PeakExperience (10 page)

“Buzzworthy?”

She laughed. “It would be, but I think we should refrain
from mentioning it on Twitter.”

“Definitely gets the juices flowing.”

She lifted her head to look at him and raised an eyebrow.
They started laughing. “I suppose if we’re going to get any more work done,
however, we should get dressed again.”

“Sadly true,” he said and pushed her hair out of her face,
kissing her softly. They dressed much slower than they undressed. Barefoot, he
stepped around the papers on the floor. “There is a lot more stuff to go
through than I thought. What shall we do?”

“What we do best,” she said and paused. “Maybe second best.”
She knew she might regret her decision to sleep with him later, but couldn’t
bring herself to feel anything other than good for the moment. “You take one
pile of sketches and copy and I’ll take another and we’ll pull out the ones we
like and see what we can build on.”

The next thing Lena heard was Michelle’s voice saying, “Good
morning, kids. Coffee?”

Chapter Six

Lena opened her eyes and closed them again immediately.
There was too much light in the room.

“Come on, sleepyheads. Rise and shine.”

Shining did not feel like an option. “What time is it?”

“Eight thirty,” Michelle said. Lena sat up rapidly and
regretted it immediately. “No, no one knows the two of you are back here. And
we’ve all been so busy and stressed I don’t think anyone will notice you’re
wearing the same clothes as yesterday.”

Lena groaned. This was not the way to be professional. Thank
goodness they dressed after— She groaned again.

“Take the coffee,” said Michelle as she handed them each a
mug. “I’ll go get you something to eat.”

“Something with—” Lena started.

“Chocolate,” Michelle finished. “Oh, and you probably should
pick up your underwear from the foot of the couch.”

Michelle left without another word and Lena took a sip of
her coffee before looking across the office at Daniel. She had a feeling she
had the same dazed expression on her face. “Good morning,” she said.

“Well, the morning part is true, and last night was good,
but I’m not all that sure about now,” he said with a stretch and a moan. He’d
ended up falling asleep on his desk, which had to have been uncomfortable.

They were wading through papers from the night before when
Michelle came back with sweets. Lena and Daniel dove on the food, starving from
working—and playing—the night before.

“So did anything come out of last night?” Michelle asked.
They both choked on their breakfast. “Let me rephrase that. Did you make any
headway on the Golden presentation?”

“We have a lot of great ideas,” Daniel said. “But we haven’t
hit on the right combination yet.”

“Nothing is giving us that tingle. You know, the one that
screams ‘This is it!’.”

Michelle nodded. “There’s only ten days until the deadline.”
There was silence and Lena could feel the panic rising in her. “You need to
leave.”

“I suppose you’re right. I can go home, shower, maybe catch
a little more sleep and be back before one.”

“No, you need to get out of the office and go away. Both of
you.”

Lena looked at her friend wondering if her hearing was
muddled. “There’s no time for that.”

“There’s no time to waste,” said Michelle.

“What do you mean?”

“Every year you go out to your parents’ camp and you come
back rejuvenated and bursting with ideas and energy. I think that’s exactly
what you need right now.”

Lena couldn’t believe what Michelle was suggesting. She
sipped her coffee, hoping that if she woke up more, she’d hear something that
made sense. It didn’t help.

“Pack your things and get out of here or so help me I will
go straight to my office and cancel our appointment with Golden,” Michelle
said.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I would rather cancel than present anything less than our
best. Unless you can convince me you can do that given your current state, then
I’m making the call so we can focus on other business.”

Lena wanted to argue, to yell, to convince Michelle that
this was a crazy and unproductive idea, but she couldn’t deny her partner and
friend had a valid point. Damn it.

She took a deep breath and looked at Daniel. “Are you game?”

“Whatever it takes,” he said.

“Good,” said Michelle. “I expect to get a call from you
later this evening telling me you’re there and then I don’t want to hear from
you again until you are on your way back with something dazzling.”

They sat there in silence after Michelle left. Daniel spoke
first. “Do you have a car?”

“Yes.”

“Good, then you’re driving.”

Lena tried not to laugh. This was going to be interesting.

* * * * *

At two o’clock Lena pulled up in front of Daniel’s apartment
building in her red Mini Cooper. The look on his face was comical. She loved
her little car, and especially since after she bought it no one in her family
asked her to pick them up or drive them anywhere. With their height, she was
the last choice for a ride. She, however, felt safe and in control behind the
wheel. Let them have their SUVs, Lena was happy to zip around in traffic and
fit into any parking spot she wanted, especially in the city.

He wasn’t taller than her brothers, but he would likely seem
enormous in the tiny car. With Daniel sitting in the passenger seat, everything
would be different. She worried about whether or not this trip was going to
prove productive and whether being near Daniel all the time was going to be a
distraction she couldn’t afford.

“Can someone really fit in this?” he asked when she arrived.

“I can. Of course, I’m not abnormally large.”

“Neither am I, Thumbelina, but I’m not sure I can fold
myself into your toy car. Does it come with a remote control?”

“Very funny, Jolly Green Giant,” she said, choosing one of
the nicknames she used on her brothers. “You don’t have a car, so get in and
get comfortable.”

“Yes ma’am, although I’m not sure the latter is possible,”
he said with a salute which made her want to throw something at him, and a
smile that made her heart thump faster.

A few minutes later they were headed west on the
Massachusetts Turnpike, the city disappearing in her rearview mirror. In past
years she relished the drive to Crane Hill Camp, feeling her worries slip away
as she left Cambridge and with each mile she put behind her. The farther she
drove, the lighter she felt.

Not today.

“Is it a long drive?” Daniel asked.

“Feeling cramped already?”

“I think I have enough leg room. Barely. But no, I was
curious. I haven’t been out to the Berkshires since that summer.”

“It’s nearly two hours. I have a full tank of gas and
coffee, so I don’t think we’ll need to stop.”

“Can we sing camp songs? I think I remember
Kumbaya
.”

She laughed and cringed. “Not on your life. In fact, I’ve
done my best over the years to try to erase them from my memory, so don’t try
it. My iPod is in the bag behind my seat. Feel free to pull it out and pick
something.”

As he reached for it, he leaned closer and she recognized
the scent of his soap. When had it become familiar? And when had it started to
make her tingle with excitement. She refocused on the road in front of her as
he settled back into his seat.

“Cool,” he said after flipping through the playlists on her
iPod. “You like Blackmore’s Night.”

“They’re one of my favorites. I’ve caught them in concert a
few times. They’re amazing. I guess from your smile you like them too.”

“Love them, but I never had a chance to see them perform. An
old girlfriend introduced me to them, and I’ve been hooked ever since.”

“An old girlfriend?” Lena couldn’t imagine him with another
woman, and for some reason didn’t want to. It wasn’t a reaction she was
comfortable with, but she couldn’t ignore it.

“Someone I met when I was in business school. She was a
senior at Wellesley and eventually chose a medical school in California.”

“Did she break your heart?” The question slipped out before
she could stop it. Was this going to keep happening? She needed to be more
careful.

“Not at all. Both of us knew it was a short-term thing since
we met a few months before graduation. We had a lot of fun together though, and
she introduced me to several great things in addition to Blackmore’s Night.”

“Such as?” Stupid mouth. Stop opening, she admonished
herself.

“Single malt scotch, sushi, which I hadn’t been willing to
try before then, and how much a woman can enjoy being pleasured orally.” Lena
almost swerved into the other lane. “I’m sorry, was it something I said?”

Lena dared a glance at him and saw his smug expression. “No,
not at all. I was expecting you to mention oral sex at some point in the
conversation.”

“Were you?”

“No, not really. Go on,” she said, not meaning it.

“She was a very sensual person. Whether it was food, music
or sex, she had an appreciation and an appetite for it all. When I was younger
I wouldn’t have believed it, but there are things that can’t be learned from
books. They need to be experienced.”

“Is that so?” She desperately wanted to change the topic but
her mind couldn’t picture anything other than Daniel’s mouth between her legs.

“Definitely, and they deserve to be done slowly with every
part savored, no matter how hungry you might be for more. There’s a lot to be
said for taking time to appreciate texture, temperature and taste.”

His alliteration was doing nothing to distract her from the
images flashing through her thoughts. She remembered Daniel licking her as he
discovered places she was sensitive and focused on it until she was ready to
scream. He was as creative in bed as he was at the computer. If he kept talking
like this she was going to pull over and jump him, which was a nearly
impossible feat in a car this tiny.

He continued. “The heat of the liquid as it washes over the
salty taste. Savoring the ones which are sweeter and the ones that are oilier.”

She snapped out of her reverie. He lost her with his last
comment. “Oilier?”

“The sushi. Salmon is oiler than tuna. Mackerel is salty and
the best way to clear your palate after is by drinking something warm, either
green tea or a little sake. What did you think I was talking about?”

She was not going to give him the satisfaction of an answer,
especially since anything she said was going to come out wrong. She grabbed her
coffee and took a long swallow. Food was a safe topic. She could discuss food.
“We don’t have to go without while we’re out here. With all the tourists the
area gets, a Japanese restaurant has probably opened somewhere close.”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

True to her word, two hours later they pulled onto the
grounds of Crane Hill camp. She parked near the Grand House and they got out,
heading to the trunk to take out what they brought. He took a deep breath. “No
car exhaust fumes here.”

“Nope, almost nothing but fresh air.”

“So, what do you do when you’re here?”

“Read, walk, take pictures, skinny dip,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“I take pictures and develop those I’ve taken since I was
here last.”

He walked over and stood in front of her. His chest, his
presence, filled her entire field of vision. “That’s not what I was referring
to. I distinctly heard you mention skinny dipping.”

She laughed. “I owed you one for the oral sex comment during
the drive. I was kidding, however. The water is still too cold from winter to
swim.”

“Too bad. It could have been worth living without the
internet for that, but I’m sure we’ll find other ways to spend our time.”

She thought he was going to kiss her, but at the last moment
he leaned to the side and pulled out the closest piece of luggage. She didn’t
know what was worse. That he didn’t kiss her or that she was disappointed.

It didn’t take long to bring everything into the house and
Lena showed Daniel to a room on the second floor where he could stay. She knew
it was likely they were going to end up in the same room and the same bed, but
she didn’t want to start with the assumption.

Less than an hour later, they got back into the car and drove
to the local grocery store—supermarket would have been an overstatement—to
stock up on food. Daniel nixed several of her frozen choices in favor of fresh
foods. “You’re going to have to do most of the cooking then,” she said,
“because I have a reputation of being lethal in the kitchen. Most of my recipes
involve piercing plastic covering with a fork. I’m a born microwave-er.”

“I’ll take my chances,” he said. Still, to make things
easier for dinner, he agreed to stop at the town’s pizza place to grab sandwiches
and beers from the liquor store next door.

They ate on the back porch, silent and in their own worlds.

“Drinking beer at my old camp feels rather illicit,” Daniel
said after a while. “This was the kind of thing Roger and his friends were
sneaking out for on their days off.”

She nodded. “I remember the first time I came back as an
adult. It was surreal.”

“You know, when you’re a camper, you’re dying to know what
the Grand House is like. It looks so imposing and set apart compared to
everything else.”

“Would you prefer to stay in one of the cabins?”

“No thank you,” he said. “I outgrew my love of bunk beds
quite a while ago. Although I would like to go and check to see if my name is
still on the wall of the one I stayed in.”

Smiling, Lena said, “I’ve heard the kids talk about the
House, suggesting there’s a ghost here and other campfire stories. I think my
folks like the mystery surrounding it. I’m pretty sure they encourage it. Mom
set one of her more popular books here.”