My Man Pendleton(48)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

What he’d thought was the sound of the shower curtain being thrown closed had in fact been the sound of it being thrown open. Now he found himself staring at Kit, who was pink and dewy and humming what sounded like “That Man of Mine” as she nestled beneath a veritable mountain of Hollywood bubbles, one slender calf extended elegantly toward the ceiling as she loofahed her big toe.

“You bellowed?” she asked, not looking at him.

“Uh…” He got no further than that single, ineffectual sound, because his gaze suddenly lit on one particular set of bubbles. The ones snuggling against her right breast. The ones that seemed to be popping at an alarmingly fast rate.

“Pendleton?” she added when he didn’t respond.

He sensed, more than saw, her glance up, but he had no idea what kind of expression she had on her face, because, simply put, he wasn’t looking at her face. “Yes?” he asked absently.

“You said we needed to talk,” she reminded him.

He nodded.

“So talk.”

He opened his mouth to do just that, but a good two or three hundred bubbles that were very strategically placed chose that moment to burst, and he found that he just could not say a word. Not until Kit shifted in the tub, folding her arms over the side, thereby taking her torso temporarily out of the public eye, and making moot any more bubble evaporation that might or might not occur.

“Pendleton?” she tried again.

He nodded, but said nothing.

“You want to talk or what?”

“Or what. I mean, talk,” he quickly corrected himself. He gave his head a good shake to clear it, sending droplets of water—droplets of cold water—onto his face and neck. “Talk,” he reiterated, the shock of the cold reenergizing him some. “Us. Yes. Talk.”

“Oooh, that’s a good start. Want to go for subject-verb now, throw in a predicate here and there, or would that be pushing it?”

He inhaled deeply, ignored the fact that she was na**d and covered with skin—covered with soft, wet, glistening, rosy, luscious, hot, uh… Where was he? Oh, yeah. He wasn’t looking at her skin. He tried to remember what was so important that they needed to discuss.

But all he could think was … skin. Hot. Wet. Then he remembered. Water. Oh, yeah. That was what it was. “Water,” he said aloud, proud of himself for articulating even that much.

Kit glanced down at the bubbles that were effervescing way too fast for his comfort. “Yes. Water,” she echoed, splashing the surface a bit. “Very good.” She felt around until she located her sponge, which she then held aloft. “Loofah,” she continued. “Loo-fah. Loofah. Now you try it.”

He bit back a growl. “You used up all the hot water,” he finally got out. “Again.”

She dropped the sponge and rested her chin on her forearm. “Well, of course I used up all the hot water. What fun is a cold bath?”

“No, I mean you used up all the hot water while I was in the shower. Again.”

“Bummer. I hate it when that happens.”

Pendleton gazed at her helplessly. Well, what had he expected? An apology? From Kit McClellan? Not bloody likely. In spite of that, he continued, “I’ve asked you not to run the water when I’m in the shower. Remember?”

She smacked a palm soundly against her forehead, a gesture, Pendleton noticed helplessly, that popped even more bubbles. “Oh, wow, I totally forgot,” she said. “I can’t believe I did that. Imagine my embarrassment.”

He supposed he would have to imagine it, because he was quite sure she wasn’t feeling one iota of embarrassment in reality.

“Never mind,” he relented, pivoting on his heel to leave. “I don’t know why I bothered.

“Wait, Pendleton, don’t go.”

He heard her moving around in the tub, so he didn’t dare turn to look at her again. Instead he shifted his gaze to the side a bit and said, “Why not?”

“It’s Sunday,” she reminded him.

“And?”

“And…it’s Sunday,” she repeated, as if he should understand implicitly why that was relevant.

“Which would mean…?”he asked.

She uttered an exasperated sound, as if he were the densest person she’d ever had the misfortune to meet. “Sunday is the day when people do stuff together.”

Oh, he didn’t like the sound of that at all. “And by ‘do stuff’ you would mean…?”

“You know…do stuff.

That’s what he’d been afraid of. “As in?”

More splashing followed, so he squeezed his eyes shut tight, because he really, really, really wanted to turn around to see how many bubbles were left.

“As in going out,” she said. “To do things together. Like go to the park. Or shopping. Or to brunch. Or a movie. What do you say? You want to do stuff today?”

“Not really,” he replied honestly.

“Oh, come on. It’ll be fun.”

He expelled a derisive chuckle. “That’s what you said about me carrying you in kicking and screaming that night we got back from the Caribbean.”

“But that was fun,” she said.

“No it wasn’t. It was humiliating.”

She uttered a sound of clear disappointment. “You have a very funny definition of humiliating, Pendleton.”

“And you have a very twisted definition of fun.”

“So what do you say?” she insisted, ignoring his jab. “Let’s do stuff. Let’s go to Avalon for brunch, and then to the Baxter for a matinee. Then we can do some shopping. We need some flannel sheets.”

“We need some flannel sheets?” he asked.

“Yeah. In case you didn’t notice, we don’t have any. And this house is just too cold at night.”

He knew it would be pointless for him to argue. No matter what he said or did, by day’s end, he was bound to find himself the proud new owner of flannel sheets whether he liked it or not. “What’s showing at the Baxter?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “But I’m sure there will be something foreign, controversial, and completely beyond normal human comprehension.”

“Sounds perfect,” he muttered as he made his way back out the bathroom door.

By the time they returned from their Sunday excursion, Kit felt the oddest sense of well-being wandering through her system. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had such a good time with anyone. Oh, wait. Yes, she could. It had been that night in Veranda Bay, when she and Pendleton—