Driving in Neutral (25 page)

Emerson let his head loll to the side. He opened his eyes and watched soft muslin curtains billow in the open French doors. He didn’t want to move. He lay beside Olivia, casually, as if this happened every day, but in the last hour anytime he looked at her directly, or if their eyes met for more than just a moment, a riptide yanked hard and the air was suddenly sucked from his lungs. Fumbling around for some kind of flotsam to cling to, he groped the outrageous, buoyant fact he’d developed some rather intense feelings for a woman he’d known for just a month. To confirm this, he shifted to his hip to look at her.

She was on her side. His thumb brushed over the smoothness of her bare shoulder. All facts were validated when she made a small sleepy sound, opened her eyes, and looked at him. “Hi,” Emerson said, offering her a gentle smile, feeling anything but gentle.

Olivia swallowed, sat up, and licked her lips. All that talk of friendship had been nothing. The intent behind his eyes was evident. He’d probably planned this all along, had hoped she’d let down her guard. Yet, despite how well he’d engineered the last two hours, she found she couldn’t look him in the eye because she was Olivia Regen: world’s biggest liar.

Impractical ideas welled up in her mind and she tried to stifle them, tried to steer her thoughts around the hazards, but the ideas accelerated, flashing past the yellow caution flag her sensible side was waving. Her brakes were failing miserably, she couldn’t downshift into a lower gear, and she knew the only way to stop this now was to run head-on into the crash barrier. “You’re still here?”

He climbed off the bed. “Goodnight Olivia,” he said a little gruffly.

She watched him shut the bathroom door and waited for her heart to stop racing.

Very early the next morning, Olivia brushed her teeth and climbed back into bed. She watched the pink- and orange-hued dawn break through the open French doors. It was barely past five. In a little more than twelve hours Ella would marry Craig. Their life together would begin and Olivia would walk away from the day feeling a hollowness she hadn’t realized was there.

Life was full of failures and disappointments and long ago she had accepted the fact some people weren’t meant to be married. There was no reason to talk herself into believing she was happy on her own. She
was
happy on her own. Life was easier single. There was no one she had to consult about decisions, no one else’s mood she had to tolerate. She could live without compromise, come and go as she pleased, and every failure was completely her own without anyone else adding to the disappointment.

What bothered her was this emptiness she felt now stemmed from the past. No matter how well she’d disconnected from that personal history, she hadn’t seen the sticky webs from her past still linked with enough tension to yank her backward.

History was history, alterations were not possible, and living in the past was fruitless. She knew that. It was why she never gave in to the negative thoughts and emotions associated with being abandoned by two husbands, and why she believed she’d never let those experiences direct her life. She was in full control. She chose the route she wanted to take on this journey, and for some reason Emerson Maxwell kept popping up in the middle of her road like an orange cone sitting at the edge of a pothole that needed filling.

She knew, from all the ridiculous associations her mind had been making, it would just be best to avoid him completely. After the wedding was over it would be a lot easier to keep a safe distance and not get pulled along in his slipstream.

With a sigh, she draped an arm across her eyes, trying to let it all go, hoping to nod off again and make up for the fitful way she’d slept last night. She concentrated on breathing evenly, inhaling slowly and rhythmically, relaxing each part of her body beginning with her feet. A soft, shuffling noise broke her concentration. Were Mimi and Tex outside going at it again? She lifted her arm and found Maxwell beside the bed.

He wore a pair of green cotton pants that looked like hospital scrubs. “Sorry.” He made an apologetic face. “I heard water running in the bathroom and thought you were awake.”

She sat up. “I’m awake now.”

“I’m really sorry. I know you’re usually up at sparrow’s fart and I just wanted to ask if you thought it’d be okay if I went down to the kitchen to make something to eat. I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes this early.”

“Eggs are in the fridge.”

He watched her yawn and rub her eyes like a sleepy child. He couldn’t stop looking at her. He swallowed hard. “Did you sleep in your clothes?”

She glanced down at her wrinkled dress. “I guess so.”

“You must have been exhausted. I’m sorry I kept you up so late.”

She shrugged. “How’d you sleep?”

“I didn’t sleep at all,” he said. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I couldn’t stop thinking about the perfume of your neck, or how soft your mouth is, or what it would be like to have you in my arms, in my bed. You can go ahead and scold me for having such thoughts and saying those things, but, well, there you go.”

Olivia found she was short of breath. Her mouth had gone dry too. The words were simple, yet so straightforwardly erotic. Last night, she had been disappointed that he’d gotten up and left. While they were talking she’d begun to entertain crazy notions of lounging in bed with him all day, of Sunday mornings spent reading the newspaper, nibbling toast with blackberry jam interspersed with coffee-flavored kisses. That in turn led to other more evocative ideas. He stared at her and his expression suggested his mouth would quench the thirst she had developed. She mumbled, “I’ve tried. I’ve tried being absolutely direct with you, but obviously I’m not very good at it.”

“You’re doing fine.”

“It doesn’t seem like I’m doing fine.”

Even with her hair messy from sleep, her rumpled dress, and her face creased by bed linen, Emerson thought Olivia was the most exquisite woman he had ever seen. He couldn’t believe Martin didn’t see how beautiful she was. “Trust me. You’re doing a great job.”

“Yes, but the results are all wrong, and did you have to use that word?”

“What word?”

“
Job
.”

“What’s the big deal?”

“Oh, come on. Hand?
Blow
?”

Emerson laughed, recent sleep making him sound a little raspy. “I don’t think I alluded to anything of the sort.”

“You’re one big walking allusion,” she groaned and rubbed her hands over her face, “and I’m a huge bag of mixed messages and unclear boundaries.”

“Why do you say that?”

Palms up, she spread out her hands and waved them over the bed like a model presenting a new car at an auto show. “After carrying on about all the reasons why I shouldn’t, I’m already halfway in bed with you.”

“So?”

“So?” she groaned again. “So?”

“Olivia, I think I may have fallen in love with you.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Does the truth scare you that much? That’s strange. It doesn’t scare me at all.”

“Of course you’d say that. That’s
supposed
to be what women want to hear. I know people sleep together and have affairs for all kinds of reasons: validation they’re still attractive, loneliness, drunkenness, just because they can. When I found out about Karl, I was—”

“Devastated?”

“No. Furious.”

“I bet you wanted to kill him.”

She shook her head. “No. I wasn’t mad at Karl. I was angry with myself. I was blind, blindly trusting of him and myself. I had the wool pulled over my own eyes. Everyone knew Karl was screwing around. It was obvious, but I didn’t want to see it. He was nearly a decade younger than me and I made excuses for him. He’s young; he’ll mature. I lied to myself, hid the truth the same way he did because I didn’t want to believe I had fallen for another man who thought so little of me. I didn’t look for those little clues. But I see everything now. So as honest as I am with myself these days, I’d like a man to be honest with me just once. So tell me you want to use me for sex and I’ll respect you a hell of a lot more. Is that asking for too much?”

“I’m being completely honest,” he said. “You know, I’ve been completely honest since I met you…” His brow creased, but suddenly he smiled. “And I haven’t lied once. Why is it you think you only get two chances anyway? So what if things didn’t work out for you before. That was then. This is now. Haven’t you ever heard of third time lucky? Third time’s a charm? Good things come in threes? The Holy Trinity?”

“You love cheesy clichés, don’t you?”

“Sometimes they’re true.”

“You’re a rebound man, you know, a post-divorce transition man.”

“No, I’m not.”

“What else could you be?”

“Much more than a temporary substitute for something you never had.”

He was so sure of himself; his gaze was so level, his conviction unwavering. Olivia couldn’t think of a single argument or example to counter with and she stared at him when he sat on the edge of the bed, not knowing what to believe, or feel, or want, but he took care of that. He scooped her up and rolled onto his back, carrying her along with a softly enveloping kiss.

For a brief second, she whimpered. Then every shred of deliberation ceased. Her hands went beneath his head and she burrowed into him, kissing him back while he traced the bared line of her spine with one finger.

Emerson kissed the hollow at her throat, the curved depression of her collarbones and felt her skin prickle with goose bumps beneath his lips. His skin did the same as she concentrated on his ear, nibbling the lobe, leaving soft butterfly kisses around the outside edge and when she darted her tongue inside he voiced his pleasure with a low rumble.

She pulled back, sliding off his abdomen to rest on her hip to look at him, trailing tickling fingernails across his chest, through the hair there she found so fascinating, moving from one nipple to the other, making them rise to the same kind of hard peaks as hers.

“I like you touching me,” he said and immediately wished he’d kept his mouth shut because she pulled her hands away and sat up, tucking her hair behind her ears.

Olivia sighed. “Look, I don’t know how to do this.”

“Who says you have to work it out in advance?”

“Self-preservation. Common sense. The fact this crap
never
works.”

“Are you back to that office romance thing again?” Emerson sat up with his knees bent and his fingers kneading gently into her neck.

Olivia’s ears suddenly felt hot as a tinge of embarrassment flooded into her. “I have to be honest. Call me old-fashioned, but at this age, I’m a little set in my ways, and just so you know, so things are clear, I really don’t know how to do this and not expect it to mean something or want more.”

“Okay, Olivia, listen. Expect more. I’m not kidding. I want more and I’m willing to wait until you do too. There’s no reason to rush.”

She looked at him a long moment, her lips parted slightly and her heart caught in her ribcage when he traced her eyebrow with his thumb and pushed the hair from her face.

She wanted to have faith, to believe him regardless of how those tabloid photos of Karl had robbed her of the ability to trust anyone, even herself. For months she’d second-guessed herself, protected herself to the point where nothing affected her steady world because she didn’t let anything matter, nothing was important except standing, and staying, on level ground. With Maxwell things twisted and turned and sped and raced. When he was around, life was full of chicanes to steer through instead of a constant straight line that continued on, steadily, but went nowhere. Olivia realized just how much she’d missed chicanes. “Can you keep this private?” she said in a voice quavering with trepidation.

“It’s just between the two of us. It’s nobody’s business.”

There was no more denying it, no fighting it. Who was she kidding anyway? She knew she’d wanted him the moment he’d hyperventilated and looked at her with helpless green eyes.

She kissed him again, her tongue delving into his mouth to tease out another throaty murmur. The sound he made was welcome and she was pleased she could elicit a response that was more telling than simple physiology. She drew back, her breath as ragged and rapid as his. With a sly smile, she pushed him backward and slipped over his hips to sit in the spot where he would feel the most heat radiating from her body, feeling his too. She reached up behind her neck to untie the halter of her dress. “You promise, Emerson?”

Emerson smiled at the sound of his name and watched her slip down the front of her dress. His fingers skimmed over the gentle slope of one breast. He half whispered, “This is just between you and me, my something more than friend.”

Softly, his hand moved with a delicate, circling caress. She closed her eyes, tipping her head back, arching her spine to give in to the sensation of his touch, yielding to the promise of his body pressing sensually into her.

In an instant, the bedroom door swung open with a bang and Ella swept inside, pirouetting and shouting, “It’s here! It’s here! It’s fina—
Oh my God
!”

She didn’t freeze in place with her mouth agape. Instead, with her hands moving like hummingbirds, she backed from the room, her mouth working around words that wouldn’t form, and closed the door with a soft click.

Emerson’s hands had momentarily stilled on delicate flesh and Olivia felt her mouth drooping open like a stretching lump of warm saltwater taffy. “Tell me,” she said, “did you lace that cucumber eye gel with LSD last night?”

“You’re not tripping, Olivia.” He dropped his hands and sat up with a big chuckle, licking at the edge of his mouth. “That was Ella.”

Helpless to stop the groan, Olivia plopped her forehead onto his shoulder. “This is unbelievable,” she said, her voice muffled by his chest. “I get caught with you and my clothes nearly off
again
.”

Emerson lifted her chin, one finger tucking hair behind her ear. “While I’m sure the image is burned into her brain, she didn’t have a camera to capture the moment like Timmons did.”

“What?” Dread flickered across her face. “Timmons had a camera?”