What could Jules say to that? It was a miracle Vivian couldn’t hear how loud her heart was beating as she fought off multiple emotions at once: fascination, sympathy, rapacious envy. Somewhere out there was a guy who’d almost gotten Vivian Carlisle to throw it all away because he was so good in bed.

Vivian shook her head. “But I didn’t, and that was a long time ago. My priorities are completely different.”

That was all she was going to get? Jules swallowed around her disappointment. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

Vivian glared down at her stomach. “I’m finally enjoying the delight of keeping breakfast down. That’s what makes me happy these days. So you’re bisexual?”

She was going to get whiplash from this conversation. It was always a titanic effort to keep up with Vivian’s mind. “Yeah. I had a girlfriend for a few months in college.”

Vivian looked unimpressed.

Jules knew what she was thinking: an experiment, no more, before she had settled down with a man. She growled, “It was the best sex I’ve ever had, and it only ended because we didn’t work in any other way. I met Aaron right after that, and we hit it off, but don’t think for a second that I don’t know what to do in bed with a woman.”

Silence fell while they examined each other. Vivian didn’t blush this time, but her eyes definitely glazed over a little.

Jules’s heart was hammering in her chest again.

“I’m not saying you don’t,” Vivian said hoarsely. “I don’t doubt your…competence. That’s not why. I’ve just never been interested in women. I don’t see the appeal.”

That’s because you’re around women who are scared of you, Jules realized. You’re not around women who look at you like the college guy did. Like they know they’ve got what you need.

Except for me.

She kept looking Vivian dead in the eyes. Thought about everything she wanted to do to her. Everything she thought Vivian wanted her to do too. “Some things can’t be explained. You either don’t want to touch somebody or you do.”

Vivian’s lips parted slightly.

Jules ached between her thighs. All of a sudden, she knew it didn’t matter that her hair was messy or that her sweater wasn’t sexy. None of that mattered at all.

“Dessert?” Vivian managed. “There’s, ah, sorbet.”

Jules smiled beatifically at her. “That sounds delicious.”

* * *

Sorbet was followed by decaf in the den, and decaf was followed by slightly halting conversation, which ended when Vivian patted her mouth in a delicate yawn. “You’d better go. I’m wiped out.”