As Claudia let her fingertips trail down the side of his face, he inhaled the faint scent of her perfume, some trace left on her wrist. He’d always loved her perfume, one he’d never detected on any other woman. It was deep and rich and spicy, not at all girlish, more pine and moss than flowers. She used to stand barefoot in her simple white bra and panties in the cold of the morning, taking her time, tracing the crystal stopper of the tiny vial of perfume along her pulse points: throat, wrists, between her breasts. And sometimes she’d pause in her private ritual and lift her eyes to him, a smoldering challenge as he turned away from his desk across the room and watched, and trace the crystal down the flat plane of her stomach, dip it to the inside of her pale thighs. Then Andy would know the books would have to wait that day. Claudia had been new to lovemaking the first time she’d shared his bed. But God, she was a quick study, somehow innocent and wicked at the same time. And now she was tracing a single index finger along his jaw, down past his collarbones, slipping under the collar of his shirt, looking at him expectantly.
