The tightrope wire inside him loosened, leaving the thrill of anticipation rather than the chronic agitation he’d grappled with since he first saw her again.
Their gazes connected across the span of twenty feet, and he wondered what was taking her so long. Was she uncertain? Did she think he’d greet her with anything other than overwhelming gratitude and excitement?
He held out a hand. “Come here.”
A trick of the light made something flash white across her face as she hurried in, almost as if she’d smiled a smile of real warmth, but Zoya wasn’t giving him warmth these days.
Only the use of her body.
He wasn’t proud. He’d take whatever he could get.
She untied her belt. The robe slid down her shoulders and away as she climbed onto the bed to join him, leaving his arms full of a tiny woman as breathless as he was.
He laid back and stretched out. She straddled him, her insistent mouth finding his. Their kisses were long, greedy and hot, and he palmed her head on both sides, anchoring her there—right there—so he could gorge on the minty taste of her.
“What took you so long?” he complained when she finally broke it off to rub her titties over his chest, the hard little points of her nipples making him insane. “You get off on the idea of me trying to fall asleep with a rock-hard dick?”
“Is it rock hard?”
“You know it is—ah, shit, Zoya.”
There was little warning. Just her sultry laughter...the wet swirl of her tongue as she kissed her way down his belly, dipping into his belly button to make his hips rise as she went...and then the unbelievable suction as she took him deep into her mouth.
He made crazy animal noises as she went to work on him, reaching for the headboard rails to anchor him to consciousness because he was far too out of control to put his hands on her head without hurting her right now. Her skilled hands, lips and tongue did a number on him, squeezing, licking and sucking until there was nothing left of him but ecstasy.
Well...
That, the ache in his heart and her name pouring out of his mouth.
“Zoya.” He gasped, trying to catch a breath. “What’re you trying to do to me?”
She kissed her way back up his torso and rested her elbows on either side of his head so she could watch him with those impenetrable eyes. Moonlight illuminated her beloved, treacherous face. Her swollen lips, set in uncompromising lines. Her utter lack of mercy when it came to him.
“I don’t want you to forget me,” she said.
He nearly choked on his surprised disbelief. “Forget you?” He smoothed her hair back from her temples, wanting to shake some sense into her. “I can’t forget you. I’ve spent my life trying.”
Something in her expression eased. “Show me.”
He reached for the condom he’d placed on the nightstand earlier in an abundance of hope, but when his shaky hands took too long to roll it on, she took over.
Then she rose and sat back, tipping her head back with an unabashed moan as she impaled herself on him.
They both shuddered, taking a minute to adjust. Her sweet pussy was deliciously wet, but so tight that he worried he’d hurt her. God knew he’d never been this hard in his life.
But she didn’t look hurt.
She looked flushed. Wild. Uninhibited.
He smacked her ass to get her started.
His little cowgirl laughed.
Then she began to ride.
Up and down she went. Back and forth. Round and round. She leaned down to kiss him, licking deep into his mouth. She straightened back up to squeeze her own breasts together, offering them up to him with her dark nipples poking out from between her fingers. She moaned again, louder.
She spurred him on.
All he had to do was lie there, gripping her hips so he could enjoy the ride while he watched the show.
And what a show it was, especially when, slick and sweaty now, she let her head fall back and her eyes roll closed.
“I’m close.” She panted in a breath that made her titties rise and fall. “I’m so close.”
“Come for me, then.”
In a move he’d learned since they’d been apart, he pressed his thumb to the vee between her legs, right where they were joined, and had the great pleasure of watching her lose it.
“Daniel!”
Her sharp cries went on and on as her body spasmed and her hips pumped. He surged up to meet her and pulled her down again, his tongue in her mouth. And then she sucked and did a final little pivot move, grinding him hard with her hips, and his body jackknifed into a billion glittering pieces as he came.
One breathless second of perfection passed before he blinked and she suddenly became as remote as she’d been when he lived on the other coast.
When it was over, it was over. She collapsed to one side of him and rolled onto her back, taking care not to touch any part of him. After just being inside her—all over her—the loss of her touch and her warmth was a special agony. In theory, it would have been easy to reach out and scoop her in, so that she rested against his side, or even to just reach out a couple inches and take her hand, but he was such a coward where she was concerned that he had no idea how to make that happen.
So they lay there, side by side, panting and staring at the ceiling.
An idea reared its ugly head.
“Maybe...” he began.
See? There he went volunteering to be a fool again.
She turned her head and looked at him. “Maybe what?”
“Maybe...we should talk,” he said to the ceiling.
The longest pause of his life followed. When he couldn’t stand it for another second, he braced himself and turned his head to meet her gaze.
The connection was excruciating.
Like taking his plug and sticking it into a socket powered by hurt and anger rather than electricity.
“I think you said it all when you called me a cruel bitch,” she said quietly.
Then she sat up and started to get out of bed, leaving him to triage himself and attempt to stop the bleeding from this one endless heartbreak.
“I have to go,” she said.
“No, you don’t.” He ran his knuckles down the perfect curve of her spine to stop her from getting away so soon. Not yet. She shivered. “Stay with me.”
“It’s a bad idea.”
So was what he was about to say.
“You don’t want to stay? Fine. You don’t want to talk? Fine. But tell me one thing. You can give me that, Zoya.”
She shook her head. Muttered something incomprehensible. Looked to the ceiling. Finally looked over her smooth shoulder at him, giving him another infusion of agony.
It was perversely comforting.
At least he wasn’t in this endless purgatory alone.
“You broke my heart,” she said. “That’s your one thing.”
Despite what he’d thought, the anger had crept into bed with them. He did his best to keep it out of his voice.
“Yeah? Well, you ruined me. That’s your one thing.”
She hesitated. Blinked. Nodded sadly.
“You can’t keep hating me,” she said. “Not this much.”
The sudden burn of emotion in his throat took him by surprise. Maybe she had a point, but he didn’t have a magic wand. He wiped his eyes.
“I’m not sure I can stop.”
“Okay.” She nodded, blinking furiously. “I have to go.”
Without waiting for him to state his case for her to spend another couple hours, if not the whole night, which would inevitably devolve into begging (and, let’s face it—where Zoya was concerned, he was all about the begging), she slid out of bed and slipped her arms back into her silky robe. But before she could retie the sash, he grabbed one end of it and pulled it free.
If she wouldn’t stay, he’d damn sure hold something of hers hostage to get her to come back.
“Hey.” She glanced up with surprise. “I need that.”
&nbs
p; “So do I.” Staring her in the face, he made a great show of looping the sash through the rails of his headboard and tying it. “Come back again. I’ll return it.” A pause. “After we’re done with it.”
A tiny hitch in her breath told him everything he needed to know as she backed up a step.
“I’m not letting you tie me up,” she said in her husky siren’s voice.
“We’ll see about that,” he said, unsmiling.
Chapter 11
Daniel’s phone buzzed around one on Sunday afternoon, just as he was pulling into the driveway at Big Shel’s ranch house. He killed the engine and checked the display, his heart sinking.
The Dictator, it said.
For two or three more buzzes, he seriously considered letting it go to voicemail. Honest to God, the worst day of his life had been three months ago, when his mother gave the old man a smart phone for his birthday and tried to teach him how to use it. All she’d accomplished was giving the old man the ability to reach out and touch Daniel with his disapproval several times a week.
Sighing, Daniel answered the call and was immediately treated to a shot of the hardwood floors in his parents’ house and—yep, there they were—his father’s brown suede loafers.
“What’s up, man?” Daniel asked.
“Daniel? You there? Why can’t I see you?” his father yelled.
“You’ve gotta turn the camera around,” Daniel said wearily.
“Hang on,” Nigel said. “Let me turn this around.”
“Remember, not the whole phone,” Daniel called. “Just hit the little circle button with the arrow—”
It was already too late. Using choppy movements that would induce dizziness and vomiting in lesser men than Daniel, Nigel swung the phone around and gave Daniel a glimpse of the scene at the Harper Homestead:
The coffee table laden with snacks. His mother bustling past with her Tom Brady jersey on. Ethan and Sofia sitting on the sofa wearing all their Buffalo Bills regalia. Isaiah way in the back, hunched over his laptop at the kitchen table.
“I still can’t see you, Daniel,” Nigel said, sounding harried now. “Hang on.”
Daniel got out of the car, lowered the phone and impatiently tapped his fingers on the hood, waiting. This could take a while.
“Okay. There you go.” The screen resolved again, and Nigel, looking proud, came into view. “I did it.”
Daniel held the phone up again. “Nice. And you beat your world record of five minutes to figure it out.”
“And Isaiah said I couldn’t be taught,” Nigel said, grinning widely.
“I’m not sure I need the nostril shot, though,” Daniel said. “Hold the phone up in front of your face. There you go.”
“Now, listen, boy. Are you on your way? The game’s about to start and I don’t want any foolishness with you showing up during kickoff and disrupting things. And we won’t be pausing the game, either. That’s not how we do. So if you need to take a potty break—”
“Yeah, I’m not coming,” Daniel said. “Didn’t Mom tell you? I texted her.”
Nigel’s lower jaw hit the floor. “You can’t skip your first game back, boy. Your mother made all this food. Your friend Sean here has made himself right at home—”
The view swung around to Sean, who was standing over a steaming pot on the stove and ladling something into a giant bowl. He had a dinner roll stuck in his mouth, but when he realized he was on camera, he took it out and waved.
“You’d better get over here, man,” Sean called. “I thought I was a good cook, but your mother’s some kind of kitchen wizard. She made beef stew. It’s unbelievable.” Sean took another big bite of his roll and said something happy but incomprehensible.
Daniel snorted with disgust.
Nigel reappeared. “Let’s go, man. Time’s a’wasting.”
“I’m watching the game with Big Shel today,” Daniel explained.
“Well, bring him, too. And tell him he still owes me the fifty from poker the other night.”
“Hang on,” Daniel said, frowning. “You play poker with Big Shel?”
“Course. Just because you blew up your relationship with that family doesn’t mean the rest of us did.”
Daniel winced.
“You two can come over after halftime,” Nigel said.
“We’ll see.”
His mother’s head popped into the frame next to Nigel’s. “You’re disappointing your father, Daniel. He was expecting you.”
Yeah, right, Daniel thought. The only reason Nigel would miss him would be if there was a shortage of people to argue with.
Nigel shot her a sidelong glare. “If the boy doesn’t want to come, Ada, he can stay over there where he is. Doesn’t make me any difference.”
See?
“Yeah, okay,” Daniel said quickly. “Gotta go.”
“Great job, Nigel,” Ada snapped. “Now you’ve run him off and he just got back to town.”
“I didn’t run him off!” Nigel said. “You’re the one who—”
“Bye,” Daniel said, about to end the call—
“Wait a minute,” Nigel said sharply. “Tomorrow’s your first day at the vineyard. See you at seven-thirty sharp. Don’t be late.”
Daniel frowned. “Am I likely to be late on my first day running a major vineyard?”
Nigel shrugged. “I don’t know what’s likely. I just know what better not happen.”
This was all the lighted match Daniel needed to flare up. “Don’t start with that micromanaging again. I may be your son, but I can handle—”
“You may be my son, but I’m still the owner of this vineyard. And if you don’t want your ass fired on the first day, you’ll show up on time. You know what I expect from you.”
To Daniel’s outrage, Nigel managed, for the first time in his life, to end the call on the first try.
Fuming, Daniel shoved the phone into his back pocket, grabbed the carton of craft beer from the seat and headed for Big Shel’s front door. The thing flew open before he could knock.
“Come on in here, Danny Boy!” Big Shel appeared, all welcoming grins and hearty hugs. “What’s this you brought me? Fancy beer?”
“Thought you might like it.”
“Make yourself at home. You know where everything is.”
Daniel did, and it was a thrill to see it all again. The cozy living room with oversized wall TV, where he, Zoya and Big Shel had watched baseball, basketball, football and probably would have watched neighborhood kickball if the local kids could have figured out how to televise it. The Formica-filled kitchen, where Big Shel had produced a ridiculous amount of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup over the years. The bookshelf full of sports bios and mysteries, with the one shelf given over to Monopoly, Scrabble and Daniel’s personal fave, Trivial Pursuit.
The pine-fresh scent of cleaner over which was layered—
“What smells so good?”
“Chicken tortilla soup,” Big Shel said.
“My man,” Daniel said, fist-bumping him.
The upright piano sat in pride of place by the front picture window, but Zoya’s cello case wasn’t there, nor was the woman herself, although Daniel was prepared to swear on a stack of Bibles that the scent of jasmine lingered in the air.
Daniel rubbed the back of his head as he passed the beer to Big Shel, feeling as sheepish as a high school kid who’d arrived for prom night only to discover that his date had bailed on him.
“Is, ah, Zoya coming?”
“You just missed her.” One of the best things about Big Shel, Daniel had long since discovered, was that he was a mellow fellow. He didn’t get worked up. Never yelled. He didn’t get in your business, and he didn’t lecture. Every now and then, if the mood was right, he might share a story or pass along a life-changing nugget of wisdom or two. The rest of the time, he did his thing and let everyone else do theirs without judgment.
He was, in other words, the complete opposite of the Dictator.
“She dropp
ed off the banana pudding,” Big Shel continued as he put most of the beer in the fridge and opened a couple. “Said she wanted to do some stuff at the shop.”
Daniel nodded, trying not to feel like the man had just ripped off a big chunk of his heart. And what did he expect, anyway? That just because he and Zoya had another round of phenomenal sex, that she’d want to spend time with him during the cold light of day? That just because they’d managed to talk for a full thirty seconds, everything would change?
Still...
“Maybe I should take off,” Daniel said. “She’s not thrilled I’m back. She’s not thrilled I’m here with you. The two of you still watch football together, right? I don’t want to disrupt your routine.”
Big Shel came back, passed him a beer, picked up the remote and gave him a look. “Who pays the mortgage around here? Until she puts me in a home, I’m in charge.”
“Works for me.”
They clinked their bottles together and drank. Big Shel turned the game on, but Daniel’s unwilling attention was drawn to the pictures on top of the piano. They were all Zoya, all taken since Daniel had been gone. Zoya playing the cello on some huge stage, her brow furrowed with concentration, the conductor waving his baton to one side of her and the symphony orchestra behind her. Zoya posing in front of the Eiffel Tower...Big Ben...The Great Wall. A close-up of Zoya and Big Shel with their heads together, beaming at the camera.
A hard kick of nostalgia and loneliness caught Daniel low in the belly.
“What’s on your mind, son?” Big Shel asked in his kindly way.
Snap out of it, man.
“Nothing.” Daniel leaned back and settled in, resting his arm across the back of the sofa. “How’s your health these days? Good?”
“Nothing to complain about. Tumor’s gone. No headaches. No dizziness. Zoya—”
Get your shit together, Harper. No need to go into a paralytic state every time her name comes up in conversation.
“—took good care of me. Right by my side the whole time.”
“Yeah?” Daniel took another pull of the beer, trying to keep his curiosity on lockdown as they both stared at the muted TV.
“Had my surgery.” Big Shel pointed to a spot on his scalp where there was a raised but faded scar and the hair didn’t quite grow. “Insurance didn’t cover all of it. I wasn’t working. Zoya wasn’t working because of me. Bills piled up. Bankruptcy?” He shrugged. “Thought about it. But then Zoya sold her cello. Said she didn’t need it. That girl.” He chuckled. “She said it was the least she could do for me after all I’d sacrificed to send her to Cornell. Family always comes first. She knows that. That’s why she always does the right thing.”
Unforgettable Page 11
