Then and Always (20 page)

Electricity crackled between us. The moment in the bathroom suddenly paled into insignificance compared to the potently charged atmosphere.

Gently, oh so gently, he drew the tips of my fingers in
between his parted lips, flicking against the sensitive pads with his tongue. My entire body shuddered with a frisson of excitement.

And then I was in his arms. I truly cannot say who made the first move; it could have been either of us. All I knew was the force of the passion in his kiss and the feel of his long hard body pressed against mine.

Time became suspended as our kisses deepened, the heat of our passion welding my body to his with an intensity that astounded me. His hand trembled slightly as he slid the nightgown from my shoulders, but he had no need to be hesitant. I wanted this to happen just as much as he did, maybe even more. And in a sobering revelation of clarity, I finally acknowledged that I had been waiting for and wanting this very moment for years but had been too blind to see it.

As his lips and hands traveled over my exposed flesh, I heard a low throaty murmur of pleasure escape me. I couldn’t believe how wantonly and readily I was responding to his touch. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before.

The bedcovers were kicked aside and I felt no embarrassment to be naked in front of him. Given our long friendship, I would have expected this to feel wrong, maybe even vaguely incestuous, but nothing before had ever felt so right. Our ragged breathing tore into the silence of the room, and the trembling that coursed through Jimmy’s body as he covered mine shook me with its intensity.

I don’t remember when he first began to pull back. One minute we were fused together, our mouths and hands exploring and delighting, and then, all at once, it was just me. The hands that held my shoulders, arching me closer to him, were now gently, but insistently, pushing me away.

Embarrassingly, it took me several moments to realize
what had happened. My fumbling fingers were still struggling with the buckle of his jeans when his hand came down to encircle my wrist and move it away. The red mist of passion began to lift enough for me to see his face. The fire was almost gone and had been replaced by a determined steely strength. Stupidly I refused to acknowledge what he was doing and reached up to kiss him once again, opening my lips against his, sure I could elicit his response and reignite the flame.

But it was gone. Doused. I didn’t care what his reasons were for stopping, I only knew I didn’t want to.

“Oh God, don’t stop, please don’t stop,” I begged, all pride abandoned. I kept my eyes riveted to his and actually caught the moment when the last ember of desire was extinguished in their blue depths.

He lifted himself off me in a quick and decisive move, half turning away to sit upon the edge of the bed.

“I have to, Rachel. Don’t you see that?”

Clearly I did not see, and still refusing to acknowledge his withdrawal, I shamelessly reached out to try to pull him back to me, but he was like a rock: cold, hard, and immovable.

Without turning to look at me, he picked up my discarded nightdress and tossed it back in my direction.

“Cover yourself up.”

Those three words sliced through my desire, carving into my very core. I grasped the cotton garment and quickly struggled into it, feeling humiliated and dirty. I had thrown myself at him, there was no other way to describe it; I had virtually begged him to take me and he had rejected me. How much clearer did he have to make it? Oh, sure, he had responded at first, but I realized now that had just been a natural male response to a woman trying to seduce him. A physical knee-jerk reaction, nothing more.

But even physical desire hadn’t been sufficient to allow him to follow through. It was a cold and undeniable fact: Jimmy had never wanted me in that way, neither in the past nor now, and I had just made the biggest idiot of myself by launching myself at him like some third-rate seductress in a tacky novel.

“I think you should leave now,” I said in a quiet voice that trembled enough for me to realize that tears were only moments away. The speed with which he complied told me the truth: he couldn’t get out of there fast enough. He paused just once at the door, turning to give me a long hard look.

“I’m so sorry, Rachel, please forgive me.” His voice sounded truly tortured, but before I could even think of a response he had opened the door and left.

Sorry?
He
was sorry? What in hell’s name did he have to be sorry about? I was the one who should have apologized. I was the one who was apparently incapable of controlling her emotions and had to be told that what she was doing was completely out of order.

What was Jimmy guilty of? Nothing, except of not wanting me. And I could hardly blame him for that, for at that moment I felt like the most loathsome and disgusting creature that had ever walked the face of the earth.

ANOTHER NIGHT OF
crying myself to sleep. It was almost becoming a habit. If Jimmy noticed my red-rimmed eyes the following morning, he was too polite to comment. He didn’t look so great himself when we met in the corridor at the time that we’d arranged the night before. Of course, that had been during the civilized portion of the evening, before the madness
had overtaken me in the middle of the night, when I had acted in a way that had probably killed our friendship forever.

On waking, I had even harbored the pathetic hope that I had dreamt the entire episode, that none of it had really happened and that nothing between us had been irretrievably broken or damaged. But when I’d turned my head, I’d seen the remains of the broken lamp and known it was as irrevocably damaged as my relationship with Jimmy.

When I saw him waiting for me in the corridor, I hesitated at the threshold of my room. I had no idea what to say. But fortunately, it appeared that neither did he.

“Do you want to stop for breakfast or just head back?”

“I’d just like to go back,” I answered quickly.

Something flickered in his eyes but he just nodded, as though this was what he had been expecting. He lifted the bag from my fingers and turned in the direction of the lifts.

“Let’s go then.”

THERE MAY HAVE
been more uncomfortable car journeys in my life, but that one was right up there with the worst of them. There was a tension that couldn’t be ignored. It sat between us like a third passenger all the way from London to Great Bishopsford. In the end we abandoned conversation, preferring instead to pretend that the silence between us was companionable, rather than strained and awkward. But we were fooling ourselves. For the first time in … well, actually in forever, I couldn’t speak freely or easily with Jimmy. The strain of not talking about the topic we both couldn’t avoid thinking about was monumental. And yet, as mile followed mile, neither of us dared to voice the subject. When finally
we passed the sign that announced Great Bishopsford, there was, thankfully, no time left.

As we maneuvered through the familiar streets, I itched to get out of the car, hoping that when I left the vehicle I could somehow leave behind the debris of last night. And then, just when I thought that the day couldn’t possibly get any worse, it did.

We rounded the last bend and there, parked directly in front of my house, was a low sleek car.

“Terrific,” muttered Jimmy, pulling in to the curb to park behind it.

Jimmy switched off the engine and turned to look at me, properly at me, for the first time since last night.

“Rachel, I wanted to say … to explain …”

I shook my head. “Please, don’t say anything, it’s not necessary.”

He reached out and took my hand, and part of me wanted to jerk back from his touch and an even greater part wanted to hold him against me forever. He saw my hand judder under his and misinterpreted the reaction.

“I know you must hate me right now,” he continued, “but please give me a chance to—”

I never heard what he wanted the chance to do or say, for at that moment the passenger door was swung widely open by a rather impatient-looking Matt.

He had seen my hand in Jimmy’s, even though I had yanked it away as if it were caught in a flame. Forestalling any comment, I quickly scrambled out of the car.

“Matt, what are you doing here? I thought you were in Germany for another three days?”

Matt drew me into an enveloping embrace, which I think
was more for Jimmy’s benefit than mine. By the time I was released, Jimmy had also climbed out of the car.

“I wound things up really quickly; thought you might need me more back here. But I see you managed to make … alternative arrangements.”

God, here it was again. That old teenage rivalry that had so fascinated me in the hospital was now just petty and irritating.

“Jimmy very kindly gave up his day off to take me into London. I had a lot of things I needed to sort out and he offered to take me.”

Matt raised his gaze to meet Jimmy’s over the roof of the car.

“And his night, of course. He gave up his night too.”

So far Jimmy hadn’t risen to the bait, but I could feel the testosterone-infused tension swirling around me like a miniature tornado.

“It was too late to come back last night, so we found a hotel and stayed in town. Dad knew what our plans were.”

Matt nodded, and I wondered what his reaction had been when he had arrived here and learned from my father that Jimmy and I had been away together overnight.

“We were lucky to find somewhere that had two rooms available at such short notice,” I supplied. I was babbling, even I could hear it. I was annoyed at my compulsion to explain my movements, even though as my fiancé, Matt was perfectly entitled to ask where I had been. I was also embarrassed at the need to lie.

“It
was
all perfectly respectable,” I assured Matt, moving away from Jimmy’s car and turning to walk up the path.

“I’m sure it was,” replied Matt, and while his words implied
he had never doubted it for a minute, the look he gave Jimmy said something different entirely. “You not coming in?” he asked as Jimmy walked toward him, passing over my small overnight bag. I stopped then, halfway to the door; I had assumed they were both following me inside.

“No, not this time. I’ve got some things I have to do. And I’m sure you want to spend some time alone with Rachel. She has a lot to tell you.”

I felt color begin to warm my cheeks.
Don’t blush, don’t blush, oh, please, God, don’t let me blush
.

Matt looked from Jimmy to me, the suspicion on his face only just managing to masquerade as curiosity.

“About the magazine,” Jimmy provided, already half back into the car. “G’bye, Rachel.”

I wanted to run to him then, to launch into his arms and beg him not to go. Ridiculous. Completely and utterly ridiculous. And of course I did nothing of the sort, my feet remaining rooted to the path as though fixed in cement. But I didn’t like the permanent tone of Jimmy’s goodbye: I didn’t like it at all.

As Matt walked past the open driver’s door to join me on the path, Jimmy’s hand reached out to stall him. His voice was low, and he probably never intended me to hear what he had to say, but the street was suddenly quiet and I clearly heard his low entreaty.

“Take good care of her, Matt. She’s had a tough twenty-four hours.”

TO SAY MY
father looked relieved to see me walk through the door was an understatement. I knew a large part of that was
due to his natural instinct to worry about me, but an even greater part was that the burden of entertaining Matt could now be handed over to me. I guessed it had been a pretty tough several hours since his arrival while they awaited our return.

“He’s been pacing up and down the living room like a caged lion,” whispered Dad as we stood together in the welcoming kitchen, making a fresh round of teas and some toast. I wasn’t really hungry but it had been a welcome excuse to escape to the kitchen and find out what had happened when Matt turned up and found us gone.

“Sorry you had to deal with that. I don’t know what he’s so wound up about.”

My dad stopped placing mugs and spoons on the tray and turned to give me a long appraising look. No words, just a look.

“What?” I asked, playing dumb. “What?”

My attempt at nonchalance was ruined by the warm flush that suffused my cheeks. And the more my dad continued to stare at me in that knowing parental fashion, the hotter they grew. I don’t know what he knew exactly, or guessed, but I don’t think he was that far off the mark.

“Just be careful, Rachel, or someone will get hurt.” And then he softened the entreaty by wrapping his arm around me and pulling me tight to his side. “And I don’t want it to be you.”

By the time the tea and toast were consumed, a little good humor seemed to have been restored and understandably they both wanted to hear about everything that had happened in London. It took quite a while to regale them with the entire account of the last twenty-four hours, omitting all
that had occurred the previous evening from my narrative. I was pretty certain no one in the room wanted to hear that sorry tale—especially me.

THERE WAS A
long pause when I finished, while they both absorbed what I had told them.

“So do you remember everything now?” pressed Matt hopefully.

“No, not really. Well, not at all, if I’m being totally honest. But at least now I guess I know what
hasn’t
happened.”

The disappointment on Matt’s face was obvious, and I wondered if it was aimed at me personally, rather than the situation. It was almost as if he suspected that I just wasn’t trying hard enough to remember, and that if I put a little more effort into it, everything would come flooding back.

“Never mind, love,” said Dad, reaching over to squeeze my hand reassuringly. “It’s still early days yet. At least now you have somewhere positive to start from when you meet the amnesia guy this week.”

“Yeah, that’s what Jimmy said.”

Matt’s face stiffened in irritation at the name, but he let the comment pass.

“And in the meantime, I’ve sorted out anything I could find around here from the last five years that could help you remember.”