American Quest Read Online Free

you’re talking about. Every now and then when we’re out together, I feel my intuition prick up, as though . . . as though—I don’t know what.”
    “Right, exactly.” Gloria had experienced those same moments of “high alert” and she was just as incapable of explaining why.
    Bruce’s gaze grew more intense. Suddenly, his massage didn’t feel as comforting. “They are watching, you know,” he said darkly.
    Gloria’s eyes widened. “What?”
    “Weren’t you listening earlier tonight? ‘Can’t you see he’s sent the yellow-eyed counterstrikes to watch you?’”
    Gloria blinked twice, then burst into giggles. “You’re talking about that guy in the subway?”
    The more she thought about it the more absurd it seemed. “Counterstrikes? I thought he said ‘candy stripes.’”
    “Yellow-eyed candy stripes? You thought he said that we were being watched by teenaged girls who volunteer in hospitals?”
    Gloria grabbed Bruce’s wrist and pulled him up toward her. “Come here you nut!”

    “Thought you’d never ask.” Bruce moved with her and his face regained all of its handsome good nature. He climbed up her body and wedged himself alongside her on the couch.
    He put his lips to her ear. “There was that other thing Carlotta said, about how beautiful our babies will be.”
    Gloria snuggled into him, trying to bring him closer, though she supposed that was physically impossible. “Mmm.”
    “In a couple of years, we’ll buy a place. Something bigger than this. Could you imagine having kids here? I hope they’re black-haired and long-legged, like you. And that they have your Spanish eyes.”
    “Nn-mm. Sandy-haired and strong-chinned, like you.”
    He laid a kiss on her brow and she imagined those children. Smaller versions of her, or him, or a combination. Either or both genders. Whatever they had would be pure alchemy.
    He ran his hand slowly from her shoulder to her lower abdomen. “Do you think they’ll be like us when they grow up? Love the same things we do?”
    “Maybe a little.” She loosened the top button of his shirt and breathed in the scent of his neck. He moved his leg, and she felt his heat centering on her. “They’ll be more fabulous, of course,” she said.
    He groaned with pleasure. “More fabulous, definitely. Leaders of the world, great visionaries, and timeless artists all at once.”
    “For starters.” She shifted slightly and the pressure on her inner thigh gave her a little shiver of bliss.
    “I wonder what it’ll be like to watch them graduate, start careers, get married.”
    “And give us grandkids.”
    She played with the short hairs on the back of his neck and watched his eyes close dreamily.
    “I hope our grandkids are black-haired and long-legged, like you,” he said after a moment.
    Gloria giggled. “No, sandy-haired and—hey!” She sat up slightly. “I thought you said you never thought about what happened beyond today.”
    Bruce gave her one of his deep-eyed smiles and lightly touched his lips to hers. He reached down and moved his hand under her skirt,
kneading the muscle of her leg and hooking his finger under the band of her thigh-high. “It’s fun to think about what we’ll be like years from now. To imagine the entirety of our lives together.”
    She rolled out from under him and then sat up slowly, eyes on his. “I love living it,” she said, her voice husky.
    “It’s only gonna get better, babe.” He reached his broad, warm hands into her blouse and unbuttoned it, then freed it from her shoulders, slipping his ring finger under the strap of her lingerie. “God, you’re beautiful.”
    She brought the fabric back up loosely to her chest, eyeing the window. “The neighbors will be scandalized.”
    “Nobody can see us except the pigeons. And they don’t talk. Much.”
    “Shouldn’t we withdraw to the bedroom?”
    He shook his head. “Mirrors everywhere. It’s lousy with candy stripes. I’ve got a better idea.”
    He untangled