  “Hi, is she in?” Robin asked, referring to Audrey, her dragon of a manager.

  Sam looked up from the letters and shook her head, her dangly earrings swinging. “No. But she’s left you a ton of work. You’re to go through the database and clean up all the duplicate addresses.”

  Robin groaned. The database was huge. Could her life get any worse?

  She left Sam and set off along the corridor toward the marketing department, scuffing her toes across the industrial carpet. The corridor seemed to stretch on for miles. Normally, she loved walking into the marketing department. It was the coolest place in the company, and she liked to step into the buzz and chatter.

  But not today. That morning the department stood empty apart from a temp, who was dispiritedly stocking up the stationery cupboard in the corner. Robin came up to her cubicle. Her shoulders slumped. A printout of the database lay on her desk. It had a Post-it note attached to the topmost paper of the tower.

  Hopefully by Friday! the note said in Audrey’s controlled handwriting.

  Robin sighed. It was going to take her forever. Friday next year more like.

  She sat at the desk, powered on her laptop, and checked her work emails. There was nothing important. Then, rather than getting on with the database, she found herself opening up Google and keying Luke Delaney’s name into the search bar.

  There were so many pictures of him. A lot had been taken at industry parties or at swanky fundraising events. Often he was alone. But sometimes he had his arm around the waist of a girl in a cocktail dress. The girls were different but interchangeable, long-limbed and carefully groomed. They reminded Robin of thoroughbred racehorses.

  She paused on a picture of Luke as he stood alone on a red carpet. She stared into his coal-black eyes. Who are you? she thought. Why can’t you keep a woman?

  The phone rang. Robin jumped. Maybe it was Audrey checking up on her. Instinctively, Robin shut down Google.

  She grabbed the receiver.

  “Hi,” Sam’s voice cut down the line. “There’s something for you in reception.”

  “Oh, right,” Robin said.

  There was a pause.

  “I’ll come and get it, I guess,” Robin said.

  She put down the phone and made her way back toward reception. Wow, she must really have got Sam’s back up about the breast-signing comment. When a courier arrived, Sam always brought the parcels to people’s desks. She never made people fetch them. It was an unofficial part of her job.

  Robin stepped into the reception area and came to a stop. A crowd, which was made up mainly of people from customer service, were grouped in a circle around something. The huddle was so tight that Robin couldn’t see what they were looking at. She tried to peer through the gaps between bodies. Then she stood on tiptoe, but all she saw were the backs of people’s heads.

  Sticking her elbows out, she pushed her way to the front. Her breath caught in her throat. They were all looking at a bike, a black and gleaming bike.

  “I’d like to get a Specialized too.” she overheard Pete from Accounts say to Tristan in Maintenance.

  Tristan laughed. “Yeah, bud. As if. You’d never save up two thousand bucks.”

  Robin skirted around the crowds until she’d reached Sam.

  “It’s for me, isn’t it?” she said to Sam in a quiet voice.

  Sam nodded.

  Robin’s heart sang. Luke had bought her a beautiful bike.

  “Do you know who it’s from?” she asked.

  “No. They didn’t leave a note.”

  Robin bit her lip. No note. What was Luke playing at?

  ****

  By five o’clock, it was snowing too much for Robin to be able to cycle home. She sweet-talked Sam into letting her leave her bike in the reception area. She left it propped against a wall near the water cooler. Then she walked down the steps and into the snow.

  The flakes shone white as they tumbled past the streetlamps. Robin blew on her hands to warm them up. Then she braced herself to start the trek to the bus stop.

  Just then, she noticed Luke’s SUV, which was parked some distance away. Her heart skipped. He’d come for her. He’d actually come for her. She could hardly believe it.

  She floated up to the driver’s side of the car. Luke wound down the window. Robin felt the insides of her stomach turn to liquid. He was so good-looking, like a fallen angel. If she lived to be a hundred, she’d never get over how handsome he was.

  “Where’s your bike?” he asked.

  “I crashed it.”

  His eyes went wide.

  She grinned. “Kidding. I was scared of riding it in the snow.”

  “I don’t blame you,” he said. “Christ, I still feel so bad about what happened. Let me take you out to dinner to make it up to you.” His words came out in a nervous clump.

  Robin felt giddy. There was no real need for him to be here. He was asking her on a date.

  “Well, I’m not sure…” She kept her voice casual.

  Luke grinned. “Don’t tell me. You’ve got to stay in and wash your hair.”

  “I do have this massive pile of laundry.”

  “Stop teasing.”

  “Okay. I’d love to go.”

  Luke smiled.

  He was still smiling as Robin hopped into the car.

  ****

  He drove them to the Corner Bar in Olympic Village. Robin had heard of it before. It was the hangout for Vancouver’s elite. It had five-star Yelp reviews and the tables were booked up for weeks in advance. She bet Luke had used his celebrity status to swing them a place.

  The bar was full of glamorous people, who sat chatting around chunky wooden tables. Candles flickered onto exposed brick walls. Robin breathed in the smell of melting butter. Her stomach rumbled. The tuna sandwich she’d had for lunch felt like a lifetime ago.

  The server, a guy with an eyebrow piercing, bustled up to them and introduced himself as Sean. He led them down an aisle toward a table at the back. As they walked, diners kept looking at Luke and nudging and whispering to one another. Some were surreptitiously filming him on their phones.

  Robin tugged down her skirt, which kept riding higher up her thighs. She wished she’d worn a better top.

  They reached the table and sat down. Sean presented them with the menus then walked off, leaving them alone.

  Luke yawned into his hand.

  Oh God, Robin thought in panic. She was boring him already.

  He yawned again.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I was up all night reading your book.”

  “Oh. Did you like it?”

  Luke examined his hands. “To be honest, I didn’t think I would. But I loved it. The tone was perfect. Tell me, what did you like about it?”

  Robin’s words came out in a rush. “I loved how Nick loved Tania so much. He never doubted his love for her. Not once, not after everything that happened. He would have jumped in a fire to save her.”

  She trailed off suddenly embarrassed by her passion.

  There was a pause.

  “So what part of your book are you struggling with?” she asked.

  She took a sip of water from her glass.

&
nbsp; “With the sex scenes.”

  Robin almost spat her mouthful of water back into the glass.

  “There are three scenes,” Luke explained. “My agent, Celeste, said that I didn’t put any emotion into them. She said that they were too…”—he winced—“too mechanical. I mean, Christ. It’s not that I don’t know about sex.”

  “I can help you,” Robin found herself saying.

  Luke’s eyes bulged. “Huh?”

  “We could act out the sex scenes in your book. With our clothes on. While we’re doing them, you could remember the emotions you feel and write them down afterward.”

  “You’re kidding!” Luke looked incredulous. “Christ,” he continued. “There’s no way I’m refusing an offer like that.”

  ****

  They ate their meal. Luke ordered a charcuturie plate, then bass. Robin went for the duck pate followed by a vat of mussels.

  Over dinner, Luke told her some gossip about some seriously A-list stars. She relayed some tidbits about work, like how she’d joined the green team. She knew that her stories were lame compared to his. He listened and nodded and laughed in the right places. But she sensed he was preoccupied. She was preoccupied, too. Her hands shook as she used her knife and fork. Her voice in her ears sounded unnaturally high.

  She was going to help Luke Delaney write his next book. The Luke Delaney. No doubt it would be a bestseller given his track record as a writer. It was going to be so fun. So romantic. Such a glorious escape from real life. And it felt like fate. Like her diet of romance novels had led up to this very moment.

  ****

  Luke drove them back to his place. They parked in the underground parking lot, then rode the elevator up to his apartment. Robin stared at herself in the mirror on the wall, which reflected the opposite mirror. Her reflection was bounced back again and again. There were so many of her, hundreds of Robins. They all looked the same—wild-eyed and strung out on adrenaline. Holy fuck. What had she agreed to? She had offered herself to Luke on a platter.

  The elevator arrived. They went into Luke’s apartment. Robin sat on the couch. Her throat was dry and her palms sweated. Luke offered her a drink but she refused. He sat next to her on the sofa.