Tempted (38 page)

“Good for you. And he doesn’t care about the baby?”

“Actually, he does care about the baby, Anne,” Claire said wryly. “Which is a pretty important thing to care about, don’t you think?”

“Yes. Smartass.”

“I’m not marrying him or anything. Don’t get your hopes up just yet.”

“It’s just nice to see you with someone who makes you happy, that’s all, Claire.” I’d have hugged her, but soap-suds covered my hands.

Claire looked toward the den, at the two men so deep in conversation. She looked back at me. “I wish I could say the same about you.”

I nodded after a moment. “I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. It’s just a rough patch, that’s all.”

She leaned in. “Might it have something to do with a certain someone?”

It was my turn to roll my eyes. “What do you think?”

“I think,” she said seriously, “you’re going to have to find a way to let him go. Or else you’ll both stay miserable.”

I reached for a dishtowel and dried my hands. “I know. Believe me, I do. And it would be easy to blame this all on him, Claire, but it’s not all about him.”

“You know Alex told Pats he wouldn’t charge her interest and she only has to pay him back a hundred bucks a month until she can do more.”

“Did he? That was generous. Is that supposed to help me?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m just saying…that day I came over and you two were in the kitchen?”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk about that day. “Yes?”

“I never saw you look that way at anyone before, that’s all.”

I’d thought I’d been careful not to look at him at all. “And?”

She shrugged, looked again toward James, then back to me. “It was nice to see you with someone who made you happy, that’s all.”

I managed a small, slightly bitter smile. “Déjà vu.”

“Yeah,” she said with a laugh. “I’m fucking with the matrix.”

“He’s gone,” I answered in a low voice. “It’s better this way. It’s just going to take time, that’s all. Things happen sometimes that don’t turn out the way you intend them to.”

Claire patted her belly. “Tell me about it.”

The men looked like they were finishing their fascinating discussion about baseball or whatever. I lifted my chin and took a deep breath. “Have a good time at the movies.”

“We will.” She looked at James and Dean, who were still talking as they turned toward the kitchen. “Think about what I said, Anne.”

“Find a way to let him go. Yeah, I know. It shouldn’t be so hard, Claire, since he’s already gone.”

“Anne,” my sister said with another pat on my shoulder, “you assumed when I said him I meant Alex.”

I was quiet after my sister left with her new beau. James put on some soft music and began to clear the table. I concentrated on washing the lasagna pan, which didn’t need to be returned to a gleaming state of near-newness in order to be clean, but which I scrubbed fiercely anyway.

Let him go. Let one of them go. Knowing it and doing it, two separate accomplishments. Let one man go. The question had to be, which one?

James brought the baking sheet from the garlic bread to the sink and slid it into the water. He put his arms around me. His breath caressed my neck, and a moment later his mouth brushed my skin. I leaned back against him, my eyes closed.

We stayed that way for a minute, saying nothing. The songs playing through the stereo weren’t favorites, but they were slow and gentle. We swayed a little. James put his hands on my hips and turned me, soapy hands and all. We danced there in the kitchen, saying nothing. Perhaps having nothing to say.

The phone rang. We both looked at it, but neither of us moved to answer it. The machine picked up after two rings.

And he spoke.

“Hey…it’s me. I just wanted to tell you that I’m finished here in Sandusky. The folks from Cleveland came through with the deal. I’m going to be overseeing their corporate offices in Tokyo. So I’m heading back out of the country. Just thought I’d let you know. Both of you. And I wanted to say…”

There was a long, long moment of silence in which James and I stayed frozen in place, listening.

“I wanted to say thanks for the summer,” Alex said.

I thought there would be more. My mind insisted there must be more than that, the casual dismissal of our summer together. Something more important in his farewell than the one he left, but the call clicked off with nothing further.

I opened my mouth to say something, but the words lodged in my throat like barbs. All that came out was a small hiss of air. I looked up at James, who was looking at the phone.

He let go of me and went to the counter where the answering machine sat, its blinking light refusing to allow us to pretend we hadn’t received a message. I knew he was going to pick up the phone and return Alex’s call. I knew it in my gut, the way I knew the color of my eyes or how it felt to stub my toe against the dresser on my way to the bathroom in the dark. I knew it without a doubt.

James pushed the button on the machine. Alex’s voice started speaking again. James pushed another button.

He deleted the message.

He turned to me. “Let’s go to bed,” he said, and so we did.

I’d never been to the Hotel Breakers before. I’d never needed to stay in the Point’s oldest hotel, though I’d often passed by its white-painted grandeur while walking along the beach.

It had an old-style elegance about it, with a beautiful open rotunda and access to the beach. It was a hotel with history. The park was still open on weekends, and outside the roar and screams of the riders on coasters filtered through air crisp with autumn, but inside the hotel it was very quiet. Serene.

Alex opened the door after my first knock. He couldn’t have been expecting me, but he didn’t look startled to find me. He didn’t step aside at first to let me in. When he did, it was with a begrudging sigh that might have been meant to make me feel guilty but failed.

The sound of the door closing behind me was very loud, and very final. If there was a chance of my walking away, it ended with the click of the lock. I had to close my eyes for only one moment, took only one deep breath. When I opened them, he was still there. I’d been half-afraid I was dreaming.

“Does Jamie know you’re here?”

“Yes.”

“He does?” He mustn’t have been expecting a positive answer.

Alex ran a hand over his hair then down to cup the back of his neck. He wore a pink shirt, unbuttoned, and familiar jeans. Bare feet. I wanted to get on my knees and kiss each of his toes. I didn’t move.

“Fuck,” he muttered, without looking at me.

“Exactly.”

This made him look up, sharp and fast, with eyes like a fox. His hand came away from his neck and fell open at his side like he wanted to grab something but wasn’t certain what. His mouth parted, but he said nothing. He just looked at me with those gray eyes.

“I have to know something, Alex.” My fingers went to the buttons at my throat and eased them open, one by one. “Do you want to fuck me?”

He said nothing, not even when I shrugged out of my shirt and tossed it to the floor. Not when I put my fingers to the zipper and button of my long denim skirt and eased it over my hips. I stood before him in my bra and panties, not the sexy lingerie one might expect of a woman about to seduce a man but simple, soft cotton.

He burned me with his gaze, but I didn’t cower or back away from it. I held open my arms. “Do you?”

He grabbed me, hard, a roughness I’d anticipated but which nevertheless caused me to gasp. “Is that why you’re here?”

I didn’t struggle in his grip, though his fingers pinched my upper arms. “Yes. It is.”

He drew me closer. I hadn’t forgotten what it was like to be in his arms. Every piece of him fit every piece of me, no fumbling, no awkwardness.

“Jamie’s my best friend,” he whispered in my ear.

His conscience might have issues with this, but his cock had no such qualms. It pressed me through the denim. I remembered the feeling of him in my hands and against my body. In my mouth. I shivered at the memory of his taste.

“He’s my husband,” I whispered back.

His hair had grown out a little, the fringes of it over his ears a ticklish touch against my skin. We stayed that way, both of us breathing hard, cheek to cheek. He eased his touch on my arms, setting me loose. I didn’t move away.

He groaned, pulling away to let his gaze travel over my face. He focused on my lips, first. Then my eyes. “Why, Anne? Why now?”

“Because I want to,” I answered simply. “Because you’re going away.”

When he didn’t answer, I pushed his shirt off his shoulders. Down his arms, past each wrist, over his hands. When his chest was bare I slid my palms over his skin. His nipples pebbled under my touch and gooseflesh humped his skin. I leaned forward, my arms around his waist, and put my cheek against him, over his heart.

“Because I have to let you go,” I said at last. “You have to go.”

He put his arms around me and held me tight against him. His fingers traced the jut of my shoulder blades. “I’m going. It’s better this way.”

“It’s not,” I whispered. “But that’s okay.”

I looked up, then put my hands on his face to draw him down to me. I kissed him, slowly and without mercy, giving him no chance to pull away. His hands tightened on my waist at first, then relaxed. Our mouths opened. Tongues met. I breathed him in.

The bed was only a few short steps away, but we took our time getting there. I opened his zipper and reached inside, found his heat. I stroked him, no easy task inside his jeans. He broke our kiss to put his forehead on mine, his eyes closed.

“Anne,” he said. Nothing else. I waited for there to be more, and when there wasn’t I smiled and hooked my fingers in his waistband and pulled his jeans down all the way. I knelt before him and helped him step out of them.

He was naked and I was not, but I was the one on my knees. His cock rose, hard, and my hands and mouth found him without effort. He groaned again, louder. His fingers twisted in my hair as he pushed into my mouth. I slid my hand down his shaft, then weighed his balls with my palm.

There are few times when we know with absolute certainty we are going to do something for the last time. Life has a way of moving in circles, bringing us back to places we didn’t expect and taking us away from those we do. There are too many times we don’t pay close enough attention, and moments are lost in our assumption we’ll have another chance.

I was not going to lose this moment with Alex. This was not an exploration of his body; I knew it already. I was paying attention. This would be the first and last time. I didn’t want to lose a single detail.

His fists curled in my hair, tugging. I left my worship of his prick to sit back on my heels. He looked down at me, one of his hands moving to cup my jaw. His eyes gleamed. His mouth glistened from my kisses. He passed his hand over my cheek, then over the mass of curls. I closed my eyes briefly at that caress. When I opened them, he held out a hand for me to take. I stood.

Alex led me to the bed, pausing first to pull the comforter all the way down. The sheets beneath were white and cool. The bed, soft. He laid me down with firm but gentle hands, and covered me with his body while he kissed me.

The thin barrier of my panties meant that every time he rubbed against me, the friction on my clit doubled. I opened my thighs and hooked my legs over his calves, pressing his body harder against mine. Our kisses got harder, too. Hungrier. We ate each other and made a meal of our passion.

His mouth moved down my throat. He bit my shoulder. I arched, crying out, and he licked me there. His weight pinned me, but I didn’t feel trapped. I wanted to be there, beneath him. Around him.

Alex nuzzled my collarbone, nibbled the tender flesh of my breast above the edge of my bra, used his teeth to pull down my strap. He pushed his hands under me to unhook it. When it came free he slid it over my arms and threw it away without watching where it landed. His eyes on mine, he cupped my breasts. When his thumbs passed over my nipples, tight with longing, I let out a sound that would have been embarrassing under any other circumstances.

“I know how to touch you,” he said.

“Yes. You do.”

He smiled with one corner of his mouth. “I want to hear you make that sound again.”

He didn’t have to work too hard for it. I gave him what he wanted and was glad to do it. He replaced his hands with his mouth, sucking gently first on one nipple and then the other. His hands found other places to rest. A hip. A thigh. My belly. Under a knee. We rolled with each other, finding positions that pleased us.

Though we weren’t covering new ground, and though this time we knew the end would be different, we didn’t rush. Every touch, every kiss, every stroke and lick and suck each had its moment.

Alex was paying attention, too.

At last he lay on top of me, his prick rubbing my clit with every small half thrust. We were panting, hearts pounding. We’d pushed each other to the edge again and again, each time drawing back at the last possible moment before we spilled the other into climax.