Emma Holly (37 page)

He didn't let up as he turned his head to nip her hand. Instead, he wedged his palm between their bellies, his thumb reaching down to rub her clit. He knew exactly how to get her, how to press her whole pubis until the feeling shot to her core. She gasped his name into the pounding water, her body clutching his in a long, tight orgasm.

This, at last, brought the human out of the machine.

"Love you," he groaned, urging her knees up his sides as his thrusts shifted into high gear. "Love you, Charity. I… love… you."

He came between the words, breaking them, his body hunching closer with bursts of release. His hand cupped her soaking hair against her neck.

He sighed, his eyelids smooth and closed.

He had let more out than his climax.

Shaken in more ways than one, Charity pressed her head to his shoulder and hugged his back. The water ran down their bodies like a hard, tropical rain. Even a day ago, his saying he loved her would have been the dearest desire of her heart. Now she fought to remember the fragile lessons she'd learned in the last few hours.

He didn't take long to sense something was wrong. He set her down carefully, reaching past her to turn off the jets. The loss of the noise came as a shock. Dripping water joined their breathing to echo through the steam-filled room.

Her failure to return his declaration grew more obvious by the second.

He tilted his head to one side. "I did say that out loud, right?"

She had to smile at how cute he was. "Yes."

"Good, because I meant to. I love you, Charity. I know we can't stay at Mosswood, but I want you to move into my condo downtown. I don't want you going back to your old life."

She was reluctant to shake her head for fear of it hurting him. "I can't go back to my old life no matter what. For that, I'd have to be the same person I was before."

He studied her, his hands sliding restlessly up her wet arms. "I think you love me, too," he said at last.

"Maybe I'm wrong, but I think you do."

"I think you're right."

"Then—?"

It was hard to face his question, but she made herself. Ironically, the grip he had on her was steadying.

"All my life," she said, "I've had boyfriends. I told myself I wasn't like my mom because I didn't jump whenever they said 'boo,' but maybe—in my own way—I needed them as much as she needed hers.

Men made me feel powerful when nothing else could."

"I'm not them," he said. "You and I would be different."

She feathered a touch across the purpling puffiness by his eye. The medics had put three stitches where the falling suit of armor had gashed his skin. He didn't wince at the contact. He was too focused on her for that.

"Tell me," he said. "Make me understand."

"I'll try. I'm only beginning to understand myself. I'm afraid—" She gathered her words as well as she could. "I can't rely on someone else to make me think I'm growing up. Even if I'm in love. Even if he's the best boyfriend on the planet. Having you and B.G. like me—boy, was that good for my self-esteem!

Unfortunately, the minute something happened to make me think I hadn't really changed, just like that, every bit of my confidence caved. My fancy new image of myself was a house of cards. Until I learn to stand on my own two feet, that's all it can be."

Eric had looked at the floor while he was listening. Now, when his lashes lifted, his eyes were bloodshot.

"Jesus," he said with a shaky exhalation. "I wish I didn't know what you were talking about."

"But you do."

"If I didn't, I would have spent my life running through my trust fund. I wouldn't have tried to be anything."

His understanding made her love him even more, made her feel grateful and heartbroken. How could he doubt himself? So what if he'd failed in business once? He should try again, as many times as it took. He could do anything. Be anything. The reminder that this was his line—and B.G.'s—made emotion sting behind her eyes. The feeling must have been catching. As she fought back her own upwelling of sentiment, a tear joined the water beaded on his cheek. He laughed in embarrassment, but he didn't wipe it away. When he spoke, he brought all his famous persuasion to bear.

"Don't leave Seattle," he said quietly. "Forget what I said about Harvard. The University of Washington is a perfectly good school. Later—"

"I can't let myself live for later. That's just another crutch."

He tightened his mouth and stepped back. Her shoulders were abruptly cold, and she had
to
struggle not
to
shiver. She reminded herself she was doing the right thing.

"I can wait for you if I want to," he said, or maybe threatened. "That's my choice."

Her heart full, she put her hands on his chest and kissed him, lip to lip, balancing on tiptoe.

"It's my choice," he repeated, and she prayed this soul-sweet promise wouldn't screw her up.

Out
of politeness, Eric offered to let B.G. stay with him while the government's special agents went through his house. To his surprise, his friend accepted.

"You sure you don't want to oversee what corners they're poking into?"

"No," B.G. denied, despite seeming uneasy at the idea. "Between my lawyers and the head of my lab, they ought to be kept within tolerable bounds. Besides, it might be better that I'm not there to give permission for incursions beyond the limits of their warrant."

So B.G. and Eric drove back to Seattle together. It was a sparkling day, clear and pleasantly hot, the kind of day that drove the natives outdoors in hordes. Eric passed up the loan of B.G.'s Rolls in favor of his own dented but beloved Porsche, a leftover from his heyday working in PR. Family money had afforded him many luxuries, but this toy he'd bought on his own. The feel of the sleek, powerful machine was a comfort to his overstretched emotions. This car couldn't reject him, couldn't claim it needed "space to find itself." When Eric gave it the gas, it simply went.

With his hands skimming pleasantly over the wheel and the sun bearing on his back, he decided he'd see if his old squash partner's criminally neglected 1930 Isotta Fraschini was still available for sale. Getting the old classic car running would at least keep him occupied. Eric would need something to do—and who knew for how long?

However things turned out with Charity, he was pretty sure he couldn't go back to playing keeper for B.G.'s games. His heart had developed some very exclusive preferences as to where it wanted his body to go. He couldn't even be sorry. Obstacles aside, Charity was a wonderful object of desire.

To Eric's relief—since he hadn't decided how to broach his long-term plans—B.G. proved able to entertain himself. He filled his days with walks around the city, long phone conferences with his lawyers, and just as long periods where he shut himself in the guest room Eric had given him to use as an office.

Eric assumed he was working, though B.G. didn't say.

While Eric was glad his friend was getting out, he hoped all this activity wasn't meant to prove anything to him. B.G. even dated—former lovers, apparently, about whom Eric had known nothing. They were attractive society types, men and women both, who arrived at Eric's door in glossy evening dress. None returned with him at the end of the night, and few appeared more than once, but Eric knew that omission ruled out little.

B.G. was jumping back into circulation with a vengeance.

Despite the pinch of annoyance this caused—why should B.G. be sexually active when Eric was going without?—the pair slipped into a relatively easy roommate relationship.

They shared a bed—usually—ate breakfast together—always—and traded sections of the
Post-Intelligencer
like an old married couple. On the nights B.G. didn't go out, they rented movies and ate popcorn. Any differences in their neatness levels were erased by the Merry Maids. Eric in particular missed Mrs. Alvarez, but both were happy enough with take-out. Conveniently, B.G. had discovered a garage on one of his walks where Eric could lease a bay to work on his cars, now up to a fleet of three.

If Eric broke down and bought the Studebaker he'd been eyeing, he'd have to sell one of his fix-ups and admit this hobby was turning into a business. B.G. liked to tease that Eric was on the verge of becoming a used car salesman.

All in all, for a pair who'd never lived in quarters this close, Eric thought they were managing famously.

Except for one complaint.

B.G. wouldn't stop talking about Charity. The slimmest excuse was enough to launch a recitation of her many fine qualities. Day in and out, Eric's attention was directed to the clothes she would have looked good in, the comments she might have made, plus countless mentions of marvels she'd actually performed.

Did Eric remember when Mrs. Alvarez took a day off, and Charity burned a whole loaf of toast trying to feed them?

What about the time she beat Maurice in a game of strip pool?

And surely he recalled that cute noise she sometimes made at climax. Would Eric call it more of a hiccup or a cry? B.G. couldn't decide, but it always struck him as if pleasure had caught her by surprise.

If that weren't enough, B.G. also felt compelled to share the periodic progress reports he received from her assigned tutor. Charity was working hard, the tutor said. Never asked for help beyond what was fair.

Even impressed a few of her professors with her knack for laying out an argument. Most tormenting, at least to Eric, she hadn't left the area. As he'd suggested, she'd applied to the University of Washington.

She still lived in her old apartment. He could have walked there on his lunch hour. For that matter, he could have jogged there any lonely midnight he felt the urge.

For someone who was trying to respect Charity's wishes and stay away, these reminders that she was close were little better than torture. How the hell did Eric know how long it took to stand on your own two feet? Until Charity got in touch with him was his guess.

Finally, one Sunday morning he blew up.

"Call Charity yourself," he snapped, "if it means that fucking much to you."

Eric's tone was harsher than he'd intended, the product of too many nights spent aching for Charity's touch. B.G. stiffened on hearing it and retreated to the guest room, where he remained in what Eric interpreted as accusatory silence for the next two hours.

Damn
, Eric thought.

He was going to have to apologize.

He knocked softly on the door before opening it, but B.G. didn't notice. He was in the swiveling chair with his back to Eric. His laptop was out, and he was watching a DVD with the attached earphones. Eric assumed it was a movie until he got close. Then he saw it was a recording from Mosswood, one he hadn't known was made, of the night he and Charity teamed up to tie B.G. to his bed, and Charity spanked him while Eric sucked him off.

As soon as he recognized the scene, blood rushed in equal measures to his head and groin: arousal, self-consciousness, and most of all awareness. The camera must have been hidden in the headboard. It had a straight-on view of B.G.'s face. The utter, helpless pleasure of his expression, the devastation of his normal boundaries, told Eric something he should have guessed long ago.

"Shit," he said, too surprised to guard his words. "You're in love with her, too."

B.G. snapped the laptop shut and spun the chair around.

For a moment, neither of them said a word. Eric couldn't remember having seen his friend at such a loss before. B.G. looked guilty, of all things, as if what Eric had caught him doing was wrong.

Eric knew what that was like. From the beginning, his attraction to Charity had felt disloyal. Now his dismay did. Lord, what a fuckup this was. Against all logic, against all fairness, Eric wanted both B.G.

and Charity to love
him
.

B.G. tugged off the earphones. "I suppose I needn't say you should have knocked, since you probably did."

"Yes… B.G., did Michael have access to this recording?"

B.G. shook his head. "No. This was just for me."

"Just for you." Eric squeezed one hand above his eyes, trying to find words that wouldn't make this worse. "Why didn't you say something? Why have you been pushing me at Charity when you have feelings for her yourself?"

"You chose her."

"That doesn't mean I own her! Look, it's not like I'm trying to recruit competition. I suspect I've got plenty of that as it is. But if you love her—"

"I don't love her." B.G.'s denial was as swift as it was unconvincing, a fact he read in Eric's dubiously lifted brows. "I only brought the one disc. I haven't been watching it all this time. I was intrigued by her effect on me."

Eric snorted. "For you, 'intrigued' is as good as in love."

"I think you and Charity make an excellent match. I'm not trying to get between you."

"Yeah, well, maybe you should be." Eric sat on the guest room's double bed and leaned shakily over his knees. He felt poleaxed by this discovery, flattened out like a cartoon coyote. B.G. was in love with Charity, and rather than pursue her, he'd decided to keep his feelings secret.

"Do you still love me?" he asked, needing an affirmative more than he had any right to.

B.G. looked genuinely shocked. "Why do you think I'm doing this? Why do you think I hoped you'd fall for her from the start?"

"You love me, and you hoped I'd fail in love with someone else? B.G., I know you're the genius, but that's crazy."

"Let me tell you a story," B.G. said.

"Oh, God." Eric pressed his aching head with both hands.

"You'll like this story," B.G. said, "or at least Charity would."

"Fine." Eric tried to pull a bit of patience into his voice. "Tell me this story that explains why you think I should fall in love, but for you it's not allowed."