She passed the keycard over the electronic reader and the door clicked. Taking a deep breath and letting it out, she opened it.
Annette stopped stock still at the sight that greeted her, the door swishing shut behind her.
Carlo was already inside, reclining naked on the bed, his dark hair wet from the shower. He had a drink in his hand. It looked like the Scotch malt whiskey he favored in a rock glass.
"You look like you've seen a ghost."
She shook her head, mute with overwhelming desire.
He put his hand out to her. "Come here."
"I'm still dressed." She'd found her voice. Just barely.
"Then allow me the privilege of undressing you."
So similar to things he'd used to say all the time to her, the words triggered a visceral reaction in Annette, her eyes stinging with emotion.
Carlo stood, his body rippling with even more muscles than she remembered. He'd always been well formed, but now he was really fit, his skin glowing with health.
"Do you work out a lot more?" she asked inanely.
He did not seem to mind, giving her a slashing smile. "Maybe. Are you saying I'm in better shape than I was five years ago?"
She licked suddenly dry lips. "Your muscles are more defined."
"And you like that?"
She nodded, incapable of speech.
He started by pulling the pins from her updo, allowing her long hair to completely release from its confinement. He took some of her long honey-colored curls between his fingers, seemingly mesmerized by the sight. "Your hair used to be darker."
"Lowlights." Annette had been getting brown streaks added to her honey blonde hair since she was an adolescent. Her mom had suggested them, and Annette had been desperate to fit in with her adopted family, so she'd gone along.
No amount of hair dye was going to make her part of the Floyd Hudson family, but she hadn't understood that until she was in Portland, letting her own blond roots grow out.
Carlo touched her natural blonde hair like he was rubbing silk between his fingers. "I like this better."
"I do too." And that was all that mattered anymore. Annette had given up all vestiges of trying to fit into her adopted family when she was exiled from New York.
"You are so different from the rest of your family," he mused, like he was just now making that observation.
Annette just shrugged. They'd never talked about the fact she was adopted. Her parents treated that fact like it was a state secret, and therefore so had Annette.
If tonight led to anything more, she would tell Carlo the truth of her past. It might help him understand her actions six years ago.
Though she wasn't counting on it. It had taken two years of therapy for Annette to understand herself.
And why was she thinking like that? This was closure, no matter what her inner voice said.
"Stop," he instructed as he unzipped the back of her dress.
She shivered in anticipation of what was to come. "What?"
"Thinking."
"No thinking?" she asked, perplexed. When had thinking become a bad thing?
"Only feeling. Only pleasure. Only me."