The Beach House (22 page)

Eric reared back, captured her hands, and looked deeply into her eyes. “Is this really what you want?”

“Isn't it what you want?”

“Answer me.”

“Yes—it's exactly what I want.”

“I don't have any protection.”

“I'm willing to take the chance.” When he hesitated it felt as if she were lost at sea and that the ship sent to rescue her had sailed by. “But you're not.”

Not until that moment did he realize how much he wanted her. “The hell I'm not,” he said in a throaty rasp. With a determination of purpose that matched her own, he ran his hands up the front of her silk shell, grabbed the lapels of her jacket, and stripped it from her shoulders. Somewhere in the back of his mind a voice insisted he stop and think about what he was doing, that he consider the possible consequences and behave like the responsible, rational man he'd always been. For the first time in his life, he ignored the voice and gave himself over to instincts he barely recognized.

His breath hot, his mouth demanding, he kissed Julia until she began to move against him in heated insistence. He removed her top and cupped her breasts. As he caressed the lace-covered nipples with his thumbs, she arched her back to return the pressure.

“Take this off,” he demanded.

She reached behind her and unhooked the bra while he pulled the straps from her shoulders. Now he held her breast and drew the nipple into his mouth with his tongue. Julia felt the tug all the way to her toes. She put her head back and bit her lip to keep from crying out.

Peripherally she heard the zipper on her skirt open, felt the skirt slide over her hips and thighs and drop to the floor. His fingers slipped into the waistband of her hose and lowered the nylon over her buttocks and then her legs. She looked down where his head lay against her belly as he lifted one foot and then the other out of her heels. It was everything she could do not to press his face closer, to assuage the need that had grown to a mind-numbing intensity.

“Please . . .” The plea rode on an escaped sigh. She was horrified when she realized the word had come from her. She'd never begged for anything and hated that she had so little control over what was happening to her now. Her only hope was that he hadn't heard.

Just as she reached to touch his head, she felt his hand on her inner thigh—and then his breath, hot and full of promise. Something—his tongue, his finger, she couldn't tell—touched the spot warmed by his breath and sent a shock wave throughout her body. Trembling with its impact, she put her hands on his shoulders to keep from falling.

She was hit by another wave and then another, as if she were standing in a storm-driven surf. Her legs began to shake. She leaned into Eric and held on as if he were the only thing keeping her upright. Seconds later the spasms began. They lifted her and spun her around, stealing her last semblance of balance. She cried out at the strength of the feeling.

Just as she was sure she was about to take flight, Eric stood, lifted her into his arms, and took her into the bedroom. She was unprepared for the hunger that resurfaced when he took off his clothes, pinned her beneath him, and entered her. The fury of his movements demanded she respond in kind. And she did, lifting her hips to meet each thrust. Their skin touched, their flesh bruised, and still Julia wanted more. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and moaned his name as if it were the magic word to open the door to the kingdom.

Again waves lapped at her consciousness, each one stealing more of her control until, finally, it was gone. She bit into his shoulder to keep from crying out at the same time he arched his back and buried himself deeper into her still.

Afterward Eric rolled to his side, taking Julia with him, cradling her in the protective circle of his arms. He brushed back her hair where it had come loose from the tightly pinned twist and kissed the dampness from her forehead.

Julia lay still, accepting his tenderness, wondering about the depth of his caring, and fighting to stay afloat in a whirlpool of recrimination.

When several minutes had passed and she still hadn't moved, Eric propped himself up on his elbow and looked at her. “Are you all right?”

Chapter 11

My God,” Julia said in a choked whisper. “What have we done?” She crossed her arms over her breasts and sat up, turning her back to him as if she could erase his presence.

Eric sat up next to her. He'd expected questions—hell, he had a couple of dozen of his own—but not this extreme reaction. “We made love,” he said, answering her obviously rhetorical question.

“We had sex,” she corrected him.

“Whatever you want to call it, I'm not sorry it happened.”

“Well, I am.” She reached for his shirt and held it in front of her.

“I take it this kind of thing has never happened to you before?”

She nodded. “You take it right.”

He wanted to bring her into his arms to comfort her but knew it wouldn't be welcomed. “How do you feel?”

“Are you crazy?” She tried to comb her hopelessly tangled hair with her fingers. “How do you think I feel?” Burying her face in her hands, she answered her own question. “Cheap—and stupid.”

He pulled her hands away and forced her to look at him. After several tense moments of eye contact, he said, “You forgot to add sated.”

A flush went from her chest to her neck to her face. “That, too,” she admitted softly.

He leaned over, kissed her, and smiled. “You didn't ask me how I feel.”

“I can't make light of this.”

“I'm not asking you to. I just don't want you to make it into something it wasn't.”

“Meaning?”

“I wanted—” He stopped. Why was he holding back? “I
needed
this just as much as you did.”

“I know this is hard to believe, but Ken was the only man I ever made love to. . . .” She put her head back and stared up at the ceiling. “Before you.”

“What makes you think that would be hard for me to believe?”

“The way I acted.”

“If it's confession time, I suppose I should tell you that you're the first woman since Shelly.”

She swung around to look at him, forgetting the shirt covering her breasts. “You're kidding.”

“Why would I lie about something like that?”

“Because men don't—” She didn't finish.

“Don't what, Julia?”

She shrugged. “They're more free with their—It's easier for them—”

“I can't speak for the other men you know, but I've never thought of sex as a casual contact sport. I may have been as carried away as you were,” he said. “But I knew exactly what I was doing. I've wanted to make love to you almost from the first moment I saw you.”

“Why?”

“I don't know if I can put it into words.”

“You're a writer, Eric.”

“There are days I doubt even that.”

She listened for something disingenuous in his voice but heard only her own thoughts and feelings being expressed with an honesty that had been beyond her since Ken's death. Her friends, the men and women who had become her advisers at the office, even her own family, refused to listen when she tried to express the fears and doubts that had plagued her this past year.

She took his hand. “I think I'd like that tea now.”

He brushed his lips against hers, grabbed his jeans and shirt, and slipped into them before going to the closet to get his robe for her to put on. Pointing to a door, he said, “The bathroom is in there. Use anything you want.”

She wound her arms into the plaid flannel, folded the excess material onto itself, and doubled the tie around her waist. “Including the toothbrush?”

“Including the toothbrush,” he repeated without hesitation.

Of course she had no intention of using his toothbrush. She'd been baiting him, curious to see what he would say. For some idiotic reason, his answer pleased her. “Oh, by the way . . .”

“Yes?”

“I like your mustache.”

Automatically his hand went to his lip. “I was thinking about shaving it off.”

“Don't.”

He smiled. “All right.”

Not until she was alone in the bathroom did she realize the implication behind her request. What possible reason could she have for asking him to keep his mustache? When she left this time, she doubted they would ever see each other again.

 

Eric put a pot of water on the stove, then fixed a dish of food and water for Josi and took it to her at the other house.

She came running to the door expectantly when he opened it, her disappointment almost palpable when she saw who it was. He lowered himself to his haunches to pet her. She tolerated his touch for a few seconds, then went back to her perch on the windowsill.

The water was boiling when he returned. He took out two mugs, dropped in bags of Earl Grey, and brought them into the living room to steep. He was staring out the window at a red-and-yellow box kite floating across the gray sky when he sensed Julia come into the room.

She didn't say anything as she moved to stand beside him, her silence more comfortable than anxious. He could smell her perfume and knew that the spicy scent would forever remind him of her. He would flash back to this moment and the kaleidoscope of emotions that had changed shape and intensity and color as they tumbled through his mind.

She stood next to him, and Eric was filled with a physical ache spawned by a deep-seated need to be touched, not sexually, but with affection. It seemed an eternity since he'd known the kind of intimacy that came from caring, the reassuring hand, the comforting hug, the kiss that said “I'm here.” He longed to have all of that in his life again.

And he wanted more—the inconsequential conversation in front of the fireplace, the cheese and crackers and bottle of wine shared on a hillside, the joke with the missed punch line that was funny because the clumsy telling was so familiar. He wanted to go to a party and look across the room and know there would be someone looking back.

“Can you do that?” Julia asked. “Fly a kite, I mean.”

Finally he looked at her. Rather than put her hair up again, she'd left it loose. Her attempts at finger combing had failed, leaving her appearance bed tousled and incredibly sexy, something he knew would appall her had she known.

“Blindfolded and with my hands tied behind my back.”

Cocking an eyebrow at him, she said, “I'd like to see that.”

He laughed. “So would I.”

“I should get dressed.”

“Why?”

She plainly hadn't expected the question. “I don't know—I guess I feel a little peculiar standing around in your bathrobe.” Actually, surprisingly, she didn't. She was simply giving voice to something her conscience told her she should feel. In reality she felt perfectly comfortable—good, even. The robe was old and had been washed so many times that the flannel was as soft as down against her bare skin. “Besides, you're dressed.”

He held out his arms. “It's this or nothing.”

“So you're a one robe kind of guy. I like that.”

Turning serious, he said, “I'm a one woman kind of guy, too.” Seeing how uncomfortable the statement had made her, Eric let it go. He reached for the blue mug and handed it to her.

Julia pinched the excess water out of the teabag and dropped it onto an empty saucer beside Eric's computer before she took a sip. “Perfect.” She wrapped her hands around the mug, warming them. “I can't believe how cold it is for July. Has it been like this long?”

“A couple of days.” He added his teabag to hers, then set down his mug. “I'll be right back.” When he returned from the bedroom, he handed her a rolled-up pair of socks. “Put these on.”

She sat on the sofa, slipped the socks over her feet, and tucked her legs up under her. “What are you going to do with Josi?”

He shook his head. “I'm still working on that. I've considered keeping her myself, but I've never owned a cat. I don't know the first thing about them.”

“Me either. I had a goldfish once. The guy I was going with at the time won it for me at a traveling carnival.” She curled deeper into the corner of the sofa, as if settling in for a long stay. “The poor thing only lasted a week.” Looking up at him over the rim of her mug, she added, “Which, as I recall, was about three days longer than the boyfriend.”

Eric sat in the chair opposite her, propping up his bare feet on the weathered wood coffee table. He tried not to stare at Julia or let himself believe she was more than she was—someone who'd come into his life who had no intention of staying. “How did you and Ken meet?”

“At a computer trade show. I was taking care of a booth for a friend. Ken came by and started asking questions, and I stupidly tried to make him think I knew what I was talking about. We were married three months later.”

“Maggie said she'd never seen two people more in love.”

“She told me that, too.” A tear appeared at the corner of her eye, and she blinked several times before going on. “I know why Joe did what he did,” she said softly. “If I weren't such a coward, I would have done the same thing.”

The statement horrified Eric. “You can't be serious. Joe was eighty-eight, you're barely past thirty.”

“Age has nothing to do with it.”

“The hell it doesn't. Do you honestly think Joe would have done the same thing at your age?”

“You have no idea what it's like to face the rest of your life alone.”

“Look around you, Julia.”

She stared into the dark liquid in her mug. “You have your kids.”

“For two days every other week, for as long as it doesn't interfere with one of their friends' birthday parties or a game of soccer or a hot date when they get older.”

“But you and Shelly—”

“What? Didn't love each other as much as you and Ken? What if I screwed up the greatest love story of the century with my self-indulgence? Does that mean I can never hope for a second chance?”

“Ken was special.”

“And I'm not?” It was as close to revealing how he felt as he could get.

“I didn't mean it that way. What I'm trying to tell you is that we were special together.”

Her words knocked the fight out of him. “I know—Maggie told me.” A knock on the door saved him from having to say anything more.

The tow truck had come for Joe and Maggie's car. It was to be taken back to San Jose and sold along with the house.

When Eric returned, Julia was dressed and waiting for him. She'd even fixed her hair in the same tight twist at the back of her head. Their mugs and the spent teabags were gone, and he had a feeling that if he went into the bedroom, he would find the bedspread had been smoothed over and his robe hung up in the closet. Fleetingly he wondered what she'd done with the socks. He used the washing machine for a hamper and was willing to bet she hadn't looked for it there.

“I have to get back, Eric. There's a board meeting tomorrow that I really can't miss.”

“I don't need an explanation, Julia. If you feel you have to go, then go.”

She adjusted the front of her jacket, smoothing a nonexistent wrinkle. “There's a housecleaning service in Santa Cruz that I've used several times over the years. I'll call them to come and take care of things. They have a key, so they won't have to bother you for yours.”

“That's not necessary. You won't find a speck of dirt anywhere in that house. Joe took care of everything before he died.”

The news left her visibly upset. Stumbling over the words, she asked, “What about the bed?”

“They didn't use your bedroom, Julia.” She hadn't asked, but it was clear she was haunted by the thought. “They died in the back bedroom, the one with the double bed, and they used a plastic sheet.”

She flinched and turned away.

He'd intended sparing her the details, but it was obvious she needed to hear them. “After the coroner left I took care of everything that Joe couldn't.”

When she looked at him again, her eyes were glistening with unshed tears. “I have to go now.”

“I'll walk you out to your car.”

She was inside her Mercedes and about to drive away when she stopped and lowered the window. “I'm not sorry I came, Eric. And I'm not sorry about what happened between us.”

It was more than he'd expected, less than he'd hoped.

But then he was a patient man—patient and determined. He would give Julia the time she needed, weeks, months, even a year. Three hundred and sixty-five days was nothing put up against a lifetime together.