All or Nothing by Elizabeth Adler Read Free Book Online Page B

removed her jacket, unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it. Peeling off her T–shirt, she walked into the chrome and black bathroom, took a quick cool shower and wrapped herself in Al’s gray flannel bathrobe. She wished he didn’t have this thing for gray––except for work––although it was kind of fashionable this year. Still, it didn’t do much for a woman’s complexion––especially after she had washed off her makeup. Sighing, she added a brushload of black mascara, dusted apricot blush over her slanting cheekbones and on her eyelids, then added a touch of Tenderheart gloss to her full lips. She spritzed herself with Hermes 24 Faubourg, sniffing appreciatively, then drifted back to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of Evian and a glass and walked back to the master bedroom. Actually, there were only two bedrooms and the other, smaller one, Al used as an office.
    She clicked on the TV, surfing until she found KTLA, the local channel with the news from ten to eleven each night. Leaning comfortably against Al’s gray pillows, she sipped the chilled Evian and waited for her man to come home.
    It was almost eleven when she heard the growl of the Corvette over Roland Galvan describing tomorrow’s weather––basically more of the same, this was L.A., after all. Then the sound of the door opening and Al’s light, quick footsteps on the wooden floor. Al always moved quickly, he was a man in perpetual motion. “As though,” she had complained, “you always think you might be missing something.”
    He’d grinned at her, that Machiavellian grin that lifted the corner of his mouth and his left eyebrow in a way she found
sooo
sexy and said, “Honey, life’s too short to miss any of it. Especially when you’re around.” And he had taken her in his oh–
sooo
–strong arms and––just like in a romance novel––had carried her to his bed.
    God, how she loved him. Now she gave him a radiant smile that lit up her whole face as well as her fabulous gray–green eyes that told him just that.

“Well, well, look who’s sleeping in my bed, Grandmama,” he said, leaning against the doorjamb with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans and that grin on his face. He was wearing an old white Pepperdine T–shirt she had given him so long ago the logo had faded to a grayish blur. He liked it better that way.
    “You’re mixing “Little Red Riding Hood’ with “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.’” Her eyes swept him up and down. “Whatever happened to private eyes who looked like Don Johnson? You know, in pastel linen Armani suits with a holster under the armpit? The kind with the smooth line of talk who took a girl somewhere glamorous for dinner and a vodka martini before taking her to bed.”
    Al shrugged. “Beats me. I guess times have just changed, is all.”
    Marla’s sigh fluttered the gray flannel robe and he walked over to the bed, kissed her firmly on the mouth then headed for the bathroom, peeling off his clothes as he went.
    Marla heard the shower running. She flipped off the TV and put on a favorite CD––Sinatra and Jobim. She lay back, eyes closed, waiting.
    She did not hear him approach, didn’t know he was there until she caught a faint whiff of the Issey Miyake cologne she had given him, underscored with that familiar musky male smell of him.
    She ran her hands down his smooth, lean back, feeling muscles ripple under her finger. Her hands were in his dark hair, pulling his face to hers, his mouth was on hers. . . .
    And then the phone rang.
    Al lifted his head, looked at the phone. Looked at her.
    “Al Giraud, you’re not going to answer that,” she said, shaking her head incredulously.
    “You never know, I might be missing something,” he said, sliding off her and reaching for the phone.
    “Yeah,” he said, watching Marla wrap the gray flannel robe haughtily around her shapely body. She lay there, arms folded angrily across her chest, staring up at the ceiling. Listening to