On Any Given Sundae (18 page)

“I met, too,” Jacques said quietly. “More
recently. She and Elizabeth acted like sisters. Elizabeth didn’t
make her mother’s cheesecake recipe for two years after she lost
her.” He paused, as if trying to decide how much Rob could be
trusted to know. “Elizabeth is also completely self-supporting now.
Only a tiny amount from the will remained after expenses were paid
and, since she normally only works a few hours per week at the shop
to relieve her uncle, her Tutti-Frutti salary is also very small.
So, the advance and the royalties on her cookbooks are her major
source of income. She can’t afford to be irresponsible.”

The way he said it, it was like an
accusation. As if Rob were one of Elizabeth’s few bad choices. It
was an insinuation he sure could have lived without.

The ladies returned, sparklers in hand.

“We brought some to share with you boys, even
though you said they were for sissies.” Elizabeth gave Nick an
especially saucy grin. “I’m willing to bet you won’t be able to
resist once we light them.”

Nick laughed and snatched one of the packs
away from her.

“See,” she said, pointing at him.

Rob watched as they lit a few, the sparklers
brightening up their little corner of the park and casting a warm
glow wherever the light shined. He noticed Elizabeth’s facial
expression. How different it was tonight. Not because of the bright
sparklers’ light but because of her growing confidence. That look
of self-assurance flattered her, enhanced her natural quality of
competence by adding a dash of poise.

She may fancy herself in love with him, but
it was clear she’d do just fine without any dumb jock hanging on
her sleeve. He was seeing her transformation from the fearful,
stuttering duckling to the secure, dignified swan right before his
eyes. She didn’t need him to rescue her. If truth be told, she’d
been the one rescuing
him
today. She didn’t need his
help.

Hell,
nobody
needed his help.

Miguel assured him (at least twice a day when
Rob checked in via cell phone) that The Playbook was doing just
fine, despite him being over a hundred miles away and in another
state. He’d worked long hours for years—hiring the right people,
organizing every aspect of the restaurant, automating as many
procedures as possible—so he wouldn’t be indispensable forever.
Now, he wasn’t.

Mama, Tony, Maria-Louisa and the gang were
great, as always.

His other siblings, in a variety of
conversations and e-mails, declared they, too, were in terrific
shape. No problems on their end, thanks.

Tutti-Frutti required only a warm body to
open and close the place, so even there he was nobody special.

Maybe when the uncles returned he should
close his eyes, throw a dart on a map and go somewhere new. Nothing
pressing was holding him to either Wilmington Bay or to
Chicago…other than a sense of duty and a bunch of old habits.

The fire chief made the announcement that the
first set of fireworks would be going up in a few moments.
Elizabeth scooted next to him—so damned close his pulse started
racing—and she nudged his side to get her expected hug. He knew he
should pull away. He wasn’t going to stay in Wisconsin. He’d break
her heart…but he just couldn’t do that to her tonight. Not now. Not
when she was so confident for once, so sure of his eagerness to
hold her.

And the worst part was that he
did
want to hold her on this, the eve of her twenty-eighth birthday.
Tightly, passionately, desperately.

He wanted more than that, too.

Boom!

The opening display shot ribbons of colored
light through the blackened sky, like streamers chasing each other
then disappearing in a game of tag.

Another boom. And another.

Fireworks poured out of the heavens and
rained down on them in a flamboyant thunderstorm. They looked up at
it, awestruck.

Elizabeth pressed harder into him and ran the
tip of her nose along his cheek. He caught his breath and tried to
resist, but he was as powerless against her as he was against the
falling beams of light from the sky.

He turned his head and their lips met for a
deep, thorough, tantalizing kiss that made his mouth burn from the
heat and his erection pulse against his zipper. He imagined laying
her down on the velvety blanket beneath them, wishing away her
friends and the entire Wilmington Bay Fourth-of-July crowd,
unfastening all of these binding garments, sliding his fingers
against her smooth skin and into damp and very intimate places
before taking her…gently and undeniably…into full womanhood.

“Rob.”

He wanted to hear her scream his name in
passion and feel her pulling him onto her, into her. Beautiful
Elizabeth.

He wanted to smell the musky scent of their
lovemaking on his skin and taste the tears of her pleasure when she
cried out in climax. He wanted to run his tongue along her neck
and—

“
Rob.”
Elizabeth cupped his cheek and
tickled his chin until he stopped kissing her neck.

“Um, yeah?”

She raised her eyebrows in the direction of
the rest of Team Tutti-Frutti. The three of them were smirkily
avoiding establishing eye contact and focusing way too hard on the
fireworks finale.

“Oh,” he said.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said. Or, at
least that what he thought she said.

“What?”

“Let’s. Go,” she told him, enunciating both
syllables. “To my place. Now.”

And, see, this was the problem: He knew damn
well that she didn’t
really
know what she was
propositioning. That she ought to wait for a better first-time
candidate. That he’d, nevertheless, find it impossible to resist
her under the unrestrictive conditions of an empty apartment.

And, yet, he couldn’t make himself stay in
the nice, safe, noisy park with all those prying eyes. He couldn’t
turn her down to save his life.

***

Elizabeth knew exactly what she was
doing.

Well, okay, there were a few technicalities
that she was certain Rob’s expertise would make easier, but she
knew she wasn’t making a mistake in her choice for a first-time
lover. Even if it were doubtful he’d hang around long enough to be
her last one.

They collapsed onto her sofa. One of these
times they ought to try her bed, she supposed, but the sofa was
pretty comfortable and it had the added advantage of being several
yards closer to the door.

“Take off everything,” he whispered. “It’ll
distract me enough so I won’t talk you out of this.”

“Okay.”

She stripped down to her underwear, and Rob
assisted with unbuttoning, unlatching and other undoing activities.
She always did appreciate a man who knew how to be helpful.

“Your turn,” she told him, loosening his belt
and flicking open the snap on his jeans. She saw the waistband of a
different pair of boxers. Mmm. A true patriot. “Love those stars
and stripes.”

“Repeat after me, Lizzy. ‘I pledge allegiance
to the flag…’” He paused to kiss behind her ear. “I don’t hear you
repeating.”

“I used to stutter through saying the Pledge
in elementary school until I began mouthing the words.” She yanked
the boxers off him. He gasped. “I’ll let my allegiances be known
later.”

“Alrighty then.”

He took a shuttering breath and Elizabeth’s
heart almost stopped.
Please don’t back out on me now
, she
pleaded silently.

“Okay, look, I only have the strength to ask
you this once.” He pulled back and gazed deep into her eyes. “Are
you absolutely sure you want to do this…with
me?”

She still had her own cream-colored panties
on. The new Victoria’s Secret extra-lacy ones she’d gotten with Rob
in mind. Or, rather, with Rob
discarding them
in mind.

She took his long, strong hand and placed it
on her hip, his fingers brushing against the lacy leg opening at
her right thigh. Oh, she wanted him so much, yet
still
he
waited and made her wait. If her nonverbal green lights weren’t
enough of a clue, she’d just have to add on the words as bluntly as
possible.

“Rob, if you don’t make love to me
right
now
, I may have to poison your next ice cream sundae,” she
said. How was that for a threat?

“I’ll take that as a yes.” And her panties
were gone before he reached the end of his sentence.

While it was true she’d kissed a handful of
boys before this particular night, and she’d even begun moving
around those proverbial bases with them, Rob had long ago dragged
her far into new territory. He was now taking her into an outfield
she’d never explored except within the pages of an occasional
romance novel. She couldn’t help but feel hyperaware of each and
every movement, of the way his body’s contours connected with her
own.

His slightly roughened hand slipped between
her thighs, abrading the sensitive, previously untouched skin and
making her nerves jitterbug.

“Relax,” he told her.

Yeah, that was going to happen.

His warm lips overtook hers, his tongue
darting in and out of her mouth like a kind of kinky foreshadowing.
She wished she didn’t like it quite so much. It made the strange
tugging reaction of her lower regions feel more urgent. Her hips
lifted to meet his fingers.

He encircled the delicate folds with a
fingertip, and she could feel her pulse in every part of her body.
She heard herself moan.

“Say my name.” He rubbed more insistently and
moved his kisses to her breasts.

But these first impressions of genuine
physical foreplay took too much of her energy. Speaking was a
difficult thing for her under the best of circumstances, but
this—

He pushed one of his fingers slowly inside
her and her breath caught. Oh, Lord, this was going to be
something…something unforgettable. What was she supposed to do
next?

“Say my name.” His finger began to thrust in
and out. Just when she’d begun to get used to the rhythm, a second
finger entered and joined the first in its dance.

“R-R—” she said, not saying at all what she’d
intended. Her earlier bravado began slipping away. Fast. What had
she been
thinking
trying to take on a man like Rob? This
kind of intensity couldn’t be safe. At least she hadn’t expected to
feel—

“Elizabeth. Say. My. Name.”

She had to pull herself together. Refocus.
“R-Rob,” she whispered.

His fingers thrust hard into her and she
gasped for air.

“Rob, y-you have to s-stop.” She put her hand
on his. He stopped moving so abruptly the world felt as though it’d
crashed to a halt.

He slid his fingers out of her, pulled back
and looked down at her with a combination of stunned disbelief,
hurt and, she had to admit, incredible self-control. “E-Eliz—”

She touched her fingers to his lips.
“C-Condoms,” she managed to say. “Do you have any?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Good,” she told him. “I-I need you in me
now. No more of these preliminaries.”

The pallor that had come over him a minute
ago disappeared and he nodded, snatching at the wallet in the back
pocket of his Levi’s. A moment later, she got her wish.

The thing was, she’d imagined the reality of
this experience, what it would be like, for years and years. At
least ten years of wondering seriously: Would it hurt? Would she be
driven mad with desire? Would her partner? So, to be honest, what
she got wasn’t exactly what she’d expected.

First of all, yes, there was a bit of an achy
tenderness when he first entered fully, but not like the painful
tearing she’d spent a decade worrying about. She doubted there’d be
much—if any—blood. And that was kind of a relief. There was
definitely something to be said for being
really
turned on.
It seemed to ease everything.

Secondly, she could say without reservation
that, yes, she was being driven mad with desire, but she’d expected
that desire to be all consuming somehow, and it wasn’t. Not all
consuming enough, anyway, to keep her from contemplating
everything. She used to think, when this time came, she wouldn’t be
aware of anything aside from the feelings The Man (whoever he was)
brought out in her.

Rob (a.k.a. The Man, in this particular and
rather singular instance) brought out an overwhelming range of
emotion in her, but she could still hear the clock ticking, the
cars swishing outside on the street, the rumble of her
food-deprived stomach because she hadn’t eaten since lunch. Well,
no. She’d had one of Jacques’s tortes, but she was still
starving.

And she was having stray thoughts like these.
Thoughts about
pastries
. What the hell was that all
about?

Finally, she didn’t know, and couldn’t
comment on, whether Rob was being driven mad by desire. And this
really wasn’t something she could ask him either.

He
did
seem to be getting into the
experience, what with all the moaning and grunting and other noises
indicating his interest in continuing, but there was no way for her
to know if his enthusiasm was because of
her
specifically or
just because sex was an all-around, feel-good,
never-turn-it-down-if-remotely-possible activity for a hot-blooded,
twenty-eight-year-old, all-American, extremely-patriotic male.

She did know that the thrusting, tugging,
tightening and tension-filled physicality of the whole lovemaking
thing shattered her ability to focus on any one feeling. It was too
much conflicting sensation, and still too new to her.

Not that she was finding it unpleasant or
anything. Oh, no. Just really, really…well, overwhelming.

As for Rob, his body’s urges seemed to have
taken over every other part of him. He mumbled her name a few
times. He kissed her mouth, her earlobes, her neck, her breasts—all
the while still moving his hips in a slow grind that made her so
dizzy that she was relieved to be lying down. He cupped her bottom
and pulled her up into him, in time to a deliberate rhythm her
heartbeat was beginning to copy. He covered her—inside and out—with
himself.